Luke 2:34 “Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: ‘This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against…’”

The genuine way to God is uniquely humbling. Jesus came to empty us of all our delusions that somehow God owes us. We don’t live as his peers. We don’t endear ourselves to him by the way we live. He isn’t impressed by who we are. This is why Jesus could make shocking statements like these to the “church” people of his day: “The prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you.” He isn’t referring to those who defiantly defended their “trade,” but to those who repented. These ladies weren’t filled with pride. They knew they had messed up. They didn’t have to be told to be humble. They just were. It was obvious they weren’t going to impress God into accepting them.

The other camp is the way of human pride. The Pharisees were the poster boys for this cause in Jesus’ day. “Be good” was their basic approach to God. And there is nothing wrong with being good. God wants us to be. The problem was that the Pharisees had convinced themselves that they were, or at least that they were on a steady course of personal improvement that would get them there. They took great pride in how hard they tried.

Another way to look at this division is the difference between those who are saved and those who are struggling. Jesus did not come to be the great Trainer. He did not come to be the great Helper. He came to be the great Savior. By his life and death, by the forgiveness of sins, he pulls to safety those who had no way of rescuing themselves.

But many, like the Pharisees, prefer to struggle on themselves. Have you ever tried to help a little child who was struggling to do something, and instead you were rebuffed with: “I can do it myself!”? How often God must shake his head at us when he offers to save us but people reply, “I can do it myself!” Unfortunately, we are like a 3-year-old trying to solve a problem in advanced calculus, or trying to assemble a car from nothing but parts, or trying to swim 500 miles to shore. It just isn’t going to happen.

The result of this division into two camps, these two approaches to God, is, as Simeon said, “the falling and rising of many in Israel.” The irony is that those who looked like they were so low had actually been raised, and those who looked like they were so high had actually fallen. Take the Apostle Paul, for example. When he converted to the religion of grace from the religion of works and pride, he gave up a career path that promised to make him a prominent and respected rabbi in Israel, maybe even a member of their ruling council, the Sanhedrin. In its place he received a life of persecution and prison chains, and eventually execution as a criminal. It looked like Paul had fallen.

But from God’s point of view, Paul was raised to the heights: the heights of being intensely loved by Jesus, the heights of perfection– not of his own doing but of having his sins wiped away and receiving credit for Jesus’ perfect life, ultimately, the heights of heaven itself. It was those who insisted on coming to God on their own terms who were on a steady downward course away from God.

Here is an application to take to heart. Even Christians in name can end up in the wrong camp. Here is a direct quote from a sermon preached in a “Christian” church almost fifty years ago: “Jesus is an example, a prototype of what I and all men can become. He is not a sacrifice, a substitute, that saves me from all pain and sorrow, no matter how strong my faith may be. If it is necessary to believe in that kind of fiction in order to be saved, then I greatly fear that ‘when the roll is called up yonder,’ I shall not be there.” Sadly, we must confirm this man’s conclusion about his fate because his is the graceless religion of pride, struggling, and works, not Jesus’ religion of salvation.

There are other people who can recite the formula of salvation by grace– Jesus died on the cross to take all my sins away– but who do so something like a trained parrot. It is little more than a theory which they repeat, but not their trust and confidence. In their hearts they are still convinced they are basically good. They feel no great need for Jesus to forgive their sins.

Follow Jesus to become a saved person, not because you think you are a better person.