Last week we looked at The Meaning of the Word Christian. We discovered that it was only used three times in the New Testament, and each time it was used in the context of persecution. We also discovered that it is in theology that we can find our best understanding of the word Christian. Theology is the collective record of the experiences that people have had with God in every generation and culture since the Garden of Eden. Christian was a word originally used to identify individuals that had believed in Jesus Christ as the Messiah of Israel. These Christians were following Christ, the promise of God’s remedy for sin. In the first century Christians followed, not in some determined conformity to rules, liturgy, or traditions. They were not joining some sect, denomination, or organized institution. They were part of a living organism, the living Body of Christ called the Church. They were said to be Christ-like, not because they never missed the mark, but because they were allowing the Spirit of Christ to live out His life through them in their daily lives. They were said to be Christian because they were willing to give their very lives for the cause of Christ. That is what the word Christian means.
The fact that the word Christian was always used in the New Testament in the context of persecution gives us a clue about the resolve of those who choose to follow Christ and it tells us about The Spirit of the Word Christian.
When we talk about the spirit of something we are talking about what animates and motivates that thing. So if a Christian is part of the living organism, the Church, which is the Body of Christ, we would want to know what drives their relationship with that body. Why had they decided to give their lives for the cause of Christ? What turned these disciples, who displayed great cowardice on the night Jesus was arrested and the weeks following His death, into men and women who were willing to go through the most horrific circumstances to tell other about Him?
What made this Christian message turn the world upside-down? It was like an infection that spread throughout the whole know world and remains to this day, more than two thousand years later.
Acts 11:19 (NIV)
[19] Now those who had been
scattered by the persecution in connection with Stephen traveled as far as
Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch, telling the message…
[26]…The disciples were called
Christians first at Antioch.
In the preface to his book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis talks about the purpose for his book. “So far as I can judge from reviews and from the numerous letters written to me, the book, however faulty in other respects, did at least succeed in presenting an agreed, or common, or central, or ‘mere’ Christianity.” (8) Lewis wants to write about “mere” Christianity, or we could say “pure” Christianity, or “original” Christianity. His desire is to write about a Christianity that comes from Christ. He speaks of the denominational divisions in Christianity which, if not resolved could be a great detriment to the cause of Christ. So, to make sure he does not let the ideas of the denominations into his “mere” Christianity, he sends his manuscript to leaders in the main denominations for review. He wanted to make sure that he himself was not partial to the teachings of the Church of England in trying to get to a “mere” Christianity.
I believe it is the Spirit of the Word Christian that is the resolution to the possible detriment caused by denominationalism. You see denominations are good because they provide different kinds of communities in which people can worship and work together for the cause of Christ. However the downfall of Christian denominations is their fight with each other which usually focuses on nonessential doctrines or teachings. They often see each other as enemies instead of different and unique parts of the same Body. This was not so in the beginning. Any time there was a problem in the beginning it had to do with some teaching that went against Christ Himself. Even the first struggle in the church, which had to do with allowing Gentiles into the fellowship of Christ, at its core, went against the very teachings of Christ. The agent introduced into the world after Christ ascended into Heaven was His Holy Spirit. It was the Spirit that was fully given on the day of Pentecost and it is the Spirit that is the very life of Christianity. We could say that on the day of Pentecost the Spirit of Christianity came, and He came to live within the hearts and lives of those who would turn their lives over to Him.
Ray Pritchard has a ministry called, Keep on Believing. He has adult children that are involved in mission work in China. He gives this account of his first visit to Beijing China.
“On our first trip to Beijing,
we saw an inscription on the backside of the large sign that marks the center –
run by the English Language Institute of China. As you approach the building,
you see the sign that announces the building. But as you exit the building, you
see inscribed on the back of the sign the famous words of Jim Elliott, ‘He is
no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.’ It is
precisely that spirit that has animated the spread of the gospel for 2000
years, and it explains as well as anything can why Christians live the way they
do.” (Pritchard)
That animating Spirit Rev. Pritchard talks about here is the Spirit of the word Christian.
I turned my life over to Christ when I was twenty one years old. In these 38 years there is one thing that is different than all of the experiences I had with religion before that. Believe me I was raised in a religious home where the church taught me about Christ and the Word of God. I was caught in a struggle with temptation and sin which continues to this day. However, after I turned my life over to Christ the struggle has become different. Before I made that change in my life about who was in charge, I lived under a cloud of failure, guilt, and fear. When I turned my life over to Christ failure, guilt and fear were gone. I don’t mean to say that I never miss the mark but when I do, I immediately ask for forgiveness, and for help to overcome the problem. The help comes because I am not trying to do it on my own any longer. The Spirit of Christianity came to live within me when I turned my life over to Christ. It is the Spirit of Christianity that dissipated the failure, guilt, and fear in my relationship with God
In Romans chapter eight Paul lays out the theology of this changed life, he calls it, “the Spirit of life”.
I said earlier in my sermon that the first century followers of Christ were said to be Christian because they were willing to give their very lives for His cause. The question I have to ask myself is how is it that I give my life to follow Christ.
· Have I made a verbal and intellectual commitment to Christ?
· How much do I pray each day?
· How much time in service to the Kingdom of God do I give? (and that does not mean just in the local church)
· How much of my income do I give?
· How do I witness to others?
· Do I abuse any substances? (tobacco, drugs, prescription drugs, alcohol, food, money, personality traits…)
· Do I attend church regularly?
If we continue down the road this thinking takes us on, we will soon have a list of do’s and don’ts that no one on earth can live up to, and if they are living up to it, they do not have time to have a relationship with God because they are so busy trying to be perfect. Now I’m not saying that we should discard any of the things that are acts of righteousness listed above. But we must not pay attention to them at the cost of our relationship with God and paying attention to those things is not relationship. Paying attention to those kinds of things is the result of relationship. We have presented to others, and we try to live ourselves, the Christian life backwards. We promote that the Christian life is a life of righteous behavior and it is, but we must never forget that that righteousness is not ours but Christ’s. What we promote and live out as the Christian life must be, only, a total surrender of one’s life to Christ. This surrender allows the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the word Christian, to live out His life through us. That is what Paul wanted the Church at Rome to understand.
Romans 8:1-17 (NIV)
[1] Therefore, there is now
no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, [2] because through
Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law
of sin and death.
This Spirit of life
stands in opposition to the law of sin and death. The law of the Spirit
of life means allowing the Holy Spirit to live through me, by my complete
surrender to His will. The law of sin and death means living life on my own,
making my own decisions about what is best for me and all these decisions are
tainted by sin. In the verses below Paul explains further what he means by the
Spirit of life and the law of sin and death.
[3] For what the law was
powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by
sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so
he condemned sin in sinful man, [4] in order that the righteous
requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to
the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.
Law is powerless because it is
governed by the sinful nature which we inherited from our parents in the Garden
of Eden. The sinful nature is the decision that I know better than God, what
the best course of action for my life is at any given moment.
The power of God is in the
sending of His son. Two things happen in this action of the power of God. First,
the penalty and guilt for sin are taken away. The law reveals sin in that we
soon discover it is impossible to keep the law perfectly, therefore we sin; we
miss the mark. Second, Jesus ascends into heaven and sends His Holy
Spirit back to live within each individual who will believe in, and accept Him,
as Lord of their lives. This makes it possible to fully meet the requirements
of the law (the Ten Commandments).
Sin and the sinful nature are
condemned by God.
We have power, the very power
of Almighty God, when we live by the Spirit of life.
So the bondage is the
powerless law, freedom is living life in the power of the Spirit of life.
Bondage is doing the things I
listed earlier because we have to, instead of because God is doing them through
a willing servant who has surrendered their life to Christ.
[5] Those who live according
to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires;
but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on
what the Spirit desires. [6] The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind
controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; [7] the sinful mind is hostile
to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. [8] Those
controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.
The key phrase in these four
verses is “mind set”. All my adult life I dieted trying to maintain my
weight at a healthy level. I would diet and lose 15 pounds and then within a
year I would gain 20 pounds. My dieting resulted in a gain of 5 pounds that
year. I did this all my adult life. By dieting I went from 185 pounds to 260
pounds in 18 years. Then I went on a diet and exercise program and lost 60
pounds and have been able to keep it off. I have tried to explain to others why
this diet was different than the other diets I had done over the years and this
is the only way I know how to explain it. At the start of a diet it seems to me
that there was a switch in my head that I was able to turn on and have great
success. This time I determined that once I got that switch turned on I was not
going to let it get turned off for any reason. I think there were several
contributing factors that helped me find that switch and turn it on but I do
not have time to go into that this morning. If you are interested you can read
about it on my blog. [http://nazareneblogs.org/dgbostick]
I think the same kind of thing
happened in my relationship with Christ. I had tried, and tried, and tried to
live a righteous life only to fail time after time over many years. Then one
day I gave up and turned my life and my desires over to God. I did this because
I had been a great failure at living the kind of life that I thought He wanted
me to live. I had decided that if God truly did exist He could change me
because I could not do it on my own, I know because I have tried very hard to
change my life. When I turned the whole thing over to Him it seems to me that
there was a switch that was turned on in my spirit, just like the switch that
enabled me to lose the weight and keep it off. Paul’s description of this event
was the “mind set”. The mind set on the desires of the sinful
nature or the mind set on what the Spirit desires.
There is another key word
here, it is the word “controlled”.
[5] Those who live according
to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires;
but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on
what the Spirit desires. [6] The mind of sinful man is death, but
the mind controlled
by the Spirit is life and peace; [7] the sinful mind is hostile to
God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. [8] Those controlled by the sinful
nature cannot please God.
[9] You, however, are controlled not by the
sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if
anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. [10] But
if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive
because of righteousness. [11] And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus
from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your
mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.
That word controlled is repulsive
to those of us who live in a culture where we are free to make our own choices.
We think that if we are controlled
by someone or something we are trapped. The beautiful thing about being controlled by the Holy
Spirit is that it does not suppress our freedom of choice. We choose to
surrender to, and be controlled
by, the Holy Spirit because we know that God knows what the best choice is for
us in any given moment. Choices that are better for us, and those around us, in
the context of the future. We believe that God has our best interests at the
center of His heart because of what He did for us on the cross. We love God and
surrender to Him because He first loved us and gave everything for us. This controlling Spirit that
we willingly and lovingly surrender to is the Spirit of the word Christian.
This is the core of what it means to be a Christian. The spirit... "will also give life to your mortal bodies
through his Spirit".
Then Paul talks about the
consequences of our choices. He talks about an obligation we have. Actually the
obligation is the consequence not the choice we make for we are free to make
our own choice. We make the choice to follow the sinful nature and its desires
or to be led by the Spirit of God. But Paul wants us to understand that our
choices have consequences.
[12] Therefore, brothers, we
have an obligation—but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it.
[13] For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if
by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, [14] because
those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. [15] For you did
not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the
Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” [16] The
Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. [17] Now
if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if
indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.
The NASB says we are “under an obligation”.
The Greek word used here for “obligation” in the NIV and “under obligation” in
the NASB means “to owe” (CWS-NT). When we set our minds on the sinful nature the
obligation is the consequence of our choice which is death. In setting our
minds on the sinful nature we owe. There is an obligation – sin produces death,
it cannot be otherwise. When we set our minds on the Spirit of God the obligation
is the consequence of our choice which is be a son or daughter of God. In
setting our minds on the Spirit of God we are owed sonship, in other words the
obligation becomes God’s. There is an obligation – living with a mind set on
the Spirit of God produces life as a son or daughter of God, eternal life.
It is this mind set on what the Spirit desires that consumed the life of Jim Elliott. Jim Elliott was a Christian because he understood and lived by the Spirit of the word Christian. He gave his life in serving Christ as a missionary.
You
can find a lot of information about Jim Elliot on the Wikipedia website.
His journal entry for October 28, 1949, contains his now famous quotation,
expressing his belief that missions work was more important than his life. “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that
which he cannot lose.”
Jim Elliott’s wife Elisabeth
wrote a book about the experience of Jim and others who gave their lives to
bring the Gospel to a primitive tribe in Ecuador. It is called, Through
Gates of Splendor. The Wikipedia website talks about this book titled Through Gates of
Splendor. “The title of the book is derived from the fourth stanza of the
hymn ‘We Rest on Thee’. This hymn was famously sung by
the missionaries before the men left for Huaorani territory in January 1956.
The lines read:
“We rest on Thee, our Shield
and our Defender.
“Thine is the battle, Thine
shall be the praise;
“When passing through the
gates of pearly splendor,
“Victors, we rest with Thee,
through endless days.”
That is the testimony, and the end of the life of any individual who lives by the Spirit of the word Christian. Not that everyone will, or even should, give their life as a martyr, or even go to some remote mission field to serve in the Kingdom of God. None of us live absolutely perfect lives where we never miss the mark, but all of us can be truly Christian. The Spirit of the word Christian is seen in the individual lives of those who have believed and surrendered their lives to Jesus Christ.
CWS-NT -
Complete Word Study of the New Testament.
CWS-OT -
Complete Word Study of the Old Testament.
- Both the CWS-NT and the CWS-OT are parts of the AMG
Complete Word Study Dictionary - Based on the lexicon of Edward Robinson (as
revised by Alexander Negris and John Duncan), with constant reference to and
citations from the works of John Parkhurst and Hermann Cremer.
Jim Elliott. 2 January 2009. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 01 January 2009 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Elliott]
Lewis, C.S. Mere Christianity. rev. ed. New York: Touchstone, 1952.
NIV – The Holy Bible: New International Version (NIV). Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984.
Pritchard, Ray. “Why we Keep Believing.” E-mail to David G. Bostick. 11 August, 2008.
Through Gates of Splendor. 23 December 2008. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 1 January 2009 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Through_Gates_of_Splendor]
The
Actions of the Word Christian
Look at Ro. 8.13 for the first action. (Put to death the…)