Christ's Multiethnic Vision

INTRODUCTION:

Interest:

Have you ever thought about what causes us to love certain things? I am sure that we all have different things that we love, but there are likely some common themes that will explain part of our unique loves. We tend to love things that those who hold a special place in our lives love: things our parents love or the things our friends love.

For example, my dad loves guns and he loves hunting. Now, I am nowhere near his level of love of these things, but I do enjoy both, largely because I grew up shooting guns and going hunting with my Dad. My wife loves Polish pottery. I’m not quite sure why she loves it since she is Norwegian rather than Polish, but I know that my appreciation for it is directly connected to her love of it. I doubt that I would have given it a second thought if she did not like it so much, but now I have come to appreciate it.

Involvement:

I believe a similar principle should be in play when it comes to loving the things that our Savior loves. We should come to love the things, and particularly the people, that our Savior loves.

Context:

As we discussed this morning, our world is quick to splinter into groups that often align with ethnic identities. Our quick tour through the Bible showed that God’s promise of blessing extends to all ethnicities. God has promised to bless all peoples, all ethnicities. We also saw that God’s blessing was procured through the sacrifice of our Savior on the cross.

Preview:

This evening, I want us to extend our consideration of the biblical teaching on these ideas by looking at three passages from the Gospels. As I mentioned this morning, when Jesus walked this planet the first time, His focus was on His redemptive mission. Yet, while fulfilling that mission, there were a few times in which Jesus clearly indicated the international scope of God’s promised blessing. Jesus came to die for all peoples—plural—groups of people who can be distinguished by various traits such as nation, or language, or skin color, and so forth—all peoples. Tonight, I want to look at three of the places where He makes that point clear.

Jesus’ sacrifice is the clearest demonstration of His love; Jesus died for what He loved—people. I would suggest tonight that we have a duty to love what our Savior loves. We readily agree to that idea when it comes to behavioral issues—we should set our affections on the same things that Jesus loves, things like righteousness and justice, purity and kindness, and so forth. The idea also applies, though, to the people whom Jesus loves; we should love the peoples—not just individuals, but the groups as well—the peoples that Jesus loved enough to die for. Yes, salvation is individual. We are only saved when we individually place our faith in Jesus; no one is saved by being part of a special people group. What I want us to see this evening, though, is that Jesus loved individuals from every ethnicity enough to give His life for them. The main idea that I want us to grasp by looking at these three passages is that We should match our Savior’s heart for all ethnicities. We should love those whom Jesus loves. We should match our Savior’s heart for all ethnicities.

Transition from introduction to body:

We should match our Savior’s heart for all ethnicities. The first passage that I want us to look at this evening is that of…

BODY:

I. The Good Shepherd

This well-known parable is found in John chapter 10. The parable covers most of the chapter and contains several points of teaching. Tonight, though, I want to specifically focus on just one from what Jesus says in verse 16. In order to understand it, let’s pick up in verse 14 and read Jesus’ words through verse 16.

I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me, even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd.

In the parable, Jesus is using the common scenario of the day in which multiple shepherds would place their sheep into a common fold at night and then separate them in the morning to lead them to pasture. The shepherds would spread their flocks around the countryside during the day, seeking good grass. Come night, though, several shepherds would bring their flocks a common fold, a rock-wall enclosure which would provide safety from prowling animals. The animals would intermingle during the night within the enclosure. In the morning the shepherds would take turns calling out to their sheep and the sheep would respond to the voice they knew, following their shepherd out for another day of grazing.

In verse 11, a few verses earlier, Jesus had specifically cast Himself in the role of “the good shepherd.” This identification places this parable against the OT backdrop of Ezek 34. In Ezek 34, the leaders of Israel were castigated for failing in their duty as shepherds over the nation. One shepherd was promised, however, the Messiah, who would come forth and replace the failing shepherds. By identifying Himself as the Good Shepherd Jesus is identifying Himself as the Messiah.

Earlier in the parable, Jesus had also indicated that the sheepfold represented the nation of Israel. In verses 3 and 4, Jesus indicated that He would lead His sheep from the fold. The implication is that Judaism fulfilled its role of protection for His people until Jesus came, but now, with the nation rejecting Him, He will take his “sheep” out of it. Jesus’ point in verse 16 is that God was about to set Israel aside and shift the focus of His work to some other people, a work that would unite all His followers in a single flock. In verse 16 Jesus says that He will gather His other sheep with those from the fold and collectively “they will become one flock with one shepherd.”

I want us to notice two things from this statement. First, Jesus will not gather the other sheep into the fold of Israel. Rather, He will gather both sheep that were from the fold of Israel and “other sheep” into “one flock.” Second, the “other sheep” are clearly non-Israelites. In other words, Jesus is saying that Gentiles will benefit from His action of gathering His followers together into this “one flock.”

The clear implication is that Jesus knew that His actions would benefit non-Jews; there would be some who were ethnically distinct from Jews who would nonetheless be gathered with some Jews who were truly His.

Application

The image of the shepherd rightly invokes thoughts of love and protection, care and concern. Remember, Jesus was a full-blooded Jew Himself. If Jesus stayed in His ethnic bubble, none of us would fall under the gaze of His concern. But clearly such was not the case. We are here tonight because Jesus loved us; He loved us enough to give Himself for us even though we were a completely different ethnicity than He was. His heart was for those outside His ethnic group. In fact, His heart was for bringing a diverse group together into one new group.

That was His heart; is it yours as well? Do you want to see people that are not like you joined with you following your Shepherd?

Transition:

We should match our Savior’s heart for all ethnicities. We have looked at Jesus’ heart for other ethnicities as displayed in the parable of the Good Shepherd. Let’s look now at…

II. The Temple Cleansing

In Mark 11:15–18, Jesus drives the merchants and money changers from the temple area. Mark writes:

Then they came to Jerusalem. And He entered the temple and began to drive out those who were buying and selling in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves; and He would not permit anyone to carry merchandise through the temple. And He began to teach and say to them, “Is it not written, ‘MY HOUSE SHALL BE CALLED A HOUSE OF PRAYER FOR ALL THE NATIONS’? But you have made it a ROBBERS’ DEN.”

This event occurred in the outer courts, the court of the Gentiles. In this court, the money changers had set up booths to exchange the various Roman coinage for the Tyrian shekel. The Tyrian shekel was the nearest available equivalent to the OT shekel and had become the coin required for paying the annual temple tax imposed upon all Jewish males. Since Israelites would come from many cities to Jerusalem, it was common for them to need to exchange coins before they could pay the tax in the inner court. Other merchants had set up booths to sell animals for sacrifices. Specifically, doves are mentioned, the prescribed offering for the poor. Jesus drove all of these merchants from the court and then prevented others from using the temple court as a shortcut through the city as they came and went about their daily business.

Clearly, such drastic actions would cause a lot of commotion. Can you imagine the intensity that Jesus must have exuded in order to drive all these merchants from their booths? I try to picture in my mind’s eye the men scrambling to grab their coins as Jesus flung their tables over. I imagine the stunned looks on people’s faces as Jesus yells at them to get out when they start to walk across the court carrying bags from their shopping trip to the other side of the city. I think about doves flapping and escaping as their crates go flying. All in all, I imagine a very disruptive scene, one which would quickly gather an audience of gawkers.

Well, Jesus is not oblivious to the gathering crowd. Instead of ignoring them, He turns to them and begins to teach. He quotes from a portion of Isa 56:7 as He explains His actions. God spoke through the prophet Isaiah, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations.”

Illustration

Think for a moment about our prayer times that we have here at church. I am sure I am not the only one who is distracted when someone’s phone goes off or I hear someone moving in the room because they must go to the bathroom or something. No matter how much I may be trying to pray along with whoever is praying, I am momentarily distracted by these things.

Think about how much more difficult it would be to pray in the environment described in these verses. It would be virtually impossible to engage in any sort of quiet prayer in a court that was filled with merchants and all their haggling with buyers. I have got to believe crates filled with pigeons would also be rather distracting. Not to mention the constant passing of people simply walking through from one side to another. This was the situation that Jesus was addressing.

What I want us to think about carefully, though, is the reason that Jesus gave, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations.” “For all the nations.”

This episode of Jesus clearing the temple is recorded in both Matt 21 and Luke 19, but Mark is the only gospel writer that includes the words “for all the nations” in Jesus’ explanation. Why? Why does Mark include these words, which are part of Isa 56:7 which says “for all the peoples”—an OT equivalent of “nations”—when the other writers do not?

We should remember that Mark wrote for a Greek-speaking audience. There are several indications that he expected his Gospel to be read by Gentiles, things such as using Latin terms and translating Aramaic phrases for his readers. The point that Mark is making by including this final phrase, “for all the nations,” in the quotation is that Jesus was providing a place for Gentiles to worship God. Both literally and symbolically Jesus was demonstrating that God could be worshiped by non-Jews. Because Mark was writing the Gospel to non-Jews, he wanted his readers to know that Jesus was concerned about them. We might even be able to conclude that Jesus anticipated multiethnic worship through His actions.

Application

Again we see Jesus’ heart here for ethnic groups that are different from Himself. Now, it is true that in the OT Temple, Jews and Gentiles did not physically worship God together; they worshipped in separate courts. Still, at a time in which God was manifesting Himself uniquely in one place—the Temple—Jesus was concerned for both Jews and non-Jews gathering at that place to worship Him. Now, we are no longer required to come to one central location to worship God; we worship God in Spirit and in truth as Jesus told the Samaritan woman in John 4—another crossing of ethnic lines which we don’t have time to look at this evening. Yet why would we have less of a concern for various ethnic groups than Jesus displayed? We should share His heart.

What we need to realize, though, is that for various ethnic groups to be able to worship together, we will have to make compromises regarding our own personal preferences. The Jews were doing what they were doing in the outer court because it was convenient for them to have those things there. They were not thinking about the impact that their actions had on others. Too often, that is true of us who are the white majority in our church as well. We do the things that are natural to us without thinking about how our actions may impact someone else.

Illustration

As I mentioned this morning, I talked with many of the ethnic minorities in our church over the past few months about what it is like to attend FBC. I found the feedback from the members who were immigrants to the United States as particularly enlightening. By the way, I did ask the people if I could share some of their thoughts with the church. One of the things that was brought up consistently is how foreign our church feels to them. Let me give you just one example. Some of our members come from cultures in which it is normal to personally greet every person in a room upon arrival. It is not unusual for all the activities underway to stop until the greetings of a newcomer are finished. I know I have experienced this behavior on many of my foreign travels. And yet, that is not how we do things in our traditional American culture. We tend to focus on our activities more than the people involved in those activities. It is not at all unusual for us White-Americans, as I will call us majority-culture people in our church, to walk up to a group and maybe say “hi” to one or two people as we start dealing with our business. For those of our church who come from different cultures though, this is very strange. In fact, if I walk up to a group and greet two people who I have a question for but ignore the minority person, their natural conclusion can be that I don’t like him or her and have purposely ignored them in my greeting. We do things like this because we are not thinking about how our actions may impact others.

Now, all the ethnic minorities who I spoke with have been part of our church and in our country long enough to recognize that this is a cultural difference and is not personal. But how about someone newer to our country. How about someone who is just visiting our church. It isn’t that one culture is right and one it wrong…it is that they are different. If we are going to have the heart of Christ, concerned that different ethnicities find a place to worship among us, we are going to have to become aware of such differences. Furthermore, as the majority culture, I would submit that we are the ones who are going to have to work hard to reach past the differences. After all, the minority person has already gone way out on the proverbial limb simply by walking in our door; they are way out of their comfort zone already.

Transition:

We should match our Savior’s heart for all ethnicities. The temple cleansing is the second example that shows us our Savior’s heart. The third, and final example that I plan to examine this evening is…

III. The Centurion’s Servant

I selected this event from Jesus’s life as our third passage tonight because it gives us an example of Jesus interacting across ethnic lines. The event is recorded in both Matthew 8 and Luke 7. There are slight differences in how the event is framed, but we’ll read the one from Matthew this evening.

And when Jesus entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, imploring Him, and saying, “Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, fearfully tormented.” Jesus said to him, “I will come and heal him.” But the centurion said, “Lord, I am not worthy for You to come under my roof, but just say the word, and my servant will be healed. “For I also am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to this one, ‘Go!’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come!’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this!’ and he does it.” Now when Jesus heard this, He marveled and said to those who were following, “Truly I say to you, I have not found such great faith with anyone in Israel. “I say to you that many will come from east and west, and recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven; but the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into the outer darkness; in that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” And Jesus said to the centurion, “Go; it shall be done for you as you have believed.” And the servant was healed that very moment.

This centurion was a Roman, clearly a Gentile. The amazing part of the encounter is that the centurion recognized that Jesus had the authority to heal his servant by word alone and requested that Jesus refrain from coming to his house, “I am not worthy for You to come under my roof.” This display of faith was amazing, exceeding the level that Jesus had encountered anywhere among the Jews. As we read, in response, Jesus announced that the request would be granted, and the servant was, in turn, healed.

What I want us to notice, though, is that Matthew specifically includes the statement in verse 11, “I say to you that many will come from east and west, and recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.” Unfortunately, it isn’t translated in the NASB and several other of the modern English translations, but verse 11 begins with the word “but” in the Greek. I know that it was left untranslated to smooth out the English, but we lose the contrast that is presented by that little word. At least the KJV and NKJV show that it is thereby translating the Greek word with the English word “and.” The point that is being emphasized is that in contrast to Israel there will be “many” who will come from a variety of places—“from the east and west.” What Jesus is indicating is that there will be people saved from all over the world and these people will include non-Jews. The nature of the phrase, “east and west” naturally includes all peoples—plural, all ethnicities. In fact, going back to this morning’s sermon, it is clear from the reference to the patriarchs and the kingdom that these Gentiles will be recipients of God’s promised blessing.

Again, I believe this clearly reveals Jesus’ heart for all peoples. Not only was He willing to stop and meet the request of this one non-Jew, but He also used the opportunity to teach that all ethnicities were included in God’s saving plan.

Application

The question that I want us to be asking ourselves is whether we reflect a similar heart concern? Do we see people who are not like us—not from the same section of “east and west” that we are from—and love them as Jesus loves them? Or do we see people who are different from us and ignore them, simply grateful that Jesus died for us? What are we willing to do to match Jesus’ heart? Are we willing to allow ourselves to become a bit uncomfortable so that Jesus will be magnified through our actions?

Illustration

Yesterday, I and several of the leaders in our church—the pastoral staff, the deacons and some former deacons, our Sunday School teachers, and Gerry and Mark—had a Zoom call with a pastor and four men of his church who are in what is called a majority-minority church. What that means is that there is not an ethnic group that makes up over 50% of the congregation. This church is about mid-way between Chicago and Milwaukee. As far as church style, they are much like us. One difference, though, is that they have developed a culture of embracing the “other”—embracing members who are different than themselves culturally. This idea came out repeatedly as the men—two from the Philippines, one from Cameroon, one from India, and the pastor from Indiana—discussed their church. They intentionally worked to accept what was different in each other, from food and greeting styles to clothing, language, and concern for time. They focused on rejoicing in their shared salvation in Christ and their ability to worship Him together despite their differences. They readily admitted that things were rather messy at times, but they had learned to love one another because they saw that the other was loved by Christ.

We need to ask ourselves, are we looking at people who are different from ourselves with the same love that Christ looks at them. Are we, like our Savior, willing to stop and interact with someone different from ourselves, hoping that this person will be included in God’s saving plan?

Transition from body to conclusion:

We should match our Savior’s heart for all ethnicities. The Centurion’s Servant is the third example of our Savior’s heart that we have looked at this evening.

CONCLUSION

We tend to love the things that those we love love. Guns with my dad; pottery with my wife. Our Savior loves people—people from all ethnicities. The challenge that I want to put before us this evening is that We should match our Savior’s heart for all ethnicities. I pray that the Lord will help us to match His heart as individuals and as a church. We should match our Savior’s heart for all ethnicities.