Francis Chan, author of numerous books including Crazy Love and founder of church-planting organization Radius International, addressed some 16,000 college students during the second evening session of the Urbana 15 Conference taking place at the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis, encouraging them to embrace the privilege of living under the authority of Christ. The Urbana Conference is InterVarsity's triennial missions conference.
"When is the last time someone said they love being under authority?" Chan said. He recalled when he first became a Christian in high school, he was "excited about going to heaven and about knowing God," but felt that the "downside of Christianity" was following the "rules and commands."
"I didn't get it -- I didn't understand that the good news was that I get to be under his authority," he said.
Chan pointed to stories in the New Testament in which Jesus commands waves to be calm, for demons to come out, and for sickness to be healed, and the authority and control that he has over all of these aspects in life.
"What do you have to fear at that point," Chan asked, as he added, "if every force of evil is under [Jesus'] power?"
"So many of us, we've made this book so figurative and obscure," Chan continued as he raised up his Bible. He said following Christ means asking, "Where do you want me to go? I'll follow you. Where is your Spirit leading me from here? I'll go. Because it's better to be under your authority than me having control and creating my own life."
And believing that living under Jesus' authority is better comes with understanding his power and who he is, Chan added, posing the question, "Do we understand who we get to follow?"
Urbana 15 started on Sunday night and will continue until Thursday evening, exploring the theme, "What Story Will You Tell?" The entire conference will explore stories from the book of Matthew, and features more than 180 speakers including David Platt, the president of the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention; Abdu Murray, the North American Director of the apologetics-focused Ravi Zacharias International Ministries; and Brian Chan, the cheif software architect of Liferay, Inc.
