SSU Presents: Dr. Brad Jersak. IN: Incarnation & Inclusion

everyone welcome to the first SSU public lecture of the 29th year of ministry students I want to acknowledge that we're here on the traditional and unceded territory let's get on the Guardian people covered by the treaty to the Peace of Petra we're also very delighted that brad is here giving this public so those are the things I really wanted to say but I should say just a few the typical introductory kind of things so Brad has offered maybe most well known to you more christ-like God followed very very soon almost immediately now except not here in person which and there's the world thanks to Walter and especially to Peter Fitch for midwifing me into associate dean for the last year which is like McDonald employee in training and also indefinitely I get to ask them what do I do next that's what we'll be doing so yeah as Walter said we're going to be talking about this other book called in it's out of its and I brought copies but then I gave them away to a ministry student some time Amazon if you're interested but I'm gonna be ripping off that book a little bit tonight on this idea incarnation and inclusion and so what underlies this is a question in the tradition I'm from you know we have we have this the importance to the singular importance of the incarnation of Christ and what that is typically done is is by focusing on the uniqueness of the Incarnation also made is very exclusive and and that's deeply problematic and on the other hand a lot of us have discovered that God's mother's higher white or deeper longer than we could ever ask or imagine or get our heads around everyone's in but it's hard to talk about that then without compromise so we end up having these these two ditches I thought well that'd be my perspective anyway and I do not impose my perspective what I've seen in hurt and let you weigh what you think of that so again if we emphasize the uniqueness of Christ we end up being exclusivist sand if we emphasize the all-embracing love God we sometimes like make Christ optional and my perspective is that these aren't conflicting convictions in fact I'm suspicious that the higher my Christology that is my my vision of Christ the wider and broader deeper longer will be and so I want to share a little bit about that tonight and so I'll start with this story he's story driven how long are these usually I'm a monastery preacher we're eight minutes is the sweet spot for the length of when I was a little boy I had a dream I was 6 years old then in the dream I was an evangelist and is the six-year-old in the dream I'm I'm walking through this group of cannibals and they're actually biting at my heels I think it was a combination of Deering baptist survivalist and watching popeye elated them each of this dream and then i in the dream that that if I preach good news they would stop biting me and in the dream they actually go from being naked to closed and so I took that almost like this is called to be an evangelist which is a lot like saying pardon me if the shoe fits but like a lot like a gnat Mozilla or bad like a creepy lawyer you know like evangelist is way up there with those things in fact if you go with the stereotypical lawyer like from television III I know some really wonderful boarders I know they're not actually the create the really bad kind like a Jim Jim Carrey and liar liar right and so you just describe that kind of water and then you write a little list and then you erase lawyer at the top and you put a Banja list there and you've got it right and so but so I have this calling as an evangelist in it and that's supposed to mean share good news not recruit people to your exclusive club this is what Simone deysa you know she wouldn't you have two more pennies to missions but like we weren't called to start a new religion or Copeland what is the good news so always been working with this and one hand I've certainly become cynical on one side around that and especially on airplanes you know we used to go to chapel at Bible College so glad we promote that Saints deep in the university is not a Bible College and people know because we went with citric Chapel week after and we have airplane events listen chaplain and just guilt us and so that was very painful time in our life and so I'm always paranoid about that and so one day I'm on a plane and it's a Southwest Airlines jet and so they're different than everyone else because what you do is you get a number and you get on recording it's a number they don't give you a seat and I've got a good number so it meant I could pick my own seat so I go down and I I got the charlie seat in the exit row so that's like left side I also my right arm can have room into the aisle and I'm making space for myself and I'm aware that all the aisle and all the window seats are full and now the middle seats are beginning to fill up and I want my middle seat to be empty so I start man spray looking as inevitable as I can and I'm inhaling to puff up my chest and like no money they want to sit there sure enough about six rows up he's coming my way in this big man a big man locks eyes with me and now I pray [Music] preserve this seat for me to five and a half and so on nope makes a beeline for that seat and he sits beside me well at least he's interesting look because he had a black cassock on and a half or something and it sits down so you're uh I see by what you're wearing or Clara yes that's right I mean welcome here I lied and turns out he's an evangelist and he says almost immediately I am wondering if you believe God speaks today he sent me to you I sometimes I even use my inside voice okay we're going to make the best of it as we get into the conversation it's really starts getting interesting we begin comparing notes about what is the role of preaching and he says well I think the wrong preaching is to say something uplifting and encouraging and beautiful because I agree with that that sounds like the news is very news and then and then I won't know he's got into divine judgment but he starts we actually kind of saw things the same way he said it's sort of like it certainly gave an angel on one shoulder he's keeping track of you and all the good things you got a demon the other soldiers keep track of all the bad things so you get to the final judgment and all this is put on a scale but then God comes in and he doesn't judge by that he's just all merciful in fact that reminds me of you know some of the things where the early church fathers talked about that judgment isn't like the good people go one place in the bad people go to another place it's more like you're in a classroom and the teachers the teacher and some students experience the teacher is heaven and others experiences yes I believe the same you know so we're really hitting it off now here's the amazing thing so where are you Minister it's like well I'm an imam in Seattle I'm evangelist and he's a really good and so now evangelist sitting together sharing common ground right now if because I grew up in a Baptist Church so you have this this Bible verse lurking all the time as a young Baptist in the Bible verses is if you're Jesus says if you're ashamed of me before men I will be ashamed of you it and it's auntie means and so I said that Imam for several hours in now and I'm like you know what this is he's already offered he said anywhere you want to go in the world I know I don't have open doors all these nations you might never get in I will open the doors and I want you to come to my post in Seattle and we'll share wow this is hospitality right and it's generosity indistinct what I see is a kingdom of God and I'm like you know this is amazing as we talked about we've talked about our common ground I actually feel like we could be friends and real friends can can not only share their common ground we can share her differences respectfully I know exactly what you mean and he said for example I know he goes Orthodox Christians for example you must believe Jesus is gone and I must not and and could we be friends even with that disagree absolutely and and he's and so we get into how sharing our differences can actually grow the friendship further so we share a common ground we share our differences and then we can share our faith as in our experiences and like everything about the everything about this this meeting was fantastic and and I learned a lot from it I learned a lot by listening I work a lot by holding difference and I learned a lot about that could we agree not to bomb each other's houses without me okay because that's a issue in the world these days and what and he searched oh yeah then I had to talk about Jesus so honor differences you know he meant to Jesus I mentioned Jesus Jesus I said I'm aware of Jesus following Muslims who never convert to Christianity but because of what the Quran says about Jesus there in 10 oh I love Jesus and off he goes and and I've become aware of these movements and now what I'm told that like a movement would include it has to include at least 10,000 people and at least in three generations and in the in like the 1980s there was three of these Jesus following Muslim movements now there's over 80 and a good chunk of the world is so it got me really thinking about incarnation and as the Christ but won't be all-inclusive love of God that works together but also what sharing our face means and so dr. ender claytor who's connected with the school irpg students he gave me this illustration he said look we've gotta come with way more humility in our interfaith dialogue and think about it as like we're toddlers with blood crayons all of us are trying to no matter how precise you think you are or no matter how dogmatic can get let's be realistic about God and so I'm gonna riff off of his illustration so so credit to him but I've done some detailed work with it that I wouldn't want to believe before so here's Bradley that's my that's what my mother called me and and Bradley's a little toddler with crayons and I'm in a cardboard box because I like cardboard boxes I would have them in sports and in my fort I would have panels of cardboard and I would drop this with my with my crayons and and when we had kids that I made for my boys and they drew things so I need my car bird box will call Christianity and I'm drawing my picture of God and I just know I'm nailing it I'm super confident about my picture of God it's all wrong mistake and and what do you know God comes in the door to see Mike so I I pull this panel of Carrboro and then give it to Daddy home daddy mummy if you prefer right whatever your parental vision of God can I give this and what do you know he's delighted thus confirming that I've nailed it in fact as he's looking at it I'm thinking to myself it's just like looking at years and shows delight and he gives me a hug and then and then he quotes and hangs it on his fridge hello Leah hey cuz now what does this mean it means he wants everybody to see my image of God and to emulate it and this will be the prototype image abroad and I'm so so satisfied in this I should go off and like start a call my friends from the airplane the Muslim guard I notice him stand up from his box and he's holding up an image of God quite different than mine and he he offers it to God conceive it it's it's an offering of worship and I'm like what these squads gonna correct he's like totally missed the lines and what he's going to do is he's going to show him my pictures and this is how it really that's not what he does he embraces him neat and he looks quite pleasing and he has this was your big chance to know and so and then God comes in he speaks to us and and I'm sure there's boxes all over the place with lots of people drawing the pictures and offering them up to God and quite like to my annoyance he's receiving them and then he says this since I thank you for thank you for you make sure I receive it as worship and I want you to know something I have given you and it's in your brother's face and his face is actually much more accurate than one picture and it's like I don't received I always receive your picture is inaccurate is it because you're my son I'm gonna receive this picture is inaccurate it is because this is my son and here's what I'm asking just don't poke each other in the eye with crayons and I just to me that was that illustration tells me a lot but also there's limitations to do that so I'll say this does it does the illustration say we shouldn't have a picture draw pictures about no I think we should like do our best to say here's how I see body does it mean all pictures of God are equally accurate probably not does it mean no pictures of act are actually at all maybe not does it mean we shouldn't share pictures of me does it mean they're all the same you know but it's just like as a human being I have a notion of God and it's okay to share that one with my experience but also then respectfully here those who have quite different images of the strange thing and also is that I notice that this Muslim Imam that his image of God is a lot closer to mine that some oh let's be less judgmental it's a lot closer to mine now than mine was 20 years ago and if I say wow how does my picture God changed it's changed a lot and sometimes in conversation with people and so I'm fascinated by that one of the ways that fascinates me the most part of my training is in biblical scholarship I am fascinated by how the image of God shifts in by the Bible itself and what it is to be faithful to God shifts to so for example in the early parts of the Bible faithfulness to God actually meant violent exclusion violence so Moses comes down from Mount Sinai he's got these tablets of stone with the laws uh and he catches his people and they their image of God is what they've made a golden calf under worshipping as the one who rescued them out of Egypt and Moses is incensed and in fact he's so enraged he smashes the tablets is like who's gonna stand with me the Levites come and join in it go to it go through the camp till your brothers kill your sisters kill anybody and they go out and they just start hacking people up and this becomes the definition of faithfulness and they are rewarded for that act of exclusionary violence by being given the priesthood Wow because why because they're peaceful and violent this violence was an act of righteousness and faithfulness to God what this happens again later on Balaam is this super prophet who gets hired by Balak what were they Moabites and and and Baylin was trying to curse Israel but he can't every time he opens his mouth a blessing comes out it's some of the most beautiful blessings in all of the Bible or the Book of Numbers from the super properties 80 person gorgeous come he's like I can't help it so Gibson mail X an advice and he says then the cursing thing won't work but here's a video sending your women seduce the men and then they'll cunning as they're getting it on they'll compromise and worship your God and so they start doing it totally works and then right and right in front of Moses there's there's a man named he takes a mini event women and they go out there they just go into the tent and they're like having at it and in phineas one of the Levite priest is like this is horrible and maybe he's watching how Moses is watching when he goes into the Tosa and phineas gets rewarded in fact the psalm says and it was credited to him as righteousness that's like what they said about violence in that way well you can't just wait for the next time to have people up so they have to embed it in the law and so you're not violent exclusion but you could have you could have not violent eradication be legal exclusion and it just starts going through a list of all the people who are excluded and it's fascinating because it's like this is faithfulness so nobody who's born outside of a normal marriage can ever no nobody who's like whose genitals have been mutilated or crushed in it and like so no units could come in which is the ancient transgender right nobody with disabilities can come in of any kind and you just hope you start growing this list of excluded people and that's but it and oh yeah because of the Moabite thing nobody can come in from a Moabite family for ten generations but then something starts happening and that's I said you know why will you start seeing a shift as we go and you get the story of Ruth who's the hero of the story the whole book of the litter and she's only like not far in she's definitely not Jem ten generations out and then her is it her grandson or great-grandson is King David and he's not even ten generations oh and suddenly they're breaking these rules and you get the story of Rahab the harlot in Jericho and she's suddenly a hero of the faith and it's like a Canaanite prostitute what who ends up in the genealogy of Jesus and so you see how there's this legalistic exclusion but you start seeing exceptions that are actually kind of heroic and beautiful and then you get to the prophecies of Isaiah and he's saying oh guess who's going to be included the eunuchs serving at the altar me they be in the priesthood what Isaiah doesn't a clever and they will never be this is this as I say these and and so then you finally come to Jesus and he's like all about inclusion and like meets the woman at the well who's a Sumerian and they're really from another religion right this point they have their own temple in garrison and Jesus is just gonna go do you know what the time is coming and it is now won't matter what temple you go to which is a strong statement and it says in fact what the father is looking for what Allah is looking for is worshipers who worship them in spirit and she gets excited and I'm thirsty he never even shames her for you know she's probably been abandoned by five husbands we've made her out to be this promiscuous woman or something not in that culture it's like abandoned by five husbands and now she's with the guy who saw their husband and Jesus never change sir he says I see so she ends up becoming one of these evangelists like but a good news kind so so Christ becomes this inclusive one and and he's hanging out with people who you hate with sort of declared we're so beautiful but his fault and his followers are supposed to get this but they don't get it for a long time and so now I went into the book of Acts and we're still working and so Jesus was inclusive but the Christians are still like you've got to be a Jew and this kind of thing then you get to the circuit Cornelius go into that in some depth in the book and I think it's a really good model for us about seeing people of other faiths because before Cornelius converts to Christian he does convert to Christianity before he does that the text says well God God shows Peter that God has already heard his prayers he's already seen that he's a generous on spirit he is already acceptable before God and he said and I've already made him clean Peter has this vision of all these unclean things coming down from heaven and a sheet Lord to take and eat and he sees the vision three times he wakes up from the vision the door knock there's a knock on the door these Gentiles forget it we're not supposed to call other people and clean anymore and then here's the fascinating thing is that Peter acknowledges Cornelius's faith practices as that way he doesn't negate any of the space practices prior to his conversion and not only that he acknowledges Cornelius's spiritual experiences which includes lately angelic visitations and work what we call words of knowledge including addresses it's like wow this guy this guy wait he's not a Christian hang on a second then people who aren't Christians pray and be heard can they hear God that angels meet them what's going on and uh one thing I love about the story is that peace that even in his conversion Peter never negates any of those spiritual experiences of our hearts and I think we've been quick to do that so like at least in my tradition and on the other hand Peter doesn't say well then I don't think I'll tell them about Jesus because he doesn't really but he doesn't anyway and as he's telling them this good news about how the God he already knows the light he's already seen the word he's already heard you're totally yes you know this God but also did you know he came in the flesh and he died and he rose from the dead and this means you know I have some good news for you you didn't know even though he knew god I don't I said it Cornelius Nygaard but maybe he didn't know this that all his shame has been washed away maybe you didn't know this you never need to be afraid of death again maybe he didn't know this but you get to know God not just as God and so it seems like there's some added revelation by keep vital and so then he's got this Holy Spirit says the boy stur falls on him and then Peters like quick get the water um because he's going to catch up to what God is doing and this seems to be a theme it's time for us to catch up and what God is doing is including everything and so so you know maybe that wasn't keeping the right thing to do but that's so and then Peter goes around saying like everything's changed now this idea of faithfulness is violent exclusion or the idea of faithfulness is legal exclusion like that's off the table we've grown past that now I'd also said it in some ways it's like Cornelius in his baptism it's like the breaking of waters in birth you know in my liturgies always we relate baptism with a woman's water break but here's the cool thing Cornelius maybe may have been born from above that day so to speak it wasn't conceived that day he was already in the womb of God growing and he wrapped it into a place where I'm ready for the next revelation and so Peter gives him one he thinks so that that's a little bit about sort of this journey and scripture from exclusion to inclusion and about somehow connecting the incarnation of prices is meant to be good news for everybody not just some angry I see this in in John chapter one with the prologue of John's Gospel where it begins but you know there is a word that created all things and there's a light that enlighten all people and this word is it work in the world this light doesn't work in the world and lots of people know this word to know this light in it but at some point down the road then John the Baptist comes along he says guess what this word in this life that's been shining and speaking also came in the flesh as a lamb to take care of saving the chain and bondage and death and all of the ways were afraid and so I actually believe in that but I also notice that some folks they they are engaged with that light and that we're way before they connected to the lamb and they need to be because what if for them if they relate lamb and Jesus they think about really version of Christianity and they just back off so I I'm really fascinated by people who are like Cornelius who who already engaged God and they haven't even joined my club yet you know maybe some of you like that where so I'll give you some fun examples from from my world so I I very much part of 12-step recovery where they have a higher power but they don't mean that higher power is Jesus they don't name 12-step recovery as Christianity it could be like Methodism Anonymous or something but but the idea is whatever your idea of God is pray to that because if there is a God that God however different or he is from your notion is still going to hear you and so you might think God is like a light bulb and if you pray to the lightbulb the lightbulb doesn't hear you and God can begin transforming you without you coloring his face right and so I'm fascinated by by the wide range of people's ideas of their higher power in enclosed step recovery and along with the radical transformation I've seen like setting them free from addictions even though their image of God may be aligned with mine doesn't seem to matter to God that said in 12-step recovery there are there is there is a content personal and responsible I like that I know lots of Christians who can't say that I think they should I think that describes Christ beautifully but honestly I also see Christians trying to smuggle their idea have gone into 12-step recovery than compromising just stay the hell out right so I'm I have a friend who's a sponsor she's been uh she's been into recovery for probably 25 years and she called me up and she said about addict who needs to make amends to a church leader I'm not really a true well he used to be okay so in 12-step recovery at some point you have to own your and and make amends as best you can to those so even though we'd never met I was gonna stand in as Church right so we meet at Tim Hortons and this woman comes in I mean she you could tell she has been she's had a hard life she's got like lines like Mick Jagger in her face you know that kind of it's been a tough length and she sits down and she starts shooting her amends with me and she says here's me I want to make my amends I have judged the church and I don't even really know what you believe okay and and then I said I feel like I feel like this won't be thorough enough unless you tell me why you judge the church that way cuz I could hear her kind of minimizing maybe they're not that bad and they kind of help my brother and no that's the minimizing and then she told me that her next-door neighbors had been when she's a little girl they had really belittled her and they there were Christians who treated her as subhuman and then they dragged her off to some hits club at the church and then a janitor molested her and that's it well of course she's gonna judge the church and I said like it's complete of course and so I think I better do some amends for the church and so I did and she received think it may be a little more free and so then I said you know recovery oboe 10 years oh so you have a higher power oh yes fascinated she said well you know overdose ten years ago I died and the paramedics brought me back but before they did here's what happened I saw myself leaving my body and then she said I turn and I saw pure light and I reached out to the pure light and it reached out to me and it entered me and I said so so do you talk to the pray everyday I I prayed to the pure life everything she's like I think she said 45 minutes every morning and you're getting clean you're gonna say and she just goes on love and care and forgiveness oh this is so cool so for 10 years she is not connected any of that stuff that you see in John 1 the light of the word she isn't connected that with Jesus because that would be like incongruent based in her experience but now maybe maybe that someone from that tradition has actually made a band I thought maybe she could maybe I could be the one who says you know the light the words also laughs so I said you you know you've touched the tricks with believe can I tell you what we believe he's just like a poppy first I think she goes to the restroom like to just brace herself cuz you know what evangelist and I shared with the story okay I said when the light of the word were embodied in this life they didn't treat this way and guess what didn't happen we didn't have an altar call the Holy Spirit didn't fall and then even running get water to go away maybe there's an ad line or maybe it's just like we don't tie it off with a phone don't even have to do but I got to share my faith and she got to share and so I get to I get to see this these kind of stories a lot and I enjoy them because you just never know what's going to happen I we have a friend named Stan Lee's friend have brain freeze about and we're just like so Esther's telling us a similar story and so she turns it out she works in a place where they help people disadvantaged people find girls and so they're working with a guy named Stanley and Stanley's like this lovely kind adorable man but he's but his mantra is I'm a lone wolf in the black sheep and that he's always talking now and there's no work there's no place for me in this world so he's always struggling with suicidal ideations and then one day Esther comes to work and she can you must have really watched it because they'd already fixed it so or else they boxed it in releasing him but it was literally from the port and he's down there whaling they said could we could you just go down and sit with him and so she's like of course I go and so she said Sammy and just I'm just here to be with you and as he he cried like deep soft sobs like from a child apart like almost to know and and and she just sat with him and then we he'd finally calmed down and she said Stanley that boy just wants to kill you all we need to look through the light so guess she's using the same language this light and it says Stanley can you can you see the light anywhere and now any second no I can't see the light anywhere she said can you look for the light in the room nobody's not can you look for the light in her I don't see any later and then it accursed her can you see the light in my eyes do you think they're coming do you see the light in my eyes and and Stanley looks in Esther's eyes and say I do and she said what is the light telling you and so now she's listening she sees the light in somebody else's eyes and now she's listening for what the light will say forward right and he says the light is saying you're kind and you're good man and you're worthy of belonging and she said Stanley that's exactly right I think you need to hold on to those words that pro-lite spoke to you could you write them down so she gets him a paper and he writes down I'm a lone wolf in a black sheep she was sadly that's the voice that tried to kill you would it be okay if we burned these words and he said yeah so they get his lighter up and they burn up and lone wolf black sheep burns up in ashes and then they try again could you write down the words that the light spoke and she writes oh I have a fine part of a good man and I'm worthy of belonging in love when you write Spanish that's right how do you feel when you read others well over the next days every time he would come in she'd say Stanley who are you so it's and I did identity exchange I'm uh and sometimes it's a little cumin black sheep no no that's not what the light told you and over the next week's the like drove out all the darkness and all of the suicidal ideations went away and then he found a job and then at work he found friends and he was so proud to talk and the my name went up on the roster they gave me fist books because they were happy to see me and then he said one of them wanted to meet with me for personal time not during work outside of work we're gonna get bicycles and go for a bike ride I have a friend just full of Stanley how does that make you feel I feel and so a buddy of mine heard about this in in Colorado Springs and he's like I've got some friends that we just like to gather money and give it away to people could we buy them bicycles and so they just got these like the hundred polar bicycles in there right around oh wow here's the weird thing he she hasn't even gone to like she's not talking about that well Christ is the light of the world he's on his journey Murray exactly where he needs to be right now and he's developing this relationship with the light that speaks through and it's changing his life and isn't that weird that God was willing to do that with him converting to my club without him drawing might picture it's just so in my book I've got like seven or eight of these stories you know my friend Dean this is Eva's pastor where she goes he a very good experience with church lots of times but he's really into chaplaincy and so what he's doing on in in the prison's he's he notices that there's all these chaplains of various faiths and they range from like fundamentalist Christians to Wiggins and he said his favorite color chaplain is actually the wicked lady she's like way nicer than the other people and so you've got this guy a Christian pastor and this wicked lady inspired that he does and he's really on to this idea of the whatever Christ has done he did for it and they're in it so he starts going around to jail and he he'll whisper to people and he's like kind of nudge them what are you talking here's the funny thing normally when you talk to prison I've done enough work in prisons not tons buddy Stevie Bible studies and nobody's guilty there nobody's guilty of anything somebody had somebody else's fault and I'm here by mistake and that wasn't even me this is just known is what he does why not you don't know what I've done and they start confessing David they become truth tellers and he's like really and then and then and then in it so they kind of get off your chest you goes why I'm just saying you're in and it's like blowing their minds and what's happening is they're responding to love and and this Chapel times are doubling in size because guess what he actually has good news his face but he's founded it's bigger so I want to address one Bible verse yeah so when when we start saying everything that people are in and then inevitably someone will bring up this dispersal jesus said I am the way the truth and the life no one comes to the Father except through me and food and we employed his exclusion again because it kind of sounds exclusionary unless she joined the Jesus Club you don't get to know God and so a friend of ours mercy Athens she does interfaith dialogue in Bethlehem with Christians Jews and Muslims well and beyond that but she lives in Bethlehem and she's a she really believes in this seven and what she was she is such chips with people from all these states and yet and cultures because some of its not really faith it's just I was born this than I am this but they asked heard now they're like because they've been around so the Muslim what do you do with John 14:6 because Christians have used it on the missile engine and Jews are asking her what do you do with John 14:6 they've been excluded because of it if they're not into Christianity so she went and prayed about it and here's what she here was her takeaway for her prayer time Jesus could not possibly have meant that no one before him ever knew God and that can't possibly be what he does but the scriptures say that Abraham was a friend of God the scriptures say that Moses spoke to God face-to-face the scriptures say David was a man after God's own heart clearly they may go first-person ethical Bible to the main god was who Hagar and he called her she called him I'm using him when they use it inclusively it's grammatical I'm happy to say she also but this God the God who sees me right and so what mercy you know this was that people with named God according to this their their experience of God so the God who sees me but who provides for me the God who heals me whatever their experience of God was that's what they call him and then you get to David and you get to speak breakers he shifts from God to my God my strong tower my deliverer my fortress my god in whom I trust and it's and it's not just tribalism it's about intimacy Psalm 113 he knows me he knows my heart he knows my innermost being he saw me being knit together through the womb and then if even if I go across the ocean he's there and he's there if I go down the shield he's there and it's this intense personalization of God as mine right and then he doesn't David does this wonderful thing he creates the songs and he gets his whole community identified now they're singing my my shepherd my strong power my you know and that's just a massive breakthrough in the human understanding of God I don't think anybody have known about that you keep going through the Bible and then you get to Jesus and something new happens again very seldom in the Old Testament or the Hebrew Scriptures we find God and referred to as father or if you will Amma mother you you won't see that occasionally there may be a secondary kind of analogy but it's not really they haven't bought it Christ comes along he's anything and he uses the word Abba 70 times and it's about intimacy it's about closeness it's about care it's and all these wonderful things it's a whole new revelation of godliness and then he doesn't even it and he gives it to his community says when you pray pray just power and it's it's like no one has no one had known no one had known God so that he shares with all of us and then the idea of the Holy Spirit is the Holy Spirit is given tongue it's Paul called the spirit of sonship or daughter hood who's in you not up there who's in you and cries out from inside your deepest plate and what we're discovering is people who start to refer to God in that way Papa or mama it's it's there's a there's a reverence to it and then into see to it and it's and it's just no one's ever seen no knowledge and so the the intense access and openness of our hearts so I think maybe that's what's going on with John 14:6 it's like here's I want you to know I want you to know God this way no one's ever seen you've got this way and everybody can go got this way now and everyone can experience obviously all right one more so I go to this revival meeting back in the day I just as much as I don't like evangelist revival meetings are even like worse for me and and I was already I was already so sick of it but he dragged me to it and and you've got these revivalists and they're strutting around on the stage of plastic swords saying triumphalist ik things I'm going to kill somebody get me the hell out of here and my friend do it drank LSE okay okay what's wrong and I said if this is revival I want nothing to do he said if revival doesn't happen at Tim Burton's see we're back there if the real thing isn't it works so we go down the road and get in line and now it's late and drag on forever so so we're about to order and then my friend is named Murray he says to me I hate it when God talks to me in public I'm like why I said cuz I have something to say to the lady behind the counter and now I told you and I'm gonna have to say it our that way just let me order first order my cinnamon raisin bagel with regular cream cheese and they were gonna coffee and then and then Murray goes up and behind the countries is this aging East evil Indian and I'm like there's no way a woman pushing 70 should be serving behind the counter Tim Hortons after 11 p.m. he is and I'm just like my heart's breaking but this isn't right you know and and she's there and she but she looks normal so that's tired she looks normal and Murray says do you have a sore neck and shoulders he look oh did you get all this well I just knew yeah I was in a car accident and my neck and my shoulder hurt really bad in fact it was all the way down inside and I can't so every night my daughter has to drive me here and drop me off and help me out of the car and then I serve a full shift from work like whenever whatever shifts are and now it's just even worse my heart's really [Music] she's like has no clue what he's talking about but she's paralyzed enough that he just reaches on his hand Jesus you just heal this lady amen and then she serves them and and brings us stuff to counter sin and change actually I feel better I would do her East Indian accent but it's it's like I'm bad at it it's a cultural approach she's she's like you know which I've heard before it's like you just want to make the guy happy but she actually sees looser okay that's great so we vote and we sit down and then pretty soon she's mopping around our our table like over and over trying to get her attention and every time you look up she's like smiling and like it gets funnier and funnier and he's like are you feeling better than she was I couldn't do this before wow that's amazing we see we prayed and jesus healed in the book I'm not a Christian that's okay she's I I believe you could like pray to anybody sincerely enough and God will answer he's like that but I prayed to Jesus and he wants you and she's like do you think maybe God sent you here to tell me about Jesus maybe and then we didn't accept that she left there knowing that Marie had prayed to Jesus in her and she didn't okay that's a route to me that's more so I guess what I'm saying after all of that is that I don't feel like my my convictions about Jesus need to be exclusive and I actually don't feel like my convictions that everybody is involved in the need to diminish my face tradition or yours so I just wanted I have a friend named jamie-lynn Shepherd he's done a little video that talks about this just we're gonna finish this and if if somebody would just hope that somebody longer you're on the bar here's the message of the gospel according to Jesus the time has come the kingdom is at hand repent change the way you think about everything and believe the new thing which is there as a way to live in the kingdom of God starting that want to Eternity mississippians the question is how does a person get into the kingdom the way into the kingdom is through Jesus but here's the problem that's not what we tell people were all born into different sizes and shapes and ethnic groups and genders all varieties of people all over the world in those different identities were often told we were often raised to think that my identity or my group is the best right group and so when I need a person from another background another group my best is 2 that is if you want to live in the kingdom you have to be like meet your group in front of my group in order to go to the heat that produces with this isn't really the straight way Jesus possible here's the reality of what Jesus is saying you can be who you are and walk straight in your own identity over Jesus into the kingdom that's the that although there's only one way to the Father see Jesus Jesus is on every road he's brought to me each of us into the kingdom in Reverse beautiful of all nations of every tribe joining together in the community and diversity [Music]

Channel: Together at SSU

Views: 1,167

Rating: 4.818182 out of 5

Keywords: Brad Jersak, Incarnation & Inclusion, IN, Christianity, SSU, St. Stephen's University, Saint Stephen, St Stephen's University, Religon, Religious public Lecture, Jesus, Incarnation, Inclusive Christianity

Id: yYmV6tN1NU4

Length: 63min 20sec (3800 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 26 2019