Creating Our Own Dashed Expectations

Misreading the Situation

July 21, 1861 was an enormous wake-up call for masses of Northern elites, journalists, politicians, and overconfident onlookers. Known later as The First Battle of Bull Run the day’s events stand in history as an example of the disastrous consequences for those who misread reality and who have an overconfidence in their misguided perceptions.

When the American Civil War broke out, arrogant Northerners were confident that the Union army would crush the puny Confederate rebellion with ease in just a matter of weeks. The war was portrayed as more of a slight skirmish—a theatrical spectacle put on for the enjoyment of high-society folk.

As Union forces marched toward Manassas, Virginia, hundreds of Washington’s finest, including Senators, Congressmen, journalists, and high-society citizens robed in their finest garb, packed picnic baskets, bottles of champagne and fine wine, grabbed opera glasses and in some cases, even their children, and headed south ready to enjoy the delightful spectacle from the hillsides overlooking the Centreville valley.

The victory was to be swift and decisive. It was a spectator sport to be enjoyed from the “grandstands” with a glass of quality wine and a hearty lunch served on the family’s best china. By all predictions, the gutless Confederates would break at the first Union charge.

Initially, the battle unfolded just as the cheering picnickers believed it would. Events took a dramatic turn, however, with the arrival of reinforcements under the command of General Thomas Jackson. Earning his nickname “Stonewall Jackson” that day, the general counterattacked, and broke through the overconfident and inexperienced Union line and drove them running for their lives back north toward Washington.

In their terrified retreat that later became known as The Great Skedaddle, the panicking Union soldiers and pursuing Confederates ran right through the horrified onlookers, destroying their picnics, fine clothing, finer china, and the horse-drawn carriages and buggies that toted them to their morning’s entertainment.

The war would not be won in a day as was projected, and those who thought they had it all figured out were painfully mistaken.

Setting the Baseline

[Jesus] gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.
– Titus 2:14, ESV

Ask any man or woman why Jesus died and you’ll likely hear a response having something to do with saving each of us from our sin. While it is true that Christ died for sins,¹ and not just mine but everyone’s sins,² that is a self-focused and incomplete answer. This view of the death of Christ feeds the Consumer Christianity model wherein the focus is entirely on “What do I get out of this?”

The Titus quote above confirms that Jesus died to redeem us from lawlessness, and the result of that redemption is what we commonly call “salvation,” or “being saved,” but that redemption was done with a greater purpose. It was done to “purify for himself a people, zealous for good works.”

For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.
– 2 Corinthians 5;14-15, ESV

Yes, we are saved, and that’s a glorious outcome of Christ’s work. Now, we live not for ourselves, but for him who died for us. We live with and for a purpose, and that purpose is to serve the King.

…how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.
– Hebrews 9:14, ESV

There exists a tension between the “what Jesus has done for me” and the “what are my obligations toward Jesus?” In current-generation, Western Christianity, I read and hear much about the former, and very little about the latter. Therefore, it has become a passion for me to remind Christ-followers that while it is true that Jesus is Savior, Jesus is also King.

Returning to Titus, above, the apostle Paul says Jesus died to secure for himself a people for his own possession. It is critical that we not dismiss or read past this truth. We are περιούσιον (periou’sion). We are the treasured, personal possession of another. As each of us comes to grips with this reality, it exposes the disastrous, fundamental shift in perspective from that of early Christianity to the contemporary practice found in much of today’s Western church.

Slave Market vs. Consumerism

In first-century Greco-Roman society, the concept of redemption was not a religious abstraction. It was legal and economic. It meant the payment of a ransom to purchase a slave from a life of bondage. When the first-century apostles taught that Christ redeemed us, the contextual implication and understanding was that an exchange of ownership had taken place. Therefore, each of us was bought out of slavery, not to become an autonomous agent, but to become the property of a new Master.

You are not your own, for you were bought with a price.
– 1 Corinthians 6:19b-20a, ESV

Contemporary, Western Christianity has either forgotten this, or is intentionally ignoring it. The prevailing message of the church today is delivered through a consumer lens that views Jesus as the provider of forgiveness, peace, eternal life, and personal fulfillment, while leaving the believer at the center of the story. The story of today’s church is for me and about me. Listen to contemporary Christian music for an hour and you’ll come away from that knowing what I’m saying is true.

We are not the center or the focus of the gospel message. Jesus is! Viewing Jesus strictly as “Savior” allows us to accept the benefits without surrendering the self-rule.

A Shift in Emphasis

The cry of the New Testament church was not, “Jesus is my Savior,” though he was and is but, rather, “Jesus is Lord.”

To call Jesus Lord or King in the first-century context was a radical, politically dangerous declaration. Caesar was Lord, King, and god. To say otherwise was to invite peril. To declare Jesus as Savior would have been the safe message, but that was not the message.

The Mark of Ownership

Prior to purchasing my first house, I rented apartments, duplexes, and houses. There is a specific term renters use to refer to the owner of the property – “landlord.” He or she is the lord, or owner of that property. To say, “Jesus is Lord” is to declare him my owner. I am his property as Lord, and I am his subject as King. These are non-negotiables with Jesus.

When working with students at Kansas University, there was a song we sang titled “Pierce My Ear,” written by Steve Croft.

Pierce my ear, O Lord my God.
Take me to your door this day.
I will serve no other God.
Lord, I’m here to stay.

For you have paid the price for me.
With your blood you ransomed me.
I will server you eternally.
A free man I’ll never be.

– Steve Croft © 1980 Curb Dayspring Music

The song is drawn from two Old Testament passages. One is in Exodus 21:5–6 and the other, Deuteronomy 15:16–17.

Under Mosaic law, a Hebrew servant was to be set free after six years of service. However, if the servant loved their master and chose not to leave, the master was to take them to the doorpost of the home and pierce their ear with an awl. This mark declared the servant a willing, lifelong bondservant of the master. We have made that same lifelong choice to be a bondservant of our Master, Jesus.

Our focal passage from Titus, above, makes a direct connection between the fact that we are the possession of Jesus and the fact that we are zealous for good works. We do not work begrudgingly for the Master. We are eager to serve, eager to please our King. Our kingdom activities are not the payment for salvation, because that is a price we could never pay. Rather they are the natural, inevitable duty and passion of a subject who is responding to the King’s will.

Like the picnickers who misread the realities of the Civil War, believers who view themselves as autonomous, sovereign individuals who happened to “accept” a Savior have completely misread the nature of their relationship to the God of the universe. To them, obedience feels like an optional favor rendered to a Savior who is relieved that they finally allowed him in. Viewed through the lens of scripture, we are members of a kingdom, subjects of that kingdom, and property of the Lord of all that exists. Our obedience is simply the baseline alignment of a subject with the King.

1. 1 Corinthians 15:3, 1 John 3:5
2. 1 Peter 3:18, Romans 5:6-8, Galatians 1:3-4, 1 Corinthians 5;21, Hebrews 9:28, 1 John 2:2, Revelation 1:4