Unpersuaded

I brought up the holidays because I was thinking about Thanksgiving a little bit. And Thanksgiving is an interesting holiday, is it not? You get around a table and you eat a turkey, usually. And it's interesting because it's usually around a table with people that you haven't seen for like 6 months. Usually. And inevitably, your conservative uncle asks your mom how she feels about the new Hot Topic button issue making its way around the news cycle. And as they begin to talk, your younger, well-educated, liberal sister can't handle it. She must have her voice heard. She must let him know that he is a bigot and that he has no idea what he's talking about. But he doesn't back down because she obviously has been brainwashed by the agenda of her fancy school. They are both passionate about the topic, and if they could just calm down, they might hear some arguments that the other person is saying. Meanwhile, your older brother is across the table making faces trying to get you to laugh at the situation while your mom is giving you the side-eye. Wondering when you are going to chime in to see if you can fix this situation. Does that sound vaguely familiar? That didn't exactly happen, right? I don't know if it has been exactly like that. I don't even have a younger sister, but I think we get the point. We have been in situations like that, and that is the point of the next couple of weeks. Why are we, why is our culture, why are we like this? Why are we like this? Why are we as a culture so divided on politics and religion? And how should we as individuals and as the church respond as followers of Jesus? So, we are going to be looking at 2 weeks of this and what has been— what we have been calling Jesus First. I am going to talk more about that in just a second. But let me briefly get into the why behind this series. As many of you know, and I did a lot more manuscripting today, so if I'm not doing some extemporaneous stuff that you love me for, it's because I want to make sure I get the words right on this one, all right? Not that I don't want to do it that way. I'm going to stick to my notes. Let me get to the why behind this series, all right? As a lot of you know, I'm in school. never could graduate. No, I'm working on my doctorate of ministry, and last semester the class specifically was on contemporary issues in the church. And we set out on a semester-long project, and it was kind of, hey, choose your own adventure. What do you want to really focus on and study this week or this semester? And have a big semester-long project and all this. And it was people in my cohort picked stuff from all over the place, looked at AI in the church and social media for teenagers and all kinds of different topics that were phenomenal. It was awesome to hear them. And for me, at the moment when class was getting started, we had ICE agents in our parking lot. We had families whose kids weren't allowed to go to school because it was closed during that time, seeing some pretty obvious political divides Even over things that I don't even know why they are being made political, right? We all know that. That is just the waters that we are swimming in, and that is what was really going on. And so, I said, that, that is what I want to study. That is what I want to look into. Turning on the TV, I don't know, I have never turned the TV on to watch news in over a decade, but you know what I mean. When I flip through my phone and I see Jesus being used as a prop, to prove a point from both sides. I decided that that's what I wanted my focus to be, and that's what stemmed this whole thing. I read things like this from Miranda Cruz, if you don't hear anything I say, I want you to hear, go buy this book, because as we're looking at we have to work on our dissertation, I was like, I kind of want to write a book, and then I read the book that I wanted to write, and she did it infinitely better than I could ever dream of or imagine. So, if you want to read a book on this topic, this is it. Faithful Politics: 10 Approaches to Christian Citizenship and Why It Matters. Phenomenal book. But she says this, a 2022 study by the Barna Group found that more than half of pastors who had considered leaving cited the same underlying cause. So as a pastor, I get emails from Barna or certain other Pew Research and saying, hey, could you fill out this survey? And this just happens. I just got one the other day and I filled it out and it was like, you qualify for a $25 gift card. If you do it, and I took the survey and it was like, "Sorry, you don't qualify." It was like, "What? That is bait and switch. What do you mean? I just took five minutes of my day to say yes, no, somewhat agree." But the people that answered the question, it says half of those pastors who had considered leaving. So of those who considered leaving the ministry, half of them said because Christians are more loyal to their political view than to their faith. I read things like this from Amy Black. She is a professor of political science over at— down at Wheaton. She said, half of Protestant churchgoers reported preferring to attend a church where people share their political views. The research has consistently found that political activity is among the strongest drivers for both church growth and decline. Well, I'm a pastor of a small church. I've been praying to fill these pews for 9 years. What the data tells me is I need to put my flag in the ground. I need to draw a line in the sand. If I just pick a side, holy cow, man, we could be booming. That's all it takes. Obviously, I don't feel that is the right way to do that. I don't think that is a faithful way to interpret the way Jesus lived and what He died for. And so, I set out in the semester to show what historically has been called a third-way approach to politics, for the church to engage in politics in my study. And in my research, I decided that Third Way, I didn't agree with it. I didn't like Third Way, the approach to the church and politics. And it was unfortunate because I had this really cool title that I was like trying to prove and stick with, which was, How the Church Needs to Adopt a Third Way Approach to Engage a Third World Morality Culture. You know, the third and the third, I thought that was kind of cool. But I proved myself wrong, and this is why. Amy says this, researchers have defined our current political movement as effective polarization, which is the habit of political parties to not engage in civil disagreement. So let's not just actually talk about this. What can I learn from you? What can you learn from me? What can we push and pull from each other? They're not— they're literally purposefully doing this. Active polarization, which is the habit of parties to not engage in civil disagreement over any given topic, but rather to sow hatred and distrust among opposing views and those who hold them. We have seen that. We are like, yep, checks out. This book is a year old, not even. The call for the church to occupy a moderate, ironic middle space between the warring factions seemed not only to be reasonable, but also Prophetic. Now, that last statement I disagreed with. That's third way. Third way is you have got the far left and you have got the far right, they are warring with each other and we are in the middle saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, can't we just get along? And it sounds good, this middle space between warring factions, it sounds peaceable. But I don't think that is how Jesus acted. Amen. among different opposing groups. I quoted this as I read this part of this quote months ago from Keller, and I think maybe a better title would have been diagonalization, but then that's, what? What did you just say? But let me read this. Jesus diagonalizes both opposing viewpoints. The gospel radically critiques both sides, so it doesn't try to find a middle ground between them. so we can all just get along. It radically critiques both sides while at the same time fulfilling the deepest and most legitimate concerns of each better than they could left to their own terms. So then what I ended up titling my work was A Jesus-First Way of Christian Engagement in a Third-World Morality Culture, and it's the dumbest title. Let me explain. The problem is when you say Jesus first, and you'll, I think you'll understand why I chose that in a minute, but it doesn't allow room for disagreement. You know what I'm saying? It's like, well, I'm perfect and I made this up. Okay. This isn't like, this is, I just was like, eh, I like that phrase. And then it's like, yeah, I don't like that phrase, but it was the best of the bad ideas. And the reason is when you do something like this, Jesus first, that somebody who disagrees, right? It's like, oh, you don't love Jesus? Like, oh, you don't think Jesus should be first? It's like, whoa, I didn't say that. So you could disagree with this position and still love Jesus and still see Jesus seated on his throne. Okay. So that is just true. But hopefully what I say Well, you'll understand. C.S. Lewis wrote a book called God in the Dock. It's just a British way of saying God on trial or God on the witness stand or whatever. He says this, every preference of a small good to a great or to a partial good to a total good involves the loss of the small or partial good for which the sacrifice is made. Here it is, meaning, You can't get second things by putting them first. You get second things only by putting first things first. The things that I am passionate about for my neighbors, for my family, for immigrants or people that are marginalized that I care about, that you care about, are really important. I'm not minimizing how important those things are. All I'm saying is they're not the first thing. Jesus is the first thing. And if we keep him first, then these things will fall in order. If we take these things, the second things, and try to make them first things, we lose both. It doesn't work. A passage that I've quoted often, as we've been going through the Gospel of Mark. 1 Corinthians chapter 15, the Apostle Paul says, this is the oldest section that we have in our New Testament. Now, I remind you, months after Jesus was crucified. Now, I remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which I received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. Verse 3, for I delivered to you as of first importance. Well, what is first? What is the most first important thing to the Apostle Paul? Is it government? No, he does talk about government. Is it policy? Is it how we care for the poor? No, he talks about that. Those are really important things, but of first importance What I also received, here it is, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, and that he was raised on the 3rd day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, Peter, and then to the 12. Jesus first, that's what I mean by that. Let's unpack this and look at Scripture. This is not lecture time with Dr. Pastor Silver. Amen. Yes. I'm not doctor yet. Titled this Unpersuaded. This is going to be a 2-week thing. And I know we're like, that was a long intro. It was a long intro, but it needed to happen. This week is going to be looking to Christ, looking to Christ on his throne. How did Christ view his relationship with the kingdom of God? Is it earthly? Next week we will be looking like Christ. So, maybe this week think of it as a 30,000-foot view of Jesus. Let's see him in power and authority. Next week we will get to the nuts and bolts. Well, how do we do the second things then well while Jesus is on the throne? How does that impact us in 2026? It's the same Paul. So let's look at this. I've titled this Unpersuaded because we'll see Jesus is unpersuaded by earthly power and thrones and kingdoms and by Pilate. We're going to be looking at John chapter 6:14 through 15 and John 18:33 through 38. I'm going to start with John chapter 6, and we could have done this in any of the Gospels, but we've been going through Mark, and so I didn't want to you know, do the same thing twice or skip ahead. It says this in chapter 6, when the people saw the sign that he had done, going back in Mark and in John here, Jesus just fed 5,000 people. These are not just these 5,000 men that are there and they're ready for a fight. They're looking for a fight. And what happens, there's a lot of them are zealots. So we know this based on the region where they're coming from. And they're ready to get Rome out. They're gathering weapons, they're trying to build an army, and they're looking for a leader. They're looking for a general, they're looking for a king who will lead them in battle. And what does Jesus do? He breaks bread in the wilderness and feeds them the same way that their ancestors back in Exodus were fed this miraculous bread called manna as they were leaving and rebelling against a foreign empire. of Egypt. And here Jesus shows up and he feeds them bread in the wilderness. They're like, that's the guy. That's our new Moses. That's, that's the Messiah. He's going to save us. And so when they saw what he had done, they said, this is indeed the prophet who is to come into this world. And Jesus, perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force and make him king, What does Jesus do? Yes, this is it. This is our time. We can take the territory. We can reconquer the Promised Land from the foreign empire and powers and religion. We can establish the true religion. We can establish a Christian nation. No, what does He do? He withdraws Himself again by the mountain. He is about His Father's business. Business. He has no desire for earthly kingdoms and land. And when Jesus says, I won't be your king, they stopped following him. And within weeks, they're yelling, crucify him. They were ready to crown him king. And He turns it down, and then they say, you must not be thinking about the kingdom the way we think about it. Next point is the governor's question. We are going to fast forward in the Gospel of John to Jesus being on trial. Again, we are going to be in Mark for quite a while, and so we will spend more time looking at the trial, but it will suffice to say for now that Jesus Wouldn't be the kind of king they wanted. So again, they decided to crucify him. And so here we are, Pilate. Pilate's a procurator of Rome in Jerusalem, and he gets sent back and forth to Herod. Now he's back in front of Pilate for the last time, and Pilate needs to decide who this Jesus guy is. So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus. And said to him, are you the King of the Jews? You? You are the King of the Jews? Pilate here is making an assessment. Is this Jesus guy a threat to Caesar Tiberius and therefore to me and my kingdom and my authority here in Jerusalem? Or is he just crazy? What is going on? He makes an assessment. And Jesus asks this follow-up question, do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me? I love this, and as I was reading this this week, I don't know if I have ever thought about it this way, but as Jesus asks this follow-up question to Pilate, I think there is There's some empathy here for Pilate, that even though he's on trial, he's trying to point Pilate to himself the same way he did with his disciples. Who do you say that I am? Pilate, who, who do you think? I know what everyone else says about me. Who do you say that I am? And Jesus answered, Oh, let me go back. And Pilate answered, am I a Jew? I don't know what's going on with your religion and your people. Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you over to me. What have you done? And Jesus answered, my kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting that I might not be delivered over to the Jews, but my kingdom is not from this world. He says, I am a king, but not like you. I am no political threat to you, Pilate. My kingdom is not of this world. It is my authority that The kingdom of my authority, its source is not of this earth. The mark of a kingdom, as we read of him in this whole fighting thing, the mark of a kingdom sourced and its authority in this world is that it has to grab a sword in order to survive. There are no nations that don't have at least some semblance of a defense or army Or borders and boundaries and gates. It doesn't exist. Maybe at one point it did, but they didn't survive very long and they got swallowed up by other kingdoms and empires that could take over. Jesus says, that's not my kingdom. My kingdom doesn't need that. It doesn't need a sword. And actually, John already showed this in the text in the same chapter in verses 10 through 11, Peter draws his sword to attack and Jesus immediately shuts it down and says, Paul— Peter, put your sword in your sheath. The one act that we read of political violence in the name of Jesus, he immediately shuts down, rebukes it. Amen. So, the last point here is the truth. Then Pilate said to him, so you are a king? And Jesus answered, you say that I am king. For this purpose I was born, and for this purpose I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice. And Pilate said to him, What is truth? The kingdom of Jesus is advanced by heeding to His Word, not by coercion or threat. This is what sociologists call a post-sacred question. I wanted to spend a little more time on this, but I don't have time, so let me just quickly recap what this means. First, second, and third world morality cultures is not what you think of a first, second, and third world. Has nothing to do with geopolitical, economic, anything. Not even close. Why'd they name it that? I don't know. He probably was like working on school and was like, I'm just going to name it this. No one will care. And then it ended up becoming this big thing. And then— First, second, and world. First, second, I'm going to lump them together. Basically, it's saying that my idea of morality comes from beyond myself. It comes from a deity, An oracle, an oracle, scripture, something that I believe that God has revealed himself to me and has taught me how to live best among people and other human beings. And so that determines my morality. It comes from something outside of myself. That has been where morality has come from for humanity as long as we've walked the earth, at least as long as we've written things down and we can study it. Third world morality cultures, though, is new. This is where people would say there's nothing outside of me, of us, of humanity. We are—we determine what's moral for ourselves. So when first and second world morality cultures say "thou shalt not kill," it's coming from a deity saying it's. Bad. Don't kill. Well, why? Well, because people are made in my image. There's preciousness. There's sanctity to human life. This is important. Okay, let's not kill because people are important. They're made in the image of God. In third world morality cultures, it's still really important not to kill, but the reason why for their morality has shifted. It's no longer something else, something other coming. It's now coming from me. Well, we don't kill because that causes harm to other people and that's bad. Why would you harm another person? So no, we don't kill. That hurts society to take the life of somebody else. It causes pain for those who are left behind, right? That's where the morality comes from. We could talk more about that, but that's what I've got for now. Thank you. The West is not post-Christian because people stopped attending church on a regular basis. It is what is post-sacred. It is third-world morality culture. There is nothing sacred in that sense. It has abandoned the category of transcendent moral authority that has made the first and second-world cultures. The ground rules have changed for moral reasoning. And so, the church no longer has home field advantage, if you will. We no longer have thousands of years of morality culture on our side. Let me just quote this. This is from Carl Truman. He's talking about Philip Reiff. He's the one who coined that phrase, the first, second, and third world. Reiff's point is that third worlds have abandoned the notion of sacred order. And so, the interdicts of the first and second worlds cease to have any plausibility because they lack any justification beyond themselves. What? The commands or the demands that first and second worlds make lose any plausibility, meaning when the first or second world says, well, marriage is between a man and a woman because that is what God said, that is what God created, that is what God ordered. Someone from a third-world morality culture hears that and says, what are you talking about? Well, why would you believe that? Well, because God— would you say God? Yeah, you're— what are you talking— what are we doing here? You're still getting your demand, your morals from a God who apparently showed up thousands of years ago and he just hasn't said anything since? Yeah, okay. It loses all plausibility because they have to justify themselves by themselves. What Philip Reif— sorry, Truman calls the immanent frame. It's inside of me. So Pilate here says this, what is truth? And after he said this, he went back outside To the Jews and told them, I find no guilt in him. This is a post-sacred man with no sacred order left, only the pursuit of power. The truth is standing directly in front of him and he cannot see it. He can't see him. What is truth? Jesus stands. I am the truth. I am the way. I am the life. This is the same question our neighbors are asking, what is truth? Or as Sir Francis Bacon said in his essay for truth, what is truth? said jesting Pilate and would not stay for an answer. Again, the church has lost almost all of its position of moral high ground. for valid reasons over the years, in a culture that retains, again, passionately their moral commitments, but they can no longer appeal to anything beyond themselves. Well, the answer is sitting across from them, across from a cup of coffee, and you're saying, yes, there was a man who was God who died for your sins and He rose From the grave. That's first importance, because if they are not there— Let me just end with this. What happens when the empire or the nation that I love is being threatened? I love being an American. I am so glad I was born in the United States of America. So what happens when I feel like my way of life is being threatened? Or, oh man, we just need to get back to the good old days, the Leave It to Beaver days. You know, remember those days when— what happens if we don't do that? What happens if I feel like my way of life, this country that I love, is being persecuted against? Well, if that is how you feel, you are in good company. Saint Augustine was Bishop of Hippo in North Africa, and he watched the Visigoths overthrow what was emphatically and unapologetically a Christian nation, Rome. And as that Christian nation started to tumble around him, this is what Augustine said in his sermon, now titled 105, back in 410. What are you scared about? Just because earthly kingdoms perish, that is the reason that a heavenly one has been promised you, that you won't perish. Amen. with the earthly. This doesn't mean that we sit around and wait for the world to fall apart. That's how we look to Jesus. We'll look at this more next week. This week, I just want you to see Jesus as first important. I want to reiterate the fact that Jesus' kingdom is not of this world. Its authority, its source, Is not of this world. It's from God. It's from himself. And he is entirely other. And so, when we try to take Jesus and jam him into our way of thinking about empire and laws, it just doesn't fit. So, my question, my gospel application for us this morning is, is Jesus on the throne? Amen. Are you worried about losing what once was? Are you worried that Jesus might not win this battle, this cultural battle, this thing? But man, I really care for this people group and Jesus cares for this people group too. And so if they aren't cared for, does that mean Jesus loses? No. The uncle and the sister are both image bearers, both people that King Jesus has died for and rose for and walked out of the grave for. That is first importance. And the reason that you can stay at that Thanksgiving table and have a conversation is because you don't need to win the argument. Because your King isn't in any danger. History is a fascinating thing. This isn't the first time something maybe has gone like this. We'll talk more about it next week, but for now, we're going to have communion. And I, again, I know today might have been a little more lecture-y and quote-y than just let's get to the gospel, which is ironic, isn't it? But we have the opportunity to take these elements and we get to remember the finished work of Christ on the cross that He neglected and ignored and could be unpersuaded by earthly kingdoms and thrones so that He would establish His heavenly kingdom, so that people could be won to Jesus One soul at a time. So as we take these elements, remember his finished work on the cross, his body that was broken for us, his blood that was shed for us. If you're a follower of Jesus, I would love for you to take these elements. Say, man, I, I struggle with this. I struggle with this on a Tuesday when I turn the news on and I see the pain and the suffering of people I really care about around me going on. I struggle with Jesus. Is he, is he really on the throne? Amen. But right now, we get to come and we get to remember that He is on the throne. Worship team is going to sing 2 songs. Feel free to grab those elements as you see fit. Gluten-free options on my left if you need that in the little white bowl. Let me pray. Father, thank You again just for our time to look at this topic, to look at something that is incredibly important to You. You don't shy away from having political conversations about Who Caesar is and what we even owe him in taxes, but then also what we— how we should live in relationship to Rome and the government and to God. And will we not confuse the two? Would we keep Your Son Jesus Christ crucified and risen again of first importance, that keep Him seated on the throne of our own hearts? and our anxieties about what might be going on in our country, in our current political, cultural moment, and just look at the Bible, look at the Gospels and go, man, Jesus is good. And he is seated on his heavenly throne. And someday he's going to make all this right. But meanwhile, would you give us the grace and wisdom to live in a way that brings you honor and glory, that would demonstrate to a watching world that we can love and be gracious and care for those around us and see you seated on your throne. We love you. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen. Amen.