Core 52 Week 40 - God's Plan for Reconciliation
Notes
Transcript
Jump right in. Difficult topic in the best of circumstances even more so with the racial unrest so prevalent in our society.
It’s not only a national/international crisis, it’s a spiritual crisis. In fact, I believe that no other institution in the world can address the challenges we have in connecting one group to another better than the church of Jesus Christ.
Core 52 topic. Let’s get on the same page as far as what we’re talking about. There’s a lot going around on media about racism. And, as we’ll see in a bit, everybody means something a bit different.
Definition: Racism is the belief that one human being is superior to another simply because the color of their skin or their nationality.
We are unlikely to find enough truth from any group or pundit to fully trust their understanding and their answers to the problem.
In fact, we’re going to have to start when we often begin when we’re addressing difficult topics: the beginning.
Race: Good, but Cursed
Race: Good, but Cursed
7 Then the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground. He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nostrils, and the man became a living person.
22 Then the Lord God said, “Look, the human beings have become like us, knowing both good and evil. What if they reach out, take fruit from the tree of life, and eat it? Then they will live forever!” 23 So the Lord God banished them from the Garden of Eden, and he sent Adam out to cultivate the ground from which he had been made.
Humanity spreads throughout the world but continues to rebel against God to the point that he starts over with Noah and his family.
18 The sons of Noah who came out of the boat with their father were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. (Ham is the father of Canaan.) 19 From these three sons of Noah came all the people who now populate the earth.
But even here, there is sin and rebellion.
22 Ham, the father of Canaan, saw that his father was naked and went outside and told his brothers. 23 Then Shem and Japheth took a robe, held it over their shoulders, and backed into the tent to cover their father. As they did this, they looked the other way so they would not see him naked. 24 When Noah woke up from his stupor, he learned what Ham, his youngest son, had done. 25 Then he cursed Canaan, the son of Ham: “May Canaan be cursed! May he be the lowest of servants to his relatives.” 26 Then Noah said, “May the Lord, the God of Shem, be blessed, and may Canaan be his servant! 27 May God expand the territory of Japheth! May Japheth share the prosperity of Shem, and may Canaan be his servant.”
Later, the humans came together to build a tower as a monument to their pride.
4 Then they said, “Come, let’s build a great city for ourselves with a tower that reaches into the sky. This will make us famous and keep us from being scattered all over the world.”
God confuses their language to send them in their own directions.
7 Come, let’s go down and confuse the people with different languages. Then they won’t be able to understand each other.” 8 In that way, the Lord scattered them all over the world, and they stopped building the city. 9 That is why the city was called Babel, because that is where the Lord confused the people with different languages. In this way he scattered them all over the world.
What we see in a brief survey on the early history of humanity is pride and arrogance -
sin is at the root of all human problems.
So while God dispersed people to form different cultures and races throughout the world, that’s not a bad thing. Clearly God intended for us to have amazing cultural, national and physical diversity.
The problem is our pride and fear cause us to want to dominate one another. Especially if the other person is somehow different than us.
Even Israel, God’s chosen nation to represent him to the whole world, fell into the trap:
6 He says, “You will do more than restore the people of Israel to me. I will make you a light to the Gentiles, and you will bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.”
They must have missed that memo. They became proud of their race and their connection to God and began to think of everyone else as nothing more than fuel for the fires of hell.
But let’s be reminded of where we started: in the beginning.
27 So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
God’s Plan: Remove the Curse
God’s Plan: Remove the Curse
When we get to the NT, God’s plan of reconciliation is revealed in Jesus Christ.
16 “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.
While Jesus’ primary interactions were with Jewish people, he had significant opportunities to connect with other races.
In Matt. 8, Jesus is confronted by a Roman centurion who begs Jesus to heal his servant.
The man’s faith is so strong in Jesus that he exclaims
10 When Jesus heard this, he was amazed. Turning to those who were following him, he said, “I tell you the truth, I haven’t seen faith like this in all Israel!
Perhaps most famous is his conversation with the Samaritan woman in Jn. 4.
His mission statement then (and now) was:
19 Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
The earliest days of the church were recorded in the book of Acts where the leaders are clearly shown as struggling through what the implications of that mission statement are.
Peter has to have a vision from God. In Acts 10 we read about a vision of God commanding Peter to no longer make distinctions between food types. Clearly a metaphor for what was to come.
28 Peter told them, “You know it is against our laws for a Jewish man to enter a Gentile home like this or to associate with you. But God has shown me that I should no longer think of anyone as impure or unclean.
34 Then Peter replied, “I see very clearly that God shows no favoritism. 35 In every nation he accepts those who fear him and do what is right.
It’s vitally important for us to grasp the same message today. The beginning of the church in the world in the 1st century required a lot of rethinking on the apostle’s part.
Paul continues this message as the church moves into primarily pagan, Gentile world.
13 But now you have been united with Christ Jesus. Once you were far away from God, but now you have been brought near to him through the blood of Christ. 14 For Christ himself has brought peace to us. He united Jews and Gentiles into one people when, in his own body on the cross, he broke down the wall of hostility that separated us.
Listen to his conclusion:
19 So now you Gentiles are no longer strangers and foreigners. You are citizens along with all of God’s holy people. You are members of God’s family. 20 Together, we are his house, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. And the cornerstone is Christ Jesus himself. 21 We are carefully joined together in him, becoming a holy temple for the Lord. 22 Through him you Gentiles are also being made part of this dwelling where God lives by his Spirit.
Being a Blessing Today
Being a Blessing Today
We must transform our thinking and our actions when it comes to racial reconciliation.
If for no other reason than what we will experience in heaven:
9 After this I saw a vast crowd, too great to count, from every nation and tribe and people and language, standing in front of the throne and before the Lamb. They were clothed in white robes and held palm branches in their hands. 10 And they were shouting with a great roar, “Salvation comes from our God who sits on the throne and from the Lamb!”
The potential overreaction to the direction of a message like this is to assume that we should abandon all our cultural distinctives and meld into one giant multi-cultural group.
While moving toward racial diversity is a wonderful goal, we are not required to stop being who we are.
Our first response, however, must be to take Jesus seriously when he told us to love one another.
27 The man answered, “ ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.’ And, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ” 28 “Right!” Jesus told him. “Do this and you will live!” 29 The man wanted to justify his actions, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
What does that kind of love look like?
(I seriously doubt that anyone in this congregation is an outright racist, a supremacist.
But we’re fooling only ourselves if we think we don’t have some prejudicial tendencies or buried fears about people who don’t look or sound like us.
Let’s begin being more of the church of the 1st century but asking the Spirit to come into our lives individually as well as collectively to light up those dark corners of our minds & souls.
2 Wash me clean from my guilt. Purify me from my sin.
Take Paul seriously when tell us:
28 There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.
No other institution in the world is big enough or powerful enough to change hearts and minds like the church.
Our task is teach a lost world to be disciples of Jesus. To help them experience his transforming work in their lives. To show them how to love others by how we love others.
We have a moral obligation to our influence, our talents and our resources to bring the world closer to racial reconciliation.
Tomorrow, as you go out into your daily routine, what will you see?