Somehow The "Conservative" is Worse! (But Definitely More 'Pious' So There's That) - Part 2

All right, friends, well, let's continue. Let's continue the Gospel Coalition, How Churches Should Address Racial Injustice, Good Faith Debate. Now, if you noticed the last episode, it just kind of cuts off.

I don't even respond to the last thing he said. And a lot of people interpreted that as me kind of like, I don't even have to dignify this with a response. I wish I could take credit for that. But actually, for some reason, the recording just stopped and I ranted for another two and a half minutes that you didn't get to see.

So we're gonna chalk that up to Providence. And it was about reparations. And I've done a lot of content on reparations. If you're very interested in the topic, I completely destroyed a reparations argument that Eric Mason made one day at his church.

So you can look that up in the YouTube catalog and all that. But we're just gonna move forward. We're gonna power through and see what we can do here. Next up is the opponent of Jackie Chiles. I don't know his name, so let's continue.

Oh, by the way, one of the, E. Fitzgerald said that because I was calling him Jackie Chiles and doing the whole voice thing, that I was a bigot. And I gotta say, I was starting to get a little bit worried because I hadn't been called a bigot in a while.

So thank you, you've really, you've really helped me out. I got my encouragement back. Let's see, who's this guy? Dave Davis? Brian Davis is his name. So this is the, I guess the non-woke version of the racial injustice, Pastor Brian Davis.

I've never heard him speak. And so this should be interesting.

Clarifying the Debate Topic and the Role of the Local Church

What's the best approach for the church to address racial injustice? Now, I am assuming this question is asking what is the best approach for the local church to address racial injustice in the world?

The use of church just in the question itself is a little too ambiguous to meaningfully interact for me. So I'm gonna take it as what's the best approach for the local church to address racial injustice in the world?

And maybe touch on wider application.

This is not the first time that the person who's on the, I guess, supposedly the conservative side of this has expressed kind of confusion as to the debate topic. And I gotta be honest with you, what is that?

What is that? I don't know what that is. Are they really confused? Did Gospel Coalition not give them the appropriate information? Was there not allowed to be any back and forth? Was Brian Davis not allowed to say, hey, I'm not really sure, are you talking about the local church or the church at large?

Was that not part of the deal? What is that? Or is that something pathological in the mind of conservatives where they feel like they have to hedge and nuance things to death? I think it's probably more that than it is they weren't allowed to clarify.

That's just a very bizarre impulse. I don't really know what this means. It's like, okay, then why are you debating? I don't know.

The Local Church, the Universal Church, and Indirect Engagement With Racial Injustice

One of the first things we do want to do is separate the abilities of the institutional local church and the universal church composed of every individual believer. There are ways local churches should not address racial injustice that individual believers should.

And I think it's important that we separate what the church is supposed to do and what individual Christians are free to do. As an example, I think it's fine for a believer to have their country's flag waving in their own living room or hanging from their own doorpost.

But I think it's unfaithful for a local church to do the same. Similarly, I think it's fine for an individual believer to be devoted to having a particular legal policy be changed but I think it would be unwise for a congregation to adopt the same approach and the same focus.

Now there's exceptions to every rule. I think in unique distresses, there ought be unique calls. We'd be having a different conversation. Again, if we're talking about our church could house runaway slaves, or if we were in Germany, we're talking about we could house Jews who were being hunted.

But all things being equal, this leads me to conclude that the primary way that local churches meaningfully address racial injustice in the world is indirectly. And indirectly here means that the connection is just not immediate.

By that, I don't mean that local churches should never mention racial injustice as a category or that local churches should fail to expound on the presence of racial injustice in the Bible. There are many, many instances of racial injustice in the scriptures or that we shouldn't call for the same response that the word calls for to such instances of racial sin.

No, local churches must do that. If they're to faithfully preach the word of God, if they are to declare the full counsel of God, then they're gonna talk about the sin of racial prejudice, racial injustice, and racial partiality.

And it should be condemned as not being in step with the gospel. Now, it's another thing entirely if that racial injustice is not out in the world, but it's at home in the local church. In such a case, 1 Corinthians 5 tells us plainly, is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge?

God judges those outside. In cases where the racial injustice is inside the church, then there are clear, commanded ways where to address it in God's word.

You know, I gotta be honest with you. This guy is really over-complicating this. Not that anything he said is wrong necessarily, but he's like, he's making these distinctions. Okay, fine, make the distinctions, whatever, but it's really not that complicated of an issue.

And unfortunately, and this has been the case in a number of these debates, the woke liberal person has done a much better job focusing on the actual issues. So we'll see if Brian can turn this around, but I don't know, I mean, I'm doing this for a video and I've checked out.

It's like, man, like, I don't know, I don't know.

The Great Commission, Christian Nationalism, and Christ's Authority Over the Nations

What I mean by the primary way that local churches meaningfully address racial injustice in the world is indirectly, is that to call the local church to specific social activities or to charge them to certain civic participations is beyond the bounds of the local church's authority.

And I think in most situations, it could be pastoral malpractice. I think it's the other side of the Christian nationalist coin that seeks to bind God's kingdom to this world in a way that Jesus seemed eager to decouple them.

This is gonna be a disaster. This is gonna be a real disaster.

The great commission doesn't have an asterisk that says, teach them to observe everything I've commanded unless they're like in the civic realm, because if they're in the civic realm, I don't really, we have no authority over what they do.

So morality in the civic realm, the church kind of has to leave that alone because that could be pastoral malpractice. After all, Jesus wanted to decouple the Christian, the kingdom of God from this present world.

That's not true. That's not true. There is no asterisk there. It's teach, make disciples of the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. So we ought to be converting every nation, every nation.

That doesn't exempt the leaders of those nations. It doesn't exempt judges in those nations. And then once they're converted, we're to teach them everything that Christ commands. And you better believe that Jesus Christ, the King of kings, the Lord of lords, there could be no more profound political statement than that.

He's the King, He sits on the throne, and He's the King of a real kingdom. He's the Lord of a real kingdom over all the other lords, over all the other kings. Jesus is the King of those kings, and they are responsible before Him to punish evildoers and to promote what is good.

How do they define evildoer and what is good? Well, they better do that according to what the Son says, according to the King of kings and the Lord of lords, because He's not just an aloof Lord. He's not just a King who's just, I'm not really interested in the affairs of my kingdom.

You know, I know these other lords are below me. These other kings are below me. The Bible describes them as servants, as deacons of God. I know that they're below me, but I'm not interested in what they do.

No, no, of course He's interested in what they do. If they're to be punishing evildoers, then they better define evildoers according to how the Son defines evildoers. If they're to be promoting what is good, they should be defining what is good according to what the Son says, because He's on His throne, making all His enemies a footstool for His feet.

And by the way, that is what Christian nationalism teaches, and you better believe that there's nothing wrong with that teaching. That's a teaching directly from the scripture. We are, our governments, our civil organizations, they are below Christ.

They serve Christ, and whether or not they know it or not, whether they acknowledge it or not, they are there to punish evildoers according to Christ. They are there to promote what is good according to Christ, and they can either do it poorly or they can do it well.

Right now, we're doing it poorly, and we need to be promoting and plotting and planning and scheming to make sure that we can disciple those nations in such a way that they start to do that well. Anyway, so he's like, well, this is the other side of the Christian nationalist coin.

I see where he's going with this, and this is gonna be a disaster. I'm obviously, I'm most likely not gonna be on this guy's side in this debate.

Remember that in the moment of the greatest injustice.

In the history of mankind. Only Gospel Coalition can find someone to debate against Jackie Chiles, and I'm not on their side. This is amazing.

It's amazing how they find these people. And namely, the crucifixion of our Lord. Jesus taught us something profoundly otherworldly about his way. He said, my kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, but my kingdom is not from the world.

The church's work Right, so you guys understand what this is all about, right? Jesus's authority, his ability to rule and to reign, the way he gets his power, the way he gets his authority, is not the way the world gets authority.

Because the way the world gets authority is they fight and they argue, and they go to war with each other, and whoever has the biggest guns wins, and they lord it over each other, and things like that.

That's how the world derives who's in charge, who's in authority. The guy who's carrying the biggest stick, the toughest, baddest guy on the block, he's in charge of the block. That's not how Jesus's kingdom works.

Jesus is the king, he's the creator, he's the king of kings, he's the Lord of lords. He did what God the Father told him to do, and God the Father gave him all of this. It's all his. One of my favorite Psalms, Psalm 2.

This is the reign of the Lord's anointing. This is about Jesus Christ as the king of kings and the Lord of lords. The Psalm says, why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel against the Lord and against his anointed.

That's talking about how the world derives power, how they fight it out, and they plot, and they plan, and they scheme in order to get authority over the Lord and against the Lord's anointed. That's what the world does.

And then the passage says that God, who sits in the heavens, he sees their scheming, and he laughs at them because they have no hope of gaining power this way. And what does it say later? It says, you are my son, today I have begotten you.

This is God the Father talking to Jesus. You are my son, today I have begotten you. Ask of me and I will make the nations your heritage and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them to pieces like a potter's vessel.

How does God get the authority? Well, he asks Jesus, how does Jesus get the authority to be king of kings and Lord of lords? His kingdom is not of this world, it's of heaven. It's the kingdom of heaven.

How does Jesus get it? Well, what he does is he asks the Father. He obeys the Father in everything, and then he asks the Father, and what does the Father do? He gives it to them. It's his heritage. That's what the Father does.

He gives them, Jesus, all the nations. It's a completely different system. He has authority because he's the son of God. That's how he has authority. He doesn't have it the way the world gets authority.

That's what he's talking about there. It doesn't mean, obviously, that the nations aren't Jesus's. When it says my kingdom is not of this world, he doesn't mean he doesn't own the nations because you better believe if Psalm 2 says, ask of me and I will make the nations your heritage, I don't think Jesus just didn't ask.

He forgot to ask. Well, you know, that's not my kingdom anyway. I'm not gonna bother the Father about that because that's really not my kingdom. That's not what it's talking about, obviously.

The Great Commission as Transformation of the Nations

By that, I mean the local church's work is not to transform the world, but to transform the saints.

That's not true because that's not what the commission says. That's not what the commission says. The commission says to baptize, make disciples, make students of all nations. It doesn't say, you know, just a handful of people here and there, a couple of people.

No, the nations will be discipled, and we will do it by baptizing them and teaching them to obey everything. You better believe that there will be transformation. And by the way, like individuals who transform, if enough of them transform, the nations are transformed, obviously.

I just don't understand why there's this artificial disconnect. I don't get it.

They are to be focused on making disciples who obey Jesus's commands, who potently spread the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. Our task is to build ourselves up in this most holy faith, to pray in the Holy Spirit, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life, keeping ourselves in the love of God while saving as many others as we can.

And how do you keep yourself in the love of God? You obey everything he commands. That's straight from scripture. Jesus says, to abide in my love, you do what I say. Right? And so again, why is there an artificial disconnect here?

If you are actually doing this, if you're actually accomplishing the Great Commission and people are obeying Christ in everything, because that's part of the commission, how does that not result in a changed world, a changed culture?

How does that not renew things? How does that not restore things? I just don't understand this weird artificial distinction. It makes absolutely no sense at all. The problem with the woke is not that they're trying to change the culture.

The problem with the woke is that they're changing the culture using a pagan, idiotic, ridiculous, upside down, satanic version of what reality and justice is. That's the problem with the woke.

In short, it's to make the most biblical Christians that our ministries can produce. Believers that will shine the most brightly as light in the perversion.

Maybe I missed it, but you know what he said? He talks about the best Christians you can possibly produce and he's talking about praying and he's talking about spreading the gospel and he's talking about probably doing your devotionals.

But actually, in the scriptures, he's talking about obedience. That's what the transformation is. It's conversion. Not conversion so you can then do your devotionals every day as much as I love doing devotionals.

Not conversion so that you can pray every day. That's as much as prayer is important. It's conversion, baptize the nations, teaching them to observe everything. It's about obedience. It's about bending the knee willingly.

You willingly bend the knee to Christ and do what he says in every area of your life, whether you're a civil magistrate or you're a carpenter. Obey Christ in everything. That's the commission. It's about obedience.

And of course, that's going to require total transformation. Is the great commission gonna be accomplished or not? See, that's the question we all need to ask ourselves. Is the commission gonna be accomplished or not?

Are all of Christ's enemies gonna be made a footstool for his feet or not? Will we inherit this earth or not? These are the questions we need to ask ourselves.

All of us in crooked generation have the most potent flavoring of salt they can achieve among their neighbors, saints who are consumed with the glory of God, the gospel of Jesus Christ, the eternality of men's souls, and who are eager to love their neighbors well.

This will only be accomplished by preaching the word of God Christ-centeredly, for we will only behave like Christ when we behold him in his word. That is how I would understand. The local church best addresses racial injustice by producing the most God-glorifying, Christ-exalting, gospel-sharing, good works-doing, compassionate and merciful believers that it can.

Good Works, Charity, Unity, Hope, and the First-Importance Gospel

So he talks about good works. At least he hit that, but that's key. That's critical. That's how we abide in the love of Christ, by doing what he commands. And there's a whole lot of detail in some of those commands.

Now, obviously, some of that law applies in different ways. We get that, we understand that. But I just, this idea, this is a loser, guys. And I don't mean this person's a loser. I mean, this is a losing argument.

This is a loser of an argument to pretend like the gospel and the role of a Christian is not transformational in this world. As if, yes, our goal is to make disciples of nations and we're supposed to make the best Christians we have, but not civil magistrates.

Like, they shouldn't be ruling Christianly. And not judges, they shouldn't be judging Christianly because our job is not to transform the culture, guys, obviously, it's just to make good Christians. And it's like, I know he's not, he didn't say that specifically, but that would have to be an outworking of this logic where it's like, no, no, no, we can't be, that's not, it's just tangential.

No, no, no, private Christian life, that's what he's pushing forward here. And he's arguing against the woke church by saying, look, that's not the role of the Christian. By the way, this is a de facto argument for the woke church, in my opinion, because he's basically saying, no, that's not our role.

And the woke church is saying, well, obviously, if you're transformed by the gospel, then you're gonna be transforming the culture. And because he has no biblical answer for that, he has no biblical way to transform the culture, someone's gonna be transforming the culture.

And if you just decide I'm not doing it, guess who wins? Guess whose vision of the future is going to be worked towards? It's just that simple, guys, it's just that simple. This is a loser of an argument.

Now, that kind of philosophy addresses those kinds of issues, but again, it takes some distance to see how they connect. So here are 10 brief aims that this kind of gospel ministry seeks to produce in every saint.

This kind of ministry aims to form believers that pray first, to pray. Prayer is a means of addressing racial injustice, to pray for their governing officials, law enforcement officers, public servants, and everyone in high positions, to make laws in a society that are more just and more good, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life that is godly and dignified in every way.

The Bible says this is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God, our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. The second thing this produces is it aims to form believers that feel, that weep over wrongdoing, that lament over injustice, whose eyes shed streams of tears when God's law is not kept.

Those who express their tears without weaponizing them, those who out of compassion and weep with

So you can weep when people don't obey the law, but you better not actually tell them to obey the law. You better not transform our culture so that more people obey the law. You better not implement that law, but you can cry about it, but you can't actually implement it.

Those who weep, just like our Lord Jesus, who was lamenting. Three, it aims to form believers that expect evil. Scripture calls this the present evil age. We are not going to make this age better. Therefore, we should expect a profound misunderstanding of justice and a profound amount of injustice in the world.

And we certainly want to work to restrain as much evil as possible, but we need to appreciate we are in an evil age. We should know that injustice will abound wherever the gospel is not fully believed

How do you restrain evil without transforming the culture? How do you do it?

I don't understand. An adorning faithfulness, and that doesn't get fixed till glory. Four, I think this aims to form believers who expose and oppose evil. And that's costly, as we all know. It costs John the Baptist his head, but it's part of being the light of the Lord, to not partake in any unfruitful works of darkness, but to instead expose them.

The fifth thing it does is it aims to form believers that are zealous for good works. And we might do those good works very differently. Some may protest, others may never participate in one.

Some You see, this man has given every bit of Justin Giboney's argument to him. Every bit of it. It's absolutely unbelievable. Well, you gotta do good works. That's the aim of a Christian. Maybe that includes protesting.

Maybe that includes everything that he's talking about, but it could also include other things. I mean, I guess so.

May vote. Others may not vote at all. Some might become an activist who labored to be an agent of change in society. Others may focus their attention on their own affairs and seek to honor Christ in the quiet confines of their day-to-day lives.

We should all be eager to do good in order to love and to adorn the doctrine of God. As scripture says, as we have opportunity, we're to do good to all, especially to the household of faith. The sixth aim that this produces in believers is to make them full of charity.

Now, there may be one particular area or avenue of seeking justice that one say is really excited about, that another is just not as excited or compelled by. And rather than bite and devour one another, charity assumes that though we disagree on a possible course of action, you love Christ and others just as much as I do.

That kind of charity is essential and reflects that we know a God who loves. The seventh aim I think this produces is believers that trust God, who trust God despite circumstances. Saints ought to be rooted in God's complete, powerful and wise sovereignty, even in suffering.

To be able to passionately still praise him as truly good even in hardship. And to testify that his people are truly free, even in injustice. Freedom for us is not circumstantial, but being in Christ.

So even in the deepest injustice, we know a peace that surpasses understanding and we rejoice in the Lord always. Eighth, the eighth thing I think this forms in believers are believers who glory in their unity in Christ above their ethnic identities.

This is perhaps one of the strongest apologetics to a watching divided world that we have is to invite them out of that divided world into Christ United Church. Where here those ethnic distinctions are not made, but rather all are equally honored in Christ.

Nine, the ninth aim it forms in believers is those who rejoice in hope. Things are bad and will get worse until Christ returns and we entrust ourselves to him and judges justly. So while we are bothered by injustice, we need remember that waiting is a worshipful way of engaging in racial injustice.

Even in the deepest valleys of racial injustice, believers have a real hope. Heaven is coming. Though tribulation and injustice abounds now, his kingdom is forever. His heaven will be perfect. And that is the hope he calls us to look towards.

In fact, to set our hope fully on. We do not live for this life only, we live in view of the resurrection. Our citizenship is in heaven. And from it, we're waiting for a king and a savior. We can endure all things now, knowing that one day soon, Christ our savior will make all things new.

He'll wipe away every tear we've ever cried and he will repay himself every evil against us in his vengeance. And lastly, the 10th aim it produces in believers, at least that philosophy of ministry and how it addresses those matters is it aims to form believers who keep the gospel of first importance.

The most unique thing we can do on this planet in any country or city is to tell men and women how they might be reconciled to God, how they might partake of his divine nature and how they might escape the corruption that is in the world because of sin.

That is the chief ministry we have as Christians. The sharing of the gospel was God's greatest act of love towards us. It will be our greatest act of love towards others as well. While some of us might become activists and we ought to support that, we must remember that all of us have been called to be ambassadors.

God making his appeal through us, imploring others on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake, he made him who knew no sin to be sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

The world has nothing to offer but injustice, but God offers true righteousness in his son. So in summary, I do not think we can envision a Christianity where it is a flaw to conclude along with Paul, I decided to know nothing among you except for Jesus Christ and him crucified.

For like in every age, that kind of Christianity will best address the needs of our day as well.

But of course that's not, when Paul said that, he did not have a truncated Great Commission. You know, a lot of people have been accused of having a truncated gospel, and that's really not exactly correct, but there's a truncated Great Commission here because what he said here is that the news of how God redeems sinners, that's of first importance, and that is of first importance, but you also have other important things that you need to do.

Because if conversion was all that matters, we would only have the first part of the commission, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. But that's not what the Great Commission says.

It goes on and says, teaching them to observe everything that Christ commands. And so while the gospel might be of first importance, we cannot pretend that that's the only important thing that the church has to do.

There's a lot of teaching, excuse me, that needs to get done that is likewise very important. I wanna go into this list, but this video has already gotten to 30 minutes. What you just heard was a complete capitulation.

He laid his weapons down and he put up the white flag, and this is not a debate in any way. I wanna go through his 10-point list and show you exactly why I mean that. I'm so disappointed in this, and my demeanor is downcast, so I wanna do this when I'm feeling a little bit better.

I hope you found this video helpful. God bless.