REAL Organic Church Life Part II: An Eternally Purposeful Community

 --Are we to breed like rabbits in some rapid church multiplication strategy, or be caught up in the straight line of His Eternal Purpose where Christ is formed in and among us over time? --

“…having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth–in Him…according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Eph. 1:9-10;3:11)

The abundant LIFE of Jesus Christ — is it split into two parts, one temporal and the other eternal, or is it ONE LIFE altogether?

Just the other day, I heard someone say that the subject of God’s eternal purpose has little meaning to him. He went on to say that he is just concerned about his responsibility, his temporal purpose, and that he leaves the rest to God. When I asked him about this temporal purpose his explanation came from what he perceived as “the great commission” and that his life was all about fulfilling Jesus’ command which is to preach the gospel and make disciples. Many who classify themselves as living organic church life today speak like this.

When it comes to the core of their beliefs they go back to what Jesus said in Matthew 28:16 to the eleven apostles (even though in reality that commission was fulfilled by these eleven men.) So organic church to them is this — rapid multiplication through disciple making. They show you picture after picture of baptisms as if to say that they are being faithful, and few others are. They seem to be consumed with this temporal purpose, and talk about how many disciples they are making, how many churches they have planted, and how rapidly these churches are growing. Eternal Life, to them, is what happens after this life, and they don’t think it necessary to ever understand God’s Eternal Purpose because to them, they are too busy in doing what Jesus said to do now. Sound familiar?

Eternity is not dependent upon Time; Time is dependent upon Eternity

For many people, when they think about eternity, usually they perceive it as something that lasts forever. They see it as just a very long time frame, but rarely as something that has always existed, beyond time itself. Truly, eternity has been going on forever– way before mankind entered the picture — and is already happening now… and will never end.

Eternity does not adjust to anything, but everything must adjust to it. It functions according to God’s eternal purpose in which the Son, who is the Begotten of the Father, has been expressing the image of God in and through all created things, since eternity past, and will continue to do so in the ages to come. It pleased the Father that all the fullness dwells in Him (Col.2:9). And this fullness is being expressed with all creation being conformed to the image of God’s Son, Jesus Christ (Romans 8:29.)

Paul, a man consumed with knowing God’s Eternal Son, Christ Jesus

Most of the New Testament was written by a man, Paul of Tarsus, who understood what Jesus meant in His words to His eleven disciples (Matt. 28:16-20.) He knew this according to God’s eternal purpose through the Son being revealed in him (Gal. 1:16. ) He saw Christ in a uniquely different way than many people today who base organic church life on the great commission.

Paul’s concept of Jesus Christ came in view of the Son in eternity, and not merely in the time of redemption, from the fall to Christ’s return. In his letters to the Ephesians and to the Colossians, he starts out and concludes, not with some plan of multiplication and disciple-making strategies or with lingo about saving the world and winning souls, but with describing the Son in eternity before he ever shares about Him in present time.

There is a reason for this. The Christ Paul testified of was not Jesus of Nazareth only, seeing Him merely as a man with a mission, but he shared of Jesus Christ as the eternal Son of God before creation, before the fall, before redemption and before His own Incarnation. Paul spoke of Christ in a main line of eternal purpose in which the Lord is seeking to bring us to, and to bring to us. In this line, from eternity past stretching all the way to the ages to come, Paul saw Christ being expressed fully through all things in His purpose set by the Father.

And in this line, man was created as a spiritual and moral being in which the Son would be expressed. The fall and the time of redemption never altered that purpose but that is where there became a dip in the line, so to speak, when the Son came down to lift man back up into this line of God’s Eternal Purpose, and to bring it to man.

God’s Son cannot be known in redemptive time only, but upon the landscape of eternity

It is so enormous to comprehend but as God reveals His Son in us, we are lifted so much out of which we were once so preoccupied with, that in time of present day, mainly, our salvation, our redemption, and all that is associated with it. Many who see the great commission as the only purpose for His church are focused on Christ only in the time of redemption, a blink in the span of eternity itself. Jesus Christ becomes the Redeemer only, and all the mission becomes to redeem the world, to save it, to use all resources in this work. In this view, then, every member feels the pressure to preach the gospel and make disciples, which is really, the pressure for every one to be an apostle.

Paul’s Concept of Christ, the Eternal Son of God

Paul, an apostle whose life and testimony fills the new testament, saw it in such a more glorious way. He did not come into some rapid multiplication strategy, but learned for about 14 years how to live among brothers and sisters in Christ in sharing His Life together before he was ever sent out to proclaim the gospel to the nations.

This can be seen in his letters (especially in those to the saints in Ephesus and Colosse) as he shared how every member must be conformed to the image of God’s Eternal Son, and not to Jesus of Nazareth perceived to be a God-Man with a God-Message in some model of church multiplication and growth. This gives understanding to why he so stressed Christ being expressed in the church with the over one hundred exhortations of one-anothering to the saints to love one another in a myriad of ways, in sharing His Life together.

In contrast, in those churches that replace God’s Eternal Purpose with the great commission, they look at everything in a way of fixing something that was broken. To them, the world must be fixed, restored. And they see their purpose is to do the fixing. The problem with that is that so many people today grow up into such co-dependency where fixing others around them has been something they have always done. Being in control has been their way of life. So this life, a natural one, can never mix with the organic church life which comes from living by the indwelling Life of Christ, and sharing His Life together where Christ is expressed in every word and deed.

Redemption is where God lifts us up into the Son, and into Eternity

Here is another look at redemption. The word itself carries an implication. Redemption implies a bringing back. The question immediately presents itself: Brought back to what? and to what place? There is something that, for the time being, has been lost. It has ceased to remain in its original relationship, in its original position. It has to be brought back, reclaimed, restored, redeemed. Then there must have been a place and a position, where to go back to, and that is the main point that Paul had made in his letters in the New Testament.

Before this creation was, God had intended a purpose, and the straight line of that purpose through the ages was to work out progressively to a universal display of God in man, through His Son. Through the Son, He created all things. Everything was created in heaven and in earth, and then the universe came, through the Son, so that all things would be conformed into the very image of Him.

Organic Church Life seen like a journey on the EAC in “Finding Nemo”

Knowing Jesus Christ by the Spirit, God revealing His Son in us, takes us out of that limited place of knowing Him simply in terms of redemption, and puts us into so much larger a realm, that is the realm of eternity itself. Here, we are lifted up in that line of eternity’s purpose as we relate to one another in community where Christ is the Life and the source of that Life. This is illustrated well in the movie “Finding Nemo” where Marlin the Clownfish is on a quest to save his son Nemo from peril and  after being stung by the jellyfish is lifted up into the Eastern Australian Current (EAC) where he meets an entire community of sea turtles.

It is so fitting. I think, that organic church life is just like that. We are on some mission to save somebody, even a member of our own family, where we need to view Christ no longer in just redemptive time, but according to eternity. There we are lifted up with Him, as we begin to rest in Him, according to God’s eternal purpose as we partake of the Son being expressed through all creation. Marlin saw that the community of turtles, the slowest of all creatures, was altogether glorious as they traveled far faster than any other in this current — which speaks of this line of eternity of purpose in Christ Jesus.

The adult turtles played with the young turtles, and there was such a sense of mutuality in loving and caring for one another. I think this is how organic church is called to be, where Christ the Son is expressed when the church, not saving the world, becomes the mission. First, like Marlin, we must pass through the “jellies” and the trauma of our painful experiences, where we allow the Father to lift us up in the Son, far above redemptive time, to function together in eternity now where the community LIFE of God in Christ Jesus flows from Christ the Head into Christ the body.

Though it may seem that we are just dragging along like turtles, one inch at a time, but in the view of living in God’s Son in eternity, we are traveling on such a glorious journey in His eternal purpose expressing the Son in how we care for one another in sharing His LIFE together. The turtles, led by Crush who was 200 years old, lived as fresh and new as the day they were born. And no one was running around trying to save or fix one another, or the world, but instead they lived a common life together as a common expression — according to God’s Eternal Purpose as a living expression of the Son, who is the fullness of all things, filling all things with Himself.