Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / June 7, 2020 | In The Spirit Of Reconciliation

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June 7, 2020 | In The Spirit Of Reconciliation · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Hey everybody, welcome back.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: Great to see you.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: My goodness.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's amazing.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_01: I sure didn't expect this many people.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: Rodney and Steven and I are kind of nervous.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: We we may not be able to handle all of these people.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: So let me make a word.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: So we got these restart t-shirts that were advertising that we're gonna put online.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: I think you can order them this week.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: Can I just give you the inside word that guys you need to order a size larger and girls you might need to order two sizes larger?
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's insane.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: But anyway, they really do feel soft.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: Okay?
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: So let me say a word about tonight.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: So we had two emotions.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: So elders got together this week, talked for a long time.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: All the staff, pastors got together, we talked for a long time, and we actually could sense two different feelings inside of us.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: One was just flat out emotional.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: It was sadness, it was grief.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: And the other was was we we it's not enough to just grieve.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: We need to talk, we need to think, we need to see what the Lord would say to us.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: So tonight is sort of the more emotional thing.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be exactly what what we're calling it, a gathering of lament.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: Clarence Newton of New Life Church and I are gonna host it.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: But uh, you know, on the Zoom call that about 12 of us pastors, I think about eight African Americans and four of us whiteys were on on Friday night.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: He he uh he challenged, you know, all the fellow pastors to to come and to bring their churches and so forth.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: But I mean, it's not gonna be long.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: I've done I've done enough of those marches, the political stuff, and the standing on the steps.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: I'm old enough to have been part of a lot of those.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: And that's not what this is.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna start at five, and if you're there at 5 30, it'll it'll have been over for five minutes.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: Okay?
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: So so it's just maybe singing Amazing Grace and having some prayers.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: That's the emotional part.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: This morning, frankly, is is more you know, challenging our minds as well as our hearts.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: Let me give you a background to this.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: Four years ago in 2016, within like 48 hours of each other, twice a white cop shot and killed a black.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: And and uh and what happened is that is is that one thing's for sure that in both of those cases the African American did not deserve what happened to him.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you can analyze backgrounds, but that was the fact of the matter.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: I was in New York City at the time, walking the streets with our high schoolers we were witnessing at the time, and uh I was getting phone calls and we needed to do something about it, and I was got on the phone with a civil rights leader in our church at that time, whose name was Annie Mini Ekong.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: Do you remember him?
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: They just barely left to move to Washington, D.C.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I set up this kind of a thing with him four years ago.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: And the problem was that in the next week, five police officers were shot in Dallas, and all of a sudden, everybody, including the president who was Obama at that time, got on and said, Hey, law and order is what we need to preserve in our country.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: So that just made things so messy, didn't quite know what to do, and it just canceled it.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: Okay?
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: Well, something like that, as you know, has happened at this time.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: We have a guy who didn't deserve what happened to him up in Minnesota saying, I can't breathe and getting killed, getting murdered.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: And all of a sudden you had justifiable protests and everything else.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: And then after a few days, you know, it got violent.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there are professional agitators, as you know, took it, and like in 2016, it just got a little bit crazy, and it even came to our town, to our city.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: But but there's just no way that I felt that we could let this opportunity go by.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: And we found a psalm, it's called Psalm 11, and the three of us, so because this psalm touches on both race, I mean in a way, it touches on both injustice and violence, the loss of law and order.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: So we're gonna talk about that, and we're gonna be try to be open and we're gonna try to be honest with you.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm so glad I got these two guys, and I want them right now to uh to introduce themselves and their families.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: Can you can you put up a picture on the screen of Stephen's family?
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: Or do we not have the videos that I gave you here?
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, bingo.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: Tell us who who's up there.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_03: Uh thanks, Pastor Jim.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_03: Um so I'm Stephen McIntosh, that's my beautiful family up there, and my amazing wife, Ashley McIntosh.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_03: As you see her, she's probably been running around taking care of kids during cubbies and supporting the organization and the congregation in that way.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_03: But you see my wonderful four kids, uh, oldest, Austin, um, my oldest daughter, Samantha, who's 11, and then the two that uh tend to run around and cause the most grief for my wife is the youngest ones, um Olivia and Alexander.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks a lot.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: So uh Rodney, I I think there's a picture of your gorgeous family here.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, there we are, uh a couple weeks back taking pictures.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_04: So there's my wife, Laura.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, our oldest is in the middle, her name is Annalise.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, our our middle child is on my lap, her name is Emiline, we call her Emmy Kate, and then our youngest one's in my wife's lap.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_04: Her name is Ellison.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: And they are fun kids.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: I've been over.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: Crazy.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they call them crazy, but that's what kids are supposed to be like.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: So if you kids start running around, you know, in here, we'll go, hey, we're used to that.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: So let's jump right into the text.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: We've got a lot to do, and we're gonna end with the Lord's table.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna jump right into Psalm 11 right now, and we're gonna discuss it.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll start by taking you through it.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: Let's take a look at Psalm 11.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: It says it's for the director of music, that's part of verse 1, and it's by David, which is significant because it turns out that David is at this point seemingly on the run.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: We don't know if it's from Saul or Absalom, Philistines, but he's in trouble.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of danger.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so he begins, as many psalms do, with the theme of the psalm.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: And the theme goes like this to Yahweh, which in some of your Bibles is translated the Lord, to Yahweh, I've run for shelter.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: I make no apologies for the fact that the translation this morning is mine, it's ours, it's it's it's not gonna represent perfectly what's in your Bible, but it is accurate, okay?
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: So he says, To the Lord, I run for shelter.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: But he's got the advisors, and he's speaking to people who have his best in mind, who are his friends, and he says to them, How dare you say to me, flee like a bird to the mountains?
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: Okay?
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: His advisors are telling him, you know, get out of dodge.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: Get well, the getting is good.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: Run away, there's nothing you can do, the violence is really terrible, and whatever.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: Notice how they continue.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: Verse 2, the advisors say to him, I forget what they say, but if we can put the screen up there, then I can read it because oh, there we go.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: Flee like a bird to the mountains.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: Can't you see the wicked bending their bows?
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: They've set their arrows on the bowstring to shoot from the dark against the morally upright.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: And that's sort of a feeling that we get.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of the stuff that's happening now, happening in the dark.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: You don't see it coming.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's always a surprise.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: We feel like, you know, we feel like the world is collapsing around us and it's all happening out of our control, that they're enemies of what's good and what's right, okay?
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody expected what happened in Minnesota.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: Just bang, just like that.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: Or nobody expected what's been happening in cities since then, even in smaller places.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: All right?
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: So then verse 3 is the climax, the last thing that they say to him, the advisors, and it's the key verse in this psalm.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: When the foundations, they say to David, hey, when the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do?
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: And their answer is nothing.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: But David's answer, by the way, is they can do a lot.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: Okay?
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: That's why we're up here.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: We wouldn't have come up here if when the foundations of society are crumbling, there's nothing we can do.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: We're up here because there is something we can do.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: So what they're saying is when the foundations, when everything, when the found when the legal and moral and spiritual foundations of society are under attack and are being destroyed, and we're all scared, and it feels like the world's on fire, what can the righteous do?
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: So, my first question.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: So the Psalm divides into two parts.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: First part we've just taken, verses one through three, it's the most famous.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, we'll do four through seven later, but I'd like to ask you guys, just introductory, it's not as though we're ignorant of this.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: Anyone who's been watching TV could partly answer this question, but what are the foundation destroying problems that you would say are dismantling our society right now?
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: Either one of you.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: Rodney Stardust.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so um let me begin with this.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_04: Is um I don't think this is merely a political or a cultural issue.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_04: Um I think this is a gospel issue.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_04: And I say that because um we're not the first country and the first people that will have to deal, that have dealt with an issue of injustice, and more specifically the issue of racial injustice in our country.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_04: And it's a gospel issue because it goes all the way back to the beginning of time.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_04: So when when Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, that God promised them that death would come.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_04: God didn't execute his judgment immediately on Adam and Eve when they ate of the fruit.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_04: It's because God in his in his in his common grace towards his creation to believers and non-believers alike, he allows us to enjoy what it is that he's created.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_04: So God gives us common grace.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_04: I experience common grace just like the non-believer experiences God's common grace and his goodness to his creation.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_04: Now, what else also is true about us is that, and about me and about anybody else who's believe who believes is that we do have a saving grace.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_04: We have a special grace.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_04: Common grace is is not a part of salvation, but we can experience it.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_04: We have experienced saving grace.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_04: And what God does in his saving grace is that he or in his in his common grace is that he sets up different realms of side of uh human life for us to enjoy that are good, that reflect his goodness and his creation.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_04: Like, like what is it, what does he set up for our good?
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_04: Uh so uh for instance, he sets up the physical realm in our bodies for us to enjoy and to look at his creation.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_04: He sets up the artistic realm, the creative realm for us to express and and and create music and and and art and different things like that.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_04: And then also uh I think most importantly for us in this conversation this morning is that he sets up the societal realm.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_04: In societal realm, the first thing that he sets up in the societal realm is the is the family.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_04: That's for our good.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_04: Whether you're a believer or you're not a believer, that's that's for our good as human beings.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_04: The second thing that he's the that we also see in scripture is that God sets up the human government.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_04: It comes from God.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_04: It comes from God.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_04: You look at Romans 13, and it says that that the people who serve in human government government are God's servants, that they would be the ones that would execute wrath on those who would do evil.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_04: So we know that God sets it up and we know that those things are in place for our good.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_04: At the same time, we have to be sober to the fact that because it is a human institution, that it is susceptible to corruption, it is susceptible to evil, it is susceptible to discrimination and bias and prejudice.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_04: That we're not that that institution is not any different than a business that would be set up that is subject to somebody committing fraud.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_04: And so as we look at, I think we have to, I think we have to have a willingness to acknowledge that history would tell us that when our country was set up, there were systems and laws and people that were in place, and in some ways, not all, but in some ways instituted and encouraged evil practices, things that were discriminatory, that that were not for the common good of everybody, that were biased, um and it was against one race of people, and it was set up for another race of people.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_04: You know, Jim, I think about it.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: There was a book that was just published called America's Original Sin.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what you're talking about.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_04: I think about it in in this way that if I was if I was born in the 1940s, that there would have been a period of my life where I wouldn't have had the same rights as you.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: You'd have had about half, three-fifths, whatever.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_04: I would have had some, but not all.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_04: Um and and I think that's important for us to realize that that the human government is subject to corruption and that there are laws and things that have happened.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, you think about what happened after the Civil War, things like uh uh uh slave codes and black codes and uh Plessy versus Ferguson, and and and there were evil things that had to be replaced, the new laws that came into place to to replace the old laws because the old laws were bad.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_04: And and I think we have to um we have to realize that the the current climate of what's happening in our country and in our nation right now is that uh you have a group of people that yes, we have come further, and yes, there are new laws, and and legally now that I'm in in the same predicament as you, that uh that I'm I'm legally equal as you, uh, but we have a people that still experience the same feelings, uh still experience the corruption, uh whether that's from the government, like George Floyd did, or whether that's from people in our society, like a mod aubre did.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_04: And and we uh we just can't ignore the reality of that.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_03: Um, let me let me let Stephen jump in here.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and uh provide a little bit more context to it too, is we're in the conversation about right or wrong, human rights, social injustice.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_03: Um and when I go to the when I go to the Bible and go to the word, the first thing I think about is the parables of the Good Samaritan.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_03: When you think about the story um of the Good Samaritan, two people pass before the Samaritan actually stopped.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_03: The Levites and the Priest.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_03: And in society, what's impacting us is we tend to turn a blind eye to something that's not impacting us directly.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_03: And when we think about the parable of the good Samaritan, you have to ask yourself, why did the priest and why did the Levites pass that person on the side?
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_03: And that's the same thing that we have to ask ourselves today that we're we're in this conversation today.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_03: And that's that's why I feel it's so important to bring this message to the to the congregation and to open up dialogue about how do we identify when there's injustice, how do we identify what's right or wrong, and how do we take action.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: You know, one thing you said when we were chatting this week, you know, you use the word journey, or you use the word like um um, you know, there's a tendency that some of us have to say, well, that was back then, but now we're okay.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: And and I think you were piggybacking maybe on maybe on the same thing Rodney was talking about about the starts in creation, the fall, that there's there's there's there's a plague of bias, there's a virus of sin that still plagues us.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: And uh you made some sort of a comment about how you know it's a journey that won't end until Christ returns.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: Did you remember anything?
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, absolutely.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_03: You know, when Rodney was sharing about um looking at the timeline, you know, I recognize that it's really easy to get complacent and look at and compare where we were at in the 50s and 40s and say, hey, we're not there anymore.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_03: Racism is not there.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_03: That's not a problem.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_03: But we have to understand this is a journey.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_03: There's always gonna be inequality.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_03: If it's not against the black community, if it's not against the Hispanic community, if it's not against women, if it's not against social economical status, there's always gonna be a journey that we're on until Christ returns.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_03: And for us, it's about creating awareness of understanding where we're at on that journey and how self-aware are we to open up our eyes to see that injustice that's out there.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: So this leads real right in.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: Put the next question up there because Rodney, it seems this leads right into the next question, which is why shouldn't students of the Bible be surprised?
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like you've already kind of answered that.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't just go back 400 years, it goes back, I don't know, 4,000.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, like I as I stated earlier, I think it it it's a gospel issue because it deals with the hearts of people.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_04: That why would we have a country and why do we have countries currently that set up laws um and and and carry out practices that are um that are discriminatory and biased towards another group of people, not just in America, but in other countries.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_04: Why does that happen?
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_04: And and that's where I don't believe it's just it's it's it's not merely a political or a cultural thing in our day, it's it's always been an issue.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, and and we see God in his word instruct his children to learn to do right, to learn to care about justice.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and so it shouldn't come as a surprise to us if we're reading our Bibles that God cares about that a bunch, because the issue has been around speaking of time.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: So here, uh David had advisors that were giving him the conventional wisdom, which is run to the mountains, get away.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: So, how does that, does that is that happening today?
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: Is there a conventional wisdom that we're hearing from our advisors or our counselors or our well-meaning people, our friends, that's telling us to, you know, to to head for the hills?
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, oh there it is.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: What what is the conventional fleet of the mountains wisdom about how to respond to this crisis, racial j injustice and violence?
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not sure that's an easy question to answer, but does anything occur to you about that?
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, when we think about conventional wisdom, it's understanding biases.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, what's leading us now and is over a course of time and and my background is I have a criminal justice background.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_03: I work in security.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_03: A lot of times when people say security, they think of IT, and I have to remind them like no, I'm on the other side of security.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and there is a point part of dealing with the criminal element that I have to do on a day-to-day basis, and and law enforcement, they have to deal with that as well on a day-to-day basis.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_03: And you know what, my heart goes out to them, and I also um you know I pray for them every day.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_03: Law enforcement also know that they're on the front line, and I cannot speak for them because they are in the trenches and they see it differently.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_03: But also I understand that when you deal with the criminal element on a day-to-day basis, biases kick in.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_03: And when something happens to you, there's a bias there.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_03: You know, we think about the sins of our father, we think about the sins of our of our grandparents, we think about the the thinking, the beliefs that get passed down in generations.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_03: And those are true biases that kick in.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_03: And when we talk about conventional wisdom, conventional wisdom is just that, the biases that we've developed over the years that sometimes will turn a blind eye to what's going on, or be able to not recognize the injustice that's out there or the inequality that's happening in our society.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_03: In fact, turn a blind eye.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: That does that is kind of a conventional wisdom.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_04: I think so too.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_04: I think the other conventional wisdom is um you you run to your mountain, I'm gonna run to mine.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: And whites run to run to Mount White, blacks run to Mount Black?
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_04: Whatever it is, and and yeah, in in in this situation, it could be that you know, maybe it's not even worth having a conversation about or talking about or engaging.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_04: Um let's just try to move past it and hopefully it blows over in a couple weeks.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_03: When you put in perspective in the Good Samaritan uh parable, that was conventional wisdom by the Levites and the priests to continue walking by.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_03: And they felt that someone else was going to deal with that problem and not engage.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_03: And that is the conversation we're in today.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: So David says, you know, uh, how dare you give me the conventional wisdom?
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: Basically, uh, in the next slide, I think I put it down what what his view is, he's saying, hey, I have already run for dear life straight into the arms of Yahweh, so why would I run for the hills?
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: Okay?
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: Now, the reason this is significant for us is that the last half of the Psalm, actually the last four verses, four, five, six, seven, explains why David says that we should remind ourselves of who the Lord is so that that's where we start.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we should engage in other things, but we need to start.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: By running to the Lord.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so take a look at verses 4, 5, 6, and 7 here.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: He says, Notice where Yahweh sits.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: He's not sitting in the mountains.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: He's up in heaven.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: And notice what he sees.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yahweh is in his holy temple.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yahweh's throne is in heaven.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: His eyes observe.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: He's in the heaven.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: He's not sitting on some mountain somewhere that you can run to.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: And besides that, he sees everything that happens.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: Even if a policeman turns off, you know, his video on there, so nobody can see what he's doing.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: Even if things happen in the dark, and even if, as we have it here in Topeka, and admittedly, you know, as the mayor was telling us the other day, uh, the main agitator at Target, you know, announce.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm I'm from out of town.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: I'm here and I'm I'm trying to get everybody to get wild.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: And even when stuff like that happens, the Lord sees that even if nobody else does.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: And beyond that, in verse 5, we see that the Lord says what he loves and what he hates.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yahweh approves the righteous, but the wicked and those who love violence, he hates.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: Notice, the wicked are the unjust.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: So we have both of the issues of racial injustice here, it seems to me, and the rioting violence.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: And he hates that.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: He says he hates it.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_01: By the way, let me share with you.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: So I hang with Jews a lot online and other things and Israelis, and across the world this last week, guess what the it's called the Torah portion.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: Synagogue Jews, including the ones here in Topeka, across the world, they read through the Pentateuch, the five books of the Torah, they read through it every year.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: And the passage they came to that they all have to read, and the rabbi's commenting on the last this last week, is the most race-oriented passage in the whole testament.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's very simple.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: Numbers chapter 12, verse 1.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: Moses' own sister, brother, Aaron and Miriam, it says, criticized him, literally spoke against him because of the Kushite woman he had married, because indeed he had married a Cushite woman, Cush, the land which is presently Sudan and Ethiopia, the darkest skinned people in Africa.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_01: And there was a kind of racism even inside the nation of Israel, who were brown, against really black people.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_01: Moses was married to one.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_01: Okay?
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: Now, when I grew up in the church I grew up in, you weren't supposed to intermarry.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_01: Interracial marriage was bad.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: They would have expected that God would have spoken against that marriage.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: He doesn't.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_01: In verse 10 of that chapter, God is irate.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: He says, I hate this.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: And he says to Miriam, basically, you like your fair skin?
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: You're proud of your fair skin.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: I'll give you fair skin.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: And he strikes her with leprosy.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: And as a result, she has to leave the community, and it only takes concerted prayer by Moses and Aaron to allow her to get her healed and to bring her back into the community.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: That happens by coincidence to be the passage that Jewish people around the world have read this last and coming on this last year, this last week.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_01: And that reminds us that God hates, hates certain things, and that includes racism, and of course, he also hates violence.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: So he loves and hates some stuff, and finally, we should hate what God hates.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: May Yahweh rain coals on the wicked, may fire, brimstone, and a whirlwind be the portion of their cup.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: And the final verse not only should we hate what God hates, we should be the kind of person God loves to be with.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: Indeed, Yahweh is just.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: He loves righteous deeds.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: The upright have access to his presence.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: Alright, during this time, think to yourself, what does God love?
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: What does God hate?
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: Where does God sit?
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: What does God see?
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: How can I be the kind of a person that God loves to invite into his presence?
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: So that he loves to hear me pray and talk to him.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: So that leads us into a couple of one or two really important questions.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: And one of those questions, and I and maybe I'll just make this the main question, what small steps, I want to ask you guys, could we take, all of us, what small steps could we take to be the upright, God-trusting, justice-loving kind of people that God says he loves and invited to his presence?
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_04: So my answer is twofold, maybe threefold.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_04: Uh so bear with me in my answer.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_04: Um the one of the things that comes to mind is um it just set it up there on the screen.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_04: It says, indeed, Yahweh is just.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_04: And um I think what we we talked about this yesterday is um, you know, what would it look like for uh anybody to step into this and and show that they love justice?
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_04: And what would it look like to show that God is still in control in this?
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_04: And and how would that affect the way that we change and the way that we act?
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_04: And I think it would do this, I think it would reinforce our desire to get into the middle of it and and be a part of the change.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_04: Why?
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_04: Because God is in control, and and and that Jesus, when he comes again, it says this in Isaiah 42, it says, indeed in his faithfulness, he will establish justice.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_04: And I think it would be kind of backwards and almost a little shameful that when Jesus comes back and establishes justice, that his people would be found on the sidelines and not a part of the work about establishing justice here on earth.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_04: And so I it it leads me to a question to answer this, it it leads me to ask a question of myself and of our congregation and of all believers, and it stems from the the question that James asked in his in his book in chapter two, and I and I just want to uh I want to ask the question a little bit differently.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_04: James asked, uh, what good is it then, my brothers, if you have faith but no works?
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_04: So let me ask the question this way What good is it for us as TBC for us to have faith that Jesus is gonna come back and establish justice, but we have no works towards that end?
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_04: What would that tell us about our faith?
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_04: And so I think for us, we can't sit as James says in chapter one and sit and just be hearers of the word and not doers of the word.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_04: That we must do the word and not just hear it and so deceive ourselves.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_04: So, what does the word tell us to do?
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_04: Well, a couple sentences before that is just for us to receive the word with meekness and humility.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_04: Which is able to save our souls, and so I think, yes, it includes the gospel message of we received that, but it also includes all of other Jesus' words that he speaks to us.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_04: And the one that was most important to him when he was praying to his father was that we would be one, that he commands us to love one another, that he has loved us, and then the rest of the New Testament, all of the writers will talk about what our relationship with others look like.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_04: I don't know.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_04: It it calls us to speak the truth to one another in love, it calls us to bear one another's burdens, it calls us to put on kind and compassionate hearts.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_04: And and I and I think um it's it also tells us to rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_04: In our our failure, in our maybe even our resistance to do so with our African American brothers or in this time period or any other people who are experiencing justice in our country as God allows us to live on this earth.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_04: I think what it does is it ferociously attacks our message that God has given us to give the world.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_04: That nothing uh uh uh delegitimizes the message that we have quicker than if we are not unified on this on this front.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_04: And I think the flip side is true, that nothing glorifies and magnifies and legitimizes our message more than if we're unified on it.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_04: It's like if we actually obeyed the word of God that that we would be one and that we would be unified.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_04: So I think it starts, honestly, it starts with us and and and asking ourselves our questions.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_04: Do I want to be one with our with my brothers and sisters in this, and do I want to pursue justice or not?
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_03: And what I love about that too is when we go to the Bible, we think about the first first Timothy, uh, one of the things he said was all believers filled with um filled with love that comes from pure heart, clear conscience and graceful faith.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_03: A pure heart, clear conscience.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_03: Clear conscience.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_03: And when you think about clear conscience, you have to take in consideration biases and that impact our decisions to truly love and truly see someone as a child of God and know that everyone on this earth is truly a child of God.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_03: And we start there first.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_03: And then once you're able to work through and identify from a conscious state of mind how to release anything that's been taught that unintendedly that has gotten into our souls, into our mind as what's right and wrong, then we're able to really make that conscious effort to be able to see the injustice, be able to see what's out there, be able to take action when we're when we know what's wrong and what's right.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, one of the principles of consciousness is is a good end doesn't justify immoral means.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_03: A good end doesn't justify immoral means justify immoral means.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_03: It doesn't.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_03: So when we look at when we look at the specific situation, George Floyd, I I'm pretty sure as believers, a lot of believers in here knew that was wrong.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_03: But there might have been a question that came in our mind of what did he do?
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_02: And if you have to ask yourself that question, you have to look at your conscience.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_02: Because as a child of God, that died.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_04: I think to add on to that, uh I think what we um what small steps that we can take is the the next thing for us to do is is as we analyze our conscience, as Stephen was saying, and and we we we maybe even wrestle with God on and some of the things that He's revealing to us about our own hearts, is if He calls us to action, we gotta take it.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_04: Whatever it is.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I hope so.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_04: And and even for you, uh if you are a uh a Caucasian individual, if you're a Latino American, uh it's not gonna look the same for your brother and sister who is the same skin color as you because we are all created differently.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_04: And so we have to be able to be sensitive to spirit and what God tells us to do, and we gotta act on it.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_04: Practical things I think that you can do right now, uh, you can start to put to death some of those things that uh whether it's in your family and you you hear uh either your kids joking about anybody uh that would that that just would be evil.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_04: Miriam was Moses' sister.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_04: It happens in the family first.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_04: You you got you as the parents, it maybe even you as a brother and sister, you need to speak out against that.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_04: So that's not right.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_04: Um and and if if you feel like God is leading you to have a conversation, to gain awareness, to talk with black people, African Americans, however you want to say it, you you you have to do as James once says, that you have to be slow to speak, quick to listen, slow to anger.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_04: Because you have to realize that as you enter into that conversation, you're entering into a sea of emotional hurt, trauma, the things that have happened to that individual that have reinforced racism as okay, reinforced uh all of the laws and things that were in place, and that person hurts, whether or not they show it to you or not.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_04: And so you have to wade carefully because it's a heavy conversation for them.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, in my conversations with African American pastors this week, uh I've kept as my motto be quick to hear, slow to speak, because because I I need it's it's the same listening thing.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_01: And you mentioned that to me, I think, yesterday or day before.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_01: That listening's got to be a key part of this, as well as engaging.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: So positive signs.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_01: I I um I was interested that uh Clarence asked all of the pastors the other night on on the citywide Zoom, what positive signs are you seeing?
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_01: And man, they were popping up with some, and and I do see some positive signs happening now in the kind of desire to listen for the first time or the desire for unity.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_03: There's um, you know, I have I've had a lot of communication from people reaching out, asking questions to gain perspective.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_03: That right there is a positive sign that people are willing to have the conversation.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_03: Before it was a hard conversation, I think even now, and that's even why it's even more important that we bring this message and talk about it, is because it's easy to shy away from the message and shy away from the conversation because there's so much hurt, there's so much pain, that it's hard to go down that path.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_03: You know, but as we look at repentance and we look at um understanding that, what's going to clear our heart is to talk about it, be in the conversation, gain insight, gain perspective that's gonna allow the conversation to move forward.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_03: And that's the most important thing is it's not about just talking about right now, it's about how do we move this forward.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_03: And that's the positive sign is there's self-awareness right now.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_03: There's so much awareness, and and everyone's open to the conversation.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_03: So it's like progressing it moving forward, it's it has to happen.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_03: It's not gonna happen.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_03: It's just who do you want to be in this conversation?
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_03: Do you want to sit back or do you actually want to engage?
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_04: I've seen a lot of a lot of positive signs to to uh echo what Steven is saying.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_04: Um if Facebook is any indication of where uh where people stand and where people sit uh and and the positivity that has come out of this.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_04: Um I I want to share this real quickly.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_04: I uh I was just scrolling through Facebook the other night and came across an uh a guy that uh that I played football with at K-State, and he made a long post.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_04: And and and this is a guy who, you know, if I were to say his name, you guys would know who he is.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_04: And uh and he made a post and he just said, I'm starting to realize now that I was I the views that I held about um you know things that happened in 2016, that I was I was on the wrong side of the conversation, and I'm sorry, and I'm going to move forward.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_04: And and just just that is is is uh a positive sign.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_04: And and and I don't want this conversation to um to for you guys to think that we think that nothing good is happening.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_04: There are there is good happening, and and and because there's so much good happening, it's time for us to keep moving that forward.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_01: Before the Lord's table, uh let me let me wrap this up by telling you a positive story that illustrates uh let me give you one of these.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_01: This is a picture that uh you don't get one.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_01: So unless you got two of them.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_01: No, I got two of them.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_01: So this picture the CNN put up at 1113 last night and ran a story, and and I think it really illustrates what you were saying, Rodney, about acting when the Lord weighs on, when the Lord speaks to you.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's a picture of uh two fellows in Buffalo, New York.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_01: On the left hand side is an African American kid.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_01: He's a teenager, he's got a smile on his face.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_01: On the right-hand side is a white guy, and he's uh about ten years older than that.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_01: The black kid's name is Antonio Gwyn Jr.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_01: His mother died two years ago.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but he still acts.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh he thinks about what she would tell him to do.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_01: And last Sunday night he felt like she was telling him he needed to do something about the riots that were happening outside his window that were messing up a whole street.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_01: There was glass up and down this major street in the city of Buffalo, New York.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_01: He went out and he bought some trash bags.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_01: And he got a and he got a broom.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_01: And at 2 a.m.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_01: last Monday morning he went out.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_01: And he started with all of his trash bags in his room, he started sweeping up the glass.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_01: He started sweeping up the garbage on that street in Buffalo, New York.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_01: He filled his trash bags, he worked for 12 for 10 hours doing that.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_01: And at noon, the neighbors all came out, they were gonna do it, they were gonna work on it.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_01: But most of it was done.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_01: That story ran in Buffalo, New York.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_01: And a white kid, 27 years old, saw it.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_01: He thought, what kind of a kid would do something like that?
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_01: And he Googled it.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_01: And then he read, Antonio Gwynn, you know, sometime back this year, was asking people about advice about buying a used car.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_01: And he thought, I got a car, it's been my dream my whole life.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_01: 2004 Mustang, a red Mustang out in my garage.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_01: I don't drive it much.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_01: That kid needs a car.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_01: He found out his address and he drove over.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_01: His name is Matt Bloch.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_01: A 27-year-old Matt Bloch drove over and he drove the red Mustang over to where Antonio Gwen Jr.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_01: lived.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_01: He handed him the keys and he said, I want to give you a car.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_01: Antonio Gwen, I couldn't believe it.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_01: He said, My mother, whose voice I heard telling me to go in between the streets, you died two years ago.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_01: That's a sign that good things can happen, but we have to listen to our conscience to do what we know is right.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_01: To listen to the voice of your mother.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna lead us into the Lord's table, which is, I think, perfect for this morning because, as you said, Rodney, this is all about the gospel.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_01: This is not deeply about politics.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_01: This goes back to the Lord Jesus Christ and his death on the cross.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'm gonna ask Jeremiah you to lead this.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_01: We'll just vacate the stage and let this happen.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_01: But you've got one of these little uh do-it-yourself communions, but I I want us to bow our head in prayer, and I want us to think about the Lord Jesus Christ hanging on the cross, giving us the gospel and unifying all mankind, and one day, I mean, one day in the future, right?
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_01: In Revelation, it's gonna be every tongue and tribe and people and nation.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and and and that day is going to be a beautiful day, amen.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_04: It's gonna be a beautiful day, and and and one of the things that we see from uh Revelation, if I could leave you with one in encouragement and an uh exhortation, it would be this is that one day when we meet him face to face, the Bible says that he is going to wipe every tear from our eye, and that death will be no more.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_04: So we as believers have a great hope in that day that one day we will be with him and live with him.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_04: In the meantime, I would exhort you to uh to this is that may the tears that Jesus wipes from people's eyes not be caused by us in this room.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_04: Because of our lack of compassion, because we lack an ability to listen, and we lack oneness and unity.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_04: May we not lack reaching out and being Jesus' hands and feet and begin wiping tears from people's eyes.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_04: May we be the ones who begin the work of doing that.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_04: And so bringing his will being done on earth as it already is being done in heaven.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_01: Let's pray.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_01: Father, around the cross were those who loved and honored, believed in you, and they were weeping.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_01: Little did they know that you hanging on that cross was the beginning of wiping away tears from the eyes of those who weep, those who weep for grief and out of grief for the injustice and the violence in the world, the violence that would take an innocent man like Jesus, their best friend, and put him on the cross, not knowing that he was bringing by his death salvation to the entire world, and then telling us to remember that when we gather by breaking the bread, drinking the cup, standing for his body and his blood.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_01: We call this communion, Lord, because it brings us together, and Lord, may it bring us together in a in a new and deeper way this morning than ever before.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_01: In Jesus' name.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.