M2-S1: KINGDOM PRIORITY, KINGDOM COMMUNITY

SUMMARY

  • Two main aims for module two:
    • To become people for whom walking with Jesus is the most important thing
    • To become people who make discipleship communities (especially in the sense of “completing” or “fulfilling” them)

PRACTICE: START EACH DAY WITH OPEN HANDS

This is a very simple practice, rich in its symbolic value. Simply start each day with open hands before God, pausing for a moment in that posture, willing to receive from God what he has for you today. Each day, let that attitude carry further and further into your daily life.

SCRIPTURE FOCUS

Ephesians 4:17-24

PUTTING ON THE NEW SELF

In the letter to the Ephesians, is Paul talking to pagans or Christians?

He’s telling their story—their passage from death to life as they were saved (or to put it in the language we’ve been using: as they received and entered the kingdom.)

Peculiar phrase in here: “you did not learn Christ in this way; if indeed him you heard and in him you were taught.” Two senses here: the teachers were “in him” and as they “learned Christ” they became in some way “in him”. This gets unpacked next:

What are the three pieces to “in him”?

  • Rid yourself of the old self (old man) (22)
  • Renewed in the spirit of your minds (23)
  • Put on the new self (new man) (24)

We need to notice that this is spiritual formation, not behavior modification. Specific behaviors are mentioned in what follows, but more than half of this is not directly related to a specific action. It concerns anger, which is a heart issue; don’t grieve God which we can just as easily do by what we think about and desire as by what we do; and removing all kinds of heart stuff.

Then Paul goes on to speak to Christians as if they haven’t finished doing these things yet. Spiritual formation for the Ephesians was not yet complete (to use Paul’s language elsewhere, “until Christ is formed in you”). It wasn’t complete in them, and with grace I say that it is not complete in us.

Module 2 is all about this pattern: ridding ourselves of the old self, being renewed in the spirit of our minds, and putting on the new self, which is like God, right, good, holy. Module 2 is about taking seriously “the game” of walking with Jesus in the good life of the kingdom.

So here’s summary statement number one, which we’re going to repeat every session through module 2: our aim is to become people for whom walking with Jesus is the most important thing. We want to become the kind of people who, when we wake up each day, the first thing we do is Dustin’s open hands thing: Lord Jesus, in whom I live and walk, what do you want to do in me today? We want to become the kind of people who end each day wondering, Lord Jesus, in whom I live and walk, what did you do in me today? From what came up out of my depths in the form of my thoughts, words, and deeds, what did you do in me, and what further work needs doing tomorrow?

The starting mindset (as Paul says “the spirit of the mind”) that the gospel is intended to produce is one that says, whoa! The kingdom of God is at hand? The power of true salvation, of my utter transformation into someone like Jesus is possible? I will do anything to pursue that! That is a treasure worth any price! If the eternal kind of life, life to the full, is available now, I will let nothing lead me astray from it! It will be what gets me out of bed in the morning, the desire that fuels me all day long, the power that enables me to serve when it’s hard, the grace that supplies everything I need to love the people I encounter, and the peace that I fall into at the end of each rich day filled with the presence of God.

Everything we do from this point forward is aimed at that goal: to become people for whom walking with Jesus is the most important thing.

WALKING IN COMMUNITY

We can’t pursue that kind of radical discipleship alone. Discipleship never has been and never will be possible on our own.

We can learn deep things alone, we can practice disciplines alone, we can muster willpower alone, we can pray in our closets alone, we can listen to podcasts and sermons all alone.

But we can’t sustain our passion for the kingdom on our own. We can’t practice long-suffering and patient grace alone. We can’t weather dry periods alone. We can’t endure hardship, suffering, difficulty, persecution, or the ceaseless pressures of our present cultural moment alone.

Eventually we will come to the end of ourselves. God does not forsake us, but in our weakness, we will forsake God. We’ll find ourselves too tired, too bored, too distracted, too hurt, too angry, too hopeless to stay with God, to say yes to his kingdom. The enemy knows our weaknesses and he will wait until we are at our lowest to hamstring us. And we’ll stop short of what we need to pursue Jesus into beautiful, lasting restoration, transformation, and peace.

That is when we will need community. What’s more, the kingdom of God can only be experienced in community, that beautiful, lasting restoration, transformation, and peace is only possible in community.

I know, it’s fashionable to talk about community, about doing life together in church. But we really, really suck at this as a culture. Every single force inside us and outside us is pushing us into isolation and individualism.

Even when we Christians try to push against this and live the kind of collective life together that we see constantly described in the lost world of the Scriptures, we end up trying to do community as individuals. That’s not a community, it’s a group of individuals in close proximity.

So now we come to our second aim for Module 2: to become people that make discipleship communities.

We chose that language very carefully. If you’re a baseball team and you need a pitcher or a shortstop, and that missing player shows up, we say “that person makes the team”. We don’t mean they are the most important person, and we certainly don’t mean the person that goes out and forms a baseball team from scratch.

I’m talking about someone who makes a discipleship community, by their presence, by their attitude, by their openness, by their willingness to forge bonds that are normally reserved for chosen relationships like friends or spouses. I’m talking about people who know how to live in community, to give what a community needs from them, and to take what they need from that community to sustain the kind of discipleship we’re talking about. So again, aim number 2: to become people that make discipleship communities.