Come to Order, Pt. 4
Study Guide, February 16, 2025
Pastor Clay Olsen
So, doesn’t it seem that many things that come with instructions just really aren’t all that necessary? But then, when it comes to daily life itself, especially in knowing who we are, why we are here, what we were created for, and so on, oh yeah, we really do need instructions for all of that.
As we began this short series, we stated that life is about order. Order is created into the very fabric of the heavens and the earth, and into the very fabric of our lives, both physically and spiritually. And in order for any of us to achieve and experience what our Creator planned for us, as well as to then also experience fulfillment and wellness in life, especially spiritually, it all depends upon our both discovering God’s order and then disciplining our lives according to God’s order for our lives. And a central part of that discovery is to heed God’s instructions for our lives. For life comes with order, and life comes with instructions. This is one of the great reasons God has given us His counsel for our lives, His Word, the Scriptures…God’s Owner’s Manual for our lives.
Over and over, Jesus said to the crowds, “Anyone who has an ear must listen to the Spirit and understand what He is saying.” And to the churches Jesus said, “Anyone who has an ear must listen to the Spirit and understand what He is saying to the churches.” And what we have heard is that the truths about life and living which God has revealed do not come naturally for us. It’s just like we pointed out how Jesus said if anyone wanted to become His follower, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Jesus. A willingness to turn from following your own way in order to follow Jesus’ way for your life is what ‘repentance’ is all about. We also learned that the way to be right with God also doesn’t come naturally to us, for to be right with God means we must have the righteousness of God, for we cannot attain salvation righteousness on our own. And Christ’s righteousness is given to us through our trusting in the atoning work of Christ on the Cross and asking for forgiveness and the righteous merits of Christ to make us right with God, which is what ‘faith’ is all about.
And then Jesus revealed another ‘instruction’ about living as His follower, which is completely unnatural to human reasoning, for in a world that is full of finding themselves, focused on finding themselves, and seeking personal fulfillment of the self-life, Jesus revealed that this kind of reasoning and seeking is the complete opposite of the way a person finds what their soul really wants and really needs. He put it like this, remember… “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.” Matt 16:25 NASU
The fascinating thing about this is that Jesus reveals this turning from self to Him as our Savior is not only the way to become saved, it is also the way to then live as a saved follower of Christ. Until you find Christ as your Lord and Savior you are still lost…separated from a relationship with Christ. And then, once you find your new life in Christ, you need to continue to lose who you were in order to find who you are to be. Or, you have to lose who you were, in and of your old self…apart from Christ, in order to find who you are meant to be in and of your new self in relationship with Christ. How strange that people who have been saved from ‘who and what they were’, in and of themselves, so often still try to then live the Christian life from the mindset of who and what they are ‘in and of themselves’. How foolish? How natural it seems to try it…how humanistic in thinking that is, but still, how foolish? That is the same pit that the Galatian believers were falling back into, remember? Gal 3:1-5- “You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified? This is the only thing I want to find out from you: did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Did you suffer so many things in vain — if indeed it was in vain? So then, does He who provides you with the Spirit and works miracles among you, do it by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith? NASU
You see it? Paul’s admonition to them, and to all ‘Galatian type thinkers’, was: “Going your own way, trying to be right with God through your own religious works, relying on your own human reasoning about it all was not how you received new life in Christ in the first place. That was not how you became saved. Now, you think you can grow in your faith, become sanctified, become more and more like Christ by still thinking that same way? How foolish! When you were in charge of you, you were always going astray. Do you think you can still be in charge of you and not continue to go astray?”
The divine instructions for life, for both the unsaved and even the saved, begin with: “You were not created to be nor ever are intended to be in charge of you. You were not created to by your own god, ruling yourself…you were created to be a child of God in relationship with your God, following God, who is to be in charge of your life!
Somehow, although Christians understand that their need was to turn from going their own way and their own thoughts as they turned in repentance to follow God, and they then trusted in Jesus forgiveness and His gift for their salvation, then, many don’t seem to understand that their need is to continue to turn from their own ways and their own thoughts in order for them to actually follow God and to then be transformed by God into the person God created them to be. They keep tripping over God’s instructions for them about ‘putting off the old self and putting on the new self’. We’ll come back to that.
No, mark it down: Any quest to find yourself apart from Christ when you are not saved is simply a guarantee of further destruction in your life. And any quest of finding yourself apart from Christ even after you have become saved by Christ is also a guarantee of further confusion in your life. It’s also a guarantee of diminishing your life…of limiting your transformation and forfeiting Kingdom rewards and losing out on becoming the person you were meant to be in a ‘shared relationship’ in union with your Savior.
Remember: The path of finding yourself is a dead-end road…always has been…always will be. That path neither leads to salvation nor does it lead to sanctification. The path of losing yourself in Christ is the way to discover both who you were created to be and to experience it all in a shared relationship with your Creator and Savior. For the Biblical way to find yourself is by losing your ‘self-life’ and finding the ‘shared-life’. The key to finding who you were created to be is by losing who you are in and of yourself, and instead, finding who you are in union with Christ. Remember, the Apostle Paul pointed out that even ‘marriage’ is meant to illustrate this relationship between Christ and His church. Eph 5:31-32- “As the Scriptures say, “A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.” This is a great mystery, but it is an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one.” NLT
Just like the key to a great marriage is to no longer think in terms of ‘Me’, but to think in terms of ‘We’, so it is, and even more so in our relationship with Christ. We are to no longer think in terms of our ‘self-life’, but in terms of our ‘shared-life’…for when we were ‘Born again’ we were united to the very life of Christ. We now and will for eternity ‘share’ in the life and Spirit of Christ. Our identity is now a shared identity, no longer ‘me, myself, and I’, but ‘We, Ourselves, and Us’! (sounds a little unusual, but you get the idea…)
Even the ‘New self’ that the Apostle instructs us about is a ‘shared self’. Col 3:9-10-
“…since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him.” NASU This practice is to be a daily habit, of course. Like putting on the armor of God, day by day, so we are to daily ‘put off’ our old independent, self-focused, self-serving, self-esteeming, self-centered mindset, and put on our Christ-dependent, Christ-focused, Christ-serving, Christ-esteeming, and Christ-centered mindset. Remember, even the ‘Vine and the Branch’ teaching of Jesus revealed this ‘shared life’ that we now have with our Savior. As ‘branches’ of the ‘Vine’ of Christ, we are now ‘Carriers’, not ‘Controllers’. Christ, as the Vine, is to be the sole ‘Controller’, and we, as His branches, are to be His ‘Carriers’ of all that God has in mind for you and for me to ‘carry’ to our world around us…to carry to our family, to carry to our church family, to carry to our culture, and to carry to our world. Lay aside the old ‘controlling self’. Lose the old ‘controlling-self-centered’ mindset, and put on the new ‘carrying-Christ-centered’ mindset. Find yourself sharing your hopes and your dreams, sharing your plans and your purposes, sharing your goals and your accomplishments with your Savior and God who is the sole source of everything good and godly in your life!
Again, this ‘New Self’ that we are to put on is a ‘shared self’. We now order our life around sharing everything in our life with Christ. Our plans, our pursuits, our pleasures, and our paths are all to be in relation to this ‘shared life’ we now live with our Savior and our Shepherd, as He leads us in paths of righteousness. Remember, Christ is our Vine…we are His branches. Christ is the ‘Source’…we are the ‘resource’. Christ produces…and we pass along what Christ produces. We bear the fruit, but Christ’s Spirit grows the fruit in our lives. And all that Christ is producing and growing in us, is for us to pass along through us to others around us…not only the fruit of the Spirit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control…but also the truths of the Gospel, and the teachings of Christ through His prophets and apostles.
And that leads us to another crucial concept for today in understanding God’s order for our lives. And it is once again connected to our crucial need in understanding our position and practice in our Christian life. And when you get a grasp of it, it not only enlightens your thinking, it also inspires your living out this amazing ‘shared life’ that you have with your Savior. It’s one of those amazing teachings of Paul’s, where he reveals to us that there is something in which we are already ‘complete’, and yet there is also something in which we are supposed to ‘complete’ in our lives. Oh yeah, it is amazing for sure. Let’s look.
Col 2:9-10- “For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form, and in Him you have been made complete.” NASU How wonderful is that? In Christ, we have been made complete. What is has been completed? Our salvation of course! Through the perfect sacrifice of Jesus’ death for us, we have been pardoned from our sin and have provision for the forgiveness of our sins. Through the perfect obedience of Jesus’ life for us we have the righteousness of Christ that makes us right with God. That is now and forever our ‘position’ with God…forgiven and righteous in this new shared life that we have with Jesus Christ!
We can also describe our being complete in Christ this way… “Being ‘complete’ in my relationship with Christ means that I am deeply loved, fully forgiven, completely accepted, and forever secure as an adopted child of God’s, based upon Christ’s complete pardon of my sins and His complete righteousness as His gift to me.”
But then the Apostle also reveals this: Col 1:28- “We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ.” NASU What’s this? Since we are already ‘complete’ in Christ, what then is yet to be ‘completed’? Let’s let the ERV help us with that: Col 1:28- “So we continue to tell people about Christ. We use all wisdom to counsel every person and teach every person. We are trying to bring everyone before God as people who have grown to be spiritually mature in Christ.”
So here, Paul reveals more about God’s order for our lives. When we become ‘Born again’ we are fully complete in our salvation. And we are forever secure in this ‘Position’ as a saved son or daughter of God’s. But then there is something that is to be ‘completed’ in our lives, or completed throughout our lives, and that is, our sanctification, or our transformation. Since we share our new life in Christ, we are now to share in the image and character of Christ more and more throughout our life. And that is to be the ‘Practice’ of our lives day by day as we seek to follow our Savior, losing more and more of our old selves, and finding more and more of our new selves in becoming more like Christ, our Creator and Redeemer. Forget the ‘self-life’, there is no gain or reward in that. Focus on the ‘shared-life’, the eternal life that you now and forever will ‘share with Christ’, for in that, there is both glory for Christ and gain for others and you, as well as great reward!