Reckoning + Reconciliation | What Color is God? Week 1

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– If you think you know what happens next,

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ask yourself why.

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These are the black stories we've been shown,

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a narrow view that limits our understanding.

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But there's so much more to see.

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The full picture of black lives.

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– Did you feel anything during that video?

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– How could you not? Yeah, I did.

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– Me too.

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I had assumptions about where it was going

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and it didn't go there at all.

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I was completely wrong, which is the thing.

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See, no matter who you are

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or where you come from,

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you've actually been conditioned

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to believe certain things about yourself,

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the people around you,

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and probably even about God.

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– You know, everybody wants something better

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than the nonstop conflict that's happening

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in our culture right now.

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But how do we get there?

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– That's what we're talking about today.

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See, in order to get to a new place,

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we need a view that's bigger than yours,

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bigger than mine.

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See, God actually sees us differently

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than the biased stories that

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we carry around about each other.

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And order to get to a new place

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in how we relate, to get to a real reconciliation,

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we need to hear God's story.

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– That's right.

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And that's what Brian is going to talk about today,

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what it takes to get to true reconciliation.

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So let's get started.

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– Hey, I'm Brian Tome,

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senior pastor at Crossroads Church.

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Let me ask you a question just between us.

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When you think of Christianity,

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what do you picture?

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What color is Jesus?

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Is Christianity a white man's religion?

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What color is God anyway?

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Last message I preached was a lot of fun.

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It was last week, we celebrated

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25 years together as a church.

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But there was one thing

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that came over as a wet blanket.

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It was the awareness of this message

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right now, this conversation.

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I'll tell you right now,

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I don't want to give this talk.

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I don't want to talk about this topic.

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I am doing it, though, because we need it.

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But I know when I get into these things about race,

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there is an appropriate level of consternation

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and constipation.

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People are waiting to see,

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"Is he going to say this?

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Is he not going to say that?

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Is he going to hit the buzz words

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we want to hear or not hear at all?

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White privilege, black lives matter,

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inequity, critical race theory,

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centrality of the gospel.

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He better hit on those things.

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He better hit on them right."

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And basically, for a lot of us,

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this is just a litmus test of

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whether or not you agree with me or not.

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And that's not my heart today at all.

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But I understand it might be yours,

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and that's why this topic is difficult

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and I don't want to do it.

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So let's close in prayer.

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God, I thank You --

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I'm kidding, I'm kidding,

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no, we're going to go forward on it

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and I think is going to be good for us.

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Let's pray before I go any deeper on it.

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God, I thank you that You create people

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with different backgrounds, ethnicities,

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skin tones, the whole thing.

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We are all beautiful before you, God,

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and you're creating a beautiful church.

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I pray that You'd help me to speak

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to your people and unify your people.

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And I pray these things according to

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the character and identity of Jesus. Amen.

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You see, the problem with

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talking things about race is

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none of us think we have anything to learn.

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We all think we understand it all.

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We all think we get it.

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And we all think if you don't believe

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what I believe, then you don't get it.

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We all feel completely versed,

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completely competent,

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totally up on the facts as we see them.

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And that's not necessarily the case,

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especially if we're gonna look at

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the facts as it relates to the Bible.

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How much does the Bible,

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how much does ancient Christianity

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have to do with our understanding of our culture?

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Tim Keller is arguably

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the most respected pastor in America.

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He's retired right now, but he's an author

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of just a bunch of bunch of books.

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Here's what Tim says. Tim says:

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One thing I disagree with Tim on is once a week.

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Once a week?

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The strong Christians I know

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don't even go to church once a week,

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even at once a week,

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that's like 65 minutes an entire week

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versus, as he said, 8 hours a day

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all of the other stuff,

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56 hours a day on the other stuff.

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And I'll tell you this right now,

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we're definitely not reading our Bible

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the same amount of time

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we are watching Instagram.

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Absolutely not.

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And yet we all think we know what God thinks.

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Yeah, we all think that we understand

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race the way it's always been.

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Maybe not, maybe not.

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Some things today that I think

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all of us are going to get tagged on.

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I am an equal opportunity offender.

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All of us are going to get

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equally offended today at one point.

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All of us are going to get

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equally challenged at one point.

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And it's coming from the basis of scriptures.

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There is a thread throughout

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all of biblical history,

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a thread of racial tension.

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Woo, see what I've got there,

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a thread of racial tension

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going throughout all of scriptural history.

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Some of it's healthy, some of it's unhealthy.

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Maybe the most important seminal story

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in the Bible is the story of

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the nation of Israel coming out of slavery to Egypt.

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Not that it's the pinnacle.

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The pinnacle, I believe,

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is Jesus on a cross and His resurrection.

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But the central, the seminal one

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that goes throughout all the Bible

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is the nation of Israel in physical slavery,

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because they get emancipated

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from their physical slavery.

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And you and I are in slavery,

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slavery to our addictions,

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in slavery to our politics,

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in slavery to our history,

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in slavery to our wounds and bruises,

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in slavery to our dysfunction,

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in slavery to our credit card debt,

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and we need to saved from that.

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Moses saves the nation of Israel.

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And this nation -- I don't know

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what you think of, what color you think of

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when you think of the ancient days of Israel.

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But that's probably not the color

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you're thinking of right now.

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The Book of Exodus 12:38,

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it describes them as:

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A mixed multitude, that means

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mixed skin tones, it wasn't just a mono race.

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There was a bunch of different ones.

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And Moses, I believe, is especially

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comfortable in this leadership position

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in as far as he lives in a marriage

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that's a mixed multitude.

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In Numbers 12:1,

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it says that his wife was a Cushite.

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Now I don't know what skin tone Moses was.

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I think he was white, just --

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probably just because I'm white.

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I don't know. I don't know.

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We probably all think of Moses

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kind of looking like us.

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So whatever he was, I'm not sure

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what skin tone Moses was,

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but I am sure what skin tone his wife was.

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She was black. She's a Cushite.

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Cush was a powerful black African kingdom

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located along the Nile River

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just south of Egypt.

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So whether this is an African family

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of stones or this is a mixed race family,

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we see again here our cultural bubble

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of Christianity only being about

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white people or white people dominating

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the entire Christian narrative

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just not being true.

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The reason why we think this

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is because race has always been a problem

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for all people in all cultures

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in all time periods.

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Discrimination, looking down on people,

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everyone wants to find somebody

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to look down on and somebody to feel superior to.

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That's the thing I want us to understand as a church.

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I'm speaking today, by the way, as a church.

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I'm not trying to make some grand statement

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that I have any understanding

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of influencing people outside of Crossroads

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or having a helpful thing

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on the discourse of America.

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No, no. This is if you're here right now,

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I want to help you and I want to help our church.

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The whole New Testament is written

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over the backdrop of racial tension.

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We've got the Jews and the Samaritans,

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they're in tension with one another.

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Jesus -- boy, this is going to bump some of us out,

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some of us who, like, aren't necessarily

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pro-Israel or pro Jew.

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Let me tell you something.

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I'll tell you real soft.

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Jesus was a Jew. Yeah, Jesus was a Jew.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's a Jew.

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Jesus was Jewish.

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And this Jew had positive things

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to say about the Samaritans.

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The Samaritans were the race

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that they were the most opposed to,

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it was their enemy.

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Samaritans, the Jews believed, were half breeds,

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sort of in the religion,

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not in the religion necessarily.

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That made them even worse in their eyes.

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Jesus has a public interaction

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with a Samaritan woman.

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You would never do that.

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He breaks a racial and a gender taboo of His time.

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He tells another story that most of us

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have heard of called the Good Samaritan.

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That's awful.

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That'd be like saying

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the good Ku Klux Klansmen to a Jew, to a Jew,

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because they couldn't stand the Samaritan.

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Jesus says that here in the story

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isn't a high priest of Jewish descent

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who walks by a person who's hurting,

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it's the Samaritan.

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He's a good Samaritan.

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Jesus is pushing the buttons

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of the racial stereotypes at that day.

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And then the -- virtually the rest

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of the New Testament, the books of Acts,

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Romans, Galatians, 1 Peter, on and on,

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talk about this deep racial schism

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between Jew and Gentile.

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There's the Jews who are the chosen ones.

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They're the right ones.

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And then to them, there's everybody else.

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And this tension comes up again and again

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as the central point

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of so many books in the Bible.

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It's not an American problem.

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It's not a first century problem.

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It's a people problem.

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And our country has

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its own unique people problem

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with all things ethnicity and race orientated.

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America's original sin is racism.

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95% of Native Americans are dead

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as a result of European descent people

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who came to this land. 95%.

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Some were killed because they got

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our diseases and died of dysentery.

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Others were killed on the battlefield.

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Others were traded with for goods.

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And smallpox was intentionally smeared

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on blankets so they would get disease and die.

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95% eliminated, eliminated

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virtually an entire class of people.

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And then not long after that

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we went to another country and kidnapped people

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and brought them here to be slaves,

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or we went to other countries

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and their chiefs kidnapped their people

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and sold them to us and came into our country.

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This goes to the core of our country,

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we have problems in our country

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where we view people differently

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who don't look like us.

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It's in our history.

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And it's not just those of us

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who are having skin tones like me.

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Again, this is a people problem.

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The most disturbing statements

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around discrimination I've heard

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have not been from white people.

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I don't know if you know or not, but I'm white.

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I don't know.

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I know you don't see color, but I am. I'm white.

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And so guess what, as a white person, guess what?

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I spend time with a lot of white people,

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I'm a lot of places where whitey is, OK?

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We're behind closed doors.

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We're with each other a lot.

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And despite all that, I can't identify

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a time when anybody I've known

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has said something that would

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discriminate against somebody

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or has done something to make it harder

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for somebody who was in their skin tone.

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I know it happens.

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I'm not denying our history at all.

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I know that happened.

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I'm just going like, here's one guy going,

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"Hey, there's not,

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I'm not seeing that in my 55 years."

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But absolutely it has, it absolutely

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happens with all types of people.

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The most concerning racial conversation

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I've actually had my life was interacting

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with people who are friends of mine,

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black South Africans who were

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discriminating regularly against black Zimbabweans.

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And I would ask this, "How can you say this?'

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Why do you say this?"

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It was crazy.

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Yeah, racist statements don't just come from whites,

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and by the way, racist statements have come from me.

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To be clear, I would -- I would hate

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for everything I've said in my last 55 years,

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all the jokes I've told, all things that --

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I would hate for all of them to come to light

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because I am embarrassed.

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I am a product of my time.

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I've said some awful things

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when I was a lesser version of myself.

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All of us have this problem

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because it's a human problem,

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all of us, regardless of our skin tones.

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None of us can stand in judgment over somebody else.

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But the dominant culture in any country

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has things in the water

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that affect all of the other cultures.

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Muhammad Ali talked about this.

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Maybe he was an American prophet.

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He wasn't a biblical prophet,

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he didn't believe in the Bible,

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as far as I understand.

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But he had some really, really fascinating

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things to say in this interaction

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that's worth us looking at again.

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I don't know a black person

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who doesn't have multiple stories

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of negative run ins with authorities,

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not a single one.

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And I don't know a single white person

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who has felt that their skin color

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hurt them with other authorities,

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don't know a single one.

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If you know a black person

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who hasn't had negative interactions

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with authorities then you should

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get to know at least a second person in your life,

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at least a second one.

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Because maybe you found the one that doesn't,

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but they're out there regularly.

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My friends tell me that again and again

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and again and again and regularly,

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I and other people who have my skin tones,

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can't point to similar stories because

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it's a different experience in America

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based on what color skin that you have.

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I don't know a white person who has

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ever done something to intentionally

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hurt a person of color, but that doesn't mean

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that there isn't a predominant white culture

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that doesn't negatively affect people

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who are not of a white culture

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or a culture that is the traditional

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historical white culture in America.

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Stat after stat after stat shows us that

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there is a problem, African-Americans

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are 2.3 times more likely to experience infant death,

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so says the CDC.

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African-Americans are 3.7 times more likely

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to be suspended in kindergarten to 12th grade.

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African-Americans are 7 times more likely

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to be incarcerated as adults.

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African-Americans are 5.2 times more likely

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to be denied a loan for a business.

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Statistic after statistics shows that

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life in America, if you're not white,

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is harder than if you are white.

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Statistic after statistic, every one:

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medical, financial, sociological, educational,

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again and again and again and again.

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We can't explain them all away.

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Now, to be clear, of course,

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there's poverty problems in some races

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and in some people's lives, a problem because

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there's a work ethic problem in that person's life.

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But we take a look at things that are

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over large groups of people consistently,

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we have to go, "There might be

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something else going on here."

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Imagine walking up to a body of water

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and seeing a dead fish on the shoreline.

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You're going to say, "Hmm, dead fish."

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You look inside the water and you see

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a bunch of fish on top of the water.

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You're going to say, "Oh, the lake,

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there must be bad water in the lake."

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If you take on a mile hike, and you find another lake

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and there's more dead fish in there.

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What are you going to say? You're going to say, "Hmm,

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there must be something in the groundwater

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that's feeding these lakes.

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There's something underneath the surface."

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I think there's something underneath

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the surface that many of us cannot see,

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but the remnants are everywhere of folks

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who are just having a difficult time.

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It's hard to argue away those statistics.

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It's hard to argue away the stories as well.

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Crossroads is going through a bunch of different changes.

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25 years and we're going through a lot of changes.

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We're intentionally making a lot of changes.

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There's some changes happening at our board level.

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We have two board members who have

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been with us for a long, long time.

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Tom Shepherd, Jerry Rushing.

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They've been phenomenal, amazing.

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They've gone off the board and now

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we're looking at other board candidates

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and entering into a discernment process

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about whether or not God would have them

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be part of the board.

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And so there's a number of people we're talking with.

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And one of those folks I had

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the initial call with, I called this person up,

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said, "Hey, we're looking to do this.

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Are you up for talking about this?

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I don't know if it's a fit for you.

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I don't know if you're fit for the board,

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but are you up for talking about it?"

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And I heard on the other side of the phone,

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I heard, "Uh. Uhh. OK,

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OK, sure, sure, I'll talk."

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I said, "OK, well, we'll be in touch with you."

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I knew this guy, he's a good friend of mine

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and he's not white.

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And when I talked to him later, I say,

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"Hey, by the way, this is sort of

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a compliment that you should feel good about yourself.

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Like this is some people around the church

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who see you as really a good dude

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who's very grounded spiritually

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and is doing some great stuff.

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What was the hesitation?

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It was just really awkward.

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What was going on there?"

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He said, "Oh, that was that was imposter syndrome."

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I'd never heard that before.

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"What are you talking about, imposter syndrome?"

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He said, "Well, it's a common thing

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with people who have my skin tone."

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He said, "I feel like I'm an imposter

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whenever something good happens,

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I feel like I'm an impostor."

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I said, "Really? Tell me about that."

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Because a lot of good has happened with this guy.

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I mean, crazy accomplishments in the business realm,

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crazy accomplishments academically,

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crazy stuff in his family.

00:19:50

I mean, just just success over and over and over again.

00:19:54

I said, "What are you talking about?

00:19:55

What? I don't understand."

00:19:57

He said, "Well, people would tell us that

00:20:01

maybe it's because we're told

00:20:03

that we only got this position in business

00:20:06

because of affirmative action

00:20:07

or we believe that we don't belong

00:20:10

because we look around a room

00:20:11

and there's not many people who look like us

00:20:13

or we come to believe that I got this,

00:20:15

but it wasn't really on my own merits.

00:20:18

So when you asked me to be on that,

00:20:20

I felt like an imposter.

00:20:21

I felt like I didn't belong."

00:20:24

Boy, that just broke my heart to hear that,

00:20:27

a guy who on his merits,

00:20:29

who I have the highest respect

00:20:31

and who has the highest integrity

00:20:32

and has the deepest Christian commitment,

00:20:35

or as deep of anybody I know,

00:20:38

would feel like an impostor.

00:20:39

It's because he was in a culture

00:20:41

where something is causing him

00:20:43

to come to those conclusions.

00:20:45

See us white people,

00:20:46

when something good comes to us,

00:20:48

we go, "Hey, awesome. Heck yeah, I got that.

00:20:51

Yeah, I deserve it."

00:20:52

We just like good stuff.

00:20:53

Good stuff comes to us, we enjoy it.

00:20:54

We never think more deeply of it,

00:20:56

but many folks who have different skin tones

00:20:59

don't because there's something different

00:21:01

inside of the water.

00:21:03

Now hear me really clearly,

00:21:05

I'm poking a little bit towards

00:21:06

those of us who might be white

00:21:07

or at least poking a little bit towards

00:21:09

some of the cultural things

00:21:11

that might be in our favor,

00:21:12

but what goes around comes around.

00:21:14

This is not an anti-white message at all.

00:21:16

Everyone is going to get poked here a bit,

00:21:18

if you haven't already.

00:21:20

All I'm trying to say is this issue

00:21:22

of tension between ethnicities and races

00:21:26

is as old as the Bible itself,

00:21:28

older than the Bible itself,

00:21:30

or at least part of the Bible.

00:21:31

In the book of Galatians 3:28

00:21:33

in the New Testament it says this:

00:21:47

This verse is written to the Galatian Christians

00:21:50

who keep trying to get the gentile Christians

00:21:52

to be Jewish, "Come into our culture.

00:21:55

Come into our culture, be like our culture."

00:21:58

And there is this tension that is there between them.

00:22:01

And God says, "Hey, look, stop, stop.

00:22:04

There's no Jew or Greek.

00:22:05

That's like saying no Jew or Gentile.

00:22:07

There's no American or Canadian.

00:22:09

There's no American or Latino.

00:22:11

There's no this, there's not even male and female.

00:22:14

In my father's eyes, there's just

00:22:16

those who are my family

00:22:17

and those who are not my family.

00:22:19

Those who are in my family

00:22:20

come to me through Jesus Christ

00:22:21

and you're all the same. You're equal.

00:22:24

We shouldn't have these tensions between us.

00:22:27

It's understandable on a human level,

00:22:29

but on a spiritual level,

00:22:30

there is no place for it.

00:22:33

The second big thing I want to see this:

00:22:35

Crossroads is and will be a multiethnic church.

00:22:42

We have multi ethnicities,

00:22:43

and it's wonderful, it's beautiful.

00:22:45

I like hobbies. I like having fun.

00:22:49

I have some ways that I have fun

00:22:51

that are really sick and twisted.

00:22:53

Would you like to know

00:22:54

one of my sick and twisted hobbies?

00:22:57

I like researching the story

00:23:00

behind the story when a pastor loses his job.

00:23:04

I know that's really weird.

00:23:06

It's really sick and twisted.

00:23:08

There's a lot of people who have to resign

00:23:11

or are forced to resign

00:23:12

because of bad decisions they make.

00:23:14

And the ones that make the headlines

00:23:15

are the churches that are more well known and larger.

00:23:18

And I run in some circles where

00:23:20

I can generally find out exactly what happened.

00:23:23

And I always try to find out

00:23:24

exactly what happened

00:23:25

and I always try to do my research.

00:23:26

Why is that? It's not entirely sick.

00:23:29

Some of it is for health purposes

00:23:30

because that could be me.

00:23:33

And I want to know what that guy did

00:23:36

or didn't do that caused him to lose his job,

00:23:38

what that guy did or didn't do

00:23:40

that kept him from being as fruitful

00:23:42

as he possibly could.

00:23:43

So I dig into stuff.

00:23:44

I just want to learn

00:23:46

because I don't want do the same thing.

00:23:47

One of these that happened not too long ago.

00:23:50

I watched the service

00:23:52

where this announcement was made

00:23:53

and they had all their board of directors,

00:23:56

their elders up on stage.

00:23:58

And I looked at it and it was just like [sound effect].

00:24:02

It was, I don't know, about 12 white guys,

00:24:05

about 50 years old.

00:24:06

There might have been a 45 year old

00:24:07

in there for diversity, but all white men.

00:24:10

And I looked at that, and 30 years ago,

00:24:12

I wouldn't have thought anything of it.

00:24:14

Like, "Oh, okay, interesting."

00:24:16

Where I am now, what God's done to me now

00:24:17

and what God has done at Crossroads,

00:24:20

when I look at that just monochromatic band,

00:24:22

it's not political correctness.

00:24:24

It's not affirmative action.

00:24:26

It's just that's not the mixed multitude

00:24:28

that's in the Bible.

00:24:29

That's not the mixed multitude in the Kingdom.

00:24:33

Revelation says every tribe

00:24:35

and every tongue will come before God.

00:24:36

So I wanted to have as many tribes

00:24:39

and ethnicities as possible inside of our church.

00:24:44

And we will be. We are that. We will be that.

00:24:46

And we're all going to have to learn

00:24:47

to play well in the sandbox with one another.

00:24:49

We're all going to have to learn

00:24:51

to give each other grace around phrases

00:24:54

like Black Lives Matter

00:24:56

Black lives matter.

00:24:58

I don't know why that phrase is so controversial.

00:25:00

When I say Lib's life matters,

00:25:03

that's the name my wife, Lib's life matters,

00:25:05

no one ever says, "Well, what about Cathy's life?

00:25:08

What about Janeen? What?

00:25:09

Don't, don't, don't all wives matter?"

00:25:11

Yeah, they are,

00:25:12

but I'm just saying Lib's life matters.

00:25:15

I can say a statement like Black Lives Matter

00:25:17

and mean it and not have to annotate it

00:25:19

when someone hears us always annotate it,

00:25:22

it feels like we're saying it doesn't really matter.

00:25:24

I've said, yes, black lives matter.

00:25:28

And on the other side of the spectrum,

00:25:32

I'm uncomfortable with a yard sign

00:25:35

that supports the organization

00:25:36

called Black Lives Matter.

00:25:38

It's the organization that

00:25:40

I'm very uncomfortable with because

00:25:41

the organization Black Lives Matter

00:25:43

doesn't stand in the same truth that I stand on.

00:25:46

They changed the website, so you can't see this now.

00:25:49

But initially, initially, you know,

00:25:50

a year ago, two years ago, it's very clear

00:25:52

what their baseline and calling card was,

00:25:55

what their base line of truth was.

00:25:56

They talk about Marxism,

00:25:57

they talk about a lot of different things

00:25:59

in there, nothing in the scripture.

00:26:01

In fact, one things they had in

00:26:02

their initial what we believe statement,

00:26:04

they've since taken out of the initial

00:26:06

front facing Web page, just so they could

00:26:08

maybe be even more acceptable, as they said, quote,

00:26:12

"We are calling to disrupt

00:26:14

the nuclear family structure."

00:26:16

They wanted to disrupt the nuclear family structure.

00:26:20

Now, I know a lot of us are not inside of

00:26:21

a traditional nuclear family structure.

00:26:24

It hasn't worked out that way for you.

00:26:26

You're divorced. You've --

00:26:29

there has been a death in the family

00:26:30

or you're just not in traditional nuclear family.

00:26:32

That's not the nuclear family structure

00:26:34

is the only way to live life.

00:26:37

But a nuclear family, there's a man and a woman,

00:26:39

kids, and they know their grandkids

00:26:41

and they're living in harmony.

00:26:42

It is the biblical norm.

00:26:45

It is, it's the biblical aspiration for a family.

00:26:50

Very few of us get it,

00:26:52

but we shouldn't try to disrupt it or eliminate it.

00:26:55

So that's why I like, hey,

00:26:56

adhere to some of these things

00:26:58

is not adhering to the scriptures,

00:27:01

to what Jesus has died for.

00:27:05

We will be multiethnic,

00:27:07

but we as a church will not be multi truth.

00:27:10

I'll trumpet that black lives do matter,

00:27:13

but I won't trumpet

00:27:14

the organization Black Lives Matter

00:27:16

that isn't driven by a biblical worldview.

00:27:19

Can you understand the difference there for us?

00:27:22

The Book of Ephesians 2:14, it says this:

00:27:54

This says that Jesus came to kill the hostility

00:27:58

where there are two separate entities,

00:27:59

two separate men, where there is enmity

00:28:02

going between Jesus wants to kill the enmity.

00:28:04

He's talking here about the enmity

00:28:06

between Jewish and Gentile,

00:28:08

which is a significant entity --

00:28:11

significant animosity rather,

00:28:14

where Jews are saying, "You have to eat the way we eat."

00:28:17

And Gentile saying, "You're kidding.

00:28:19

I'm never going to give up bacon wrapped around shrimp.

00:28:22

No way."

00:28:23

The Jews are saying, "You've got to do things

00:28:25

the way we do them,

00:28:26

like you've got to get circumcised."

00:28:28

The Gentiles going, "What?

00:28:30

You're telling me I've got to get

00:28:31

the end of my penis cut off

00:28:32

to come into your religion? What?"

00:28:34

That is an awful strategy for new recruits.

00:28:36

"Hey, come be a part of our thing.

00:28:38

All you've got to do is cut the end of your penis off.

00:28:40

It's called circumcision.

00:28:41

You're going to like it." No.

00:28:43

These tensions were massive, massive.

00:28:46

It's why people like the apostle Paul would say,

00:28:48

"Hey, the circumcision thing

00:28:50

is a cultural thing for us, it is important to us,

00:28:53

but we cannot put that on them.

00:28:55

We've got to learn to live in harmony here.

00:28:57

We've got to give on things that don't matter as much.

00:29:00

And Jesus came to abolish the enmity.

00:29:04

Whether you have felt it or not,

00:29:05

there is enmity in our country.

00:29:08

There's enmity in our church.

00:29:10

And worst of all, there's enmity

00:29:14

in many of our personal lives and in our families.

00:29:17

That's Ashlee's story.

00:29:20

I'm Ashlee.

00:29:21

I was born in Florida

00:29:23

and my mom was young, single and white.

00:29:29

And she grew up in

00:29:32

a very, very, very conservative home.

00:29:35

My grandparents were extreme racists.

00:29:38

And when I was born,

00:29:44

they wouldn't talk to my mom for weeks

00:29:46

because she was single.

00:29:49

On top of that, she didn't tell them

00:29:51

that my dad was black.

00:29:53

So when I was born, it was surprised to all of them.

00:29:57

Most of my mom's friends and extended family

00:30:01

and the pastor of the church

00:30:03

had all encouraged her to abort me

00:30:06

because she was single.

00:30:08

And then those that did know

00:30:10

that I was half black were just really adamant

00:30:14

on the fact that I shouldn't exist.

00:30:17

When I was four, my mom married my stepdad,

00:30:21

and he is Mexican.

00:30:24

And given how my characteristics played out,

00:30:29

my mom thought she could just play on

00:30:30

the fact that he was my dad

00:30:32

and I wouldn't have to know anything different.

00:30:34

So when they got married, he adopted me.

00:30:37

And my step, or half brother was born when I was six

00:30:41

and everything just kind of shifted when he was born.

00:30:44

And I even had a couple of family members

00:30:46

tell me that my step-dad was actually my step dad.

00:30:49

One night they finally sat me down

00:30:51

and told me that I was not, in fact Hispanic,

00:30:54

which is what they were trying to convince me of,

00:30:58

but that my real dad was black.

00:31:00

And I had all these memories come back

00:31:02

of this man who I had met often on multiple times.

00:31:07

So everything about my identity changed overnight.

00:31:10

And because my mom carried so much shame

00:31:14

around her past and what she had experienced,

00:31:17

it was really, really hard for me

00:31:18

to feel like I could connect with

00:31:21

the fullness of my heritage and who I was.

00:31:24

You really have to be rooted

00:31:25

in who God says you are because

00:31:30

having your family so broken

00:31:36

and almost being proud of that brokenness,

00:31:38

because it is part of our heritage,

00:31:41

on one side it feels very conflicting.

00:31:46

But at the same time, my mom --

00:31:52

she doesn't, like I said, she doesn't say much.

00:31:54

But when she does, it carries a lot of weight.

00:31:58

And the one thing that she has been

00:31:59

consistent about probably the last five years

00:32:02

is you need to tell your story.

00:32:05

I see the healing that's happening in her

00:32:08

because I'm willing to share.

00:32:10

I think it's been totally the grace of God

00:32:15

to experience the love of a grandfather

00:32:18

who had such a bitter past towards

00:32:22

a stereotype that he had in his head,

00:32:25

and that seeing me and just experiencing me

00:32:28

as his granddaughter was enough

00:32:30

to change his perspective and his behavior around race.

00:32:36

I think it's just a really cool story

00:32:37

of redemption for my relationship with him.

00:32:40

It's just the reality that as much as

00:32:43

we are called to love one another well,

00:32:46

the color of our skin still tends to create

00:32:49

barricades and add narratives that are not healthy

00:32:55

in how we see one another

00:32:56

and what we think about one another.

00:32:59

And really, it's as simple as getting to know someone

00:33:02

and having an honest conversation

00:33:04

that really changes everything.

00:33:07

– You know, reconciliation isn't exactly

00:33:10

a fun or lighthearted word,

00:33:12

and it's even harder to do,

00:33:14

but it's the mission we're on.

00:33:16

Micah 6:8 says: And what does the Lord require of you

00:33:19

but to do justice, to love mercy,

00:33:22

and to walk humbly with your God.

00:33:24

And that's why I like your shirt.

00:33:25

– That's why I like your shirt. – It's a fantastic shirt.

00:33:28

– That's a good reminder right there.

00:33:29

You know, the only way to do justice

00:33:31

and to love mercy is to walk humbly with God,

00:33:33

to have a different perspective other than your own.

00:33:35

I feel like we're already doing that so far today.

00:33:38

And here's the thing, as a church

00:33:39

we're actually set on making a difference

00:33:41

in our world through justice, love, and mercy.

00:33:44

And to do that, we don't just

00:33:45

keep all of our money stored up for a rainy day

00:33:47

or some problem later on.

00:33:49

We actually spend that money right now.

00:33:51

– And we do that because it's God's money

00:33:54

and God is generous

00:33:55

and so He invites us to be generous, too.

00:33:57

If you want to be a part of making a difference

00:33:59

in our communities or in our world,

00:34:01

you can be a part of that by giving.

00:34:03

– If you want to see what Crossroads believes

00:34:05

about giving, you want to get started,

00:34:06

see where the money goes, any of that stuff,

00:34:08

head to Crossroads.net/tithetest.

00:34:11

Let's catch back up with Brian.

00:34:16

– I love Ashlee giving her story.

00:34:18

She's here with us today.

00:34:19

She has a role here on set and I saw her,

00:34:22

I just had to give her a huge hug.

00:34:23

Massive courage to give her story.

00:34:27

I love hearing the stories of people

00:34:30

who are here on Crossroads,

00:34:31

it's a powerful, powerful thing.

00:34:35

The power stories are so often times

00:34:37

the stories that are different than mine.

00:34:40

They have different notes to them.

00:34:41

You know, we need different notes

00:34:43

in order to have harmony.

00:34:44

People at Crossroads have got to live

00:34:46

with their differences for a different harmony.

00:34:48

That's what I want us to do.

00:34:50

You've got to live with the differences

00:34:51

to have a different harmony.

00:34:52

How do you get harmony?

00:34:53

You get harmony when you meld different notes together.

00:34:57

[humming]

00:35:01

You meld those together and you have harmony.

00:35:04

There are different people Crossroads

00:35:05

who are called different things.

00:35:07

I love that there are people Crossroads

00:35:09

who are called to politics.

00:35:10

God needs people who love God and love His truth

00:35:13

to be in politics, to influence politics,

00:35:15

to be politicians, love that. That's awesome.

00:35:18

And our church, as an institution,

00:35:21

as an organization, our church

00:35:23

is not going to galvanize around politics.

00:35:27

You know, the New Testament never records

00:35:29

Jesus or the church as addressing the government.

00:35:34

They address people in their sphere of influence

00:35:36

and then they impact the culture,

00:35:38

but they never had this thing

00:35:39

where they're trying to change government.

00:35:42

Much of the frustration that I feel Crossroads

00:35:44

and why this has been such an awful difficult time for me

00:35:49

is that just so many people, I think,

00:35:52

this is my opinion, are basically saying,

00:35:54

"If I had your job, I would do a better.

00:35:59

If I had your following, your platform, your this,

00:36:02

you should be doing this because Crossroads needs to--"

00:36:07

Maybe that's why you don't have my job,

00:36:09

because God's called me here

00:36:11

and He doesn't want our church to be

00:36:13

a politically active organization

00:36:16

that's trying to get the attention of government

00:36:19

on whatever issue it may be.

00:36:20

Today's issue is race that we're talking about.

00:36:25

Jesus never did that.

00:36:26

The early church never did that.

00:36:28

Some churches may do that.

00:36:29

Maybe that's what God's calling them to,

00:36:31

but that's not what God's calling us to.

00:36:32

It's not because I don't have

00:36:34

or we don't have opinions about things,

00:36:35

it's just that we all have enough problems

00:36:37

in our personal lives and in our local communities

00:36:41

that we want the gospel to come to bear

00:36:43

in those things before we ever figure out

00:36:45

something on a on a macro government level at all.

00:36:49

I'm interested in addressing our church today.

00:36:52

I'm not interested in addressing the government.

00:36:56

In Acts 2:5, we see how the church

00:36:58

was magically and miraculously addressed

00:37:03

by the Holy Spirit.

00:37:04

This is after Jesus is crucified,

00:37:07

He's resurrected, He's ascended to heaven.

00:37:10

And now all the believers left going,

00:37:12

"What are we gonna do now? What's happening now?"

00:37:14

And they're in Jerusalem

00:37:15

for this high holy festival

00:37:17

and Jerusalem has been

00:37:18

a bunch of mixed multitude people,

00:37:20

the Jews of folks from all over the world.

00:37:23

They've migrated in with different cultures

00:37:25

and different languages.

00:37:27

And here's what they hear, these Jews that came in

00:37:30

who at this point had not heard about Jesus.

00:38:28

This is an amazing, miraculous thing.

00:38:31

It's tongues, it's a different kind of tongues

00:38:33

that some people have today.

00:38:35

It's a kind of tongue where

00:38:37

you're speaking languages

00:38:39

or people are hearing in language

00:38:41

that they've always, always known

00:38:44

from somebody who doesn't know

00:38:45

how to speak that language.

00:38:46

We had that happen once in South Africa

00:38:48

on one of our GO Trips.

00:38:49

A person was giving a music workshop

00:38:50

and someone came up to him afterward, saying,

00:38:52

"Thank you so much for speaking to us

00:38:54

in our native tongue of Zulu. That meant a lot to us."

00:38:56

And this white woman said, "What are you talking about?

00:38:58

I don't know Zulu."

00:39:00

And people said, "You may not know Zulu,

00:39:02

but we heard Zulu, you speak that whole time."

00:39:05

Crazy, it still happens today.

00:39:07

All these people are coming

00:39:08

from these different cultures into Jerusalem.

00:39:11

And what does God do?

00:39:12

He meets them with their cultural tongue.

00:39:16

The bottom baseline of any culture,

00:39:18

in order to have a culture,

00:39:20

there must be a common language.

00:39:22

There has to be.

00:39:23

It all sorts of common language.

00:39:25

By the way, not to make

00:39:26

a political statement here, but I guess I am,

00:39:28

I think bottom baseline no matter

00:39:30

what happens with immigration in the United States,

00:39:32

it is crazy to think we can bring people

00:39:34

into our country and had them not learn English.

00:39:38

If you don't know English,

00:39:39

the common language of the culture,

00:39:42

you have no hope of getting forward,

00:39:44

you have no hope of making a contribution.

00:39:47

Now, what's interesting here with

00:39:48

these different cultures is they're around,

00:39:51

God doesn't give them a mono language

00:39:53

to where they all hear the same thing

00:39:55

in their own tongue, Spanish, Portuguese,

00:39:57

whatever it is, they all hear

00:40:00

inside their own cultural context

00:40:02

in their own language. That's amazing.

00:40:05

It means God is accommodating those those cultures

00:40:07

and going to them in their language.

00:40:09

This also means that Christianity

00:40:12

is going to be multicultural.

00:40:14

There's going to be certain churches

00:40:15

that look different ways and have different cultures

00:40:18

and talk different ways.

00:40:19

Not every church is going to be able

00:40:20

to reach every person or help every person.

00:40:23

There's not going to be a church where

00:40:25

you're going to have worship music

00:40:26

that's going to satisfy hip hop culture,

00:40:28

cowboy culture, and hosanna worship culture.

00:40:32

That's not going to happen.

00:40:34

You're going to a hard time with a culture,

00:40:36

a church that is verse by verse,

00:40:38

go through the Bible

00:40:39

and learn new Greek word every week.

00:40:41

And is going to satisfy, you know,

00:40:43

health and wealth gospel

00:40:45

and is going to satisfy completed Jews,

00:40:49

Zion kind of Christianity

00:40:51

and is going to satisfy

00:40:52

hour long, happy clappy worship,

00:40:54

joy, joy, happy, happy, happy,

00:40:56

and is going to satisfy Quakers.

00:40:59

You just can't, you can't do that. Right?

00:41:02

But what you can do is you can have

00:41:04

a Kingdom where all those cultures are represented

00:41:06

and you can also have a church where

00:41:08

there is a dominant culture and we have

00:41:10

a dominant culture Crossroads

00:41:12

and we have a language.

00:41:13

A language like do anything short of sin,

00:41:16

bless other people, make aggressive mistakes,

00:41:18

seven hills we die on.

00:41:19

There's a language, but there's also

00:41:21

different cultures subs that come in

00:41:23

and all contribute and somehow affect positively

00:41:27

the rounding out of who God calls us to be,

00:41:30

not the church down the street,

00:41:32

not the church over there,

00:41:34

but the culture that God is creating us to be.

00:41:37

That's what the Gospel does.

00:41:39

The Gospel comes and meets us where we are,

00:41:41

speaks our language.

00:41:43

And then as we come together

00:41:44

with different people in different places,

00:41:46

a more beautiful expression of heaven comes together.

00:41:49

And that's what Crossroads is.

00:41:53

We need to have a reckoning with the things

00:41:56

that are part of our national history

00:41:59

and our spiritual history.

00:42:00

Christianity has more than enough warts.

00:42:02

Christianity has more than enough warts

00:42:04

as it relates to oppression in our history.

00:42:07

That's because Christianity is filled with people

00:42:10

and people have warts in every religion,

00:42:12

every time period, every corner of the globe,

00:42:15

equally, all of them.

00:42:16

And we need to see that we hold

00:42:19

the key of reconciliation because

00:42:21

we have a God who is a reconciler.

00:42:23

In 2 Corinthians 5:17,

00:42:24

last verse I'll share with you today, it says:

00:42:52

The widest gap there's ever been

00:42:54

has not been between black and Korean.

00:42:58

The widest gap as not been between white and black.

00:43:02

It's not been between Japan and China.

00:43:06

The widest gap it's ever been

00:43:09

has been between God and sinners like me,

00:43:13

because all of us naturally want want we want

00:43:16

and do what we want and justify it.

00:43:18

And there is this gap between us and God's standards.

00:43:20

And Jesus comes and He reconciles.

00:43:23

He stands in the middle with the Cross,

00:43:25

taking the brunt of the frustration from God

00:43:28

and offering up Jesus good works to God

00:43:30

instead of offering up our bad works of God

00:43:32

and reconciles us into one.

00:43:35

And now we were entrusted with that message

00:43:37

of reconciliation, to bring other people to Christ.

00:43:40

And here's the thing.

00:43:42

If we can't be reconciled among different skin tones,

00:43:46

how we possibly talk about

00:43:48

people being reconciled to God?

00:43:49

Different skin tones coming together, that's like,

00:43:52

OK, this much of a difference.

00:43:53

We're 99.99% different, genetically speaking,

00:43:59

the whitest white person

00:44:01

and the blackest black person is 99.99% identical.

00:44:07

And if we can't bridge the chasm in a .01% difference,

00:44:13

what could we possibly have to offer the world

00:44:16

that is infinitely further away from God

00:44:18

and the peace that He offers?

00:44:21

We're going to end our time

00:44:22

with a classic song called Amazing Grace.

00:44:25

Here's the story behind the song

00:44:26

written by John Newton.

00:44:28

Grace is how we get reconciled to God,

00:44:31

and it is amazing, and John Newton knew this

00:44:34

as well as anybody because

00:44:35

he used to be a captain on a slave ship.

00:44:38

And God wrecked him, God got a hold of him.

00:44:40

And he wrote this song coming out of

00:44:44

his understanding of his brokenness

00:44:47

as a vile, wretched sinner, in his terms.

00:44:52

And these are words, this is truth

00:44:54

that are for all of us and all of us can sing.

00:44:57

And the more of us who sing this

00:45:00

with different cultural contexts,

00:45:01

different ethnicities,

00:45:03

and sing it together, the more amazing we will be.

00:49:20

– God wants something better for you

00:49:22

than the nonstop strife and conflict

00:49:25

that we see in culture around us,

00:49:27

but in order for us to get there,

00:49:28

we're going to have to stop, step back,

00:49:31

and do some real reckoning in our own lives.

00:49:33

– You have to do it.

00:49:34

So here's the thing, don't let your experience stop here.

00:49:37

Crossroads exists to help you on

00:49:40

the spiritual adventure that God has made you for.

00:49:43

To get started just head to crossroads.net/getstarted

00:49:47

And don't miss next week on Crossroads.

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