The Cross-Shaped Life

Worldview Church » September 2008

The Christian life is all about being shaped by the cross into the shape of the cross. At least that’s the way I’ve come to understand it, and I am beginning to teach others to do the same. For the last 10 years I’ve been working to develop a Christ-centered, Kingdom-oriented worldview and practice it in my everyday relationships, roles, and responsibilities. With the help of a few friends and mentors along the way, I’ve found that what I’m calling “the Cruciform Life” is a helpful way to frame the life of faith. As I get the opportunity to teach others these concepts, I am pleasantly surprised to learn that this cruciform pattern helps them, too. In the next few issues of the Worldview Church, I’ll pass this framework along to you. Perhaps the Spirit will be pleased to use it to encourage you in your walk with Christ and equip you with a discipleship tool that will help your local church “build itself up in love” (Ephesians 4:16).

CREATION: A “YOU-FIRST” HEART
We were created to be cruciform, to live a life that is shaped like a cross. In order to help you visualize this, I’d like you to draw what I’m about to describe on a blank sheet of paper or on the marker board of your mind. In the center of your blank page let’s draw a stick figure that represents you. (We’re pressing the envelope of my drawing skills here.) Next we’ll draw four arrows, all of them pointing away from you. One arrow points above you; one points out to the right; another to the left; and one points below you. Got the picture?

Now, at the end of the arrow above you, write “God”; at the end of the arrows on either side of you, write “People”; and at the end of the arrow below you, write “Creation.” Like Adam and Eve, we were made to live in a right, loving relationship with God, people, and all that God has made (Genesis 1:26-28, 2:15-25). We exist and have been placed here for God, for other people, and for the sake of all Creation. We exist to exalt the glory of God and to enhance the reflection of His glory in other people and all of creation (Psalm 8; Isaiah 43:6-7). In my family, this is what we call living with a “you-first” heart. We were created to look toward God, people, and all of creation and say “you first.” Look again at the picture we’ve drawn. A person with a “you-first” heart recognizes that life is about using oneself to serve God, others, and all that God has made, thus living a life that takes the form of a cross. Can you see it?

FALL: A “ME-FIRST” HEART
Today, however, cruciform is not the norm. Go back to the drawing we’ve made and erase the four arrows that point outward. Now, draw new arrows that point inward, away from God, people, and creation, and toward you. Since the fall of Adam and Eve, this is how all of us have come into the world. We’re all born with a “me-first” heart. We all believe that we are the center of reality, and that everyone (God and people) and everything (creation and all its resources) are here for us. So, we live as if everyone and everything exists for the exaltation and enhancement of our glory, not God’s. The tragic result of Adam and Eve’s rebellion against God is that their relationships with God, people, and creation are broken. They are hiding from and blaming God and each other while their God-given purpose to fill the world with the multiplied glory of God is corrupted and curtailed by God’s curse on creation (the snake, the ground, and the womb—Genesis 3:7-24).

Let’s represent this brokenness on our diagram by drawing zigzag lines across the middle of the arrows that represent our relationships with God, people, and creation. Our drawing now portrays the human condition as we know it. People are disconnected from God, isolated from one another, and cut off from meaningful purpose in the world. We have traded the self-sacrificing cruciform life for an excruciating self-centered life lived with a “me-first” heart. We are, therefore, subject to suffer the just wrath of the One who made us for Himself (Romans 1:18-32).

REDEMPTION: SHAPED BY THE CROSS INTO THE SHAPE OF THE CROSS
If I were God, I would have wiped the board clean and started from scratch. But God was—and still is—determined to create a cruciform people who live to magnify and multiply His glory in people and all of creation. So He chose Abraham, whom He intended to bless, and through whom He would bless all the world, by shaping Abraham and his descendents into a cruciform kingdom of people who lived by the Royal Law of loving God and loving others, as together they purposed to cultivate a new cross culture—not just a garden, but a garden city designed, built, and prepared by God for cruciform living (Genesis 12:1-3; Deuteronomy 5:1-8:20; Matthew 22:36-40; James 2:8; Hebrews 11:8-16; Revelation 21:1-22:5). He gave this Royal Law (the Ten Commandments) and countless illustrations of it (the case laws) as an artist’s rendition of the cross shaped kingdom He had in mind. But they would not, could not, create it. So just as God banished their first parents from the garden, He sent His favored people out of the Promised Land and into exile, where they continued to profane His name (Ezekiel 36:16-21).

At this point, my plan would again include going back to the drawing board. But how much more glorious would it be if God were to vindicate the glory of His name and fame through the very people who had trashed it? This is what makes Ezekiel 36:22-32 so wonderful:

“Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of My holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. And I will vindicate the holiness of My great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God, when through you I vindicate My holiness before their eyes. I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes and be careful to obey My rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be My people, and I will be your God.” (italics mine)

God would claim, clean, and craft for Himself a people who would live the cruciform life of loving God and others as it is laid out in His Law. He would forgive them for living a “me-first” life and give them a new heart and the power of His Spirit to live the “you-first” life they were made to live. Now that’s good news!

Good News, indeed. This promised plan of God to create cruciform people would come through the life, death, and resurrected life of His Son Jesus Christ, the Last Adam, who lived the cruciform life that the first Adam and his descendents failed to live, and died by a crucifixion that all of us deserve. Jesus’ resurrection proved He had triumphed over His enemies by His cross (Colossians 2:13-15). It is by faith in this message of the cross that we realize the promises of Ezekiel 36 (Acts 13:26-33). Through the Gospel we enter the reality of the promise that our corrupt “me-first” life will be forgiven and progressively replaced with a cross shaped, “you-first” life of glory by the power of the Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:18). Through Jesus we are shaped by the cross into the shape of the cross.

RESTORATION: A CRUCIFORM KINGDOM
God the Father is still at work, employing His Word and Spirit to form His faithful into cross-shaped disciples. As God’s saints continue to gaze at His glory in the Gospel, He conforms them to the image of the Last Adam, Jesus Christ. Transformed from one degree of glory to the next, the disciples of Jesus progressively take the shape of the cruciform life of Jesus, being restored to a right and loving relationship with God, people, and all of creation so that the cruciform life of Jesus may be manifested in their lives (2 Corinthians 3:18-4:11).

PROFILE OF A CRUCIFORM DISCIPLE: SON AND SERVANT
Now that we’ve seen the larger context in which each disciple lives the cruciform life, I’ll close by sketching the profile of a cruciform disciple that I’ll be unpacking over the next few issues of Worldview Church eReport.

The description of Jesus’ life in the gospels, and the prescription for the Christian life in the rest of the New Testament, have led me to believe that there are two major ways in which cross-shaped disciples progressively become like their Master, Jesus (Luke 6:40).

First, a cruciform disciple is shaped like Jesus, the Son, who lived in complete awareness of and dependence upon His relationship to the Father as His Beloved (Matthew 3:17, 17:5; Mark 1:11, 9:7; Ephesians 1:6; Colossians 1:13; 2 Peter 1:17).

It is by believing the message of the cross that we too become beloved sons of God. (See John 1:12; Romans 8:14-17; Galatians 4:4-7; and also Galatians 3:26-29, where both men and women are said to be “sons of God.” An adopted son in Paul’s day was a full heir while adopted daughters were not. In Christ, both men and women are full heirs and are therefore called “sons.”) The more we become like Jesus, the Beloved Son, the more we will fill up on the love of the Father through the Gospel.

Second, a cruciform disciple is shaped like Jesus, the Servant, who lived in complete awareness and practice of His role as bondservant to God, people, and all of creation (Mark 10:43-45). Jesus’ confidence and contentment in His relationship with the Father enabled Him to lay aside His rights, pick up the towel and basin, and take the form of a servant by emptying Himself for the sake of others (John 13:3-5; Philippians 2:5-11). As we fill up on the love of the Father as it is offered in the Good News about Jesus and poured out by the Spirit, we overflow with love back to God and out to others, our lives taking the form of a cross-shaped servant.

SERVANT: SEEKER, SHEPHERD, STEWARD, AND SOWER
This role of Servant takes on more specific forms as the disciple relates to God, to other believers, to unbelieving neighbors, and to all that God has made:

1. In relationship to God, the servant is a Seeker: one who exalts God by seeking first the Lord, His Kingdom, and His righteousness (Matthew 6:33; Psalm 24:3-6, 27, 34:8-10, 63:1, 105:3-4, 119:2,10; Proverbs 2:1-5; Daniel 9:3; Jeremiah 29:13-14; Hosea 3:5; Matthew 7:7-11; Luke 11:5-13; Acts 17:26-27; Galatians 1:10; Colossians 3:1; Hebrews 11:6, 8-16, 13:14).
   
   
2. In relationship to other people who are also disciples, the servant is a Shepherd: one who encourages his or her brothers and sisters in Christ as he loves and labors with them for the sake of the Kingdom (Luke 6:12-19; John 10:1-18, 15:12-19, 21:15-17; Acts 2:42-47, 4:32; Romans 1:11-12; Ephesians 5:18-21; Colossians 1:28-29, 3:12-16; 2 Timothy 2:22; Hebrews 3:12-13, 10:19-25).
   
   
3. In relationship to other people who are not disciples, the servant is a Sower: one who engages unbelieving neighbors with the love of Christ by sowing the Good News of the Kingdom into his or her Personal Mission Field through works of service and witness (Genesis 1:26-28; Isaiah 58:10-12; Psalm 80; Matthew 9:35-38, 13:1-43, 28:18-20; Mark 4:26-32; John 4:31-38; Romans 1:13-17; 2 Corinthians 9:6-15; Acts 1:8; Galatians 5:6b, 6:8-10; James 3:18).
   
   
4. In relationship to all that God has made, the servant is a Steward: one who is continually equipped by God’s Word to use the resources (body, time, talent, treasure, truth, words, work, creation and relationships) God has given to him or her for the advancement of the Kingdom (Ezra 7:10; Mark 14:36; John 17:4; Romans 12:1-2; 1 Corinthians 4:1-2, 10:31; Ephesians 4:11-16, 5:15-17; 2 Timothy 3:16-17; 1 Peter 4:10-11; Colossians 3:17, 23-24; Hebrews 5:8).

Embracing the Gospel and Expressing the Law

You’ll notice that the diagram has two-way arrows that connect the inner role of Son with the outer role of Servant. This indicates the interplay between the Law and the Gospel. As the Gospel (through which we understand ourselves to be beloved sons) shapes us, our lives conform to the Law, which prescribes the cruciform life of loving God and loving others (Matthew 22:36-40). The role of Servant and its four expressions (Seeker, Shepherd, Sower, Steward) represent the Law being practiced in our lives as evidence that we truly have come to know God and His love through the Gospel (1 John 2:3, 3:1-10, 4:7-21). As we embrace the Gospel by faith, we express the Law by loving God and others (Galatians 5:6).

Then, as we pursue by faith a life of Spirit-empowered obedience to God’s Law, we will come to find all the ways we still fall short of the Law. By faith we will seek God, only to find that we don’t seek Him well or worthily, and we will return to the cross with this new insight into our remaining sin (Romans 7:22-25). By faith we will shepherd our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, only to find out how selfish we still are and again see clearly our need to embrace the Gospel. By faith we will be sowers in our Personal Mission Field, only to discover how little we love our unbelieving neighbors, and we’ll be driven back to the cross for fresh grace to love them like Jesus does. By faith we will steward the resources God has given us, only to be convicted afresh by how we use them for our sake, not His, and we will run like the wasteful, prodigal son back to our forgiving Father and ask to be clothed with Jesus again.

Each return to the cross as beloved sons propels us back into the world as bondservants (2 Corinthians 5:14-15). We live the cruciform life as adopted sons who are being shaped by the cross in the presence of our Father to be apprenticed servants who live the shape of the cross in the presence of the world. As our Father’s adopted apprentices, we are being restored to our original purpose: to live in right relationship with God and people as we participate in His plan to reconcile all that He has made to Himself through the cross for the glory of God and the good of neighbors, nations, and the next generation (Colossians 1:19-20).

I pray that as we explore this cross-shaped framework in coming issues it will be as helpful for you as it has been for me, enabling all of us to “look closely at how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, making the best use of time for the days are evil” (Ephesians 5:15-16).

I’d love to interact with you about these concepts. Please ask questions, raise concerns, or offer further insight about this paradigm by visiting my blog, The Cruciform Life. You can also download a PDF copy of the “Cruciform Life Quick-Reference Card” to keep in your Bible, on your mirror, or in your car visor to help you familiarize yourself with these concepts.

Jimmy Davis is associate editor of Worldview Church and pastor of Riverside Church in Knoxville, Tenn.He maintains the Cruciform Life Blog.