The Inclusive Exclusivity, Part 2

Today on Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. So the question you got to answer is very simple. Did Jesus rise from the dead? Did he actually rise from the dead? Because if he did, he was doing something for you, you couldn't do for yourself, because you can't raise yourself from the dead. And if Jesus actually rose from the dead, then he gets to make the rules about salvation. Do you believe Jesus rose from the dead? Do you believe that?

If so, are you willing to let him make the rules about salvation? Most of us have no problem telling friends or even strangers about our favorite movie or the best TV show that we've seen. In a way, we're evangelizing about the wonders of the office or Star Wars, right?

And certainly there's better things to spend our energy on. So why then is sharing the gospel, the best story ever, often so difficult? Today on Summit Life, Pastor J.D. Greer takes us to the Book of Acts to show us how to speak boldly about Jesus, even in the most difficult situations. It's part of our series called Sent, taking a serious look at the Great Commission. Now grab your pen and Bible and let's go to Pastor J.D. and his message titled The Inclusive Exclusivity. Acts 4, if you have your Bible, you can open it up or you can turn it on.

If you wear skinny jeans and you're super cool and you turn your Bible on, do that right now. Verse 1, and as they were speaking to the people, they being the apostles, this is right after the miracle, and Peter's explaining to them, a large group of people, that this miracle gives them a picture of the salvation that Jesus can bring to the soul. He raised a lame man, gave him the ability to walk, and Peter said this is like Jesus's ability to save you from your sin. When they were doing this, the priest and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees came upon them, greatly annoyed, because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. And so they arrested them and they put them in custody until the next day, because it was already evening. But many of those who had heard the word believed, and the number of men came to be about 5,000.

In those days, they'd often discount the men as the heads of the household. We're talking nearly half the city becomes followers of Jesus. Verse 5, on the next day, their rulers and elders and scribes gathered together in Jerusalem with Aenas the high priest, tough name, and Caiaphas and John and Alexander. And when they had set them in their midst, they inquired, by what name did you do this? Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, rulers of the people and elders, if we are being examined today concerning a good deed done to a crippled man, by what means this man has been healed, in other words, if we are actually on trial for healing a guy, well then let it be known to all of you and all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but God raised from the dead, by him this man is standing before you well. This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, who has now become the cornerstone. A cornerstone is a very important concept in this passage. I'll come back to that here in a minute. All right, then the conclusion of the whole message. You see there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. Peter's explanation deals with two of the biggest objections that people make today.

Here they are. Objection number one. Objection number one, claiming that Jesus is the only way that God is arrogant.

People say, well if you think that Jesus is the only way, you must think that God prefers you and people who believe like you. So let's just ask that question. Is Peter claiming to be smarter?

No. In fact, the text goes out of its way to point out that they weren't that smart. So Peter's claim and our claim that salvation is only found in Jesus has nothing to do with believing that we're intellectually or morally superior. You say, well I just don't like anything that is exclusive and puts people on the outside. Listen, all religious claims, all moral claims are exclusive. For example, I have had people say this to me, I believe that all good people of every religion goes to heaven. That sounds like a pretty inclusive statement, doesn't it? All right, who have you just excluded? All good people of every religion, you excluded bad people.

And I guess you get to define what's bad. And I'm assuming that racists, rapists, child molesters, terrorists, they're on that list, right? Well, you know, depending on your viewpoint, maybe you would put sexually immoral people on that list. The point is you got a list and some people are on it and some aren't. You see, I would say that even your attempt at inclusivity actually turns out to be quite exclusive.

You say, well, that's why I'm not religious at all. I just don't exclude anybody for any reason. You still have a standard for what constitutes a good person. And there's a line for you.

Everybody has a line for who's in and who's out. And I'm just telling you, you've got to be intellectually consistent with that. But see, the gospel of Jesus is a different kind of exclusivity. It's a different kind of exclusivity because the gospel teaches that our acceptance with God is not based on anything about us. It's not based on the superiority of our moral record. It's not based on the viewpoint given to us by our education.

It's certainly not based on our race or sociopolitical status. God gives salvation as a gift to all who will repent and receive it that way. You see, that lame man in that story is a picture of you and me. Did you know that according to the Jewish law, lame people could not go into the temple?

That's why he's outside of it. You might think, my friend, that you're a terribly bad sinner, that you're more lame than any of the rest of us. But you know what? God has salvation and the ability to forgive and make new for anybody who will repent and believe anybody. On the other hand, you might think that you're not that bad of a sinner.

You might think that on the whole you're pretty good. God's verdict on you is still lame, blind, wicked, poor, dead. And in fact, you're the one that's probably going to have a harder time with salvation because in order for you to be able to receive that healing, you've got to acknowledge there's no way you're getting in the presence of God on your own. You see, Christianity is a different kind of exclusivity.

I love how Tim Keller says it. All religions are exclusive, but Christianity is the most inclusive exclusivity there has ever been. And see, when you believe this, listen, far from making you arrogant and judgmental, it makes you loving and gracious and accepting. You want to know what a Christian looks like? You've got to look at the cornerstone. Really believing the gospel changes the shape of who we are. We're not arrogant, or at least we shouldn't be if we understand the gospel, because we realize that we're not accepted because of our good works.

We're not Christians because we figured out truth and we were smarter than everybody else. God healed us when we were lame. God saved us when we were outside of His presence. He saved me. I was blind and He made me see. I was guilty and I was under condemnation and He took it. I was dead and He made me alive. My sins were like scarlet and He made them as white as snow. I was headed for destruction, a child of wrath, and God changed my heart, healed it, and He forgave my sin.

And there's just no other word that can capture it. And when you believe that, it transforms you into a gracious, forgiving person because that's what God was to you. So when you see people who are arrogant with the claims of Christianity, and I admit there are a lot of them, but when you see people who are arrogant with the claims of Christianity, that is not because they believe the message too fervently.

It's because they don't understand the message at all. Because anyone who understands the gospel does not speak that way. They begin to speak with a humility and a graciousness, a boldness, yes, but a humility that understands that I'm the lame person and I don't speak to you as a righteous, superior person. I speak as one who's been healed, one who's been plucked from the burning, and I'm just trying to tell you what I've seen and heard. Around here we say that people that speak with arrogance about the claims of Christ have theological bad breath.

The words coming out of their mouth might be the correct one, but they stink and you just don't want to talk to them, right? I'm saying all this to show you that claiming Jesus is the only way is not necessarily arrogant. To our skeptical friends this weekend, I would just tell you be intellectually consistent. Everybody's view of truth and morality is exclusive, including your own. This message is the most humble, inclusive exclusivity because it declares that our understanding of truth and that our acceptance before God is not based on our goodness, our righteousness, or our intelligence.

It's based on a gift of grace. Objection number two, religion is just a matter of personal preference. Religion is just a matter of personal preference. People say, well, look, you ought to be free to choose whatever religion works for you. If your religion works for you, who am I to say that it's wrong? If you like IHOP better than Waffle House, you're wrong, but who am I to criticize?

If you have a good time at going to a rock concert with a bunch of friends and yelling your head off, great. If you choose to go out and walk in the woods by yourself, whatever works for you, who am I to say what's superior? People think of religion that way. But see, here's a question. Listen, most people in our society think of religion that way.

But here's the question you've got to ask. Should religion go into that category? People put religion following Kant. He said religion goes in the subjective category, and our societies follow along since then. But are our beliefs about God, are they really subjective? Is the experience of salvation subjective? Is faith in Jesus true because it works for us, because it makes us more moral, gives us a moral compass? Is it true because it brings us comfort in dark times? Certainly, by the way, you hear a lot of Christians talk about it.

You'd think that's why it was true. But look at what's being taught by this miracle. This man is lame, and he can't walk. He needed a real power to heal him. He didn't need stories about Jesus and other people walking that made him feel warm and fuzzy on dark nights. He didn't need parables that persuaded him to be nice to himself.

People were encouraging him to share his lunch. He needed a real power to give strength to his dead legs. Peter says our soul of salvation is like that. Our salvation was accomplished by the resurrection of Jesus. Jesus did not get out of the grave because of a subjective preference he had for life. He got out of the grave because God's objective deliverance over death. We simply didn't need, and we weren't bad people that needed to be persuaded to become better people.

We didn't need something to give us, you know, warmth and groovy vibes when we're lonely. We needed objective forgiveness for our sins, which was going to be accomplished by someone dying in our place, and Jesus did that. And we needed our dead souls to be made alive again, and that took Jesus coming out of the grave so that he could give life to all who believe. According to Jesus and the apostles, our salvation, hear this, is not about a new philosophy.

It's not about feelings of comfort. It's about a sin debt we couldn't pay, like this lame man that kept us from the presence of God. It's about our being dead in sin, chained to our depravity, unable to break our addictions to the lust of the flesh, unable to walk in righteousness. And so God did for us what we could not do for ourselves. He paid our sin debt by living the life that we were supposed to live and then dying to death. We've been condemned to die in our place so that when we received him, we would be declared righteous, not on the basis of the fact that we were becoming better people, but on the fact of what he accomplished in our place and gave to us as a gift.

He raised himself from the dead so that he could live in us in the person of the Holy Spirit and infuse us, not with good feelings, but with the actual power of new life, which is why Jesus said, I'll be wounded for their transgressions. I'll be punished for their iniquities. The price of their peace is going to be upon me. And then by my stripes, they can be healed. Though their sins are like scarlet, I'll make them as white as snow because I'll take my blood and I will wash them clean. Though they are dead in their sin, if they believe in me, they will be buried with me by baptism into death. Just like Christ, I was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father.

They also will walk in newness of life that those who believe in me, though they die, yet shall they live. That's not a subjective feeling. That's an objective deliverance.

And my friend, listen to me. One of life's most important questions is for you to figure out whether or not the salvation thing is subjective or objective. Because if it's subjective, then yeah, it really is whatever you want to believe. But if it's objective, then you've got to get it right. Because if you ever give a subjective answer to an objective question, you end up in disaster. If God has made an objective way of salvation, then you have to understand exactly what he laid out, and that is the only door by which you can go to him on through. Can I boil down for you all the various questions about religion that divide people? Can I just condense them into one question? It's really simple. You take every religious disagreement in the world, you can condense it down, it's got one question that divides them. Here it is.

You ready? Who can save us? Who can save us? Can we save ourselves? If we can save ourselves, there can be multiple ways to God. Choose a path.

Do your best. Try to be a good person in the religious way that you've chosen. But see, my friend, if God is the only one who can save us, if God is the only one who could overcome our sin debt and deliver us from death, then salvation is only found in the place where he has provided it. There is salvation, Peter said, and no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

Two key things in that verse. Given. Salvation is given. It's a gift that God gives.

Secondly, no other name. If salvation is something that God has given, then it's only found in the place where God has provided it, and that's in the name of Jesus. For years here, I've used this story that I'm about to tell you to illustrate that. Whenever I tell you a story I've told you before, I always feel a little sheepish, because I know a bunch of you have already heard this story. But there are 1,500 of you that, I checked the last time I told this story, there are 1,500 of you that are here now that weren't here when I told this whatever amount of time ago, all right? So if you're like, I've already heard this story, I'm not telling it for you, I'm telling it for that person next to you, don't be selfish, okay?

All right. It was back when I was in college. I was on an airline, and I was sitting next to a girl who was, I was a student at Campbell University, I was a student at Campbell University at the time, and she happened to be on her way back up to Harvard University. Immediately, I felt like we had a connection.

You know, just had some things in common. She was gorgeous. And this is before I was married, very important detail, I've never met Veronica, who's much more beautiful, but she was gorgeous. Her name, she was from Guatemala, her name was Bertha, okay? Bertha, not Bertha, Bertha, all right? And so I'm talking to Bertha, and I start telling her about Jesus, and she's listening to me, and she's just, you know, kind of, and she's like, she said, I got to tell you, by having the conversation, having the conversation, she said, I got to tell you, I'm around the smartest people in the world at Harvard University.

I don't think I've ever heard a young guy our age talk with such clarity, such conviction, such passion, such eloquence. She said, I find that really attractive. I'm like, yeah, you do.

Now again, I'm not married at this point. I've met Veronica, I'm like, this is, she's going to get saved, we're going to get married, this is going to be a great story someday, she's going to Harvard, she's going to be rich, I'm going to be, this is like a dream, this is one conversation, my whole life's about to be set. And so we keep talking to her, and we get to the part that I'm like, you know, well, Jesus died for you, and he died to save you, and you got to trust him as your savior. She's sitting there in her seat, she kind of like, yeah, she goes, I, you know, she's actually trying it for a while, it just didn't work for me, it never took. She goes, I'm really glad that you found something that works for you, but I'm just trying some other stuff, because it's just not for me, and I'm like, I'm like, but it is for you.

Jesus said in John 14, six, that he was the way, the truth, the life, no one comes by but by him, not a way, a truth, a life, he's the only one. And she says, yeah, but I'm telling you, it just doesn't work for me, I'm glad it works for you, but it's not, and I said, but you're not reading what Jesus said, I'm like reading, so she reads it, and she looks at me, she says, are you actually trying to tell me that you think that unless I come through Jesus, that I can't connect to God? And I said, but I'm not telling you that, Jesus is telling you that. And remember, she looks at me, and she says, I think you got to be the most arrogant person I've ever talked to, and I'm like, no, no, no, passionate, eloquent, attractive, that's what you said. And she sat back, she said, I don't want to have this conversation anymore, just sat back.

I'm like, what's next, what do I do now? And I remember this thing I'd heard, and I probably shouldn't have said this to her, it was kind of catty, but I leaned up to her, and I said, I got one more thing to say to you. And she said, what? I said, I just want you to know, I'm really glad that the pilot of this airplane doesn't look at the runway the same way that you do heaven. She said, what do you mean? I said, let's just say that he comes on the intercom and says, I'm sick and tired of that arrogant little airport telling me when and where and how exactly I got to land that plane. I'm coming in on my own schedule, I'm coming in on my own speed, I'm going to land wherever the heck that I want to land, I'm going to try it upside down today in the middle of the greenway.

I was like, personally, I'm glad that he's just not going on what he feels like works for him, I'm glad he's going out on a little narrow strip they call the runway laid out by the airport. She looks at me and she said, that's not fair. I said, yes, it is.

That's Campbell 1, Harvard 0, if you want to write that down with a little book like that. All right? Now, I shouldn't have said that.

It was catty. I'm much more to her now, and I never act that way. But do you understand the point that I'm trying to make? If God is the one that saves, if it's true, like Revelation says, that our song throughout eternity is salvation belongs to God, then salvation is only found in the place where he provided it. If you can save yourself, and if our song in heaven is going to be, I was a good person, I treated people nicely, that's why I'm here, then there's multiple ways to God. But if God is the only one who can save, then it's only found in the place where he provided it.

So the question you got to answer is very simple. Did Jesus rise from the dead? Did he actually rise from the dead? Because if he did, he was doing something for you you couldn't do for yourself because you can't raise yourself from the dead. And if Jesus actually rose from the dead, then he gets to make the rules about salvation. Do you believe Jesus rose from the dead? Do you believe that? If so, are you willing to let him make the rules about salvation? If we're not like that, it means that he's not really our cornerstone.

Are you bold, tenacious, urgent, and humble? You see what I'm getting at? I'm not saying that if you do those things better, God will accept you more. I'm saying that if you understand that God accepts you as a gift of grace, you will become all those things naturally, because when he's the cornerstone, the shape of the whole building changes. You say, well, I just don't think it's fair. I just don't think it's fair that this is the way of salvation. Listen, God owes no man salvation.

The fact that any of us are saved is an act of unspeakable grace. But I can tell you what is unfair. What is unfair is that those of us who do know it not do everything we can within our power to help others who do not yet know it. So I'm at church, what if this is true? What if the world really is completely lame? What if they really are shut out from the presence of God?

What if the power of salvation really is only found in the name of Jesus? Have you grasped the biblical global implications of the gospel? It was in college, I've told you, that I really became aware of the weightiness of this. That's what I did when I was a junior in college. That's where it led me to where I am today, doing what I do. That was God's answer for me. That's how he was gonna use me. Can I tell you something?

The answer's not gonna be the same for you. When you offer yourself to God that way, he's not gonna make you a pastor or missionary necessarily. Some of you got equipped to be doctors, lawyers, businessmen, bakers, candlestick makers, whatever you wanna put there. He's given you the ability to do that. But I do know that every one of you can come to a point where you say, God, in the light of what's going on in the world, God, I wanna offer myself to you.

God, use me to bring other people to Jesus. Have you ever grappled with the global implications of the gospel? You wanna know how a worldwide movement got birthed?

That's how it got birthed. Bold, tenacious, humble, urgent. You wanna know how a movement will get started in your workplace when you become bold, tenacious, urgent, humble? You wanna know how it sweeps your campus when you become bold, tenacious, urgent, humble? You wanna know how to become those things? You just believe the gospel.

That's how you become those things. Have you grappled with the global implications of the gospel? Have you really grappled with what it means for people around you? You got people in your lives that have never heard this message, have they? And they work with you.

They live across the hall from you. I'm not trying to create a guilt trip in you. I'm not, I'm not. But what's it look like when somebody looks at you and says, you knew, you knew, you knew that there was salvation only in Jesus. And you just care too much about your reputation and what I would say, that you didn't say anything. Have you grappled with the global implications of the gospel? Have you believed the gospel? How will you respond?

Will you be like Isaiah and embrace what it means for Jesus to be the only way? You're listening to Pastor J.D. Greer on Summit Life. We're in a series titled Sent. And to hear this message again, or to catch up on previous messages in this study, visit us online at jdgreer.com. So J.D., throughout this whole series, the running theme is this idea that every believer is called to go on mission. And that might not look the same for everybody, but can you help us get a better picture of that?

What might going on mission look like practically? Yeah, Miley, you're right. Not every believer is supposed to become a pastor or to move overseas.

Now, I don't want to rush too fast past that because I think there are a lot of people who are called that way. And maybe somebody listening to me right now, there's been a stirring in your heart and you're sensing God calling you. Maybe it's to preach. Maybe it's to preach, to lead a church. Maybe it's to help carry the gospel on a mission team. But even for those who don't experience that kind of full-time ministry call, all of us are called to live on mission.

We always say that the question is no longer if you're called. The question is where and how. We've created an in-depth Bible study that will help walk you through these stories of Acts and show you how they apply to you, how you can discover the power of the Holy Spirit and your personal commissioning. How do you know what God is calling you to and the people to whom He is sending you to?

This in-depth Bible study of Acts 1 through 8 will show you how to embrace that identity of being sent and how to live sin. We would love to offer it to you right now at jdgrier.com. We're so grateful for your support. And as our way of saying thanks, we'd like to send you this new resource that was created by the Summit Life team just for you. It's titled Scent, the Book of Acts Volume 1. It's a personal Bible study to help you process today's message chock full of interactive questions and insightful commentaries, which will help you think through your part in God's mission to reach the lost. Ask for Scent, the Book of Acts Volume 1, when you donate at a suggested amount of $25 or more. Call 866-335-5220. That's 866-335-5220.

Or go online and you can request the book when you visit us at jdgrier.com. I'm Molly Bidevich inviting you to join us again Thursday. You know, when bad things happen in our lives, we can focus so much on the problem that we actually lose sight of the solution. Pastor JD will show us how we can shift our focus back to where it belongs. Join us as we continue our study in the Book of Acts, Thursday on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.