God's Grace for Every Race

Welcome to this edition of PowerPoint with Jack Graham.

A little later in the program, we'll tell you how you can get the best of 2021 message series. But first, here's Dr. Graham's message. God's grace for every race.

Take your Bibles and turn with me to 2 Corinthians chapter 5. 1958, I was a little boy living in Conway, Arkansas, 30 miles north of Little Rock, a small town then of about 10,000 people. And it was fully in the segregated south. By that, I mean we had people of other races in our community, but you know, we all pretty much stayed to ourselves at our own churches, our own schools. And this was the way we lived and we adjusted to this darkness in some way until it began to change by the power and the love of God. So everything was segregated in Conway, Arkansas.

And certainly while my family was not perfectly unprejudiced, I was taught as a little boy that Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world. It took us a while as believers in America and really around the world to begin to live this, but we have made advances. I can tell you this in all this generation, but we know we are still a divided nation. We have witnessed injustice and the result of anger and despair and hopelessness, violence has inflamed our streets, our communities are in conflict and racial wounds have been reopened.

And there is fear and uncertainty all around us as to what the future looks like. And despite the gains, injustice and equality of the last generation, it appears in some ways the racial divide is greater than ever before. We believe in Christ and because we believe in Christ, we believe that according to God's word, the Bible, that everyone is equal. This is written of course, the Judeo-Christian heritage of our nation. It is written into our documents that all men are created equal and endowed by the Creator with certain inalienable rights. We want, as believers and followers of Jesus Christ, we want a better America and a better future for everyone.

Black, brown, white, all. Our future is in God's hands. We know that, every one of us. The steps of a man are ordered by the Lord, ordained by the Lord. But having said that, knowing that God has this, it is our responsibility as followers of Jesus to use our influence for good and for godliness. You know, in the past generations, it has been Christians who have stood the past 60 years in the gap against abortion for six decades and we are making progress, but Christians have been doing that. Christians who, Bible-believing Christians who have spoken out for the sanctity of marriage, that marriage according to the Bible, God's word, is between a man and a woman and anything else is not true marriage. It is Christians who led the movement.

Not all, but many Christians who led the movement of civil rights and for equality. Only God, using godly people, can heal the racial division that is in our nation. And we have been given a pathway to this righteousness and this justice. Micah 6 verse 8 says, He has told you, O man, what is good and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God.

This is our assignment. This is our mission because we love God to walk humbly with Him, because we love people to show mercy and kindness and to act justly. It's a time in which problems, racial problems and otherwise, are continuing to divide us and we need solutions. We're all looking for answers because we want it to be better.

If you're a Christian, you want this to be better. So we need, as the Scripture describes it, wisdom from above. The wisdom from above, according to James, is first pure and then it is peaceable.

God's pure wisdom. His word that comes from heaven is pure. Every word of God is pure and then it is peaceable. And that peace in the Bible is often referred to as reconciliation. It's one of the great words of Scripture, words like justification and sanctification, theological terms, big words with big ideas, redemption. But reconciliation really encompasses all of it. In 2 Corinthians 5, beginning in verse 17, it says, therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.

The oldest passed away, behold the new has come. And all this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to Himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. So ours as reconciled people is the ministry, to us is the ministry of reconciliation.

What is that? Verse 19, that is in Christ. God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses, that means their sins and disobedience against them, and entrusting to us, entrusting, circle that, entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.

Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making His appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ to be reconciled to God. Another Scripture I want you to see at the outset, Ephesians chapter 2, Ephesians 2 verses 12 and 13. Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, segregated if you will, separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenant of promise. He's talking about the separation that existed between Jewish people and Gentile people, all non-Jewish people.

He said you were alienated, you were a Gentile, separated from Christ and the family of faith of Israel, having no hope and without God in the world. But now, verse 13, but now in Christ Jesus you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Jesus. First point is we are reconciled in Christ by God's grace, reconciled in Christ.

The word reconcile means to be brought back together, to be brought together. How can two walk together except they be agreed, the Scripture says. So what this is saying is that in Christ we are all welcomed into the family of God. That we are members of one another in Christ. We are one in Christ, that God is no respecter or discriminator between people or people groups. We put people in classes and colors and categories.

We often classify people according to their affluence or their age or their appearance or their accomplishment. But with God, really there are only two classes, two categories. Those who are in Christ and those who are not.

Those who are in grace, God's amazing grace and those who are not. We know God does not look on the outward appearance. When David was chosen as the king of Israel, he was the least of the least among his brothers but Jesse was sent by God and chose David.

Why? Because Jesse said God does not look upon the outward appearance but God looks upon the heart. God does not see skin, God sees the soul. Jesus welcomed everyone who came to him. From the smallest child, he said, let the little children come to me for of such is the kingdom of heaven. To the oldest adult, a man like Nicodemus, a Pharisee who came to Jesus by night, he said himself, how can an old man be born again when Jesus said you must be born again? He said, how can an old man be born again? And of course Jesus was talking about the new birth, salvation in Christ. Whether it was religious Pharisees or Jews or Samaritan women often considered outcasts in the culture of the day, Roman centurions, everyone who came to Jesus was welcomed and still is.

I do know this, that according to the scripture, every person born on the face of this earth is loved and leveled at the cross. You're listening to PowerPoint with Jack Graham and today's message, God's grace for every race. We hope you're enjoying today's message and we're excited to share that for a limited time, your gift to PowerPoint will be doubled up to one hundred and fifty thousand dollars thanks to a generous matching grant to say thanks for your gift today. We'll send you the most popular and encouraging messages from this past year together in one collection called The Best of Twenty Twenty One. So call now to have your gift doubled by the match and request the best of twenty twenty one is our thanks. Call one eight hundred seven nine five four six two seven. That's one eight hundred seven nine five four six two seven.

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Our Web site again is Jack Graham dot O.R.G. Now let's get back to today's message, God's grace for every race. The answer to the racial questions of our own day and of our own time is not in critical racial theories which typically are Marxist and toxic. The answer to the racial issues and solutions for our time is not socialism. But Jesus and the gospel of Jesus Christ is the solution to the racial problem of our time. We as Christians, we as followers of Jesus Christians, we believe in justice but not social justice per se. We believe in biblical justice.

Social justice often breeds socialism. But biblical justice breeds equality. And here is biblical justice. What is biblical justice?

Biblical justice is works not just words. Our biblical world view is that the root of the human problem is sin and the sinful heart which divides us and separates us from God and separates us from one another. But it is in Christ and the cross and the power of the resurrection that He brings us together.

And that includes relationships. Relationships are centered and grasped in Christ. If your marriage is falling apart, it is most likely, most definitely in my view because you don't have Christ in your life or in your home or in your family. Because in Christ, everything holds together. No wonder your life is falling apart.

No wonder your marriage is falling apart. No wonder the nation is coming apart because we don't have Christ at the center holding things together. We stand together at the cross where we find commonality and community. We stand together under the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And the only color that God really sees is the royal red blood of Jesus who saves us by His grace. Every race, every face by His grace. And this redemption brings then reconciliation. Jesus according to Ephesians 2 14 and 16, for He Himself is our peace who has made us both one and has broken down in His flesh the dividing wall of hostility. By abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances that He might create in Himself a new man in place of the two so making peace. And might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross thereby, love this phrase, killing the hostility. The hostility between holy God and sinful mankind.

The hostility that exists between the races. What does God do? He kills it. Jesus gave us something brand new. A new identity. It's the church. The church is not a collection of people who all look alike, think alike, talk alike. We share a common life, we share a common love, we share a common labor and it's all in Christ.

And it is sinful therefore to discriminate against any other person because of their race or because of their face. Because we are all by God's grace remade in the image of God. And in Christ, in the church, the true church of the Lord Jesus Christ, we are brothers and sisters, we are all members of the forever family of God. And we celebrate our diversity by finding love for one another in unity. Christ breaks down the walls that divide us and discriminate between us. I can assure you there is no segregation in heaven.

And one way that I know that is Revelation 7, 9. It's a beautiful scene about heaven and the glory and the promise of heaven. And John is given a glimpse of this glory and he says, And after this I looked, and behold a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, signifying purity and perfection in Christ, and palm branches in their hands, praising Him. From every land and every language. Every life in Christ standing before the Lord, praising Him.

Every tongue. Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing, our great redeemers praise. I know this when you read your Bible. For example, in the book of Acts, there were three conversions.

Acts chapter 8, Acts chapter 9, Acts chapter 10. Three powerful conversions. And they're not there in succession by accident. Because each one of these three conversions described represents a strain of human kind since the days of Noah and the sons of Noah. When Noah and his family came off of the ark, his family and his family only survived to replenish the earth. And there were three sons and their wives. And the three sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, then reignited or reproduced the rest of the human race.

And these three brothers, the sons of Noah, became the great three strains of humanity. Ham and the sons of Ham settled in the African region of the world, in the Ethiopian region of the world. Shem, the sons of Shem, are the Shemetic people.

You can hear it, Semitic, Shemetic. The Shemetic people, the Middle Easterners, the brown-skinned peoples of the Middle East primarily. And then Japheth and the sons of Japheth settled historically in the European regions. So you've got Shem, Ham, and Japheth. The African region, the Middle Eastern region, and the European region of the ancient world.

And thus, the rest of the world ultimately. So in Acts chapter 8, this is really, really beautiful. In Acts chapter 8, there was an Ethiopian, a black man, who had been to Jerusalem to worship God, returning home. He was a high-profile leader in Ethiopia. He was returning home.

He was empty. But God put it on the heart of Stephen a deacon to go to the desert, and there was a divine appointment. This man, the Ethiopian, the black man, was reading his Bible, and Philip the deacon got up in the chariot with him and shared Christ with him.

In fact, in Acts chapter 8 and verse 35, it says, Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with the Scripture, he told him the good news about Jesus. And so this man, the Ethiopian, was saved. He was baptized, and he returned to his homeland with the message of Christ.

In Acts chapter 9, you have a Shemitic man, Saul of Tarsus. Saul of Tarsus, a murderer of Christians, a persecutor, a terrorist of the first century, who was confronted by Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus. He was dramatically changed. And how was he changed?

How was this man converted? Acts chapter 9, verse 5, he said, Who are you, Lord? That is, Saul, who became Paul, Saul the murderer who became Paul the missionary. He said, Who are you, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.

So it was Jesus who saved this man from the Middle East, a Shemitic. And then in Acts chapter 9, there was a Roman centurion, an Italian, a European, if you will, who was seeking God. And God sent Peter, against Peter's own will initially, because Peter was discriminating between Jews and Gentiles, and he thought that Christianity at that time, he just thought it was for people like him. But God convinced him and prompted him, and he went, and he was ultimately obedient, and he shared the gospel with this son of Japheth. And in Acts chapter 10, look at it, so Peter opened his mouth and said, Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation, anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. As for the word that he sent to Israel, preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ, he is Lord of all.

Do you see it? This is God's grace for every race. All of the races that flowed out of those original sons of Shem, they were saved in the book of Acts. And how were they saved?

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. It is Jesus who brings us together by God's grace, and that is reconciliation. And because we are reconciled by God in Christ, we are reconciled together. God loves diversity when it brings us together in unity. And the church is to be a colorful mosaic of many people of many nations, all equal. Racial sins denies the inherent dignity of all people. It is particularly sinful, this racism, this discrimination, when it shows up among Christians and in churches.

It cannot be. Along the way, we as Christians, including yours truly, we have made plenty mistakes in this area. And we repent of our own sins. As an athlete, I learned not to dwell on previous failures. But when you make an error, and I made a few, the best thing you can do for yourself and you can do for your team is to learn from your error and be ready for the next play. We should do it by listening to one another.

Many people of different races, we don't even know each other. But it's when we know each other that we begin to understand each other and love one another and then serve one another. For you, this may start in forgiveness, learning to forgive those who have hurt you. And trust in a God who will help you and those who love God. Again, biblical justice is works, not words.

And as we as Christians, determined to love God, then we will love one another and mask God's answer to the questions of race. You're listening to PowerPoint with Jack Graham and today's message, God's grace for every race. As we prepare to step into our 28th year of ministry, generous partners like you are enabling PowerPoint to harness technology, to take the gospel into closed countries and hard to reach regions.

But in order to seize every opportunity God sends our way, your support is vital. That's why we're excited to share that some generous friends have offered to double your gift this month up to $150,000. To say thanks for your gift, we'll send you the Best of 2021, a CD collection featuring 10 popular messages from this past year. So call now to have your gift doubled by the match and request the Best of 2021 as our thanks. Call 1-800-795-4627. That's 1-800-795-4627.

You can also text the word PowerPoint to 313131. And don't forget to visit JackGraham.org where you can shop our e-store, give a gift online or sign up for Dr. Graham's free daily email devotional. Our website again is JackGraham.org. Pastor, what is your PowerPoint for today? Let's pray together. Lord Jesus, thank you for loving us. Thank you for giving your life on the cross and to live in us by the power of your resurrection. May we live devoted lives, holy and godly for you by the power of your spirit. We pray that this day you will teach us and our children to love others as you have loved us. Allow my life at home and work to reflect your grace and generosity. Allow my words and my deeds to build people up and not tear people down. Allow my children to be tender-hearted to people all around them who need you and who need your love. Teach our family how to love people and to use things, not to use people and love things. Teach me, O Lord, and my family that life is not about me and mine and ours, that life is about sharing you with our neighbors and the nations, that we have something that people desperately need, a relationship with you. Teach us not to hold on to that relationship, to keep our faith, but to give it away. And may our family live in abundance, that your love and your grace might show the world that you are our Savior and our God. In your name we pray.

Amen. And that is today's PowerPoint. Remember, when you give a gift to PowerPoint, your gift will be doubled and we'll send you the best of 2021 message series as our thanks. Call 1-800-795-4627. That's 1-800-795-4627. You can also text the word PowerPoint to 313131. And join us again next time when Dr. Graham brings a message about the innate desire you have for order over chaos and what it means. That's next time on PowerPoint with Jack Graham. PowerPoint with Jack Graham is sponsored by PowerPoint Ministries.