Political Gospel: Cooperation and Conflict

All right. Yes. Good morning. So good to be here today, man.

So we're continuing on. This is the last installment of this series called A

Political Gospel, right?

And I mean, you guys have hung in there. You guys have hung in there.

I'll tell you, I enjoy where we end up landing on these, but these are hard messages to write.

They kind of stress me out. And so it's not stressful.

It's just like, it's like, how do you speak like biblically and meaningfully

to something that's like such a unique context, right?

The Bible doesn't talk about democracy.

The Bible doesn't, doesn't, does not really anticipate, I think,

the kind of political arrangements that we have right now.

The Bible, well, I think it probably does anticipate the strong feelings that

people have about politics, right?

Gives us ways to think and to navigate the political, but you know,

it just feels fraught sometimes.

And so I just, first of all, I just want to thank you guys as a church for just being gracious.

You know, I kind of warned when I set out, like probably going to offend some

people, not trying to offend people, not at all, but it just kind of,

it's kind of going to happen.

But I've been just so thankful for this. Like when you, when you set out on

topics like this, you're like, okay, well, I don't know, maybe this will blow everything up.

Right. And you're like, but you know, you feel like a pastor,

you got to talk about things that really matter and politics really matters.

Right. And so I just, I just feel this all the time, like how thankful I am

for this particular group of people because you guys are kind and gracious to me and to one another,

which no, I'm not going to say that I am uniquely thankful for,

because I know pastors who don't enjoy that kind of kindness and grace and fellowship

in their churches. So I'm just so thankful. And Molly?

Molly and I are just so thankful to be here and to be called here.

So, yes, thank you. Yes, thank you. So, sorry, I was not fishing for applause.

We are continuing on in this series of political gospel. And what I'm trying

to do is help us think through just big picture questions that will help to

inform our political lives because our political lives are inevitable.

Like politics is not something we opt in for. It's a function of living in a

society around other people. Politics is more than just partisan politics.

It's just having a social life. The political is inevitable.

And oftentimes when pastors talk about politics, they wade into partisanship, into party politics.

And I know that some of you would love for me to do that.

But as I've said from the outset, that's not my intention. I'm really not going

to do that. But I really want to be clear about the why.

I want to explain why. Because I think this is kind of at the heart of what

I'm trying to get to. too.

I'm not trying to avoid partisanship to defend myself or to not offend people.

But I want to make this clear. The reason I'm not going to come up here and

tell you how to vote is because I think that by doing that, I would deprive

you of the chance to consider what's at stake in your political lives.

And I think that in maybe in evangelical churches over the the last 30 or 40

years, we've treated people like children, and you're not children.

In fact, the biblical vision for maturity is people being able to handle complex ethical decisions.

And politics is always driving us

into a range of things, which we have to consider lots of angles, right?

And so I'm like, I as a pastor am not very, I don't aspire to be like bossy

because, but I aspire to call out maturity and Christ-like thinking in you.

And so that means that I just kind of back off from direct being overly directed.

And what I think is kind of heavy handed in pastoring, you know, that's just my opinion.

I mean, maybe some of you don't like that. I apologize for that,

but I really want you to wade in and consider what's at stake in your political life.

Here's a quote just to kind of provoke you a little bit, right?

And I don't expect you all agree with this, right? And I'm not telling you you

have to, but just kind of challenge some of your thinking.

Okay, this is a guy, Christopher Watt. Can we use one of his quotes last week?

He says, in our contemporary politics, the values of both the left and the right

both bear an uncanny likeness to the biblical ethic of love because each of them.

Artificially fixes one aspect of biblical truth in a way that leaves it lopsided and incomplete.

Like a lifeless waxwork of the kingdom of God.

And to those brought up in these political traditions, biblical love itself

appears uncanny because we have become so habituated to taking the reductive

positions of the left and the right as the real thing.

So here's the thing is I don't want to come in and give you,

spoon feed you partisanship. Like I probably have some preferences.

I'm just not going to like go there, right? And I have some ways of thinking

about these complex decision making things.

But what I understand and what I've been trying to tell you and what we started

talking about in the first week of this series is that Christian politics is

the politics of love, right?

And so everything that animates our political motivation has to be about love, right? Right.

And definitely like the left and the right, like have visions of what love is,

loving your neighbor is.

And then we get to this complex thing. It's like, well, which one is true?

And what we're called to in scripture, what we're called to as Christians is

to take Jesus's version of love, the love that he reveals on the cross,

the love that he speaks out in the word and to say, no, this is truly love.

Love is revealed in the person of Jesus. It's not that I get to say,

well, what do I think love is?

And kind of just wade through what I think are the most important things.

Love is revealed in the person of Jesus Christ.

And now some of you might think that it's kind of lame and it's like trying

to be third way and centrist. And I get that.

And maybe that's a little bit true.

But this is a question do we really think

that either party is doing a great job of encapsulating

the wholeness of biblical love are they doing a great

is anyone doing exemplary at this and I get it we can point to the glaring ethical

and lapses and the hypocrisies of one party or another and we can say well this

one is so bad that this one must be the best but that's not saying that this

one is actually embodying biblical love and in the way of Jesus.

As we point out the problems of the other party, are we aiming ourselves as

being people who are trying to get behind Jesus and do things his way?

Are we aiming at true biblical love?

Are we pointing the watching world to the truth of the reality of the gospel

in the kingdom of God, in the way of Jesus as what is revealed to be what true love is?

Are we pointing people in our political actions to love and peace and truth

that comes from reconciliation with Jesus Christ?

And I just don't think partisan politics has a

way of doing that and so I can't get deeply into partisan politics as a Christian

because in the end yeah we you have to choose in the voting booth you have to

choose something if you're going to show up but there's like so many steps along

the way and I think the thing that we have to understand is that we have to

be demonstrating demonstrating biblical love.

Is love, love as Jesus demonstrates it, what animates our political lives?

I think that's the important question for us if we're going to consider what

does it mean for us to be Christians and political people.

It needs to be, and it actually matters, I think, according to Jesus.

I mean, I could pull out a lot of verses, but one that you're probably familiar with is Matthew 5.13.

It says this, you are the salt of the earth.

If salt loses its salty taste, how can it be made a salty?

It's no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet.

You are the light of the world. A city situated on a hill cannot be hidden.

No one lights a lampstand and puts it under a basket, but rather on a lampstand,

and it gives light to all who are in the house.

In the same way, let your light shine before others so that they may see your

good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

Our calling is political people, people who are animated by the love of Jesus

Christ, sent out into the world to be proclaimers of it, to embody it.

The people who are followers of Jesus, it's to saltiness, to this unique and

distinct character that Jesus demonstrates and he calls us to have in ourselves.

It is a clear, love-filled commitment to Christlikeness and living the light of the gospel

that works its way out to such a degree as we see here that other people will

look at it and say, something's going on there on that city on a hill.

We're living down in a dark place, but these people demonstrating love have

some things figured out.

And it becomes a tool for evangelism, the expression of love in our social and

political lives, because people are going to see it and they're going to notice.

And if we settle for less than what we are called to, if we settle for a kind

of reductive political vision, a kind of a false imposter of what love could

be or is, then Jesus rightly asks, what good are we?

We are to be demonstrating the love of Christ. And if we don't,

what good are we to this world?

I really believe that we have lost the plot when it comes to our politics,

both within and outside the church.

And by lost the plot, we have forgotten what story we're living in.

And we need to remember, this is what last week we just talked about,

like when we have to remember the gospel and everything has to be filtered through

the gospel, we have to remember the story that we're living in.

We have forgotten where we've come from, lost people,

saved by grace, adopted into God's family and told this is what true life and

love is, following after me, obeying me. And then we get sent on mission.

That's where we're going. We've forgotten where we've come from.

We've forgotten where we're going.

So what can we do? This is it. We can, we remember the gospel.

The gospel is the story, the true story of the whole world.

As Jesus tells us what it is, we need to go ahead and make sure that we are living in the gospel.

The gospel is a reality defining story that claims the place of ultimacy in my life.

It is what I accept as what is ultimately true and everything else that I believe

in and I come to hope and I have to test it and frame it within the gospel if

I'm going to be a person who is following after Jesus.

We have to let the gospel take its place again.

And see what political partisanship tries to get us to do is tries to draw us into a story.

Kamala Harris says the story of her campaign is we can't go back.

It's about a progressive vision for what the future might hold.

And Donald Trump says we need to make America great again.

We need to go back to the way things were. Those are political visions.

I'm not trying to say either of them are wrong.

I'm not trying to parse between them. I'm not trying to do that.

I'm not trying to tell you, you can't get excited about a platform.

Of course, of course you can get excited about a platform. Actually,

it's part of what I'm going to talk for is that we can be a little bit interested.

We're not very interested in politics, but I can tell you this.

If you're a Christian, you have good news, the gospel, a reality defining story.

And if you believe the gospel, you believe some things which come before you believe anything else.

You believe that there There is an eternally existing God who has come down,

taken on flesh, born of a virgin. His name is Jesus.

He lived a perfect, sinless life. He died at the hands of wicked men.

He rose after being crucified.

After three days, he rose again, proving his power and authority over all things.

And then he showed up alive to the people who saw him die. and then several

days later, he was ascended into heaven and he continues now to sit at the right

hand of God where he makes intercession for us.

Right now, he hears us and one day he will come again to judge all things.

That's the story of the gospel and everything that happens today and tomorrow

and next year in your life is framed by that reality if you're a Christian.

But it can be easy to lose the plot. lot.

But if we're Christians, everything needs to get worked and pushed through about that.

We can get worked up and care about a lot of things in this world.

I'm not trying to suggest to you that you should just stop caring about the stuff of this world.

I'm not trying to suggest it to you, that to you.

But what I am telling you is this, whatever you get worked up about,

whatever you hope in, whatever your political vision is, needs to find its rightful

place under the reality of the gospel.

The gospel rightly limits and gives shape to my political hopes and the way

that I engage in politics.

It eliminates some things and it calls me to a certain ethic,

a certain way of engagement consistent with the love of God revealed on the cross.

God didn't come to condemn the world, he came to save it.

That fact inherent in the gospel has to shape the way I go about engaging aging in the world.

Do I go and go around the world and condemn it? Or do I invite the world to

be saved according to the love of God?

And oftentimes our politics are the politics of condemnation and contempt.

I think that that's eliminated.

It's not an option for us because of the gospel.

Holding on to the reality of the gospel does not make me indifferent to politics.

The world, it helps me care in the right way and in the right proportion with appropriate urgency.

Never succumbing to the illusion that can so easily deprive me of the peace

and joy and confidence that comes from my faith in who Jesus is and never replacing

the hope of God's work in the world, his care for people.

What you love, like, I mean, this is off notes. Oh gosh, gosh,

I'm going to go along again.

No, I'm not. I'm going to keep going. I'm not going to give this point.

I'm going to keep moving. I promise.

Because here's the thing. Here's one thing that's ultimately true.

The gospel tells me this. Jesus has already won.

Jesus has already won. That is like the fundamental statement of faith which helps orient my life.

It's this confidence that Jesus has already won. He's overcome the world.

And his plan is going to come to pass.

I'm invited to play a part in his plan. That's really important.

I'm invited to cooperate with him in expressing his love and his kingdom in

the world. That's really important.

But we have to know that the victory is God's. I like this little quote by Leslie

Newbigin. I think he hits it on the head. You know I love Leslie Newbigin.

The victory of God is finally accomplished in the rejection and death of Jesus.

The king reigns from the tree. That fact, hidden from the world,

is proclaimed to those chosen as witnesses and only to those by the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

Those witnesses are sent forth to proclaim and embody in their common life the

victory of Jesus, the reality of the reign of God.

They are to go bearing about in their body the dying of Jesus.

He's quoting 2 Corinthians there. The proclaim and embody the victory of God

under the sign of the cross.

Thus, a new reality is brought into being.

A new kind of human community, which is the Torah of Yahweh,

is being fulfilled by people not of the prophets and the psalmist are being fulfilled.

The nations are coming to a new Zion to be the people of Yahweh and to live

under his rule, his Torah.

Friends, if you want to have Christian politics, I think you need to know that

a major political agenda has already been set.

We are called not just to believe in the life and death of resurrection,

but to live in light of those events.

In light of what all of it means to express and embody the rule and reign of

Jesus in the way we live our lives,

to demonstrate the kind of confidence that comes from knowing that he's already

won and he's going to be the sort of God, he's the sort of God who,

who he reigns from the tree, even in his death,

he's winning, he's overcoming.

And so that should fill me with a mighty confidence. It should rid me of anxiety,

about the way the world is going and what's going on.

Like we're called to saltiness, to embody in our very person,

in all of our actions and to believe in our hearts and to express it in the

way we go about in the world that Jesus Christ lives and he's in charge and he's over all things.

I have him all allegiance and so does the whole world. and we proclaim and invite

that and we invite people into it.

We are called to be people who are putting on the character and life of people

who are trusting in the victory of Jesus.

I love how Paul describes this way of being earlier in 2 Corinthians.

He says this, thanks be to God who always leads us in Christ's triumphal procession

and through us spreads the aroma of the knowledge of him in every place.

For to God, we are the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and

among those who are perishing.

To some, we are aroma of death leading to death, but to others,

an aroma of life leading to life.

Who is adequate for these things?

So Paul looks at the world in light of what he knows about who Jesus is,

and he locates himself in it.

I mean, just a few points I want to make about this little passage,

Paul sees several things that we need to know.

And first, it's that in the gospel, this true story, which is going to limit

and shake and give direction to my politics, Jesus has already won.

He says, this is a triumphal procession.

This is a, your life, your going into the world of politics is a post-victory lap.

Like that's what a triumphal procession is. In the context of Roman culture,

when a general went and defeated people, they would come back to Rome and they'd

be like, we did it, aren't we great?

And the whole army's behind him. They're saying, we did it, aren't we great?

And then they've got all the slaves behind them. That was the triumphal procession

that's being referred to here.

He says, Paul, his whole life is going around like in triumphal procession,

saying Jesus has already done all the winning.

He's defeated darkness. he's defeated wickedness, he's defeated evil and the power of Satan.

And Christ is leading us now in this triumphal procession made up of men and

women who are saved by the love and grace of Jesus Christ, who are confident

and trusting in him because they know he's already won.

And if we look at the life of Paul, we have to know that that doesn't mean that

my life is going to be conflict free, but it does mean this,

whatever happens, no matter what setbacks, we are invited to have confidence in Jesus's power.

And maybe it's just me, but I have noticed that every four years or so,

right around this time, it feels like people forget that Jesus is king.

And I am tempted to forget that Jesus is on the throne.

And I start to believe and people start to believe that, that man,

if this election goes this way or that way, that's it, we're doomed.

And I'm not saying it doesn't matter. I'm saying it needs to matter appropriately.

And I just wanna remind you, Jesus is the one he's ruling from the tree.

He wins even when he dies and he will bring about his plan and he will get us safely home.

He's overcome the world. He says all authority in heaven and earth is subject

to him. and the path we take to seeing his victory, it doesn't always feel like

victory, but we're called to confidence that it is.

To think of this life, our life in the world is just like the triumphal procession

coming behind Jesus Christ.

And second thing I think implied in this passage is that that does not mean,

just because Jesus is one doesn't mean that there's nothing for us to do.

That is not an invitation to indifference or passivity.

In fact, I mean, Paul right here, he makes clear the role that we play in light

of Jesus's victory. Jesus is at the front of the parade.

He is the victor. And he says, we're falling behind and through us,

Christ spreads the aroma of knowledge of him in every place.

So we're coming like worshiping behind, like spreading incense.

And this is a really good application. I want you to remember this.

It means that you're They're supposed to smell, which is good news for me.

My mom told me I smelled good this morning. I don't know. Look it,

no matter what happens in November.

Oh, she's my mom. She'll lie to me. That's right, okay. No matter what happens

in November, even if our nation elects the bad one, whoever that is,

we are called to be people who are spreading the knowledge of Jesus Christ.

If our preferred candidate wins, we're still called to smell like Jesus.

We still have a role to play.

We're walking behind the procession of Jesus. We are burning incense,

worshiping to him, and people are going to smell it.

And that's what we talked about last week, like holding the tension.

We're called to hold this tension. We're called to be engaged in the world,

but also be distinct from it.

We're called to be active in the world, but we're also not called to get caught

up in the political systems of the world.

We're supposed to be apart, but not indistinct from those things.

When other people are catastrophizing or worried or not seeing how terrible things are going,

because it can happen either way, we are to be people who are just to be living

in the hope of the gospel and spreading knowledge of God through the way that we are in the world.

Demonstrating what it looks like for people to trust in Jesus Christ above all

things, even in the political sphere.

Look, last week we talked about kind of four postures of political engagements.

We focused on those two, and I just sort of alluded to those.

We want to avoid co-optation and disengagement. If you want to hear that,

go back to last week. I'm not going to talk about that again.

But this week, I want to talk about those other two, cooperation and confrontation.

And here's the thing. I think these are the two ways that we are encouraged

to be political people in the world as Christians, through cooperation and confrontation.

These are, I would argue, both essential for Christians.

These are the political postures that we need to take on. They are consistent

with the gospel. And I think they're just consistent with the way that Jesus engaged in the world.

I mean, what did Jesus do? He had a message. He went out. He proclaimed the gospel.

He wanted to tell anybody who was willing to hear about Jesus,

anybody who wants to cooperate with him by responding in faith to what is being proclaimed.

He's like, yeah, you're the one I was looking for. Let's do some things together.

Let's continue to grow in faith and obedience and trust in God.

Jesus was all about that. And yet also we know from the life of Jesus that sometimes

that led him to confrontation.

And I think this is kind of paradigmatic in the New Testament.

It's true of Jesus. It's true of Paul.

And I mean, this passage in 2 Corinthians that we've been talking about here.

See, what Paul is saying sometimes is that that when we're Christians and we're

living in light of the gospel, we're following behind Jesus,

we're proclaiming that he's the victor, we were trusting in him,

we are going to sometimes, we're gonna smell, everybody's supposed to smell.

And sometimes you're gonna smell sweet to people, like my mom, which is nice.

Sometimes you smell sweet. We're gonna come alongside people,

we're gonna love them and serve them.

We're gonna point them to Jesus. We're gonna cooperate with them for their good.

We're gonna bless them and care for them. And they're gonna say,

Say, oh, that is such a sweet-smelling, beautiful thing that you're doing.

You Christians smell, and in the right way, you smell like heaven.

But sometimes, what Paul is saying, we're going to be an unwelcome smell.

Sometimes we're going to be told that our Christ-like love is getting in the

way of real progress and truth and what real love should be.

But we're just called to linger. We're called to keep being smelly.

Smelliness is just a part of your life. Look, what I'm trying to say here is

that both cooperation and confrontation are the normal political postures of

people living in light of the gospel. I think they're just implied.

They're necessary. And I'm emphasizing the and, as you can see through the underlying and italics.

I didn't put an exclamation point behind it, but I could have.

I'm really trying to say that we need to do both these things.

They're inevitable. We need to be at least prepared for both of these things.

And that's because I know that

each of us is likely more comfortable with one of these than the other.

One of us just says, everybody wants to say, well, I'll take one.

But two is too many. And I understand that.

I feel that way myself, but as I read scripture, I feel actually that I'm accountable to both.

Most of us like the idea of, let's just be honest, most of us like the idea

of cooperating and not confrontation.

Some people actually really love confrontation. That's your temperament,

right? And you don't really, not really into this cooperation.

Like some people are more confrontational.

Most people I think are more interested in being sort of low key,

especially in our culture in our day.

But what Paul is saying in this passage in 2 Corinthians is that you don't get

to choose, right? I mean, look, I've got it back up here.

You don't get to choose. He says, all you do is smell.

You don't get to choose how people think you smell.

I mean, that's it. It's not your decision to decide if people smell you and

they think, oh, that's the smell of heaven, or they smell you and they think,

oh, that's something I don't like. That's judgment.

That's mean. That's trying to tell me how to live my life. You don't get to choose.

Virtue of just being a person who is demonstrating this confidence,

walking behind Jesus Christ, knowing that the gospel means that he has overcome

the world by following him in this triumphant,

procession, you will either be a sweet smell or a stinky smell,

and you don't get to choose how people react to you.

And I think that really matters for us to understand that.

Because if if we are too concerned with controlling how people react to us,

to the truth that we're proclaiming, then we are going to become avoidant of

conflict, which is sometimes inevitable.

And that avoidance is actually going to rob you of your confidence in Jesus

Christ. It's going to erode your confidence.

Like if Jesus is Lord over all, if he is the king ruling on the tree,

then I mean, he's going to make some claims and some people are going to be

uncomfortable with that. We need to be okay with that.

That said, I do think that cooperation is the starting point for Christian political

engagement. It's where we begin.

Like I said, it's where Jesus began. He didn't begin talking about how everybody's got to change.

He said, he began talking about the kingdom of God, right? I mean,

we're going to get back into Matthew here pretty soon, right?

And Jesus's ministry begins. And the first thing we have recorded in Jesus's

ministry is the Beatitudes.

And he's saying, here's all the ways that God is blessing people in crazy,

radical, unexpected ways.

He's with the poor in spirit.

He loves broken people hurting people. He loves the down and out.

And he's actually uniquely...

Those people. Jesus begins with explaining the way that God is just pouring

out grace and kindness to people.

That's a cooperation, that there's relationship and connection with God,

that God isn't this distant,

far away, sort of judgy God, that actually God is expressing his holiness and

his righteousness through his grace and his kindness and his forgiveness.

I think we have have to begin with cooperation.

And I think that, you know, especially if we are people who are given to confrontation,

we need to start with cooperation.

Okay, so let's talk a little bit, like what is cooperation? I mean,

it's this, it's that we're going out there, we're holding the gospel and the

love of God with an open hand to people and just offering it up.

We're saying, this is something for you, like I want to minister this to you.

So there's that. And it's also, So, I mean, you probably know Danielle. Hi, Danielle.

Danielle is just living into cooperation, like in a really positive way.

So Danielle, I told you there's a secret announcement.

Here it comes. I didn't tell you I was going to do this. This is good.

Danielle, our former worship leader, our beloved former worship leader,

is now the director of Love SV, right? Love SV is an organization in the Snoqualmie Valley.

And my understanding is she probably has a real mission statement.

I'm just telling you what I think you do. is to help churches connect and cooperate

with local nonprofits, to let churches go out and mobilize Christians in the

Snoqualmie Valley to just serve their neighbors and to make that happen.

She has a Valleywide Volunteer Day coming up October 5th, and I would hope that we can get out there.

Now, you might say, well, what's the point?

What's the point? I mean, look at.

Jesus loves the world. We need to love the world.

We need to care about people's flourishing and life. We need to care about their salvation.

We need to get out there and know people and serve people because cooperation,

I think, is historically and biblically the thing that we're called to.

We can go out there and serve people in the name of Jesus.

We can go out engaging people who don't know Jesus, love them the way that he

does, and doing whatever we can do to bless them.

I mean, part of these things, these discipleship practices I'm asking you guys

as a church to engage in, like the one thing I'm asking you to do that I think

is both the easiest and the hardest is to bless somebody.

Bless somebody. Every day, intentionally bless someone.

And you might say, well, shouldn't I just give them some scripture verses?

And maybe that's how you bless them. Maybe that is. Yeah, but there are lots of ways to bless people.

Jesus meets people exactly where they're at all over the place.

He's always clear about what he wants. He wants people to come into and understand the kingdom of God.

He wants people to repent and enter in and know how awesome God is,

but he does so many different ways.

He gets his hands dirty with people.

And in the evangelical tradition, let me tell you, we have a long and successful history of doing this.

Hospitals in all over the Western world and in all over the world in general.

Largely, the modern hospital movement came from Christians saying, you know what?

People need to be healthy. And it's a way for us to express the love of Jesus

Christ by building hospitals and caring for people.

Like the abolitionist movement, which is both cooperation and confrontation, right?

I mean, I mean, we'll talk about that in a second. I want to get ahead of myself.

The abolitionist movement comes out of the Christian tradition.

In England, William Wilberforce, right?

He went and did this movement. He made it so that they outlawed slavery all over England.

Now, of course, there's the dirty little secret that also Southern Christians

oppose slavery. Not going to get into that today.

But confrontation is sometimes required. Right?

Look at, that's how Paul approached mission too. Like Jesus approached mission,

Paul approached mission. We see, we've gone through the book of Acts recently.

And what we see is that Paul had this really normal way of approaching things

when he would come into a town, he was unknown there.

He would start, first of all, he would go into the synagogue and he'd start

to say, hey, can I open up?

Can I, can we just sit down and can we read this book together?

Can I show you some things that are in here? And we can reason together and

think together other amongst the Jews.

And usually in between two weeks and two months, they'd be like, we're done.

And then they'd kick him out. And then what would Paul do? He'd start the cooperation again.

He'd go look for, he would take those Jews who were open to the gospel and he'd

say, okay, look, what we're going to do is we're going to start going to find Gentiles.

We're going to go find people of goodwill, people who will hear what we have to say.

We're going to serve them. We're going to love them. We're going to tell them

about the rule and reign of Jesus Christ.

We're going to cooperate with them for their good. We're going to do things.

We're going to hold out the love and grace of Jesus Christ, and we're going

to do whatever it takes to have people hear and see and to smell what it smells

like, to have people who are animated by the love of God.

That's how Paul approached mission. Come to a place, find people of goodwill,

and eventually build some things, do some things.

But what we also see in scripture, and we've got to be open-minded about this,

is that that almost always ends in confrontation.

Eventually, Paul gets stoned quite a number of times. The number of times with rocks.

The number of times that people try to kill Paul with rocks.

I got to clarify, this is Washington State.

The number of times that people try to kill Paul with rocks is numerous.

Is Jesus was crucified, right?

He's going out there expressing love, right? But as he's expressing love,

what he's doing is he's upsetting people's political visions, right?

Because the vision of what the Pharisees thought was gonna happen and what Jesus,

the kingdom of God, as Jesus proclaimed it, they were in conflict.

Conflict is inevitable. And so too, it will be for us, like when we go out into the world.

We gotta be open-minded about that. And we have to not avoid conflict when it comes.

I don't think, I don't believe that we need to go out seeking conflict. It will find us.

And then the question is, what do we do when we get there? And I'm just speaking

to this because, again, I am temperamentally, I don't love conflict.

That's not my favorite place.

I think I've grown into more comfort with it because I've just kind of realized that it's inevitable.

And I think the thing that is keeping the church broadly where we're at right

now is that one, we're not going to conflict through cooperation.

We're sometimes going straight to conflict on a federal level,

which is, you know, neither here nor there.

But what I'm saying is that like when we go and we go out and be real people

meeting people's needs, like confrontation is going to come in.

We need to be prepared for that. Yeah.

It's funny, like I've been like studying for this and first Peter is just such

a great resource here. So we did some first Peter last week and we got some

more first Peter this week.

Okay. So if you want confident confrontation, which is, I think what we,

what we have to have and what we have to, to be prepared for in politics,

then I think first Peter 3.13 is a really good resource that we're going to

spend the rest of our time there. If you want to, if you want to turn there.

All right. So this is really great.

I'm going to read the passage. Who then will harm you if you are devoted to what is good?

Just want to stop for a second, actually. I said it was going to be the passage I like.

Peter's presumption about our engagement in the world is what?

What are we going to be doing?

Being devoted to what is good. Like if we're going to show up in the world,

people who are all about the good,

all about expressing the love and the vision and the care of Jesus Christ with

people, he's assuming that is true.

And then what does he go on and he says, even if the, even if you should suffer

for righteousness, you're blessed.

Do not fear them or be intimidated, but in your hearts, regard,

regard Christ as the Lord, as the Lord is holy, ready at any time to give a

defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for you to hope for the hope that is in you.

Yet do this with gentleness and reverence, keeping a clear conscience,

so that when you are accused, those who disparage your good conduct in Christ will be put to shame.

For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God's will, than for doing evil.

And the whole point of this passage, situationally, is that Peter presumes two things.

Number one, we are called to, Christians are called to, be people who are engaging

in the world for its good,

cooperating with people, blessing people, caring for people,

being bold to share the good news, the unmitigated good news, the offer of salvation,

the care that God has for people, for the downtrodden, for the broken,

like we're people who are devoted to being good.

And he says, in the normal course of business, we could ask this question,

who's going to be against that?

And the answer is most of the time, very few people.

But he does understand that there might be a time when confrontation will come

as you're going out into the world, trying to do good, trying to bless people.

People will have a problem. And his advice to us then is not to fear and to keep the Lord holy.

Saying, don't be fearful. Don't be intimidated. Like this is something we need

to prepare for. You're going to go out and you're going to share the gospel with people.

Like questions are going to come up. We should anticipate them.

And we should be in such a posture that we're saying, I'm not going to be afraid.

I'm not going to be intimidated when people want to push back on what the vision

that Jesus has told me is to love people.

Like we need to be people who are quick to defend.

And he says, we do that by keeping the Lord holy.

I just love that. Regard Christ the Lord as holy.

Basically he's saying, people are going to come and they're going to like question your motives.

They're going to say, you're doing this all wrong and you're trying to destroy people's lives.

And what we say is we just say, We're going to be unintimidated.

We're going to be unafraid when that confrontation comes.

And we're just going to say, hey, God is holy.

His word is the thing that I stand on.

I know it might not make sense to everybody all the time, but he's holy.

He's told me what love is. Jesus Christ has demonstrated love.

So what can I do but stand upon it? To just say, nope, this is it.

I'm going to love you in the way of Christ.

I'm not going to be afraid. I'm not going going to be intimidated,

but I'm also just going to say, I get that you don't understand it. God is totally other.

He doesn't fit into these left and right political binaries. God is just above it all.

Like he does not make sense to people, particularly people who are perishing.

They smell that and it's a stinky smell and they're going to get angry and they're

going to say some things.

And we just say, hey, look, I just stand on the word of God.

And then he goes on. Another piece of practical advice here.

Regard Christ the Lord as holy. Be ready at any time to give a defense to anyone

who asks you for a reason, for the hope that is in you.

When conflict comes, we have these attitudes of confidence, not fearing,

not being intimidating, just saying, I have my marching orders from God. Yes.

But then also we're called to defend and speak clearly.

We're not called to be like, you idiot, you don't understand.

We're called to be people who are able to speak clearly about the hope,

about the why, about what the gospel means and how it implies all these things.

Like we were called to be people who are going out of our way to explain,

like we know what love is.

Jesus reveals it. It requires some things of us, like true human flourishing,

true goodness, true love looks like something.

And so it's gonna come into conflict with people's visions, but we're called

to be defenders, clearly speaking about what Jesus has said is true.

And my greatest hope for you all and for us as a church is that we would be

people who are well equipped to talk about that.

You guys are thoughtful people. You're smart people.

Don't think you're not. Being smart doesn't mean anything. It doesn't matter.

But it is a benefit because it means that we can go in and we can actually persuade

people people, if we are prepared.

I think so many people, like, we get this perception that people are so opposed to the gospel.

And here's what I've realized is that most people are opposed to their wrong

ideas about what the gospel is, which is just a wide open invitation for us

to say, no, that's not it.

Let me open up the scriptures before you. Let me be a thoughtful person who's

is going to hang in there with you and correct some things.

I've gotten into a lot of internet arguments. That's generally where the arguments

happen, right? This is 2024.

And some in-person arguments. But I will tell you, if you continue,

some people will just block you and move on, whatever.

But there's so many opportunities to just hang in there with people to treat

their arrogant questions that they think there's no possible answer to,

to take them seriously and give them real answers.

And what you find is that as you continue to hang in there with people,

as you take their questions seriously and you give them real defense,

a real explanation of the gospel, they soften up.

It might not lead to them repenting and coming in to know Jesus,

but it does give gospel so much more credibility in their mind.

I think this is the biggest problem. I don't think the world...

Increasingly they don't know who Jesus is at all, right?

But people probably of the older generation who did know Jesus,

they just don't understand what Jesus was on about.

And we shouldn't be flippant with people who just don't get it. And I get it.

It's not fun just constantly having to explain things to people with attitudes.

I used to work in an enterprise rent-a-car, so I understand.

That's a customer service joke.

It's hard to be patient when people are rude to you, but we're called to patience.

And that's where he goes on. He says, yet, like give this defense,

always be going straight for it, like not avoiding the conflict,

not avoiding the difficulties, be careful to give a defense and then do it not

with big threatening words, belittling people.

He says, do it with gentleness and reverence, keeping a clear conscience.

And boy, I don't know about you, but I feel like we've gotten to a place in

public discourse, not just with Christians, where we think how I express myself

is not a matter of conscience.

Well, not according to the Bible.

Gentleness and reverence, keeping a clear conscience. I just,

you know, that's what it says. You can not like it all you want.

If you want to have a clear conscience about the way you go into conflict,

then you go with gentleness and reverence.

We're dealing with God's word who expresses his love for people by dying on a cross.

How do we belittle people when we talk to them? The same people that he's extending

his grace and kindness to.

Yeah, they're opposed to the gospel. I mean, they're deceived.

There's so much very clear and not pulling punch language about how Paul talks

about the reality of the conflict that we're in.

But none of that gives us an excuse or gets our conscience off the hook from

treating people with dignity that they don't give us.

It's assumed that they will not accord us the kind of dignity,

kindness that we are called to give them.

They didn't give it to Jesus. They killed him.

So in our political engagement, in our confrontation, which is important, we do so with clarity.

We hold a clear conscience with gentleness and reverence. We're seriously taking

things, we're going for it, right?

And honestly, guys, this is, I think, the way to productive and confident confrontation.

So as the worship team comes up here, look, I know there's so much more that

we could say, but I want you to just understand something.

And I'm I'm speaking particularly to those who are conflict avoidant,

because that's the majority of people, okay?

Love and compassion are going to lead us into conflict.

Not like angry conflict, like where we're just like really getting down to things

and helping people understand that the way that they're living their lives,

the story that they're living in is not the true story of the world.

It's not what Jesus says the whole world is about. It's going to lead us into conflict.

We need to be mentally and spiritually

prepared for that and not

be afraid to engage in it we shouldn't

i don't think we should love conflict most not everybody but a lot of people

who love conflict now i don't know that's this is generalization never mind

i'm not going to go there the temptation of everyone in our culture right now

is to privatize your whole world.

That is not working.

Everyone having their own reality is leading to people's great unhappiness.

It's leading to the destruction of culture and society.

It's leading to all this breakdown.

We are called to be people you come in the midst of a compartmentalized world and you just say.

Jesus tells us that all of our relationships matter, that our relationship with

him matters, that our relationship with other peoples matters.

We are called to be people who

proclaim what true life is. It's a life of reconciliation of all things.

And that's gonna mean conflict with people. People are just trying to check

out of all their responsibilities.

Possibilities that is the aspiration of western

washington man just enjoy what

i can and have much much money do

when i mean this with great respect be at the

office as few hours as possible and then just like like live life and i'm like

not saying like we shouldn't enjoy our life none of that if you feel guilty

about that don't feel any guilt about that that's not that's not the thing But

what I'm saying is that we are in a culture that's trying to just say we can

do anything we want and it shouldn't matter.

And we're going out and proclaiming the gospel, which is that actually,

no, God is going to judge all things.

Going to judge all things. He's going to judge your life. He's going to judge this world.

He's going to judge how we spent time. And it's not like God's vindictive.

He doesn't want to do those things.

He, in fact, wants to turn all that away and to give people life,

everlasting life to the full.

And so we are out there being people who understand the urgency with which we

need to to have conflict because people are just like lost and alone and without hope.

And shouldn't we, as people who have been saved, people who have been known

what it's like to be lost and alone without hope, and then we're given hope.

Shouldn't we be people who want that for other people?

And the great temptation of our age is that we just say, oh,

I'm thankful I'm saved by Jesus.

And I'm just going to be thankful inside of my house by myself and not being

a part of his mission and not expressing that love in the world. Don't do that.

All right, let's take some time. We're going to worship and we'll do some,

we'll take some time to pray here because I didn't go too terribly long.

I'm going to go.