Life on Life at City Church: Deep and Wholehearted

There was a popular book a few years back called Every Man’s Battle, about pornography, its widespread use and debilitating effects. And the statistics are eye-popping, but I’d like to suggest that there is another, more pervasive, more pernicious struggle that is every human’s battle. And this battle is robbing us of the grace and peace that could be ours. 

Today we turn to what has been called “the highest privilege of the Christian life.” If you want to know what it really means to become a Christian, here’s how J.I. Packer answers that question in his classic book, Knowing God:

 “What is a Christian? The question can be answered in many ways, but the richest answer I know is that a Christian is one who has God as Father…If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God’s child, and having God as his Father…For everything that Christ taught…is summed up in the knowledge of the Fatherhood of God. ‘Father’ is the Christian name for God...To be right with God the Judge is a great thing, but to be loved and cared for by God the Father is greater.” 

These big Bible-sounding words "justification" and "righteousness" are not archaic, religious concepts, but they speak to the enduring human need to justify our existence and prove that we have the record to stand approved and accepted. Justification by faith alone in Christ alone means you no longer have to self-justify. In fact, it means if we try and add to the gospel by our own works, then we lose the gospel altogether! We have no hope of justifying ourselves by what we do (or fail to do). Christ is our only hope, our only defense. You simply cannot enjoy God or rest in His presence unless and until you have grasped what justification by faith means. 

Though not often recognized as such, union with Christ is the heart of the gospel. Nothing is more central or more basic than Union with Christ. It is the central truth of the whole doctrine of salvation. To be saved means to be united to the Savior and unless we are united to Him all that He has done for us remains useless and of no value to us. 

Jesus never used the word Christian. He simply said, “Follow Me.” That was the first thing he said to Peter, when he called him, “Follow me.” Matthew 4, verse 19. Jesus preferred method to describe those who followed him was “disciple.” In Luke 14 v 27, Jesus says, “Whoever does not bear his own cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” In the NT, followers of Jesus are called Christians 3x, believers 15x But disciples? 235x. Jesus’ call was not to invite him into your heart OR say the sinners’ prayer. Jesus’ call was and is: Follow Me. But what did Jesus mean when he said, “Follow me?” Jesus' last words to his disciples were "Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded." How did Jesus' so-called Great Commission become our Great Omission and what it might it look for the church to rediscover the Jesus' way today?

Life with Jesus begins and always goes back to one foundational posture: humility. Humility is reality. It is a right estimation of who we truly are before God. Humility does not consist in hanging our heads or wearing raggedly clothes. It consists in being grounded, grounded in reality, namely, that we are dearly loved beggars, who live in constant need of God's grace and mercy. It is only through utter defeat, one writer says, that we take the first steps toward liberation and strength. It turns out the admission of personal powerlessness is the firm bedrock for a happy and purposeful life. 

Join us as we embark on a journey of exploring together what it means to be a real-life apprentice of Jesus, learning from Him how to live in the Kingdom of God today. In this pilot episode, we look at Jesus's most famous story, the so called "Parable of the Prodigal Son." But we see that it is really a story about two sons, two different ways of being "lost" what it means to be "found" and what it looks like to live as a forgiven, beloved child of the welcoming Father. All discipleship, a life of following Jesus, begins and always goes back to experiencing and living out of the Father's inexhaustible love. This is from a sermon preached at City Church Evansville on June 13, 2021

Leader training on September 26, 2021.