The Dividing Wall of Hostility

God wants to open the eyes and the hearts of those he loves. Do not be quick to set this word aside. We are living in days of great division when the people of God need to understand the things that will cause them to be wise and understanding.

There is a great darkness that has fallen on the world and people are intolerant of the other side. We have very little compassion or understanding for those with a different view point.

In the story of Daniel we read that God was able to make his children them wiser and more understanding than any of those that the king had assembled around him. In the same way the Lord desires that we be more wise and have greater understanding than those who trust in their own strength.

I don’t know about you, but in my world over the last weeks the airwaves have been filled by all that is taking place in Israel and as I have been following the news I have noticed how my feelings so quickly rise up.

There is no doubt that God has made us to be emotional beings. But it has occurred to me that it was never his intention that we would allow our emotions to move us to be so aggressive even destructive in the ways that we respond. I have noticed how some of the demonstrators feel that they have a right to express their opinions by hurting others. It is not enough that they are seen to disagree, no they want to impose their will on those who disagree forcefully as though to do so will somehow cause them to change their position.

What happens so quickly is that if not kept in check, we express those emotions with words that are designed to attack and to hurt and destroy. We can actually attempt to destroy others with the words we use to attack them as we live out the passions we feel inside.

In Eph 4: 1-6 Paul tells us to ‘make every effort’ to keep the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace. Cleary this is not counsel that is accepted by those on the university campuses around North America. Paul tells that it will take effort. Both among those of us within the body of Christ as well as in any relationships that we may have with those who may not be believers.

As I was considering these things I came across a scripture in Ephesians 2:14 that He (Jesus) is our peace, himself has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility. (Ephesians 4:1-6)

All around the world we see dividing walls of hostility rising up. But the Lord is showing us that we are inhabited by a spirit of peace not a spirit of division. Jesus came to destroy the that barrier Paul describes as the dividing wall of hostility ……..

The difficulty is that left to our own devices …. if we don’t learn how to keep our emotions in check … we discover how very quickly……. dividing walls of hostility are erected. But we must make every effort because in the natural we will judge others.

What we are seeing played out in the middle east right now is just one example the way that the dividing wall of hostility can be erected as we give way to the raw emotion that inevitably surfaces.

The media are reporting that what we are seeing in the universities …. MAKES NO SENSE! Logic goes straight out the window. Students are giving way to the raw emotion of the moment regardless of whether their positions are based in truth or not. If it seems right and feels good it must be good ! Too often that is the rational but there exists no rational logic behind it.

Scripture tells us that our enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion … however the truth of the matter is that we don’t need much help from the enemy because when it comes to acting out of emotion we do a very good job of attacking and attempting to destroy others without any outside help.

Paul says we need to be purposeful in the ways that we chose to respond to circumstances we find ourselves not readily agreeing with. If we are not willing to consider our responses too quickly we will construct walls of division between us.

God has been speaking to us a great deal about unity. In many ways we discover how dependent we are upon the hand of God to bring about unity. When left to our own devices we seek always to consider only our own feelings, our own position and so too quickly we give way to our passions as they rise to the surface. We leave little room for the other party to feel that we are capable of feeling any love or compassion regarding the issue on the table.

If we use Moses as an example, when he would hear from God, his next move would be to share what he had heard with the people in the hope that he could bring the people together in unity. The people were not in a position to rely on the spirit of God in them because the holy spirit had not yet been given and the result was that they moved in their flesh and the outcome was very different to the one that Moses was hoping for.

Too often they began to construct other gods and worship them instead of the one true God. Why? They were following their emotions. As a church when we try to effect unity among the body using fleshly approaches without following the leading of the spirit we can expect the same results. What feels Good we want to follow.

Often it will be just as we are beginning to see the opportunity for harmony and peace. Something foreign, like an invader raises its head to create a hostile environment. Think about the example of the Abraham Accords peace talks that were taking place between Saudi Arabia and Israel recently only to be derailed by the attacks of Hamas on the 7th of October. In fact as I write I just listened to a report where the King of Saudi Arabia had a meeting with the Leader of Iran.

Dividing walls of hostility can be built in every relationship.

Marriage, Business, Family, Church in fact every where relationship exists.

Often pride is the source. Our need to be right. Our need to lead and be followed by others. If we don’t see others responding as we would like how quickly we move to judgement.

Pride is destructive. It has been described as the root of all sin and we discover that it is never far from us.

Why is this topic important for us to understand. Because it was our Lords Command. Love God and love others …..

Jesus example

The Jews hated the Samaritans and yet it was a Samaritan women at the well that Jesus ministered to. Worship in Samaria… This same Samaritan women ran to tell all her friends about what Jesus had told her and they went out to find him to hear for themselves what the teacher was saying.

There were many good people whom Jesus was eager to love and he had compassion on them.

What is our responsibility as the people of God. We are to be infused with a passion to love for others. It is OK to be passionate ….it is not OK to allow that passion to destroy our capacity to love others. It is the work of the enemy to build the dividing wall of hostility.

When it comes to the enemies of God there is no doubt that we are called to stand against evil.

Yes ….There will be times when we must not stay silent. In fact scripture tells us that we to understand the times so that we will know what to do. ….. but we must be careful not to throw out the baby with the bath water.

We are called to have love and understanding out of compassion for others just as Jesus did with the Samaritan woman.

Scripture provides for us a wonderful model of what it will take for us to walk in wisdom and maturity. In Eccl 4:12 we read that a chord of 3 strands was to given to us as the most perfect model for navigating our way through life.

Jesus sent the Spirit to be our counsellor. He is given as our spiritual partner because we need his wise counsel. in all we do and in every relationship we have. It will be the spirit in us that we enable us to manage our emotions so that we are not ruled by our feelings. It is a unity with the spirit that we need to seek to build in every relationship of our lives.

Unity is best demonstrated through love and tolerance and compassion for others the problem is that we discover that thinking about others is not our default or our go to position. Instead we are too willing by thinking of what we want what we feel and we think to relegate the right of others to hold a different opinion.

As leaders we are called to model Discipleship to others but we can’t do that if each time we hear the opinions of another our go to position is a judgmental attitude. Jesus provided us with a picture of what it means to have compassion for another when he met with the woman at the well.

Jesus called out the Pharisees for their blindness and their willingness to judge others. He said that they were spiritually deaf and blind and these were the ones whom Jesus had wished would accept the task and the responsibility of spreading the Gospel.

We have been tasked with the responsibility for shepherding and disciple the flock Those that the Lord has put into our care. We must be sure not to be like the Pharisees who were so willing to judge others. They demonstrated themselves to be without compassion …they did not understand the principal of strength through unity. Jesus used them as examples of those who construct dividing walls of hostility everywhere they turn.

Unity in the body of Christ is going to require a great deal of effort.

Some words like this one we feel familiar with and we may think oh not again but sometimes the Lord wants us to hear what is on his heart now! In this moment …… no matter challenges that confront us. We will need to go beyond our differences to find a wisdom and strength that only exists outside of ourselves if we are to become a people who are truly unified.

There is strength in unity …. Division breeds weakness and when our faith comes under attack we will certainly need to know what we believe on the subject of unity so that we can encourage those that we care for how to follow after the model that scripture provides.

We will need to put a great deal of effort into modelling how to disagree in love. How to disagree but still find a way to remain unified with others.

The world we live in today demonstrates so little tolerance for anybody with a different opinion. Surely as a church we can learn how to do better to provide an example of what it is to model unity.

The Lord provided us with a wonderful Picture of his heart for unity. He provided it through the nation of Israel …

After 70 a.d. Israel was dispersed into all the nations. But isn’t it interesting to note that when the Lord brought them back to the land in 1948 he didn’t bring them back as 12 tribes or even as the two nations of Israel and Judah. Instead, when Israel returned to the land, God brought them back as one nation.

Unity is described in Ephesians Chapter 1 as a mystery which will not reach its fulfillment until the return of Christ but for those with ears to hear and eyes to see God has been revealing his heart that means of his spirit it is a mystery that he has been enabling us to solve.

Amen and Amen and Amen