Romans 1:16

I believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the most powerful force on earth. I believe that Paul’s words in Romans 1:16 are true. The Gospel is the power of God unto salvation, but not to any particular nationality, ethnic group or social class, but to “everyone that believeth,” whether they be Jew or Gentile, male or female, wealthy or poor, black or white, city-slicker or redneck. I believe that when the world sees this unconditional, cross-cultural Gospel at work and on display as it ought to be, it sees the glory of Almighty God shining brightly in a dark world.

You see, the world knows all about division, prejudice and discrimination. Ever since the Tower of Babel, man has been divided by languages, nationalities, cultures and genetic differences – all originated and continued by the sin of pride. Not only that, but the world’s philosophy is all about preserving and protecting your personal preferences, getting things just the way you want it and like it, because “that’s what you deserve.” You can “have it your way,” whether it’s a hamburger or a local church.

But if I understand the Gospel correctly, all those manmade and sin-caused divisions are restored through the cross of Jesus Christ. People that are divided and different from each other come together into ONE BODY, the local, New Testament church (Matthew 28:19-20). In the Great Commission, we, as soldiers of Jesus Christ, have been commanded to make disciples, not just of our own family, nation, culture, ethnic group, language group, but of every people group that has been scattered about the earth, including around our own communities. And that is when God promises His power and presence to the end of time.

That is the beauty, glory and purpose of the Church of Jesus Christ, the power of the Gospel of Christ in a multicultural world. God wants His saved, regenerated, redeemed people to come together as one, to worship Jesus Christ, and to take His message to a lost and dying world, near and far. When the Gospel is transforming lives as it should, the church will be a church where “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). The walls come down!

So why don’t we see more of this in our local churches? The tragic reality is that this is simply not the norm in most churches. As I look all around me, at church ministry all over, we rarely get to see this on display (even in my own church). When you look around, you see:

I. A Divided Christianity

It is true that many churches have no genuine burden to reach other nations through world missions (no Faith promise program, no missions support, or it is a very low priority). But even more churches have no genuine burden to reach other ethnic groups and cultures that exist all around them. It’s like these people don’t even exist! I have observed that there is often just as much racism and prejudice within the Body of Christ as there is in the world. We tend to justify this or conveniently work around this sinful perspective by saying, “Well, those groups don’t like our kind of music. They prefer to worship in a different way. They speak a different language than we do.” So what do we do? We go about starting separate churches for whites, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, wealthy people, poor people, traditional people, contemporary people, younger people, older people. Everybody with a church that looks like them, sings like them, dresses like them, talks like them, worships like them – and nobody has to deny themselves or sacrifice their personal preferences to reach someone for Jesus! ARE YOU KIDDING ME? No wonder Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “It is appalling that the most segregated hour of Christian America is eleven o’clock on Sunday morning.” Where is that in the Bible? How can we pretend that this pleases God? How in the world does that bring glory to Jesus Christ, or display the true power of the Gospel, and send a message to a lost world that Jesus Christ forgives and unites? It’s every group for themselves.

By the way, that is not what it will be like in Heaven. In Heaven the worshipers will be singing about Jesus, saying, “Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation” (Revelation 5:9). You will look across a sea of faces and see “a great multitude, which no man [can] number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, [standing] before the throne, and before the Lamb,” praising and worshipping “our God for ever and ever” (Revelation 7:9,12b). And that is how it ought to be here on earth – in the Body of Christ: local churches that reflect the world to which we minister.

But churches have always struggled with this. Despite understanding the Great Commission, God’s people, God’s soldiers, from the early days of the church, have been more about staying close to home, within our comfort zone, building ministry kingdoms and buildings, and building a name for themselves, instead of taking the Gospel to a multicultural world. We gravitate to what I call:

II. The Jerusalem Syndrome (Acts 1:4-8; 2:38-41; 5:27-28,42; 6:7)

The church at Jerusalem was the first church, by far the largest church, and the most blessed church when it came to an abundance of leaders. However, when it came to fulfilling the Great Commission of Jesus Christ, it was a poor example for us to follow. The church in Jerusalem was told to make disciples of all nations and ethnic groups (once they received Holy Spirit power), commanded to be witnesses unto Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth.f Yet the church in Jerusalem grew bigger and bigger and bigger (some estimate between 60-100,000), reaching their own people only. Numbers were good! The church was growing! They were being faithful to preach and teach in their local Jewish community, but were neglecting the Great Commission. The Commander had given the orders, but the soldiers weren’t fully obeying. That is, until God had to wake them up and shake them up by putting their very lives in danger and sending a persecution that literally scattered them around the world (Acts 8:1). Only then did Christians go out to spread the Gospel – yet still only to the Jews, people just like them. Their churches, for the most part, looked the same. They were Jewish churches.

Too many of our churches suffer from the Jerusalem Syndrome. We are faithful to preach and teach the Bible (even have growing numbers), but primarily to people just like us. We may even send money to reach other cultures in other places, but we are unwilling to reach other cultures in our own community. If the community around us begins to look different than us, we get so uncomfortable, we will either relocate to find a community that looks and acts like us, or we will dig in our heels to preserve our likes, culture and preferences, even if it means watching our churches wither and eventually die. I’ve seen it; you’ve seen it. Meanwhile there are real human souls that desperately need to hear of a Savior that loves them. They need to hear that in Christ we can be one. They need to see that we may have nothing else in common (humanly speaking), but if we know Jesus we are brothers and sisters, part of the family of God. We can come together to worship and serve the same Savior. They need to see people of genuine compassion, willing to do things differently if it means reaching people for Christ. The Jerusalem Syndrome can destroy the Lord’s work, and keep the glory of the Gospel from truly shining.

But I believe there is another church, that truly models and illustrates the Great Commission in action. It shows the true glory of the Gospel of Christ in a multicultural world. Instead of gravitating toward the Jerusalem Syndrome, I believe we need to be stirred and challenged by:

III. The Antioch Model (Acts 11:19-26)

Antioch was the third largest city in the Roman Empire, located about 500 miles north of Jerusalem. It was a Greek cultural center, on the Orontes River, close to a Mediterranean port (Seleucia), in the province of Syria (modern day Turkey).

It was here where we first see the glory and power of the Gospel in a multicultural world. The Jewish believers were forced to scatter and carry the Gospel to their Judea and Samaria, but they still had their cultural blinders on. They still only witnessed to Jews only (vs. 19). Some were Hellenist Jews, speaking Greek, living around the Roman Empire, but they were Jews nonetheless. Now these Christians began doing something new. They shared the Gospel of Christ to Gentiles. These “Grecians” (from what the context implies) were not Greek-speaking Jews (like in Jerusalem). They were actually Gentiles. Christians finally began to witness to other nationalities and people groups around them.

When this breakthrough in outreach and evangelism took place among God’s people we see God bless in extraordinary ways. When they stepped out of their comfort zone, stopped trying to reach only people just like them, they found that “the hand of the Lord was with them” and they experienced, not a revival, but a spiritual awakening (vs. 21). It was so incredible and amazing that word began to spread, and word reached the church back in Jerusalem. God was doing something out-of-the-box for them, something they had yet to experience, and they went to check it out. They were seeing the Romans 1:16 Gospel on full display. They were seeing the Great Commission carried out before their eyes. “The grace of God” had been poured out upon them (vs. 23).

It is no wonder that this church, with its culturally diverse ministry and leadership (including Jews, Africans, Italians), would be the church that would launch the first missionary movement (Acts 13:1-4). They had a true burden for the world, near and far. From this moment, from this church, the Gospel began to spread to the world, reaching nations, languages, people groups, and bringing together as one bodies of believers that virtually had nothing else in common; nothing, that is, but the blood of Jesus that has cleansed us from our sin, delivered us from the power of darkness, and transferred to the Kingdom of God’s Son. That is the glory of the Gospel in a multicultural world. It’s a little bit of Heaven on eart!

God has given me an ever growing burden to see God build more churches like Antioch, and for God to do so in the congregation where I serve. It grieves me to see such diverse cultures all around us, by the thousands, and yet most of our churches look nothing like any of them. When we do try to reach them, we want to keep them separate, apart, so they can do things their way and we can do things our way, and never truly becoming one body in Christ.

What is it going to take for the glorious Gospel to shine in our multicultural world? Persecution? Suffering? Divine discipline? Do we need to find ways to build better ministry bridges? To reach people that are all around us, yet seem invisible to us? To reach them, and not keep them isolated, but seek to integrate them as part of the Body? Do we need to be willing to leave our comfort zone? Do we need to seek God’s forgiveness for our prejudices, stubbornness and indifference? Do we need to be more flexible in our styles and attitudes? I don’t have the answers. But I know the heart of our Savior for a lost world, and, like Paul, “I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.”