The Jesus Style

Chapter Title The Jesus Style Subtitle Within Our Reach No theology is of any threat or consequence until we try to apply it to our lives. Such is the case with this study of Jesus. Our lives will be safely humdrum until we dare to live like our Master. At that point, we can expect this promise of Jesus to come true. All men will hate you because of me. Matthew 10.22 This is one promise that is not found in many promise boxes. As we saw in the first part, many of the clues to Jesus' nature seem uniquely designed to reveal the intent and character of the Father and are not direct commands for us to fulfill. For instance, I cannot be born in a barn of questionable parents receiving a common name and angelic announcement. Though I grew up in poverty and in a bad neighborhood, that's of no redemptive significance to you. The same would be true of other marks of Jesus, such as His motley, cruel, and shameful death. Though these are merely indicators of His nature for us and might not be copyable, His nature as expressed in the greatest in the kingdom teachings and in Philippians 2.5-11 are definitely within our reach. Let me read scripture found from all four of the Gospels. Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. The greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves. If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last. For he who is least among you all, he is the greatest. Subtitle At Your Service Whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. When Jesus began to teach the disciples what it meant to be greatest in the kingdom, he was teaching about his own nature, for indeed he was and is the greatest in the kingdom. By that time, the disciples had had the opportunity to observe the servanthood of Christ, and they understood what he meant. So the greatest must be slave of all, a servant. How totally opposed to all of my natural leanings! My culture teaches me that if I follow the clean living precepts of Christianity, God will reward me with prosperity and with consistent rise in status until I become boss, maybe even president. How strange that the true nature of Jesus would be so different from my ambitious view! How would my family react if I were to come home and brag to them that I had been chosen as slave? Probably not with much glee. In fact, it isn't something I would want to boast about. Maybe nothing about the nature of Jesus and my living it out lends itself to advertising. One way I try to get around servanthood is to select a nice clientele that I can serve gladly, but the scriptures won't allow me to escape with such thinking. Jesus said, servant of all. A servant's job is to do all he can to make life better for others, to free them to be everything they can be. A servant's first interest is not himself, but others. Yet enslavement is not what I'm talking about. Servanthood is a loving choice we make to minister to others. It is not the result of coercion or coercion's more subtle form, manipulation. Subhead. Don't trip on the doormat. There is no joy in being a doormat, even if it is a Jesus doormat. We can easily fall prey to manipulation and become merely a doormat unless we understand the underlying dynamics of manipulation and how the nature of Jesus prevents it. Manipulation permeates our relationships with each other. Through crafty and coercive means we get others to do our bidding. When they succumb to our cleverness, we do not respect them for it. Indeed, we often despise them. And when they don't give in, we often with righteous indignation instruct them on how they should be willing to serve us. I have had people ask me to do what I knew was not the best thing for them. And when I refused as graciously as I could, they would say, but I thought you were a Christian. Aren't Christians supposed to do things like this? That is a guilt gotcha. When I don't want to do something but give in to keep from feeling guilty or losing face with significant persons, or when I'm afraid not to do it, then I have been manipulated. When I have been manipulated, I feel even worse. I know I've been had again, and my self-esteem takes another drop. Perhaps the strongest form of manipulation used on me is when people hint that if a Christian ever did a certain something for them, they might consider becoming a Christian. Of course, the situation works its way around until it becomes a question of whether I will be the one who will bring them into the kingdom by so doing. Sometimes we're forced to do things by people who withhold love or money from us until we do. Parents at times manipulate children by feigning sickness unless the child obeys. The list could go on. Jesus had some classic cases in which people tried to manipulate him. Some of the Pharisees and Herodians were sent to catch him in his words. They came to him and said, Teacher, we know you're a man of integrity. You aren't swayed by men because you pay no attention to who they are. But you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not? Should we pay or shouldn't we? But Jesus knew their hypocrisy. Why are you trying to trap me? He asked. Mark 12, 13 through 15. The chief means of resisting manipulation is humility, knowing who we really are and facing it. Jesus knew himself and was at ease with himself, so he was not swayed by their flattery. Had it been me, I would probably have thought that at last I was being recognized by these people for my true worth, and now would be a good time to wax eloquent. There's nothing wrong in receiving true affirmation, but humility is sensitive to flattery and knows when it is occurring. Jesus resisted manipulation vigorously as he had done in a previous encounter. The Pharisees came and began to question Jesus. To test him, they asked for a sign from heaven. He sighed deeply and said, Why does this generation ask for a miraculous sign? I tell you the truth, no sign will be given to it. Then he left them, got back into the boat, and crossed to the other side. Mark 8, 11 through 13. Jesus knew the Pharisees were there for hostile reasons and not to get help. Often such hostility is clear. Out of his humility, that is, being who he was and not less or more, Jesus was able to express the anger he felt at the moment. Then, because further interaction was not profitable, he withdrew from them. A secondary method of resisting manipulation, then, is withdrawal. Jesus used it more than once. John records that Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again into the hills by himself. John 6, 15. A particular characteristic of manipulation is that it destroys our ability to choose. It forces us to move defensively into the pattern or mold that others have chosen for us. Not a single person who tried to manipulate Jesus got the answer they expected. All of them received an expression of the true feelings of Jesus. From some of them, he withdrew. In each case, he protected his ability to choose. There is a distinctive difference between coerced slavery and servanthood by choice. When Jesus stated that he chose to lay down his life and that no one was taking it from him, he was describing the basic element of love. Love always chooses to do the right and serving thing for others, but it is a choice. You can only love by choice. True love cannot be the result of either decree, force, or manipulation. Anything that I do to deprive someone of the right to choose is a violation of his personhood. When I sense that my own right to choose is being threatened, then I know that I am not being loved and the doors are not open to ministry. In humility, I can say something like this. Although it may not be true, I am feeling pressured and manipulated. I am not able to choose and act out of love when I feel this way, so I am removing myself from the situation until I feel free to make the choice I feel is right. Sometimes, when manipulation is detected in a request, a simple no is the right thing to say. A demand for a reason is often part of the manipulative process. We must, in order to properly resist, know that we don't need to give an answer, but we do need to live with integrity so that we can have the power to make loving, others-oriented choices. Often when we say no, the person who has been trying to coerce us will create a scene. That, too, is part of the manipulative process. And it is included in the price to be paid if we wish to keep our integrity. But don't let the scene fool you. It can also be part of the healing process for the manipulator. To be a manipulator is to be a sick person. If we permit someone to manipulate us, then we have contributed to and reinforced that person's sickness. To resist manipulation, though it may be difficult and may cause scenes, is to contribute to that person's health, and certainly to contribute to our own health. Another form of manipulation that often befalls persons trying to live the Jesus life is self-directed. We see the needs of the world and realize that the world needs us. Yet there is so little of us. Then we are unable to rest. We try to respond to every genuine need that comes along until we have totally exhausted our resources and collapsed into a bruised pile, saying we can never try to live the Jesus style again. Once more, humility provides the answer for us. We are not God, so we can quit trying to be Him and, in our finiteness, trying to solve all the world's problems. When we are honest about ourselves and recognize that we are running out of steam, then it is proper to be in seclusion and rest for a while. Jesus was often taking the disciples to places to rest. Though He was God, He refused the manipulation of His own life. He always kept His strength to make loving choices, and He calls us to make the loving choices necessary to be servant of all. The Power Pyramid Rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them. Not so with you. It amazes me how many of our church and religious systems break apart when analyzed in terms of this command, and yet we continue claiming our structure to be biblical and authorized of God. The principle of being servant to all is devastating to chains of command and to systems where submission is upward. Many religious structures are carbon copies of the flowcharts of giant corporations where the lording system is pyramid-shaped. In the Kingdom of God, the Power Pyramid is reversed, upended, so that the authority is on the bottom, not the top. When Jesus alludes to submission, it is always directed toward leaders or the ones who want to be great in the Kingdom, and they are always ordered to submit downward, not upward. For example, in Matthew 20.26, Jesus expressly says, Whoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant. This downward submission of the greatest seems to be a natural outgrowth of the way Jesus viewed people. He served them because he knew their value. We lord it over others because we don't recognize their value, and we don't view them in the way Jesus does. Those who lead in the Kingdom of God are to recognize that every Christian has a unique and direct relationship to Christ, the head of the church. Unlike world systems whose goal is control, the Kingdom leader is chosen to equip people for ministry, to bring unity in faith and knowledge, and to mature people so as to provide stability. See Ephesians 4, 11-16. Jesus reserved his strongest words for the spiritual leaders of his day. He was moved with compassion for the masses who were a sheep without a shepherd. He put no pressure on the masses to submit to a leader, but instead put the pressure on leaders to be slaves of all. Subhead. I'm in charge here. I'm constantly hearing pronouncements from leaders of this day about how their followers, the masses, should be honest with them, how their followers should be obedient, how they should support, how they should submit. However, whether followers are free to respond honestly and without coercion in all these ways is entirely the responsibility of the leader. First of all, just as Jesus did, leaders are to take the servant initiative to reveal their lives. Unfortunately, few preachers and other religious leaders are intimately known to those to whom they minister. Because of the training they have received or books they have read, many ministers feel they must maintain a professional distance from the people, thereby placing themselves above others. That stance has devastating and built-in problems. Someone who is at the top of a pyramid of authority finds himself isolated from reality. Those beneath him no longer give complete honesty. The top person is told by those under him only what is necessary to protect their jobs. The only means by which the person at the top can be assured of honesty and truthfulness from those beneath him is to make himself of no reputation, to lay aside his power and authority and approach them as a servant. And that initiative must first be taken by the person at the top. It cannot come from those beneath him. Only revolution comes from that direction. In the nature of Jesus, it is only possible to submit downward in the human realm. I read an article once about a person who had completely submitted himself to a leader. The leader, in order to teach the submitted person servanthood, required that person to mow the leader's lawn. That is a perversion of the Jesus style. Servanthood should be taught by mowing the other person's lawn. One who leads in the style of Jesus does not use forms of coercion, nor does he depend on institutional position for authority. Instead, by serving people, he leads as they recognize his ability and choose voluntarily to follow. And those who follow, by whatever means, will become like their leader, for better or worse. A religious leader under fire once, for using his position for personal gain, defended himself by stating to his followers that he hadn't done anything that they would not have done had they had the chance. In other words, if they could have gotten away with it, they would have also. That statement was the greatest indictment against their system and ethical training that could have been made. Perhaps a good way to handle the trappings of leadership would be to put the word slave over the doors of our plush offices and take away everything from the surroundings that's incompatible with that word. Remember, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. A slave should have no title that raises him above that lowly level and definitely no title that raises him above others. A slave should have no status symbols except the scars that come from hard work. You would not expect a slave to have a special parking space more accessible than his master's. A slave would not have an office larger than others or more ornately decorated in order to show his position. A slave would not wear clothing that intimidated others or impressed them in any way except as being their servant. A slave would not use his position to limit the expression of his master's capabilities. A slave would not try to use his power to protect his position of first. There are so many ways that the nature of Jesus is in direct opposition to the leadership patterns of the world that have been unquestioningly adopted by the church that this list could go on and on. This is indeed unfortunate, for it is that visible modeling that has greater force than the expression of doctrine. We have been so careful to identify doctrinal heresy, perhaps it's time to identify heresy of practice. Quote, but people are dumb sheep and need to be motivated. Unquote. I've often heard in defense of the world's system. Well, if we wish to admit that we are not the church and intend to have no part of Jesus, then we can motivate people any way we wish to get them to do our bidding. But if we wish to be followers of Jesus, then we must be lovers of people, and any motivation must come out of their voluntary response to love, even if it doesn't seem as rapid or as efficient as the experts tell us it can be. We cannot finish with worldly systems what was begun by Jesus working through the Holy Spirit. What would happen to the body of Christ if we all treated each other in keeping with the nature of Jesus and our leaders lived it out for us first? My mind is staggered at the possibility. What we do now has been taught to us, so certainly we could be taught something different. Were it so, the world would beat our doors down to be part of the church. Subhead, both sides of the coin. Perhaps the most significant place to begin to turn the power pyramid upside down is in the family. The world's first institution has had some rough going. Some of the chuck holes in the road of marriage have been placed there by the teachings of various religious systems. To see how the nature of Jesus dramatically affects marriage, let us look first at some of the current teaching. Quote, at the top of every chain of command is a man. Unquote. All women are somewhere down the scale. Access to God is often prohibited unless through the authorization of a man. Current teaching especially emphasizes this in the marriage bond. The mainstay of such teaching is in Ephesians where Paul says wives should submit to their husbands as unto the Lord. Books by women for women also take advantage of this understanding and support it with an interesting twist. Women can be taught how to get their man to do what they want him to do by using the strength of sex, and this clever thing called submission. It's degrading, but at least the women win eventually. Consequently, men are forced into the role of being God, which they can't handle, and women are forced into the role of weak underling, which they don't want. Submission gone sour is the result of not understanding the nature of Jesus. Let us look at the Ephesians passage thoroughly, but let's start a little earlier than most others do. Scripture, Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit to your husband as to the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church, his body of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. Ephesians 5, 21 through 25. So the first command is to submit ourselves to each other. That is the way a body would work. Then the next commands are enlargements on the first. They tell us how submission works its way out in a marriage relationship. Wives to the husband as unto the Lord, husbands loving the wives as Christ loved the church. The wife's position has been rather clear for a long time, but what is the description of the husband to whom she submits? Well, how did Christ love the church? He came to the church as a slave, not lording it over them, being an example, being humble, being as a child, being as the least, as the younger, as the last, using no force, being of no reputation, obedient to this nature even to death. Anytime I treat my wife in this manner, submission is never a point of contention. And submission that is coerced is not submission. Remember too that the burden of initiating the slave role rests on the leader or head. Humility then permits husband and wife to work out differences without violating one another. Rather than attacking and accusing when arguments occur, they can be honest about their own feelings. It is important to note that in God's new order, we are all members of the family of God before we are members of our earthly family. So my wife is my sister in Christ before she is my wife. Thus I must treat her as God's child and with even greater care than I would expect someone to treat my own children. I dare not be superior and manipulative with one of God's children. Subhead, Seen and Not Hurt. How can we be a servant to our children and not spoil them? Actually, servanthood is the best guarantee of their spiritual health. If we understand that our children are God's children first, then we understand that we are rearing them in His behalf as His servant and theirs. Consequently, we will be willing to train and discipline them out of our servanthood in order to reproduce the spirit of their Heavenly Father in them. Servanthood causes us to be present with our children, in touch with them and meeting their needs, alert to their tendencies to wander from the nature of the Father, and committed to confront that wandering. Servanthood means making right choices in behalf of children and sticking to them. Servanthood means saying no when no is for their benefit. It is also consistent with Paul's admonition, Fathers, do not exasperate your children. Instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. Ephesians 6.4. Living the Jesus style will not exasperate children but will cause them to know they are loved. Servanthood means equipping children for independent adulthood and then turning them back to their other Heavenly Father. It means neither strictness nor permissiveness. It means appropriateness. To be placed by God as the slave in charge of His children is an awesome responsibility, but no matter what the circumstances, God honors the servant love of parents. When I was six years old, my father was severely injured in an airplane accident and was left partially paralyzed and brain damaged. My mother then became the breadwinner of the house. Since my mother was often not there as she attempted to make a living, and my dad not there physically or mentally, the stage was set for family failure. But our family did not fail. Through difficult times, both parents stayed faithful to God and to us. Prayer, belief, steadfastness, and love surrounded us. Money and fine homes didn't. When my father died, my two brothers and I stood in front of his casket and made the following statement to the friends who had gathered for the funeral service. Our father did not leave a financial empire for us to carry on. Many things that a dad normally does with his sons, ours was unable to do. He was unable to teach us many things that a dad normally teaches, but he did leave us something that he had. He left us with a love of God, a love for the Bible, a love of people, an understanding of worship, and an inability to hate. We feel that he has left us only those things that will last. So we stand before you as his sons and declare publicly that we will follow his God. Servant parents who value deeply the gift of God in their home recognize the privilege and responsibility to carefully tend God's garden of life. Thus their children are reared with fewer bruises, stronger spirits, and healthier personalities. The fact that Jesus was reared in a bad neighborhood is evidence that servanthood does not require ideal family or physical situations for success, nor does it require financial opulence. It merely requires our obedience to the servant nature of Jesus. Subtitle I'D RATHER SEE A SERMON I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. My wife and family were once braving a 400-mile journey to join me at a camp where I was speaking. Their trip took them, at first, through a large city whose street configuration was rather confusing. For two hours they tried to make it through the city. They sought directions from policemen and others who would know, but each attempt to follow the directions was met with frustration. Finally, on the edge of despair, they stopped at another service station for one more attempt to get adequate instructions. With each direction given, my family responded, but we tried that. It didn't work. Then a man who overheard the conversation said, I'm in this red car parked here. You follow me. I'll show you the way. So, through the jungle of streets he led them, guiding them through difficult intersections until they were several miles beyond the city. When only the main highway remained, he stopped and said, Now you can't get lost. Just keep going on this road. That man was like Jesus to my family. I don't know if he was a follower of Jesus, but he certainly had a better understanding of the leadership style of Jesus than many of us who are his followers do. The most effective form of Christian leadership is leadership by example. Jesus didn't say, Do as I say, not as I do. Rather, as Matthew reports, and I quote the scripture, Jesus said to the crowds and to the disciples, The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat, so you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy loads and put them on men's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them. Everything they do is done for men to see. They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels of their prayer shawls long. They love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues. They love to be greeted in the marketplace and to have men call them rabbi. But you are not to be called a rabbi, for you have only one master, and you are all brothers. And do not call anyone on earth father, for you have one father, and he is in heaven. Nor are you to be called teacher, for you have one teacher, the Christ. The greatest among you will be your servant. Matthew 23, verses 1 through 11. In God's army, generals are not in protected posts behind the lines. No, their position is at the front of the troops, exposing themselves first to the best fire the enemy has to offer and showing how the battle is won. I listened in disbelief once as a theology student complained that the college he was in didn't have a separate dormitory for his kind, so they wouldn't be disturbed and corrupted by those not interested in the ministry. This age has joined with the age of Jesus in removing the influence of believers from sinners. Everywhere Christian ghettos are springing up. The light is hidden under church pews rather than shining openly. We stand away from the sinner as he sweeps helplessly to his doom and safely advise him not to sweep helplessly to his doom. But Jesus was Immanuel, God with us, and he bids us follow him. He didn't lord it over the disciples. He never asked them to do anything that he had not done first and shown them how to do. If we really love people as Jesus did, we will involve ourselves with them in showing them how. Subhead. Teaching without walls. While teaching at a Christian college, I noticed that my lecturing on prayer and asking good questions about prayer on tests did not teach the students how to pray. All that system taught them was how to take notes and how to answer test questions. I was able to teach prayer only to those with whom I prayed. A leading professor in a well-known seminary candidly admitted that his seminary did not train people to pastor. It trained people to teach in seminary, because that's the example set for them in the classroom. Jesus chose modeling rather than the classroom as his intimate style of teaching. To learn an attitude or skill that we have not seen performed is extremely difficult. I'm thankful that a driver taught me how to drive an automobile, that gentle hands guided mine to tie my own shoelaces. If the old cliche, those who can do, those who can't teach, were true, there would be no teaching, because teaching is guided doing. Also, it is in modeling that one can truly be last by going first. When students are experiencing anxiety at the prospect of going first in some new activity, the teacher, by taking the unfavored role of being first, performs an act of servanthood much like that of the king's food taster in history. Education is what we call the process of passing along knowledge and values and the process of shaping behavior. For the Christian, there's a dimension beyond that, the passing along of life. Only life begets life. For years, the church has taken its signals on how to educate from the world and not from Jesus, who said, a student is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher. Luke 6.40. We have brought students away from life into a classroom. Jesus drew students into the middle of life. We have limited the time for education to an hour or two. Jesus gave all his time to educating his disciples. We have gloried in ever larger classes. Jesus chose twelve to be with him. We have kept teachers in isolated, non-revealing lecture roles. Jesus exposed his life to the disciples. We dump our children into a reservoir of bodies and leave their training to strangers. The Bible gives the first responsibility to parents. If you are a teacher struggling with a classroom setting or some other limitation imposed upon you, the following principles should be seen as an encouraging call rather than a frustrating lack. Education in the Jesus style has teachers who walk with students, revealing their own lives and struggles, teachers who fulfill the servant qualities of Jesus. Education in the Jesus style recognizes that the student is the reason for being, not the teacher or the administrator, and shapes its actions accordingly. Education in the Jesus style trains people to be members of the kingdom first, not citizens of the United States or any country first. The teachers and other workers in their chosen structure model the kingdom for the teachers. Education in the Jesus style prepares the home to be the major force for spiritual training. Education in the Jesus style discerns the difference between the law of love and the kingdom of God and the forces of culture and tradition, and does not teach culture and tradition as the kingdom way. Education in the Jesus style keeps the number of students for any teacher limited to the number he or she can love and closely associate with. Education in the Jesus style does not use any means of evaluation that will lessen a person's view of himself. Education in the Jesus style does not build any system of discipline that is not born out of and supported by an intimate relationship with the disciplinarians. Education in the Jesus style uses as its criterion the equipping of the students to be everything God has gifted them to be. It does not use a profile of other expectations as a mold into which they must fit. Education in the Jesus style views the long-term impact and prepares for the whole of life. It is not subservient to fads or programs to benefit the educational system rather than the student. Education in the Jesus style recognizes love as the goal of life and not knowledge for its own sake. It recognizes that knowledge of God, properly taught, produces lives that love as Jesus loved and live as he lived. Subtitle No More No Less Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. I had long misunderstood humility. Thinking it to be an inferiority complex, I adopted a properly despondent look and asserted that I was nothing. I couldn't sing, I couldn't preach, couldn't play the piano or any other instrument, was barely coordinated enough to walk. People would respond as expected by saying, My, you're so humble. In all humility, I would thank them for noticing. Now, I realize that this attitude was not humility, it was sickness. Humility is no hang-dog approach to life. Humility is simply seeing ourselves as we actually are, not higher nor lower. It means being gut-level honest about ourselves, being upfront. It means knowing who we are and owning that, and owning our emotions. It means living without hypocrisy. In the desert, Moses had an encounter with God through the burning bush. After agreeing to return to Egypt to lead the children of Israel out, Moses wanted to be sure no one was playing a practical joke on him, so he asked for the voice to identify itself. What company name was going to be on the business card? God replied, I am who I am. God is congruent. He is who he is. Jesus also said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. And before Abraham was, I am. Humility is being an I am. One of the most loving things I can do for someone is to be honest or humble about myself so they don't have to sift through my deceptions. I doubt that when Jesus greeted the disciples in the they had to ponder over what he really meant. His being the same yesterday, today, and forever probably didn't mean that he had no emotions or moods, but may have meant that he was always honest about them, always an I am. Jesus was willing for people to see him intimately. From scripture, I quote, they said, Rabbi, which means teacher, where are you staying? Come, he replied, and you will see. John 1, verses 38 through 39. Especially note that Jesus' openness did not come as a result of probes or congressional investigations. His openness came at his own initiative. He did not have the philosophy that what they don't know won't hurt them. Jesus chose the disciples to be with him, a state of relationship that can only be revealing. In withness, we see behind the social graces to the realities of everyday life. When my wife and I were courting, we carefully dressed, combed, and deodorized ourselves. Not until the withness that marriage brings did she discover all of the uncouth actions of my physical being and begin to discover the nature of my motivations. Time and withness produce revelation. Jesus was faithful in his revelation to the disciples. In his graduation sermon, he states to them, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my father I have made known to you. John 15, 15. Friendship requires revelation. Although the larger crowds benefited from the teaching of Jesus about openness and revelation, full intimacy was reserved for the disciples. Teaching about the Father was the most important thing for Jesus, and that's what he did in the larger settings. Showing the Father was best done in more intimate relationships that would not be casting pearls before swine. Jesus judiciously did not satisfy the curiosity seekers, but those who truly desired access to him attained it. In our society, both church and secular, the higher you go up the ladder, the more inaccessible you are to people, the more hidden your personal life is. The further Jesus went into his messianic ministry, the more his friends could see into the depths of his inner life and emotions. Subhead in Broad Daylight We are so unaccustomed to living openly that these are probably some of the most threatening words in scripture, and I quote from scripture, Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed or hidden that will not be made known. What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the housetops. Luke 12, 1-3. Humility might well be described as walking in the light. Humility chooses to be real, to hide nothing, to be open. This certainly is a loving way to be toward people. The progression in 1 John 1, 7 then is logical. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from every sin. Our attitudes and values are so rarely derived from living scriptural principles that we are utterly out of touch with the power that comes from living in the light. We fear the vulnerability of it. Knowing the changes we will have to go through causes us great anxiety. Yet we need not fear that people will see our imperfections. We join the human race in having them. Our rejoicing is in the fact that we are forgiven and are growing. All of us are sinners, and I am not sure that some sinners are really greater sinners than others. It is just that some sins are more visible than others. I can cover up well on the outside and still regard iniquity in my heart. Jesus indicated that those who are forgiven much love much. This could mean that those who are fully repentant of both inner and outer sins are now fully visible and open. They feel the complete redemption of God, therefore enabling them to spend their energies loving much. But the Pharisees, whose outsides were whitewashed, had not repented of the inner, hidden sins and were thus handicapped in their ability to love. Subhead—The Cost of Hiding Any secret, whether good or bad, produces, according to psychologists, the same guilt effects on our being that sin does. Any strong emotion, positive ones included, that we contain and store up rather than learning how to express, works on our being and our environment in unhealthy ways. Our true nature is not designed for us to hide ourselves. The efforts toward covering that began at the fall of mankind are typical of the whole earthly lifestyle. The energy that goes into hiding is costly to us as persons. Anything we hide forces us to live in a way that will keep what we hide safely hidden. In other words, we become unreal, untrue to ourselves, incongruent. That unreality is opposite to the nature of Jesus, who is the God of reality. No energy was spent in covering his life with a mask. In him, there was no darkness at all. The poignant statement, Jesus wept, recorded by John, is evidence that even publicly, Jesus was free to be real with all of his inner being. His angers were openly expressed. The compassions that moved him, his joys, his griefs, were obvious enough that the writers of the gospel could observe and record them. Only through humility are we able to properly handle strong emotions. The Bible tells us to be angry and sin not, and not to let the sun set on our anger. We tend to interpret that as meaning we're to keep a stiff upper lip. Don't reveal your anger. Grit your teeth. Grin and bear it. The opposite response that occasionally breaks out when we've gritted our teeth as long as we can is to use violence or even subtle vengeance. Neither violence nor sublimation are healthy ways of handling anger. Humility permits me to own my feelings, to admit them. Now I'm free to say I'm angry. I'm free to admit what I'm reacting to. I'm free to ask if anger is what the person wanted to produce in me, and to ask for help in changing if my reaction is inappropriate. This ability to express our true feelings out of humility extends even to our relationship with God. When events in nature occur that frustrate and anger us, we subtly label them as acts of God to show our feelings. Would expressing anger outright to God be any more dangerous? Do you suppose God is affected by diplomacy or flattery? Since most of our prayers are basically complaints about how God is running the world, would honesty about feelings we have toward God or disappointments we experience in our relationship with Him be out of order? The beauty of intimate relationships is they not only survive emotional expressions but are often enriched by them. It is the abba relationship with God that is not too fragile for us, nor need we fear fierce retaliation from the author of mercy. Even Jesus cried in that despairing moment, why hast thou forsaken me? It is striking how we, because of cultural influences, are trained to hide our feelings. Sadly, some Christian groups are taught that we must smile through the deepest of hurts. They even deny that these hurts exist, thinking that Christians must always and only be positive, joyful, and smiling. How often couples who are going through difficulties journey to church unsmiling, not speaking, until just outside the door when they put on the smile. When the official greeter asks how they are doing, the standard, smiling response comes, just fine, thank you. If there is one place where we ought to be able to come with our sins and feelings exposed and find help and healing, it is the church. But more and more, it has become the one place where we must be the most careful to hide our true feelings and instead support the appearance of consistent, gleeful victory. The body of Christ, especially in well-functioning, small, intimate groups, is the most healing body in the world, yet we do not treat it as such. We wouldn't think of relating to a medical doctor with the same reserve as we have in the healing body of Christ. Would we say to a doctor, I have this unspoken illness? Of course not. But we often use the term unspoken request in sharing our needs with the body of Christ. Would we try to deceive a doctor into thinking our hurt is non-existent or in a different place than it actually is? Of course not. Would we say, I'm here for a friend, examine me and diagnose him? Of course not. Yet we will treat the church with such distrust and fear we choose to hide. Somehow we have decided that the is supposed to be the company of the perfect rather than the company of the forgiven. This attempt to keep up appearances has brought the church to a crisis of honesty in which reality has fallen by the wayside as we attempt to project for all to see a facsimile of the ideal. Meanwhile, we desperately hope that the truth is not discovered and that the facade is accepted. In the name of Christ, we cover our own sins and failings and crucify those in our ranks who would dare cry foul and bring our mistakes out into the light. Sir Walter Scott spoke of the nature of humility when he said, oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we fashion to deceive. When, by my incongruency, I give people wrong signals, they respond accordingly and wrongly. Then I respond wrongly to their wrong response. On and on this cycle continues until a war is started and no one remembers how it began. Paul underscored the importance of openness in the church when he wrote to the Philippians, whatever you have seen in me, put into practice, Philippians 4, 9. To the Thessalonians he wrote, we have loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well because you had become so dear to us, 1 Thessalonians 2, 8. In writing to the Corinthians, he developed the concept further, and I quote from scripture, we are not like Moses who would put a veil over his face to keep the Israelites from gazing at it while the radiance was fading away. Now the Lord is the Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory are being transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory which comes from the Lord who is the Spirit, 2 Corinthians 3, 13, 17, and 18. I had always used these verses, declaring freedom where the Spirit is, to justify some of the more bizarre aspects of enthusiastic church life. Now I see that the presence of the Holy Spirit frees me to rip off my veil or my mask and walk openly, not because I am perfect, but because I am now reflecting the Lord's glory and am being transformed, constantly improving, growing. Moses veiled his face to hide his He chose to do so. Apparently there was no real need to do that. However, whenever we operate under the law, human frailty, perhaps especially in the face of great spiritual experiences, forces us to pretend, to hide, to cover up in order to put our best foot forward for all to see. Grace is so different in its fulfillment of the law. John tells us in John 1, 17, that the law came by Moses, grace and truth by Jesus Christ. The law demanded righteousness. Grace delivered righteousness. The law required. Grace provided. The law was pressure. Grace was relief. The law was bondage. Grace was freedom. Grace and truth can only be modeled in the light and being seen. Because of the very nature of grace, we have no reason to hide. Whoever lives by the truth comes into the light so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God. John 3, 21. To live with a mask is not to experience the freedom of the Spirit, who administers forgiveness and gives us courage to rip the veil aside and reflect God's glory. We are free to do so not because we have reached a stage of perfection that would guard us from the embarrassing gaze of the world, but because, unlike Moses, we are not fading away, but are instead increasing or growing in God's likeness. In the plan of God, everything said, done, or thought will be revealed. For those who hide, it will be disaster. For the open and growing, it will merely be redeemed history. Subtitle. A Child Is. Let the little children come to me, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Jesus had a special place in his heart for children, and through them he taught the disciples a needed lesson. I quote from scripture. People were bringing little children to Jesus to have him touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it. And he took the children in his arms, put his hands on them, and blessed them. Mark 10, 13-16. Subhead. A Child Is Unthreatening. I would not mind meeting a child in a dark alley. Now, if we are to follow the footsteps of Jesus and represent him correctly, the world must be no more threatened by us than we would be by a child. Jesus even states, I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves. Matthew 10, 16. Some years ago, when I was an associate pastor in Illinois, the ladies of the church would come on Thursday mornings for a prayer meeting. Since it was a ladies' meeting, and I was not invited, I chose to go and spend time in the nursery, playing with their children. I shall never forget the first time I did it. Opening the top half of the nursery door, I leaned in and said, Hi kids, Pastor Irwin here, let's play. One of them ran into the other room frightened. The others merely went about their business. Well, they didn't seem to understand who I was, I thought. So I entered the room, walked to the middle of the group, and said again, Hi kids, let's play. Another one ran into the adjoining room terrified. The remainder continued their actions as if to say, Did you hear a noise? By this point my ego was getting involved. The nursery attendant had begun to smile in amusement. I wanted to grab one of them and shake him and say, You are going to play with me and you are going to enjoy it. Do you hear me? But then the Holy Spirit helped me to remember what adults looked like when I was that size. They were frightening giants. My world was kneecaps. I never carried on conversations with adults. What could we talk about? I knew nothing about politics. Economics was out. I thought a nickel was better than a dime because it was bigger. I was to be seen and not heard. So, with this memory moving me, I fell to the floor and then said, Hi kids, let's play. In thirty seconds every one of them was on top of me, squealing, pulling my tie, my hair, destroying my dignity. From then on I played no role games. I would enter, hit the floor, and be considered a close friend, unthreatening. The unthreatening child likeness of Jesus intimidated no one. Both friend and foe approached him freely. The Pharisees and Sadducees attacked him with a fervor they could never have mustered had Jesus walked the earth with a heavenly glow and spoken in a royal, electronically enhanced voice. Children were comfortable around him, which even a surface observation would tell you could not be so without his own child likeness. The Sanhedrin plotted to capture him and were held off, not by their fear of Jesus, but by their fear of the crowds. Subhead. A child isn't good at deceiving. Part of being like a child is to be humble, to be real. You can tell when children are happy or when they are sad. If they're afraid, they act accordingly. It is well known that any two children playing together will go through alternate stages of laughing, squealing, running, being angry, and crying. When we affirm their freedom to do so, they can be terminally angry at a friend and five minutes later be playing again as if nothing had ever happened. When my son was about five years old, he wanted to take a toy out of his room that, because of its delicacy, we had instructed him to keep inside. He made the attempt, nonetheless. With arm behind him, bent over body, in furtive glance, he shuffled stealthily sideways, in plain view of the whole family. What he was doing was written all over him. He didn't know how to sneak. But just give me a little time and I will teach him the sophisticated adult art of sneaking. At one time he was interested in magic tricks, but their proper execution eluded him. You always knew where the hidden item was. It was in the closed hand. He didn't know how to deceive. Most of us can picture those times we needed to give our children a spoonful of medicine. Their tightly clenched mouths formed the immovable object oblivious to our pleas to open up. Then with parental deception we would say, look, it is good. See? I'll take some first and show you. Then we would sip a little of the foul-tasting brew, but smile as if we had embarked on a gourmet feast. The now convinced child opens his mouth and learns quickly that to be grown up means to lie and deceive. If I thought someone I loved was cheating on me, or in some way trying to deceive me, how would it affect me? How would it change my relationship with others if I knew they wouldn't deceive me? Deception is not compatible with childlikeness, or with love, or with Jesus. I enjoy telling stories to children. They can suspend their disbelief so easily. If I tell them something as the truth, they accept it as such. They are adept at accepting things at face value. Apparently this is precisely the way Jesus requires us to accept the kingdom of God. It is first and primarily a matter of our belief. We chose to accept, before it ever becomes part of our logic. Subhead. A child is innocent. When Jesus told us we must be as a little child in receiving the kingdom, he was using as an example one who had not yet come under the requirements of the law. Only after a certain age was a child considered accountable and under the command of the law. Until then he was innocent. To receive the grace and forgiveness of God as a child would is to understand that we are now in a state of innocence. How difficult it is for me to accept the forgiveness of God that way. I continue to lay different types of laws and requirements on myself and others. I find it so difficult to accept my state as being just as if I had never sinned. I keep trying to earn the acceptance and forgiveness of God. Until I accept this forgiveness and innocence, I will minister to others out of guilt and my own needs, rather than being free to be totally oriented toward them, sensitive to them, serving them.