A Family from Every Nation, Tribe, and Tongue | S3E8

You're listening to The Whole Disciple, a podcast help Christians grow in the five identities of a disciple and lead others to do the same. The Whole Disciple is a ministry of the Summit Church in Raleigh, Durham, North Carolina and assisted by me, ((music playing)) Christie Thornton. This season, we're focusing on the family member identity and how God made us to live with the local church as family.

((music playing)) And in this episode, we're talking about how God's family comes from every nation, tribe, and tongue. Welcome back. We are on our journey to better understand what it means to live with the local church as family. We're right in the middle of walking through different cross-sections of our church family and exploring what it looks like for us to live as family together.

In our last episodes, we talked through the beauty and complexity of living with the church as a multi-generational family with kids and students and adults of all ages. In this episode and the next one, we're focusing on living with the local church as one big, multicultural, multi-ethnic family.

Because it is God's plan from the beginning to the very end for his family to be a beautiful array of cultures and ethnicities with people from all nations. So, to catch the vision, let's begin with the end in mind. At the end of the Bible, in the book of Revelation, John sees multiple visions of God's people, his big and complete family.

And over and over, this people, God's family, is multicultural and multi-ethnic. Like in Revelation 7, it says this, "After this, I looked and behold a great multitude that no one could number from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the lamb, clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands and crying out with a loud voice, 'Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the lamb.'" Did you catch it?

A great multitude, more than you could even count from all nations. Then later, after all God's work of redemption has reached its final completion in the new creation, we see those same nations walking in God's light in the kingdom, being healed by the tree of life, and bringing their glory into the city of God.

Which I kind of always picture like the Olympic opening ceremonies, probably because I'm kind of obsessed with the Olympics to a fault. But like in the opening ceremonies, there's this big parade of nations. Each nation is robed in its traditional garb and its cultural expressions. But in the new creation, those nations aren't united by athletics like the Olympics, but they're united in Jesus and his spirit, offering all their cultural trappings to the king.

Here at the end of all things, we see God's final vision for his family is to be a great multitude from all tribes and peoples and languages. So, if that's the end, how did we get here? You know, I kind of imagine it like a movie with this like epic panoramic, this complete picture of the people of God.

And then John like peeks his head around the camera and he's like, "I bet you're wondering how we got here." Yes, John. I'm actually always wondering how we got here in your visions in Revelation cuz they're really weird. But we don't have time for all of those, so let's just focus on this one.

How did we get to this great multitude from all nations? Well, through thousands and thousands of years of God's commitment to bring all nations, tribes, and tongues into his family. From the very beginning, God has been committed to his family being multicultural and multi-ethnic. Remember, back in episode one of the season, we talked about how God made a covenant with Abraham for all families, or tribes, of the world to be blessed in him.

And for him to be the father of many nations with more children than he could number. Oh, so a multitude, more than he could count from nations and tribes. Huh, that sounds familiar. >> [laughter] >> In a very real way, the vision we see in Revelation is God's promise to Abraham having come to its fulfillment.

He accomplished exactly what he promised Abraham, that all the families of the world would be blessed through him. So, how does God's blessing through Abraham get to all nations and tribes? I mean, he's one dude in the Middle East thousands of years ago. That's a really weird thought.

How does God's family cover the whole world with people from every culture? Well, through the son of Abraham, who is Jesus Christ the Lord, just like we said in episode one. When Matthew begins his gospel, he introduces Jesus as the son of Abraham. The New Testament begins with the proclamation that all the promises to Abraham to bless all nations will come through Jesus.

Which he accomplishes by living the life we didn't live, dying the death that we deserved, and rising again to give us life. Which for more on that, you can go back and listen to everything I said in episode one. Because the covenant to Abraham is for the nations to join God's family, it's no big surprise then that Matthew ends his gospel with the answer to our question.

How do we get this big, multi-ethnic multitude at the end of the story? Through his disciples making disciples of all nations. Jesus sends out all who believe in him to make disciples of all nations, to bring his blessing and life to every family of the world. And that's how the vision at the end of time comes to be.

Through the witness of Jesus' disciples to every nation, tribe, and tongue. Which is exactly what they do in the book of Acts. As soon as the spirit comes at Pentecost, the disciples begin telling people from different languages and cultural backgrounds about Jesus' life, death, and resurrection. And just to make sure we don't miss that, Luke literally includes a list of different cultures and ethnicities who were there that day.

And many of those people who heard believed and were baptized. They began to gather together as a church family, devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching, breaking bread, and living their lives together day by day. And it doesn't take long before things get real complicated in gathering people from different ethnicities and cultures.

Which is honestly no surprise because when people who outside the church's community wouldn't normally get along are suddenly gathered together as a church family, some of that tension from the outside finds its way to the inside of the church. Which happens for the first time in Acts chapter 6.

There's some tension between different ethnic groups who have different cultures. And in this case, Abraham's biological children, the Jews, were overlooking the care of the Greek, or non-Jewish, widows. Which is incredibly racial in nature. Abraham's insiders not caring for those that they perceived to be outsiders of Abraham's blessing, perhaps because they weren't his biological children.

Or to say it differently, the Jews overlooking the Greeks because they were of a different race. And after hearing the complaint, the apostles appointed church servants responsible to oversee the equitable care of the needs of the church. And most of the names of those servants, or deacons, are Greek to ensure the loving care of the Greek, or non-Jewish, widows.

But this initial tension between nations and tribes in God's family didn't deter the disciples from being about God's commission to make disciples of all nations and to gather them into church families. In fact, they doubled down on following through with the commission to reach all nations. But as they gathered diverse people together into churches, it only got more complicated.

They didn't plant separate churches from different kinds of people, but as Pastor J.D. has explained before, they planted churches where different kinds of people come together in a united local church family in Christ. Or to use Pastor J.D.'s words, Paul didn't plant a First Jewish Baptist on one side of town and a First Gentile Baptist on the other.

He's probably less Southern than that though, sorry, Pastor J.D. Okay, but that sure would have been easier because as people from diverse cultural and ethnic groups gathered together into one church, that consistently brought cultural complexities and tensions. It's hard to gather people that in every other way in society are scattered.

And that shows up later in Acts, like in chapter 15, but also across the apostles' letters for the rest of the New Testament. The apostles are constantly addressing issues about food and drink and clothing, all of which is very cultural in nature. When churches are made up of one culture or ethnicity, issues about food and drink and clothing are far less prevalent.

But when churches are made up of a hodgepodge of different groups of people, cultures, generations, questions about food, drink, clothing, what's appropriate in the worship gathering, and the list could go on. Look, people have opinions and feels about those things, and those feels are going to cause some relational ripples that have to be addressed, which is exactly what we find across the New Testament.

For example, in 1 Corinthians chapters 8 through 14, which is a huge chunk of the letter, Paul's wading into the cultural divisions about food and dress and church practice to help the diverse church in Corinth live in unity as the body of Christ. And from there, everywhere the disciples of Jesus went, they continued to preach the good news of Jesus to all the people who lived in that place and continued to gather together people who believed.

And this is where we find ourselves. We're right in the middle of that story. God has sent his son to be the son of Abraham who brings God's blessing to all nations. Jesus has commissioned his disciples to go and make disciples of all nations, which is us. We are the recipients of God's blessing to Abraham through Jesus.

We are the nations, tribes, and tongues that John sees in Revelation. The fact that you and I believe in Jesus as English speakers and probably any number of other languages, if I'm honest, that is itself a demonstration that God continues to build his great big family from every nation, tribe, and tongue.

And we're being gathered into church families with diverse people who have believed where we live in a similar manner to what we see in the New Testament. And I know we have listeners from kind of all over, but let's just zero in on the Summit Church in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina.

What does RDU look like in terms of cultures and ethnicities? Well, we're about 65% white, about 35% people of color. In some parts of the Triangle, for example, Durham, that switches where they're even majority people of color. So, as we're about God's work to reach the nations here in RDU and gather them with us into his church family, it's our natural desire and expectation that the gathering of our church would look like the makeup of our community.

Or like we often say it around here, we want to reflect the diversity of our community and declare the diversity of the kingdom. And the way Pastor Bryan says that is it he doesn't think that every church should be multiethnic, but he sure does think that every church should look like its mission field.

And if the cultural and ethnic makeup of our church is vastly different than the communities that surround us, it raises the question whether we really are doing whatever it takes to reach all people just as much across the street as we are around the world. As we go into our neighborhoods and workplaces, schools, and coffee shops, we tell whoever we come across about Jesus and intentionally take steps to seek out the people who we wouldn't naturally interact with so that we can tell them the gospel, just like the first disciples did.

Then we watch God our Father gather people into our church from across cultures and walks of life. When they come, we welcome them with open arms just like the apostles did in Acts 6 as we do our best to make sure that nobody gets overlooked and nobody gets left out in our family's fellowship.

And we do all of that looking forward to the day when God's family is complete, when Jesus returns in glory, when we get to join the great parade of nations bringing the glories of RDU and our unique blend of multicultural family experience before Jesus and enjoy our unity with him and one another forever and ever.

Amen. God's covenant to Abraham and his command to make disciples of all nations sits right at the center of the Summit's commitment to be a multiethnic church family. Okay, but what does that great big Bible story have to do with my little life? What does it look like for us to live in the light of Jesus, his commission, and the hope of his return in our multiethnic family?

All right, we've got three points for us to think about. Number one, we celebrate our diversity as an indication of God's faithfulness. When we look at one another and we recognize how we are different and yet united, that's an opportunity to celebrate. When we recognize our differences with respect and admiration and at the same time affirm our unity in Christ, it confirms that God really is accomplishing his eternal purposes to create a family from all nations and tribes right before our very eyes.

Which also means we don't have to stop being who we are when we gather into God's multiethnic family. We, like the nations in the end, bring our glories to King Jesus. We still get to be us in the glorified version of our cultural expression. Like Pastor J.D. describes it, in the final vision, John's not seeing some big homogeneous group, white, black, or brown.

He's seeing the kaleidoscope of God's glory radiating through the various ethnicities of the world as they are united in worship. And when we look at one another and celebrate how we worship Jesus in different ways and live lives devoted to him with different cultural expressions, it's like seeing a little piece of that final heavenly kaleidoscope today.

All right, number two. Don't be surprised when our multiethnic church family comes with tension and complexity. Like I said, across the New Testament, the apostles are constantly addressing tensions in churches as a result of cultural and ethnic differences. So, we shouldn't be surprised when we also come across complexities and tensions in our multiethnic family as well.

One rule of thumb that's helpful for us when we bump up against those cultural differences in our church family is that everyone should feel a little uncomfortable sometimes. Like in our worship gathering, if one culture is never uncomfortable, that probably means there's another person from another culture or ethnicity who is always uncomfortable, and that is not okay.

Or the way that we often say it, we just got to get comfortable being uncomfortable. All right, finally, number three. We got to build relationships. We're not aiming for merely ethnic diversity. We want to experience ethnic unity that has already been purchased in Christ. And that unity is relational.

It's a family activity best entered into through family spaces. So, a helpful diagnostic question Pastor Bryan often asks, does your dinner table reflect the mission of Jesus Christ? Does the family around your dinner table look multiethnic like the final vision or like the communities we live in? Do the people that you engage with as family look like the families of the community around you?

You know, one of the next steps here, just like in almost every episode this season, is related to small groups. You know, as we think about small groups as the primary place where our church family gathers together and lives out the family member identity, when we start thinking about a multiethnic family, we kind of have to ask ourselves, does your small group look like the beautiful multiethnic kaleidoscope of God's family?

If not, what's one step that you can take to build a relationship with a family member from a different ethnicity and invite that brother or sister from a different background into your family small group spaces? Who can you ask for coffee? Who can you invite over for dinner?

Building relationships takes intentionality and time, but they always start with taking one step toward each other. So, who do you need to step closer to to experience God's great big multiethnic family? Like we've said this whole episode, it's been God's plan from the very beginning to the very end for his family to be a beautiful array of cultures and ethnicities, and we're just trying to live that out faithfully right here in the middle of the story.

Thanks for listening. We hope this podcast helps you take your next step to grow ((music playing)) closer to Jesus. But don't forget, discipleship happens in relationships. I mean, I know this is normally the point in a podcast where people ask you to like, share, and follow, ((music playing)) and you're welcome to do those things.

But more than we want you to follow along with this podcast, we want you to talk about what you're learning with someone in your life. So this week ask someone about how they live as church family with somebody who's different from them. And check us out next time for a conversation with Ricky Phillips, John Messiah, and Eddie Gill.

Look, this conversation is filled ((music playing)) with truth bomb after truth bomb. They have such diverse experiences with rich outlook of what it looks like to live with the local church as a multiethnic family. You don't want to miss it.