Devoted to the Christ

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Well, as I said, this morning we began looking at this passage, and we considered the church, didn’t we? We thought about what the church is, we thought about why Christ built her, and some of the sort of introductory implications of what that has for us as a church, and us as individuals.

Now, the temptation at this point would be to go, “Great, we now kind of know what the church is and why Jesus built it. Let’s jump into these 4 things.” And that would kind of make sense, except it would be sort of skipping a really important point. It’d be skipping, in fact, a very fundamental point that without we might end up doing the 4 things completely wrongly. Doing them, but from the wrong heart, from the wrong motive, from the wrong desire.

And that step is that the church exists primarily for the sake of Christ. And so devotion to Christ is sort of like the bedrock foundation of everything the church does. You see, Christ establishes the church, Christ pours out His Spirit upon the church, Christ equips the church, Christ keeps the church, Christ fuels the church, and everything the church does is for and to Christ. Hence, we saw this morning that the church is the glory of Christ, right? She reflects Christ so that Christ’s glory is displayed.

So if we don’t stop and pause and consider what it means for us as individuals especially, but as a church to devote ourselves to Christ, we may end up attempting to do the 4 things we’re going to look at, but doing them wrongly, and we don’t want to do that. If we’re going to do these things, we must begin by understanding 4 absolutely essential couplets. 4 couplets too, right? 4 couplets go together that sort of make up devotion to Christ.

Another way of asking this might be to say, “What does it look like for me to devote my life to Christ?” You know, people often talk about, “I’m devoting my life to Jesus.” Or a New Year’s resolution, right? “This year I’m living for Jesus.” Well, what does devotion to Christ look like? Because we want to make sure that our first priority is to Christ, not to any man-made institution or building or group or facility, but Christ, and then being fueled in devotion to Christ, we then carry out all the things of Christ.

So what does devotion to Christ look like? And as I said, there’s 4 couplets that are interwoven together. Okay? You want to think about them like a loaf of bread. We love bread. Well, at least I love bread. Carbs are great. I love bread. That sourdough this morning was 10 out of 10. Now, if you took that sourdough and removed the yeast, it would have been a very grim experience attempting to eat it during the Lord’s Supper. Or if you took the flour out, if you take one of the major ingredients out, it’s just not bread anymore, is it? Or at least it’s really bad bread. And so, these 4 couplets are essential ingredients to the recipe of devotion to Christ.

First Couplet: Hear and Respond to Christ

First, first essential couplet, we must hear and respond to Christ. Devotion begins here. You see, the dead can’t devote themselves to anything, can they? I mean, we know this. The second you bury a loved one, they will not devote themselves to anything any longer. Some of the most committed people in the world die. Well, in fact, all of them do, and they’re no longer committed to their cause.

The spiritually dead man or woman cannot devote himself to Christ, but the Lord Jesus said when he came, John 5:25, “The dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live.” Now, what’s striking about this is it sounds like Jesus is talking about the resurrection of the dead, right? But he’s not. In John 5, he says, “The days are coming, and I tell you, they are now here when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God and live.” What’s Jesus talking about? He’s talking about spiritual death, right? He’s saying the days are coming and they’re now here that Christ is going to speak to dead people, spiritually dead people, and they’re going to hear His voice, and they’re going to come to life.

And it happens, right? Acts 2. 3,000 people believe in Christ and find life. What did Christ come to do? He came to seek and save the lost, right? Why? Because no one can devote themselves to Him unless they’ve been awakened. This is the reason why Paul can say in Romans 1, “I am not ashamed of the Gospel.” I’m not ashamed of it. Why? Because it’s the power of God to bring about the salvation of everyone that hears it. This is why He says, “This is a trustworthy saying,” saying, “Jesus Christ came to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.”

We have to start here because dead sinners cannot follow Christ. They can do all of the outward things, and we see it, don’t we? But they cannot devote themselves to Christ. But it’s not just enough to hear, right? Christ proclaims His Word. For 2,000 years, Christ has been preaching His Word through the church. We talked this morning about the church’s mission to propagate the Gospel, and He’s been doing that from shore to shore. New Zealand’s the testimony, the opposite side of the world. The Gospel has come here and it echoes. It echoed here this morning. It echoes here again tonight. It echoes all around New Zealand for the rest of this day. As the sun goes forth and the earth turns, the Gospel will resound.

And it counts for nothing if you don’t open your ears and listen. You must hear the call of Christ and come. It is not just hear, because there will be many who say, “Lord, Lord, I did miracles for you. Lord, I did good things for you. Lord, I put out chairs. I helped a new church plant. I did all sorts of wonderful works.” And Jesus will say, “I never knew you.” Why? Because they never responded to the call of Jesus Christ. Jesus said, “Come to me. Come.” That’s all you have to do. “Come if you are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.”

And so the place we have to start is with a very, very simple question. Have you responded to Christ? Have you come to Jesus? In second Corinthians 6, Paul says, “Today is the day of salvation.” Brothers and sisters, friends, do not put off to tomorrow what should be done today. And don’t put off to tomorrow what you won’t be able to do. You see, when Paul says, “Today is the day of salvation,” he’s talking about now. Between now, every now moment between now and the return of Christ is a moment of invitation for every sinner to come to Christ and receive salvation. And that moment for you is now.

And here’s the terrifying thing. There will come a day when it will no longer be today. And when that day comes, people will cry out, “Have mercy upon us.” And God will say, “No, for today is no longer the day of salvation.” And when eternity weighs upon you in hell and after millions of years have gone on, still the sound of your voice will resound upon the wrath of God as He says, “No more mercy.” Don’t put it off, for today Christ still stands with open arms and loves to embrace sinners.

So what should you do if you want and be devoted to Christ? Well, what you must do is do what the tax collector did. Do you remember the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector? The Pharisee is just the epitome of most people in this world. “I thank you, God, that I am a pretty good guy. In general, I’ve done well. I’ve tried my best. I’ve paid my taxes. I’ve walked little old ladies across the road. I’ve cared for people. I haven’t stolen anything. In general, I’m a respectable contributing person in society. I’m nothing like that scumbag over there,” said tax collector, who says, “I’m not even going to lift up my face to you, God. I beat my breast and I cry out, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner, because I am not worthy of anything.’” Do you remember who goes away justified? The tax collector.

So that’s where devotion begins. “Christ, I’m not worthy of anything, but I cast myself upon Your mercy. You’ve called me and I come. I lay myself down before You.”

Second Couplet: Serve and Submit to Christ

But it doesn’t stop there, does it? Oh, yes, He’s our savior, but He’s also our Lord, He’s also our King. And so the second couplet is that we serve and we submit to Christ. You see, when we respond, when we come to Christ, something very significant happens. So Paul terms it this way in Colossians 1:13. He says, “You have been transferred, or in some translations, translated from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of His beloved Son.”

Now, just think about that. The domain of darkness, once you were dead in your sins and trespasses, you’ve now been translated, transferred over into a new kingdom, the Kingdom of Jesus Christ. Now, if you’re part of a kingdom, you currently I’m assuming most of you are not aliens. You’re part of a kingdom, right, in New Zealand. What does it mean to be a part of a kingdom in New Zealand? You have a government. Now, children, do you have to listen to the government? Yes. The government tells you, they make laws, you do the laws. When they say, “Don’t speed,” you’re not meant to speed. So they set laws and you follow them. You are in a country, a kingdom, you obey the laws of the land.

Well, guess what? The same thing applies in the spiritual world. When you were in the domain of darkness, what did you do? You followed the prince of the power of the air, but now you’ve been transferred out into the kingdom of His beloved Son, and now what do you do? You serve and you submit to Christ. And so the New Testament tells us we are to be, Philippians 1:27, obedient citizens. Amen. Citizens of heavenly places. Remember, we set our minds on heavenly places and we seek to live for a heavenly city which does not perish.

We’re also told to be slaves. That you were slaves to sin, Paul says in Romans 6, but now you are slaves to righteousness. Now, you give up your members of your body for righteousness’ sake. We are now obedient sons, Peter says, 1 Peter 1. And so no longer do we live as children of the devil, but now we live as sons of God, as daughters of God.

And what this reminds us is that devotion to Christ is also devotion to His ways, devotion to His laws, devotion to His rules. You see, we have not been set free from sin and slavery to be our own king, our own queen, our own ruler. There is only one King and His name is Jesus Christ. Amen. And we have no option but to serve and submit to Him, and so we must bring our all. You see, grace appeared, Titus 2, to train us to say, “No” to sin and to say, “Yes” to godliness, and so we seek to bring everything to our King.

I mean, what did you do 300, 400 years ago as a peasant living under the authority of a king? You would bring gifts, right? He would tax you, and so you would have to bring gifts to him, and you would serve him. And if he needed you for something, you did it. And if you didn’t, he’d cut your head off. That’s a bit grim. I’m glad we don’t live in those days now. But brothers and sisters, we have a King. And how often is it so easy for us to complain when Christ requires something of us? But let us lay our lives down in obedience to Him, not neglecting His commands, but seeking to follow His standard, both individually and as a church. The command of Christ is what compels us. His rule, his standard, is our standard because we are his subjects. We are his little brothers and little sisters.

Imagine for a second that you adopted a child. I’ve always dreamed of adopting a child, like going to Africa or something, going to Asia. You know, you hear these stories of finding one of those children in an orphanage and, I don’t know, taking a private jet and flying like 40 of them home. I’d be happy to take them all. This is why I could never go, or else I’d bring them all back with me on a bus. But imagine you go there, and you pay the air tickets, and you fly over and you meet this child and you adopt one. And you know they’re malnourished, they’re mistreated, and you save this child out of misery, and you take them and you bring them home, and you pay for the air fares, and you build a bigger house, and you get them clothes, and you pay all of the legal expenses. Like you can’t comprehend how much it costs to do something like this. It’s just outrageous. You have to pay legal expenses on both sides of the country, on their side and your side, and you just pay and you pay and you pay. And this child’s like 2 or 3.

Now, I want you to imagine 7, 8 years later. The child’s 10, 11, and they turn around to you and they say to you, “You’re not my real dad! I’m not listening to you! Who are you to tell me what to do?” What would you say? My child, I gave everything for you. No, you’re right, I didn’t produce you. But I love you. I’ve poured out my whole being for you. I’ve given you everything, and now you don’t want to load the dishwasher for me?

But can’t we be like that with Jesus? I mean, Jesus, he gave up everything for us. What did he withhold? What did he hold back? Anything? Oh, he gave up the riches of glory in heaven and the praise of angels in his presence, and he came and dwelt in the filth and mire of a sinful, and broken, and fallen world, and laid his life down, and was nailed to a tree, and horrendously punished and tortured, and bore the wrath of our sin. What kind of disobedient child are we when we turn around and say, “Why do I have to listen to you? I know better than you. I’m going to live life my way.”

Oh, brothers and sisters, let us not be angry children, but rather, let us with servitude and overflowing hearts of joy sing with Frances Havergal: “Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to thee. Take my moments and my days; let them flow in endless praise. Take my silver and my gold; not a mite will I withhold. Take my intellect, and use every power as thou shalt choose.”

You see, we must hear and respond, and we must serve and we must submit.

Third Couplet: Follow and Suffer with Christ

But then the third couplet is, we must follow. We must follow, and we must suffer with Christ. If we will devote ourselves to Christ, we will devote ourselves to a life of following and a life of suffering. You know, there’s a real temptation, isn’t there, for us to subtly believe the lie of the prosperity gospel that tells us if you just believe in God with enough faith, everything will go well for you. It doesn’t come out explicitly for most of us ’cause we’ve had enough Bible training for it not to. But deep down in the pits of our heart, when suffering happens, what’s the very first thought we have? “This is not fair.” Don’t you feel that? “This is not fair.” And very quickly, we move from, “This is not fair,” to, “God, I’ve always followed you. God, I’ve loved you. God, I tithe. God, I do X. Why are you doing this to me?”

And you see, what’s happened is the prosperity gospel has snuck into our head that has suggested to us that following Christ means peace, tranquility, and ease. Meanwhile, didn’t Christ say to us, “Blessed are you when they persecute you”? Didn’t Christ say to us, “I did not come to bring peace, but a sword”? Did not the apostles say, “It is through many tribulations that we must enter the kingdom of God”? And did Paul not say in Romans 8, “You will be glorified with him, Christ, providing you suffer with him.” He says, “You are co-heirs with Christ. If you suffer with him, then you will be glorified.”

So here’s the logic of Paul. Would you like to be glorified with Jesus? That sounds pretty great, right? Like, no one’s going to say, “Well, no, I clearly don’t want that.” All of us want to be glorified. All of us want to be perfected and presented spotless and blameless before our husband, before God, before his Son, in the presence of the angels. It sounds fabulous! Paul says, “Great! Then suffer with Jesus Christ.” And you’re tempted to ask, “Why? Why do I need to suffer?”

But do you remember the words of Jesus to his apostles in the upper room, John 16? Says, “If they persecute the Master, is it not also fitting that they persecute the servants? If they persecute me, how much more will they persecute you?” Don’t be surprised, he says, when these things come upon. We will follow the Good Shepherd, and the Good Shepherd will lead us when we devote ourselves to Christ. If we are devoted to Christ, we will follow Christ. And when we follow Christ, he will lead us.

But here’s the thing, brothers and sisters. The same Good Shepherd who leads us by still waters, remember Psalm 23? By still waters and in lovely green meadows is the same Good Shepherd who leads us through the valley of the shadow of death. It’s not 2 shepherds. It’s not that we accidentally fall into the valley of the shadow of death and the shepherd jumps in there and says, “Oh! I’d better help lead you out.” No, he’s the one that leads us into the valley, but he’s also the one who leads us out the other side. So you need not fear and you must be comforted, brothers and sisters, because you’re not alone in your suffering. You’re not called to suffer on your own. You’re called to follow a Good Shepherd into suffering, who will safely bring you home.

Don’t you love those words in John 14? “Don’t be afraid. Don’t be troubled. My dear brothers, my dear disciples, don’t be troubled! Believe in me! You’ve believed in God.” Why? “I’m going away, and I’m going to come and get you again. Trust me,” is what he’s saying to his apostles. And so let us follow and suffer as necessary.

I wonder if you remember that wonderful little hymn that many of us at times, myself included, have sort of complained about. “I Have Decided to Follow Jesus.” This is like one of those songs that Calvinists love to complain about. Because I don’t decide to follow Jesus. Jesus calls me. When you know the context of that song, you learn to love it. So, it was written by a man called Simon Murach. Simon Murach was a missionary in India. And Simon Murach went to India from Wales. So there was a big revival in the Welsh lands, and he went to India to be a missionary, and the Gospel followed, and he went to this tribe, and revival followed, and came to this tribe. And this man got converted. He was the first, like, important person to get converted. And it was through the conversion of this one Indian fella that the rest of the tribe started getting converted.

And the head chiefman got really angry, because he didn’t want them all converting. So he came to this first convert and said to him, “You must publicly deny Christ tomorrow, or I will kill you.” And on the spot, this Indian fellow composed and sung the song, “I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back, no turning back.” What’s he saying? He’s saying the exact same thing that those 3 men said when they stood in front of a gold statue with Nebuchadnezzar threatening to burn them alive. Said, “King, you know what? Our God can save us from your fire. Our God is bigger than your fire. If He wants, He will save us from your fire. But you know what? Even if God doesn’t, and we perish in the fire, we’re still not going to fall down and worship you, because God is worthy of everything.”

That’s what those 3 men, and that’s what Simon Marak’s convert were declaring, and that’s what we must learn, that to devote ourselves to Christ is to devote ourselves to a cross that’s worth it. I guarantee you, I promise you, with all the authority of the Word of Christ, that when you stand in glory, you will not say, “It wasn’t worth it.” Will you not look back and say, “Every second of the cross-carrying was worth it”? Like Paul, right, “My present sufferings are,” what? It’s just light, momentary afflictions. You know, you’re talking beaten, shipwrecked, whipped, the whole 9 yards, stoned. Like, we’ve got no comprehension of the suffering of the twisted and broken Paul. And yet, he says it’s light, momentary afflictions compared to the weight of the glory of eternity that’s coming for us, right? So carry your cross if you want to follow and devote your life to Christ.

Fourth Couplet: Love and Delight in Christ

So that’s 3 couplets, hear and respond, we must serve and submit, we must follow and suffer, and there’s one more, and this is I want to say this is, like, the most important ingredient that binds them all together. You see, you can make a cake or a loaf of bread without salt. It’s not going to taste great, might be a bit flat, but you can still do it. You can’t make a cake without flour. Unless you make a flourless cake, I guess, but you get the analogy. There are some ingredients you just cannot take out, and this is one of them.

And this couplet is love and delight. There is no devotion to Christ without a heart overflowing with love and delight. Because, 1 Corinthians 13 tells us, if there is no love, you are what? A clanging cymbal, a noisy gong. You are nothing. He says, “Look, if I offer my body as a living, burning sacrifice in persecution, but I don’t do it with love, it’s nothing. If I give away everything I have, but don’t have love, it counts for nothing.” There is no devotion without a loving and delighting soul, because raw duty is not something that pleases God.

An analogy, a metaphor makes this helpful, I think. Wives, I want you to imagine for a second that you went to your husband, and you were frustrated with him, because you just, you know, husbands are not always good at telling us that they love us, right? And so, we just it’s nice for us to hear it sometimes. And so you go to your husband and you say to him, “Honey, do you love me? Are you devoted to me?” And he said to you, “Oh, well, I answered the phone when you called.” What do you mean? He’s like, “Well, I married you.” You go, “Well, I mean, it’s I’m glad you married me, but it’s not quite what I’m going for here. I mean, do you really love me? Like, do you love me more than everyone else? Am I the only one for you?” And he said, “Hon, you know, every time you ask me to, I do the dishes.” You know, and if you need me to do something, I go shopping, and I serve you. And if you need me to, I protect you from things. You know, and look, I would go with you wherever you needed me to go with you, and I’d do all the shopping you needed.” What would you think? How would you feel, ladies? But that’s not what I want. I want to know if you love me. I want to know if you delight in me. I want to know if you can live without me.

I mean, what does it do to your hearts if your husband looks you in the eyes and says to you, “You are the delight of my soul. I would, I will, I just, I can’t imagine living with anyone except for you.” I can still vividly remember, I’m going to embarrass my wife now, I can still vividly remember being newly married. I know, it’s quite a long time ago, children. So Josella ran, she dumped me savagely and ran away. And eventually, she came back and we got married. And before that happened, I’d sort of given up all hope of getting married to her. I was like, “Gosh, she’s gone.” And all I, the only person I ever wanted to marry was her. And so she came back to town, and we got married, and I can still vividly remember, and I still get this feeling sometimes, where I’ll look at her, and all of a sudden, I’ll think to myself, “I can’t believe I actually got her.” And I still have that feeling. Even as I say this, I can feel that in my heart right now, “I can’t believe I actually got her. How can I have gotten such an amazing wife?”

So that’s love, right? And what does your heart do when that happens? When you hear that, your heart explodes. This is what God delights in. Not legalistic obedience of law, but a heart that overflows with love, a heart that looks at God and says, “There is no other worthy of all of my affections.” It’s the heart that looks with Song of Songs and says, “His banner over me is love. There’s nothing more precious. I’d rather have Jesus than silver or gold. I’d rather have Jesus than to have this whole world. Just give me Jesus.”

Is that your heart? Is that overflow of all that is within you? Though you can’t necessarily express it that way, though you can’t necessarily think through that, yet deep down, as you think of Christ, do you see Him as the all-fulfilling savior and longing of your soul, that you would willingly die rather than to be gone from Him? Because that’s what devotion to Christ looks like.

Brothers and sisters, don’t fall into the trap of thinking we must devote ourselves to apostles’ teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayers like it’s a mere duty. Like, “Hooah, we’re going to do it! We’re going to be the church that does it! We’re going to get out there and devote ourselves to the Word, and we’re going to be praying all the time, and we’re going to be breaking bread all the time, and we’re going to fellowship whether you want it or not.” It’s pointless, unless it comes from a heart that is pleased to be in the presence of Christ.

And this is exactly why this early Church did it, right? I mean, why do you think the Church did these 4 things? I mean, there’s no instruction. Right? Did you see anywhere that the apostles were like, “Right, now you need to go out and do these 4 things”? No, they did it because there’s nothing else they’d rather do. The word of Christ was so rich to them that when it was preached, they couldn’t get enough of it. The fellowship of God’s people, being among the people of Christ, was so glorious to them that they wouldn’t have nothing more but to be in their presence. The pleasure of being face-to-face with their Savior was so real that there’s nothing more that they wanted to do than spend time in prayer together as the people of God. And the gifts of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, they just delighted to enter into these signs that represent all that God has promised and achieved for us.

The only way to foster this, though, is through time, right? I mean, I can remember at a time when Josella and I, just once, you know, we’d, we’re having a perfect marriage. And someone shouted us to a marriage retreat, and we went away to this, like, 2 day weekend marriage thing. Oh, it was such a gift. And just, we had just this enforced time where we had to be in the same room as each other, which is always difficult when you’ve been at each other’s throats for a little while. And it was just incredible. It’s completely changed our trajectory in our marriage. And, you know, one of the most blessed things for a couple is just time, right? Time to talk, time to work things through, time to just sit and eat and look at one another.

The same is true with devotion to Christ, our relationship with Christ. The only way to foster this delight, this love, is to be face-to-face with your God, with your Father, with your elder Brother, with your Husband, with your Holy Spirit. The only way is to be face-to-face with Him in His Word, through the preaching of God’s Word, through the reading of the Scriptures privately and corporately, to be speaking to Him and hearing Him speak, to be present among God’s people.

These 4 things really are the embodiment of devotion to Christ. Because in them, the 4 things we see in verse 42, in them, we come face-to-face with the living God in a way we don’t anywhere else. I mean, just think about what we did this morning. We picked up a bread and little cup of juice. I mean, guys, it’s just a bread and a piece of cup of juice, right? We’re not Catholic. It didn’t turn into anything. However, by faith, in that moment, we partook in Christ. By faith, we actually partook in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. I mean, can you get any closer to the face of Christ than that? To hold the representation of His flesh and His blood and say, “Thus Christ did for me,” so we receive from Him.

Brothers and sisters, devotion to Christ is the sum of all of its parts, and this section comes into reality when we do so. And when this happens, individuals and churches are radically transformed, right? I mean, what’s wrong with so many churches? Isn’t half of the problem that there’s just so much duty? When was the last time you saw a place where Christ was truly delighted in? Where the joy of the Lord was palpable upon the lips and hearts? Where duty and delight mesh together in perfect harmony? When that happens, people come in the door and say, “Surely God is here.” Because whenever His people meet like that, God is always pleased to be there.

Brothers and sisters, it’s not science. It’s not rocket science. Set your hearts on the Lord Jesus Christ, and be pleased to delight in Him, and He will delight to give you the desires of your heart, right? Why? Because the desires of your heart will be for Him.

Closing Prayer

Let’s pray. Father in heaven, how we love You. We lift up our hearts to You, and we confess that at times our hearts are cold. At times, our hearts are very far from You. And so we pray now, Lord, would You woo us back to Your Son? Speak words of tenderness to us, and affection. Forgive us for our coldness, and draw us back to Yourself that our hearts might overflow with a pleasing theme to our King. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

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