Recently I wrote a sermon on Ruins & Remnants. It was about the remnant people that returned to Jerusalem to rebuild the ruins following the Babylonian exile - and about those who chose not to. One of the things I identified as I immersed myself in this account, was that the people had a choice to be defined by their conditions, or by their covenant with a God of promise. And to be honest, since then…I see this choice posed everywhere.
I was reading about the rich young ruler the other day…the one who was a good man, did all the right things, played by all the rules, and yet the condition of his natural life was so prosperous, that it actually stopped him from entering into the eternal life he appeared to so desire.
It’s worth noting that Jesus never approached this man asking him to leave his life of comfort, he came to Jesus asking this question ‘what must I do to have eternal life?”. See he was not just willing, but eager to enter into the life Jesus was so fervently inviting people into. This young man had shown in his life how devoted he was to his beliefs, but by Jesus asking him to abandon his wealth, his devotion was exposed as being subject to the condition of his life, rather than a revelation of the life gained in following Christ.
Given the rich and comfortable nature of the modern Australian Christian life…I asked myself the question, is my devotion to follow Jesus driven by the condition of my life or my revelation of what I have because of Him? I’m not saying that we are void of struggles, but let’s face it, our life compared to many others is pretty great. I was speaking with one of our dear brothers in Nigeria last week, and I was rendered to silence by the heartbreak I felt in listening to the reality that they must contend with daily. I thought to myself…If my life was less comfortable, would I still call Him good? Would I still worship Jesus with the same sense of rapture? Would I follow with the same willingness and abandon? Is my devotion to Him coming from the understanding and revelation of His deep mercy and kindness to me…a filthy sinner who would be damned without Him? Is my devotion to His ways rooted in the prosperous condition of my life, or the redeemed condition of my soul? For whether rich or poor, He has rescued me from condemnation and death, there is only life now…no matter how it looks in the natural. No matter the condition of our present life, His faithfulness is not defined by our finite human measure, but across the breadth of eternity.
I’ve seen people worship Him with more purity of heart and less “hype”, who have nothing…those who call Him ‘good’ and ‘faithful’ in the most dire of conditions. For they know the condition of their souls without Him, and they have chosen to live in the richness of eternity, even now, when their present seems unliveable.
This same question that Jesus asked the rich man exposes if we indeed have a revelation of who we were without Him, or the depths of his mercy and grace…for if we did, we would be willing to follow in any condition, we would fall to our knees in worship even in our lack. We would, like Paul, consider all else loss for the sake of knowing Christ. Covenant over conditions isn’t just the choice when our conditions are in ruin, but when our conditions are perfectly self sufficient.