Embracing the Life of Christ
Matthew 9:35-38
Jim Davis
What if
Jesus lived your life for one day? If you are a teenager, try to
imagine Christ going to school in your body. Imagine Christ living in your
body with all the hormones raging through your body just like they are
raging in you right now. Try to imagine Jesus living in your body with the
same friends, and the same enemies, in the same circumstances you face each
day. The only difference is that he is the one living in your body.
Why don’t
we as adults try to imagine the same thing? How would Jesus respond
at work, and at home in the same circumstances we face? Would he behave
different? Would others see a difference in how Jesus would live and how you
lived in the same circumstances? Would your problems be too much for him to
bear? If so, where would he look to for help? (These thoughts come from Max
Lucado’s book, Just Like Jesus, W Publishing Group. 2003.)
Why Did Multitudes Follow Jesus?
Have you
ever wondered why multitudes followed Jesus? Was it for the loaves
and fishes, or the miracles, or was there more? Surely the loaves and fishes
drew people to Christ. The miracles made them stand in awe of his authority
and power. But those who stayed to hear what he had to say stayed because
they perceived Jesus was a man of compassion. They stayed because of the
life he was living in their presence.
Matthew 9:35-38
35 Jesus went through all the towns and
villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the
kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. 36 When he saw the crowds,
he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like
sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is
plentiful but the workers are few. 38 Ask the Lord of the harvest,
therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field." NIV
Jesus was
moved to compassion because he understood the crowds were harassed and
helpless. They were looking for direction, but there was no one to
guide them. Jesus saw religious people burdened with religious rites and
doctrines they could not live up to. Jesus confronted the religious teachers
saying, "And you experts in the law, woe to you, because you load
people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not
lift one finger to help them” (Luke 11:46 NIV). The weight of their
traditions was driving people away from God, when they needed care and
attention.
How often
do methods of Bible study and the formulation of doctrines and creeds blind
us to the powerful life of Christ. It is ironic that we teach
things to others as they are going through difficulties that we have
difficulty doing ourselves when we find ourselves in the same situation.
Yet, Jesus’ teaching was so simple as he went about in compassion helping
the needy. His teaching was about how he lived.
Often we
go to the epistles thinking that’s where the meat of God’s message is found.
We chisel out religious creeds from the Bible while overlooking the simple
life which Christ exemplified for us.
The
writers of the New Testament consistently point us to the life of Christ.
We fail to realize that the writers of the epistles are chewing on the meat
found in the gospel accounts of Christ’s life. We have difficulty with our
Bible study because we haven’t taken time to know the Christ of the gospels.
Notice how the following passage instructs us to be gentle with those who
have gone astray.
Galatians 6:1-5
6:1 Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin,
you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you
also may be tempted. 2 Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will
fulfill the law of Christ. 3 If anyone thinks he is something when he is
nothing, he deceives himself. 4 Each one should test his own actions. Then
he can take pride in himself, without comparing himself to somebody else, 5
for each one should carry his own load. NIV
We find
Paul encouraging New Testament congregations to feed on the message of
Christ. These verses are concerned about not over burdening those
trapped in sin. He is concerned about how our pride, self-deception, and
comparisons often place burdens upon others they cannot bear. Paul wants us
to lift their burdens instead of making them heavier. He doesn’t want us to
place burdens on others we are not willing to help them bear, or we can’t
bear ourselves.
In John 8
we find the Pharisees desiring to stone a woman caught in adultery.
They are merely using her to win an argument with Christ. They condemn this
woman while they have taken God’s law about Moses giving a bill of divorce
and perverted it to justify their own adultery. Pride, self-deception and
comparing themselves to this woman had left them blind to their own sin,
while creating an unbearable burden for the woman.
Paul is
encouraging the Galatians to live by the law of Christ--he is afraid the
Galatians will place unbearable burdens on others. What was the law
of Christ? It was to bear each other’s burden—it is not our job to make
their burdens unbearable. The law of Christ is the message of every
epistle—the law of Christ is found in the gospels.
Paul’s
epistles persistently point the first century congregations to embrace the
life of Christ.
Ephesians 4:32
32 Be kind and compassionate to one another,
forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. NIV
Ephesians 5:25-28
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ
loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing
her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to
himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish,
but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their
wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. NIV
Philippians 2:5-7
5 Your attitude should be the kind that was
shown us by Jesus Christ, 6 who, though he was God, did not demand and cling
to his rights as God, 7 but laid aside his mighty power and glory, taking
the disguise of a slave and becoming like men. TLB
Embracing
the attitude of Christ toward one another is the key to Christian living.
It was Christ’s attitude toward those caught up in sin that lifted
their burdens. He was not judgmental or condemning.
We Can Not Bear Our Cross Alone
Jesus
asks each of us to take up our cross and follow him, but he knows we can’t
carry our cross alone. Even Jesus collapsed under the weight of your
cross. Simon of Cyrene was forced to carry your cross, for Jesus could not
bear it alone. Yes, it was actually your cross he was seeking to carry—he
collapsed under its weight. If Jesus collapsed under the weight of your
cross, who do you think you are?
It is
really not hard to convince us that the cross Jesus asks us to bear is
unbearable. I have heard people say, “Well there is no way I can
live like Christ wants me to live in this perverted world.” It’s an
admission of the impossibility.
A
preacher talked to a father, whose daughter was having great difficulty
adjusting in her mid-teens. The father wasn’t a Christian, but he
opened the eyes of the preacher. He told him that part of his daughter’s
problem was that she was learning a lot of good things at church, but it had
caused much of her problem. The problem was that she did not know how to
apply what she was being taught to real life situations at school. He felt
her major problem was that she had collapsed mentally under the load.
From the
father’s perception he saw the church placing burdens upon his daughter she
could not bear. Of course, he wasn’t a Christian and he wasn’t
making much of a contribution to helping her. He found his support in a bar
with his bar room buddies several times a week.
Maybe this one
incident will allow us to see the burden children have to bear as they
strive to bring their lives to Christ with little or no parental help. How
can we help them bear their unbearable burdens? Worrying about rowdy
children in Bible school wearing hats inside the church building and acting
up is a minor inconvenience compared to the daily struggle they face at home
and at school.
Many
young people may give up in defeat because they feel they can’t live up to
the image, created by religion. Their world is not an idealistic
happy-go-lucky place to live. Many collapse under the load as they begin
entering adulthood. They live with heartbreak, hourly crisis, and often,
horrible family crisis.
Today we
see multitudes giving up on relationships God desires to work. Their
personal problems seem overwhelming. Just about the time they think they
have overcome they stumble and fall as they are overwhelmed by guilt and
condemnation. They fall back into sin. Very few know how to pull out of it.
Their
burdens will remain unbearable until they embrace the life of Christ.
Jesus wasn’t like the religious rulers who placed unbearable burdens on
the backs of others. Jesus did not ask us to take up a cross we can’t bear
to harass us or overwhelm us. He asks us to take up our cross to follow him
because he knows the weight of our cross will make us realize our need of
God.
Matthew 11:28-30
28 "Come to me, all you who are weary and
burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from
me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your
souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." NIV
Yokes for
animals were made so that animals could share in pulling the load. When two
animals are yoked together there is always one animal who takes the lead.
The other animal follows. When we embrace the life of Christ he becomes
yoked with us; he is the one who takes the lead for knows how to pull the
load. We must simply follow his lead.
1 Peter 5:6-7
6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's
mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. 7 Cast all your anxiety on
him because he cares for you. NIV
We must
become dependent upon God’s help as we live moment by moment. God
was with Paul as he faced opposition to preaching the gospel. Act upon God’s
word and expect God’s power to sustain you.
Acts 18:9-11
9 One night the Lord spoke to Paul in a
vision: "Do not be afraid; keep on speaking, do not be silent. 10 For I am
with you, and no one is going to attack and harm you, because I have many
people in this city." 11 So Paul stayed for a year and a half, teaching them
the word of God. NIV
We must
live in expectation of God’s deliverance moment by moment as we look for
God’s strength to bear our burdens.
1 Corinthians 10:12-13
12 So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall!
13 No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is
faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when
you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up
under it. NIV
2 Corinthians 1:8-11
8 We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we
suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond
our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. 9 Indeed, in our
hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not
rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. 10 He has delivered us
from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our
hope that he will continue to deliver us, 11 as you help us by your prayers.
Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us
in answer to the prayers of many. NIV
2 Timothy 4:18
18 The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and will bring me safely
to his heavenly kingdom. To him be glory for ever and ever. Amen. NIV
Fear of
what others will do to us if we live like Jesus makes our burdens
unbearable.
Matthew 10:24-33
24 "A student is not above his teacher, nor
a servant above his master. 25 It is enough for the student to be like his
teacher, and the servant like his master. If the head of the house has been
called Beelzebub, how much more the members of his household!
26 "So do not be afraid of them. There is
nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be
made known. 27 What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is
whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs. 28 Do not be afraid of those
who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who
can destroy both soul and body in hell. 29 Are not two sparrows sold for a
penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of
your Father. 30 And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. 31 So
don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.
32 "Whoever acknowledges me before men, I
will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. 33 But whoever disowns
me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven. NIV
Conclusion:
Salvation
must not be reduced to a religious mathematical formula. Salvation
comes as we allow Christ to live through us. Here is what I mean:
Mark 16:15, 16
+ Acts 2:38 + Acts 22:16 + Romans 6:1-6 + Galatians 3:26, 27 + 1 Peter 3:20,
21= B/ES. (B/ES = Baptism Essential to salvation.) We should have no
problem concluding baptism is essential to salvation after studying all
these verses. But we must not come away thinking that baptism is all that’s
essential to salvation. Baptism without embracing the life of Christ is not
biblical baptism.
We could do
this with each step of salvation, i. e., hearing, believing, confessing,
repenting and baptism. However, following these steps without embracing the
life of Christ would be useless. In reality these steps without Christ
become faithless acts. We must not reduce preaching Christ down to some
religious formula that tends to lead people to believe they have been saved
by the formula alone. We must lead them to embrace the living savior.
We must
embrace the life of Christ to experience the power of his resurrection in
our difficulties.
Philippians 3:10-14
10 I want to know Christ and the power of
his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming
like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection
from the dead.
12 Not that I have already obtained all
this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that
for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers, I do not consider
myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is
behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to
win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. NIV
The most
difficult step in experiencing the resurrection power of Christ in the
present is dying with him in the present. This is the commitment we
make at baptism as we are buried with him in baptism.
For those
in this audience considering becoming a Christian, come to God with a desire
to be recreated to be like God—that’s the life Jesus came to exemplify.
Expect to be resurrected with Christ out of the baptismal waters with the
power of God as he seeks to salvage your life daily from sin.
The
epistles tell us that God wants us to be just like Jesus. He wants us to
think and respond to life just like Jesus. Want you allow Jesus to
live through you.
Ephesians 4:20-24
20 You, however, did not come to know Christ
that way. 21 Surely you heard of him and were taught in him in accordance
with the truth that is in Jesus. 22 You were taught, with regard to your
former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by
its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24
and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and
holiness. NIV
We come
to Jesus just as we are, but God doesn’t want us to stay just as we are.
We come to God for him to mold us into the image of his Son. He wants us to
be transformed through a rebirth of how we think—by changing our minds about
how to live.
It goes
beyond changing our minds about what we believe until it leads us to live
what we believe as we anticipate power of Christ to become a reality in our
lives.
Gospel of
Christ is God’s message give to save us (Romans 1:16).
You must listen
to what Christ instructs you to do (Romans 10:17).
You must
believe Christ message and follow his instructions.
You must
confess Christ (Matthew 10:31-32).
You must repent
of your sins (Luke 13:3).
You must be
baptized into Christ, it is the only place forgiveness can be found (Acts
2:38)
You must arise
out of baptism to follow Christ (Romans 1:1-6).
