Let’s Revise the Popular Phrase “In, but Not of”

 

by David Mathis | August 29, 2012/DesiringGod Blog

“In, but not of”— if you’ve spent much time Christian circles, you’re probably familiar with this popular phrase. In the world, but not of the world. It captures a truth about Jesus’s followers. There’s a real sense in which we are “in” this world, but not “of” it.

In, but not of. Yes, yes, of course.

But might this punchy phrase be giving the wrong impression about our (co)mission in this world as Christians? The motto could seem to give the drift, We are in this world, alas, but what we really need to do is make sure that we’re not of it.

In this way of configuring things, the starting place is our unfortunate condition of being “in” this world. Sigh. And our mission, it appears, is to not be “of” it. So the force is moving away from the world. “Rats, we’re frustratingly stuck in this ole world, but let’s marshal our best energies to not be of it.” No doubt, it’s an emphasis that’s sometimes needed, but isn’t something essential being downplayed?

We do well to run stuff like this through biblical texts. And on this one in particular, we do well to turn to John 17, where Jesus uses these precise categories of “in the world” and “not of the world.” Let’s look for Jesus’s perspective on this.

Not of This World

On the eve of his crucifixion, Jesus prays to his Father in John 17:14–19,

I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.

Notice Jesus’ references to his disciples being “not of the world.” Verse 14: “The world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.” And there it is again in verse 16: “They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.”

Let’s all agree it’s clear that Jesus does not want his followers to be “of the world.” Amen. He says that he himself is “not of the world,” and his disciples are “not of the world.” Here’s a good impulse in the slogan “in, but not of.”

It’s Going Somewhere

But notice that for Jesus being “not of the world” isn’t the destination in these verses but the starting place. It’s not where things are moving toward, but what they’re moving from. He is not of the world, and he begins by saying that his followers are not of the world. But it’s going somewhere. Jesus is not huddling up the team for another round of kumbaya, but so that we can run the next play and advance the ball down the field.

Enter verse 18: “As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.” And don’t miss the surprising prayer of verse 15: “I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.”

Sent into This World

Jesus is not asking his Father for his disciples to be taken out of the world, but he is praying for them as they are “sent into” the world. He begins with them being “not of the world” and prays for them as they are “sent into” the world.

So maybe it would serve us better — at least in light of John 17 — to revise the popular phrase “in, but not of” in this way: “not of, but sent into.” The beginning place is being “not of the world,” and the movement is toward being “sent into” the world. The accent falls on being sent, with a mission, to the world — not being mainly on a mission to disassociate from this world.

Crucified to the World — And Raised to It

Jesus’s assumption in John 17 is that those who have embraced him, and identified with him, are indeed not of the world. And now his summons is our sending — we are sent into the world on mission for gospel advance through disciplemaking.

Jesus’s true followers have not only been crucified to the world, but also raised to new life and sent back in to free others. We’ve been rescued from the darkness and given the Light not merely to flee the darkness, but to guide our steps as we go back in to rescue others.

So let’s revise the popular phrase “in, but not of.” We Christians are not of this world, but sent into it. Not of, but sent into.

 

Getting To Know You – Wesley Sweigart

The Getting to Know You series is a series that we will be starting on the blog to help the church get to know our faithful interns that support M28, the college ministry here at CrossWay. On our first post, we have the privilege to introduce you to Wesley Sweigart.

Who I am

Hello, my name is Wesley Sweigart. I’m here today to say a bit about how I got to where I am and where I’m going from there. I am a Charlottean, born and raised, and I have been a part of CrossWay my entire life. I’ve been blessed to be a part of Mission28 the past two years, and have helped serve on the Leadership Team over the past year. It has been encouraging to see all that God has done through this ministry, from people committing or recommitting their lives to Christ, to those who realize a new depth in their relationship with their heavenly Father. I’m currently in the middle of my college career, but I’m taking a year off to focus on evangelism at UNCC, and I couldn’t be more excited about this new period of my life.

What I’m doing

This year, I have the opportunity to serve with Mission28 as a full-time intern. I will be on campus reaching out to students as well as helping with ministry administration, planning, and coordination. I’m so excited to see what God has in store for us this year at M28.

Please join me in praying

1)    That I would receive support for this year. It is my hope that I would be able to raise all the funds that I need for this year so I can have my focus fully on the mission at UNCC.

2)    That the Lord of the Harvest would send out workers. There are multitudes of lost souls at UNCC, and there is a need for students with a heart heavy for the lost, who will go out and share the gospel. The Lord will build his church.

 

Change is possible!

By Jeremy Oddy

Consider reading over the quote below for encouragement.  Read each line carefully and slowly and meditate over each principle as your heart becomes full of the love of Christ in what he has done for you, doing in you, and will do for you.  And know this, he is doing the same thing in your spouse, friend, child, and anyone else who is in Christ.

Paul Tripp writes:

Change is possible because the King has come!  In all of this, God’s ultimate goal is his own glory. Christ came to restore people to the purpose they were made for: to live every aspect of their lives in worshipful, obedient submission to him.  He accomplishes this by breathing life into dead hearts so that we grasp our need for him.  He lives sinlessly, keeping the law on our behalf.  He lays down his life as a penalty for sin, so that we can be fully forgiven.  He adopts us into his family, giving us all the rights and privileges of his children.  He daily conforms us to his own image.  He enables us by his grace to do what is right.  His Spirit lives inside us, convicting of sin, illuminining truth, and giving us the power to obey.  He places us in the body of Christ where we can learn and grow.  He rules over every event for his glory and our good.  He makes us the objects of his eternal, redemptive love. The Bible calls this change redemption.  We are not only changed, we are restored to God.  This is what makes all other change possible (Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hand, 6-7).

Praise God!  We are a blessed people indeed!  So, we know that this is all true.  However, we can sometimes forget or not believe one or a few of these truths in our own lives.  Talk to a friend or your spouse about some of these truths that you tend to forget or not believe at times.  Ask God for help, because all of our hope is based on a Person, not on our (or someone else’s) performance or a principle.

HOW MISSION SANCTIFIES

 

by David Mathis | July 25, 2012

Not only does God‘s work in us (sanctification) help his work through us (mission), but it works the other way too. Engaging in God’s mission can jumpstart our sanctification as well.

In this brief video, pastor Darrin Patrick explains the importance of living the Christian life among the lost for our own sanctification. Sometimes we don’t see how much we need Jesus, he says, until we’re deeply involved with people who don’t know him. There’s something about being around broken people that helps you draw near to God.

 

OWNERSHIP AS SACRIFICE

Brad House » Mission Church Evangelism Community

Does our community own the mission of God for our church, or do we just agree with it?

THE INSUFFICIENCY OF MERE AGREEMENT

Agreement simply means that people like the idea of the mission and are excited about someone at the church carrying it out. They may not, and probably don’t, see themselves as the church, or at least not the part of the church that lives out the mission.

This manifests in casual attendance and participation in programs and events that serve their needs but don’t require anything of them. Agreement can even involve serving in various ministries if the bar is low enough—but if the mission is not owned, if it is not internalized within the people, then they will not take risks for the sake of the gospel. They won’t risk comfort, time, money, or self-interest for the mission to see Jesus glorified.

OWNERSHIP AS SACRIFICE

Our churches are filled with people who agree with the mission but do not own it. Ownership is marked by joy-filled sacrifice that sees kingdom work as a “get to” because of what Christ has done, rather than a “got to” out of Christian duty.

Ownership looks like people serving the church and the city with a passion for the gospel. It looks like people cheerfully and sacrificially giving out of love for Jesus to see the work of the gospel move forward. Ownership looks like people participating in the messiness of community and being inconvenienced for the sake of another’s sanctification.

OWN THE PROCLAMATION

If we want to be a missional church that sees the lives in our cities transformed by the gospel, we must foster a holy discontentment with the status quo and resist apathy toward God’s mission. Compelled by the grace of God manifested in the atoning work of Jesus on the cross and his resurrection, we can take ownership of proclaiming the truth of the gospel and living it out in community.

Three Ways To Live

You might think that the Gospel is primarily the “beginning” of salvation, how we get saved. But, the Gospel is really about all of life. The Gospel is the answer to all of our sin problems.

When most of us think of the fact that God Himself has come to rescue sinners through the Person and Work of Jesus Christ on our behalf, we think primarily of the characteristic “sinner,” the person who rebels against God and His ways. We formulate the idea that there are “two ways to live.” There’s even a well-known tract by that very name.

We think of the younger brother in the parable of the Prodigal Sons, who wants things from the father but through rebellion. But as Tim Keller has helpfull pointed out over and over again, there are actually three ways to live and two ways to rebel against God:

 The older brother in the parable wants “things” from the Father but he does not rebel, he obeys. When the father welcomes back the younger brother, he points out that he has obeyed all along but never received anything from the father.

Both the younger and older brothers want the father only for what they can get from him but they show us that there are actually two ways to run from God: outright rebellion and religion.

But the Gospel cuts right through the middle of these two rebellions. Rebellion will never satisfy us and we can never earn God’s favor.

Thank God that Jesus not only lived the life we couldn’t but paid the penalty we should have, freeing us from slavery to sin, in all its forms.

Joining The Family Business

In Matthew 16:18 Jesus tells us, “I will build my church”—and he has been about that business for the last two thousand years.As God unfolds redemptive history in his plan to reconcile the world to himself, he has done so by building for himself a people who worship him, love one another, and join him in proclaiming the good news to those who do not know him.This means that as we are made new in Christ and transformed into the redeemed members of the church, we are also called to participate in this process for others.This is one of the coolest aspects of being adopted into the family of God, that we are invited into the family business.Jesus tells his disciples in Matthew 28:18–20:All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.In this commissioning of the church, he is calling us to continue the work through him and empowered by the Holy Spirit. The church, then, is not a passive club we join but a pursuit that we actively participate in.At Mars Hill, the most tangible place in which we participate in this commissioned work is in our Community Groups. Jesus uses these groups to continue the work building the church in two distinct ways that we see reflected in the great commission.

1. TO BUILD UP THE CHURCH

The first way Community Groups are used to build the church is in the building up of believers. This is the practice of maturing and strengthening the church. As we gather together as a people who love Jesus, encouraging, challenging, and loving one another, we are part of Jesus building the church. We are making disciples as we grow in love and obedience to the Word. This happens in conjunction with the preaching of the Word, but it is also essential that Word take roots in our hearts.

2. TO BUILD OUT THE CHURCH

Community Groups are also used in the building out of the church. This is the growth of the church through conversion as people encounter Jesus and are made new through the power of his gospel. As we invite our neighbors, friends, and coworkers to enjoy the blessing of community, Jesus uses the witness of a transformed people to open the eyes of the lost to the truth and power of the resurrection. We see examples of this in 1 Peter 2:12 and John 13:34–35 as the love we have for one another and our love for our city bear witness to the work of Jesus.It is pretty amazing that God invites us into such an amazing business. It is a business of miracles as we get to see new life born in new believers and lives continually transformed by the gospel. And we get a front row seat as God uses our Community Groups to build the church up and out. So what are we waiting for? Let’s get to work!

Brad House is a pastor and the director of ministry development at Mars Hill Downtown Bellevue.

Who am I?

By Jeremy Oddy

Have you ever asked yourself that question?  I encourage you to ask that question right now.  What answers do you come up with?  Do the answers encourage  or discourage you?  Do your answers promote humility or pride?  Do your answers describe what you do instead of who you are?  If you are a Christian, I would like to provide some answers to that question: “Who am I?”  Thanks to wonderful, proven, godly authors, I will be relying on the wisdom of Jerry Bridges from his newest book that I’m currently reading, Who Am I? Identity in Christ.  Below is a list of answers from his book that describes who a Christian is; therefore, who you are, if you are indeed in Christ.

• I am a creature, created in the image of God, fully dependent on him and fully accountable to him.
• By the work of God, I am no longer in Adam: I am in Christ, through a union that is both living and representative.
• I am justified, I am righteous before God, because God has charged my sin to Christ and credited to me his perfect righteousness.
• I am an adopted son, or daughter, of God. I’m a child of the King. I have the privilege in this life of an intimate father-child relationship with him, and I look forward with expectant hope to an eternal inheritance that is far more glorious than anything I can imagine.
• I am a new creation, with a new heart, a new spirit, and a new identity before God. Having been delivered from the dominion of sin and united to Christ, I am always able to resist temptation. When I do sin, I am always welcome at the cross, for all my sins have been forgiven in Jesus.
• I am a saint: I do not belong to myself, but to God. I have been purchased and declared holy by God, and set apart for God. Thus, God is ever at work to cause me to grow in spiritual maturity, a process in which he calls me to cooperate, in every way, out of gratitude for his mercy.
• I am a servant of Jesus Christ. By God’s grace, I serve him by serving others in the particular role or roles to which, in his providential wisdom, he has called me.
• In this life I am and always will be imperfect, a saved sinner, seeking to grow in holiness and relating to God on the basis of grace that is mine because I am…in Christ!

As you can see, the answers to the question “Who am I?” have nothing to do with our achievements, our failures, or the evaluation of others, but only in Christ alone.  To conclude, let’s hear from Bridges one more time.  He writes, “For every look in your daily experience, take two looks at who you are in Christ.”

If you are “in Christ,” be very encouraged!

By Jeremy Oddy

A good friend of mine recently pointed out to me an excellent article by John Piper.  I encourage you to read the whole thing here.  What I want to point out in this article is what it means to be “in Christ,” if you are a true disciple of Jesus Christ.  Piper inserted the name “Carl” in the list below.  I took out “Carl” (sorry Carl) and inserted a blank and made some minor changes, so that you can insert your name, or someone else’s name, as a way or tool to help each other remember and be amazed of what it means to be “in Christ.”

Piper writes, “Being in Christ is a stupendous reality. It is breathtaking what it means to be in Christ. United to Christ. Bound to Christ. This is the phrase in the text that changes everything.”  Piper is referring to 1 Thessalonians 5:14-18.  See the list below on what it means for you to be in Christ Jesus:

• In Christ Jesus, ________ is given grace before the world was created. 2 Timothy 1:9: “He gave us grace in Christ Jesus before the ages began.”

• In Christ Jesus, ________ is chosen by God before creation. Ephesians 1:4: “God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world.”

• In Christ Jesus, ________ is loved by God with an inseparable love. Romans 8:38–39: “I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

• In Christ Jesus, ________ is redeemed and forgiven for all his or her sins. Ephesians 1:7: “In Christ we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses.”

• In Christ Jesus, ________ is justified before God and the righteousness of God in Christ is imputed to him. 2 Corinthians 5:21: “For our sake God made Christ to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

• In Christ Jesus, ________ became a new creation and a son or daughter of God. 2 Corinthians 5:17: “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” Galatians 3:26: “In Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.”

• In Christ Jesus, ________ is seated in the heavenly place even while he or she lives on earth. Ephesians 2:6: “God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”

• In Christ Jesus, all the promises of God are Yes for ________. 2 Corinthians 1:20: “All the promises of God find their Yes in Christ.”

• In Christ Jesus, ________ is being sanctified and made holy. 1 Corinthians 1:2: “To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus.”

• In Christ Jesus, everything ________ really needs is supplied. Philippians 4:19: “My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.”

• In Christ Jesus, the peace of God guards the heart and mind of ________. Philippians 4:7: “The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

• In Christ Jesus, ________ has eternal life. Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

• And in Christ Jesus, ________ will be raised from the dead at the coming of the Lord. 1 Corinthians 15:22: “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.” All those united to Adam in the first humanity die. All those united to Christ in the new humanity rise to live again.

If you want encouragement as a disciple of Jesus Christ, read this list with your name inserted over and over until your faith increases with this amazing truth and reality: you are in Christ!