Jesus’ Upside Down Kingdom

Today on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Racism makes no sense in the Gospel because there's nothing about you that distinguishes you. When you realize that there's nothing about you that distinguishes you from anybody in God's sight, that there is a common problem sin and there's a common solution, the mercy of Jesus given in the blood of Jesus Christ, that commonality becomes weightier to you than even your cultural preferences. Happy Friday and welcome to Summit Life with Pastor J.D.

Greer. I'm your host, Molly Vidovitch. Have you ever thought about what the Kingdom of God looks like? Maybe Jesus is wearing a big flowing white robe and walking beside your loved one on streets of gold?

Yeah, anybody else? Well, it's likely that we all need to expand our perspective and that's our subject today on Summit Life. Teaching from Luke Chapter 4, Pastor J.D. shows us that God's Kingdom is more inclusive and more diverse than we could ever imagine. We are continuing our teaching series called Kingdom Come and if you missed any of the previous messages, you can find them online at jdgreer.com. Let's finish the week strong with a message that he titled Jesus's Upside Down Kingdom. Here's Pastor J.D. All right, Luke Chapter 4 verse 16.

Let me give you the context before I jump into it. Up until now, Jesus has lived a pretty normal life except for the occasional Doogie Howser confound the professors when you're 12 years old in the temple moment. Except for that and a million angels showing up at his birth, that was kind of significant. Except for a couple of events like that, for the most part, he's been unnoticeable. He's about 30 now, he's single, he's worked in his dad's carpentry business for the last several years.

Nothing notorious about him, nothing of notoriety, he's just a normal guy. Verse 16, he comes to Nazareth where he'd been brought up and as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day. See, Jesus went to church every week and he stood up to read. He stood up to read verse 17, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He enrolled the scroll and he found the place where it was written. Verse 18, the spirit of the Lord is upon me because he's anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. Verse 20, and he rolled up the scroll and he gave it back to the attendant and then he sat down.

That's all, that's all. Jesus did not preface that with Isaiah says or God says. He just reads it in the first person. The spirit of the Lord is on me because he's anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and me to help the blind recover their sight. And then he just sits down. This next part is awesome. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him.

I mean, can you feel the awkwardness of the moment? They're looking at him and he's like, oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah. Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. This is what we would call an on the spot sermon. And so what he does is he's handed the roll that the scroll of Isaiah and he's like, what can I share from Isaiah? Oh, I know a prophecy about me. This reminds me of the time that my dad sent me to earth to save all you people. That's, that's what he does.

All right. Verse 22, and all spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth. This is a pretty positive reaction, right?

Like, wow man, this guy's pretty cool. I mean, this is what they've been waiting for. They've been waiting for somebody that could, could, could bring healing to their sick. You know, somebody that could set the captives free. Who were they thinking about, by the way? Themselves. They were captives to Rome. They're thinking this is the Messiah who's going to set us free.

And, and hey, when we're talking about setting the liberty, those who are oppressed, we're the ones that are oppressed. Today's the day. This is the day of the Lord's favor.

Bring it on Messiah boy. But their admiration and wonder is also mixed with a little unbelief. You see the next phrase? They say, but wait, isn't this Joseph's son? Joseph the carpenter guy? Isn't this the son of the guy who made our kitchen table? And didn't we go with Judah for our living room furniture because Joseph's price was too high?

It just screams ordinariness, ordinariness. So Jesus says, verse 23, doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, position, heal yourself. What you've done in Capernaum, do here in your hometown as well. Do the whole bread and the fish thing where you feed everybody. Do that. Walk on the water.

Do that here. He said, truly I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown. Verse 25, but in truth, I tell you there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah when the heavens were shut up three years and six months and a great famine came over all the land. But Elijah was sent to none of them, only to Zarephath and the land of Sidon to a woman who was a widow. That's a story from 1 Kings 17 where there was a famine in Israel because of their idolatry and God sent the prophet, his prophet Elijah, to the house of a Gentile woman to multiply her flour and her bread so that she and her son would not die the famine but would be sustained all throughout it.

Now here are four things about this woman, okay. One, she's a woman, she's a Gentile, she's a widow, and she's poor. In the Jewish book, that's four strikes against you. Those are all signs that you are separated from the fold of God, yet she is the only one that Elijah goes to. Jesus goes on, look at this, verse 27, and there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elijah, but none of them was cleansed, only Naaman the Syrian. That's a story, one of my favorites from the Old Testament from 2 Kings about the captain of the Syrian guard, a guy named Naaman, he was the captain of the army that was fighting against Israel. Okay, so we're talking like their chief enemy and God sends Elijah the prophet to him because this guy's got leprosy.

You know, leprosy is a disease where the nerves in your skin die and then your skin ends up falling off, it's terrible. There were lots of lepers at the time in Israel but Elijah is sent to Naaman who is the captain of the enemy guard and he's the only leper in all Israel that gets healed. Verse 28, when they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath.

Why? I mean he didn't say anything was untrue, did he? He's just telling them stories about their enemies being loved by God and aren't these the very people that are oppressing them? He said oppression and they thought God was delivering them from the oppression of the Romans but he's now telling stories about the Romans being freed from their hunger and from their diseases. Is there anybody that you hate so badly that you do not want God's mercy to be shown to them?

I'll take that awkward silence as a yes. Maybe an ex-husband who just completely ruined your life. Maybe a friend who turned their back on you. Maybe a rival, maybe just a rival who you just can't understand why God seems to keep blessing them. They're no better than you, that you've done better than them and they seem to be the one getting all the breaks.

What did you do wrong? Verse 29, they rose up and they drove him out of the town and brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built so they could throw him down off the cliff. Verse 30, I love this because I don't even know what it means, but passing through their midst he went away.

What does that mean? I mean I get the image here, you remember the Bugs Bunny cartoons where Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd would be fighting and then Bugs Bunny would just walk out of the fight and Elmer Fudd is left in a cloud of dust throwing punches at himself. That's the image that I get here is they're all you know kicking and screaming shoving and Jesus kind of backs out you know and moves off.

He's fully in charge of the situation because he knows it's not his time to die yet. Here's the question that I want to use to drive the rest of our time here and that is what was it that made them so mad? What was it that ticked them off so badly that in the space of one sermon they went from nudging each other to like isn't this guy awesome too? Let's take this guy and throw him off a cliff. Give you five things, okay?

Here they go. Number one, Jesus kingdom included people of other ethnicities. Jesus kingdom included people of other ethnicities. Jesus had not just come for the Jews. From the very beginning God's intention had been to use Israel to take salvation to the other nations, but they were like us. They were like us, God thank you so much for blessing us and thank you for blessing our families and please help our children come to know you but not giving a whole lot of thought like we don't to the right now 6,931 unreached people groups in the world.

So Jesus shows up and starts pointing that out to them that this is about the Gentiles receiving mercy and the Jewish people had a problem with that because they were like all of us, at least in our nature. They were a little racist. You know people tend to prefer people of their own race and culture for two primary reasons. First of all racism arises out of insecurity or insecurity that you feel like there needs to be something about you that distinguishes you from other people to give you some sense of self-worth. A lot of times we choose like our intelligence, sometimes we choose how good looking we are or you know how good of a person we are, but sometimes you choose something about yourself in terms of like your whole race or your whole culture. By the way don't just think color your skin, also think your culture. You think that your group of people is superior to other groups of people and you look down on them and it is arising out of an insecurity that feels like there's got to be something about you that distinguishes you from others so that you have any worth.

So racism arises out of insecurity because it looks down on whole races of people as a way of establishing your own superiority and worth. All right second one of the reasons that people of one race tend to hang out with each other and not others is we just prefer to be around people who are like us, right? We just prefer to be around people who share our same educational experiences, who look like us, make about the same kind of money we do.

We like to be around people who are like us. Jesus' gospel would turn racism on its head. It would shatter racism because it showed us that there was nothing about us that would earn God's favor. God would give his favor to us as a gift that we received because none of us were worthy of it.

It was a gift. Peter the chief apostle was racist. You can find where Paul confronts Peter over his racism in Galatians chapter 2 and it's fascinating what he says to him. He says Peter, Peter the gospel says that when we were outsiders Jesus came to us. Peter the ultimate outsider, the ultimate outsider is not there because of the color of his skin.

The ultimate outsider is there because of the wickedness of their heart. And Peter if Jesus came to us when our hearts were wicked does it make any sense that we would now look at people and keep them on the outside because of the color of their skin or the tone of their dialect? Peter racism makes no sense in the gospel because there's nothing about you that distinguishes you.

It's God's mercy that's given as a gift to all who are to our sinners. And see what happens, watch this, when you realize that, when you realize that there is nothing about you that distinguishes you from anybody in God's sight that there is a common problem sin and there's a common solution the mercy of Jesus given in the blood of Jesus Christ. When you realize what that commonality becomes weightier to you than even your cultural preferences. It's not that you don't have cultural preferences anymore it's just that gospel unity begins to matter more to you than cultural preference because that common bond that you have that common salvation you've experienced in Jesus trumps all your cultural preferences. You see when you've got a group of people who look alike that's not amazing, not amazing to anybody but when you've got people of different cultures come together around Jesus that puts Jesus on display because it makes people ask the question what is it that is bringing these group of people together? You've got a large group of people who all look the same they're like that's a rock concert that's a group of people who hang out throughout the week anyway but when you come together around nothing else except for the gospel of Jesus it blows people's mind and when putting on display that beauty becomes more important to you than your cultural preferences that is when you become a multicultural church.

Thanks for joining us here on Summit Life with JD Greer. This week we began a teaching series through the book of Luke and we'll get back to that in a minute but first I wanted to tell you about a brand new featured resource that we are offering our listeners. With your financial gift of $35 or more to this ministry you'll receive a copy of Kingdom Come 20 devotions from Luke. Not only will this Bible study help you gain a better understanding of one of the most unique accounts of Jesus's life but it's also a great resource to share with a friend or a family member who you know could benefit from it. What better way to be a disciple making disciple than by sharing about the very life of Jesus with a friend or a loved one. To get your copy call right now with your gift you can reach us at 866-335-5220 or visit jdgreer.com and as always we want to thank you for your continued support of this ministry.

We wouldn't exist without your generosity so from the bottom of our heart once again we say thank you. Now let's get back to today's teaching from Pastor JD right here on Summit Life. I recently had a chance to have breakfast with a very famous Christian leader and he's telling me he says I want to tell you about some mistakes that I've made over the years as a pastor and a very humble man but so he starts to explain these and the first one he says is is he said if I could do it over again I would not build my church based on the homogeneity principle. Now that may not make much sense to you but the homogeneity principle was something that he was the one that that made famous and that was that you could grow your church more quickly if you aimed at a specific slice a specific strata of your community. So if you reach people with one class and one race one educational level you could blow a church up and it was exactly right. When he said if I could do it over again I would not do that I would have my church reflect the demographics of his community it would be diverse.

And so wanting to play devil's advocate a little bit I was like well really I mean because it was so successful for you. Well he said yeah he said but that doesn't matter. So again wanting to play devil's advocate I said so you're telling me that even if your church had only been half as big half as big using this diversity principle that it would have been if it was everybody looking alike you'd be okay with that? He said he said yes. Again playing devil's advocate I said you're telling me that you'd be willing to send 12,000 people to hell so that you could have a diverse church.

Without batting an eye he looked back at me and said absolutely. And I said how could you say that? He said this I thought it was profound he said because the testimony to Jesus that would result from the church in the United States being racially diverse would be more evangelistically effective than would be a number surge at any one congregation and I completely agree with him. If this church is a place where people come together in a way that says Jesus matters more to us than anything else that becomes a miracle that the community it blows their minds and it shows that the gospel has taken root among the people. So Jesus was surprising because he said this is not all about one ethnicity. Number two, Jesus kingdom included people with dark past and present struggles.

Jesus kingdom included people with dark past and present struggles. Everybody thought that when God showed up he would reward the righteous and punish the wicked and when Jesus shows up and starts telling stories about God loving the unrighteous and showing mercy to them that makes the religious people mad, right? Because nothing ticks off a rule keeper like seeing people who don't keep the rules rewarded. I mean just imagine like when you applied for college. You know what I mean?

You work hard, you study, get your SAT scores up, you do a lot of extracurricular activities, you do your community service and you keep your grades high and you turn in your application and then the school comes out and announces uh-uh we're giving our entry spots to the people who goofed off in high school. We're giving it to people who aren't qualified. That makes you mad, right?

You're like that's not fair. But when you say that, get this watch, when you think that about God and you God, you demonstrate that you don't understand yourself at all because the truth of the gospel is that none of us come anywhere even close to earning God's favor. Jesus is quoting from Isaiah here.

Isaiah has a statement about religious people that is shocking and disturbing and if this verse has never made you wince and this verse has never made your stomach crawl a little bit, you've never understood it. Isaiah 64 6, all our righteousness is like filthy rags. The reason I'm supposed to make you wince is because the word he used in Hebrew for filthy rags is a word that was translated one of two ways.

One would be menstrual rag. The other way that that would be translated is a rag that was used to wrap a leper whose skin was rotting and falling off. That's why the whole story about Naaman is there. He's like hey your righteousness to God is like a filthy rag. You see leprosy was a disease of the body that symbolized disease of the soul and what he is telling these people is Naaman had leprosy of the body but God came for people with leprosy of the soul and your religion just covered up your sinful hearts and our religion itself is usually stained with sin. And when we're mad that God doesn't reward the rule keepers we tend to talk like we are the rule keepers. Listen I've been in religious context all of my life from the time I was born. I mean you just I mean that's the one place I've always been is in church.

I mean you've heard me say that the only drug problem I ever had as a kid was getting drug to church every single week multiple times. I've been in religious context a lot and I can tell you this I have seen that the real sins the real ones pride hate selfishness self-righteousness those things can be just as present if not more so in religious circles. We're all lepers we're all filthy before God and God could not simply show up and reward the people who act righteously because there are none. And so when we object to God showing mercy to great sinners it shows that we don't understand what kind of sinners we were because the only reason I would ever object to God showing somebody else mercy is that I don't understand how much mercy God has shown to me. See I know I know that you guys agree with that in theory but do you really believe that? Because if you really believed it it would fundamentally change how you see people with dark past and present struggles. It means that you would look at them not with disdain you would look at them with a sense of empathy that says you and I are the same. If you and I really got this it would change how we forgive those who hurt us.

It would change how you forgive your spouse because you would recognize in that person who is wounding you you would recognize the same stuff that is in yourself that God has forgiven you of and it would give you a tenderness and a sense of mercy to those with deep dysfunction who have wounded you badly who have dark past and present struggles. Here's number three, Jesus movement was not a political movement. Surprising thing about Jesus kingdom it wasn't a political movement. Jesus didn't fix the world by planting a new Christian nation. That's what they wanted.

Listen I want to be really clear on this one. I am for righteousness in government. I think there is a role for God's people to call for justice and righteousness and our governmental laws.

That's what it means for us to be salt and light in our community. We know that God created this world and while we would never ever ever want any government to mandate that other people have to worship God because that's not the kind of thing you can mandate, we do know that we need to conform our laws to how God has set up the universe to act in accordance to his principles. Laws that are based on the respect for the individual, respect for human autonomy and freedom and respecting life and justice. But while I believe all that listen I also know that Jesus kingdom was not primarily or first about creating creating a new nation but creating a heart, a new heart within people. Our problem goes deeper than something politics and education can fix. Our problem you see goes down to the fundamental depravity of our hearts. Our root problem is that we don't love God and so when Jesus says the sum of all the commandments is that you love God I've explained to you that's a dilemma because how do you command that? If the root of all the commandments is that you love how do you command that? I told you if you go back to high school and and your parents put beside you somebody and say love him, love her. You can't be commanded to love. Love is a response. The first time I saw my wife Veronica I loved her.

I felt like I did because because of her beauty because of her character and the more that I've gotten to know her the more in love I fall with her it's a response to her. So for Jesus to simply show up and command us to educate us to create a nation of laws isn't actually going to change our hearts. Now what Jesus kingdom would end up doing it would end up making the most profound changes in all parts of our lives and in our world and in our politics. But Jesus would say that it would start small.

It would start as something in our hearts because that's the place it had to start. In fact he compared it to a seed. Fascinating analogy. I was like a lot of people look over he said the kingdom of God is like a seed. A seed is small. A seed is something you can crush in your hands you can eat it and digest it.

Have you ever seen how much power a seed can actually have? You ever like I saw this at a graveyard the other day. Big marble slab about that thick. Big crack running right down the middle of it. How'd that crack get there? It's because there was some tree that a root went underneath there and split that thing in two. You could never split that marble slab with a sledgehammer no matter how many times you hit it. But yet a seed that you could crush in your hand and your teeth and digest in a matter of hours had the power in it that smashed that thing open. Jesus said my kingdom would be like that. It would be a seed that would have massive ramifications as it grew.

Changes in your life. Even political changes. The gospel is it took root in our society. That's what undid slavery. That's what ended up teaching us the equality of all people, equal rights for women, it created a just society. Ultimately in heaven there will be the most just fair society we could ever conceive of. It's called God's Shalom. But it didn't start with that new nation.

It started small in the heart. That's where it has to start. I think you as individuals should be very involved in politics and education. I think you as God's people should be very involved in politics and education living out the ramifications of the gospel. But as a church we are not a political people. We are a gospel preaching people because that's how the kingdom of God goes forward now in the hearts of people in the hearts of people that the gospel transforms.

Every part of Jesus's kingdom was countercultural. We must open our eyes to his kingdom by humbling ourselves and believing. You're listening to Summit Life with pastor, author, and theologian J.D.

Greer. Just a quick reminder that this week we launched into both a new teaching series and a new premium resource, both of which are called Kingdom Come. On top of these broadcasts each month we are proud to provide anyone who donates more than $35 to this ministry with exclusive gospel-centered resources. And this month's set of 20 devotionals written by Pastor J.D.

are the perfect complement to our new teaching series. We'd be honored if you would give and we'd also love it if you'd consider becoming a regular monthly supporter of this ministry, which we call our gospel partners. You can receive this devotional right now by calling 866-335-5220. That's 866-335-5220 or give online at JDCreer.com. While you're on the website, be sure to sign up for our email list to get ministry updates and blog posts from Pastor J.D. delivered straight to your inbox. It's a great way to stay connected with Summit Life throughout your week.

Sign up when you go to JDCreer.com. I'm Molly Vidovich inviting you to come back next week to learn more about Jesus's upside-down kingdom. We are learning how God welcomes everyone into His kingdom, everyone who puts their faith in Jesus. See you next time on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program is produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.