MY PEOPLE
Romans 9:23-26 NKJV
23 and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory, 24 even us whom He called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles? 25 As He says also in Hosea: "I will call them My people, who were not My people, And her beloved, who was not beloved." 26 "And it shall come to pass in the place where it was said to them, 'You are not My people,' There they shall be called sons of the living God."
There are many outstanding truths in the book of Romans. But one big takeaway is that if we have received Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we are God's children. And being God's child is not dependent on how you were born, but if you have been born again.
Paul keeps driving home this point. To those Gentiles with no Jewish heritage, it may have been easy for them to view themselves as less than their Jewish counterparts. After all, the Jews had such a great heritage. They had the covenants, the law, the promises. They had the history of miracles and all those heroes of faith. Even Jesus came from Jewish stock according to the flesh. So, if you were a Gentile, it would have been easy for the Jewish believers to make it seem that you were a second-class child of God.
But thank God for the riches of the glory on us, the vessels of His mercy. Big words for those of us who received God's grace, not because of our heritage, but because of His grace. So now we can say that we are His people. Now, we can say that we are His beloved.
Before Christ came, it was said of us, and rightly so, that we were not God's people. We did not have a covenant with God. We did not have any heritage in the flesh. But thank God we are no longer limited by the flesh. Now, by faith in Christ, we are sons of the living God. We were far off, but now we have been brought near by the blood of Christ. Now, we are part of the body of Christ. And there are not two bodies of Christ. Not a Jew and Gentile body. One body in Christ. And it's by faith in what Jesus has done, not by how good we've done.
This being made right with God through faith in Christ was a major stumbling block for the Jews. They had to be thinking that it couldn't be that easy. No way these heathen idol-worshipping Gentiles could become the people of God just by believing in Jesus. But they were wrong and thank God we can now say with confidence that we are the people of God, the sons of the living God!
APPLICATION
I can remember that during the early days of the church, we had to counter a religious mindset in some of the people who were coming. Some of the people who had started coming to the church did not "dress appropriately." A young lady who had come out of an unchurched background was almost run out of the church by ladies who did not approve of the tight jeans she wore. Another church member was dismayed that there were cigarette butts in the parking lot.
Unfortunately, these people had lost sight of the fact that the people coming and accepting Christ were just as much God's people as they were. It was not a function of how they dressed or if they smoked. It was a function of their hearts being changed through faith in Christ.
Thankfully, that religious mentality did not win out, and The Ark adopted the phrase, Come as you are. That phrase and mindset still exist today. God's people are made up from all backgrounds and conditions. God's people are heart people, those who have received Christ by faith and are now the sons and daughters of the living God. If God calls them His people, who are we to say anything different?