In our final episode of In Light of the Cross, we wrap the series around God’s long-standing desire to be with his people—an intimate union that doesn’t erase our individuality, but brings real communion with him now and perfectly in our resurrection destiny.

We linger on John 15 and especially Jesus’ prayer in John 17, where he asks that we would be one with God the way he is one with the Father: we in Christ and Christ in us. We talk honestly about how this can be mysterious and easy to oversell, while still being something we can practice on this side of heaven.

We explore spiritual practices—especially Scripture and prayer (including contemplation), along with Jesus’ rhythms of solitude, community, fasting, and worship—and we end by asking what it looks like to organize every part of our lives around knowing and loving God, then close with the Lord’s Prayer.

00:00 Final Episode Setup

00:34 God With His People

01:04 Union Not Absorption

01:30 Abide in Christ

02:16 Jesus Prayer for Oneness

04:03 Mystery of Being In Christ

04:45 Organize Life Around God

06:05 Realistic Expectations

07:01 Spiritual Practices and Openness

08:23 Scripture and Prayer Basics

09:13 Prayer as Contemplation

09:57 Jesus Model of Practices

11:27 Wrap Up Questions and Story

14:13 Thanks and Lords Prayer

All right.

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Welcome back to our last episode

of In Light of the Cross.

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We're gonna wrap up today with one

beautiful thought and some personal

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applications, and I would encourage us

right now to just repair ourselves, ask

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God to show you what he would want you

to learn or to think about or to pray

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about as we finish up this podcast series.

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For this last episode, Nathan

and I thought we'd would tie this

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up by bringing us back to this

beautiful theme that God's desire has

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always been to be with his people.

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That there is a union here that he

has desired and actually given his

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life for, that we can experience in

a small way now, but that is part

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of our resurrection destiny as well.

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So we remember right from the

very first Adam and Eve had a

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communion with God in the garden.

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So they walked with the Lord and

the cool of the day, and that's

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what we mean by union by the way.

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It's not that we are

dissolved into divinity.

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It's not that.

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We lose our individuality, but

rather there is this wonderful and

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intimate bond between us and God.

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That's everything that

he desired it to be.

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Everything that's a

blessing us everything.

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That's the way it should be.

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That's what we mean by that.

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we we're familiar with John 15.

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Where Jesus talks about, I'm the

vine and you are, the branches remain

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in me, or some translations abide

in me and you'll bear much fruit.

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And that's the idea that connection.

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With Jesus, that we are in Jesus.

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In that sense, Paul uses the

phrase in Christ, or in Jesus,

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I think hundreds of times, over

a hundred times in his epistle.

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He uses that a whole lot more than

he ever uses, that Christ is in me.

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The dominant theme by far

is that we are in Christ.

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So lemme just read one more

passage here and then Nathan, I'll

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let you kind of take it away on.

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What it can look like practically

to cultivate our union or our

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oneness with with Jesus in this way.

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In John 17, Jesus prays this

beautiful high priestly prayer

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before he goes to the cross.

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This is right before he's arrested

in John's gospel, and he prays,

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first of all for himself in verses

one through five, and then he prays

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for his disciples, the ones who were

with him in verses six through 19.

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And then he prays for us.

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He prays for those who hear and believe

because of the words from the disciples.

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That are written down in this book.

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He says, my prayer is not for

them, the disciples alone.

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I pray also for those who will

believe in me through their message

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that all of them may be one father.

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Just as you are in me and I am in you,

may they also be in us so that the

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world may believe that you have sent me.

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I have given them the glory that you gave

me, that they may be one as we are one.

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I in them, and you in me think

of that I in them and you in me.

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So they may be brought to complete unity.

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And then the world will know that

you have sent me and have loved

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them even as you have loved me.

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Father, I want those, you have

given me to be with me where I am,

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and to see my glory, the glory you

have given me because you loved me

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before the creation of the world.

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Righteous Father, though the world

does not know you, I know you and they

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know that you have sent me, I have made

you known to them and will continue

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to make you known in order that the

love you have for me may be in them

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and that I myself may be in them.

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Wow.

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Beautiful words that go so far

beyond what we normally think of.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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It strikes me, you know,

yesterday we talked about.

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Our goal as, and our ultimate end as those

who are in Christ is to be like Christ.

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But it's even more than that.

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Not just to be like Christ,

but to be in Christ.

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Right.

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Which is, um, very mysterious,

but also very beautiful, right?

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There's such a, a unity and a harmony.

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the way that the father's in

Christ and Christ is in the

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Father, so we will be in Christ.

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Mm-hmm.

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And he will be in us ends

by saying He will be in us.

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Right.

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There is a mystery there, but these

are the words, Jesus, Jesus, that he

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will be in us and we will be in him.

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Yeah.

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some years ago I remember sitting in

a room and at college listening to a

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local pastor share with a group of us.

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And he used the words from Annie

Dillard, where she writes, you

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know, how we spend our days is

of course how we spend our lives.

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And then that pastor encouraged us to

organize our lives around knowing God.

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And that thought has

deeply, deeply shaped me.

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I'm, amazed by the possibility that.

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Just as Jesus prays that we are able

to be in Christ, be unified with

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Christ in a way that, of course will

reach its fullness after we die and,

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and we have resurrected bodies and

all of sin and death are behind us.

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but as we talked about yesterday,

there's a way in which these kinds of

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things are able to be practiced now.

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Jesus.

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It says, I've come to give you

life and life to the fullest.

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I mean, all, all of the New Testament

is written to people living on earth.

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It's not just about the afterlife.

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I mean, it's written for us now here, and

the stuff about the afterlife is certainly

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there, but it's, it's kind of vague.

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so we wanted to finish this

series by talking about what

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it looks like to be in Christ.

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Um.

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There's a couple things

that come to mind here.

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One, this side of heaven.

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I think it's always gonna be difficult.

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I think it's gonna be hard

to understand what that looks

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like or how to experience that.

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What do you think?

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Yeah, I certainly think so, and I think

it, this can be oversold, especially some

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segments of the church, I remember singing

a song about, I want to know you, I want

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to see your face, I want to know you now.

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and songs like that, well, we're not

really gonna see God's face right yet.

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Mm-hmm.

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And if our expectation is that we're

gonna have this, feeling of blissful

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union and seeing God directly in this

life, we're gonna be disappointed.

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So.

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it's good to have that aspiration that,

boy, I wish I could, see God like that.

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That's really what I want.

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But if we think that's a normal Christian

experience, we're gonna conclude

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there's something wrong with us.

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Or the gospel.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Now with that disclaimer.

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I think that there are ways I've,

I've experienced ways in my own

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life and as I read across the, broad

spectrum of Christianity that people

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are able to, develop some kind of

muscle for encounters with God.

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Hearing the voice of God.

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Now, you can't force it to happen.

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But there are ways that, if God is

present to us and if God is speaking,

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then we can develop some kind of antennae.

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Yeah.

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To hear and respond in faithfulness

and to grow and life with God,

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encountering God and us and us and God.

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And I think that Where we're going

with this is the, the place of

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spiritual practices in the Christian

life and Christian formation, I

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can't force God to speak to me.

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I can't force my spiritual growth,

but there are things that I can do

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that open me up to, uh, be formed

in certain ways by the spirit.

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Jesus says certainly that there are ways

that we can, prevent the spirit's work.

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In our life.

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And in fact, Jesus couldn't do miracles

and couldn't do his own work in certain

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places because people lacked faith.

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so there's a way in which our, our faith

and our faithful actions, make possible

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the, the spirit's work in our lives.

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Yeah.

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Paul talks about don't grieve the spirit.

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Another place don't quench the spirit.

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So there is that idea that

our choices do affect that.

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Yeah.

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So what, what might it look like to.

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Organize our lives around life with God.

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I think scripture's a

significant part of that.

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Um, I think scripture is one of the

keys in prayer is probably the other.

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Yeah.

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And you see not, not the only ones, right?

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But those are the two main ones I think.

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Well, fundamentally, you see, um, these,

I mean if Jesus is, is experiencing life

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with God and life in God, then Jesus

is probably gonna be our model here.

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And, while what we know about Jesus is

limited to, you know, a couple bio short

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biographies about him, we do know that

the dude knew scripture really well.

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That's for sure.

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Yeah.

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And he also spent a lot of time in prayer.

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Right.

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Sometimes even a whole evening.

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A whole evening.

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A whole night.

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Yeah.

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That's what I meant.

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Prayer's hard.

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But prayer is a practice.

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I, I think for me, one of the

areas of growth in my own life is

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moving away from prayer, is just

something that I do to talk at God

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or to go to God for my requests.

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Right.

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And more of, Listening and just

trying to be with God, trying

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to rest in God's presence.

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Mm-hmm.

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Um, which is mysterious and

hard to describe, but to try

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to enjoy the presence of God.

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of course the Christian word

for this is contemplation.

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Mm-hmm.

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To look at God looking at me, so to speak.

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as a metaphor.

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for enjoying, enjoying the

presence of God, but that, that

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can happen in various ways.

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I think we see, uh, other practices from

the life of Jesus when he, retreated

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from community to spend time with God

and spend time with God in prayer.

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Mm-hmm.

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Um, we know that he spent time in,

community at, the, the synagogues,

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and he heard the word of the

Lord, read and expounded upon.

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We know he followed Jewish, holidays

and the calendar and that he spent time

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fasting and practiced the Passover meal.

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So there, there are various ways in which

Jesus organizes life around life with

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God, and he models certain ways for us to

organize our life around life with God.

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What do you think of that?

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Well, certainly I think that's true.

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I mean, there's a reason

the gospel writers record

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those things that Jesus did.

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We could assume Jesus prayed, but

the gospel writers tell us time

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and time again this is what he did.

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you have to remember they're covering a.

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period of three years of ministry,

and they're doing that in a book that

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you can read probably in 30 minutes.

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Right.

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Each gospel less than that.

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So the details they're included

are strategically put there.

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Mm-hmm.

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And, the New Testament later on, like

Peter says that we should walk as

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he walked, so not just believe what

he taught, but walk as he walked.

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Mm-hmm.

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So that, that's A helpful way for us to,

think about the spiritual disciplines.

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These are just practices that Jesus

showed us and modeled, and they are

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not the essence of righteousness, but

they're a way to center our lives around

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God who is the essence of righteousness.

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Yeah.

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And so I think, as we wrap it

up, a good way to wrap this

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up is just with a question.

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As you think about your life,

the various dimensions of your

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life, you've got your, work life,

you've got your life with family.

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Your your free time life.

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You've got your maybe spiritual life or

you've got these different dimensions.

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You've got, uh, the dimension

of how you spend your finances

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and how you spend your time.

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When you think about your, your passions

and your pursuits and your interests and

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your hobbies, what does it look like to

organize your life around union with the

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father that may not necessarily change.

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those dimensions, you know, 180 but

may change the way that you interact

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with those dimensions of your life.

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If the goal here is to bring each part

of our life into this submission, this

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yielding to the work that the spirit has

for us, what does that look like for you?

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so spend a few minutes now just in

conclusion of retirement of this series.

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Look, God has been working since day

one on this, project to be unified with

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humanity, God with humans dwelling

together in perfect unity and harmony.

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Yet because of the decision of Adam

and Eve, that harmony is broken and

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the rest of the story of scripture is

that God is going to send somebody who

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will deal with that problem so that we

can have life and life to the fullest.

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And we saw that.

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It's not Noah.

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It's not Abraham, it's not

Joseph, it's not Nehemiah.

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It's none of these guys.

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It's the person of Jesus Christ.

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If we believe that Jesus is God, then

we must certainly believe that Jesus

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knows the right way to live life.

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And so we, look to Jesus as our

example full of gratitude that

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he has provided this way for

us to have resurrection in him.

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And then we also look forward and hope

that one day we'll be unified perfectly.

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But this is not just a

story about the future.

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It's a story about now how we spend

our days is of course how we spend

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our lives, and what does it look like

for us to spend our lives organized

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around knowing and loving God.

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As we said, this is our last

episode that we're doing here.

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We do have another podcast,

philosophy and faith that you may

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find interesting or you may not.

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It's much more technical and a

little bit longer, but you might.

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You might find it helpful, but right now

we just want to thank you for listening.

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We know each one of you has a lot

of choices to do with your time.

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We pray that this has been helpful, but

we also thank you for listening, for

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many of you giving feedback, and we're

gonna end as we always do with the prayer

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that Jesus himself taught us to pray.

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Our Father in heaven.

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Hallowed be your name.

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Your kingdom come, your will be

done on earth as it is in heaven.

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Give us today our daily bread

and forgive us our debts as we

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also have forgiven our debtors.

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And lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from the evil one.

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Amen.

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Amen.