The Root of the Problem

Recently there has been renewed attention on race relations in our country and there has been violence committed on both sides.  From the shooting of five Dallas police officers to a car driven into protestors at a white supremacist rally, there is no shortage of hate to go around.  What are we to do about the evil that plagues our society?  There is no doubt that white supremacy (or any racial supremacy) is an evil ideology.  There is no doubt that gunning down five police officers in Dallas is evil.  As a country, we fought a war to end slavery, passed civil rights legislation, and even elected a black man as president and yet race relations in this country seem to be as bad as ever.  Why can’t we get past this?  The reason is because the underlying cause of this racial divide, and all other problems, is sin.
 
Sin is rebellion against God and it is sin that causes hatred and violence and death.  All the laws, movements, and conversations in the world cannot fix our sin problem.  Jesus is the only one who can fix our sin problem.  That is why the mission of the church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ and the message of the church is the Gospel – the good news of God’s plan of redemption through Jesus Christ.  The Gospel tells us that we are more sinful than we dare believe and yet we are more loved than we dare hope.  In fact, we are so loved that Jesus died on the cross in our place to pay the price for our sin (Romans 5:8, John 3:16).  Jesus then rose from the grave proving He has power over sin and death (1 Corinthians 15:20-57).  He then commanded His church to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:19).  In other words, there is no person, race, or ethnicity that is excluded from the love of God in Jesus.  We are all sinners, loved by God and in desperate need of His forgiveness that comes only through faith in Jesus.  It is easy to say that racism and hatred have no place in our community (and I certainly agree with that) but it is only when we accept who we are as sinners and who Jesus is as Savior, when we show the love that has been so extravagantly shown to us, that we can begin to reconcile the broken relationships of our world.

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