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East Ridge SDA Church

Steven Grabiner

Racism - An Opportunity

For those of you that might not have heard the question, in the book of Daniel, Daniel 2 is a prophecy that talks about the inability of European nations to become strongly together like they had in the past.

And so, you know, is Britain leaving the EU a sign of that?

Well, I guess we'll have to wait and see how it unfolds.

I'm not sure it's a fulfillment of prophecy.

But you know, 1 of the things about prophecy is that we can look back and say, you know, that was a marker.

Jesus tells us in the Gospel of John, John chapter 14, that I've told you what is going to come to pass so that when it has come to pass, you may believe.

So sometimes there's a back-looking side of that, but that's a good question.

I have a lot of friends that were asking the same question.

And also, of course, in relation to the rise of radical Islam today, the terrible thing that happened in Nice in France and all that's going on.

I know that many of us here are interested in that.

I wanna shift slightly from the prophetic and take Dr.

Dukhan's recommendation and say, we need to also think about the wisdom literature in scripture or what does it mean to me personally?

And as my topic this morning is racism, question mark, and opportunity, opportunity question mark.

We can sense in this country a great uncomfortableness of the relations between races.

And let's just think recently, of course, it's no secret to any of us, the tremendous tragedy that took place in Dallas where 5 police officers were mercilessly gunned down, protecting protesters.

And the individual that did that, you know, was motivated by racism.

He was intentionally targeting these 5 police officers.

In case you don't know any of their names, there's their names.

And the impact of that tragedy was in Dallas, draw a number of disparate aspects of the community together certainly bringing the police community together in a very large way.

And President Obama went down and gave what I thought was a very good speech talking about how as a nation we need to come together.

So there's a opportunity in the midst of trial.

Of course, when we think about this, we don't also want to neglect that over the past several years due to the proliferation of cell phones and video cameras, the recording of African Americans who have been killed by police officers, whether justly, unjustly, we could argue in certain cases.

Some of the cases are quite clearly unjust, I would say.

But again, a tremendous tragedy taking place, particularly the last African American, Philando Castile, who was shot in a car, reaching for his license, said he had a gun with him, but of course the tensions there ended up with him being unnecessarily killed.

His funeral, a thousand people came out for his funeral as well.

And so, you know, as individuals, as United States citizens, as Christians, as Seventh-day Adventist Christians, how do we respond?

What's the opportunity for us to relate to these kinds of tragedies.

That's where wisdom literature comes out in scripture.

And of course in our Bible study earlier this morning, what were we studying?

Anybody like Sabbath school this morning?

And the emphasis of the lesson was on what?

But what else did the lesson bring out, particularly in the very first few days of the lesson.

Ministry that also brought out God's intention for there to be justice in this world.

And that God wanted his people to be engaged in justice as well.

So if you have your Bibles, turn with me to Ephesians chapter 3.

And again, I believe this is perhaps a timely message.

50 years after the Civil Rights Movement is finished, 150 years after slavery, a very vicious war was fought to end slavery.

There still are great divides in this country.

And those divides do not skirt the church.

Someone has said that, I forgot who it was, maybe it was Philip Yancy, but he said Sunday morning is the most segregated morning in all of the United States.

And he's talking about churches gathering on Sunday morning, of course.

But even churches, even communities of believers sometimes haven't gotten over the racial divines.

Ephesians chapter 3, again, our scripture reading, starting in verse 8.

And we're gonna come back, we're gonna look a little bit more detail in Ephesians chapter 2.

But Paul says, Ephesians chapter 3, starting in verse 8, to me, the least of all saints, grace was given to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ, and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God, who created all things, verse 10, so that or in order that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and authorities in heavenly places.

Manifold, diverse, many-sided wisdom of God is to be made known to whom?

Okay, to the universe, to the principalities and powers, the authorities in heavenly places.

And what's the vehicle for making that wisdom known?

The church, the group of believers that meet wherever they are.

God's intention is through our relations 1 with another, He is revealing something.

We all come from very different backgrounds, from economic backgrounds, social backgrounds, and yet God's intention is that somehow the gospel, the grace of Christ, would make the changes necessary in your heart and mine so that we really get along with 1 another.

And that God's grace begins to show what is his wisdom, how God works in the universe.

And the proving ground for that is you and me.

And So here's this tremendous opportunity in a country, no, a world that is being fractured by violence, by terrorism, by uncertainty all over the place, to say, here is a beacon of stability.

Here's a place where lives are really being changed and those tensions that divide us are being obliterated.

Do you think that's an opportunity for us?

I would say that there is division in this country, oftentimes division in our lives, in our families, And that division, that working, the adversary's working division is trying to divide us all into different camps, isn't he?

Well, we're in a political year, so What are some of those camps?

Well, we're in a political year, so what are some of those camps?

Conservative or liberal, or libertarian, or progressive, or what else?

Economic levels, wealthy, wealthy, wealthy, not so wealthy, less wealthy, All sorts of divisions.

Yeah, the division of, okay, we're going to have, I don't know how do you describe them.

So regional conferences for anybody that may not know are conferences that are largely operated by African Americans and the non-regional conferences largely in their leadership are non-African Americans, not entirely.

So But why do they exist at this point in Earth's history?

Well, there's probably reasons that people would argue.

Because somehow, we really haven't let or understood the truth of this text to really come in and say, okay, here's an opportunity in a fractured world again to have an island of peace where people of all different social economic backgrounds and educational backgrounds and racial backgrounds are able to come together.

But that is part of the purpose of the gospel.

That's what Paul's telling us, particularly in this letter of Ephesians.

Well, let's go back and think a little bit because sometimes we think that some of these issues are just for our day, but they weren't.

Back in the writing of the time of the New Testament.

John chapter 4 verse 9 tells us that the Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans.

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Racism - An Opportunity

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