The End of Gravity
"If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you." John 15:19
God’s people are set apart. They have always been set apart.
In the days of the Old Testament, God’s people bore a mark that set them apart. The men were circumcised. It was a physical mark, because God’s people were determined by an inherited attribute, descendants of Abraham, descendants of Jacob. Ethnically members of the nation of Israel.
After the cross, the Gospel was made available to everyone, Jews and gentiles, to all the nations. So the determination of belonging to God’s people is no longer a genetic inheritance, nor is the mark a physical one. Circumcision of the flesh is no longer required, it no longer means anything.
But we are still set apart, and we do still bear a mark. A spiritual mark as opposed to a physical mark, a circumcision not of the flesh, but of the heart.
Jesus teaches that his followers are set apart by drawing a very clear contrast between his followers and the world. In John 15:19, he says “If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.”
Jesus’ Kingdom is not of this world (Jn 18:36), so when we put our faith in Jesus, we relinquish our citizenship of this world and take up our new citizenship of Heaven, Jesus’ Kingdom. This leads Paul to admonish us not to be conformed to this world, but be transformed (Rm 12:2).
Brothers and sisters in Christ, it is clear: We are no longer of this world. So why would we live according to its rules?
If we are not of this world, then think about those American astronauts who walked on the moon. The way they moved about, because the gravitational pull of the moon is so much weaker than that of the Earth.
We Christians should move on the Earth like those astronauts on the moon, like this world’s gravitational pull doesn’t affect us in the same way as the rest of the world. And people around us should be left wondering why it is that we seem so unaffected by the world’s laws of physics, it should be that visible! That is a real challenge to us and the way we live out our faith.
Can you say that you live in such a way that people are left wondering why the world does not affect you the way it affects the rest of humanity? You should.
Because the rules of this world no longer apply to us, they no longer impact us… we are no longer living in the fear of man, the empty promises of this world no longer tempt us in Christ.
Our sinful nature is excised out of our heart. Because when we come to faith and accept Jesus as our Lord and saviour, we die with Jesus, just as he died on the cross, and just as he was resurrected, so are we resurrected to a new life, with a new circumcised heart, a heart from which sinful desires have been cut out. We now live with a heart that no longer beats to be satisfied by sinful impulses and desires, but that beats for Christ, to love him and to do what he loves.
Do not be conformed to this world, in Christ you have been equipped with the Holy Spirit to withstand the notions of success and failure of this world. You have been granted an escape hatch for every temptation (1 Cor. 10:13). In Christ, you are able to slip the bonds of gravity.