Session 9 Irreconcilable Views of Reconciliation

To join me in a word of prayer. Oh God, how we thank you for and rejoice in Calvery's love. Thank you for reminding us of our great need and of your even greater provision. Grant by your grace that we might never become jaded or get used to the magnitude of Calviy's love and its implications in our lives and in our eternities. Now, as we turn our attention to the preaching of your word, continue to meet us in our worship. For our worship is meaningless unless and until we commune with you, teach us, correct us, rebuke us, train us, conform us to the image of your beloved son. In other words, let your word have its way, for we pray in Christ's name. Amen. Let me just say as I begin here, that once again it is a great privilege to be here. I am grateful for Dr MacArthur's ministry, writ law, charge right, his ministry and the way that it has impacted lives, the way that it has impacted families, the way that it has impacted churches, the way that it has impacted a generation. But like the rest of you, I'm also grateful for the ways that it has impacted me personally and individually. I've said at other conferences and at other times that it is a unique privilege for me to stand behind this sacred desk. I was born and raised right here in Los Angeles the same year that doctor MacArthur started pastoring this church. So I'm grateful for the fact that we get to celebrate our fiftieth together. Right. But I was I was born to a single teenage Buddhist mother and never heard the Gospel until my first year at university. So I was I was gone from Los Angeles before I ever heard the Gospel. And so for God and his providence and by his grace to call me to himself, to save me, to rescue me from my sin, and to bring me back to this place, reminded all the while that the prophet is not without honor except in his own hometown. And to give me the privilege of being able to stand here before you, it means more than you could know, and uh and more than I can say. Well, my assignment today is to address the issue of the sufficiency of Scripture as it relates to issues of racial reconciliation. This particular idea and concept of justice that has been on the minds on the lips of many as of late, and I want to do that a couple of ways. One way that I want to do it is I want to bring a word of clarity, a word of clarification. Many people. Again, when we have discussions, disagreements, debates, one of the tendencies is to mischaracterize or oversimplify the arguments or the positions of those with whom we disagree. And I certainly don't want to be guilty of that, but I also don't want to be a victim of that. And I want to be clear of about what I believe. And I can't speak to everyone who you know, signed the statement and helped craft the statement on social justice in the Gospel. What I believe about the importance of this moment in which we live, and what I believe about who our real adversaries are. And I do believe that we have real adversaries. In some instances, we have internal debates, these these fraternal disagreements and arguments about specific issues, right, and they can be small points, and those are incredibly important. But what I had in mind. When I became a part of the group that put this statement together was not those those that inside baseball, if you will, those those small fraternal debates that brothers have over minor issues. But what I saw was a much larger issue, a much broader issue. And sometimes people have, you know, accused me of you know, making veiled comments about this brother or that brother, sometimes of responding to articles that I hadn't even seen yet. I don't know if you remember. But I kind of live in Africa, and I've got, you know, more than I can say, grace over with taking care of what God has called me to take care of their So I don't always see everything, and I don't always see everything soon. But here's another thing that you need to know about me. I tend to not be scared of people just saying and when I want to say something and direct it at someone, I tend to just do that. Amen. I believe that that's our duty, our responsibility, and I believe that we have a model of that. And the New Testament. I love. You know, when when Paul is writing to Timothy and two Timothy, and he doesn't just say, you know, there's there's a brother who did me harm, he goes, you know, Alexander, you know the Coppersmith down there on Main Street around the corner when you go. You know, you know what I'm talking about, right that guy. I believe we have a model for that, and that's very important. Another issue is that there are some who've argued that what we we've addressed is an effort to get away from the real issues or to take something that is a big, broad cultural systemic issue and to reduce it to something less than that. I want to say something about that today as well. But there's the other issue is that we're actually warring against straw men. That this big boogeyman that we believe we need to address really doesn't exist. So I want to address all of those things. But I'm going to start by addressing this idea that we're fighting against straw men, that we're creating straw men in order to strengthen our position. I want to read something for you. This is from Union Seminary. Union Seminary is a real seminary. They trained real people for real pastoral ministry in real churches, and they responded to our statement, and here is part of their response. I won't take the time to read it all. To begin, misguided sociological, psychological, and political theories have long fostered biblical misinterpretation. Amen. While we wrote what we wrote, but we wish to address untruths. This document proclaims any treatise that says social justice is incidental to the Gospel badly misunderstands both. So I want to be clear that I'm not taking this out of context. These individuals are responding to our statement, to what they see as misrepresentations and untruths and errors in our statement point number one on the scripture. While divinely inspired, we deny the Bible is inerrant or infallible. It was written by men over centuries, and thus reflects both God's truth and human sin and prejudice. We affirm that biblical scholarship and critical theory help us discern which messages are gods. This is no straw man. This is a real seminary training real ministers for real ministry in real churches. I've written about and addressed the critical theory, race theory, it's culture of Marxist roots, and have often been accused of going after boogeyman that do not exist. Listen to this again. This is what I want to read again. Just marinate on this for a minute while divinely inspired. We deny the Bible as an errant or infallible. It was written by me, so the Bible, the Bible can be trusted. The Bible's not trustworthy. The Bible's not sufficient, written by men over centuries, and thus reflects both God's truth and human sin. And again this characterization of the way that the Bible came to us the way that the Canon came to us. This characteration is characterization is rooted in classical liberalism, reflects human sin and prejudice. We affirm that biblical scholarship and critical theory help us discern and which messages our God. So when we read the Bible, we have to discern what of this comes from God and what of this comes from man and his sin and his prejudice. And biblical scholarship helps us to do that, but also critical theory helps us to do that. Critical theory, which is. A modern. Theory from the social sciences. Critical theory rooted and grounded in modern sociology and psychology and political science. Critical theory outside of the Bible helps us to read the Bible rightly and determine what God is saying versus what sinful man is saying, so we have a new canon here, and when we're applying critical theory. There's a couple more of these points, but I really want you to understand this one when we're applying critical theory, because many times when we're having discussions about these issues, people will say, well, you haven't done your homework, and what do they mean? What do I need to read? And you get a list of books not from theologians, but from sociologists and psychologists, political scientists who are rooted in critical theory. And what many are now doing is they go to critical theory. Critical theory says that there is a new unpardonable sin. Jim Wallace actually writes a book about this new unpardonable sin. And the title of Jim Wallace's book is America's Original Sin, Racism, America's original Sin. Now, Jim Wallace from Soul Journals does not believe in the doctrine of original sin as it relates to Adam and humans, but he definitely believes in it as it relates to America and critical race theory. So we read this new canon right of scripture from sociologists, political scientists, right from psychologists, and this new canon of Scripture identifies for us this new unpardonable sin of racism. Then we bring that to the Bible, and we bring that to other theologians, and we dismiss theologians in history based. Upon what we find from our new canon. From sociology, psychology, and political science. But that's just the beginning of it. Let me read a couple more of these. Let's read the statement on sin. We affirm that all people, systems, and institutions are affected by sin. We deny, however, that we're only responsible for our own personal sins. God calls us to understand how we benefit or are harmed by structural oppression and break sinful systems down. Salvation. We deny that salvation is only found through Christianity, that God's salvage grace is exclusive to any single faith or religion. Moreover, in God's eyes, there is no difference in spiritual value or worth between those who are in Christ and those who are not. This is a real seminary training real people for real positions in real churches. This is not a straw. Man need another one. Sexuality and marriage. We affirm science and theories confirmation that God created humans to live in various sexual orientations and genders. The spectrum of human sexual experience attests to God's expansive love. We deny that any love that does no harm should be rejected. We do one more complementarianism. We affirm that this doctrine has long been used to propagate Christian patriarchy to separate but equal cloaked and religious language. We deny that women are unfit to lead us pastors, and know the church desperately needs their leadership. I could go on, but I think the point has been made. This is not a straw man, This is not the invention of my imagination. This is real, and I'm so grateful for the fact that it is in the open. And then I can stand here and not stand here and not talk to you about, you know, egghead theories and how these theories are you know, theoretically influencing people, and how if we listen to this or that, we can trace this theory. But no, no, no, no, no, that's not what we're doing here. This is here. They are open and honest, denying the authority of scripture, denying the inerrancy and infallibility of scripture, denying the sufficiency of scripture, and elevating ideologies that are antithetical to biblical Christianity, and elevating things that the Bible clearly identifies as heresy, and doing so based on the fact that there is an authority to them that is higher than the authority of the Bible, and it is the authority of the social sciences to the degree that they support their presuppositions. So what do we do, Well, I'm glad you asked. If you have your Bibles with you, open them to the Book of Ephesians, to the Book of Ephesians, Ephesians chapter two. And again, I mean, I mean, let me just let me just speak clear about this. I am not arguing at all. And one of the things that happens here is there's some straw men here, like the straw man that argues that the position in in in this document, or the position at this conference, or the position uh from from those who are fighting against the kinds of things that I read, that our position is that the Gospel only deals with how we get to heaven and has no implications for how we live our lives in relation to one another. That that that's a lie, that's a straw man. That is absolutely a strong man. But the problem is when we talk about the implications of the Gospel and how we live in relationship to one another, that the Gospel is not just what we use in order to determine how we are made right with God and then put it over to the side when we determine how we live in communion with one another. No, no, no. The Bible is sufficient on both sides of the equation. And the way we approach the Bible is to submit to it, not to call it to submit to theories in the behavioral sciences. And so a Fesires chapter two. I call this the second half of the Fesia chapter two, the forgotten section. Right we know and Love of Ephesians chapter two, or we say we do right, What we really mean is we know and love Ephesians to the first paragraph. You can't say a man, you ought to say ouch. Right. Somebody says open to Ephesians two eleven, and we're like, wait, there's a verse eleven. You're making this up right, And I'll be the first to admit that Ephesians two one through ten is that that's as good as it gets. Amen. You don't even have to be Pentecostal to read Ephesians chapter two, verses one through ten and feel like you need to shout Amen. But it's not as though. Ephesians two one through ten gives us the good stuff, and then in verse eleven we get something less. Actually, and Ephesians one through ten we get the picture of our need in Christ for salvation from our sin. Because of the world, the flesh and the devil. We're dead in our trespasses and sins, and we have to be a maid alive together with Christ. Amen. And that's just good news. We must be born again. We must have our sins dealt with. Our sins must be nailed to the cross, and we must be reconciled to God. Amen, Hallelujah, Praise the Lord. But it doesn't stop there. We are also reconciled to one another. That's what we see beginning in verse eleven, that this reconciliation to God opens up, lays the foundation, and is the source of our reconciliation to one another. Not sociology, psychology, or political science, but the same Gospel. Beginning in verse eleven, look at it there therefore remember now Therefore, therefore hearkens back to verses one through ten. Therefore, remember that at one time you gentiles in the flesh called the uncircumcision, by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands. Now I remember you, gentiles by the way He's dividing the world. And this is important, and we talk about the sufficiency of scripture for our reconciliation right, deficiency of scripture as it relates to justice in this regard between us as people. First of all, we see its sufficiency in that it makes clear who we are and how we are divided. We see two groups here, gentiles in the flesh and the circumcision. Remember that you were at that time three things separated from Christ. Secondly, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel. Thirdly, strangers to the covenants and promises. Because of that, we had no hope and were without God in the world. There's two things here that are incredibly important. One is it identifies the distinctions that matter, and secondly, it identifies the division that exists. Now, these distinctions that matter are important because oftentimes we talk about distinctions and we talk about being distinct from one another in terms of our race. Race is actually a social construct. The concept of race is not a biblical concept. It's not a biblical idea. It is a constructed idea. You won't find the idea of races in the Bible unless you find it in the proper historical context. Where we see number one. That we are all the race of atom, Amen one race one blood. We are all the race of atom. There is less than a zero point two percent genetic difference between any of us in this regard. In fact, we're not even different colors Amen, technically, from a genetic perspective, from a biochemistry perspective, we are all actually the same color. Our color comes from our melanin. We've all got melanin, just to differing degrees. So it's not that some of us are you know, this color, Some of us are that color, some of the No, we're just different shades of the same color. Some of us just have more melanine than others. And I want you to hear listen to me on this. Listen to me just because you don't have as much melanin as I do. Don't you dare think God doesn't love you as much as he loves me, because he gave me more. You learn to be satisfied with the little you have. But there is another separation. There is actually a separation that we do have here in scripture. It's a real separation. The separations that we have, the racial categories that we have, are artificial. They are not biblical in nature, nor are they genetic in nature. They are artificial based on people's hair and their features and their skin color and things like that. That is artificial. It's not real. We've been convinced that it is, but it's not real. But the Bible does talk about a real distinction, and that is between Gentiles and Jews. Now, racial distinctions are things that we have made up to divide ourselves as individuals, and it's crazy, it's logically inconsistent. I read these forms and people, you know, you're like, what are you? What is your what is your race? Human? Actually? Actually no, Actually you're you're African American. How is that a race? Because one of them is a nationality? Amen, that's crazy talk. How is that my race? And how is it that I get to be an African American? But if somebody comes over here from Egypt or Algeria or Morocco, they don't get to be African American because the first part of my race is based on my continent. Well no, not actually only the black part of your continent. Oh wow, okay, so why use the name of the continent, right, and then the second part is based on your you know, your your nationality. How do you get race from nationality? We made this up. It's not real. But this distinction is real, and we didn't make it up. God did follow me on this because it's going to be very important later on. The distinction between Jew and gentile is a real distinction, and God made the distinction. But it's a covenantal distinction, not a racial one. How do I know that? Because the first Jew had to become one. He was of the same ethnicity and race. If you will, there's all the rest of his kin folk. Amen. God didn't say to Abraham be still, I'm getting ready to change you at the genetic level, so that you your descendants will be genetically different from the other descendants. This might hurt a little bit. No, he made an external. Adjustment. Circumcision, did not change him genetically. So the Jiu gentile divide is not a genetic one. It can't be. You can't try to make it one that dog won't hunt. So God actually makes this distinction. It's a real distinction, and it's a covenantal distinction. Why am I laboring this point? Because the question is scripture sufficient? Yes, the scripture sufficient because one of our big problems is we allow a man made category to divide us. But the all sufficient word of God says to us, that's a lie. Stop believing it. But beyond that, he goes to what's the real problem is? The real problem is again this separation is artificial, but the separation is covenanal and verse twelve, remember that you are at that time separated from Christ. There's your problem, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, outside of this community, strangers to the covenants and the promise, having no hope and without God in the world. That is as bad as bad news gets amen. What's our favorite part of the first half of Ephesians two. My favorite part is verse four, But God amen, because there's some bad news in verses one through three, and then you get but God watch this verses eleven and twelve. You get bad news verse thirteen. But now in Christ Jesus, the news is bad in the first half, but God the news is bad in the second half. But now in Christ, Jesus like what he says, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. What is this an allusion to? This is an illusion to the temple, to the worship of God's people. You come up the steps in Solomon's porch and you want to come in and and and ultimately we know that inside the Holy of Holies it it is there where where the presence of God is seen to dwell, and nobody goes there but the high priests, and not only once a year. And then outside of that there's a place where where the priests minister, and then there's an area where the Levites can go, and then there's an area where Jewish men can go, and then there's an area where Jewish women can go. And then back here. Way far off, you have the court of the Gentiles. They've come to know and love Yahweh. But even though they've come to know and love Yahweh, they still when they come to worship Yahweh have to be way back there as far away from the presence of Yahweh as you can possibly get. But Christ dies and the veil of the temple is torn in two, and now all of a sudden, in Christ, you who used to have to sit way back there, have been brought near by the blood of Jesus. Christ has reconciled us to God. That's the picture that's in mind here verse fourteen. Why, for he himself is our peace, who made us both won, and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. We were far off, and we've been brought near. What's that about. That's about reconciliation to God. We were far off and we've been brought near by the blood of Christ. But the blood of Christ doesn't just bring us near to God. And the blood of Christ doesn't just bring us near to one another. Notice what he says, The blood of Christ makes us one man. It's an amazing mystery. It's very similar, if you will, to the mystery of marriage. It's an amazing thing that you know. Here, my wife and I are are not related by blood, that she's my closest living relative. Just think on that for a minute. She's my next of kin, bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. She's my good thing, y'all? Why because of this mysterious supernatural work of God that is united usn't made us one? And the same thing happens with Jews and Gentiles. God brings them together and makes them one. Listen to this we love Galatians three twenty eight. But we stop too soon. Galatians three twenty eight. There is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free. There is no male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus, Amen, Holliah, Praise the Lord. Don't stop reading. And if you are Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring heirs according to the promise. Did you catch that Father Abraham had many sons? Amen, many sons had Father Abraham. I am one of them. So are you. Back to our text? It makes us one. But before we do that, Before we do that, let me make this point. I told you I was believing that point for a reason because the idea that we are many races right, and we have we have different ethnicities, and the Bible speaks to that right right, the word ethnicity ethnos right in the Great Commission. We we we take this, we take this message, and we go and preach to Panta ta ethne right, every people group, every every ethnic groups. We do have different ethnicities, but that's different than saying that we have different races. There are there are different cultural distinctions among us, and other things that distinguish us are our languages and things of this nature. But but but that's different than saying we have real, legitimate things that separate us. Why is this important? Because if the things that we believe separate us are made up, and we see in this text that are real separation that God created is overcome by the blood of Christ. If the blood of Jesus can obliterate a real distinction, a real distinction that God himself created, then how much more can he get rid of artificial distinctions that fallen men created. Let's look at the next part of this. All of this turns around verse seventeen. Verse seventeen is incredibly important. He came and preached peace to you who were far off, and peace to those who were near. The Christian is sufficient for us in this area of reconciliation. Yes, absolutely, absolutely, and I think verse seventeen it may be the clincher for all of this. He preached peace to those of you who are far off, and peace to those of you who are near. One of the problems with critical theory, and again I don't want I didn't want to make this an expose on critical theory. But one of the problems is this idea that we think about race and racism in terms of structures. And there are people who are arguing that when you think about race and racism in terms of the individual, you have a problem because you're not addressing those structures. And when you think about others will say, when you think about race and racism in terms of structures, you have a problem because you don't address the individual. But the new definition of racism, right, racism equals prejudiced plus power. Well, that new definition of racism basically says to me or anyone else who is not part of the cultural hegemony, that this sin is one that doesn't touch us. I can't be racist according to critical theories definition of racism. I can't be racist. The people in my family who when I went off to college said, don't come back with no white girl. They can't be racist. And if we're not careful, what we do is we foster this group identity us versus them thinking. And we say, yes, the Cross is powerful and important. Go get them, Jesus, because they need to be fixed. And the Jew looks at the gentile and says, yes, go get them, Jesus. I'm glad that you died so that you can make them part of us and says, yes, go get him, Jesus, because because they mistreated us, they thought they were superior to us. And you got both of these groups saying go get him Jesus. And Paul says, here, stop both of you. I want you to understand. Christ did not come because he needed to die in order to reconcile this. Group or that group. It's both, and the ones who were close needed to be reconciled, just like the ones who were far off needed to be reconciled, because the reconciliation was a reconciliation to God. Because of the sinfulness in your heart, and your ethnicity does not excuse you from that sinfulness in your heart. Listen, the hatred and mistreatment of the other is not something that you have to have power, you know, to be guilty. Am I saying that these issues writ large are not problematic. I'm absolutely not saying that. And when we find these issues writ large. We can, should must speak truth to them. We must, but we can't be bullied into an either or. Christ comes in the cross. And preaches peace to those who are far off and peace to those. Who are near. And then what does he do? Remember our problem before separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of Promise and problem verse eighteen. For through him we both have access in one spirit to the Father. He took care of the separation issue verse nineteen. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens that takes care of strangers to the covenants of Promise, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God that takes care of alienated from the commonwealth of Israel. In other words, it wasn't just small or individual issues that were dealt with, but all of them were dealt with Verse twenty. Built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ, Jesus himself being the cornerstone in whom the whole structure being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him, you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Holy Spirit. We can't lose sight of this. One of the things that we can't do with this issue or any other issue, is have an overrealized eschatology. An overrealized eschatology, simply put, means that we look at the promises of God for the age to come and assume that if we try hard enough, we can create them in the here and now. We live in a broken and fallen world. Now, hear me, I've already said that I'm not arguing against attacking sin airwhere, not just everywhere airwhere. That's beyond everywhere. Right. It's born and raised in Los Angeles, spent most of my life in Texas. Amen. But we fight this without an overrealized eschatology. We live in a broken and fallen world, and so we fight recognizing that we're going to have to continue to fight. We fight recognizing that we're like the boy who puts his finger in the hole in the dike, that there are other holes that show up. What that means is we. Don't fight as though this is the only area an issue that we have to fight. And if you listen to some it sounds like that. It sounds like this is the only area an issue where we have to fight. I'll end with this. Before we left and moved to Lusaka, planted and was pastoring a church in Houston. And you may or may not be aware of this. Most people are not aware of this, but Houston is the most ethnically diverse city in the United States. Not Los Angeles, not New York, Houston, Texas, the most ethnically diverse city in the United States. Was a pastor and a church in Houston was about to break his arm patting himself on the back because of his diverse, multi ethnic church. About sixty percent of the church was mainly white people melanin challenged people, and about thirty five percent of the church were a high melanin folks. Listen to this, in the most ethnically diverse city in America, someone was applauding himself for having a diverse, multicultural church because it's made up of two ethnicities. I mean, over there, here's this church, you know, just all stuck out. Look at this black people, white people here together. I'm like, Okay, that's fine, good for you, But what about the Laotians who live over there, and the Samoans who are back there, and and and and and what about the Russian immigrants over there? And and what about the and what about the and what about the and what about the and what about the See I'm afraid that what's happened is we've been lulled to sleep. And we think. The only issues that we need to tackle are issues between high melanin folks and low melanin folks. And meanwhile, there's a bunch of other people out there going. But here's the beauty in the sufficiency of Scripture as it relates to these issues. It doesn't matter what causes the divisions between us. The answer is the same. Christ is our peace. The answer is simple. Christ is our peace. I didn't say it was easy. I didn't say it was easy. I told you I would give you that and then I'd leave you. But I lied again. Okay, Jesus died from my lies, y'all. So let me connect this. Dr Carther was talking about pastoral counseling and psychology and the psychology movement and all this, there was this period where we didn't believe that the scriptures were sufficient to deal with people's problems, and so we needed people trained in psychology in order to deal with people's the problems. You remember that it's the same issue because we don't believe in the efficiency of scripture. And what happened with some of those folks is they heard this clarion call that the Bible is sufficient to deal with people's problems, and so people would come to them and say, I'm depressed, or I'm schizophrenic, or you know, I'm addicted to drugs, or I'm addicted to alcohol. And some people very simply, simplistically would pick up their Bible and say, read these three verses and call me in the morning. Not sufficient, that's not what's meant by biblical counseling. Amen. The answer is simple in that the Bible is sufficient to deal with people's problems large and small. But it is very difficult, complicated, and messy in that applying this takes a lot of work. The same is true here hear me saying that on these issues that divide us race and ethnicity and so on and so forth, the answer is simple. What I do not mean by that is we can just say, read three verses and call me in the morning. There are generations of mess to be dealt with and dug up and worked through, and that's hard work to do. But hear me saying this, The Bible is sufficient for the heavy lifting and the hard work. It's simple, but it's hard. But God and his word are sufficient.