Church & State: King of Kings Commitment

radiantvisalia.com
King of Kings Commitment
with Travis Aicklen

This sermon concludes a series on church and state, outlining ten commitments for Christians to engage in civic life with a Christ-like posture. The message emphasizes the importance of prioritizing Jesus' Lordship, loving our neighbors, honoring the image of God in all people, seeking biblical wisdom, and pursuing justice and peace.

The King of Kings Commitment:

1. Worship: Pledge your allegiance to King Jesus over all other idols and ideologies.
2. Love of Neighbor: Participate in civic life as a means of loving and serving your neighbor, not just your own interests.
3. Image of God: Honor the image of God in all people by treating them with respect and abstaining from dehumanizing caricatures.
4. Biblical Wisdom: Have your views challenged by the biblical story rather than using the Bible to prooftext your predetermined positions.
5. Fruitful Speech: Engage in political discourse with speech marked by the fruit of the Spirit.
6. Humble Learning: Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger, seeking to learn from diverse perspectives within the body of Christ.
7. Remove the Log: Give more attention to critiquing the potential flaws in your own political leanings than to scrutinizing others.
8. Biblical Justice: Understand and pursue justice as defined by Scripture, allowing it to critique popular conceptions of justice in our culture.
9. Peacemaking: Engage in face-to-face conflict resolution rather than arguments on social media.
10. Love Your Enemies: Love and pray for your political enemies, including government leaders, regardless of their positions.

The sermon highlights the example of the early church, which turned the world upside down through their radical love, service, and commitment to Jesus' Lordship. It concludes with a call to embrace these commitments and live as distinct followers of Christ in the midst of a divided and challenging world.

Transcript

This is it. This is the last week in a series on church and state. The 10 points that we're going to talk through this morning can be found on this thing that we made for your fridge. So these are things that we're believing for, especially in the next six weeks. 

We don't just want to have the positions that Jesus held, but we want to hold those positions with the posture that he had. And so the 10 points are found on this. Please don't leave without picking one of these up and plastering it to your fridge. You usually need to be reminded. It's not like, oh, I got it. Fruitful speech. 

I'm moving on. I think we commonly, daily, probably need to be reminded to watch what we say. It's not like we, you know, once in a lifetime, we need to be told to love our enemies. That's something that we need to be encouraged to do on the daily, right? 

So grab this. It'll serve as a great reminder, something that'll guide your prayers in the next six weeks. So I'm going to walk you through what is called the King of Kings commitment, hoping that by the end of it, you'll be like, yeah, I'm up for that. I want that. 

I don't necessarily know how I'll do that, but I aspire to that. The first invitation in these kind of 10 commandments of political engagement is I'm going to invite you this morning to worship. I commit my allegiance to King Jesus over all other idols and ideologies. The first commandment in the actual 10 commandments is have no other gods performing. You shall worship the Lord and him only shall you serve. We bow to Jesus. We submit to him only. 

On the first week, we said that you can bring your lean, but you have to submit your bow to King Jesus. Jesus recruited 12 guys onto his team. We know that one of those guys was a tax collector named Matthew, and we know that another of those guys was a zealot named Simon. 

One worked for the government and was viewed as a traitor. Sometimes this is lost on us. We're just like, oh, tax collectors. I don't know if you've noticed this before, but sometimes it'll say, and sinners and tax collectors were there. Like they have their own category. They can't even be included under the general header of sinner. They don't belong there. 

They've got their own category. And certainly, we understand that, right? There are sins that are acceptable sins for us, and then there are sins that are unacceptable. Being a tax collector and a traitor and betraying your country and working for the oppressor, this was unacceptable. Matthew was one of those guys. 

He was on a close team with Simon the zealot, who worked violently to take down the government. And I just can't imagine the conversations between these two. How does this work to have these two guys on a team? Well, I believe that they both agreed on the priority of Jesus. The reason this worked is because they were both saying, we're going to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. So they were probably bringing their lien, but they were submitting their bow. 

And that's the only way these two guys get on in a team. I remember doing premarital counseling for a couple. And in premarital counseling, we asked couples to fill out an assessment. And I noticed that the couple, when they filled out the assessment, they had different religions, not just like born into homes that had different religions, but they practiced different religions. And I remember looking at it and thinking, how is that going to work? 

How is that going to work? And then when I sat down with them to unpack what this looked like in their lives, what I realized really quickly is that religion was in like the fourth or fifth spot. So I was like, oh, this is going to work because they've agreed that this is not a priority. This is secondary for them. And because it's secondary, they can agree to move forward together. Well, this group of people decided to move forward together because they were saying Jesus and his kingdom is the priority for us. I loved this line that I read, which was essentially Jesus, and they're borrowing from a line saying in pop culture, but Jesus didn't come to take sides. He came to take over. He's not here to take sides. 

He's here to take over. When I read that, I was reminded of this passage in Joshua five. Joshua is a famous kind of warrior, a famous leader. 

He takes over from Moses to lead the people of God. And Joshua was led by Jericho and he lifted up his eyes and he looked and behold, the man was standing before him with his sword, with his drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua went up to him and he said to him, are you for us or for our adversaries? And he said, no, I'm the commander of the army of the Lord. 

Now I have come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and he worshiped and said to him, what does my Lord say to his servant? And the commander of the Lord's army said to Joshua, take off your sandals, take off your sandals from your feet for the place where you're standing is holy. Moses got that message to you, didn't he? And Joshua did so. In the message, this is translated, Joshua stepped up to him and said, whose side are you on? Ours or our enemies? And he said, neither. I'm the commander of God's army. I've just arrived. 

And Joshua falls on his face. Whose side are you on? I'm on my side. Whose team are you on, Jesus? 

I'm on my team. Jesus doesn't belong to our nation. The nations belong to him. Jesus doesn't belong to our party. Jesus doesn't belong to our church. He's not ours. We are his. The church belongs to him. He is the head of his church. He's not taking sides. 

He's taking over. And as I've seen it, the temptation of the right wing is to subordinate God to their agenda. They stamp God's name on their agenda and they subordinate God. They say God's on our side. The temptation of the left wing is to marginalize God. They don't say God is on our side. 

They just simply say God is off to the side. And we've got this from here. The world can be run without him. And both of these things are a form of idolatry because both of these things say that God is not ultimate. Someone or something else is ultimate. And God either serves our agenda or is off to the side because he's in the way of our agenda. Both of these things are idolatry. The gospel is an announcement that Jesus is king and he doesn't serve the agenda of any earthly authority nor will he be sidelined or relegated by those who would just rather not bother with his lordship. Scriptures teach that one day every knee is going to bow and every tongue is going to confess. Jesus Christ is Lord. And we have the opportunity to do that here and now and build outposts as we await his kingdom come. So pledge your ultimate allegiance to Jesus. 

Hopefully that's what you've heard over the last few weeks. The second thing is the love of neighbor. I commit to participating in civic life as a means of loving and serving my neighbor rather than just serving my own interests. Last week we touched briefly on the idea of obeying governing authorities. And we obey the state until we're asked by those governing authorities to disobey God. And then we say, no, you might be the Supreme Court in the U.S. But you're not the ultimate authority. So we submit every place we can. And then when asked to sin or asked to disobey, we say that we can't do that. 

And I know that a lot of us are living in this question. When should we take a stand? How should we take a stand? 

What should we be bowled on? When should we say that's, you know, Popeye said, right? If at all I can stand and I can't stand no more. And some of you guys are really close to that. 

I get it. But I want to remind you that civil disobedience is often practiced on behalf of others and often comes at great cost to yourself. Our heroes who practice civil disobedience weren't doing so for selfish reasons. 

And they weren't up there going, my rights, my rights, my rights. No, it cost them, cost most of them everything, at least our heroes in particular. They were fighting on behalf of others. And they were making great sacrifices for the sake of the cause. So when we stand up, even when we protest, it's for love of neighbor. We're not rioting. 

There's not some mob mentality. We've refused. You can lose your standing in a couple ways. You can refuse to protest when you should be protesting, or you can protest in an ungodly manner. Both of those things will cause you to misrepresent, and we want to represent him. Theologically measured, biblically informed, self-controlled, sacrificial protest, right? That's what we loved about Martin Luther King, Jr., right? There's no selfish ambition in what he's doing. He was working to liberate others, not to fight for his right to party. And he paid the ultimate price. His goal, if you remember, was to win over his enemies, not to destroy his white oppressor. 

That wasn't his goal. Think about the other hero, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He died in protest, right? 

How committed are you? He died in protest, and he was a pacifist pastor who was executed for plotting to kill Hitler. I think a movie's coming out, because this is the stuff of movies right here. But what was his attitude like? How did he go about that? Well, he was hung, and this is what the camp doctor, who was an eyewitness to Bonhoeffer's final minutes, said about him. Through the half door, in one room of the huts, I saw Pastor Bonhoeffer before taking off his prison garb, kneeling on the floor, praying fervently to his god. I was most deeply moved by the way this lovable man prayed, so devout, so certain that God heard his prayer. 

At the place of execution, he again set a short prayer, and then climbed the steps into the gallows, brave and composed. His death ensued after a few seconds. In the almost 50 years that I worked as a doctor, I've hardly seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God. He died with dignity, and he died with purpose. 

He didn't die with two middle fingers in the air. And then I found myself thinking about Jesus and what motivated him. And I was thinking about Jesus's most famous demonstration in John chapter two. And John chapter two, I guess his most famous demonstration would be what happened on the cross. Well, it's his second most famous demonstration. 

What would be turning over the tables? I mean, he lost it. The Jesus, the Jesus we are singing about, spent half a day forging a whip. 

And in a calculated way, came in in protest. And it says zeal for God's house consumed him. And he quoted scripture, was biblically informed, and he said, my house will be a house of prayer for all nations. And some people take that as like Jesus was like, there should be more prayer in the service. 

I don't like the contents of the service here. No, what caused him to lose it is that people that wanted to connect to God were being kept out. It's the all nations part that caused him to lose it. That people were being marginalized. And others were profiting on them being kept out. That there was a system in place where people were making money off of the desires that those had to come near. And he freaks out. But it's on behalf of others. 

He doesn't barge into the temple and be like, are you kidding me? Trying to charge me a tax? Don't you know who I am? I'm the Son of God. 

Kick over a table. That's not what's going on. It's a passion for these people who want to connect with God and are being kept from God and charged to get to God. And it causes him to freak out. Think about his most famous denouncing. I don't know if you've read Matthew 23, but he completely loses it on the Pharisees. And he pronounces what we call like seven woes. And I mean, if someone says woe to you, you're done messed up. 

Right? I'm not even sure that's ever happened to me. But when it does, I'm going to be like, whoa, it's going to stop me dead in my tracks when someone's like, and woe to you. 

I'll be like, oh man. So he goes hard. And he's like, woe to you. And he starts screaming at these guys who are being hard on him. And he's like, woe to you. 

Because ever since I got here, you've made my ministry so hard. And woe to you because you're not hearing what I'm saying. And woe to you because you guys have heckled me. You've mistreated me. You've not listened generously. You've not actually even considered what I said. You've taken sound bites of my teaching and you've misrepresented me. Woe to you because you've spread lies to me about me. Is that what Matthew 23 says? Woe to you because you're not hearing my male heterosexual take on this. No. Woe to you. 

You tie up heavy cumbersome loads and you put them on other people's shoulders. And then you're not willing to lift a finger. And that's what has me upset. Not my rights. Your responsibility. You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. And you're in the way of people trying to get in. Woe to you. Woe to you. Teachers of the law, you Pharisees, you hypocrites. You give a tenth of your spices, mint, dill, and cumin. But you've neglected the more important matters of law, justice, mercy, faithfulness. 

Woe to you. When we practice civil disobedience, it's because we're loving our neighbor and not demanding our rights. Number three, image of God. I commit to honoring the image of God in all people by treating them with respect and abstaining from dehumanizing caricatures. James chapter three is about taming the tongue and it's interesting where it goes. 

It says, not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. That one's for me. For we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he's a perfect man. Able also to bridle his whole body. If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well. Look at ships also. 

Though they're so large and are driven by strong winds, they're guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire. And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life and set on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and bird of reptile and sea creature can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind. 

You saw it at SeaWorld. But no human being can tame the tongue. It's a restless evil full of deadly poison. 

Look at this. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing, my brothers, these things ought not to be so. You can't claim to love God and hate your brother. And the person who claims to be in the light but hates his brother, first John says, is still in darkness. 

It's inconsistent to praise the Creator and then curse his creation. I wouldn't say to one of my daughters, oh man, I just love them. I honor them. Man, they mean the world to me. They're everything to me. And Ruby drew this for me, and I don't even know what I'm looking at. 

I mean it's a joke. It's inconsistent to praise the artist and then curse his creation. And it's possible for us to love God by loving others. Jesus would say, out of the overflow of your heart, your mouth speaks. So it's not just a slip of the tongue, it's a show of your heart. And therefore it means that I'm not sure we get to say, I didn't mean to say that. 

I think that's what Jesus is teaching. You can't ever say that. I mean you could probably say, I didn't mean to say what you heard. 

But it's a show of your heart, your words that flow out of your mouth. And I would say this, I think that we have an invitation to demolish bad ideas. Tear down everything that sets itself up against the knowledge of God. Take on ideas. But in your taking on of ideas, make sure that you're also leaving people out of it. 

Do what you can to stay away from people and their character. Here's why. You don't know them. You don't know them. Quit pretending that you know them personally or that you know their motive. 

The Bible says, here's the thing, the Bible says that the heart is deceitfully wicked who can know it. We don't even know why we do what we do. Sometimes Tiff's like, why did you do that? And I'm like, I actually don't know. I don't know why I do what I do. You don't know what you, what you, why you do what you do. Oh, but you're sure you know why Gavin Newsom does what he does, because you know him, right? 

No! What he did was hurtful. Why did it? Don't mess around in that. In there, you're going to get yourself into bearing false witness and slander because you don't know. So talking about things like you know why they did what they did, I would stay away from that if I were you. Critique of position, dismantle an idea. Judging the motives of another person is speculation, and bearing false witness and slander are pretty serious sins. Number four, biblical wisdom. I commit to having my views challenged by the biblical story rather than using the Bible to proof text my predetermined positions. 

I love this. Oh man, Jesus, He was a capitalist. Have you ever read the parable of the talents? Work hard, take risks, and in the end you'll get a return. When you get that return, you'll be rewarded. 

And if you're lazy and you don't put the time in, you get nothing. Jesus was clearly a capitalist. No, no, no, Jesus was a Democrat. Look at his care for the marginalized. Look at how he honored minorities and welcomed the immigrant. No, no, no, he wasn't a capitalist. 

He was a socialist. Look at the feeding of the 5,000. Only one person brings a lunch and it's distributed to everybody and everybody gets the same amount. He's a socialist. 

No, he's a libertarian because the Bible says we should live a quiet life, mind our own affairs. That's the verse that I like. Here's the question. Are you willing to put your faith filter ahead of your political filter? 

It's a huge question. My friend Brian Mowry says it this way, you can view your politics through the lens of your faith or you can view your faith through the lens of your politics. Are you willing to follow Jesus when following Jesus means putting space between you and your political party? Number five, fruitful speech. I commit to engaging in political discourse with speech that's marked by the fruit of the spirit. 

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Listen, our manner and our tone should be distinct from those who do not follow Jesus. You should be able to see that a Christian has commented and I fear that we're not necessarily commenting with a humble conviction. Almost like Christ-like character doesn't belong or apply to the political arena. And I've seen that before and that's the type of hypocrisy that Jesus would call out. 

It's like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure that applies in these arenas, but Jesus isn't lured over these areas in my life. So that's just locker room talk. That's just how we talk in the locker room or that's just business. That's how you do business. That's how this world works. Oh, this is the political arena and all those things that were written don't apply to this area of my life. 

That is a lie from the pit of hell. That what Jesus teaches doesn't apply to all of your life. Number six, humble learning. I commit to being quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger, as I seek to learn from the very perspectives within the body of Christ. I just want to say this outright, listening is not agreeing or condoning. I think there comes this moment where you're listening to generously to someone and they say something you don't agree with and you've got to stop it right there just to let them know that in your listening, you're not agreeing or condoning what they're saying. Listening and agreeing are two different things. Listening and condoning are two different things. You can listen generously and it will have a profound impact on people. 

Number seven, remove the log. I commit to giving more attention to critiquing the potential flaws in my own political leanings, conduct and sin than I give to scrutinizing others. Have you ever noticed that everyone else is a hypocrite like virtually everybody else? It's so clear to me. It's so easy to spot. That's what hypocrisy creates, is that we can so quickly spot the inconsistencies in someone else's life and then we tend to ignore or maybe just minimize the inconsistencies in our own life. Jesus would confront this and I think when we become partisan, not just political, but when we become partisan, we lose the ability to challenge, critique or question our party or our tribe and then we're no longer the prophetic community that we're called to be speaking truth to power, but we're just we're just pawns saying what kings want to hear. Donald Trump, we've gone four weeks. I've gone four weeks without getting an email and I just thought, well, we'll just throw a Hail Mary here on the last day. 

That's not what I said. I actually submitted this to other people because I was nervous, but they said I would probably share that if I were you. So you can send your emails to Danny. You can't tell me that radiant church. Okay, so when people point out issues that surround Trump's character, what I hear so often from people is I'm not voting for a pastor. I'm voting for a president. I agree with his policies. I don't necessarily agree with his personality and suddenly what you're saying is that character is really secondary and the kind of the end justifies the means. 

That's the subtle message and I get it. I don't even know necessarily that I would disagree with you. Here's what I would call you to though. Just recognize that that's not where you were at when Bill Clinton lied and committed adultery. 

Just call balls and strikes on both sides. That's not where you were at. You were demanding moral integrity in the Oval Office when Bill Clinton did what he did and now you're overlooking certain things in Trump's life because he represents your interests. 

Oh. Character mattered to the conservative party when Bill Clinton lied and cheated and we were appalled when Democrats and liberals circled their wagons to protect what was inexcusable. They don't care about Bill Clinton. They're not protecting Bill Clinton. 

They're protecting their interests and that guy in office has their interests in mind. Call balls and strikes. Since I punched right can I punch left. 

Are we all right? A decade before Donald Trump becomes the Republican nominee for president he shared his candid and crude views on women and those were caught on tape and in 2016 they aired those. And Donald Trump says I'm automatically attracted to beautiful women. I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait and when you're a star they let you do it. 

You can do anything. And then he went on to say some things that we can't repeat in church. And in 2016 I was listening to a pastor in New York City, this guy John Tyson and he said this you can send your emails to John Tyson at Church of the City. 

He said this to his church in 2016. He was like how many of you were disgusted to hear what Trump said on a hot mic? How many of you were disgusted? 

And then he had guts to ask his church, his young, progressive, urban church. How many of you also viewed misogynistic porn that objectifies women this month? And not as many people put their hand in the air. What I'm trying to get at is we do things in our private lives and then we're appalled when leaders do it. 

And a lack of holiness in our own lives and in the church lowers our moral authority when you critique public failure. If you believe that we should help the poor more, can I ask a question? Do you give to the poor or do you just expect the government to do that? Are you welcoming the stranger or do you just expect the government to do that? If you hate how the state uses power, how do you use power? Would everyone be better off if you were given more power? What are you doing with the power that you have? 

Remove the log. Number eight, biblical justice. I commit to understanding and pursuing justice as I engage in civic life, not minimizing Scripture's repeated call to seek justice and allowing Scripture to critique popular conceptions of justice in our culture. We have to keep asking the question, what makes rights right? Who says they're right? 

We're told that these truths are self-evident and honestly nothing is self-evident anymore. We can't take anything for granted and we certainly can't agree on definitions of justice or what people have the right to do. What makes your rights right? It's become sad to me that I can't even mention the word justice without being written off as some sort of woke progressive pastor. I can't even say the word justice without it meaning I'm a certain thing or we're a certain thing. Joshua Ryan Butler says this, while not every version of social justice is biblical, biblical justice is always social. And the answer to bad visions of social justice is not no vision of justice. Well, we should do less of that. No, it's good vision of justice. We need to talk more about justice and not less. Number nine, peacemaking. 

We're getting towards the end here. Where should team you guys want to come? Peacemaking. I commit to face-to-face conflict resolution rather than arguments on social media. 

Is there anyone here, just show of hands, who ever changed their mind on an issue because someone said that they were an idiot online? Kind of honestly, I think I'm wondering, you know? Because it's never happened for me. I've never been shamed into change. I've never been like, oh, huh, hang on, let me reconsider. This person said, how do you even live with yourself? 

I'm like, yeah, how do I live with myself? I should probably reconsider. No, man, that stuff hardens egos and it reinforces bias. If you want to reinforce bias, roll like that. Number 10, last but not least, love your enemies. I commit to loving and praying for my so-called political enemies, especially those whom I've had the hardest time loving and praying for. 

This includes a commitment to pray for our government leaders, regardless of who wins the election. I read a historian who said, these are the five things that Christians did that turned Rome upside down. Number one, they had a multi-ethnic community. 

An Antioch, not one member of their leadership team, was from the same country. This was shocking. Jews and Gentiles at the table together, slave and free, men and women eating together. Who you ate with was a sign of your social standing. And in an ancient world, the most shocking thing you could do was invite someone who was different than you over for dinner. 

They did this and it turned the world upside down. The second thing is they cared for the poor. There were no shelters. There were no soup kitchens. They fed and housed the poor. They cared for the widow. They cared for the orphan. 

They cared for the stranger. Number three, they had a radical sexual ethic. The Romans were known for being stingy with their money and generous with their sex. Christians came along and were like, we're going to reverse that. We're going to be generous with our money and stingy with our sex in a culture that was incredibly sexualized. Number four, they were pro-life. And Infantaside was common in the Roman Empire. If you don't want a child, you just abandoned a child. 

This was especially true for girls, and they were scooping them up. Number five, forgiveness and enemy love is what they practiced, and there was no category for it. It wigged the known world out. They endured unimaginable persecution. 

There were fed to lions, burned at the stake, blamed for fires that wrecked the Roman Empire, and they continued to extend themselves. I want you to notice something. Where would someone put number one and two? Maybe left. 

Maybe. We can disagree with the way that they go about that, but maybe number one and two would go left. Where would three and four go? 

Well, those would go right. Who the heck wants number five? Nobody! 

That's the answer. Nobody wants number five. Why would we do this? Why would we pursue enemy love? Because it's otherworldly. It is completely distinct, and it proves that we're His. That's what Jesus said, that we would love one another, that we would have a unity that would cause the whole watching world to go, oh, they belong to Him. King Jesus is obviously Lord. 

They're doing something that none of us can pull off. Would you stand with me? I want to hear from you. This is from the second century, and it's someone describing Christians. We don't think this person was a Christian. He was trying to make sense of the Christian movement. This is what he says as he reports on what he sees. 

This is long, but it's really good. For the Christians are distinguished from other men, neither by country nor language, nor the customs which they observe. They just kind of blend in. For they neither inhabit cities of their own, nor employ a peculiar form of speech, nor lead a life which is marked out by any singularity. The course of conduct which they follow has not been devised by any speculation or deliberation of inquisitive men, nor do they, like some, proclaim themselves the advocates of any merely human doctrines. But inhabiting Greek as well as barbarian cities, according as the lot of each of them has determined and following the customs of the natives in respect to clothing, food, and the rest of their ordinary conduct, they display to us their wonderful and confessedly striking method of life. They dwell in their own countries, but simply as sojourners. As citizens, they share all things with others, others, and yet endure all things as if foreigners. 

Every foreign land is to them as their native country, and every land of their birth as a land of strangers. They marry as do all they beget children, but they don't destroy their offspring. They have a common table, but not a common bed. They're in the flesh, but they do not live after the flesh. They pass their days on earth, but they're citizens of heaven. 

They obey the prescribed laws, and at the same time surpass the laws by their lives. They love all men, and are persecuted by all. They're unknown and condemned. 

They're put to death and restored to life. They're poor, yet make many rich. They lack of all things, yet they abound in all. They're dishonored, and yet they're very, and yet in their very dishonor are glorified. They are evil spoken of, and yet are justified. They are reviled, and they bless. They are insulted, and they repay the insult with honor. They do good, and they're punished as evildoers. When punished, they rejoice as if quickened to life. They are assailed by the Jews as foreigners, and persecuted by the Greeks. Yet those who hate them are unable to assign any reason for their hatred. 

Jesus is Lord. They participated where they could. They defied when they had to. They outloved. They out suffered. They out cared. They had integrity, and at the end of the third century, instead of Caesar being Lord, Jesus was Lord, and even the Caesars admitted it. 

They did this through suffering and love. We're going to come to the table and exalt Jesus, receive, embrace His Lordship over our lives. As you come to the table, the reason we would want to love our enemies is that we were once the enemies of God. We wanted nothing to do with Him, and yet He loved us and extended Himself towards us, gave His body His blood for us. Take the bread, take the cup, and remember the mercy and forgiveness that you've received, the way you've been loved, and get something to give away in this season.

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