Union With Christ (Part 1) – The Problem

We’re starting this blog out with what we believe is the most important lesson we’ve ever learned apart from the gospel: union with Christ. In terms of significance and impact on our lives, it’s union with Christ – #1, and everything else – #2.

If God had not taught us the lesson of union with Christ, we’re not confident we would have made it past our first term on the field, or how we would have made it through this past season of cancer. It is foundational to how we understand and access the power to live out Galatians 2:20:

“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

Are we Abiding?

In recent years, the language and emphasis on John 15 and abiding in Christ has come increasingly to the forefront. Before we jump into what union with Christ is, just a few questions first to establish a baseline about abiding.

a. What does it mean to abide?

b. How do you abide practically?

c. What is the goal of your abiding?

d. Do you feel like you experience the abiding that Jesus talks about in John 15?

If we were answering these questions before we learned about union, we would have to admit that we saw abiding as just a glorified quiet time. Another discipline for the believer. There wasn’t really any power or experience, it was just something that we did. There is so much more available to us than this!

The Problem

Before we launched to Thailand, we felt nervous but excited. It had already been a 5 year journey of discerning our calling, going through training, making disciples with international students, forming our team, and preparing to go. Our team was made up of our closest friends, and we were filled with vision and zeal to see Thailand reached with the gospel.

But when we arrived in Thailand, six months newly married, we were immediately crushed by the difficult realities of cross-cultural transition. Being overseas, everything we ever depended on for comfort and every support structure was immediately ripped away. We had no language, no friends, no safety nets, no hobbies, and we were constantly sweating and exhausted with culture stress, which in turn caused frequent sickness. Of course, our first apartment was also infested by roaches. (Having a roach fall on your face in the middle of the night will cause some trauma!) 

Instead, for the first 9 months, we fought nearly every day, often over nothing but a desire to lash out and pull each other down in our culture shock. Our teammates were also drowning in cultural stress. They were looking to us to be the team leaders that had everything together and knew all the right answers.

And without realizing, self-reliance and self-protection rose to the surface. Many days, it was hard to get out of bed without dreading what we had to face that day. And somewhere in the midst of this, we began to justify the stress and striving as a type of “holy suffering” that we were enduring as goers and followers of Jesus. Like, the more stressed out we were and the harder it was, the more we were suffering and sacrificing for Jesus, right? It meant we were doing a good job.

The Breaking Point

It was almost a year in when God revealed to us through his Word that we were living in sin, trusting our own abilities instead of trusting God. Did you know there are over 400 verses in the Bible commanding the believer to not worry or fear?

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on… And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?”

Matthew 6:25, 27

God struck our hearts like a ton of bricks. Do not worry, do not be anxious – this is a command that God intends for us to obey, yet we were living in constant anxiety and treating this command as optional. We were refusing to believe the promises of God to give peace that transcends all understanding (Phil 4:7) and of a yoke that is easy and a burden that is light (Matthew 11:28-30).

At that point, the people on our team were continually feeling like they weren’t doing enough or weren’t busy enough, completely exhausted and stressed themselves. And to our great sorrow, this was because we had established and modeled a culture based on our own patterns of sin and striving, and the team that God entrusted to us to shepherd and care for fell right in with our sin patterns. 

Of course it’s not wrong to experience stress and trials, but our response to it was anxiety, complaining, judging others, relying on ourselves, unhealthy coping mechanisms, and just working harder. So we came before our team and confessed to them that we were leading them towards sin through our striving and anxiety. 

This was one of the hardest moments in our early leadership.

Discovering the Secret

Now we were perplexed. We are commanded to not worry and not strive, and yet there was work to be done and difficulty and culture stress abounded. We believed the promises of God for joy, strength, blessing, and peace were true, but all the time we felt lacking in wisdom and energy and everything. How were we supposed to just “give it all to Jesus” and just… stop worrying? Paul talks about this exact situation in Philippians 4. 

“I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret.” 

And we saw this peace and contentedness and abiding in missionary biographies, or the example of other people we knew who seemed to be living in fullness of faith. We just knew there was something missing in our lives in terms of power, or enjoying God’s promises fully. We thought it had something to do with John 15 abiding, but how were we to get it?

One day, we randomly decided to listen to a John Piper talk about Hudson Taylor’s life. Every biography about Hudson Taylor mentions his “spiritual secret” or “exchanged life.” It sounds like Paul’s “secret” in Philippians 4 right?

God used this talk to completely change our lives, as it set us on a path toward understanding Hudson Taylor’s secret, union with Christ.

More in Part 2.