Black, and White, and Red All Over: Why Racial Reconciliation is a Gospel Issue | Russell Moore

amen well if you turn your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 3 the book of Ephesians in chapter 3 and while you're turning there let me tell you how glad I am to see all of you and to tell you we've been praying for this moment for a long time and the Holy Spirit is bringing this together right now you know we're at a time of all sorts of historic coincidences taking place this year is the 50th anniversary of the march on Selma this year is also the 20th anniversary of the 1994 moment in which the Southern Baptist Convention passed a resolution acknowledging the complicity of the SBC in the wicked sin of slavery and the relative silence of the SPC against the wicked sin of segregation in this country and I can't help but notice that sitting in the audience here joining us in participating with us is the driving force behind that resolution my predecessor dr. Richard Lynn and will tell you something in 1994 and in the years preceding 1994 standing up and saying we have an issue with racial reconciliation and the Southern Baptist Convention took a lot of courage took a lot of courage when there was a trustee on the board of the entity that I now lead who was a segregationist and this president stood up to all of that and said we need to remember the gospel of Jesus Christ so would you join me in thanking dr. Richard land for his courage Ephesians chapter 3 the Holy Spirit says through the Apostle Paul for this reason I Paul a prisoner for Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace that was given to me for you how the mystery was made known to me by revelation as I have written briefly when you read this you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ which was not made known to the sons of men and other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the spirit and this mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs members of the same body and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God's grace which was given to me by the working of his power to me though I am the very least of all the Saints this grace was given to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ and to bring delight for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in the God who created all things so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places this was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in Him so I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you which is your glory let's pray Holy Father we know that right now we're not just gathered together in a building in downtown Nashville Tennessee but father we are joining ourselves to an already-existing worship service in the heavenly places and father we are surrounded right now by innumerable angels by the redeemed of all ages and Father we know in this worship service gathered around your throne right now there is no problem with racial reconciliation there is no problem of love among the brothers and the sisters and yet father we exist and we live and we minister at a time in which there is and so father what we pray today as we gather together from all our various churches and all our various places is your kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven and father would your spirit have free reign would you silence any spirit in this place that would exalt itself above or beside the name of Jesus Christ would you strip away from our hearts anything that is not Christ shaped and would you conform us to His image that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and we ask this in Jesus name and in Jesus name alone amen you may be seated a lot of paper has come out of this building where we're sitting today offering envelopes and Sunday School quarterly zhh were published right down the hallway here for decades and decades and decades and to be honest with you those offering envelopes and those Sunday School quarterly --zz are kind of the reason why I'm here today because I'm a Mississippian I grew up in a largely Catholic largely immigrant Gulf Coast part of Mississippi just a stone's throw away from New Orleans and our Mississippi was more bio than Tupelo and more Louis Armstrong than Elvis Presley and I came along in a time after segregation and after the protests there were no signs hanging over any of the water fountains in my town by the time I arrived the most significant legislation to civil rights and voting rights those things that had already been accomplished but I remember Sunday school and Sunday school is what makes me tremble because one of my earliest memories is the page of maybe four or five I remember walking into a Sunday School class with a little offering envelope printed right down the hall here just as I did every Sunday morning in my little Southern Baptist Church where we had to check off if we'd read the Bible every day that day had to check off if we'd shared the gospel with anybody and we had to put our little offering in there for missions and I had a couple of quarters in that envelope but in this class that day there was a substitute Sunday school teacher and she didn't take up the offering at the beginning of the class she took up the offering at the end of the class so I had that little envelope with me and it wasn't long till one of those quarters was out of there and I had the quarter in my mouth and the Sunday school teacher not wanting me to choke walked over and kneeled down and I'll never forget what she said she said get that out of your mouth you don't want that in your mouth for all you know a colored man may have handled that quarter now that Sunday school teacher probably wasn't a Ku Klux Klansmen that Sunday school teacher probably did not come to that class out of a lair where she'd been plotting the overthrow of the gospel of Jesus Christ with white supremacy she simply saw a kid with a quarter in his mouth and she wanted to say something that she thought was so obvious that it would motivate me to take it out and then it may be my imagination but it seemed to me that immediately after that this Sunday school teacher said come on children let's gather around and let's sing together Jesus loves the little children all the children of the world red and yellow black and white they are precious in His sight Jesus loves the little children of the world you see for her in that moment she probably did not see the contradiction between all of those things we understood that Jesus loved black people that's why we were bringing quarters with us to Sunday school to send missionaries to Africa but there was a mindset embedded that even those quarters that we were sending to our missionaries could make us unclean if they were touched by black people created in the image of God what was happening in that Sunday school class at that moment was a conflict of Gospels two different Gospels were being articulated in that moment and if you had walked in and it said to her don't say that to these children she probably would have assumed that you were talking about politics she probably would have assumed that you were talking about a social movement she probably would have assumed that you were talking about an agenda that didn't have anything to do with what God had called her to do in that moment to evangelize and to disciple a new generation of Christians and she would have been wrong this persists with us those of us who were Southern Baptists in this room our denomination was founded by men who knew the Bible who could exegete it and Hebrew and in Greek their pictures are on the wall across the street their names are embedded on buildings all around this country but no one knows the names of the enslaved men and women who were kidnapped from their homes to work the fields of some of those men no one memorializes the names of the women who were raped the families that were split apart often by people who knew how to preach on family values our heritage is one that comes to us we've been told through a trail of blood but not all of that blood is the blood of Christ cross and some of that blood cries out from the ground even though things have changed and things are different and we should give thanks to God for that no one is making blatantly white supremacist remarks that would be welcomed at any pastors conference in any of our circles a sunday-school teacher would probably not dare to even think to make the comment that my Sunday school teacher made long ago but the problem persists with us we live in a culture that is divided we see it all around us every single week with issues that split the country between white people and black people and Hispanic people and Asian American people we see these rivalries and conflicts all around us in our culture and what I would suggest to you the reason that we are here today is because these are not simply cultural issues although they are these are not simply political issues although they are these are not simply social issues although they are above everything else these are gospel issues and what the Spirit is saying to the churches in the Year 2015 it seems to me is that if we are going to be all mission with Christ we have to figure out two fundamental questions to resolve this issue of racial reconciliation what is the gospel and what is the church that's exactly what the Apostle Paul is dealing with here he's dealing with that question of what is the gospel you see Ephesians is not a series of separate books Ephesians is not a sermon series cut off between Ephesians 1 dealing with doctrine and Ephesians 2 dealing with salvation and Ephesians 3 dealing with the church in Ephesians 4 dealing with the gifts and Ephesians 5 dealing with marriage in Ephesians 6 dealing with parenting and spiritual warfare it's not divided up like that this is a letter that Paul is writing probably by candlelight in a dank prison in Rome waiting for his execution and Paul is writing to this church surrounding Ephesus saying the gospel is a matter of our adoption as children of God it's it's a matter of God ripping us out from one kingdom into another Kingdom he says and for you to understand and to know what your mission is you have to understand who you are and he says in order to do that I want to speak to you about the mystery of Christ he said I was made a minister of this and I am revealing to you a mystery hidden for ages in God a mystery that previous generations didn't know and that now has been revealed to you and he tells us in Ephesians 1 that this mystery is that God is summing everything up things in heaven and things on earth in Jesus Christ the reason anything exists is for Jesus Christ and then he tells us here in Ephesians 3 and I am Telling You that the mist is this that Jews and Gentiles are united in one body and how are they united in one body Paul says through the gospel now the problem when we come to this text when we're talking about issues of racial reconciliation is that white people inevitably assume that we are the Jewish Christians in this text and the black people and Hispanic people and Asian people and others are the Gentiles we're the regular people who are supposed to be here and y'all are welcome that is not what the Apostle Paul is saying white people black people Asian people Hispanic people are Gentiles the the category here is that of the nations when Jesus says I'm sending you to the uttermost part of the earth there aren't any white people in Jerusalem in 1st century AD that's who he's sending the mission to is to all of these different groups and all of these different ethnicities he says the Jewish people within the body of Christ those who had been waiting for the coming of the Messiah and those who are coming into the body of Christ from the outside those who had been pagans those who had been as he says in Ephesians 2 not a people and are now a people he says they are being United here into one body the fundamental problem that we have when it comes to this issue in the American church even when we understand that there is a problem is that those of us who are white born-again Christians tend to assume that the body of cry taste is white with room for everybody else that white people are normal and then the others that we minister to our ethnic the ethnos the nation's includes all of us and what Paul is saying here is that the Jewish Christians have far more reason to boast than anyone in this room they have far more reason to prize and to claim their heritage and yet he says not even you have any reason to boast and why because you are all here whether Jew or Gentile how by the adopting grace of God even if you are sons of Abraham Abraham wasn't born Abraham Abraham was a Gentile Abram who was brought by the transforming power of God into a new household so what Paul is doing here as he is addressing this question of people who are divided who have a dividing wall between them and he says the mystery is that God is putting you into one body the problem that he is tackling is idolatry the prizing here of the flesh that's why Paul says what I am saying to you is a mystery you know what a mystery is a mystery is something that you cannot figure out on your own he says it is a mystery that you needed to receive from the prophets and apostles there is no way that you on your own Paul says would have been able to figure this out God had to speak this to you in the men edge of the gospel he says and the message of the gospel is doing something it is putting things together that had been separate heaven and earth Jew and Gentile those divisions are being knocked down and the gospel is forming reconciliation reconciliation with God we're no longer like we were Ephesians 2 walking after the Prince of the power of the air and reconciliation with one another we are no longer strangers and exiles but we are common citizens of the Commonwealth of God we are brothers and sisters in the household of God that's what reconciliation does sometimes we act as though getting racial reconciliation right is an act of mercy toward minority communities racial reconciliation is not a matter of Mercy toward minority communities if what Paul is saying here is right and it is that the fundamental problem of the dividing walls is the idolatry of the self then racial reconciliation is not something that white people do for other people racial reconciliation is an issue that tells us that division and hatred are not just problems that hurt black people and Hispanic people and minority communities hatred of the brothers the scripture says sends people to hell if we do not address this issue we are leaving consciences in sin if you're in 1845 Georgia and you preach against drunkenness and you preach against theft and you preach against adultery but you say nothing about human slavery you have said something about human slavery if you're preaching in 1925 Mississippi and you preach about gambling and you preach about animal fighting and you say nothing about lynching you have spoken about lynching and when we live in a culture when we have division all around us when we have hatred all around us if we say nothing or if we speak only in such vague generalities that we will not offend the power brokers in our congregations or in our communities then it is not only that we are being unfaithful to this mystery of the whole Council of God but we are leaving consciences bound in sin we are empowering the devil there was a church a few years ago that had a couple come to the church members of the church asking to be married there one was black one was white husband and wife the church moved the wedding down the street the pastor wasn't the bigot pastor was somebody who wanted to officiate at the wedding but he said there was such opposition within the congregation that he thought moving it down the road would give him time to deal with the issue and would be he said a win-win now the church later repented of that and thanks be to God for that but brothers and sisters when it comes to this issue of gospel reconciliation there is not a win-win there is only a lose loose we will either lose ourselves to gain our lives or we will gain our lives in order to lose them Paul says the mystery here is that the Jews and the Gentiles are in one body and they are part of one mystery they are joint heirs together here why is that the case because he is saying to everybody in that church whether they come from a Jewish background or a Gentile background you are dead you have been arrested you have been indicted you have been executed you have been buried and you are now hidden in somebody else if you are in Christ your life is now in Christ seated at the right hand of God which means that you don't have anything to despair about you Gentiles who wonder am I really welcome here because you're in Christ he's circumcised he's he's registered he's kept the law and you Jewish Christians have nothing to boast about because you're just as crucified to yourselves and you're in Christ too there is therefore now Jew nor Greek slave nor free barbarian Scythian nothing there is only Christ and he is everything so the situation Paul is saying here is a situation of pride that's what's led us to this point as one author noted talking about our denomination is that for a long time in the South we baptize the southern way of life full immersion that's still here with us and I'm not just talking about the people whose bedsheets have eye holes I'm talking about those who know how to talk and who know how to speak but they will find other ways and they will find other issues to confront you with if they don't feel as though they can come out of the shadows and confront you with this one that means that racial reconciliation for everybody in this room as a matter of gospel ministry is going to take courage and it's going to take the courage of knowing who you are in Christ we are not the state Church of the Confederate States of America we are not inheritors of a lost cause but of a new creation and the can cross and the Confederate battle flag cannot coexist without one setting the other on fire in every single one of our churches we need to hold to the sort of biblical gospel that demands reconciliation with God and demands reconciliation with one another as the call to repentance if we are going to be the people we claim to be the people of the book it's time that we said that we need conservatism but we need the sort of conservatism that knows what to conserve if what we're conserving is 1950s Dixie then we're conserving something other than the gospel of Jesus Christ and we will be fighting God and we will not win but for a people who have all of the marks on our history that we have it seems to me that God is working and God is giving us another chance to get this right but in order to do that we must repent not just rebrand Paul says you need to recognize this mystery of the gospel you need to recognize that God is putting Jews and Gentiles he's putting these people who were at em nity with one another these people who don't think they have anything in common with one another they are part of the same body and what partakers of the promise where is the promise in Christ Jesus how do we get to Christ Jesus through the gospel what is the gospel but then secondly the question what is the church Paul says I want you to know something here he says I want you to know that they are part of one body and then he says here in verse nine that he is bringing to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in the God who created all things so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known the Lord has done remarkable things among us we have come a long way but we should not assume that somehow we are reconciled to one another simply because we're not hosing people down in the streets of Birmingham or bombing buildings with little girls on their way to Sunday school or shouting the N word from pulpits that is a low low bar Paul says instead that what the church is about is about demonstrating and showing the manifold the Multi splendored wisdom of God not your wisdom not my wisdom not Ephesian culture's wisdom the wisdom that only comes to you through a mystery that is being revealed to you and he says you see it where you see it in the church it would be easy for the Apostle Paul to say let's have Jewish churches here and Gentile churches here we won't have to explain over here all of these things from the Old Testament that we have to explain over here they already know Leviticus we won't have to work on all the tensions and the issues Greek widows feeling like they're being they're being mistreated or left behind we wouldn't have to worry with all of those things because we could simply deal with issues of preaching the gospel disciple in the people and pooling our money together for missions but the Apostles don't do that and why don't they do that he says because the mystery that God is unveiling is not just a gospel that you hear but a gospel that you see and the gospel that you see is that Jews and Gentiles not just that they don't hate each other not just that they're not violent with each other not just that they're not killing each other but that they are fellow heirs same inheritance and they are partakers together of the promise in Jesus Christ if we understand what the church is then we need to understand that what Paul is saying here is that the church is a living representation of the kingdom of God if you want to know what the kingdom looks like you ought to be able to see it within the church the kingdom of God is not about coexistence the kingdom of God is about reconciliation and that reconciliation is within the church it's one thing to have resolutions and task forces denominational meetings all that's good but Jesus Christ did not die for a denomination he died for a church and the soul the Southern Baptist Convention will not outlast the solar system but the church will the manifold wisdom of God has to be seen in our gatherings together as churches and the problem is this not that our black churches and our white churches and our Hispanic churches and our Asian churches are yelling at each other not that we can't come together at a meeting like this and be freaked out by being around one another no no that's not the problem the problem is that Sunday morning when we are signifying to the rest of the world here is a picture of the kingdom of God we gather with the same people we would gather with if Jesus Christ were still dead and that's blasphemy Paul says the manifold wisdom of God is seen within a church reconciled to God and reconciled to one another now what people will say is well we're trying to reach people with the gospel and people would rather be around people like them sure they would and I'd like to fight and fornicate and smoke weed and go to heaven my flesh would like to do all sorts of things in my own wisdom the point is that you and I are not lords of our own lives and that the wisdom we've been given is coming from somewhere else from apostles and prophets that have been sent by God the church is not just a group of people who have been born again who are incorporating themselves together in order to do things the church is a gathering together by Jesus Christ gifting them and demonstrating what it is that he plans to do in the fullness of time with the entire universe now it's easy for us to have a kind of reconciliation if what we mean is that once in a while our white churches and our black churches and Hispanic churches and other churches will meet together for things what I would suggest to you is that is not what reconciliation looks like in the New Testament and it doesn't mean that that is going to be easy but why don't we start here why don't we start by saying let's start praying and asking God why our churches don't look like the communities around them and maybe we can start with a pilot project of as we're working toward seeing racial reconciliation and seeing those dividing walls broke broken down in our churches maybe we can start by stop dividing ourselves up generationally even in the same church and that means that what we're going to have to do is to think and pray about the issue of worship whenever I mention this issue of racial reconciliation the kickback I get from black people from white people from Hispanic people from everybody is worship we worship in different ways white people all don't worship in the same way black people don't all worship in the same way Hispanic people don't all worship in the same way but they're right that we do have differences of worship among ourselves we have differences of worship generationally maybe what we need is to start teaching our people what worship is and instead of fearing worship wars let's just have the right kind of worship wars where we understand and know that the point of worship Ephesians chapter 5 is to teach and admonish one another with Psalms hymns and spiritual songs so that we are not coming into worship pre-eminently in order to be spoken to but in order to speak we understand and know how that works with preaching when I stand up and preach a message against pornography nobody stops me at the back door and says I don't a problem with pornography why did you say that as if I did because somebody else in the room may have a problem with pornography why don't we understand that when it comes to worship that we are speaking and equipping one another which means that we are crucifying our own preferences in order to teach and to count others as more important than ourselves there's a coffee shop that I go into all the time in the city I used to live in and when I walk in the door of that coffee shop they start playing Johnny Cash because they know I like Johnny Cash that guy who's there at the coffee shop this this little 85-pound hipster guy with a handlebar mustache if he ever even saw Johnny Cash he probably pass out he's not playing that because he likes Johnny Cash he's playing it because he likes me and when I hear Johnny Cash coming on I don't think he likes Johnny Cash just like I do I know that when I hear Death Cab for Cutie in and Johnny Cash start that this is this guy at the coffee shop saying hey you're welcome here we could learn a lot from that in order to stop and to pray and to ask why can we not humble ourselves and to say how do we count others as more important than ourselves and when we will start to see the spirit working here in reconciliation is not when we have factions within the church whether that church is mono-ethnic or multi-ethnic when it comes to worship it's when we have that 75 year old lady who comes in and says I like this music but I don't think those drums are loud enough and when you have that 22-year old college student who says I really like this music but we really need some Fanny Crosby for our senior adults and when you have those white people they come in and say this music is everything that I ever grew up with but it doesn't speak to this other group of people within our congregation let's speak to them and vice versa when we start seeing that happening as people start counting others as more important than themselves that's when we're going to start seeing the spirit moving us toward this picture of reconciliation it takes a long time sanctification always does but it has to start with people who are willing to seek for it and why is that important it's because of how Paul ends here he says the church is the manifold wisdom of God revealed revealed to who to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places the makeup of our churches isn't just about the witness that we are giving to the outside world although it is Paul says the church is a sign to the rulers and authorities of this present darkness racial reconciliation is not just about making sure that we all get along with one another racial reconciliation is spiritual warfare when Satan sees a group of people who are gathered together with the dividing wall torn down who have nothing else in common except for the blood of Christ and the Holy Spirit the devil Trimble's the devil doesn't tremble at programs the devil doesn't primp tremble at denominations the devil doesn't tremble at crowds Nebuchadnezzar had crowds he trembles at Jesus and when you have a group of people who are united in one body with a head in heaven then the rulers and authorities who exist Jesus says in order to kill and to destroy and to divide us from one another they see their downfall so where do we start with racial reconciliation there are a lot of things that we have to do practically there are a lot of ways that we need to repent the first and foremost would preach the gospel and we are the church we remember who we are and we remember what we've been sent for now when I say gospel and I say church I don't mean that regeneration solves everything I'm not saying oh well let's just concentrate on the gospel and we don't have to talk about issues of racial justice no no no we we know that that that is not the way the sanctification works we don't do that with sex our teenagers are born again who cares if the boys and the girls are sleeping in the same room at the lock-in no we know we need discipline we need sanctification we need accountability we need repentance the gospel means here that the gospel that the mystery is forming a church and the church is a household so as in any other household what happens you don't mess with my sister you don't talk about my brother in order for us to be able to work for justice out in the world we have to have the kinds of moral imaginations and consciences that are formed and shaped we have a situation in which right now too many african-american men are being arrested and imprisoned and executed as opposed to the general population we have a situation right now we're a lot of good just righteous police officers are doing their jobs are lumped in with those who are not but how do we as people formed by Christ start to have those conversations out in the world it starts if we're in the same body gathered around the same table praying with one another praying for one another serving one another being led by one another and then we will stand up for and speak up for one another we've got a long way to go our sin keeps wanting us to divide up but to the faithful jesus promises you will be called overcomers and we shall overcome we don't know how to do this we're going to talk about ideas we're gonna hear testimonies you're gonna talk one-on-one with people in the hallways but we don't have a program to sell you that will get your church racially reconciled by this time next year what we have is the admission that we don't know what to do which means that we come here as little children saying as Solomon did Lord we don't know which way to go to lead this great people that you have given to us give us wisdom but maybe from this building maybe today we'll confront the gospel of our Sunday schools and of our offering envelopes and maybe the prayers and the work that we start today could lead to congregations that model the kingdom of God in all of its manifold wisdom two Watchers seen and unseen and maybe we'll learn as little children to sing again for the first time Jesus loves the little children all the children of the world red and yellow black and white they are precious in His sight Jesus loves the little children of the world and maybe we will recognize but that's not just a children's song that's a declaration of war I wonder if you would join me now those of you who can come to the front and feel led to to come here and let's pray together in order for us to see God work among us we need the Holy Spirit so those of you just as you as you can come to come here to the front if not just to gather up in the aisle where you are you can let's just get on our knees lay hands on one another Lord would you have mercy upon us sinners father we're people in this room who too often we want we want to define ourselves by who we used to be uncross o fide Lord we want to boast in our flesh and yet father we recognize here right now that we have nothing that we did not receive and so Lord we're here the sons of slaves sons of slaveholders daughters of immigrants father we come from all sorts of backgrounds in all sorts of places some of us father serve in urban metropolitan environments and some of the serve in rural environments some of us serve with very young people and some of us serve with very old people some of us serve in multi-ethnic situations as some of us serve in mono-ethnic situations father some of us in this room are serving in good situations where we can see the spirit working and some of us are serving in situations where we're we're we're not even sure whether or not we're going to make it another week though we're in all sorts of different situations but we know that we have this in common we know Lord that we have in common that the devil accuses us and Lord the devil is right except for this Lord we have been crucified with Christ and therefore we no longer live but Jesus Christ now lives in us and so father we are here under the blood of Jesus who intercedes for us right now before your throne and so we as we sang earlier today we have no guilt in life and no fear in death and so father we ask that your spirit would be with us for the next couple days would you give us wisdom when we don't know what to do would you help us to love one another when we don't know how father would you give us a situation where the world will look at our churches our churches represented here and will say why do they love each other like that and father we pray that we will be able to say because of the gospel of Jesus Christ Lord would you do that and we ask this in Jesus name you

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Keywords: Gospel (Quotation Subject), Russell D. Moore (Person), Racial-Reconciliation, 2015 Leadership Summit, Teaching, Race, Bible, Social, Life

Id: Ff58OfBgcG4

Length: 52min 38sec (3158 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 30 2015