The Power of a Consistent Life III: The Oxymoronic Nature of Christianity

Welcome to the Whole Council Podcast. I'm Jon Snider, and with me again is Teddy James, and we're looking again at the little book, Days of Blessing in Inland China, which was a book that was published as a compilation of talks that Taylor gave later in his missionary career to some missionaries in the Shanxi, if I'm saying that right.

It would be a miracle if I was, but I'm going to guess. And that's the district it was in, northern China. So they're far inland, and he's meeting with men and women who have been laboring in isolation from other Christians, and he wants to encourage them.

And we've looked at just one of his talks, and we're going to try to finish that today. And it's the talk that we've entitled, The Effectiveness of Consistent Lives. So you can go back and listen to the others.

There are things in the messenger's.

Life which must not be allowed. And just in case you haven't listened to the other ones, we started with looking at the negative example, and then last week we looked at some of the positive examples.

So where are we going? What's our focus this week? Yeah, so last week we kind.

Of ended with why. Why is this essential that we have positive aspects? So you can look at my life, and it's not just what I don't have, it's what I do have that manifests truth, the truth of God to. And my life becomes a living billboard of these truths.

And so I commend myself because I want you to be able to believe what I'm saying. If you can believe in me in some measure, then you will take my words seriously. If you can see these truths reflected in my life, and you can see God at work in me and through me, then it lends weight to those words.

The Treasure of the New Covenant in Earthen Vessels

Now, how do we do that? And we might think, well, we avoid the really ugly, obvious sins, and we do the really religious, obvious things, but there's so much more. And Paul gives a couple of passages where that is explained, and I find it quite shocking.

So let's look at 2 Corinthians 4, where Paul's talking about how his life is a demonstration of the truthfulness of the things he's saying. It's a manifestation of the truth of Christ and all that he's claiming about Christ.

And one way that they can see that is how he lives in the midst of some difficult things. In 2 Corinthians 4, and then in 6, I want to read you these two places where Paul talks about how he commends himself to every man's conscience in the sight of God.

So 2 Corinthians 4, verse 7, after describing in chapter 3 the superiority of the new covenant, and then at the beginning of chapter 4, explaining that because of that superiority, Paul is freed from the temptation to be clever and crafty and kind of underhanded, or to dilute God's message in order to attract people.

He then, in chapter 4, verse 7, explains, well, why if the covenant is so great and your God is the only living God, why does Paul often look so mistreated? Or maybe Paul looks a bit weak. And look at what he says, verse 7, but we, Paul and his fellow laborers who are bringing the gospel, but we have this treasure, the new covenant, in earthen vessels.

That's what a preacher is. That's what a godly parent is. That's what an older Christian friend is and a co-worker. At best, we are like earthen jars. Not fine China, we're earthen, earthen jars. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves.

In other words, it will obviously be God who's at work in us. He's the impressive one, not us. And then he explains, what kind of billboard does that show up on? And, you know, we want to ask ourselves, is that what we want?

Do we want people to see us in our earthen vessel way? Okay, we're just normal people, but we are people who belong to an extraordinary God and his work in us, you know, creating new desires, sustaining our lives, guarding us, supplying us.

That's what we want people to see. And we say, absolutely, we want people to see the reality of an all-powerful God in our lives. Okay?

The other part to that is, as earthenware vessels, God does so much more through us than we would ever have the strength to do. When you look through the New Testament, Paul, as you're going to read here in just a minute, all of the things that Paul goes through without the strength of Christ, he would not be able to survive that and continue on in the hopeful manner that he did.

Yeah. One way Samuel Rutherford said it in the 1600s, he said, any ship can appear to be seaworthy. Any vessel looks seaworthy on a fine spring day when the sails are full of the wind, you know, and it's just skimming along a smooth sea.

But in a storm, ships that really weren't seaworthy, they start to demonstrate it. You know, they start sinking. And so anyone can say wonderful things about their religion when life is pleasant. But what if life becomes extremely difficult for a long season?

Only those that have Christ in them, for them, are the people that can turn and say to the world, even in this heartbreaking difficulty, I am happy in Him. And what I've said to you about Him has not altered.

Let me pick back up with verse 8. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed, perplexed, but not despairing, persecuted, but not forsaken, struck down, but not destroyed, always caring about in the body the dying of Jesus.

In other words, you know, dying to self in whatever way it's called for at that moment, laying aside our preferences, our rights, so that there's a very clear purpose in this, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.

For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death. And again, it could be physical threats like in Paul's life, but more often it is the being handed over to spiritual death, that death to your rights, death to your reputation, death to your comforts.

For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. And the result, verse 12, so death works in us, but life in you.

And it's astonishing. If we want the life of Christ to be manifested, the power of God to be displayed, then we should expect that there will be seasons where God will lead us through very difficult times, misunderstood, mistreated, brokenhearted, you know, and we will be like Paul, perplexed.

I don't understand, but I, you know, I don't despair. I'm crushed into a corner, but he provides a way. I'm struck down, but I'm not killed. So being struck down and perplexed and crushed into a corner, crowded into a corner, all of those are wonderful ways that God has chosen to manifest himself through us.

It's not what we would choose, but it's what God chooses to suffer for Jesus' sake, Paul says in Philippians.

And it's the, it is the oxymoronic nature of the Christian life, where as the Christian, as the believer is humbled, God is glorified. As the Christian endures persecution, the church grows. All of these things that if you were to look throughout church history and just human history in general, all of the things that God says, this is what I want you to do.

And this is how I will define success. The world says, no, it'll never work that way. I mean, when you, you know, my wife right now has been listening to and incredibly helped by Elizabeth Elliot, but that her husband, her first husband, Jim, this is, yeah.

If you were to tell a story of, hey, I went to this nation, you know, my family and I went to this nation and after just a couple of weeks in, they murdered my husband, that doesn't sound very effective.

But then when you see the effectiveness of the gospel and those people, when Elizabeth Elliot went back and there's still a thriving church there today, it was God's faithfulness. Yeah. So the things that Paul says about Christ,.

Commending Ourselves as Servants of God in the Sight of Men and God

They shine most clearly when Paul's life is at times most difficult. Listen to chapter six of second Corinthians. He says in verse one that we are co-workers with God. We, we urge alongside God, we are urging you not to receive the grace of God in vain.

And then he describes what kind of life is necessary. If we're going to claim to be co-workers with God, how do we commend that claim? How do people know that we can be trusted, that we've not lied to them?

Verse three of second Corinthians six starts a new section, giving no cause for offense in anything so that the ministry will not be discredited. All right. So no legitimate reason for anyone to point at Paul and say, I wanted to believe your gospel, but having met you, I see no reason to believe it.

I just can't climb over the mountain of contradicting that I see in your life. Your desires go against what you're saying, your choices, your attitudes, your responses. So Paul says, I don't let any of sneak into my life so that the gospel won't be discredited.

Verse four, though, he gives the positive, but in everything, commending ourselves as servants of God, universal statement in every event, I want by the grace of God to commend myself as a servant of God, to be a living demonstration that I serve someone other than myself.

And then he lists some of the situations that fall under the term, everything in everything, commending. Well, how can I commend myself as one who serves another? Well, in much endurance, in afflictions, in hardships, in distresses, in beatings, in imprisonments, in tumults, or that's when that, you know, the mob uprisings that he suffered in labors.

Well, maybe we're not severely persecuted by Paul, but think of these labors, sleeplessness and hunger. When I lose sleep for love of someone praying for them, thinking what I need to say, staying up and having a long conversation with them.

When I lose a chance to grab a bite to eat. In purity, in knowledge, in patience, in kindness, in the Holy Spirit, in genuine love, those demonstrate that I am who I say I am, a servant of God. In the word of truth, in the power of God, by the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and the left, both hands have weapons.

They are the weapons that God gives us, not the worlds. Verse 8, by glory and dishonor. Some people say I'm great. Some people say I'm a deceiver. By evil report and good report regarded as deceivers, yet true, as unknown, yet well-known, as dying, yet behold, we live, as punished, yet not put to death, as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing, as poor, yet making many rich, as having nothing, yet possessing all things.

So this is what you mentioned. The oxymoronic, which I think that is the first time we had a five-syllable word said on the podcast. So there is a paradox. What appears is not what really is. Paul appears to be poor, and deceitful, and despised, and nothing, and a fool for Christ's sake, but what he really is is something very different.

How can you be so poor, yet so rich? How can you be so heartbroken, yet so deeply happy? And the world can't explain that dynamic, that paradox of the Christian life. And the answer, of course, is that Paul is what he says he is, a man who belongs to God, serving God.

And there is a continual river of unexpected, undeserved, unquenchable, you know, grace that flows from the throne of Christ to his servant, moment by moment, sustaining and compelling him. And the world can't see the river, so it can't make sense of a Christian.

And that's one way that we manifest the truth. We go through hard times, and we go through them in a way that demonstrates there must be something hidden, something different about this Christian. Well, now let's look at the question of, why does Paul say that, I commend myself as a servant of God in the sight of God, or I manifest truth commending myself in the sight of God, in your sight, in God's sight?

Living Before Men Without Losing the Sight of God

To audiences, to our actions and our words, why isn't it enough to say all that matters is what.

Things? Yeah. Well, I mean, really you, as Hudson Taylor says in the talk, you have two different audiences and they both matter. So if we, if we do not have the good reputation, if man, if man does not see our lives and we don't have weighty words with them, then our, what we say won't matter and it won't penetrate, it will not be used.

So we must have that good. So when you look at the qualifications and the requirements for an elder or a deacon, one of those things is you must have a good reputation among the world. You must live your life among people.

So your reputation there matters. However, the other aspect, the other party in the room, as it were, is God himself, because man, let's be real. If you've ever watched a magician do his work, man is very easy to deceive.

And I could be, you know, one person. It is very easy to be a seemingly righteous person on Sunday morning, on Wednesday night, in a small group, whatever the case may be. And yet when I'm at home, be someone totally different.

Man sees so little of another man's life. And yet God sees not just every second of the life. He also knows the interiority, which John, I could spend, you know, we, uh, last week you mentioned, we went to a little conference in Puxico, Missouri.

We got to spend a lot of time together. And even though John, you and I were together for, you know, close to 72 hours, I never knew the thoughts that you were having. Except for ice cream. Because in a 24-hour.

Period, we went to a custard shop three times in 24 hours. Yes, we did. While you were on a diet.

I want to make it known. I was eating very healthy before you.

You had chocolate added to your custard. It was cherry.

With chocolate. And it made it much... It made it even better. So, but the reality is we cannot know the thoughts and know the heart of another person, but God does. And so we, we must live in a way that is going to commend ourselves to man, but it is honoring and pleasing to the Lord.

So it has to be both. That's the biblical pattern. It's the pattern of Christ. It's the pattern of Paul. And it's the pattern of men that Paul taught. He says in 1 Corinthians 4, that I'm going to send Timothy to you.

And he says, he will remind you of my ways and that which I teach in every place I go. So ways and teaching. So if you want to know what does Paul teach? Well, actually a young man that was trained under Paul is here and he will explain, what did the cross mean?

What does the resurrection mean? What does holiness look like? What about worship? All these things. Timothy can remind you what Paul taught, but Timothy is a living reminder of Paul's ways of how Paul lived.

So Paul has reproduced himself in Timothy and Timothy is sent to reproduce Paul and Timothy and Christ among the Corinthians. So the people need to be able to see the validity of our lives, to believe our words about Jesus.

And we're talking about ministry here and our lives being effective. We can't just say, well, God knows my heart. The people need to be able to see. And then God must see and approve because people approve sometimes with very low standards.

They may say, why you're the greatest Christian. You're the best Christian friend I've ever had. And you might believe it. And then God might be saying, that is not my assessment of your life, right? Here's what Taylor says.

He says, by manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. When he talks about every man's conscience, I summed it up this way. We have to live in such a way that our example causes their conscience to join us in the argument for Christ.

I remember, I think it was you saying that when you would read a sermon by Charles Spurgeon, it was almost as though your conscience, you know, you were standing against Spurgeon and then your conscience would go on to Spurgeon's side and say, he's right.

And it was like, you know, something on the inside of me would jump up, join Spurgeon and point back at me and say, how are you not moved to repentance and faith by this? Why are you still, you know, of two minds, you know?

And so that's the way our life ought to be. We may not be able to preach like Spurgeon, but we can live like Christ calls us to live. And our lives calls the conscience of the unbeliever or the struggling believer to join in our argument.

But then he goes on to say, it was not only that man's conscience might be satisfied. Some men's consciences might be satisfied with very little, but in the sight of God also, the apostle was walking with God, commending himself to God as well as to men.

Now he goes on to the next point and he says, if you're going to do this, your life has to be consistent. That means you're going to have to be filled up with the supplies of Christ. And here a good offense is the best defense.

It will keep you from feeling like you need to, you know, use the world to manipulate your children into becoming Christians or to manipulate your church people or whatever. But you're also going to have to have the fullness of Christ for your life to be a living demonstration of how great he is.

But then he says, you're going to have to do this. And for it to be effective, you're going to have to be among people. You can't isolate yourself as a Christian in an unbiblical way.

The Danger of Christian Isolation

Well, I mean, that was the view of the monks, right?

Yeah, yeah.

And, you know, and we're guilty of it today. We think, okay, sin comes from contact with sinners. I'm going to homeschool my children, one person might think, so that they won't meet sinful people. Or I'm going to home church my family so that they won't come into contact.

With hypocrites, as if contact with sin in the world is how it gets into us. The truth is, it's already in us. Now, the Bible gives so many statements about being careful about what we let in through our eyes and our ears, you know, what we cultivate in our heart.

Yes. And we don't have time to go through all of those. So we're going to assume that you understand that we have to be careful and biblical when we're among people who do not love our Lord. But Christ is so real and our triune God is so sufficient that we can walk with him in a workplace where you're the only Christian, in a home where you're the only Christian, in a church where it may be that you seem to be the only one concerned about a certain thing.

And instead of you being changed into the image of the world, people around you are being impacted by your life. And God is using you and your consistency, even in that contaminating situation, he's using you to impact them.

Now, obviously, we don't go into places which cause us to sin. We don't go into places which would cause our conscience to be compromised. I'm talking about just not isolating ourselves. So if we have a softball league in our little town, the Christian men could join the local softball league.

Well, we say, no, those are bad people. They say bad words out there when they strike out and when they get called out.

Then maybe don't take your kids.

Yeah, yeah, okay.

So you join that instead of making a little church league where we can be separated from all those bad people out there. So playing softball is not a sin. And so we, you know, we see an opportunity. We join the little league.

All right. We don't neglect the means of grace. We don't neglect church and worship of God for this. But where we can, we join in and we join in a local league, a softball league, or, you know, a local garden club.

And it's not a Christian garden club. It's just a garden club, you know, and you join there and you use that as an opportunity to be a living manifestation of the truths of Christ, to speak the truth in a loving way and to live the truth.

Yeah.

If we hide from people, how are they to see that?

Right.

And that is such an easy thing to do and to couch it in terms of, well, it's not that I'm hiding myself, John. It's just that I'm so busy doing all these good things, which is not true, but it sounds so noble, but it is.

And I think we have to take an honest look at ourselves and an honest assessment of ourselves and say, am I, have I been isolating myself? And so, you know, I think that we have in our, you know, kind of Christian culture, everything Christian is subcultured, right?

We have our Christian music. We have our Christian books. We have our Christian podcasts. We have all these things. But the reality is, as believers, we should absolutely be active in the world. Otherwise, it would be like, John, building this wonderful billboard or writing just this perfect novel and then never putting it out, building the perfect billboard, never putting it on the road.

Yeah.

And of course, if your church already has a weight loss class for, you know, people or a pottery class that, you know, that it does at its family life center, then invite lost people to it. That's wonderful.

But you don't have to start officially Christian groups when those groups already exist and you can join them with a clear conscience and you can infiltrate them with the truth. You can bring light into the dark place.

Now, this is what Hudson Taylor said about that, because it's easy for missionaries to be very busy, you know, in preaching and witnessing. And he's a medical missionary as well. So, you know, he's being a doctor.

But then, you know, after your work is done, the normal thing in that day, we mentioned it earlier, was for all European missionaries to retreat to a European community that they had established. A little European, you know, hole.

It's a safety thing.

A little, you know, it's like to huddle the wagons within the walls. And Taylor and the group that he worked with and started, he felt that the right thing was to was to live among the Chinese, to be like the Chinese in every way that they could, that did not compromise their message.

So this is what he says. He says, Paul says, you know what kind of man I was among you for your sake, says that to the Thessalonians. I did not spend three quarters of my time in my study and come out once or twice on a Sunday to preach to you.

I warned you as a father warns his children. My whole life is known to you from the time I came among you until I left. So for the pastor, we can't just be in our study for a parent. We can't just talk to our kids, you know, about religion during our Sunday school hour or our family worship, you know, Deuteronomy six.

So whatever place we find ourselves in, look for prayerfully, look for openings to point friends, kids, church members, coworkers to Christ and live in such a way that when you're with them, they can see Christ.

And so you make a choice to be with them. What we're really talking about here is not becoming like the world to win the world. That's not at all. If you become like the world, when you're with the world, why would they listen to you about Christ?

Why give up everything to have Christ? Because they already have everything you have your world makes your world's weight, your.

Words weightless.

Yeah.

So, hey, I've got, you know, you want what I have. You've adjusted yourself to me to talk to me about Jesus in ways that are wrong, compromising. So I already have all of that. I don't need Jesus. I have what you want, the world.

But when we are among the people we're talking about giving up our personal preferences, our free time, we're tired. You know, we've had a long week. We want to spend time with friends, not with the lost person that that can be work.

You know, I, I'm tired and I would rather just sit in front of the TV, but I have my kids there. I'm tired, but I can spend time with my wife and my life by having constant contact with them can be a, a billboard of the realities of God.

Or if I'm not careful, it can contradict what I'm saying about God. Well, I think we can bring it to a close here. You know, we already see this occurring in all of our lives, whether you're a Christian or not, we influence people.

And so if we look at a church and a pastor has been there five or 10 years, we are seeing something of that pastor being reproduced in those people. If we see a family, we see the kids reproducing the parents.

So if I can just say that, I've got a couple of kids, we've got five kids. And one of the things that my wife and I have both noticed is that our kids tend to be a magnification and an amplification of ourselves.

So they are going to, you know, magnify and amplify sometimes our weaknesses. We certainly see that, but I see strengths of my wife that are amplified, magnified in my, in my children. And when it comes to our spiritual children, so in family worship, we were, we just finished second Timothy and we're beginning Titus.

And it was so amazing for me to talk to my kids about, well, this is what discipleship looks like. These are men that Paul was able to not just say, okay, I'm going to invest in you. He certainly did that, but he was able to then trust them and send them out and to tell other, you know, tell the churches.

And he did this repeatedly. I'm sending Timothy to you. I'm sending Titus to you because these are men that I can trust to teach you what I would have taught you if I were there. And so Paul is making these men to be, it is, it is what you said at the beginning of the last episode.

He is, it is life to life. And Paul is creating disciples that look, that feel, that sound like Paul as Paul looked and felt and spoke like Christ.

Yeah.

Pattern of Christ, eminently practical demonstrated through Paul and through Timothy and others. And even through Hudson Taylor, you know, 1800 years later. So as a believer, the effectiveness of a consistent life that is consistent by constantly relying on, clinging to, walking intimately near to the living God.

We hope this has been helpful and we'll pick up, I think next week, we hope to be looking at the doctrine of union with Christ, which is at the heart of all that supply.

Yes.

One important note, I won't be here. I'll be on the proper side of the camera.

You'll be freed.

Yes.

So we'll throw ACN over there.

That'll work.

Okay.