Brave Men S1E2: Racism / Reconciliation

I was in a wonderful little neighborhood in Berlin recently, a coffee house. I love Berlin. It has a beautiful vibe and it's got some good coffee. It's a city that has been rebuilt from the ground up since it was totally destroyed in World War II. But did you know that in Berlin, if you publicly make a Nazi salute in public, you will be arrested. Why? Politics? Bad manners? No. They have lived through the ravages of Nazism and Racism. They have suffered the results of hate and evil. What it promised them was power, money, and eternal glory. But what it delivered to them was total destruction. They will not tolerate it. Neither should you or I. It's Brave Men with Paul Lewis Cole, Wisdom and Courage for the Journey. Brave Men starts now. This is Brave Men episode number two of 1,000. Wisdom and Courage for the man who wants to live life in full. I was sick in this week as I'm sure you were, as videos filled the internet of men marching with torches, shouting Nazi slogans like blood in soil and the Jews will not replace us. It ended tragically in the death of a beautiful young lady and two policemen. I cried with others as I watched last year a young man who was shot and killed by officers responding to a call it seemed so unjust. Earlier this year my heart was broken as peace officers in the city where I live were shot and killed. It was terrible. I was heartbroken. Judy and I prayed for the victims and their families. We prayed for police that have such difficult and demanding jobs. We prayed for little children that lost their moms and dads. We were stunned, but perhaps we were not surprised. As followers of Jesus Christ we cannot be silent. We must not be unaware. This is our reality. This is our season also. Racism is from the pit of hell and our response must be from heaven. Here's what second Corinthians chapter five says and as always for me and for my wife and our family and our lives when we see trouble when we see chaos when we say situations we have to go to the word of God because that's our rock. That's the place that helps us maintain a standard. Here's what second Corinthians chapter five says starting with verse 17 and Paul is talking about how when we become a follower of Christ we're a new creation. Verse 16 let's start there says though we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. This is the new living translation. Second Corinthians chapter five verse 16 we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view how differently we know him now. This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone. A new life has begun. And all of this is a gift from God who brought us back to himself through Christ and God has given us. Now I want to emphasize this and God has given us that's a followers of Christ. God has given us you and me. God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. For God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself no longer counting people's sins against him and he gave us as you and me. He gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. So we are Christ's ambassadors. God is making his appeal through us. Think about this you are probably the only Bible that anybody around you will ever read. You are yet. You are the one they know who speaks for Christ. Verse 20, second Corinthians chapter 5. So we speak for Christ when we plead come back to God. For God made Christ who never sent to be the offering for our sin so that we could be made right with God through Christ. Here is the beautiful message the hope of reconciliation. God says this. He says we were brought back to him. Reconciliation is always to God. It is not to something else or to each other. It is first to God. Here is the beauty of reconciliation. That word means that we are brought back into alignment with God. We become a new creation through Jesus Christ no longer are we defined by our past. Reconciliation is the opposite of accusation. When you study the words and that is for people a lot smarter than me. When you study the words out, accusation and reconciliation are diametrically opposed to the opposite. So what God is saying is when you are in Christ on no longer count those things against you, you are reconciled to God. You see reconciliation will not happen outside of the grace of Jesus Christ. Only grace can replace law. The reconciliation of the tribes, races, groups can only truly happen when we are first reconciled to God through Jesus Christ. Now here is the good news. It is possible. In fact that is what has happened to us who are followers of Christ. We have seen it happen for people who are friends of ours and all over the world. Let me say this war, famine, injustice, racism, it is hell that has unleashed on mankind all kinds of dysfunction and this unity. Evil thrives on chaos. Let me say this, people are not the enemy. The enemy is the enemy. There are people that are used by Satan caught up in the grips of evil but they are not beyond God's grace and the message and power of reconciliation. I would say that I have heard a number of people say this and very loudly that racism has grown in America. I do not think so. I do believe that what we are seeing is the exposure or revealing of our true character. You see, I believe that from the slivering cracks of a culture that embraces self-worship, we have begun to feel the earthquakes of racism, intolerance, anger that has always been present just under the surface. Like a tectonic plate that has broken loose, in fact our millennial culture is more tuned into racial understanding, social justice than any other generation but apart from Christ. Pressure magnifies. When there is more pressure, we begin to find out the true intent of a man's heart. In fact, I have heard it said and you have heard it said, pressure does not make a man. Pressure only reveals a man for who he really is. So in the midst of crisis, we find out the true heart, the mask has been taken off, the constraints that held our culture together are being ripped from their standards, the culture that has turned from God has stumbled into Sodom. Now these things have always been in the heart of man. From the Serbs and Croats to Hutus and Tutsis and the Wars of Race that have covered the earth, you can find that in my blog under Wars of Reconciliation. When we partake of the cultures of evil, the result will always be deadly. I'll give you just one item. Look at what we've taught our children for the past 50 years. Just one thing, just one thing. Look at this. Out of many, evolution, we're teaching evolution. Why is that a problem? Why is evolution? How does evolution relate to this? Here's why. When you look at the theory of evolution, the theory of evolution actually takes people down to a place that is counter to the will of God that we were created by his hand. It's a stance that is against the word of God. Let me give you something else. The full name of the research paper that Charles Darwin did isn't this called the origin of the species or the theory of evolution. It is called this. And remember, this is the mid-1800s. And it's written this way on the origin of species by means of natural selection or the preservation of favored races in the struggle for life. It's implied eugenics. This is the same philosophy that launched Planned Parenthood. Now, Charles Darwin may have been personally opposed to slavery, but those people in power took his research as a basis for imperialism to enslave millions of people and steal resources from many others for their personal gain. In fact, you and I have to remember the lessons of Watergate. Some of us lived through it. Some of us have heard about it, saw stories of it. But the key thing there was always for the reporters that were following it, trying to discover what was going on. They were told, follow the money. And I think we have to look at what happened with the theory of evolution, how it was used for some people to gain great wealth, to enslave others, and have a rational basis for doing that, follow the money. And let's look at it today. The largest news and media companies today in the world are shrinking in viewership. That means, in fact, one of them in our nation in America just lost one of their top producers that her work brought in 44% of their prime time add viewing money. So just shifted to another place, went to Netflix, follow the money. So they're shrinking in viewers. That means they're getting paid less for advertising and it's advertising dollars that fund the largest news companies. So if there's fewer listeners or viewers, there's less money. So what's the result? Well, the result is 24 hours of total mayhem. 24 hours of trying to get louder, trying to get our attention, trying to grab us, trying to have the latest headline. And we all know this. You're sophisticated person. You understand that those news people who feel like they broke the story first. It's a big thing. Why? Because that possibly got them more viewers. So they're getting louder and louder. Why? It's all about the money. For a follower of Christ, it's always about character. It's always about character. We don't follow the money. We follow truth wherever that leads us. For some of us, it will lead us to examine our hearts, our speech, our motives. Do I really love my brother? Have I allowed the racism, compromise of my culture to creep into my spirit as a follower of Christ? Racism is the rejection of Christ. It's antithetical. It is from the pit of hell. You can make the Bible say anything you wanted to if you edit it. You can take the words out of context. You can move them around. I remember a classmate in college. He used the Bible. He was from South Africa. And he used the Bible to prove why apartheid was right. Even then, which is 50 years ago, I was dumbfounded. I was stunned. It wasn't how I grew up. It wasn't how our world was in my family. I go, what? That's not what Jesus taught or how he lived. I mean, you and I have to get real. Look inside. Have I laughed at a joke that was insensitive? Did it put somebody else down because of their physical properties or problems that they had physically or put somebody down because of their background or race or where they lived or whether or not they lived in a trailer or lived in an apartment? Have I listened to things that degraded the handiwork of God? Have I looked at news reports and decided those people are going to hell anyway or does our heartbreak when you see young men to what they have done young men and women? The people that have been killed in France, the tragedies that have happened in Indonesia, does our heart break or do we look at it and say, well, he's a Nazi? Well, he's with ISIS. Do we just basically by our attitudes tell people they can go to hell or did Jesus give his life just for the good people? Did Jesus come this for good people? Well, I think the new and I would have been left out. I think the scandal of grace is that even bad people can be redeemed. Jesus came for our worst neighbors or he didn't come for anyone. At Christian men's network, we have been committed to the dignity of mankind for 40 years, creating a legacy of truth, justice, redemption and reconciliation. We are committed to fatherhood. That's our core. We're committed to raising up men who know how to father the next generation, whether they're married or single, but to mentor the next generation. See, I believe those young men that are marching, young women that are protesting wherever that may be in the world. I believe those who are protesting and espousing hate. I think they were taught that. I think somebody showed them that. I think they were mentored into that. In fact, let me ask you this. When's the last time you saw the story of a 50 year old suicide bomber? You don't see them. You see the recent attack in France is an 18 year old in a van in Barcelona, 18 year old in a van that killed some people, the attacks in France, young people. Why? Because older guys are mentoring them and taking their dysfunction and their disenfranchisement and their anger and the thing inside them that says, I was made for more than this and they're channeling it into hate and evil. And the followers of Jesus Christ need to speak up and say, no, there's a better way. It's older men teaching young men and young men have always paid the price for the vanity of older men. The dynamic tensions and mounting pressures of philosophical differences have revealed the true heart of man and the true heart of man needs a savior. I mean, I've watched public officials just pour on each other disrespect and wall street and I use that. There's a lot of good people there, but the selfish indulgences of people in authority and then the shouting lunatics that are online every day. Seems like we've lost our way and intolerance has arrived with a crash as tolerance lost its footing. The expected result of a God is a private thing are these cultural shifts. Mutual respect has been lost. Law has killed love and brother has abandoned brother. See, we are at our core selfish. We want what we want. That's the foundation for most divorces, whether in marriage, business, politics or ministry. My friend Steve Arterburn has a great program on the internet. He's a tremendous writer, author and psychologist. He said the number one issue that women ask him about is the narcissism of men. In other words, selfishness. Why they're so self-centered. The answer to all of this is only one and that's Jesus. In the hearts of men on every street, in every heart. People that choose to decide that love will win whatever the cost. And we, the followers of Jesus Christ, must not be silent. We must speak up. And that means to have the courage to run for your school board, to speak about it, to make things known. We're not going to tolerate this, but here's what we're about. It's not just about being against something. It's being for something. We are for hope in Jesus Christ. We are for a better way. We are for people picking their lives up, getting rid of addictions, getting set free of the things that bind them. Jesus came. He said the first thing he said, I came to set the captives free. We have a lot of people. The anger in our lives is because they've been captured by hate. The word of God has to be our center point. We must love, help, give, comfort, make wrongs right, protect others, love people, and be the bomb of Gilead to a hurting world. Martin Luther King Jr. said, violence is immoral, as it thrives on hatred rather than love. My father, Dr. Ed Cole, I can remember him. I've got a beautiful picture of him standing with pastors in the 50s. Black pastors in the city in San Bruno, California, to protest city laws that were going against him as a youngster. I remember traveling with my family through the south and we were hungry. We were just little kids and we're walking up to a restaurant. My father grabbed all of us, turned around, simply said, because there was a little sign, a little square sign in the window. We were traveling through the south and a little square sign about colors. We didn't know what it was. But my dad turned around and said, no, we're not eating there. If they are not welcome, then we're not welcome. That's how I grew up. That was my paradigm. Taro was mentored in following Christ. But it's not everybody's filter. That's why we need to know that Jesus Christ came for every single one of us to reconcile us to God, to redeem us, and to give us a new paradigm of life. Christ was crucified. His love paid the price. It is not our job to crucify others, but to love others. Isaiah chapter one gives us a clear path to navigate these problems. Isaiah chapter one says this, learn to do good, seek justice, help the oppressed, defend the cause of orphans, fight for the rights of widows. My response as a follower of Jesus Christ is very clear, says this in 2 Chronicles 7-14. If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land. We are, you and I, ambassadors of reconciliation. I invite you to meet me if you're listening to this in 2017 in October when our first podcasts drop. If you're listening to this, join me in four words, November 8-10 for Lions Roards, Lions Roar 201-7.com, Lions Roar 201-7.com. And what you'll find and meet there is a tribe of men and women from around the world coming together to lift up the name of Jesus Christ, to see us mentor men and raise up men who know how to be fathers. It's a group of people who are making a difference in the world. I love you. I believe in you. I believe in us as we follow Jesus Christ. And I love my wife. God bless. You've just experienced Brave Men with Paul Lewis Cole. Paul is president of the Global Fatherhood Initiative. Connect with Paul like BraveMen.Men. That's BraveMen. Men.