Bill Wilder: “If I could issue a plea to our pastors and priests and ministers of the Word in the world today, it would be this: Give me Christ, or else I die.
“I mean that in the most specific sense—not just what Christ can do in me or to me or for me or through me (or the church or the world), but Jesus Christ himself, clearly portrayed as crucified and preached as having been raised from the dead. Not Jesus Christ as the assumption or foundation or the means for all that is preached, but as its very content and core.
“So, please, preach Christ. Preach him in all of Scripture….
“This is what I need to hear. Because my attention is so easily drawn to lesser things—to my plans, my ambitions, my problems, my triumphs, my failures, my family, my friends, my church, my community. So, please, turn my eyes upon Jesus. Help me to look full in his wonderful face. And the things of earth will grow strangely clear in the light of his glory and grace.
“Do you want me to repent of my sins? Then show me Jesus—in his robust goodness and love and self-sacrifice. Linger on that. Do you want to bring me to hope in the midst of suffering? Then show me Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him, endured the cross and scorned its shame. Do you want me to know what it really means to be human? Then show me Jesus in his cruciform love and resurrection glory. Do you want me to worship God? Then show me Jesus, the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature.
“What I really need is a vision (not of myself or my community or even the church or the world but) of Christ! Give me that and all these things will be added unto me.
G’muse: What more essential thing is there to preach upon and worship than the Lamb of God who is the essence to all our existence now and forever? Sadly, going to church on Sunday is too often (commonly) a taste of death, for Jesus Christ ends up merely an appendage to so much else that claims centrality. Hence, the tail ends up wagging the head.
From Sunday, May 4
Sermon Col. 1:26-28 Him We Preach
respecting the words, Christ in you, the hope of glory:
By way of application, at this place, I have to ask first: is Christ in you? One way to check yourself is to ask: “What am I hoping for?” Is it heaven? Yes? Then, at least you have a proper orientation. But just to answer that question well is no guarantee that Christ is in you. You should go on to ask: “Whom have I in heaven but thee?” Let me quote these words:
“Without this “Christ in us,” all hope beyond earth is but an empty fancy, vanity and delusion; Christ among us and the clearness of his heavenly kingdom about us,… only an unknown foreign land into which we have no desire to enter. Then our Christianity is but a borrowed, beautiful garment, which neither fits us not hides our nakedness.”
Knowing Christ, more and more and more of him—-this is the path of life.
(quote orig. ref. by John Davenant in his commentary)
Nice.
And another way to identify who is “Lord in you” would be to ask…*What am I dying for?*
Wherever Christ isn’t already Lord in your life…you are!
Whatever isn’t crucified with Christ (in our dying daily) is pseudo-lord.
Whomever fails to apply “Christ for you” will tend to fail to understand “Christ in you.”
Whenever “Christ for you” is not well apprehended, “Christ in you” is not well appropriated.