Christian Lifestyle
Roger Forster
What does it mean to live a Christian life? Roger outlines how we can live to bring in God's kingdom: in practice, through prayer and by preaching.
We might find ways to excuse a Marxist who was living off capitalistic profits and holding shares in ICI (to be sold, naturally, the day before the revolution takes place). After all, he is only using the present world system to bring in his Utopic kingdom! Nevertheless, it seems hard to begin to justify a Christian who, in similar circumstances, has a lifestyle based on present world values, and so is indistinguishable from his non-Christian neighbours. He hopes of course that, when His Kingdom comes, the new society which will dawn will somehow suit his cultured tastes.
The inconsistency seems even greater when we realise that the Kingdom of Christ, as opposed to the communists', has already appeared and is supposed to shine like a city set on a hill. The citizens of this Divine invasion are a preview of the coming new society called the New Jerusalem, which comes from heaven. 'Our lifestyle,' says Paul, 'is in heaven and we eagerly await a Saviour from there' (Philippians 3:20). If we have not yet begun or even sought to enjoy the lifestyle of heaven - couched in its beauty, truth, goodness, love, service and feet-washing - what makes us think that we would suddenly decide to like it when it appears? Heaven is enjoyable only to those who are heavenly.
Perhaps it is the New Testament emphasis - living the heavenly lifestyle now, in view of the coming Kingdom - which explains what to some thinking is a strange omission in Paul's evangelistic preaching, namely that after three weeks (or even more) of establishing the church in Thessalonika, Paul has taught the converts about neither the resurrection of the believer, nor, apparently, his 'going to heaven when he dies'.
After some months it appears that one of the members of this fast-evangelising group of believers (to whom Paul writes that he has no need to return, since they are doing the job of preaching the Word so well - 1 Thessalonians 1:8), has apparently died and a letter to Paul has asked if such a person would miss the kingdom of the new heaven and new earth - the new society?
'Sorry folks,' Paul implies, 'I just forgot to tell you, he will make it: by resurrection just a moment or so before the rest of us' (1 Thessalonians 4:13-17).
Paul must have preached, 'Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand, so put your hand out and take it into your heart, for soon the kingdom will be here in the world and thereby you will enter into this new age when Christ returns'. This 'new birth' was so that we could see and enter into the Kingdom (John 3:3,5). The early church looked horizontally along history to its completion in Christ, who would establish a way of life which they had already begun to enjoy.
Consequently, the result of this type of living would be a kind of lifestyle which would support and extend the good news into all the world, so that the end might come (Matthew 24:14). Once more, in Philippians 1:27, Paul says that this kind of living was 'worthy of the Gospel' . This Gospel lifestyle which was bringing in the Kingdom can be understood in three ways, as it acts as a catalyst of the Divine processes in history.
1. Practising the Kingdom
In the passage mentioned above (Phil. 1:27-30), Paul suggests that a lifestyle worthy of the gospel is a striving one, a strenuous kind of living which is promoting the faith of the gospel. Similarly, Peter clearly encourages us to think that, by living according to Kingdom values now, we will be hastening the coming of the day of God (2 Peter 3:11,13) by our holy lifestyle and godliness. In fact, Christian ethics, dominated by the principle of loving our neighbour, are seen to be eschatological ethics in Romans 13:10-14. The Kingdom day is close, the dawn light is already shining and we must live the God-style life now.
This closeness of the new society must surely affect our priorities. It is said that a very wealthy man, who of course occasionally loaned his house to hard-working missionaries for a holiday(!), spoke to one such servant of the Gospel as he looked into the far distance of his garden, at the end of which was a large copse of trees and commented to the missionary: 'I have been wondering about buying that copse of woods to really make this garden a little paradise. It really would set the whole place off perfectly. Do you think I ought to?'
The missionary replied, 'Yes, I would if I were you, that would really complete this place and make it an absolute paradise and when the Lord Jesus comes, he will look around here and say, "Well, we have nothing quite like this up there, I think you had better stay down here." ' There seems to be in the early Church a delightful wildness in the use of their possessions, whereby none had any need and all was at the disposal of the interests of the Gospel (Acts 2:44-5; Acts 4:37).
Our passage in Philippians chapter 1 also states that a Gospel lifestyle is seen in the unity of the believers who strive with one mind and one spirit for the faith of the Gospel. Recent ecclesiastical history has demonstrated that the pursuit of unity for its own end can be self-defeating. It has sometimes been implemented by churches like a company merger: to bolster 'business' rather than for spiritual ends.
However, real practical unity is expressed when we are pursuing the needs of the evangel. The kind of life which reveals the good news must be one of unity. To love God means I must love my brother (1 John 4: 20). To be right with God means I am right with my brother. To be reconciled to the one who is reconciling all things unto Himself, means I must be reconciled with my brother. The kind of unity for which Jesus prays in John 17 is not an added extra on top of being with God, but implicit in the evangel itself and, consequently, must be seen in our new comununity style of living. How else can we demonstrate the belief that we are right with the unseen God if we are not right with our seen brother?
Paul also declares that we will share suffering in our way of living in faith in Christ (Philippians 1:29). This is because Christ was the Suffering Servant, the Elect of God (Isaiah 42:1). So our election in Christ is to share in that calling. Paul tells us this is a privilege and is seen in that central act of Christianity when Jesus gives us the bread saying, 'This is my body for you, take and partake of it.' His Body was to enter into all the sufferings of the world's redemption to bring new life to man and it is that Body which is our full inheritance from Christ in which we also seek, in suffering, to meet a dying world, and bring His redemption to it.
2. Praying in the Kingdom
Paul also adds in Philippians 1:30 that he was engaged in the conflict along with the believers. The word used here for conflict is sometimes used for prayer conflict (Colossians 2:1) while in Luke 22:44 it is used for Gethsemane praying. We remember that our Lord Jesus taught us to pray: 'Your Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven' in the first prayer of the New Testament, and that the final prayer of the Book of Revelation is, 'Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly'.
One can hardly imagine Christian living apart from concentrated 'Kingdom praying' focusing on the extension of the Gospel, for labourers for the harvest fields, for the citaldels of resistance and unbelief, for strategic and concentrated wrestlings to bring in the Kingdom. A Christian lifestyle undominated by prayer would be meaningless for a New Testament convert. We must not apply Paul's encouragement to imitate him only to Christian workers, for here in Philippians chapter 1 he is glad that they all follow him.
3. Preaching in the Kingdom
This Good News shall be preached in all the world, and then shall the end come. The third of our priorities is the actual proclamation of God's victory in Christ. Every part of a Christian's activity will have in view bringing the Gospel to the whole world. In Mark 8:35 (cf Matthew 6:25 and Luke 9:24) Jesus virtually identifies himself with the 'Gospel'. So Christ-likeness is Gospel-likeness. The Gospel described by Christ in Luke 4 embraces the whole of man.
In 1975, the United Nations was presented with an in-depth study which claimed to be able to solve the five major world problems of poverty, illiteracy, famine, medical aid and population control in a five-year period over which time the amount of money required was only that used by the United States and the USSR on atomic armaments in one year. Although the nations of the world have the resources to meet the world challenge, vested interests prevent such solutions.
However, amongst the Christians of the world, there are resources sufficient to serve the world in bread of both kinds, namely living and daily. All we require is the commitment and the structures to effect such fulfilment of our Lord's commands. To complete the task and thereby see the Kingdom come requires a radical lifestyle, briefly sketched in the practice, prayer and preaching outlined above. |
Roger Forster, 01/11/2006 |
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