Brass Tacks Christianity
If we call ourselves “Christian”, this implies action, however most Christians are pew potatoes. I’m NOT inferring to matters of soteriology and divine grace needing our involvement because of course we know these are out of our hands. I’m exclusively referring to our lifelong journey of spiritual formation and how we can thrive and flourish within it.
Thrive and Flourish is about action. Think about it, in order to both thrive and flourish we have to be action takers right? To be thriving at something, or flourishing at another thing, requires action to be taking place on some existential level.
I’m probably going to say some things that you might not like hearing, but even if you do, I know someone out there won’t like hearing what I’m going to say in this blog post. It doesn’t make it any less true, or at the very least, these are my own personal observations that I see as truth. Here we go!
My personal goal is to equip and empower Christians to action instead of sitting back and simply being church pew sitters who are spoon fed sermons, devotionals, scriptures, God bless you’s, Christian radio, and our daily dose of spiritual memes on social media. Is this what the Christian religion has turned into? Does that stuff really make us a modern day Christian? What would Peter, James, John, and Paul think of our version of Christianity? Even more, what would, what does, Jesus think of our version of Christianity?
Maybe we should more accurately call it “Churchianity”. Isn’t it supposed to be His vision, not ours?
Does Christianity need modernization at all or are we merely getting caught up in the progressiveness and entertainment aspects to make us feel good that our religion of choice has come to age against the backdrop of our culture and society as well as proudly boast that it’s able to keep our short attention span so we remain engaged enough to make it through an hour and a half church service on a weekend as we check that off the list and fade Sunday morning into our memories before watching football, going to family birthday parties, sport events, doing yard work, going fishing, or binge watching our current favorite series on Netflix. None of those things are bad, wrong, or should be avoided and that is not what I am implying.
I am interested in helping Christians break free from Churchianity to become who they were always meant to be by discipling them to understand the person who God truly intends them to be. This is how we Thrive and Flourish. That can actually look much different than what or who someone thinks they should be. God always thinks differently than we do and everything he wants for us will bring glory back to him. We must align ourselves to him.
There are certainly things we ought to do to bring us into alignment with God such as prayer, daily Bible reading, going to church for the sole purpose to worship God with the community of disciples, and so on, but this is not how we get a seat on the heaven-bound express train.
Most of us like receiving credit (glory) for what we do, but what if we never received credit? How would that make us feel? What if that didn’t matter? Are we okay with doing something good, altruistic, and serve others without doing it for a certain personal feeling or box being checked? Are we able to truly reconcile that and be okay with it? What if our goal was solely and exclusively to please God more and feel closer to Him when we love, help, and serve others with empathy and obedience to Him.
Ok so how does this all work and how do we get there?
The first step is to understand the essential details that define what true Christianity is according to no one better than Jesus Christ himself. Knowing this helps us understand our true calling and identity. (This will be the first part in a series of blog posts and we will continue to unpack what this looks like in future posts.)
If we strip away all the inessentials and get down to the brass tacks (how I came up with the title for this blog post) of what it looks like to be a Christian, it is very simply put by Jesus in Luke 10:25-28…
And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.” Luke 10:25-28
…and in his final benediction, also known as the Great Commission.
And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on Earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:18-20 ESV
He wants us to love God with every ounce of who we are, love others, and make disciples.
Love God, Love Others, and Make Disciples. That’s it folks. Close the book and go!
He wants Christians to make more Christians. This making requires get up and go action, not church pew sitting. “But Bob I don’t know what to say and barely know Bible verses enough to quote John 3:16.” Stop. Don’t get ahead of yourself.
WHAT’S A DISCIPLE?
So, how do we make disciples and what do disciples do exactly? A disciple is simply someone who is a learner, a student. Students need teachers, but we don’t need to know it all. The disciples and early Christians didn’t have Bible college, seminary, years of commentary, or even the Bible like we have today. They had their testimony of their experiences and how God changed their lives. We have that too and, you know what…there’s power in our testimony. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death (Revelation 12:11 ESV).
DISCIPLES CAN BAPTIZE
Jesus also gave us his authority to baptize new disciples in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This might sound strange or flat out shock you that YOU can baptize people. Yes you can! You don’t need to be an ordained pastor, minister, or priest to baptize people. Jesus gave us HIS authority to do it and the early Christians did just that. (Acts 2:38, Acts 8:35-38, Acts 16:31,33)
I am, in no means, diminishing the sacredness of baptism by any means. Baptism symbolizes that the baptizee is publicly declaring that they are no longer going to be living for themselves, professing that Jesus died and resurrected, putting behind them their old life, and emerging forth as a new person in Christ as their Lord.
“Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin.” Romans 6:3-6
This must be done by someone who is able to make their own decision, not an infant. Babies can be dedicated, but you won’t find in scripture infants being baptized. Baptized people in the Bible are always adults. Read the four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) and the book of Acts to see this truth. We, as adults, are baptized into the body of Christ, as a fellow family of followers (disciples).
“For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.” 1 Corinthians 12:13
HOW DO WE BECOME DISCIPLES?
Once we believe in who Jesus is and what he has done, we then need to follow him by carrying out his Great Commission. By doing that we become a disciple, but how do we do that exactly? Great question! One way is to be discipled through a church or a mentor who can disciple us. We each need discipleship so that we can become a better Christian and purge sin from our lives through spiritual disciplines and the transforming work of the Holy Spirit. It always has to be an inside job for us to grow and become the person God intends for us to be. Here's a great quote by Dr. Mark McMinn from his book Psychology, Theology, and Spirituality in Christian Counseling.
“Because properly managing sin requires us to transcend willpower and seek God, the spiritual disciplines become essential tools for holiness. The disciplines themselves do not make us holy, but they open the door to our soul, allowing God's grace and truth to fill us. The demand is for an inside job, and only God can work from the inside.” Mark McMinn
In Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis describes our normal tendency is to try adding the Christian life on top of our natural self. Basically we try harder to do it our own way, but that we pretty much end up mucking it up. So we struggle, trying to figure out how to give more time or money or resist certain temptations and sins, and we end up feeling deprived, hampered, and angry. Essentially we exhibit the flesh fruit instead of Spirit fruit. After all that, we hope that our natural self will still have time to be expressed and nurtured. This can all be avoided by discipleship. Lewis writes:
The Christian way is different: harder, and easier. Christ says, ‘Give me All. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it.’
Those are some tough thoughts to chew on when we really think on them. Does it sound familiar? So, where do we go (insert Guns 'n Roses lyrics) with this?
Let’s go back to the beginning and bring to mind the Churchianity concept and how its reality is intertwined within how most western Christians are doing church and living the Christian life these days. This way of life leads us to fall into the sin trap quite easily.
“The ubiquity of sin is both bad news and good news. It is bad because we are indeed sick, burdened by sin that affects every attitude, behavior, relationship, and thought in our lives. We are bundles of mixed motives, constantly fighting to yield more control to God and less to our sin nature. It is good because this view of sin disqualifies the objections of psychologists who claim Christians are destined to be emotionally sick.”[1]
Remember THIS… IS IT… what Jesus says here:
And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.” Luke 10:25-28
So, in it’s simplicity, Christianity, in its brass tacks form tells us that we must reject that which puts us in the religion of Churchianity and do one thing. We must surrender ourselves to be transformed and changed Christ followers (disciples) and make more disciples for His Kingdom by making Him known to everyone we encounter so they too can be transformed and changed. This shows that we love God and love others.
Don’t worry about what to say when you go. Let the Holy Spirit take care of that. “The Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say” (Luke 12:12).
Go with boldness and confidence because Jesus not only gave us permission to do so, but commanded us to do so with all his authority.
Love God.
Love Others.
Go. Be a disciple.
Make more disciples.
Make disciples in your neighborhood, your nation, and other nations.
Go and be.
This is true Christianity down to the brass tacks.
References
1. MacMinn, M. R. (2014). Psychology, theology, and spirituality in christian counseling. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers. p. 151
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