Outsiders: Called


Every now and then the human population plays Fruit Basket Turnover!  War, famine, environmental changes, and other factors lead to large groups of people moving from one place to another.  We live in such a time!

With such movement comes tension and unrest.  Nationalist and anti-immigrant movements are growing in America and Europe as people from different countries and ethnic groups flee from their home countries.  Fear of the alien and stranger is growing.  

That's why we're starting a worship unit on Outsiders.  The Bible speaks often about the alien and stranger.

One of the earliest confessions of faith of Israel begins with the statement, "You father was a wandering Aramean."  (Deut. 25:6-9).  This refers to Abraham, whom God called to live as an alien in Canaan.  Abraham followed that call, living a semi-nomadic life, moving from place to place in Canaan to find pasture for his flocks and herds.  This awareness of their beginnings and their slavery in Egypt led the Israelites to be sensitive to the needs of aliens and strangers.  Deut. 10:18-19 said they were to love the alien because God loved him.

Abraham wasn't the only one to follow God's call in this way.  In Hebrews 11:1ff, the writer lists a number of heroes in faith.  He says of them that they lived as aliens and strangers on the earth, looking for a better country, a heavenly one.  

Jesus prayed his followers would be in the world, but not of it (John 17:15-16).  The apostle Peter called Christ followers to live as strangers here in reverent fear (1 Peter 1:17).

The beginning of thinking about outsiders is to see that God calls all his people to live as outsiders to this world.  They're not to get too cozy in this world, adopting its attitudes and actions.

It's easy for us Americans to get comfortable in this world.  We have so much!  The values of the world infect and influence us in more ways than we realize.  

But God calls us to remember that this world isn't our final home.  He wants us to be in this world, being Christ's hands and feet, but he wants us to live by the values of his coming kingdom.  Not strange, but living as aliens and strangers, from a better world yet to come!

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