Racial reconciliations has always been one of those buzz topics, very, very popular things that people are trying to address. I think people look out and they see a need to address that issue. I know within my own marriage it's something that people look at. I'm African American, my wife is white. People look at us and they say, "Well, do you have something to say about this?" I think most times people approach the issue by saying, "We look out at the world and things don't seem right across ethnic lines, and we need to fix it." And then we start coming up with different ways to approach that. And here's what we should do.
But in Ephesians 2, there's actually an interesting and maybe overlooked aspect to racial reconciliation. And the way I often put it for people is that racial reconciliation is first a thing to be believed, not first a thing to be achieved. Here's why I say that. In Ephesians 2:14, the Apostle Paul actually says, "For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the wall of hostility." And so what you find are these, you look at the tenses of all these verbs, Jesus is our peace. The Apostle Paul doesn't say one day He hopes to be our peace, speaking of the relationship between Jew and Gentile across ethnic lines. He says, He actually has made us both one.
And he speaks here in Ephesians 2 about abolishing that hostility which existed between the two, all through the cross. And so when we look at that, He's created in Himself, it says, one new man. And I think you have to take a step back and ask yourself, "Has Jesus actually done this? Has He accomplished this on the cross? Has He succeeded?" If so then we need to take a step back and say then, "We have been reconciled not only to God, but to one another through Jesus' work on the cross." And so racial reconciliation is first a thing to be believed. And only then after we consider that, a thing to be achieved.
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