Sermons

Racism is incompatible with Christianity

 

This morning will be a warmup for when we gather Sunday for what we call Worship in the Round. 

 

And I want to build out a part two application from the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:13-16).

 

• This evening we have our monthly evening service (Worship in the Round) I will answer questions regarding the big topics affecting our country right now.

 

• In Q and A format – questions regarding the pandemic, the election, and racism with my main objective being for our church to have the Bible’s answers on our national conversation.

 

• It is no understatement to say, a lot of people (Christians and non-Christians) have a lot to say on each subject but rarely in terms of biblical truth.

 

I want you to be fearless when you engage in this National Conversation. 

 

• Because you are by design Salt and Light in our world (cf. Matt. 5:13-16).

 

• Because you have the Bible – God’s mind on the issues.

 

To get the ball rolling, I thought I would give a pre-Q/A answer to the question of racism and Christianity. 

 

• Racism in simple terms is discriminating against, antagonistic toward, or thinking lesser of someone based on their race.

 

• Corresponding with this definition is the belief that someone sees themselves as superior to someone else based on race.

 

• God’s word boils all this abhorrent thinking and action down to sin, particularly the sin called hate (cf. Titus 3:3 “…hating one another”).

 

I could unpack all kinds of things about this pervasive and culture altering sin.

 

• I want to simply make the single point that being a racist is Completely Incompatible with being a Christian.

 

• I recently stated in a panel discussion that when I became a Christian:

 

“No one had to tell me not to be a racist.” 

 

• When God saves someone, he performs spiritual open-heart surgery
  • Removing one heart with a natural bent toward hating people and
  • Replacing that with a new heart with a new bent toward loving people.

 

^ESV  1 John 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.

⁸ Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

 

 You may already know that 1 John is something of a spiritual exam testing the genuineness of someone’s conversion. 

 

• 1 John is a book of the Bible specifically designed to test someone to test which heart they have inside. 

• They either have an old heart they were born with – bent on hate
• Or a new heart Jesus put inside them, bent on love.

 

^ESV  Jeremiah 31:33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

 

^ESV  Ezekiel 36:25-27 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you.²⁶ And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.²⁷ And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

 

^ESV  John 3:3 Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

 

^ESV  2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 

 

^ESV  Titus 3:5 he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit

 

 

• When someone loves someone else and indiscriminately,
• That person is like God because God is love.

 

^ESV  Galatians 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness

 

• Conversely, when someone hates someone else,
• He is not acting like God and is the opposite of God and proving he does not truly love God.   

 

Hating someone (no matter their ethnicity) is always sin. Bottom line. 

 

• This is obvious to most but what is equally the case and perhaps less obvious, is that not loving someone (irrespective of their race) is equally sinful.

 

• Tying this together – genuine Christians not only do not hate but they also – do love!  

 

Allow me to clarify a somewhat dangerous nuance here. 

 

• The Bible does not teach it is impossible to be a Christian and hate someone for any number of reasons including race.

 

• Though for a Christian it will be temporary.

 

• Pay attention to the word temporary.

 

Both Acts and Galatians account for Peter separating himself from table fellowship – eating with new Gentile converts, believing they were violating Jewish law. 

 

• I am not sure you can classify this action as hate but it might be close to it.
• Certainly, this was racism.
• In Galatians, Paul records confronting Peter publicly, to his face.

 

^ESV  Acts 15:6-11 The apostles and the elders were gathered together to consider this matter.⁷ And after there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe.⁸ And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us,⁹ and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith.¹⁰ Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear?¹¹ But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.”

 

^ESV  Galatians 2:11-16 But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned.¹² For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party.¹³ And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy.¹⁴ But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, “If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?”¹⁵ We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners;¹⁶ yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified. 

 

Peter was sinning, and Peter needed to repent of that sin. 

 

• I believe he did because if he would not repent of this sinful action and attitude this would call into question his salvation and Scripture never does this.
  • Peter, throughout the record in the book of Acts and the New Testament was a noted leader in the church.

 

• Peter’s sin was real, extreme, and threatening both to himself and the unity of the early church but before we beat him up for his extraordinary sins, we need to remember that forms racial discrimination are common sins that everyone has to account for and repent of in life (cf. 1 Cor. 10:13).

 

• The Bible says genuine Christians repent of their hatred (this kind and all kinds of hatred).

 

• Conversely, not repenting of this kind of all kinds of hatred calls into question someone’s salvation.

 

• Someone claiming Christ who at the same time is a racist should always examine his conversion and likewise have no claim on the assurance of salvation. 

 

A broad survey of Scripture paints a picture of race as both beautiful and redemptive. 

 

• Genesis 10 speaks of the trifurcation of the races under Shem Ham and Japheth.
  • Remember after the world was drowned in a flood based on extreme sins,
  • Noah and his family established God’s incredible reset for repopulating the world.

 

• Chapter 10 has been called, the table of nations.
• History’s catalog of how God spread people groups all around the world both geographically and ethnically.

 

• The repeated refrain, “From these the coastland peoples spread in their lands, each with his own language, by their clans, in their nations” (Gen. 10:5; cff. v. 20, v. 32).

 

• It is fascinating to read these broad and precise statements made in this chapter which capture how we all came to be where we are.

 

This brings up the next chapter, Genesis 11 which accounts for what we know as The Tower of Babel. 

 

• At first read, it can be confusing as Moses (the author of Genesis) appears to be working in reverse order to prove a point.

 

• He writes chapter 10 as the effect and then writes chapter 11 as the cause.

 

Doesn’t the Tower of Babel precede God separating the nations? 

 

• Of course, it does.

 

• Putting the effect before the cause has been compared to watching an old war movie (i.e. on say, WWI).

 

• You see the effects of years and years of battle only to return (say, in the middle of the movie) to the original cause of the war.

 

• Thus chapter 11 being the Tower of Babel scene explains why God divided everyone in the world up geographically and racially.

 

• The whole earth in its pride said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens” (Gen. 11:4).

 

• Because of man’s attempt to be god-like, God scattered this one group into many people groups, creating nations.

 

• Chapter 11 is then juxtaposed with chapter 12 where God first promises Abram (later named Abraham) that through Abraham’s loins and by his example of faith he would bless all the families of the earth. 

 

We know from reading our New Testament that this promise (known as the Abrahamic covenant) is made possible only by our Savior, Jesus. 

 

• His death and resurrection are what brings salvation to all believers for all time and from every nation.

 

• Racing ahead to Matthew 28 we find the risen Christ commissioning his followers to carry out this mission of winning the nations to believe.

 

• The church accepted this mission as is depicted in Acts 2 at Pentecost where everyone heard this good news, the gospel preached in their own language.

 

• The early church began with Jewish converts but what formerly had been a race barrier was now broken down as sin was defeated by Christ’s cross (cf. Ephesians 2).

 

^ESV  Ephesians 2:11-16 Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands—¹² remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.¹³ But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.¹⁴ For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility¹⁵ by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace,¹⁶ and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.

 

^ESV  Galatians 3:28-29 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.²⁹ And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise. 

 

• Jesus bought us back making us all one in Christ and co-equal heirs.

 

• Though our oneness is true and real, the Gospel still celebrates the races in the glorious vision of heaven captured in Revelation 4 and 5.

 

• Every tribe, tongue, people, and nation worship Jesus as both Creator of all things and Savior of all who believe!

 

So again, being a Christian and being a racist are truly incompatible. 

 

• Loving every race with godly affection is the only possible posture and path for everyone who names the name of Christ. 

 

^ESV  Philemon 1:12-16 I am sending him back to you, sending my very heart.¹³ I would have been glad to keep him with me, in order that he might serve me on your behalf during my imprisonment for the gospel,¹⁴ but I preferred to do nothing without your consent in order that your goodness might not be by compulsion but of your own accord.¹⁵ For this perhaps is why he was parted from you for a while, that you might have him back forever,¹⁶ no longer as a slave but more than a slave, as a beloved brother–especially to me, but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.