What does it mean to be united to Christ—and how does that shape the way we relate to others? In this episode, Gunner Gundersen, Esther Liu, and Darby Strickland explore the doctrine of union with Christ and its deeply practical impact on everyday relationships. If our truest relationship is already secure in Jesus, how might that free us to love others differently? Join us as we consider what it looks like to live life together in Christ.

Mentioned in this episode: Our School of Biblical Counseling has started registration for our March term, and you can register for our foundational course, Dynamics of Biblical Change. And in this class, we talk about how Christ's past, present, and future grace change the way we live our daily lives. And we talk about how the Lord meets us, both in our suffering and in our struggles with sin personally, as well as in our relationships and in the world around us. Registration for that class is opening on February the 23rd for our March term. So opening on February 23rd. And you can learn more and you can register at ccef.org/school. That's ccef.org/school.

00:00 Welcome and New Beginnings
03:13 Union with Christ: The Foundation of Relationships
6:18 The Impact of Union on Relationship Dynamics
17:16 Permanence in Relationships Because of Union
20:09 Courage in Relationships: Embracing Vulnerability
32:08 Following Christ in Our Union with Him

Hello and welcome back to our CCEF Podcast: Where Life & Scripture Meet. And first things first, a belated Happy New Year as 2026 is now well underway. I'm Gunner Gunderson, and I'm here with my colleagues, Esther Liu and Darby Strickland. And thanks for joining us as we can enter a new podcast year for us.

As we jump into our 2026 podcast year, two announcements for you as we begin. With our School of Biblical Counseling at CCEF, registration is now open for our foundational course, Dynamics of Biblical Change. And in this class, we talk about how Christ's past grace and his present grace and his future grace change how we go about our daily lives. And we talk about how the Lord meets us, both in our suffering and in our struggles with sin. Again, registration is now open for Dynamics of Biblical Change, and registration will close on February the 23rd for our March term. You can learn more and you can register at ccef.org/school, ccef.org/school.

Now as we return for 2026, we're actually gonna be adding some voices to our podcast. So Darby and Esther have graciously returned for this opening episode, and they'll also join us at points throughout the year. But we are also going to involve and include even more of our faculty colleagues at CCEF as we discuss really a host of topics where we're going to try to bring our lives to the truth as well as bring the truth to our lives. 

And so you can really look forward to a diverse rotation of people and group dynamics that are gonna kind of stir the conversational pot in our own ways each time we get together. So we're excited about that and believe it's gonna be a blessing to you.

As we look forward to 2026, Darby and Esther, what maybe excites you about our faculty colleagues joining in the podcast this year and taking part in different conversations that we'll have?

Yeah, I just think of it as a tremendous benefit to our listeners and probably even myself. I gained so much insight and wisdom from the conversations I've had with my colleagues and they just have so much to bring and offer that I don't, you know, selfishly I get to experience that. So just super excited that more of that is going to be shared with our listeners.

Yeah, I absolutely agree. I often tell people that the people that I get to work with, my colleagues, are not only coworkers, but they're also role models, heroes, teachers, people that I learned from. And so I'm super excited that this podcast will get to feature more voices, more diversity of perspectives, of expertise, things that, yeah, I wouldn't be able to do on my own, but I get to learn from wonderful people who are wise, who have so much to offer, and understand so much of life and how it can be hard and where Christ speaks into that. So I am so excited for this year and everyone being able to be beneficiaries of the wealth of wisdom that I get to experience here in my work at CCEF.

Absolutely. Well, we're really looking forward to the year to come and I think that diversity of voices and perspectives, but all grounded in the same Christ and in the same Scriptures are just going to be really rich. So we're looking forward to that. I think it's appropriate that our topic for today actually does take a kind of a relational focus to it. And what we'd like to talk about today, we're calling “Life Together in Christ: Why Union with Jesus Changes our Relationships.”

And Darby, could you just maybe give us a summary of what we want to talk about today before we start to unpack it?

I think just even understanding, at least for me, when I came to understand what being united to Christ meant in my own security and my relationship with my Savior, all the benefits that I have from him, how my belonging with him can't be threatened or changed. So when I understand my security in Christ that is so, so secure, that security can actually then become the soil from which all other relationships grow, flourish. I can approach, I just have freedom to lean in to good things and hard things, scary things, because my foundational relationship is so secure.

Yeah. Someone might be asking, what is “union with Christ?” What does it mean that we are united to Jesus? And just as a short, maybe more technical summary, I would just say, you could say that all who belong to Jesus Christ by grace through faith are united with him. And it means that we're made one with him with the result that we actually share in his status and in his blessings.

Now that doesn't mean that we become divine. It doesn't mean we become somehow the fourth member of the Trinity, but we are actually united with him so that we, for example, share in his righteous status before God. We share in his sonship. We share in his inheritance, and so much more. This doctrine in reality has so many implications to it. In Paul's words, have every spiritual blessing by virtue of this union with Christ. And it really does mean, as Darby just shared, you know, our truest relationship is already secure and the security really becomes the soil that other relationships grow out of.

As we get started, I think there's something behind all this and that is relationships can be very challenging. And our union with Christ is something deeply needed for us to relate properly to one another, to have a healthy experience of relationships, even when the relationships and the dynamics of them are quite challenging and are unhealthy in some ways. Can we talk a little bit about why this is so helpful, about why it's needed because of these challenges and relationships.

I don't know about you all, relationships haven't necessarily been an easy thing for me personally. I've encountered a lot of struggles in various kinds of relationships and different challenges. And I just feel like if I were left to my own resources to make relationships work, to rebuild them, to reconcile, to move towards, to take the courageous step to be vulnerable in relationships, to be able to forgive. If it were up to me and my own resources and it was just Esther needs to do it to be a good person or to be a good friend or whatnot, I would come up short, I think. And where I think union with Christ and that undergirding behind relationships is so empowering to me is I'm not left to fend for myself. It's not just me mustering up my own goodness and my own character on its own, or resources to be able to make relationships work, to have the empowering and motivation and heart to move towards others even when it's hard. 

It gives me a motivation. It gives me resources. It gives me a relationship that I can stand on that then empowers me to move towards others even when it's costly, even when it's challenging. I just know that I wouldn't be able to do that by my own strength with my own resources apart from all the riches that I've received already in Christ. That's been a huge blessing to me when I want to give up in relationships or take the easy way out. It's like there's an impetus. There's a reason for moving towards costliness and hard things that relationships often require of us.

Yeah, I think of it pretty simplistically, that if I know how well I'm loved, that frees me up to love other people well. Right? Whether they are people that are easy for me to love, or whether they are people that are harder for me to love. It's easy to perceive, you know, as Esther's saying, rejection. Yeah, just there's so many moments in relationship where if we feel loved, we're free to move towards someone with a vulnerability and a love for them and a self-forgetfulness. And I think that's what has really helped me as I consider. Right, because we could talk about so many things, so many gifts of our union with Christ, right, our sanctification, our justification, our adoption. Like there's so many rich ways and avenues we could take that blessings from our union. So we have all that to draw upon so that we execute relationships in a way that honors our Lord, I think is just so sweet.

Yeah, yeah, I'm just thinking of something we've talked about in other contexts that it's like this permanence of our Father's love that gives us a, like an other worldly security as we go through our own world and that knowledge that he's with us, he is loyal, steadfast love, commitment, devotion, protection, affection, that's permanent and unchanging. That helps remind me that I don't need to be reaching for and overreaching for all of those things in places where I'll never find them with permanence.

I think, too, for me, there's a practicality that I remember the moment that I realized, I'm united to Christ, and this person over there is united to Christ. And that means we're actually united. Right. And that just makes such a difference when it says, you know, love one another, you know, as you love yourselves. Like there's even that simple verse that we all know in Matthew. Right. You know, there is a real truth to that, like, because we actually are united. And I don't think we think about that as we're going to church on a Sunday morning, we had an uncomfortable text exchange. We're actually thinking this person is united to me through Christ and how I love them is so important.

It's certainly a helpful corrective too, in terms of just thinking through the temptations of approaching the Christian life just very individualistically. Like, ooh, I get all these benefits and I get to enjoy all of it. But Darby, like you said, union with Christ also entails union with our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. And so the communal aspect and invitation that we have being united to Christ, is maybe something that can go underappreciated while we're just kind of like, it's just me and Jesus. Yeah, I mean, I feel like I've gone down that road before, but it's been such a beautiful reminder to say actually the Christian life is not less than the beauty of our personal relationship with Christ, but it's also more than it's a calling, it's an invitation to know the joys and the challenges and to walk in the calling of community and walking together and being the body of Christ, growing and maturing together. So I appreciate you mentioning that, Darby.

It makes me want to “root for” when I'm tempted to “root against,” right? Yeah, because if they're me, I'm rooting for, yeah, yeah, my brother and my sister. Yeah.

I don't know if I'd say it's been a two-phase development, but there's at least two ways I've seen this develop in my own life. One has been starting to see, particularly in Paul's letters, although it's elsewhere, that almost like the macro structure to his letters is you are in Christ, but he never stops there. He always extends it and applies it, not even applies it, but expresses it through the church and through people and relationships and is because you are in Christ, therefore, this is your shared identity. And this is the language that you speak with one another. And this is the accent with which you speak it because you are collectively in Christ. And seeing that, but along the way also starting to recognize there are all these different ways that I instinctively give into temptations to live differently than what Paul's saying in those relationships with believers, particularly when it gets hard.

And returning to this understanding that I am united with Christ and they are also united with Christ, not because of good things we did or just because of by his sovereign grace through faith as a gift, we're united, has really over time continued to address a lot of more nuanced ways that I find myself not living out relationships or not thinking about them the way that Scripture calls me to. I'm so thankful for this permanent invincible-like root of stability and motivation for some of the terrain that we all have to walk in relationships.

I love that because we think about Paul, he had a lot of hard things to say to people, right? But you see as he's opening his letters with such affection, right? So to me it even goes beyond what you're saying, Gunner, in that he's relating to them as family. He talks about his gentleness, talking about like exhorting you like my children, the tenderness of a nursing mother, like, his affection for them spills out on the page in the same way. Just that deep familial affection where in his position, it could have been very easy for him to take on a leader or an authoritative stance, but he turns to them from a familial stance. And his love is just so clear, even when he is rebuking them for some pretty, you know, some serious conversations.

There's always this warmth that comes through with Paul in particular. I think because he understands that union, yeah, it changes how he approaches the people that he's called to minister to.

Just hearing you talk makes me realize how many competing visions there can be of what relationships are supposed to be and like how often we can default in relationships to reciprocity. So it's like, if you give to me, then I'll give to you. Or even like consumeristically of like, I will treat you the way that I think you deserve based off what you can offer me or what I can get from you.

There are just so many different visions for what relationships are, how to function in them, what to do in them. Yeah, just thinking back to what we've talked about already here, it's union with Christ that gives us a compelling and empowering vision for something different in relationships. That's not just, if you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.

It allows for a wealth that we are given that then we're able to extend to others like we've been saying earlier. But it just helps me to even slow down to articulate, wow, there are different ways to approach relationships. And union with Christ ends up being a complete reorientation of what relationships can be. Like Paul did have to say hard things to people. He did have to confront. But it's union with Christ that allowed for warmth to accompany rebuke and for all of it to be undergirded by love and a desire to see God's kingdom grow and his church to mature. But yeah, I just am appreciating the resources that union with Christ gives us to offer a different vision for what relationships should be and can be.

Because culturally, right, they're transactional, right? Where if we're united to somebody who's willing to sacrifice and die out of his love for us, right, that gives us a different mode of operating in relationships. It's highly personal, highly invested. Yeah, and that's self-forgetfulness. I am going to do what benefits you so that you come to know the Lord better. Yeah.

Esther, as you were sharing, of the things I realized about Paul's letters is that kind of laced through his letters is this sense that he intends to stay. That he sees this relationship as a permanent relationship. And even when it's really hard, there's always hard things in his letters, some are harder than others, but there's this clear intention to stay, a sense that this relationship is grounded in a fundamental loyalty, a fundamental permanence that's really beautiful. And that really shapes the way that he engages.

I just find my own heart instead of that to feel like it can just so easily fluctuate in my almost levels of loyalty, depending on how I feel or what's going on or how I sense that I've been treated or if I think this is gonna last, whatever the case might be. And I'm very humbled by first the example of Christ, but then what I see too in Paul's letters, fallen though he was, that there's this clear sense of an intention to stay and to stick with it because in a sense, we can't help it because this union is made permanent and the Lord is keeping us.

I think, again, it's hard to have a vision for that, right? Because when you're in a conflict with another believer, it's like to think about this is a relationship that's going to play out over eternity. Like I've caught myself thinking, “Well, I hope their room isn't next to mine in the mansion.” Like, I don't know how this is going to work. Right. But yeah, it just recognized we're all going to the same place. Right. And so what's irritating you about me right now isn't going to be there in glory. And where I'm stumbling with you is not going to be true of you and glory. I don't even think we're going to recognize ourselves in some senses, right? We don't even know what it's going to look to look fully sanctified. And so having that vision, that eternal vision of where these friendships, relationships are going can really soften and help us, at least it's helped me, reprioritize what's important in this relationship.

What can I bear on earth? And what can I actually entrust to the Lord that I don't have to carry? That he can give me comfort for here and now. But it's in their union with Christ, he's promising that they will be fully sanctified. He is promising to make them look like him. And that just relieves me of feeling like I need to have an agenda for someone that's bothering me on some level. It's just like this, helps me release and it gives me a vision for what's ahead instead of getting stuck in the mire of where our relationship isn't working well here.

Could we take a moment and maybe unpack some different specific ways that our union with Christ affects the way that we relate to other people, whether that be specific temptations that we might face that it addresses, personalities we bring to the relational table, if you will, or situations that we can encounter where our union with Christ,when we're having that cultivated in our hearts by the Spirit, just has a different kind of effect.

I think it's helped me be less defensive. I think about often in mothering, like I have, I invite my children to give me feedback. Like I want them to experience what I'm doing in care of them for it to land on them as love. And every once in a while I'll hear, “Mom, I don't like it when,” right? And so I can be like, “Thank you for telling me that. That's really important. I want to know you better versus, well, I made that decision because da da da, right?” Like it's so easy, right? When you're pouring out all your energy and you've made what you think are deliberate decisions. And then someone comes to you and says, I don't like it when. You don't have to be defensive. You can just be really open and receptive to that feedback. And then obviously as a parent, you're having to be discerning with that information. But to me, when there's that level, it allows other people to give you feedback. And there's a vulnerability that the union with Christ takes away. I don't have to feel vulnerable. I don't have to feel defensive. Because again, I feel secure in the Lord. And even if I've messed up here, I feel secure in the Lord. And I know I have a way that the Lord is going to make it right. I don't have to labor there. I can accept his sanctification of me through the process. So I've just noticed it's made me far less defensive, and just opened up some really honest, I think, important conversations in the very ordinary moments of life, right? Sometimes it's like, “Mom, I don't like when you tap your nails on the table.” And other times it's like, “I don't like when you remind me of this,” you know? So it's just really, I found a sweetness in that. And then being able to even invite that into counseling hours or discipleship hours, asking people for feedback, you know? How do you think these conversations are going? It just allows me to hear hard things about myself or other people's preferences. Yeah.

I think one thing I've appreciated reflecting on lately in the context of relationships is I feel like union with Christ gives the ability to move towards courageous things that relationships often require of us. Even just the courage to be the one to apologize first or the courageous thing of moving towards forgiveness, even if bitterness and resentment feel safer, or even wanting to choose what feels more like self-preserving rather than doing what is generous unto another person. There are so many ways that I want to protect myself and my life and wellbeing and that comes out in how I relate to others. And it takes so much courage to move towards some of these things to take that risk in relationships, not knowing how it will go, not knowing how it will be received, not knowing if it will be this amazing outcome at the end of it. But what I really appreciate in union with Christ is that the pattern that Jesus went through of dying and being raised to life, that pattern of death to resurrection, being united to Christ means that we also get to partake in that pattern. And so in the mini deaths that relationships require,there's courage to allow myself to die to myself, knowing that there is resurrection life on the other side of it. That death does not have final say over what I'm doing in this relationship right now, but that none of those courageous acts, if done in faith and done in this desire to honor Christ and reflect him in relationships, will be wasted, even if it's not necessarily the favorable outcome that I would hope for horizontally in relationships. So I think having that hope undergirding, doing hard things in relationships that I know are good for the relationship and good for my soul, it gives, yeah, just an added courage to say it's worth it. Relationships are unpredictable, but what is predictable is that the Lord uses those sacrifices and those forgiveness and those apologies and those acts of humility and generosity for good, even if I can't see it now. And I just really appreciate knowing that death and those deaths, many deaths that I choose to walk in and relationships sometimes don't get final say.

I think union with Christ in relationships, it helps to explain the pain a little bit for me. You know, when there is tension in relationships, when there is a fracturing or a distance within the body of Christ or among believers, it's actually a really beautiful reminder of why that is hard because we actually in Christ are united to one another and we have the shared story, the shared grace, the shared community.

And then we have this shared future, this trajectory that's gonna result in this shared glory. So it just helps remind me of that and helps bind up some of those wounds to say we are headed someplace different than what we might be experiencing or feeling right now. And that also helps me just reconsider: “How I can reengage with any number of situations or people where it feels like that distance is there, or it feels like a fracture is beginning, or it feels like there's something that can't be overcome, maybe a chasm that's developed over time?” And it's a reminder that that will not always be there. What does it mean to kind of live in the kind of the already not yet and to work with God's grace?

in the same direction that he's ultimately going to lead us and to lead me. And I'm really grateful for that because I just know that while at times it can feel like it would be more convenient or it would be easier if I wasn't in this or that relationship, that it often just draws me back and says, actually with his fellow believer is this is a family relationship and this is a permanent relationship and it's such a sweet reminder even when it’s challenging. I'd rather navigate those things with my church and with my Christian friends and with my fellow relationships than I would just sink back in isolation thinking that would be better. That's just such a lie from the Evil One that an alone journey is going to be the better path, even when there are separations that have to happen, there are distances that sometimes have to be there for various principled or protective reasons. There's still this fundamental reality that's good for me to be reminded of, that isolation is not God's intention for his family.

As you're talking, Gunner, it's making me also think about because of our union, it makes sense of why church hurt is very painful because it shouldn't be and we know it shouldn't be and it should be a place where we all are belonging to one another. And when I get hurt in my church, it feels far more intense than when it does outside of my church. Right. So it also explains why some of those relationships sting a little bit more, even when the offenses are less, or why when, you you don't get invited to something that everybody else is invited to church, like being outside belonging in church can feel more difficult because it shouldn't be that way, right? So I think it helps us actually make sense of our own way that we're hurt in our Christian friendships and relationships. We hurt, at least I'm hurt differently than by what I'm relating to my non-Christian friends.

Yeah, it's like the package itself could look small, objectively speaking, but it's actually really sharp and it's really weighty because of the relationship that actually does exist positionally. Like what we share in this family is not coming true and sometimes the opposite. I think it's a great observation.

As we move towards the conclusion here, are there specific ways or general ways in which you would say, “Here's how maybe I try to cultivate that awareness of my union with Christ, or here are some situations where I'm reminded of it and it's helpful.” What are some ways that we can be conscious of this as we move through life and are wrestling through different relationships?

Yeah, I, one way I've tried to help myself is even just thinking of like the post-COVID years in church, right? There's not always a lot of harmony even among members about whether it's political matters or, you know, all sorts of things that came to the surface that are now in churches that we didn't really discuss front and center. It just helped me to think no belonging is more important than harmony over all these issues. So it's helped me kind of just focus on “how do I make this, how do I treat people in such a way that they feel that they belong to the body of Christ?” And that, yeah, so it's actually changed functionally about the things that get my attention or the ability to tolerate more differences.

I think one of the things I've always experienced in church is we're very good at, I call them little pods, right? Like all the moms with young children, all the people of the same class, all the people of the same race. We, you know, we tend to, at least in my experience of the American church, we tend to self-segregate. I don't think we're necessarily doing it on purpose, but we're just most comfortable with people who are most like us, right? And if we think about it,”How do I want to bring a sense of belonging to people who aren't like me?” And one of the ways is not just, you know, overlooking some of those less important differences, but it's also for me, it's noticing the people on the fringe. How do I bring them into that sense of belonging? So I think it's really kind of even changed how I think about how I spend my time on a Sunday morning or who I'm following up with during the week, where my conversations are. Yeah, where I'm bringing people into conversations. What are we talking about? How am I encouraging them in their walk? 

I recently heard a sermon and one of the statements that was said was, “If you follow Christ, you will follow Christ.” Essentially, yeah, if you follow him, you will follow him in some of the terrain that he had to navigate. And yeah, even just those like deaths or many deaths, dying to self, etc. Sacrifice, love, costly love: as believers, we're going to be familiar with some of that because if we follow Christ, we will follow Christ. But then the pastor followed up with that refrain with the additional line, “If you follow Christ, you follow Christ, but look at Christ.” And I just remember when I heard that in the sermon, it was so powerful because yes, there is this like, yes, you'll have to die to self and you'll have to move towards others and you know, the Christian life is hard and obedience sometimes is really hard and costly and all of these things. But look at Christ. And that was such a good reminder for me these last weeks of how do I continue to look at Christ? Not just what I have to do as a Christian, not just what I'm supposed to do as a Christian, not just the list of here are the things that make a good Christian and how do I be better at that. But the Christian life, so much of it, is looking at Christ. And when I see Christ, when I look at him, I see someone who moves towards others first. He initiates. I do see someone who moves to the people who are on the fringes, like you said, Darby. I see someone who cares about the least of these. I see someone who loves even when he doesn't get that much in return, defying the transactional view that we can have in relationships or default to in relationships. There are just so many things that when I spend time looking at Christ, not just thinking of how do I obey him? How do I reflect him? How do I do this better? When I look to him, when I spend time to allow my soul to steep in that, it invigorates and empowers some of these costly relational moves that are often asked and are required in order to have relationships that are fruitful and constructive. I have appreciated that reminder and that undergirding that so much of this, and so much of moving well in relationships is not just figuring out the horizontal, but also figuring out “How do I immerse myself in beholding the beauty of my Savior?” That’s just been a personal encouragement to me the last few weeks. 

Really beautiful reflections. Makes me really thankful that you're both my sisters in Christ and we have this permanent relationship in the Lord and with our other brothers and sisters that we can enjoy and grow from. I just want to end with the summary that Darby shared at the beginning. Union with Christ means that our truest relationship is already secure and that security becomes the soil from which all other relationships grow. And our prayer as we go would be that as believers we can live deeply, deeply in that security and, out of that, love well like our savior. Thanks for joining us.