Cruciformity - How does the cross change and shape our lives? How does it connect us with God? - PART 3

* A lot of this post as well as the other 2 in this series was taken from and built around some INCREDIBLE talks by Tim Keller. They are here.


Ephesians 2:11-22

How does the cross connect to each other?

Jesus brings us together, unity where there was fragmentation, and the key to that, seen here in Ephesians, is the cross. We are told repeatedly that the cross is the key to making new relationships in the body of Christ.

Verse 11 - Starts with Therefore. Chapter 1 and the first verses of chapter 2 in Ephesians are all about the power of God... and then verse 11 says THEREFORE the church. Power of God, therefore, the church...

Tim Keller, a pastor in New York City, has pointed to statistics and talked about his own experience, in the last 10 - 15 years, basically saying that: Americans have shown at least 2 trends, they are more interested in spirituality, divine connection, and faith, and they are less and less interested in doing that through an institution (especially the church). When you talk about Christ people are more interested and when you talk about the church people are less interested then ever. The majority believe that you can believe and be a really strong Christian without going to church. And that is true, you do not have to be a member of a church to be saved. But this passage is saying that if you want the surpassing power of God to be working in your life, without deeply, deeply involved with the church, it will never happen. The power of God will not be evident in your life without being deeply grafted and deeply involved in the life of a real community of people who also believe in Christ. (just remember, this community does not have to take place in a really old building with traditional western "church" characteristics)

Can we hear this? Bad experiences within a church scar us, but we must fight to not let that keep us apart from God. Keep searching, find another one, God will be faithful, because it is not an option (at least that is what Ephesians is saying). Why? Well the man-centered option has already been stated, ‘if you want the power of God to be in your life...’ But there is a very God-centered to it also: Why is the church a necessity? The hint, I think, comes in the triune character of God you see in this passage. 



Verse 17: through Him, access to the Father, by one Spirit

Verse 22: In Him, God, Spirit

Paul is talking about the church, the church, and then he brings up the church of the Father, Son, and Spirit. Christianity is absolutely unique among the religions of the world in this regard: some religions believe that there is an impersonal God, others one God, others many Gods... but only Christianity teaches that there is an infinite God in a community of three persons. One God who Himself is a community of love and relationship. From all eternity God has been a community and a friendship.

I have already wrote about St Augustine’s take on the Trinity, but here it is one more time very quickly: Do you believe that love, friendship, and community is at the very essence of reality? Only if you believe in the triune God can you believe that. Only then can love, friendship, and community, harmony, diversity, and unity, be at the very essence of reality. Otherwise love would have come in later and would be peripheral... How could you know a God like this individualistically? How could you know a God like that while only showing up amongst a community of believers every so often? The very essence of God is community and friendship and the only possible way of knowing a God like that would be through community. If you were truly to get to know a God like that it would inevitably draw you into deep oneness and community with other people. It cannot just be me and God. It has to be us and God.

When the disciples asked, ‘How do we relate to God? Teach us to pray.’ Jesus taught, “OUR Father, who art in Heaven...” You cannot relate to a God who is a community without praying “Our Father...” There is no alternative to knowing God... it MUST be done in a community of others.

How involved does a person need to be within a community of believers to know this God?

Verse 19 to the end, Paul uses three series of images, metaphors that are increasingly intense: (1) fellow citizens with God’s people - When you become a Christian you become a part of a new humanity, a new nation. When you become a Christian, that means you are a Christian first, and you are from New York or California second, you are white or black second, you are Chinese or Latin American second, you are rich or poor second, you are Republican or Democrat second, Conservative or Liberal second... All of those divisions that are decisive outside of the church, inside of the church they are relatively minor, because the main thing between people within is belief and hope in Christ. (2) members of God’s household - A King relates and lives among His citizens, but a Father lives within the same house. The image of the family speaks of a more intimate bond. It is a more intense metaphor for oneness. (3) in Him, a Holy Temple, built together, a dwelling for God who is a Spirit - We are building blocks built and cemented together in which God’s Spirit dwells. This is the most intense metaphor. It speaks of the Spirit inhabiting the Temple like blood inhabits a body.

In all of these metaphors, intimacy with each other is the way to intimacy with God. Can we square these images with going to church every Sunday, taking notes, and THEN JUST going home? Is being there every Sunday good enough? What if you also go to Sunday School... every single week? Nothing is wrong with this routine in itself, it just does not align with the kinds of images that Paul presents here. You have not gotten deeply enough involved with a church or a community of believers until you have gone beyond just attending.

Here are, I think, two helpful tests that can gauge whether you are involved within the church enough: (1) You have to go to the point of personal accountability and (2) corporate spirituality.

There is accountability within a family that is not there among any other sort of relationship. I am not able to not come home to Dani one night. I am going to call her when I land in San Diego (I am currently on a plane flying across the country right now) to tell her I made it safe. I am going to all my mom and tell here I made it safe.... Only when you find that you are NO longer a person who is able to make independent decisions are you involved enough in your church. In Hebrews 3:13 it says, “But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called "today," that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.”. How many people in your church or community of believers know your most intimate sins so well because you have told them or that they have spent so much time with you that they can see them? And who have you given the permission to talk to you about those sins? Who have you in a sense given a hunting license to come after you? And who have you made yourself available enough to relationally that they can talk to you about them constantly? Do you have a number of people in your church like that that are talking to you and you are talking to them? Are you personally accountable to your community? One of the problems we have in our culture is that we are not willing to get to this point of accountability, get to this point of intimacy. We do not want our daily decisions, our daily independence to be impeded upon, to be taken away from us.

Until you are able to get to this point of accountability will you actually be in a ‘family’, be a ‘temple’... If anyone moves under you as building blocks you fall. And the blocks over you are depending on you will fall. The metaphor of the wall speaks of incredible accountability... Maybe people will miss you if you stop going once a week to a church service and Sunday School class, but it honestly does not come close to the images that Paul uses for the church. The core structure would still remain in tact.

I think it is pretty neat that it is saying in Ephesians 2:22, "In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit." The Spirit does not indwell the individual building block. It only indwells the building blocks as they are built together. It is together we are inhabited by the Spirit. It is only together... When I say corporate spirituality I mean that we are talking to people about God. We are praying with people. We are letting people see our relationship with God. And most importantly I think, we are letting people see our heart toward God... We all have a problem with this. I am speaking of situations that are too intimate for us. We don’t want to pour our hearts out in front of each other, we don’t want others to see how much we are learning everyday, and what are prayer life is like... And past bad experiences of living within this call feel forced and void of love because we were never able to really show a deep part of our self to another. We lied half-lies to make ourselves look as good as we could to each other. We were too worried about secrets that nobody else knows about getting out, we were worried about our daily independent life and decisions being judged. All we really worried about in the end was getting a pat on the back for a spiritual life we portrayed that we had, but in reality only wished we had...

In the Four Loves, by C.S. Lewis, C.S. talks about a group of friends he bonded very close with (a community of believers he poured himself into). He talks of his two great friends Ronald (J.R.R. Tolkien) and Charles (Charles Williams, also a significant writer like the other two). Tragedy struck with the death of Charles. And when he died, C.S. said, ‘As awful as that is, at least, in some sense, I will have more of Ronald.’ Because now there was no ‘rival’, there was no ‘other best friend’ there was just C.S. But to his shock he found out that he did not have more of Ronald, but he had less of his friend because he had lost a part of Ronald that only Charles could bring out. And when he realized that, he realized that if it is true, that no one human being can bring out all of another human being, that it takes a community, a whole circle of friends to know an individual, he then thought, how much more would that be true of Jesus Christ???



“In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out. By myself I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity; I want other lights than my own to show all of his facets. Now that Charles is dead, I shall never again see Ronald’s reaction to a specifically [Charles'] joke. Far from having more of Ronald, having him "to myself" now that Charles is away, I have less of Ronald... In this, Friendship exhibits a glorious "nearness by resemblance" to Heaven itself where the great multitude of the blessed (which no man can number) increases the fruition each has of God. For every soul, seeing Him in their own way, doubtless communicates that unique vision to all of the rest. That, says an old author, is why the Seraphim in Isaiah’s vision are crying ‘Holy, Holy, Holy’ to one another (Isaiah 6:3). The more we thus share the Heavenly Bread between us, the more we shall all have.” -- C.S. Lewis, Four Loves, Pages 61 and 62

The only way to know God intimately is know a lot of other Christians intimately. Because every single Christian is going to see a part of God that you won’t see. And if you are trying to know God alone you are not going to know much about Him. And the more Christians you know intimately, and the more you are deeply involved with, and the more Christians you open your heart up to: the more of who God is you will see... And if you want to know Jesus in a way you never knew Him before, get to know a mature Christian from a different race or class very well... And only as you are experiencing God, praying, and worshiping God with a diversity of intimate friends, will you ever be able to know this God who Himself is the essence of unity and diversity - the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

What causes this dynamic in the church? the cross

Looking back at the passage in Ephesians, it is saying that “the Law” divides us and keeps us from being the church the way we should be. Why does Paul pick the Law as being the divider? Martin Lloyd-Jones exposition of Ephesians helped me see this. The Law was the thing dividing Jews and Gentiles at that time. But isn’t the Law a good thing, is it not important, is not the pride and joy of the Jews? Yes... Paul is saying that the big problem dividing us from each other is NOT our gifts. It is our PRIDE in our gifts... If you are a part of a cultural or an ethnic group that is much warmer and friendly than another you will look down on that other group as cold-hearted. And if your group is well-educated... and if your group is on time... and more conservative... you will look down and label the group that is not. And feel a sense of hostility towards them for not being more like you...

And what is the remedy? the cross. It takes those who are near and those who are far and it “killing [their] hostility”. If you want to have the cross get rid of the pride that divides you from other people and keeps you from incredible relationships that God has designed you to have and thrive in, then you have to allow the cross to tell you that we are all the same because we are sinners. 'Those who were near and those who were far' is talking about the pagans being far and the Jews being near having the very Law of God and who were obeying the Commandments... and the cross shows that they ALL were sinners. The first thing the cross does is to show you that you are a sinner and that you are lost.

There are 2 ways to be your own savior and lord: (1) to be really bad and to break all of the rules and (2) to be very good, keeping all of the moral rules, reading your Bible everyday, doing everything you can to be good and then saying, ‘God! You now have to take me to Heaven.’ A person who thinks they have put God in their debt has become their own savior and Jesus is not their savior. And people who are living the way they want, breaking all of the rules, are being their own savior... Do you see that EVERYBODY is being their own savior? Everybody is lost! The cross comes in and says, ‘You are all sinners, you are all lost, you are all on your way to Hell. It does not matter how good you are or how bad you are, whether you are white or black, rich or poor, Asian or European, loving and relational or rational and empirical... We are all lost because we are all so proud of our gifts. And we are trying to be our own savior and our own lord. And it is destroying our world, and it is leading to war, conflict and strife, it is leading to broken marriages and poverty. Our self-centeredness is destroying the very fabric of our relationships and the only hope we all have is the cross...

Do you believe that? I don’t think that you can ever be a part of the church, that is spoken in the Bible, until you believe that, that we are all lost...

The other thing you have to see is that on the cross He “killed our hostility”. What’s that mean? There is only one thing that died on the cross: Jesus. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” This does not mean that God made Him sinful. Jesus Christ did not become selfish, hostile, or proud. He was treated as sin. In other words, our hostility, our pride, our self-centeredness was slain on the cross, the very same things that are ruining our lives and ruining the lives of your neighbors and ruining the world... Jesus Christ was punished for that! When you see that your hostility was slain on the cross, that will slay the hostility in your heart. When you see that Jesus Christ took what He took in your place, that will humble you. Our pride be damned!! And if our pride was damned and judged on the cross, because it was so objectively, as you understand that it will become more and more subjectively destroyed n your heart. And that will lead to this incredible community relationship, an incredible oneness that you can know with other human beings, that can be as different to you as anyone, but who are now your brothers and sisters in Christ. And through them you can know this God who Himself is a community. All through the cross.

Cruciformity - How does the cross change and shape our lives? How does it connect us with God? - PART 2

* A lot of this post as well as the other 2 in this series was taken from and built around some INCREDIBLE talks by Tim Keller. They are here.


The way the cross changes our lives has to keep on going because many of the changes when we are first converted are very implicit.

How does the cross continue to shape our lives?

Romans 6:1-7, 11-18

The passage talks about freedom from sin that the cross brings us. Freedom to change. The cross brings the power to change in our lives.

What does the cross free us from? for? and how does it do it?

1. The cross frees us from (spiritual) masters.

The language all through Romans 6 is all about slavery. Everyone is serving something. In this regard it is following the first commandment. 'I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other gods before me.' It is saying there is no other third way. There is a not a person serving nobody... This is highly disputed today, but I think that you really can’t understand a critical part of your self until you see this.

Everybody, religious or not, offers themselves to somebody. If you are not then you are not living. You have to live for something. There has to be something that keeps you going. Something that gets you out of bed... And some of these things are really, really good like living for your family, living for your children, for the love of your life, your career, a good cause... But Romans 6 is saying here that whatever you live for is actually a master. Nobody is really independent...

A master is whatever you live for most, the thing that you feel like that gives you meaning and happiness... and this is so regardless of your belief. You may say my master is my Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, my Catholicism, a Protestantism... but I am talking about THE functional master in your life, what you REALLY offer yourself to, what you REALLY live for.

In Romans 6 verse 13, a word in the Greek - "Epithumian" - shows up (it actual shows up quite a bit in the New Testament when change is spoken of). It is almost invisible in the NIV. (I wrote about this in another blog, but quickly here it is again) It is an 'epi' desire, like an 'epi' center. You cannot translate it as an evil desire. It is not necessarily talking about wanting bad things, it is talking more than not about wanting good things too much. This word can be more sharply translated as "over-desire". Good things as ultimate things - If you want something, and it is a good thing, and somebody gets in your way, you get mad, but if it is an ultimate thing you get bitter and furious. You won't be able to deal with this anger, you can't forgive this person. It is inordinate anger. Anger is fine. There really is nothing wrong with anger in these situations. But if this thing is a 'master' in your life, it will control with inordinate, outrageous anger and you won't be able to get over it.

It is like what can happen when a parent wants the best for their children. If it is an over-desire it will look like this: ‘If you turn out happy, and you love me, then I will feel like my life was not completely hopeless. But if you turn out to hate me and you get into drugs and jail, well then I will not even want to live’... There is a difference between letting something your child does get to you and making it a master. I am sure it is only natural for it to effect you if you love them. But there is a difference between making it a good thing and making it an ultimate thing.

When a good thing is threatened you are worried. Really worried! But when an ultimate thing is threatened, you are paralyzed with fear. When a good thing is denied, you are angry. When an ultimate thing is denied, you are uncontrollably angry. When a good thing is lost, you are in despair, but eventually you do come out of it. But when an ultimate thing is lost, you will want to kill yourself, and there is no way out... unless you are willing to admit that this was a spiritual master and it is your fault. When you break up with somebody it is awful! And it takes time to get over it. But if you never get over it then it is because male or female affection has been your master. Down deep you have made it clear that as long as you had it, you had worth... but what is that? That is a master of your life. And EVERYBODY has one. Regardless of what you say you believe or don't believe.

Looking at that first commandment one more time - "I am the Lord your God. Have no other gods before me." It is saying Him or them. You have a choice, but there is no third option. Martin Luther once wrote (paraphrased), 'You never are disobeying the other commandments unless you are first disobeying the first one... Why do you lie? Usually because of human approval, money, reputation... something else is more important to you than it ought to be.' He is talking about spiritual masters. These things that if you don't have will devastate you and you may not even want to face life because of the loss. If there is anything you say that about except God, even at a semi-unconcious level, you are a slave to something besides God. And that's simply why you and I have got the problems we have got.

2. The cross frees us for unconditional love.

Romans 6 verse 13 - the whole New Testament is pretty much about this... It pretty much says, 'Christian you have died with Christ. You have identified yourself with the cross. You have been united with Him in His death.' There is an objective and subjective meaning to that. Subjectively - Jesus died for me. I see the sacrifice that He did and I want to live in the light of that. Ok... but what kind of life comes out of that. How does being brought from ‘death to life through the cross’ change a person? Let’s dig deeper into our Christianese.

The cross is completely counter-intuitive to everything we have been taught in the world. When you look at the cross you see the way up is down, the way to influence is to serve, they way to wealth is to give away, the way to win is to lose... The most powerful being in the universe became weak, poor, died for His enemies, turns the other cheek, gives Himself, takes no political power... and by doing all of this He changes the course of human history. Now what are we supposed to do in the light of that?

Mark 10 - Jesus tells His disciples that He will betrayed and killed, but rose again. Immediately after that James and John ask to be seated at His right hand and left... They did not get it! Jesus says thats how the Gentiles do it. They get in power and forget about everyone else. "But not so with you... the one who will be greatest will be the servant of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and give His life as ransom for many." Jesus is saying that we need to turn our thinking upside down on almost everything. When Jesus says, "not so with you," He is not saying to hole up and not engage the culture. He is saying don't engage the culture like the “Gentiles” do - with money, power, privilege - but pour out your life for your city, impoverish yourself for your city, make it such that the people around you, although they say they don't believe Christianity, could not see 'how the city would survive without the sacrificial loving lives of those people. If those people left the city would collapse.' That's what the church should be! And when others see your good deeds, they will glorify God in heaven.

The cross proves that if you want influence, you go low, you don't go high. You serve. You do not try and take over... AND THEN they will ask you because they know you genuinely care about them. THEN they will want to learn from you and want to see... The only power that is going to make a difference, especially in our modern, cynical world, is freely given influence and power.

The cross turns everything upside down. When it comes to class and race, the cross will move you to a point of zero pride. The cross will move you to incredible generosity of your income, space, and time. "Offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life!" -- as those who have been brought into life from death, who have been brought into wealth through poverty, who have been brought into power though weakness. That's how the cross works. That's what it means to be righteous.

The interpersonal change that happens through the cross does so because of the intrapersonal change. Author, pastor Tim Keller commented on Deuteronomy 7:6-8 and helped me think this through:

"The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the LORD loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt."

It's circular reasoning! Do you see it? God is saying that He didn't 'love you because you were one of the great nations, in fact you were the least, but it was because I loved you that I brought you out of Egypt'... God is saying to His people (the nation of Israel then, and now to His people across all borders) that, 'I love you, just because I love you, just because I love you.'

Dani (my wife) will someday ask, 'Do you love me?' And I will say, 'Of course I love you! A million times over!' And then she will say 'Why???' This is where I will have to be very careful. I could truthfully say, "You the smartest girl I have ever known, the prettiest girl I have seen, I love how we can talk for hours, I love the ambition and life spark you have, I love how you want to see everything, I love how we can walk and get lost in a city and have such a great time doing it, I love how you make me feel good about myself because when someone like you is with me other people will say 'Hey! You must be pretty dang cool!'... But the truth here will not work. I think the only answer in which you can build an entire LIFE of love is, "I love you just because I love you." And this is not just sweet talk, it is not just pillow-talk nonsense. If you say to another human being that you love them because of such and such factor. Then all of the identity shifts to that factor because that is the basis for my love. 'Oh! Well then I better keep my figure! I better stay smart! I better keep in good shape so I can keep on walking through cities. What happens if I somehow can't walk anymore?? What if I lose my drive and ambition??' The basis of the identity, of this person's loveliness, the basis of their value is then shifted to these factors, and now slavery to these factors... But what if God, through the cross, says, 'I love you just because I love you'. 'Not because you are great, moral, cool. I am just going to love you by holy grace, or in other words, grace that is set apart from anything you have ever known. You want to be saved? There it is. I have done it!' Then because of this: You are free! Finally! Because He loves you for you! He loves YOU! He loves you for your sake and therefore He loves you for His sake! And that frees you! Then other external factors are driven into the ground. They do not hold relevance here.

And to the degree you understand the cross by the Holy Spirit (it takes a LONG time to sink in! a whole lifetime to really do so!), to that degree will you experience this freedom.

3. How does the cross actually free you?

Why does this take so long to get?

Supposedly there is a true story about St. Augustine -- He lived loosely among women before his conversion and he ran into one years later. He was kind and nice, but there was a barrier that had not been there before and she could sure sense it. She stopped him and protested, 'Augustine it is I!' 'I know,' he said, 'but it is not I.' St. Augustine is saying with this that he used to be a person that had to have female affection, it was his spiritual master, but he now had a new spiritual master. And to the degree that he could remember who he was in Him he was free!

The reason that we do not live out of the power of the cross is that, although we have a new identity, we don't remember it. This is what Romans 6 is all about. In verse 11 - "consider your self dead", yes we are dead to sin, but it is a struggle to consider our selves as such! That is what Augustine did, but I am sure it was a struggle. It is certainly a struggle for me!!

A women successful, hard working, and rich marries a man lazy and poor. In an instant he is rich!

As soon as you say, 'Father, accept me for what Jesus Christ has done. I give my life to you!!!' When He accepts this plea (and just not when you utter the words, to often we think we can play God by simple cantation) you become objectively rich. When the Father looks at Jesus, does His heart not burst with love and enthusiasm for the beauty of His son, for the magnificence for what He has done? Of course it does! And now, when you are united with Him that is EXACTLY how God sees you! Augustine is saying through this story that when he remembers this he does not need female affection. Will this happen every time? No... But to the degree you are remember your identity in Christ...

Martin Lloyd Jones on Romans 6, verse 11 - came up with an illustration for this struggle to "consider" our selves dad to sin and alive to God through Christ. --- Imagine a country in which one group of people has enslaved another group of people for centuries. A new King comes into power and decrees that all of the enslaved group is to be set free. Do you think it is as simple as that? For all of that time through the enslavement, when the oppressor group saw a slave coming, that oppressor group instantly could have that person beaten up, imprisoned, or even killed. Years go by and NOW the King says that these oppressed people are now free. And only upon dire penalty of prison and death could the oppressor group do anything to a member of the enslaved group... In reality (and our American history proves it), members of the former-enslaved group will still tremble when they would meet a member of the former-oppressing group. They had been trained to do so for centuries. They will still obey what the oppressing group says, and the oppressors will still do anything that they can, within that law, to hold on to what little power they have left. THE MEMBERS OF THE FORMER-ENSLAVED GROUP KEEP ON ACTING LIKE SLAVES DESPITE THEIR CHANGE IN STATUS. They are free, but they have not grasped there freedom. And every Christian is in this same position. Your status has changed! The only reason we don't change is that we don't know who we are in Jesus Christ.

How are we going to overcome this?

The only way you are not going to be a slave anymore is if you see what Jesus Christ did with His freedom.

One more illustration:

There is an incredible movie called Three Seasons. It takes place in Vietnam right after the Vietnam War. In one of the stories within the movie a poor bicycle driver falls in love with a prostitute. He sees her always coming out of beautiful hotels that rich men have paid for her to be with them in. She never stays the whole night and he is always there to take her to the horrible part of town that she lives in. She knows he likes her. But she has come to be a very hard person. All she wants is to be a person who can come into one of these hotels on her own accord and stay over night because that is the world she lives in. She wants to break into that world of comfort and beauty. And it is not working. Prostitution is killing her, even though she does not see it. She says she is not going to do prostitute forever, but she is enslaved. She thinks it will get her out, but he knows the truth and she does as well but does not admit it... And then the bicyclist enters a bicycle race and wins! He wins 50 dollars, which is how much it costs for a night with her (the coincidence was not an accident). He immediately finds her and says, 'come on, let's go to the hotel'. She needs the money and says ok. She is expecting sex, the viewer is expecting sex, but after he tells her to lay on the bed he says, 'I don't want to have sex with you. I am not using the 50 dollars to get you. I am using the 50 dollars just so that you can spend the night here. And I just want to watch you fall asleep.' When she wakes up in the morning she is gone, with a beautiful breakfast in front of her... and now she cannot go back to prostitution because his selfless act changed her. The only money he had in the world he used, not to exploit her, but to serve her. She had never experienced that kind of redemptive love in her life and it has changed her. It has changed her identity and she can't go back! And she is mad at him!! ... and you just need to see the rest of the movie...

Jesus Christ sees us, enslaved by the things that we think are going to get us our freedom (and we know they will not, even if we don’t admit to it). Not just at the risk of His wealth with the Father, but at the cost of His life, He comes down and becomes a slave, and He is put in chains, and He is nailed to the cross... not to exploit us, but to serve us, to free us... If this woman in the movie was changed and freed by the knowledge of the bicyclist's redemptive act, of his using the power he had to serve her and not exploit her, having never experienced anything like it in her life... then the selfless act of Jesus Christ going to the cross and becoming a slave will free you! You have to bring this into the center of your self. It is not just who I am in Jesus, but it is what He did to make me who I am! If you put that together and keep that alive in your 'religion,’ it will change your life. It will shape your life.

How does the cross unite us? How does the cross effect our relationships? to be continued...

Cruciformity - How does the cross change and shape our lives? How does it connect us with God? - PART 1

* A lot of this post as well as the next 2 was taken from and built around some INCREDIBLE talks by Tim Keller. They are here.

Acts 8:26-39, the conversion of the Ethiopian Eunuch

The cross changes the structure of our identity, through a holistic grasp of substitutionary atonement...

Acts 8 is a vivid climax of the first 8 chapter of the book thus far: Jesus said to go and make disciples of all nations. In Acts 2, the sermon was in every language present, a clear indication that God was saying that no culture or people group had a leg-up... and yet the disciples still struggled with Jewish superiority. In Acts 8, persecution finally pushes them out, and the Spirit takes over. In any other circumstance, Philip would have nothing to do with this black, sexually altered, high-powered man. But the Spirit said, ‘stay with him!’ ... Jesus said that the Spirit would manifest His teaching when it came down. Why does the Spirit keep going after us to connect with others outside of our own people? the Cross. The Cross gives a new identity if you really get the implications of it. When the Spirit moves the very core of yourself to get the cross, then one sign will be that you will want to be with others you would have wanted nothing to do with before.

As different as “conservative” to “liberal”, “religious” to “secular” is, everyone has a works based righteousness system in place. In traditional, religious areas, people build their character on achievement - follow the rules and perform according to what is expected of you. In a secular area, in a relative, no-morality environment, there is enormous pressure to achieve. You have to make something of yourself. You have to show the world that you matter. In both areas, people build their identity on performance.

Everyone has an identity factor.

When you build your identity on something, you have to feel superior to others that don’t have your identity factor. That’s how you get an identity. That’s how you feel good about yourself, that’s how you feel valuable. Even if the way you feel good about yourself is that you are a hard working person. You then look down on others who are lazy. If education is your identity, you look down on those without an education... If religion is your identity, you look down on those without religion.

Conservative v. liberal. One will say, ‘those liberals are ruining my culture’, the other would say ‘those religious conservatives are narrow minded bigots.’

I think -- all identities demonize others who do not have their identity factor. All identities divide the human race.

What if there was another way of building your identity?

What if instead of the religious call of ‘God has given you all of the rules to follow Him into Heaven’... What if instead God has come down, fulfilling all of the requirements for us... Those that actually get this will say: ‘Well then, I am no better then anyone else. I am a sinner saved by God’s mercy.’ THEN this person will realize, ‘since God loves me through Christ (not because of what I have done to prove my worth, BUT what HE HAS DONE) I must change!’

IF the Spirit has really taken the cross so deep inside of you that you know that is why and how you have value, that is who you really are, why you have hope, THEN it removes the need and basis for feeling superior to other people.

The cross renews your identity, because Christianity is not the function of one particular culture. The cross transforms you from within your culture.

“100 years ago 9 percent of Africa was Christian. Today it is roughly 50 percent... How did this happen? The old religions provided rules rewarding good conduct and punishing wrong conduct. But they could not help us change. Christianity answered this historic challenge by a reorientation. People in Africa sensed in their hearts that Jesus did not mock their respect for the sacred, nor their clamor for an invincible savior. And so they beat their sacred drums for Him until the stars skipped and danced in the skies. And after that dance the stars were not little anymore. Christianity made Africans into renewed Africans, not remade Europeans.” -- Lamin Sanneh

What if Africans became secular?

Lamin Sanneh continues: “The idea that there are is no supernatural, no miracles, no demons, no angels, everything has a natural cause was destructive to our Africaness... Christianity says yes there is the supernatural... there are evil forces everywhere, but Jesus Christ on the cross triumphed over those evil forces. When Christianity comes into my Aricaness it does not turn me into a European or an American. I am no longer the African I was, but I am a renewed African. My identity is changed. I have a certain distance to my Africaness, making me look at non-Afircans differently... because I have an unshakable peace, I don’t have to fear the dark anymore. I have an invincible Savior.”

If this is true, then it is almost like every single people, every single culture, every single life, has its own story line, but only in Jesus Christ will the story lines of all these people ever find a happy ending... provided that you don’t just believe in the cross in some general way, but that the Holy Spirit takes it within the very center of your life and being.

How does that happen?

I think the key to real conversion happens when you get a holistic grasp of Jesus' substitutionary sacrificial atonement. Holistic meaning it has to makes sense coherently and it has to be inwardly gripping to you. This is when change can come.

Why was this man a eunuch in Acts 8? He was a high ranking official. If you were a commoner, rising up, working with the royal family, you would not be trusted unless you were sexually altered. If you wanted to be rich and get power, you would then have to say good bye to family and descendants (in a culture where family and descendants were everything!).

In New York City, it is almost impossible to maintain a family while you are on the fast track to the top of any of the high esteemed professions. It is almost impossible to get to the top without committing the same sacrifice the eunuch decided upon.

This eunuch, incredibly lonely and unfulfilled -- An Ethiopian going to Israel to worship! This is so far-fetched that some feel this disproves the accuracy of the Bible. The distance traveled was far!! This had to have been an incredibly long and dangerous trip. The only explanation (if we believe the Bible) for this man to make the trip was that he was spiritually hungry! He must have heard or read about the God of Israel and wanted to worship in His presence.. but he also must have been turned away from the Temple because Old Testament ceremonial law forbid any eunuch from going into the presence of God. He would have gone all that way, desperately seeking connection to the divine, and would have been turned away. He must have felt so deformed, so uncleaned.... But as he is riding back we see that he was reading Isaiah 53. Now if he were reading these ‘servant passages’ in Isaiah he would have certainly read:

Isaiah 56:3-5 -- “Don’t let foreigners who commit themselves to the Lord say, ‘The Lord will never let me be part of his people.’ And don’t let the EUNUCHS say, ‘I’m a dried-up tree with no children and no future.’ For this is what the Lord says: I will bless those EUNUCHS who keep my Sabbath days holy and who choose to do what pleases me and commit their lives to me. I will give them—within the walls of my house—a memorial and a name far greater than sons and daughters could give. For the name I give them is an everlasting one. It will never disappear!”

Just as the Holy Spirit says, ‘Go get that guy!’ to Philip the Eunuch now reads in Isaiah 53 about the one who gets cut off. Somebody who has been excluded, “and who can speak of His descendants?” It seems like this person has been voluntarily cut off, voluntarily excluded. Somebody who has essentially become a eunuch, someone who has essentially become unclean, somebody who has been slain... Who is this?

Just at that moment... Philip is desperately trying to keep up by running along side the carriage:

“It’s Jesus.”

In Jesus Christ, God has come as a leper for the lepers, a eunuch for the eunuchs... He become unclean so that we can become eternally clean. He was cast out so that we can be brought in. He paid the penalty for our sins. He stood as the eunuch for us, so that we do not have to stand as a eunuch anymore in His sight. He took upon Himself our penalty... He took it! So that we can now walk into the presence of God, clothed as and seen as Jesus Christ.

God substitutes Himself for us. He pays the penalty that we deserve. Substitution is at the heart of it all. Once you understand that and it grips you, conversion and change can happen.

In the Tale of Two Cities -- the two main character look alike, but are very different. And in it all they love the same girl. One does not get the girl and the other marries her. At the end of the book, however, the one married is found guilty (the book takes place within the context of the French Revolution) and he is in prison waiting to be executed. He is in a hopeless situation. Except for that the other man sneaks into the prison at night, knocks out his friend in prison, others he was with take his friend away, and this other man puts on his friends clothes, awaiting to be executed. (if you watch, watch the clip to at least 1:40)



“Are you dieing for him?”

“Yes, and for his wife and child.”

“I am really, really frightened, but if I can hold your hand, a brave person like you, I think I will be alright.”

-- goes the dialogue between another waiting for execution and the other man. This man’s substitutionary sacrifice changed her, and it was not even for her! ... and so if this does that, even though it was not even for her, how much could Jesus’ substitutionary sacrifice change us. What will it enable us to face? How will it change our ability to handle suffering? How will it change the very structure of our life??? ... IF you see that He did not just die for others, He died for you... for you!

When the substitutionary sacrifice gets to the very bottom of our being, becoming intellectually understandable and emotionally and physically gripping, it will change us. How else do you explain a Jewish man putting his arms around a sexually altered African man and calling him brother? That’s a sign of changed identity. That’s how the cross does it.

The cross will convert you and will keep converting you the rest of your life... to be continued...