"THEY are IN?!" || A Revolution of Radical Inclusion - Brad Jersak

thank you so much thank you thank you for including me here this morning we're going to be looking at this radical revolution in terms of Christ's global inclusion his Universal embrace is his cosmic reconciliation and I think that a great way to do that would be to set the stage with one of Isaiah's visions where he saw the River of Life flowing from the temple to all nations along with the invitation of the spirit and the bride in the book of Revelation are you thirsty are you thirsty I see water vd aquam Eric would you share with us what that looks like [Music] I see [Music] I see [Music] for from the [Music] [Laughter] Oh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] I see [Music] I see I see [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] are you thirsty the spirit and the bride say come come to the waters but the Kings bring the glory of the nations into the temple and drink of those waters all are welcome and her gates will never be shut and this is the vision that Isaiah had of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ the fountain of living water the river of life that pours forth into the nations and welcomes everyone let's go to the first slide we have this incredible announcement you're in you are in which then raises a question for the insiders they are in to them are you sure because you see there were competing visions of righteousness and last week if you were here or listened online you would have heard Brian's on my dear friend and favorite preacher telling us about these competing visions of righteousness where on the one hand you've got the back story of Balaam telling King Balak includes some Moabite women into the camp and let them seduce our men and bring the whole thing down and it's this incredible disaster and then Phineas comes to the rescue with a murder it turns into a minor genocide and this becomes reckoned unto him as righteousness that violent zeal was a vision of righteousness to solve the problem of inclusion and this week we want to explore how that competing vision then also becomes codified in the law you know in if you don't want to have to have finneus incident over and over and over again you instill it in the law and one of the ways you do that is you mark out who is excluded and there's all sorts of exclusion in the Deuteronomic law that says if you want it to go well with you here is who's out law after law after law one of the intriguing ones to me is Deuteronomy 23 where he says now listen here here's who's out and can't come in first of all if you've been emasculated through crushing or cutting lord have mercy one translation tells you what the body parts are if you become a eunuch or in some way castrated you are excluded also if you are born of a forbidden marriage and so some translations will say well you know that's the child of a prostitute or maybe it's the child of those who are who who were not married at all but it actually it says a forbidden marriage intermarriage you're out not only are you out your kids are out and your grandkids are out and your great grandkids are out and your great-great to ten generations if you are the fruit of a forbidden marriage you're out and you can't come in ever and also if you happen to be an ammonite or a Moabite you're out - there's no place for you here because you didn't well your great-great-great great-great grandparents didn't welcome the Israelites when they came out of Egypt with bread and water and these exclusions multiply and become codified and we'll go to the next slide and so what we've got here is these conflicting visions of righteousness you've got the law on the one hand and Isaiah's vision on the other hand and so it's not just violent zeal but the violent zeal becomes code fied as exclusion expulsion and when necessary eradication whether it's Outsiders bringing their sin in or insiders having their sin float up the solution is exclusion and yet you've got this other vision that comes about through the prophets the ones who see a better world a ones ones who see that there is a righteousness of a radical engagement and inclusion that looks like the river flowing from the temple flowing from the temple what a contrast so at some point then how do the people of God make that corner how did they turn the corner from zealous exclusionists into radical inclusion estándares brings us to the story of Cornelius in the book of Acts where the Apostle Peter is one of these zealous exclusionists has a wake-up call and it's so important to the history of the people of God that it not only tells us the story but then we have the book of Acts repeating the story through Peters eyes Peter the one who is an eyewitness of the risen Christ Peter the one who had heard the Great Commission to go to all nations Peter the one who still would not eat with Gentiles how is he going to make that corner well he tells us in Acts chapter 11 when he went up to Jerusalem some of the circumcised disputed with him saying you went indoors with men who have four skins how does it keep coming back to that and eat not only that you ate with them and Peter explained it to them from the beginning saying I was in the city of Joppa praying and in ecstasy I saw a vision a certain shape descending like a great sheet having been let down from the sky by four corners and it came right up to me gazing into which I perceived and saw the quadrupeds of the earth the wild beasts the reptiles in the birds of the sky and I also heard a voice saying to me get up Peter sacrifice and eat and I said certainly not Lord for nothing profane or impure has ever entered my mouth and a voice answered a second time out of the sky do not deem profane what God has made pure and this happened three times and everything was lifted into the sky again he denied Christ three times DejaVu and see all at once three men were standing at the household where I was having been sent to me from Caesarea and the spirit told me to go with them hesitating at nothing and these six brethren came with me as well and we went into the man's house and he recounted to us how he had seen the angel standing in his house and saying send to Joppa and son summoned Simon who was also called Peter who will speak words to you by which you may be saved you and all your household and as I began to speak the spirit the Holy One fell upon them as upon us also at the beginning and I remembered the word of the Lord how he said John indeed baptized in water but you will be baptized in the Holy Spirit so if God gave them a gift equal to the one he also gave us when we had faith in the Lord Jesus The Anointed who was I that I might hinder God and hearing these things they quieted down and gave glory to God saying then God has also given the nations a turning of the heart toward life the word of the Lord thanks be to God so we have here Cornelius before Christ and we'll go to the next slide and there's some really amazing affirmations of this pre-christian man first of all we have an affirmation by God through the Apostle Peter of Cornelius pre-christian faith practices first of all the text in chapter 10 says he was devout that means deeply committed faithful he was a devout man and he revered God and not just any God not the God of his own imagination he wasn't his own Pope or something like this he feared the God or honored the God revered to God and worship the God of Abraham and we know this because the Jews were mightily impressed of him the Jewish people in his community had seen him and they had identified him as a God fear someone who believed in and worshipped the God of Abraham not only that but we read that he donated generously he was an alms giver and in that context do you remember when Jesus said store up for yourselves treasures in heaven how do you do that in the Jewish world and even in the Sermon on the Mount that is done through almsgiving and this man was an alms giver and not only was he one who donated alms generously to the poor but the text says that God saw it and remembered God noticed his alms giving he noticed his treatment to the poor not only that but we read that he was continually praying and not only continually praying but that God heard those prayers which is quite amazing so here we have a man who's not a Christian yet and yet God notices his treatment of the poor as an act of righteousness and he hears his prayers from heaven and when he begins to communicate with Cornelius we also find out that at every single stage prior to his conversion he is zealous to obey God to hear God's voice and does what he says oh that that's the man who builds his house on the rock he not only has these faith practices but he also has a series of authentic spiritual experiences and let's go to a slide the next slide and so included in these in these faith experiences this is not bad for a guy who's not a Christian yet he's having visions and some of you have had visions profound visions and he's having visions after the same kind of tone and content of Daniel in the Old Testament or John in the book of Revelation here's a man having visions of God prior to his conversion to Jesus Christ prior to his revelation of the gospel not just visions but angelic visitations such that you would read in Revelation chapter 1 or Daniel chapter 9 an angel angel comes to him and he has an interaction with an angel of the Living God and this angel of the Living God begins to deliver him words from the Lord messages from gods can you hear God before you come to Christ Cornelius did and in fact he was getting words of knowledge that included specific addresses and names that's not bad I don't get those I give it a go sometimes and I sometimes find myself on the wrong street corner talking to the wrong person but you know not so not so with Cornelius he he would get he got words of knowledge or here's the man you're gonna meet and his name is Simon and you're gonna meet him at this other man's house Simon the two even knows what Simon's job is he's a tenor you know so we've got this kind of we've got this kind of revelation going on not only that but he is there are third-party revelations about him being delivered to the preeminent apostle in the world that would be like me getting a phone call this morning from Pope Francis I had revelations about you last night what does that say about me I must be like on God's radar if the preeminent Apostle Peter is receiving revelations about Cornelius Cornelius has he's on God's radar he's been noticed in heaven and all of this is before Christ or is it perhaps no one is ever before Christ because we are ever before Christ in other words you don't have a spiritual journey that predates the Cross where does your journey begin maybe we could even say it began in Adam but I want to say the spiritual journey that leads to the waters of eternal life does not begin the first time you say yes to Jesus it began the first time Jesus said yes to you in his incarnation Romans 5 is so important about this these days when you were weak he died for you when you were a sinner he forgave you when you were his enemy Christ reconciled you and all that has happened to you through the curse of Adam has now been undone through the revelation of Jesus Christ this is Romans chapter 5 that Christ died for the world before we ever heard of him even when we were antagonistic toward him your spiritual journey when did it begin 2,000 years ago through the work of Christ there's no before Christ because your ever before Christ you you have always been on his radar and so I I think that this is incredible because from all eternity you've been carved in the palm of his hands and it seems to me that Cornelius story the validation of his faith practices and his spiritual experiences are rooted in the work of Christ in the Incarnation and Peter comes awake to this let's go to the next slide Peter gives us his eyewitness confirmation that this guy is in and already was when does he come in well we've got these phrases do not deem profane what God has made pure that's before is baptism God has made him pure already well it's worse than that we must not call anyone profane or impure we must not deem someone an outsider or an outlier we must we must begin to see that what Christ did he did for all and in some way in that sense they're already in in every people whoever Revere's God and performs works of righteousness is accepted by God this is a this is challenging wait a minute he was already accepted by God we didn't even get him saved yet and he's accepted by God God's seeing his righteousness hearing his prayers and he is deemed clean and acceptable already that brings you to a crisis I think let's go to slide 6 what are Peters takeaways Peters takeaway or that there is the therefore you know exclusion is over no one's unclean God makes no distinction neither can we everyone has been accepted cleansed through the work of Jesus Christ but then what I love this part is Peters conclusion that the authentic faith practices and spiritualists experiences of Cornelius preclude the gospel oh it's okay as accepted Jesus doesn't matter is that what Peter thinks no what he sees is a man who has come to full term and ready for new birth and the thing that that that occurs to him in the midst of this is if all of this let's tell him about Jesus let's point to the gospel it was all for this this let's come to the climax of your spiritual journey with a revelation of Christ in the gospel and he begins to share the gospel with them and before before the the folks from the outside could even make a response the Holy Spirit falls on them and Peters like oh no the Holy Spirit's falling on them quick get some water he's doing it all backwards he's already in and so they they hurry up and they get some water and he sees this authentic acceptable man and he introduces him to the good news of Jesus Christ the pregnancy came full-term he's reversed and now let's go to slide number 7 and we read in this gospel that he points to Jesus Jesus in his gospel says this one Jesus is the lord of everyone this one God raised up on the third day this one God marked out his judge of the living and the dead to this one all the prophets bear witness every one having faith in him is to receive forgiveness through his name while still uttering these words the spirit the Holy One the gift was poured out all those who were listening and they were baptized I just think this is an amazing beautiful kind of radical welcome and inclusion but it's also an acknowledgement of the whole journey I got on an airplane Southwest Airlines where they give you a number so you can pick your own seat and so I head down down the aisle and I got a really good aisle seat so that my right arm could be the aisle and I could write things and all of that and then I thought well wait a minute I want space in the seat between me and the window so I started manspreading so I'd look really unhospitable I'm like God please just let me let me be left alone I don't like airplanes and I really hate evangelist with airplanes stories so but I see this man coming down the aisle and he catches my eye and I'm like oh no this is a big guy you know I have wide shoulders and his wide shoulders and this will not so I'm looking I'm not like look bigger inhale right and but no he locks eyes with me he comes and he sits down and and I notice he's wearing clerical robes I'm like oh I see I see you're some form of cleric and he's like yeah I am and and and he he begins to tell me interesting spiritual journey experience stuff beginning with this he tells me I believe God speaks today do you I do and he said I believe that God speaks and gives us direction and guidance and counsel so as I was coming down the aisle I was asking God who do you want me to sit with and he directed me to you missionaries but we get into a beautiful conversation about our conceptions of God and I realize this man is devout he Revere's God he loves God and in fact he listens to God and when he prays God hears him in responds and the things that God has shown him are primarily this this is his image of God I we talked about healthy images of God and toxic images of God and he says my image of God is this that God is merciful that God is all merciful that God is especially merciful did I mention that he's an imam from Seattle and we end up having a five-hour flight where we're conversing about our conceptions of God as pure mercy about the responsibility of preachers to inspire people and lift them up about our rejection of all violence in the name of God and the call to be peacemakers one with another I mean we're like so on the same page but of course the voice in my ear goes yeah but he's one of them and I don't think it was the Lord it might have been a guilty conscience saying well if you're embarrassed of me I'll be embarrassed of you when are we gonna talk about Jesus I think we'll talk about him now because our common ground doesn't preclude the sharing of the good news of Jesus Christ so I said to him I am aware of Muslim followers of Jesus who don't convert to Christianity and yet they're very focused on Christ what do you think of that phenomenon and he said oh I love Jesus and he said I know I know we have some impasses about who Jesus is but I'm telling you Jesus is the Messiah Jesus is alive and he's coming again and he's going to overthrow the Antichrist and establish God's kingdom on earth so I'm like that's not bad it's not bad and we also began to talk about the deal killers areas where we're not in agreement about who Jesus is but what we found out is this that though we have immature conceptions of God and that it it helps me to think this way I shared this with friends this weekend and they thought it was helpful that as I sit there telling him about who God is and what has been revealed to me through Jesus and he's telling me who he thinks God is and how he loves Jesus and even though we think differently on it maybe we're like two toddlers with crayons drawing our picture of God for one another squiggling outside the lines and I draw on my picture of God and it's really good I think I've nailed it actually and I bring this picture of God to the Father I said God III have this picture of you would you take it and he looks at and he smiles and he hugs me he's like this is fantastic son and he puts it on his fridge this will be incredible because now everybody can look at my picture of God and they will know exactly what he's like but wait my mom friend is drawing a picture of God two about parts of it look the same all merciful especially merciful the opening lines of the Quran but there's other parts of that that doesn't look like my picture well at least the father will correct them and so he he offers up his picture of God to Allah and he says here you go in and I'm notice it was like wait a minute it's the same dad the father of Abraham the God of Abraham the one that Muslims Jews and Christians all worship but but but you show them that it's wrong and they see the father takes his picture and he smiles why are you smiling and he embraces him that's not okay he puts it out at fridge why are you doing that and that the father looks at me and he says Thank You Brad for doing your very best to conceive me through the revelation you've had through Jesus and to and to draw that picture in to share it with the world that's so great however there's a more accurate picture of the image of God that I want you to embrace and it's in the face of your brother here and all I ask is you don't poke each other in the eyes with crayons and that you would show him the radical inclusion and welcome and me you know what he may never end up seeing Jesus as I do he mean he may Revere God and me and maybe he'll never convert me I just like don't think I'm gonna become Muslim what shall we do how well we will share the good news of Christ and we will offer the Living Waters and all who drink will be saved I want to just close with some wisdom from my friend mercy akin I'm like what does all of this radical cosmic inclusion mean like in light of John 14:6 in John 14:6 Jesus says I am the way the truth and the life no one comes to God no one comes to the Father but through me and what mercy showed me was that how do we preach Christ exclusively and yet inclusively and it's sort of like this all through the ages people have known God through different names and God welcomed them and embraced them through those names and they could know God through those names and what she taught me is that at some point there's this incredible shift in Judaism where David begins to call God my king my God my strong tower my Savior and it's really accessible and personal it's not just a generalized God out there up in the sky he's mine but then when we come to our Lord Jesus Christ in whom is the spirit of sonship he begins to - he can validate those other ways of knowing God but he takes us in way closer this is my father and through me the one unique son who bears the spirit of sonship if you will come to me you can know him as father - and he will become our Father and what what mercy is discovering is that when we shared that revelation of the unique sonship of Jesus Christ being offered to the world the Jews Christians and Muslims get very very interested in Jesus because we all want to know God like that today we're gonna come to the table Brian come on up and rescue the microphone from me but I'm so excited today to share the body of Christ and the fountain of immortality was my brother hey man

Channel: Word of Life Church

Views: 14,909

Rating: 4.7788019 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: 6vqm6YNv4jE

Length: 33min 41sec (2021 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 03 2018