It is truly wild how seemingly easy we have made Christianity in the West. We have crafted this version of Christianity (which is really no Christianity at all) that requires so little effort. You don’t have to get your knees scraped or your hands dirty; you barely need to break a sweat. You almost don’t even need the power of the Holy Spirit. You just accept Jesus into your heart, then proceed to do your private devotions each day, sit in a church once a week like you’re at the movie theatre, try not to curse in public and maybe send some money out to a few different charities. I mean there is probably a little more to it then that in most people’s minds, but at the same time, maybe not.
I remember N.T. Wright wrote in a commentary on Mark some years ago, “Jesus is not leading us on a pleasant afternoon hike, but on a walk into danger and risk. Or did we suppose that the Kingdom of God would mean merely a few minor adjustments in our ordinary lives?” I think that is exactly what many of us think Jesus is leading us on these days, a pleasant afternoon hike that means little more than a few minor adjustments to our otherwise ordinary lives. Again, I say it is wild because just like N.T. Wright is highlighting, nothing could be more contrary to what Jesus is actually calling His disciples to then that.
Take one verse. It is a short and simple verse and its one that caught my attention this morning and reminded me once again how uncomfortable and dangerous the Christian life is and also how impossible it is without the Spirit’s power. It is 1 Corinthians 10.24. Paul is addressing the Corinthian Church on eating food in the marketplace, i.e., is food sacrificed to idols, and he sums up his instructions to them with this command: “No one should seek their own good, but the good of others.”
Did you hear that? Well maybe read it again to make sure you are picking up what Paul is putting down. Do not seek your own good, but the good of others. That is a crazy command! How is that even possible to do consistently? How do you do that without adjusting your whole life? Now just in case your knee jerk reaction is to say that that statement pertains only to the situation Paul is addressing in 1 Corinthians, take note of two other places that such a command comes up: Romans 15.1-2, “We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbour for his good, to build him up,” and Philippians 2.4, “Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.”
The interesting thing about all of these references is that they are all rooted in the person of Jesus. In every one of these references Paul gives the command, then points to Jesus as the example of one who truly walked out this command, and then he tells the crowd that he is writing to, “Now imitate Christ.” Well to be completely accurate, in 1 Corinthians specifically he follows up the command by saying, “Be imitators of me as I am of Christ,” but you get the point. This command comes from the example of the person of whom Christians are disciples of. In other words, there is no getting around it. The command to put others needs before our own is a universal command for disciples of Jesus everywhere. This is a slice of what it means to follow Him.
When I really think about it, I am not sure that I could find a more difficult ethic to walk out then this one. I mean come on, no one naturally seeks the good of their neighbour before the good of themselves, or at least not all the time. Its impossible. But I think that is kind of the point. As Jesus once told His disciples while speaking of another impossible part of the Christian life, “With man this is impossible, with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19.26).
If you have found some version of Christianity that doesn’t make you frequently think, “How can I even do that?!” then I would guess you have found something that is not Christianity at all. The reality found in the pages of Scripture is that Jesus is not calling us to an afternoon hike, but instead is calling us into danger and risk. He is calling us into an innumerable amount of uncomfortable adjustments to our otherwise ordinary lives. Jesus never calls His disciples into an easy Christianity, instead He calls them into the kind of lives that can only be lived through the power of his Holy Spirit; the kind of lives that make little of themselves and instead make much of the needs of others so that in turn they make much of Jesus Christ.