Racism, Identity and Our Gospel Hope

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:00:01

All across the world, lockdowns, quarantine and social distancing have given way to crowded streets, filled with masked protestors with legitimate issues to express as they seek change and equality for all in new ways of being together in the future.

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And we've also witnessed violence and looting from those that seek to harm others and take advantage of the confusion, fear, and unrest.

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As they confiscate a legitimate movement for their own selfish gain, all of this, a sign of the times that no one, certainly not me anticipated, would happen on the heels of the largest global pandemic of our lifetime.

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Are there actions that we you and I can engage in today?

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Or is this a problem that's out there and since it's not affecting the majority of us today, not daily, we ignore it and hope it goes away.

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Is there hope for change?

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I believe there is, but it may not be a popular.

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Or politically correct option to take.

Announcer: 00:01:09

Welcome to the Everyday Disciple Podcast, where you'll learn how to live with greater intentionality and an integrated faith that naturally fits into every area of life.

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In other words, discipleship as a lifestyle.

Announcer: 00:01:19

This is the stuff your parents, pastors and seminary professors.

Announcer: 00:01:23

Probably forgot to tell you.

Announcer: 00:01:25

And now here's your host, Caesar Kalinowski.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:01:27

Hey, great to be with you all this week again on the Everyday Disciple Podcast.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:01:32

Hey, before we get going, I wanna read a review that came in for the show.

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Uh, it says, great podcast.

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I love the podcast.

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I'm able to freely share this with others without having to interpret terms, keep it up, keep using everyday language that makes the Gospel relatable to others.

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Well, thanks, Chuck.

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I appreciate that.

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That's what we're trying to do, and that's even part of.

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Change the name to everyday Disciple thinking that's the, that's sort of what we're trying to do and be.

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So, thanks for that.

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Caesar Kalinowski: 00:02:42

All right.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:02:42

, it's time to get down to business and I gotta say, that I'm with you today with a quite a bit of sort of like fear and trepidation, just being honest.

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It's, it's been tough.

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I've, uh, seriously, I've sat here for a long time before I hit record today and prayed and, and I've spent hours thinking about this and researching and reading and praying and trying to watch all kinds of opposing sides and listen and learn and, and, uh, let me just stay clearly upfront that , I know I live such a privileged and in many ways, isolated.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:03:12

Isolated from so much of the pain and lack of basic respect and opportunities that many black and brown people in our country do not have and around the world.

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And I have so much to learn and understand and change this subject that has divided people, it's, it's not new, right?

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It's divided people.

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Since there was more than one family or tribe of people on this earth, the issue of race and racism has divided us.

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Everywhere.

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And then certainly in the nation.

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I live politically and socially for far too long and it seems that no matter which side of the issue you come down on, and there's not only two sides, by the way, on this, there are many, but wherever you land, whatever you say, you run the risk of ticking off a, a large portion of people.

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And I thought heavily about that.

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Do I have fear of man?

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Do I not wanna speak what I really think currently at this point in my life and in history?

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:04:03

But I felt like I really needed to sort of swallow hard, have faith, trust the father, and speak to you about what I'm learning and what I'm feeling and thinking I needed to do this to be honest with you, and I don't wanna make this about me.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:04:15

And hopefully it's, you won't see it that way.

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Um, but here we are and we're together in this.

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And so it's also hard because.

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I normally try to come to you with new insights and ways to be proactive and intentional.

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In light of the Gospel, I try to come with answers, and right now I don't feel like I have very many answers.

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I wish I did, and you know, I maybe from the perspectives of, of black and indigenous people of color, I am definitely a white man.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:04:41

Okay, no duh.

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Who has experienced great privilege in my life, that's probably how people would see me.

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And I, I may even be viewed as part of the problem.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:04:49

Okay, so that's why this has been tough to wanna speak to this, but here it goes.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:04:54

Okay.

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I'll tell you a little bit about my own history, so you get some perspective on, on just my own journey of understanding identity and race and all that.

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Um, I grew up in the Midwest, uh, north of Chicago, and I can remember as a kid.

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Um, in 1967 when the, when the race riots were going on then and, and, uh, all the big movement was worldwide happening around race and equality and civil rights and equal rights and all that.

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And I can remember in, in the town I grew up in Waukegan, Illinois.

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I can remember sitting in our lawn chair.

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In, in the summer of 67, uh, in lawn chairs in the front yard with my parents watching as Riot Police, you know, marched up and down the streets and, you know, just like a block or two down there was fires burning.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:05:36

And we heard, you know, oh my gosh, someone had dropped a molotov cocktail in a car or threw it up against a building like where the Five and dime is, where I, I buy my popsicles, you know, every week.

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Oh my gosh, this is where we go and buy our sodas and candy.

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So it was real, real.

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And then, These, these cops showing up in riot gear and saying to us, well, you know, it's uh, and it's dark, right?

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It's getting late.

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You're gonna have to go in now.

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It's not safe.

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And I don't, looking back, I don't know, you know how we processed that as kids?

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It was scary.

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It was weird.

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I don't know what my parents were thinking.

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Having us outside.

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Right.

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You know, watching this like it was a show.

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And that even speaks to, I, I think now, like how removed it even felt, how unreal it.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:06:14

Okay, and then like, jump ahead a little bit.

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Now, my neighborhood was a neighborhood of transition when I was really little.

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It was largely, uh, white slavic, uh, Eastern European families that had come over either that generation or one before to America.

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And they were trying to fight for and build the American dream.

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And the neighborhood was, it was kind of like white flighting and it, the neighborhood was becoming definitely much more.

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color Full.

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Right.

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There was many more people of color growing up.

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Most of my close friends were not white.

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They were, they were, they were black people.

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They were brown, they were Hispanics.

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And, and this is, this seemed very normal.

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Our household was not, uh, I don't believe racist.

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I'm sure we all have racist.

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Sort of tendencies and things we don't see.

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But I can remember one time my older sister, uh, using the N word and my dad like, flipped out.

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I, I thought he was gonna take her head off.

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Like he just, that that's not allowed.

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We don't talk that way.

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We're all the same.

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And, and my dad wasn't even a Christian then, but he really just had this idea and, and instilled in us that.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:07:18

Our skin color has nothing to do with who we are and not, it's not part of our identity and our value and our worth.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:07:22

Okay.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:07:23

And now that's how I grew up and that's how I felt.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:07:26

And it, you know, that's why I think maybe we could sit there dumbfounded watching sort of the cops march back and forth in the race riots going on and kind of almost like it was surreal.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:07:35

Right.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:07:36

Now, jump ahead.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:07:36

In high school, I'm the only white kid on my bus.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:07:40

Okay.

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There was sort of some, uh, this is back when like they were trying to segregate and desegregate things and all.

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So they scooped up a little, a little piece of neighborhood where I lived, which was predominantly black and Hispanic.

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And then they shipped us on buses, uh, up onto the other side of town that was predominantly white.

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They were trying to balance things out and I was in that, uh, neighborhood.

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So I was the only white kid on the bus and many a time.

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Too many times that I probably can't remember.

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I probably had to sh, you know, shut out.

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I can remember my bus driver letting me off the bus first and then slamming the bus door, you know, Ew closing that hinge door and, um, holding back people cuz they were gonna chase me down and beat me on the way home.

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And it happened like some days I couldn't run fast enough to get home.

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And I got beat up.

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I got beat down, I was robbed.

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There was a lot of stuff that I did experience because of my skin color.

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And that was confusing to me.

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N not because like, wait a minute, this doesn't happen to white people.

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This only happens to, you know, people of color or black people.

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It was because I didn't understand why.

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I can remember one time being bullied, really bullied, uh, and kind of beat up by some guys.

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And then one guy recognized me from the neighborhood.

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And he's like, oh, Caesar, is that you?

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And I'm like, yeah, man.

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I was crying and I was really upset.

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And uh, and he tells his buddies, oh man, layoff.

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He's cool, he's cool.

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And I remember thinking, wow, what was up with that?

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And I was brokenhearted and I didn't know what to say and I didn't know what to experience and feel.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:09:07

And so I don't wanna say that I understand racism to the same degree that anybody else feels it, but I have experienced it.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:09:15

That's all I can say.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:09:16

I have experienced it and it doesn't feel good.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:09:19

Okay, but I didn't have to live where I feared for my life every day from like authority figure.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:09:27

You see what I'm saying?

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:09:28

I, I did have times, I can remember one time in middle school where I got just stomped and the teachers and the administrators in my middle school kind of came and broke it up and they're like, Hey, hey, hey, let's stop this.

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And I, I was just like the, I was sort of the victim in this and they just were like, well, let's just break this up.

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And I remember feeling there again, forsaken because, well, aren't you here to help?

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:09:48

Like, address this, speak to them.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:09:50

This is wrong.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:09:50

I didn't do anything.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:09:52

That gives me some also a little, a little inkling of how people must feel like.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:09:57

When you look to authority for protection or equality or defense or something, and the opposite might happen and they didn't, it wasn't then like the teachers or the administrators started beating on me.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:10:09

You know, so, so it's not, it's not the same.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:10:11

I'm not trying to say it is the same, but I can feel it a little bit.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:10:14

And it changed me cuz I tried to understand, well, why is this going on and why am I experiencing this?

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:10:19

And, and I'm grateful to God that my heart didn't just go, hey, And now I, now I hate black people or something.

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Cause that's, that's who did No, I, I saw that.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:10:28

Like, this is individual people.

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This isn't this.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:10:32

I know.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:10:33

I, you know, I couldn't fully understand it.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:10:34

Right.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:10:34

And so, That's part of my history.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:10:37

Right.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:10:37

I just, you need to understand that as I, as I look at this and, and as I've raised kids now and I'm raising grandkids and as we've lived all over the world and discipled people all over, and I've, oh my goodness.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:10:48

Okay.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:10:48

Um, but, you know, um, do we get to, regardless of our experience, do we get to try and listen and learn and speak up from where we're at today without being shouted down or cancel?

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:11:02

You know, I've seen stuff on, on social media where it's like, oh, um, so-and-so speaks up and they're trying to use their privilege cuz they're like, you know, uh, famous or a celebrity or whatever.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:11:11

And then other people are shouting them down and saying, well, who are you to say that you don't know what you're talking about?

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:11:15

You're part of the problem and, uh, you live in privilege and where have you been for the last 10 years?

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:11:19

And you should just shut up.

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And I'm like, but, but regardless, they're trying.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:11:23

Right?

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:11:23

We're trying to understand and learn and grow and without a dialogue, how's that possible?

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:11:28

And, and when I see stuff like that, It makes me not wanna speak up cuz I go, well, my experience is different, but I kind of feel it, but I don't in the same way.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:11:35

I know, but do I at least get to try to understand and speak and, and voice what I'm feeling and learning and trying to, how to live in light of the Gospel do I get to?

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And when I feel like I don't get to, I start to feel hopeless.

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Like, I feel hopeless.

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And I think that is also probably how a lot of of people of color are feeling.

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They feel hopeless.

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Like we've tried to speak in every way and we've tried all of it.

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And I think some of that's what leads to violence and, and I wanna separate it completely.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:12:02

And I saw, I know some people are just purely criminals and I think others are just fed up and they're over it and they don't know.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:12:07

Right.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:12:08

And, and I'll tell you, part of my experience too is I spent a lot of time, years traveling in and out of Africa doing international missions work.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:12:15

I was in the Sudan and Sierra Leon.

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I was also in, in Burma, which that's not Africa, but it's still people of color and, but it was the tribes that were being completely marginalized and really destroyed and killed by the powers to be because they were from different tribes and they were darker-skinned or lighter-skinned or all that.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:12:33

And I'll, I'll tell you what, one thing I learned is we took in medicine, in food and supplies and preach to the Gospel and show the Jesus film all over.

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I mean, all over is we will never ship enough food or medicine.

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To solve the problems that are there.

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We'll never have enough military or demilitarization enough to fix the problems in the world.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:12:54

There's just not enough because the problem stems from human hearts.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:12:58

The problem stem from sin and selfishness, and a broken understanding of our true identity as humans and as image bearers.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:13:07

That's, that's what I believe.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:13:08

So trying to societally fix everything, like there's a societal fix here.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:13:12

We just need to train people better, we need different things.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:13:15

We need to dismantle this or we need to do that or this.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:13:18

Um, we, I don't think we're gonna systemically fix this.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:13:21

This is a human heart sin and selfishness.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:13:23

Brokenness, and it's why Jesus came.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:13:26

In there, I'm certain of this is where our hope lies and your identity mine.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:13:33

No one's comes from your skin color.

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No one's does your identity.

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And great worth and value comes from our creator whose image we bear.

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And, and I wanna ask you like, do you, do you believe that about yourself?

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:13:46

Do you believe that about everyone you've ever met or laid eyes on that their identity has nothing to do with their skin?

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And I see, I believe that systemic racism, systemic, okay.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:13:58

Which is lots and lots of human hearts building systems, and the brutality that that we're seeing is deeply linked to the original meta wound.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:14:08

That we see right there in Genesis three that do to be distortion.

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We've talked about a lot on the podcast, this idea that what you do equals who you are.

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In Genesis three, we see the enemy.

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We see the serpent coming to, to Eve and saying, Hey, did God really say that you can't eat any fruit in the garden?

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And she says, no, no.

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We can eat from all the trees except one.

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If we eat from that, we'll surely die.

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And, and the serpent.

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Lies to her and distorts the truth and says, no, no, no, no.

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God just knows that if you do this then you'll be like him.

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But three or four verses previously it says that God created I and uh, it, uh, humans in his image, both man and woman to be like him.

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There's nothing we have to do to be image bears.

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It's true of us.

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It's how God created us for his.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:14:53

That distortion that what we do or don't do equals our value, I think is at the root of racism and it's at the root of cops who, who have power, but then use it to abuse instead of to defend.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:15:09

See when human life is reduced to what you do.

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And what you do and how you perform and measure up is where your value comes from.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:15:18

In my eyes, that's broken.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:15:20

That's sick.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:15:21

That's the beast that I believe scripture talks about, that you have to do to be versus know you were created to be and Christ is done.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:15:29

And you know what?

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:15:29

And Christians are unfortunately not immune to this disease.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:15:34

This

Announcer: 00:15:34

dis-ease.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:15:37

And when that's the case for so much of the people in this world that what you.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:15:42

Equals who you are, or I've done more than you, so I look down on you, or you've not done this, or you do it differently or you dress differently or you sound differently, or whatever it, when that's the case for so much of the world, cause I say I, I believe it's the meta wound right from the garden forward, then it should not come as a surprise to us that okay, like this is gonna seem like a left turn.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:16:01

But it shouldn't surprise us that we would legalize abortion in our country and in many countries in the world.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:16:06

And, and, and, uh, we've seen somewhere around a million babies lives ended each year for more than decades, right?

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:16:15

Like, see, why is that?

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:16:16

See, When you don't value lives, when you don't, you know, it's no surprise that when people don't see the image of God in others and due to be them, they hold no value for their lives and would seek to harm them or treat them less than themselves.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:16:29

Like you look at a baby and say, well, what have they done for me?

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:16:32

They've not done anything, so they don't have any value yet, and that's, How we could get to abortion If, if I was speaking about that today, I'd be, this start would be the same.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:16:40

I'd say, no, it's this due to be thing.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:16:42

We're not seeing the inherent value and worth of the image of God in humans created to be like God in rule and reign and peace and grace together for his glory to show the world what he's like.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:16:54

And so when that's the case in a culture that can see a million babies murder.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:17:00

It's no surprise that are also people who don't see the image of others and they do to be them and hold no value for them as well.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:17:06

And they then they would seek to harm them or treat them less than themselves.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:17:11

After all, what have you done for me?

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:17:12

You don't do the right things.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:17:14

If you did this, then we wouldn't have this problem.

Caesar Kalinowski: 00:17:16

If you did this, then you wouldn't be, you know, profiled, racially profiled or beaten down.

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Like, you know, you gotta do what like we do.

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See, if you did what we do, then things right.

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That's the sickness, that's the thing behind the thing.

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The only hope for equality and for an end of systemic racism and abusive power, and closing the huge gap of wealth and healthcare and access to much of what I take for granted life.

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The only hope is the Gospel.

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The Gospel, the good news of who God is, who he created to be, what Christ is accomplished, and how we get to live the Gospel.

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And I'm, when I say that, I don't mean churchy.

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I'm not talking about like, well, we just need more Bible studies.

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No, we need the Gospel.

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But see, we live in a time when the true big Gospel has been lost by culture, certainly, but but also by much of the church and been replaced by religion and Christiandom.

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And consumerism as the church and so much of the Christian message has been marginalized and removed, and even in some cases it's been completely outlawed from the public conversation.

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So not only does do we as the church not necessarily even proclaim a full Gospel.

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But even trying to proclaim Christ alone, even express our spirituality and our religious views and who God is has been taken out and, and more and more and more outlawed and removed from the public conversation.

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And the only thing that I believe will change and quote, fix things in connection to all of this.

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It's not even popular to bring it up.

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It's the Gospel See society, which is made up of sinful humans, is looking to society.

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Which is human, sinful humans, right?

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Um, to change and fix a systemic problem of do to be and selfishness in our human hearts.

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You catch that?

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See the very people, society, us, with our sinfulness in our due to be distortions created this problem and now we're gonna look to human sinful society with a do to be distortion to fix it.

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See, that's not our hope.

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Our hope is in the Gospel.

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And I will say, praise God, you know, for this at least how quickly many of the protests and demonstrations have turned.

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Peaceful, peaceful, and, and I've seen a few videos at least of Christians and churches lending a voice to that, to like, Hey, we have to have peace.

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I'm grateful for that, but I've yet to hear anyone in power talking about our true identity as image bearers of God, and that Jesus came to redeem to notice, to exchange our broken selfish hearts and lives.

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And give us his own Holy Spirit to lead us into new ways of being, into living the lives we were created to live, all of us, all of humanity, regardless of color or status or wealth.

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See, that's the thing that's not being talked about and it's not, it's not politically correct to, and I don't even think the church wants to go there.

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There's a lot of apologizing going on right now.

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There's a lot of, we wanna listen, we want to hear, and I think that's all good, but I still don't see in the greater public discourse.

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The, those who have the voice proclaiming the Gospel and that our only hope is in, in getting new hearts and new being from Christ, being restored back to who you're created to be.

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I believe we need to, brothers and sisters listen to this.

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I need we, I believe we need to risk being that voice of hope, even if it's unpopular, if we truly wanna see change in healing and restoration.

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I'm raising my hand right now.

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If we truly wanna see change in healing and restoration, we need to proclaim and live out the Gospel in all of life, not just hidden away in our church services or now in our live streams, or a little of both.

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Okay.

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So there I I wanna get off the soapbox a little bit.

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I'm not trying to, I'm not trying to slam my own brothers and sisters.

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When I say the church, I say me, we, that's us.

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That's all.

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So what's that look like then?

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How do we live out the Gospel and in this situation in particular, and how do we begin, what's our posture to be in all of this?

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Well, as I've prayed about this hard and, and read in all that for the last several weeks, and I've been praying a lot about it, and I kept coming to mind and being reminded as something I read first read years ago in a book by Walter Brueggeman.

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It was a short but awesome book called The Bible.

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Makes Sense.

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I dunno if you've ever heard of it.

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But, uh, in this book, Uh, what Brueggeman writes here, I find direction for my life and our collective responsibility and posture as the church today, as God's family today.

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Okay.

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And in, in the book he talks about, Uh, what the birth announcement of Jesus and his two names given at his birth showed us about God's heart and presence and action in the world.

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And it sort of announced what, what people we could expect from God now, and I, I just gotta read little.

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Bits and pieces of this for you.

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It's just, it's too amazing.

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Okay?

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It's too amazing.

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So, um, so that's what he's talking about.

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He's talking about like, okay, watch what we learn about Jesus.

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Right from the get-go, he says, he says, this Christian announcement of Jesus coming right, um, is precisely out of, of a war tradition of the Lord fighting for God's people.

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Okay, following this, right, he says it's the angel Gabriel who announces Jesus birth.

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We can see that in Luke one.

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Um, and it's, he says, it's no accident that the name of Gabriel means mighty man of war.

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So imagine this.

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We have a, we have an angel coming It.

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Speak to a people who are under the thumb of society that they hate and they feel downtrodden in less than, and they don't have a voice, and all kinds of stuff going on, right?

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For, for, you know, Jews in the world at the time.

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And this mighty man of war comes and the birth announcement Brueggeman says, is the assertion that God is powerfully at work for those who cannot fight their own battle.

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The coming of Jesus is the Lord radically and powerfully with the people in times of distress to rescue them.

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He goes on, he says in the announcement narratives, so because we have different gospels sharing this from different ways, Jesus is given two names.

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It says she will bear a son and you're to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.

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And we see in Matthew 1 21, it says, look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel, which means God is with us.

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Whoa.

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Okay, now here's what he says.

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And this is, this is the stuff that has stuck to me and blown my mind, and I think in it we get some, oh, this is how we can be.

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Again, this is how, this is our posture, at least, if nothing else, he says, the first name calls to mind the great heroes of Israel who intervened on behalf of the people in their time of trouble.

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The second is a quote from Isaiah seven 14 concerning the Lord's assurances that the situation of political oppression and historical hopelessness will now be inverted.

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Right.

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And here, here's where, here's where it gets big, uh, buckle up.

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Okay.

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It goes from the birth narratives, from his birth narratives.

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which are indeed about the with-ness and for-ness of God.

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We may better understand the ministry of Jesus for his ministry is doing what?

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Is announced in his birth.

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Okay?

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So in the name of Jesus, which means the Lord is salvation, he will be named Jesus because he will save his people.

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See, there's a for-ness.

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He's coming.

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Why for you to save?

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To invert this broken system, to change human hearts and write the systems of the world that we have created back to who God created him.

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And in Emmanuel we see that, but he's with us.

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He's not just shouting something from high above that we need to go do.

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So that we can be, he is with us showing us what it looks like to be.

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Plus, he's there, he's bearing it.

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It's, he goes on and he says, he says, um, Jesus is known for what he does and what he does is to be with us and act for us.

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He brings power to people whose power is faint and low.

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This sounds like it was written for this whole topic of racism right now and our systemic sys broken systems.

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He brings healing where disease seems to rule.

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He brings life where death was all they could anticipate.

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Man, I'm getting choked up with this cuz that's how people are feeling.

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Like all we can anticipate

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for our kids' death and brokenness and, and, and maybe

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they're gonna lose their lives because of their skin color.

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He says Jesus was rather the central way in which God showed who he was, the rich man who, for your sakes became poor.

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Now you notice that the one who has it all, the one who of the highest privilege, God himself, who for your sakes would become poor.

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That's so powerful.

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He goes to be with another, may be only an act of momentary condescend, condescending charity, but to be for another means to be vulnerable in the situation of another.

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I'm gonna say that again.

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To be with another may be only an act of momentary condescension and charity.

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Like, oh, I'm with you, right?

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If it was that alone.

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But to be for another means to be vulnerable in the situation of another, to suffer with and die for, to be subjected to the conditions and risks of another.

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To have one's person called into question like that of the.

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That is God's goodness, unlike the goodness of any other god.

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Our God shows who he is by the capacity to enter into the suffering of others, to be with, to be for, to be identified totally with them, and not to be helpless there, but still before the other with fresh power.

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He says, no wonder our God is a peculiar God.

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Now that blows my mind.

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That is just so big.

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But do you see why this is powerful and why I wanted to share this today in this, I believe we find.

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So how do we, how, how do we go forward?

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How do we as the church, and I'll say specifically me as a white man of great privilege and blessing.

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H what's my posture?

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How do I go forward?

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It's with-ness and for it's with and for and, and, and just the last thing I gotta read from Brueggeman here.

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He says that God is for and with us, requires a different kind of life and ministry in response.

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That God is with us requires a different kind of life in ministry and response.

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Wow.

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That blows my mind and that, but that also gives me hope again, see, I said before the, our only hope is in the Gospel, but there's a with-ness and for-ness that comes with it, not just a proclamation on a website or even just like on a podcast obviously, or whatever, with this understanding of glorifying God by being with and for those in need.

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Those who have been treated as less by the culture that we all make up.

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I believe we find hope in there and we find our posture and our plan forward.

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So in a cancel culture where people say, well, who are you to speak to this or that, be with people be for them, shoulder their pain, experience it be willing to be counted as less because of your association with them.

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And it's gonna happen and it's, in fact, it's gonna take that.

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Just like it took that for

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Jesus.

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And if it wouldn't have taken that, he would've done something else, but that's what it took.

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And Jesus came and he did that.

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He was with us and he was for us.

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And I think that is our posture in all of that.

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That's how I move forward.

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That's I've been praying about, okay, how do I be with people of color?

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I don't even know that many closely in those ways anymore.

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I don't live in that type of a neighborhood right now.

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Even in my city, there's a very, very low percentage of the population, people of color.

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Most everybody looks like me.

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And so we feel isolated and we feel confused and lack of understanding.

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So I'm praying, Lord, show me who in my life that I can build greater relationships and be with and seek to understand and ask them how I can shoulder their pain and, and what's that really look like?

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And can we do anything together?

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Is there a way I can serve you as you speak, as you.

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Change or come out of this?

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Help me to experience the Gospel.

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Can I help you experience the

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good news of who God is and who He's created us all to be in his image and what has already been accomplished because of Christ?

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Who can I be with and, and how do I before my

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brothers and sisters, and I don't just mean Christians, I mean our human brothers and sisters that Jesus came and died for.

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Well, that's kind

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of, that's kind of what I needed to share this week.

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I, I know in that there's not, Crazy pragmatic, do this and sign up for that and do this three times a week.

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But I, I hope that maybe in a bigger way that speaks a little bit to the thing behind the thing this whole do to be distortion and, and what our posture and way forward might look like.

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And before I go, you know, as always, I wanna leave you with the big three takeaways from this.

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If nothing else that you know, I don't want you to miss.

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And as always, you can get a printable PDF of these big three.

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If, if it's find it concise and I, oh, I can't write that down quick enough, or I'm driving, or I'm at the gym or whatever, you can get that as a download for free.

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Just go to everyday Disciple dot com slash big three B I G, the number three, okay?

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And you can download this, but here's my big three for the week, okay?

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To try to sum this up and give you hope.

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I gotta get a little sip.

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The subject, there's the first one.

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The subject of racial equality or injustice is one of the most pressing and important topics in our culture today.

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Okay.

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Add to that, the systemic abuses of power that much the world's waking up to, and we find ourselves in a very complex.

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Yet critical time in history.

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Again, we've been here before, but here we are again.

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Are we listening?

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Are we learning anything?

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Are we seeking to understand and bear with those who are different from us or merely coexist in blissful avoidance, like this will blow over.

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See, I don't think it's enough to just be not racist anymore.

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We, we must be anti-racist and ask God to show us how to be different and how to be a voice.

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And people of good news for everyone.

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For all people.

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We, we have to, we get to, we get to, okay.

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That's first thing.

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Second, the only hope for equality and for an end of systemic racism and abuses of power in this world is the Gospel.

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It's not churchy stuff.

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It's not more Bible studies where we don't live out what we learn in those studies.

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It's the Gospel.

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It's the good news that Jesus came to take our sins, our prejudices, our violence upon himself.

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Everyone's.

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So everything you're seeing on tv, Jesus took that upon himself and he came to take it and then give us new hearts and minds.

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That needs to be our loudest voice right now, that we need to proclaim that with our words and our lives.

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Society and culture is changed and healed when individual hearts and lives are transformed by Jesus, and we begin to both see and highly esteem the image of God in each other.

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That's our hope.

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That's the only hope for this.

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And third, I'll just ask you like, who are the people of color in your life you can start to be with more often to listen and learn to better understand their perspectives and experience.

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How can you be for them and help them start to tangibly experience God's love, acceptance and provision.

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We've been given so much.

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How can you help them experience that in greater?

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I wanna challenge you to find ways to defend the defenseless in your neighborhood or city, and help shoulder their lack and loss and pain that they're feeling.

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Speak, hope and value to their faces as you assure them that you're gonna be present.

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That God's with us, that we'll be with them and for them as we together pray for and experience God's redemption.

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One heart, one family, one police precinct, and one church at a time.

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Okay.

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Alright.

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Wow.

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Well that's it for today.

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Uh, that's what I have.

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Thanks for listening.

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I so appreciate it.

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Um, I also want to thank the dear brothers and sisters who are in my coaching cohorts who have helped me in the last couple weeks wrestle through these thoughts and allowed me to kinda ramble and stumble and learn as we talk through this and process this.

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Thanks for being with me.

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I'll talk to y'all real soon.

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Take us away.

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Heath,

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thanks for joining us today.

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For more information on this show and to get loads of free discipleship resources, visit everyday Disciple dot com and remember, you really can live with a spiritual freedom and relational peace that Jesus promised every day.