Evening all, let's pray.
Gracious Father, we thank you that you have not left us alone,
as we've seen the last couple of weeks,
in the solidarity we have, not just in our image of you,
but solidarity in our sin,
which puts us at odds with you and puts us at odds with one another.
We thank you that you have worked to solve that problem.
We've sung about it tonight.
I pray that that reality of what you've done for us in the Lord Jesus
might become very real for us personally
and will impact radically not just our relationship with you,
but our relationship with one another as well.
And we ask it for your glory. Amen.
We're into week number three on our series of racism and ethnocentricity.
And racial pride and ethnocentricity has a long and a bloody past.
I'll give you just a few examples.
The Holocaust in Germany caused the death of up to 11 million Jews
between 1933 and 1945.
1.5 million Armenians died at the hands of the Turks
from 1915 to 1923,
a further 750,000 Assyrians during the same time
at the hands of the Turks
and a further 1 million Greeks at the same time,
again at the hands of the Turks.
Racism and ethnic cleansing was a motivating factor
that saw 3 million casualties in the Cambodian genocide,
another 1 million dead in Rwanda in 1994,
Soviet slaughtered 250,000 Polish people in 1937 to 1938,
and another couple of hundred thousand Poles
by the Ukrainians less than a decade later.
Getting a little bit closer to home,
between 1824 and 1908,
white settlers and native Mountied police in Queensland
killed more than 10,000 Aborigines
who regarded them as vermin
and sometimes even hunted them for sport
in the same kind of way that I would treat a wild pig
in regarding it as vermin and hunted for sport.
That's on our own country here in Australia.
Now racism in our country has become a little bit more civilised,
if I can use that term very broadly.
You're probably aware of the vilification
of AFL player and prominent Aboriginal Adam Goodes recently.
There have also been a number of Reclaim Australia rallies
in capital cities around this country.
And in the past week, Eddie Maguire,
the president of the Collingwood AFL team,
was accused again of racism.
He had previously joked,
apparently because of a brain freeze or a brain snap
or a no brain at all, I can't remember,
that he likened Adam Goodes to King Kong
or that he could play a part in the movie King Kong.
And so in Maguire's most recent controversy,
he referred to the Victorian sports minister,
John Aaron, as a soccer-loving Turkish-born moosey.
Now, I want to suggest to you that it is naive to think
that a prime minister making a public apology
or laws against racial vilification
or a general move in the direction of equality
and freedom for all people
or the acceptance of political correctness
results in any way in the end of racial pride
or ethnocentricity.
The issues are deep.
We had a new couple here at church this morning.
Three months ago, they escaped from Syria.
And I spoke to them this morning.
They are literally here, refugees escaping.
They went home.
Their house was bombed.
It's just levelled.
And I said to them,
I talked to them about the issues at Syria,
and they said,
it is very complex.
There is no easy answer
to the racial tensions there at all.
And I think an answer to it
is something that we want.
In fact, something that we need.
When Reclaim Australia marched in Sydney recently,
more people turned out to march against Reclaim Australia
than actually for Reclaim Australia.
That is, there was more people turning out
to march against racism,
as they see it portrayed in Reclaiming Australia,
than, in fact, the Reclaiming Australia group.
Now, the Christian faith is not at odds
with our secular society at that point.
We saw two weeks ago
that one of the foundational biblical truths
is that all people are made equally
in the image of God.
There is a solidarity
in our image of God,
but there is also, as we saw last week,
a solidarity in our sinfulness,
in our rejection of God.
Since Adam, right from the very beginning,
rejected God,
we have all shared in Adam's sin,
and likewise, we have, by choice, rejected God.
But the choices that we make reject God.
And so this solidarity sets us
not just up against God,
but against one another
because we put ourselves
at the center of the universe.
It becomes about us rather than about God.
And so we need to be really careful
as we deal with this situation
of racial pride.
We need to be really careful
of not coming up with just simplistic solutions.
On the TV program Studio 10,
Jessica Rowe this week
said that she thought
that the term Moosey
was racist and offensive,
and she questioned
Eddie Maguire's intelligence,
something that a few people
have done apparently over the time.
She said,
If he is not smart enough,
and I don't think he is,
to moderate his language,
depending on the sort of forum he is in,
he has to take the flack for it.
Hear what she's saying?
Just control your tongue, Eddie.
Depending on where you are,
just be careful about what you say.
Now, don't hear me wrong.
First of all, let me say,
the assumption there is,
if he doesn't say it,
then he's not a racist.
I want to,
I think it's a good thing,
I think it's a great thing
to control your tongue.
In fact, I think it would be great
if we all practice it a little bit more,
or let me just say myself,
it would be great if I control my tongue
a little bit more,
and I think it's a fantastic thing,
and we're going to see it
in our next series in James
when we get there,
but the problem is significantly deeper
than just controlling the tongue.
This week,
I was driving to a ministry seminar
on Thursday morning,
and I had the job
of driving the seminar leader
to the venue.
And so we're driving along,
this guy is in his early 70s,
he's a very well-respected Christian leader
from the United States,
and we were driving along,
and all of a sudden,
boom, we hit traffic,
we just stand still.
And I knew that I needed
to take a left turn up ahead,
and so I put my blinker on,
and I just started
to sort of move across.
And as I moved across,
there's a car behind me
that just kept pushing up,
pushing up.
And I'm like trying to go across
a little bit further,
and as we're doing this,
I'm talking to this ministry guy,
and we're talking about the gospel,
talking about all sorts
of wonderful things,
and I'm at the same time
trying to get across,
and this guy comes up,
and he just keeps,
and I'm thinking,
he's breaking the law?
You know,
my nose is in front of his,
he's got to give way.
If he ran into me,
it's going to be his fault,
and it's going to be
his insurance claim,
and that sort of stuff,
but you kind of don't want
your car to get run into,
and so I'm pushing him across,
and this guy just kept coming up,
kept coming up,
kept coming up.
He just kept pushing
across and across,
and he's waving at me
through the window,
you know,
mouthing obscene things at me,
and I never said a word.
I just kept talking to this guy
about ministry and stuff,
and even as we were driving along here,
at one point he said,
I don't think that guy
is going to let you in.
I said, no, no,
I don't think he is,
but you know,
that's okay.
Now,
what came out my mouth
was nothing.
What was in my heart
was something,
and what was in my heart
if my children
were in the back seat?
Remember last week,
I said that by original sin,
my children have learnt things.
I didn't teach them.
I didn't teach them
to throw tantrums,
anything like that,
but there are some things
I have taught them,
and if they were in the back seat
at that particular point,
one of them would have piped up
and said,
oh my goodness,
look at that idiot.
That is something,
I don't blame original sin for that,
that's something
they've learnt from me.
Over time,
they've learnt that one from me.
That's what was in my heart
at the time.
I was fuming at that guy,
but I never said a word.
You see,
political correctness
might be a start,
but it doesn't deal
with the core issue.
A sinful heart
bent away from God
and bent away
from other people.
That guy
wanted
one car space
and I
didn't want him
to have that car space.
We were both
as bad as one another.
It's interesting
that as you turn
to the gospel
and ask Jesus
often makes
the
hated
foreigner
the recipient
of God's blessing
or the hero
of his stories.
As I said last week,
Jesus is the end
of ethnocentricity
and we'll see it
today.
One of the best examples
is what Sam
just read out for us
in the Good Samaritan
in Luke 10.
So if you've got your Bibles,
flick to Luke chapter 10.
In verse 25,
a lawyer
asked Jesus
what he must do
to receive eternal life
and Jesus
asked him,
well,
what does the law say?
And so he says,
well,
love the Lord your God
with all your heart,
with all your soul,
with all your strength,
with all your mind
and love your neighbor
as yourself.
And Jesus says,
yeah,
that's right.
That's right.
Just do that.
But,
verse 29,
it says,
he wanted
to justify himself.
And so he asked Jesus,
yeah,
but,
you know,
when you say neighbor,
what do you mean
by neighbor?
who is really
by neighbor?
He's looking
to justify himself,
verse 29,
that is,
he's looking for
a loophole
in the law.
He's looking for Jesus
to affirm
his thinking
and his actions
as being righteous,
as,
yeah,
you've done that already.
You see,
the Jews of Jesus' time
interpreted the neighbor here,
which comes from
Leviticus 19,
as other Jews.
At a stretch,
it could include
some foreigners
who have
sort of converted
to Judaism
or are serving,
you know,
the country
and that sort of stuff,
but it certainly
didn't include
Samaritans
or other foreigners.
And so,
Jesus tells this
mainly Jewish audience
this story.
The story is possibly
the most socially
charged story
that Jesus ever tells.
There's this guy
traveling from Jerusalem
to Jericho.
It's a fairly main road.
We're meant to understand
that this is a Jewish man
traveling this road.
The man gets robbed,
he's stripped,
he's beaten
and left for dead.
And then by chance,
his fate would have it,
as it would happen,
a Jewish priest
comes wandering by.
This is a Jewish pastor,
right?
This is a Jewish pastor
and so,
the thinking is,
surely he
is going to help
his brother
in the ditch.
But no,
the priest
couldn't be bothered.
He walked,
in fact,
on the other side
of the street
to stay well away from him.
and pretend he doesn't exist.
Didn't go near him.
And Jesus goes on
and says,
well,
now a Levite comes by.
So,
we've gone from the pastor
to the lecture
of the theological college.
And again,
you would think
that this guy
is going to stop
and help his brother
in the ditch.
But he likewise
does not bother.
He walks
on the other side
of the street.
And then Jesus says,
well,
along comes
the Samaritan.
You know it's going
to be the third guy.
Along comes
the Samaritan.
And at this point,
at the hearing,
these Jewish crowds
gather
and they hear
the word Samaritan
and they go,
Samaritan?
What's a Samaritan
doing in the story?
You see,
Jews and Samaritans,
their tension ran
over a long period
of time.
Samaritans
were despised.
They were not
to be associated
with.
The majority of Jews
in Judea
and Galilee
hated Samaritans.
And by the time
of Jesus,
the animosity
between these groups,
these two groups,
had been growing
for several hundred years
and it exploded
into violence
and murderous violence
in the first century.
And so,
what is a Samaritan
doing in this story?
As it turns out,
he's the hero.
He sees
the injured
Jew,
his enemy
on the side
of the road.
He goes over to him
and he has compassion
on him.
He cleans up his wounds.
He treats his wounds.
He puts him
on the back
of his donkey,
takes him to
a local motel,
checks him in,
makes sure he's
well cared for,
hands over his credit card
and said,
charge to my account
anything,
any expenses
and I'll pick it up.
And by the time
Jesus finished
telling this story,
his audience
would have had
their jaws
on the ground.
This is
not possible,
Jesus.
The Samaritan
was an
unthinkable hero.
So imagine
I got an invitation
to speak
at a Reclaim Australia
rally
because they thought
I was some redneck
and
once upon a time
and
I happened
to tell the story
of
an Australian
SAS trooper
who was blown up
by a roadside bomb
in Afghanistan.
He's lying there
on the side of the road.
Along comes
an Australian
army medic
sees him
on the side of the road,
pretends he doesn't see him
and walks across
and misses him
altogether.
And as the guy's there
bleeding on the side
of the road,
along comes
another Australian
military personnel.
This time
it's a Padre,
a chaplain
and he too
walks past
and ignores
the guy
standing there.
And the next person
who walks up
is a Taliban
freedom fighter
with his AK-47
still struck
to his back.
Sees the guy
on the side
of the road,
sees that
it's an SAS
trooper
sent there
to kill him
and he
bandages up
his wounds,
he puts them
on the back
of his donkey,
he takes them
to a safe place,
he pays for all
his medical expenses,
he even sends
a chunk of money
back to his family
in Australia
to cover his
lifetime military pension.
What do you think
the reception
would be?
Jesus says
to this lawyer,
just do that.
Just go and do that.
Just do what he did.
Treat your worst
enemy
just like that.
Now remember,
this is going back
to the original question
that the lawyer
asked about
how he might have
eternal life
and so when Jesus
says,
just go and do that,
he isn't saying
give it a try
and see how it goes.
He isn't saying
do at least once
in your life
if you can.
He's saying
live and act
and love
and serve
and think
and sacrifice
like this good
Samaritan
all of the time
then you can
have eternal life.
All of the time
for your worst
enemy.
Go and love
and serve
and sacrifice
people who
belittle you,
who curse you,
who marginalize you,
who ridicule you,
who hate you,
berate you,
ignore you,
demean you
and would even
kill you.
And then that's it.
That's the end
of the good Samaritan.
Go and do likewise.
And it's,
we just left
hanging there.
And so you go,
so is the answer
to racial pride
and ethnocentricity
just try harder?
Work a bit harder?
Just be nicer?
See, Luke was inspired
by God to write
what comes next.
One scene
ends with his lawyer,
the next
we're in the living
room with two
sisters,
Martha,
the elder sister
and Mary,
the younger.
And in classic
birth order,
Martha,
the older sister,
is getting busy
with dinner
preparations
and Mary,
the younger sister,
is sitting on the
floor at the feet
of Jesus.
And Martha
is a little annoyed.
She's busy
making stuff happen.
She's got stuff
boiling on the stove
and there's things
in the oven
and she's trying
to staff the dishwasher
at the same time.
You know,
she's got food
all over her
and she is
wanting Mary
to give her
some help here.
And in short,
she runs to Jesus
and says,
tell Mary
to get up
and help me.
And Jesus'
response to Martha
is,
no,
I'm not going
to tell her
to move at all.
So let me
come to the chase
here.
In the second scene,
who looks
the most
like
the good Samaritan?
Martha.
Martha does.
Not Mary.
Mary's the bad
Samaritan.
She's not doing
anything.
Martha is busy
doing all the good
stuff,
all the preparations.
Mary is,
you're doing
nothing,
Samaritan.
And Martha
is going
and doing
and serving
and preparing
and Mary
is doing
nothing.
She's just
sitting at the feet
of Jesus
and going,
oh,
Jesus,
I just love you.
Do you know
what I think
is going on here?
I think the lawyer
should have responded
at the end of
when Jesus
just left it hanging.
The lawyer
should have responded,
I can't do that.
And Jesus
would have said,
I know.
That's the point.
I know.
And if you
were there
or I was there,
he would have said,
Steve,
you can't do it
either.
And 5pm,
you can't do it
either.
The barrier
that exists
between us
and God
and us
and others
that racial
pride
and ethnocentricity
is a consequence
of
is not
fixed
simply
by
holding
your tongues
in some
contexts.
The problem
is sin.
The problem
is our heart.
We need someone
to deal
with the dividing
wall
of hostility.
Romans 5
leads me
to believe
that Jesus
is,
in fact,
the Good
Samaritan
who comes
and who
does
what we
cannot do.
You and I
are,
in fact,
not the Good
Samaritan.
We are the
man
beaten,
bruised,
robbed,
left for dead
on the side
of the road.
We are cut
off from God
and we are
dead in our
transgressions
and sins.
Ever
since
Adam
decided to
rebel
against God,
we have
walked in
the ways
of Adam.
Now,
it might not
seem fair
that that's
our state.
When you
and I
look at the
carnage
that's in
this world,
the carnage
of human
history and
the racial
genocide and
the cancer
and the
suffering and
the divorce
and the
greed,
the fact
that over
there in
Number 7
View Street,
for some
strange reason,
the weeds
grow faster
than I can
kill them,
it's all
Adam's
fault
if you
look at
Genesis
chapter 3.
And every
time I
weed the
garden,
it's so
easy to
get angry
with Adam
because God
picks a
champion for
the head of
the human
race
and this
champion
blows it
and ever
since he
blew it,
our world
has been
messed up
and there
is something
in that
that makes
me feel
like it's
unfair.
That is,
how could
Adam have
been so
stupid?
It feels
unfair because
I think
that instead
of it was
you know,
Adam and
Eve,
if it was
Steve and
Eve,
I wouldn't
have been
as stupid
as Adam.
And yet
the reality
is,
even though
it feels
unfair,
I've joined
him in
his choices
all of
my life
and God
understands
that.
God
understands
that it
seems unfair
that because
of Adam
and his
sin,
that the
whole of
human race
has been
headed in
a trajectory
away from
God and
away from
one another.
And so
God
picks another
champion
in Romans
5 to
do what
is unfair
to him,
to God.
At the
cost of the
life of
his own
son,
God
reconciles
up to
himself
his worst
enemies.
This is how
Romans 5
puts it.
You see,
at just the
right time,
when we were
still powerless,
Christ died
for the
ungodly.
very rarely
will anyone
die for
a righteous
man,
though for
a good
man,
someone might
possibly dare
to die.
But God
demonstrates his
own love for
us in this,
that while we
were still
sinners,
Christ died
for us.
Since we have
now been
justified by
his blood,
how much
more shall
be saved
from God's
wrath through
him?
For if when
we were
God's enemies,
we were
reconciled to
him through
the death
of his
son,
how much
more,
having been
reconciled,
shall we be
saved through
his life?
Not only
is this so,
but we also
rejoice in
God through
our Lord
Jesus Christ,
through whom
we have now
received
reconciliation.
For if by
the trespass
of one man,
that's talking
about Adam
and what he
did in
Genesis 3,
death
reigned
through that
one man,
how much
more will
those who
receive God's
abundant
provision of
grace and
of the gift
of righteousness
reign in
life through
the one
man,
Jesus Christ.
Consequently,
just as the
result of
one trespass
was condemnation
for everyone,
so also the
result of
one act of
righteousness
was justification
that brings
life for
everyone.
For just as
through the
disobedience of
the one man
that many
were made
sinners,
so also
through the
obedience of
the one man
that many
will be made
righteous.
everyone on
this planet
is included
in that
text because
Adam is the
father of
everyone.
Every person
you meet of
any ethnicity
is facing what
that passage
talks about,
either death
in Adam or
life in Christ.
Everyone.
That's it.
this is a
global text.
Don't miss
that.
This is the
defining reality
for every single
person you will
ever meet.
This is not,
the Christian
worldview here
is not a
wimpy worldview.
It stretches
over all of
history,
over all of
the earth,
to profoundly,
it profoundly
affects every
person in the
world and
every headline
on the
internet.
The spectacular
sin of
Adam,
which we
all suffer
the consequence
with,
of,
and agree
with,
is not as
great as
the spectacular
grace and
obedience of
Christ and
the gift of
eternal life
in him.
Indeed,
God's plan
from the
beginning was
that Adam,
as the
representative
head of
mankind,
would be
a kind
of Christ
as the
representative
head of
a new
mankind.
Verse 17
puts the
matter to
you very
personally.
So this is
it for you.
If you're
someone sitting
here and
you don't
know Jesus,
verse 17
puts it very
personally and
very urgently to
you right now.
Where do you
stand on this?
For if,
because of
one man's
trespass,
death reigns
through that
one man,
how much
more will
those who
receive the
abundance of
grace and
the free gift
of righteousness
reign in
life through
the one man
Christ Jesus?
Notice the
words very
carefully and
very personally.
Those who
receive the
abundance of
grace and
the free gift
of righteousness.
Those words
there are
precious words
for sinners.
The grace
is a gift.
The gift
is free.
The righteousness
of Christ
is free.
And so I
call on you
tonight.
Will you
receive it
as the hope
and treasure
of your life?
And if you
do, you
will reign in
life through
the one man
Christ Jesus.
Jesus.
Jesus has
reconciled you
to God.
And in
Ephesians 2,
which Sam
also read
out,
it's a
description
of how
the death
of Jesus
reconciled
us to one
another
across racial
lines.
Ephesians 2,
if you want to
go there in
your Bibles,
Ephesians 2
verse 11,
is a description
of the
division between
Jews and
Gentiles.
Verses 19
to 22
of Ephesians 2
is a description
of the
reconciliation
of Jews
and Gentiles
together.
Now keep
in mind here,
the division
between Jews
and Gentiles,
it's not
small,
it's not
simple,
it's not
shallow.
It is huge
and complex
and deep.
It was
religious,
it was
cultural,
it was
social,
it was
racial.
The divide
between Jew
and Gentile
was as big
or bigger
than any
divide on
the face
of the
human world
today.
And so
what happens
between verse
11 and
verse 19
that brings
about this
reconciliation?
There it is.
Jesus Christ,
the Son of God,
died and he
died by design.
You see it there
in the word
blood in
verse 13,
second half
verse 13,
you who
formerly were
far off
have been
brought near
by the
blood of
Christ.
You see it
in the word
flesh in
verse 15,
abolishing in
his flesh
the enmity.
And you see it
in the word
cross in
verse 16,
and might
reconcile
them both
in one body
to God
through the
cross.
And the rest
of this text
is Paul's
explanation of
how the
blood of
Christ,
his death
in the flesh
on the cross
removes the
enmity between
God and
Jew,
God and
Gentile,
and Jew
and Gentile.
All the
dividing walls
have been
broken down.
And therefore,
by implication
between every
ethnic group of
Christians who
are in Christ,
from many
different blood
lines,
through the
blood of
Jesus,
we have been
brought into
one blood
line.
God
ordained the
death of
his son to
reconcile
alien people
groups together
to each
other as
one body
in Christ.
Friends,
Christ died.
There's massive
implications for
the death of
Christ.
Here's one.
Christ died to
take pride away
from our hearts
towards all
other people,
whatever their
race might be,
and whatever
their status
in Jesus
might be.
Racial
tensions are
rife with
pride.
The pride of
white supremacy,
the pride of
black power,
the pride of
intellectual analysis,
the pride of
anti-intellectual
scorn,
the pride of
a loud verbal
attack,
the pride of
a despising
silence,
the pride that
feels secure,
the pride that
masks fear.
Where pride
holds sway,
there is no
hope for the
kind of listening
and patience
and understanding
and openness
to correction
that mature
relationships
require.
The gospel of
Jesus breaks
the power of
pride.
It reveals the
magnitude and
the ugliness and
the deadliness of
it, even as it
provides deliverance
from it.
Jesus' death on
the cross for our
salvation is pure
devastation for
pride.
Nick read it
out to us,
I'll read it
again.
For by grace
you've been saved
through faith,
and this is not
of your own
doing, it is a
gift from God,
not a result of
works, so that
no one can
boast.
Jesus saves us
by grace alone,
so that we would
boast in him
alone, and that
verse shatters
pride.
imagine what
ethnic and racial
controversies would
look like if all
the participants
were dead to
pride and deeply
humble before God
and each other.
Imagine what it
would look like for
us as a church if
we took seriously
our core value
written on the
wall out there
called humble
authenticity.
God's plan is not
just that the
gospel will go to
all peoples, but
that all peoples
would be brought
together through the
gospel to form one
people in Christ.
And God is calling
the peoples of this
world to share in a
community that
includes their worst
enemies and
reconciles them
with those who
worship and
live in other
ways than them.
And if this is the
design of God,
then we will not
display and we
will not magnify
the cross of Christ
better than by
more and deeper
and sweeter ethnic
diversity and humble
unity in our
worship and our
life together at
St. Paul's.
The gospel demands
that it gets
proclaimed to all
peoples of all
ethnicities, but it
also demands that
all old culturally
driven worldviews
regarding racial
prejudices be
completely abandoned
by the new people
of God.
And we're going to
explore that a
little bit more in
the coming weeks.
Amen.