UNIQUE: God and His People Are Unique
No one wants to be ignored, unnoticed, just another human being among the millions. We all want to be recognized and valued as the unique individual each of us is in the history of the world. Why do you think the teenager with the green, spiked hair, tattoos, a nose ring, and wild clothes and behavior has all that weird stuff? So he or she will be noticed, not passed over as just another faceless blob in the mass of bodies in the crowd.
That is one way to draw attention to one's self and to gain recognition as an individual apart from the crowd. But it is the world's way. God has a better way.
"As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways" (Isaiah 55:9).
When God told Moses to go from the place where he was, to separate the people from the rest of the world, Moses wisely asked God how to do this. Moses did not want to follow the flashy, meaningless way the worldly take to emphasize their uniqueness; he wanted to do it God's way. So he asked God to show him that way. "If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways" (Ex. 33:13).
God answered that prayer. "He made known his ways to Moses" (Ps. 103:7).
We would do well to ask the Lord the same thing. For we, like Moses, have also been commanded by God to be unique from the world, to go from one place or worldview or lifestyle or way of living to another, to leave where we are in this world and journey to a better place. If we would learn how to make this journey safely and wisely, we can learn much from looking at that passage from Exodus that describes Moses' conversation with God about leaving the place where God has put in this world those who are his people, and journeying to the destination he has set before them. Those ancient people of God called that destination the Promised Land. We call it heaven. But their physical journey has much to say about our spiritual journey and we do well to examine what Scripture says about the connection between the two.
"For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope" (Rom. 15:4).
We, like Moses and the people of God of old, have been called out of this world to live a life of holiness, in stark contrast to the world's depraved obsession with pleasure and self and all sorts of immorality and wickedness. We have been told, like Moses, to leave that place of godless living.
"For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do--living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry" (1 Ptr. 4:3).
God has called us out of the place of living in such sin, into a life of holiness for him.
"(God) has saved us and called us to a holy life" (2 Tim. 1:9).
"And you also are among those who are called to belong to Jesus Christ" (Rom. 1:6).
Other Scriptures confirm this calling of ours.
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"For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: 'I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people. Therefore come out from them and be separate,' says the Lord. 'Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you. I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters,' says the Lord Almighty" (2 Cor. 6:14-18).
". . . those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away" (1 Cor. 7:31).
"Come out of her, my people, so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues" (Rev. 18:4).
"By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God" (Heb. 11:8-10).
"They admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country--a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them" (Heb. 11:13-16).
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That is our call and God's promise, just as it was for Moses and God's called ones long ago, after leaving a life of slavery in Egypt. When Moses, their human leader, received this call to leave where they were and go to the Promised land, he said to God:
"If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?" (Ex. 33:15,16).
So important was it to Moses to have God's presence in the midst of this journey that he told God:
"If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here" (Ex. 33:15).
This is the heartfelt cry of a man who loves God so much that he does not want to go anywhere without him. What good is it to leave the world for heaven unless God is there? Heaven is no better than earth unless God is there. He is what makes heaven.
"Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you" (Ps. 73:25).
In other words, to the one who loves God, it makes no difference whether he stays or goes; what matters is that wherever he is, God is. Such a person just wants to be where God is.
"These are those who . . . kept themselves pure. They follow the Lamb wherever he goes" (Rev. 14:4).
Jesus is the Lamb of God. He left one place of great glory, heaven, to come to another place, this earth, for our sakes, so that we could leave this place on earth and go to be with him forever in heaven. God sent him to this earth for this very reason. He had a mission to accomplish and he called out to the people of this world to follow him. He called himself the Way.
But he did not issue that call in a worldly way. In his life on this earth, the way that the Way exhibited his uniqueness as the Son of God, and his human uniqueness as Jesus, Son of David, was opposite to any of the worldly extremes of clothes and physical markings, or unseemly behavior. For instance, rather than the loud, often obnoxious shouts for attention that so many cry out to the world, whether as we see in commercials on television in our own day, or in any age in personal interaction with others, Scripture says of Jesus that "he will not shout or cry out, or raise his voice in the streets" (Isaiah 42:2).
He doesn't have to. Jesus is God and King, secure in himself and his knowledge of who he is. He does not have to stage great, dramatic effects to draw attention to himself. He is great in himself and that greatness draws people to himself naturally.
"I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself" (Jn. 12:32).
Jesus showed the greatness of his being and his love by leaving heaven to come to earth to die for us on the cross. When he was lifted up from the earth on that cross, people saw the greatness of Jesus and his love and were drawn to him.
"The centurion, seeing what had happened, praised God and said, 'Surely this was a righteous man'" (Lk. 23:47).
Righteousness and goodness have a way of attracting attention to the one who possesses them. Such people have no need for outlandish hair styles or weird body markings or jewelry to set them apart from the crowd and to shout out their unique individuality to the masses. They already are set apart by their quiet dignity and goodness that comes from God. The world sees this and takes note.
"They see the purity and reverence of your lives. Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight. For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful" (1 Ptr. 3:2-5).
The people of God are set apart as a distinctive people, the people of God. Moses discerned correctly that it is this presence of God with his people that distinguishes them and sets them apart.
"How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?" (Ex. 33:16).
We also should be aware as Moses was, know what he knew, that it is Emmanuel, God with us, that sets us apart from the world and makes us distinct.
"Know that the Lord has set apart the godly for himself" (Ps. 4:3).
Know this. That is God's command to us. We should also know that it is impossible to be set apart from the world if we still cling to the world after God has called us to come out of the world as his unique people. Sadly, many are the Christians, the church, the ecclesia, the called-out-ones, who listen more to the siren call of the world than to the pure call of God to come out of the world.
"Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world--the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does--comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever" (1 Jn. 2:15-17).
To live forever. Is there any thing more unique than that? Few, the Bible informs us, will be those who achieve this rare status. "Many are called, but few are chosen" (Mt. 22:14 RSV).
Those who are chosen are those who seek holiness in Jesus Christ. Only they will be chosen by God to leave this world for his dwelling place in heaven.
"The man whom the Lord chooses shall be the holy one" (Num. 16:7).
Those words were spoken by Moses in the wilderness. Moses is spoken of as a type of Christ, a prefiguring of who Jesus would be when he arrived in this world long after Moses. Just as Moses led the people out of slavery in Egypt, Jesus would lead God's chosen ones out of slavery to sin. But in both cases, there was a wilderness experience at the beginning of the journey. Immediately after his baptism, Jesus was driven into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit (Mt. 4:1).
What? He who was sent from heaven to this world by God specifically to save that world is now sent away from that world into the wilderness? How can he accomplish his mission by going away from the place of that mission? He can because that was God's will for him. It was a time of testing of his obedience to God's commands.
"Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered" (Heb. 5:8).
Too often, those who are called by God to do a certain work make that work more important than the One who called them to it. What do you suppose happens then, when things do not seem to work out at all, when they are led by God to a place that holds no promise of them fulfilling their calling? They rebel. They rebel because they have abandoned their first love for something of lesser value. That was the message of Jesus to the church at Ephesus (Rev. 2:1-7).
Even if something is God's chosen work for us, we must be prepared to abandon it for whatever he tells us to do for the moment, because what really is at stake is our obedience, not our work. God can choose someone else to do the work; but no one else can be who we are and do the work in a way unique to who God has made us. God values who we are far more than what we can do for him. A human soul is far more precious for the love it can have than for the labor it can produce. Each of us glorifies God in a unique way. God has a reason why he chose each one of us for the work we have to do for him.
"We are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do" (Eph. 2:10).
Jesus was true to his work, his God, and himself. God had sent him to do a certain work in the world, for which task he must needs be in the world among its people. But if God should now tell him to go into the wilderness, away from that place of people and labor, then he trusted that God had a reason for this detour--and he obeyed. His obedience showed his faith in his Father and his love for his Father. He knew that somehow or another, God would work it all out so that he could accomplish the mission for which God had sent him into the world.
The people of God of old failed this test of obedience. They had been told that they should go into the Promised Land. But they refused to enter it for fear of the giants there and then later, after God told them to go into the wilderness as punishment for their earlier refusal to trust him and obey him, they turned around again and once more did the opposite of what God told them to do. It was not their work or mission or task that mattered to God, but their obedience, whatever the work or mission or task. The primary work of God that we are called to do is to trust and believe in him, not actually to carry out some deed or activity; that is secondary. He apportions those deeds and missions according to one's faith in him and proven obedience to his commands, whatever they be.
To see the truth of this principle, consider King Saul of Old Testament times. He was given a mission to fulfill by God, that of being king of Israel, which, for the moment required him to carry out the command of God for him to slaughter completely all the animals of his enemies. In order to see better the total picture and situation, a rather lengthy portion of the Scripture describing the situation is included below:
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"But Saul and the army spared Agag and the best of the sheep and cattle, the fat calves and lambs--everything that was good. These they were unwilling to destroy completely, but everything that was despised and weak they totally destroyed.
Then the word of the Lord came to Samuel: 'I am grieved that I have made Saul king, because he has turned away from me and has not carried out my instructions.' Samuel was troubled, and he cried out to the Lord all that night. Early in the morning Samuel got up and went to meet Saul, but he was told, 'Saul has gone to Carmel. There he has set up a monument in his own honor and has turned and gone on down to Gilgal.'
When Samuel reached him, Saul said, 'The Lord bless you! I have carried out the Lord's instructions.'
But Samuel said, 'What then is this bleating of sheep in my ears? What is this lowing of cattle that I hear?'
Saul answered, 'The soldiers brought them from the Amalekites; they spared the best of the sheep and cattle to sacrifice to the Lord your God, but we totally destroyed the rest.'
'Stop!' Samuel said to Saul. 'Let me tell you what the Lord said to me last night.' 'Tell me,' Saul replied. Samuel said, 'Although you were once small in your own eyes, did you not become the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king over Israel. And he sent you on a mission, saying, "Go and completely destroy those wicked people, the Amalekites; make war on them until you have wiped them out." Why did you not obey the Lord? Why did you pounce on the plunder and do evil in the eyes of the Lord?'
'But I did obey the Lord,' Saul said. 'I went on the mission the Lord assigned me. I completely destroyed the Amalekites and brought back Agag their king. The soldiers took sheep and cattle from the plunder, the best of what was devoted to God, in order to sacrifice them to the Lord your God at Gilgal.'
But Samuel replied: 'Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams. For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has rejected you as king.' Then Saul said to Samuel, 'I have sinned. I violated the Lord's command and your instructions. I was afraid of the people and so I gave in to them. Now I beg you, forgive my sin and come back with me, so that I may worship the Lord.'
But Samuel said to him, 'I will not go back with you. You have rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord has rejected you as king over Israel!'
As Samuel turned to leave, Saul caught hold of the hem of his robe, and it tore. Samuel said to him, 'The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you today and has given it to one of your neighbors--to one better than you. He who is the Glory of Israel does not lie or change his mind; for he is not a man, that he should change his mind.'
Saul replied, 'I have sinned. But please honor me before the elders of my people and before Israel; come back with me, so that I may worship the Lord your God.' So Samuel went back with Saul, and Saul worshiped the Lord." (1 Sam. 15:9-31).
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A number of important points in this account deserve mentioning regarding our theme of what it means to be unique among the world and for God. First, notice that when Saul speaks to Samuel about God, he says, "the Lord your God." In this, he perhaps spoke more truly than he knew. Why didn't he say, "the Lord my God? It is possible that he was recognizing and honoring Samuel's position as a spokesman for the Lord, but given the lack of respect Saul had shown for God's command to him to destroy all the animals, it is more likely that he simply did not reverence God as his God.
Anyone can call the Lord his God, but to really mean it requires obedience that gives solid evidence of that assertion. Jesus had many followers at the beginning of his ministry, but not all of them truly reverenced him as Lord. So he said, "Why do you call me, `Lord, Lord,' and do not do what I say?" (Lk. 6:46).
Again and again, we are told by God that obedience to him is the mark that makes a person or a people unique in all the world. For the world is known for its disobedience to God, going its own pleasure-seeking, self-seeking way. Therefore, those who refuse to bow to that false god stand out as unique. Their obedience to God is the unique identifier of God's people. The three men of God in the fiery furnace reflect this truth. They chose obedience and loyalty to God even at risk of their lives. Only three men out of all the people of the nation. Unique. It is the brand of God upon his people.
Another lesson that can be learned from Saul's actions is seen in his attitude: He thinks more of what others think of him than how God views him. His heart is in the world of men and he is more concerned with their approval than with God's. Yet if he had fully obeyed God, he could have had both. Jesus fully obeyed God and cared nothing for the praise of men, and Scripture says of him that, as a boy, he was obedient to his parents and "grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men" (Lk. 2:51,52).
If we put God first in all things, then all things will come to us--that is, all things that are good for us, not necessarily all things that we want.
"Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well" (Mt. 6:33).
"Those who seek the Lord lack no good thing" (Ps. 34:10).
Our relationship with God should be focused on one thing, on him, not his gifts. The word unique means one of a kind, the only one. From the beginning, Scripture uses this word or its equivalent to describe God and his work and kingdom. He is unique and those who unite themselves to him in Jesus Christ are also, therefore, unique.
"For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (1 Tim. 2:5).
"There is one body and one Spirit--just as you were called to one hope when you were called--one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all" (Eph. 4:4-6).
The King James Version of 1 Ptr. 2:9 calls those who believe in Jesus a peculiar people, that is, unique. Many other aspects of God's kingdom are also unique.
"For Christ did not enter a man-made sanctuary that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God's presence. Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. Then Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him" (Heb. 9:24-28).
All of this emphasis on uniqueness serves to show us the absolute nature of our existence and the extreme seriousness in which we should regard that existence and our relationship with God: We have but one opportunity to live and to live life as it is meant to be lived, for God, and to be saved by his Son so that we can live with him forever.
As an aside, I just want to mention a topic that is not critical to the discussion here but which is sometimes brought up regarding this matter of uniqueness. That topic is whether or not we are alone in the universe, that is, whether or not there are other civilizations and beings "out there" in space. This is a speculative question that is not answered in Scripture, but nevertheless, given all the vast amount of passages that are devoted to our uniqueness, and for other reasons, I believe that it is safe to say that we are indeed alone in the universe, the only planet with life upon it, despite all the dazzling science-fiction movies and imaginations of men to the contrary. I say this even though, in the future, it is possible that the UFO controversy will seem to be settled when apparent spaceships from other planets may openly make themselves known, rather than the furtive sightings now so commonplace. But they will be a deception. They are not aliens from another planet but spiritual beings, demons, from another world or dimension or realm, posing as physical beings such as ourselves so as to deceive human beings into trusting them and falling victim to their devilish schemes to capture human souls.
I say this only as a personal opinion, but based upon the Bible's emphasis on our uniqueness and other teachings it gives to us on the nature of reality. Therefore, even if such UFOs should arrive in the future, they will not be proof of other species from other planets, as many will claim, but the old deception of our enemy the devil. For God has forewarned us and forearmed us with the truth about himself and our own existence, that he is one and that we are one with him in Jesus Christ.
As I said, the above is an aside that you can discard if you think it irrelevant or useless. The important point is that we are told clearly in Scripture that God is unique and so are we. Therefore, it behooves us to behave uniquely in a dark and senseless world. We are to be “blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world” (Phil. 2:15 RSV).
Let us appropriate from our singular God all that we need to show this uniqueness to the world, in a loving and truthful way.
"His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires" (2 Ptr. 1:3,4).
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