Equipping the Next Generation to Embrace Gospel Diversity

the next generation I imagine will be one worth watching a week or so ago the largest youth protest since Vietnam took place when thousands of youth from across the nation use their voices to speak out against violence gun violence and to speak for gun control generation Z as they've been called has already begun to champion what matters most of them with a passion and conviction that I would think they must have learned from the generations before them many of them have seen the protests against police brutality done by folks maybe a decade or so older than them they have seen the bit need during a national anthem and understood it to be a revolutionary act they have watched their Twitter timelines fill up with a hundred and 80 characters worth of honest and grieving words words that have stirred in them the desire to be just as loud for what is right as the silent are being for what is wrong this generation has learned some things from us well some of us that is some of us may not have been alive to get close enough to the windows to see a sit-in in action at a segregated lunch counter we weren't there to wave as the Freedom Riders rode past us resolute in their mission even if admit that they might die on their way home some of us weren't old enough to watch as Martin and others walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma Alabama but when we found out about it it did something in us it taught us that to care about injustice is to do something about it to put ourselves in harm's way even if that means peace from my neighbor that this work this work of loving our neighbors and making sure others will do the same ain't always comfortable but by example they've shown us that it's worth it when it comes to the generation for us we've learned some things but there are some of us that have learned other things some may not have been there to hear the sound of a body swinging back and forth on a tree the cracking of the branch and the Laster of the ones that made the news you might not have been there in the pews when the Deacons made sure the color folks sat in the balcony as not to sit too close to the white parishioners as the as the heard the preacher tell them that all this segregation that's going on was the will of Almighty God some of you in this room probably weren't old enough to see all that the generation before you did but don't think that in some way you haven't been taught by taught to not take the death of a brown body serious even when it swings or should I say retweets in front of your face talk to stay seated in your pew while oppression happens all around you talk not in words usually but by living that this works this work of loving your neighbor and making sure others do the same doesn't belong to you taught that because your beautiful baby boy can walk down the street with skittles and tea in his hand when no one threatened by the color of his skin that the privilege of safety means that you are exempt from caring about the price of black pigment Oh surely we have learned some things the generations are always teaching by example if you read The Book of Ezekiel before you've come across a passage that speaks to this idea of generational teaching we find the prophet Ezekiel addressing the elders of Israel God has a message for them but first he wants to give them a little history lesson he reminds them about how he rescued the people of Israel out of Egypt with the promise that he would then bring them into a land flowing with milk and honey but on the way as we all do they started tripping they in more ways than one disobeyed God and as judgment God relegated them to a 40-year stay in the wilderness until the entire generation that left Egypt was dead but while in the wilderness the disobedience didn't cease they continue to walk in unbelief towards God with their idolatrous ways but eventually as God said would happen each one of them perished until the younger generation was the only generation left in Ezekiel chapter 20 verse 18 God tells the elders about what he told the children that were left and he says and I said to their children in the wilderness do not walk in the statutes of your fathers nor keep their rules nor the fowl yourselves with their idols I am the Lord your God so walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules and keep my Sabbath's holy that they may be a sign between me and you that you may know that I am the Lord your God but the children rebelled against me they did not walk in my statutes and we're not careful to obey my rules by which if a person does them he shall live verse 23 moreover I swore to them in the wilderness that I would scatter them among the nations and disperse them through the countries because they have not obeyed my rules but have rejected my statutes and proclaim profane my Sabbath's and their eyes were set on their fathers idols during the 40 years in the wilderness these children had learned some things they'd seen some of their parents worship the gods of Egypt they remembered when their mothers removed the gold earrings out of their ears and watched them turn them into golden calves they were there when their father slept with the women of Moab and when their faith he sacrificed to a god named Bale a god they knew was not the God of Israel but a God that they thought was more worthy of their worship than the one who took them out of slavery these children grew up in an environment where the people of God had an allegiance to all sorts of idols and lived by all kinds of statutes that they've created for themselves so when it was their turn to obey God when they heard the command of God to walk in his statutes in to obey his rules the only footsteps they chose to follow were the idolatrous feet of their fathers and for all we know they probably thought that generation knew best because see clearly seeing each and every person in the drop for generation prior to them drop dead in the wilderness wasn't enough proof that God was not to be played with the children of Israel had learned some things don't you find it troubling that the letter a letter from a Birmingham jail a letter dr. King wrote in 1963 to Christians why Christians to be specific contains in it the same frustrations being voiced to our white brothers and sisters today in 2018 the letter is 55 years old and yet this generation has not fully improved upon the beliefs and the behavior of the prior the urgency of justice is still being questioned the hearts of many brown and black believers are still disheartened as their brothers and sisters the brothers and sisters that they share pews with who seem to be so unwilling to pursue authentic piece of authentic peace that includes the presence of justice and not the peace that prefers the absence of tension how could it be that one generation can progress progress so much and yet be so similar to the generation that before them and all of us we can see it is because the generations are always teaching in all of us and one way or another have followed in some by these footsteps if we want to equip the next generation for gospel diversity we have to start here our methods have to be modeled if we expect for them to be followed but we cannot and will not matter what we don't believe and guess what your children your mentees your disciples your the people in your children's group your youth group they are learning from you even if you don't know yet they've seen who you invite over for dinner they've heard how you pray for your country and some have never heard one plea for the Peace of a black mother whose son was killed in a backyard or a petition to a God on behalf of Hispanic teen who was terrified that she will be deported from the one home that she has always known they are watching who you watch they are listening to who you are learning from is there if there is any indifference in your heart towards gospel diversity you better know that your indifference will be to them a norm to which their world views will be shaped but just as the next generation can learn some negative things from us all because God is in us with this help we can do what some of our fathers didn't do why because we are a chosen race we are a royal priesthood we are a holy nation we are a people for his own possession that we may proclaim the excellence of his excellencies of him who called us out of darkness and into his marvelous marvelous light we must show the next generation what it's like to be a part of a chosen race a chosen generation a generation made up of people that are white and brown and black in every other color that God has made for his glory a generation of folk that God has brought to himself a generation of people that may have some bad blood inside of their bodies because of sin and their different upbringing but a generation that will fight for the oppressed in America and beyond just like the God of Israel for the oppressed in Egypt let the next generation see what a royal priesthood looks like how are people who've been anointed by the spirit sanctified by God and brought near to his throne through the Sun show them how they move about the world show them what a living sacrifice looks like and how it's not a lamb or goat but a body and bias and comfort and fear and lovelessness and pride and privilege and how this priesthood lays it all down on the altar to be burned before God so that we can show the new generation what real worship looks like show them a holy nation show them a nation among many but a nation under one God and with liberty and justice for all and don't get it twisted this holy nation and America is the Church of God it's the Bride of Christ it's a nation whose King was a Jewish man killed by unjust government as our Dane by sovereign God this nation looks different than the rest because it's governed by a God that is good and holy and wise and just and merciful and empathetic and dignifying and as this holy nation lives among others the generations will see what it looks like when your ultimate allegiance is King Jesus show them what it looks like to be a peculiar people that belong to God we don't really belong to this country we don't really belong to a will fit set up a political party we don't belong even to our economic status heck we don't belong to this world we are people for his own possession and when we believe that we believe that we belong to God we will live completely free from the statutes and the rules that these identities impose on us that way we will love not according to what makes a similar but whatever what we will love in accordance to our Savior if only we would just be who we are the next generation would learn some things they would learn something glorious they would learn about God in us they would know that the people of God loved differently than the world that the people of God embraced diversity because that's what God would do and that's what God has done the next generation would follow and our footsteps and then they would come to realize that as they did they were actually following Jesus and not a God made in America's image they would come to see that as you said you you set your mind on things above where Christ has seated at the right hand of God the place he went after he did what was just and right the seat he sat down on after dying and raising on behalf of people that he died for himself from every tribe tongue and nation they would see that because you set your mind up there where he is that they can - when we set our eyes on Christ instead of setting our eyes on our father's idols and everything else that keeps us from gospel diversity you can be sure that is when we begin equipping the next generation for gospel diversity thank you [Applause]

Channel: Jackie Hill Perry Channel

Views: 52,854

Rating: 4.8783908 out of 5

Keywords: tgc, the gospel coalition, jackie hill perry, mlk, mlk50, martin luther king, gospel diversity, preston perry, revive our hearts, matt chandler, charlie dates, eric mason, erlc, russel moore, karen ellis, woke church

Id: g2ySajDuHCI

Length: 14min 55sec (895 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 12 2018