Shane Ash

At New Beginnings Church, we talk a lot about being a community devoted to living out Christ-likeness. This Christ-likeness is reflected in two areas of our lives: our character (both visible and invisible) and our mission. I often preach about the mission part of this Christ-likeness…about how we are commissioned to be a sent people.  I love this quote from Alan Hirsch:

Missional represents a significant shift in the way we think about the church. As the people of a missionary God, we ought to engage the world the same way he does—by going out rather than just reaching out. To obstruct this movement is to block God’s purposes in and through his people. When the church is in mission, it is the true church.

But equally there is also the character part of Christ-likeness (I love our missional and holy character roots of the Church of the Nazarene…and I firmly believe God is actively stirring up generations  and re-emphasizing the equal balance of character AND mission). Personal character matters. How we behave ethically and morally matters. The Christian lives we live today must match our final goal for which we have been made and redeemed.  The pursuit of Christ-likeness in our character must continually be our wholehearted desire.

Over and over again the Bible calls for a revolution – a transformation of character that takes us past our present pursuits of sex, money, and power and into a pattern of living that reflects God (Christ-likeness). Galatians 5 helps me understand this pattern of living:

^16-18My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God’s Spirit. Then you won’t feed the compulsions of selfishness. For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness. These two ways of life are antithetical, so that you cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any given day. Why don’t you choose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence?

^19-21It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on.

This isn’t the first time I have warned you, you know. If you use your freedom this way, you will not inherit God’s kingdom.

^22-23But what happens when we live God’s way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.

^23-24Legalism is helpless in bringing this about; it only gets in the way. Among those who belong to Christ, everything connected with getting our own way and mindlessly responding to what everyone else calls necessities is killed off for good—crucified.

^25-26Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives. That means we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original.  - The Message.

This Christ-likeness of character (holiness) is the work of the Holy Spirit in us. And it is somewhat measurable by the fruits mentioned in vs. 22-23…affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity, compassion, love for others, humility, self-control…and also contrasted with the actions listed in 19-21.

A group of people devoted to living out this Christ-likeness would be a living, breathing, picture of the Kingdom of God here on earth.

The Church is called to be that expression…to live out Christ-likeness as a present expression of the Kingdom of God.

May it be so.