there is no "IN" crowd
High school. No, junior high really. Well, maybe even elementary school. Yeah, probably there....that's where it starts. That sense of, "THEY are the IN people." It's that realization that there are those who have all the social perks in life: money, good looks, talent, intelligence (to some degree), maybe even a family with a well-known name. And it doesn't take long for you to figure out if you are one of them.
I was always somewhere in the middle. If there is such a category. But two things always bugged me about this unspoken social hierarchy:
1) That there was even such a thing. I mean who made it up? Some "IN" group of people from long
ago?
2) Why wasn't I "IN" it? Was there any way to breach the boundaries and get in? Was I doomed to the
fate of one who was eternally not "IN?"
We have daughters who are dealing with these same issues right now. And they don't even go to a school: they're homeschooled. But unfortunately, these issues can creep into the church too. Especially among the teens or young adults. And yet, here's the thing, inside the gospel, there is no room for this system of thinking. We were ALL outsiders. There was only one insider: Jesus. We could never hope to be in the "inner ring" with him, the one who truly and soley matters. "In this way: on the cross," Dane Ortlund writes, "the one true insider became an outsider so that you and I, who are naturally born outsiders, can freely get inside."
How should this gospel affect our view of people? Wow. For starters, it turns all our human thinking on it's head, thank goodness. We, of all people, should know better than to exclude anybody from our "IN" group. We were all outsiders, in the worst, most damning sense, until Jesus gave his life for us and invited us in. Any division of who's "IN" inside the church is a complete anti-gospel thought pattern. And even as we look outside the church, there is no room for making judgements about who may or may not ever darken the door of our Sunday meeting, be converted, and become one of God's elect. That too, is anti-gospel thinking. This is serious business. Jesus, referring to Peter as he tried to talk him out of suffering and being killed, said "Get behind me Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man." Matt. 16:23
Whoa. These are strong, serious words from Jesus. Curtis Allen, a pastor whom I mentioned in my last post, said that if we examine these words, we see that Christ is really saying all thought contrary to gospel-minded thinking is not just wrong, but Satanic. I see it, do you? Seemingly harmless, man-centered ways of thinking....yet if you follow them to their core, they reek of Satan, the prince of this world. Division, comparison, self-righteousness, grouping according to money, looks, power...these are all his little subtle ways of tearing down unity that Christ died go give us.
May we all turn from these twisted ways of thinking and behold the One who chose to be an outsider, that we may be with God eternally. And may we tear down any false thinking in our own minds that elevate what man thinks over what our Eternal Father has done for you, "As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ." I Pet. 2:4-5
I was always somewhere in the middle. If there is such a category. But two things always bugged me about this unspoken social hierarchy:
1) That there was even such a thing. I mean who made it up? Some "IN" group of people from long
ago?
2) Why wasn't I "IN" it? Was there any way to breach the boundaries and get in? Was I doomed to the
fate of one who was eternally not "IN?"
We have daughters who are dealing with these same issues right now. And they don't even go to a school: they're homeschooled. But unfortunately, these issues can creep into the church too. Especially among the teens or young adults. And yet, here's the thing, inside the gospel, there is no room for this system of thinking. We were ALL outsiders. There was only one insider: Jesus. We could never hope to be in the "inner ring" with him, the one who truly and soley matters. "In this way: on the cross," Dane Ortlund writes, "the one true insider became an outsider so that you and I, who are naturally born outsiders, can freely get inside."
How should this gospel affect our view of people? Wow. For starters, it turns all our human thinking on it's head, thank goodness. We, of all people, should know better than to exclude anybody from our "IN" group. We were all outsiders, in the worst, most damning sense, until Jesus gave his life for us and invited us in. Any division of who's "IN" inside the church is a complete anti-gospel thought pattern. And even as we look outside the church, there is no room for making judgements about who may or may not ever darken the door of our Sunday meeting, be converted, and become one of God's elect. That too, is anti-gospel thinking. This is serious business. Jesus, referring to Peter as he tried to talk him out of suffering and being killed, said "Get behind me Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man." Matt. 16:23
Whoa. These are strong, serious words from Jesus. Curtis Allen, a pastor whom I mentioned in my last post, said that if we examine these words, we see that Christ is really saying all thought contrary to gospel-minded thinking is not just wrong, but Satanic. I see it, do you? Seemingly harmless, man-centered ways of thinking....yet if you follow them to their core, they reek of Satan, the prince of this world. Division, comparison, self-righteousness, grouping according to money, looks, power...these are all his little subtle ways of tearing down unity that Christ died go give us.
May we all turn from these twisted ways of thinking and behold the One who chose to be an outsider, that we may be with God eternally. And may we tear down any false thinking in our own minds that elevate what man thinks over what our Eternal Father has done for you, "As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ." I Pet. 2:4-5
This. is so. good.
ReplyDeleteAs someone who has often felt like an outsider, I can fool myself into thinking that *I* would never exclude others from my own group... but I do. That impulse to divide and judge lies within us all.