Being racist.

1. What is a sin recognized as a major problem in this country, yet most of us will deny we contribute to it?

2. What is a sin recognized as a major problem in this country, yet most of us will deny we contribute to it? Being racist.

4. Food

7. The Kingdom Community-Part I March 11-Barriers to the Kingdom Community (Acts 10).

8. The Kingdom Community-Part II March 18-Culture, customs and the Kingdom community (Acts 10 & 19v23-40).

9. 2 lead characters • Influential leader among early Church. • Like most Jews, held on to the custom of not associating with Gentiles. • Centurion, leading the Italian regiment. • Unlike most Gentiles, he was not an idol worshipper but feared God. Peter Cornelius

10. God orchestrates the meeting of Peter and Cornelius. • Prayed at noon time. • Received vision from God. • Received instruction from God. • Send men on a journey to find Peter. • Stayed at unclean Jewish tanner’s home. • Prayed at 3pm. • Received angelic visitation. • Received instruction from God. • Went on a journey to find Cornelius. • Peter stayed in his home, considered unclean by Jews. Peter Cornelius

11. The social network • People connecting people creating growing network.

12. The Kingdom network God connecting people-who then connect other people, creating growing network.

13. Divinely arranged encounters • We are used by God to bring people together to hear the Gospel. • God brings people in contact with us at the right time for us to learn and grow as Christians.

14. Peter’s vision • “Surely not, Lord!” Peter replied. “I have never eaten anything impure or unclean.” The voice spoke to him a second time, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.” • C.f: Leviticus 11:43-47

15. Mark 17v15-16, 18-19 • Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said “Listen to me, everyone, and understand this, Nothing outside a man can make him ‘unclean’ by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him ‘unclean.’ • “Are you so dull?” he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing enters a man from the outside can make him ‘unclean’? For it doesn’t go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods “clean.”)

21. Luke 5v30-31 • But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and “sinners”? Jesus answered them “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. • Who do we prefer to eat and drink with?

22. Peter’s justification-28b • “You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with a Gentile or visit him. But God has shown me that I should not call any man impure or unclean.”

23. Luke 8v5-7 • When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. “Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed and in terrible suffering.” Jesus said to him, “I will go and heal him.”

24. Peter’s issues. • Justified his actual prejudice against Gentiles with selective bible verses, and his own cultural laws. • Do we also justify our own racist and discriminatory attitude and actions?

27. The Kingdom network God’s plan was to show Peter:- • The Kingdom of God was not exclusive for Jewish believers only. • Being spiritually clean was not a matter of external observations of rituals and rules. but by realizing the cleansing work of the Cross.

28. The Kingdom network • The church is to open her doors to all people, regardless of their race, status & background. • We can be more inclined to associate with people based on external rather than internal attributes. • We can be too self righteous to admit we have racist or discriminatory tendencies.

29. “…God does not show favoritism but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right”. Acts 10v35

30. James 2v1-4 • My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don’t show favoritism. Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in shabby clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you”, but say to the poor man “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet”, have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

31. Objections-chapter 11v1-3 • The apostles and the brothers throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also received the word of God. So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him and said, “You went into the house of uncircumcised men and ate with them.”

32. Are we fishes of ALL men, or privately wish some types of people don’t come to FBC? (Why don’t they can go to another church with more of their kind?)

33. Of course I accept you as my equal.

34. John Piper • “I was, in those years, manifestly racist. As a child and a teenager my attitudes and actions assumed the superiority of my race in almost every way without knowing or wanting to know anybody who was black, except Lucy, our family cleaner lady”. “Bloodlines: Race, Cross and the Christian.”

35. Gal 3v26-29 • You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

36. More objections-chapter 15v5 • Some men came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the brothers: “ Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved.” • Then some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, “The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to obey the law of Moses.”

37. Maybe if you try be more like us, we’ll let you join our club..

38. Acts 15v19-21 • “It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God.” • Are we making it difficult for those of different racial and social backgrounds to become Christians?

41. Even more objections-the crisis in the Galatia church • Brothers, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been abolished. As for those agitators, I wish that they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves! Gal 5v11-12

42. Gal 2v11-13 • When Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly in the wrong. Before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcised group. The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.

43. Gal 2v11-13 • When Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly in the wrong. Before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcised group. The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.

44. If the Apostle Peter struggled with prejudice, what are the chances we have the same problem?

45. If the Apostle Peter struggled with prejudice, what are the chances we have the same problem? • We ALL discriminate against some groups of people and individuals.

46. If the Apostle Peter struggled with prejudice, what are the chances we have the same problem? • We ALL discriminate against some groups of people and individuals. • Being able to socialize well with people of different racial and social backgrounds does not mean you do not discriminate them.

47. If the Apostle Peter struggled with prejudice, what are the chances we have the same problem? • We ALL discriminate against some groups of people and individuals. • Being able to socialize well with people of different racial and social backgrounds does not mean you do not discriminate them. • Racism and prejudice is often rooted in other sins.

48. “This country, everybody is racist. Now, everybody talks about his own interest, doesn’t care about other people’s interest. So let’s not hide and say we are not racist.” Tun Mahathir Mohammad, February 22, Malaysian Insider.