| From
the Church on the Hill
by D. Eric Williams Pastor, Cottonwood Community Church pastor@cottonwoodcommunitychurch.org What does it mean to bring your life and arena of activity under the Lordship of Jesus Christ? This has been a constant refrain of my teaching and writing for many years and I have defined this adage in a number of places. In this article I hope to provide additional clarity on the subject. The reason we are called to bring our life and sphere of influence under the authority of Jesus is so the kingdom of God (the rule of Jesus Christ) will be realized in this realm. The fact is all of life - every nook and cranny of life - is subject to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. However, his Lordship is actualized as the followers of Christ live a life of obedience to him. For many Believers, Christian obedience is limited to prayer, Bible reading, regular church attendance, moral behavior and what I have called elsewhere a "smiley face engagement with the world." By that I mean, the nice guy approach to, well, everything. Yet, to bring your life and arena of activity under the Lordship of Jesus involves much more. Indeed, it rejects the "smiley face engagement with the world" in favor of world changing activity. As James Jordan wrote somewhere, we are called to emulate the creative work of God himself; take hold of creation tear it apart and reassemble it in a way that improves upon the original. This is exactly what God did in his work of creation. Having brought matter into existence from nothing, he proceeded to mold it, form it and improve upon it (cf. Genesis 1:1-28). Even so, creativity is part of the image of God in every human being. Some people are endowed with greater creativity and ingenuity than others but it remains true, it is not required that a person be a follower of Christ in order to be creative. What then is the difference between the creative, God emulating behavior of the Christian and that of the nonbeliever? The answer to this question begins with another question: who do you worship? As N. T. Wright says in a number of places (most clearly in his book, The Day The Revolution Began), idolatry is truly the fount of all sin. It is when mankind chooses to worship something other than God that the myriad of possible sins are committed. For instance, a person will steal because they place themselves and their needs or desires above God. God has said you shall not steal and to do so indicates worship of self rather than God. This is true even of the poor person who steals to "survive." They still place their own well-being above the commands of God and therefore have made themselves their own God. Sometimes a person will worship Mammon (wealth) and everything in their life is geared toward accumulating riches. This places wealth in a position above God. Yet even then, the idol in view is ultimately self. No matter what sin we may choose to consider, at the core of that sin is the idolatry of self. Indeed, this was the sin of Adam and Eve. They wanted to be their own gods. Thus, the fundamental or basic philosophical difference between the creative work of the non-Christian and the creative work of the follower of Jesus is the answer the question, "who do you worship?" More on this subject next week. |
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