20/20 Vision Series -- Cross Cultural Discipleship Humility and Competency

Father, we thank you for the body of Christ, the church. This isn't a show. This isn't a performance. This isn't even about a talk. This is about your people gathered. Lord, we thank you for the technology that allows us to gather online as well.

Lord, we pray for our church. We pray that you would preserve the unity of our body. We pray, Father, that you would preserve the relationships in our body. We pray for the body of Christ that is represented by Christ the King. Lord, that we would grow in one another during this time when that is really difficult because of the pandemic. Father, we pray that you would renew us in our commitment to one another, to meet with each other, to encourage one another, to every day remind each other and point each other to the reality that is Jesus Christ raised from the dead—our hope, our bond with each other.

Lord, we pray that you would protect the peace and unity and purity of our body. Lord, we pray for our church even walking through now what's coming up on a year, next month. Lord, we pray that you'd preserve the unity, the relationships, the reality of this your church. We pray too that you would grow us as people who are being marked by your humility and your love for one another and for those who are around us. Lord, we pray that you would do so for Jesus' sake, for his glory, and for our joy. We pray these things in his name. Amen.

I'm going to invite you to turn in your bulletin or in your Bible to Philippians 2:1-11. We're going to read this aloud together. Christ's example of humility—this is how my Bible gives us this. This is a famous song of the early church. I want to invite you, if you would, join your voices with me in reading this.

If there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and with one mind. Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name. So that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. — Philippians 2:1-11

Pray that the words of my mouth and the meditation of all of our hearts would be pleasing and acceptable in your sight, Lord. You are our rock, our fortress, and our redeemer. Amen.

We are going through a vision series where we are talking through what the vision that our elders have set forth over the next ten years. We've been looking at this apple tree diagram that you could find in your bulletin or on our website. And like a weird apple tree that you've never seen before, this one has different kinds of fruits on it. We are on the second of those fruits. We've talked about a church that plants churches, and now we're talking about a church that is about cross cultural discipleship, becoming cross cultural disciples. This sermon really is about how we do that.

Before I jump into that this morning, I want to remind you of both the what and the why—what we're doing and why we're doing it. Because when I say cross cultural discipleship, many people automatically go to multicultural. You picture the college catalog with three or four students of different backgrounds and ethnicities around a table laughing over a meal. And that's the world's picture of what it means to be cross cultural. It's sort of this diversity which can be more of a photo op or cheap.

What we're looking for is something much deeper, and something which we believe Scripture points us to. It's not that we would become a multiethnic church on Sundays. That's not a bad thing. But we're aiming at something much higher. And there are two problems with us aiming just at being a multiethnic church or pursuing diversity.

The first is this: that it could be an arrogant goal, particularly for a majority white congregation to say, "We're just going to change some things here and suddenly we expect people of color are just going to flood this congregation." And we'll check a box. We'll feel like we've done something. And too often that's what's been done in our culture.

And second, the reason is that we're not looking to measure just what happens here on Sundays. We believe the church exists as a Monday through Sunday institution, not just a Sunday institution. So what we're looking for more is what is happening in the lives of our people Monday through Saturday. Are we the type of people who are growing and becoming cross cultural disciples in our relationships, in the way that we interact with others?

Our goal is a lifelong journey of listening and learning that mutually recognizes and validates and celebrates all people and cultures to glorify God for the sake of pursuing Christian unity. That's what we're aiming at and that is much deeper.

But here's why. We draw all of this back to Jesus' vision statement for the church. I started off this series talking about Jesus' vision statement for the church. Class, does anyone know Jesus' vision statement for the church? What's it called? The Great Commission, Matthew 28:18-20.

Go into all the world and make disciples of all ethne, all nations. — Matthew 28:18-20

This comes to really fundamentally God's vision for his church. That we would make disciples of all our neighbors, not just the ones who look like us. In the American church, too often, our churches are like attracts like. You look at congregations and you're like, gosh, I can figure out that you guys are all pretty similar in the things that you're into.

One of the things that really marks the early church was this like and unlike coming together in fellowship. That was one of the main apologetics for the reality of the gospel in the Roman Empire. We pray that that would be true in us. So we're hoping to grow as a church in cultural competence, cultural agility. Because we want people to know the joy of Jesus. We want all people gathered around his throne.

How Do We Do This?

Now, how? That's the million dollar question. That's what I'm going to aim us at this morning. I know that when we start talking about culture and about the church, it can make some people nervous. I just want to head this one off at the past this morning because I know many of you have been in businesses or companies that have probably done diversity training before. Anybody been through some diversity training? I thought so. You've watched the TV show The Office. One of the early episodes of The Office is a very cringeworthy episode about diversity day.

I know that some of you may be wondering: is this whole topic of cross culture discipleship going to take us off the rails of the gospel, of Jesus being the main point of our church? Are we just going to be led by the culture? That's a good question. Let me explain it this way.

I think that sometimes Christians are too binary in the way that we think. Binary thinking is either/or categories. So when I start speaking about the church and the culture, it's very easy for Christians to think in two categories. Let me use boating examples for this.

Anybody been tubing during the summer? I grew up in East Tennessee, lots of rivers, lots of tubing with my youth group growing up. Tubing is where you pull the truck inner tube, inflate it out into the river, and you float. There's no motor, there's no paddle, there's nothing on that tube. It is going the direction and speed of the current. That's what tubing is.

For many people, when we start talking about the church and culture, they think, "Oh no, we're just going to start tubing. We're going to be led by the culture. We're just going to drift the way the culture is going." We know that's a danger, and so sometimes Christians say, "Well, we should do the opposite of that." Let's picture that one not as an inner tube that we're tubing down the river, but a motorboat with a big outboard motor where we're going to go upstream. We're going to go against the current. We're going to go against culture and go that direction.

And Christians often think, "Well, are my two options. I'm either with the culture or I'm against the culture." But I think there's another option. There's another way that Jesus would lead us. I want you to think about this. This can take some imagination.

The old fashioned ferry boat. Now, a ferry boat would look like a big platform. It was nothing more than a raft with a wire going across the river anchored to either side and anchored to the boat with a slip through for the boat and ropes. Ropes that are tied to either bank, and the ferry driver would pull the raft across the river. Going one way, and then pull it up across the river going the other way.

Riding on a ferry boat feels like at some points you're going with culture, and at some points you're going against the culture. Some parts feel like you're going upstream, some parts feel like you're working downstream. I think that's a picture for us of what Jesus would have us think about with regard to the church. We're neither for or against. We're going somewhere else. We're going another direction.

I think it's possible that Jesus has more for his church than simply being with or against—either or. I think he's moving us to another shore and his word, like those wires attached on either side of the bank, is a solid anchor for us. So we keep coming back to this in the midst of this conversation. This is about God's word leading us, his leadership for us.

So we're gonna look this morning at the passage we just read out loud—at this picture of Jesus, following in the footsteps of Jesus. That's my main idea from this morning: following in the footsteps of Jesus. This is how we pursue cross-cultural discipleship.

Following Jesus in His Humility

First, look at verses five through eight. Following the footsteps of Jesus in his humility. Paul traces the slow downward steps of Jesus in what's highlighted here in verse seven, that word "emptying." Jesus emptied himself. Now, to make you feel really smart this morning, I'm gonna teach you the Greek word for that. The word is called kenosis. Can you say that with me? Kenosis. Those of you in high school can already feel good about SAT preparation right now.

Kenosis is Jesus emptying himself. But we have to be careful about what we mean by that. It can't mean that Jesus stopped being divine. He didn't empty himself of his divinity. He didn't empty himself even of all of his attributes as God. He didn't become a lesser God. You could see this in the New Testament Gospels. Jesus calms the storm. He still has some measure of divine power. We see him in this dinner party at a Pharisee's house named Simon, where Jesus knows what Simon is thinking. So he's not emptying himself of all of his attributes.

What is he emptying himself of? Here's how I'd like to point it out. He made himself nothing. The New Living Translation says this: "he gave up all his divine privileges." The kenosis was self-renunciation. He set aside the glory of heaven with his Father, and he voluntarily refrained from using his divinity to make his life easier. And as part of this, he operates within the limitations of humanity.

C. S. Lewis describes it this way. He says the descent of Jesus is this unbelievable event that we believe in. The Christian assertion is that what is beyond all time and space, what is uncreated—God himself—came into nature, into human nature, descended into his own universe and became not only a man, but before that a baby, and before that a fetus inside a woman's womb. And he says it this way: if you wanna get an idea of what that would be like, think of how it would be for you to become a slug or a crab. I love that illustration. A slug or a crab. That kind of limitation. And even that just scratches the surface of Jesus in his kenosis, in him emptying himself for our sake.

Think about this. He enters into a body where he has to be taught to feed itself. He enters into a body where he can't move. He has to be taught to walk, to speak. The uncreated Lord of glory enters into that kind of smallness, that kind of helplessness. And of course, you see this kind of climax, the high point of this humiliation in Jesus' life. The night before he goes to the cross, he takes off his outer robe and he comes and he washes the feet of his disciples. Unthinkable. Unthinkable for a rabbi to do in the first century. Mind-boggling for the Lord of the universe. Just unbelievable that Jesus would do this.

And Paul says this picture, this kenosis, is a model for us of what it looks like to be his people. What it looks like to follow in his footsteps. This is why he says things like this:

Let this same mind be among you that's yours in Christ Jesus. In humility count others more significant than yourselves.

And Paul here is not a hypocritical preacher. If you turn over just another page in your Bible, you'd see that Paul describes himself this same way. He says:

You know, this is who I was. Hebrew of Hebrews, of the tribe of Benjamin. As to the law, a Pharisee. As to zeal, a persecutor of the church. As to righteousness under the law, blameless.

He's like, I got merit badges on my Cub Scout uniform like nobody else got. He's got all the bling. And yet this is what he says:

Whatever gain I had, I count as loss for the sake of Christ.

I count everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus Christ my Lord.

When I was in college, we had an alumnus come back to speak to our Christian group on campus. His name—I still remember it. I remember the night. I remember the room it was in. It was so powerful to me. Craig Duttweiler came back to my InterVarsity group, sitting in this little room on our campus. He had graduated and he had a job. This was in the nineties when the economy was looking bad. We were all wondering, what's going to happen after graduation? He's got his diploma. This is what I'm working for, right? I'm a junior in college and I'm working for this thing. He comes to our campus and teaches on this passage, and he takes it and slams it into a trash can. I was so startled by that. He says, "I had whatever glory I had, whatever the things of this world I had, I consider them trash compared to knowing Jesus."

This is where Paul is. Paul is saying this is the way of his followers in the world. We say, anything compared to him. We empty ourselves. Everything is trash compared to knowing him. This is why he applies this. He says:

Therefore, do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.

This means laying aside privileges for the sake of others. Now, know that word "privileges." I mean, I just turned on the electricity in the room, right? That word really ruffles our feathers in many cases. But the Bible holds that up as a normal thing. Every person has power and position and privileges that are given to you by the Lord Jesus Christ. You have talents that are given to you. You have opportunities that are given to you that you did not make for yourself. And the Bible's take on that, God's take on that, is always that we are given those things to steward for the benefit of others. Those are never solely for me and my own use. Whatever privileges that you have, whatever power you have, whatever position you have, whatever job you have, whatever role, whatever birth order in your family you have—those things are yours for the sake of stewarding them on behalf of other people. Stewarding them for others. It's not for yours alone.

Privilege and Race

So we're talking about this in the context of race. And I will kind of step out on this. For those who are white, part of the dominant culture in America, remember it is not a bad thing. It is not inherently evil that you have privileges or to admit that it even exists. What's important is that we use our privileges, our power, our position for the sake of others. There's this sense of self-emptying. I'm not here for me. I'm here for you.

And you know what? I know when I launch into this subject, many of you are internally sighing. You're thinking, "I—you don't want me to go here." And I get it. Why? Because we're all tired. Anybody else tired this morning? COVID, we all have this COVID fatigue and we're all just feeling kind of run down all the time. And more particularly, many people are tired of having a conversation about race in our culture. I know many of you are probably tired of this sermon already. Tired of this preaching series already. But here's the reality: it's actually an evidence of the privilege of white people that we can say, "I'm tired and I don't want to engage," and we can pull back from this whole conversation without it affecting our lives. That's actually an evidence of your privilege. The reality is people of color have no choice about being tired in the race conversation in America because they can't pull back from that without it affecting their lives.

So here's what I'm asking you to do: hang in. Hang in even though you're tired. Don't shut down or walk away or tune out because if Jesus can do this for us—if Jesus can so lower himself for us—can we do the same for the sake of others? Jesus is inviting us on this journey of kenosis, of self-emptying for the sake of others.

Incarnational Love

Second, following Jesus not just in his humility but in his incarnational love. Here's what we see in this passage, verse eight. Again, Paul points us to Jesus. He says Jesus, taking on a body. Jesus becoming—here's the language we use all the time in church, the word "incarnation," which just comes from the Latin words "incarnate." So if you've ever ordered something chili con carne, right? Chili con carne means chili with what? Meat. Right. Chili con carne. Jesus comes incarne, in meat, in flesh.

And see, we read in the scriptures—this is fascinating—we read in scriptures Jesus is the Son of God. He's also the Son of David. The Son of David. He's from a particular ethnic heritage. He's from a particular family line. He's from a particular cultural background.

Jesus comes and he comes as a Jew. He comes with a particular dialect. And what's fascinating about this to me is that this is not just ancient history. We're not just saying, okay, that's what Jesus was like, and now he's turned into a laser in heaven. What do we believe about Jesus in heaven now? We believe that Jesus ascended into heaven in a body. There's one person in heaven who has a body right now. Only one. Jesus has a body. He has a Jewish body in heaven. He is of that lineage and background. This is fascinating to me.

What's the purpose of his incarnation? Being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross. Maybe the greatest understatement I could ever make about the cross: Jesus disadvantaged himself in order to advantage other people. The cross was kind of a disadvantage for Jesus—greatest understatement ever. But he did so to advantage others.

And Paul takes this and says, this is the model for us. Incarnate that kind of love, incarnational love. You can see this in the ministry of Paul. He's no hypocritical preacher. In 1 Corinthians 9, he describes the secret of why he was able to go all these different places and share the gospel with all these different kinds of people:

For though I'm free, I've made myself a servant of all, that I might win more of them. To the Jews, I became a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law, I became as one under the law—though I'm not under the law—that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law, I became as one outside the law, that I might win those outside the law. To the weak, I became weak, that I might win the weak. I've become all things to all people, that by all means, I might save some. I do this for the sake of the gospel. — 1 Corinthians 9

Paul's saying, yes, I am a Pharisee. I'm of this Jewish background. I got cub scout merits like nobody else on my uniform. And yet, I can change shirts for the sake of the gospel. I can look like I'm on other teams for the sake of the gospel. This is why Paul was so effective as a gospel preacher. He held his cultural preferences with open hands. He's able to go to all kinds of different places and relate to all kinds of different people for the sake of the gospel.

This is what Paul is pointing us to. The only preferences that should exist within the body of Christ is preferring one another in love. This is the model for us: kenosis and incarnational love. Incarnational love means being curious what it's like to be someone else so you can enter into their world.

Incarnational Love and Race

Let me put some flesh on the bone with regard to the race conversation. What that means is that the onus really is on white people in our culture. I'm going to step on some toes. The onus really is for white people in our culture to find out what it's been like, what it is like every day to live as a person of color in this culture.

The reality is, don't expect people of color to do that work for us. They've had to be that token person of color for years. Nobody has ever asked me to speak on behalf of white people. "Hey, give me the white person's perspective." Nobody ever asked me that. That happens to people of color all the time—in their conversations at work, in school, in relationships. That's a normal thing.

So if we talk about who is really tired in this conversation, it's the Latino population. It's the Asian population. It's Native Americans. Incarnational love means that the burden is on white people to educate ourselves, to be curious, to put incarnate into the game.

Why would we do this? Paul says we do this for two reasons: for the sake of others and for the glory of God.

For the Sake of Others

Let's look at verses one through four. The reason we get this whole song—a lot of scholars believe that verses 5 through 11 was the first hymn of the early church. They sang this one all the time. It was one of their favorites. They sang this one loud and proud. But what we get before that, the preamble, is verses one through four. Paul is saying, I gotta point out why we need to sing this song in this way. Because there's a problem with the church in Philippi.

We don't know the details, but we do know the shape of it. Paul's very clear on this. There's a lack of unity. There's a lack of love. There's a lack of empathy in the church. Notice that he reminds the church what they actually have going for them. Look at verse one:

You have these things, church. You are united to Christ. — Philippians 2:1

You have comfort from his love. You have common sharing in the spirit. You have tenderness and compassion from God. Man, you are wealthy in God's economy. He's given you all these things and yet those vertical things, those vertical gifts are not translating into horizontal realities in your relationships. You have a relationship with God where you have these things, but it's not translating into your relationships with others. There's a deficit of empathy among you. There's a lack of humility, selfish ambition, vain conceit. That's what your church was like.

The Church's Response to Race in America

This past spring, we entered into a national conversation about race. Sparked really by the very public deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor, and then more and more after that. This took over your social media feed. It took over your news channel, and I'm betting it took over a family reunion or two this summer, or Thanksgiving, or Christmas. How many had some uncomfortable family conversations? Right.

This was something that churned up a lot. But as we watched those events and heard from the church, what was so discouraging to me was the response of the church. Not just talking about CTK—I'm talking about big C Church, the church in America. What we found is a church that's deeply divided, that's unable to know how to have a unified conversation about these things together in light of Scripture. A church deeply divided on race that's filled with fear and anger.

Data from the Barna Research Group—George Barna started a research group that does survey work on the American church. This is what he found: as of July 2020, professing Christians, practicing Christians, Christians who say their faith is really important and they're going to church somewhere at least once a month—they're no more likely to acknowledge racial injustice than they were the previous summer in 2019. It's actually an increase in the percentage of practicing Christians who say race is not at all a factor in the United States. Not at all a problem. An increase from 11% of Christians who say that in 2019 to 19% of Christians who say that in 2020. After all that.

The Barna Group also asked: How motivated are you to address racial injustice in our society? They saw that number also increased by 11%. Christians are less motivated than ever to address the racial problems in our society. Ouch. That is us, fam. That's the family of God.

Think if Paul were addressing the church in America, if he wrote a letter—the letter of Paul to the Americans. If he was writing that letter today, I think he would say, "Wow, you guys are great on the vertical realities, but it's not translating to the horizontal. There's selfish ambition and vain conceit. I see concerns about power. I don't see humility, inhumility considering and preferring others to yourself." I think you would look at this data and go, yikes.

Humility and Incarnational Love as a Response

How would humility and incarnational love have changed the response of the church this summer? If what was on the dashboard when we're driving as a church—what if humility and incarnational love were the main things we were concerned about? I think it would have changed some things these ways.

Being generous and humble, we would have looked at the Black Lives Matter movement differently. Remember the Black Lives Matter protests this past summer and all the demonstrations? We heard a response from the church that went like this: "Hey, all lives matter" in response to Black Lives Matter. As if what the Black Lives Matter movement was saying was that Black lives matter to the exclusion of other lives. I wonder how humility and incarnational love would have changed that.

See, I think being generous and humble, we would say, "Yes. Black people in this country are situated in a particular historical and cultural context. They have a storyline, and loving people is part of knowing their story. Listening and understanding is key." And we would have been able to say, "Wait, I think what they're saying is: until Black lives matter, it's hard for us to really be able to say all lives matter. And that really does matter."

Second, we heard a negative response to the slogan Black Lives Matter that went like this: "Black Lives Matter is a Marxist organization with an anti-Christian agenda." Again, I think that's a major miss on behalf of the church. I wonder how, again, humility and incarnational love might have changed that response. Because I think we're better than this, people. I think we are nuanced and we can walk and chew gum at the same time.

I think the church can. We do nuance all the time. You were part of an election cycle this fall where you're like, I am voting for a candidate from a political party that does not share Christian ideals. That is not about the Bible or Jesus. There's stuff that whichever party you like, both of them have things which were like, no, don't think so. We have to do nuance all the time.

And so, the church of Jesus Christ should have been able to say, there's a difference between an organization and a theological statement. An organization that we say, you know, we disagree with some of the things that they're about, some of their goals and presuppositions. But can we say that slogan's true? Yeah. We can say that slogan's true. We could say Jesus believes that black lives do matter to him. They're the image bearers made in the image of God.

Or think about the response to the demonstrations and uproar over white on black crime, especially after George Floyd's death and demonstrations. What came out of the church, what I heard over and over is, well, what about black on black crime? What about black on black crime?

And again, how would empathy and humility have shaped that response? Let me think about it this way. If someone were to share with you this week, you know my mother just died of cancer, and you responded, hey, did she smoke? Is that an empathetic response? That's a blaming response. That's looking for a reason to criticize or to find some fault.

See, the inclination to bring out what about black on black crime after seeing a black man die on TV with a knee on his neck is not one of humility or empathy or incarnational love. It's a desire to not have to think about that situation. The death of any image bearer is always a tragedy. It's always worthy of our empathy, of our incarnational love. I think we're better than this.

Or what about black fatherlessness? I heard about that this summer too, coming out of the church. You know, all the problems in the black community go back to a failure of the black family. Again, how might empathy and humility have changed that conversation?

Well, remember there's a story here. There's a four-hundred-year-long story of systemic destruction of the black family starting with the slave trade. Families over and over and over again. I mean, it is a miracle in this culture that there are any together black families. After slavery, it's remarkable if there are any. Again, incarnational love and humility have to help us to be able to name the full picture.

The Church's Role

And finally, you know, the church shouldn't take a side on any of these cultural issues. We should just preach the gospel. Can you imagine someone going to the Pilgrims and saying, hey, religious persecution you're facing, you guys just need to stay where you are and preach the gospel. You don't need to seek out freedoms or justice. You don't need to find a way that you can worship your God. What if someone told them, just preach the gospel?

See, humility and incarnational love call us to something much more than just responding to sound bites. They call us back to the word and the spirit.

Don't misunderstand me. Some of you are like, Bradford is taking a big swing at the right. I am not. I'm taking a big swing at the church. I'm talking about the family business this morning. Our neighbors are looking at our church. They're looking at the church of Jesus Christ, and they're looking at our embodied profession of our faith, and they're finding us very different from what we say.

They're saying, wait, I've heard something before about this.

They'll know we are Christians by our love. — John 13:35

By all these people will know that you're my disciples if you love one another. See, biblical love is never just feelings. Biblical love is always rooted and anchored in sacrifice. If there's no sacrifice for others, then it's not love. It's something else. It's nice intentions. Biblical love is to disadvantage self in order to advantage others.

So why do we do this? Why should we enter into this? I mean, you may disagree with everything I said this morning. But look, this is the call to follow Jesus. The downward pathway to humility and incarnational love is not optional for his people. This is what it means to follow him.

Why else do we need to do this work? Yes, for the sake of our neighbors. But you know what else? For the glory of Jesus. I mean, did you hear this part of the hymn? He says here, and this is what they sang:

Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name.

Don't we agree with that, family? The name above every name. The name of Jesus. Every knee should bow. Right?

In heaven and earth and under the earth. Every knee should bow, every tongue confesses that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Man, I want that. We want Jesus to be prized and praised.

Let me tell you what we're not aiming at as a church. We're not aiming at being a woke church. Woke is sort of a new merit badge that you get in the culture for being socially aware enough. The reality is we don't need that added to the Cub Scout uniform. Why? We already got the righteousness of Jesus Christ. He's given us all the marital badges we could ever want. You're like one of those admirals in the navy with all the stuff on your uniform—you can barely stand up because there are so many badges—because you have Jesus' righteousness all over you.

We're not trying to gain some kind of woke church status. We don't need that. What do we want? That's too small. Woke church is about self glory. We want Jesus' glory. We want everyone gathered around that throne on that day saying, "Him. He's worthy. He's the one." We're about his glory, and we want all people, every tribe and nation and people and tongue to prize and praise him.

Cross-Cultural Discipleship

This is why our goal as a church is a lifelong journey of listening and learning that mutually recognizes and validates and celebrates all people and cultures to glorify God and pursue Christian unity. That's cross-cultural discipleship.

I got some good news for you. We're not alone on this journey. Our denomination in 2018 published a really beautiful statement of what it looks like for the PCA to pursue other-centered love and humility with regard to race. It's an amazing statement of steps in repentance. Your elders in this church, a little over a year ago, approved all the things we're doing and talking about with regard to cross-cultural discipleship.

This isn't a response to the Black Lives Matter movement. We didn't wake up someday and think we better start getting our inner tube and floating with the culture. We said biblically, this is what we think we're supposed to be about. Long before that. Our church thinks this is mission central for us, but it is going to cost us. It's going to challenge us. It may change us. But I think it's worth it.

There's a wire going across the river. There's a wire, there's some rope, and I think we can follow Jesus across this ferry boat to somewhere better. I really do.

But here's my question: Where are you in this? What's the Lord saying to you today? Because this isn't just an us—this is a you question. Where are you?

Prayer

Father, we thank you for your word. There's nothing like your word. Lord, we confess how much we fall short of this picture of humility and other-centered love. I stammer to even be able to describe it. But Lord, we pray that you would work it deep within us individually and as a church body. We pray that you would get glory, that you would become famous, and that those in our lives, in our city, in our world would experience Jesus because of what happens when your people follow your footsteps. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.