| Time | Text |
|---|---|
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Issue Of Unity Within Christ
00:05:02
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| What is God speaking to you for 2018? | |
| That's a big one. | |
| I would say the issue that the Lord has been impressing upon my heart, has been weighing on me, and it's really extending back into 2017, it concerns the issue of unity within the body of Christ. | |
| And I think it's sort of summarized in this phrase, make the body of Christ great again. | |
| So we came through 2016. | |
| Obviously, this was a crazy political season, unlike anything any of us have ever lived through. | |
| And then, of course, you know, and I'm very clear, I'm a devout conservative, politically conservative, theologically conservative, morally conservative. | |
| And I did. | |
| I voted for Trump. | |
| But nevertheless, there was, you know, a lot of questions and concerns along the way. | |
| I have been very blessed by many of the things that Trump has gotten done. | |
| We won't get into the laundry list of all the things that he's done that he's accomplished that have been good. | |
| However, and this is sort of the other side of it, now here we are, okay, ding-dong, the witch is dead, okay, that's good. | |
| We've put that behind us. | |
| The issue that the body of Christ needs to be focused on right now, one of the premier issues, and I genuinely believe this is the heart of God. | |
| I believe this is the word, is most of the evangelical, primarily the white evangelical church, we need to recognize the fact that a part of the body right now is hurting. | |
| And specifically, I'm talking primarily about African Americans. | |
| I'm glad you're talking about this because let's be honest, you and I have had conversations privately that the church is scared to talk about some of the cultural issues that are making our society go forward. | |
| And it seems like the Caucasian church dances around this issue. | |
| And we need to stop dancing around this issue because we are brothers. | |
| We are sisters. | |
| We are one blood. | |
| We are one. | |
| I love what Alvida King says. | |
| We are one race. | |
| I believe that the church still lives not only in spiritual segregation, but we have even physical segregation in areas where we don't seem to accept one another. | |
| Yeah, and we also live in sort of an intellectual segregation. | |
| It's not a natural thing to be able to see the world through someone else's eyes because we're not that other person, and it takes effort, and it's not always comfortable. | |
| But, you know, I try to appeal on behalf. | |
| I'm sort of this vaguely ethnic, who knows what I am, but mostly white, some big no something, who knows? | |
| But we have to understand, 2016, you had a handful of high-profile individuals that were killed by police officers. | |
| Now, your average, you know, conservative is going to say, yeah, but statistically, if we look at it, there's actually not more African Americans being killed. | |
| And they kind of do all that. | |
| But the point is this. | |
| The pain is real. | |
| And you can talk to, if you go to a church that's at all diverse, ask your conservative, evangelical, black friends. | |
| Say, are you ever profiled? | |
| Do you experience profiling? | |
| Do you ever experience any kind of press? | |
| And universally, everyone will say, oh, you want me to tell you 50 or 100 stories? | |
| How many? | |
| Yeah, I mean, it's just this, and, you know, and then again, whites go, okay, don't go there. | |
| Let's not talk about this. | |
| We've come so far. | |
| Okay, it's uncomfortable, and I understand that. | |
| Let me just give you an example of the kind of, yes, we've come a long ways, but let me give you an example of the kind of issues that still exist. | |
| So, you know, I've mentioned it before, my son is African American. | |
| Both of his parents are black. | |
| When my wife and I went to go do adoption, we were actually given a list. | |
| And it said, if you want to adopt a white Caucasian girl, you're looking at about $34,000. | |
| Caucasian boy was about $32,000. | |
| Then it was like Asian girl, 30, Asian boy, 28, Latino girl, you know, and it went down until it was 20,000 for a black girl, $18,000 for a black boy, 16,000 special needs. | |
| Now, you can't look at that and say that there is not an element of bias and prejudice that still exists. | |
| Now, of course, you know, lawyers will say, well, this is all based on, you know, people want to have children that look like their family portrait. | |
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Assumptions and Effort
00:00:31
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| And, you know, it's based on market and yada yada. | |
| But there is a dimension where any young black man is going to have to, you know, grow up in this country, and there's going to be assumptions that are made. | |
| Even among cultures and neighborhoods and cities where that's largely not a big issue, there's going to be things that they have to deal with that you and I don't. | |
| So the point is this, is that it requires effort. | |
| And right now, you know, look, we're winning. | |