Surrendering
Eternal Christmas
Wildwind Community Church
David Flowers
December 26, 2010
G.K. Chesterton said, “When a person finds something which he prefers to life itself, he for the first time has begun to live.” We all need something above ourselves to live for. When people cannot find anything above themselves to live for, they will frequently fall into depression, self-loathing, and even suicide. It is just a fact of life that we don’t live – don’t last – very long.
Obviously we care deeply about our lives on the earth. We work hard. We worry a lot. We put a lot of effort into parties – things like Christmas, for example – and we find ourselves mourning pretty deeply at funerals, don’t we? If we can’t find something beyond ourselves to live for, then we are left to conclude that life doesn’t really matter. And if nothing really matters, what’s the point? Why try hard to get good grades? Why treat other people as you want to be treated? Why get an education and try to improve your life? Why get out of bed at all? After all, in just a few short years, your life will be over. And sure, if you don’t apply yourself in life, you might hurt other people, but time will take care of them too. Eventually their hurts won’t matter anymore either, and so on and so on.
People can’t live this way. Even most of the atheists I know find something higher than themselves to live for. I know one who is perhaps the most principled and moral person I have ever met. He clearly lives for something beyond himself. He places his own moral code above whatever his immediate whims and desires might be, and lives in service to this code because it is what will ultimately be in the best interests of both himself and society. Many find something beyond themselves in science or in “the universe.” Turns out Bob Dylan was right – “You’re gonna have to serve somebody.”
But the question of who, or what, you are going to serve isn’t the most basic question. It sounds very basic, I know – like nothing could be more basic than that. But an even more basic question is are we alone in this universe. Does each of us exist as a completely separate individual, cut off from everybody else, floating aimless in a random mass of stars and planets and infinite choices? Or is there something that connects us – to the universe, to each other, to a higher being who holds it all together? That is the most basic question, and the way we answer that question will impact everything.
“When a person finds something which he prefers to life itself, he for the first time has begun to live.”
I have already taught that Jesus came proclaiming the Kingdom of God – the news that God’s kingdom was and is available to us right now, while we live in this broken, wounded world. This is a message of connection. This says, “You are not alone. There is something more to your life than what you see around you. You are not just something and someone – you are PART of something and someone. A something and a someone that are much, much, much, much, much bigger than yourself. You are not the whole puzzle – you are simply a small piece. But every piece matters because of the whole it is a part of. The whole cannot be whole without all the pieces! The Apostle Paul is writing a letter to the Roman church telling them that each of them how special they are, and then puts it into context with this:
1 Corinthians 12:19 (MSG)
19 ... no matter how significant you are, it is only because of what you are a part of.
In preaching about the kingdom of God a few weeks back, I was mentioning how each of us is the ruler over our own kingdom. We each have a certain number of things (and perhaps a few people) over which we have ultimate authority and responsibility, and the message of the Kingdom of God is that God wants to take our billions of tiny kingdoms up into his one huge, overarching kingdom. In God’s kingdom, each individual kingdom finds its perfect fit, without warring against the others, without hurting anyone else or disadvantaging anyone else.
That is why the angel said:
Luke 2:10 (NIV)
10...I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.
In the kingdom of God, everything belongs. Nothing is wasted. All kingdoms find their perfect fit there. All individuals find perfect peace and happiness there. All needs are perfectly met in this kingdom.
Since in the kingdom of God, everything belongs – everything finds its perfect fit – then you also belong! You also have a place to stand – a place to be – a place where your peace and happiness and security are not, and cannot ever be, threatened or diminished.
Isaiah 26:3 (NIV)
3 You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you.
This is life in the kingdom of God. Perfect peace and steadfastness, because trust is not in ourselves to secure what we need for our own individual kingdoms, but our trust is in King Jesus.
Psalm 16:8 (KJV)
8 I have set the LORD always before me: because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.
This is life in the kingdom of God.
Life in the kingdom of God is about saying “Thy kingdom come, my kingdom go.” If Jesus is Lord, then I am not. If Jesus is Lord, then my church is not. If Jesus is Lord, then my work is not. If Jesus is Lord, then whatever I most fear is not. If Jesus is Lord, then the economy and the stock market are not! If Jesus is Lord, then my house, my family, my possessions, and my job are not! This is where freedom is found! Notice that these are all the things we worry about! These are all things we carry anxiety over. But my kingdom go means God takes his proper place and we learn to live not with ourselves, but with Christ as king over all, and this will of course include all the things we most worry about. And of course we worry about them because at this point they are still part of our own individual kingdoms and we are still very much in charge of them. And we carry all the anxiety and fear that comes with protecting what we believe is our responsibility, don’t we?
G.K. Chesterton was right. We don’t know what life is about until we find something to live for that goes beyond life. In the movie Braveheart, William Wallace said it this way, “Every man dies – not every man truly lives.” Of course he is saying that people who are not willing to die for something are not living for anything either. Life itself is not worth living for. We must live, and die, for something beyond them both! When we find something that goes beyond life, something that gives us something worth both living and dying for, that is when life – for the first time – can come to mean something.
Jesus came so that our lives can mean something. Jesus came to say, “You are not just living to live. You are not just living to die. You are a divinely created being with an eternal destiny in God’s great universe,” and I know that because I myself am the divine one who created you, who breathed into you the breath of life, and who created this universe in which you have an eternal destiny.” Our invitation is to take up that life. To shuffle off the petty remnants of our own kingdoms and concerns and come to live in the one eternal kingdom.
We celebrate Christmas where God came into history, into this world, took on a body, and proclaimed that it’s good to be human. It’s good to work. It’s good to live in families. It’s good to breathe the air, to walk on the dirt, to sleep in our beds, to have bodies and use them as they were meant to be used. Jesus, in taking on a body, proclaimed God’s blessing on ordinary, everyday, bodily, human life. He shared that with us. That is why Jesus is the only one we can surrender to without losing ourselves. When we surrender our lives to Christ, when we step into his kingdom, we are set free to be ourselves, because we were not created to scurry around worrying about the things we worry about all the time. We were created to live in joy and freedom and spontaneity.
But just like with every relationship, we can never be sure it will work out in advance. It requires trust. Jesus said:
Matthew 10:39 (NIV)
39 Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
Frankly you’re gonna have to take his word on that for a while and give it a shot. What Jesus is saying is that in losing yourself, you will find yourself. That’s what always happens. When you are serving your spouse with joy (getting lost in them), they are happy and peaceful, and inclined to serve you back, which makes you happy and peaceful. That is where YOU find life. It cannot, and never does, work the other way around. If you enter a relationship with the intention of fending for yourself, having the other person meet all your needs and you not meeting any of theirs, not committing, and not serving the other person in love, that relationship is doomed to failure and will be unhappy both for you and for the other person.
And so your call, and my call, is to enter into this relationship with God where we, like Jesus, refuse to put ourselves first. God has already modeled this for us in Jesus. Christmas is where we fully realize that God is not calling us to do anything that he has not already done himself!
Philippians 2:6-11 (MSG)
6 He had equal status with God but didn't think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what.
7 Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human!
8 Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn't claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that: a crucifixion.
9 Because of that obedience, God lifted him high and honored him far beyond anyone or anything, ever,
10 so that all created beings in heaven and on earth—even those long ago dead and buried—will bow in worship before this Jesus Christ,
11 and call out in praise that he is the Master of all, to the glorious honor of God the Father.
God has already poured himself out, taken his place as a servant, below you and below me, allowed us to have our terrible way with him. The call of God to lay your life down for him is not some hoyty-toyty thing about God’s demanding arrogance – it is simply the call to live in relationship. In a marriage, both bride and groom make their vows. Both exchange rings. Both step into commitment. God has already done this in Christ, modeled it for us, and simply asks us to do the same so that relationship can occur, and so that we can share in the joy of the kingdom of God!
