Christ, Indwelling

In the charred landscapes left behind by the Los Angeles wildfires, a persistent sign of life has transfixed locals: trees. On lots where houses have been reduced to piles of rubble and cars to mangled metal husks, trees rise. These surviving oaks, pines and orange trees are often the only remaining landmarks in a neighborhood, bittersweet reminders of a time before so much tragedy.

The trees’ survival was a curiosity to many. Shouldn’t they have burned alongside homes?

The trees survived because they are filled with water: The roots draw moisture from soil and transport it through branches to its leaves. When the fires erupted in January, trees in Los Angeles had been especially nourished after two previous rainy winters. All that water makes burning a living tree akin to trying to start a campfire with wet logs.

Possible Preaching Angles:

The trees’ survival in the aftermath of wildfire is a living parable of biblical truths: resilience through adversity, the life-giving power of being rooted and nourished, and the hope that endures even when all else is lost. 1) Final Judgment; Judgment Day – Only believers will be able to stand in the day of judgment because we have the indwelling Christ and his righteousness; 2) Endurance; Hope; Perseverance - The Bible often uses the imagery of trees enduring through drought to represent steadfastness and life in the midst of hardship (Psa. 1:2-3; Jer. 17:7-8).

Models who look like Jesus are in high demand in Utah. That’s because for a growing number of people in the state, a picture isn’t complete without Him. They are hiring Jesus look-alikes for family portraits and wedding announcements. Models are showing up to walk with a newly engaged couple through a field, play with young children, and cram in with the family for the annual Christmas card. Some charge between $100 to $200 an hour to pose with children, families, and couples at various locations.

For the sought-after models, the job can be freighted with meaning and responsibility. Lookalikes find that people expect them to embody Jesus in more ways than the hair and beard. Jai Knighton has posed as Jesus a number of times. He says, “portraying Jesus can be tricky.” One person who hired him wanted him to be “the most Christlike person you can be, or people will be able to tell through the photos that it’s not real.” Others were more relaxed, asking him to smile and enjoy himself.

Knighton said he tried to portray Jesus in a way that’s similar to how he is depicted in “The Chosen.” Knighton said, “Stoic Jesus is intimidating. A Jesus who smiles and pats you on the back is much more relatable.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Christians should keep in mind that we represent Christ to those around us. What image of Jesus are you presenting?

Here's the most famous place you've never heard of. It's St. Peter's Church Hall in Liverpool, England. It looks like a typical church gym except for the heavily-timbered cathedral ceiling and missing basketball hoops.

St. Peter's was having a church social with a local music group performing. During a break in the music, Paul, a 15-year-old guest, played songs on the guitar and piano impressing the teen band leader, John. A few weeks later, John Lennon invited Paul McCartney to join the Quarrymen, later known as The Beatles. That first meeting was July 6, 1957 - a historic place and moment in music but nobody knew it.

The Liverpool Museum reflected, "That meeting didn't just change the lives of John and Paul, it was the spark that lit the creative (fuse) on a cultural revolution that would reverberate around the world."

St. Peter's Church Hall is a temple where two music greats met. The stage from the hall is almost an "altar" since it was moved to a museum in Liverpool.

Possible Preaching Angles:

1) Altar; Worship - Christians also worship at an altar, but it is exclusive to New Testament believers (Heb. 13:10); 2) Temple - The New Testament names three places as the Temple of the living God on earth: 1) The physical body of Christ (Jn. 2:19; Matt. 26:61; Mark 14:58); 2) The church, the body of Christ (1 Cor. 3:16-17); 3) The body of the individual believer (1 Cor. 6:19).

22-year-old Apu Sarker lives with his family in a village in northern Bangladesh. His father and his grandfather were farmers. The men in Apu's family appear to share a very rare genetic mutation: they have no fingerprints.

Back in the day of Apu's grandfather, having no fingerprints was no big deal. But over the decades, the tiny grooves that swirl around our fingertips have become the world's most collected biometric data. We use them for everything from passing through airports to voting to opening our smartphones.

When Apu was still a boy, Bangladesh introduced National ID cards for all adults, and the database required a thumbprint. The baffled employees did not know how to issue a card to Apu's father. Finally, he received a card with "NO FINGERPRINT" stamped on it.

In 2016, the government made it mandatory to match a fingerprint with the national database in order to purchase a Sim card for a mobile phone. Apu said, "They seemed confused when I went to buy a Sim, their software kept freezing every time I put my finger on the sensor.” Apu was denied the purchase, and he now uses Sim cards issued in his mother's name.

Apu recently got a new kind of national ID card being issued by the Bangladeshi government, after presenting a medical certificate. The card uses other biometric data, a retina scan and facial recognition. But he still can't buy a Sim card or obtain a driver's license. But he hopes he will be able to get a passport. He would love to travel outside Bangladesh. He just needs to start his application.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Identity; Identity in Christ – Our entry into heaven is not based on fingerprints or biometric data, but on our identity in Christ. We have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and are guaranteed full access to our heavenly home since our names are written in the Book of Life.

Do you ever wonder why house cats can climb up a tree, but they don't know how to get down the tree? Animal expert and autism advocate Temple Grandin has a theory. She claims, that at some point, mother cats teach kittens how to descend from a tree—just as they teach their young a great many other things that were once thought to be innate cat behavior, including how to hunt, bury their waste, deal with live prey, approach an unknown person or dog, and so forth.

Cats that get stuck in trees, the theory goes, are cats that were taken from their mothers before the lesson about getting out of trees could be taught. That is just a theory, but we do know from scientific studies that a great deal of animal behavior is learned behavior. It's not just instinctual. Scientific studies have been done on all kinds of animals—tigers, wolves, cheetahs, birds, lizards, fish, and even ants— and those studies show that animals learn how to be a particular kind of animal by watching, observing, and imitating their mothers, fathers, or other members of their animal group. They learn by imitation.

Possible Preaching Angle:

In the same way, we learn how to follow Jesus by watching and imitating other followers of Jesus.

Sam Allberry writes in an article for the Gospel Coalition:

A friend of mine has a little motto thing on the wall of her office, one of these little sayings that someone has printed out prettily and put a frame around. And it says this: “Those who hear not the music, think the dancer is mad.”

It’s true. If you watch a music video and you take away the volume, it looks ridiculous. There’s a lot of strutting. A lot of pouting. You put the sound back on and it does begin to make a bit of sense.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Jesus is our music, but it is unheard by the world. The world sees our worship, our service, our sanctified lives, our joy, but to them our behavior is “mad.”

Tim Challies writes:

Every now and again Aileen gets into cooking shows. Every time she does, it works out well for me. And for the kids. It could be Top Chef or Master Chef. It doesn’t really matter. She starts watching and before long she gets cooking.

Whether in narrow pursuits like cooking or wider pursuits like living, we are people who thrive on imitation and inspiration. Whether deliberately or inadvertently we are always on the lookout for people who are worthy of imitation. Aspiring chefs seek out, carefully watch, and closely imitate experienced chefs.

Cooking shows are meant to be entertaining, but they are also meant to be inspiring. They are meant to attract viewers, but also to inspire imitators. And in that way they are a little glimpse of the way we should all live our lives. For in some ways every life should be a show, a public demonstration--of virtue, a display of character, a demonstration of practical godliness. Every life should be lived in such a way that it inspires others to imitate it.

Even as we follow our Savior, we must be willing and eager to have people follow us. Like Paul we should say, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (1 Cor. 11:1). Just as we have all longed for an example to follow, we must provide an example for others to follow. Just as we have longed to be imitators, we must be eager and willing to be imitated.

In C.S. Lewis’ book, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, a young girl Lucy, her brother Edmund, and their cousin Eustace are taken to Narnia where the Christ-figure is a lion named Aslan. The three of them go on a voyage and come to the island Where Dreams Come True. This is where nightmares come true. The ship’s crew is overcome by fear and begin to wildly row in the darkness. Each sailor hears a different terrifying noise: huge scissors, enemies crawling up the side of the ship, and gongs.

So what does Lucy do? She prays: “Aslan, Aslan, if ever you loved us at all, send us help now.” The darkness did not grow any less, but she began to feel a little—a very, very little—better. “After all, nothing has really happened to us yet,” she thought.

A ray of light falls on the ship and Lucy sees something in it like a cross. It is an albatross. The albatross circles them three times, lands on their mast, and then flies ahead of them leading their ship out of the darkness. But no one except Lucy knew that as [the albatross] circled the mast it had whispered to her, “Courage, dear heart,” and the voice was Aslan’s.

In a few moments the darkness turned into a greyness ahead. Then, almost before they dared to begin hoping, they had shot out into the sunlight and were in the warm, blue world again. And all at once everybody realized that there was nothing to be afraid of and never had been.

Possible Preaching Angles: May we never lose heart. May we hope that God will answer our prayers even when we’re tired and afraid. We pray so that we never lose heart and we never lose heart because we pray.

In his book Identity Matters, Christian author Terry Wardle tells a story from his childhood. Terry had a hand-me-down, fixed-up, big, blue girl's Schwinn bike. One day his mom finally let him venture outside his own neighborhood. Wardle tells what happened next:

I had broken free of the constraints of my little neighborhood, and now I was on my own to experience a grand adventure. I felt like a somebody, even on a big, blue, girl's Schwinn bike. With saddlebags! As I crossed the railroad tracks and then rumbled over a small creek on a single-lane bridge. The bridge, made of wood and steel, was no big deal. But on that day long ago it became a bridge too far. As I began to cross, four teenage boys stepped onto the far side of the bridge. I intended to pass on by.

They had other things in mind. One of the boys grabbed my handlebars and spun my bike to an abrupt stop. "Hey, where do you think you're goin'?" he snarled, as another boy chimed in, "Yeah, kid, where ya goin'?" Instantly I knew they intended to beat me up. I was petrified. I couldn't fight or break free to run, so I stood there frozen. Suddenly one of the bullies asked, "What's your name?" I answered him in a high-pitched preadolescent, quivering voice, "Terry Wardle."

The three remaining teenagers got a bit silent and looked at one another nervously. "Are you related to Tom Wardle?" Tom was a much older cousin, who happened to play defensive end on the high school football team. But I lied and told them Tom was my brother. They immediately backed off. One of the boys straightened out my shirt, and started saying, "Hey, we were just funning you. No harm. You're a great kid, and … if anyone ever gives you any trouble, you tell us and we'll take care of you."

That was a formative day for me. I learned that simply being Terry Wardle was not enough to be respected, accepted, and safe. In the panic of the moment, when the cry for safety was loudest, I lied. Yes, everything did turn out okay, but I had to pretend to be something I was not or they would have roughed me up. I had learned that this is an unsafe and ungenerous world, and that attaining any degree of success in life would demand much more than simply being me.

Possible Preaching Angles: Identity; Significance; Identity in Christ—Like Terry Wardle, we have all found ways to base our sense of identity and significance in something else besides our deepest identity found in Jesus Christ.

In season one, episode eight of the Netflix series, The Crown, a drama following the life of Queen Elizabeth II, the Queen travels to Ceylon on a diplomatic tour. She appoints her sister, Princess Margaret, to be her representative for minor royal engagements. Princess Margaret, who has long been unhappy with her sister's lack of flair as a queen, takes the opportunity to "bring color and personality to the Monarchy." She speaks her own mind, jokes with the press, and belittles other dignitaries. In this scene, the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, has come to rebuke the Princess, and relieve her of her duties as a representative. He explains to her that she was not appointed to represent herself.

Here's a condensed conversation from the scene:

Prime Minister Churchill: Your Royal Highness, when you appear in public, performing official duties, you are not you.

Princess Margaret: Of course I'm me.

Prime Minister Churchill: The Crown. That's what they've come to see, not you.

Possible Preaching Angles: In the same way, as a Christ-follower, I do not go out into the world to express my personal views, opinions and agendas; I am Christ's ambassador. Christ. That's who the world has come to see. Not me.

Start 41:12 End 41:41, opens with the Prime Minister speaking to Princess Margaret

To explain how Christ in us now labors to make us more human, not less, pastor/author Rankin Wilbourne used the following illustration:

Consider two superheroes, Batman and Spider-Man. Batman is a rich and strong man with lots of cool gadgets. His superpowers stem from his external possessions. Spider-Man has a few accessories as well, but he is a superhero because of the spider powers he obtained when he was bitten by a radioactive spider. His nature has been changed. Now he has a new power accessible to him, within him.

Christ in you makes you more like Spider-Man than Batman. Something alien to you, from outside of you, has entered into you and changed your nature. You now have power that you did not have before. The trouble with this analogy is that Spider-Man became something more than human, while we instead are being restored to our full humanity. We are becoming more like Christ.

Yes, we all know we should eat healthy. But even the healthiest of diets can meet their match in an all-too-familiar enemy: stress.

A study published in Molecular Psychiatry "suggests stress can override the benefits of making better food choices." The findings were based on research in which 58 women "completed surveys to assess the kinds of stress they were experiencing" and also were given "two different types of meals to eat, on different days": one meal with plenty of saturated fat, the other a healthier option with plenty of plant-based oils. Some "counterintuitive" results came back from the experiment. According to the study's author, Janice Kiecolt-Glaser, "If a woman was stressed on a day when she got the healthy meal, she looked like she was eating the saturated fat meal in terms of her [inflammation] responses." Over time, high levels of inflammation could potentially lead to "a range of diseases."

Thankfully, NPR's coverage of the study ended on a hopeful note, alluding to "a whole range of strategies that have been shown to help manage stress," including performing kind deeds for others and what they called "perhaps the world's greatest stress reliever"—close, personal relationships.

Potential Preaching Angles: Science is showing that healthy eating may not always win out against stress, and even the best stress relievers may fail at times—but the "close, personal relationship" we have with our Savior is one that has already won against stress, fear, and even death.

George Owen Walton was born on May 15, 1907, in Rocky Mount, Virginia. As an estate appraiser, he had first dibs on rare coins, guns, jewelry, stamps, and books, and he built up quite a collection. When Walton had an opportunity to purchase one of only five 1913 Liberty Head nickels ever minted, he jumped at the chance. He paid $3,750 for the treasure in 1945 and told his family that it was worth a fortune. But after Walton died in a car crash on his way to a coin show in 1962, appraisers surprisingly declared his nickel a fake. They marked it "no value," returned it to the disappointed family, and the coin stayed hidden in a strongbox on the floor of a closet.

Eventually Walton's nephew, Ryan Givens, inherited the nickel. Even though it had been dismissed as a counterfeit, something told him that his uncle was right. In 2003 the other four 1913 Liberty Head nickels went on display, and a million dollar prize was offered to anyone who could produce the fifth. Givens submitted his coin for evaluation once more. After hours of comparing and contrasting against the other four nickels, six expert appraisers announced that Walton's coin was the real deal.

Eventually Givens sold the nickel for $3.1 million—a hundred years after it was originally minted. Imagine a coin worth more than $3 million collecting dust in the back corner of a closet for decades and decades because it seemed worthless, even to expert eyes.

Possible Preaching Angles: (1) Christ, the true treasure—We possess a treasure of far greater value than the 1913 Liberty Head nickel. And it's not shoved away in the bottom of a closet; we walk around with it every day. It's the mystery of "Christ in you, the hope of glory."(2) Value, Treasure—certain things (like wisdom, the cross of Christ, the Word of God, for instance) are often dismissed by the world but declared invaluable by God.

For too long, we've called unbelievers to "invite Jesus into your life." Jesus doesn't want to be in your life. Your life's a wreck. Jesus calls you into his life. And his life isn't boring or purposeless or static. It's wild and exhilarating and unpredictable.

Editor's Note: The following illustration could be used as a simple but powerful object lesson. Discount or thrift stores usually carry plenty of cheap vases. The "attractive" vase in the object lesson below could even be made out of plastic; it just has to look "pretty." You can buy an older, ugly vase for the second part of this object lesson. And if it doesn't look "broken" enough, beat it up with a hammer until it looks like the cracked vessel Paul mentions in 2 Corinthians 4:7.

According to Christian counselor Julie Smith Lowe, we must form an accurate self-image based on God's Word, not our culture. Lowe uses the image of two vases—a beautifully painted vase and a cracked, broken vase—to teach a powerful lesson about our identity in Christ. She writes,

Imagine the first vase is beautiful, and it sits perched on a shelf. Its main purpose is to look attractive. In the same way, we also want to look attractive and impressive. We want people to be drawn to our external appearance. We want the world to look at us and say, "Look how successful, beautiful, strong, or smart you are!"

But the Bible paints a different picture. Instead of being a beautiful vase, let's consider a very different vase—a dirty, cracked, ordinary vase. Just like us, this vase also has flaws—struggles, weaknesses, and imperfections. In many ways, this vase doesn't impress us with its appearance. As a matter of fact, it might even seem "weak," broken, and flawed. But there's good news: let's imagine there's a treasure in this vase. And the only way you can see the treasure is when it shines through the cracks and the flaws. In the same way, there's a treasure in those who follow Christ—Christ himself is the treasure that resides in us, the cracked vessel. Christ brings value and meaning to us.

Unfortunately, we often want to hide our weaknesses. We want to rely on our external appearance and performance. So any time we find a crack or hole, we desperately grab for something to try and hide our weaknesses and shortcomings. But of course our external adorning won't last. Eventually it will always fade and then break. Our only hope is to focus on the treasure within us—the presence of Jesus himself.

In 1927 the director Cecil B. DeMille cast British-born actor H. B. Warner as Jesus in his famous silent film King of Kings. Warner, who 19 years later played the druggist in It's a Wonderful Life, was kept on a short leash during the filming of King of Kings. Cecil B. DeMille was concerned that any behavior by the lead actor deemed inconsistent with the image of Christ would result in negative publicity for the film.

As a result, DeMille enforced strict measures to ensure that Warner kept up a good Jesus-image (or what DeMille thought would be a good representation of Jesus). Both Warner and his co-star Dorothy Cumming (who played Mary, the mother of Jesus) had to sign agreements that barred them for five years from appearing in film roles that might compromise their "holy" screen images. During the filming, Warner was driven to the set with blinds drawn, and he wore a black veil as he was delivered to the set. DeMille separated Warner from the other cast members, even forcing him to eat alone every day. Warner couldn't play cards, go to ballgames, ride in a convertible, or go swimming.

Unfortunately, the regimen of rules and regulations didn't make Warner more holy. Instead, all of the pressure to be more Christlike without having the power or forgiveness of Jesus seemed to drive Warner over the edge. During the production of King of Kings, rather than act more like Jesus, Warner merely relapsed into his addiction to alcohol.

Possible Preaching Angles: Legalism, the Law, the Power of the Holy Spirit—This illustration shows the futility of trying to keep the Law, or a manmade list of rules and regulations, without relying on the new life in Christ and the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit.

In November of 2008 one of the greatest masterpieces of the Italian Renaissance was restored to its original splendor and returned to its home at the world renowned gallery in Florence. The Madonna del Cardellino was painted by Raphael in 1505 for the wedding of his friend, a wealthy Florence merchant. It portrays Jesus Christ's mother, Mary, with two children who are playing with a bird. The children symbolized John the Baptist and his young cousin Jesus. The gold finch bird that feeds among thorns is interpreted as representing Christ's future suffering.

But something happened to this painting. It was painted in 1505. Forty years after it was created, there was an earthquake in the house in which this painting was kept, and the painting was shattered into 17 different pieces. The wood was all smashed up into bits. So another artist took long iron nails and tried to patch the pieces together. And then he tried to paint over it to conceal the breaks and make it look whole again. But over the years, there were so many layers of paint added and so much dust and grime over this painting that the original colors, the original art, was completely obscured.

The contemporary restoration project fixed the shattered areas and removed layers of paint and dirt to get the colors back. It was a team effort. It took fifty people ten years of working on this painting, and the result is stunning. The cracks are gone. Centuries of brown film and grime are gone. The dulling veneers and patches have been stripped away, and the finished product glows with all of the deep colors: the reds, and blues, and golds of the original work of art. Given how badly it was damaged, the restoration of Raphael's painting is arguably even more amazing than the painting itself. The original was splendid, but the miracle of restoration compounds the beauty. Knowing the drama of the whole story, you can only gawk at it in wonder.

The spiritual parallels are profound? They speak to a far greater masterpiece of restoration, the one that the Lord wants to do in your life and in mine. Tragically, the beautiful design of who God created us to be has been marred by sin; and layers of grime and dirt have collected. Maybe you've felt them and sensed them in your life. You thought you could paint over the damage, but it didn't work, and the patches, the veneers that you applied just made things worse, and the cracks are showing. Maybe you've experienced earthquakes that have shattered you, but the good news of the gospel is that Jesus has the power to make all things new.

Derek W. H. Thomas writes in “How the Gospel Brings Us All the Way Home”:

One recent summer, in a large urn that sits outside the front door of my house, a blue swift made a nest in which she laid six eggs. This beautiful, shy creature had made her home in (almost) my house. I felt privileged that I had been honored by her presence, even if my cat viewed it entirely differently.

If I felt privileged when a bird nested by my door, how much more privileged should I feel knowing that the Holy Spirit has taken up residence in me? Our hearts should well up with gratitude and song at the mere thought of it. It is staggering.

Some of us take photographs when distinguished guests visit our homes. I love to glance through a "Visitor's Book" to see who has stayed in our home. On occasion I see the name of a well-known [person] or a dear friend. But none of this compares to having the Spirit permanently [dwell] in our hearts.