Unity in Diversity in the Church: Rechab & Brittany Gray

Rechab: The reality is that the kingdom of God is here and now, and it’s not yet. But the here and now aspect of the kingdom of God means, as Jesus prayed, that we should be asking the Lord for His kingdom to come and His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. [Matthew 6:10] Not simply “Let Your kingdom come, Your will be done in heaven when we get there.”

It feels like we understand that when it comes to all the other parts of our sanctification, but when it comes to the issue of diversity, we think, “We’ll wait until we get there. We’ll see it when it happens.”

Shelby: Welcome to FamilyLife Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I’m Shelby Abbott, and your hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson. You can find us at FamilyLifeToday.com.

Dave: This is FamilyLife Today!

Dave: Rechab and Brittany Gray are with us today, Pastor of New Creation Fellowship here in Orlando.

Ann: We’ve had you guys on before, and we love being with you.

Brittany: We have been, yes. We enjoyed it.

Ann: We’ll just keep having you on, because you’re right down the road from us.

Rechab: Yes, we are close.

Brittany: Yes, we are very close by.

Dave: Today, you are going to lead us. We are talking about—it could go a couple different ways, but one of the things we found out the last time Rechab was here is that this guy memorizes the Bible.

Ann: Books! Books of the Bible.

Dave: Not verses; many verses.

Brittany: Many books.

Dave: As I was thinking about it, I thought, “Let’s talk about Ephesians 3 and diversity.” I was going to say, “Get your Bible out, so we can read it,” but [I thought], “He doesn’t need a Bible!” [Laughter] He could just quote it for us, and we can talk about it.

Ann: Brittany, are you used to this now, that he just quotes books of the Bible?

Brittany: Yes. I like to challenge him sometimes.

Ann: You do?

Brittany: Sometimes, I say, if I hear a Scripture, “Where’s that at? Why don’t you give me that whole chapter.” And he can do it.

Ann: Really?

Brittany: Yes, yes.

Ann: So, are we going to have him do Ephesians 3:14?

Dave: I don’t know. You tell me. This obviously is a passion point for you guys, the theology of diversity.

Rechab: Yes, yes.

Dave: Explain what that means.

Rechab: The depth of it for us is personal and theological. Personally, my pop was in the military. I grew up moving around a whole bunch. So, true story, I just saw some stuff growing up: the danger in being a black dude in different pockets that we were in. To be a hundred percent honest, the demographic I was the most afraid of were older, white dudes.

I definitely knew, growing up, that would never be anything that I would ever pursue. And then, God was hilarious enough to give me two mentors who were older, white dudes. [Laughter] What’s funny about it was, I’m in Philly when these brothers come into my life; I’m in North Philly, and we’re living in West Philly. This is as black as black gets in America.

Dave: Really?

Rechab: And it’s like God said, “This brother and this brother are going to be the primary dudes to pour into you.”

I share that to say, it was super persona,l coming to an understanding of God’s heart for diversity. But also, not from the standpoint of “little tag texts,” which we all—which is fine. We’ll go to Revelation 7, “all nations, tribes, tongues, and languages” standing around the throne of God—

Dave: —yes—

Rechab: —crying out, “Salvation belongs to our God.” [Revelation 7:10] That’s a passage that many of us will use, which is beautiful and awesome.

But what it can feel like is that heaven’s portrait is disconnected from earth’s reality. It’s something we are waiting for, not something we’ve entered into. But the reality is that the kingdom of God is here and now, and it’s not yet. But the “here and now” aspect of the kingdom of God means, as Jesus prayed, we should be asking the Lord for His kingdom to come and His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven; not simply, “Let Your kingdom come, Your will be done in heaven” when we get there.

It feels like we understand that when it comes to all the other parts of our sanctification, but when it comes to the issue of diversity, we think, “We’ll wait until we get there. We’ll see it when it happens.”

It has been God’s bleeding heart throughout the entirety of Scripture. It just so happens that every culture, not just American culture, just refuses to accept that in our flesh. But what happens when the Spirit takes over? The Lord God Almighty starts to do a different kind of work. You start to see what’s always been in Scripture.

We were just talking this morning about Ruth, the Moabitess, in the line of David; Zipporah and Moses; Rahab, the prostitute. All of these non-Jewish people in the line of the Messiah intentionally, because God was saying from the rip, “I’ve got a plan that’s bigger than one nation.”

Ann: Hmmm.

Rechab: I came across Ephesians, and like I shared some time ago, I was challenged by a brother to memorize 1 John and, then, I got to Ephesians. Ephesians chapter 3 hit me different, though, because the prayer in Ephesians, Chapter 3 comes after all this amazing theology.

Chapter 1 is: “This salvation is crazy!” He says—and I love the language; He says—“The plan is for the fullness of time is to unite all things in Christ. [Ephesians 1:10] This plan is for unity, for shalom, for all things under the title page: “Jesus.” That’s the whole plan.

The end of Chapter 1: “I pray that you would have an understanding of your being grafted into the plan.” [Ephesians 1:15-16, Paraphrased]

Ann: This is what Paul is saying?

Rechab: This is what Paul is saying. Chapter 2, “You don’t deserve to be in that plan, though. You were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you once walked following the course of this world, the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.” [Ephesians 2:1-2]

And then, he goes on to say, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loves . . .” [Ephesians 1:4] You don’t deserve it because you’re evil; but not only that, I’m talking to Gentiles. You don’t deserve it because of your ethnicity. It’s not only your morality, it’s also your ethnicity.

He says, “Remember, at that time, you were separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope.” As Gentiles, we don’t think of that. But being outside of the Jewish promise, we have no hope and [we are] without God in this world. “But now, in Christ Jesus, you who were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” [Ephesians 2:11-13]

He goes on to say we are one, and we are now the temple. We don’t get access to the temple. We are the temple. [Ephesians 2:21-22, Paraphrased]

Ann: We are the temple!

Rechab: That is crazy!

What does Paul do? He loses his mind, like we are right now. [Laughter] I always say, at that point and time, if you are in a black church, we are going to pull out the hymns, and there are going to be three organs. [There’s] going to be shouting in that joint, because that is a crazy reality.

Ann: Good news.

Rechab: Sheesh, Paul! So, Paul loses his mind while he is writing, and then, in the middle of that, he drops his prayer: “For this reason I bow my knees before the Father from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named that, according to the riches of His glory, He may grant you to be strengthened with power by the Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, so that you being rooted and grounded in love may have strength to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth, length, height, and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” [Ephesians 3:14-19]

And then we get the part we like: “Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we can ask or imagine, according to the power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” [Ephesians 3:20-21]

Why do we have that doxology? It’s from that prayer. Where is that prayer coming from? It’s coming from Paul pondering what he just said.

I love, in 1 Peter, where it says, “The prophets wrote, and they searched and inquired carefully about what they themselves wrote. [1 Peter 1:10, Paraphrased]

God is revealing things so that they don’t even know what they are talking about. [Laughter] And Paul is literally—we get to see in real time—writing such amazing truths that he loses his mind in the middle of it and says, “Do you see and hear what I am saying to you?!”

What’s deep about [it] that puts it all together—literally, the whole Bible together—is this salvific work to unite all things in Christ is fully portrayed through the snapshot of the Church.

He says right before that, “The manifold wisdom of God is made known through the Church.” [Ephesians 3:10] Manifold means “multifaceted or multi-dimensional.” Think about what I just said, though: “the breadth, width, height, and depth.” That’s geometrical language—multi-dimensional. So, it all got summed up in this one statement. What Paul is saying is that it requires a multi-dimensional, multifaceted, manifold people to understand and display God’s multi-dimensional, multifaceted, manifold love.

Dave and Ann: Yes.

Rechab: When you realize that we need all the saints to be able to understand and display God’s multifaceted love, it takes diversity from being a novelty to being a necessity. It’s no longer just a fad that we can jump into when it’s dope in culture. It becomes something that we have to pursue for the rest of our lives until, ultimately, we see Jesus in glory, and it’s all perfectly fulfilled in that moment.

Ann: As you say that, I am super-inspired. What you are saying is, “No, we need to pursue this!”

Rechab: Go after it.

Ann: We need to go after it. It’s not just something where we say, “Oh, whatever.” You’re saying this is really important to everyone—

Rechab: —yes, yes.

Ann: —who is listening; to all of us, as believers. Why?

Rechab: Because our sanctification is at hand. Paul is literally saying, “That we might know along with all the saints”—he just got done telling you which saints—

Ann: —all of them, yes.

Rechab: —not just Jews, not just Gentiles, everybody.

Ann: Yes.

Rechab: So, if that’s the case, my understanding of the salvific work of God in my own life is at a detriment when I am only in an echo chamber with my own culture.

I need my—can I just talk? I need my white, stoic, pondering brothers and sisters who are quiet and sit with the text and just contemplate; my contemplaters. I need them to understand my salvific work, because Christ has not only saved my heart, but my mind. I need someone who knows how to contemplate the salvific work of Christ in order to be able to understand it and explain it.

I need my Latino, _entecostal brothers and sisters to show me how to use my body to express my gratitude for what He has done. Without that, I am not living into the Psalms.

I need my brilliant, black preachers who know how to tie in the story—they say all the time, especially in the black Baptist church: “Tell the story, Doc. Tell the story; tell the story.” I need someone to help me see the whole narrative of Scripture and how I fit into a story. Nobody does that like the black Baptist preacher in the black Baptist church.

And that is just scratching the surface.

Ann: Yes.

Rechab: I haven’t even talked about my Korean brothers and sisters who help me to see ecclesiology from a different landscape.

I haven’t talked about my Native American brothers and sisters and my Indigenous brothers and sisters around the world who help us to see how Paul says it’s true that “all creation groans and waits.” [Romans 8] This isn’t just about humanity, but even the cosmos—the land itself—is waiting for the redemption of the sons of God; because when our redemption comes at the return of Christ, not only do we get made-over bodies, but the whole cosmos is getting a makeover. I need my Native American and Indigenous brothers and sisters to help me see that.

I could go on and go on and on with different cultures. And that’s just cultures! I didn’t even talk about individuals. You see how exciting it gets?

Ann: Yes.

Rechab: Now it’s, “Yo, man, I want to talk to this person just because they’re different.” Because I know them, redeemed, is going to give me an angle on the grace of God that I did not have in my own culture and my own individual person. Now, I need you to better understand this salvation I’ve been brought into. That’s why it’s a necessity.

Ann: Ah, you know me. This lights me up! Probably because we’ve traveled the world a little bit more. I remember, one day, being at Jesus’ tomb in Israel, and you have all these pockets of people all over this garden, and they are all singing in different languages. This is the part of me that wants to go into each group. I want to hear what they are saying. I want to experience their part of it, because we learn so much more from our brothers and sisters—

Rechab: —yes—

Ann: —from their history and from their pain. It strengthens us. It encourages our heart as we hear them. That’s a little piece of heaven to me, when we are all together, isn’t it?

Rechab: Come on.

Ann: It’s beautiful.

Brittany: Yes, it is.

Ann: God sees it as beautiful.

Dave: But—I don’t want to throw a cloud on this thing, but [Laughter] there’s the other side, where there are people who don’t have that perspective.

Ann: I know.

Dave: They don’t want that perspective. They think, “I like my group. You keep your group over there.” We are different in so many ways, not just the color of our skin; it’s our history and everything.

Rechab: Yes.

Ann: The way we worship.

Dave: The way we worship. How? We know the “why,” but how do we do it? Because we aren’t doing a very good job at it.

Rechab: I think the number one thing—we talk about this a lot, and it seems so simple what God calls us to, but it’s so profound—really is love. Love expresses itself in humility.

We see that so clearly in Paul’s words to the church in Philippi. He says, “If there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy—” [Philippians 2:1] Wouldn’t it be a more joyful church if we had this?

Dave: Oh, yeah.

Rechab: “Complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being of full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others as more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look out not only to his own interests but also to the interests of others. And have this mind among yourselves”—that’s where we find the end of that “which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

“Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” [Philippians 2:1-11]

The “how” is embedded in humility.

Ann: Let me ask you Brittany, because one of the things I think we can do is start in our family, with our own kids, in the way that we talk about this and desire it.

Rechab: Come on.

Ann: How have you guys done this? What can that look like?

Brittany: That’s a good question. I think it bleeds through both of us. We’ve always had a love for other cultures and languages, specifically for me. That’s literally—it’s ironic—[for] our toddlers right now, most of their friends speak other languages.

Ann: Do they?

Rechab: Yes, that’s legit.

Brittany: Because the church my husband has started is a multi-cultural church. We have Haitians, Spanish—multiple languages spoken.

Rechab: Yes.

Brittany: It was really funny when our son was going through speech therapy. I said, “He doesn’t have anybody to talk to because they all speak different languages.”

Rechab: That’s right.

Brittany: “They’re all learning from each other right now.”

Rechab: That’s real.

Brittany: The languages start from friendships; friendships with other families; being joined together with people of different cultures which is challenging to even find. I don’t think I would have ever said, “Lord, send us someone who is Haitian,” but He did. We just had our hands open, and God brought friends from all different cultures to live life with us.

Ann: Oh, that’s so good!

Dave: Is that how you started the church? A lot of churches are not multi-cultural. They’re white, they’re black, they’re—

Ann: —and that’s important to you guys.

Rechab: Pastor Ike—I’ve been with him since Philly—really wanted to emphasize this idea of perfect unity. Jesus prays for perfect unity in John 17. The theology of it is tied with the concept of shalom in the Old Testament: perfect unity, peace, eirḗnē in Greek; all the same concept.

When we think of peace, we think of the absence of beef. “Me and you ain’t got no problems anymore. There’s peace now.” But that is not how the Jewish community lived at peace. Peace was not the absence of something, but the presence of something. Peace is harmony, when everything’s working right.

We talk in sports, when the Golden State Warriors had Kevin Durant. The ball just moves from player to player, and you don’t know who is going to shoot the three because it’s like the ball is on a string. Each part—Paul’s language—is working properly.

That’s shalom, that’s eirḗnē; that’s peace. You see the deficit when each part is not working properly. What happens when one culture says, “We are the part. We’re the only part necessary?” You’re still working from a deficit, but you don’t know it. Now, you’ve created a new kind of culture that is okay with not having all the parts.

That’s the danger. What Pastor Ike was so serious about was not simply us saying, “Hey, let’s get together--white people and black people, and let’s sing some songs together.” Rather, let’s first understand God’s theology around this.

He has three different pillars. It begins with the nature of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They, in and of themselves, are perfect unity, because they are a community of persons in right relationship with one another.

Ann: Yes.

Rechab: Think about it. The Muslim god cannot brag like that, because the Muslim god is one being and one person. But our God is a community in His essence. So, we don’t have to look at a god who had to create in order to have something to love. Within Himself, He is love, because there are multiple persons within Him.

So, out of the overflow of that, He creates, not in order to have something to love. Every other god has to create something outside of himself in order to love something, but our God can literally say—He’s the only one who can: ”I am love. I am love in its essence.”

So, then, if that is the case—if that’s the nature of God—what should the people of God look like? A community of persons in right relationship. We should look like perfect unity. Diversity shouldn’t scare us, but it should be something that is honored. As the Father honors the Son and the Son honors the Spirit, so we should also honor one another as individuals, but also as different cultures.

I love looking at the Trinity. It’s almost like the Father is like, “Yo! It’s all about my Son! This is my Son, in whom I’m well-pleased.” The Son is like, “Yeah, I don’t do nothing outside of my Father. Oh, and by the way, you can blaspheme Me, but don’t you dare blaspheme the Holy Spirit.” And the Holy Spirit is sent to just glorify Jesus!

So, who is seeking their own glory? Neither one. But when it comes to our cultures, we seek our own glory. We believe we are the right ones: “We have it together. It’s all about us.” We get echo chambers, We say, “We do worship the right way. We do preaching the right way. We do theology the right way.” It’s so antithetical, not just to what the Bible teaches us, but to what the Bible is about: namely, the Person and nature of our God Almighty.

That’s when it moves from a novelty, a little fad. Right now, it’s cool to talk about diversity, “Ah, that’s cool.” But what happens when it’s not cool anymore?

Dave and Ann: Yes.

Rechab: How do you stick in the game then? It’s not going to be, “Yo! Teach me how to cook chicken like you do.” That ain’t enough. [Laughter] No, you need deeply-embedded theology about this. That’s the only thing that’s going to keep the fire going, that the Spirit of God dictated that this would be shown and revealed to us as the heart of God, so that we could pursue this with the rest of our lives.

Ann: So good.

Rechab: Because this is who God is!

Shelby: I love how Rechab and Brittany model humility. You can probably sense that in their time with the Wilsons. In fact, I’ve known Rechab for several years now, and I can say that he’s the real deal: exalting Christ above all in his “bigger conversations,” along with the fun little side conversations that I’ve had with him. He loves Jesus, and it’s just so obvious. It spills out from him. Great stuff today from the Wilsons and the Grays.

I’m Shelby Abbott, and you’ve been listening to Dave and Ann Wilson with Rechab and Brittany Gray on FamilyLife Today. If you enjoyed this conversation and were challenged by it, I recommend that you talk about it around your dinner table tonight. Engage in that conversation with your family. Ask good questions, and see where the conversation leads.d

Later on this week, we are going to be talking with Kelly and Jimmy Needham. Kelly has written a book called Purposefooled. Here’s the subtitle—get this: Why Chasing Your Dreams, Finding Your Calling, and Reaching for Greatness Will Never Be Enough.

That is provocative, and I’m excited to hear that conversation coming up on Thursday. Make sure you tune in for that.

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Now, I’m excited because Rechab and Brittany are coming back tomorrow to talk with the Wilsons. They are going to talk about the transformative power of hospitality and give you some practical insights and challenges in order to make that happen in your life, with your family. That’s coming up tomorrow. We hope you’ll join us.

On behalf of Dave and Ann Wilson, I’m Shelby Abbott. We will see you back next time for another edition of FamilyLife Today.

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