Man-Made Barriers Between God and Man

Historically, people have put barriers between themselves and God. This seems to be a natural response we have to encountering the greatness of God. When God gave the Israelites the Ten Commandments, their response was to have Moses speak to God in the future and relay the message to them rather than them encountering God directly (Exodus 20:18-21). God always desired a direct relationship with His people; however, His people have constantly refused.

Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth" (John 4:21-24).

We build barriers between us and God through establishing designated places to experience God (we call them church buildings), setting a clergy class between God and us (we call them priests, pastors, and ministers). By doing this, people have created a God and religion that they can just do on Sundays rather than seeking to live the life of Jesus in the here and now. What God wants is to dwell in us and help us every moment of every day. We need to worship him in spirit and in truth, every moment of every day, rather than just on Sundays or when it is convenient. By pretending to confine God to a building and placing another person between God and ourselves, we miss out on the greatest blessing that God has designed us for: Knowing him, being in a relationship with Him, and bringing about his will.

The amazing thing is that the passage actually states that God seeks people to worship him in spirit and truth. He is seeking us. He’s not confined to one location. The idea of building Him a temple to “confine” Him in was King David’s idea, not His. No wonder when we seek Him we will be found. He’s right there just waiting for us to notice him.

Psychologists have done studies on how we typically see what we expect to see or we don’t see things we do not expect to see. But this principle of seeing what we expect to see or not seeing what we don’t expect to see impacts us spiritually. If we are not expecting to see God, then we will not see him. Our perception is influenced by our expectation. The Bible teaches that God is seeking us. It also teaches us that if we seek him, we will find him. He’s not confined to a building or confined to speaking only through this book or clergy. He’s among us, out here in the park, in our workplaces, in our yard, when we sleep, in our house, in our bathroom. God is there with us if we are willing to see him. We don’t need anyone besides Jesus to go through to encounter God, nor do we have to be in some specific “sacred” place.

God Loves the Unlikely - Do We?

When we read stories of the Good Samaritan or the conversion of Paul in the Bible, we often miss their inherent shock value to the original audience.  Paul converting would be like me telling the story of Osama bin Laden becoming a Christian and inviting you to come listen to him.  You can see why Christians were hesitant to accept him.  The Good Samaritan in modern terms would resemble a story where the pastor, the churchgoer, and the Christian book writer all passed by a hurting man on the street.  After them, along came a drug addict, a sex offender, or a gang member and they helped the hurting man that the religious people passed by.  Not only did they help him, but then shelled out the money to have them treated at the hospital.  The conversion of Paul was shocking and tough to swallow.  The story of the Good Samaritan was offensive to those ingrained in religion that focused more on rituals and keeping the law than on loving sinners and enemies.

Today I want to talk about a particular story that turned the religion of Jesus’ day upside down.  You probably already know the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well. 

Before we begin, I want to point out some facts about the book of John in which this story is told.  John wrote his books later than most of the writers of the New Testament.  Most of the New Testament books were written in 50-60 AD.  It is thought that John wrote his gospel in 85 AD.  This is significant in that the stories that John told were chosen out of all of the stories he could tell to correct problems in the church.  So when we read stories in the book of John, we can see problems that were creeping into the church only fifty years after it was established. 

From the story of the woman at the well, we can see that the church was struggling with accepting the unlikely like Samaritans as equals in Christ. In today’s term the unlikely are no longer a race; they might be former or struggling drug addicts, sex offenders, drunks, the homeless, or some other person that we think God could never help.  Saying that a group of people cannot be transformed by the story of Jesus through His people living as Him is just wrong.  History reveals unlikely person after unlikely person who has surrendered their lives to Jesus. 

When I googled “God took the unlikely and made him into a servant” – I just want to note that is what I googled - I came to a page that was a former porn star who had given her life over to Jesus and was working with other porn stars to help people into a healthy relationship with God and a way out of the industry.  No matter where we are at in life, what terrible acts we have done, God offers forgiveness, reveals to us the worth He created us with, and is willing to use us to bring about His will.  No groups of people, whether they are Samaritans or Christian killers, like the stories in the Bible, or the modern day equivalents of people that society looks down on like porn stars, sex offenders, drug addicts, or whatever group of people we might hate, are too far from God to be forgiven and transformed. 

Alice Cooper was the first musician “to combine vaudeville and rock ‘n’ roll, inventing a genre that has since been emulated by such groups as KISS, Ozzy Osbourne, and Marilyn Manson.”    He became a Christian in the 80s but never did the Christian music scene; he just claims to be a musician who is a Christian rather than a Christian musician.  He said in an interview, “"I've had a couple of people that were friends of mine that I've talked to that have vocally said they have [accepted Christ]. I have talked to some big stars about this, some really horrific characters ... and you'd be surprised. The ones that you would think are the furthest gone are the ones that are more apt to listen."  He also said, “"'I was one thing at one time, and I'm something new. I'm a new creature now. Don't judge Alice by what he used to be. Praise God for what I am now.'" 

As Christians and churchgoers, we have a sinful tendency to not forgive or forget people’s past, especially those in the church who might not have such a tarnished past.  We need to realize that God is a God who loves to heal the forgotten and bring the unlikely back to his purpose.  We can’t read the Gospels and avoid seeing that Jesus is for the unlikely.  The sinners.  People, if we’re honest with ourselves, like you and me.