Knowing Christ (or The Difference between ‘Knowing about Christ’ and ‘Knowing Christ,’ and What That Means for Evangelism)

Knowing about someone is like having access to their Facebook page.  You can learn everything about their interests, likes, dislikes, what they’ve done, who they want to be associated with, what they support, what they’re against, what they look like, etc.  But you could learn all that and never have met them face to face.  (Ironically its called ‘Facebook’.)  Actually meeting them is so much more profound.  And while it may take you forever to learn all those details, there’s something deeper about being with them.  Something real and unexplainable.  It’s that kind of real relationship that makes us human.

Knowing about Christ is like having access to his Facebook page.  You can memorize all the facts, but if you never experience him, your faith will lack profundity.  Let me make the clarification now that it is faith alone and no level of relationship or emotion or experience that will save us.  But as we grow, we cannot grow only in theoretical knowledge about Christ; we must know him personally!  Otherwise the relationship is not real.  It would be like if a poor person had been informed of a great man who could save him from his situation.  Not only that, but the poor person had access to actually reach this great man.  But instead they chose simply to stay in their situation and learn more about the man but never actually contact him.  That situation is in fact the reality only more so.  Knowing someone is experiential and relationship has emotion by nature.

That being said, evangelism is not telling people about Jesus, but introducing them to actual existence of God come down to us.  For us to do that we need to know Jesus and have experienced him.  That is so crucial! We cannot just read about him, we need to listen to him.  (Therein is a subtle difference.)  We also need to take him at his word and act out on faith.  Let the Holy Spirit guide us and change us.  Pray to him and be in communion with him.  Abide in him.  The more we do that, the more we’ll have something to share, and the more eager we’ll be to share.

Go do some abiding.

Why I’m scared (but not really)

In the NT the word ‘Hallelujah’ appears four times, all in Rev19, and three of them are in reference to God judging the world.  I learned that in the sermon today.  What is so wonderful about God’s judgment?  Well for the marginalized and oppressed its all their hope.  For me judgment has always carried a negative connotation.  I guess that shows how much I’ve benefited from systemic social injustices.  In light of that Jesus’ comments about ‘blessed are the poor’ and ‘woe to the rich’ start to take on a lot more meaning.  While judgment is scary, I know I am secure in Christ’s blood and moreover, I’m called to be an earthly relief to the poor, marginalized and oppressed.  The question is: what does that mean?!

The Righteousness of God

…is us.  (This has become so very real to me in the last couple days.)  Read it.  Its powerful.  Because of Christ, we have become the righteousness of God.  Our justification is complete, and our sanctification is promised.  The old is gone.  Past perfect tense.  Completed.  Done.  The new is come.  Past continuing.  It’s going to happen.  Guaranteed.

And that controls us so much that we couldn’t possibly live for ourselves.  We couldn’t possibly live like we used to.  We appear out of our minds.  Amen.

¹¹Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others. But what we are is known to God, and I hope it is known also to your conscience. ¹² We are not commending ourselves to you again but giving you cause to boast about us, so that you may be able to answer those who boast about outward appearance and not about what is in the heart. ¹³For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. ¹⁴For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; ¹⁵and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.

¹⁶From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. ¹⁷Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. ¹⁸All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; ¹⁹that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. ²⁰Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. ²¹ For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Looking back, looking forwards…

A wise man once said, ‘ You don’t know what you got till its gone.’  Actually you don’t have to be wise to realize that.  I just added that fact for diction’s sake.  Taking a year off has created a sense of tying things off.  The same effect I felt when I graduated high school, only in this case, it’s only been two years.  It feels fast.  I’m not sure I’m ready to move on.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m super excited for next year and all the amazing things God’s gonna do.  But its also made me realize how sweet these two years at Wheaton have been.  I’ve been so blessed by relationships, education, a great church, places to serve, I could go on forever.  Now that I’m saying goodbye, I miss it already.

I say this coming off of our last Glee Club concert.  I said bye to a lot of people, who I may not sing with again before we sing at the throne of the Redeemer.  I never realized how deep those relationships were.  How encouraging those guys had been to me.  They weren’t perfect.  So what?  Nobody is, and God still uses us.

hmm…
Another wise man said ‘You can’t steer looking backwards.’  I don’t wish I’d taken more time to be thankful.  Maybe I do.  I tend to rush a lot.  I guess we need to realize how blessed we are.  Because in the midst of the rough times, God is still good, and the good times will be infinitely sweeter than the roughest of roughs.

More Axioms

Right theology leads to right living
Actions display affections
What you do becomes what you believe

*I think most of these are actually stolen from someone

Bad choices

If we are faithless,
he remains faithful,
for he cannot deny himself.

God has kept this verse at the forefront of my mind recently as I’ve reflected on things that have happened during my two years at college.

What is faith?  It’s the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.  (Qft.  No pun intended.)  Faith is acting in accordance of something we are sure of.  So often, we  assign degrees to it.  We speak of someone having a lot of faith when they act out, trusting in God’s promises and unchanging character.  I’m going to argue though, that faith is a ‘you have it or you don’t’ thing.  There is no compromise.  Think about it: it’s incoherent to say ‘I have half faith and half not faith’ as if it were a creamer.  When Jesus talks about faith like a mustard seed, his point is that the size is irrelevant.  What matters is its mere existence.  It’s either there, or it’s not.  And if it is there, it’s powerful.

That is the backdrop in front of which I ponder.  My life would be so full of regrets were it not for an awareness of my ultimate justification.  There are a million things I would do over, given the opportunity.  Choices I’ve made where I’ve blatantly ignored Christ’s preeminence in my life.  But as much as I’ve done those things and made bad choices, and will continue to fail, God never reneges on his covenant.  He promises that I am completely justified (though not completely sanctified) and that it’s enough.  Nothing more to be done.  Just because bad things happen in this world, regardless of whether I am the direct cause, does not nullify any of God’s character, let alone his existence.  When tragedy strikes, the question is not, ‘Can God exist in the midst of hard times?’ but ‘Am I going to act, still believing that God is going to make something good some of this situation?’  God cannot deny himself!  That is what our faith is in.  That is what we act on.  That is why, when we fall, we can keep going.  Because God isn’t going to change.