Unity In Christ Before Ethnicity With Jessie Gistand

3:19PM Oct 24, 2022

Speakers:

Scott

Dwight

Luke

Jesse Gistand

Jesse Gistand

Keywords:

church

god

community

african american community

pastor

gospel

ethnic group

called

bible

christ

mercies

largely

understand

culture

christian

world

bay area

ministry

men

gentlemen

To extricate ourselves from the hyphen of being a black Christian or a black church, there's a problem when you make that hyphen, more prominent than the central identity that we have in the person of God, and in the person of Christ and to fight to maintain the supremacy of all ethnic groups being one in Christ is to fight against your own culture, is to fight against your own society is to fight against the trends of this Neel Marxist agenda, where it only survives by keeping us divided.

As Christians, our mission is to spread the gospel around the world to all the nations. But our mission also includes to transform the nations to increasingly reflect the truth, goodness and beauty of God's kingdom. Tragically, the church has largely neglected the second part of our mission. And today, most Christians have little influence on their surrounding cultures. Join us on this podcast as you rediscover what it means for each of us to disciple the nations and to create Christ honoring cultures that reflect the character of the living God.

Hello, everybody, and welcome again to another episode of ideas have consequences, the podcast of the disciple nations Alliance, I'm Scott Allen, president of the DNA, and today joined by my colleague, Dwight Vogt, and our special guests who I'm going to introduce here in just a second pastor Jesse Guestand I think I pronounced that last name correctly, Pastor if I didn't, I'll let you correct me on that. But pastor, pastor Jesse gets stand it I had the privilege of meeting a week ago, we were both together in Grove City, Pennsylvania, and we were co facilitating or co teaching at a conference hosted by a local church there in that area, on the subject of social justice, kind of the woke ideology, critical race theory, which is now dominant in our western culture in the United States. And kind of how is we How should we as Christians understand this ideology? How should we respond to it, and Pastor Jesse just was such a joy to, to kind of team teach with He is the senior pastor of Grace Bible Church in Hayward, California, which is in the Bay Area, on the Oakland side of the of the bay, not the San Francisco side. But Pastor Jesse, I was on your website, and I saw your threefold emphasis for the church and I just will read that I thought it was terrific: Sound Doctrine, Fervent Charity, and Zealous Evangelism, widely known as pastor Jesse. He's a native of Northern California and in addition to pastoral ministry, he is also a radio host of Is it one or two programs that you do pastor Jesse?

Yeah, about thank you for that introduction, we would be called to, in this split between political talk radio, of which you guys were able to be a part of is called Monday. The Monday edition of lifeline Lifeline is a political political religio, sort of addressing social, political, geopolitical issues from a biblical perspective, which is a wonderful, wonderful opportunity to, to dragnet the gospel into the Malay and may you have issues that we're dealing with today. But I also we also do a daily proclamation broadcast where they extract our, our word ministry at Grace in Eret, every day at noon, on on the station, we have here in the Bay Area, which is a pretty significant station. And we've been doing that for over 20 years, over 20 years, we've been spreading the gospel. And, and about 20 years now, and I've did not know it. I've been doing talk radio, largely in Northern California reaching people as far as Alaska. And then because of the nature of radio waves, we've been able to actually, you know, reach people in different parts of the world. And of course now with the internet that that has, that has, that has made the opportunity even even much more more significant as you guys would know. So there's there's a lot of correlation between what you guys are doing there at the disciple nations Alliance as well in terms of just being committed to evangelism and and taking the gospel to the world. That's it's been a wonderful Yeah.

No, I felt like I really felt like we really had a very much a common heart when we were together. And it was such a, I just I was so refreshed by your passion for God's word and your courage and clearly, the courage to speak truth, you know, to you in ways that counter, you know, kind of dominant cultural narratives, as you well know, right there in the Bay Area. I mean, this is a center for kind of the woke ideology, critical race theory being in California itself, but the bay area in particular and so I just found it just incredibly I was so ministered by, you know, by you, I was ministered to by you, and just really was so grateful for the time we had together, I thought our listeners would really enjoy hearing your perspective, I think you have a unique vantage point on just the church, the church in the times that we're living in, especially related to this particular issue of critical theory woke ideology. You know, coming as a black pastor in the Bay Area, I think you just have such a unique vantage point and perspective that I'm sure our listeners would love to hear. So we'd love to get into that a little bit. But before we do, just tell us a little bit more about yourself, Pastor Jesse, your your little bit about your family, your history. And your ministry, you know, your heart for ministry, if you don't mind. So

absolutely. Often, my last name is hard to pronounce, is just dead. But it's French. It's a Creole name. Oh, so I'm Creole. Our folks are from Louisiana, and, and Texas. And I've spent lots of time there growing up. But born and spinny, my winter months and educational years here in the Bay Area. So I have this kind of hybrid of a country boy, city boy, history, which has been very helpful for me in a number of ways. And graduated from high school started Junior College, in pursuit of a medical career and physical therapy. Because I was an athlete, as well as my wife, she was pursuing an education in nursing. And, and we we were married, like I said, very young and began a family. And we did that under the auspices of God's grace, because God had saved me at the time that we, my wife, and I barber had met you met my wife? Yeah, it was great. Yeah, she's a beautiful woman. We both were kind of young, African Americans in a culture in which it as we continue to develop the context. A lot of it as you said, Scott, is historically Well, no, we grew up in the 60s, we grew up in the civil rights movement. We grew up in a lot of the kind of famous conflict and battles that were taking place during the 60s and 70s, here with Weather Underground, with Black Panthers, with Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, all that and that was in that fray, because my parents were involved in those things.

And that was kind of setting it that was centered in Oakland wasn't a to, to a large degree wasn't a pastor what I'm

trying to tell you. Yeah, right. Yeah, very much. So and and the only reason I'm adding that caveat, gentlemen, is it because as we begin to talk about, you know, the present expression of of spiritual darkness, and political captivity, you would know that it had its underpinnings, even back then you would know that a lot of people wouldn't know it, but you wouldn't know it. And I would be able to identify the trends that were taking place there in terms of the conflicts politically, and how they impacted the church then still being converted in the 80s. However, late 70s 7877 78, that era had kind of subsided, but what we didn't know was that the underlying philosophy and the agenda had simply diverted attention from the public sphere and started taking hold of the academia of our world. And again, we're still we're living on the west coast, where UC Berkeley and USF San Francisco and other universities are well known for for promoting liberalism, as you would know it. And we grew up in that era. So being converted. We, my wife and I traversed a few of our typical African American church. Churches at 19 and 20. And they were largely even that time, gentlemen, moving away from a traditional model of Biblical preaching. And we're beginning to engage much more in political talk, social talk. And it was disorienting to me, because I was so desiring to be in a context in which I would be taught the Bible, and trained to do the thing for which Christians are called to do exalt the true in the living God promote biblical truth and a biblical worldview, that will be the answer to the problems of our society. And I discovered that in the African American churches, they weren't doing that. And so it put me and my wife on a journey outside of the African American church to wear ultimately through few turns and twists of being confronted with a number of cult groups. We ended up in the Christian Reformed Church via a radio ministry called Family Radio, I don't know if you guys remember it, but it was a historic, very prominent, worldwide radio ministry that taught very conservative very historically, sound doctrine and would have been largely from a reformed perspective. And so we ended up with our, you know, among our Dutch Brothers, and in the early 80s, as a small African American constituency in their community, because they were largely mono ethnic, as well as you would know. And, and they, they loved me, and I loved them. And we grew together. And that's when I began a sense of a calling into the ministry among them. So I was able to serve as a deacon and then as an elder, and then as a church planter. And then ultimately, we I became part of a founding independent Reformed Church in the Bay Area. Because of a departure from the sound biblical truths that we all hold and believe in on the part of the Christian Reformed Church, it started departing from the faith in that same era, 70s and 80s, around things that you and I are going to be talking about the authority of Scripture, biblical rulership in the church, the role of men and women in the context of marriage, things of that nature, they just started nudging away, as you would know. And that was something that became extremely problematic to me. And so as God was moving me, he was also training me through really good theologians and good professors of Reformed denominations, a lot of them independent, but definitely solid reformed denominations in the area of apologetics, as well as a total systematic theology. Any anybody in the ministry would want to be grounded and systematic theology, apologetics and understanding how critical a worldview is who relative to your life as a believer,

who were some of those influences for you, Pastor Jesse?

Right. So in the Christian reformed in the reformed community, I had several professors who were seminary professors out of products that reformed denominations, I don't know if you would know them. But Herman Huck's sama is a very prominent theologian that would have been known in those circles. They had seminaries, and I was trained by his sons, who were pastors and prominent in the Protestant reform movement, as well as several men in the Presbyterian denomination, it would have been the Orthodox OPC denomination, some of the men still living who I am still in contact with. Who are doing ministry in Southern California right now. Mark Emmerich, being one of the professors. And then I had a long stint with with different men who were professors and Western seminary. I think it was Oregon. Yeah, we got one. We got one now our 30 It was one of my dear friends. He was a professor of apologetics until he stepped down and so I've had about a had about eight to 10 really solid mentors in my life simultaneously to raising a family of eight kids,

eight kids. Wow.

Right. So my training is a hybrid of formal informal until I got into I got a call to pastor Grace Bible Church, here in the Bay Area. Yeah, in 1996. And from that point till now, it has just been a really challenging but fruitful time of trying to plant a flag of grace and truth. Amen. In a community that is, as you guys would know, controversial, to say the least,

I would love to hear, you know, I think it's just encouraging for me anyways, I'm sure for a lot of our listeners as well, you know, when we think of California, you know, we think of a state that has gone, you know, very far left very progressive. And in, in very anti Christian in a lot of ways, and yet, you are an example. And I know many others have really solid, you know, Bible believing Christians that are in California in San Francisco. I just I find that really encouraging that God has a really solid church. And you know, again, it's a minority, it's small, but it's there. It's very present. Yeah, so I just want that to be an encouragement to people. God has His people where he wants them. I, you mentioned something I would love to hear a little bit more about, you talked about the black church, and you talked about how I think you are going back to the maybe prior to the 1950s. I'm not sure exactly where the lines are drawn. But it was a it was a solid church. It was a solid Bible teaching church, but then things began to change. Could you elaborate on that? Just your own perspective on that? Yeah, yeah, sure.

And anyone studying church history, recent church history, the American church would know that, with regards to the African American church, they were highly traditional, and therefore, for a long time, what we would call a Biblically centered church community, where the Bible was really taken seriously as the authoritative word of God. But in about the 50s. And definitely, in the 60s, during the Civil Rights Movement, some very marked shifts began to occur relative to what is called liberation theology. Wb Dubois, James Kohn, and many other liberation theologians and sociologists, having actually infiltrated seminaries to which African Americans frequently went to light, Fuller Seminary, and others, what you began to sense in the preaching was a kind of catering to, again, the melee and conflicts that were occurring in our society in the media, to kind of give credence to a new social agenda. So we can really say that the social gospel began to emerge in the black church during the civil rights movement in a visceral and comprehensive way, so that almost all of your black churches were engaged in civil rights activity. And as such, the the man or the woman, African American or not, that really is looking for sound, exegetical, expository teaching and preaching, would discover that you're not going to find that in those communities where the tendency is to merely take a text of Scripture lifted up out of its context, and make a ready application to fundamentally any kind of event and problematic scenario that was going on in the African American community at that time. And the next thing you know, what, what you're largely getting in your churches are stories that are contemporized, to revisit a conflict narrative that you and I know, is one of the embedding mechanisms

of Marxism, that kind of Marxist idea, right? Yeah.

And so it became relentless, as something that marked and identified the black church, which is a problem for me to hyphenate the church as a black church. I know our basic premise for today is ideas have consequences. And I would love to press into that proposition. Because I totally agree with that. That ideas have consequences. And when you have titles, or monitors, those monitors and titles mean something, they have origins, and they have they have destinations. And if we don't really investigate what that person In our group, our entity means by that term or phrase, we can be taken for a ride that we are inadvertently going to be surprised about at its ultimate in everything doesn't mean the same thing to everybody across the spectrum of language. And you would know that. So over time, my wife and I really understanding that the Bible is redemptive in nature, it's designed is to bring us into a SEBI knowledge of the person and work of Jesus Christ, to root us and ground us in Him. And then to make us replicative of His ministry, the apostolic ministry of the 12. And to and to share this glorious Gospel with men and women of every economic on the planet, irregardless of the social conditions and circumstances into which they may be found. And there's a very, there's a very important need to discern that distinction as we are engaging the culture so that we don't lose the gospel to the culture while trying to win the culture to Christ.

Amen. Well, yeah, I just I asked that question, because I just died and I and a few of others in the office here recently, we watched a documentary that's that's out recently called Uncle Tom. And it's it's a it's a documentary, I think you're familiar with it? I don't know if you've seen

not only Uncle Tom one. But Uncle Tom to remember the the radio ministry that I've been working with for 20 years is called Satan broadcasting.

Yes. And it Yes.

Is the engine behind a lot of our conservative Christian? Our artists today?

Yeah, totally. Yeah. Salem media is the one that put that out. No, exactly. And one of the things that struck me as I was watching that, you know, a documentary was the strength of the African American church of the black church, really, from the time of slavery to all the way up into the middle part of the 19, you know, the 1900s, and how it's so central to, to the community. And that it did seem like it was there was a commitment to the, to the authority of the scriptures, and to just basic discipleship, and it was a great strength in that community. I don't know, you know, obviously, you can generalize too broadly on these things. But you know, that, that there was a there was even despite the racism and Jim Crow, and the and the real challenges that black people face in the United States, there was the strength because of some of the leaders in the churches in the community. And I find that a fascinating time, something I some of my greatest heroes, I don't care what your skin color is, I just these guys are great heroes, to me are people like George Washington Carver, Booker T Washington, because they so exemplify the power of biblical truth, to bring positive change in a culture. And that's what the DNA is all about. And they come out of that black church, that black community in the United States. And so I've just been so fascinated by it, but you're right, I, and then there was a change, there was a shift. And so yeah, just getting your perspective on this is really is really interesting to me anyways,

I love I love the reality of what you're stating in terms of how God really did allow African Americans particularly here in the Western Hemisphere, to prosper in spite of the difficulties they went through. Because we would expect that a believers we would expect believers to be on a spiritual level, a different species, than, than every other human being on the planet simply because of the presence of the grace of God and because of the excellency of scriptures capacity to raise us up out of any kind of defective understanding our detrimental lifestyle, and put us in a position where we can be productive. While we can be successful, that term needs to be defined, but largely operating out of biblical principles that are moral, ethical and spiritual. You are going to prove the Word of God to be right. I don't care what culture you are even over against some of the fiercest opposition. So you know, the Bible is clear about the paradigm of slavery we talked about that slavery doesn't hinder God's people from proliferating from honoring God from loving God from from being able to be a presence in the world. That's the Exodus account. That is the Exodus account, chapters one and two. The threat to the Egyptian kingdom was the fact that those Hebrews slaves were still becoming fruitful and multiplying and abounding and becoming vigorous and, and dynamic and becoming a, a relative force in the dark culture of Egypt that they had to do, essentially what you and I are dealing with today in terms of seeking to abort the grace of God in his capacity to replicate God's Imago Dei in men and women who would simply just obey His Word.

What what you're talking about here is, I'd like you to take it a little further. What is why is that not the prosperity gospel? Because you just you just basically framed, what I would say is biblical prosperity. And I hold to it because I've seen it in my own family and roots in history, as Mennonites out of Russia, but anyway, it's not biblical, but it's not the prosperity gospel. Can you unpack that? Why that is? What's the difference?

Yeah, absolutely. My dear brother, and in keeping with ideas have consequence, the battle that we are always fighting is an understanding of a biblical worldview, and the trusted epistemology of God's word as reflecting reality. And when we submit to reality, according to God, and this is what I constitute true truth is reality, according to God, whether the Old Testament Amman, or the New Testament Alafia truth is reality and reality is true, according to God, and whenever we walk in that true, we are going to experience the creation mandate and redemptive mandate that God says, is essential to an evidence and token of God's favor, goodness and mercy in the life of any ethnic group, every ethnic group, and you would know this gentleman, being prone to evangelism, every ethnic group that has ever done God's will, at any time on the planet has always been blessed has always been fruitful, has always multiplied, because that's the nature of God, the nature of God is that He will bless those that obey Him. This is the blessing of obedience, as you would know, and he does that in contradistinction to the surrounding environments in which those people of God are in and it becomes an opportunity to witness to the world of the reality of God when He blesses you. So in that sense, we do not have such a push back on the prosperity gospel as to say, God does not prosper the gospel, he does prosper the gospel, because it's his goal for the gospel to prosper in the world where we need those tools to see to it that the gospel is driven into those communities. And one of them would be the witness that God would, he would take a child of God who would obey Him, and make sure that he has food and clothing and, and the will the wherewithal to be able to live out his life in dignity and an honor. And generally that's going to be a reality when the people of God collectively work together toward those IDs. You see this over and over again, in the Bible. I'm sure you know this.

Yeah, for sure. But but speak a little bit to kind of the false side of the prosperity gospel. Because Because that's a real reality to where you got a lot of people who, you know, how can I how can I say that? I mean, they they have this expectation that their faith is going to mean, you know, the nice house, the nice car, and no persecution, no suffering.

And it's prevalent in Latin America.

It's prevalent in Africa. Right, because I agree with what you just said, but it's different than I think what's going out through a lot of pulpits today. And I think that's it Dwight's, right. This is a kind of an important but fine point we have to make here. So

yeah, and I did want to I do want to do that. I just was actually piggybacking on the whites affirmation, yes, that's being as prosperity. Yes. But being in the African American community, you would know that I have fought against this pseudo prosperity gospel for decades upon decades, both here in America, as well as in Africa doing ministry in Africa, where it is prominent as a marketing tool to two ignorant men and women who are vulnerable and multiple levels. And so here's what I would say gentlemen, which is fascinating about the correlation between what we're dealing with now in terms of Neo Marxist, cultural corruption, ideologically, that with the prosperity gospel, what it is, is a religious sized model of postmodern fantasy rhetoric. It is a religious eyes model of postmodern fantasy rhetoric. And what I mean by that is, the post modernists does not hold to. True as it were being objective concrete, real and having its origins in God, it holds a model of believing that truth is subjective relative, and is therefore modifiable, and and generated by our own ability of creativity largely with our words, whosoever has the power of the words, has the power of creative force. And when you think about the prosperity gospel, you have to always think about the word of faith movement. And once you get into the Word of faith movement, you have a religious sighs modality of postmodern propaganda. You do understand what I'm getting to explain the

word of faith movement, because I'm fairly familiar with that. I think a lot of our listeners aren't familiar with that. What do you mean by that?

The Word of faith movement going all the way back to Kenneth Copeland, Kenneth Hagen, and Creflo Dollar and Joyce Meyer, and many of them who are barely still living today, who would be your pro, Pentecostal charismatic, largely signs and wonders, flamboyant ministries that actually merchandise, the use of words, merchandising phrases, that they would lift out of the Bible, like, your faith will make you whole. That's a biblical proposition. That's true. But the wholeness there is in your health, it's in your finances, it's in your marriages, in your, the lives of your children, if you just believe this, and if you say this over and over and over again, you will be rewarded with God being demanded to actually bless you according to your word. So you can see how using the Bible as a kind of mantra, kind of a NEO Gnostic mantra, which again, is nothing but a method of post modernism today, under the assumption that the power is in that word, rather than in God and a proper interpretation, according to God, then now we are using God's word as a kind of Neo, postmodern method of creating reality.

Yeah, it's kind of a, it's treating God like a genie in some ways, right. And, you know, it's I've got some kind of magic formula that I can quote or not some mantra, and it's going to lead to, to some kind of, you know, prosperity on my part. So that's one side of it. But the other side, as you were saying, and this is where I think we've got to be really careful is that there is a reality there is a truth. This is God's word, word world, and he created it. And when we walk in alignment with that true truth, that reality, things tend to go well for us. It doesn't mean we don't have suffering diseases, persecution, you know, Jim Crow, or whatever it is. But God blesses us despite that, when we when we walk in obedience to Him, and when we when we live in accordance with reality. So is it Mike getting that right now, from your perspective? Of

course you are. What you gentlemen would know is that relative to the promises of God, then yes, and a man through Jesus Christ to the glory of the Father by us, it is simply the reciprocity of faith in God, not faith and faith. Is faith in God,

right? And then we don't control God. Right? Okay, he's not 100%.

And so, with that kind of distinction, as our framework of interpreting the promises of God, what we would say to people frequently is like he said, God, God will bless you according to his will, as you obey Him in the precepts in which he is calling you to, but he'll do it his way, in his time in in such a manner as that neither you get the glory, or the what we call the instrumental mechanism, getting the glory because God is the original cause of all things, especially the blessing so that he gives us a word of promise is for us to glorify the God of that Word of Promise, and not the promise itself.

Amen. I just love what you're saying so much. And I think another thing to add to this is that, from a biblical standpoint, the blessing that comes from God that comes as a result of obedience, humble obedience to Him to His Word to living in reality, that blessing isn't for us. You know, the Bible makes that clear. You've been blessed to be a blessing, right? And through you all nations will be blessed. God loves the whole world, and He wants everyone to be blessed to be touched. And so you know, We're not to be a reservoir. As my colleague Darrow Miller often says, We're not to be a reservoir of God's blessing. We're to be a channel of God's blessing. It's for others. And so I'm sure you agree with that. I think that's something that maybe the prosperity gospel people, you know, don't take into account.

Hi, friends, thanks for joining us today. If you're enjoying this discussion, and learning from the wisdom of Pastor Jesse, don't let that learning stop with you. Please consider sending this episode to a friend. Or if sending an entire hour plus episode to someone seems like too much, just go ahead and share one of our social media highlights that you can find on Instagram or Facebook from this episode. And that's a short way to give them an idea of what to expect in the discussion here with Pastor Jesse. After that, if you wouldn't mind going ahead and leaving us a rating and review on Apple podcast or wherever you're listening. That would be really helpful and a great way to help us share this podcast with others. Thanks again for joining us for this episode of ideas have consequences.

I would love to turn our conversation if you don't mind, Pastor Jesse to critical theory. And just you were talking earlier about how there was a shift in the church back in the 1950s and 60s, you had liberation theology coming in the theologians like James Cohn, and other very influential theologians in the black church, their influence spread way beyond the black church as well. But then it kind of like you say, and I think this was true for me, too, it kind of didn't really go underground. But it wasn't it wasn't omnipresent like it is today. And it was kind of out of sight out of mind. But then it came back, you know, in the mid 2000s, in a pretty significant way, you know, not mid 2000s, but around 2000, early 2000, you know, 10 2012 15, in that period of time you started to see the rise of Black Lives Matter as a movement. I'd love to hear your, your journey, in terms of kind of, when did that hit the radar for you? Maybe it never left your radar? I don't know. But But when did you start noticing this shift in the culture this change? And then how did you make sense of it?

Right. So because there was a grace given to me to make a distinction early on in my Christian life, to know the difference between the social gospel and the biblical gospel early on, that bifurcation was a tool for discerning every trend that was developing in the 80s 90s, in the early 2000s, both in the church and in the world, the ability to recognize the attempted reoccurrence of a kind of social gospel, blessing here, blessing now, rhetoric, you serve being the gospel of blessing now and in the world to come eternal life. This is what we call a two stage to age worldview for the Christian and God blesses us now in order to also bless us in the age to come. So it's not about here or there. It's about both, as you would know. But the emphasis in a, in a social gospel is not about having us about Earth. And you you know, that this antithesis, this antithetical worldview, everywhere in the secular culture, raised its head and made its presence known by all kinds of forms and expressions as a subtle way of denying the the verity of biblical true and it would gradually move Christians into a false dichotomy. And that false dichotomy would be the assertion that the secular world has a, an epistemological framework distinctly different than the sacred world or biblical world. And that in many ways, the two can never overlap. And so you are, you are inclined to want to try to straddle both worlds as reality, and not do the hard work of subsuming the secular under the sacred, finding the flaws in the secular, exposing them, which is what the Word of God says, Bring everything into captivity to the knowledge of Christ, everything not something's everything. And therefore, the goal of the Christian is not to

acquiesce to a, a to modality, epistemology secular and sacred and you would know this because there Church has kind of as a perilous pendulum swung both ways, many, many times. But for me, it was always constantly watching how the secular world would take on a pseudo religious posture at the expense of biblical truth, and Christians would slip into it. And we would have to battle against that. That is what shaped our church, you guys, meaning the church that I pastor is not an African American church at all. If you were to go online and look at our members in any of the larger panning of screen and see our audience, we are a people of different ethnic groups in our church, very healthy diversity of black, white, Latina, Asian, Filipino, et cetera, et cetera, okay, I had, I often have the opportunity in that comfort zone, to call out our different ethnic groups and talk about the strengths of the Koreans and the strengths of the Asians and the strengths of the Latinos and the strength of our Filipino brother. And now that's not by accident, that's on purpose. Because it's easy for any pastor to cater to a monolithic ethnic group, particularly the one from which he comes, and to just settle into that community alone. And, and therefore live in that false bifurcation of secular sacred. We're black Christians. And we work hard. We're blue collar workers, and we work six days a week we we make our money, we pay our bills, we enjoy our life over here in the social political world, and then we do church on Sunday. Well, that is the fallacy of the dichotomy that was created by the anti bibble assist in America, John Dewey, John Locke, and many others as they tried to make a distinction between what what secularism is and can do over against Christianity, in inferring that Christianity is really nothing but a mythos, having no real basis, in reality, scientifically or whatsoever. And so the Christian does not know when they are operating out of a two tiered system, that really, they are affirming one and denying the other. And over time, that will actually erode the capacity of the Christian to have confidence in a biblical worldview, or a biblical expression and testimony of any particular issue in life. And the next thing you know, we are actually even using the language of the secular world, to the exclusion of the biblical language in disciplines like science and, and geometry and engineering, and all kinds of disciplines. The next thing you know, the Bible doesn't have a platform in any of these categories. And now you're saying then what is the Bible for just Sunday, when you go to church when you praise God, but the moment you leave out the door, we are capitulating to Newton's law, and and mythical concepts like Mother Earth and, and evolution, we've been pushed back as the church in the world, by all of these secular disciplines so far that we're basically on a reservation and don't have any substantial presence or impact or influence on these disciplines, because they're now entrenched so powerfully in our culture, that they have the audacity to define us again, in contradistinction to the Bible telling us who we are, where our origin is from, and how we get to the God that made us we have huge issues in front of us along those lines. And so I say that the African American community has fallen prey enormously to what we would call being in the world and of the world, instead of in the world, not of the world, but in the world, for the world, for God's glory. And that that that that that divide, is so massive in the African American community the day that when you meet a person like myself and a few other African Americans in our in our bay area, we are extremely rare individuals who don't have a lot of support by the vast majority of the African American churches in our community. I am not well received by most African American pastors or African American churches here in the Bay Area for the very things I'm sharing with you and I know this will be true For many other men, vodi Baucom, and other African American men who I know have fought these battles vigorously to extricate ourselves from the hyphen of being a black Christian or a black church, there's a problem when you make that hyphen, more prominent than the central identity that we have in the person of God, and in the person of Christ, and to fight to maintain the supremacy of all ethnic groups being one in Christ is to fight against your own culture, is the fight against your own society is to fight against the trend of this Neo Marxist agenda, where it only survives by keeping us divided. You guys know that? Yeah.

Well, your your, your explanation of the sacred secular divide. It's something we talk about all the time on this, this podcast and in our ministry, because we really do see it as the central problem facing the church right now. And it's why the church has the way that we say it pastor Jesse is the church hasn't been discipling, the nation and others bringing the Bible into all areas of society, rather, we've been discipled by the nation, because of this, this, this bad theology, whatever is prominent in terms of the ideology shaping the nation, and right now it is this kind of woke ideology that just shapes the church, you know, and so you explain that I thought in a really, very powerful way. You Yeah, I would, I'd love to hear a little bit more of your thoughts on just what you were just talking about. Right now, you're on church, he said, as a multi ethnic church. And it's important for you to prioritize identity being in Christ first. And then secondly, you know, whatever our ethnic identity is, that's got to kind of be second place. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Because for example, here in Phoenix, I'm friends with a lot of pastors here in town with a prominent churches and right now they put a big emphasis on, you know, diversity, ethnic diversity within the church, and within the leadership of the church, and so they'll, they'll, they'll make a real effort to, you know, bring in people with black skin, brown skin, you know, so it's not just a white church. What are your thoughts on that? Is that is that is that is that important? I just want to see if I understand you correctly on this, because it sounds like that's what, that's what you did. Although I did see, I think probably your community is very racially mixed as well. They're in Oakland in the Bay Area, you know?

Right. Now, the question is great, you guys. And the problem is that again, the devil is our eternal. He's our eternal foe that operates in parodies, to try to mimic God, almost at every level in which God would promote certain principles, certain virtues and certain protocols by which God will be glorified. A one man did God make all the ethnic ethnicities on the earth. So every ethnic group really has one kind of blood flowing through his veins? Yes, even so in Christ, who is the new man, he has a community as well, we have one divine blood flowing through our veins spiritually, as you guys would know, we are brothers. And yet we do also maintain the beauty and utilitarian utilitarian nature of the different ethnic qualities. And they, they're there for a reason. I mean, we could expand on X 14 through 17. In that regard, at length, I'm not going to do it. But you do know that God has a purpose for us being in the different regions of the world, for His glory, to take on different qualities and, and skill sets and gifts for his honor. And we don't all have the same gifts, we all have different gifts. So diversity in unity, really is a divine model, but it was taken up also by the devil as a parody against the gospel, to use diversity as a way of destroying the core unity of humanity, in the person of the Triune God, so they utilize diversity, but as to destroy humanity. And so what you and I are dealing with today is a forced unity that I think really was problematic back in the civil rights movement. We could talk about that. For instance, we want unity but we don't need uniformity. And we don't need to be forced to be in the same building together. Because because it would look better if our ethnic groups that lived in the same neighborhoods were worshipping together.

So Just to clarify. So that wouldn't be you wouldn't say, I'm going to make it a high priority to make sure that the people sitting in the pews, at that Grace Bible Church have different color skin. I mean, it turned out that way. And you said that there's some bits of value there. But I just I'm trying to understand,

right, I probably went a little long, and trying to explain to you that the secular world is a pseudo gospel agenda as well. It operates in the same kind of evangelical zeal to create unity out of ethnic groups, under the banner of it would be better for us to be integrated than for us to be segregated at all costs. I don't agree with that. I don't, I think that an undiscerning view of why our ethnic groups existed in different places and spaces in the world, according to God's order has a purpose. And you can't confound that just because you want to create a synthetic new man that is absent and void of the royal blood of Christ by which we can be a new man. So making one body so making peace that is really the church, the church is that group of men and women from every nation, kindred, tribe, and tongue, one in Christ, call to operate out of a level of spiritual principles that allows us to be able to exist in a harmony, a purpose that brings glory to God. And it is not the consequence of being forced, but compelled by a power and proposition that is divine in nature, and doesn't destroy our humanity. And so when I say that we were intentional and grace to be in a multi ethnic group, it was exactly as you stated, Scott, we had the we had the, the ethnic material for that to

occur. You were in a very, you're a very diverse community there. Yeah.

But what we did not do, gentlemen, what we did not do, we never ever once talked about ethnicity. We never, ever want said We want more Filipinos in the church. We want more Caucasians in the church, we want more Latinos in the church, we want more Asians, we never did that what we did was preached the gospel of the supremacy of the person of Christ, and made sure that that gospel did not get corrupted by the insertion of a social gospel and an emphasis of you must with these different ethnic groups. So when people of different ethnic groups were drawn to Christ, if I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto me when they were drawn to Christ in our community, what we said was brother and you are who you are, as God made you and your different ethnic groups. Under this rules, roof, we are one and Jesus. And we will allow our oneness in Christ to be the glue that keeps us together, not a horizontal project of one month, we are emphasizing our Filipino culture, the next month, our African American culture, that's called multiculturalism, by the way, you guys do know that. And that is quite different than what a community of believers, we're coming from different ethnic groups we do, we are really still one culture, prominent culture, and that is Christians who love God love Christ and love the Bible. And so therefore, our ethnicities are subsumed under that priority, so that they are there to be a beautiful augmentation of our unity in Christ, but it doesn't dominate our message, nor does it dominate our epic, if that makes any sense. Yeah,

that's, I think that's very helpful. I've had a lot of, you know, friends who I think they've been been influenced by this kind of cultural Marxist, social justice ideology, which does champion diversity. And what it means is, you know, we need to see, you know, a diversity, particularly in terms of skin color in a particular organization, or church or whatever it is, and and if you don't have that, it's proof positive of racism. You know, and they'll say things

like fallacy of logic, you do know, that's a fallacy of logic. Well, I

think there's a lot of confusion, you know, they'll say, the most kind of racist place in America is the church on a Sunday morning, you know, and so we, you know, they want to fight against racism. So they, but and I've heard that a lot. And I've, I think, like you, I've pushed back against that, and, you know, by saying, Well, I suppose it could be evidence of racism, if there was really malice towards people based on their skin color, you know, but it's not necessarily, you know, evidence of racism at all because, you know, I've got a Romanian church just down the street from the church I attend and And, you know, is the fact that though there is a Romanian church and frankly, a Persian church and Iranian church also within the same, you know, basic neighborhood is my church? You know, is that is that a problem? You know, and my, my response to that is no, you know, there's this, there's a distinct culture in Romania, and they have a way of doing things that customs foods, you know, you know, same with Persians and Iranians, and, and even African Americans, you know, so that I don't see that as necessarily proof of racism, you know, is it is it nice when we can be together and demonstrate that unity in Christ? Yes, obviously, it's wonderful, but but is it proof of racism? If our church isn't, you know, you know, ethnic mix? No, not necessarily. So I think that's what you're saying, if I'm, if I'm understanding it correctly, what

you're doing, which is beautiful, the insight that you're rendering, Scott, is affirming the fact that we have to think well, and this is what what I do in our church, right, I really labored to help us to think things through it would be a fallacy of logic to assert that just because there appears to be a lack of representation of one people group or ethnic group, in any community on any job in any scenario, that the root cause of that lack of representation is racism, that those are not necessary correlating factors, there could be all kinds of other variables that we need to take into consideration as to what would be the reason for which that distinction is there, neither are we to assert or assume that because that lack of representation is there, that that means something evil or bad or wrong, that would be a fallacy as well of logic, in drawing conclusions that are not fair, just and appropriate. And what Jesus said in John 724, is that you and I must judge righteous judgment, never judge according to appearance, judge righteous judgment. And so the believer is appeal not to adopt, again, keeping with the idea that ideas matter, ideas have consequences. What we hear are a lot of terms, we hear a lot of phrases, we hear a lot of concepts that are articulated and propagated over and over. And they are not tested. They are not evaluated for coherency. At their premise, and after conclusion, and then we start adopting them and that that the Christian is not called to be that kind of undiscerning. Easily pliable person. You cannot be that way.

Yeah, we've got to test everything against the scriptures. Amen. I agree, for sure. Well, I love what you're saying. And I think I think we can celebrate our ethnic diversities. And I am proud that I include the African American community United States, in that I think it's a really rich, you know, community. So we can celebrate that. At the same time, we can also affirm our oneness in Christ, you know, the Bible gives us the ability to kind of do both of those things. And so and I really agree with what you're saying, we, you know, I think, you know, unless we, we have to bring everything under the authority of the Bible, especially these prominent powerful ideologies that are that are that are in the culture today. And that's not happening nearly enough. Go ahead, Dwayne. Yeah.

as we as we talk, I, I'm just listening, I'm going whoa, whoa, this, you know, you're blowing me away with some of your thinking and some of the way you express things. And, and I'm wondering, how do you I almost what I hear you saying is we need to be a thinking church, we need to understand Theology at a very high level in a very profound and deep level. And because of that, we understand oneness in Christ, we understand the beauty of diversity, we understand the Unity, we understand why God created men and women and different people all over the world.

And we understand them visa vie, what the culture is kind of saying about those things, right? Well,

yeah. And then we have this flipside of so what's the lie? And what's the parody that Satan is taking in this role to preach a lie that's going to distort What's so good, you know? How do you how do you pass this on to your congregation? i I'll be honest, I don't hear this in my church, this level of thinking, it's almost like you will we can't talk at this level in the church. It has to be way dumbed down. I'm sorry, audience, but how do you how do you engage people at this level and are is do you?

Yeah, I appreciate that gentleman. And that's basically my that's my type tyrannical commitment to excellence on the part of the people of God as a model of our master, and His apostles, because they were thinking me in an obvious You know, the Lord Jesus Christ is the epitome of Lagace the epitome of wisdom and understanding and and logic, personified. And so for the Christian to have a depository of truth, and the codification of God's revelation special revelation called the Bible, right? That book is infinite in His wisdom, infinite in His power, infinite in its impact in our life, its ability to take a simple turn, and make them a scholar is exactly its claims. And I love the way that Psalm 119 Put it because someone 18 exalts God's word you guys know, someone I train is the alliteration of the Hebrew alphabet in stanzas of age. 476 verses extolling God's precepts above everything, and that it can take a young man and make him wiser than the most brilliant scholar. And I believe that, that the Word of God is designed not only to change our heart, but change our mind. And let me in addition to say that, that they are never to be so divided the heart and mind as to not really be substantially two sides of one coin. When we talk about the mind, we are talking about a mind that is able to think God's thoughts after him. And when we talk about a heart, we're talking about that kind of thinking that is committed to a passion that would move us out in obedience, to declare the mind of God to men and women, with the hope that they would be drawn into learning God and studying God's Word so as to be transformed by the study of God's Word into the image of Christ. Who is our wisdom, redemption, sanctification, and righteousness, you guys know these terms. And what that means is, if you meet a healthy Christian man or woman who has walked with God, and has studied God's word, you are not to be meeting a night Eve, non discerning, incompetent person who cannot pick up on error and falsehood, by and by now, again, I'm not saying that, you know, people have to take on the level of maybe articulation that I'm capable of doing. I'm a pastor teacher. But even the simplest Christian has the capacity of discerning the most complex errors and falsehoods, because God's word is that kind of precise, light and clarity, instrumentality by which we can do those kinds of things. And you have to train people to think deeply, broadly, and transcendently in relationship to God's word. So I'm intentional, like the way I'm talking to you. I talk to people like this all the time. And our members have to endure being told that the ultimate seminary should be the church.

Your your members have to endure putting their thinking caps on when they walk through the door.

The reason why our churches are in trouble is because we bought the lie that we can do postmodern, irrational, fantasy mythos religion, where we don't actually hold ourselves accountable for thinking right. And well, when we go inside the church doors. This is particularly true gentlemen of the African American church, by allowing the world to define the central attribute of human beings as emotional and not rational.

Yeah, you're all I know, wow. When I know when I when I met Pastor Jesse, and he was talking this way, when we were together in Pennsylvania, I was doing the same thing you're doing right now what I was like, Wow, where did this guy come from? The way you articulate these things. Pastor Jesse is right at the core of our calling in our ministry, and we so rarely meet Christians like you, you're just such a breath of fresh air, frankly. And so

I caught that. I caught that with you too. And then also caught that with your program. I just want you to know that and I'm not surprised that that we are able to have this conversation with this kind of agreement. I'm not surprised that that because, gentlemen, you know, I have enough experience on the world level of evangelism, to know how God kind of works. We have a we have a presentation of Christianity in the West. That is, you know, it's modeled after the world in terms of your heavy hitters and your, your, your prominent pastors

kind of celebrity we call it the celebrity culture, right? Yeah.

Celebrity Culture. Early on, I knew that God I've worked with men and women who are faithful to Him all around the world. And they get absolutely no notice. No publicity. No, no, no, no, no, no PR. And they are wonderful, gifted, productive, spiritually prosperous men and women who walk in the humility of the calling they have in the domain that God puts them in. And they have absolutely no interest in contending with the big name celebrity people. And neither do I, quite frankly, I can tell you that neither do I, because there's a cost for that, as you know. You know, our goal is to be effective, but to remain humble, because the one that remains humble will be exalted. The one that is exalted will be debased. We know that God, God takes no pleasure in the legs of a man, and God always resists the proud, but he does not call his sheep to be dumb. He does not call a sheep to be undiscerning or ignorant. And because we are un Gillean, because we are people of the word, we have to be able to have enough capacity for communicating true, so that people can take us seriously at all levels in all disciplines of life. There's no such thing as the theologian not being able to say something about astrophysics, or or subatomic particles or geometric, you know, categories, we shouldn't be able to talk about all of those things. From a biblical standpoint. I think the Bible covers all those areas. I really do. I think the Bible is able to penetrate into and demonstrate that it is the foundation of all true science. Yeah, amen. Lost that ground. We've lost that ground gentleman, we've lost that ground. And it drives me crazy. On top of this, if you don't mind me just say one more thing. I have a kids and they're all college educated. So I'm dealing with engineers, computer engineers, computer scientists, I'm dealing with mathematicians at high level, these are my kids, okay, I'm dealing with chemists, I'm dealing with bio chemistry majors at UC Davis, Santa Clara University across the border, I'm gonna eat cones in my kids. So all these all these kids of mine. They have to put up with me, and I have to put up with them. So they're

saying, Dad, you have no idea.

I wish I could be at your dinner table.

So Sunday dinner must be exciting. Yeah.

I say that to say that. If you know that the most important institution on the planet is not the White House. It's the home. Amen. It's the most important institution on the planet and the enemy has been able to devastate our homes and destroy our homes. And this is the fundamental problem with the African American community.

Yeah, that was a kind of a direction I wanted to go and Pastor Jesse, just what you're touching on right there. A couple of things about your perspective on the African American community from a couple of us here who were outside that community. Number one, yeah, I was just going to ask that question. What do you see are the biggest problems that are facing the community right now? I mean, the dominant narrative says it's it's systemic and structural racism, right, that we have to deal with that that's the problem. What's your what's your perspective on you know that

it's not true. That proposition is not true at all, on the ground, or across any of the sincere efforts of African Americans to just exist in this world. You will hear that from the woke people who have traversed universities, and have been blinded by a false reality and therefore have been subverted into a wanting to blame shift the maladies largely in the African American community on to systemic racism. But your African American per capita, the average African American, and individually if you talk to them in private, without any kind of threat, they will be honest with you. And they will tell you that they that racism is not a direct nor prominent causal effect on their lives. The African American community would definitely tell you that. The fundamental problem is that in the home we have struggled with families being committed to excellence in the area of education and in the area. of God. So there has been two things stripped out of the African American community by virtue of the winds of political change, and the insertion of a NEO Marxist agenda that's designed as a deconstruction mechanism, tearing down everything, yes. And we can go through all the categories. But in the African American community, it was removing demand from the home as a necessary organizing principle, so that the children can understand God via a father and a mother. So where there's an absence of a father, and there's a presence of the mother, there's a complete denial of the essential binary distinction of male and female, and therefore, a husband and wife, and therefore, father and mother, as a hierarchical revelation in the Catechism of the home for the children that will be natural for them to see God through a father, see God through a mother, see God through a husband and see God through a wife, because after all, the trajectory of their life in 15 to 18 years, is to adopt a relationship with another person that's supposed to fit the biblical model, right, you're gonna end up being a husband and a wife. Well, if the Father's not there, we don't have a father paradigm, we don't have a father model, we don't have a father motif. It's the same with a mother. And this has been absolutely devastating to the African American community. Because at the same time, the father is gone, God is gone. And the mother is doing a lot to try to fill that gap. But please believe you meet, there is no substitute for father. There is no substitute for a father in the home. And we already know the sociological and psychological dangers of mom having to be both a mother and a father.

And not only his mom, being a mother and a father, mom is now being the breadwinner across the whole system of that family, which actually destroys her her capacity to be efficient, and her femininity, because now she has to be both masculine and feminine at the same time. And that's not an audition. That's a takeaway, that's a distortion and a diminishing of the qualitative nature of both the mother and the father that the children should have, in order to have the balance that male female balance, which is what God meant when he says, Let us create man in our image and in our likeness, let us create the male and female in the image of God created he there. So we know that that that that coupling of the man and the woman is the whole sort of Gestalt, or framing that God has inserted into how his a Mago day would actually impact humanity, a mother and a father, those qualities are essential for both a man and a woman to be the best they can possibly be, particularly if they grow up in the church, kids, anywhere you see the African American community have been held to the biblical model of a mother and father in the home, and children. And I'm an example of this gentleman. I didn't come from well, I in fact, I didn't even come from a Christian home. My mother and my father came from again, the South. And when they got here, they went, you know, gung ho into a kind of secular pursuit of, of trying to make money, and they forgot all their values. And this is what happened to a lot of people coming from the south to the west coast to work, they forgot their values. And so I'm a baby boomer, and I grew up in a generation where, where mom and dad were didn't have good relationships. And then ultimately, my dad had to leave because he was, he was very sick on drugs, very violent, a lot of problematic components there. And my mother did the best she could. But that left me and my brothers exposed to a world of crime, drugs and violence. And it was the grace of God that brought me up out of it as he did for vodi Baucom and a number of other men who were restored. So the gospel is about restoration. But I say that to say this, this is the same story for every successful African American male or female, largely in America where that two parent home is kept intact, where there is a fundamental acknowledgement of a biblical worldview. The African American male or female is going to do excellently I've gotten all eight of my kids up and through just about done with college. I got one in the military. She's going to be a doctor. She's She's the last one is climbing the chain all the way down there. Got to be a doctor, right? So she didn't fatigue after seven brothers or sisters, she was motivated by their success to go head on and become a medical doctor. And they all grew up in the church. And they all grew up with a mother and a father, and a mother and a father was not exceptional. We were just committed Christians, if you guys know what I mean by that we were not we were not exceptional. If we didn't think of ourselves exceptional. We just believe that if we do it God's way, it will have the outcome that it did. And I say that inclusive of a lot of challenges for me and my wife, relative to us being of a lower middle class status, just trying to believe God for His grace in our family. And it worked. And by the way, again, I can say that the church that I pastor, they saw all that. So when we started back in 1996, we only had about 3035 people. And so I had a kids. So you know, I'm 1/4, but that whole community, right, just with my kids, and we've grown down to about 500 600 people, in average attendance is 350 people. And we were talking about COVID, I tell you why the other portion are not coming to church because they collapsed under COVID. And got impacted by the psychosis as you guys would know. But our congregation saw that growth in here's the other thing about how God used us in our own community, embolden other families to be committed to that same kind of biblical model, in terms of black families, Latino families, Korean families, Asian families. So I hope I'm not talking too much, but what I'm trying to share with you, it wouldn't ever surprise you if you were listening to me preach to our congregation that I will talk about you guys remember when we were back in the old building 25 years ago, and it wasn't but a handful of us and how God really helped us to struggle and grow and mature and prosper. And now your kids are in college. And now we're we're teaching your grandkids, We're in our second generation, about to go into our third generation. And God took this, this, you know, this handful of people in the local Bay Area that we talked about in the beginning of our study, and has done something wonderful, notwithstanding all of the trials, and difficulties we've gone through as an object of his mercy and grace,

what I love what I love, what I'm hearing here is both your clarity in terms of the the core problem the broke the breakdown of marriage and family in the black community. And and you know, the loss of kind of a bit of a strong biblical theology, a strong church. And the fact that you said that that was lost. In other words, there was a time when it was much stronger, there were much stronger families and a much stronger connection to the Bible into the church. And, and but but also what I like is that you're saying that there's hope to write, you know, you're an example of that hope and the people of your church are hope that even though this is a huge problem, it can change and should not

be should not be gentlemen, the essence of the existence of the local church. Shouldn't the essence of the existence of a local church, the Body of Christ, with all of his different gifts, and callings be the hope of the gospel? Should not be it? Shouldn't we? Shouldn't we be saying, hey, look, all of these other pseudo hopes, these false hopes, they don't work, the only thing that works is a God that is able to raise the dead and open the eyes of the blind and strengthen the lane. And I'm using metaphors of every facet of our lives, that does not work can't work, when the grace of God is imparted to that the church should be a model of people who are recovering from the fall and demonstrating a substantial manifestation. The blessing of that recovery. We

that's our mission statement. Yeah, no, you're you're basically describing the mission statement of the disciple nations Alliance right there. You know, we even use that phrase substantial. We use that phrase, substantial healing. So

that's why we love baptisms. That's why we love testimonies at church. I remember when I first went to my church, a couple stood up that first Sunday and said, This is Our Story. And it was amazing and miraculous, and it was one of restoration and healing. And I thought, I'm coming here, because I want to be around people that experience this. So

this is why we are small b Baptist, small b small b. And I'll say that because obviously you would know that our Baptist brethren from the Anabaptist history did Not actually run through the vein of Protestant Reformed theology. They they basically had problems with Luther and Calvin in many ways because they were paedo Baptist as you would know. And and and so even today there's little conflict between your you know, your your paedo Baptist brethren are Presbyterian brother and believers baptism, as we would know it. And because we are Baptists in that small be Baptists, since you will see on our website, a significant number of baptism after this COVID thing because we didn't shut down for COVID. We stayed open and fought the battle.

You never shut down. You never you met you met in person all through that?

We did. We did. I mean, that's

I say, wow. Because those of you who are listening and are familiar, that was hard to do in California, it was harder to do in California than it wasn't Arizona, just because of this,

where else than almost anywhere else, except for maybe New York, New York and California are probably politically speaking, some of the most aggressive, liberal policy oriented states, we're fighting major battles right now against Gavin Newsom on so many levels. But us, Dr. John MacArthur, as you would know, and a couple of other churches stayed open, and we were cautious. We did a bunch of careful things. But what we did not do is succumb to fear, or irrational, unscientific solutions. Remember, you know, we got doctors in our congregation, we got scientists, we got you know, we we've got virologists and epidemiologists, we got people working for the Food and Drug Administration. So it's not like a see this is you guys, this is what I mean about the Christian has to be everywhere. Because if we're everywhere, when we come together on Sunday, or whatever we come together, we're coming from the communities in which we are to be salt and light. So we're not so aloof and so distant from proximity wise, the battle out there that we have to readjust when our members come in, we're coming in with real time understanding of policies, real and real time understanding of the agendas that they're bringing. We've got sociologists, we got people that work in all of those sectors. So when we come together, we're saying, Hey, this is what they're about to do. This is what they're saying, This is what we need to do. These are the strategies we're going to employ to help people because we were against the vaccines for a ton of different reasons. We could talk about that. But we got doctors, so we weren't being we weren't being dogmatic. We weren't being irrational and unkind. Yeah, we were being Christians who believed in freedom, constitutionally, because freedom is the context in which the gospel can most easily proliferate and Influence People. Even if we gotta debate and argue, let's do that. Let's debate let's argue, let's discuss let's do it charitably. Let's do it. No, Billy, let's put all the facts on the table and see if we can assess which way is the best way to go. But what we cannot do is allow Caesar to usurp the authority of God. In a local church context, where the people of God are part of a kingdom that really has superiority over the kingdoms of this world, you guys do know that you know that for a fact. And so the Christian has to learn when to say Jesus is Lord, and not not the local government. We have to,

we'd love to have you back on and maybe just talk about your experience with COVID. I think we could learn a lot, you know, just focusing on that topic. I want to we do need to wrap it up. Unfortunately, it's such a great conversation, Pastor Jesse, but I want to come back, you know, we were talking about the challenges in the black community. And you You offered your thoughts on that, and some hope on that. But you said something to that I thought was really fascinating. You said, you know, right now the dominant narrative is that the problems in the black community are caused by systemic racism that's really baked into American culture from the very beginning and really hasn't changed that much. This is obviously being promoted by people like Ibram X kendi, and Tallahassee Coates and many others. But she said something that I caught my attention. You said that when black people are together talking, they'll, you know, they'll they'll kind of kind of almost wink to that like, Yeah, but we know, that's actually not really the problem. So I yeah, sometimes I wonder if you could give us your perspective on, you know, just how woke is the black community. Well, how much is the black community bought into that dominant narrative or is That isn't a minority, or is it? Is it is it? Well, how would you describe that?

Very good question. And I'll try definitely not to be too long with it relative to needing to make a distinction between, let's say, the baby boomer generation, and and part of the millennial generation would have, would have been able to still benefit from the heritage of a biblical worldview, into which, and God's brutal mercies in his in his, in his providence of bringing us from Africa, to the Americas via slavery. It brought us into a closer proximity to the gospel in many ways. And again, you know, your Bible will actually support that that new brutal mercies doctrine, he will let us go through hard things to drive us to himself. In the end, the African American, the African who became African American, discovered that they discovered that they came up out of levels of extreme dark paganism that also had massive campaigns of slavery in them. We could talk about that you do know that slavery did not start in 1619. It did not start it was way before I didn't know that. Yeah. Now, you're

just joking. I'm joking. No, but you're right. It's it's, I'm just joking. Because it's such a it's of

course, my my point with that was that we know that it was really interesting is politics. And again, we have to really be working our, our, our thinking mind carefully not to let politics so dominate our prejudice as people, particularly African Americans, because we became good after the Civil Rights Movement, and using political terminology and phraseology for our benefit, right. But again, behind closed doors, we knew that the problem was we had gotten away from biblical principles, we knew we had gotten away from morality, we had gotten away from spirituality, because we have become secularized. And we have fundamentally fallen prey to what John said at first John to around verse 14, Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world, he that loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. And now we're not talking the physical world, we're talking about this world system, you know that black people know this. Listen to me, brothers, black people know this. And but what they don't know how to do with the massive imposition of critical race theory and social justice being so ubiquitous in everything, they don't know how to be authentic, about what really is the case, when they can't be effective, because there's a threat if you try to be authentic with it, okay. Even our ex President Barack Obama explicitly laid out the problem of the African American community, in communities where he conveniently could say it. And then when he was in other communities, he'd say the problem was racism. So we know the hypocrisy and politics. But my point to you, just to give you guys some insights, is that the only people falling prey for this dystopian rhetoric of social justice are people that feel like they can benefit from a grievance position, versus the natural call by God, to own your divinely ordained autonomy in such a way as that you protect your agency, from somebody else defining you and defining your destiny and telling you that your destiny is destined to doom if you don't allow us to define you a certain way and give you the answer to your predicament. With any ethnic group, you guys would know this, any ethnic group, any person in those ethnic groups will begin to think, wow, you know, it sounds like my freedom is about to be taken away. I'd rather I'd rather work hard three jobs, five jobs, 10 jobs, and work my way up out of the state that I'm in until I'm able to enjoy the freedom that comes with hard work and a meritocratic principle, then to acquiesce to the fact that my problem is the consequence of somebody oppressing me and I can't do anything about it, because that's what they're selling. It is a horrific sort of reverse psychology racism paradigm that leaves you only in a position where you You can say, Okay, I have to be racist toward those other people in order to get some equity. And we know that doesn't work, we know that. You can't two wrongs don't wait to make a right. This is how we say it in the black community. Two wrongs don't make a right. They might be wrong over there. But I can't do the wrong that they're doing and thinking that we're going to have a right outcome. And so black people who want to work and make good money and enjoy their life, they hear that rhetoric, but they continue working. They continue earning a living, most of them continue going to church, and they see a contradiction, gentlemen, they see a contradiction. They just don't know how to solve it.

Yeah, well, that's I really appreciate your insight into this. I want to You said something that I thought was very powerful, too. You talked about what was the phraseology, you used the, the kind of the way that God's redemptive suffering, or what's

the term that I use is called brutal mercies overseas, right? It's the brutal mercies is a statement that was phrased by a female African American slave, her name is Phyllis. And I forget her last name, but she came over here as a slave. Her Americanized name is Phyllis, and she was the slave product of some Presbyterian brethren, you her name will come up Lipitor and brutal mercies. And she was a poet, she wrote poems, and one of the poems she wrote was about the brutal mercies of God that took her from darkness to light, and, and helped her to understand God's glory, in the context of suffering, and largely the sufferings of Christ, because Christ is really the central model of injustice, and justice at the same time, and mercy, and grace, at the same time, in the same place in the same person by which we can all see now if you want to talk about injustice is where injustice is found. And we were the perpetrators of it. And that very same God who has the right to punish us justly is granting us the mercy and the grace that comes out of our injustice against him who I have been calling in our film studies, the righteous slave, because Christ, Christ is the righteous slave, that we should all be modeling. If we want freedom, and Paul said it in, in, in First Corinthians seven around verse 21, he who was the Lord's slave, is also the Lord's free man, you are no freer than you are, when you are absolutely committed to the one true and living God, who really defines freedom for what it is, and what is granted to us in the person of Christ. If the sun will set you free, you will be free and D, Yeah, but you're only free to the degree that you and our servants, there's a play on that term do loss, and freedom in Jesus Christ. And that's what that sister got. She got that she was a slave in Africa, brought to the Americas, and made to hear the gospel. And it changed her life and it liberated her soul. And she called it the brutal mercies of God. And I'm sure you guys many of my slave brethren, my slave heritage, found those brutal mercies to you know, that I

think it's one of the great strengths, frankly, of the black community United States. I think it's it's, it's created a uniquely strong community and I feel like an a community that has something to offer the whole world. And I feel like it's, it's the hope to you know, that that that community hasn't vanished, you know, there is a legacy, there's a heritage, I think you're living breathing proof of that. And anyways, it's, it's, it's

alright, your your impulses, right? I could feel that too. Would you Scott, when you were teaching, I could feel that I can feel that which you guys program to. I hope you can understand the proper sense of feeling. Feelings matter, particularly when they're contextualize from a standpoint of sound doctrine, and sensitivity to to, to right motivation, I can, I can feel that what you got. I

think it's important. So this is an important message for every Christian, you know, because we all suffer we all go through hard, hard times and hard very difficult times. And this is the biblical message, you know, that God is He is going to he can he uses that there is a redemptive aspect to that, and he's gonna form and shape you in a way that you wouldn't be otherwise. So

I just want to add one thought on yeah i in terms of feelings i to believe that I think the hope for America come will come out of the community of brutal mercies. I Amen. I just I don't know why I feel that but it's been on my heart for about the last four or five years.

No, without the shedding of blood. There is no remission of sin. And it was when I did my opening presentation, which you Scott and would pass it to Fleming and I decided not to do a PowerPoint presentation because I'm a pastor.

You don't need to.

I, what I wanted to do was affirm that congregation in their commitment to lean into these matters, because that that's commendable. And you know, that particularly as a Caucasian congregation, working with a allegation and allegation that is partially true. That's how the devil works. And so for them to have a brother come in, and simply nurture what is our common hope, I think is important. And I agree with both you gentlemen. And I think you might agree with this, this is on my heart constantly right now. I think we have to go through much more difficult suffering, as Americans in the West, before we come up out of the present, apostasy in our churches, the present, derogation of duty as a nation, the president delusion under this veil of socialism that we already know has horrific outcomes. And if we consider the last 100 years, I think we have to suffer more, and be brought sincerely to our knees in a way in which we are bound to have to ask God for forgiveness and mercy as a nation to whom much is given much is required if the rest of the world is going to escape the web of globalism using the vector of Neo Marxist tyranny is going to be because America kind of read covers its Judeo Christian identity, and a radical evangelism, that that says I'm willing to suffer for others that they might be free. Right? Amen. All from all of these false systems? Well, I think we have to suffer more I think we can I think we can separate No, I think we have enough to be able to suffer and it awaken us to our need to return to the God that has blessed our nation in ways in which all you need to do is go to another country. And you will know that there has been something remarkable done in America. And again, the socialist and the Marxist don't want people to believe this. They don't want people to believe that America has been a uniquely instrumental tool in the hands of a sovereign God to shed light around the world via the gospel. And our submission to obedience to God's laws. And the reciprocity has come out of it. In all of the different fields, you know, that everybody wants to come here who lives in a socialist country, and they need to be coming to a country that is not socialist, and the church has something to do with that. The church has said

it's true, the strangest the, you know, the blessing of God on our country, I believe is just it's a blessing that's rooted in fallible people understanding certain foundational truths and putting those right at the foundation of our founding charter and our founding documents we hold these truths to be self evident all that we're not any more superior to any other people around the world but we have our forefathers had the wisdom to put some of those powerful true principles in the foundation of our charter and our documents our Constitution and that had cause we talked about earlier that had positive consequences for the nation. So

is that the way you guys vote see that because you do know there's a battle there's always a battle man, you know, what if you're a we're talking about ideas have consequences. We could talk for hours and hours and hours about the way that the development of history has occurred where God has deposited truth into a society and then the enemy has to Positive anti troops into the society. And that dialectical process has been going on up to the present time where we lose the light of knowledge that can lead us to freedom and prosperity by the enemy, giving us an anti knowledge, which is also what's happening with America so that people don't believe that there was something special around the development of our constitutional rights, and the struggle of the Bill of Rights and the struggle of the emancipation and the struggle of freedom that has led to the level of prosperity that we have. And all of that being done in the presence of a biblical worldview. Like the Bible was in the middle of all that,

that's that's the strength, the strength is in God and the Bible. It's not in America to the degree that we've, we've upheld that we are and we've benefited, we become stronger, and we need to return to it. And I think we'll end and with that thought, and thanks for leading the way in a place like San Francisco, Pastor Jesse, you have inspired me once again, and just thank you for your your deep, deep commitment to God and the power of His word applied in every area in every sphere. And I feel in

this mutual Gentleman, please know that the feeling is mutual, myself and my guys are listening to your presentations don't think that they are. I'm so happy to see other teammates doing the work of having these conversations

will keep in dialogue, and we'll see what God may have us do together in the future as well. Thanks for taking time to be with us today. You've been very generous with your time, pastor, and may God continue to bless your wonderful family and your wonderful ministry leaders. Thank you. God bless you. God bless you, too.

Thank you for joining us today. To learn more about the disciple nations Alliance. You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, or on our website, which is disciple nations.org. As always, if you would like to take a deeper dive into today's topic, feel free to visit our episode landing page, which is linked down in the description below. And on that page, you can find the resources and tools that will help you to continue to learn about this discussion we had Today with Pastor Jesse. Thanks again for listening