The Jesus Style

Subtitle, Shepherds Don't Run. He humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross. Greater love has no man than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. John 15, 13. This is the ultimate test of love. Am I willing to go that far in giving myself away? It's important that we note that Jesus was not coerced into any of this. Love is always a choice. No one is ever forced to love. To be enslaved is one thing, but to choose to serve, that constitutes love. So even the step of death was a loving choice that Jesus made, and I quote the scripture. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd who owns the sheep, so when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man runs away because he's a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my sheep, and my sheep know me, just as the Father knows me, and I know the Father, and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep who are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I receive from my Father. John 10, 11-18. Power for such self-giving can only come from knowing what the Father is like and hearing His voice. The important response now is for His sheep to hear His voice, to know what kind of sounds the Father makes, to hear the call of the servant nature, to understand that obedience to Him means never to violate others by being self-serving. Jesus knew that death did not end it all. It merely began a whole new world. Since most who read this book live in cultures that offer little threat to our lives because we are Christians, we then must ask ourselves basic questions, such as, For what am I willing to die? A place or places? A thing or things? A belief or a set of beliefs? A person or a people? Where do I place myself and say, Here I stand, so help me God, even if it cost me my life? Our answer to that question ultimately determines the depth of our servanthood. Subtitle Serendipity Therefore God Exalted Him Examining the nature of Jesus as we have leaves the natural me a little afraid. None of these traits of the man Jesus are useful to conquer the world. Yet Jesus left us with the command to make disciples of all nations. How, without using power, influence, and money, can we make His name known? How can such a non-self-serving system ever get the job done? Here God reveals the bottom line to this list of the traits of Jesus. He lets us know where His interests lie. In the Philippians 2 passage, Paul gives the results of living the Jesus nature of obedience to the Father. I quote the scripture, Therefore God exalted him to the highest place, and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2, 9-11 Now I see. If we live after God's manner, we'll get God's results. We cannot win the world in our own strength, so we must approach it in a way that frees God to use His power in our behalf. I have seen people succeed in religious circles who did not use much of the Jesus style. This disturbed me until I saw it in perspective. Their success was minor compared to what it could have been. We can succeed on our own, but the success will be restricted to the limits of our human abilities and will never fully do the job left to us. But when we live in the Jesus style, our success is limited only to God's ability. It will never fit our worldly logic, but it will fit our faith and will unquestionably require us to trust Him. But He is faithful and promises to uphold His part of the deal. He says to us, I no longer call you servants because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I have learned from my Father I have made known to you. John 15, 15. That is the glorious outcome. Now we know how to pray. Now we know how to love. Now we know the source of our power. Now we know how to use power. Subtitle The Power Broker Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under His power. I was watching a television program in which candidates for a certain bodybuilding title were being interviewed. As they walked out onto the stage, the muscles rippled beneath their oiled skins like so many small animals racing each other. Their show of strength was awesome. When the announcer asked them what they did with their strength, their answer was to take appropriate poses to show again the shape of their muscles. The more he insisted on knowing how they used their strength, the more they took poses of power. What do you do when you have all that power? For the last quarter-century, Superman has been part of the American culture. Begun as a comic book then serialized on television, his adventures have now been made into a series of expensive movies. We are enraptured by the thought of being faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings with a single bound. We love power, and Superman fits our deepest fantasies perfectly. But what do you do with all that power? What does Jesus do? Jesus knows, in John 13, the time has come. He prepares to show the disciples the full extent of His love. Jesus is aware that He has come from God and is returning to Him, and He knows that the Father has put all things under His power. What are we to expect now? Fireworks? An awesome show of raw power? Imagine Jesus, biceps bulging beneath a seamless robe with flowing cape, reclining at supper with His disciples. The forces of evil have been collecting for months and are about to kill Him, but don't worry. All the power ever created is coursing through His body. He gets up. This man, surrounded by overwhelming evil forces, walks over to the disciples, and with all of this incredible power, begins to do what? He got up from the meal, took off His outer clothing, wrapped a towel around His waist. After that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash His disciples' feet. So that is what He does with power. He washes feet. We do not have a custom with which to compare foot washing. Foot washing was a hospitable thing, always done by a slave or the head of the house, if he were too poor to have a slave. It was a lowly thing, never done by persons of significance for whom it would represent a loss of stature. It's like having the President of the United States clean the restrooms of the White House or having a king sweep the streets. One would not perform such a lowly job and risk losing stature unless he were completely comfortable with his own identity. Jesus knew who He was, and consequently He didn't have to prove anything. He could do the lowest job. Had it been me, I would have held one foot slightly elevated for all the disciples to see as I coughed nervously and hinted that something important had been left undone. It would have been beneath me to do such work. And Peter recognized that this behavior was beneath the dignity of Jesus. He was unable to receive such a free gift, so he told Jesus he would not allow his feet to be washed. Jesus' answer speaks volumes about our relationship to Him and each other and about His nature. Unless I wash you, you have no part with Me. Unless we understand the true nature of Jesus and let Him be to us what He is to be, we can never fully comprehend Him or truly be a part of Him. We may be a member of His club or take on much of the right vocabulary, but unless He serves us, we have no part or fellowship with Him. Peter's response is typical of the way we approach one another. Above all, you must not see the real me, we reason. I'll wash my own feet. You can rinse them ritually. Perhaps just as not letting Jesus wash our feet removes us from fellowship with Him, not fulfilling the command of Jesus to wash one another's feet removes us from fellowship with each other. We are to be cleansing agents to each other, removing the dust of our daily travels to prepare us to sit at the table of the Lord. I quote from Scripture. When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. Do you understand what I have done for you? he asked them. You call me teacher and Lord, and rightly so, for that's what I am. 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, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. John 13, 12-16. Some interpret this passage to mean that Jesus was instituting a new type of ritual, an actual foot-washing service. I have no real argument with those who do so. I've been in foot-washing services, and they can be a time of real exhilaration. However, I have never been in a service where there were any dirty feet. We're careful to clean them thoroughly before we expose them to the gaze, smell, and touch of the saints. Personally, I doubt that Jesus was introducing a new liturgy. He definitely was telling us how we were to relate to one another. If it is not literally to wash feet, then what are we to do to fulfill this commandment? One question in response would be, what things make us feel cleaner and more fit for the Master's table? When someone takes the time to listen to me, I feel as if my feet have been washed. When I'm complimented, my feet have been washed. When someone shares a joy with me, my feet have been washed. When someone values my ear enough to share a burden or confess, my feet have been washed. There are countless ways to wash feet. We need only to begin to notice where the dirt comes from in our own lives, and we can give cleansing to others. This thought altered my approach to Sunday sermonizing. I began to realize that neatly dressed people, seated neatly in rows, are not feeling neat inside. Most of them struggle with non-Christian fellow workers. Some listen to constant streams of profanity and off-color stories. Many of the women have been propositioned in the past week. Families sit coolly angry and nonconversant. Guilt, real and unreal, hovers over them and strikes deeply at their inner beings. Shall I flail them with ominous words from a pulpit? Shall I berate them because they live no better? Shall I blame them for a broken heart? No, they, like me, need their feet washed. We cannot discover true fellowship until our times together as Christians are foot-washing times. Jesus said, now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them. John 13, 17. Chapter title, Living in Style. Subtitle, The Sweet and the Bitter. In following a map, we must first know where we are before we know where to go. Now that we have seen Jesus and ourselves in contrast, we at least have some idea of where we are. By now, it should be obvious that our journey is going to take a lifetime, but we will get there. When Ezekiel was told after receiving a revelation from God to eat the words he had written, he found them to be sweet in his mouth and bitter in his stomach. There is a parallel to that in the words I have shared with you. As good as they may sound or taste, they are difficult to digest, simply because they are so opposite to our natural inclinations. We begin to fear and tremble as we work out this salvation. Thankfully, we have help. We will see that clearly as we look now at the body of Christ and at God's involvement in our personal growth. It will become obvious also that God's invitations have an RSVP note on them. Subtitle, The Ankle Bone Connected to the Foot Bone. Reading from scripture, God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it. If one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. 1 Corinthians 12, 24-27. It is appropriate that God chose the body as an analogy for His followers. It's organic, flexible, growing. It can only survive as it lives according to the nature of Jesus. Not one part of the natural body exists for itself. Every single part of the human body is designed and placed there to be a servant to the rest of the body. If a part of the natural body becomes self-centered and begins to exist only for itself, it becomes what medical doctors call cancer. Both my natural body and the body of Christ can survive only as long as each part functions as servant to the rest of the parts. The analogy of our being a body can be carried to some logical conclusions. No body has any ambitious parts in it. You'd never hear my toes say to me, if I'm a really good toe, can I work my way up the body and become a knee, an elbow, or a nose? Ridiculous. My toes spend most of their lives in darkness. They've been seen by few people. They work under great pressure and in less than the best atmosphere. Yet they do not complain that they've never tasted ice cream or that the face gets more attention. Never once have they said, if this is all the thanks I get, I'm going to join another body. If an ankle is sprained and cannot carry its share of the load, the body does not threaten to cut it off because it makes the whole body limp. The other parts of the body are glad they can take up the slack while the injured part is repaired. When I'm driving a nail and accidentally hit the wrong nail, the one on my thumb, my injured hand does not grab the hammer and beat the other thumb to get even for the injury. My right hand does not berate my left hand because it is weaker and not as dexterous as my right hand. Shaving scrapes off a layer of skin that requires the corpulses of the blood to come and repair it. They do it every day. Not once do they complain that if the person doesn't learn his lesson and quit damaging his face, they will cease healing the shaved area. My fist does not hit my stomach if it aches or my face if it is burned. Quite the opposite. My body is carefully self-protective. Without regard to its own safety, my hand will cover my face to protect the eyes. Occasionally the parts of my body will signal their complaint if they're overworked, but at no time do I have to handle a stack of complaints from the parts of my body saying they resent the part that they are. Surely what this all means is obvious. If we are members of the body of Christ, we are designed to serve one another. It's the only way Christ would have it to be. Subtitle Prisoners of History If our individual lives are expected to reflect the nature of Jesus, then the structures we individuals form—our organizations, our denominations—are not in an exempt category. Yet within a few years of the founding of almost all religious groups, they began to take on the characteristics of the average business corporation. They're shaped like a pyramid in their authority structure. Efficiency experts begin to determine their functions rather than body structure and spiritual gifts. Nepotism reigns. They become ingrown and far removed from the thinking of their constituencies. Corporate proclamations vastly differ from the private expressions of the individual members. In personal conversations with a number of different persons in high denominational boards, I've found them to be basically progressive men who cared for people and had deep misgivings about various theologies and about their own roles. But when they get into a meeting together, the product of the meeting is opposite to their private expressions. I wonder if they aren't getting their signals from somewhere else once they fall into the system that resembles that of the world. If an organization's system deprives or inhibits persons in their ability to hear from God and decide on that basis, then something is drastically wrong. That is not the Jesus style. It was the nature of Jesus to be given to persons. It is the nature of organizations to be given to self-preservation. To be self-seeking is to violate the words of Jesus. Whoever tries to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it. After a period of time, structures begin to suffer hardening of the categories, and those categories become more important to them than the persons they serve. The Greek myth of Procrustes describes the situation well. Procrustes had a house midway between two major cities and a day's journey from each. Because of its location, travelers sought it out regularly for a night's lodging and for meals. The hospitality of the home of Procrustes was beyond any that the travelers had ever experienced before. Meals were sumptuous. Rooms were spacious. Payment was not accepted. Procrustes allowed them the run of the house and informed them that there were no rules for them to worry about. Only one requirement would be laid upon them for the whole night. Joy abounded. Then the requirement was revealed. Every person who stayed there would have to fit the bed. If he was too short, he would be stretched. If he was too tall, he would be cut off. Many people fit the bed, slept well, and went about praising the hospitality of Procrustes to their friends in various cities, urging them to spend a night there when they traveled through. But many people died in the of Procrustes. No one heard their testimony. When denominations and other religious organizations become established, their theologies and social structures tend to be rigid. Anyone with fresh insight or a prophetic word is stoned verbally or excluded from the Jerusalem or headquarters of the group. Only those who fit the prescribed pattern survive. Also, as systems of choosing personnel are refined, only those who can move up through the ranks are accepted. Spiritual leadership falls by the wayside as the rigid bed of political ability wins. The early days of most new movements are marked by outstanding leadership, often chosen because it simply is outstanding. Later, as the movement dies, leadership in the resulting institution follows a more bureaucratic model. On several occasions, I have asked people who were training for ministry to list the persons to whom they looked for spiritual leadership in the church. Never has an elected official of any organization been named. Somehow, the rights to true leadership are laid aside in the shuffle for power. What can a structure do to prevent such failings? Basically, it cannot do anything. That's the nature of the beast, and the only way it can be handled is to be killed. Here is a drastic proposal. Every religious organization should have in its first constitution the irrevocable provision that it be disbanded and dispersed at the end of 50 years. For some, this limit should be 25 years. This would free the constituency to be more constantly in touch with God, thereby increasing openness for revival. It would free the organization from seeking wealth and prominence. Its funds would be channeled toward people. The non-Jesus-like structures would die, and the church would not be as guilty of damaging people. Such an approach would simply be recognizing the manner in which the Holy Spirit works anyway. He keeps raising new movements that are alive and in touch with Him while the older structures get huffy and kick the new movement out. The new movement shows its vitality by growing faster than anything around until it may even become as big as the group from which it was expelled. Then the new group becomes rigid like the former one, and another new movement more in touch with the Holy Spirit and people emerges, and it in turn gets expelled by the new group that was expelled by the first one, and on, and on, and on. Why not just move with the Holy Spirit and guarantee our death so that we can multiply like a grain of wheat? The humility of Jesus requires us to be gut-level honest about ourselves. Yet systems that seek to preserve themselves tell only enough of the truth in their promotional material to encourage people to continue supporting them. Some promotional material makes a system sound alive and well long after it has died and decayed. To follow the style of Jesus is to refuse the temptation of self-promotion and glorification. It would mean accepting only the support of those who have volunteered their resources because they are grateful for service to them. The moment a structure begins to promote itself, it has violated the nature of Christ and has drunk the poison of its death. Religious organizations should limit the amount of funds they hold in reserve. The more funds in reserve, the less we have to rely upon the Holy Spirit and the less we have to stay in servanthood to people. Even denominations should not lay up treasure where rust corrupts and thieves break in and steal. The Christ nature isn't designed to hoard large sums of money. Anytime you see an organization with massive sums, you can count on scandal being uncovered at some point. No system should violate the nature of Jesus by demanding anything of its people for the system's benefit. The kingdom of God is made up of volunteers. One who operates as a slave, a child, and the least can hardly be demanding toward others. Systems that do so are desperate and dying. Every system should have as its first priority the building of relationships that will fulfill the commandment to love. No structure should be built that demands authority and obedience over love and unity. No person in the structure should be more than one step away in authority and contact from the constituency. No power should be granted simply on the basis of position. All authority must reside in the person's chosen of God, and unless their lives and abilities have already granted them recognition, then no position should decree it. Institutional authority can never be a satisfactory replacement for God-given abilities and the authority which accompanies such giftings. We must free ourselves from cultural forms such as elections, also called divisions of the house, and learn to make decisions that come out of unity, produced by open and caring relationships, decisions from leaders who have renounced empire-building, decisions carefully designed to violate no one. We must free ourselves from viewing the clergy as an elite core with privileges that come from ordination. Most such structures are merely preacher's unions that have little correlation to being servants. When William Stringfella declared all worldly institutions to be demonic because they do to people the same things demons do, he was close to the truth. I find it difficult to refute his statement. Jesus walked among the people. He never became a part of any of the religious structures of his day except in areas such as the synagogue, where the people were, and where the lowest part of the pyramid of power lay. This fact should be a strong guideline for the religious world. When we examine the life of Jesus, we discover that his anger was most kindled by those nestled within self-serving institutions who had lost sight of the needs of people and had long since ceased to be servants. Even the great commands of the past, such as, remember the Sabbath day, had become institutional policies. Jesus put them back into perspective. The Sabbath was made for man, not man, for the Sabbath. Mark 2.27. All of Christ's love was aimed toward the redemption of man, not in an attempt to pigeonhole human actions in life, but to let mankind know the truth and be free. The law had to be subservient to love. Jesus got angry at any person or system that degraded or ignored people and their needs. Quoting from scripture, Woe to you teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices, mint, dill, and cumin, but you have neglected the more important matters of the law, justice, mercy, and faithfulness. You snakes, you brood of vipers, how will you escape being condemned to hell? Therefore I am sending you prophets and wise men and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify, others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town. Excerpts from Matthew 23. Apparently the Pharisees were so brainwashed by the system that they had built that they now knew only how to destroy people with it. We must not be so blind as to think that those words of denunciation by Christ were only for a remote people. They are for today. Somehow God must erase centuries of misunderstanding in our minds and help us to see that the institutions and structures of the world and management systems that accompany them bear no relationship to the organic body of Christ. However efficient the world system, it cannot be automatically applied to the church. One more scripture that I wish to include speaks to our understanding of how Jesus lived in relation to the world system, both religious and secular, of his day. I leave it to you and the Holy Spirit to apply. Quoting from scripture, The high priest carries the blood of animals into the most holy place as a sin offering, but the bodies are burned outside the camp. And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. Let us then go to him outside the camp bearing the disgrace he bore. For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come. Hebrews 13, 11-14. Subtitle Binding us together. If there is one thing that all the Christian world agrees about, it is that Jesus is Lord. Doctrinal fringes, cultural differences, and individual ambitions have separated us into the splintered group that we are today. If there is to be the unity that Jesus prayed for, it will come around him and him alone. At a gathering of Catholic sisters, I was one of a small number of Protestant ministers that was asked to address the group on the prospects for ecumenical life and on what we saw as separating us. The convolutions of church history and tradition were discussed with such knowledge and eloquence that I began to be embarrassed by the simplicity of my approaching statement. At my moment, I said, I am a member of a very young denomination that has nonetheless developed many traditions of its own that would separate us. I do not want to tell you of them, and you don't want to hear of them. You are members of a very old group with many more traditions than either of us wish to delve into today. Change in these patterns will not bring resolution and put us together. However, anytime you want to get together and talk about Jesus, I am ready. With that, I sat down. At the close, I was inundated by requests to come to their schools and say the same thing. A few years ago, I attended a conference in Singapore whose goal was to explore prospects for church unity and hear what God was saying to each other. 400 people from 40 different denominations attended. After a week of intense interaction, the one statement to which all names could be freely signed was, Jesus Christ is Lord. There may never be an organic world church, and were there one, it might be more an object of fear than of reverence. But living unity is coming because the Father answers the prayers of Jesus, who prayed, Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. John 17, 11, and 23. I've had the chance to see a good measure of church unity. It's always present when people are living the servant style of Jesus. I've had a chance to see a good many church splits, and it has become obvious that no church has ever split because the two factions were arguing over who would get to be slave, or who would get to be the least, or who would get to be last, or who would get to be of no reputation, or who would be the last to use force. Unity comes out of our loving one another just as Jesus loves us. That's why we are given a description of his nature, so we will know how he loved us, how we can love one another, and how the church can be unified. Subtitle, At Home with the Body. If you're ready to begin the servant lifestyle, I'd like to offer a place to get started and a direction to go. The recommendations here are certainly not the exclusive directions. However, the fulfillment of servanthood demands an intimacy unfamiliar to many, so I share the experience of small groups with you so that you can begin your own journey. The early church discovered homes to be ideal places for the dynamics of Christianity to take place. There was no room for ritualistic trappings. The size made total participation possible and normative. Everyone would know each other, so maintaining good relationships was of primary importance. Time would be available for prayer and ministering to each person. Scripture could be learned in dialogue and with immediate application. Jesus himself chose twelve as his primary ministry group. The nature of Jesus was one of love, which demands close interpersonal relationships. Servanthood is difficult in large impersonal groupings. I found that small groups can be successful when the nature of Jesus is used as a guiding force. A leader who seeks to be a servant in a small group would control his own participation in order to free others. He would be sensitive to the needs expressed in order to minister to them. For example, he would not expect the other members of a group to share to any depth or answer any questions that he had not shared or answered first. He would lead the way in listening and in affirming and in expressing his feelings honestly. Out of humility, he would indeed share his true feelings and lovingly confront when necessary. As a child, he would accept persons at face value and would not probe into their lives but would rejoice and weep with them. As one of no reputation, he would be willing to let the group see his own failings and struggles honestly. As the younger, he would be sensitive to when anyone was abusing someone else and would tend to protect them. In all my studies and participation in small groups, I've yet to see a proper leadership action that was not covered by the nature of Jesus. I consider it the secret of church life in small relational settings. The next three sections of this chapter discuss the techniques of helping those relationships grow. Subhead, Sharing Ourselves Fifth Amendment right-to-privacy thinking has turned the body of Christ into a group of private individuals who meet together but remain in protective shells. In order to break out of this, we must consciously share ourselves with others. In spite of what you can know by observation, you can truly know me only when I relate my story with its struggles and feelings. To share my story, to deposit myself in vulnerability to others, is certainly in the order of servanthood. Subhead, Walking in the Sunshine If you were involved in a group not built around the principles of the body, your self-revelation might well be followed by confrontation or a form of verbal attack to produce catharsis. But such are not the ways of the body. The body's response to a threatened or anxious member is protection. Our response to the self-revealer is affirmation. The whole structure and process of body of Christ is captured in a single statement of Paul in 1 Corinthians 12.7 as he declares that the gifts of the Spirit are given to each one for edification, or building up, for the common good. Paul's strongest statement about how we should view and respond to each other comes in 2 Corinthians 5, verses 16 and 17. So from now on, we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has gone. The new has come. In other words, I must now see you as the new creature you are. I must be able to discern the best. No longer can I say, you're a good person, but, and then launch into a diatribe about your faults. Your position as a child of God must be affirmed by me. Sometimes I hear a protest to such affirmation, and it usually takes this form. But how are people going to know how to improve if I don't tell them what's wrong with them? The answer is simple. Jesus states that our hearts already condemn us, so he didn't come to condemn, but to offer abundant life. If I were to ask you to write on a sheet of paper five things you don't like about yourself, you'd likely be finished within 60 seconds. Then if I asked you to reverse the paper and write five things you like about yourself, you may need hours. We're painfully aware of our inadequacies. A fairy tale, many of them seem near inspiration, expresses it well. The sun and the north wind observed a man walking along wearing a heavy overcoat. They decided to see who could get the coat off of him. The north wind elected to try first. He blew a howling gale around him, but the stronger the wind, the more tightly the man drew his coat around himself. Then the sun said, now it's my turn. So he beamed warming rays down upon the man, and soon, of his own choice, the man removed the coat and walked happily in the sunshine. When we surround people with warmth, they will, by their own choice and energy, reveal and remove unnecessary heavy weights they have used as protection. By sharing our histories with each other, we have deposited the most valuable thing we have, our revealed selves, with each other. Now that we have responded to that deposit with affirmation, a remarkable development occurs. We realize that our deposit is safe, and we can risk even further. We can now trust. Subhead. The Freedom of Commitment. Armed with this new trust, we are free now to risk the commitment that before would have been too painful and perhaps even unproductive. The first freedom of our new commitment is confession. James 5.16 proclaims, Therefore confess your sins to each other, and pray for each other, so that you may be healed. Now, without trust, I will confess your sins, or else confess socially acceptable and common sins, such as not enough faith or not enough prayer. But with trust, I can share those things that truly hinder me, and, consequently, I can expect prayer and healing. Confession is like the daily elimination processes of the body. With confession, we can walk in comfort without unnecessary waste products. Infrequent confession creates a waste buildup that is traumatic, indeed, to eliminate. Such confession also creates an appropriate form of discipline. By confession, I authorize others to pray for me, and also to check back with me later to see how I am doing. Such gentle, regular accountability is woefully lacking in the Church. As a result, we are pathologically independent and infected. Our second freedom is to approach the Word of God personally through applicational Bible study. Applicational Bible study is basically confessional since it responds to two personal questions. What does the Bible say to me, and what am I going to do about it? The answers to these questions are confessions of our conviction by the Holy Spirit. Jesus and James call us clearly to such application. Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. Matthew 7.24. Do not merely listen to the Word and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. James 1.22. The third freedom of our commitment is confrontation. We seldom wait until after the process of trust-building to confront areas in our relationship with each other that damage our relationship. When we do not wait, however, we cannot enjoy good fruit. With the process that builds trust, we have earned the right and the necessity to confront. For a reminder of the context of confrontation, reread the sections on humility and manipulation. The fourth freedom of commitment is to the intimacy that the New Testament calls koinonia. We are no longer merely passengers together on the bus we call church, but we are desperately, eternally, and intimately loyal to each other. Our dreams and visions, as well as our goods, become one another's property. We forsake not the assembling of ourselves together. At this stage, we find completion of our servanthood, the love that servanthood expresses, gives, and receives in the constant, often unconscious interaction of body-life. In the small group setting, we discover that the body of Christ, like our own body, changes slowly and gently, but surely, even under such radical calls as issued in this book. If you are working with an old wineskin, the tenderizing process, if successful, must be slow and careful. At any rate, it's the wine that is important and must be preserved. Subtitle Sharing the Pain A group of pastors with whom I had shared the principles of servanthood, and who had been progressing in living them, asked me to return for a weekend of retreat and discussion. One of us, I admitted that I didn't know, apologized for causing their pain and urged them to return to their former ways. They replied, never. Their pains had begun to shift away from the frustrations of self-seeking to the empathetic pain of walking with others. Though that pain was greater, they never wanted to return to what they were before. Much suffering that is common to all is simply the product of our fallen human state—accidental injuries, sickness, disappointment. But such suffering is not necessarily the kind that is redemptive. Paul states in Philippians 3.10, I want to know Christ, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings. I am far more acquainted with the desire to know the power of his resurrection. Hebrews 5.8 tells us that Jesus learned obedience by what he suffered. All of the scriptures that I have found indicate that the sufferings of Jesus were in our behalf, and were it not for our behalf, he would likely have none but common sufferings. Since Jesus said we would be treated as he was, it's logical that a practical outworking of following Jesus would be suffering in behalf of others. Subtitle One word follows another. Once we grasp the all-encompassing servant nature of Jesus, and begin to view all things through that lens, remarkable clarity comes to areas of scripture that might have been murky before. Therefore, I here propose a new system of biblical interpretation that is both profound and simple. If we agree that there is a basic internal agreement throughout the Bible, then we would have to go a step higher and agree that the written word will not be contrary ever to the living word, Jesus. True internal consistency of the Bible means that it is amenable to the nature of Jesus, who was the complete revelation of God. Consequently, no interpretation of any scripture must place it at variance with his nature, which was that of being slave, example, humble, child, younger, last, least, no reputation, no force, etc. Any scripture whose interpretation on our part is at variance with the nature of Jesus must be set aside until we have enough light to interpret it properly. It remains as scripture, yet we admit that because the way we presently view it is not consistent with the nature of Jesus, we do not understand it well enough to proclaim it. By now you can recognize that some scripture which is currently used for doctrine and lifestyle is in trouble. If we try to harmonize it with the nature of Jesus, that should simply let us know that we've interpreted it wrongly. It is important, too, that we not fall prey to thinking that the Bible is the fourth member of the Godhead. The Bible is the written revelation of God, but regardless of what we believe about it, it must never violate the one it was written to reveal. Subtitle, The Style for All Seasons. The revivals of this century have primarily been Pentecostal or charismatic in nature. The rediscovery of the gifts of the Spirit by the Pentecostals and their outstanding fervor prompted them to believe and teach that their revival was the end-time revival. They felt that there was nothing left to rediscover in scripture, thus their charismatic phenomena represented the ultimate, the revival of revivals. Though the Pentecostals did restore to the church a neglected, even lost, power principle, they've not swept the church and world with the unity and effectiveness that one would expect of ultimacy. Despite their Jesus-centered worship and enthusiasm, the major emphasis for which they have become known has not been this knowledge of Jesus, but instead their consortium with the Holy Spirit. It is the glossolalic emphasis that is immediately apparent rather than the Christological, although for both the Pentecostals and Charismatics the strength of their relationship to Christ is unquestionable. Perhaps the grand scheme is unfolding, that the Holy Spirit, now having achieved the attention of a broader spectrum of the church and world, is preparing to sweep aside mythological entanglements in the Jesus of nostalgia and fulfill his major predicted function, that of glorifying Christ. In the Gospel of John, Jesus foretold the coming and the action of the Holy Spirit. I read from scripture, The Holy Spirit will teach you all things, and will remind you of everything I have said to you. When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you, he will testify about me. He will guide you into all truth. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. John 14, 26, 15, 26, 16, 13, and 16, 14. The most apparent conclusion to be drawn is that the Holy Spirit, as his primary function, will reveal the nature of Jesus to us and convict the world about him. The revivals of emphasis on the Holy Spirit violated this very principle by focusing on the Holy Spirit rather than letting the Spirit speak to us and the world about the person of Jesus. I believe the world's final great revival will be a revival that centers on Jesus himself and his nature. The world has seen no power greater than that of Jesus, and the church exercises no power greater than that of living the loving lifestyle of Jesus. We cannot escape the call and command given by Jesus to his church. Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, I am sending you. John 20, 21. Can we honestly believe that we are to be sent partially as the Father sent Jesus? Surely not. We must accept that we are sent with the same nature, the same requirements of attitude that were given to Jesus. The work of the gifts to the body of Christ is to equip us to minister to each other in a way that will bring us into a likeness of Christ until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Ephesians 4, 13. Our maturity is to make us like Christ. Our ministry is to mature others to be like Christ. To be like Christ, we must have his mind and absorb his nature. If the things spoken about the nature of Christ in this book are true, then the Holy Spirit will quicken them to you and help you apply them in your own unique way. The implications listed in prior chapters are things that the Holy Spirit has dealt with me about in my own life. They need not be your quickenings. Whether those implications are confirmed in your mind or not, you still must respond somehow to the call to be like Jesus, taste of his power, fellowship in his sufferings, and become like him in his death. Lest you end this book feeling a load of guilt and hopelessness about whether you will ever attain to the maturity and fullness of him, I wish to share an encouraging word from Scripture. I read, For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his purpose. Philippians 2.13 For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2.10 I worked in an office once where the men of the office would take lunch hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays to play basketball in a gymnasium across the street. Now, basketball is not my best game. When we would choose upsides, it threatened to go this way. Gentlemen, we had Gale last time. It's your turn to take him. So you can see I was mainly there for the exercise and fellowship. However, there was one fellow, named Dave, who was six feet eighteen inches tall when he stepped onto the basketball court. I loved to get on his team, because we would always win. All I had to do was get the ball to Dave, and he would score. When we would get the ball back, I would dribble it around a while simply for appearance sake, lob the ball over to Dave, and he would dunk it for another two points. Then I would say, Aren't we good? That's much like the relationship we have with Jesus. He's the one who is at work in us to help us want to do His will, and then to help even more as we try to do it. We are His workmanship. What we are is His full responsibility, and He accepts it. Our job is to stay on the same team as He, cast our cares on Him, and let Him do the scoring against Satan for us. The one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. So make yourself available to Him. Permit His Holy Spirit to make you aware of the mind of Christ as it works its way out in your life. Give yourself away and keep growing. I read from Scripture, Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12.2. To help you explore the lifestyle of Jesus in more detail, Servant Quarters offers a wide variety of books, audiobooks, audio messages, and videotapes. For a complete listing of these resources, please write Servant Quarters, Post Office Box 219, Cathedral City, CA 92235, or you may call Servant Quarters toll free at 888-321-0077. You may also visit our website at www.servant.org.