It's Not About Us

The lie has been passed down from the beginning. The lie is, as Matt Chandler put it, that "my life is a story about me." Our natural, sinful, selfish tendency is to believe that in some way, shape or form.

The first chapter of Stephen Neill's History of Christian Missions illuminates the probable motives of the first-century Jewish leaders in a way I had never before considered. But we must first understand something I did not until fairly recently, that God's ideal for Israel was to tbe a light to the nations.

It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel; I will make you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth. (Isaiah 49:16)

But instead of seeking to be used by God for this purpose, most of the Jewish leaders in Christ's day were seeking to use God for their purposes. They believed the Messiah would come and conquer their oppressors, the Romans, and give them positions of honor and power (even the disciples believed this, consider James and John asking to sit on Christ's right and left). Two verses from the Old Testament that were very popular in this day and were used to justify this belief were as follows:

And many peoples shall come, and say: "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths." For out of Zion shall go the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. (Isaiah 2:3)

In those days ten men from the nations of every tongue shall take hold of the robe of a Jew, saying, "Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you." (Zechariah 8:23)

As Christians, we should seek to understand the entire Bible in light of the cross (the gospel hermeneutic), and it doesn't take much imagination to see that these two verses are referring to the time of Jesus. But how would a first-century ruler of the Jews had viewed such verses? I imagine a pious, religious elite daydreaming of some Roman oppressor or Greek scoffer coming to him and pleading, "Now that your Messiah has conquered us, please teach me how to be more like yourself. You and your people were right all along, so I consent now to follow the law and do whatever it takes to become Jewish."

Stephen Neill says it better than I could: "The death of Jesus, and the resurrection which followed it, determined the whole future destiny of the people of God. Jesus alone, by his obedience to God to the uttermost, fulfilled the destiny of Israel...The purpose of God was now to go forward through a new Israel, called into being through faith in Jesus Christ, the chief characteristic of which was to be its willingness to die and to rise again with him. The day of the Gentiles had come. The door was still open to all Israelites who would accept and believe; but, for Jew and Gentile alike, the only entry now was through faith in Jesus Christ."

In other words, one of the things that was so offensive to the religious leaders of Jesus' time was the thought that the Messiah would come to put Jews and Gentiles on an even plain. They had assumed that the Messiah would raise their religious status, not (in their eyes) lower it. So, in the gospels, the religious leaders angrily fight against the Kingdom Jesus is proclaiming. In Acts and the Epistles (especially Galatians), we see that even those Jews who had accepted the resurrection as true still struggled with what was required of Gentiles to become part of the people of God. The disillusionment of the Jews is apparent when they finally realized Gentiles did not have to become Jewish as they were. "There is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." (Gal. 3:28)

The disillusionment of the first century Jewish leaders was that it wasn't about them; it is about Christ. They were a chosen people, chosen to bring salvation (the Hebrew name for Jesus, Yeshua, is derived from the word salvation!) to all the nations of the world.

Lest I sound anti-Semitic, let me go back to the beginning: the lie that it's about us has been passed down from the beginning, and continues to be. We see this in history with the abuses of the church in the Middle Ages, asserting its own authority as opposed that of Christ. We see this lie played out in the historical tendency of Christians to want to reign over culture by means of national government. These tendencies sadly still persist today. In fact, there is perhaps no culture that has swallowed this lie more enthusiastically than our own. I will consider three ways, besides those just mentioned, that Christians today, specifically Western, Evangelical Christians (for, if anyone reads this, he/she will likely be such) have believed the lie that it is about them.

The error of the religious leaders is nothing more than a first-century prosperity gospel..."the Messiah will come to bring your best life now!" The prosperity gospel is not new, and Jesus did not come so that you could have power or glory or wealth at your disposal. He came that to himself he might reconcile all things (Col. 1:20). Seek to be used by God for his purposes and stop using God for yours. The ironic thing is that when we do "seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness", we will be most fulfilled and blessed by God. But it is impossible to seek first the kingdom of God in order to get the blessings of God, for that would be to seek first the blessings of God.

We make it about us and not about Christ when we start to believe we are worthy or bettern than others due to our good works. A young preacher (I don't even know his name) said something several years ago that stuck with me..."God is not impressed by the sins you abstain from." I would add that God's not impressed by what you do either (see Isaiah 64:6). So often, the tendency is to compare our sins and good deeds to those of others and think that God is impressed. The reality is that God himself came to earth, was "made like his brothers (mankind) in every respect" (Heb. 2:17), and in every respect conquered where we failed. Next time you feel you are pretty righteous, compare yourself to that example. Then, with a broken spirit and a contrite heart (Ps 51:17), trust in the perfect life Christ lived on your behalf (2 Cor. 5:21).

The last way we have made American Evangelical Christianity about us and not Christ is by focusing on our role in salvation. The vast majority of self-identified Christians I talk to believe they are going to heaven, "because I...". If you are going to heaven, it is "because Jesus" died on the cross for your sins. What did you do? Nothing. You had faith, which Ephesians 2:8 explains is a gift from God. So many Christian youth center their theology on a few memorized phrases, all with the emphasis on what they did..."I made a decision to follow Christ, I accepted Christ, I prayed to receive Christ." I'm not saying these concepts aren't in the Bible; I'm saying the emphasis is in the wrong place, on us and not Christ, what John Piper calls "man-centered theology". When this is the emphasis for their salvation, it will naturally be the emphasis as they attempt to live out their faith. They will see their right standing before God based on what they have done or have not done.

When we start thinking it's about us and not about Christ, we risk missing the Kingdom of God altogether, as was the case for many of the Jewish leaders. The beautiful thing about the cross is that it covers all sins, should we truly trust in the one who bore it, including our own selfishness and self-righteousness, and changes our perspectives of who we are and who He is so to rid us of these evils.

What is the cure for all this self-absorption? Find something better, more valuable, than yourself. Tim Keller describes worship as "ascribing infinite value to something." In the quote from Stephen Neill earlier, he identifies the chief characteristic of faith as the "willingness to die and rise again with (Jesus)". We will only do these things when we realize that Christ is of infinite value! Read of him in God's Word, pray for the Holy Spirit to reveal him and to allow you to see him as he truly is! My prayer for you all is that you "may have the strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with the fullness of God." (Eph. 3:18-19) To comprehend his love, we need look no further than the cross.