Grace Series - Week 1 God s Perfect People 6 November 2016 Ross Lester

Grace Series - Week 1 God s Perfect People 6 November 2016 Ross Lester Intro: Howzit BBC and welcome to week 1 of grace, a series exploring race, the gospel, community and hope. You might be asking why we are doing this series. Here are four reasons to start with: o The Scriptures speak of this - more than I was aware. In fact, today I hope to draw a brief narrative arc showing the scriptures pushing the people of God away from sameness and homogeny. o The current context in SA and abroad is one where racial issues are being discussed openly, but not always helpfully. Racial dialogue is much more prevalent in South Africa today, but it is often unhelpful as it isn t rooted in or pushing towards the beauty of the gospel, and so it gets defensive and tainted with sin and subjectivity. o The gospel by its very nature pushes us away from ourselves and towards others who aren t like us and so it should be an inevitable consequence of our belief. Just the notion of the incarnation of Christ that sits at the center of what we believe has Jesus pushing away from himself and his own comfort towards the outsider, foreigner, stranger and alien. o The church has been poor in this area historically, and we (BBC) are unhealthy in this area as a congregation currently. I don t want to get too hung up on this because it leads to naval gazing and often to defensive posturing and or mechanical and exterior attempts at change, and I want us to be helpful and hopeful, but we are largely homogenous and would even be classified as that in the loosest and most liberal of definitions. In the US, churches are classified as multi-racial if there isn t more than 80% of one race. We are 92% white in attendance figures. Don t get squirmy if you are white, don t think I am hating on you for being 1

here or even wanting to be here, but we are saying that in a nation that has very different demographics to that, and in a nation with the history that ours has, that isn t healthy or helpful. This must impact our witness to South Africa surely? In a nation that is desperately trying to see if oneness across diversity is possible, I would hate to be a disqualified voice because we can t do it. I love what Tony Evans said, (and I recommend his book: Oneness Embraced to you), If someone is an alcoholic, it is probably not a good idea for you to listen to that person on how to stop drinking. If the church is divided, Satan hinders our witness on the transforming and unifying power of God. Obviously this issue is so big and so complex that we won t even begin to scratch the surface in three weeks, but we want to try to just think of some theology, common thought and mutual language, as a means of moving us just one step forward. And I will add unapologetically that I want this series to be hopeful and optimistic. That isn t in patronizing, model C schooled, I am just color blind sort of way. No, but rather in a this is part of God s great design, and Jesus conquered the grave, and if God is with us who can be against us, Christian sort of way. Here are the three questions we will seek to answer over the next few weeks: o Week 1 - Isn t it okay for people to just hang out with people like them? o Week 2 - How do people who aren t like each other start to move towards one another in community? o Week 3 - What should the posture of people who have been wronged and people who have benefitted from wrong be towards each other? Alright, so back to the observation that BBC is a largely homogenous church. Is that God s best? Is that what God would ultimately want for us? In order to answer that, let s do a whistle-stop and I really mean whistle-stop tour of the bible. 2

Passages and Main Points: This is not like one of my usual sermons. I only have one point. Here it is. God s plan for his people has always been and will always be that they would be a radically diverse crew united by very little other than their common love of Christ. Genesis 1:26-27 26 Then God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 1 Now I know we know this text and so we tend to gloss over it, but it is really important. This is a record of common origin. The first men and women were made in the image and likeness of God, and dignity, worth, value and purpose was injected into them as image bearers, not as representatives of a particular race or culture. Now some of you might think of this as quaint and non-applicable, but is an important truth that Paul expanded on in his sermon in Athens in Acts 17. Here is what said. Acts 17:26: he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, 27 that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, 2 1 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2016), Ge 1:26 27. 2 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2016), Ac 17:26 27. 3

Now that is a big biblical truth. Every nation springs from one common ancestor and that ancestor was gifted the Imago Dei, which was then passed on to all. Okay, let s press on. Culture and civilization begins to develop after the fall and man attempts Babel after which languages are used by God to scatter men across the world. Then God makes the covenant to Abram (an Iraqi pagan by the way) that he is making for himself a new people. Here is what he says. This is at the center of our faith. Genesis 12:1: Now the Lord said to Abram, Go from your country and your kindred and your father s house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. 3 I will bless you and make a people out of you, but that blessing isn t supposed to terminate on you or on them, it is so that you will push towards others and bless them. And ALL OF THE FAMILIES OF THE EARTH shall be blessed as a result of what I am going to do through you and in you. Straight after the scattering of Babel causes people to draw back into homogeny a promise comes that says that the promise of God and the blessing of God will push away from that towards the families of the earth. God promises a diverse family of blessing right from the beginning. This plays out over the history of Israel with mixed success. And then Jesus comes. Doesn t he say that he came only for the lost sheep of Israel? Yup, he did, moments before he granted healing to the daughter of a Canaanite woman. The Canaanites were a despised minority in Israel who for hundreds of years had occupied the land that Israel believed belonged to them. And Jesus does this again and again, it is 3 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2016), Ge 12:1 3. 4

actually an astonishing mark of his ministry. He pushes towards people of other groups. He teaches very early in his ministry that he is going to do it. Look at Luke 4. In Luke 4, Jesus announces that he is the Messiah that they have been waiting for. He quotes Isaiah 61, which is a Messianic prophecy and he essentially says, well this is it. What he does next though is actually remarkable. 24 And he said, Truly, I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown. 25 But in truth, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heavens were shut up three years and six months, and a great famine came over all the land, 26 and Elijah was sent to none of them but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon (modern day Lebanon), to a woman who was a widow. 27 And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian. 28 When they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath. 29 And they rose up and drove him out of the town and brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they could throw him down the cliff. 30 But passing through their midst, he went away. 4 Now don t miss this. This is big. Two verse earlier they loved him, and now they want to kill him. Why? He reminds them of two OT stories. One from 1 Kings 17 and one from 2 Kings 5. Both of those stories deal with God blessing foreigners and outsiders over the people who thought they were in. John Piper, when commenting on this text, says that you can summarize what Jesus is saying in this text like this: The kingdom I am bringing is ethnically different from what you think I have come to redeem a people from every ethnic group, not just one, or a few. Woe to you for your failure to see, in the justice and mercy of God, his zeal to gather from all the peoples a kingdom of priests and friends. He goes even further in Matthew 8 when he heals the servant of a Roman centurion. He says that he hasn t observed faith equivalent to that of the enemy Roman s 4 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2016), Lk 4:24 30. 5

anywhere in Israel. And then he prophesies about what his kingdom will be like. Look at this. Matthew 8:11: 11 I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, 12 while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 5 Jesus declares that he has come to end ethnocentricity and he has come to end homogeneity in God s people. It s over. He shows this again and again in his ministry and teaching. Look briefly through the gospels: o The wise men who come to worship from the East are probably Persian. o In the story of the Good Samaritan, the hero of the story is an ethnic outsider. o In Luke 17 the only leper who returns to show thanks is a Samaritan. o In Mark 7 he heals a Syrophoenician s daughter. o In Mark 11, he declares that the temple is supposed to be a house of prayer for all nations. o The parables speak again and again of outsiders who will be brought in, while those in the homogenous in group might get left out. o In Matthew 28 he commissions the church to go to all nations. All of them. All people s. The days of hanging out with people exclusively like you are over. Go! What happens next? Well they don t really go. They stay, and hang out in Jerusalem in a largely homogenous group. And then persecution comes and they scatter, and shock horror, Gentiles respond to the gospel and come into the church community. 5 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2016), Mt 8:11 12. 6

Peter and Paul argue about this for years when the Jews insist that Gentiles have to behave like Jews in order to be in the church. They have to release their culture and adopt the dominant culture, otherwise they aren t welcome in worship, but Paul will have none of it. This develops a deep conviction in Paul, and I want to touch on it quickly. Look with me at 1 Corinthians 12. The context here is spiritual gifts primarily, but Paul does stop and make sure that we know that the principle applies to diversity of people and not just diversity of gift. 12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body Jews or Greeks, slaves or free and all were made to drink of one Spirit. 14 For the body does not consist of one member but of many. 15 If the foot should say, Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body, that would not make it any less a part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body, that would not make it any less a part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? 18 But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. 19 If all were a single member, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. 21 The eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you, nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you. 22 On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, 24 which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, 25 that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. 26 If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. 27 Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. 6 6 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2016), 1 Co 12:12 27. 7

This is beautiful from Paul. The people of God need to be in community with other people of God who aren t like them. The rich need to be with the poor, and the poor with the rich. The masters need the servants and the servants need the masters. The Jews need the Greeks and the Greeks need the Jews. And it needs to be deliberate! We bestow honor, we provide cover This for me is a resounding death shot to the idea that we can simply prefer homogenous communities and still honor God while doing it, and still experience the fullness of what he has for the church. Alright, let s wrap up our tour. Revelation 5. Revelation 5:7 7 And he went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne. 8 And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. 9 And they sang a new song, saying, Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, 10 and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth. 7 What a vision. What a thing to live for. Why then, in a very diverse context, would we even possibly want to live for anything less? Don t get in to the practicalities yet, and the ya but excuses. Can we all just sit in the glory and wonder of what Christ won? As we have been sitting as elders, and listening to others and praying and seeking God, here is the kind of community we think we want to grow towards. 7 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2016), Re 5:7 10. 8

We long to reflect the diversity of our community and to declare the diversity of the Kingdom. Conclusion: So what then should we do? o Think: Wrestle, read, reflect. Ask God to form this conviction in us. o Pray: For God s mercy on us as we have for so long not lived up to this, and for God s gracious power as we try to live more like this. o Move: Move towards people who are not like you. This won t be purely changed by programmatic and centralized solutions. This will change as our own friendship groups change. Let s consider Christ, who came to get us even though we were foreigners and aliens. 9