Last week, we looked at several
points in talking about racism and talking about race, the ethnicity
issue that we deal with in our world. And there's no greater
place that I see that it is dealt with than in the South. And there's
no greater need that I see in many years than it to be dealt
with in the church in the South. Friends, you might understand
the severity of race and racial thinking and racism But it is
an absolute, and I'll use the same words I did last week, racism
and prejudice is an abomination before God. It is an affront
to His holiness. It is an affront to His church
and to the creation of the church. Therefore, it is a mockery of
the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is probably,
other than the marriage and the fellowship of believers, racism
is probably the ultimate ultimate blasphemy against the Holy Spirit
to say that Christ is not God in the flesh. Because Christ
came to eliminate racial diversity and to bring an integrity of
a people. And we'll look at that a little more in depth today.
Last week we talked more at a broad stroke of helping us identify
the sin of racism in our own lives, helping us to see that
it actually was sin and that it is in our hearts. all of us. So there are about six things
that I'll review very quickly as we get started that we looked
at proving that racism is, number one, part of us all. Last week
we realized that there are none of us without sin and because
of the culture that we grew up in, because of the nature of
our own flesh, We are not in a situation to say that we do
not have racial problems or racism in our hearts. To say that we
have no prejudice at all against any people because of the color
of their skin or because of their culture and I broaden racism
out to be prejudice toward any specific groups of people depending
on their color or their creed or their nationality. But we
cannot deny that we have these issues inside of our own hearts
and thinking. Even if we say we don't, we should look deeper
because I'm sure that it will come up one day if we continue
to keep our eyes open. Not only do we all have it, but
because we all have these issues, we have this sin in our lives,
it has serious implications toward the gospel. It has serious consequences
in our worship. The second thing that we prove
that racism is, it is a dreadful sin, and I believe that it flies
in the face of the center of the gospel. And because of that,
the church must deal with it. We learned last week that God
created all mankind as one race, the human race. And that the
division of the cultures and the ethnicities, the ethmos,
the nations, are a result of the fall of man, not creation. So God has divided us away from
each other historically as we see in the Old Testament in Genesis
when he moved, because of Cain's sin, he moved him away from his
family. Because of the sin of Babel,
he moved them away from each other. And so cultural division
is always a result of sin and judgment. Therefore, the antithesis
of division and cultural division is unity. And we've learned,
even in going through the first chapter of Ephesians in the last
few months, is that unity comes only through the gospel of Jesus
Christ. That the Jews, as we saw, are saved and justified
the same way the Gentiles are. And I'm going to specifically
deal with that today at length. We also learned that God has
created, past tense, and is currently creating, present tense, one
people for himself. God is creating the church. He's
creating his body, the body of Jesus Christ, to be one race,
a royal priesthood, a holy nation. We've also learned that racism
therefore should not exist. Therefore we should not delineate,
delineate, delineate, I can't even say the word there. We should
not divide over culture. We should not build these ruts
in our social circles and say well this is the white people
thing and this is the black people thing. And especially, and when
I say we, I'm always talking about the church. I'm not talking
about a social gospel. I'm not talking about a cultural
gospel. I'm not talking about world peace. That's not going to happen. What
I'm talking about is the way the church personifies the wisdom
of God and the way the church displays the manifold wisdom
of God and the gospel is that we are unified in Christ despite
our inequalities in our own minds, despite our differences, despite
our cultural diversions. And so I want us to realize that
this is not something that we should be doing as the church.
We should not let our customs define us. We should not let
our cultures define us, our nationality define us as the church. Therefore, the result of this
is that we are the visible wisdom of God. displayed through what
is, what I would say, is not natural to the world. To be culturally
diverse and yet unified under one banner is not natural to
the world. And so what we see, and the only
way that it works right now is that people unify other cultures
and nations and languages and tongues. They unify different
races, if you will, unify under a cause, but not under Christ. And so the church has, through
the years, unified under the Civil Rights Movement. Wonderful!
The church should stand for the Civil Rights Movement. Jesus
would have stood in that corner, not to fight to bring civil rights,
but he preached that correctly. He preached his own gospel, and
that gospel in itself said, look, it is an injustice to treat someone
wrongly, but he also said you'll always have the poor. You'll
always have the slave. So he didn't come to eradicate
these things. He came that these things might
be eradicated through and in the church, not for the world,
but for the church. The church is a different people
that stands in supernatural opposition to the natural order of life
in the world in which we live. So it's not natural, it's supernatural
within the church. And so I'm not prescribing that
even though I think the church needs to be vocal on social issues
and issues of injustice, that's not our mission. Our mission
is to display unity despite those things within our own ranks.
We are a chosen people. And so today, We're going to
look at racism in a deeper way. We're going to look at racism
and we're going to look at how God makes his own people. We're
going to look at the issue of justification and the implications
that has on race and racism. We're going to see how God has
prepared a people in reality before the world began. And how
God's gospel destroys the works of the devil as John says in
1 John. and therefore the devil's works
are all types of hate. Why did Cain murder his brother,
John says, because his brother was righteous and his works were
evil. He hated his brother because
his brother's works were righteous and his deeds were evil. Because
those who hate God hate what God can do and they hate the
works that are clearly seen that have been done in God, as Jesus
says in John chapter 3 to Nicodemus. the righteousness of God is what
we're called. Why are we called that? Because
Christ has given us righteousness and then the righteous acts and
the righteous works and the righteous state of justification that we
have is not our own but rather one that is given to us by the
Father through the Son to be received by faith. And so this
diversity of race I believe is the work of the devil according
to the scripture. And I'll, in a sense, well, let me back that
up. This racial diversity is the
work of the devil as it maintains itself through the church. It's the work of the enemy in
the church. There's a caveat that I want to give, just like
I did last week, because topical preaching can really open doors
for a lot of inference. And I don't want you to hear
what I have not said. So I want you to understand that I believe
that as a people, We should embrace the qualities of cultures, the
differences. After all, we as Americans have
our own ideals, philosophies, culture, if you will. We are
not, however, we're not to be defined by our culture. I'm not
saying that we just, because this is what's happening somewhere
in these undeveloped nations, that Americans and Anglos are
going into these areas and they're changing them and they're saying,
now that you are believers, you've got to look like us. So, they're
putting tribesmen in suits. and totally separating them from
their cultures. That's the same as circumcision.
We don't do that. We don't say, you look like me,
you dress like me. I mean, I have been lamb blasted
many times over because I don't wear suits. If I wear a suit,
it's because I decided to wear a suit or somebody died. So you
don't want to see me in suits that much. Do I think anything's
wrong with the suit? No. I just don't personally like
to have a tie around my neck, honestly. and it's more comfortable
to wear jeans than it is a pair of pants that you have to go
spend $12 to get dry-cleaned every time you get to wear them.
So there's practical things. And is it wrong? No. But that's
what we're trying to do sometimes. We say that sometimes in the
context of our worship services. Well, we're going to the house
of God. Really? According to all of the New Testament,
we are the temple of the living God. And even in the New Jerusalem,
there's not going to be a physical building, folks. God is clear. The temple is done. The temple,
we are the pillars of the temple. Christ is the temple. He embodies
the fullness of God, as Paul says in Colossians, that the
fullness of deity was pleased to dwell in him. So, we have
to be careful that although we can embrace the diversity, we
don't define ourselves by the diversities of our culture. I
don't want to be known as the guy who does this or the guy
who has this. I want to be known as a child of God. And if you're
known as a child of God, whether you like everything I like or
not, we are one in the same body. And therefore, we can walk together
and live together. And as the children of God alone,
His Word and its teaching, friends, this is key. The Word of God
and the teachings of God transcend all cultures, all nations, all
abilities, all felt needs, all societies, specifically all things. Now what do I mean by that? Why
would I put that in there? Well, because I believe no matter
what happens in this world, the only thing that transcends it
all is the Word of God. God's Word is timeless. It was
written to a people for a people, written to the people of the
day that received the letters, and it was written for the body
of Christ for all of eternity. And Jesus says, not a jot nor
tittle will pass away. He is the living Word of God
that exists eternally. As the God-man before the world
began, he stood on the corners, if we could, of the universe
and called it all into being. And then his word is preserved
through the apostles that we now spend our time and our days
searching and seeking and filling our lives up so that we may be
empowered by his grace, that we may be empowered by his gospel
that saves and liberates and gives freedom from racism and
sins of that nature. So we know that no matter who
you are, what culture you're in, and this is the whole point,
You teach the Bible the same way to someone in the depths
of an Amazon jungle as you would on Harvard's campus. Your language
may be different. Your strategy may be different. What you stand on may be different.
The version of Bible may be different, but the Word of God... When I
say version, I mean translation. But the Word of God is just as
taught and it means the exact same thing to us as Americans
as it does to the people 5,000 years ago before the New Testament
was ever penned. The Word of God transcends all
cultures. You don't learn it differently from a different
perspective because of where we are in time. There's no relativism
when it comes to teaching and preaching the Word of God. And
so there's going to be some things. Just hold your place in Mark.
I'll get there. Alright, Matthew, I'll get there in a minute. And
let me give you some doctrine. The word doctrine means teaching.
And there is a doctrine, and the doctrine that I want to talk
about for just a moment is the doctrine of Jesus Christ, the
teaching of Christ. Sometimes in the world religions
we'll see, and even in the subsects of Christianity, or the denominations
of Christianity if you will, or also the cults that claim
to be Christian, we see people having an idea of who God is. Now why am I starting with this?
Because I've got to get very quickly the premise of God His
essence as a being and Jesus as the imprint of His nature
on the table so that we can filter what I'm going to say through
it. God is one. God is one. I'm not talking about oneness
theology. I'm not talking about oneness Pentecostalism. I'm saying
God is one and that he is one God, the one creator, and he
is the God of all gods. He is unique and he is the only
one who is holy. Therefore, God is set apart from
everything else in the cosmos for he alone is the only one
in the same strata of his self-existence. He has no beginning and he has
no end. And so God then became a man. Now listen, God didn't
create Jesus. God didn't turn into Jesus. God
the Spirit didn't become a man. Jesus has always been the God-man
forever. Now get this. We know that because
Jesus himself says it. The apostles say it. Jesus prays
for it. Father that I might return to
the glory I had before the world began. He was fearful he was
going to be stuck in this stupid human body. Keep that in mind. Jesus created Mary and the womb
inside of her and then the body in which he was born from, he
created it. And then he lived 33 and a half,
34 years on the earth. He was crucified as propitiation,
satisfying the wrath of God for our sins, for the sins of all
who will believe. And then he was resurrected,
given not the flesh body that he had, well, the flesh, but
not the human body that he had, but the superhuman body that
he had, the supernatural body that he had before the world
began. But he maintained the scars of his crucifixion. as
a testimony of His covenant with us. And so it's very important
to realize that Jesus has forever been a flesh, but not forever
a corrupt human flesh, if you will, because Jesus grew old.
Jesus subjected Himself to creation. Somebody asked me the question
one time in a Q&A, did Jesus ever get sick? I don't know. I can't say that He did. I can't
say that He didn't. Some people would say, well,
he probably didn't because he never sinned. Well, I don't believe
sin causes sickness. I know a lot of godly people
who die of cancer. Because that's what God's prepared
for them. There are people who would say, well, if you're right
with God, you won't get sick, then why do you die? I don't
know any 900 year old people. So God became man. coexisting
in the person of Jesus Christ and the Spirit and the Father.
The Father maintained His role, His person. The Spirit maintained
His person. Jesus, the Son, maintained His
person. And the reason we call Him Father and Son is because
that's the only way we as humans can relate to the relationship
between how God, the incarnate God, Jesus the Christ, and God,
the Spirit God, relate to one another. And it's difficult,
it's about a two or three hour question and answer session if
you want to deal with it. But I want you to understand,
this is unique. There is no other faith claim
or truth claim in the world today that would give you this type
of idea or philosophy or belief. Therefore, God's uniqueness requires
the uniqueness of Christ, and this is what I wanted to get
to. Because God is so unique and individualistically separate
from all that He's made, then therefore Christ is also as unique. Not only as a person, as a man,
but as God in the flesh. He had two natures. The only
person that ever walked the earth that had two natures. A divine
nature and a human nature that coexisted, neither negating the
other, but perfectly working. We call that in theological circles
and classroom settings, the hypostatic union. Where the nature of the
divine and the nature of the human mesh, but they don't mesh,
they coexist separate but equal in the same body. We can't put
our minds around that. There's been a lot of great men
that have gone to the grave and never accomplished much of anything
trying to figure that out. So our job is not to accomplish
the understanding of that, but just to grasp the awesomeness
of that and to move with what we can understand in obedience
to Christ. Christ is not a prophet. He never
claimed to be a prophet. There are many people who say,
well, I believe Christ was a good teacher and a good prophet. That is as
far from the truth as anything ever could be in Christendom.
Because Christ is the essence of all things. Christ Himself
says that all prophecy points to Him and culminates with Him.
All prophecy. Christ said, all truth points
to Me, for I am the truth. He uses the definite article
in front of that, not just saying truth. He didn't say, I'm truth.
He says, I'm the truth. Jews always, for emphasis, to
say something was the only unique one, which is why Jesus uses
that same language in John 3, 16. For God loved the world,
that He gave the only Son He had, His unique Son. And that's important in doctrine.
That's important in theology. Christ is not a prophet. The
prophecies of all history point to him as the fulfillment. He
is the apex of history. He's not a model to follow. He's
not this guy that we should read about and say, okay, let's do
like Abraham Lincoln did and be that type. He's not a role
model. Jesus is the essence of God and the visual perfection
of holiness, which means he is the worthy one, which is the
word Christ, the holy anointed one of God. The term Christ comes
from the word Christos. Christus, so is Christus in the
verb form there, Christ alone. We believe as a church that this
is the five pillars of the Reformation, the Protestant Reformation, and
that we believe that God has fully revealed himself in the
person of Jesus Christ alone, and that that is available to
us through the Scripture alone, Sola Scriptura. And so we know
that Christ is not a model. He is the truth. He is the life. He is the way. Yes, we ought
to model our lives after Christ, but that's not why He came to
be the model. A lot of people believe that. There's churches
today and pastors today and theologians today that will teach that. This
is what we have to do. We have to do what Christ did.
So let's raise the dead. Let's heal the bodies. Let's
go out and do this and feed the 5,000. See, put it in the context
of why Christ did what He did. And you'll understand it. I don't
know who said it. I think it was C.S. Lewis that
said that one of the most frustrated men and I'm paraphrasing that
Lazarus is probably one of the most frustrated men of all the
Bible because he had to die again. You think about that, but Christ
is not a martyr. His life wasn't taken from him
because of his point of view or points of view. His life wasn't
taken from him. He says, I willingly lay down
my life for the sheep and I have the power to lay it down and
I have the power to take it up again. And even in his trials,
he was very clear. No one can take my life from
me if I didn't willingly give it. Christ is not a martyr. His life was to be laid down
by His own desire, for His own passion, for His own glory, to
display His righteousness before the world began. Christ is God. His claims are unique among all
truths. So Christ in Himself is not unique,
but the claims that He makes are unique. There's no other
spiritual leader of any type of faith-based group or no truth
claim ever that correlates in any parallel way to Christ. Christ
is the only man, historically, who has ever made the claims
that he has made who have been proven by the historical significance
and validity of his resurrection from the dead. No one has ever
done that. Christ has made unique claims.
He is the truth. Christ didn't say, I have truth,
or I want to teach you some truth. He is the truth. He is the article
of truth. Christ claims to be the centrality
of history. Therefore, Jesus is one. I know
that's a lot of words just to get you that one point, but Jesus
is one. He is one God. He is one person. He is unique, therefore, in His
person and in His body. And as we learned just in Ephesians,
that His body is singular with many parts. So if Christ is one,
then His body is one. See, that's a long way around
to negate universalism. But the idea is that His body
is unique in its person, just as its head is, just as its creator
is. Therefore, the idea of the ethnicity
of the church is a unique ethnicity. Now, I know I'm going on a stretch
there and I'm changing some terms. But if we want to say what is
our race, we are the race of God. Now, that's scary. Because it sounds so much like
Mormonism and things of that nature. That's not where I'm
going. I'm talking about just using the language of dealing
with race. We are the people of God. I'm not the Christian
American white man. I'm not the white Christian.
That's why my sister Terry isn't the black Christian who was here
last week. And you know, my friend Gerald who's not the Chinese
Christian. We're brothers and sisters in Christ. We are one
body, one person. Many parts. That's what the Scripture
teaches us. So, we need to use that as a
filter through what we're about to hear today. Jesus, as the
Creator of all things, all people, all nations, all rulers, therefore,
He has created all men, now get this, all men. When I say men,
I mean mankind. He's created all of mankind in
His image to bear His mark. And men, Adam and Eve, have rebelled
against that. have rebelled against God and
the penalty of this rebellion has been death, physical and
spiritual death. They've been separated with God.
I mean, here's the idea. Jesus walks, the God-man walks
in the garden with Adam and Eve. And then God is able to walk
in the presence of righteousness, but not in the presence of wickedness
without some propitiation. So the shedding of blood gives
remission of sins. God, through Christ, then, has
chosen to provide justification for all who believe, right in
Genesis chapter 3, where it teaches that Eve will give birth, her
seed, and the seed of woman will crush the head of the serpent.
He'll bruise his heel, but he will crush his head. The seed
of the woman is Jesus the Christ. There's no seed in a woman, there's
an egg in a woman. So from the virgin birth, before
the world was populated, before Cain was ever conceived, here
was God providing propitiation through the Son, through the
seed, through the Christ, through the God-man who was. And it wasn't
God's second plan. God didn't plan to create a perfect
world and hope with His fingers crossed and His legs and His
arms and everything else like Twister. He didn't hope they
wouldn't screw it up. God knew with all foreknowledge
and all forethought and all perfect omniscience that Adam and Eve
would be placed in the garden, that Satan would deceive them,
that they would fall, and that we would be here today because
He planned before He created all that Christ would be the
apex of the creation of the world. Otherwise, man has steered and
Satan has steered God to the left or to the right. And it's
not about seeing the future. God doesn't look into time. God
doesn't recall things. God knows all things at all times
perfectly. And I'm not a middle knowledge
guy. I don't believe there are alternate options. I believe there's one
line of life, for it is pointed unto man wants to dive into judgment.
I take that very literal. But I'm up for discussion. God
through Christ has chosen to provide justification for not
all men, not all of mankind, but all who believe in Christ,
made possible and certain as a gift to be received by faith,
which is another gift. in order to be made whole, to
be made righteous, to be declared justified before Him. So, God's
children are those who believe, who trust in Him and recognize
their inability to do anything to come to Him. They recognize
their inability to warrant such love and affection and grace.
We, as sinners, do not have the ability to come to the throne
of grace and request anything except by grace. And then we
come bold, as the writer of Hebrew teaches us. And so God now is
the one who is merciful. We come based not on our own
merit or our own choices, but we come on the perfect holy pleasure
of the one unique and holy God who gave Himself in order to
display His righteousness when He forgives sinners who have
put faith in Christ, His perfect and holy and one, only one Son. So, as a way of introduction
today, I want to show you the uniqueness of God's people in
opposition to the rest of the world. So there's two types of people
in the world. There's two groups. There's two races. There's the
race of Adam, this is stemming from the language of Paul, and
the race of Christ. Those who are dead in their trespasses
in Adam, because through Adam all men became sinners and all
men died. Through Christ, the many were
made righteous. It didn't say all, but it does
say all kinds. All nations, all people. But
yet, historically, what we see is we see a people called the
Jews. And the Jews were not a nation. The Jews were not even a race
of people. God found a pagan by the name
of Abram in the land of Assyria, the city of Ur, on the ziggurat,
worshiping the moon god, and he called him out of his moon
worship and said go and by faith Abraham went in obedience and
God said from Abram will be my people. So we're all descendants from
pagans. All of us, even the Jews. They
weren't a people. The Jews didn't gather up and
start becoming really good folks and God go, that's who I'm going
to pick. God looked across the whole entirety
of the world and found great pagans. and pick the worst one,
an idol worshipper. Sort of reminds me of Saul from
Tarsus. Let me find my worst enemy, who
thinks he's my greatest advocate, and let me turn him into my greatest
apostle. And so God has called Abram, and there have been a
distinct set of people throughout history. And man, if we had time,
we could bowl through some history this morning. The history of
the world is the history of Christ. He is the centerpiece of all
things. And so now Christ, even though the Jews didn't really
understand this, God took these people who were a nothing and
he set them aside. Nothing special. And he said,
you are to be separated. And that brings me to Matthew
chapter 15. Actually, there's a lot more
that should be there, but we'll just slide. We'll pick about
1100 years and slide right into Matthew 15. A Canaanite woman, verse 22.
And it says here, And behold, a Canaanite
woman from that region came out and was crying, Have mercy on
me, O Lord, son of David. My daughter is severely oppressed
by a demon. But he, Jesus, did not answer
her a word. And his disciples came and begged
him, saying, Send her away, for she is crying out after us. And
he answered them, I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel. She, the woman, came and knelt
before Jesus, saying, Lord, help me. And he answered her. It is
not right to take the children's bread and to throw it to the
dogs. She said, Yes, Lord, yet even
the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table.
Jesus answered her, Oh, woman, great is your faith. Be it done
for you as you desire. And her daughter was healed instantly. In Mark's gospel, chapter 70,
I have to turn there. We see the parallel account,
the synoptic account here. And she says, yes, Lord, yet
even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs. Here, I want to focus on something
that few people would regard or look at. But that in the last
six years specifically, God has shown me and given me great grief
and great joy in the same pill. And I want to walk and look specifically. See, this isn't exegesis, if
you will. It is, but it's not exposition. We're not going verse
by verse through this. That's why it troubles me because
it keeps me weak. It can't feed you, but for two
more weeks it can feed you and then we'll go through three or
four or five months with some good exposition in Ephesians. But Jesus speaks these words to the Syrophoenician woman. She cries out on her face and
says, Lord help me. And he looks at her and he says,
he doesn't ask her a question. He said, it is, and I'm going
to paraphrase, wrong of me to give the children's bread to
you, dog. Now, I'm going to give a time
out. I said I'm not going to execute
this. We're not expositing this text. I'm just showing you what
God showed me. And there are debates, although
very Weak debates, because when people
take a text out of that, I mean, we got 15 chapters of Matthew
to bring us to here, okay? So it'd be very difficult, it'd
take me about six years to get here if I were to preach Matthew's
Gospel. I'm both in Matthew's Gospel right now, and I've been
in it about two and a half months, personal study, and I'm in, like,
verse six of chapter one. Seven. So it takes a while, but
I want you to see something. He is in some sense, not dogging
her out, I will tell you that, but he is in some sense saying
that she is like a dog. It's a simile. It's a parallel. He's not calling her a dog. He's
not saying she is a dog. She's like a dog. And what good,
it's imagery, picture in your mind, my children were hungry
and they went to get their food and I took their food and fed
it to my Labrador. and my children starved. You get the picture?
This is what Jesus is saying here. So in some sense, here's
this woman, this Canaanite woman from Cain, from Ham. You see the Noah, you see the
point. None of those guys were good. So here's this woman who
is known as sort of this nasty lady anyway. She's coming and
asking Jesus to help her and the disciples... Notice how he
doesn't talk to her. The disciples say, get this woman
away from us. She's bothering us. She's cramping our style.
She's crying after us like some beggar. She doesn't stop. She persists. She stands in front
of him and he says, look, it's not right. It's wrong for me
to give the dogs the children's bread. The words coming from Christ
hits me in such a deep way, I am no better than her. I want you
to hear this. I'm no better than that woman.
Matter of fact, I would probably be able to put a comparison to
say I'm worse than she. In about six years, God has been
able for me to see, I've read this text a lot, but six years
ago, well maybe not even quite that long, I was then in the
parking lot and I had a street preacher standing outside me
who was rebuking me because I rebuked him for calling people horrible things. I won't say
that for our children's sake. Publicly. People who weren't
in church, people who were just on the street at a secular event
and they were calling names. And he pulled me to that text
and said, see, this is how Jesus did it. This is how we should
do it. And I seriously fell to my knees
and wept. Because his blindness overwhelmed him. He didn't see
he was in that text. And I told him that. I said,
brother, you missed the point. That's you. Not them. It's you. been good for me. See, God separated
a dog and said, this is going to be mine. And from this dog,
I'm going to make him a prince. I'm going to make him a priesthood,
and I'm going to call him my people. But he's still a mutt. And from this mutt, I'm going
to grow a people from my own possession. And they're going
to rebel against me and they're not going to keep my statutes
and they're going to fail in their faithfulness. I'm going
to prove myself righteous by saving them in spite of them,
because I'm going to become like them and I'm going to sacrifice
myself for them so that I can still be God and just and holy
and forgive them. Because throughout history, God
has forbid the Jews from mingling with Gentiles. There's Jews and
Gentiles. Jews were those people God selected,
the offspring of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. You know the story
there. He's prohibited them from living
with them in culture, from marrying them. So who are the Gentiles? Everybody
but Jewish people are Gentiles. Everybody. So there were two
races, if you will, even in the Old Covenant. There were those
people out of the Gentiles whom God called Jews, who then became
a nation through the hundreds of centuries. And then there
were everybody else. There was everybody else. So
there we are, and I think we're still there today, as you'll
see. Because God said, I've saved
these people out of mire. I've brought Him. And he's not
worthy of me, but I brought him out anyway. I'm going to save
him. And through him, I'm going to bless the nations. I'm going to bless
the world. And it wasn't Isaac. It was Jesus. So God said He's going to bless
all the nations. And because of that, He forbid the Jews from
taking cultural or religious traditions from any other people
groups. In fact, He put them in slavery because they couldn't
do it. You cannot mingle with these people. Don't mingle with
these people. Don't mingle with these people. But you know how
it is. What is it that my grandmother Tippa just always say? If you
lay down with dogs, you get fleas. So, God set the Jews apart and
created them out of pagans, and Abram was not Jewish, but from
another nation, but God chose Abram and called him his own,
and then God separated him. And God's separation of the Jews
from all the peoples of the world is a clear picture of God's separation
of the totality of the earth. God says, Be holy, for I am holy. Let me give you some things to
think about. You don't have to turn there. Exodus 19, it says, Now
therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant,
you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples. You notice,
treasured possession. So God owns all peoples. For
all the earth is mine, he says, and you shall be to me a kingdom
of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you
shall speak to the people of Israel. In Exodus 19, excuse
me, in Isaiah 43, Behold, I am doing a new thing. Now it springs
forth. Do you not perceive it? I will
make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. Listen,
the wild beast will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches,
for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give
drink to my chosen people, the people whom I formed for myself,
that they might declare my praise. That's a beautiful one. And Malachi 3. No, this isn't
about money. They shall be mine, says the
Lord of hosts, in the day when I make up my treasured possession,
and I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him.
Then once more you shall see the distinction between the righteous
and the wicked, between the one who serves God and the one who
does not serve Him." That's just a few of hundreds of Old Testament
realities of God separating a people out of the world for Himself.
in the New Testament, then God also continues to teach through
the apostles of how Gentiles, those who are not the children
of God, are unclean. We see that example. We see this racism, if you will. But we learn in the New Testament
a lesson of mercy. We see it in the Old Testament.
We see Ruth We see Rahab, we see these people who were not,
who were just like Abram, a pagan. And God saved them by mercy.
It wasn't because of them, it was because of God. And so God
teaches us a lesson on mercy. He creates a race of His own.
And it includes all nations, ultimately, as part of that race. Apart from all of the nations
who are also, make up the unbelievers of the world. See, God has broken
down racial lines to faith, not face. That's the point. God has taken the racial lines
of the world and He's broken it down to faith, not face. Not what we look like or where
we come from, but what we believe. And more importantly, in whom
we believe. Jesus makes this very clear at
the end of time. Even the dogs get the crumbs
from the master table. See that mercy there? See that?
I'm going to come back to that in a minute. But in Matthew 25,
Jesus talks about the final judgment. And he says, And the Son of Man
comes in glory and all the angels with him. Then he will sit on
his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all
the nations. He will separate people one from
another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And
He will place the sheep on His right and the goats on His left.
And the King will say to those on His right, Come, you who are
blessed by My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you
from the foundation of the world. Let me show you this point. John John lays it out so well. If you ever want to just say,
what if I could only study one book of the Bible, what would
it be? Study John. Study John's gospel. I was always told that
as a kid, and I never understood why, and I'd ask him, so I don't
really know why. And as I've studied, you know
I've studied John perpetually. It's always on my desk. Always on my desk. I cannot get
through it. I've thought through it, and
I keep starting over, and I keep going through it. Always studying
John perpetually, which is why I picked up Some Matthew and picked up some
Luke also. And John, we hear these words
in the Gospel in the prologue of his gospel says the true light,
which enlightens everyone was coming into the world. He was
in the world and the world was made through him, yet the world
did not know him. He came to his own. And his own
people did not receive him, but to all who did receive him who
believe in his name, he gave the right to become the children
of God. who were born, listen to these words, not of blood,
nor the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God.
And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen
his glory. Glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of
grace and truth. Verse 16 says, And from this fullness we have
all received grace upon grace. For the law was given through
Moses. Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever
seen God, the only God, who was at the Father's side. He has
made him known. What this teaches us is that
it's not race, nor the will of man, nor of blood, nor the will
of the flesh. It's not race, nor determinate
will that makes a child of God, but the pleasure of God, the
will of the Father, the love he has for his own, who he has
saved and chosen to save out of the world. Jesus came to his
own, per se, the Jews, and his own rejected him. So we gave a right for the Gentiles
to become children by the will of the Father. See, racial tension
between the Jews and everyone else in first century Palestine
grew and grew and grew once Jesus came, especially after his resurrection. And for really, in the essence
of things, the Gentiles were withheld from even knowing salvation
for centuries, for millennia. with few exceptions. Now, this
wall of segregation that God had placed between those whom
he had chosen and the rest of the world had been torn down. Paul teaches in Galatians. As
a matter of fact, I would say that Ephesians and Galatians
and Colossians, Philippians, a lot of these pastoral letters
and these prison letters, a lot of these letters were written
for one of the main reasons, you know, false teaching. And
some of that in implication was racial division between Jews
and Gentiles. Galatians 2, we see this, we
ourselves are Jews by birth and not, listen to what Paul says,
Gentile sinners. Yet we know that a person is
not justified by the law, by the works of the law, but through
faith in Christ Jesus. So we also have believed in Christ
Jesus. In order to be justified by faith
in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of
the law, no one will be justified. See, we're justified by faith.
As Paul says in Romans 3, But now the righteousness of God
has been made manifest apart from the law, although the law
and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God
through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. 4. There
is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the
glory of God, and are justified by His grace as a gift through
the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as
propitiation by His blood, to be received by faith. This was
to show God's righteousness because in His divine, listen, in His
divine forbearance He had passed over former sins. It was to show
His righteousness at the present time so that He might be the
just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Then
what becomes of our boasting, Paul asked? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law
of works? No. Absolutely not. By the law
of faith. For we hold that one is justified
by faith apart from the works of the law. Or is God the God
of the Jews alone? No. Is He not the God of the
Gentiles also? Yes. Of Gentiles also, since
God is one. Who will justify the circumcised
by faith and the uncircumcised through faith? So then through
Jesus Christ, God came to show His righteousness by forbearing
and forgiving others. What's the point? The point is
that we are one of two races. The race of Adam or the race
of Jesus Christ. And as the people of God, we
need to see the power of the Gospel as God Himself just destroyed
the wall of separation of the ethnos, of the world of the nations. He created two nations of people
from all nations. Well, I'd say he created one.
He left the others to themselves. In Romans chapter 1, we dealt
with last week. And so God came to show his righteousness. Why
did he have to display his righteousness in the crucifixion of Jesus?
Because he had forgiven all those sinners for centuries and centuries
and centuries past, from the beginning of days. He forgave
Adam and Eve, and Seth and Abel, and Noah and his family, and
Abram and his family, and even old Jacob. And David, look, how wicked would
God be to let that sin go to give them eternal life and then
not to satisfy justice? There's no separation of race
anymore, except by those who are of faith and those who are
not of faith. So why do we think it okay in our own hearts to
keep this division in our own spirits and our own lives and
teach it to our own children and grandchildren and that we
think somewhere deep down that we are different and in that
difference we are better? Now before faith came, Paul says,
we were held captive under the law. Imprisoned until the coming
faith would be revealed. So then the law was our guardian
until Christ came, he says. In order that we might be justified
by faith. But now that faith has come,
we are no longer under a guardian. For in Christ Jesus you are all
sons of God. And Paul is speaking to the Galatians.
He's speaking to these Christians who are arguing that circumcision
is required for salvation because the Judaizers have gone in there
and caused rampant havoc and disconfusion and now there's
this racial tension between the Jews and the Gentiles. You Gentiles need to be circumcised
if you're truly believers is what the Judaizers taught. We know you're grafted in, but
we're still the better. We bear the mark of covenant.
What a mark! Paul says, For in Christ Jesus
you are all sons of God through faith. For as many of you were
baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew
nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free.
There is neither male nor female. Jesus breaks down racial and
gender and ethnic barriers. He boils us all into one body.
For Paul then says, for you are all one in Christ. And if you
are a Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to
promise, which is why I don't subscribe to all of this differentiation,
this special treatment of Jews. I think it flies in the face
of the Gospel. As we look into Ephesians in
the next few weeks, you'll see how seamless this issue of racism
attacks the core of the gospel. And so what's the outcome? What's
the implication of this? The implication, the consequence
is that Americanism, ethnocentrism, culturalism, all these other
isms, that you will, that really boils down to a superior mindset,
doesn't it? Well, I'm an American Christian,
and American Christians, what some people would say, have it
correct. Oh, God bless America. That's hot mindset. Well, friends,
here's a news flash for us. America is no more godly than
Africa. Or North America is no more godly
than Africa. America is no more godly than Canada or Mexico. Matter of fact, I can tell you
now that there are godlier segments of the church in Saudi Arabia,
in the Middle East and Palestine than there are in America today.
And so yet now we feel proud that this is God's land. Where
is God in this land? God's mercy is on this land.
God's grace is on this land. And we as His people better take
note and understand that as we begin to move to the center of
the gospel, that the world that we call free may become a lot
less free for us. And in order to do what we do
here today, it may cost us dearly. There is a superior mindset in
all of our hearts in some sense. We believe that we have the right
doctrine. We have the right thoughts. We
have the right ideal. We have the right place. We have
the right position on things. And friends, we need to be very
careful. Back to Matthew 15 and closing. I hate to say it this way, but
friends, we're all dogs. None of us are worthy of the
crumbs. or the bread of the children.
We are unworthy in every way. We are not Jews, to my knowledge,
but yet we are Israel. We are the offspring of Abraham. 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. Remember that you were at one time separated from Christ,
alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the
covenants of promise, having, listen to what Paul says here,
having no hope and without God in the world. But now, in Christ
Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by
the blood of Christ, for He Himself is our peace. who has made us
both one 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 the
place of two, so making peace. And might reconcile us both to
God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And He came and preached peace
to you who were far off, and peace to those who came near.
For through Him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers
and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and
members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the
apostles and the 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 Spirit. And that's
going to take us a while to get to, but friends, let me tell
you what it means. It means the dogs have become
children. Where is the ethnos? Where are
the nations in that truth? They're not there. They are either
in Christ or apart from Christ. He either knows them or he does
not know them. Well, when did we ever see you? See, in Matthew 25, that other
part that I didn't read, and to the goats on his left, he
turned and they said, well, when did we ever see you? When did
we ever have opportunity to worship or to serve you or to visit you
or to take care of you? When you did not do it under
the least of these, you did not do it under me. Depart from me,
you workers of iniquity. I never knew you. It's a real popular theme today
to ask people if they know Jesus. Well, friends, it's important
to know who Jesus is and to know Jesus, but it's most important
to know that Jesus knows you. The dogs have become the children.
He knows them, and for those He knows, He gives the bread.
And for those he does not know, he lets them labor for the bread
that perishes. Why is it that race is such a
dividing issue and culture is such a dividing issue within
the church? We need to embrace diversity in culture. But hold
tight to and defend unity in Christ. In church, we may be
called individuals or congregation, who knows, as the years progress,
as the days or the hours move on. But we need to as a church
stand bold against injustice, but not at the cost of the call
of God to proclaim the gospel. And that's what's wrong with
social issues now today. But stand against our brothers
and sisters in Christ who are being unjustly Persecuted? Yes! Let's be like the men in
Acts chapter 8 who went against all authority and picked up the
dead, condemned body of Stephen and wailed through the streets
of Jerusalem and gave him a proper burial. Let's be like that. But
they didn't do that to prove a point to the Sanhedrin or to
Saul. They did that for the glory of
the Father to proclaim the truth that Stephen preached was Christ
is God. Christ removed race. He redeemed
and justified a people who were far off, who were aliens, who
were different, who were opposed to Him. And the wording of the
apostles is that we were hostile toward God. And while we were
yet enemies, Christ saved us. While we were sinners and dead
in our sin, Christ gave us life. Where does your faith lie today?
and the heritage of your nation and the heritage of your family
and the faith of your mom and dad or your grandparents or the
church that you've been attending for the last 10 years or something
that you've done to respond to Christ. Where does your faith
lie? Your faith must lie in Christ alone, who is the creator of
his own people, who through his own flesh made certain that he
would save his own. Is that your trust? And if it's
not, my friend, you do not know Christ and he does not know you.
Understand the reality of who we are as dogs, but yet now make
children. Once sinners, now called saints.
You gave us the right to be called the children of God. And look
what kind of love the Father has given to us, John says, that
we should be called and thus we are. Father, we're so grateful to
be able to worship you through your word. And I thank you for
all who are here today, Lord. I pray for those who have not
made it today, Father. I pray you just keep them safe
as they travel or if they're still ill or whatever the reason
might be. We are with them in spirit. God, I pray that the words that
we have heard, that your word, a lot of scripture today, Father,
which is wonderful, but Lord, it's so overwhelming for me. I can imagine for others it may
be the same. I pray you would give us clarity,
be able to to really just dissect it, Father, that You and Your
power and Your Holy Spirit would just put in our hearts so deep
and so solid that it would grow deep roots and produce great
fruit. Father, I pray for the children,
as I do all the time, Lord, that Your Gospel would have an effect
on them, that Your Word would bring them to faith. Father,
if You don't do it, nothing will. We can't beg them or pay them
Threaten them, Lord. They have to be saved by your
Spirit, Lord. Help us as parents to understand that. Bring our
children to faith. Help us to live before them as
instruments of grace and the product of faith instead of just
ridiculousness. And Lord, I just thank you that
you did save us, that you did set us free, that we are not
just dogs to lick the crumbs, but Father, that you gave us
not crumbs, but the full morsel of your flesh. You gave us the
bread of life. You gave us the palate to eat
it and devour it and to seek you for the rest of our days.
We thank you for that. In Christ we do pray these things.
Amen.