When Racial Tensions Rise, So Must The Church

well hello watermark family and hopefully friends that my watermark family will share this video with if they think it's helpful it's Monday's June 1st and we are coming to the close of a pretty chaotic week in our country and it's been tragic to watch I wanted to speak with you because we know that thousands of our watermark family wasn't with us when we gathered on Saturday night and we lamented what is happening in our world we spent an extended time in corporate prayer we talked a lot about where our world is today and then we had a message on Sunday that my friend David levinthal recorded on Thursday that didn't address some of the same things that we talked about for well over an hour on Saturday night and so we thought it'd just be really helpful just to maybe capture some of that for many of our friends who aren't ready yet to gather even outside and we totally understand why a lot of folks weren't there but we thought maybe we could be together right now let me just start by saying you know whenever I speak I always remind myself of what Solomon said which is that the words of the wise make knowledge acceptable but the mouths of fools spout folly I don't ever want to spout folly I want to get out of the way of the message that I want to share it also is humbling that so many of you wanted to hear me say some things as the leader in the pastor of watermark as a spiritual leader as a leader in our community in general folks go tada I want to hear from you and some of you and said I wanna hear from you because you're a white leader and then others might even go I don't want to hear from you because you're a white leader I don't want any cultural appropriation I don't need to hear from you and so I'm already making some groups mad because I am speaking and I think there have been some folks frustrated because they haven't heard me speak I I try and share my personal thoughts a lot on social media but I don't expect everybody to care about what I posted social media is probably healthy if you're not on social media but it breaks my heart when people say why haven't you said something and I have and I have for some time specifically about this topic you know a lot of folks there's no way for you to know my story I grew up in a mixed-race community had friends of different melanin different races as the world would call it but I don't believe we have different races and I believe there's one race there's one God one father one Lord who is over all of us and we're one blood I believe in tribalism I believe that there are different people groups but I believe that we have one father and one Lord and one Savior and I believe that there's an enemy who hates us and so he tries to divide us into different people groups or racists that's what the enemy does and he's a liar and I think we have to acknowledge that it goes without saying that the white race has exploited their majority over specifically the african-american community from the beginning of the European settlement here in America and then certainly as our country was founded and we had this great declaration of independence and this constitution that talks about how there are certain unalienable rights there was immediately a people group that was oppressed and didn't have the ability to pursue life and liberty and happiness because of the institution of slavery which if you don't know has never been supported in Scripture the Bible talks about slavery but the slavery in the Bible is not the slavery that was the imperialistic Atlantic slave trade there's a real truth real quick on that which I hope you watch and I talk about that it's always been wrong to kidnap a man and to oppress him it's always been wrong and no Christian no Christ follower who genuinely studied the scripture and followed Jesus would ever owned or been abusive towards another human being and none once the institution of slavery was eradicated in the middle of the nineteenth century nobody would have continued the bias and the oppression of another people frankly with a different color or not and we see that there's all kinds of injustice in the world today there's sex trafficking there's the elimination of weak embryos and there continues to be the abuse of one people group to another and we know there's a history in this country specifically of white on black persecution so I can share you a lot of statistics about the fact that white cops or 18.5 more times likely to be shot by a black man than a black man is to be killed by a white cop and it just doesn't help and it seems to almost say like why are you upset look what's happening today well people are upset because of what's been going on for a long time and I joined them in being upset what we all saw happened to George Floyd I have not heard anybody defended I not heard one person defendant I don't care what color the person was on top or what color the person was on bottom it was awful but I think we're being naive if we don't understand why this makes a lot of people harken back to a systemic problem where they have felt for a long time my friends of color that they have suffered under a majority culture and whether or not any statistic that you could bring forth would justify that today to just dismiss it because if some statistic is not being not just sensitive but I think aware now one of the things that really grieves me is that my friends of color need to hear me say more often that I understand their pain because I'm like what is it about me that makes you think I'm indifferent to your sufferings I am commanded by Christ to mourn with those who mourn and I just want to stick in right here and again if you want to hear more on this there's a real truth real quick on black lives matter but I can remember during you know the loss of life of our friend Mike Smith and for other Dallas police officers when we had that incident in Dallas a number of years ago after another race-related officer incident I can remember you know speaking to a lot of my friends that I know knew me well and when I just shared how you know the black lives matter idea when it first came out I kind of looked at that and my first response was well yeah they matter because all lives matter was my first thought it just took me a little listening to say to my friends hey Todd just so you know the reason certain people are saying this and there's no question people have have taken that little phrase and have run with it and have made it stand for something that is not helpful but when you hear somebody say black lives matter the right thing to do is just go hey help me understand what you want me to know when you say that that's that's just a wise way to respond it says in the scripture that a fool not only does not delight in understanding but only in revealing his own mind it says if you gives an answer before he hears it's a folly and a shame to him so when somebody says to you hey black lives matter it's not smart to reveal your mind and say all lives matter because I think everybody agrees with that what they're saying the the people that aren't using is an excuse to act violently but what they're saying is a very humble statement they're saying I don't I don't feel like you think or our world thinks that I matter as much as you do he's just a good metaphor if my house was on fire and I ran up to you and I said my house matters man my house matters and you looked at me and said well Todd we all live in houses all of our houses matter that wouldn't be really helpful to me but if I said no no what I'm saying that because my house is on fire and you're just walking by like like it's not like your house which is not on fire you're fine with I'm not fine because my house is on fire I think you would go oh I see now Todd do you want me to see that your house is on fire and we have a lot of friends who feel like justice is on fire and they want to know that you care and that I care and I always say to my friends man would you forgive me that there's something about me that makes you believe that I don't think it matters if justice is on fire in your world because I'm a follower of Jesus and I don't need to put a modifier in front of justice I don't need to care about social justice I need to care about justice and societal injustice is underneath something I am compelled by Christ the care deeply about so I I'll let you know that you know when people use phrases you want to just say what do you mean by social justice and sometimes they mean things like identity politics and things that are gonna lead to people believing that certain people groups are always at wrong and certain people groups are entitled and we don't see that in Scripture and so we don't stand for it but the fact that we have friends who live near us as Christians as Christian leaders as communities of faith that we don't care about and speak for them in their pain and in their suffering means we can excel still more I I don't expect you on the watch everything I say in social media I don't even expect you to watch this but I I want you to know that I'm taking advantage of this opportunity so that people can know that we absolutely believe injustice is wrong we see systemic injustice in our nation's history if there is something that we personally have been a part of that you either perceive or that you know call us to repentance we've taught at watermark about redlining we've talked at watermark about the history of racism in our city in Dallas and we don't do it every week because every week what we talk about is the gospel and when the gospel is embraced there will be repentance that gives me a chance just to make a little bit of a walk to some of the stuff that I have said recently on social media and just talking about this and and just tell you again I'm doing this because I it would grieve me if anybody at watermark I don't care what color you are my members who are people of color or members who are not or people who just know that we take the name of Jesus if someone perceives that we here at watermark are insensitive to suffering that would grieve us because we know that our God is not insensitive to suffering jesus wept when he saw death come to his friend and he did something about it he's a sovereign and good god and we need to mourn with those who mourn and if we're not mourning ourself when we see wrong done then we need to have an awakening in our own hearts but there's no question that it's even more painful when somebody you identify more closely with that looks like you it's a part of your family is suffering and I think some of our friends who share the same skin color as George Floyd feel like hey I feel like that happens that people look like me way too much and I just want to tell you we don't want it to ever happen anybody and we understand why you're saying hey do you care that this keeps happening to people that look like me yes and increase me that we haven't loved you in a way and spoken in a way that you know that already so ABC News you know released an article that I copied and it just said this it said massive eruptions like Minneapolis protests is what drives change experts say that riots and disruptions like are happening up there is what brings change and I just disagree what brings change is repentance what brings change is our hearts being aligned with Christ and the reason there is white on black crime the reason there is black pain the reason there is white on white crime and black on black crime the reason there's pain in this world is because of sin and we have had a national sin that we are naive to think it's going to go away because there was an Emancipation Proclamation because we no longer allow there to be Jim Crow laws well there's a lot of pain i sat with a friend on well just a few days ago whose grandfather was born into slavery it's not that long ago and and even out of slavery as I've already said there are policies and there is favoritism that have affected generations of people and they don't feel as free they feel like they've had to adapt to white culture they feel like they don't have the privilege that White's have been given and those feelings are both real and I think reliable many times when you go back and look at the facts so our job is to educate ourselves is to listen our job is to love and to empathize and to make sure that we're not a part of in any way continuing some of that behavior and so I I hope that our just talking like this and acknowledging it I mean I did it for 30 minutes in a much more fluid way it was extemporaneous on Saturday night just passed but I just I just said hey guys this is this is the world that we're in and the solution is not rioting the solution is Christ the solution is love and you know violence and chaos and brokenness is what follows continual hardness of heart and what the scripture says in proverbs 29 1 is that he hardens his neck after much reproof will suddenly be broken beyond remedy and what you're seeing is a brokenness in our country that has become that's the fruit of the hardness of heart that we've embraced for a long time we cannot stop teaching morals we cannot hide sins of our past you know through hardness of heart and not expect it to eventually lead to greater trouble and so we're seeing right now in our land the fruit of our lack of repentance as a people and the way to address it is to repent to listen to love and to follow Christ so as I put some thoughts together last week and one things I just encourage you to do when people are saying I just wish water mark would say some that our table would say something don't just like some of you guys follow me on social media don't just like retweet it said look at this is what they're saying they're absolutely with us if you're a member of the black community I called some friends of mine who tweeted out man where are the white pastors and why aren't they speaking out in the midst of this and and I reached out to them and I just said hey man I go I don't expect you to track everything I'm saying but when people know we're friends and you say that they assume that none of your white pastor friends have been talking about this and I just want to tell you I have and it grieves me that that you don't know that I mean I can't pick up the phone and call every I don't expect everybody to follow me but before we say none of my white friends or none of my black friends are let's watch our words right I think always and never are not good words to use when we're describing a situation so violence doesn't bring change I think we all know that right violence brings pain and sadness I'm just reading you tweets things that are out there and if the kindness of God does not lead us to repentance then he's gonna let the discipline that pain offers bring about repentance and that's where I went and read from Hosea 5 is something you might want to do and it's Hosea talks about how God's gonna let us experience just the consequences of our sin we have a national sin and it is we put In God We Trust on our money and we don't trust in God we say we're one nation under God in our pledge of allegiance to our flag and we're not one nation under God we're a nation divided and identity politics and grouping people by tribe or by what the world would call race is never gonna lead to peace there's somebody who wants to divide us and it's not the God of the Christian Christ died to bring an end to the dividing wall and to take care of the enmity which existed between the Jewish race and the Gentile race and Jesus says that was going to mark us is the love that he has for the father and the father has for him being known in us in other words that we would be one as the Trinity is the Godhead the Father Son and spirit are one and so to my friends who looked different than me who need to hear me say that I'm one with you I grieve with you I don't understand your pain but I want to mourn with you and as best I can understand your pain I want you to hear me say it I want you to hear me say what I think a lot of people that I know my friends who follow Jesus with me here at watermark that are white like me would say to you if they had a chance to talk to you personally and that is will you forgive us that you don't know that loudly without having us to say it in moments like this and let's work together so that you can say well I got all kinds of friends who are white who are grieved as I am over this any Christian should be grieved at racism injustice and apathy towards anything that breaks the heart of God so we just felt like it was appropriate to film this because not all of us were together on Saturday and some folks even watched the message Sunday which my friend David recorded a couple days earlier and thought why didn't they talk about it Sunday's not the time always to make a bunch of social commentary we talked about the thing that changes society but in this case you know we think it's appropriate to say the gospel always affects society it always should affect how we live in our world and so we talk about stuff here that is all around us I I do a real truth real quick on life leadership in the world we live in and what Jesus thinks about it so the world we live in it's got a lot of pain and I don't want to be a part of it I want to mourn with those who are experiencing it I know that Jesus is the solution and Jesus cares about injustice and I am supposed to be his hands and feet and if God's given me position or power or influence to use it I want people to see me using it and I want you to join me and being instruments of peace so let's mourn with those who mourn let's rejoice together in the hope that we have that this world is not our home and just know that we love you I love every single member of water mark I'm so pleased to be a part of a body that is as racially diverse as we are and IDs I'll close with this you know because we talked about this on Saturday a racial diversity in a local body is not sign of a healthy Church Jesus says you're gonna know it search not by its racial diversity the universal Church it's gonna stand before him one day is gonna be from every nation every tribe in every tongue but if you have a church the middle of Cambodia and it's only made up of Cambodians it can be a really healthy Church Jesus says that a a church should be known by its love by this all men will know you're my disciples now I live in Dallas it's not in some central part of a third-world country that doesn't have a lot of diversity and I'm so encouraged that watermark is increasingly diverse because all the members of watermark that I know are loving every neighbor they meet and inviting every tribe and every nation telling that lives in Dallas to be here I love the fact that we have people who were born in over 70 nations that are members we have people that attend who were born in over 90 different nations I love the fact that there are literally into the thousands of people of color that go to watermark now because we've got about 20,000 folks that circle through here or cycle through here a week it doesn't look anything but white but there's a lot going on here and I really love my brothers and sisters that are here that are leaning into thousands of white people gathering who happened to love the thousands of people of color that are in our city the tens of thousands the hundreds of thousands and many of them are now part of our family here and growing with us so that together in our city that is diverse we look more and more like our city but you need to know this our goal is not to look like our city our goal is to look like Christ and I have a hunch that if we look like Christ we will love every member of our city and they will come and seek to look more like Christ with us so friends I love you I grieve at the pain you're experiencing and I grieve that you have any question that leadership here and members of Jesus's body here don't grieve and care with you about injustice so let us do justice together let us love kindness and let us walk humbly with our Lord would you just forgive me for even the way this message missed you I mean all I want to do is follow Jesus in a way that makes him more attractive to our watching world so pray for me I'm praying for you and I can't wait for us to be together and seek the oneness at Christ in tents let's go to work church god bless you

Channel: Watermark Community Church

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Length: 24min 46sec (1486 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 01 2020