Isaiah 53:2-11  (NIV, pg. 1053)

² He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground.  He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.  ³ He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.  Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

⁴ Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted.  ⁵ But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.  ⁶ We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

⁷ He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.  ⁸ By oppression and judgment he was taken away.  Yet who of his generation protested?  For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was punished.  ⁹ He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.

¹⁰ Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.  ¹¹ After he has suffered, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities.

Today’s story is about the gospel going to Ethiopia.  God, always saying, “Go into all the world, making disciples and telling them all I taught you.”  Christianity is the most inclusive religion and the most exclusive.

Acts 8:26-40 (NIV, pg. 1562-1563)

²⁶ Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.”  ²⁷ So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of the Kandake (which means “queen of the Ethiopians”).  This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, ²⁸ and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the Book of Isaiah the prophet.  ²⁹ The Spirit told Philip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.”

³⁰ Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet.  “Do you understand what you are reading?”  Philip asked.

³¹ “How can I,” he said, “unless someone explains it to me?”  So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.

³² This is the passage of Scripture the eunuch was reading: “He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before its shearer is silent, so he did not open his mouth.  ³³ In his humiliation he was deprived of justice.  Who can speak of his descendants?  For his life was taken from the earth.”

³⁴ The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?”  ³⁵ Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.

³⁶ As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water.  What can stand in the way of my being baptized?”  ³⁸ And he gave orders to stop the chariot.  Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him.  ³⁹ When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing.  ⁴⁰ Philip, however, appeared at Azotus and traveled about, preaching the gospel in all the towns until he reached Caesarea.

Jesus has died for everyone.  We worship Jesus and God and that is it.  One God, one Holy Book, and not everything people do is good in God’s eyes.  We will look at the inclusive and the exclusive characteristics about Christianity.

God has a plan.  The Spirit had Philip go along the moving chariot, hearing the man reading Isaiah 53.

This was a divine encounter; the Holy Spirit initiated Philip to the spot, to contact this man and help the Ethiopian understand Isaiah.  When his task was done, God moved Philip to the next place to do God’s plan.

As we go through Acts, we see the disciples Peter and Paul overcoming their racial preferences.  The Spirit forced them into new relationships with different sorts of people, different races, different places, and different cultures.

The disciples were pushed out of their comfort zone, into new spaces to preach the gospel to the whole world.

The Bible talks about the Spirit being grieved if we don’t love what God loves.  The Spirit is about overcoming the racial, class, cultural barrier that is set up for us or that we set up ourselves.  Christianity does not belong to one culture any more than another.

In Acts, one’s culture will not dominate what it means to follow Christ.  His sacrifice was for all people, there isn’t a culture that isn’t invited to know Jesus, to become part of the family of God.

Christianity takes what the culture is and doesn’t negate it, but gives people a new way to see life, the Christian way.

We Christians agree the world is full of spirits, but that there is One, Jesus, who has overcome all the bad spirits.

Christianity welcomes different points of view in understanding the world; Christianity can transform all cultures in the world if the culture/person asks Christ into their life.

Christianity is the most inclusive religion and at the same time the most exclusive.

Christianity states salvation is only through Jesus.  Jesus descended to grab us and pull us into His family, into His Kingdom.  Jesus came because He is the God we are seeking.  “Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life and no one gets to the Father except through Him (Jesus).”  Totally exclusive.

The Ethiopian is reading Isaiah 53, why?  He must be looking for something.  There must have been a spiritual emptiness that could not be filled in Ethiopia.

The eunuch is learning that there is a salvation that goes beyond power, success and family.  He realizes that there is a mysterious figure in Isaiah called “the servant”.

As the Ethiopian reads in Isaiah, Philip arrives on the scene and begins to dialogue and explain what is being said and the meaning behind it.

The deeper truth he is learning, is we are all excluded from God because of our sin.  But thanks to Jesus (the servant), we are all let into the family, into His Kingdom.

So, why is Christianity the most inclusive and the most exclusive at the same time?

John 14:6  Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through Me.

Christianity’s salvation is what Jesus did on the Cross, where He lost His glory and His life.  He took our punishment, the only way to end evil without ending us.  Which means these are things we must do.  We must follow Jesus; we must ask Christ into our lives and repent that we need Jesus in our life.  Then we are given a new identity in Christ, because we follow Him and allow the Holy Spirit into our life to shape and guide us.

Isaiah 56:3-4  Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say, “The Lord will surely separate me from his people”; and let not the eunuch say, “Behold, I am a dry tree.”  For thus says the Lord to the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths…

However we hear this message, it is for all of us, no matter what, we get to God through the sacrifice of Jesus.  Inclusive and exclusive.

God bless you, let’s talk about this faith we believe and allow Christ to fill our life with the Holy Spirit.  Have a good week.