As I recall, it was pastor and leadership guru John Maxwell who said, “It's impossible to overestimate the relative unimportance of almost everything.”
And though he was speaking primarily in the context of business and leadership, the statement is most profoundly true in the context of being a disciple of Jesus. Misunderstanding of this reality – and I’ll go so far as to say, a misdirection away from this truth – is the spring from which so much error and damage flow in the religio-political culture of our time.
The net result is that a large percentage of self-identifying Christians expend lots of energy and focus on issues and agendas that are, at best, far wide of God’s clear priorities for his people and, at worst, veer into the realm of old-fashioned idolatry. Between those bookends live many damaging dynamics, both to the disciple and to those outside faith in Christ, who we are called to love and minister to as representatives of his Kingdom (II Cor 5:20).
The focus of this blog series, as evidenced by the title, is to discuss the things I’ve changed my mind about as I’ve navigated my Journey and intensely studied the teachings of Jesus and the rest of the New Testament. My perspective has changed on many culture war hot topics and go-to points of contention and outrage among self-identifying Christians.
But I would like to start with one very important thing (and there are many) that my mind has not changed about. In fact, my conviction has only grown stronger and deeper about what constitutes God’s priority and purpose for us as disciples of Jesus.
When I was a youth pastor, there was a very popular youth evangelism tool called First Priority, which focused solely on helping students share their faith with friends. In most of my “Christian learnin’,” I was taught that God’s highest priority for his people was for us to get others to believe in Jesus for the forgiveness of their sins. In mission conferences and university chapels, I continually heard that the Great Commission was THE thing that God was concerned about and that should be elevated above everything else in a Christian’s life; that evangelism - that is, folks giving mental ascent to the facts of Jesus' death for their sin so they could go to heaven when they die - was God’s First Priority for us.
The second most popular purpose I was taught was that we were to be “salt and light” in the culture. Like salt used to preserve meat, as the saying went, our “ standing up for righteousness” by making laws and voting the right way was intended to help slow the “rot” of society. That was God's First Priority.
The glaring problem, however, is that neither one of those things - nor a million others - is God’s First Priority for us as followers of Jesus, based on the clear teaching of the New Testament. They might be ancillary. They might be a natural outcome, but they aren't His priority.
Go ahead. Take a moment. Take as long as you need.
I promise that what I’m about to say is not only biblically sound but also of utmost importance. It's foundational to everything else that touches our lives as disciples. In fact, the deepening conviction of this truth has served as the catalyst for so many of my changes in perspective.
The question is, then, if God’s First Priority for us as Christians isn't evangelism or 'stemming the tide of unrighteousness' in society, what is it?
The answer is profoundly simple and is repeated in myriad ways throughout the New Testament. But nowhere is it so concisely encapsulated as in Romans 8. Most Christians are overly familiar with Romans 8:28 (so familiar in fact that by isolating it, we grossly misapply it to all sorts of things.) But we rarely read on to v. 29 and consider it in the greater context of what Paul is trying to communicate.
Romans 8:28-29 reads
28 And we know that God works all things together for the good of those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose. 29 For those God foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son so that He would be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those He predestined, He also called; those He called, He also justified; those He justified, He also glorified.
So, what’s God’s First Priority? What is he about in every single aspect of our life as a disciple? What is his predetermined agenda for every one of us who has placed our trust in Jesus?
It is our transformation.
Another oft-quoted passage from Romans 12 makes the point again.
"Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
The English word "transformation" is used here to translate the Greek word "metamorphoo" from which we get our word metamorphosis. The meaning, of course, is to be changed. But this is not just an external, surface change, but a profound internal one, a change in our very essence and the source from which we live. When a caterpillar goes into the cocoon and then comes out, it doesn't emerge as more or less a caterpillar with a new paint job and some plastic wings pasted on. It's a fundamentally and completely different creature. It's a deep and instructive metaphor to consider.
For us, God's first and highest priority is a fundamental transformation from who we naturally are as human beings, dominated and controlled by the Fallen Self, into a being whose heart, thoughts, emotions, character, words, values, priorities, and overall life orientation reflect that of Jesus. This is exactly what Paul was trying to express when he told the disciples at the church in Corinth,
"17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
You've probably heard this verse quoted. And in our culture, dominated by Christian jargon, the idea of "being like Jesus" is so blithely common as to be consigned to the category of cliche. However, it's instructive to note that the more familiar a concept is to us, the less likely we are to be impacted by it. There is a psychological dynamic, often called the Goldilocks Effect, which works to cloud our ability to see the truth in a passage of scripture due to overexposure and familiarity. And nowhere is that more powerful than in this idea of us becoming “like Jesus.” When you combine the Goldilocks Effect with the gross misunderstandings of what it actually means, scripturally, to be like Jesus in 21st-century America, this pivotal, foundational concept of transformation is stripped of its power to inform our lives as God intends.
And once we miss God’s First Priority, we inevitably go off-script, building upon false foundations and pursuing wrong ends, which tragically is where the main force of the American Evangelical faith is today.
You see, God’s intention is for us, as Romans 8:29 and many other passages make clear, is that we would be a continuation of Jesus' influence in the world. God's agenda is to so thoroughly change us within that we become beautiful, visible, present manifestations of Him to those around us.
This internal transformation and the disentangling of the Fallen Self's influence within the life of a disciple is, simply put, THE theme of the entire New Testament. In fact, one would be hard pressed to find any book of the New Testament that doesn't speak to it in some way.
Lest I be accused of overstating, I recommend meditatively reading the following passages of Scripture with this subject in mind. And I really encourage you to stop and do that. You'll do yourself a disservice if you simply skim the list of references. There are many more passages we could point to, but this is a deeply compelling sampling:
Mark 8:34-35
Luke 6:39-40
Romans 8:1-28
Romans 12:1-2
Galatians 2:20
Galatians 5
Philippians 2
Colossians 3
As these scriptures make clear, our transformation is God’s First Priority and is, in fact, the end goal and purpose of Jesus's cross and resurrection.
Please don't rush past that statement. I'll say it again:
...our transformation is God’s First Priority and is, in fact, the end goal and purpose of Jesus's cross and resurrection.
Tragically, however, modern evangelical theology has narrowed the scope and purpose of the cross down to how God affects our "justification," which is a stuffy theological word that speaks to Jesus's perfection and righteousness being charged to our account and our sin being charged to his so that we can be "saved." Justification, it is said, is the mechanism God uses to “rescue us from hell." And that is a profound and wonderful thing. However, very few make the critically important connection that's made clear in Romans 5-6 that it also took nothing less than the cross and resurrection of Jesus to free us as humans from the bondage of the Fallen Self that automatically and naturally runs our everyday lives.
This reality could not be more important to understand. Jesus died and was raised to decouple and free us from the tyranny of the Fallen Self that lives at the center of our being. This is also why His Spirit has been given to us as an indwelling presence and not just a power that comes on us and then leaves, as it did in the Old Testament.
The cross and resurrection were indeed the mechanism for our freedom from the penalty of sin. But it is equally, and experientially, the mechanism for our freedom from the power of sin within us.
So, if we care about evangelism and about influencing the world for God and for good, we must stand front and center before the mirror of the New Testament and take to heart its relentless demand for transformation.
It is only the death of the Fallen Self and the untangling of its influence from our hearts, minds, words, emotions, and actions, coupled with the real-time manifestation of Jesus living through us, that provides the context for sharing Jesus' message of hope and forgiveness. This transformation alone provides the necessary context, catalyst, and power for executing the Great Commission. Conversely, the lack of transformation and tangible Christlikeness on the part of self-identifying Christians commonly results only in repudiation and rejection of the gospel itself.
We must understand and come to personal terms with the fact that transformation into Christlikeness is the starting point and the given that is assumed in many of the New Testament's promises (a subject all its own) and is the literal launchpad for the Great Commission. You simply cannot make disciples if you aren't one.
But ironically, as clear and obvious as it is, this truth is rarely, if ever, taught or seriously considered within the religious context of America in the 21st Century. You'll hear an endless stream of sermons about marriage, money, motivation, and manhood, but on the subject of dying to the Fallen Self and being transformed into the image of Christ, the pulpits are virtually silent and have been for nearly 100 years.
The unfortunate yet common outcome when our transformation ceases to be our own First Priority is that many other priorities rush in and vie for our focus. Tragically, those things most often focus on others, how “they” sin, and how it's our job to "stand up for righteousness" by criticizing, judging, and condemning them and their actions. In the worst of cases, we begin to "take up arms" and "fight the evil" around us by using earthly means like power and politics to condemn, criticize, and demonize people for whom Jesus died. This, of course, is systemic and epidemic in our current religious culture. And it's destroying our ability to be a credible voice and ambassadors for the Kingdom of God. We must do something about this, both individually and collectively. We must, at whatever cost, bring the concept of transformation back to the center of who we are as self-proclaimed followers of Jesus.
So, as it turns out, it really is impossible to overestimate the relative unimportance of almost everything.
Conversely, it’s even more impossible to overestimate the importance of understanding and pursuing God’s stated purpose of our transformation into the image and character of Jesus.
To miss this is to miss the central concept of being a disciple of Jesus. But, when deep, authentic transformation becomes our First Priority, it changes everything: how we see God, ourselves, and the world around us because we begin to see more and more through the eyes of Jesus.
(For more on this subject, please check out our video titled “What’s a Disciple?”)
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