Learning how to follow Jesus will require a change of narrative. We create a narrative to make sense of things we find ourselves trying to make sense of and find purpose in whatever is happening around us. We create and often abide by our self-imposed narratives whether they are accurate or not, or whether they reflect reality or not. Excuses forms our narratives, it informs how we view and interpret the world. Narratives creates justifications and empower us to avoid thing we should not avoid. They empower us to embrace things we should stay away from. Our internal narratives fuel our pride, it fuels our prejudice and it fuels our fear. And maybe worst of all, it blinds us to our interdependency on others. False narratives are difficult to overcome.
Our World View
Because our narratives are shaped by things that we have no control over, our narratives are shaped by where we are in the world. Also, by the way we experience the world. Each person experiences the world differently. You are in the same world but you experience the world differently. And this shapes the narrative that we think about, that we live our lives in the context of. The internal narrative, the thing that you just confirm and affirm, and tell yourself over and over, it shapes our decisions.
The Apostle Paul wrote a letter to gentile Christians living in Corinth. This was a major, very secular and wealthy port city. In this letter he is trying to get them to rethink their narratives using Military terminology. This actually was very appropriate. Because, getting rid of, or tearing down the narratives that they grew up with is not a casual endeavour. So Paul uses extreme language to say to them that if you are to rid yourselves of narratives that you tell yourself, and excuses you give yourself and are planning on moving forward in life, this is going to take some work. You are going to have to attack this false narrative. So he challenges his readers in the first century, and he challenges us as well, to attack the walls that protect our ignorance, our false narratives, our flawed world view, our flawed view of others.
Demolishing Strongholds
We are to tear it down to rebuild a citadel around the value system and world view that Jesus introduced to the world. Jesus introduced the Kingdom of God to the world. And he said, “Everyone is invited to participate in it.” But if you are going to participate in it, you are going to have to embrace it. And to embrace it, you have to get rid of some things you have thought and believed your entire life. Things you never chose to believe, but because of where you live, where you were born, how you were treated, you have just grown up believing these things. And then he tells them that after these things have been destroyed, you will now have to rebuild this value system around God, around what Jesus taught, who came to reveal what God was like, and that God loves them.
God has done something new. We have to renew our mind, we have to renew our thinking to this brand new world, this brand new kind of invisible Kingdom that God has introduced to the world. So many things that are self-evident to us are wrong. And they stand in contrast and conflict to the Kingdom of God that Jesus introduced to us. The weapons that we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. And a stronghold, symbolically, would have been a stone wall around the city or some kind of stone structure. And the weapons that we use have the power to destroy even the strongest structure. “We” talking about these Christians, talking about Christians also in the 21 Century. “We” are demolishing arguments.” Not physical stone walls.
We are told to “demolish arguments,” “and every pretension.” Paul is talking about high things, tall things. He says we’re coming against every high thing, every arrogant attitude, everything that puffs us up beyond what is true and what is real. Our towering conceit, our pre sumptuous notions that set itself up and he is getting to the point of this. “That set itself up against the knowledge of God.” In other words we as followers of Jesus are to assault head on, intentionally every single day, we are to assault any narrative about ourselves, about people around us, about the people like us, about the people who are different from us.
We are to assault any narrative that stands in contrast to what God has revealed, as we are going to see in Christ. This is part of following Jesus, and this is part of discipleship. We are to assault any narrative that stands in contrast, that stands in conflict, to the knowledge of God. And here it is. He gets so specific “And we take captive every thought.” The idea of captive is we lead into captivity. We take as our prisoner. We take every thought captive, here it is, “to make it obedient to Christ.” He says here is what you have to do you Corinthians, who see the world in such a different way.
Following Jesus
You have to take every single thought and bend it into conformity to what Christ taught. To take every attitude and edit it, and bend it, and inform it and train it, so that it is in sync to what Jesus taught, and the values that Jesus introduced to the world. You are to line it up to the value system, the vision of Jesus for the world. This is why reading the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, are so extraordinarily important. Because in the gospels, we get a glimpse of what the Kingdom of God would look like if the followers of Jesus would fully embrace it.
Jesus said “While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” If you want to know what the world really looks like, “then follow me,”
- Follow me and together we will “demolish arguments”.
- We will demolish every “high and lofty thing.”
- We will demolish every pretension lifted up against “the knowledge of God.”
- And you will take captive every single thought to make it “obedience to Christ.”
- Jesus said, “Follow me” and you will begin to change the way you think.
- “Follow me” and you will have a brand new narrative.
“Follow me” and you will see the world as it is, “that the world is broken.” But that my Father redeems broken things. “Follow me” and you will begin to understand that you as an individual, really matter to God.
God loves you so much that He became flesh and dwelled amongst us. He wants you to live in accordance with the reality that He introduced to the world through Christ. “Everyone who hears my words and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.” Every single person that hears these words, and changes their internal narrative, will begin to act on the words of Jesus. Is like a wise man who built his whole life on a firm foundation.
Paul concludes with “And we will be ready to punish.” And the idea here is to bring justice to, to respond appropriately to “punish” every act of disobedience, once your obedience is complete.” The idea is that we as individuals should be ready to react swiftly when our old narratives start cropping up. We should be willing to respond quickly when we refuse or forget to bend our attitudes, and bend our thoughts, and bend our presuppositions and our assumptions towards the words and towards obedience to Christ. That we should respond quickly when we find ourselves rebuilding old walls, walls that keep people out, walls that shut us in with people who are only like us. Learning how to follow Jesus will make your life better. And when we follow Jesus, we make the world a better place.