Where are the Radically Changed Lives?

I just finished reading an advance copy of Gary Thomas’ new book, The Beautiful Fight. Here’s what I like about it. He writes with the core conviction a Christian life should be a radically transformed life. That faith in Jesus can be drastically different from and better than what we are currently experiencing. In other words, we should expect to see change—see the effects of God’s empowering presence.

This resonates with me because it’s rare to see dramatic change. We tend to see lives that reflect a superficial change of mind, lives that have not been seriously altered, lives that do not evidence miraculous change. Marriages look little different than those of the world; pornography and its addictive behavior tends to be as problematic in the church as outside the church; gracelessness can be as pervasive in a Christian culture as outside. Something is wrong. In my darker moments, I wonder if coming to Christ truly makes a significant difference.

When George Barna wrote his Revolution, I was really turned off by it. It seemed as if he had totally given up on the church, something that, as a pastor, was deeply offensive to me. And yet, I could not completely blame him. For he came to a place in his research where he began to ask the really important question, “Is the church truly interested in becoming a transformed community?” “Is it serious about transforming the world?” His research led him to the painful conclusion that it was not. Churches are not intentional in either becoming or measuring spiritual transformation.

Which brings me back to Thomas’ book. I am hearing a growing passion to see transformed lives from authors, pastors, instructors. There is this growing conviction that our union with Christ should lead to a profoundly different life, to a cross and resurrection way of living. In Jesus’ death, we too have died—died to the world and its allures—died to our self-centeredness—died to sin. And if this is so, we should see the evidence of this in changed lives. Sin should not have the authoritative role we all too often have given it. It doesn’t mean we no longer have to deal with the temptations that come in life. As the Puritan John Owen put it—“Sin has been dealt its death blow at the Cross, and we will spend the rest of our lives draining its life blood.”  But it does mean that sin no longer has a defining say in the choices we make in life.

This same union declares we have risen with Christ, and this risen life opens the way for God’s new world, for the future and present to overlap, opening a whole new way of being human (NT Wright). It should be evident for all to see. Thomas sets out to show how this ascended life of Christ should look in all of our being. In Christ, we have the ability to see as God sees, hear as God hears, think as God thinks, have hearts that feel what God feels.

So what explains the gap?  Perhaps it is a theologically anemic age that does not comprehend what the crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension mean to present existence. It may have a lot to do with the fact a transformed life requires vigilance, self discipline, rigorous thought, and repentance. Perhaps we see so little of changed lives because we refuse to pay the price. But here’s what we are missing. We have failed to realize that the grace that pardons is the same grace that is able to transform. This is grace we are not taking advantage of.

Walter Brueggemann, one of my favorite all time authors, was asked—“If you came into a room of ten of the brightest, committed, determined to change the world kind of pastors, and had one word of advice, what would it be?”  Without any hesitation, he responded—“Discover how it is people change, and build your ministry accordingly.”  I hear him saying—find what it is that more than inspires—find what transforms people, what transforms all of their being, and give your best ministry to that. This seems to be what Thomas has devoted himself to doing in his latest book—and where the church needs to get its focus.