Race, Culture & Christ

Jesus didn't stop being who He was to reach somebody else. Dr. Tony Evans says the Lord didn't need to compromise the truth to successfully reach across ethnic and cultural divides. But his sociology opened up an opportunity for theology. Celebrating 40 years of faithfulness, this is the alternative with Dr. Tony Evans, author, speaker, senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas, and president of the Urban Alternative. Prejudice takes practice.

Dr. Evans, you've said that most of us have been getting plenty of it since we were kids. Unlearning it isn't easy, but as a way of introducing today's message, where do we start? Well, we get some practical advice on how to do that as we jump into today's message titled, Race, Culture, and Christ. And so they come and they compete against other athletes from other countries, aspiring ultimately for the gold medal, the ultimate recognition of their superiority. However, when the gold medalist stands on the platform to receive the gold medal, they do not ask him or her what's their favorite song. They play the national anthem of the country of which they are a part with their flag flying high. Because it is understood while that athlete used their talents and their skills and their efforts and their hard work, they represent a bigger country. They represent a bigger kingdom. It's not just about them.

It includes them, it utilizes them, but it's bigger than them. And so they want it to be made clear that they did this under the banner and under the flag of the kingdom that they represent. God has a kingdom.

It's made up of citizens, and His intention was never that their individual uniqueness is whatever caused them to lose sight of the flag flying over them, the flag of the cross, and the flag of our commitment to Christ. America, in particular, is reaching an all-time low in this issue of race and culture and class. Just under the surface, there's this ever bubbling problem that has gone unresolved. This sinful, evil disease of racism, culturalism, and classism is too deep for over-the-counter remedies. Radical surgery is needed.

Any sicknesses last this long and run this deep. We need something more radical and much deeper to address this chaotic confusion in the culture. In John chapter 4, we have a definitive statement on this issue coming out of an event that took place in Jesus's life. Jesus has become popular. We're told in verse 1 He's now baptizing more people than John, and it has become clear He is emerging. And people are beginning to see that this was no ordinary man or prophet.

But Jesus is not yet ready to make His full public declaration of who He is, the eternal Son of God. And so He leaves Judea and goes to Galilee, but we're told in verse 4 He had to pass through Samaria, a little geography. Judea is in the south, Galilee is in the north, and right between Judea and Galilee is Samaria, so it was part of the direct route. But the reason John puts it here is because no orthodox Jew had to pass through Samaria, because in Samaria lived the Samaritan dogs. That's what they were called by Jews, the unclean ones.

A little bit of history. In 722 BC, Assyria invaded Israel as part of God's judgment. They took many of the Jews back to Assyria and transplanted some Assyrians into Israel. So there was interracial marriage. The interracial marriages created this new group of people called the Samaritans who were despised, as you'll see in a moment, by the Jews because of this interbreeding racially.

And so they wouldn't deal with the Samaritans because they were half-breeds and they were unclean, so they wouldn't have anything to do with them. But the Bible says that Jesus had to pass through Samaria. The reason he had to pass through Samaria is because at 12 o'clock noon, or as the Scripture says, the sixth hour—that's 12 o'clock—there's a woman coming to the well. We're told in verse 5, and so he came to the city of Samaria called Sychar near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph, and Jacob's well was there. So Jesus, being wearied from his journey, was sitting by the well.

It was about the sixth hour that came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her, give me a drink. Verse 9 tells us, therefore the Samaritan woman said to him, how is it that you, being a Jew, asked me for a drink since I am a Samaritan woman, for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans? How did she know he was a Jew? He never identifies himself as a Jew. He never says that he's a Jew. So evidently, he's obviously a Jew. Just by looking at him, seeing his dress, hearing his accent, because all she does is see him and hear him, he's obviously Jewish.

So recognizing he's a Jew, she shocked. In other words, Jesus didn't stop being who he was to reach somebody else. He didn't go to Samaria and find out how to speak Samaritan and then find out how they dress so I can dress like them in order to hide who he was.

He was visibly, verbally a Jew, and it was evident. So he didn't give up his own creation to talk to a different kind of creation. He was able to maintain his racial and cultural identity, but even though he maintained his racial and cultural identity, he didn't let it get in the way of doing what his father had called him to do. And that is to reach across the railroad tracks to somebody who was different than him who the rest of his culture would not reach out to.

For the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. While God is not calling any of us to give up how he made us, he is not expecting us to use how he made us to relate inappropriately to people he has made different than us. God is not asking you to be anything other than what he's made you as long as you submit to how he has made you to how you relate to other people who he has made different than you. And so Jesus Christ says, Can I have a drink of your water? The woman is overwhelmed because he's doing something no Jew does. He's doing something that his people don't do, and this has been going on since 722 BC, so this has been going on for hundreds and hundreds of years. And so she is awed by the fact that he's gonna put his Jewish lips to my Samaritan cup.

Now please notice something. He hadn't given her any Bible yet. He hadn't preached to her yet. He hadn't witnessed to her yet. He hadn't given her theology yet. She doesn't even know who he is. All she knows is he's a nice man.

That's all she knows. See, a lot of folk want to tell folk about Jesus who are not willing to drink out of the cup. I want to get your soul to heaven.

I just don't want to deal with you on earth. I'll witness to you, but I won't eat with you. I'll witness to you, but I won't drink with you.

I'll talk about God. Jesus hadn't even talked about who he is yet, but he demonstrated by his touch and by his soci—his sociology gave validity to the theology that was to come. So the woman is just shocked just because he's gonna put his Jewish lips to her Samaritan cup.

He's gonna do what his own race won't, because it was the right thing to do. So, Jesus tells her, verse 10, if you knew the gift of God and who it was who you were talking to, who said, give me the drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water. A little transition to the spiritual. He'd have given you living water. Everyone who drinks your water, verse 13, is gonna thirst again. But whoever drinks the water that I will give him shall never thirst, but the water that I give him will become a well springing up to eternal life. The woman says, well, I want that water. I don't have to come out here at 12 o'clock every day and do this well thing if you're gonna do that. What is this living water? I don't know where you're going with it.

What is this? Well, he says to her, go call your husband. Go call your husband. She says, I don't have a husband. Jesus said, you got that right, verse 17. You have correctly said, because you've had five husbands and the one you have now is not your husband, this you have truly said. He confronts her with her sinfulness, her looseness, her improprieties.

He could have never gotten that far if he wasn't willing to drink from her cup. But his sociology opened up an opportunity for theology. Dr. Evans will tell us how the Lord capitalized on that opportunity when he comes back in a moment to continue this message from his current series, Race, Culture, and Christ. This powerful six-lesson collection reveals how by following the Lord's example, we can bridge the divides and heal the hostilities that have become so much a part of modern life.

It starts with the church and the individuals inside it like you and me. Learn to take the first vital steps by requesting a copy of Race, Culture, and Christ on CD and digital download to review on your own or share with your family and friends. It's yours with our appreciation when you make a contribution to help us keep Tony's teaching on this station. And as a special bonus, we'll include a copy of Dr. Evans' powerful and very personal book, Oneness Embraced. This bestseller identifies what's really behind the cultural and racial divides that separate God's people and spells out kingdom-centered solutions that, unlike everything else society has tried, will actually work. But this special double offer is only good for a few more days, so contact us right away at tonyevans.org before time runs out. Again, that's tonyevans.org, or call our resource center at 1-800-800-3222 any time of the day or night.

I'll repeat our contact information for you later after part two of today's lesson and this. Words cannot express my gratitude to God for His faithfulness. Who would have thought He would have taken this urban kid out of Baltimore, Maryland, given him the opportunities, allowing me to earn a doctorate degree and to build a church ministry that would model what we've been doing nationally and internationally through this ministry, that He would build up and give us a staff who are committed to getting this truth out, reaching hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people with the truth of God in all manner of ways, and to impact individuals and families and churches and even communities with the worldview of the kingdom agenda, the visible manifestation of the comprehensive rule of God of every area of life. And I'm certainly grateful for all the friends He's given us to keep us being able to get God's truth into a needy world. I praise God for 40 years of His favor on us. The alternative is celebrating 40 years of God's faithfulness here in 2021, and we look forward to continuing the essential work and ministry of His kingdom.

Right now, Dr. Evans is back with part two of today's message. She says, Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, verse 20, and you people—a racial slur if I ever heard one, you people—say that in Jerusalem is the place where you are to worship. Jesus says, Woman, believe me, the hour is coming, and now neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem shall you worship the Father. You worship that which you know not. We worship what we know for salvation is of the Jews, and hour is coming. And now is when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth for such people the Father seeks to worship Him. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth. Notice something. When race comes up earlier, he was a Jew, she was a Samaritan, he has to drink from her cup, Jesus makes no comment, none at all.

That's the reality. You're Jew, I'm Samaritan, no comment. But now she brings up race in relationship to Jesus's Father, where we worship. Our Father's worship in this mountain behind her is Mount Gerseim. Mount Gerseim is where the Samaritan temple was located, and that's where we go to church. We go to church at Mount Gerseim.

Jesus, let me explain this. My daddy told me that when you want to get close to God, you go back here to Gerseim. And my daddy told me that because my granddaddy told my daddy, who told me that this is how we live, this is how we worship, this is our view of God.

This thing has been passed down from my Father's. It's part of my history, it's part of my heritage, it's part of my background. It's how I was raised. And you people, the only reason you do what you do is because your daddy told you, because your granddaddy told your daddy who told you, and your great granddaddy told your granddaddy who told your daddy who told you. We got two different histories.

We got two different backgrounds. We were raised on different sides of the track, Jesus, but different. When she brought up race the first time, Jesus had nothing to say.

But when she brought his daddy into it, he gives her a whole lecture. We can have our racial differences, lady, but when you bring my father into the discussion, I got to clarify. And boy, does he clarify you worship what you know not. Your daddy was wrong, your granddaddy was wrong, your great granddaddy was wrong, and your great great granddaddy was wrong. All your people are wrong. They're all wrong because they're not worshiping correctly, they're not worshiping the true God. You're following a tradition passed down by your parents, passed down by your race, and all of them are wrong when you bring my father into the equation. Because theology must rule anthropology and sociology and all the other allergies.

You're wrong. Because when you bring my father into it, it has to have two qualifications, spirit and truth. It's got to be the right heart, spirit.

It's got to emanate from the right motivation. It must operate on an objective standard. Oh, here's our problem. We are operating on illegitimate standards that are not rooted in God, rooted in culture, rooted in history, rooted in background. And all of that may be facts, but the question we must ask is, is it the truth? Because you can have facts and it not be the truth. Your information could be accurate and it not be the truth.

Because the truth is an objective standard by which reality is measured. It's God's point of view on any subject. Just because you were raised a certain way, once how you were raised disagrees with what God says, how you were raised was wrong. And the problem is people reach back in their history to legitimize their decisions today, when their decisions today go against the kingdom of God and God himself. But because this is me, this is my background, this is what my daddy told me, this is what my people say.

It looks like we've made some progress, but then we back up to very little progress, because it's rooted in facts that are not necessarily truth. The story I like to visit on this is—you can read it sometime— Galatians 2, verse 11 through the end of the chapter, my boy Peter. One day he's having devotions on his rooftop, and a sheep comes down from heaven with all these unclean animals on them, and God tells him, eat. Peter said, I can't eat that.

I can't eat that. That's all unclean. God says, don't call unclean what I call clean. I don't care about your background, your history, I don't care about all that.

If I call it legit, it's legit whether it's part of your history or not. So what I want you to do is I want you to go to Cornelius' house, and I want you to tell him about me, and he's a Gentile. I know you didn't grow up with Gentiles, you're not used to Gentiles, you don't like Gentiles, but I told you what to do.

And so don't you talk about those people like you've been raised to thinking about those people, because I just told you from heaven what I want you to do with those people, in spite of the background you have. And so Peter obeys. He goes to Cornelius' house in Acts 10, and he tells him about God and Cornelius, and they all make a commitment to God.

And now it's Jews and Gentiles, and they're all Christians and stuff. And Peter discovered something. Then people knew how to cook.

Peter discovered something. He discovered food he knew not of. He discovered pork chops. Because he couldn't eat pig, but God told him you can eat anything now.

So he discovered hog loaves, chitlins, pig feed. He's discovered this Gentile menu, some good stuff. So in Galatians 2, Peter is eating with the Gentiles.

Some of his boys from the hood show up. The Bible says the circumcision, the Jews who showed up, intimidated Peter so much that Peter got up from his chair and left the Gentiles. It says the rest of the Jews who were with him got up too and walked away from the Gentiles, because they didn't want to offend their own race. Paul says, when I saw what Peter was doing, I condemned Peter before them all.

He acted a fool in public. I in public said to Peter, you are embarrassing the truth of the gospel. You're making Jesus Christ look bad.

This is not some social decision you made. You have embarrassed Jesus Christ and the good news of the cross, which means he brings people together across racial and cultural lines at the cross. The only qualification you need at the cross is you're a sinner who needs a savior regardless of your class or your culture, and you have messed with that message. One of my favorite verses of Scripture, Galatians 2, 20. I'm crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. Yet not I is Christ who lives in me, the life which I now live. I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. That great verse many people don't know comes at the end of this story.

So the story thickens as we get to this last section. The woman says, verse 25, I know when Messiah comes. He's called the Christ. When he comes, he gonna make everything all right. Jesus said, I who speak to you am he. Lady, I'm already here.

I'm already—you waiting for something that you don't have to wait for. Verse 27, at this point, the disciples came and they were amazed that he had been speaking with a woman, yet no one said, what do you seek or why do you speak with her? Now the disciples, you know, they went to get the chicken, they come back, and they notice he's speaking with a woman.

They're not surprised he's speaking with a female. They've seen Jesus speak to Martha. They've seen Jesus speak to Mary. They've seen Jesus speak to some Phoenician woman. They've seen Jesus speak to the woman with the issue of blood. They've seen Jesus speak to a lot of females. What's messing with them is he's speaking to a Samaritan female, which explains why he let them go into town to buy food.

He could have never dealt with this woman with these racists hanging around. But neither did he let them stop him from doing what he was supposed to do. So just because all your posse isn't right doesn't mean you don't do what's right. Jesus did what's right, and he told them, I'll catch up with you later. So they come.

Let me get through this. They come, and when they come, the woman runs into town, and she says, verse 29, come see a man who told me all the things I've done. So the men of the city are on their way out to check out this Jesus because of the cross-cultural, cross-racial witness of Jesus to this woman. The disciples, in the meantime, are saying, Rabbi, eat, verse 31, because we went all the way into town.

It's about a five-mile trip down, a five-mile trip back. That's a ten-mile trip to bring Jesus some lunch, because it's 12 o'clock noon. So they bring Jesus some lunch, and they say, okay, Rabbi, we got your lunch. Eat. Jesus says, I have food to eat that you do not know about.

Say, what? We done gone ten miles, and you've already eaten? I can see Peter now. Who fed him? I cut off his ear, because it's a ten-mile trip, and you've already eaten. disciples were asking, verse 33, who brought him something to eat after we done gone into town to buy food? And Jesus hits them with, here's the bottom line message, verse 34, my food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to accomplish His work.

What fills me, satisfies me, is doing the Father's will, not satisfying your racist, socialist, culturalist agenda. And then he says in verse 35, don't say four months, and then comes the harvest. He says, lift up your eyes and look on the fields.

They're already white under harvest. Stop putting it off. Don't say, we're gonna get around to this four months from now. We'll get around to this later.

We'll fix this later. He says, if you'll pay attention and look up, you'll see the fields are already ready. Now when they looked up, what did they see? They saw all those Samaritan men coming across the field. So what did Jesus do? He set up an opportunity for them to relate to people of different races.

He set up a scenario. And that scenario must always be set up by the body of Christ, places to reflect Christ where anybody can come through these doors who respect our faith in Jesus Christ. And regardless of history, background, race, or culture, they are welcome in the family of God fully.

Because we have a standard. Dr. Evans will come back in just a moment with a thought about the final verse in today's passage. Before he returns, though, I wanted to remind you of that special double offer I mentioned earlier. For a limited time, when you make a contribution to help support Tony's ministry, we'll say thanks by sending you a copy of his bestselling book, Oneness Embraced, along with all six full-length messages from his current teaching series, Race, Culture, and Christ, on both CDs and instantly downloadable MP3s. It's our gift to you, but this special offer is only available for a few more days, so get the details right away at tonyevans.org. Again, that's tonyevans.org. Or call our 24-hour resource center at 1-800-800-3222, where our friendly resource team members are standing by to help you.

The Declaration of Independence talks about the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But pursuing something is no guarantee we'll find it. Next time, Dr. Evans will explain how we can make our pursuit of God more successful. Right now, he's back to wrap up today's lesson with a closing thought.

I love how it closes. Verse 39, from that city many of the Samaritans believed in him. Because of the word, the woman testified, he told me all the things I've done. When the Samaritans came to Jesus, they were asking him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days.

Wait a minute. When we started, the woman is shocked. He's willing to drink out of her cup. A couple of hours later, he hanging out on the weekend. He stayed with them two days. How do you go from people don't even drink from the same cup to a couple of hours later, why don't you stay with us for the weekend?

Because when you do it God's way, it doesn't take that long, that's why. The Alternative with Dr. Tony Evans is brought to you by the Urban Alternative and is celebrating 40 years of faithfulness thanks to the generous contributions of listeners like you.