Can We Fix Racism? | Theocast

So the subject I'm covering today is obviously a sensitive one. It's been affecting not only our country, but the world.

And I think it's safe to even say that the history of racism and even inappropriately treating women and degrading women has been an issue for thousands of years.

So we're not the first generation to have to deal with these issues. And I want to approach this.

I know that often I am told because of my age and my race, I don't really understand the situation.

And I don't think people are wrong. I think it's safe to say that it's hard to understand other people's situation if you're not exactly in that situation.

I would say a lot of people don't understand the struggles that I have and the things that I deal with. And that's not a criticism.

It's just an observation. I think we all need to be safe and to say that no two people can really understand where the other person is coming from.

Not if you're going to try and do it from a physical, earthly standpoint. One of the issues that I'm observing as we look at this from a biblical standpoint, if we're going to look at this from God's eyes, is we're trying to deal with these problems externally.

As if the problem can be fixed on the outside. We just need to make some adjustments, rebuild, restructure, or change people's perspective.

If I can change a perspective, then there will be right action.

So perspective influences action. And it doesn't work this way.

And I'm not just saying this because this is my opinion. I think it's important that for those of us who are Christians, we look at this and we think about it biblically.

And there's nothing wrong with being handed important information and to be shown where we've been wrong in the past.

But to change something, it's not an external change as if I were to put on new sets of clothes or I were to build a different kind of a house.

Our problem isn't on the outside. Our problem actually is on the inside. It's inside of us that's causing all of these external problems.

So to say we just need to change the past, you can't do that.

Or to bring the past into clear perspective, which is helpful, it won't change the future.

To point out where the problem is doesn't mean you are going to discover the solution to inform that problem, because the problem is not an external problem.

It is internally. It has to deal with our heart. It's a heart issue. And this is where the Bible is extremely insightful because we know, as Jesus says, for out of the heart, the mouth speaks.

What's down inside of us is what comes out of us. James even talks about what's inside of us comes out in our actions or the lack thereof.

So if you want to deal with this issue in our culture and all the other issues that are in our culture, you can't keep trying to say it's a shift of perspective.

The other thing that's going to be often sought after is justice. We want there to be justice for things that have done in the past, things that were generations before us.

But you can't receive justice, not in this world and not in that way. You can't right wrongs that were in the past.

And I'm not trying to listen and I'm not trying to put my perspective on there.

But vengeance is mine, says the Lord, is an important idea in that we are all underneath the condemnation of God.

We are children of wrath. We are born this way. This is Ephesians 2. There is no one who's not underneath the wrath of God and guilty of our sins.

Yes, it is true. We have violated each other and we have hurt each other. We've done horrendous things to each other, but there is not one person who is sinless.

We can't, in our culture, take different groups of people and make them more righteous or set them in a place where they have less sin or even sinless.

That doesn't justify our actions, but it also, we have to be clear, you can't right those wrongs externally.

This is part of living in a broken world. This is part of living in a cursed world. Romans says,

Paul says it to the Romans, that the earth is groaning, waiting for the resurrection, this new world that's coming, and our bodies are groaning, waiting for this resurrection.

So how do we deal with this, this ongoing strife and struggle? Will we treat each other in the most horrendous ways?

The way that we say things to each other, that we treat each other? How do we, in other words, curb these bad actions?

I would say it's more important to not just stop doing things. The goal and aim in this life is to just not to do bad.

Let's not murder each other, and let's not do racist things, and let's not take advantage of each other. That's not the goal, not as Christians.

The Christian life is, the goal of it is just not to not sin, live neutral in life.

That's not what we're called to. We've actually been called to something far greater in a broken world, in a world full of sin, and hatred, and vileness.

We actually bring light, and we bring hope, and we bring a power that is far beyond anything our hands and minds can create.

It's a power outside of ourselves, and this is why it's called God's power, and God's power is encapsulated in something called the gospel.

The gospel seems to have lost its center and the focus in the Christian world lately. We are identifying the problems correctly.

There is definitely an issue, and it's been one that's been around here for thousands of years.

This current age is not the first age to have to deal with injustice, and racism, and treating humans inappropriately.

We're not the first. We can read not only biblical history, but we can read world history and see just how vile people can be.

But where does that come from? Where does that propensity to want to take advantage of someone else, to belittle, to put down or compare ourselves?

It's not taught to us externally. I know we believe that. We believe that it's been handed to us by our forefathers, and if we correct the right teaching externally, then we can fix the problem.

But it's not an external problem. As much as we want to try to create barriers and ways in which we can change us externally,

Colossians 2, Paul clearly says that the outside of the flesh, no matter what mechanism we put in place, the end of the chapter 2, it says it's of no value of stopping the indulgence of the flesh.

These indulgences, this desire, this outrage that we have cannot be controlled by what's outside of us.

But it seems so wise. It even says it has an appearance of wisdom.

Paul even says it has an appearance of godliness, but it cannot. What's interesting is

James is dealing with a church, multiple churches, in chapter 4 of the whole book. But in chapter 4, he says, what causes quarreling and fighting among you?

Is it not that your passions are at war with one another? They're battling against each other.

And where do those passions come from? In chapter 1, he says, our desires is what brings forth our actions and our desires are evil by nature because our hearts are black and dark and they're full of sin.

And there is nothing in this world that controls a black and dark sin.

This is why the most vile actions, they do not come from pressures outside of us.

It's what's spilling out of us. And when you take us and you start shaking us or you squeeze us in life, what is inside comes out.

Again, what does Jesus say? For out of the heart, the mouth speaks. So when someone says, well, you're a racist or you're this or that,

I don't disagree with them because this is where it is in our hearts. We all love ourselves and we're going to do whatever we can to take advantage of the person in front of us to better ourselves.

This is why James says in chapter 2, he's dealing with this church and he says to them, my brother, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our

Lord Jesus Christ. His point is you can't hold on to who Christ is, the person of who he is, this transforming power and then show partiality.

That means to choose one person over another. You can't do that. Why? Because of the nature of who

Christ is and because of the nature of the gospel. Those two are not compatible.

We're dealing with an internal change. We're dealing with an internal transformation, not an external.

He's saying if you are trusting in Christ and holding on to Jesus to transform not only your heart, but your mind and your thought and your perspective, there's no way for you to say that you truly are holding on to Christ and hold on to partiality at the same time.

It can't be done. There's something missing. There's something wrong. So what's the solution to partiality?

What's the solution to us acting on our own desires? What's the solution for us seeing sin from the inside coming out?

It's holding on to Christ and his transformative power. I think it's interesting in chapter, the end of chapter 3, what we're really wanting in this world, when you describe about we're trying to get rid of all the pain and struggle and everything that's wrong in our world, this is what we want our world to look like.

If you read the end of chapter 3, he says this, wisdom from above is pure, peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.

I believe that all of this volume and all of this passion and all of these different organizations and different letterings that have happened, they all desire the same thing.

It's commendable. I know what they want. They want to live in a world where it's peaceful. They want to live in a world where we're open to reason and we're sincere and there's purity and there's not violence.

But you can't have that by simply making people feel shamed, guilting them, using external fear tactics.

It doesn't change the heart. You can make someone feel guilty, but that doesn't mean you can cause them now to love.

You can make someone feel ashamed, but that shame isn't what leads them to true acts of love and kindness.

The question for the believer is what really does bring us true acts of kindness and love, a love that is far beyond whatever any human being could ever create?

Where does that capacity come from? It's amazing. It's a simple word, and it's called the gospel.

It's the good news of what Jesus can do to a vile, wretched sinner.

He could transform them. He can change them. Ezekiel 36 puts it this way. The promise is he pulls out that heart of stone, that which we're fighting against, that just causes us to have no capacity to be affectionate towards anything except for ourselves.

Pull out that heart of stone and put in a heart of flesh. And he says, and I will cause you to walk in my ways.

Early on in James, James is dealing with a church that is suffering, and as they suffer, they're being squeezed by every side.

And what's coming out of them is partiality and hatred in their tongue. They're using their tongue. James says it's a fire, and it's just causing all kinds of scorch to happen.

And how does he present to them in ways in which they can control that? He points to the liberation that they have in Christ.

He says, so act and so speak as ones who've been liberated by the law or the law of liberty, as those who are no longer under condemnation, which means you don't have to be controlled by your heart of stone.

You have a heart of flesh. You look to what you have in Christ. You look past to these circumstances that you think that you have.

Not only that, he says this in chapter one, he says, let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation, which means

I don't need to step on top of people. This is what racism does, right? It uses it to step on top of people, to progress, to move what their own agenda is forward.

Believers don't have to do that. Why don't they have to do that? Because everything we could ever need in this life and the life to come has been given to us in Christ.

As long as we keep our focus there, as long as we keep our hope on Jesus Christ, then we won't have the need to step on someone to get what we want, show partiality, be vile with our words, to be indifferent, to show favoritism to one person, gender or race or age above someone else.

We then show mercy and kindness and love because that's what we're receiving.

To yell at someone, to make them feel shamed and guilty will not change their action. It cannot change their heart.

You might be able to suppress them. You might be redirecting them. But down and deep inside, the real root of the problem is still there, and that cannot be changed unless Christ comes through the power of the gospel and liberates us from our sin.

Sin is the problem of racism and any other issue that we have within our culture. Sin is the cause.

It's not external actions. It's coming from within. From within us, sin comes out.

And how do we curb this and how do we change this? Paul says we walk by faith underneath the power of the

Spirit, and that comes to us by the preaching of the word, by the preaching of the gospel.

In other words, while we wait for Christ to come back and restore this world, it is broken and cannot be fixed.

But we can curb it and we can lessen it and we can make it a place of joy and happiness if we stay focused on Christ and we keep proclaiming

Christ. The moment you remove the power of the gospel, you lose all hope of changing us internally.

2 Corinthians says it this way in 318. It says that we are looking to the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, and it transforms us into his image.

1 John says it this way. What we will be, we are not yet, meaning that we are going to be perfect.

There will never be this selfish ambition within us ever again, but we're not that yet. So we're waiting for Christ's return, and it says this way, for everyone who thus hopes in themselves purifies themselves as he is pure.

So we look to Christ. We look how wonderful he is, and as we do that, we imitate him. We emulate him.

We trust in his power. It gives us the motivation. 1 John also says this.

Where does this power come to love one another sacrificially, to lay down our lives, to lay down our ambitions, this need to trample on top of each other and be just vile towards each other?

Where does that change come from? He says we love because he first loved us.

We look to the unconditional, full of mercy and gracious love of the

Father towards us, and we use that as our motivation to say, I don't need anything from you.

I don't need to trample on top of you. I don't need to consider you to be less than me. As a matter of fact,

Paul says in Philippians chapter 2 that we consider other people more significant than ourselves.

Why? Because we are in Christ, and we have everything in Christ. And if we have everything in Christ, I don't need to use you to make myself happy or to give myself more power or to give myself more significance.

I am significant. I have everything I need. So, Christians, encourage your pastors to continue to preach in Christ.

Focus on Christ. Let us center, as it says in Hebrews, laying aside the weight and the sin, anything that is keeping our eyes off of the author and finisher of our faith.

Then we're going to have hope of living in a place where it's not perfect, there's still struggle, there's still sin, but there's love and there's unity and harmony.

James says it this way, if you lack wisdom, ask of God and he will give it to you generously without reproach.

He's not going to rebuke you for it. And what happens when you have that wisdom? This is what James says, wisdom is from above.

It's pure, peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy, good fruits, impartial and sincere.

If that's what we want, let's begin with our churches. Let's begin with our brothers and sisters in Christ. Let's preach

Christ and seek for wisdom and give mercy and grace. That is the only hope we have until Christ comes and makes all things new.

I'd love to hear your engagement. You have any questions or any follow -up comments, leave those in the comments below.