KNOWING HIM

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All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise noted, are from the New King
James Version, © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. All rights reserved. Used
by permission.

Knowing Him:
Having a Christ-Centered Faith in a Church-Centered World

©2016 Chip Brogden

Printed in the United States of America. All rights reserved under

International Copyright Law. Contents may not be reproduced in whole or
in part without the express written consent of the publisher.

http:// www.ChipBrogden.com

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 KNOWING HIM

If Your Map is Wrong,

You Won’t Even Know
You’re Lost

J
ust 400 short years ago it was commonly accepted that
everything in the universe, including the sun, moon and stars,
all revolved around a stationary Earth. Not only did this seem
obvious to those who lived on Earth, it seemed to be supported
by Scripture.

So when the astronomer Galileo began to spread the idea of the earth
and everything else revolving around a stationary sun, he attracted the ire
of the Roman Catholic Church. Galileo provided a solid scientific basis for
his ideas, and tried to show that his theories did not contradict Scripture at
all. Nevertheless, Galileo was branded a heretic, forced to recant, and
obliged to live the rest of his life as a prisoner in his own home. Today we
know that the Roman Catholic Church was wrong, and Galileo was correct.

In a similar way, the Christian Religion has, for over 1700 years,
successfully convinced millions of people to adopt a Church-Centered

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Faith. Scriptures are used to justify a view of the spiritual universe that is
erroneous. It is a line of thinking in which everyone and everything
connected with God is supposed to revolve around the Church: build it,
support it, attend it, and invite people to join it. Christ, mistakenly
credited with having founded the Institutional Church, is obliged to
protect, defend, love, honor, cherish, bless, and provide for it. Those who
challenge this view are likewise seen as rebellious heretics.

The truth is that God never called us to a Church-Centered Faith.

From the beginning, God has called followers of Jesus to a Christ-Centered
Faith: a way of living that revolves around Christ having the central,
preeminent, and most important place in a person’s heart. The Assembly
of Called-Out Persons (the Ekklesia) was to be both a spiritual and a
practical community of Christ-followers who had entered into a new
covenant with God and with one another: to value, believe, teach, practice,
and experience a Christ-Centered Faith.

That is simply another way of saying that the belief and practice of the
New Testament was based upon, and centered around, a relationship with
a Person. The focus was not on the systematic theology of a new religious
group, nor was it the particular nuance of doctrine from a breakaway
splinter group within Judaism. New Testament belief and practice was
unique in that it was centered upon a Man Who lived, died, came back to
life again, and would now rule in the hearts of men and women until He
returned. You could say that in the New Testament universe, God clearly
established that everything was to revolve around the SON.

The apostle Paul is normally described by historians as the one most

responsible for “establishing Christianity” in the Greco-Roman world. It is
therefore important to note that Paul, as the primary spokesperson for this

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new Faith to the non-Jewish world, had no intention of laying out a

complicated doctrinal framework or systematic theology. He was not
primarily called to be an apologist, theologian, or professor of religion.
Quite the opposite, in fact; he would eventually repudiate his former
fascination with religion and commit himself to a completely different
calling. But “establishing Christianity” was the furthest thing from his
mind.

What happened to Paul? The direction of his life was changed in an

instant, and we know the exact moment when his destiny was forever
changed. Something happened to Paul on the road to Damascus. What
happened? Not a mere revelation. Not just an epiphany. Not just an
awakening. Certainly, not the discovery of a particular doctrinal or
Scriptural insight that had previously been overlooked, only to hit him in a
“eureka” moment. Not the mere flashing of a light bulb in his head, with
the exclamation, “By George, I think I’ve got it!” All of that deals with the
realm of the rational mind, the thoughts, the working of the intellectual
process that everyone experiences from time to time.

It is important to understand that what happened to Paul was well

beyond the realm of intellectual apprehension and rational thought. What
happened to Paul was not the result of calculation, premeditation, or a
long period of study in which he came to some new conclusions and made
a few cosmetic changes to his personal belief system. Paul did not stumble
upon an idea, a thought, an argument, or a doctrine on the road to
Damascus. Paul did not respond to someone else’s persuasive presentation
or emotionally moving message.

What happened to Paul? Simply this: Paul met a Man. Paul stumbled
upon a Person. And once Paul met the Lord Jesus, Paul adopted a

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completely new set of values, beliefs, teachings, and practices that replaced
the old ways of the Jewish religion. Christ now stood in the center of Paul’s
world, and everything else (including Paul himself) would revolve around
this Man.

Of course, we are tempted to hold up Paul as a peculiar, unique

example. In reality, Paul’s experience with Christ, and the resulting
upheaval and re-ordering of everything in Paul’s life to revolve around
Christ, is the sort of spiritual revolution that every true follower of Jesus
should have already experienced. If your coming to Christ has not resulted
in spiritual upset to the status quo then you have not truly touched the
Lord Himself. You have (like many nominal Christians) merely touched an
idea, or a teaching, or a belief. You have touched mere Christianity, or
more likely, Churchianity; but these are mere shadows of the substance,
and more often than not, they do more to distract you from Christ than to
help you find Him.

No, you do not have to have a vision of Jesus and hear an audible voice
(as Paul did) to touch the Person of Christ; but you must have touched, on
some basic level, the Person Who so often is hidden behind all the things
said and done in His Name that really have nothing to do with Him. Those
who touch the things about Jesus experience religion; those who touch
Christ Himself experience revolution. Those who touch the religion wind
up in a Church-Centered Faith; those who touch the Living Christ adopt a
Christ-Centered Faith.

How can we tell the difference? Jesus said that the tree is known by
the fruit that it produces. There are some clues, some evidences, of a
Christ-Centered Faith. There is visible, tangible fruit. When we compare

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the fruit of a Christ-Centered Faith with the fruit of a Church-Centered

Faith, the differences are very clearly seen.

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Where Jesus Belongs

“P
reeminence” means having the first, highest, chief, and
best place in a position of ascendancy over everything
else. In military terms, having preeminence means being
able to go anywhere, and do anything, without opposition. It is
overwhelming, unrestricted, absolute authority and power.

Though everyone seeks preeminence, only one Person is worthy of it,

and only He can be trusted with it. Scripture reveals that God intends for
Jesus Christ to have that kind of unrestricted authority and power in a
position of spiritual ascendancy over everything else: “That in all things He
should have the preeminence” (Col. 1:18).

Preeminence is revealed in some of the titles of Christ. He is not just

one king among many kings, but He is “King of Kings.” He is not merely
one lord among many lords, but He is “Lord of Lords.” He is not just one
path to God among so many other paths of equal significance and
relevance: but Jesus is THE Way, THE Truth, and THE Life, and He
declares without apology that “no one comes to the Father except by Me”

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(Jn. 14:6). Many people today consider that exclusivity to be intolerant

and closed-minded. Scripture calls it Christ having the preeminence.

Preeminence is connected with centrality. The very act of making

something central is to give it a preeminent position. The sun occupies the
preeminent place in our solar system (the center) and everything else
orbits around it. Similarly, Christ occupies the central place in the great
Plan and Purpose of God. The center is strategically important because
there can only be one center. For example, the whole Temple was holy; yet
in its center was a special place called the Holy of Holies. This has the
same meaning as King of Kings and Lord of Lords; compared to the other
“holies,” the Holy of Holies is the most holy of all, occupying a central
place of preeminence. Such is the position of Christ in the mind, heart, will
and purpose of God.

If we would learn this basic lesson of preeminence it would greatly

simplify our Christian walk. Many people are frustrated from trying
unsuccessfully to get God to conform to their own idea of how life should
be. They want Love without Obedience; Blessing without Breaking; Gifts
without Fruit; Scripture Promises without Scripture Commands; Salvation
without Discipleship; a Crown without a Cross. According to Jesus, these
people are not worthy of Him. He rejects them as disciples. Meanwhile,
Churchianity accepts them with open arms, where “in vain they do
worship” (Mt. 15:9).

Some have said that we need not “give” Jesus the preeminence
because He already has it. This shows a lack of understanding. Christ the
Son of God certainly has all the power and authority of divinity. But
Scripture declares the preeminence of Christ to be an as-of-yet unrealized,
future expectation – the grand finale of the ages, a work in progress that

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begins with true disciples of Jesus before its ultimate expression in all
creation. The Bible is emphatic that even though “all things” are beneath
His feet, “we do not YET SEE all things put under Him” (Heb. 2:8).

So the reality is this: there are many things that compete with Christ
for the preeminence, and there are many different options that we can
choose to center our lives around. To the extent that something or
someone remains unsubmitted and unsurrendered to Christ, to that extent
He does not have the full measure of preeminence that God requires. Thus
the conflict, and the spiritual tension of the Age.

To close this gap between what God wants and what now is, Christ
bids His disciples to “seek first the Kingdom of God.” Meanwhile, the
world offers innumerable things to pursue in the place of Christ and His
Kingdom. The number of potential “centers” we can choose are too
numerous to name. We can put good things in the center of our life –
things such as career, family, business, health, ministry or relationships –
and focus on being fulfilled or achieving success in these areas. Or, we can
put negative things in the center of our life and focus on them to the point
that they become addictions – for example, drugs, alcohol, sex, or food.
We could even center our life around things that are neutral, neither good
nor bad in moderation, but bad when taken to an extreme: television,
sports, working out, spending money on things we don’t need, or spending
too much time online.

But for the sake of simplicity, most things can be lumped together into
a category called “Self-Centered.” Addictions certainly qualify as belonging
to the Self-Centered category. Addictions feed, comfort, and reinforce self-
centered thoughts and behaviors, often leading to very destructive
consequences. They call them “life-controlling problems” because they

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take preeminence over everything else in a person’s life. These addictions

need not be illegal or immoral to be effective. Hunting, fishing, and golfing
come to mind as legal addictions for some men. In moderation, these
activities can be fun and rewarding. But when they illegitimately occupy
the center of a person’s life, to the exclusion of everything else, we can
rightly say that it is an expression of Self-Centered Living. That is
preeminence working against you.

What about the “good” things, such as marriage, family, career, or

ministry? Are these legitimate things to order your life around? Are they
acceptable centers? Not for the disciple of Jesus who understands the
principle of preeminence:

“He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me.
And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And
he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me”
(Mt. 10:37,38).

So one evidence of a Christ-Centered Faith is total commitment to the

preeminence of Christ. Nothing and no one can occupy that central place
of preeminence: it is reserved for Christ, and Christ alone. Not family, not
friends, not church, not ministry. Not even yourself.

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Beyond Born-Again

F
lorence Chadwick was the first woman to swim the English
Channel in both directions. Sometime after that
accomplishment, she set out to become the first woman to
swim from Catalina Island to the coast of California. After
hours of swimming in the ice cold water, fending off sharks
and battling a discouraging fog, she gave up just a half mile from her goal.
“If only I could have seen land,” she said afterwards, “I might have made
it.”

Seeing the goal of our spiritual journey is critical. God has a goal for
us, but that goal is often obscured by the fog of religion. If we can’t see the
goal, we’ll just give up and settle for something lesser, something easier.
This is precisely the problem with the Institutional Church. Those with a
Self-Centered or Church-Centered Faith have essentially settled for
something far below God’s full thought for them. They are satisfied to
reach the bare minimum goal with the bare minimum effort, but are
unwilling to go any further.

So the words of Paul must seem strange to their ears: “I press toward
the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Phl.
3:14). Strange, because the modern, progressive, seemingly enlightened
member of Churchianity today is not pressing towards anything. In their

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mind, there is no reason for them to press towards anything because they
already have what they wanted. Their goal, their prize, is quite different
from Paul’s. They achieved their goal already, while Paul (who was well
beyond them in terms of spiritual wisdom and revelation) still strives and
presses on for his goal.

Let’s be frank. What is the bare minimum goal for most Christians?
Without a doubt, the bare minimum expectation is the assurance that they
will go to heaven when they die. Certainly they do not want to go to hell. So
given a choice between heaven and hell, most will understandably choose
heaven.

And what is the bare minimum requirement for a person to go to

heaven when they die? They are told that they must “receive Jesus as their
personal Savior.” How do they do that? Uttering a simple prayer is
sufficient. After praying (or simply repeating a prayer provided to them),
their name is recorded on the heavenly roll. The person is now considered
“saved” and is assured of their eternal destiny. Mission accomplished… or
is it?

An easy Gospel appeals to easy believers who want to pray an easy

prayer to an easy Jesus. Pressing towards anything beyond that is a foreign
notion to them. It sounds too much like work.

Compared to the “low calling” of Churchianity, there is a “high calling”

of God. What is it? Paul, who understood the dynamics of a Christ-
Centered Faith, said that God has called us to know Christ: “That I may
know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His
sufferings…” (Php. 3:10). This is the mark that he is pressing towards.

This path of knowing Christ is progressive. It should be obvious

enough that a person does not fully “know Him” the moment they begin to

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follow Him. Praying a prayer to receive Him as Savior (if it is done

sincerely) is not the achievement of the goal, but only the first step
towards the High Calling of God in Christ. Knowing Him implies a depth
of relationship that is developed over many seasons. After decades of
following Jesus, Paul still proclaims that his highest aspiration is “to know
Him.” He presses on towards the mark. He is not content to coast and
relax in the safety and security of his salvation. There is a higher call, a
higher goal that he is pressing towards.

Paul had a purpose that transcended everything else. This purpose

gave meaning and significance to everything he did. His was not the
perpetually passive existence of so many people who may be willing to go
to church but aren’t willing to press on towards the mark.

Why press on? To press on means to make progress, to advance, to

grow, to learn, to close the distance between the starting point and the
finishing point. To press on implies that there are forces arrayed in this
universe that make the journey difficult and challenging. Some obstacles
hinder you from the outside; some hinder you from the inside. But
something is in the way of the goal. You cannot just slide your way
effortlessly down the narrow path. Passive, lazy, apathetic, lackadaisical,
half-hearted, lukewarm folks will never make it. The pull of the world is
too strong. The pull of the Self-Centered life is too ingrained. The pull of
the Church-Centered Faith is too attractive – oh, I can act like I know
Jesus without having to press towards anything! Therein lies the
deception.

Yes, you can make it and you can overcome anything – but to press on
towards the mark requires something from you. It requires that a price be
paid. “Jesus did it all, so I don’t have to do anything!” cries the lazy,

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irresponsible, unprofitable servant: ignorant, uneducated and uninformed

as to the ways and means of God.

In Paul we see the object and goal of a Christ-Centered Faith: Christ

Himself. It’s going to take some effort. It’s going to take some
commitment. It’s going to take some trying and failing, and getting back
up to try again. Anyone who tells you anything else is either hopelessly
naïve or purposefully deceitful. Why would Jesus tell people to count the
cost before following Him? Because following Him is costly. That which is
cheaply obtained is cheaply valued.

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It’s Not About You Anyway

W
hat if I told you that (perhaps as a result of some strange
case of amnesia) everything you thought you knew about
yourself was wrong? What if I told you that your real name
is something else, and you had another family in another country? And
what if I told you that the only way to re-connect with your true identity is
to forsake the only identity you’ve ever known?

Would you leave everything you thought you knew to find the “real
you”? Or would you be too attached to your current identity to leave it?

The spiritual truth is not too far removed from the scenario I have
described. All of us are on a spiritual journey to re-connect with our
Creator, Who invites us to walk with Him in a love relationship. But at
some point we were separated from our real family and our real life in
Christ. We were led astray from the simplicity of a Christ-Centered Faith
and were encouraged to form an identity around a Church-Centered Faith.
This was supposed to strengthen and deepen our relationship with God;
instead, the introduction of a religion about Jesus harmed our relationship
with Him.

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God’s original intention is that we be identified with Christ Himself,

not with the religion that bears His Name. This is the secret to a spiritually
fulfilling relationship with God. As a religious Pharisee, Paul understood
better than most. For Paul, the religion was Judaism. For us, the religion is
Christianity (or as I like to say, Churchianity). Either way, the path of
Christ-centered spiritual growth and maturity eventually leads to the
discovery that religion does not help a person’s relationship with God as
much as it hinders it.

Throughout his letters, Paul continually emphasizes that it is our

identification with Christ that makes us who we are. Before Christ, Paul
used external references to shape his identity: “Circumcised the eighth
day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the
Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the
church; concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless” (Phl.
3:5,6). Note the heavy reliance on titles, positions, and labels. These are
incredibly important to those trying to live up to the image they have of
themselves.

What happened? Paul discovered a new identity in Christ. After

describing his former identity in religion, he writes: “But what things were
gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ… and do count them but dung,
that I may win Christ, and be found in Him…” (Php. 3:7-9ff). Paul clearly
shows that you cannot cling to two competing identities. You will either
identify yourself with Christ or with something else, but you cannot have
both at the same time.

Note that phrase at the end: to be found in Him. Paul had to discard
his old identity in religion in order to discover his true identity in Christ.
He realized that religion never leads to relationship; and when a person

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has a relationship with God, they no longer need a religion about God.
Paul found himself in Him. In other words, he formed his new identity
around who he was in Christ, and not who he was in himself, or who he
used to be in the Jewish religion. He found himself in Him. We will only
find ourselves and discover our true identity in Him as well.

A Christ-Centered Faith is evidenced by the fact that a person is

increasingly becoming identified with Christ as the object of their faith.
The identity of a Church-Centered person revolves around church
attendance, church support, church teachings, church activities, and
church friends. Like Paul before Christ, their title, position, place, and
sense of “belonging” all contribute to a unique identity that defines how
they see themselves, how they think of themselves, and what they believe
about themselves.

We have to go back to the simplicity of Christ and recover our true

identity. But transitioning from a Church-Centered Faith to a Christ-
Centered Faith can be difficult. It wasn’t easy for Paul. It wasn’t easy for
me. It won’t be easy for you. Many people who leave church find
themselves in self-described void. They feel a very tangible emptiness. “I
feel as if a part of me has died, like there is a great big hole in my heart
where church used to be.”

Praise God! This is perfectly normal, and it means God is doing a

tremendous work in your heart. The truth is you built your identity around
church instead of Christ. And whenever you lose the very thing you base
your identity on, you’re going to feel empty until you find your new
identity.

You may feel as though a part of you has died because a part of you has
died: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things

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have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (2 Cor. 5:17). It
does not say if anyone attends church, all things have become new. That’s
because a Church-Centered Faith does not lead to a new creation; only a
Christ-Centered Faith can impart new life. If you truly come to Christ, the
part of you that gets its identity and self-image from religion will be
destroyed. God has to shatter it. God has to devastate it. The more you
identified yourself with “it” the more painful it will be.

Learning to live under this new identity in Christ takes time. The old
habits learned under the old identity do not die very easily. And when
these former associations are stripped away, people initially experience a
feeling of emptiness as they look for something new to identify with. But if
you resist the temptation to turn back to the old, familiar paths of religion,
a “new you” will begin to emerge, along with an unshakable faith and a
new identity that is based on Christ.

The truth is: if you have unwittingly adopted a Church-Centered Faith

instead of a Christ-Centered Faith, then YOU MUST BE BORN-AGAIN,
AGAIN! Now is the perfect opportunity for you to re-discover the true
center of your spiritual life: not a building or a ministry, but the Author
and Finisher of your Faith, your true Pastor, the One Who died for you and
now lives within you.

Has this book made you think?

I welcome your comments, questions and feedback.

info@chipbrogden.com

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You are not crazy, you are not alone,

and you are not forgotten by God!

God is calling many people to come out of

Organized Religion, out of “Churchianity.”
This series of messages from Chip Brogden
will help you understand this exodus from
a Scriptural perspective and will answer
most of the questions and issues people
have about going (or not going) to church.
The purpose is not to persuade people to
leave, but to encourage and support those
who already!

Messages in this series include:

01. Have You (Really) Forsaken the Assembly?
02. Who Should You Submit To?
03. The Truth About Tithing
04. Whose Church Is It, Anyway?
05. Living in Laodicea
06. Answers to Common Objections
07. Spiritual Leadership: Who Needs It?
08. When to Leave Your Church
09. Stepping Out: From Fear to Faith

Click here to find out more:

http://chipbrogden.com/catalog

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Some other books

by Chip Brogden

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 KNOWING HIM

Chip Brogden is an international best-selling author whose

writings reach more than 145 nations with a simple,
consistent, Christ-centered message.

Access more books, articles and teachings at:

http://www.ChipBrogden.com

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