To Pastor Dan and to all of you that are here today, what a joy it is to be here, and thank you, Pastor, for allowing me to come and to be able to preach this morning. And then, that announcement that you made earlier about the fact that tonight a Presbyterian church is going to shut the doors and join the rest of the body of Christ in Seattle. I just think that is phenomenal.

I travel and speak sometimes and I ask the question, “Where does the body of Christ meet in the city?” Tonight, the body of Christ in Seattle is going to meet in one place. There will be opportunities for members of the body of Christ to come together in one place.

You can’t find that. Everybody’s meeting in their own little places. But thank you, Pastor, for your leadership. And the elders, thank you for your leadership to say that the body of Christ in Seattle is greater than Bethany. You know that don’t you? Good. You are part of the body of Christ in Seattle and what a joy that is.

To Pastor Lynne Blessing who, when she was being installed at National Presbyterian Church in Washington D.C., invited me (or at least she had them invite me) to come and do the installation service. I finally said, “Lynne, do they know that I’m not a Presbyterian?” Let’s get that out. And then the second thing I said was, “Lynne, do they know I’m black?” Let’s get all of this out. I’m going to Washington D.C. to speak at your installation. Let’s get it all out. I’m not Presbyterian and I’m black, so let’s get it out.

But it worked out well and what a joy it was for me to have that opportunity and then to have the opportunity to be at Bethany. Thank you for what you do.Thank you for your big kingdom vision for reaching out, not only here in Seattle, but reaching out around the world. Thank you for what you do.

Rosie and I are blessed to be here. Rosie and I have three children. Our daughter, Denita is a pediatrician in Natches, Mississippi. I tell people that growing up in Mississippi, she was able to chase her dream.

When I grew up in Mississippi I couldn’t chase my dream. In the 50’s and the 60’s for black person growing up in Mississippi there was always a ceiling on your life as to what you could do and what you could be. But by the time she came along, she was able to chase her dream. Please hear that. She was able to chase her dream and I’m excited.

I told Rose when Denita graduated to fill her purse up with tissues. You know, the women fill up their purses with a lot of things. But on this day I told her to fill it up with tissue and pass it on down to me because I’d probably be crying; not because she’s my daughter, but because she was able to chase her dream. Please hear me. And that’s an exciting thing for us that she is a pediatrician now.

Our son Ryan, our youngest, is a junior at Bellhaven College in Jackson, Mississippi.

And then our son Reginald was killed in a tragic car accident in June of 2004. Two months after he was killed, his son was born and we get the privilege of keeping little Reggie every weekend since the time he was two weeks old. We have an opportunity to invest in his life. He has an opportunity to help us deal with our healing process.

Please know, if you’ve ever lost a child that’s one of the most deep losses that anybody can have. Pray for us. And God has given us strength to continue to move and do what He’s called us to do. But we’re excited today to be here at Bethany.

The Bible says that, if we are in Christ Jesus, we are part of the redeemed. The song writer says, “Redeemed. Redeemed. Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb.” And the question I want to raise today is, “If we are the redeemed, then how should the redeemed live?”

Did you know that the pastor and elders are concerned about how redeemed people handle their money? Did you all know that? You know sometimes redeemed folk think the money belongs to them. Sometimes the people who are redeemed think the money belongs to them. I am sorry. If you are redeemed the money you have doesn’t belong to you, it belongs to God. And a few minutes ago, when the offering was taken, it was just a wonderful privilege for you to give back that which God has allowed you to have.

See, redeemed people ought to think different than unredeemed. You know how redeemed people are getting married and they talk about, “my money” and “your money?” I’m sorry. Some of you all are looking at me like you all think that way. My money and your money. The husband’s got his money, the wife….no. No, no, no. Redeemed people say “It’s our money,” and “Under God, it’s God’s money.” That’s the way redeemed people act. Let the world do it the way they want to do it, but redeemed people need to act different than the world.

Well, in our time together today we want to look at the redeemed as it relates to:

• How do we reach out to the lost?
• How do we reach out to the poor?
• How do we reach out to those who are racially different than we are?

Ephesians chapter 2 will be the passage of Scripture that we’ll be looking at. For it says in Ephesians chapter 2, “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sin. You used to live like the world.” You used to.

You see, we were the unredeemed. We were bought with a price. And the Bible says here that this is the way you used to live. You used to be lost. But then it says that because you used to be lost, now you are part of God’s family...because in verse 4 it says, “but.” Because of His great love for us.

Did you know that no matter what anybody tells you, you are incredibly loved by God? Let me say it again, you might have missed it.

No matter what anybody tells you.
No matter what society tells you.
No matter what culture tells you.
No matter what family members tell you.
No matter what the system tells you.

You are incredibly loved by God. Because of His great love for us…for me.

Growing up in Mississippi and growing up black in Mississippi, I used to always feel bad about who I was. I’d look in the mirror and I did not like what I saw. Because my culture and my society told me that.

But I’m so glad that one day the light went on. And I looked in the mirror and I said, “Listen. I’m a special part of God’s creation.” Let me say it again. You are a special part of God’s creation. God created you. You had nothing to do with it. God created you and you are a special part of God’s creation.

So you have been redeemed. But (it is) because of His great mercy and love for us.

You aren’t loved just because (you were good). You are loved no matter how bad you were. No matter how bad people told you you were. No matter how bad you really were. God’s mercy reached you.

You know something? Every now and then when we’ve been a Christian for a couple of years and we know 2 or 3 Bible verses we start looking down on people who are lost. And just because we are walking healthy, and just because we are walking in Christ Jesus, we have this tendency to look down on those that are lost. If God made us alive in Christ Jesus, God can do the same thing for somebody else.

We ought not to give up on people we are witnessing to and sharing with because we never know what God is going to do and how He’s going to do it. The redeemed ought to have a different attitude toward the lost than those who are religious.

You know, good religious folk don’t want to deal with the lost. But God is not looking for religious people. He is looking for people who are redeemed. Who are saved. Who’ve been purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ. Then we have a perspective for the lost.

How do the lost act? They’re supposed to act the way they act.
Sometimes we say, “I don’t what to be around them people because they curse too much.” We’ll, that’s what they’re supposed to do!

And just because God has cleaned you up, give God a chance to for those people you’re dealing with. Let me say it again. Just because God has cleaned you up, give God a chance with some of these folk that we’re dealing with, that God will have a chance to clean them up as well. It’s not your job to change people. God has not called you to change people.

What helps me in dealing with what I do in Mississippi...I’m working with race relations in the body of Christ throughout the state of Mississippi. What helps me is that God has begun to say to me, “Dolphus, it’s not your job to change people.”

Now please understand in my human flesh, there are some people (where) I’d like to open up their head and put something new inside. I mean, I’d like to do that. That’s in my human flesh. But God has not called for me to change folk.

Now listen. Let me say something to you married couples. Keep looking up here. Keep looking. Let me say this to you.

It is not in your job description to change your spouse. Wait, wait, wait wait. Keep looking up here. Some of you all are going to start kicking each other. Nope. Keep looking up here. It is not in your job description to change your spouse.

What is in your job description is to model out godliness in your life. That’s in your job description. And to share with your spouse. It is not your job to be the one to change your spouse. Now, you’ve got that, right?

We’re not in the business of changing people. God is. God is in the business of changing people. And so if you are praying for someone to be saved, a mother, a father, a son, a daughter, a husband or a wife, a relative or friend, even an enemy, please understand. God is in the business of changing. You’re not in that business. That’s God’s business.

Pray for them. Encourage them. Model out. Don’t give up. Cause you don’t know what tomorrow will bring. You don’t know when that person will come to know Jesus. It may be on that death bed, that they remember the words you gave them. Don’t give up on them.

Secondly, how should the redeemed live when it comes to reaching out to those who are poor and oppressed in our society?

The good news of the redeemed is that no matter how poor you are, the blood of Jesus Christ is just as wonderful to you as it is to anybody else. John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” And I just love the word whosoever. And the Dolphus Weary definition is “whosoever means just any old body.”

Now listen to this. Listen to this. Listen. When Jesus died on the cross, he said it was finished. That means every single human being in the world, and on the face of the earth, can have access to the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. And that means just any old body. That doesn’t mean people who have money. It doesn’t mean people who are white. Or black. It has to do with people – anyone– that comes before God.

That’s what it means. No more bulls and goats. And no more sheep. And no more doves. And no more, “My gift...my offering is better than your offering.” It’s now equal at the foot of the cross. No more looking across the room and seeing somebody’s sacrifice and saying, “My sacrifice is better than your sacrifice.”

Ephesians 2 says in verse 11, "You used to be formerly Gentiles by birth. You were separated from Christ. You were excluded from the citizenship. You were foreigners. You were aliens. You were without God in the world." And verse 13 is a celebration verse that says, “But now, in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near through the blood of Jesus Christ.” That means even the poor can shout out, “But now I’m in Christ Jesus.”

And guess what? The poor can say “I’m a king’s kid.” No matter what you think of me, and no matter what society thinks of me, and no matter what culture thinks of me, I’m a king’s kid.

In 1973, in Mendenhall Mississippi where Rose and I went back to work, we were a part of this ministry. And one of the parts of our ministry was to develop a health clinic.

We saw the poor in our community. Poor people who happened to be black would go to a segregated waiting room to see a doctor. And they’d sit in the waiting room all day long and probably would see the doctor near the end of the day, and the doctors did hands off examination of patients.

And we’d looked at that and we said, “There’s something wrong with this. And we saw the church going to Africa and Asia and Latin America building hospitals and clinics around the world. We began to ask the question, "Can we develop a Christian health clinic in rural Mississippi for the poor in Mississippi?” And we didn’t have no better sense than to begin to dream about developing a health clinic in rural Mississippi.

We built a health clinic and we even went to World Vision then, back in 1973, and asked World Vision to provide an x-ray machine because we wanted an x-ray machine set up in this clinic.

And World Vision said to us, “We cannot give you an x-ray machine because World Vision is not designed to reach out to the poor in America.”

It took a few years before World Vision began to change its policy to include the poor in America as a part of reaching to the poor around the world. And I get the privilege now of sitting on that board because I recognize that yes, there are poor people around the world, but there are also poor people in America that need to see the gospel in action and not just hear about it and think about it.

We developed a Christian health clinic so that we could reach out to the poor, so that poor people can say, “I can go see my doctor.”

We also developed a Christian community law office because we wanted poor people to say, “I’m gonna call my lawyer.” Poor people don’t usually say they’re gonna call their lawyer. They wait for somebody to give them a public defender that’s got too many cases. And the poor end up in prison while the affluent can stay out of prison.

Now don’t you all go away. Just hang with that a minute.

He who has money can purchase a degree of justice and injustice. But the poor do not have the power to do that. So sometimes you’ve got the poor people in prison that ought not to be in prison, and you’ve got other…let me leave that alone. I’m gonna leave that right there.

We have to understand that money somehow or another controls a lot of things, but in the body it shouldn’t be. In the body when we are redeemed, we ought not to treat poor people any different than those who are more affluent. We need to understand that those are individuals that Jesus Christ died for. And redeemed people ought to be reaching out to those.

The redeemed can always say (that) through that the blood of Jesus Christ, the poor can have a relationship with God and be a part of the family of God. And we need to not ignore those who are poor and oppressed in our society.

Rose and I have been working in Mississippi and God has given us a vision of creating a foundation to support rural Christian ministries in Mississippi. Because people are hidden out there in rural communities that are not being reached because we grew up there, God has given us a passion to do that.

Thirdly, how should the redeemed live when it comes to loving those that are racially different than we are?

Verse 14 says, “For He himself is our peace, who has made the two one, and has destroyed the barrier – the dividing wall – of hostility.” The Living Bible says, “For Christ himself is our peace. He has made peace between us Jews and you Gentiles by making all one family and breaking down the wall of contempt that separates us."

Jews, Gentiles, Samaritan Jews, blacks, whites, Hispanics, blacks, whites, native American, Asian, black. It does not matter because we’re not in Christ Jesus.

In verse 11 it says, “Therefore remember that you formerly were Gentiles by birth.” In other words you were born black, white, Asian. It doesn’t matter. That’s what we were born. The new birth is where the passage in Scripture says, “but now.”

This is the way we used to be, and sometimes in Mississippi I keep running in contact with Christians who are more black than they are Christians. I keep running across Christians who are more white than they are Christians. And I’m trying to get Christians to be more in Christ Jesus and everything else is secondary.

Now, that’s hard. That’s hard. You know why? Because we’ve allowed culture to dictate to the church. The church ought to be dictating to the culture. Redeemed people ought to be showing the unredeemed how it should be. But rather we end up being caught in that whole thing of allowing the culture to dictate to us. As redeemed people we came to our faith out of brokenness. We did not come to faith out of perfection. We didn’t move from perfection to faith. We went from brokenness to faith. We did not come from that without influences. We’ve been influenced in our lives.

We’ve been influenced in terms of where we’ve grown up. What is it that we’ve been taught? That as an unredeemed person we were taught some stuff and now that we are redeemed we still have a lot of that stuff we were taught inside of us.

I can speak on platforms all over this country. It doesn’t matter. Satan still reminds me of what I was taught.

• I was taught never look a white person in the face when I talk to them.
• I was taught never call a white person by their first name.
• I was taught always say "yes, sir" and "no. sir."

Rebellion in Mississippi was as simple as looking somebody in the face.

I was taught all of that stuff. And now, no matter where I go, every now and then Satan reminds me of stuff I was taught. Satan reminds you of stuff you were taught.

And the issue is we’ve got to be able to take the stuff we were taught and take it to the foot of the cross. Otherwise, it’s hard to reach across the racial lines. Because every time we get ready to reach across, all that old stuff keeps coming up.

Someone wrote a song back in 1949 that said, “Carefully Taught.” It says,

You’ve got to be taught to hate in fear.

You’ve got to be taught from year to year.

It’s got to be drummed in your dear little ear.

You’ve got to be carefully taught.

You’ve got to be taught to be afraid of people

whose eyes are oddly made

and people whose skin is a different shade.

You’ve got to be carefully taught.

You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late.

Before you’re 6 or 7 or 8.

To hate all the people that your relatives hate.

You’ve got to be carefully taught.

And please, believers, because we are carefully taught, we have to do something intentional to move from where you are to where God wants us to be. Now listen to this. Let me free you up. It’s not your fault what you were taught. It’s not your fault. But here’s the good news. You can do something about it.

Ain’t that something? Isn’t that something? Isn’t it something? We get the wonderful privilege in the body of Jesus Christ of proclaiming that no matter what we were taught, no matter what race we are, no matter what the past was, we are now the redeemed. Wow. And as the redeemed how should the redeemed live? How should the redeemed act? And we get the wonderful privilege of believing God to use us to act like the redeemed.

Verse 19 gives us a little picture. Verses 19 in the NIV says, "consequently.” In the King James it says, “now therefore.” The RSV says, “so being you are.” The Living Bible says, “now you are.” Please allow me to read verse 19 in the Living Bible.

Now you are no longer strangers to God and foreigners to heaven. But you are members of God’s very own family, citizens of God’s country, and you belong in God’s household with every other believer.

It did not say,

• every other white Christian
• every other black Christian
• every other Asian Christian
• every other Hispanic

It says “every other believer.”

Wow. Isn’t that good news? Isn’t that good news? That the body of Jesus Christ is the new community. The old community is separated and divided but the new community is “we are kingdom people.” We’ve been bought with the precious body of Jesus Christ and because of that we can walk in that.

In 1999, when I graduated from Reformed Theological Seminary (I graduated from Reformed in 1997, then got my doctorate of ministries from Reformed Theological Seminary), one of the guys who graduated with me pastored a church in one of the cities. In 1999 I went to him and said, “I want to come to your church and to talk about Mission Mississippi .”

He said, “Dolphus, you can’t come to my church. My church is not open to having black folk come in. I said, “That’s okay. Don’t worry about it. You keep teaching the word of God. You keep sharing the word of God and maybe someday it will happen.”

Well, 4 years later, he called me and said, “Dolphus, you can now come.” I went down, walked into this church, and there were people sitting there with their arms folded, waiting for me to say something wrong. But I just did nothing but preach the word of God.

Listen to this. Listen.

If the word of God can’t change your heart, you need to check out whether your heart is right in the first place. Because the word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword. It can pierce even racism.

I believe with all my heart that racism in this country ought to be penetrated by the word of God. And that because we are a part of the family of God, and because we are redeemed, we can show the rest of the world that racism shouldn’t separate us in the body of Jesus Christ.

Well, the song writer says,

What can wash away my sins?

Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

What can make me whole again?

Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

O precious is that flow that makes me white, pure as snow.

No other fount I know.

Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

Listen folk, we can stand on the blood of Jesus. We can stand on that. We can stand on what Christ did when he hung out on the cross. We can stand on that…that the blood of Jesus Christ can wash away our sins and make us new in him.

We’re excited about carrying this message across the state of Mississippi. We’re excited about carrying this message around the country.

And God has given Rosie and I the wonderful privilege of being in Mississippi where we grew up. I graduated from high school and got a basketball scholarship to go to school in California. And what I said then is, “Lord, I ain’t never going back to Mississippi. I’m tired.” I’m tired of racism. I’m tired of poverty. I’m tired of injustice. I ain’t going back. And guess what? I could have worked my plan if God would have left me alone. God took us back, and now we’re believing God to make a difference.

Today, we have copies of my book available, “I Ain’t Coming Back.” The proceeds are going toward developing a Christian foundation in Mississippi. God has given us the vision to do that.

But also, you need the book. If we’re gonna change the way we think, we need to be reading books about people that are different than we are. Let me say that again. You might have missed that. If we’re gonna change the way we think, we need to be reading books and having relationships with people that are different than we are. And those of us who don’t have opportunities to have relationships, we need to increase our libraries.

Our children ought to be reading books by people who are racially different. I’m talking about Christian books. Because we’re talking about blood-bought people. We’re talking about the redeemed.

Whether you buy this book is insignificant, but the concept is that your library ought to be a library that’s different than what it normally is. If we’re going to change this thing we must be intentional and we must work to do it.

Jesus died for us and we are part of his family. But sometimes we’re dragging old stuff into the relationship, and my prayer is that we’ll learn to take the old stuff and leave it at the foot of the cross, and we will work on developing a new generation of people because we are the redeemed.

Let us pray.