Is God Inclusive or Exclusive?

(I don't normally do this, but this is most of the text from my latest message. If you heard it, skip it- there's nothing new! But in case you don't got to EHA or missed last week, here's our first week of the series. Warning: It's kind of long! Read and enjoy!)

Ask anything- we invited you to turn in your questions and many of you did. Thanks for that. You turned lots of good questions! It was difficult to distill those down for our series here in January.

What I like about this series is the reminder to us that God is not afraid of hard questions. He is not afraid to be challenged with our hardest questions. That’s really important for us to realize at the beginning here, because many of you grew up in an environment where asking questions was highly discouraged. Brining up sticky points about faith or how the Bible worked was generally looked down on because it was feared that if we asked too many questions it might show that we weren’t really faithful. If we ask to difficult a question, it would show that we didn’t believe strong enough. We were told to just go along, don’t disrupt things, don’t challenge things, just trust.

But we need to know that God isn’t afraid of hardest questions. As you have heard me say before, faith is not belief in the absence of doubt, but belief even in the presence of doubt and uncertainty. It means saying, “God, I don’t have all the answers, but I’m following you anyway”

As another point of introduction, I want to make it clear that I am not the answer man. I heard a radio ad that said “You asked your hardest questions, and now Dr. So and So answers them! Tune in each week.” Nu-uh! If that’s all we have, is some guy answering our questions, we’re in trouble. You asked your hardest questions, and now we’ll turn to Scripture and ask God to answer them.

Some questions He will answer- you’ll come away with conclusions that will change your life. But some don’t get answered- yet even in the asking and wrestling, we’ll learn a great deal about God and our faith.

I will try to be clear when I believe God and His Word speak definitively on a subject, but I’ll also try to be clear when I think there’s uncertainty. People have asked the tough question about bad things happening to good people for thousands of years. And there’s no easy place in the Bible to turn to and say, “Oh, here’s why.” But even in the asking and wrestling, the struggling and seeking, God uses it all to help us grow.

My girls and there cousins were playing a game of “house”, when for some reason my youngest, Maddie, was pushed out of the room. She sat there crying, “they won’t let me in”. From a very young age, we know what it feels like to be on the inside and we know what it feels like to be on the outside.

So, our first question: Is God inclusive or exclusive?

• Israel as God’s chosen people... Does this mean He excluded all other people? Is God inclusive or exclusive?

This is a great question because not only does it help us get to the heart of who God is, and if you’re here today and you’re not sure you believe in God, you’re seeking, this question, this issue may be a real stumbling block:

• Christianity is so hypocritical- they claim to love everyone, but then they condemn anyone who believes differently than they do. Is God really like that?
• Am I a part of the in crowd with God?
• Do I really belong, or is God just willing to put up with me?

So in attempting to answer this question, we’re going to learn a great deal about God.

But we’re also going to learn about ourselves. This question also helps us know who we are to be- how we are supposed to act or treat others, because that certainly should be in line with God.

From the first glance, it would appear that God is fairly exclusive- picking the Jews, yet listen to what he says to Abraham in this first promise of blessing:

-Genesis 12:1-3

1 Then the LORD told Abram, "Leave your country, your relatives, and your father's house, and go to the land that I will show you. 2 I will cause you to become the father of a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and I will make you a blessing to others. 3 I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you. All the families of the earth will be blessed through you."

God blessed Abraham so he could be a blessing to all people. The reason he seemed to exclusively include Abraham and the Jewish people is so that through them he could include ALL people.

Listen to how this theme gets carried through the Bible. Peter connects the dots in Acts:

-Acts 3:24-26

24 "Starting with Samuel, every prophet spoke about what is happening today. 25 You are the children of those prophets, and you are included in the covenant God promised to your ancestors. For God said to Abraham, 'Through your descendants all the families on earth will be blessed.' 26 When God raised up his servant, he sent him first to you people of Israel, to bless you by turning each of you back from your sinful ways."

Here is the same promise, including the inclusive promise of all people, being applied thousands of years later.

And just so we don’t think this promise is confined to Jews, listen to what Paul writes to a large group of Gentiles (non-Jews) in Galatians:

-Galatians 3:7-9

7 The real children of Abraham, then, are all those who put their faith in God. 8 What's more, the Scriptures looked forward to this time when God would accept the Gentiles, too, on the basis of their faith. God promised this good news to Abraham long ago when he said, "All nations will be blessed through you." 9 And so it is: All who put their faith in Christ share the same blessing Abraham received because of his faith

And just in case we haven’t quite got the picture yet, listen to Paul again in Colossians:

-Colossians 1:20-22

And through Him (Christ) God reconciled everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ’s blood on the cross. This includes you who were once far away from God. You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions. Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in this physical body. As a result, he has brought you into his own presence and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault.

Here’s the truth we get out of these passages: God opens the door to everyone. No one is left out.

I know, you might make the argument, “Yeah, but Jesus said he’s the only way. (John 14) Isn’t that being pretty exclusive?”

Think of it this way: if Target had coupons for every person in town to get a free flat-screen HDTV and we didn’t get around to getting one, would we argue that Target had been exclusive? No, we would recognize that we made choices to not receive the offer.

This is a very important distinction: God is inclusive of all people, but not of all beliefs. He has provided a way and it is up to us to choose it.

We choose whether or not we will enter.

We must personally decide if we will walk through God’s open door and trust him with our lives. Peter even writes about this being a reason that God holds off the return the Christ-

II Peter 3:9

9 The Lord isn't really being slow about his promise to return, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to perish, so he is giving more time for everyone to repent.

Now, just in case you’ve been sitting there thinking, “Yes, I’ve walked through that door, but I hope so-and-so is listening! I can’t wait to give this CD to so-and-so. They need this!” There is actually an additional truth that we need to apply to our lives. And it’s this:

If God has included you, it is for the purpose of including others.

If you find yourself on the inside with God, it’s not so you can sit around and enjoy his blessings until you die. You have been blessed so that through you others will find the open door.

Listen to what David says about being restored to God. What is the purpose of his restoration?

Psalm 51,

12 Restore to me again the joy of your salvation, and make me willing to obey you. 13 Then I will teach your ways to sinners, and they will return to you.

The purpose of his restoration is that OTHERS would return to God.

So, today we need to ask ourselves two critical questions.

Two Critical Questions:

-Have you entered God’s open door?

God’s got a better deal even than a free plasma TV. Jesus says I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the father but through me. You can take that negatively to mean Jesus is being exclusive, or you can see it positively as Jesus I believe intended- I am holding open the way to life for every single man, woman and child- I am showing the way, full of truth and life- will you follow me?

-Do you live to bless and include others?

Blessed to be a blessing, or blessed because I deserve it?

What have you been blessed with? Do you use a skill, a hobby, your time, your resources, your wisdom and experience as a way to bless others? If you’ve been blessed, if God has included you in his wonderful plan of salvation, it’s so you can turn and do the same with your life.

Who could you include in your day, your week, in the hope that they too might one day walk through the open door and be included in God’s family?

“And while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming” Luke 15. No matter where you are, your heavenly Father looks out the door and waits to see you coming. And when you turn to Him, no matter what you’ve done or where you’ve been, he opens the door wide to you and says, “Welcome Home.” May your faith be completely in him today.

Misdirected Choir?

Do you have an angel in your nativity set? Take it out. It doesn't belong there.

Oh, okay, there may have been an angel or two at the manger, but did you know the Bible never mentions any? At least, never one at the manger. Where the angels appear is rather out of place when you stop and think about it.

From the Biblical point of view, God has just become man. Jesus has been born and the world is about to meet the Savior. A choir of angels should be present to herald this awesome event, right? We may think so, but either the choir got lost or God had different plans.

You see, the angelic choir, or more accurately the angelic army showed up on a hillside outside of Bethlehem in front of some poor, nameless shepherds. If you know the Christmas story well, you need to stop and think about how strange this is: Jesus, King of kings and Lord of lords is born, and the angels choose to be with...stinky shepherds. The head angel (choir director?) announces, "I bring good news of great joy for everyone! The Savior has been born!" And the choir belts out, "Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on earth to all whom God favors."

We always hear around this time of year that Jesus is the reason for the season. That's actually not true. From God's point of view, at least, the reason for the season is YOU. When Jesus was born, God sent his angels not to worship Jesus, but to ordinary people like you and me. He wanted to make sure we knew that this moment was for us- good news of great joy.

Too often we think of worship as giving God his due- "Well, He is God so I guess I should do what He says. I guess I should go to church." Yet here at Christmas, God calls the shepherds to worship because of what He has done. I think you and I are given full permission to do the same.

On your journey, may you here God's angels sing over you- this is good news of great joy for everyone- including you. Live in the joy.

Nick

God's Good Gift...of Work?

Believe it or not, it's true. God gave work to us as a GIFT. Now, perhaps your current job doesn't feel that way, but I'm talking about the larger principle of humans being created to do something. Consider the following from Genesis 2. When God creates Adam and the Garden of Eden, we read this, "The Lord God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and watch over it." (vs. 15, NLT) This is before the Fall. This is before sin of any kind had marred Adam's perfect relationship with God. God creates Adam, and the very next thing he does is give Adam a job to do. Just a few verses later, we see Adam hard at work, naming all of the animals that God has created. Again, prior to sin, Adam is spending his time working. What does this mean? A couple of implications:

1) While work was admittedly made more difficult after the Fall (see Genesis 3:17-19), part of God's good plan for us was to work. We were made to be productive and creative, and in our productivity and creativity, we discover some of our purpose. This can be pursued to a wrong end, where people become workaholics and define themselves by what they accomplish. But this can also be pursued in a very healthy way by realizing that God's plan for us will include doing something. Something with our hands. Something with our brains. Paradise is not sitting around all day eating mangos and watching sunsets (though there is nothing wrong with that!). In Genesis, paradise was a perfect relationship with God and work that really mattered because it was assigned by God.

2) In some sense, taking care of creation is a part of "work" for all of us. It's not an exaggeration to say that God's first command to humanity was to take care of the earth, his creation. This idea runs counter to much of modern evanglicalism's current ideology. We have bought into a mind-set of escapism. We have so over-emphasized a coming rapture (which may or may not be an entirely accurate picture) that it leads many to believe that God is unconcerned with the earth. Yet quite the opposite is true. The New Testament tells us that part of God's redemptive plan includes the created world. Colossians 1 says "He (God) made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ's blood on the cross." (vs. 20, NLT) Everything means, well, everything. Women, men, children, animals, plants: everything on earth. Going green isn't just a nice idea- it's Biblical. Christ-followers should lead the way in taking care of the planet and encouraging wise use of our natural resources.

Maybe today you'll begin to see your work, and your world, in a new way.

What are you learning from Genesis?

Journey on-

Nick

Why Did God Need Rest?

One problem with the Bible is the artificial verse and chapter divisions that we run across. I say "artificial" because no Biblical author actually included these divisions in their writing. We added them MUCH later. But we have come to trust these markers for the end and beginning of thoughts.

Nowhere is this LESS helpful than in Genesis 1 & 2. The creation account appears to end at the conclusion of chapter 1, except for the fact that one day gets left out! The whole creation account is neatly wrapped up in 2:4- "This is the account of the creation of the heavens and the earth." We may like the idea that creation ends with us (humanity), but the story actually concludes with day seven. Day seven is described this way- creation was complete (vs. 1), and since he was finished, God rested (vs.2). And then God blesses that day and calls it holy.

Hmm. Interesting. This is one of those passages where if we take it at face value, we run into some problems. At face value, this passage suggests that God perhaps NEEDED rest. He had worked hard for 6 days and so he had to take a break a do a whole lot of nothing to recuperate. Some of you grew up in environments heavily influenced by this idea. We work hard for 6 days, and so we need a day of rest. And by "rest", many traditions have meant, "do absolutely nothing fun, creative, athletic, or enjoyable." Some grew up learning to dread Sunday because it meant a day of utter boredom, other than perhaps the few enjoyable moments we had in the back of church drawing pictures with a friend. God needed to rest, and so do we, at least that's what we're told.

But what if God's rest is much more than that? Here are some thoughts from Genesis 2 and God's rest: (this is a MUCH larger topic in Scripture, but I'm going to try and and limit my discussion to Genesis)

1) Nothing about God's nature, as revealed in Scripture, suggests that He gets tired. In fact, we find quite the opposite. So if God didn't rest because He was tired, then we have to look deeper.

2) Genesis 1 & 2 are written with a very clear pattern: God creates something, it comes to be, God calls it good, and the day ends. For 6 straight days, this goes on. Until day 7, when God creates nothing and the day DOESN'T END. This is a powerful suggestion that what occurs on Day 7 continues.

3) God creates a special day that is more than good- it is holy, blessed. That means it's set apart as something different than the other 6. On the last day of the week, God rested- not because He was tired but because He was marking a day that would look and feel different.

4) God invites us into that unique day. I hesitate to call it "rest" because I think that gives us the wrong image. What I find significant is that God stopped all WORK. Anything that had been part of his work for 6 days did not happen on the 7th. And I think that's God's invitation to us- a day that is set apart and unique because it is unlike anything in our week. The day is a break from everything that keeps us on the treadmill of life and causes us to lose sight of anything that is holy, sacred, and divine. Do we have to lay on the couch all day? No! We can and should party! We should exercise. (unless we think of that as work) We should get together with friends. We should worship. We should watch sunsets and throw water balloons with our kids. We should celebrate that for 6 days we pour our lives into doing significant work things, but on one day, we don't have to contribute a darn thing to the world. We just get to enjoy it!

Now doesn't that sound like fun? I think of the 7th day- Sabbath- as a day to rediscover who I really am.

And here's a thought that always stops me- if God, who needed no rest, deliberatly took time for it, what does that say about me, who rarely takes time to rest, even though I really do need it? This is one way that we could begin to trust God's plan- we might not get why one day should be different, but we can look at God and say, "If that's what you did and if that's what you want me to do, I'll do it."

May you discover the joy of Sabbath this week in a new and wonderful way,

Nick

You Can Love God and Science, Too!

Hello folks-

I promised this weekend that I would post to my blog some thoughts on a few of the challenging topics that come up in Genesis 1-2. We didn't "dig deep" into many of these topics at our service- we intentionally chose to focus on the bigger picture of what we learn about God. But that doesn't mean that other issues which arise are insignificant. This week, I am going to try and post on 3 or 4 of those "hot-buttons".

One of the most significant questions has to be the scientific accuracy of the creation account, and particularly the creation of man and woman. In Genesis 2, we find the following words: "And the Lord God formed a man's body from the dust of the ground." Also, "He (God) took one of Adam's ribs and closed up the place from which he had taken it. The the Lord God made a woman from the rib..."

These are interesting ideas, to say the least. What do we make of these? Did God use real, literal dust to make man? Did he truly reach into the blood and guts of Adam's side and pluck out a rib for the building blocks of Eve? Some (what I would call Biblical literalists) believe this is exactly how it happened. They don't care how because they are convinced that if the Bible says it, then that's exactly how it happened. What is sad, in my opinion, is that this can force some well-meaning Christians into really awkward stances, especially when it comes to science. If God really created man from dust, just like that, then a Biblical literalist has to reject out of hand almost any scientific discovery concerning the roots of humanity over the last hundered years. Without even considering the data or the validity of it, they have to assume it's false because they already "know" how we came to be.

To put it simply, this looks foolish. It sounds and feels ignorant. Many Christians grow up afraid of science, because they are concerned that somehow science will discredit God. But what if all of our science and research is actually revealing God's creative design and his loving nature? Here are some of my thoughts about creation and science:

1) Genesis 1 and 2 are not written as science or history. While these chapters may have statements that sound scientific or historical, that is not the aim of these words. So it is unfair for us to try and twist and turn them into scientific proof texts that are air-tight reports of how God created earth and humanity. Genesis is the story of God and his people. We learn far more about God from these passages than we do about the how, what and why of creation.

2) Genesis 1 and 2 leave tons of room for good, healthy scienctific pursuits. As I read these chapters, I am impressed at their beauty and their openness. I believe that someone could embrace the findings of evolution AND embrace a loving Creator God that stands behind it all. A Biblical literalist just rolled their eyes and closed this blog, but it's true! Read the chapters yourself, keeping in mind they are not science or history, per se, and see if you don't find room to believe in many different kinds or methods of creation. What I DO believe is significant is the God who orchestartes it all. I am FAR more concerned about what you do with Him than what you do with this account. (Even the brevity of these chapters should convince us that God is not trying to tell us HOW he created- I mean, basically 50 verses total. That's it. The introduction to most science essays is longer!)

3) We can take a rational, eductaed approach to science. When researchers come out and say they've discoverd a 7 billion year-old man, what's your immediate reaction? I think many Christians say "no way" and ignore the article without giving it serious thought. Now, I am not saying that every scientific discovery is accurate or un-biased. I'm not saying that every scientist represents the data with 100% accuracy. But I am saying that it's okay to read, study, and learn from them. Because here's the truth- science can never explain away God. The more we learn, the more fantasitc, wonderful, and amazing we find creation to be. And if that's true, it would stand to reason that God himself, who designed it all, would be even more fantastic, wonderful, and amazing.

So, did we come from real dust? I don't know. What I do know is that God made me, and then He breathed life itself into my lungs. No matter what else I believe, this fact alone tells me that I matter to God. And so do you.

May you know the loving Creator on your journey today,

Nick

PS- I would love to hear your comments and feedback! You don't have to agree with everything I say. Let's process these ideas together. All I ask is that your comments be appopriate and civil. This blog is not intended to be a zone for heated debates and name-calling. Other blogs do that very well! But if you've got real questions and real doubts, then this is the place for you! Be totally honest here. What questions or struggles do you have with creation and science?