Let’s begin
with an illustration. The life of our body requires attachment to our head, and
breathing in oxygenated air. Without attachment to our head, the body has no
control-center telling it what to do to live. Without oxygenated air, the body
cannot do what the brain would direct. We need both the connection to the head,
and the breathing in of oxygenated air, to enable us to live.
In
our eternal life, we must center on Christ the way our bodies are centered on
our heads, and we must be filled with the Spirit in the way our bodies breathe
in the air. Our blood stream is like our physical life, or our soul life. Without
our attachment to Christ as our head, there is no means of directing our hearts
how to pump blood throughout our lives. Without the Holy Spirit, we are dead in
our trespasses and sins.[1] There is no oxygen going through our bloodstream. We are the
zombies that are so popular these days.
Eternal life
is cohesive. Every part of what we have in salvation sticks and holds together
as a unit. As we can look at the colors of the spectrum of light, knowing that
all the colors are necessary to enjoy the cohesiveness of a bright, sunny day,
so we can look at individual aspects of our new life while remembering that
every part belongs to the whole.
This morning
this was emphasized in the necessity of being both Christ-centered and
Spirit-filled at the same time, all the time. We can look at both of these
individually, seeking to understand how each focus helps us in our relationship
with God, but we can never think of having one without the other.
Christ-centered
refers to a life that centers on Jesus Christ instead of the world, the flesh,
or the devil. We do not see ourselves as the center of the universe, or of our
daily lives; we see Jesus Christ as Lord, and every part of life only making
sense, and only rising to its true potential, under his lordship.
Spirit-filled
identifies the necessity of being filled with Jesus’ Spirit rather than full of
ourselves. It does not mean that we are not ourselves as the people God
created, but that we know we do not become fully ourselves when we are full of
ourselves, so to speak. It is when we are full of the Holy Spirit that we
become what God created in his own image and likeness.
The
Fellowship of the Christ-centered and Spirit-filled speaks of the necessity of
coming together with the rest of the body of Christ to live in the
Christ-centered and Spirit-filled way. We cannot be truly Christ-centered
without being part of the body of Christ that is attached to him as our head.
We cannot be fully filled with the Spirit without being part of the body of
Christ the Spirit is filling. Everything individual is found and understood
only in the cohesiveness of the body of Christ that is Christ-centered and
Spirit-filled.
This means
that we cannot be people-centered in our fellowship. A people-centered church
is a contradiction. The church is a fellowship of people who are
Christ-centered, all united in a faith in Christ that binds us together in him.
As the best way to care for children is to be a home that centers on the leadership
of the parents[2]
rather than the immature and selfish whims of the children, so the best way to
care for people in the church is to focus on Christ who is our head. Jesus will
lead us in how to care for one another.
This also
means that we cannot be self-filled in our fellowship. Yes, we are to be fully
engaged in the fellowship, enjoying every part of what we have in each other as
the household of God. However, the fruit of joy only grows in the hearts of God’s
people, and in the fellowship of the assemblies, when the churches deny
themselves, their dependence on the selfish flesh (or sark), and are filled
with the Holy Spirit instead. As we are filled with the Spirit, we find ourselves
fully alive in God’s Son, fully aware of the goodness and grace of God, fully
satisfied and joyful in him.
A
people-centered, self-filled congregation is not only going to destroy itself
from within, but it is also going to be a miserable place to be. If everyone
looks at everyone else as a necessary means-to-an-end, no one will ever be
satisfied because no one else is cooperating in making our own selves happy.
I have seen
this with our daycare children when they all have their own idea of what game
to play. They can only envision being happy if all the other kids want to play their
game. The problem is, that all of them want all the others to stop wanting
whatever game suggestion they have presented, and only want what they
themselves desire. They are not happy little children when they think their way
is the only way, and must convince everyone else to do things that one way.
In the
church, our true selves come alive in Christ when we deny our sarky selves, our
selfish flesh. We come alive to our true selves when we are centered on Christ,
seeking our ultimate fulfillment and satisfaction from him instead of each
other. When Jesus’ Spirit also fills us as we center on Christ, we come to know
what it means to have fellowship with our heavenly Father as his beloved
children. In such Christ-centered and Spirit-filled fellowship, all the beloved
children feel loved by one another as well.
While there
is lots that could be said about sharing in the fellowship of the
Christ-centered and Spirit-filled church, I hope you will consider how
necessary it is to hunger and thirst for both of these in our own individual lives
as members of the body of Christ, and whatever expressions of the body of Christ
we are part of. If we will begin by praying that God would make this real in us
and our churches, we will see whatever he is working in us to will and to work
these things that are his good pleasure,
and will know how to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling.[3]
The only thing left will be to join God in whatever he is doing.
© 2015 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517,
Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted,
Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard
Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good
News Publishers.)
[1]
Ephesians 2:1-3
[2]
This relationship is beautifully pictured in Ephesians 5:15-6:4 (Yes, the
Spirit-filled life of the church in vss 15-21 is necessary as the framework in
which husbands love their wives as Christ loved the church, and wives submit to
their husbands as the church submits to Christ. Many marriages struggle to live
by the pattern for marriage because the church they are in is not living by the
pattern for the church).
[3]
Philippians 2:12-13
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