Being a Christian Without Following Jesus
The Company We Keep, prt. 10
Wildwind Community Church
David Flowers
July 18, 2009
We’ve talked a lot about spiritual formation the last few weeks – how it is that you and I can begin to be formed into the image of Jesus, so that fear, anger, jealousy, pride, and a whole host of other negative emotions simply begin to subside. Tonight I want to address those of you who might be thinking, “Do I have to do this stuff in order to be a Christian?” I want to answer that question with another question. Can we be a Christian without being a disciple (student) of Jesus? Can we claim that the God of light is in our lives when we continue stumbling around year after year in the same old darkness?
Now let’s make sure we are perfectly clear here. I am not saying that unless you practice spiritual disciplines you are going to hell. We never make statements about who is and is not going to hell. That’s not up to us, thank God, or I’m sure quite a few people would have sentenced me to hell by now. Perhaps by the end of this sermon, some of you will have done exactly that.
Can you be a Christian without employing spiritual disciplines in your life? The answer is yes, you can be a Christian without employing spiritual disciplines. Christianity is just a religion and you can be any religion you want to be. What you cannot and will not do without spiritual disciplines is know God. This is truth that is rooted deeply in what the Christian gospel actually IS. The Christian gospel is not the news that you can avoid hell after you die. Go read the gospels this week – look at the actual teachings of Jesus. You will not see him preaching a gospel where you say some prayer of repentance and confession, invite Jesus to forgive your sins, and then start going to church. It’s simply not in there. This is a creation of the Christian religious community. The truth is that Jesus wantonly forgave sins. He’d heal somebody and then as they were walking off he’d go, “Your sins are forgiven.” I mean, to a person who didn’t even ASK!! He’d say to people who came to him for physical healing, “Your sins are forgiven.” Jesus lavished forgiveness on people. He certainly did not wait for them to learn the right code for asking, or to assume a certain position, or even to say they were sorry. He just forgave them and told them to stop sinning. In the story of the prodigal son, intended to convey God the Father’s love for each of us, the father didn’t even listen to the son’s apology speech when he returned home. Sure, the son had prepared one, but the Father didn’t listen and didn’t even seem to care.
Can we take our religious blinders off long enough to grasp the infinite and unconditional love of the Father for each of us? Can we try to get our arms around the price Jesus paid for our freedom? Man, we are stuck in the whole thing about people needing to say a sinner’s prayer and ask forgiveness and come to an altar and cry. (Of course if people do that we can count it on our weekly reports.) But do we think that God just cannot save us until we figure out and say the spiritual open sesame, using the terminology of the Christian religion, and preferably coming from the background of the correct denomination? Until that time, do we think God’s sitting up there going, “Man, Jesus wants to save you – now say the magic words. Just say it already. SAY IT! You’re tying my hands here!” What if we changed our understanding from that view (never promoted by Jesus), to the idea that God is determined to save every last one of us. Jesus is saving you over his dead body and he is going to go wherever he has to go and do whatever he has to do to make sure that, one way or another, you end up safely with him.
Some of us find that threatening, don’t we? I mean, what if we get to heaven and Gandhi is there? Can you imagine with me how Gandhi might feel, having to answer the question, coming at him from a billion Christians, “What are YOU doing here?” To which Jesus might well answer, “I said the most important commandment is Love God, and Love Others. Gandhi actually did that as best he knew how. Did you? By the way, the judgment is tomorrow. I’m going to ask you the same question you asked Gandhi – what are you doing here? What will YOUR answer be?” I think on that day, perhaps we’re going to need more than, “I said a prayer at an altar during camp meeting thirty years ago,” or “I went to church every week.”
Am I freaking anybody out yet? Relax! I haven’t violated anything doctrinally critical, because the Christian gospel is not the news that you can avoid hell after you die. The Christian gospel is that the Kingdom of God is available to you NOW. That starting today you can learn to live from the eternal and unquenchable resources of God and not from your own limited resources. The Christian gospel says that eternal life after you die is assured not because you prayed some prayer or went forward at some altar call, or went to church, or called yourself a “Christian,” but because you placed your life into the hands of God and allowed him to teach you Kingdom living while you still lived in THIS world. That’s the whole point! We have gotten the cart before the horse. Here we’ve been telling people to accept Jesus so that they can go to heaven after they die, but the point was to learn to live with Jesus so that we can enter the kingdom now, while we still live. Then of course we’ll still be in the kingdom after we die, because it’s an eternal kingdom!
Now some would say, “What about this verse?”
John 14:6 (NIV)
6 Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
I realize Christian churches for years have had one primary way of interpreting this verse. The main way this verse is interpreted is that since Jesus says he’s the only way, that means that all who die having not made a personal profession of faith in the historical person of Jesus Christ will be lost. Of course that would mean everyone who ever lived before Jesus came to earth, as well as those vast parts of the world that do not practice Christianity today. We know this simply cannot, and will not, be true. So in admitting this will not be true, we are admitting that people will be in heaven who did not know or confess Jesus as Lord, that there is a way that can be made for them. Once you admit that, you have to ask yourself how this can be possible, and the only answer to that question is by the loving mercy and grace of God. And then you think, “Duh – that’s the only way ANYONE is getting into heaven!”
In other words, people will be saved because Jesus Christ – God in human flesh – the Logos – the eternal Word – did the saving. But this doesn’t necessarily mean everyone will fully realize it at the time. If you’re drowning and someone throws you a life preserver and pulls you out, are you only saved if you recognized the face of the one saving you before you grabbed the preserver? Of course not. You may walk away without learning that person’s name. You may in fact never see her again. But she saved you just the same. You owe your life to her and she is “your Savior.” No one comes to the Father except through Jesus – the creator, the eternal Word, the one dwelling eternally with the Father and the Holy Spirit, the one who stretched out his arms and died to secure the very life and salvation he now promises! All religions do NOT lead to God. Some lead to nowhere and that is their goal, like Buddhism. Some just keep leading back here, like Hindu reincarnation)! But there is no road Jesus the eternal Word won’t take to seek and save his people.
Luke 19:10 (AMP)
10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost.
Just in case you’re freaked out, although this perspective is not often taught in churches (maybe pastors are afraid of how their people will respond), it is actually pretty standard holiness evangelical theology, which states that all religions contain some measure of truth, but Christianity is the best and most perfect revelation of God’s truth because our founder was God himself. Think of it this way. I’m not going to give up eating breakfast just because there are atheists and Buddhists who eat breakfast. Breakfast is a good idea! Most religions contain pieces of good ideas in them and we must be honest and acknowledge what good is there. God is truth and is present wherever truth is found. But Jesus the eternal Word, the Logos, is the God Christians worship. At least he’s supposed to be, but so many of us are content to make Christianity just another religion of rules and regulations, instead of a life of dynamic relationship with a God who lives and longs to give us peace and rest! And through Jesus, God has made life in his kingdom available to you right now!
And so I say people will not necessarily be condemned to hell because they did not have or believe the correct information. They will not be condemned to hell because they investigated the religious possibilities and chose the wrong religion – “Sorry, you have chosen poorly.” People will not be condemned to hell because they lacked the precisely correct belief about some doctrinal issue like baptism by immersion or the Virgin Birth or because they believed in evolution instead of a literal six day creation. None of that stuff will get people into hell because it’s all details – all questions of fact – did this or that happen. What will get people into hell is a lifetime of running from the love of God and actively resisting him.
My friends, think of your own children. If your kids end up making bad choices and screwing up their lives, will it be because you told them to choose A and they chose B so too bad for them? Will you leave them to destroy themselves because they made a bad choice, or a series of bad choices, even if they were intentional? Or, if your kids end up destroying themselves, will it be because they actively resisted your love and your patient attempts to support them and be there for them and help them? See the fact is you’re not prepared to LET them mess up their lives and if they’re going to do that, they’ll have to do it in spite of gigantic efforts you will make to save them and spare them. That’s what love does. Could the love of God for us be any less than the love we have for our own children? Of course not!
Matthew 7:9-11 (MSG)
9 If your child asks for bread, do you trick him with sawdust?
10 If he asks for fish, do you scare him with a live snake on his plate?
11 As bad as you are, you wouldn't think of such a thing. You're at least decent to your own children. So don't you think the God who conceived you in love will be even better?
What gets us into heaven is not information– having all the correct beliefs and opinions, knowing this or that doctrine more accurately than someone else. And CERTAINLY not being a member of some special religion that automatically assures that you will “get in.” Here’s what Jesus had to say to the religious leaders of his time who presumed that they had special favor with God because they were Jews:
John 8:37-47 (MSG)
37 I know you are Abraham's descendants. But I also know that you are trying to kill me because my message hasn't yet penetrated your thick skulls.
38 I'm talking about things I have seen while keeping company with the Father, and you just go on doing what you have heard from your father."
39 They were indignant. "Our father is Abraham!" Jesus said, "If you were Abraham's children, you would have been doing the things Abraham did.
40 And yet here you are trying to kill me, a man who has spoken to you the truth he got straight from God! Abraham never did that sort of thing.
41 You persist in repeating the works of your father." They said, "We're not bastards. We have a legitimate father: the one and only God."
42 "If God was your father," said Jesus, "you would love me, for I came from God and arrived here. I didn't come on my own. He sent me.
43 Why can't you understand one word I say? Here's why: You can't handle it.
44 You're from your father, the Devil, and all you want to do is please him. He was a killer from the very start. He couldn't stand the truth because there wasn't a shred of truth in him. When the Liar speaks, he makes it up out of his lying nature and fills the world with lies.
45 I arrive on the scene, tell you the plain truth, and you refuse to have a thing to do with me.
46 Can any one of you convict me of a single misleading word, a single sinful act? But if I'm telling the truth, why don't you believe me?
47 Anyone on God's side listens to God's words. This is why you're not listening—because you're not on God's side."
Obviously being part of this special religion or that special religion has no value to Jesus. I want to really draw your attention to verse 39.
John 8:39 (MSG)
39 They were indignant. "Our father is Abraham!" Jesus said, "If you were Abraham's children, you would have been doing the things Abraham did.
So the children of Abraham would do what Abraham did. Then is it logical to say that if we are children of God, we do what God does? And if we claim to be children of God, and do not do what God does, then… we are deceiving ourselves?
1 John 2:3-6 (GW)
3 We are sure that we know Christ if we obey his commandments.
4 The person who says, “I know him,” but doesn't obey his commandments is a liar. The truth isn't in that person.
5 But whoever obeys what Christ says is the kind of person in whom God's love is perfected. That's how we know we are in Christ.
6 Those who say that they live in him must live the same way he lived.
So if we say we are living in him but are not living the way he did, the truth simply is not in us. This is so clear that preaching on it any longer almost makes it seem like it needs to be explained, and it doesn’t, so I’m going to leave it there.
This has been some deep stuff. What am I trying to communicate here? What I’m trying to do is get you to think about the question, “Can I get into heaven without doing this spiritual disciplines thing?” Again, you can join any religion you want to join and God will ultimately decide who gets to heaven. But the spiritual disciplines are ways of living that actually enable us to receive the grace we need in order to live like Jesus lived. Without them we will never be able to live that life. They allow us to enter the kingdom. And whoever says they know God but does not learn to live in God’s kingdom is simply out of touch with reality, because knowing God is a knowing that comes only from obedience and experience. So I will say this conclusively. Without entering into a lifestyle of spiritual habits and practices that allow you to receive God’s grace and transform you into a person who is able to do what Jesus said, you simply will not know God. This is not a particularly good place to be.
Matthew 7:21 (MSG)
21 "Knowing the correct password—saying 'Master, Master,' for instance—isn't going to get you anywhere with me. What is required is serious obedience—doing what my Father wills.
But on the matter of whether or not you can get to heaven, I would still say who knows? That’s up to God. Clearly God is going to admit some into heaven who had not heard of him, or who were sincerely seeking but mistaken (as some of us may be at this very moment about some things). But that’s not what I’d call the gospel. That’s a loophole! That’s God in his mercy granting eternal life in heaven to people who never entered into the kingdom while on earth. God will certainly do that, but we cannot say in which cases. But any of us who have ever had a non-Christian loved one go ahead of us into eternity need to know that with good reason we can hope in God’s mercy! But we evangelize because we do not want to leave people in the world without Jesus, who can usher them into the eternal kingdom even now while they still live. We evangelize because individuals, and the world, need the transformation Jesus brings. It is safe to say that when the world is finally a perfect place, the life we will then be practicing is the same kind of life that is available to us right now – a life of letting go of fear and jealousy and pettiness and lust and giving up addictions and losing our craving and clamoring for validation and approval. The world will never be made right until we allow God to transform those broken places in us – and the good news of the gospel is that this is not pie in the sky, for some future date in some ethereal location, but it’s for right now! We can live Kingdom life now. We can experience life with God now.
So again. Can a person who claims to be a Christian hope to get into heaven without practicing spiritual disciplines? Like I’ve said, everyone has hope of heaven. God will judge everyone fairly and perfectly. But I don’t know why someone who is so close – who has been introduced to Jesus and knows of the life he is making available – would live in such a way that their chances of spending eternity with God are basically the same as someone who didn’t believe at all. See, the gospel is that you can enter the Kingdom now. If you fail to do that, it simply doesn’t matter what you call yourself in this life. For we are sure to find that Jesus is no more partial to the religion that bears his name than he was to Judaism. We do not want to be guilty of the same blindness that afflicted the Pharisees of Jesus’ time.
I have entitled today’s message, “Being a Christian Without Following Jesus.” I want to tell you that you can be a great “Christian” without following Jesus. You can be the best of the best. But if you depend on Christianity (or any other religion) to save you, not an active, dynamic relationship with the Lord of Life, then one day you’ll stand before God in exactly the same stead as someone who depended on any other religion to save them. You will be at the mercy of God’s grace (which of course is no small hope!). What are spiritual disciplines? Ways we can receive God’s grace – now. In this life.
Religion won’t do it -- not religion of any kind. But Relationship will. Relationship grows as we experience God. And we experience God through the means of grace – the ways that he pours his grace into our lives. And you know what that means. I invite you not to begrudge yourself of this opportunity. Jesus has offered you the single greatest opportunity you will ever know in this lifetime. You get to exchange your heavy burden for a light burden, lay down your stinky, heavy backpack and walk off a free man or woman. It doesn’t get any better than that.
My hope in closing this series with this message was that anyone who was still on the fence about this whole thing might decide to get on board and venture on Jesus and the kingdom of God and allow God to show you how to live freely and lightly. But I can only show you the way and invite you to take it. I can also apologize to those of you who were never told about this. You have, unwittingly, been sold Christianity as simply another religion and not as a way of living that WILL result in increasing love and peace in your life.
Starting next week I’m moving into a series that will begin giving you the tools to receive God’s grace and enter the kingdom. I’ll be dealing with specific things that often dog us and keep us stuck in the same old ruts year after year. It’s time to get up and do something – to get into training and get ourselves into shape so that we’re ready to do God’s will in the everyday circumstances of life.
