Abide In Christ - Part 1
How is your soul? How is your life? Let us be honest. Many of us, if not all of us, are filled with anxiety, worry, and fear. We are stressed out about the lives and futures of our children, our jobs, our businesses, our cattle, our bank accounts, our health, etc. — add whatever is the case for you. We are fearful about what is happening in our society, country, and the world. We are fearful for our futures, for our lives. In this anxious, stressful, fearful state we are easily deceived by lies and conspiracy theories. On top of all this, many of us, if not all of us, are enslaved by the hurry and busy-ness epidemic of our times. We hurry from the one event to the next, from the one appointment to the other, from the one duty and task to the next. Busy-ness has become a batch of honor. “How are you?” “Busy, busy.”
Our schedules are filled to overflowing with all kinds of stuff. We barely have time for God. We have to squeeze Him in where there is time to spare, if any, 10 minutes here, 15 minutes there. Sunday, church? “Sorry God, I cannot go to church today because …” Fill in the reasons we use not to go to church and practice the Sabbath day. In the midst of all this, we do not follow Jesus. Jesus follows us around in our hurried and busy lives. He is there to serve us, help us, support us, and be available to answer our prayers when we are in crisis or need. But He is not at the forefront of and the priority of our lives.
We make all kinds of excuses. If we don’t do this, and live like this, we may fail, lose our jobs, be unsuccessful, etc. We fall for the lies of this world and the devil. This is the way to the good life, the happy and successful life. He is trying to steal the life of Christ from us. He may not succeed in stealing us away from Christ and the eternal life but he is certainly stealing from us the abundant, full, fruitful, and joyful life in God’s kingdom here and now. Do you want this abundant life of Christ? Careful … it’s going to cost you. It’s going to cost you everything but it’s worth the cost because the Christ-centered life is unbelievably beautiful. It’s much better than anything the world can offer us. It is available. Jesus is inviting us into his life and it is possible. How? Follow Jesus, take up his easy yoke, and abide in Him all the time. How do we abide in Christ? Be with Jesus, become like Jesus, and do what Jesus did.
1. Be with Jesus, Become like Jesus, Do What Jesus Did
To be Christ-centered requires that we die to self daily, and follow Jesus. Jesus calls us, “Come and follow me.” We do not follow Him like we follow our favorite football star, or like we follow someone on Facebook or Instagram. To follow Jesus means to be with Jesus, become like Jesus, and do what Jesus did — all the time in all of our lives. He calls us to be his apprentices to learn from Him how to live his life to the full.
Jesus called his first disciples, “Come, follow me.” (Mt 4:19; 9:19). They left everything and followed him. When two of John’s disciples decided to follow Jesus and asked him where he was staying, he answered, “Come and you will see” (Jn 1:39). When Philip told Nathanael about Jesus he said, “Come and see” (Jn 1:46). In Mark 3:14-15 we read, “He appointed twelve that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach and to have authority to drive out demons.”
What is an apprentice? Apprenticeship is not as common today and has taken on different forms, but in Jesus’ time and old times, apprenticeship was a 24/7 thing. You leave everything, your family and home behind and you follow your Master or Teacher (Rabbi) around day and night. You live with him, eat and sleep at his side. You are with him all the time. You observe, listen, and learn his teachings, skills, and lifestyle. You follow his example and practice what you learn. Until that day when your Teacher feels you are ready to go out on your own and tells you, “Go, and do as I did.”
An apprentice of Jesus “is to be one of those who have trusted Jesus with their whole lives … Because they have done so, they want to learn everything he has to teach them about life in the kingdom of God now and forever, and they are constantly with him to learn this. Disciples of Jesus are those who are with him learning to be like him. That is, they are learning to lead their lives, their actual existence, as he would lead their lives if he were they.” (Dallas Willard, 241)
We are saved by grace through faith but that doesn’t mean that overnight we have automatically become perfect in Christ and are now able to live perfectly the kingdom life in full obedience to our Lord. Reading your Bible every now and then, going to church a few times a month, praying some — all very important and necessary, but these will not suddenly change you into a saint. We know this from our own experiences living the Christian life. Mere willpower will not change us into Christlikeness. I get up in the morning and decide I will be patient, kind, gentle, and not become angry today. We know how that goes. Five minutes out of the door … my child … traffic, cuts in front … memes on social media — all my will and good intentions fly out of the window. Our minds alone will not enable us to live the kingdom life. If it was purely a matter of the intellect, all I have to do is read my Bible, “Love your enemies, do not be anxious.” And voila! There you are loving your enemies and no worries. How does that go for you?
We know that trying harder, reading the Bible more, and praying more, do not work. It’s not about trying, it’s about training. We must enroll in Jesus’ training as his apprentices.
ILLUSTRATION — Ask one of the teens, Who is your favorite baseball star player? We know how young people idolize and follow outstanding sports stars. (We did it when we were young.) They try anything and everything their idol does, hoping to be like him. They buy the same shoes the star wears, the same glove, and the same bat he uses. They cut their hair according to his hairstyle. They mimic his walk and mannerisms. Posters in their rooms (is that still a thing?). They watch every game he plays on TV, and if they can attend a live game, that’s a dream come true. And when these teens play in a baseball game, they try to behave exactly as their favorite baseball star does. He is well known for sliding headfirst into bases, so they do too. He holds his bat above his head, so they do too. Now, the question is, will they succeed in performing like the star? No matter how gifted they may be, they will not succeed if all they do is try to be like him in the game. We all know why. The star performer himself didn’t achieve his excellence by trying to behave in a certain way only during the game. No, he chose an overall life of training his mind and body. He poured all his energies into that total training. His excellent skills and responses, his timing, speed, and strength, are all the outcomes of daily rigorous training.
We do not become perfect in Christ overnight. The only way is to be with Jesus, become like Jesus, and do what He did — to be his apprentices. As his apprentices we enter into, we learn to live, and we adopt the radically counter-cultural lifestyle of Jesus. This is not a hobby or something we dabble with a few times a week. This takes a lifetime of daily practice.
Jesus gave us the Sermon on the Mount, the summary of his teachings. These are his instructions on how to live as His apprentices in God’s kingdom. Being with Jesus, becoming like Him, and doing what He did, we learn how to actually do the things He told us to do. We learn how not to “worry about tomorrow, about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear” (Mt 6:25-34). We learn to “not be afraid of those who will kill the body but cannot kill the soul” (Mt 10:28). We learn to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us (Mt 5:44).
We learn also how to live our “secular” or “non-church” lives in Christ-centered ways. How, as a follower of Jesus and as a kingdom citizen, do we run a business, raise a family, get an education, manage our finances, participate in politics, and engage in the cultural life of our society? Even in these matters of ordinary human existence, Jesus is our constant Teacher and we learn from Him how He would live our lives if He were we. The old hymn says, “He walks with me, and He talks with me.” Is Jesus walking and talking with us all the time about all the things in our lives?
To be an apprentice of Jesus is not to follow Jesus from a distance, not being a face in the crowd, not enough to claim that I follow Jesus, not another name on the church’s membership register. To be an apprentice of Jesus is to enter into the radically counter-cultural lifestyle of Jesus. To learn from Him, adopt, and put into practice His lifestyle. But to be an apprentice of Jesus requires of us to be in his presence; to spend every waking moment with Jesus. How is that possible? The first disciples had a huge advantage. We are not right there walking alongside and living with Jesus as they did. Or are we?
2. Plugged into the Holy Spirit
Let’s read John 14:15-27 — “If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.” … “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me. “All this I have spoken while still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”
Jesus is here with us, in us, through God the Spirit. Therefore, we can be his apprentices here and now. We can be with Jesus, become like Him, and do what He did. How? By plugging into the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. Being with Jesus we learn to live in a constant state of awareness of and connection to the Spirit. This is the foundation of life in God’s kingdom. We walk in step with the Spirit every moment of every day. And how do we learn to do that? We abide in Christ, John 15. And how do we abide in Christ? We practice the practices of Jesus. These are the time-tested and proven practices of our Lord, also called the Rule of Life in the early church, or today, the spiritual disciplines. Next week, we will look at how we abide in Christ and practice the practices of Jesus. We will learn that to do what Jesus did, also involves participating in and continuing his kingdom work in this world.
We all want to experience the abundant life of Christ and live the beautiful, blessed kingdom life. It’s available for everyone. Jesus invites us, “Come, follow me. Come and see. Be with Me, become like Me, and do what I do. Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, hurried and busy, anxious and fearful. Take upon yourselves my easy yoke and light burden. Learn from me. I will give you rest and peace.” This will require a radical rearrangement of our lives to become and be Christ-centered. Next week we will look at how to reorientate our lives around the practices of Jesus. With these practices we keep God before our minds and hear his voice; we are being transformed into the image of the Son; and we experience the love, peace, joy, and power of God the Spirit.
Begin this week this practice — 10 minutes in the day — just be with God.