The Approachable God
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He Get’s Us
"He Gets Us" has run advertisements on a variety of platforms over the past three years but become best known for the 30-second and 60-second ads it aired during each of the past two Super Bowl broadcasts.
The spokesperson said the ads have helped increase awareness of the campaign, which has generated 10.8 billion video views and drawn 49 million visitors to its web site in the week following the Super Bowl.
"Our point is that the story of Jesus doesn’t belong to anyone,"
Some Christians hated the @HeGetsUs ad because they think it’s an insult to show us humbling ourselves to serve people with whom we disagree. Or they think serving = affirming sin. Reread the Sermon on the Mount. The culture war taught you to focus on fighting them, not Jesus.
However, while some Christians are praising the ads as “powerful” and “beautiful,” others are sharply criticizing them, characterizing them as “apostasy” and affirming of sin.
“The point of @HeGetsUs is to spark the interest of non-believers, not to present a treatise on Christology in a matter of seconds,” said Justin Giboney, co-founder and president of the AND Campaign. “No sin was affirmed in that commercial, but the human dignity of all people was affirmed. Jesus came to seek and save the lost.”
Regardless of how people feel about the ads it does create a challenge to us today about the accessibility of Jesus to all people.
God’s character is one of accessibility to all of us no matter who we are, what we currently believe, or what we are going through.
He has called all those who have accepted his invitation to follow him to be his ambassadors to display the same message of accessibility to everyone we come in contact with on a daily basis.
Today we are going to look at this concept of God’s design to be accessible to everyone.
Trans:
This past weekend I attended one of my favorite events of the year...The Golden State Pinball Festival
Yes, I know...you are all saying...how did I miss out on this event.
I know pretty nerdy sounding huh.
But Pinball is not only one of my favorite things to do, but it has re-surged in popularity especially over the last decade.
Not only are the game themes and designs diverse, so are the people pinball draws. There are people from all walks of life their, you name it, they are there.
Over the weekend the word that continued to come to my mind was: Accessibility
The thought that was going through my mind was for all of these people from all walks of life how accessible is Jesus to them.
Accessible = Approachable = Available = Within Reach = Understanding
My story:
So what does the bible have to say about God’s desire to be accessible.
The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’
From the beginning of Jesus’ ministry he made it very clear who he was going to align himself with - the most lost, hurting and disfranchised people.
For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost.”
Who Jesus chose as his core crew says a lot about his character and his mission.
He chose ordinary people (in the worlds eyes) - fishermen, a thief, a tax collector a mercenary, a carpenter, farmers.
Like King David [who was a shepherd) who he called a man after his own heart, he chose unrefined common people to be his core group of men to mold and shape to absorb and carry forward his message of good news.
Listen to the active language of God’s desire to draw near and help his people:
God is our refuge and strength, a helper who is always found in times of trouble.
The Spirit of the Lord God is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and freedom to the prisoners;
He heals the brokenhearted and bandages their wounds.
“Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.
Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be afraid, for I am your God. I will strengthen you; I will help you; I will hold on to you with my righteous right hand.
In my last year of seminary I learned several practical lessons from my professor - Linda Burquist
In order to be able to help people around me I needed to be able to enter their world and live with them, seek to understand them, and to work to relate to them.
Paul had this same realization as he sought the best way to love and guide those around him:
Although I am free from all and not anyone’s slave, I have made myself a slave to everyone, in order to win more people. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win Jews; to those under the law, like one under the law—though I myself am not under the law—to win those under the law. To those who are without the law, like one without the law—though I am not without God’s law but under the law of Christ—to win those without the law. To the weak I became weak, in order to win the weak. I have become all things to all people, so that I may by every possible means save some. Now I do all this because of the gospel, so that I may share in the blessings.
As I finalized my seminary journey Jesus asked me to rid my vocabulary of all Christianese language to be able to share about Jesus in a way that was accessible to those God called me to serve.
Jesus modeled what he is asking us to do when he couched the gospel [the good news] in stories. He used parables (stories) or culturally relevant everyday common situations to pass on his truth.
My professor was trying to help me see what true incarnational love looked like (incarnational meaning truly showing up in the lives of the people around you, just like Jesus showed up as Immanuel: God with Us - Matthew 1:23)
She assigned each of the folks in my class a different book half way through the semester (from what she learned about us and what she knew about what God was calling us too)
For me she gave me a book by Parker Palmer - A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward An Undivided Life
One of the most powerful quotes in the book said:
“The human soul doesn't want to be fixed, it simply wants to be seen and heard. The soul is like a wild animal - tough, resilient and shy. When we go crashing through the woods shouting for it to come out so we can help it, the soul will stay in hiding. But if we are willing to sit quietly and wait for a while, the soul may show itself.”
Parker Palmer - A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward An Undivided Life
God was calling me to show up in peoples lives not by trying to change them but by meeting them where they were and loving them.
Loving them by trying to speak their language, make them feel seen, understood, and heard.
Adjusting my approach to what would work for them to find access to God’s truth, not a canned approach that was easiest for me.
God has given us an honorable title as his followers - he has called us to be his ambassadors of that same accessibility to everyone we come into contact with on a daily basis.
Everything is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and he has committed the message of reconciliation to us. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us. We plead on Christ’s behalf, “Be reconciled to God.”
So, then, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints, and members of God’s household.
Our citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly wait for a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ.
I have shared in past messages how the group that Jesus consistently challenged was the religious leaders.
His challenge was justified as this group of men was defining what was right and wrong with a long list of does and don’t.
These man made laws were presented as if they were God’s laws, misrepresenting God and created an obstacle for people having access to God.
Jesus challenge was to tear down the wall dividing all people from being able to connect directly with God - Allowing God to be accessible for all people.
Destroying the belief that people have to do things a certain way to get God’s attention or to gain his acceptance or love.
Quick test for all of us today:
Just like the religious leaders held on to their religious affiliation, today are is your positions as citizens of Gods kingdom more important than your citizenship in a specific country.
Do we only put people around us who think like us, believe like us, vote like us?
In our conversations with people we come into contact does what we say come across as if our perspective is the only correct one?
Do we say things assuming everyone around us thinks and believes like us?
You will regard the alien who resides with you as the native-born among you. You are to love him as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt; I am the Lord your God.
We as christ’s ambassadors are to have compassion for all in need. It doesn’t matter from where they come or how they got here.
The truth is that God has done all the work to create access for all of us to connection with him and live a life of godliness.
God not not only flipped the religious beliefs on their head but challenges the wisdom and strength of all people.
because God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.
What is the foolishness of God, what is the weakness of God.
Let’s back up to the verses that proceed this verse.
For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but it is the power of God to us who are being saved. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and I will set aside the intelligence of the intelligent. Where is the one who is wise? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the debater of this age? Hasn’t God made the world’s wisdom foolish? For since, in God’s wisdom, the world did not know God through wisdom, God was pleased to save those who believe through the foolishness of what is preached. For the Jews ask for signs and the Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles. Yet to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God, because God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.
Brothers and sisters, consider your calling: Not many were wise from a human perspective, not many powerful, not many of noble birth. Instead, God has chosen what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God has chosen what is insignificant and despised in the world—what is viewed as nothing—to bring to nothing what is viewed as something, so that no one may boast in his presence. It is from him that you are in Christ Jesus, who became wisdom from God for us—our righteousness, sanctification, and redemption —in order that, as it is written: Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.
At that time Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and revealed them to infants. Yes, Father, because this was your good pleasure. All things have been entrusted to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son desires to reveal him.
Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens—Jesus the Son of God—let us hold fast to our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin. Therefore, let us approach the throne of grace with boldness [confidence], so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in time of need.
Today, God wants you all to have full assurance of faith to draw near to God with confidence, knowing the he has made a way for everyone to have access to him directly.
If you are hear today and haven’t accepted God’s invitation to be in a relationship with him, then the message today is that god has the door wide open to you to walk through
His challenge to us today as ambassadors of Christ that we are being vessels for God to partner with to share his love in our actions first, then our words.
God always gives to us for our own good, but also for us to pass it on to others.
God wants us to check our hearts daily to if it is open to loving all people or do we have biases that have seeped into the way we look at or treat certain people around us.
And to check ourselves daily to ensure we are not hindering people from access to God by being accidental diminishers but instead striving everyday to open access through love to all we come into contact.
The bottom line is that:
God’s character is one of accessibility to all of us no matter who we are, what we currently believe, or what we are going through.
He has called all those who have accepted his invitation to follow him to be his ambassadors to display the same message of accessibility to everyone we come in contact with on a daily basis.
