Outside the Camp

Last week I had a short visit with an old friend. She once loved Jesus with all her heart and was determined to follow Him. However, she has changed. She told me she was about to do something “bad” and went on to describe her far-from-biblical plan. The bottom line was that the world’s way of doing things had more appeal to her than following the way of Jesus.

Even though Jesus Christ ate and drank with sinners, He was separate from the world, sanctified, set apart for God and not like us in our sin or temporary desires. He had eternity in mind, but was despised for this, rejected and abused because of His godly perspective and lifestyle.

The Bible challenges me to be like Jesus. It also says that if I live a godly life, separate from the world and dedicated to serving Him and not myself, I will suffer as He did.

Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. (2 Timothy 3:12–13)

This set-apart life is not appealing. For one thing, it can be lonely and for Jesus, it had to be worse than any loneliness I’ll ever experience. His own disciples did not understand Him and near the end of His life, they ran away rather than stick by Him.

The disciples did come back, to their credit. As the above verse says, the alternative is to go from bad to worse. They could have become deceivers, but remained true to His teaching because of their love for Him. I want to be in that number.

On the other hand, those who crucified Him were oblivious to His innocence and did not know what they were doing. They had no idea who He was or what He offered them. Yet even as they put Him to death, they unwittingly fulfilled the foreshadowing of the sacrificial law that pointed to their Messiah.

For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. (Hebrews 13:11–14)

Just as the sacrificial animals were disposed of outside the city, Jesus died alone and apart from the people He came to save. He was treated as worse than garbage, yet willingly accepted this separation for He knew the real basis for it. He was so pure that they could not bear His presence.

Jesus asks me, based on what He has done, to separate myself from the world (in attitude, not in body). I am not to care about the things that others care about. I am not to be preoccupied with the temporal stuff of this life either. This includes not only sin, but the ordinary activities of life. They are passing away, yet those who do the will of God live forever. My perspective is to be eternal.

However, as I try to do that, I need His grace. This world is a place of ridicule and reproach. Its residents accuse Christians of believing fairy tales, being brainwashed, and having lost our senses. In their minds, we are garbage to be tossed rather than earthen vessels sent from God containing a great treasure for them.

The world cannot understand anyone whose goal is to be like Christ. Everyone else looks out for themselves, builds their own empire, and lives in a kingdom of bigger, better, more. On the other hand, Jesus bids me to consider others more important than myself. I’m charged to build His kingdom without becoming entangled in the affairs of this world.

This means cost-counting, for it is costly. I will be ostracized, lonely, misunderstood and the brunt of ill treatment. 

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Lord, this sounds more like bad news than the good news of the gospel. However, the alternatives are plain. If I do not walk with You, then I will walk with the world. There is no middle. Without You, I will become me-centered (even worse than I am), without concern for others and without concern for eternal matters. I will go from bad to worse, even believing lies and telling them. I will be preoccupied with those things that do not last.

I might be able to slide into that worldly attitude without a lot of protest, but one thing I cannot do is become separated from You. I could not bear it. You were taken outside the camp — therefore I must be taken (or go willingly) outside the camp. You were persecuted — I must stay with You and be persecuted too.

You did all this “for the joy set before” You and I understand that. Yet, by the miracle of Your grace, when I am “outside the camp” with You, Your joy is never something set off in the distance. Instead, You put joy in my heart every moment, even in the moments of greatest need. You amaze me with joy!

The world does not understand this either. They cannot see or know the blessed joy of the Lord, because they do not see or know You. I pray that You will bring those without You from the darkness in this world to the bright and glorious light of being outside the camp with You.

(Image source)