Embracing Interdependence: Reflecting Christ in Community

At the beginning of our fall series, Sam actually highlighted the point that we must embrace our royal calling. Humans were created as image bearers, a royal priesthood to live in, to shape, and to care for this marvelous creation, to create culture, to cultivate, to present it, thank you, to present it back to our creator, God, as our worship and our response to him. [00:06:36] (31 seconds)


Reflecting Jesus is actually not the usual process of gaining so much that you're independent, but actually quite the opposite. The more we reflect Christ and walk with him, the more we actually empty ourselves and display dependence just like he modeled dependence on the Father when he was here. [00:12:26] (21 seconds)


During our walk with Jesus, there is an amazing relationship between us and God. We're not alone. We're not alone. We're not alone. We're not alone. Back and forth between him changing us and us reflecting him more, which impacts creation and others all around us and in turn allows him to change us more and therefore reflect him even more and so on and so on. It's our walk towards maturity, almost the opposite to our culture's version of the path to independence. [00:13:06] (31 seconds)


Christians have always struggled with the knife-edge balance between the concept of faith and works. Tipping too much one way or the other causes issues. Emphasizing one to the exclusionist. Not only causes division within the church, but it's been the justification for atrocities done by the church. [00:14:51] (24 seconds)


For it is by grace you have been saved. Through faith. And this not from yourselves. It's the gift of God. Not by works. So that no one can boast. That's Ephesians 2, 8 and 9. This was the rallying cry in the year 1517 when Martin Luther nailed his 95 thesis on the doors in Wittenberg, Germany and ushered in the Reformation. It was a corrective at the time to the guilt-ridden abuse of the church that was squeezing money and servitude out of the believers. [00:15:23] (36 seconds)


Even a superficial reading of Scripture reveals that we are not only a church, but we are also a church. The next verse, immediately after the one that we just read, says this, For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. [00:16:34] (21 seconds)


But it's not just the church. Even in my personal life, I've become the victim of this teeter-tottering back and forth, sometimes feeling the pangs of guilt that I'm not living up to God's standards, that I'm incapable, that I'm ineffective, but sometimes tipping the other way with complacency in my knowledge of my salvation to the point of justifying big swaths of time where I've not lived as a disciple of Jesus, where I was just going through the motions, maybe even accumulating faith knowledge, but not living it out. Can anyone relate? Just me. Okay, no problem. All right. What a spiritual church. Okay, so the quote from the famous Hindu leader Mahatma Gandhi always has haunted me. [00:17:38] (51 seconds)


Be very careful then how you live, not as unwise, but as wise, making the most of every opportunity because the days are evil. Much of the New Testament was originally written in Greek. And there are two words that the Bible uses for time. One is chronos, and you may recognize the root. That's where we get the word chronology from. It refers to measured time, the passing of seconds and minutes and weeks and decades and so on. [00:20:58] (35 seconds)


The other word is kairos, which is the idea of time. It's the idea of time. It's the idea of time. It's the idea of time. It's the idea of of an appointed time for something, an opportune time. Kronos holds the stopwatch. Kairos runs the race. The verse tells us that to live wisely is about making the most of every opportunity. That word opportunity highlighted is our Greek word kairos. [00:21:31] (29 seconds)


This is about the ordinary, mundane moments of life where we are presented with decisions within our relationships with Jesus, others, creation, and ourselves. Kairos moments will look different and are tailored by God for each one of us. It may mean the decision to engage in a difficult conversation with a family member when not to. It's just easier. [00:22:34] (31 seconds)


God invites us to partner with him and provides his spirit to empower us as an agent of healing, reconciliation, and restoration of people and places. Witnesses are those who live in this contested world under the reign of King Jesus and his coming kingdom. And his church are ordinary people filled with the spirit of Jesus, living as Jesus in the world to give the world a preview of what God has done for us. What it will look like when Jesus reigns. [00:25:26] (42 seconds)