The Incarnation of Christ - Thinking Too Highly of Ourselves

One factor that applies to any consideration of living out the incarnation of Christ and making it real is Paul's admonition that we not think too highly of ourselves. This applies both to marriage:

...as well as dealing with our brothers and sisters in Christ:

Next we'll see how this applies to the metaphor of the Church as the Body of Christ.

The Incarnation of Christ in our Marriages and Families

I had Ephesians 5:22-33 read at my wedding. Verse 25 is my husband verse. In this next part of the lesson, David talks about the incarnation of Christ in our marriages. I've included the scripture for your benefit:

22 Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord.
23 For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body.
24 But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her,
26 so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,
27 that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.
28 So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself;
29 for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church,
30 because we are members of His body.
31 For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.
32 This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.
33 Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband.

The passage doesn't end with marriage, but continues as the incarnation of Christ in our lives expands to our families in Chapter 6:

1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 Honor your father and mother (which is the first commandment with a promise), 3 so that it may be well with you, and that you may live long on the earth. 4 Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

As a hint of things to come, David mentions the thought in the back of every parents mind that considers our own inadequacies at being responsible for the lives that have been entrusted to us.

Making the Incarnation Real

I've introduced my Sunday School professor, David Moss, to you before. I think I've referred to him as a Sunday School teacher before, but that seems a little silly. Most adult classes are beyond flannelgraph and coloring books. Some adult classes even drop the trite denominational publications designed for adult Sunday School classes. David's teaching has been attracting a few students from other churches. I've never seen this before and it's an odd situation when you see faces in Sunday School that you don't see in church. What are you going to do - tell them to go home? Nevertheless, it speaks to the high caliber of his teaching. Therefore, I call him a Sunday School "professor".

Most recently he has been teaching a series on holiness using a book by Francis Schaeffer as a framework. The past few Sundays he's gone through a section concerning the incarnation and what it means for us today. This is appropriate here as we celebrate the Resurrection this weekend. While we celebrate the incarnation at Christmas, there is no separating the incarnation from the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And while this is understandable on one level, we often miss the fact that there are practical implications for us as believers. I'm editing the audio of some recent classes to post here because I think this is an important lesson that is often not well absorbed and I think David does a great job expounding on just how we should be living out the incarnation as the Body of Christ.

Warning: there's a lot of meat here. If you're a spiritual vegitarian, you might not want to listen.

The two ways that he gives for us to live out the incarnation is 1) in our marriages (and, by extension, our families), and 2) in our churches. I'll post edited lessons on these as I get them edited.

Do You Have the Mind of Christ?

I run sound for my Sunday School classroom. We have perhaps 150 on the roll and about 130 show up each Sunday. Someone suggested that we break up into smaller classes of 10-15 people, but we just don't have 10-15 spare classrooms. Perhaps the reason we are so large is because we get teaching like this:

David Moss is a fellow homeschool dad. He and his wife, Nettie, met as students at Moody Bible Institute and fell in love as missionaries in Japan. He has a masters degree in literature, teaches college English and is an accomplished finish carpenter. He's also my Sunday School teacher. It's not that I don't know the material that he teaches, but if I could speak like this I wouldn't need to waste my time blogging. Sometimes I get nice comments, but largely I think my thoughts just disperse into the vast cacophonous void of the Internet archived for the chance searcher or surfer to scan through on their way to some other informational destination.

Yet I have the mind of Christ. God knows. Although I have very little encouragement, all I can do is use what He has given me to the best of my ability to glorify Him. If all this appears to be in vain, then it is for God to use as He sees fit. I have merely done what I could with what I have. My intent is not visceral, but highly principled.

Do you have the mind of Christ? Do the best with what you have in the interest of glorifying God. You may never know what impact you have. Act on the clear principles found in the scriptures and deny mere intuition.