The world is truly amazing; we live in a world where we can talk to someone on the other side of the globe almost instantaneously. Communication has never been so simple or readily accessible as it is today. We have our regular phones, fax machines, cell phones, satellite phones, email, tele-conferencing, text messaging, oh yeah and if you want there is still the US Postal Service. No offense to any Postal Workers. The world around us has gotten smaller and smaller because we are able to communicate with more people around the world at any given time than at any other time in the history of man-kind. There are literally hundreds of nations around the world and we can learn about any one of them just by logging onto the internet. We know more about how people live around the world than ever before, and yet somehow we as a people have isolated ourselves like no other time in history.
In the 80’s the mantra was “Its all about me.”
In the 90’s it was, “I don’t have enough.”
Today it seems to be “Mind your own business.” or “I don’t need your troubles”
Over the last few weeks I have begun to read an concentrate on God’s Covenant with Abraham. Here is a portion of the dialogue between God and Abraham.
Genesis 26:3-4
Reside in this land as an alien, and I will be with you, and will bless you; for to you and to your descendants I will give all these lands, and I will fulfill the oath that I swore to your father Abraham. 4 I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven, and will give to your offspring all these lands; and all the nations of the earth shall gain blessing for themselves through your offspring,
I used to read this much like the Jewish people of old did; God made a covenant with Abraham that Abraham and his descendants would be blessed and be God’s chosen people to be exalted above all others, and their nation would be praised by the other nations. Reading the Covenant this way causes us trouble when we read later on in the Old Testament that God was angry at the Jews, and that he abhorred all of their sacrifices. I could never quite make sense of why God was angry with the Jews for obeying the Law, and sticking to it.
The Jews were even abandoned by God, when he left the Temple. One of the prophets writes that God walked out of Jerusalem, angry with his bridesmaid. What could Israel have done so wrong that God would up and leave his chosen people?
And then it began to occur to me, God was mad at his chosen people because they forgot what they were chosen for.
Isaiah 66:18
18 For I know their works and their thoughts, and I am coming to gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come and shall see my glory, 19 and I will set a sign among them. From them I will send survivors to the nations, to Tarshish, Put, and Lud—which draw the bow—to Tubal and Javan, to the coastlands far away that have not heard of my fame or seen my glory; and they shall declare my glory among the nations. 20 They shall bring all your kindred from all the nations as an offering to the LORD, on horses, and in chariots, and in litters, and on mules, and on dromedaries, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, says the LORD, just as the Israelites bring a grain offering in a clean vessel to the house of the LORD. 21 And I will also take some of them as priests and as Levites, says the LORD.
Israel wasn’t chosen to be the jewel in God’s crown, they were chosen to be vessels of God’s love to the nations. They were chosen to praise God to the nations, so that the nations would turn and give praise to God themselves. But, what ended up happening was that the Jewish people began to keep all of the blessings for themselves. They began to ignore those around them, they sought positions of power and they longed for the day when God would place them as rulers over all the nations. They had taken God’s promises and misunderstood them to the point where they thought that the world existed to serve them when in reality they existed to serve the world.
Isaiah 49:5-6
And now the LORD says,
who formed me in the womb to be his servant,
to bring Jacob back to him,
and that Israel might be gathered to him,
for I am honored in the sight of the LORD,
and my God has become my strength—
6 he says,
“It is too light a thing that you should be my servant
to raise up the tribes of Jacob
and to restore the survivors of Israel;
I will give you as a light to the nations,
that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”
It was not God’s intentions to save only Israel, his intentions were that the chosen people were to show the nations God’s salvation and that through them all nations might be saved.
This is why Jesus was so confusing to them, they couldn’t understand what he was saying.
Love your neighbor, doesn’t make sense when the blessings are for you.
Love your enemy doesn’t make sense when your enemy is to be your footstool.
It doesn’t make sense to share all that you have been blessed with to the needy if you are receiving blessings because of your own righteousness, and they are being withheld because of unrighteousness.
It doesn’t make sense to die at the hands of the oppressors, none of what Jesus said and did makes any sense unless we understand that God’s purpose was not to redeem one people but instead to redeem all people.
Some may be saying, “Ok, that’s great but what does this have to do with me?”
I have a question for you…
Are you sure you want to know?
Remember when I started? And how I talked about global communication? Do you remember me saying “somehow we as a people have isolated ourselves like no other time in history”?
Do you still really want to know what all this has to do with you?
I ask this question because as I think back, I wonder if I really wanted to know the answer for myself.
For me it all boils down to four little words that mean so much: “Live For The Other”
Everything that Jesus ever taught us through scripture is revolved around this little sentence. “Life for the Other.”
Everything that we are called to do in ministry can be summed up in this little sentence “Live For the Other”.
Some may think that this sounds like a catchy little slogan that we can put on wrist bands and show the world how much we love Jesus. To Live For The Other is not something that we wear, its not even something that we say; instead it is something that we live, or love. Because Living for the Other is born completely out of loving the other.
At first these words seem so simple, but when we begin to put them into action we begin to find out how difficult they really are. I wonder what it would look like if each of our lives was focused on loving every person that we came into contact with throughout the day?
What does it look like to love the unwed mother?
What does it look like to love those who make bad decisions for their family?
What does it look like to love the hurting?
What does it look like to love
What would that really look like to go beyond simply saying that we will pray for you?
In James, we read that love is not found in simply saying, “be warm and well fed”. Instead it is found in active love for the hungry and cold.
Giving your food to the hungry, and not the stuff that you just don’t want anymore. Giving your clothes to the cold, and not just the stuff that’s too small and worn out.
Giving your time to those who are hurting, lending them your ear and your shoulder.
for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.
Remember God’s wish that Israel would show God’s love to the nations? Well, we are not exempt from that, in fact that same call is echoed in the New Testament, or the New Covenant. Jesus died that we might have salvation and be his chosen people through grace, and our call is to
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.
We are not here for our own good, we are here to Live For The Other.
