Isn’t She Beautiful | Session 3 | Rob Bell

• Sometimes salvation is presented as being about Heaven. Is this really all it’s about? Some other life? Is this the best God can do? Because I need help today.
• What about people that never said “the prayer” but live a lot like Jesus or people that said “the prayer” but don’t live like Jesus? Jesus teachings were all about becoming a certain kind of person. How do we reconcile some people that live lives of generosity and don’t cling to outward manifestations and other people who claim it but don’t live it?
• All that matters is Jesus, but which Jesus? 1-800-Big-hair Jesus? Sometimes “Jesus” should be rejected. They may be on the road to salvation because they’re rejecting your church. We need to ask “what Jesus has this person been exposed to?” There’s another Jesus.
• Of all the billions of people….? Us…? Only…? A select few who happen to believe/confess/do a few things that even they can’t agree on?
• What if the missionary gets a flat tire?
• What is the age of accountability? What about the 13 year old “atheist” who dies in a car accident? Exclusive fundamentalists become open universalists at a child’s funeral.
• And how is any of this grace? It’s a free gift, there’s nothing you can do to earn it, all you have to do is…?

• How do you “get saved”?
- And you only had the Bible to answer the question.
• Luke 7, Luke 18, Luke 23
- How do you get in? Is it just something you say? Is it a prayer?
• John 3, Luke 20:35
- Is it something you have to be?
• Matt. 6:14, 7:21
- Do I have to forgive, or do the will of the Father?
• Matt. 10:22
- Do I need to stand firm?
• Luke 7:36
- She doesn’t do anything…it’s her posture, her action, her tears
• Luke 15
- Do you need to come home and say “I have sinned against Heaven and against you?”
• John 11:25
- Living a certain way by believing in Jesus
• Acts 2:38
- Is it something you say, something you be, or something you do?
• Luke 19
- Say what you’re going to do?
• Matthew 9
- Jesus sees the faith of the paralyzed mans friends and forgives the man’s sins…so you need the right friends?
• Mark 2:4
- The man has some good friends
• 1 Corinthians 7:16
- Is it something someone else does?
• Acts 9
- Something someone says to you?
• Romans 10:14
- Something somebody tells you to say/do/trust/believe?
- believing?
• Luke 4:34, 41
- The demons are clear on who Jesus was when everyone else wasn’t sure
• James 2:19
• If you were asked the question, “how do people get saved, converted, in, redeemed, etc.?” and you only had the Bible to answer the question…you would have lots of answers.
• In the scriptures, people stumble into the kingdom in all sorts of ways
• How do you proclaim the message in a way that has integrity?
• Salvation is holistic in nature
• Jesus wants to save all of us
• The scriptures not from a destination understanding, but from a journey understanding.
• It is possible to be “born again” but indifferent to the suffering of the world. Jesus wants to save Christians from being indifferent.
• You don’t just “arrive” and you’re in…Jesus wants to save you along the way.
• Matthew 19

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• Matthew 12:32
- “in this age and the age to come…”
- A Jew would not talk about forever, they would say “we’re living in this age and there’s an age to come.”
• Matthew 13:39
• Matthew 24:3
• Life in the age to come
- olam haba
- eternal life
• Luke 18:30
• Matthew 19:16
- How do I attain olam haba? This is a central question that a first century Jew would ask a rabbi to find out about the yoke of the rabbi.
- How can I live now in anticipation of the age to come? Jesus responds with “What are the commands?”
- Olam- to the vanishing point or horizon
• Matthew 19:28
- renewal of all things
• Acts 3:21
- a renewal of all things
- this age to come involved the restoration and renewal of all things
Colossians 1:20
- this is about a grand, massive reconciliation of all things to their creator
• God wants to put you and I back together because God wants to put it all back together
• While the cross includes personal salvation, it extends to the ends of the earth
• When you shrink salvation down to individual souls, it’s not the whole Gospel. Salvation includes all things
• Who’s in

• Who’s out…

• Jesus warns that some of the people you assume are in may be “out”, and some of the people you assume are out may be “in.”
• We invite people to trust Jesus wherever they are on their journey
• “I was not charged by God with the task of destroying other religions.”
• Jesus has great warning for religions people who make grand announcements about how they’re in and others are out.
• Richard Rohr on what is salvation: My simple definition of salvation would be when one begins to live in conscious union with God. This, of course, grows and develops and Jesus makes it plain that this has to begin in our bodies, in our human experience in this world, now, and for that Jesus is surely necessary for salvation. …it is not a formula or a mere affirmation but a change of identity.
• What is it that when you do it you think “man, I could do this forever?”
• Genesis 1-3
- God bless Adam and Eve
- They are in right, harmonious relationship with their Creator
- There is shalom between people and each other
- Humanity at peace with itself
- Take the would and subdue (care for it), not exploit it
- there are a few verses on people, but many on creation, we’re all environmentalists
- Shalom with God, others, with self, with creation
- The story begins with Shalom in chapter 1, not brokenness in chapter 3
- Sin is anywhere Shalom has been disrupted
• The arc of the Scriptures is of a God who wants to take up residence with His people
- God comes down in Genesis 1
- Revelation ends with the Bride of Christ returning to Earth
- The Bible begins and ends with people in right relationship with God
• To be a Christian is to believe that history is going somewhere
• it’s not how can I escape this life to be with God, it’s how can I live so God can take up residence here?
• Be wary of any form of spirituality that claims the goal is escape
• The story does not begin with sin, it begins with Shalom.
• What’s scary is people that talk about Hell someday, and not Hell now
• If someone is in Heaven who doesn’t want to be there, it wouldn’t be heaven
• 1 Thess. 4- The Rapture passage
- letter written to the city of Thessolonici (sp?)
- city was destroyed
- roman emporer sent resources to rebuild
- they recieved word that the emporer wanted to come see the city
- it is believed that when the trumpet blew everyone ran out of the city to welcome the emporer and then took him back into the city to show him what they had built with his resources
- they don’t go off to some other place and abandon the city
- maybe the new testament is Jesus giving us the resources and saying “now get to work”

~ by Dave on January 23, 2007.