The Good Fight

Well, hey everybody, it's great to see you.

Whether you're here in the room or joining us online, I'm honored to have you along for the ride.

Michigan fans, Michigan State fans, what is going on?

We come together in our shared time of grief.

And let me point you to the hope beyond hope.

Basketball season is coming.

Anyway, we're in the middle of a series called King Jesus.

And as many of you know, over the past few weeks, we've been exploring what it means to see Jesus not only as our Savior, but also as our King.

Like someone who not only forgives us and allows us to have the opportunity to go to heaven after this life, but someone who also has the right to direct us during this life.

Not just a savior, a king.

And if you're joining us for the first time, just to catch you up, you should know that last week we talked about the prayer Jesus taught his followers to pray.

You probably know it as the Lord's Prayer, and we keyed in on the line that says, Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

And we noted that this phrase is famous and it's beautiful.

I mean, some of us have said it more times than we can count, but if you think about it, it's also kind of dangerous because it sort of invites Jesus into the places where we'd prefer to have the final say ourselves.

And today I want to sort of continue that conversation by talking about what it looks like to let Jesus lead us when the situation in front of us feels like a fight.

Anyone ever had that experience anytime, hypothetically, right?

Yeah.

And to get us going, I want to ask you a question.

It goes like this Have you ever won an argument and still felt like you lost something, right?

You're kind of squaring off with somebody, maybe it's a spouse, maybe it's a kid, maybe it's a coworker, maybe it's your boss, and there's conflict, and you made your case and you found a way to expose the other person's weakness, uh, kind of showed why their perspective was wrong.

And afterwards you could honestly say, I was right, I won.

But then as you sort of walked out of the meeting, maybe got back into your car, you thought to yourself, okay, um, I won, but I can't seem to shake the sense that I sort of almost lost.

Because I won the battle, but because of how I did it, I don't know, something just doesn't feel right.

And I've worked with people for a long time, I've debriefed from these situations with people for a long time, and I'm telling you, this happens all the time.

It can happen at work, it can happen at home, it can even happen online.

I don't know if you've noticed, but occasionally people have disagreements online.

Anybody else see that?

Yeah, yeah.

But our our culture has a very clear definition of what winning looks like.

Winning is when you have victory in the conflict.

But what if Jesus measures victory a little differently?

And if he does, and this is what I kind of want to chase down with you today, what if following him requires us to allow him to reshape how we respond when we find ourselves in conflict?

And we're gonna phrase the question this way: what does it look like to fight like King Jesus?

And before I begin to answer that question, I need to make a quick disclaimer because Jesus, because Jesus calls his followers to engage in conflict differently, Jesus' way can sometimes be mistaken for passivity.

But hear me, the way of Jesus is not passive.

The authors of the New Testament never ask followers of Jesus to ignore evil or to pretend that pain isn't real or to remain silent when someone is being harmed.

Jesus, if you study him and read the accounts of his life, he always told the truth, he confronted hypocrisy, and over and over again he stood with people who were being pushed aside.

But as he did those things, and this is the key, he never leveraged the methods of this world in order to establish the kingdom of God.

Like never.

And nowhere is that contrast clearer than on the night Jesus is arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Many of you know the story, right?

He's arrested, he's brought before Pilate, who was the Roman governor who's in charge in Jerusalem.

And uh the people accusing Jesus want Pilate to see that their tension with him is more than just a religious disagreement among Jews.

So they tell him that Jesus, well, he's claiming to be a king.

And that was a significant accusation in the Roman Empire in the first century.

And so Pilate asks Jesus directly.

He says, All right, we'll clear this up.

Are you the king of the Jews?

Is this what you're saying?

And in response, and this is so interesting, Jesus doesn't deny he's a king.

But he also makes it clear that his kingdom is unlike the kingdom Pilate represents.

Jesus says it this way: He says, Well, my kingdom is not of this world.

If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders.

But now my kingdom is from another place.

And to be clear, Jesus isn't saying that his kingdom has nothing to do with this world.

His ministry is all about God's will being done on earth.

What he's saying is that his kingdom does not come from this world.

Its source is different, its authority is different, and its methods are different.

Rome maintained order through soldiers and threats and the power to make enemies pay for what they've done against the kingdom.

Jesus' kingdom doesn't do any of those things.

But we should note that does not make Jesus weak.

I mean, if you think about it, Jesus in this moment is speaking truth to someone who literally has the power to have him crucified.

And he refuses to save himself by becoming the kind of king everyone already understands.

In other words, Jesus doesn't overcome evil by powering up, he overcomes it through sacrificial love.

And if you think about this scene from the life of Jesus, I mean this this night Rome seemed unbeatable, unstoppable.

They had everything going their way.

And Jesus and his followers, they had by comparison nothing.

But today we are still talking about Jesus.

We gather in his name halfway around the world from where he lived, and we talk about his teaching and how it far outlasted the empire that sentenced him to die.

And so when Jesus says, My kingdom is not from this world, he's not saying, My kingdom has no power.

He's introducing us to a different kind of power, one that doesn't depend on getting its way by force.

Jesus is still king when he refuses to use violence to accomplish his goals.

In fact, that tension, I think that's precisely how he reveals what life under his reign is like.

And here's why I say that.

Earlier the same night, the same night he had the conversation with Pilate, when he's in that garden just outside of the city of Jerusalem, one of Jesus' followers had to had tried to keep Jesus from being arrested by raising a sword, and Jesus had stopped him.

He told him in no uncertain terms, he said, put your sword back in its place, and this is huge, for all who draw the sword will die by the sword.

And in this moment, Jesus isn't suggesting that his followers should be indifferent to injustice.

I mean, it was what what what the what Peter, the follower, felt was legitimate.

But Jesus says, I refuse to establish my kingdom through the same fear and violence and thirst for control that shapes the kingdoms of this world.

Put away your sword.

And I would argue that's a critical distinction for us.

Because if you think about it, we can resist what's wrong without becoming ruled by the same anger, contempt, and desire to dominate that we see around us.

If you're a follower of Jesus, the question that you should wrestle down isn't simply will I take a stand.

A better question is what kind of person will I become as I take a stand against the things that need to change?

Jesus gives his followers a different way to fight in life, a way that leverages the counterintuitive power of things like truth and courage and action that refuses to make someone else's loss the price of our win.

Now there's an early Christian leader named Paul who wrote much of our New Testament.

He describes this kind of struggle in a letter that he writes to his protege, Timothy.

So at the time Timothy was a pastor in Ephesus.

Paul writes to encourage him, and here's what he says: he says, Timothy, fight the good fight of the faith.

In other words, you know, we said, Paul, what was it, what does it look like to fight like King Jesus?

Paul would say, you know, you fight the good fight of the faith.

What does that mean?

He says, Well, you take hold of the eternal life to which you were called.

You begin living the way of heaven here and now.

So Paul encourages Timothy because Timothy is struggling to remain faithful to Jesus, you know, and he's being called to pursue things that all Jesus followers are called to pursue: righteousness, love, endurance, gentleness, goodness.

But he's in a world like our world where other ways of living seem more productive.

In other words, like from Paul's perspective, to fight the good fight is to engage in the daily fight to respond like King Jesus.

It isn't primarily a fight against the person in front of you, it's a fight to remain faithful to your king in the way you respond to the person in front of you.

And often that means fighting the part of us that wants to win at the expense of others, the one that wants revenge and control, or just the satisfaction of being proven right.

And that is why it's possible, it's easy to defend a good cause in a way that doesn't reflect the heart of Jesus.

I mean, we can be right about the problem and wrong in the way we go about seeking a solution.

If you think about it, you know, that should make all of us who call Jesus our King a little more careful.

Because there are certainly moments when love requires a hard conversation, and there are obvious situations that require boundaries.

But if we're being honest, many of our everyday conflicts are less clear-cut, less black and white.

But more often the question isn't whether someone needs protection, it's something like, well, how will we respond when we feel hurt or overlooked or treated unfairly?

Like our concern may be completely legitimate, but I would argue that's where motives can become tangled and it can happen without us paying attention.

Like we can begin trying to address a real problem and then gradually turn the conversation into a campaign to make someone else lose.

Here's an example to show you what I mean.

Just think about a difficult conversation you need to have at work.

Maybe you've been left out of a decision that affects your responsibilities, and you want to speak up, you need to speak up, you feel you know like you've been sidelined, and so you schedule a meeting with the people in charge and you explain the impact and how you feel, and you ask for maybe a different way forward.

Um and that's great, but I would argue that before you walk into that room, there's a choice you need to make.

If your goal is to solve the problem, is that your goal, or is your goal to make the person who sidelined you look foolish?

Like, are you hoping for clarity, or are you hoping to connect collect enough evidence to make everybody in the room realize that you were right and they were wrong?

The content of the conversation may be the same.

The posture with which you have the conversation is not the same.

Following Jesus might mean that you go into that meeting preparing carefully, speaking honestly, and refusing to exaggerate.

It might even mean listening long enough to learn something you didn't know that maybe changes the way you see the whole situation.

And it might mean acknowledging what you could have handled better.

Like there may have been a reason they sidelined you.

That posture, that's not weakness.

I would argue that's strength shaped by the leadership of King Jesus.

You know, I was thinking about it this week.

Um I actually think we can learn whether Jesus really is functioning as our king in life in those times when we're interrupted or overlooked or criticized or inconvenienced or treated unfairly.

Because I mean, let's be honest, like it's relatively easy to say Jesus is my king when no one is challenging me.

It's much harder when I feel the urge to defend or retaliate.

Because when I choose a different response, I can't control how the other person will receive it.

Like I'm surrendering control, and that's where following Jesus can feel especially costly in relationships.

Sometimes doing what's right will not make the room feel better.

I mean, I can speak with honesty and kindness and see the other person still becomes upset.

Like following Jesus doesn't give me control over how other people will respond to me, even if I respond like my king.

But see, following Jesus does give me a sponsor responsibility for the way I respond.

It's responsibility for the way we respond.

Like we can tell the truth, we can act with integrity, we can take ownership of what's ours to do, and then we can leave the outcome and the other person's opinion of us in God's hands.

And that frees us from the like the exhausting need to manage everyone else.

Have you ever felt that, right?

Like I'm convinced like that that is such a normal human experience.

I just feel the need to sort of manage everyone else in my life.

I and I think nowhere is that freedom more tested than in relationships that are closest to us.

Like maybe it's someone in your family, someone in your cul-de-sac, someone in your small group who just regularly irritates you.

Like you may need some distance from them, that's fair, but but I would think to fight like Jesus pushes you to ask another question.

Like, will I let my frustration with this person turn them into a caricature in my mind?

Like, will I endlessly rehearse everything that's wrong with them until I can no longer see them as a person God loves?

I mean, Jesus' command to his followers regarding how they were to relate to challenging people, um, the command is remarkably clear, right?

And many of you know this.

This is the most important thing Jesus said to his followers as far as how they should live.

He told them this.

He said, Love one another.

This is the new command.

Love one another.

As I have loved you, so you must love one another.

And notice Jesus doesn't say, Hey, I want you to love the people who make your life easy.

That would be great, right?

He says, Love as I have loved you.

And that was a charged statement of those disciples because they understood exactly what Jesus meant.

Jesus' love always moved towards people who misunderstood and rejected and would eventually abandon him.

He his love went out over and over and over and over and over again.

So we're not only asking, what do I think about this person who drives me nuts?

We're asking, what would it mean to seek their good in the way I respond?

Because Jesus always sought the good in the way he responded.

Sometimes that means telling someone the truth.

Sometimes it means offering them forgiveness or stepping in when everyone else has decided they aren't worth the trouble.

That's part of what makes Jesus' story about the good Samaritan so provocative.

And again, if you if you're new to the Bible, one day Jesus tells this story and he makes the person his audience would have considered the enemy the hero.

Like the Samaritan, who in the minds of the Jesus disciples was the bad guy, he's the one who stops and shows mercy that proves himself to be a neighbor.

So, like part of fighting like King Jesus is the fight to keep seeing people as neighbors when everything in us wants to reduce them to enemies.

And Jesus makes it clear that the sort of love he wants his followers to embody, it's not merely sentimental because, like in the Good Samaritan story, the Samaritan doesn't just feel sorry for the guy that's injured on the side of the road.

He stops, he gives his time, his attention, his money, and his care.

Like he does something costly for a person who can't offer him anything in return.

So Jesus' love calls us like beyond the question, what do they deserve from me, and asks, what does their good require of me or from me?

Sometimes the answer is a conversation, sometimes it's practical help, sometimes it's the restraint to stop telling someone's story in a way that makes them smaller.

But love never makes another person's pain a tool for building our own importance.

And to be clear, that does not mean love avoids hard issues.

I think it means we address them without allowing contempt to take control of us.

And I know that may seem a bit idealistic until you realize it's exactly the kind of life that the first Christians were taught to live.

It's what Jesus modeled and it's what the apostles taught.

Paul says it this way in a letter to some early Christians who are living in the city of Rome.

He tells them, Do not repay anyone evil for evil.

Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone.

And then he says, if it's possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.

And I love the disclaimer, as far as it depends on you.

It's like peace is not always something we can create by ourselves in times of conflict.

Reconciliation requires more than one willing person.

Some relationships just aren't safe.

And some conflicts require outside help, and some wrongs need to be addressed through proper channels.

So Paul writes, he says, Do everything you can to live at peace with everyone.

And then he says, and this is great, do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God's wrath.

And that doesn't mean that we pretend evil is acceptable.

I mean, Paul has already told us to do what's right and to pursue peace as far it depends on us, but he identifies something that doesn't belong to us, right?

Revenge.

Revenge is that thing inside of us that says, Man, I need to make them pay for what they've done.

I need to make sure they feel the weight of what they did to me.

I need to have the final word.

And Paul says, Listen, listen, your king has told you to set that burden down, leave room for God.

And again, that's not passivity.

That's a refusal to appoint ourselves judge and jury and executioner in every conflict.

It's trusting that God sees what we can't see.

He sees the sin, but he also sees the context in which it happened.

And he knows what we don't know.

And Paul says he will ultimately make things right.

So he says, you can trust it, you can take that burden off your shoulders.

And then Paul gives us an alternative.

He says, overcome evil with good.

And that's not a call to become a doormat, right?

I mean, goodness can tell the truth or set a boundary.

Sometimes that's what goodness requires.

But goodness refuses to let somebody else's wrong determine the kind of person I become.

That's another way what it looks like to fight like King Jesus.

When someone is dishonest, I don't have to become dishonest in return.

When someone is cruel, I don't have to become cruel to prove that cruelty is wrong.

When someone tries to like dismiss me, I don't have to dismiss them or diminish them to recover my worth.

Jesus has already settled my worth.

And because he is my king, I'm free to respond in a way that reflects him, even when the other person doesn't.

And again, that doesn't give me control over what they choose next.

But I think it does bring the focus back to the one response that I can own, and that's mine.

So Paul is essentially asking a question that's always within our reach.

He wants us to say, when we get in times of conflict, when the person in front of us is making our blood boil, he's like, hey, what part of this situation belongs to me?

Like, have I told the truth?

Have I taken responsibility?

I mean, let's be honest, it's way easier to keep a mental record of what everyone else needs to do.

Am I the only one?

Right?

But Jesus keeps bringing the question back to our response.

And Paul's question, this question, I think it becomes very Very practical in an ordinary moment at home.

I mean, maybe you've experienced this, like maybe you know, your spouse or your child or your roommate or your friend is having a hard day, and they say something thoughtless to you, and in that moment, like you feel this need to power up, you could make them pay for it, you could bring up the last time they did it, you could make sure they know that you've been keeping score, or you could pause long enough to ask, what's really happening here?

Like, what's going on?

I mean, you can still name what hurt you and ask for change, but you can also refuse to make the person you love into the opponent you have to defeat in that moment.

Like that kind of restraint, it isn't pretending the hurt didn't happen.

I would argue it's choosing not to multiply it.

And I think for many of us, this is where the fight becomes most personal.

Uh, because like we don't wake up in the morning planning to become resentful or contemptuous.

Like, we we just get tired, worn down, we feel overlooked, we're embarrassed, we're afraid, and before long somebody else becomes the place where we release all of that energy.

And so to fight like our king, I would argue that it includes the regular practice of bringing whatever's hurting us to him before we hand it to someone else.

Maybe it's a prayer every morning, you know, Jesus, I'm angry, and we name what's made us angry, and I don't know what to do with this.

Help me to tell the truth without becoming destructive.

Help me seek justice without losing mercy.

Help me remember that I need the same grace that I'm struggling to extend.

I know grace is the currency of your kingdom, and I'm so thankful for the grace in which I stand, and I know that that's how I'm supposed to be living, but it's just hard.

So help me remember that grace is a gift not only to be received, but to be extended.

And again, that prayer I know it doesn't make the conflict disappear.

Some of these things are so complicated, but I think it can keep us from becoming someone that we don't want to be.

Contempt is easy.

Love requires more of us.

And here's the thing I was thinking all week about how this plays out in our individual lives, and then I started thinking about like the church, not just our church, but like the church.

And this principle applies, you know, it's bigger than individuals.

Historically speaking, the church's most compelling moments have not come from making people comply by force.

Like it's throughout history you can see this.

The most compelling moments of the church have come when ordinary followers of Jesus have cared for people others have ignored, have stayed present when it was costly, and have treated outsiders as neighbors.

Simple things like a meal delivered, a colleague defended when they're not in the room, a patient apology.

I mean, those are not small things in the kingdom of God.

They're visible reminders that there is another king and that his people, they don't have to live by the rules of fear and scarcity and retaliation.

They've embraced a different way, they've embraced a better way.

And here's the thing: people are often forming their impression of Jesus by watching how his followers handle disagreement.

I mean, when I meet with people who have been hurt by church or burned by church or burned by Christians, you think about why it's not theology.

They just look at followers of Jesus and like, I just don't see Jesus in his followers.

So people are forming their impression of Jesus by watching how we live.

Our kids are watching, our friends and our coworkers are watching, the people in our community who are skeptical of faith are watching.

I mean, they may not remember every argument we make, but they will notice whether the name of Jesus has made us more honest, more courageous, more gracious, and more willing to see the humanity of someone who sees the world differently than we do.

And again, this is not a substitute for conviction.

Jesus wants us to have conviction.

I think it's one of the ways conviction becomes credible.

Like fighting like Jesus, it gives us a different measure of victory.

It compels us to ask, like, not did I win, but did I represent my king?

Did I seek my neighbor's good?

Did I refuse to let anger or fear or the need to win have the final say?

And again, this has been a part of the Christian story since the very beginning.

The Apostle Paul he knew this firsthand.

In fact, near the end of his life, uh, he wrote that letter to Timothy, and in the letter he said something else that's so interesting.

He said this, he said, for I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time for my departure is near.

In other words, Timothy, I'm I'm not long for this world.

But then look what he says.

I have fought the good fight.

I've finished the race.

I've kept the faith.

And like, to be fair, if you know Paul's story, you know, by the standards of this world, Paul didn't look like a winner when he wrote those words.

He spent years moving from city to city facing opposition and finally waiting for execution.

But Paul says with confidence, I have fought the good fight.

And it wasn't because he defeated all of his opponents or got the outcome he wanted in every situation, it's because he had remained faithful to his king.

Like opposition didn't get to decide who Paul would become.

And that is so inspiring to me.

I think that may be the victory that's available to all of us too.

We may not be able to control the next decision at work or make a family member change, even though we want to and we pray for it, right?

And we may not be able to resolve a conflict in the way we'd like, but with the help of Jesus, our King, we can refuse to let the conflict turn us into someone we don't want to be.

Like we can protect a vulnerable person without enjoying the chance to destroy the person who hurt them.

And of course, that doesn't mean that we'll do it perfectly.

There will be moments when we realize that you know we've crossed a line.

I mean, we're human, right?

Um we used a sharp word and we shouldn't have, or we we posted something to punish rather than to help, just theoretically, right?

You know, we we told the story in a way for that made us look better and made someone else look worse.

And when that happens, you know, we don't need to hide behind the fact that we were technically right.

We if we're following Jesus, if he's our king, we can own it, we can apologize, and then we can return to the king whose grace makes honest repentance possible.

I think that's another part of fighting under the direction of King Jesus, like refusing to let pride keep us from admitting we were wrong.

We can tell the truth, ask for forgiveness, name the harm clearly, and still remember that the person across from us, however much they've hurt us, they still bear the image of God.

Can you imagine what that could look like as it plays out daily in homes and workplaces and schools and friendships and yes, even online conversations?

Like not Christians who are always getting their way, but Christians who are increasingly recognizable for the way of their king.

As I was sort of marinating these thoughts in my head and heart this week, I just thought, man, that that has changed so much in our world that could change everything.

And so here's a simple question I invite you to carry into this week.

Where am I most tempted to win at someone else's expense?

And uh maybe it's a conversation you keep replaying and trying to find a new angle to argue.

Maybe maybe for you it's a person you've reduced to a label.

Maybe maybe it's a conflict where you need to speak up, but you know you're also tempted to make somebody pay.

This week, just bring that situation to King Jesus and ask him for the courage to do what's right, the wisdom to know what love requires, and and and just honesty about the posture you're bringing into the room.

Like before that meeting or the hard conversation, the online response, just pause and pray something like, Jesus, help me represent you here.

Because one of my roles as your follower is to represent you.

Help me to tell the truth without seeking, without losing love.

Help me to seek what's good and not merely what feels like a win.

That's how you can fight in a way that reflects your king.

And when that feels impossible, remember the one we're following, Jesus didn't ask us to go where he was unwilling to go himself.

He faced betrayal without becoming bitter, he faced violence without returning it.

He he went to the cross for people who did not deserve his love, and then God raised him from the dead.

So the king who appeared defeated had won a victory, no earthly kingdom can take away.

So don't be afraid every time it looks as though serving, forgiving, or telling the truth with love means like you're losing.

Doesn't mean we're losing, it means friends, we're running a different race.

And we've been invited to fight like King Jesus.

And uh we'll pick it up there next week.

But for now, I'd love you to stand if you're able, and I'll close our time in prayer.

Um if you'd like to uh if something bubbled up in you as we were sort of talking this through and you'd like to pray with someone before you leave, we'll have some friends under the screen to the left that would love to do just that.

But let me pray.

Gracious Heavenly Father, thank you for showing us what your kingdom is really like through Jesus.

Thank you for not just describing it, thank you for sending us an example to follow.

And I pray this week as we sort of wrestle down what to do with what we've heard, I pray that you would just bring us clarity and courage.

May we respond differently.

May our actions and reactions and even overreactions be shaped and tempered because of our allegiance to your son.

Thank you for the grace in which we stand, and thank you for the invitation to partner with you to make this world a little more like you want it to be.

May your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, and use us to that end.

But for today we bless you and we thank you and we love you.

It is in the name of your Son, our Savior, Lord, and King that we pray.

And everyone said Amen.

Grace and peace, dear friends.

We'll see you next week.