What Changes People? Union and Communion with Christ

At Harvest USA, we minister to people who need to know what changes people. They know that their lives just aren’t working well. We don’t have to labor to convince those who come here that they’re a mess—spiritually and sexually. Men and women so often come to us with their spirits crushed, either from a lifetime of failed attempts to manage their own lives and struggles, or as someone whose family member struggles. The joy in their lives left a long time ago.

Yet, I believe—and this is what keeps us ministering here all these years—that Jesus longs to meet us in our despair, in our deepest pits. I’m convinced that only the broken receive the gospel. When we are most aware of our deepest need for Christ is when he often shows up.

What Changes People? God’s Work Alone

People often ask us what changes people— what’s the one key thing we do to help others? There’s no secret. God brings people to the end of themselves and then into our office. When people get serious about their situation, it’s always a work of the Holy Spirit. They sit with everything that brought them here—the entire mess of their hearts and lives—and talk it through with our staff, those in their support groups, and particularly with the Lord himself. For however long it takes.

It’s in the setting of a caring, confidential, Christ-centered environment that God begins a process of growth and healing. It’s also the place where the love of Christ begins to capture hearts and where the other loves—the idols that capture our hearts—begin to dull in comparison.

What I’m talking about here is the unconditional acceptance of a community that doesn’t hold back, but speaks encouraging, life-giving, and, at times, hard and serious words. Of course, the local church is God’s ordained place where this can and should take place. Our mission is to see churches establish these groups, so email me and I’ll show you how it can be done!

If you were to ask me what central thing most indicates that a person’s life is beginning to change, I would say it’s the presence of a renewed sense of joy. For the sexual struggler, that often comes as a surprise. It doesn’t, however, appear suddenly, without context. It’s not even solely the result of getting a handle on one’s sexual struggle.

What changes people is the result of something else. It’s a by-product of something greater.

Union with Christ

Tim Keller said, in a sermon on Galatians, “When we obey God, out of a grateful joy, that comes from a deep awareness of our status as children of God . . . then the idols which control our lives can be disempowered and we’re free to live for Christ.” This is an amazing statement in two ways.

First, it demonstrates that true obedience comes out of an awareness of joy-filled gratitude. But about what?

We’re joyfully grateful because we have a deep awareness of our status! Keller is talking here about our union with Christ. Our positional and legal status in relation to God has changed because Jesus lived the totally obedient life we couldn’t ever live and paid the price for our sin with his own blood. We are now part of a new reality where everything is changed about us—who we are presently, and even—especially—where we will be in the future. In being united with Christ in his life, death, and resurrection, our standing and eternity are secure because of what he has accomplished.

Of course, the Holy Spirit initiates, joins, and administers this new standing, taking up residence in us and bringing a new vitality to us. This is true even as we learn to struggle against sin. The driving force of any new vigor for Christ is this union between Christ and our souls, which the Holy Spirit both starts and continues. This is what changes people.

Communion with Christ

Second, it’s not just our union with Christ which produces joy, but our ongoing communion with him. Union and communion go hand in hand. Our communion with Christ comes out of our faith-driven striving to grow in grace, based on our knowledge of and our union with Jesus. This is also what changes people.

In other words, we want to change because God has loved us and given us the power to change. This energizes us to put off sin and walk in godliness. It’s a constant looking to Jesus for all things.

Pastor J.C. Ryle, seeking to describe the relationship between union and communion, said this: “Union is the bud, but communion is the flower. He that has union with Christ does well; but he that enjoys communion with him does far better. . . both place a heavenly seed in our hearts, that enable us to draw out of him every hour.”

May this be so in your life as you look to him, who first looked at you and mercifully loved you. What changes people is the same thing that can change you — the abundant, powerful love of God through union and communion with his Son.

Updated 5.23.2017, 3.11.25