Is Christianity the White Man's Regligion?

Hello, and welcome to the Westside churches special Monday Morning Coffee podcast on this podcast, our preacher Mark Roberts will help you get your week started right. With look back at yesterday's sermon so that we can think through it further and better work the applications into our daily lives . Mark will then look forward into this week's Bible reading so that we can know what to expect and watch for. And, he may have some extra bonus thoughts from time to time. So grab a cup of coffee as we start the week together on Monday Morning Coffee with Mark.

Good morning. Good morning. Welcome to the Monday Morning Coffee podcast for Monday, June the 24th. I'm Mark. I'm drinking a really great cup of coffee. I'm still thinking about the challenge from yesterday's sermon. I've got some notes for Bible reading, all kinds of great stuff just about to happen on this podcast. So what we need to do is get to it. Let's get started. Yesterday's sermon in the 10 40 hour was a continuation of the preaching theme this year, the challenges to Christianity and what a tremendous challenge this is. This has racism and prejudice and all kinds of discrimination. Uh , all of that just written all over it because yesterday we talked about is Christianity a white man's religion? Is it the white person's religion to oppress black people and other minorities talked about that extensively, how that came to pass, what that means. Some things we need to do to respond to that. Lemme just fill in a couple more blanks for you today. Give you a couple more things to work with. First and foremost, there's no way that you can say Christianity is the white man's religion. If you just look at the numbers, if you just look at the numbers according to Pew Research, there are an estimated 70 million Christians in China alone. And that number comes from 2011. And then in Africa and Sub-Saharan Sub-Saharan Africa, the estimate there is that the number of Christians is about 375 million Asian Pacific countries, 258 million Christians. Now let me just quickly say, I understand you understand that those numbers probably do not reflect New Testament Christians, biblical Christianity as it is practiced in the Book of Acts and as we're trying to practice it here at West Side . But you and I also understand that when somebody says, oh, Christianity is just the white man's religion, they're not talking about, they're not just talking about churches of Christ, they're talking about anybody and everybody who gives some kind of allegiance to Jesus the Christ who would call themselves a Christian. So since we're all being lumped together, it's fair to do a count and there isn't any way that you can count 'em up and end up with, oh, just white folks are being Christians. And then the second thing that I wanna say here, just want to emphasize this again, don't do white Jesus. And I'm saying this to our Bible class teachers to vacation Bible school teachers. You're sorting out Flannelgraph material, you're getting a graphic for your PowerPoint. Whatever you're doing, don't use blue-eyed blonde-haired Caucasian Jesus, first and foremost, that's not biblically accurate. We don't wanna do things that aren't biblically accurate. Jesus was not an American. Wow . The podcast has gone to new depths of profundity, hasn't it? Jesus would look like all the Palestinian people that we see on the news all of the time, not like me or you or other Caucasian folks. Okay, don't do that. Don't use white Jesus and say, oh, it doesn't matter. It does matter. We want to get this right and we don't wanna reinforce the notion that somehow white people are using Christianity to unfairly target and hold down other races. Then finally, I think we just need to say it is true that some people have used Christianity for perverted purposes. Some people have used Christianity as a tool to justify racism and discrimination and all those bad things and that shouldn't be done. And we are sorry that that has ever been done. But that doesn't make Christianity as taught and practiced from the Bible wrong or racist. And when someone comes out this business of, hey, this is just a tool of oppression that the white man is using, what we want to say is that's a false narrative. Let me show you from the Bible that Christianity is for everybody and we need to believe that we need to practice that. We need to say that Christianity is for everybody. And I think, I think we're gonna get a dose of that in our Bible reading this week. Open your Bible to the book of John. Let's think about daily Bible reading. It is Monday and today our reading is John chapter three, verses nine to 15. This continues Jesus' conversation with Nicodemus. Notice Jesus continues to work with the idea of the Old Testament. This is a very Old Testament, the passage, and Jesus says, you know the Old Testament verse 10, so you ought to understand what I'm talking about and maybe this is a good place to issue the caution. Jesus doesn't want to discuss spiritual truths. Nicodemus is being called and challenged to live spiritual truths. This is a good place to say it's not about reading your Bible, it's not about listening to a podcast. It's not about going to church, it's about changing our lives to submit to King Jesus. Are you in the kingdom of God? And so Jesus says, we speak of what we know. Verse 11, and I think he's including some disciples there. John maybe is an eye witness to what's going on. Notice that Nicodemus said, we know verse two. So Nicodemus is speaking for those who are on the outside looking in. Jesus says, there are insiders, and I'm telling you, I'm trying to simplify this verse 12. And if you can't get some of these basic concepts, how are you ever gonna get the full idea here? Fortunately, you don't have to go to heaven. Verse 13, to get all of this. Jesus is bringing these truths and as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so the son of man must be lifted up, lifted up is a huge idea for John. He uses that four times here, chapter three, verse 14, chapter eight, verse 28, chapter 12, verse 32, chapter 12, verse 34. Jesus says, this is a must watch the divine must. And if you see Jesus lifted up and you understand what that means and you believe in Jesus, that's the dominant emphasis in the gospel of John. Then verse 15, you'll have eternal life. Notice here that is a present possession. It is not something that you get later. It is something you can begin to enjoy even right now, tomorrow, a huge shift. And I will say something that may surprise and make some people with red letter Bibles a little uncomfortable. See you on Tuesday. We'll continue in John three. It is Tuesday. Today's reading is John chapter three, verses 16 to 21. And I promise something that might be a little bit of a surprise and might even make some people uncomfortable today. And here it is . If you're holding a red letter Bible where the words of Jesus are in red, there's a pretty good chance verses 16 to 21 are in red and I am going to say they shouldn't be. I believe verses 16 to 21 are the words of John, not the words of Jesus. And if you look at this paragraph, I think that's pretty easy to see. Jesus would say, verse 16, my father loved the world not God. And there's so much of this that is in the past tense. He gave his only son, the light has come, men love darkness. If Jesus is speaking, it would be in the present tense and further, Jesus never refers to himself as the only son. That's the way John refers to him. And and I think you could just look along like verse 18, whoever believes in him is not condemned. Jesus would say, believes in me, not believes in him. So already I've introduced the idea of johanan reflections. Wow , that is such a big sounding idea. It's just these parenthetical expressions where John steps over and says, Hey, let me explain to you what that just was. Lemme explain that custom to you. Lemme explain to you why Jesus said that. Lemme explain to you how that played out later. We've seen several of those all already. And I think 16 to 21 is John's reflection on verse 15. Whoever believes in him may have eternal life. What's that about? How does that work? He talks here about what it means to have eternal life in Christ. And that begins verse 16 by John's saying, everybody's got a shot at that. The gospel is for all. Can't underline that enough. Tried to do that Sunday, want to do that every time I get a chance to do that, that would be a very radical thought for Jewish people. But notice verse 17, God does not wanna get people. He loves the world. We need a big dose of that. I'm afraid too many Christians are walking around with this concept of God. He's just looking for them to get outta line so he can say, sorry, you're not getting in. That is not the case. God did not send his son to die because he wants you to be lost. He sent his son 'cause he wants you to be saved. Now, Jews thought in terms of a day of judgment when God would get those gentiles and would get them. But good Jesus says that's not right. That's not an accurate understanding of God. However, there are people who are not paying attention to God. Verse 18. And that's gonna result in condemnation and judgment. Verses 18 and 19, the ultimate sin here is the failure to believe in Jesus. And that judgment is starting right now. Just like eternal life is now. Judgment is now because if you're rejecting Jesus, you are bringing judgment on yourself . So why is that? Why are people rejecting Jesus? Why isn't everybody believing in Jesus? John will tell you 'cause people like doing bad things. People like the pla passing pleasures of sin. People enjoy sinning. Jesus calls us out of that nonsense. And people don't wanna be called outta that nonsense. They want to continue in that nonsense. But if you come to Jesus, then you're gonna come to the light. I think that's John telling us more about verse 15 and I think it's very helpful to see it in that light. We can talk about that more tonight on Zoom. Westsiders Zoom tonight at seven and we'll continue to work through this section of John's gospel for everybody else. See you on the podcast tomorrow. We'll keep reading in John chapter three. It is Wednesday and we're continuing the summer series. Tonight's speaker is Adam Shanks. Adam is a good friend of mine. He has done all kinds of good work in the word of God has had a podcast of his own and he and I have been able to connect and do some things together. I have a lot of respect for him and I am excited about hearing him preach on the parables tonight. Here's Adam to tell you a little bit more about himself and what he'll be preaching on.

Hello, my name is Adam Shanks. I'm the preacher for the South Side Church of Christ in Jacksonville, Texas. I'll be preaching on two parables, the parable of the mustard seed and the parable of the leaven through my passion about leadership and evangelism. Digging into these parables can be incredibly encouraging and motivating for who we are as Christian and what we can be doing as disciples to grow his kingdom. I'm looking forward to being with y'all .

Thank you Adam. I'm excited about hearing Adam. Tonight. I get to do some Bible drill stuff with our kids as we continue our vacation Bible school theme on during the Wednesday nights up until the middle of July or so. So I'll be out there, but I'll get back in there as soon as I can 'cause I want to hear this sermon very much today. Our reading then is in John chapter three verses 22 to 36 . And we get more of the testimony of John the Baptist. And we do get this idea here that Jesus is baptizing verse 22, although that'll be modified in John chapter four in verse two, that Jesus himself did not do, did not actually do the baptizing. It was his disciples who are doing that. And then in verse 24, you get that? Yep , there's that johanan explanation or aside or prayer, parenthetical expression. In fact, in my ESV verse 24 is in parentheses. And you'll notice that what that shows us is that John clearly believes that his readers have read other gospels and they understand what happened to John and where John went and all the things that go with all of that. So he has to make some explanation here about what's going on. And I do love how John the Baptist has what I think in some ways is the toughest joy to have. Verse 29, the joy that someone else is doing well that is just so difficult. We want to do well personally. But John says, I'm rejoicing that Jesus is increasing because that's what this has always been about. It's not about me, it's always about Jesus. Now then in verse 32, we get the idea that nobody is gonna receive this testimony but then in that's not to be taken. Absolutely. Because in verse 33 then you get, but some people are gonna receive this testimony and those people then whoever receives his testimony, the ESV says, sets his seal to this, that God is true. The New American standard says who has received his testimony has said he's sealed to this, that God is true. It's pretty close to the ESV . The new King James has who has received his testimony, has certified that God is true. That's not the easiest passage, but I think the idea is that you are agreeing with God's testimony. Um, one scholar said, you are authenticating that God is real or that you are authenticating that God is right. I think that's where that's going more than real authenticating that God is right. And this is the God who can give you life. Verse 36, whoever believes in the sun has eternal life. Whoever does not obey the sunshine , I see life. But the wrath of God remains upon him. Notice eternal life is now. It's a present possession. You have that now. And please notice how believe and obey, notice how those two things are in held in parallel here. To believe is to obey. To obey is to believe. The idea is allegiance to Jesus the Christ. I really like that idea of allegiance. I'm trying to use that more personally 'cause I think it encapsulates better what the gospels are going for, what the New Testament is going for. That word. Faith today has come to mean something I hold in my head and it doesn't really affect my heart, it does not affect my life. Allegiance is what Jesus wants. Nobody can say I have allegiance to the king and be a rebel. When you say I, I give my allegiance to the king, you are saying, I will live the king's way and do the king's bidding. I'm submitting to the king. It it . It's part of the package. And I think verse 36 shows us faith in the package is obedience it . Those two things are not separate, I believe then I obey. No part of believing is obeying it's allegiance. And we'll talk more about what John has to say about these things, particularly in an incredible conversation that John records for us with a woman at the well and sumaria in John four. See you tomorrow. Welcome to Thursday. And today we begin one of the most exciting chapters in the book of John. It is so exciting because it contains this incredible interview that Jesus has with a Samaritan woman who seems to have a dubious background at best. And there's just all kinds of implications of this conversation. All of them seem to be very bad and it all goes very, very good. Maybe the thing to note here is that this should stand in contrast to Jesus's conversation with Nicodemus in John chapter three. Here's a Jewish rabbi. He knows so much Bible, he doesn't get it. Here's a Samaritan woman who has been immoral. She doesn't seem to know any Bible. She gets it. That's important. That's very, very important. Now, Jesus is committing a number of so social faux PAs . Wow . Try saying that fast social faux PAs . Jews don't talk to women in public places. Further, you don't talk to women about the Bible. One rabbi said better that the words of the law be burnt than that they believe be delivered to a woman. Women just were not educated. Men were taught in the synagogue, not the women. Some even held that teaching a daughter the Torah was as bad as teaching her prostitution. So there's a lot of prejudice going on here. Speaking of prejudice, there's just the fact that she's a Samaritan and Jews don't have anything to do with Samaritan. Something that John will point out to his readers. In some ways it is even surprising that Jesus is going through Samaria . Verse four, he had to pass through Samaria . Most Jews traveling from Galilee to Jerusalem, traveling from Jerusalem and Judea to Galilee would cross the Jordan River, go up north and then cross back over into Galilee and avoid the province of Samaria entirely because they hated Samaritans. And as well, this needs to be pointed out. Something Dina and I noticed when we traveled, we were able to be in Israel in 20 22, 20 23, whenever we were there. When we were there. And we got to travel in Samaria. Samaria is beautiful, but it is super hilly. So I had always heard this business about Jews don't travel in Samaria 'cause they hate the Samaritans and and again, that is true, but Jews also didn't travel in Samaria because it's all up and down and it would be hard, hard walking, just easier to go down to the Jordan Valley and walk that flat plane north up to Galilee. Or if you're coming from Galilee down south to Judea. So sometimes being there teaches you some things that maybe you're not gonna see in a commentary or when you look at a flat map in the back of your Bible, some area , let me say a word or two about that. This is the kind of thing you can do in a podcast. Podcast. Folks are gonna get this and not everybody else is gonna get this. Samaria is not a separate political entity. It is under the Roman ruler who is ruling over Judea, about 400 bc. The Samaritans built their own temple on Mount Garrison . And you may remember there was a lot of interplay between Nehemiah and sand ballot and Tomaya . They wanted to participate, they wanted to help. And Nehemiah said, I don't trust you. You have no part in this. Samaritans are mixed race people. You're not part of us and we're not part of you. You can't help. So as a result of that, the Samaritans pull back, build their own temple. But then during the time between the testament, about 200 bc , a Jewish ruler, John HERIs , he burned their temple down. So yeah, that really helped improve relations between Jews and Samaritans. So by the time of Jesus, Samaritans have their own theology. They worship there at Garrison , not in Jerusalem. They're not welcome in Jerusalem. So they're on Mount Garrison, which is where the blessings and the curses were recited. Deuteronomy chapter 11. And again, there is a ton of bad blood between Jews and Samaritans. That sets the stage then for what we're about to have here in John chapter four, which is a surprising conversation with the woman at the well. It is probably the sixth hour verse six, 6:00 PM Roman time. Could be noon if it's Jewish time. But I like this as being Roman time. And look at all the parenthetical expressions, the disciples, verse eight. They're gone. Where are they? John explains where they are. And then look down in verse nine, Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. John is constantly giving that johanan reflection, that little parentheses to help the reader know what's going on and understand what's going on. And what happens is Jesus transitions from a conversation about physical things to a conversation about living water. He talks about living water, something that's very prominent in the Old Testament. Jeremiah chapter two, verse 13, Zechariah chapter 14, verse eight. In many places that's gonna reference the knowledge of God, that that pours out of Jerusalem to all people. But here Jesus is the living water. Now there's gonna be places where he gives living water, but here he is, the living water. And I think that points to what he's talking about is eternal life. So as you're thinking about all of this, notice we've been thinking about eternal life for a long time now, from three 15 on. It's about eternal life. And this verse 14 is open to everybody, whoever can have this. If you are a believer, then you will get something within you welling up, giving you spiritual strength, helping you to continue. There may be a reference here to the Spirit, to the Holy Spirit, but this is all about eternal life as a present possession and is something that helps us live for the Lord. Even right now. The woman then says, I want some of that water. Verse 15. And John loves to show what can best be termed. Ugh , the stupid remark. She just like Nicodemus goes hyper literal and she completely misses the spiritual implications of what Jesus is saying. But Jesus will help her. And we'll see that in our reading tomorrow. It is Friday, you made it through the week. And we're already looking at that weekend a little bit. And we're thinking about the start of a new week on Sunday. Sunday's gonna be very special at West Side because it's a fifth Sunday. I'm going to do q and a in the 10 40 hour. And I have a great question about artificial intelligence. How do Christians work with ai? How do we think biblically about the explosion of artificial intelligence technology in our world today? That and several other really good questions. Sunday morning in the 10 40 hour, now let's do some daily Bible reading. It's John four 16 to 30 where we are today. She says, verse 15, yesterday's reading. Hey, I want some of that water. Jesus loves to just cut to the chase. And what he's doing here is he's exposing her need for real life. Do you want eternal life? Do you want the life that I give, that present possession, that makes demands upon us, upon who we are and how we live? You interested in that, ma'am ? Because you haven't really been living in a way that says, I'm thirsty for real life. You are living in a way that just says, you are all about the pleasures of this particular moment. So go call your husband. She says, I don't have a husband. She says, yeah , that's exactly right. Verse 18. You've had five husbands that construction there does not necessarily mean she's been married five times. It just may mean she's had five men. She's been involved in a lot of immorality and she's not married to anybody at this moment. So then verse 19, she decides to dodge the implications of that by asking a tricky theological question. And I have to tell you, when people find out that you are a preacher, here comes the questions. I don't know what people ask firemen. I don't know what people ask. Doctors. I'm I'm sure doctors get asked questions when they're found out what their occupation is. If you are a house builder, I don't know if people ask you, Hey, I got cracks in my walls. Is that a foundation issue? I don't know. When people find out you're a preacher, here comes. They're impossibly difficult theological questions. So she tries a question about worship, which Jesus actually answers here. It's a good question. And he says some things about worship's gonna make a shift. It's not gonna be about geography. Worship is a matter verse 24 of the right heart and the right doctrine and the right object, spirit, truth, the Father, that's what makes for real worship. You have the right spirit in the right way, the truth worshiping the right object. If you take away any one of those three things, your worship will be in vain. I love then when she says, I know the Messiah is coming. That's a Hebrew word for Messiah. It only occurs twice in John's gospel. And Jesus says, you got it. I'm He. That's very unusual. Most of the time, particularly with Jewish people, Jesus will not explicitly identify himself. And I think that's because Jewish people have too much baggage when you say, yep , I'm the Messiah. All kinds of crazy things begin to break loose. But Jesus tells that woman, I'm the Messiah. And then verse 28, she leaves her water pot, she leaves her water jar . There's something more important than drawing water. She goes to town and says, I want to tell you I've met the Messiah. A long time ago. I heard Dan Shipley just announced standing gospel preacher, and he talked about leaving your water pot. Is Jesus important enough to you that you'll set aside even good things? Getting water at the well wasn't wrong, it just wasn't the most important thing. Dan did a great job of that. I've always remembered that. I think about that when I read this passage. Notice the disciples, verse 27. They aren't sure what they're looking at. Jesus. A Jew is talking to a Samaritan Jesus. A man is talking to a Samaritan woman. That doesn't happen. There's all kinds of rabbinic writings about not talking to a woman. One rabbinic precept says, let no one talk with a woman in the street, not even his own wife. Another rabbi says, each time a man prolongs conversation with a woman, he causes evil to himself and desist from the law. So rabbis didn't do this. And you know what? Jesus didn't care. Jesus didn't care. She had a spiritual hunger. She had a spiritual need. And Jesus talks with her answers. Some of her questions, challenges her pushes her, and the result of that, well, the result of, that's what we're gonna see in our reading on Monday. Thanks so much for reading the Bible with me this week. Don't forget on Sunday q and a q and a in the 10 40 hour, I think that's gonna be something very, very special for us. That then is the podcast for the week. And I appreciate you listening very much. Please, if the podcast is helping you share, tell somebody else about it. Share a link to the podcast, send somebody a message, an email, a text. Tell 'em to give it a lesson . And I hope that you have given the podcast a rating or review because that helps more people find the podcast. Until next week when we'll open our Bibles together. Again, I'm Mark Roberts and I want to go to heaven and I want you to come too . I'll see you on Monday with a cup of coffee.

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