Well, what an absolute joy it is to be here with you all. For some of you, many of you,

it's again, others of you. It's the first time I'm looking out and seeing a good friend

of mine, Michelle Jones. We go way back. We've worked together, we're actually worshiped

together at a church in Los Angeles back in the 90s and God is using her in great ways.

So it's good seeing you, Michelle. And then of course, good hanging with Charles, one

of the pastors on staff with us back at the summit church. Let me just kind of set the

stage once again. I said it this morning, but it bears repeating, this is not angry black

man time. So this is not about me just trying to, you know, ram or anything down your throat

or beat anyone up at all. In fact, I come to you tonight as a reconciler and not an activist.

Those are two different things. Activists tend to be issue driven. They care about the

what? Reconcilers tend to be people driven. We care about the how. I think effective reconcilers

do engage in activism, but activism to the reconciler is not the bottom line. The great

commandment is not to love issues. It's to love people. So that's the posture that I take

tonight. And I want to encourage for those of us who would call ourselves followers of Jesus

to consider that. When Paul talks about having received the ministry of reconciliation, I

know that's primarily vertical and he's talking in evangelistic tones. But I think a good

secondary application has to do with how we contemplate issues of justice and writing

wrongs. I don't think God just wants us to deal with the issue. He wants us to do it in

such a way that there is the restoration of relationships. Last thing I'll say by way

of a kind of a preamble this evening. And that is I come using truth not as a knife, but

as a scalpel. There's a difference. Both hurt. One harms the other heels.

And so the things that I want to say this evening, I don't say intentionally to bring any kind

...