How to Commune with Christ

To understand how we commune with Christ, let’s begin at the end of history, when God’s purpose for creation and redemption and all of history has reached its climax, and then work our way back to the present so that we can see how to join God now in that ultimate purpose. That’s what gives meaning to life. That’s how you know your life counts: to know where God is taking everything and then to join him in that great achievement.

So, where is history going? What is God’s ultimate purpose for all things, including you? Of course, there are millions of people who think that’s a pointless question, because the universe is not being guided. It has no purpose or goal. It is a mindless set of natural forces, moving in aimless ways that are completely random. Or “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing” (Macbeth 5.5.28).

But God, the Creator and governor of all things, has spoken into history and told us that is not true. God has a purpose in everything, and history is going somewhere. Let me give you a litany of texts that describe where it’s going, because it’s incredibly personal and relational and communal. It’s about fellowship. God is a purposeful God.

For I am God, and there is no other;
     I am God, and there is none like me,
declaring the end from the beginning
     and from ancient times things not yet done,
saying, “My counsel shall stand,
     and I will accomplish all my purpose.” (Isaiah 46:9–10)

“My purpose!” God has a purpose; it’s going to stand.

The LORD of hosts has sworn:
“As I have planned,
     so shall it be,
and as I have purposed,
     so shall it stand.” (Isaiah 14:24)

In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will. (Ephesians 1:11)

It is an “eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Ephesians 3:11), a “purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began” (2 Timothy 1:9). “The LORD has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble” (Proverbs 16:4). “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen” (Romans 11:36).

So, we are not asking the wrong question when we ask, “Where is history going? What is God’s ultimate purpose for all things, including you?” That is the crucial question everyone should ask, whether we’re talking about how to commune with Jesus or anything else. Because when we know God’s ultimate purpose for the things he does, and the gifts he gives, and the obedience he requires, and we bring our life into harmony with that purpose, it’s like plugging our life into the high-voltage electric socket of God’s purpose and power and grace.

And you are jolted into this realization: “My life has ultimate significance.” Ultimate. And there flows into your life confidence and joy and strength and passion, because you are linked with the ultimate purpose of God, which cannot fail. “I am God. My counsel will stand. I will accomplish all my purpose.” It is a thrilling way to live — to know where God is going, his ultimate purpose, and to join him in it.

Redeemed for Fellowship with God

So, when we pose the question, “How do I commune with Jesus?” we begin at the end of history, when God’s purpose for creation and redemption and all of history has reached its climax, and then work our way back and discover that communion with Jesus now is a participation in a divine purpose that is indescribably great and glorious and ultimate and eternal.

What I want you to see is that the Bible describes our ultimate future as a personal relationship with Jesus, and through him with God the Father. And my emphasis is on personal. You can use different words to describe it. Our final ultimate future will be a personal relationship, or a personal fellowship, or a personal communion with Christ.

“The Bible describes our ultimate future as a personal relationship with Jesus, and through him with God the Father.”

I don’t take this for granted. It could’ve been otherwise. God didn’t have to create the world and redeem the world in order to have an eternal, personal relationship with human beings. He could’ve saved us simply to serve as his happy slaves who lived on the edge of the plantation while he lived in the big house. He could’ve saved us to be like admiring visitors of his museum, and we could spend eternity being amazed walking through all the creative works of God, while he lived on his island a thousand miles away. He could’ve saved us to serve as choirs for the King, and we would stand in the courtyard and he would hear us in his tower.

But that’s not what he planned. Listen to this litany of biblical texts that describe our ultimate future in personal terms.

• “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11).
• “I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever” (Psalm 23:6).
• “Father, I desire that they . . . may be with me where I am” (John 17:24).
• “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also” (John 14:3).
• “My desire is to depart and be with Christ” (Philippians 1:23).
• “We would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8).
• “[Christ] died for us so that . . . we might live with him” (1 Thessalonians 5:10).
• “Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:17).
• “My dwelling place shall be with them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (Ezekiel 37:27).
• “I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. . . . And I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty” (2 Corinthians 6:16, 18).

The final and ultimate future of God’s people is to be with Jesus in a personal relationship, a personal fellowship, a personal communion. The ultimate purpose of the universe is personal. The ultimate goal of God is intensely relational, communal, and personal.

Fellowship in the New Creation

But what if someone asks, “What about the new heavens and the new earth? You make it sound like the end of all things is only persons relating to each other, without any creational, material setting.” That is a good question. So, let me clarify: Our future with Jesus will be in a new heaven and a new earth. It will be like this one and unlike this one in unimaginable and glorious ways.

The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,
     and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat. . . .
The cow and the bear shall graze;
     their young shall lie down together;
     and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra,
     and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den. . . .
For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD
     as the waters cover the sea. (Isaiah 11:6–9)

We will rejoice in all the works of God with more freedom and more exuberance than we ever enjoy here, with zero idolatry. But here’s the gloriously stubborn reality: The essence of our joy, the essence of our existence, will be the personal dimension of our relationship with Jesus Christ and with God himself personally among us. Listen to how John describes our experience of the new heavens and the new earth:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. . . . And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.” (Revelation 21:1, 3)

The new heavens and the new earth is the setting, the backdrop, the landscape. But the actual drama — the actual focus of eternity, the ultimate endpoint of history, the essence of our eternal existence — will be God as a person and you as a person in relationship, in fellowship, in communion. It’s a glorious thing that the earth will be made new, but it’s not nearly as glorious as Jesus. The whole creation is groaning until it shares in the freedom of the children of God. Galaxies exist to make your relationship with Jesus better, not the other way around. Yes, it will be corporate, all of us together. But oh, how individually personal it will be! Is that not the meaning of Revelation 2:17? “To the one who conquers I will give . . . a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it.” God has designed the entire cosmos to focus on personal communion with you.

“Don’t fail to see and feel the privilege and the wonder of being in fellowship with Jesus.”

And what will that relationship be like? It will be one of immeasurable, mutual joy in each other — we rejoicing in all that God is for us in Jesus, and he rejoicing over our joy in him. Immeasurable, mutual joy in our personal communion with God — that’s his ultimate goal for the universe, because that will be the perfect glorification of God’s grace (Ephesians 1:6).

The ransomed of the LORD shall return
     and come to Zion with singing;
everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;
     they shall obtain gladness and joy,
     and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. (Isaiah 35:10)

And wonder of wonders, it is not just we who rejoice, but God says of us, “I will rejoice . . . and be glad in my people” (Isaiah 65:19) for “as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you” (Isaiah 62:5). “The LORD your God is in your midst . . . he will rejoice over you with gladness . . . he will exult over you with loud singing” (Zephaniah 3:17).

So, yes. There is a new heavens and a new earth.

The mountains and the hills before you
     shall break forth into singing,
     and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress;
     instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle. (Isaiah 55:12–13)

But the glorious, ultimate, eternal drama that will play out on that stage will be you and God in personal relationship, personal fellowship, personal communion. You will know each other, you will love each other, you will spend time with each other, you will speak to each other, and you will enjoy each other.

Fellowship with the Faithful One

Now we’re in a position to understand something of our present communion with Jesus, because what we experience now is a foretaste of what is coming.

What is coming is the marriage supper of the Lamb (Revelation 19:9). But even now, Jesus says, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and [sup] with him, and he with me” (Revelation 3:20) — a precious, personal foretaste of that eternal fellowship.

What is coming is the day when we will see God’s very face (Revelation 22:4): “They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.” But even now, “beholding the glory of the Lord, [we] are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18) — a present experience of communion with Christ that is so real it changes us.

What is coming is face-to-face fellowship with the Son of God, no longer through a glass darkly (1 Corinthians 13:12). But even now, Paul says, “God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord” (1 Corinthians 1:9). Relationship now. Communion now. Fellowship now.

That statement is probably the most explicit and basic statement in the Bible (along with 1 John 1:3) about our present fellowship and communion with Jesus. Notice three things about that statement: 1) the one you have fellowship with; 2) the way you were brought into this fellowship; and 3) the faithfulness of the one who brought you in.

First, the one you have fellowship with: “You were called into the fellowship of [God’s] Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” Four of his greatest titles: 1) Son of God: deity, very God of very God; 2) Jesus: the incarnate one, human, obedient unto death; 3) Christ: the promised Messiah, fulfilling all the promises; 4) our Lord: ruler, sovereign, invincible. Don’t fail to see and feel the privilege and the wonder of being in fellowship with this Jesus. If you ever doubt that anybody important knows you or cares about you or wants to spend time with you, wake up. You walk hour by hour in fellowship with the Son of God.

Second, the way you were brought into this fellowship: You were “called” by God into the fellowship of his Son. This is the same call that made you a Christian. “Those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified” (Romans 8:30). Which means that your very identity as a Christian is to be in fellowship with the Son of God. This doesn’t get added later. This is what it means to be a Christian. To be born again, to be saved, to be forgiven and justified, is to be in fellowship, in communion, with the Son of God.

Third, the faithfulness of the one who brought you in: “God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord” (1 Corinthians 1:9). When God called you out of darkness into his light, out of death into life, out of blindness into sight, out of unbelief into faith, he did it once for all. He put you in fellowship with his Son irrevocably. That’s what it means when it says the one who called you is faithful. He is faithful to keep you. Those whom he calls he keeps. That’s what his faithfulness means. If you are in fellowship with Jesus, you will always be in fellowship with Jesus — because God is faithful.

Therefore, Christian, do not forget these three things: 1) You are in fellowship with the greatest person in the universe. 2) You came into this fellowship by an act of sovereign grace, God’s call. 3) And you will be kept in this fellowship with Jesus forever, not because you are strong, but because God is faithful.

Four Dimensions of Fellowship

So, what is it? What is this fellowship with the Son of God now? My first impulse is to answer that fellowship with the Son of God is a mutual communication with each other. When the Bible tells us to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17) and to “let the word of Christ dwell in you richly” (Colossians 3:16), it is telling us that this fellowship between us and Christ is marked by communication both ways.

“Right now we can know what it is, in some measure, to be at home with Jesus.”

We are using every form of prayer as we tell him all of our heart: “I thank you, I praise you, I love you, I need you, I’m sorry I failed you, help me, guide me, protect me, glorify your name in me, draw near to me.” And he speaks to us continually through the riches of his word (if our Bibles are open and we are reading day and night): “I made you, I sustain you, I died for you, I will help you, I will strengthen you, I will hold you up with my righteous right hand, trust me, follow me, I have wonderful plans for you, I love you.” So, there is no doubt in my mind that our fellowship with the Son of God consists largely of a mutual sharing of words. He speaks to me; I speak to him.

But the reason I said my first impulse was to define our fellowship as the mutual sharing of communication is that there is more to it than that. Do you recall one of the texts that I cited when describing our future fellowship with Jesus? In 2 Corinthians 5:8, Paul said that to be “away from the body” is to be “at home with the Lord.” That’s a very powerful image: at home, at home with the Lord.

However, it’s not just future. Jesus said in John 14:23, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” So, that is a present experience and a future experience. Right now we can know what it is, in some measure, to be at home with Jesus. Now, why does that matter?

I have lived in the same home for 43 years, a few blocks from here. And I’ve lived with the same woman in that house for all those years. For well over a decade, it’s just been Noël and me. And I can testify that, on many of those evenings together, we can sit in the same room for two hours and never say a word as each of us reads our own book. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that in that silence there is rich fellowship between us. I know she’s there. She knows I’m there. We could reach out and touch each other. I know that I am loved and accepted and honored in that silence. And she knows that she is loved and accepted and cherished in that silence. It is not empty.

And neither is my relationship with Jesus when I’m not reading my Bible and I’m not consciously praying. I know he is there, because he promised he would be. And I know that he loves me, and accepts me, and forgives me, and is holding my existence in his hands, and is guiding me. And he knows that I love him and trust him and want him to be near me. So, I’m going to call this the fellowship (or the communion) of at-homeness — a fellowship of peaceful, happy presence, whether there are any words or not.

And I think two other things need to be said about what this fellowship is besides verbal communication. And these are implicit in the fellowship of words and the fellowship of at-homeness. One is the fellowship of heart affections. Whether we’re talking to each other or whether we are silent in each other’s presence, both of us are very aware of the reality of heart affections. Jesus knows how I feel about him: I trust him, I love him, I hope in him, I admire him. And I know how Jesus feels about me: He loves me, he feels mercy toward me and care and sympathy and delight. What is in my heart and what is in his heart powerfully bond together in this fellowship.

And the last thing to say about this fellowship is that, through the mutual sharing of heart affections, and the mutual sharing of at-homeness, and the mutual sharing of words, there is the mutual sharing of self. Listen to this amazing statement in 1 Samuel 3:21: “The LORD appeared again at Shiloh, for the LORD revealed himself to Samuel at Shiloh by the word of the LORD.” He revealed himself. He revealed himself by the word. So, I think it’s right to say that in the fellowship of shared at-homeness, and shared affections, and shared words, at every level we are sharing ourselves. This is our deepest identity, our deepest personhood, mutually known and mutually shared.

More Fellowship to Come

The goal of all things in the universe is God’s people in personal fellowship, personal communion, with Jesus Christ — an eternal sharing of the most intense affections, an eternal sharing of the happiest possible at-homeness with the Lord, an eternal sharing of the sweetest possible words (perhaps in a brand-new language that makes our native tongue look utterly inadequate), and an eternal sharing of our very selves. All of that happens in a relationship of immeasurable happiness as we delight in God and he delights in our delight in him.

None of you in this room has gone as high or as deep as you can go in your fellowship with the Son of God. There are depths and there are heights that we have yet to attain. The Bible sets no limits to the wonders or the pleasures that you may have right now in fellowship with Jesus. Don’t settle for where you are. Whether you are eighteen or eighty, spend the rest of your life pursuing more of Christ, remembering it’s just a foretaste and the best is always yet to come.