Jesus came to start a revolution. Not merely a social or political revolution, but a revolution of the heart. He recognized that the greatest need that you and I have – the greatest need of collective humanity – is a renovation of the heart, a transformation of spirit.
The human spirit guides our outlook, choices, behaviors and actions and it had been formed by a world away from God. Now it must be transformed. Everyone from Moses to Solomon, Socrates to Marx, from Freud to Oprah acknowledge this. The disagreements only have to do with what in our spirit needs to be changed and how that change can be brought about.
Two thousand years ago Jesus gathered his little group of friends and trainees, invested his life into them, and sent them out to “teach all the nations.” To make students and apprentices of him from all ethic groups.
His goal is to eventually bring all of human life on earth under the direction of his wisdom, goodness, and power as a part of God’s eternal plan for the universe.
By sending out his followers he began a perpetual world revolution. One that is still in process, one that you and I can be a part of, and one that will continue until God’s will is done on earth as it is now done in heaven. He has chosen to accomplish this, in part, through his students.
TS Eliot once described the human endeavor as that of finding a system of order so perfect that we will not have to be good. But Jesus’ revolution is a revolution of the human heart or spirit. It does not proceed through the formation of social institutions and laws. It is not imposed externally. Rather, it proceeds by changing people from the inside out through an ongoing personal relationship with God in Christ and to one another. It penetrates the deepest layers of the soul. It begins to change our ideas, our beliefs as well as our feelings, habits, and relationships. And as people are transformed, social structures will naturally be transformed as well. So much so that one day “justice will roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:24).
The mission of the church, then, is to be a restored body that transforms its community. The church is a group of people called and made new by the grace of God through Jesus Christ to love and serve one another and the world (Ephesians 2:8-10). This mission has two equally important and integrated elements:
- the church should be a body of vibrant, authentic people relating to one anther in love, compassion and justice (Ephesians 4, Ephesians 3:4, 1 Cor. 12, Ro. 12:5).
- the church should serve its neighbors to create long-lasting change in the relationships, institutions and overall conditions of their communities, especially focusing upon those of greatest need (Mark 12:31-33, Luke 10:27, Matt 22:39;Ro 13:9, Galatians 5:14, James 2:8).
Ultimately the most credible form of the Jesus revolution is the actual creation of a living, breathing, visible communities of faith, small groups of people devoted to living the life of Christ, places where God is forming a family out of strangers.
In other words, the Jesus revolution proceeds through The Church.