Built to be Itself
Car folks tend to get worked up over a car’s utility. If someone isn’t driving their car to its fullest potential, wow does that get under our skin. Got an off-roader? You’re probably asked, “How often do you take it off-road?” Or, have a supercar with a double-digit cylinder count? Someone will ask how often you track it, or how fast you’ve driven it. Got an amphibious car? Well, you get the point. If you have one of these purpose-built cars, and your use of it doesn’t satisfy a person’s standards for using it, they disapprove. The implication here is that you don’t deserve it, or you’re owning the car incorrectly, or you perhaps don’t belong among other owners of that car.
Where do these standards come from? Did, say, Toyota make 4Runner buyers sign a contract restricting use to activities that look good on a football game commercial? Of course not. Like many things, these standards are contrived – constructed – from ideals based on a person’s inward opinions and personal experiences, and projected onto other people.
There’s a long history of this, some of which is recorded in the Bible. Very early on in the history of the early church, some believers who once were Pharisees tried to apply standards from Mosaic times to other new believers. Some of their standards include, from Acts 15, that “Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved,” (v. 1) and “The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to obey the law of Moses.” After much discussion, Peter stood up and set things straight. More on that later.
First, though, let’s consider the requests of these converted Pharisees. They spent their lives slavishly memorizing, practicing, testing, preaching, studying, and implementing a set of hundreds of laws that no one human could possibly meet, yet all humans were expected to meet perfectly if they wanted to earn God’s favor. Then Jesus came along, fulfilled the law on their (and our) behalf, and taught a free salvation based on grace through faith, not works. This changed everything.
But the desire to impose laws on people didn’t change. Look at the concerns posed by this group. Are they asking how they can follow Christ while respecting the traditions of Moses? No. They aren’t asking anything. Grammatically speaking, their demands are declarative.
In response, Peter speaks with grace and yet with conviction: “Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among you that the Gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe. God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. He made no distinction between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith. Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of the disciples a yoke that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear? No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.” (Acts 5:6-11, emphasis added)
No human can bear God’s law perfectly. We know this, or at least we say we do. Yet we sometimes expect people to bear our laws and standards perfectly. Like the Jeep owner who never leaves asphalt, or the driver with a V6 muscle car. Or the person in the headlines who changed their ways and now asks for forgiveness.
If God is satisfied with the death and resurrection of Jesus, perhaps we should be as well. And if any of us still struggle with applying standards and expectations from our inward ideals outward onto people in our lives, maybe we need a reminder that this isn’t the behavior of people whose hearts have been “purified by faith.” Free from the yoke of our sin and our unrealistic standards for ourselves, and the standards of anyone around us, we get to pursue a relationship with our loving Father, wherever that may take us – either off-road near Red Rock, or a few exits up the interstate to Red Robin.
