I know what some of you might be thinking. There they go again, garnishing the conference with some Hispanic kid. But not everything is as it seems, right brothers? Because God’s work is rarely skin deep, isn’t it?

Before I begin, I just want to acknowledge that this task is so impossible, not only because I’m not the right man for it, not only because I’m the wrong skin color, not only because this is the last session, not only because God’s glory goes to the ends of the earth, but because my poor old manuscript after five sessions had to be a little adjusted from all the other prophetic utterances from my brothers. And I’m so grateful. But last night was a late night, and I guess I have to be a little more jazz sided these days.

I want to mention something about our brother’s book. And I want to say “brother” because that’s the way we say it in Uzbekistan to one another. They take the text from Matthew 23 very seriously, “But do not be called rabbi for one is your teacher and you are all brothers.” It is a term of endearment and respect at the same time acknowledging that Christ is our only teacher and our only master and that we are just slaves. So when I say Brother Carl, I mean it with great affection for him because Freedom at Last has had a deep, deep profound impact on me. He has helped me see the black experience through the lens of sovereign grace, which is exactly what we need to do because it’s not just for black Christianity, it is for the nations. That’s what I want to speak about this morning. What I want to do even more is to enlarge that vision, not that I can because I’m not an African American, but I want to enlarge it to see the vision of the soul dynamic extended all the way to the nations because it is breathtaking. It really is. It’s a vision of the promised land that has not yet been fulfilled. It’s God’s vision for them and for us. To that vision, I dedicate this message and to my dear wife, who God has blessed me with to carry this burden as one flesh.

A Seismic Shift

We all feel the weight of these days I’m sure. All the major religions are tottering, it seems, at the epicenter of world detention. What do I mean by that? I’m sure you’ve been following the historic shift of nearly 100 million Dalit or Lois cast untouchables in India. Last week in the January 29th Network News Edition, Indian Director of Asian or gospel for Asia. This is what he said:

The November 4th Dalit rally that saw thousands renounce the Hindu religion may be the start of a huge problem facing the church. As more Indians turn to Christ worldwide, prayer is essential. We are looking on the face of possibly huge persecution and martyrdoms in the days to come. We need much prayer.

Now here’s the question. Where did that cataclysmic shift come from? In Brother Carl’s book, he wrote that some criticized Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. because he adopted a methodology he learned from Gandhi in order to combat oppression in this country. And some said that it is from Hindu now. But listen to what Indian Christians say about Gandhi’s success. Now, these are national indigenous Christians talking about the success of Gandhi and other reformers in India. This is Vishal Mangalwadi. He is very influential to me. He says:

In a country such as India, every champion of the world or the downtrodden sees himself as a savior or a mini Messiah. Carey, in contrast, did not see himself as a savior. For him salvation is God’s work. This understanding that transforming mankind was the work of God sounds alien today, but for 150 years it remained Carey’s abiding legacy to all the reformers of India, not only for the Christians, but also for his Indian successors. Thus India’s independence in 1947 was not only a victory for Mahatma Gandhi and for the freedom fighters, but even more fundamentally a triumph for Carey’s evangelical England.

Now look at that. These are indigenous national Christians looking back and looking to their forefathers, not as Gandhi or even an Indian, but as a poor cobbler that came to their country to give his life. And what I want to say brothers is that we’re not defining evangelicalism as we do in this country as a denomination. We’re defining evangelicalism in England as the evangelion. What sprung up from out of England is the same thing that catapulted people and brothers like Andrew Fuller, William Carey, and of course William Wilberforce. They are debtors to the doctrines of grace. And that is the gospel that launched Carey to India.

Listen to George Smith. He’s writing about Wilberforce. I don’t know if John, if you came across this quote. I need to validate it. William Wilberforce considered the toleration of Christian missionaries in India to be one of “the greatest of all causes.” Now you know how much he felt about abolition, but he put the Indian mission on par with that because what he saw was the same efforts to restrict Christianity towards African Americans as happening in India as well. Again, we’re talking about oppression. It’s commercial interests in England prevented the gospel from going to the Indians.

Cutting the Root of Oppression

Now, why do I put Wilberforce and bring them together and Carey because the same gospel that hammered at the laws of the slave trade until it collapsed under Wilberforce’s watch produced a zeal in Carey as well to reach the outermost parts of India. So when we say “cultural reformation,” we also need to talk about cross-cultural proclamation because it springs brothers from the same fountain.

So now more than 200 years since Carey arrived in India, this is the seed that we’re talking about. What seems like just a mustard seed has an incredible effect. There are 44,000 Indian cross-cultural missionaries working in over 440 plus indigenous agencies. That’s from Operation World 2001. So what we’re talking about now is that the gospel is bearing unprecedented fruit now cutting the root of Hinduism’s oppression among the Dalit and now it’s beginning to fall brothers. One little gospel word, it seemed, and one poor cobbler came who was non-seminary trained. We won’t go into that yet.

So the question of course is that we have now maybe one major world contender against Christ and I think that’s Islam. Now, it’s true of course that in the last 15 years more Muslims have come to faith than in any other time in history, but Islam is still the largest and fastest growing religion in the world today in sheer numerical terms. We’re not talking about conversion rates but by birth rates. When Muhammad claimed to be the rightful heir of Abraham, he did so by completely rewriting the Old and New Testament scriptural witness. That should say something to us brothers. Where the word of God is not available, there is something that will of course take its place. That’s what brother Carl said to us last night.

Listen to Surah 19:20–29. The Quran on reads:

At length she brought the babe to her people carrying him in her arms. They said, “Oh Mary, truly an amazing thing hast thou brought, oh sister of Aaron.”

Did you get that? Mary, the mother of Jesus, is the sister of Aaron. Who is this woman? Well, it’s Miriam. He thought. Miriam of Moses is Miriam of Jesus. Do you see that? There is a 1,500 year difference. How did that happen? It’s because there’s no word of God in Arabia at the time, at least enough to convince those who are following Muhammad that he’s absolutely wrong. Now, I must read from the Quran in a pastor’s conference because I have to quote primary sources these days because Islam is being changed into whatever people want it to be and we have to say that this is an incredible disgrace against Christ.

Now, I’m very merciful to Muslims, but they’ve been deceived, brothers. Muhammad is a usurper of the true Christian faith, a true anti-Christ. He’s a replacement for Christ. I don’t know if he’s the real anti-Christ, but he’s definitely one of them. And a billion Muslims now believe that he is the final prophet. Do you see how devastating that is against our Christ? Well, if we can say maybe that Islam is Muhammadan Christianity-ism because it derives all of its strength from Christianity, then we have to ask the question, how does Islam have its strength today?

The Strength of Islam

If it’s not by superior revelation, why does Islam attract so many in America these days? Listen to Jim Christensen. He has a 1977 course called The Practical Approach to Muslims. I’m so grateful for brother Carl’s ministry. It has to be practical. It can’t be theoretical because there are pain issues involved. But listen to this:

Muhammad laid down by precept and example, the new law that there is no distinction of race and cast and color and position, language or privileges among the children of Adam. Muhammad made no distinction between himself and the poorest slave. It was a negro who first was given the job of calling to prayers. Mankind is one great universal brotherhood with unbounded liberty of spirit as taught by the prophet.

So one of the great appeals of Islam is its claim to a universality that includes a brotherhood that transcends race, which is of course what we claim, right? Or do we? For people who are a new people group and that’s not just our brothers here in America, I guess I can say in some respect, I am a new people group. You heard my lineages. There is an identity question of course, and if someone has a solution to identity, then they’re very attractive. Brother Carl stunned me when he quoted Malcolm X after he visited Saudi Arabia. Listen to Malcolm. You have to hear these brothers. You have to feel the pain of Muslims and those who are not believers. So I have to quote them verbatim. Now this is Malcolm X, he went to Saudi Arabia, he came back and it was an incredible upheaval it seems in his whole inner being. He says:

Never have I witnessed such sincere hospitality and the overwhelming spirit of true brotherhood practiced by people of all colors and racists here in this ancient holy land. For the past week I have been utterly speechless and spellbound by the graciousness I see displayed all around me by people of all colors. I could see from this that perhaps if white Americans could accept the oneness of God, then perhaps too they could accept in reality the oneness of man and cease to measure and hinder and harm others in terms of their differences in color. Never have I been so highly honored, never have I been so made to feel more humble and unworthy. Who would believe the blessings that have been heaped upon an American negro?

Do you see that? That should’ve been us and we really blew it. So you see our brothers, our dilemma is very, very difficult. In Operation World, Patrick Johnstone pleads with us to pray for “black Muslims whose numbers have grown rapidly to 2.2 million most from a Christian background. A small but vocal minority belong to black nationalist groups and to the nation of Islam organization. The majority are becoming increasingly orthodox in their Islamic faith. Yet nearly all are true seekers after God.”

What are black Muslims looking for? They’re looking for at least one thing. They’re looking for recognition that they are fellow heirs of the grace of God. Aren’t they co-equals with us? They want one true brotherhood. We have a union in Christ that is so mystical and we need to unfold that.

For the Sake of the Nations

But of course I want to say that I feel very unfit for this role because I don’t deserve to be unfolding anything. Black theology must come from our brothers and I can’t say anything maybe unless someone helps me and I need your help so much. But I am not black, I’m not white, I’m not Hispanic, I’m not Polish, I’m not German — I am something else. Kathy would agree I’m sure.

In 1996, when my wife and I went to the streets of Uzbekistan to try to learn language, I ran into, we call him an obstacle. He had a white beard. He was working on the side of the road and I wanted to practice my language. So immediately I jumped right in and he stopped me and he said, “What nationality are you?” I said, “Well, I’m from America.” I tried to pronounce it so he knew where I was. He said, “What nationality are you?” I said, “Well, my father is Mexican.” He said, “You’re Mexican?” I said, “Well, my father’s mother came from Spain and my mother is Polish and German.” And he looked at me and he said, “Get out of here.”

I’m a nobody. I am a part of the great American melting pot (maybe), whatever that is. Because if brother Carl has spoken last night, then we need to move on from this point to something fresh and I want to do that. I long to do it because if this soul dynamic is not just for the black community here in America and not just for the white community and not just for the Hispanic community and not just for the Asian community and not just for the melting pot, but if it’s for the nations, then we have to go somewhere with this, right? Let’s do it brothers. I can’t do it unless you help though.

Everything in Reference to God

But of course we need to begin somewhere and the best place to begin is God, right? I think we all believe that no one or at least few other men in this generation have more profoundly and pervasively enlarged our theocentric view of redemptive history than our brother John Piper. And through John, God has drawn us back to our historic roots in Reformed theology. He’s reviving what is the legacy, the reality behind the words which Jonathan Edwards sought to plumb the depths of even though he was a man and acknowledge that God was a mystery in the end, but he wanted to enlarge our view of history, of virtue, and of culture. Let me just quote John in his extended preface to Edwards’s as the end for which God created the world. Brother John says:

Edwards could not conceive of calling any act truly virtuous that did not have any in it a supreme regard to God. One of the great follies of modern evangelical public life is how much we are willing to say about public virtue without reference to God . . .

That is a thundering indictment to us, isn’t it? And of course, immediately you think of Wilberforce, right? We heard that everything he did was rooted in his own understanding, not of Calvinism, but of the Bible, which is where we get it all. But I think what brother John means is that in all of our efforts at racial harmonization, and I mean that musically because the soul dynamic is musical in a powerful sense. But if brother John means anything, he means that I think the reference point should not only be for God, not in other words acknowledge that God somehow is involved in this and we need to get on with the business of racial harmonization, but to acknowledge that God has a plan for this and he’s executing it unflinchingly and unfailingly and we better get on board otherwise we are going to be out. And we are going to be one of those people groups that brother Carl said had a purpose and their purpose ended. We don’t want to be those.

Ransomed with the Precious Blood of Christ

Well, let’s begin with Edwards. If God’s chief aim in creation is to glorify himself above all other things, we need to ask something more precise. And that is, what means above all other means has God chosen to glorify himself in creation. I think it’s okay to use logic. I’m going to use some. The cost or the value of any object is tantamount to its value. Can I say it that way? So the more costly an objective for God is, the more he values it above all other objectives that he’s accomplishing in creation, right? Can we say it that way? And if we don’t value it with God, we’re in big trouble. Turn to 1 Peter 1:17–19 with me, brothers. I want to take my cues from all of my brothers who preceded me that the word has to speak and not us. The apostle says:

And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.

Why shouldn’t we be afraid? Because this blood is so precious in the eyes of God that if you even besmirch one drop of it, you will be in deep trouble. So right from the outset, brothers, we need to see that the centrality of the cross of Christ is what we gather around. It’s that banner, not any other banner, by which God has declared because the cross not only is the only way which God appeases his white hot vengeance against us for disregarding him at every single turn, not only in our own lives, but if we go all the way to the futile lifestyle of our forefathers, it started way back there, even with Adam. But it’s also because it is sufficient, it’s efficacious, it has power, it does something. It redeems. This blood is not just available for us, it actually accomplishes what God intended. If it’s that precious and if God uses it for that aim to do something, then we don’t need to go any farther to search for the primary means by which God glorifies himself in the world.

Because against all other competing aims, purposes, intentions in the world, this most precious blood is stained on the cross like a slain lamb before us forever. God wants to remind us of the price that it took to redeem us. Let me just review where we’ve been. To understand how God might be using the soul dynamic in the world, not only for us but for the nations, we must understand his global plan to reach in creation. Number two, his singular plan in creating the world above all other things is to glorify himself. Three, the chief means by which he glorifies himself is redeeming his elect the church. Number four, we know this because the precious value, the worth of the blood-stained cross attests to that reality.

A Chosen Race

But God is not done because it’s too little. The glory that he gets from just that. Our brother and apostle Peter and fellow under shepherd goes on because God is not redeeming for himself one ethnicity. Israel is simply a type of what he’s going to do when Christ comes. He is doing something absolutely stunning in the world and we will praise him with ever increasing velocity, as Edwards would say, for what he’s done. Brother Sharad has really helped us because for God to get glory, it needs to be absolutely diverse, completely diverse and representative of every part of his glorious creation. First Peter 1:1–3 says:

Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who are elect exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you.

Why should grace and peace be with us in the fullest measure? Because the whole omnipotence of the trinity went to go and redeem us. Do you see that? God the Father, the Spirit, and Jesus are unleashed on one intent to call for himself the elect from all the nations and pull them out. Why do we have to go any farther if we want to see God’s intent? So you see brothers, God is not ethnocentric in redemption. Maybe we can say he is exo-ethnic.

Brother Carl is helping me these days by always trying to push the limits of neologisms. If God chooses out from the ethnon to create another ethnos, then we need to understand it more clearly. Let’s look at 1 Peter 2:9. The apostle Peter understands God reenacting the Exodus event when he redeems us:

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession . . .

Where did he get that from? Well, brother Carl has helped us again. He looks back to the Exodus and our brother Carl has done that for us. I’m not going to have you turn there to save time. Exodus 19:4–6 says:

You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

So Peter, in concert with Hosea, moves on from that in verse 10. First Peter 2:10 says:

Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Think about that. We were not even a people before, but God has bought us with his precious blood.

The Ecclesiocentric Nature of God’s Glory

Again, I’m going to read where our brother Tom has led us. I think God anointed him because so much of what he said in introducing some Oscar that came up here was resonating with Revelation 5:9–10. It says:

And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.”

So brothers, what we need to do in order to understand — and please cut me slack because I cannot speak for the black experience in America — is to see the experience not within its own experience and not within its own experience in America and not even for the nations, but we need to look at it globally within the dimensions which are infinite of the omnipotence of God and his glory and his commitment to seeing it valued for all the nations.

God is ecclesio-centric in his means by which he glorifies himself. Let me review again. To understand the soul dynamic, we need to understand the global plan of creation. Number two, we need to understand that his singular plan in creating the world above all the things is to glorify himself. Number three, the chief means by which he glorifies himself is in redeeming the elect, the church. Number four, we know this because the worth of the bloody cross testifies to that. Number five, but it’s not glorious enough to take one ethnicity. God has to choose some from every tribe and tongue and nation and people to show not that they’re valuable, but that he’s omnipotent.

The efficacy of that blood can do it not just for one people, but for every last people. So right now we’re on the tips of our toes waiting: “God, finish it. Your glory is not enough right now. You need some more people groups to fill up that glory.” And the soul dynamic is the answer to that. Listen to Jonathan Edwards. If this is God’s intent, then of course it should be ours as well. Now, when I say God’s intent, I mean that God’s intent is that he wants to glorify himself by being ecclesio-centric, making the church the means by which he gets the most glory in the world. And that should be our aim as well. This is Jonathan Edwards again in our brother John’s annotated reprint of The End for Which God Created the World:

The scripture represents it to be the spirit of all true saints to prefer the welfare of God’s people to their chief joy. This was the spirit of Moses and the prophets of old. The good of God’s church was an end by which they regulated all their conduct. And so it was with the apostles. Second Corinthians 4:15 says, “For all things are for your sakes.” Second Timothy 2:10 says, “I endured all things for the sake of the elect that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.” And the Scriptures represented as though every Christian should, in all he does, be employed for the good of the church as each particular member is employed for the good of the body.

Now, how does that apply to racial harmonization? I think it applies this way that if we are looking at racial reconciliation as some means by which God is glorified, we need to do it ecclesio-centricly. Begin with the church. Work through the church. See God’s glory exalted in the church because the world is at least secondary to God for now.

Proclaiming His Excellencies

If our purpose should be to align ourselves with God’s ecclesial centric aims in the world, then we need to do it in a one particular way I believe. First Peter 2:9 says:

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

Do you see that? It is a declarative purpose that we have and it is not a purpose as separate cultures or peoples declaring it in our own culture, but as a new people of God, together as one people, we speak with one voice. And we proclaim his excellencies. We’re not proclaiming our excellency. Why? Because you know what? We’re not excellent. God gets the praise.

The Content of Our Proclamation

Let me move because this is so essential. What is the content of our proclamation above all other things? Here it is in verse nine again: “So that you may proclaim the excellencies of him.” Now there are many excellences, but Peter has in mind one particular excellency: “who has called you out of darkness.” We’re not talking about skin color again. We’re talking about blindness. You were wandering around saying, “Where is God?” Here he is. You were brought into his marvelous light.

What kind of unity can a newly converted Muslim background, Uzbek believer and a third generation Swede and a black African brother who’s here in America, not of his own will, but because of a Christianity-ism that sought to gain from his coming and an American mut like me, what do we have all in common brothers? This is what we have. We have God at our center, don’t we? We are all free at last. All of our bondages to our Egypt’s, all of our stupidity, all of our wickedness was released. And not only that, we’re resurrected as kings and priests. We’re not just kings. We’re priests in the temple of God. What a glory? That’s what we share in common brothers above all other things. Can there be a unity between us? Why? Because we’re gazing at God forever. The only sight maybe we’re going to see in a billion eons is that we’ll hear the soul dynamic.

I’m moving, I hope. I’m trying to define the culture of the people of God. First, I said that Islam is folding more and more people into its net and black brothers are among those. Second, Islam claims a better brotherhood than Christianity. Third, with Jonathan Edwards, we believe the chief aim of God is to glorify himself by redeeming his church. As brother Sharad has said, the exodusing, the redeeming of a people for himself from the manifold manifests increasingly. Diversity of the nations is what God is all about.

Number five, when God calls out the nations from the nations he creates on new people, completely resurrects them from the dead, eclipsing all their former futility. Number six, as a new people, we must proclaim his excellencies to the unreached peoples of the earth because they need to be folded in too. They haven’t tasted this God. And number seven, the preached message that unifies us above all other things is God and what he’s done for wretches like me.

One New People

Now I’m going to apply some of these things and I hope that you’ll forgive me for speaking for anybody but myself. But I want to close in a way that directs us. There’s one obstacle in my way right now. Brother Carl raises a very important problem in his book Free at Last. Listen to him:

There can be as many varieties of Christianity as there are cultures, but these cultural Christianity will not contradict one another. They will have a complementary relationship as they focus on God’s gracious deliverance accomplished in Christ.

See that redemption there? Brother Carl has nailed it right on the head. It is redemption in Christ that we share. We focus on that. We identify with one another and say, “Yeah, that’s what happened with us too.” He says:

Hence, it is not necessarily wrong to have a white Christianity or a black Christianity.

That’s where I have a problem and I need help understanding that brother because if there is a white Christianity and a black Christianity, then the soul dynamic is over there and we get robbed. More than that, what do you do with the great American melting pot muts? What kind of Christianity do you offer to them? My brother married an African American woman. She is a woman of God and she has really helped us on our journey. So here it is. They have three beautiful little girls. These girls are Spanish, Mexican, Polish, German, and African American. We have the neo melting pot in America because that melting pot is moving brothers. And now what kind of Christianity do we offer them? And I want to say, does Revelation 5 allow for ethnic enclaves of worship?

Tell me where is that in the Bible? I want to find it in my Bible. I thought we were going to have a problem. But if there is a black Christianity and if there’s a white Christianity, then something is really wrong, I think. Didn’t the dream that electrified the nation in front of the Lincoln Memorial on the 28th of August, 1963 in the year I was born, go something like this: “I have a dream that one day . . . little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.” I have a dream today. I can’t preach like him. He had a gift. He said:

I have a dream that one day every valley will be exalted. Every hill and mountain shall be made low. The rough places shall be made plain and the crooked places shall be made straight and the glory of the Lord will be revealed and all flesh will see it together.

Brothers in the church, they have to see it first, right? The theological dynamic that pressed our brother Martin to this was that he saw the vision that could have been in the church and wasn’t. The church inflicted all those things. And of course he had to use prophetic language to not say it so strongly. But it’s an indictment even after he has passed. Just listen to this quote:

I just want to do God’s will and he’s allowed me to go up to the mountain and I’ve looked over and I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know that tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land and I’m happy tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

He could see it like Moses. God said, “Sorry Moses, you’re not going into the promised land. But let me give you a little preview and it’s coming.” And brother Martin saw it and brother Sharad saw it I think because the vision is from Ephesians: one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.

Reasons for Multiracial Church-Planting Teams

I’m going to propose something and you can just tell me you’re way off. But I have a burden and I have got to share it this morning. It was last night. Here it is. What if black-led multiracial church planting teams preach the soul dynamic to the ends of the earth? The question of course is why not do it in the current churches? And the reason, like our Korean brother said, is that our churches are not ready to be multiracial by and large. So the old wineskins won’t work. We need new ones. We need new churches and we need our black brothers to lead on in the soul dynamic.

1. Modeling Racial Harmony

So here are the 10 reasons why I think it’s so crucial that they do that. Number one: Black led multiracial church planting teams to the unreached would model racial harmonization to the nations. Why? Because Christ says, “If you are presenting your offering at the altar and remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift and go . . .” (Matthew 5:23–24). What can’t I do if there is that something against me that’s floating out in my brother’s heart, what can I not do? I can’t worship, can I? So if I can’t worship, how in the world can I speak the excellences of God to the nations? It’s impossible, isn’t it? At least I would be a hypocrite. So what black-led church bonding teams would do would model racial harmonization to the nations and they would say, “Okay, sure there’s a glass ceiling in American culture, but in the church it doesn’t exist.”

Sure in the culture there is systematic, structural racism. But in the church, where I’m at, it doesn’t exist. In the culture everybody wants to be the lord with slaves around him. But in the church, the greatest among you will be the slave of all. And that’s what we need to model. And some of you might say, “Look, it’s not my fault. I didn’t do that. Don’t blame me. I have so many things I feel God’s called me to do in this world. If I let this racial harmonization thing define my entire life, you know what’s going to happen? I have institutions I feel God wants me to lead. I have research God wants me to do. I have a doctorate to get. I have books to write. I have churches I’ve got to plant. There are unreached peoples that need to have my name as the fore-founder of all their Christianity so that I can go into the annals of all the history books as being the one who finally got the gospel in. And racial harmony is really going to put a dent in that.”

What would you say to him? Someone might say, “God’s going to block me. God doesn’t want to block me. He wants me to be happy. I’m a Christian Hedonist.” And of course brother John doesn’t mean that at all. Otherwise he wouldn’t have this conference, right? But you could say — and I think I want to say — if your whole life in the 1750s was going reasonably okay and you were in Africa and you had a vision for what you wanted God to do in your life and your children’s lives, and suddenly not any plan of yours, God in providence put on you the destruction of your village, the kidnapping of your children and your precious wife, and you sat at the bottom of the backwash of vomit and urine, chained to some post and then they dumped you, and as you drown you say, “God, I wasn’t planning on this.” Providence sometimes decides that we need to die and this is a providential time in our history.

2. Music of the Unreached

Number two: Black led multiracial church planting teams would play the music of the unreached peoples. There are 1600s so unreached peoples and they’re not unreached for no reason. They are unreached because there are usually governments that encase them with persecution, starvation, war, disease, famine, drought, linguistic separation, and no access to any empowerment. No one cares anything about them. They suffer. And so when we in the dominant culture come to them and say, “I have some news for you, the gospel is really good news for you.” They need to hear the soul dynamic. They need to hear, “I’ve suffered too. My people and I have something that God can do for you.” So the soul dynamic has resonance with the music of the unreached peoples.

3. Apostolic Church Planting

Number three: Black-led church planting teams would keep the most important gift on apostolic church planting teams as the number one gift out in the forefront. Because cultural circumspection, seeker sensitive, savvy and anthropological research is not what’s needed on church planting teams. What is needed is something that wells up out of the depths of your soul. You need to say, “I was blind and now I see.” And we need our black brothers to say it and we need them to teach us how to say it. That’s what’s needed on church planting teams — the soul dynamic. It’s jazz because I can’t tell an unreached people, “Let me explain to you how to be saved.” They don’t even have writing some of them yet.

4. Hindering Cultural Biases

Number four: Multiracial church planning teams to the unreached would hinder us from exporting dominant culture white Christianity-ism to the unreached, which is really a problem for me too.

5. Challenging Islam’s Claim

Number five: Black multiracial church planning teams would challenge Islam’s claim as the one true international faith. They’re wrong. Do you know how they get international? They come into a culture and they impose a seventh century Arabic nostalgia. It’s not even reality. And they say, “This is the inspired culture that you must inherit in order to be a people of God.” It’s a lie. And black led multiracial church planting teams would say, “I have some really good news for you about your culture.”

6. A Multiracial Sending Base

Number six: Black led multiracial church planting teams would create a multiracial Antiochian sending base. Because brother Ellis wrote that the International Council — this is really pooh hit me in Acts 13 — that launched the first missionaries themselves were international from Africa. Doesn’t that stun you? I was like, “Wow, we need to get back to the Bible,” because we need to be multiracial, otherwise we can’t be a sending base. I believe Acts 13.

It would also enable us to be representatives of the churches that out of which we come to cooperate financially to seek the pressing needs of those within our own individual local churches. This is really interesting. This is 2 Corinthians 8:24. Scott Pittman, a great brother of mine, helped me see this.vPaul is talking about the collection that should come out of Macedonia and out of Achaia. And he says to the Corinthians, “Look, we have brothers from every one of the local churches. They’re trustworthy. They are apostles of the churches, a glory to Christ.” Apostles glorify Christ in their diversity by meeting pressing needs as well, I believe.

7. Undermining the Scourge of Reformed Theology

Number seven: Not only Antiochian multiracial sending base, but black led multiracial church punting teams to the unreached would heal us of one of the all time scourges of Reformed theology. Here it is: “We don’t do evangelism. That’s God’s job.” We don’t believe that of course. But it still is a scourge on us. But the soul dynamic is not internal. It’s not only reflective. It is spoken. It’s oral, it’s musical, it is preached. It’s outward. And so the soul dynamic needs to inform our Reformed theology, whatever you want to call it.

8. Black Theologians

Number eight: Black-led multiracial church planting teams to the unreached would enable black theologians to be in the lead in an effort to repristinate Christianity. Oh that was a good word. Brother Carl helped me see repristination. Wow, what is that? I didn’t know you were here. Repristinate the sovereignty of God for us and all the nations. Because when you say repristination, you mean that we have to go back to the Bible brothers. We can’t go through any man, white, black, Hispanic, melted pot, whatever. It has to be the Bible, the inspired word of God.

9. Ecclesiocentricity

Number nine: Black led cross-cultural church planting teams would keep our mission the same as God’s ecclesiocentric mission. Now listen to this. First Corinthians 10:31, you know it all, “Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” Which means of course I think that in our lives we need to glorify God. And one of the really helpful illustrations was when brother John said, take for example, a glass of orange juice. You take your glass and when you drink it, you know what you do? You taste it and say, “Oh, it’s so sweet, it’s so refreshing. It’s such a gift from God and I have taste buds to taste it. I see with my eyes it’s bright orange and I like that.” But I think that’s true. It needs to go beyond. And I know brother John wants to push it beyond that because some people have misinterpreted Christian Hedonism to mean only that because the next verse says, “Give no offense, offense either to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God.” So what Paul has done is link the glory of God with the offense to the church.

So if the church is offended, guess what? God is not glorified. And so it’s not just about drinking or eating pork or drinking orange juice, it’s about God’s offense in the church. And not only that, Paul says, “Just as I also please all men and all things, not seeking my own profit but the profit of the many so that they may be saved” (1 Corinthians 10:33). You see again, the glory of God is connected to the offense that we might commit against those because of our culture, because of the dominance that we have to the nations might affect the way we preach to them. So I want to link it to God’s ecclesial centric purposes in the world.

It’s about apostolic black brothers from the church leading multiracial teammates representing the church to give no offense to unreached Muslims or anyone else to plant among them the church to complete the diversity of the eschatological bride of Christ, which is the church. Do you see that? Glorify God in the church.

10. Dying for the Church

Number ten: Black led multiracial church planting teams to the unreached would help us understand that dying for the church is the highest calling of a human being. I need to be so careful here because what makes our ambitions percolate are often things that are not ecclesiocentric. It’s about our own glory too often. So we need help. I want to make this statement and unfortunately it’s going to go on the tape, but it has to be. I don’t believe PhDs most of the time plant churches. Because while PhDs can help us understand the mandate to plant the church, scholarship is essentially an internal activity. It is reflective, it’s thoughtful, but the soul dynamic is jazz. It’s outward, it’s spoken, it’s proclaimed, it’s declared, and it’s church planting. The soul dynamic. And it’s for the church. And our African American brothers have it and we can’t lose it.

Here’s Paul:

Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known . . . (Colossians 1:24–25).

See, you suffer for the church. What comes out of you is that the church is so precious, it deserves to be suffered for. Do you know why, brothers, the soul dynamic does not resonate with most of us? I don’t even know if it can be the theology of empowerment because I think the soul dynamic is a theology of suffering. We just don’t suffer enough. Because what captivated Jesus of all things, of all joys — and I’m not saying anything wrong about Wilberforce — was Isaiah 53:10–11, “He shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied . . .”

Oh, it’s such a pleasure, brothers. I want to lift up church planting and the suffering for the bride of Christ as the greatest thing that a human can do. And I don’t say that lightly because I know my wife is right here and we are one flesh in this. It’s not easy. But it is what Christ did and it’s the one thing we were destined to do. So the soul dynamic is a stewardship from God preaching Christ to the ends of the earth. Let us suffer together brothers. Let us equip our black brothers to live out their manifest destiny with all due honor at the close of the age for the glory of God. I can’t say it maybe any better than Carl has said it. A black man was the last to carry the cross of Christ, Matthew 27:32, black Christians may be the last ones to carry the banner of worldwide cultural discipleship.