From me to you Part 4: There is no us and them
CONTEXT: Jesus was a Jew. He was born in a Jewish context. He descended from the line of David. His father was the one true God, the God of the Jewish nation, the God who delivered the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt during the Exodus and let them to the Promised Land. When the people struggled to follow God’s way, God sent messengers, prophets to remind the people of how to live in relationship with God. They spoke of a coming Messiah who would deliver and lead the people to new life in God. Jesus was that Messiah. He announced a new kingdom, a new way to live in relationship with God.
Many Jews refused to accept Jesus as the Messiah. But those who did follow him were the first Jewish Christians. They continued to live within the Jewish tradition and follow the Jewish laws, but now had a new understanding of how to live by following the example and teaching of Jesus and being filled with the new life of Jesus, the resurrection power, the promised Holy Spirit.
During his life here on earth, Jesus made it clear that this new life in this new kingdom was for all people everywhere. What had started within the Jewish tradition was to spread out across the whole earth. And so many people who were not Jews – they were all described as Gentiles – began to turn to Jesus and become followers of his way. These were the Gentile Christians.
In Rome, there was a mix of Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians. And whenever there is a mix of people from different backgrounds and traditions, there is the potential for division and disagreement and conflict.
EXCERPT: Romans 2:17-4:25
FROM ME TO YOU:
Let’s be clear here. There is no us and them. None of us are any better than anyone else. We may feel that we are: that we were born in a Christian nation, in a Christian family maybe; that we’re part of a church tradition that believes it’s got it all ‘more right’ than all the others; that we do faith in a way that we believe is the right way and that others are in some way inferior…does anyone know what I’m talking about?
I’ve heard people describing some Christians as more spiritual than others. But they’re just looking at the outside. And people can have it all sorted on the outside and look so good to others and yet their heart is not right with God. They put all their efforts in looking like a good Christian that they forget it’s all about relationship with God.
It’s so easy to look at other people and judge them for the way they behave. ‘They can’t be a proper Christian if…’ We tell them what they should and shouldn’t do. We place restrictions on them. We don’t let them work out what their faith looks like for them in their life. We spend so much time and energy being concerned with how other people are living the Christian life that we neglect to develop our own relationship with God.
Here’s a bit of twisted thinking for you. If God loves to forgive and show mercy, then the more we do wrong, the more opportunity He has to show us His grace and love. Let’s never fall into the trap of thinking this way, of testing God’s patience, of taking His grace and mercy for granted.
All of us have messed up, that’s true enough. There is no us and them. We’ve all wanted to go our own way, rather than God’s way. I was brought up on this verse from Paul’s letter to the Romans – ‘for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God’. My unworthiness was drummed into me from a very young age. The problem was that no one ever shared with me the second part of that sentence – ‘and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus’. That’s the good news. We don’t have to do anything to earn God’s favour. We can’t. That’s the point. In Jesus, God changed everything. All we need to do is acknowledge that and live in the light of this truth.
That’s faith. Believing in God’s promises to us. Believing that the life and death and resurrection of Jesus changed everything. Believing that God has power to do what he’s promised – bring us into new life with Him, a forever life that starts right now.
Yours,
Hx
