Not of This World

Daniel 9:4-14; Matthew 9:4-13; 1^st John 5:6-12

Rev. Chris Harbin, Rocks Baptist Church—Pamplin, VA

26 September 2004

It is hard to evaluate our lives apart from the society in which we live. We naturally take our cues of what is important from the world around us. When we hear Jesus’ call of "Follow me," we most naturally try to fit that call within the parameters of life as we already know it. What does it really mean to follow Christ? How can we live in this world and yet not belong to it? What does being a disciple of Christ mean in the 21^st Century?

As Daniel reflected upon the exile, he was able to see how God had warned the nations of Israel and Judah of their impending exile. He could review their actions as a nation in years past and see how the people had ignored God’s direction for them. Daniel could recognize God’s words in the mouths of the prophets of long ago. He could see the warnings that Elijah, Isaiah, Amos, and others had issued. Daniel recognized the nation’s sin in not following God’s will, but allowing the nations around to dictate how Israel and Judah would proceed. He recognized that the exile crisis they were living through was the result of their failure to look to Yahweh for direction. They had traded God’s ways for the ways of the nations round about.

Daniel could easily have laid the blame at the feet of the leaders of the nation—the kings and rulers who had held power over the people. After all, they were no democracy, but had developed into a monarchy as the nations around them. It would have been easy enough to blame the leaders in order to exempt the nation as a whole. Daniel overcame that temptation. He knew better. Daniel was aware that there was a collective guilt behind the decisions and direction of the leaders of the people. Even in a harsh dictatorship, there is some element of decision by the people.

Oh, they had not made the decisions, but they had allowed for them. They had lived within the direction their ungodly kings had established. They had joined in the worship of the fertility idols, the occult practices of the other nations, and the feasts to foreign gods. We might answer that the populace did not have the power to speak and contest the direction of the kings of Israel and Judah. Deep down, we recognize that for one to lead, others must follow. Corporate guilt is not a concept that we relish in our individualistic society. Regardless, it is part of the reality of life.

Israel and Judah had assumed their corporate guilt, for the nations had not stood up to their leaders and served Yahweh. Rather than seek to Yahweh’s direction, they looked upon the power structures that their kings had devised. They focused their attention on the strength of an organized army, bronze and iron weapons, wealth, and the possibilities of alliances with other nations. In all this focus on the symbols of military power, they failed to look to Yahweh, Who had brought them into being. Rather than remaining a nation of priests in accord with their commission, they had modeled themselves after the nations and the greed of their own internal power structures. They were not content to trust Yahweh’s presence, love, and direction. They looked to their own devices to determine their course. They had chosen the path of the nations, rather than the path of Yahweh.

When Jesus forgave the paralytic’s sins, he recognized the tumult His words had caused. He knew that the Scribes questioned His authority to forgive. Daniel had recognized that forgiveness belonged to God, and God alone. The Scribes understood not only that forgiveness of sin was a Divine privilege, they also believed that God did not grant forgiveness lightly. To counter the error and demonstrate God’s willingness to forgive, Jesus commanded the paralytic to take up his mat and walk. The people went into shock. They were not so much in shock that the man was healed, as they were shocked that God was not as stingy as they had believed. They took their cues on forgiveness from society, rather than the testimony of the Scriptures they purported to study and believe. Jesus challenged them to exchange the God of their thinking for the God of eternity.

Jesus called Matthew to leave his lucrative business and follow Him, instead. His was a call to renounce the ways of the world and begin life anew. It was a challenge of faith. He would have to trust that even one considered by his people as a traitor could be forgiven and accepted into God’s service. Political traitors are not dealt with in the kindest of terms anywhere in human history. The Jews who served as tax collectors were considered as carpet-baggers of the American West. They worked for irresponsible personal gain at the expense of others. How could a tax collector expect God’s forgiveness when the nation would be so loathe to accept and forgive?

Much as Jesus’ dealings with the paralytic, Jesus wanted to focus the attention of the disciples upon things the world most generally ignored or deemed impossible. He turned their attention away from the mundane and onto the eternal. His radical concept of forgiveness wreaked havoc on popular doctrinal understanding. While in the world, they were to live according to a different kind of principle. They were to live as though they did not belong to this world. Matthew was to leave behind his lucrative business, but also definitions of his own worth. He was to allow God to chart an altogether new course for his life—new meaning and new reality.

Near the end of his first epistle, John wrote of a different witness within the believer. He wrote of the internal witness of the Breath of the Holy One. He reminded the believers that trusting Christ Jesus gives us a different quality of life—the life of the ages. This new life runs by a set of rules that are not the same as the rules of the world around us. He has written much about the love of Christ Jesus, forgiveness, and the unity of the body of believers under the love we experience from God in Christ. Now John reminds us of a different witness and different course for daily living. We are in the world, but we are called to live by a new set of rules—a new reality, a new understanding. We are to live the "life of the ages"—a new quality of life that can last through eternity.

John speaks of God’s testimony as greater than human witness. He wants us to remember that God is worthy to direct the path of our lives. Even so, he recognizes that we are wont to follow the testimony and direction of frail humanity around us. We know better, but we too easily forget to pattern our lives after God’s will. It is no struggle to allow society to pull us along. To follow God’s direction might be a little more demanding. We have to be willing to take a different course.

Jesus, Daniel, and John ask us to live according to a different reality. They call us to live in accordance with God’s call upon our lives. They challenge us to allow room for God’s definition of reality, power, and control. The charge us with standing firm in the midst of a host of voices that have little room for love, forgiveness, peace, and mercy. They invite us to live in this world, but not of it. Rather than living as the world around us, we are to live as beacons of love, grace, mercy, and forgiveness. Where will we look for our marching orders? Shall we follow Christ Jesus or the gospel of the society around us?

—©2004 Christopher B. Harbin

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