"Social Injustice is the Root Cause of Our Biggest Problems"

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

Lord, we just ask that you would help us to worship you in every way that you have created us to do that, every five of our being, whether it be just studying, looking, figuring it out, whether it be just laying our hearts before you, we thank you for our time that we've already had, we pray that you would help us to discern what you are telling us. We pray that you would help us to, that you would give us ears to hear, that you would give us eyes to see, you'd give us hearts to perceive what your word has. That's your name that we pray, amen, amen.

I wanna start by thanking Israel and Katie Isbell, they were helping us lead worship this morning, just a fantastic job, thank you guys for filling in for David this week. Chris was a kid that I knew in the eighth grade, he was a mentally challenged kid, he probably had the mind of a five or a six year old, and that was Chris, and then Brandon was a bully, Brandon was on the playground, Chris really didn't do anything to him, I was standing kinda next to Chris, and I saw Brandon just like take his foot in the ground, and just put it right in Chris's chest, like right there, square in the chest, kind of a dirty boot print was on his white shirt, on Chris's white shirt, he didn't think to put his arms out, fell straight to the ground, hurt, you know, fell on his face, cried uncontrollably, and Brandon and his friends are laughing, and I remember in that moment,

it's a very visceral moment for me, I remember it like it was yesterday, and I remember being very angry, because I wanted to protect Chris, and I remember being very angry and wanting to hurt Brandon, right? I wanted both of those things, I wanted to do both, and whenever we are talking about injustice, it has many forms, sometimes it's a kid kicking another kid on the playground, sometimes it's way more large and systemic, injustice has many forms, but the feeling is almost universal, we know how it feels, we want passionately to do something and to fix it, and we want to see that situation, and we almost can't help it, we see that situation in black and white, in that situation, in eighth grade for me, Brandon was the oppressor, and Chris is the oppressed, and that's kind of what our visceral reactions are when it comes to injustice, when we see something like that happening.

Today we're gonna continue our series called Eight Lies, Heresies that we still believe, also just so you know, we normally have better screen resolution, we've had a few issues this morning, so some of the slides are just a little bit bigger than the screen, it's because there's just so much information, we couldn't pack it right on. Also as I get started, I will note that I have been given just a small bit of grief, lately about going long on my sermon, so Oster and I are, he's timing me right now, he's already started, okay, I'm already, I'm already, okay, all right, I need to get on my horse. Our particular topic today is social justice, we're gonna be talking about social justice a lot, so you're gonna hear that word, that phrase a lot, and our particular heresy that we are covering today is that social injustice is the root cause of our biggest problems, social injustice is the root cause

of our biggest problems, and what I will say is that that feels more true than it is, it feels more true than it is, and Chris and Brandon are part of why that feels true, because we have kind of these visceral reactions and we see it in black and white and we wanna do something about it. The other part of that, the other reason that we feel that way is in Amos five, I'm gonna invite you to turn to Amos five, we're gonna have the verses up here, there might be some cutoff, so no promises, there should be some Bibles kind of near you. We're gonna be looking at Amos five, 10 through 15. As you're turning there, as you're kind of getting that ready on your phone, Amos was an Old Testament prophet, and Amos, like many Old Testament prophets, called out injustice, they would see injustice, the Lord would speak to them about injustice, and then they would call it out and they would say,

okay, the Lord is gonna do something about it, here's what the Lord's gonna do, and that's pretty much every Old Testament prophet ever, okay? That's what a lot of them are doing. In Amos five, and in many other places actually in the prophets, in Amos five, we see something a little bit different going on than what we're used to reading, so let's read Amos five, 10 through 11. It says, they hate him who reproves in the gate, and they abhor him who speaks the truth, therefore, pay attention, therefore, because you trample on the poor and you exact taxes of grain from him, you have built houses of hewn stone, but you shall not dwell on them. You have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine. Among God's people, what Amos is saying, among God's people, there is an oppressive taxing on the poor, and there's also a trampling of the disadvantaged, okay?

Those two things are going on, and they're going on at such a frequency that people that are speaking out against it are being hated, right? In other words, it's so common, it's happening so often, this oppressive taxation and trampling on the disadvantaged, that people who speak out against it are earning a reputation for being whiners, okay? That's happening, and that's kind of what, so God is speaking through Amos, and he's kind of saying, okay, he's identifying that, let's keep reading verses 12 and 13. It says, for I know how many are your transgressions and how great are your sins, and he's gonna list a few here, you who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe, and turn aside the needy in the gate. Therefore, he who is prudent will keep silent in such a time, for it is an evil time. Okay, God is naming sins on top of the oppressive taxation of the poor, on top of trampling the ill-advantaged,

the disadvantaged, you've got bribery going on, and you've got a turning away of the needy, so bribery is how powerful people escape punishment, okay? If poor people didn't bribe judges in those days, they didn't have the money to do so, right? When you bribe, when the Lord's talking about bribes, these are powerful people that are avoiding punishment or getting something through that normally wouldn't get through, and it's usually to the disadvantage of other people. Turning away the needy at the gate, there was a place that in the town, it's called the gate, so anytime in the Old Testament you read about the gate, that was kind of city square, and in the Old Testament, there was a place for people to go get help, and that was at the city gate. In fact, according to the law in Deuteronomy 15:7, according to the law, when somebody who is poor comes up to you and asks for money,

you should give them something, right? That was how the Old Testament was designed. We're gonna look at that in more than a minute, but essentially, this is the place where people who were poor who needed help would go to get help, okay? There wasn't a social security office, there wasn't goodwill, there wasn't harvest house, there was nowhere for them to go except for the gate, the city gate, okay, the town square, and again, again, this is so common that look at 13, it says, therefore, he who is prudent will keep silent in such a time for it's an evil time. In other words, this is so common, this is normal. This is being normalized, and people who speak out against it are hated, or if they're prudent, they shut up, okay? So that is what is happening. Here is God's response in verses 14 and 15, it says, seek good and not evil that you may live, and he's telling the whole nation this,

and so the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you as you have said, hate evil and love good and establish justice in the gate. It may be that the Lord, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph. And all those verses, kind of the center idea is to establish, 15, hate evil, love good, establish justice in the gate. That justice that he's talking about is decidedly social.

Let me say it again. The justice that the Lord God is commanding his people to establish at the gate is decidedly social. Let me say it a different way. God is saying, I designed your society to function a certain way. The way that that functions, it blesses all the people, it glorifies me, like it's supposed to work a certain way. These rules aren't just rules, they are beneficial. They help your society flourish, from helping the poor to all these other laws that are kind of going on. But what you are doing, God is saying to his people is you are perverting it. You are twisting the social order. You're twisting the rules that are there to kind of keep everybody kind of together and moving forward together. As a whole, you are twisting that for your own benefit and to the injury of others. You're twisting that. Some believe that the Bible is pitted against social justice

and I understand why. We'll actually get into that, that there's actually a couple of different forms of social justice. But let's not lose this. Let's understand that when you look at scripture and you think about it, it's perfectly natural that God created a social order and that much of the Old Testament law and prophets show that. They discuss this. They look at a social justice. Tim Keller, Dr. Timothy J. Keller has an article on this that's super fascinating. You can't read the whole title. It's a biblical critique of secular justice and critical theory. It's available to anybody online. It's really helpful. In it, he points out kind of these hallmarks of biblical social justice, although he doesn't call it that. I'm calling it that. And to see these, to see biblical social justice, we're just gonna look at the opposites of what's happening in the Amos verses.

Unless you think I'm just getting my stuff from Amos. It's all over Isaiah. It's at Isaiah one, Isaiah 58. It's a couple of different places. Even further along in Amos, it talks about establishing justice kind of in this kind of social way or a corporate way. So we can see what is biblical social justice. And we need to have this defined. I'm gonna go through it kind of quickly and we're gonna list as we go. The first thing is that in biblical social justice, you steward generously. Generous stewardship. So in Amos, they were oppressively taxing the poor. They were just oppressive taxation period, but oppressively taxing the poor. If you are stewarding generously, biblically, you and I don't own things.

Let me just let that sit on you for just a minute because we are in Texas and private property is a big deal. I get it. But you and I don't own things biblically. Just like in the same way biblically, I'm not the father of my children. God's the father of my children, but I'm there to kind of show them the true father, et cetera, but I still have like paternal rights according to the law. Okay, right? So hear me. Biblically, we don't own things. Biblically, you and I are stewards of things and we are given things to share with others voluntarily.

Okay, you don't own things. You're given things to steward so that you can share with them with other people voluntarily. That's biblically what our calling is. In other words, and I'll say it a little bit more strongly, you and I as believers, we have a social debt to act generously upon. In other words, there are things that biblically we owe to people. We owe them, we owe other people love and respect.

And biblically, we owe them that not because they gave it to us, but because Jesus gave it to us. Does that make sense to you? So Jesus' generosity empowers our generosity. It's not just you have more than me so you should give me stuff. You see the difference now. Generous stewardship, stewarding generously. That's the first pillar. We're gonna move through them quickly.

The second one, protect the vulnerable. Do not, so don't trample on the disadvantaged. We protect those people because biblically we are all made in the image of God and that's why the greatest commandment is to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself and Jesus famously taught us who is our neighbor. He tells the whole story of the Good Samaritan on that. Our neighbor is people that are in need that are immediately around us. James 2:9 talks about the sin of partiality. There was a church that was receiving the letter of James and they were telling poor people to sit on the floor and rich people to kind of get these seats of honor. That was happening in the church. And James calls them out and he says, you are committing the sin of partiality. So we don't humiliate the vulnerable. We dignify people because they're created in the image of God and we don't let them be trampled on

but instead we recognize the value. We recognize the dignity in everybody, right? Third, we help all take responsibility. We help all take responsibility. We don't allow bribes. So Amos 5:12 is talking about God's calling out the sin of allowing bribes. Biblically, maturity looks like recognizing the effect that we have on people and groups and social systems

and owning that. Biblically, we in maturity recognize the effect that we have on all these people, in all these ways. In all these systems that we participate in. Okay, and in maturity, we own it. We recognize it and we own it. We don't try to sweep everything out of the rug. As Christians, we are free, right? We can admit these things but we participate in things that sometimes aren't awesome. And biblically, we should own that. We should take responsibility for that. There's personal responsibility and then there's also social responsibility. Let me be really, really, really clear here. Personal responsibility, I'm responsible for my actions. You're responsible for yours. Again, we are in Texas. Nobody's confused about that, okay? Nobody. Social responsibility, we are confused about a little bit or we're at least overly suspicious of. Let me just say this, that we contribute to broken systems

because we live in a fallen world, okay? And we can understand, and here's a great way. Here's a great way to understand it. Do you remember what we did this morning to open the service? We mourned with people who were mourning, okay? To my knowledge, nobody in here has a kid that was washed away in the Guadalupe. So why did we pray for them? Because we felt with them, right? Because we can imagine what it is to lose a kid and yeah, maybe that can scare us a little bit but really, out of compassion, we reach out to people that have lost something and we just say, man, I feel you, I'm with you. Now, I'm gonna pray for you. I don't want you to suffer like that. I don't want you to just kind of wonder where your little girl is. Man, what a horrible thing to go through and we feel that. We don't have any problem feeling communally. We don't have any problem grieving communally

but when you start talking about taking responsibility community communally, especially in Texas, especially here, everybody gets a little guarded. I will say this, communal responsibility does not erase personal responsibility and personal responsibility doesn't erase communal responsibility, okay? They do coexist. We should punish people for crimes, okay? We should also recognize sometimes people grow up in a system that is not healthy and great and we should do something to fix the system, okay?

Let's still send people to prison for committing crimes. Sure, let's still punish people for doing wrong things. Yes and amen, let's do that. That's biblically, that's awesome. But let's not ignore the fact that there are situations, complicated ones, where people can kind of grow up and no wonder they're in a gang. No wonder they've done their first drug deal by 13. No wonder they've committed murder before they're 18. No wonder because that was how to survive in that situation. Okay. We help all take responsibility. Lastly, we advocate for the voiceless so we don't just ignore justice at the gate like it talks about in Amos 5:12. Proverbs 31, eight through nine, this is kind of indicative of many other places in Scripture, it says, open your mouth for the rights of the destitute, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and the needy, and that is Proverbs 31, eight through nine.

And so when you are advocating for the voiceless, you are making sure there's kind of space for people that are disadvantaged to receive help to get the things that they need to get. And look, I'm not advocating that we all become socialists. I'm advocating the fact that we live among people in need and that if we wanna base, if we wanna say that everybody's in the situation they're in because of choices they made, I would submit to you that that is a great, that is a much easier lens to view other people through than yourself. Whenever you view yourself through that lens, oftentimes you wanna say,

yeah, well, I mean, I would have done better except this thing over here, with this thing over here, well, I grew up like this, we got all these kind of reasons that are there, but when other people are growing up in whatever, sometimes it's just easier to throw all the blame on them. Right? We'll kind of get to this, we'll come back to this in a minute. All of this resonates with us, this idea of social justice, these things, the reason I'm getting amen's in the middle of listing things for biblical social justice, is because it resonates with us because the gospel doesn't stay within our homes or our church buildings, the gospel goes out and it touches all of life. The gospel should inform how you raise your children. Amen? Okay. The gospel should inform how you treat your employees. Amen? Yeah. The gospel should inform the respect that you give to strangers. Amen?

Okay, I'm getting, the amen's are dying here. Okay. The gospel should push you to serve people that need help. Amen? Yeah. Amen, right? Yeah. It's tougher the further out you go. It just is. It just is. Easier with the kids, harder with strangers. It just is. But the gospel pushes us on all those fronts. Okay. It also resonates with us because we've seen kids like Chris get kicked.

We have felt it very hard, we wanna fix it, and we're glad the gospel addresses it. But it is exactly here on that point, in that emotion, in that frustration, where we will slip into heresy if we are not careful. Okay, let me, let's start, let's start kinda parsing this out just a little bit because as people lean into biblical social justice those things I just listed out, they lean too far. They don't know where the fence is. They just wanna help people and fix it, right? They don't know where to go. And so they add in or they kinda delve into cultural social justice along with biblical social justice. And they don't know how to discern the difference between the two and they're just kinda flying blind a little bit. So let's see the difference. Now I'm gonna explain social justice, cultural social justice in a way that somebody who is in the midst of cultural social justice would explain it, okay?

There, there's my caveat. You start with deep seated social problems. Racism, classism, a history of segregation, history of Jim Crow, a history of domestic violence, all of these things, you have a history of deep seated social problems. Those problems continually cause present day barriers, barriers to justice and equality for people of color, women and girls, those in the LGBTQIA plus community, people experiencing poverty, neurodivergence, migrants and indigenous people, infants and young children and older adults.

Barriers to justice and equality for all those people. Those barriers are evident, just in case you're wondering, they're evident in outcomes of our society and they include, but this is not an exhaustive list, economic disparity, limited access to food and healthcare, gender-based violence, reproductive rights, disinformation toward and the propagation of racist acts. All of these core problems, if it weren't bad enough, all of these core problems are baked into Western civilization and in particular, they are baked into capitalism. I need to remind you just as we're in the middle of this, I am not, this isn't the gospel I'm preaching, I'm identifying a lie, okay? So just want you to, we're halfway through, okay?

All these problems are baked into Western civilization, they are particular, they're baked into capitalism. Complete reform is the starting point for a solution, that any loving citizen should stand against all of these things I just listed and reform and remake society to be more loving and accepting. To this end, we should engage in protests, education and shows of strength to demonstrate these injustices will not stand. Cultural, social justice sees this as, and don't miss this, as the problem of our day. The capital T, capital H, capital E, problem of our day. And not only does it make sense to them, as I'm reading this, you're like, how does that even make sense to people? Some of you maybe, some of you were just like, yeah, yeah, I've vived completely with that. For some of you, it might not make sense to you, but honestly, this moves people, people that you know and love,

it moves people to cut ties with family, to risk jobs, reputation, to risk friendships and more. Okay, they don't, they're not just like, keyboard warriors kind of banging out another, terrible blog post, they really do believe, they see this injustice, they feel for those people, they see Chris getting kicked by Brandon and they're like, let's do something about it, let's mobilize toward it because these people aren't free, and we have to do something about it. This is different from biblical social justice, but they definitely overlap. There's some areas of overlap, where we're protecting the vulnerable, over advocating for the voiceless. But at other points, there's a drastic difference. Why?

In a word, worldview. Worldview is a belief that colors everything else. The worldview that lines out, cultural, social justice, and that believes that social injustice is the root cause of our biggest problem, is a worldview called critical theory. This is why Daniel Lister is timing me this morning, because I had to explain social justice and critical theory in the same sermon. Okay, critical theory, critical theory are the glasses,

the worldview, the glasses through which you see everything else. Sorry, critical theory are the glasses that people put on to see cultural social injustice, or cultural social justice, sorry. I'm gonna try to stay on the positive side here. Okay, what is critical theory? This is like explaining a movie plot badly. I'm gonna explain this badly, but it's gonna just serve my purposes here, I promise. I'm being charitable. Critical theory, we are all products, mostly or completely, of our social factors. You grew up, the way you grew up, because of cultural factors, because of your language, because of your parents, because of your residence, because of your economic situation, and that's it. That is what defines you. You are what you are because of those social factors, and they play such a dominating role, nothing else really has changed you or affected you. Okay, that reality, reality at the bottom,

when you pair it all away, reality is about power dynamics. It's about who's in charge over what, okay? And it's not just like, you don't understand, it's not just boss worker, it's just even in a conversation, who's trying to overpower the other, who's being overpowered by the other. You're using language to overpower people. You're using intelligence, you're using rules, you're using manners, you're using whatever to dominate. And if you aren't the one dominating, then you are being dominated, okay? Reality at bottom is about power dynamics. Everyone is either oppressor or oppressed, period. And that oppressor and oppressor is based on your social, cultural conditioning, okay? This plays out everywhere and in everything, and it is particularly insidious because, according to critical theory, both sides, the oppressor and the oppressed, are unaware of what is happening.

Okay? More popular version of critical theory would be critical race theory, and all that is, it just makes race the dividing line. It's still critical theory, but it just has to do with race, so we get things like white privilege that explains the role of oppressors, okay? And that's why people would say, and this is like circa 20, 21, 22, people would say to other people, like, you're a white racist and you don't even know it. They were fully subscribed into critical theory to say that, to believe that. Does that make sense? I mean, you know, makes sense to see how somebody could say that? And it undermines even having a conversation with somebody else because, even having a conversation with somebody else, what is that? That's a power dynamic. You're gonna be dominated, or you're gonna dominate, right? It's a really lose-lose situation. Today, critical theory has moved past race

into gender, neurodivergent, sexuality, immigration. It just kinda keeps going, okay? There's one name that I would recommend to you on this. There's much information out there. I'd recommend James Lindsay. James Lindsay's a good dude. Listen to him on critical theory in particular. He has this great illustration. He likens critical theory to industrial grade solvent, like paint thinner or nail polish remover. It has really good uses because it can deconstruct just about anything, and it can identify power struggles and biases and all of these things, kinda these hidden things. Sometimes that's really helpful, like with merger acquisitions, whatever. It is helpful, however, what James Lindsay says, he says, I wouldn't spread it everywhere and I wouldn't give it to children. Okay, that's pretty helpful, okay? It's not terrible, but it's like a flamethrower, okay?

You don't just like have them out. They're specialized things, and the critical theory, although can be useful, it's jumped the shark. When you put those glasses on of critical theory, you're going to interpret more and more things as a power imbalance, and you are going to believe, I swear to you, you will, you will believe that social injustice is the root cause of our biggest problems. That will occur to you, and the reason that is a heresy is because it turns the gospel into something else. In fact, it offers a different gospel. Let's look at those two gospels, and this is kind of where we're gonna end. The gospel of cultural, social, justice, and critical theory, or the other way around, doesn't matter, the gospel of critical theory and cultural, social, justice, right? And again, I'm gonna kind of say this as they would say it, right? That humanity is grouped into oppressed and oppressors,

and is ruled by power dynamics. So like this even, sorry, this is on the side, even in husband-wife relationships, right? Even in parent-child relationships, there's this, if you believe this, then you're gonna see it all in I've gotta win every argument, every situation, every conversation, or I'm losing every argument, every conversation, every situation, okay? Instead of taking responsibility, this is the gospel according to critical theory and cultural, social, justice, instead of all taking responsibility, the oppressors need to be held responsible because they have not stewarded money generously. So to fix that, we will use the power of government policy to redistribute the oppressor's wealth, okay? And that is done to protect the vulnerable. You really gotta see that. You really gotta see that. I understand you're talking to crazy Aunt Lucy, and she's kind of raving about social redistribution

of the wealth, and we've had a couple of protests here, like on the corner, no kings, okay, fine. The reason they want to redistribute the oppressor's wealth is because they wanna protect the vulnerable. It's because when they see people that are billionaires or what they perceive to be is oligarchs, all they see is one kid kicking another kid on the playground, and they wanna protect the kid who just got kicked on the playground. That's what they want. Until that time, this is still, so now we're back into their gospel. Until that time, shows of force are the only way to produce advocacy so that the oppressors can notice and give up their power.

That's the gospel according to critical theory and cultural social justice. If we redistribute that wealth, those people will be protected, and then once we've redistributed the oppressor's wealth, they have less power, and we can do our shows of force. They'll be more effective, and we can advocate for everybody, and so then we will strip the oppressors of their power and we'll win. We'll have a better world. It'll be utopia.

In this false gospel, so now I'm being critical, in this false gospel, people must be forced to do good, and the ends very often justify the means. And while that sounds good if you're on one side, it's not good for everybody. They are bothered by the question, if we do not act, who will? If we do not care, will this oppression ever end? And so, they are stuck in a system that never goes deep enough and will never cure the problems that they see. Let's just take a very simple situation like Chris and Brandon, okay? With Chris and Brandon, Chris is the mentally disabled child, and Brandon is the kid who bootkicked him in the chest.

Who's at fault? Brandon, yeah. But according to them, what if Brandon was abused? Now he's the oppressor. Who's his oppressor? His dad? Granddad? Uncle? Do we punish the uncle for kicking the kid, kicking Chris? And let's just say we actually go down the rabbit hole and find the main oppressor and try to, and we do, we successfully strip him of his power. Where does that power go? Who gets it now? Somebody else who won't abuse it? You hope.

But you see what I'm saying, it doesn't go deep enough. If you get the power to somebody else, you don't think that power is gonna, you don't think whatever they're planning to do, the nefarious is gonna not affect other people? It's not gonna build utopia. It's a bridge to nowhere. Our problems run deeper than that, and that's why the true gospel is true. Because our problems are not financial inequality. And I understand that's easy for middle class, white, cisgender, Christian, male to say, okay? I get it, I get it. I'm talking with my mouth full, okay? But give me a little, just a little tiny bit of credit, and that I've spoken to other people. I've looked, I've listened, I've read, tried to read from their side and say, okay, what are they going for? Like, what do they do? But it's a system that will not work in the end. Here's the gospel of Jesus Christ, just so we're clear.

Because I've had to wear many hats in the sermon. So humanity is both oppressor and oppressed. Humanity is both. We are all perpetrator and victim, all at the same time. It just depends on the time of day. And sometimes we're both at the same time of day. Jesus, in his perfect timing, used, leveraged his power for us on our behalf. He took the form of a servant, and took on our personal responsibility to pay for sin. Jesus used all of his power to take on our responsibility. And this doesn't simply let us off the hook. This pays an unpayable debt. In our sin against creator God, we can't work our way toward utopia. We can't figure out how to get along. Kindness does matter, but education ain't gonna get us there. It's not gonna work. It's gonna be a worse version of whatever we have now, because we have delusional people that are thinking, you know, if we just put everybody in the same room

and just educate them, everything's gonna be great. We're all gonna love each other and accept each other. No, we will not. Not even close, because we're sinners. Our main problem is not economic disparity, it is sin. Jesus pays that debt for us. Jesus makes us right. In the gospel of Jesus Christ, Jesus sets us free to do good. This requires patience and faith that Jesus is working. It doesn't seem to happen fast enough for the vast majority of us. You know, rarely do we say, Lord, you work so fast. I didn't even have to wait. Like, that doesn't come out of our mouths a lot. But we can rest in the question. We're not fretting over the question. We're resting in this question. Jesus has acted for us, for me. How can I do the same? What a question. What a question to rest in, right? What a way to be nervous. How can I serve people today?

Knowing that I'm not enough, how will Jesus use my weaknesses? Again, what a question. You're not enough, we're not enough. Glory to God in the highest, we're not enough, right? How will Jesus use our weaknesses? So here, I wanna challenge you. I'm gonna put forward to you that Jesus is the model of biblical social justice. And often, this kind of talk receives a bit of an eye roll outside these four walls, as if Jesus simply told people to pray real hard and send them away. That's not what Jesus did, and that's not what we should do either.

I wanna give you kind of like some, just some things to think about. I really want you to do this this week, actually. I wanna challenge you. Do one of these four things. I want you to serve your neighbor generously. I want you to serve your neighbor generously. This means actually talking to your neighbors. This means finding out needs and meeting them. If you don't know their first names, start there, okay? Just start with knowing who they are. But really, pray for opportunities to serve them. Or, number two, serve your specific community generously. Some of you, you think about having a personal conversation with a stranger, you get anxiety, you lose sleep, and then you're horrible by the time you talk to them because there's too much pressure on that situation, it's fine. Serve your specific community generously. So as individuals, especially as a church,

find needs and meet needs. Find out what people need and serve. There's a great way to do that organizationally. Like if you are administratively gifted and are challenged with face-to-face conversation, like man, volunteer at Hardest House, right? Like they need stuff on the back end for you to do that don't involve actually having to think of what to say next. Serve your specific community generously. Third, speak up for the oppressed personally. Want to cue in on that last word? Personally, not just online, man. Signing an online petition is great for helping you sleep. It doesn't really do that much, honestly. Even if you miraculously develop a hashtag that everybody uses in three days, if that, it'll be gone. Something else will have popped up, right? I would just encourage you. You see somebody being mistreated, you see an unfair system that mistreats people,

address it in person, speak up, go to a city council meeting, be a part of the Better Business Bureau, right? I mean, there's plenty of opportunity to actually help people kind of where they are. And you don't have to be, you don't need to go fund me. You don't need to post about it on Facebook. Just do something personally. That's perfectly okay. In fact, it's much times way more beneficial. I realize it's more scary, but it's way more beneficial. And fourth, I want you to repent personally, but grieve communally. I want you to repent personally and grieve communally. Yeah, take stock of where you are. Repent, do that often. That is a really good thing to do. That should be part of your kind of normal rhythm as a believer, just finding time to just repent of just stuff and asking the Lord, going to the Lord, just say, hey, I need to repent of this. Help me. I need to, you know, like you're trying

to take responsibility, you're repenting for that. But also, you see things happening around you, and maybe you have spoken up, maybe you haven't yet, but you see things going around you that just aren't right. Grieve it. Pray to the Lord about it. Ask Him to fix it, right? Grieve it. And if there's a way that you contribute to that, or whatever, then talk to the Lord about it. There's nothing wrong with that. It doesn't make, like I said, it doesn't make you like a socialist, Democrat. It doesn't make you anything, actually, to take responsibility corporately of what's going on. You know you're not the only one, but you're participating. So pray toward that end.

God's not clutching the pearls because you're praying for some sin that you didn't have a personal part in, but that you've contributed to. That's fine. But don't do it at the expense of personal repentance. Personally repent, grieve, communally. I wanna leave you, I wanna leave you kind of with this thought. I just want you to think about kind of where you're at.

You know, with social injustice, sometimes, man, you just hear people talk about it, they start foaming at the mouth, and it's just easier to just tune out, to be honest. Whether it's friends, relatives, coworkers, whoever, parents. And I would just encourage you on two fronts. Man, people believe very strongly that this is like the path to success in our world, and that's a big deal to them. It's a big deal to you too, to be honest. But here's what you have that you can hold onto. You have a hope that the Lord God in heaven is in control of all of that. You could pray, you can advocate, but you could pray. You can repent, but you could pray toward kind of what, just seeing God's kingdom come, you know. In Burleson as it is in heaven, right? We can see that, but it's just slow, y'all. It's just slow. And we are not called to take things into our own hands whenever we want to move them faster.

That's sin. Let's not do that. Let's pray. Wait, be faithful of where we are. Let me pray for us. Jesus, thank you so much for your extreme kindness toward us. Thank you for the ways that you help us to take advantage of the things around us. Help us to do that without taking advantage of others. Lord, you've given us all of these things, all these ways to spend our money, spend our time, spend our resources, to show love and care. I pray that we would understand that we are simply stewards of that. That when we go, we don't take any of that with us. But we are held account for it. Lord, help us to live as stewards before you. Not to pretend like everything is just before us. Lord, your kindness and your faithful, your loyalty to us is astounding. Lord, we love you and we thank you. And it's your name that we pray, amen.