That is so wrong. All right. We are going to start. I was going to see if that countdown timer worked. I think it did. So we can go in and get rolling. I'll pull up my PowerPoint. And we can get started. So good morning, everyone. Good morning. and welcome to this new adult discipleship series. It's called Grace Relations, and some of you might remember, it's been a year and a half, two years ago, if you were in Tim Bryant's parenting class, he had this guy named Charles Ware who spoke to us, and we're gonna use a lot of his material, some of his videos, to help us look at this topic of how do we take the gospel And how do we apply it along ethnic lines, along cultural lines? How do we do that and stay faithful to scripture? So what I hope, at least, I don't know if I made enough, but I made a few of these folders. I hope that you got one. My goal is that if you have this, keep it, bring it back each week and I'm going to give new materials, new handouts each week, and I'm hoping at the end of six weeks you have a little packet, a little resource that you can refer to down the road if you want to. And then something else, if you didn't get an index card, there's some on the back table, there's pens, write down any questions you have. or any topic or something that you feel like we should discuss, we should talk about, because I think what we're going to find is we're going to run out of time really fast, and we need to prioritize what's pressing, what issues do we want to discuss. So with that introduction, I will go ahead and open us up in a word of prayer. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, We love you and we want to serve you. We want to steward what you've given us well. We pray this morning that you would bless this time, help it to be edifying to you, that it would be faithful to your word, that we would make much of Jesus Christ. And that's the place we want to start the gospel. And then work from there. What are the outworkings of the gospel. I pray that you would be with me, that as I try to communicate ideas of what can be a very emotional and polarizing topic, that I would stay faithful to your word. I pray that you would bless this time again, in your name, amen. So I want to start off with a question you can think about. What brings you joy? Think about that in your mind, what kind of things Do you really enjoy, what kind of things do you love? And I'm gonna show some things up on the screen here that may be aligned with some of the things that you're thinking about. So one thing that I really love are Krispy Kreme donuts. Is there anyone that does not like Krispy Kreme donuts? Oh, Kenya, wow, okay, all right, well one, that's not unusual. And I especially love this sign when the donuts are hot and fresh. And I don't want to derail our Sunday school two minutes in, but I went there this morning. I thought it would be a great, you know, great excuse to, hey, I need a cookie from Donuts. I can bring them in. I'm going to use it in the lesson. And I got there and that light was not on. I was like, you know what? It's okay. This is the day that the Lord has made. I'm going to rejoice. I'm going to be glad in it. It's going to be okay. I pull around, just get a couple dozen glazes and be on my way. Order at Intercom, they're out of glazed doughnuts. And I'm like, you know what? People in other countries are persecuted for their faith. It's going to be OK. It's going to be a good Sunday. I order chocolate glazed doughnuts, out of chocolate glazed doughnuts. So anyway, we got in the store, but we got what we got. I'm hoping in a future lesson we can get some hot and ready glazed doughnuts. So that's one thing that brings me joy. Something else, speaking of food, Chick-fil-A. I love Chick-fil-A, eat there probably a couple times a week at least. Love it. Sports. I really enjoy watching sports. I used to really enjoy playing sports. This is one of my favorite athletes of all time, Kobe Bryant. Really enjoy sports. And then thinking about my family. That brings me incredible joy. Here is Jordan, my two-year-old. And on Sunday mornings, what gives him joy is that he gets to spike up his hair and get ready for church, and he really enjoys that. My oldest, Jaden, he's lost a lot of teeth in the last year, and he's like super joyful, he's proud of it. To be totally honest, the actual losing the tooth process is not joyful. It's very stressful in our house, but once it's lost, he's super happy to show everyone his new smile. Joshua, he just likes it if you hold him, cuddle him, he's our little one. And then I got this one with Jackson. We had a father-son competition in our neighborhood a couple weeks ago for Father's Day weekend. And they did awesome. We took home first place. It was a lot of fun. And he enjoys doing things like that with me. So these are some things that bring me joy. And the reason I want to start with joy is I think this topic can rob us of joy. I think there's a lot of voices in the room, so many that don't line up with scripture. Even in the church, we look up things online, try to listen to different sermons and resources, and I think we can leave the conversation feeling discouraged, feeling confused, maybe even feeling angry that someone didn't say things the exact same way. So I don't want us to forget this, that the joy part of it, because we know where Scripture goes, the trajectory of where things end up for God's people. We read in Revelation 7, John sees this vast multitude. It's so many people, he can't even count them. And it's every nation, tribe, tongue, and people, and they're all worshiping together Jesus Christ. So we wanna keep that picture in mind as we talk through some of these things. If you have your Bible, I'm gonna throw it up on the screen. Oh, I can't forget this, my wife. Yeah, that wasn't that. Very joyful. If you have your Bible, go ahead and open up the first John 1, or you can read it off of the screen. I want to look at, very briefly, what brought John joy as he's writing this great epistle on assurance, this epistle that teaches us how we walk into life, how do we walk into love, how do we walk as children of God. So I'll start reading. In verse one, John writes, that which was from the beginning, which we've heard, which we've seen with our eyes, which we've looked upon and have touched with our hands concerning the word of life. The life was made manifest, and we've seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which is with the Father and was made manifest to us. That which we've seen and heard, we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us. And indeed, our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We're writing these things so that our joy may be complete. So very briefly, we don't have a lot of time, three things I want us to see from this opening paragraph. Number one, John experienced Jesus in a very real way. It transformed his life, it changed his life dramatically. And you see, he talks about Jesus as eternal, that which was from the beginning. Then he kind of shifts his focus and talks about Jesus, the physical human being, saying things like, we've heard him, we've seen him, we've looked upon him, we've touched him. He emphasizes this at great length, that this real person, Jesus Christ, has changed his life. Number two thing we see, what was the result of that? Because he had encountered Jesus, Jesus had changed his life, he has moved, he's compelled to do things like, in verse two, to testify to it, to proclaim eternal life. Talk about this word of life. It's a gospel that is a public gospel, something we should share. It's not a private gospel that we keep to ourselves. And then number three, why does he do this or to what end? Might be a better way to look at it. He does this for two reasons. He talks about fellowship, sharing the gospel, breaks down barriers, it brings fellowship. And then I like how he words things in verse four. He says, and we're writing these things so that our joy may be complete. And I think if this were me writing this letter, I might say something like, Jesus changed my life, gotta tell people about Jesus, and I'm writing this so that your joy is gonna be complete. But I like that he says, our joy, because I think that puts an emphasis not only on the recipient of this message, but also on the one who shares this message. There's joy on all sides. And I like this quote of C.S. Lewis about joy that I think relates to this. He writes, I think we delight to praise what we enjoy, because the praise not merely expresses, but completes the enjoyment. It's its appointed consummation. It's not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are, but the light is incomplete until it's expressed. It's frustrating to have discovered a new author and not be able to tell anyone how good he is. They come suddenly at the turn of the road, upon some mountain valley of unexpected grandeur, then have to keep silent because the people with you care for it no more than a tin can in the ditch. this one's for all of us dads out there, to hear a good joke and find no one to share it with. The Scotch Catechism says that man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, but we shall then know that these are actually the same thing. Fully to enjoy is to glorify. In commanding us to glorify Him, God is inviting us to enjoy Him. And so I think we all agree on this, and this is a good truth as we jump into this study, that sharing the gospel, that's a joyful thing because it does things like bring fellowship. It does make these new relationships, and it's all centered around our Savior, Jesus Christ. And so that's where we want to start this morning. You know, to frame this class, like, big picture, This is a class about the gospel and the outworkings of the gospel. It's a class on things like evangelism and discipleship and glorifying God and walking in the spirit and edifying one another with the word of God. These are things that Dr. Ware in the video will watch. He'll talk about these things a lot, basically every week because they're instrumental. We're going to make change in this area. On a more narrow sense and a more you know, focused approach, this is a class on how do we take the gospel and how do we apply it to our specific context? So the conversations that we're having to our neighborhood, that our church has placed, how do we live this out, particularly among people that might look a little different than us? How can we be a beacon of hope to our surrounding neighborhood and community? And honestly, this is a little bit of a tricky subject to navigate. I think there's landmines on every side. If I'm totally, totally transparent, I'm like nervous to be up here. I'm anxious because I feel like I could say a certain word or a certain phrase that means nothing to me, but it happens to be a word on the far left or the alt right, and it's like super emotional, right? And I'll be saying something I don't wish to communicate. You know, my goal is that this is edifying, this is not supposed to be, you know, offensive and this hot take, so have grace with me as I probably will misspeak and make a few mistakes along the way. I think this is a hard topic to talk about because it's so broad. I think if we were to raise our hands, who thinks racism is sinful? Who thinks that's a bad thing? We're all going to raise our hands. But what does that look like? I bet it means different things to different people. Is it totally on individuals and baked into society? There's all these things we could talk about, and I bet people would land in slightly different areas. And each situation is so unique. You can't just apply a one-size-fits-all, broad-brush approach. And it takes some discernment in your context. How do we live out this gospel and its effects? So I think we're going to disagree on some points, but I think that's okay. We want to talk about those things. And that's why we want to start with the gospel, because that's something we have to agree on, right? That's a non-negotiable. We rejoice in the fact that we're sinners that need a great savior. And we have this great savior in Jesus Christ. We want to start there. And in that context, we can bear with one another in love and sort through maybe some disagreements. I am very encouraged by Dr. Ware. Some of us might remember him when he was here a couple years back. I chased him down in the parking lot after that Sunday school and asked him, you know, what can we do at Charleston Bible? Because everything he said resonated with me so much in that brief time he just shared his testimony with us. And you wouldn't know from the video, but this guy, he's like 74 years old and he is just running hard after the gospel, running hard after Jesus Christ. I think that that comes through that this thing From hearing his testimony and hearing his life, it is inspiring because he's been faithful to scripture over the course of his life. You know, I'm just facilitating. I'm really the wrong person to even be facilitating. I'm trying to learn in this area and grow in this area. And I admittedly don't have all the answers, but I want to learn. And so I was talking, I jumped on a couple of Zoom calls with Dr. Ware, trying to talk through this. I really wanted to be able to get him here in front of you. But his travel schedule is super extensive. He works a lot with Ken Ham. He's got a contract where he speaks at the Creation Museum twice a month. He's got different spots on Moody Radio. He's an assistant to the president at the college that he oversees and teaches classes at. He tours universities and churches doing conferences and teaching on this thing. So it just wasn't going to happen, but I think his videos are good. We can have good discussion. to come out of this. So he's gonna start off, we're gonna start in seven minutes into the video, just for sake of time, we don't have time to watch the whole thing. And he's gonna start off by asking this question, is the gospel powerful enough to bring us together on this issue in America? And in one sense it's a good question, but it's kind of a silly question because we're all going to say a resounding yes, of course it is. But I think it's good to think, you know, how have you seen the gospel at play in these areas in your life, among these emotional and controversial issues? And so we'll get the video teed up here. A big overarching question. that we wanna ask ourselves as we go through the six weeks is, you know, how can you, how can I, how can we as Charleston Bible Church, how can we influence our community where God's placed us with the gospel? This is gonna be a huge takeaway, so be thinking of practical applications of this, how can we put this into effect as a result of this class? So I'll go ahead and play the video, let me know if, Audio is not where it needs to be louder. All right, I hope you guys enjoyed Dr. Ware. Like I said, our time is going to go really, really fast. So we don't have a ton of time this morning to discuss some of these questions. I want to go through three or four of them. We might look at some. Next time, I do want to look briefly, here's some ways we can apply this. What do we do coming out of this week? The Grace Relations Journal he just talked about, I think is a really good idea to be in scripture, be intentional about working your way through different scriptures with this kind of thing on your mind. I tried to print out this verse in your material, so use that, use your own journal, use whatever, but I really want to encourage us to engage in that, a different passage, each and every week, pray for CBC and pray for the West Ashley area, the greater Charleston area intentionally. Look for ways for you, for us to transform our community through this writing of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so this is a shout out. I'm sure many of us are using it already, but in the monthly letter, we get this like prayer calendar. This is a really good thing because if you're using this with the church in South, you already prayed through Psalm 139, 23 and 24. You're praying for things like revival and praying for the world and the community and missions. And so I wanna encourage you if you're not doing that, that's like a super easy way that gets sent in your mailbox every single day. And then the index cards, if there's something you want to talk about, again, let's write it out because I do want to prioritize it because we don't have a lot of time. And then the last point of application here is, here's a few different books I've been reading, and I do want to add the disclaimer, the caveat, that I probably don't agree with 100% of all the conclusions drawn in these books, but they're written by men that love God and place scripture as the authority. I think most of these would do as well, just to read a little bit on the topic if you have it. I've got some of these books up here that I've been working through. If you have questions, you just want to look at it yourself. And so we're running out of time. I'm going to close this morning with a brief personal story, just to highlight what's been on my heart, why I really wanted us to engage in what Dr. Ware had to say after he came to CDC, why it impacted me so much. And it really has to do with how God's worked in my life over the six or seven years. When I think of this area, with my children, J.D. and Jackson, God has really changed my life in an unbelievable way. It's even, you can tell, it's hard for me to talk about it, that, you know, I've seen God's love in a new way. I see how central adoption is to the heart of the gospel. And one of the many joys that I've had is just getting to know my boys. Something that I never would have been able to do if life went according to my plan. But God intervened in his providence in a greater way, and I've been blessed because of that. And if you have children, you know this. It's amazing what goes through the mind of kids, what goes through the mind of a six-year-old. I'm thinking about Jaden specifically. He came to Leigh and I one time. If you know Jaden, you know he's a thoughtful kid. He's a smart kid. He's a very self-aware kid, and he was really struggling with this. He was troubled by this. Something was clearly on his mind and he came up to Leanne and I, and he asked us so sincere, he was asking, was Moses a white person? Was his question. And we were kind of like, that's kind of a funny question. Like, no, but Moses wasn't white. And we were kind of shocked a little bit because we're super intentional with how we talk about these things in our household. You know, we buy our children's Bibles and our children's books that they're gonna look, you know, as culturally appropriate as we can, we think that these Bible characters would look. We talk about diversity through a biblical lens that everyone's made in God's image, and that God is redeeming the world in all people groups like we see in Revelation 7. And as we talked with Jaden, this thought process is something like this, that, okay, in his mind, and it's a six year old, his world is small, but in his mind, Moses was a Christian, Christians are white people. And so Moses just had to be white. And so, you know, when, when he said that, it's like, we talked about it, that, that, you know, struck, struck a nerve with me. I felt like I had, I really failed Jaden in a major way because Leanne and I, our words communicated one thing, but on our actions, his reality was something very different that when he thinks of Christianity, it's all compartmentalized to, you know, Sunday morning where he hangs out with, middle to upper class white evangelical Christians, which is not a bad thing. CDC is a great church, a thriving church, a church that takes God's word seriously, but that's something a six-year-old is trying to reconcile and think through. He's trying to think through things like, okay, when we live in Somerville, when I go to the park or when I play with my neighbors, it looks like Somerville. When I go to a restaurant, when I go to the grocery store, it looks like Somerville. When I go play sports at the YMCA, it looks like Somerville. But when I worship God, it's very different. It's very narrow. And I think there are a lot of good reasons that that could be the case. But I think it's a good thing to talk about, a good thing to process. And I think sometimes with this topic, people don't even want to talk about that kind of thing, even though there are potentially really good reasons behind that. And so it occurred to me that Leanne and I would talk about the gospel, it breaks down barriers, it unites people, but again, that's not what Jane sees in my life all the time. So this is really an indictment on myself. I need to grow in this area, I need to live in the reality of the gospel, act on it, because that's what it does, that's what we read in scripture over and over again. So back to the question, we'll wrap up in two minutes here. How can CBC influence our surrounding community with the gospel. And what I'm encouraged about is we Leah and I, we've been here for just over a decade now, and, you know, I get excited. I'm so impressed that missions is a big deal at CDC. Like, it's a really big deal, and that's a good thing. We support the Lowcountry Biblical Counseling Center that takes God's Word and applies it to people in their daily life. That's a really good thing. In the fall, we're getting back into the school system. That's a really positive thing. And then we even talk about social issues. When there was an Afghan refugee family that really needed help, so many people at Charleston Bible Church raised their hand saying, I want to help this family. So I don't want to say, I'm not saying CBC does not take the gospel seriously. I'm saying we do. We take it really seriously and just want to encourage us along these lines. So lastly, we'll end by talking about joy, kind of where we started. We're commanded to be joyful. Joy is a fruit of the spirit. If you read the Psalms and you read about praising God over and over, if you include joy in praising God, it's probably one of the most frequent commands we encounter in scripture. And so what is lasting joy? It's not unlimited Krispy Kreme donuts. That sounds pretty gross and miserable, actually. It comes from the gospel and the fruit that the gospel produces. Not a private gospel, a gospel that we need to share because that's what strengthens fellowship. That's what glorifies God. That is the joy that we're after. And that's where, like Dr. Ware was saying, that's where ethnic harmony in this conversation begins. So let's be thinking, how can we bring joy to this West Ashley and greater Charleston area in a more significant way? Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word that it doesn't leave us clueless in culture that guides us and that your son is elevated time and time again as we read scripture. We want to keep the main thing, the main things, Lord, and give all the praise and glory to your son. We want to be people that live by your word. Be with us this week as we go into our lives or jobs or wherever we go that we would represent you well, we would love others well, we would point people to you. Pray for all of us in your name, amen.