Hi.

I had the great pleasure of speaking at Pulpit Rock Church this past weekend. (It should be noted that when I left California, one of the hardest things to come to terms with was that I would not be speaking regularly. I figured it would be six or nine months, at the earliest, and probably more like a year before I would be speaking again. I am very thankful to God and to the PRC leadership (specifically, Jonathan and the 605 crew) for the opportunity to speak so soon.) This is what I said…

The sermon is part of a series discussing the mission statement of Pulpit Rock Church, and how that mission statement will afford us a balanced Christian life. The mission statement is comprised of four parts: passionately pursuing God, extending the hand and heart of Christ, building a community (family) and leaving a legacy of faith behind us. Jonathan set it up the week before by using the analogy of a four-legged stool. The concept is this: a stool with less than four legs will stand, but it will take effort on our part for that to happen. By surrendering to each of these four areas, we see balance in our life resulting in – the seat of the stool – intimacy with Christ.

I spoke specifically on the passionate pursuit of God. Since we have moved to Colorado, our lives have been remarkably slower – and I’m not just talking about on the freeway. Mandy and I have often been asked what we do here in Colorado and my answer is, “We sit on the couch a lot.” You see, our lives in CA were very fast-paced. But we are enjoying the rest here. Our ministry involvement is obviously less. I have put my work towards a Master’s degree on hold for a while. I have been working almost exclusively from home. We have definitely slowed down.

During this time of slowness and rest, I have designed and implemented a fairly elaborate Bible reading plan. I set it up where I would read seven chapters of the Bible every day. These chapters were from all over the Bible and were strategically chosen. I kept this plan to myself, being careful not to brag about how intense (sometimes it took me more than half an hour!!) my Bible reading was. I did enjoy telling people, “I was reading in Luke today…” and then the next day, “So, there I was in 2 Chronicles…” I did try to keep it to myself, though.

Then something started happening – and I know this happens to you. I would miss a couple chapters of my plan on a given day. I would only read five chapters or maybe four. Or maybe a day would go by where I did not read any. I would feel guilt. I would feel bad. I would think to myself, “Today is going to be a bad day, because I didn’t read my seven chapters.” Have you been there?

Perhaps even worse than those days, were the days when I did read all seven chapters, but I found my mind wandering during the reading. Or I found myself thinking ahead, “How many more chapters do I have? I need to hurry this up.”

Most of us live this way – we have a baseline for where we should be in our relationship with God, and when we do not meet that baseline, we beat ourselves up. This was lost on me until my recent trip to Boston. My slow-paced lifestyle completely reversed when I was in Boston. Things sped up so fast, I could hardly keep up. I would wake up at 7:30AM, get into a cab and try to read the Bible on my handheld PC. After a chapter or two, I would get sick. Suddenly I was at my destination with only a chapter or two read. Next thing I know, it is 1:30AM and time to sleep. The next day would be similar. I was shuttled between conferences, meetings, parties, and dinners with no time to spare.

So here is a question: Was I less passionate in my pursuit of God while I was in Boston? Or could what I did in Boston (what I call “my Bostonian event”) even be called pursuing God?

I thought of my beautiful wife, Mandy. We are blessed to have her as a stay-at-home mom (every mother is a working mother) and her life is full. She wakes up with the kids, works hard all day long, and then she crashes at night. There I am standing over her asking her if she spent time with God today. When she says, “No,” I simply shake my head in disapproval. What about those of you who have two jobs? Or those who go to school and work full-time? What about each and every one of us? Are we not all busy? There must be a better way to pursue God without worrying about this daily baseline.

Here is the question for the message: How do we consistently pursue God when our lives do not allow for consistency?

I think the apostle John has some answers for us. My text is 1 John 3:23-24 – And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. Whoever keeps his commandments abides in him, and he in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us.

In this passage, we see that abiding in Christ is both the method to pursuing God and also the synonym for the end result of pursuing God. I think most of us read the concept of abiding in Christ and we can conceptually get our minds around it – but when it comes down to it, we can easily be confused by it. Jesus, in John 15:4, says, “Abide in me and I in you…” The word “abide” means to dwell within and I have heard the word encircled used. I prefer the word ensphered, as it has a more complete 3-D feel to it. So how do we get ensphered within Christ while He is ensphered within us? Some of you are familiar with my analogy of air to explain this. We need to have air (oxygen) within our lungs for us to live. For us to have air in our lungs, we need to be surrounded by air. So, when we are surrounded by air, we can then surround the air – resulting in life. The problem is that many of us look at this command and we reverse it. We try to accomplish the “I in you” part. We think, “How can I get Jesus to be within me?” Not in the sense of salvation, but in the living life sense. “How can I act like Jesus? How can I be like Jesus? How can I think like Jesus?” The verse makes it clear, though – our role is to abide in Christ, the natural follow-on to that is that He will abide in us. Picture yourself underwater – where you cannot breathe. You swim to the surface and the moment your face breaks the plane of the water, your face is then surrounded by air. At that moment, when you breathe, the air is instantly moved into your lungs. You do not need to tell yourself to bring the air in – it is a natural process. Similarly, when we enter into the sphere of Christ, He naturally abides in us.

So, what is abiding in Christ? I see two mountainous misconceptions about this concept.

Picture yourself standing between two large mountains. On one side, there is the Mountain of Discipline. This mountain is very tall, so tall, in fact, you cannot see the peak. Our misconception is that if we can get to the top of this mountain we will then be abiding in Christ. The only way up is to climb this mountain. So we try to climb by using the traditional disciplines (Bible reading (daily reading, studying, memorizing, meditating), prayer, tithing, fasting). But we have Bostonian events where we mess up. We fail to meet our quota. And we start slipping down the mountain. We tell ourselves that we will read more tomorrow to make up for it. We simply force ourselves to be more disciplined.

There are two main problems with the Mountain of Discipline – first, there is no peak to the mountain. At the Agua Viva camp in Mexico, there is a hill facing the camp with a cross on the top. Every time we go there, it is tradition to climb that mountain. The interesting thing about climbing this mount is that while climbing, you see the top, yet when you get there, there is more to climb. This keeps happening until you finally get to the cross at the top. From the ground, the cross appears to be the top of the hill, but once at the cross, you realize that there is still more mountain to climb. That is how the Mountain of Discipline is – there is no end to the climbing.

The second problem is addressed in 1 John 3:23. John tells us that to abide in Christ we must obey the commandment (v. 24) and the commandment is to believe in Jesus and love one another. You see – disciplines alone are not enough. We must be involved in the lives of others. So the desert fathers who in the second and third centuries spent their entire lives alone in the desert, reading the Bible, praying, and writing – ignoring other humans all together – we would say that is not a complete balanced lifestyle. Abiding in Christ has as a requirement the love for other people.

On the other side is the Mountain of Idleness. Our misconception is that if we can get to the top of this mountain, we will then be abiding in Christ. Instead of climbing, though, this mountain has a posh chair lift to the top. You can sit, or lie down, on the chair and relax. The chair lift will go up if we are willing to let go of everything. This is the theology that we have been hearing in church for the past few years. While the Mountain of Discipline has been the traditional path for centuries, the last few years have seen this mentality of letting go and letting God, as the bumper sticker says. We hear people tell us that “we can do nothing” without Jesus. So we are tempted to lie down and do nothing. We have two problems with this mountain, as well. First, there is no way to completely let go of everything – meaning we will never get to the top. Unfortunately, as we are relaxing on the chair, we realize that we are still holding on to pieces of our life. We realize the chair has stopped moving because we did not completely let go.

The second problem is our interpretation. Another analogy may be useful here. When we invite Jesus into our life – and I have a problem with that phrase – I believe Jesus is the one inviting us to accept Him. He did not give us a gift on the day we accept Him, He gave us the gift two thousand years ago when He died. He wants us to appropriate that gift. But if, as we say, we invite Him into our life, many of us are then tempted to say, “Jesus, welcome to my life. There are dishes in the sink, the laundry over there, and sorry, but the bathrooms are really dirty. Clean up my life.” And we sit on the couch. The image I have is of an English palace garden – very green and colorful. And we are in the middle and we stand up on a pedestal and say, “Jesus, take care of the watering, the weeds, the bugs – make it all beautiful.” We start to tense up, we are becoming very stiff and suddenly we are a statue in the middle of the garden. I do not believe Jesus wants us to be statues in this life. He did say, in John 15:5, “Apart from me you can do nothing.” Read that verse again – Jesus is not telling us to do nothing. He is saying that without Him we can do nothing. But we are to do something. With Him!

How do we consistently pursue God when our lives do not allow for consistency?

We bounce between these two mountains. We try to climb but when we are slipping, we rest on the other mountain. Then we realize we are not moving, so we try to climb the other mountain again. All the while, we are bouncing between the beautiful valley that sits between the mountains. This valley is the key to abiding in Christ. Please note that I am not saying we should avoid trusting God or we should avoid disciplines. The point is that there is a balance. We must trust God and be intentional about spending time with Him. I believe this valley is that balance.

Before that though, let me ask you something – Are you a strong Christian? You may have been a believer for years or months or days. But we all feel strong, don’t we? We all feel like we know what is going on. And we feel that if we could only know more, if we could only do more – we would then be good. We associate abiding in Christ as the top of a mountain. Only the strong can get there. Strength is the key to abiding in Christ – do we not think that? But we are mistaken. The valley is the key.

I call it the Valley of Humility. Humility is required for us to abide in Christ. Andrew Murray, in his book Abide in Christ, says, “Abiding in Christ is only for the weak. Abiding in Christ is weakness entrusting itself to a Mighty One to be kept.”

Jesus invited you to come to Him and you accepted. That was a time of humility and weakness. Similarly, now (and continually) He is inviting you to be kept by Him. He is inviting you to enter into the sphere and abide in Him. It is an example of your weakness when you come to Him.

We can now have an understanding of what abiding in Christ is, but how do we apply that? Let me use a story to illustrate. I have a seven-year-old daughter, named Lizzy. She is beautiful, intelligent, and the apple of my eye (I’m not sure what that means, but I think it is appropriate). I have a close relationship with her and that is basically due to the amount of effort she and I each have put into our relationship over the years. The other day, Lizzy was bathed and pajama-ed up and ready for bed. She grabbed my hand and said, “Dad, we need to talk.” She pulled me out of her bedroom and in the hallway, she looked down the stairs. She was searching for the right place to talk to me. She decided against the stairs and took me to my bedroom. She climbed up on the bed and patted the comforter next to her while saying, “Sit down, daddy.” I did and asked, “What’s up, honey?” She replied, “Dad, I need to talk to you.” Her face was very serious. She continued, “I have these Barbie bath salts and there are three colors. They are the three primary colors. There is yellow, and blue, and red – well, actually orange, but it should be yellow and actually purple, but it should be red.” I smiled deeply as I listened to her explain her bath salts. When she was done, I asked her, “Do you think God would want to hear about that?” She replied with a sheepish, “No.” I almost tearfully told her that He would. It gives me great joy to interact with Lizzy in that way.

I have a five-year-old son, named Jake. He is handsome, witty, and a blast to be around. I have a close relationship with him, as well. Thankfully, Jake and I do not talk about bath salts. Jake and I play video games together. Sometimes we go to Lowe’s and have hot dogs together. Clearly the way I interact with Jake is going to be different than the way I interact with Lizzy.

God wants a relationship with each one of us. Why would we assume that those individual relationships will look the same? Why would the way I interact with God be the same way you interact with Him?

Our question: How do we consistently pursue God when our lives do not allow for consistency?

The answer you want to hear: three points, hopefully short, that you can take and do sometime today or tomorrow. You want (as all of us good 21^st century American Christians want) the shortest most concise way to enter into this pursuit of God. We want a checklist. Unfortunately, or should I say, fortunately, the answer is not that simple. It will take more than fifteen minutes, it will take a lifetime. Our relationship with God will not be reading the Bible for four minutes most days, praying before most meals and going to church most weekends. What is the answer for you?

The answer: It will look differently to each one of us. Your relationship with God will be something that you and He design together.

There are people who like to read and their relationship may be more weighted towards time in the Word. There are others who like to talk and their relationship may be more weighted towards prayer – talking with God. There are others who enjoy being with people and their relationship may be more weighted to the expression of loving others.

The bottom line is this – we all need to develop our own relationship with God. This relationship need not be determined by the rules or quotas of those around us. This relationship needs to be balanced. This relationship needs to have ways for change. Whether we are in Boston or in our bedroom, the time will come when we cannot or do not read the Bible – we need assurance that our relationship with God is much more than that. We should know that we must have alternatives. I should be able to spend more time in prayer when I am in Boston and understand that my relationship with God is still there – that I am still pursuing Him. I do not simply want to “catch up” on my Bible reading – I want to have a relationship with God.

It is my conviction that if we can develop a relationship with God and make it our own, that we will be much more inclined to be consistent. Ownership breeds responsibility. So figure it out. This would be a great topic for a small group or life group. How do we passionately pursue God? Learn from others and teach others.

How do we consistently pursue God when our lives do not allow for consistency? You must answer that question for yourself. Please do.

I am thankful to God for the relationship I have with each of you. I am very interested in what you think about this – please post comments on the site – let me know.

-z

Tags: Boston, pulpit rock, pursuit of God

This entry was posted by zac on Thursday, May 11th, 2006 at 8:28 am and is filed under Weekly Jib Jab. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.