sort of uptick in quality and ambiance here. Are other people feeling that?
It's always great to be back every year and kind of see the incremental changes that happen.
A lot of memories have been made in this room, a lot of great, amazing conversations,
a lot of wonderful times of prayer, a lot of laughter.
Hopefully we'll have some more of that tonight.
But this weekend's very exciting because as this retreat does every year,
this is an opportunity for us as a community to take those central values that define our community
and our vision and really dive into those.
And our values are the values of generous hospitality, spiritual formation,
and then missionary faithfulness, living all of life in reference to the mission of God.
And so that first value, what does it mean to be a community that is generous
and even extravagant in our hospitality?
Our willingness to embrace and to make space for and to welcome into our family all those who God sends us.
And how do we welcome people as we've been welcomed by Jesus Christ?
And so that's why we have the Reverend Dr. Erwin Ince with us.
Erwin is a veteran pastor.
He pastored a church for 10 years in Columbia, Maryland.
He is a father of four, right?
He has a sort of historical connection with our church family.
He was a part of Res and a friend with the people who got Church of the Resurrection started all those years ago,
and a friend of Dan Clare's and now a friend of ours.
And so we're excited to have him because he's come back to D.C. to be a pastor at Grace D.C.
and to start the Institute for Cross-Cultural Ministries that is – well, he'll tell you more about all that they're doing,
but I can tell you that their sort of central statement of vision is this,
that the ICCM is a church-based entity dedicated to equipping churches with the confidence and competence to welcome others the way Jesus welcomes us.
So that's right in line with the kind of thing we want to be talking about.
And as a community, you know, we always want to be in a posture of learning from people who are leading and doing great things in the kingdom.
And so our hope and prayer is that we learn from Erwin.
And so I'm just going to say a brief prayer, and then I'm going to invite him up here.
Lord, we pray for this time.
We pray for all of us who are gathered here.
Lord, we've all been welcomed at one point or another into the kingdom, though we did not deserve it.
We've all been embraced into the arms of Jesus Christ, Lord.
And if there are any people here who have not yet felt that embrace, we know that your arms are wide open for them.
And we pray for Dr. Enz as he speaks this morning.
We pray that he would be an instrument in your hand, Lord, that his voice would be your voice, his word, your word.
We pray that our hearts would be open to receive it.
In your son's name we pray.
Amen.
Good morning, folks.
Yes, good, good morning.
I hope we're all well satisfied in our bellies and well caffeinated.
I am well caffeinated.
And so, Lord willing, we'll be relatively sharp this morning.
So, yeah, we are this weekend talking, as you can see in the booklet and on the screen, about a new we, image, identity, and community in Jesus Christ.
And I will say at the outset, I have far too many slides for our time together.
So, my goal is not to get through every slide that I've got, but to work through this in a way that is enriching for you all.
And I know that we have got some time set aside for discussion with questions, but I invite you through this process to interrupt me if you have a question.
And if it's something that I want to defer to later, I'll say that, but I'm all about dialogue.
All right?
So, let me start off by just kind of talking about what I call my core conviction.
And this comes out of my own story, coming out of a very racialized worldview.
In my college years, I rejected the faith, the Christian faith, during my high school years.
I thought playing football was much more important than Jesus.
And so, but that rejection of the Lord became active as an undergraduate, as I was studying electrical engineering.
And I joined a group that had a very Afrocentric worldview.
It was called the Sons of Africa.
And I, for me, you know, Christianity became the white man's religion.
I was immersing myself in people who had a very black nationalistic worldview.
And so, I mean, I was, I would go to bed during those years.
There was a period of months where I would go to bed watching a Louis Farrakhan speech on video that I had on video.
Like the same speech from 1985 Madison Square Garden speech that I had on video.
And every night, that's what I went to sleep doing, watching that, because I wanted to get that.
Like, I wasn't interested in being a black Muslim.
I just wanted to get that deep into my, into my bones.
And so, when I, when I came to faith and the Lord brought me to himself at a historic African American church in Washington, D.C.,
particular lights began to go off for me.
I began to realize that my true family, my eternal family, were those to whom I was united by faith in Jesus Christ.
From every racial and ethnic background.
And so, the problem that I saw was that, oh, okay, I'm reading the scriptures now, and I'm seeing this is God's plan and God's vision.
But I don't see it in the church.
Like, the church I'm at, we're all black.
There's a church down the road, they're all white.
That one's all Asian, that one's all Latino.
So, I'm not seeing the living out of what I see in the scriptures in any practical way.
And I know that there are valid, actually, reasons, at least in America, for these kinds of divisions within the church.
But that, I wasn't able to kind of shake that.
And it created in me what I call a divine dissatisfaction.
And that's a phrase I borrowed from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
That he would use to describe, saying, what is it that you see, as far as God's standard and God's word,
that you don't see being lived out in the society or in the church.
And it's this divine dissatisfaction.
I have to live into it.
And so, that's a long way of getting around to, did I go backwards?
I did.
All right.
Well, I'll go back to what was on the slide before.
My core conviction, which is that the ministry of reconciliation,
as demonstrated in the local church by the gathering of people from diverse backgrounds,
ethnicities, and cultures, ethnicities, and cultures,
it is the natural outworking of a rich biblical commitment.
If we're committed to God's word,
then what we will be pursuing is the ministry of reconciliation
demonstrated by the gatherer of people in the local church
from diverse backgrounds, cultures, and ethnicities.
And so, this is what I've given my life to in pastoral ministry,
and now as we build this Institute for Cross-Cultural Mission.
And so, here are three things we're going to, in these two sessions,
we're going to try to cover.
Right?
Image, identity, and community in Christ.
We're going to talk about being formed to image God.
We're going to talk about the God that we image,
kind of laying the groundwork, the biblical foundation.
We're going to talk about being formed for identity in Jesus Christ.
We're being formed to have our core sense of who we are,
being rooted and grounded in Jesus Christ.
Not to say that ethnicity is unimportant.
Not to say that we're striving to be colorblind.
No, you see me, you need to see that I'm a black man.
But, my ethnic identity is subordinate to my identity in Jesus Christ.
And then, we're going to talk about being formed for identity in community.
And so, look, let's talk about the God that we image.
I've been just captured probably the past year or so.
I don't know how it happened.
But, just with this notion of beauty.
Right?
To reflect on the beauty of God.
That God is the standard for beauty.
Yes, and beauty is an attribute of God.
He's got lots of attributes, right?
But, I think in this case, it's beneficial, at least it was for me,
for us to study as we consider God's nature.
Who is God?
And, who are we?
If God is beautiful, what does it mean for the humanity that images God?
And so, here's the question.
Like, what is beauty?
Alright, why do I have a picture of camels on the screen?
Well, camels are beautiful, aren't they?
Well, like, earlier this year, January, there was a scandal.
In the camel beauty contest pageant in Saudi Arabia, in January.
There were 12 camels who were disqualified from the pageant.
Why were they disqualified?
Because they had found a veterinarian who had injected them with Botox
to make them more attractive.
Injecting their lips to be fuller.
Their nose.
They had to perform some procedures.
They have the beauty pageant in Saudi Arabia for camels.
They have documents of the standards of camel beauty
that you've got to utilize to make an adjustment.
And, right, it's funny, right?
But, right, this is no laughing matter.
There are, it's, the article said that there's over $31 million in prize money
at these pageants.
So, you know, I mean, I've got to get my camel looking good.
So, that begs the question, right?
Like, what is beauty?
Now, we don't, we're not going to have any camel beauty pageants here
in the good old U.S. of A.
Right?
But we know what it's like to commodify beauty.
Right?
We know what it's like to parade women and men on stages
and make judgments about their physical appearance
and their value based on that appearance
and calling that beauty and calling them beautiful.
And so, really, the question is, what is beauty?
What does it mean to be beautiful?
All right, I'm just going to ask the question.
Y'all tell me.
What, if I, what is beauty?
What does it mean to be beautiful?
Some sort of pleasure.
Yeah.
It makes you feel like things are, you know, in a right way.
Yeah.
It's an ideal, like platonic ideal that you see.
Yeah.
Yes, but some kind of pleasure, right?
It's, there's a, there's a light to it.
Yeah.
Uh-huh.
I'd say a lot of self-esteem.
Self-esteem, right?
It's connected with beauty.
Yeah.
What else?
Curves.
All right.
So, I was looking at this, okay, we're all adults in here, right?
There's a, this guy made this video on, he put on Facebook about how he's, it's him as the dad
and all of the old school 1980s music that he's teaching to his child.
Like, you know, they don't make music like they used to.
And so, it's a, this is, this is me, right?
I'm going to show you what real good music is, right?
And there's this, there's this one song by the Gap Band, A Brick House.
Right?
That's the Commodores.
Thank you.
That's not the Gap, thank you.
The Commodores.
She, she's a brick house, right?
And, and, and, uh, and, uh, the dude says, as he's seen the song, right?
I got two brick houses, the one I pay for and your mother.
So, that's me, right?
Right?
Curves are an aspect of beauty, right?
But, question is, right?
Here, so I'm going to borrow, I'm going to borrow from, um, uh, from an old theologian.
Um, you know, beauty, is beauty simply, you know, you know it when you see it?
Right?
Is it, right?
Is it this subjective thing?
Is it only in the eye of the beholder?
Um, is, uh, um, you know, what do we mean, right?
That song, we're marching to Zion.
Beautiful, beautiful Zion.
We're marching onward to Zion, the beautiful city of God.
Um, I, um, uh, I'm going to, I'm going to run through these.
Okay.
Because I know I'm going to, how much time do I have, by the way?
What time are we going to need to be done?
Oh, okay.
All right.
So, I'm running through this.
We're not, we're not going to stop here.
Um, um, uh, but, uh, yeah, I'm going to keep going.
Sorry.
Um, I'm going to, but I'll read that last quote.
This is from, um, a, uh, an art historian, um, who is critiquing notions of beauty.
Um, and, uh, and she says that she's not, she's not a follower of Jesus, but, uh, this is,
she makes this true statement in her critique.
She says, only God can act as origin and end of beauty, incontrovertible enough to stop
the seepage that pollutes the ostensibly close, otherwise pure system of aesthetic judgment.
That we've got to have a standard, in other words, for beauty.
And only God can act as that standard.
Um, uh, yeah, I'm going to skip through this too.
Um, uh, Herman, Herman Bavank, one of my favorite theologians, uh, but, but he's making
the same case that God is supreme, uh, supreme beauty.
Um, so, here we go.
All right.
So, I want to say that beauty is theological in nature.
It is essential to beauty is what we find in the scripture, a grand narrative of the defeat
of the formlessness of chaos, a grand narrative of God bringing order out of chaos.
This is the story of Genesis chapter one.
In the beginning, the, the, the earth was formless and void.
Darkness was, um, was covering the, the, the, the earth.
It is a, a story of, uh, of chaos.
Uh, and that's the pattern of Genesis chapter one.
Uh, the, the six days of creation are God bringing order out of chaos,
forming and filling.
Day one, he forms the light in the parallel day.
Day four, he fills what he has formed with the, the sun and the moon.
Day two, he forms the firmament and the sky.
And day five, he fills it with inhabitants, birds and fish.
Day three, he forms the dry land and vegetation.
And in day six, he fills it with land animals and, of course, with, uh, with people.
This is, uh, essential to beauty.
And so there are three aspects of beauty I want to engage us with.
I get this from, uh, St. Thomas Aquinas, um, where he defines beauty, uh, this way.
He says, species of beauty has a likeness to the property of the sun, S-O-N.
For beauty includes three conditions.
Integrity or perfection.
Proportion or harmony.
And lastly, brightness or, or clarity.
And this is kind of morphed into three Ps, uh, helpfully by a guy named Stephen Guthrie.
Wrote a book called The Creator's, The Creator's Spirit, The Holy Spirit,
and The Art of Becoming Human.
And he puts it in three ways with three Ps.
First, perfection.
All right?
We, beauty, uh, includes perfection.
Uh, the, the reality that in the scriptures we see this, uh, Guthrie says,
To hope for the kingdom of God in its fullness is to hope for beauty.
The psalmist says in Psalm 50,
Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God shines forth.
And here's the deal.
By perfection, we don't necessarily mean, there's a mystery there.
Uh, we don't, it's gotta be a perfection that can accommodate scars.
And what I mean by that is, Jesus Christ is beautiful.
He, the risen Christ, the risen, ascended Christ, is glorious, majestic, and beautiful.
Yet he still bears the mark of crucifixion on his body.
He still bears the scars.
And so there's a mystery here.
There's a, that's a perfection that can accommodate scars.
It's not the perfection, Gaff Guthrie says, of, uh, the sheen of the fashion magazine
that has been kind of glossed over so that you've removed anything that, uh, that might, uh, uh, be seen as, as off or, uh, or warped.
The marks of human history, this is Guthrie,
indeed of human sinfulness, depravity, injustice,
he says, are indelibly inscribed upon the flesh of the resurrected Lord,
carried into the life of the new creation by the Spirit and transfigured.
These marks in no way tarnish the glory of the new creation.
Those wounds, as we sing, yet visible above, are in beauty glorified.
And so, it's right, he says, to speak of the new creation, the new heavens and the new earth,
uh, uh, as the work of the Spirit is beautifying it.
By this we mean the perfection of integrity.
The work of the Holy Spirit is to perfect the creation by bringing it to completion,
making humanity in each created thing what it most truly and fully is.
So, there's perfection and there's proportion.
The new creation, Esther Lightcat Meek says in her book, Loving to Know,
the new creation will be beautiful because there will be harmony and right relationship
between God and humanity, among humanity,
and among all that God has made, each thing will be most truly what it is
and what is more amazing.
The utterly distinct character of each being will contribute to the beauty of the whole.
And this reality of proportion and right ordering of harmony is true of God first.
So, there's perfection, there's proportion,
and there's the third P that our brother spoke of already, pleasure.
Simply put, beauty delights.
Esther Lightcat Meek puts it this way.
She says, rather than drawing the beautiful object into the orbit of my concerns,
I'm the one drawn in.
The work captures rather than serves my interests.
To submit to something is to acknowledge its weightier presence,
to treat its presence as weighty.
We find ourselves in the presence of something that's already won our respect,
that's already changed us.
The word in Hebrew for glory that we find in the Old Testament,
as translated as glory, its root means to be weighty, to be substantive.
So, when we're talking about the glory of God,
we are acknowledging his weighty presence.
In the presence of something, someone,
that has already won our respect.
It is characterized by a decentered delight in another.
For perfection, and pleasure.
And I want to say that God's beauty particularly is seen in his Trinitarian life.
I don't remember who I'm quoting here.
I might be quoting Bob Inc.
I might be quoting John Frame.
The fact is that these attributes of love and knowledge,
as well as all the other attributes come alive and become real as a result of the Trinity.
Apart from it, they are mere names, sounds, empty terms.
As attributes of the Triune God, they come alive both to our mind and our heart.
Only by the Trinity do we begin to understand that God, as he is in himself,
hence also apart from the world,
is the independent, eternal, and omniscient, and all-benevolent one,
love, holiness, and glory.
The Trinity reveals God to us as the fullness of being,
the true life, eternal beauty.
This is Bob Inc. here in this second quote.
This is significant.
He says,
In God, too, there is unity and diversity, diversity and unity.
Indeed, this order and this harmony is present in absolutely.
In the case of creatures, we only see a faint analogy of it as,
Among us, unity only exists by attraction,
by the will and the disposition of the will.
It's a moral unity that's fragile and unstable.
He's saying that among humanity,
unity only exists by means of attraction.
We want to be unified with the people we are attracted to,
whether that's my wife or the people who share my same preferences.
That's what drives my desire for unity.
But in God, he says,
both are present, absolute unity as well as absolute diversity.
This is an aspect of who God is, right?
The Father is not the Son.
The Son is not the Father.
The Spirit is not the Father.
And the Son,
this three God,
three Gods,
one God
in three distinct persons,
in mutually loving,
mutually glorifying,
mutually submitting,
mutually honoring,
mutually supporting
community
in eternal beauty.
And so,
I'm going to keep pressing because I'm running.
The beautiful community of the Godhead we see worked out in Scripture.
We see it in Deuteronomy 6,
Hero Israel, right?
The Shema,
the Lord our God,
the Lord is one.
We see it in Christ's baptism in the Gospels in Matthew 3,
where Jesus is baptized.
And Matthew says,
immediately,
when he went up from the water,
the heavens were opened to him.
Spirit of God descends on him like a dove and comes to rest.
And the Father speaks,
this is my beloved Son,
with whom I am well pleased.
Peter,
in his opening of his epistle,
he talks about this work of Father,
Son,
and Holy Spirit,
when he writes to the elect exiles,
who are elect according to the foreknowledge of God,
the Father,
in the sanctification of the Spirit,
for obedience to Jesus Christ,
and for the sprinkling with his blood.
The testimony throughout Scripture
is that God is one,
and at the same time,
without contradiction,
the Scriptures give us the mystery of three persons who are God.
The reality is that the confession of the Trinity
is at the heartbeat of our faith,
is at the heartbeat of the Christian religion.
And this beauty and glory of our triune God
is seen in the mutual glorification of his communal life
as Father,
Son,
and Spirit.
I'm going to skip that too,
because I've got to get to
what I'm saying.
The implications of this.
I've been going at light speed,
but this has implications
for what we think of ourselves.
The God that we image
is beautiful,
and his beauty is seen
most profoundly
in his Trinitarian life together
as Father,
Son,
and Holy Spirit.
And we are formed
to image him.
We are formed
as his image.
The first thing
that we find
the Bible saying
about us
is that we are made
in the image of God.
God declares,
let us make man
in our image
according
to our likeness.
And what does this
declaration of image mean?
Yes, in a sense
it means that we're beautiful,
we're going to get to that
a little bit later.
It means,
first of all,
that we have
individually
an unassailable
individual dignity
as creatures
made in the image of God.
we have
a unique place
in the world.
Wait,
I won't pass that.
We have a unique place
in the world.
In his book,
Designed for Dignity,
Richard Pratt
at a certain point
talk about dignity.
He says,
look,
I want you
to put down my book
and the next person
that you see,
I want you to shake
their hand
and say,
hello,
your majesty.
That's how much
value
and worth
it is a royal dignity
that the Bible
is declaring
of humanity
in Genesis
chapter 1
and verses 26
and 27.
Nona Verna Harrison
in her book,
God's Many Splendored Image,
says that this royalty
involves dignity
and splendor,
a legitimate sovereignty
rooted
in one's very being
because everyone
is made in the image
of God
and because the image
defines what it means
to be human.
People are fundamentally
equal regardless
of differences
in wealth
and education
and social status
and the church,
she says,
preached this
countercultural message
in the ancient world
and still preaches it now.
That this is,
this was the countercultural
message
of the church
in the ancient world
that every single
human being
from prince
to pauper
is an image bearer
and has royal dignity.
Martin Luther King Jr.
put it this way,
he says,
the whole concept
of the Imago Dei
is the idea
that all men
have something
within them
that God injected,
not that they have
substantial unity
with God,
but that every man
has the capacity
to have fellowship
with God
and this gives him
a uniqueness,
it gives him worth,
it gives him dignity
and we must never
forget this
as a nation,
there are no gradations
in the image of God.
Every man
from a treble
white
to a base black
is significant
on God's keyboard
precisely because
every man
is made
in the image of God.
he said,
one day
we will learn that.
We will know
one day
that God
made us
to live together
as brothers
and to respect
the dignity
and worth
of every man.
This is
unassailable,
it's undeniable,
and yet
it is
extraordinarily
difficult
for us
to live
into it.
Here's
what I want
to say
biblically.
Second commandment,
God forbids
the worship
of idols.
He says
to Israel,
you shall not
make for yourself
a carved image
of anything
that's in the heavens
above
or the earth
beneath
or waters
under the earth.
You shall not
bow down to it
or worship it
for I,
the Lord,
your God
am a jealous
God.
And we think
there's a sense
in which,
right,
this is about
idolatry,
right,
this is about
bowing down
to something
other
than God.
And God's glory
is at the heart
of the commandment,
but the reality
of
individual
human dignity
is also
at the heart
of this
second commandment.
Why do I say
that?
Because
God forbids
the making
of images
that we
would make
images of him
for worship.
And the declaration
in the second
commandment
essentially is
I've already
made my image
in the earth.
I've already
declared what
my image is.
And so,
literally speaking,
to bow down
to an idol
is to worship
something less
than yourself.
To bow down
to an idol
is to demean
your humanity.
No,
we're not God,
but God
is the one
who says
this is my image.
this is
I've made
my reflection
in the earth.
And it's you.
Why would you
devalue yourself
by bowing down
to something
you made?
And so,
this is
just the
immeasurable
value
and dignity
that every
person has
because
we are
the image
of God.
And so,
I just did
about three
slides in
those
two statements
because I've
got to get
to this.
I've got to
get to this
aspect of
identity
and formation
because that
becomes the
question,
who are we?
Who do we
believe ourselves
to be?
What does
it mean
for us
to embrace
the reality
of being
image bearers
of immeasurable
value
and worth
and dignity?
What does it
say?
What do we
think about
our identity?
I'm not going
to show this
clip because I
don't have
time.
But maybe we
see.
This is,
so,
Sterling Brown
won an Oscar
earlier this
year for his
role in the
TV series
This Is Us.
And he
essentially,
in his
speech,
he sent
the writer
of the show,
he said,
I have been
used to
colorblind
casting.
And he
wasn't making
a,
that wasn't a
positive statement.
He was saying,
I've been
used to
colorblind
casting.
Oh,
we need
some diversity
here,
so let's
throw a
black man
in this
role.
And he
gave credit
to the
writer.
He said,
but you
wrote a
role that
could only
be played
by a
black man.
You
wrote a
character
that could
only be
played by
somebody who
looked like
me.
He said,
and that
speaks not
just to me,
but to
everybody who
looks like
me.
And it
makes it
far more
difficult to
dismiss me.
This aspect
of a need
for an
identity
that conforms
to dignity,
a self-identification
that conforms
to an
internal
sense,
self-identification
that accords
with dignity.
That's what
every human
being desires.
We try to go
about it
different ways,
but at the
heart,
we desire
a self-
identification
that accords
with dignity.
Identity,
for definition,
is a person's
understanding
of who he
or she is
based on
socially
constructed,
meaningful
categories that
people use
to describe
themselves.
And what
makes for
a self-
identification
that accords
with dignity?
There are
various ways
in which we
try to go
about it
in our
fallen
condition.
In his book,
Sources of the
Self,
The Making of
Modern Identity,
Charles Taylor
lists these
four things.
Here's how we
try to get at
our sense of
self-worth,
an identity
that conforms
to dignity.
We want a
sense of
power,
or we want
a sense of
dominating
public space,
or we want
some sense
of invulnerability
to power,
or any kind
of self-sufficiency.
He says,
the very way
we walk,
move,
gesture,
speak,
is shaped
from the
earliest moments
by our
awareness that
we appear
before others,
that we stand
in public space,
and that this
space is
potentially one
of respect,
or contempt,
of pride,
or shame.
We become aware
of this at an
early age,
that our life
is lived before
others,
and we want
dignity,
but we become
aware that this
space that we
occupy is
potentially one
of respect,
or contempt,
pride,
or shame,
and we want
the respect.
And we go about
it in different
ways.
I don't have
time to go
through the
implications of
this,
but this is
the 1968
sanitation workers
strike in
Memphis,
Tennessee,
where they
made these
protest signs.
It's just a
declaration of
dignity.
The sign
simply said,
I am a
man.
The protest
march,
right,
is to carry
signs that
declare,
their dignity.
I am a
man.
Look at
me.
See me.
We are
aware of
this need,
and we
live in a
world that
just tears
away in our
sense of
dignity in
very, very
real ways.
I'm going to
take three
more minutes
and just
say this.
This is how
it came to
be.
Genesis
chapter 11,
the Tower
of Babel.
I refer to
this as the
ghettoization of
humanity.
Rodney King,
you know,
Rodney King
in 1991,
1992,
after his
brutal beating
of the police
in L.A.,
he made a
statement for
which he's
become infamous.
He said,
can't we all
just get
along?
Can't we all
just get
along?
Well,
Genesis
chapter 11,
verse 1,
records the
last time
humanity all
just got
along.
It says
that the
whole earth
had one
language and
spoke the
same words.
Right?
Humanity was
one big
happy family.
But humanity
was one big
happy family
in our
rejection and
rebellion against
God.
Our unity
was union
in our
sinfulness.
Genesis 11,
Genesis chapter
10,
is the table
of nations.
So Genesis
chapter 6,
to verse 9,
is the flood
narrative,
is the
recreation
story.
God covers
the earth
with a flood
because humanity
is so
depraved,
right?
And he
promises,
he covenants
in Genesis
chapter 9,
I'm never
going to
destroy the
earth again
with a flood
the way I've
done,
even though
man's heart
is set only
on evil
from his
youth.
And then
you get
Noah's
sons in
Genesis chapter
9,
and Genesis
chapter 10
is the table
of nations.
How all
these nations,
God reissues
the creation
mandate in
Genesis 9,
10,
he says,
be fruitful
and multiply,
fill the
earth.
And in
Genesis 10,
it seems like
humanity has
done it,
the table
of nations.
Here's all
of the nations
and all of
the people
over the
earth.
Genesis
chapter 11
takes a
look back
at how
those nations
got spread
over all
of the
earth.
God said,
be fruitful
and multiply,
fill the
earth.
Humanity
said,
we don't
want to
do that.
It says,
they found
a plain
in the
land of
Shinar
and they
settled
there.
And they
said,
let's
build for
us a
city and
a tower
with its
top
extending
to the
heavens.
They
said,
lest
we be
dispersed
from here
over the
face of
all the
earth.
God,
we know
what you
said,
but we're
not into
that.
We just
want to
do our
thing right
here.
And God
comes down
in mercy
and judgment
and it
says,
God says,
this is only
the beginning
of what
they'll be
able to
do.
If I
let this
go on,
this is
only the
beginning.
So,
the Lord
says,
let's go
down and
confuse
their
language.
And it
says,
in Genesis
11,
it says,
so the
Lord came
down,
he confused
their
language so
that they
may not
understand
one another's
speech.
And it
says,
the Lord
dispersed
them from
there over
the face of
all the
earth.
That the
Lord forced
their hand.
He confused
their language
so that they
couldn't
understand one
another.
And so they
had to do
what he
commanded.
Why am I
going through
this?
The point
is,
this is the
connection
point to
see why
is it that
we have
such a
hard time
valuing
or recognizing
the worth
and the
value,
the immeasurable
dignity of
people who are
different than
we are.
because I
get my
sense of
dignity,
value,
and worth
from my
tribe.
I get my
affirmation
from my
people.
That's what I
rooted in.
I rooted in,
oh, we're the,
this is how,
this is what it
means to be
human.
This is what it
means to be
worthy.
This is what it
means to be
worthwhile.
And y'all over
there, y'all are
different.
Y'all do things
differently.
Y'all speak
differently.
Y'all act
differently.
You know, y'all
are not really as
human as we
are.
That's why,
right, the
story of
humanity in
many respects is
a story of
oppression.
Because I don't
value you.
So I can
demean you.
God would
not,
all right, I
said three
minutes, I've
already taken
five, so I'm
skipping.
Skipping what
the sociologists
say and what
the theologians
say about
identity, to
say only this,
the last slide,
is that it's
not an accident
that Genesis
chapter 12
comes after
Genesis chapter
11.
Not simply
because 12
follows 11.
But God,
the Lord
dispersed them
from there over
the surface of
all the earth.
what is Genesis
chapter 12
about?
God calls
Abraham,
right?
The end of
chapter 11,
God says to
Abraham, go out.
Abraham was a
pagan.
He wasn't
worshiping the
Lord, right?
The Lord calls
Abraham and says,
leave your
father's house and
land and go to
a place where I
will show you,
right?
I am going to
make you a
great nation.
I am going,
in you,
all the
nations of
the world
will be
blessed.
In you.
Well, what is
that blessing?
What's the
blessing?
Yes, right?
It's the promise
of Jesus Christ.
But it's like,
right?
Genesis 10,
again, the
table of nations.
Genesis 12,
right?
Genesis 11,
the scattering and
the division of
the nations.
Genesis 12,
in you,
all the nations
of the earth
are going to be
blessed,
right?
I am going
to do the
work of
reunification.
I'm going to
do the work
of reuniting
humanity.
And the
next time,
they're not
going to be
one big happy
family in
rebellion against
me.
They're going
to be one
big happy
family under
my lordship.
That's the
promise of
Genesis chapter
12.
And that is
what we see,
right?
That's what
Christ came
to do.
God's response
is restoration
and reunification.
See, I didn't
get through a lot
of slides to get
there.
And so,
here it is,
right?
In this,
the cry
and the call
is
not to find
our primary
sense
of identity
in our tribe,
whatever our
tribe is.
Our
ethnic tribe,
our academic
tribe,
our socioeconomic
tribe,
right?
By, you
know, my
Brooklynite tribe,
you know,
you're from
Brooklyn, you're
probably a little
bit better than
other places.
Anyway,
the lords were
still working on
me with that.
Right?
But this call
because,
and I'm going
to get to a
quote later on,
but this,
because
this,
the work
of the Lord
is restoration
and reunification,
under
Jesus Christ,
the call
is to
root
our sense
of who we
are primarily
in Him
as image
bearers,
as those
who have
an immeasurable
dignity,
value,
and worth
that doesn't
come from
my association
to other
black people.
It comes
because God
has said it.
Because He
declared it.
And so it
does not
matter my
ability,
it does not
matter my
height,
my weight,
it does not
matter.
I am of
invaluable
worth because
God has
said so.
That's the
source of
our sense
of dignity
and value
and worth.
Alright,
I'm going to
stop there.
I said a lot,
but I'll
turn it over.
What are we