Sermon Tone Analysis

It was a bright, beautiful, sunny day and “One Love” by Bob Marley fills your ears and the city streets around you.

You know the song, right?

“One love… One heart …

Let’s get together and feel alright.”

As you're sitting there in front of your favorite and only neighborhood coffee shop with outdoor seating.

Your senses are all being overwhelmed.

Not only do you hear Bob Marley’s voice, but you also hear the rush of the crowds passing in front of you as they are going to and from their apartments, pulling their personal shopping carts, not speaking English.

Your sinuses fill up with smells from local food trucks and street vendors as they open up their Churro containers and the cinnamon sugar fills that air followed by the Birra stew cooking down the goat meat at the taco truck as people order Birra tacos that start to make your mouth water.

A neighborhood friend walks by with his earbuds in, but you smell his coffee from one of the local Spanish bakeries on your block and the coffee is light and sweet (just like me).

All of this is happening around you, as you sit out in the road in front of El Barista (shout to Manny if you’re watching) because the city is allowing sectioned off outdoor seating, even though cars are whizzing past you, laying on their horns because an Uber driver and bicyclist cut them off.

This, believe it or not, is the moment that God impressed upon me the beautiful picture of what the Kingdom of God is like and what our future looks like.

Well, hey, my name is John, and I am the Outreach Director here at MCC and I am so excited to continue our series on Why I Believe …

We’ve covered a lot of ground so far and if you’ve missed anything, check out our website for all those past sermons.

That story I just shared about all the sights, smells, and sounds happened to me while my wife, Heather, and I had the pleasure to fulfill one of the desires of our hearts when we lived in New York City.

I still remember that day not because I was caught up in the rhythms of a massive city, but because it was then that the Holy Spirit was vividly impressing upon me that this is what God’s Kingdom looks like: a beautifully diverse cornucopia of cultures and ethnicities that are united together in worship and service of God despite of and, quite possibly, because of their differences.

In fact, the Apostle John puts it this way:

READ Revelation 7:9-10

John was seeing a picture of what heaven is going to be like and what our future will be like if we are followers of Jesus.

Does that picture excite you?

This isn’t just a beautiful picture of a diverse cornucopia of cultures and ethnicities displaying some future more perfect Union.

No, this is going to happen in the future because it is God’s will.

Not only is this God’s will for our future, but God also showed us His will thousands of years ago when he spoke to Abram, who wasn’t a Jew at the time, but rather was from the land of Ur, which is in modern day Iraq.

God said this,

READ Genesis 12:1-3 NLT

“The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you.

I will make you into a great nation.

I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others.

I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt.

All the families on earth will be blessed through you.””

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Last week, Pastor Phil highlighted these verses about the responsibility of God’s People (His Church or His Bride) to be a blessing to absolutely ever ethnic group on earth.

The Israelites failed at this.

Let’s be honest, modern-day churches are failing at this too.

But, can we all agree right now, that that trend ends with us in this generation so that we may be a diverse community seeing future generations transformed by the gospel?

Don’t you want our church to reflect what heaven will be like?

Don’t you want your life to be a blessing to others, no matter who they are?

Don’t you want to live in that picture where unity and peace is everywhere?

I do!

Those pictures give me hope, peace, and fuel me to share the gospel of Jesus in tangible, tactile ways so that not only are spiritual needs met, but also physical, relational, emotional, and the holistic needs of others.

But I must confess that I’m burdened by this topic, because this is not the picture we currently see in our world.

Instead, we see hate overflowing into every aspect of our society: schools, grocery stores, hospitals, Central Park bird watching.

Children aren’t safe at schools, people aren’t safe in grocery stores or hospitals.

Messages of hate directed toward people of color are increasing.

Just among Asian people groups alone, we see these messages on the rise.

“According to Stop AAPI Hate, an organization tracking instances of violence and verbal abuse, there were more than 10,900 incidents reported between March 2020 and December 2021.”

(Zhou, 2023).[1]

We fool ourselves when we stay in our echo chambers and act like bigotry, hatred, individual and institutional racism is a thing of the past.

It isn’t.

Just 39 days ago, students at one of our local High Schools, posted signs that come straight out of the 40s and 50s.

Their signs read “whites only” and “blacks only” above their high school water fountains, took pictures, and posted those pictures online.[2]

Friends, we have a long way to go until those early pictures become a reality.

We have a long way to go until we fulfill Jesus’ model prayer in Matthew 6, where he asks the Father that his will be done on earth as it is in Heaven (v.

10).

We have such a long way to go to fulfill another prayer of Jesus found in John 17:21 NLT.

READ John 17:21 NLT

“I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one—as you are in me, Father, and I am in you.

And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me.”

Could it be that the world’s level of belief in Jesus is based upon our level of unity with one another?

I think so.

I believe that one reason why the world is so broken is because most American churches, aren’t even trying to reflect the picture that John saw in Revelation 7, nor are we trying to reflect Jesus’ prayer for unity in John 17. Sure things are getting better, but data shows us we are a long way off.

Studies show that most American churches are made up of one ethnicity, and that most churches are fine with that level of diversity, which is no diversity at all.

Most of our churches in America are not inclusive nor diverse.

Nor are they multi-ethnic, which is what God is calling us too.

Instead, most American churches are exclusion and tribalism and they does not reflect the inclusive, reconciling nature that is at the heart of the Gospel.

Think about this and even pray about it to.

Do you want MCC to become more diverse?

Do you want to see the picture of Heaven that John saw and that Jesus prayed for to happen here at MCC?

Do you want your life to become more diverse?

Attention/Need:

If you answered ‘No,’ to any of those questions, then you would have really hated the Early Church, because, at its inception the Church was multiethnic and multicultural, and it literally changed the world.

Sermon Statement: That is one reason why I believe … because from the very beginning, God has been building a beautifully diverse family that is filled with a cornucopia of cultures and ethnicities that are united together in worship and service to Him.

Scriptural Statement: God wants His Church, including MCC, to be multicultural and multiethnic.

Transition: But how?

How can we fulfill that beautiful mosaic that John saw and Jesus prayed for in today’s cultural climate of hatred and division?

If not us, then who?

If not the Church, then who? Friends, …

Point 1: The Multi-Ethnic Church is our Spiritual Heritage

If you are a follower of Jesus, then your spiritual heritage is multiethnic.

After all, Jesus commanded us to be multicultural.

READ Matthew 28:19-20

all nations - panta ta ethne = all ethnicities

Jesus’ earliest followers took this commandment to heart and even fulfilled it, in part, on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit empowered and enabled them to speak to the diverse crowd that had gathered in the city of Jerusalem.

READ Acts 2:5-13

“from every nation” - same words in Greek - pantos ethnous = all ethnicities

It means that from its beginning the Church has always been multi-ethnic.

Look at this picture of where the first Church congregation come from.

[PENTECOST PICTURE]

3,000 people from different cultures, different ethnicities, who had different lived experiences entered the family of God and started doing life together and living in unity with one another.

It looked like this:

READ Acts 2:42-47

This is your spiritual heritage!

This is why we build relationships.

Share Burdens and Share Jesus.

So that we can bring everyone into the diverse, inclusive, reconciling family of God.

Due to this uncommon multiethnic and multicultural unity, the church began to grow, and the wider culture began to believe in Jesus.

We are starting to see this take place down in Avondale.

I love what God is doing in and through us down in Avondale.

God has called us and opened a lot of doors for us to partner with and help support a lot of good Kingdom work down in Avondale.

Most recently, we have been partnering with The Wesley Educational Center to help expand their preschools playground and partnering with other churches and organizations to help clean up parts of the wider neighborhood.

Also, shout out to EPIC who blessed Wesley so well with hand soap and toilet paper!

102 rolls of TP for that preschool!

[EPIC TP Picture]