Part 1: Cultural Diversity | Part 2: Walking the Tightrope | Part 3: Drawing the Line
We are ambassadors for a reason. God is working through history toward a goal that is worth all the difficult choices and cultural confrontations. We do well to remind ourselves of it.
In the beginning, God created us in his image and gave us dominion over a created world that was “very good” (Gen 1.31). Soon that creation was marred, however, distorted by our sin. And immediately God set out to restore what we had broken, to reunite what was estranged (Ge 3.15).
He prepares an earthly line that will eventuate in a man who is God himself. The story takes a while to tell; there is Seth, then Noah, then Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; David, and Solomon, and then a builder in Nazareth named Joseph. He adopts his fiancee’s baby, thereby entitling the child to the throne of his father David. This child, in his short life, will demonstrate himself to be prophet, priest, and king, and will offer the perfect sacrifice—himself—to atone for the sins of all who would believe in him. And with that faith comes the transfer of his righteousness, his legal and moral perfection, to the believer.
And then reunification with the long-estranged God.
And God’s vision continues. It’s not enough that three Jewish men—Jesus’ “best friends”—believe, or that the Twelve or the crowds do. The vision is much bigger than that. God is gathering to himself a people, innumerable and global, to praise his name. The message of this gathering will go to the Jew first, but God’s Spirit will create a new institution, the church, to unite all who will come, to erase national and ethnic boundaries, to manifest the glory of disparate people fellowshipping face to face, worshiping together in the same room, rooms large and small all around the globe.
And those little gatherings are a foretaste of a much larger gathering, myriads of myriads, people from every kingdom, tribe, tongue, and nation, united in their praise, with one voice, to the one who loved them and who bought them with his very blood.
I once attended a worship service in Arad, Israel, one of the oldest cities in the world. In a house on a hill gathered believers from all around the world. The sermon was in Hebrew, but with the aid of live translators and headsets, we heard in our mother tongues—I in English, others in French, Spanish, Arabic, Swahili. A foretaste.
It was always clear in the Hebrew Scripture that the plan was not limited to the Jews. God told Abraham, “In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Ge 12.3). Amos preached that Edom and “all the heathen … are called by [God’s] name” (Am 9.11-12). Isaiah foresaw all the nations coming to worship in Jerusalem (Is 2.1-4; 27.12-13). Jesus said,
Many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven (Mt 8.11).
But that all these peoples would be united in one body, on equal footing, not because they had become Jews, but because they believed in the God of all the earth—that was new revelation, given through Paul (Ep 3.6).
This plan could only result in infinite glory being given to the Planner, whose wisdom and power and grace astonishes even the angels in heaven (Ep 3.10), when they see people who should be mortal enemies united in praise to the One who has brought them together, not just with one another, but with him.
Cultural boundaries, indeed.
This is the God, and the plan, that we represent. What a trust we have been given; God has entrusted his reputation and plan to servants that he knows are unfaithful and imperfect. But he will empower us, enliven us, direct us, and the plan will be accomplished.
To represent such a God is an inestimable privilege.
May he give us wisdom and strength to represent him well.
Photo by Carlos Magno on Unsplash
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