One of the annual traditions of the town I grew up in was to host a day-after-Thanksgiving Day parade, which was really a Christmas parade. Now they call it the “Catch the Glow” parade. There were lots of rides and floats, people marching, colorful Christmas decorations. But every year, at the end of the parade, Santa and his reindeer came parading down the main street. It was Santa, and presents, on a slay, on a semi, with fake reindeer. Rudolf always led the pack.

I have this sort of fuzzy memory of the song Rudolf the Red-nosed reindeer being played and my brother joking about the song (because that’s what we awkward teenage boys do).

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

Had a very shiny nose

And if you ever saw it

You would even say it glows

And it starts like a pretty nice song, but then it kind of goes south pretty quickly.

All of the other reindeer

Used to laugh and call him names

They never let poor Rudolph

Join in any reindeer games

It’s sort of a mean holiday song! Now we’re talking about bullying and how the majority often picks on those who don’t fit in with the rest? Here’s how it ends. You know it:

Then one foggy Christmas Eve

Santa came to say

“Rudolph, with your nose so bright

Won’t you guide my sleigh tonight?”

And then suddenly, as if out of nowhere, everyone loves Rudolph!

Then how the reindeer loved him

As they shouted out with glee

“Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

You’ll go down in history”

The joke my brother made was that the other reindeer weren’t nice. They didn’t like him, but they accepted him because he did something they wanted. So the message of the song is it’s okay to be different, as long as you do something everyone else likes and you earn their approval. Merry Christmas.

As I reflect on this story, I actually think it’s kind of accurate to the original Christmas story. Rudolph experienced shame, embarrassment, and being a social outcast, and that’s precisely how the first Christmas came about. That’s right, Rudolf and the nativity story share some similarities.

The first Christmas was awkward, embarrassing, shameful.

To highlight the awkward nature of Christmas, I want to look to the birth story in the gospel of Matthew.

Matthew 1:18-19 (ESV)

Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. 19 And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly.

It’s easy to miss it in this translation, but the NIV verse 18 says, “This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about.” The author Matthew, writing to a primarily Jewish audience, has just finished in the first half of chapter 1, tracing Jesus’ royal lineage back to King David and even Abraham, the forefather of the Israelite people. This is big. This is momentous. This is exciting. To identify this as the birth story of the “Messiah”—God’s promised rescuer and King is glorious.

But… instead, we’re confronted with an unwed pregnancy, divorce, and a vision that might be a delusion. Even though there are shows like Teen Mom, which may have done something to normalize young women getting pregnant outside of marriage, unwed pregnancy is still largely taboo in our culture. Now think of a much more conservative culture, where your whole social and economic life was connected to your sexual purity and marriage status, and that’s where we find ourselves.

If Mary, a young woman between the ages of 12-14, who is betrothed to Joseph, a young man between 18-19, is found to be pregnant with child before her marriage, there are only two options. 1) She and Joseph got together before they should have, which was shameful. Or 2) She slept with another man, and it wasn’t forced because she didn’t report it. At least, that might have been how Joseph saw it, and since he knows he didn’t get together with Mary, he can only conclude that Mary was willingly unfaithful. There’s no way he

We’ve been working through the word “F.L.O.U.R.I.S.H.” in our Faith & Flourishing in Politics sermon series. Today we’re finishing our acronym. Let’s review:

F – Faith, Not Fear (or “faithful presence”)

L – Love God & Neighbor (enemies too)

O – Other Peoples’ Good (shalom/common good)

U – Understanding & Wisdom

R – Reign of Christ

I – Image of God (Imago Dei)

S – Speak Prophetically

H – Help the Needy

Last week we talked about speaking prophetically. We speak prophetically (truth to power with power) out of love for our neighbors, often the poor and needy. There’s a Brazilian Catholic archbishop who said:

“When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.” – Hélder Câmara (1909–1999)[i]

One of the prophetic messages the Old Testament prophets emphasized again and again was protecting the poor, needy, and most vulnerable. Israel and Judah’s failure to do so is one of the things that sent them into exile. After their exile, God wants them to remember to do justice. The prophet Zechariah returned with the exiles from Babylon.[ii]

Zechariah 7:9-10 (ESV)

“Thus says the Lord of hosts, Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another, 10 do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor, and let none of you devise evil against another in your heart.”

Zechariah speaks prophetically on behalf of widows, orphans, immigrants, and the poor—those people most at risk in any society. Zechariah warns the returning exiles not to be like their ancestors who hardened their hearts against these vulnerable people groups, because if they do, they will face God’s wrath:

Zechariah 7:12 (ESV)

They made their hearts diamond-hard lest they should hear the law and the words that the Lord of hosts had sent by his Spirit through the former prophets. Therefore great anger came from the Lord of hosts.

The people faced God’s judgment because they oppressed the widows, orphans, immigrants, and poor—the needy. Last week Amos prophesied against six outside nations along with Southern Judah and Northern Israel about their injustices. That theme continues, but now with the return of the Judean exiles.

When I was growing up, I don’t remember hearing any Church or Christian emphasize the prophets’ warnings to take care of the poor, needy, and most vulnerable in society. I know we cared about abortion, and I remember doing food drives, Christmas shoeboxes, and donating Thanksgiving meals. Our church also hosted an English class for Spanish speakers for a season, but it did not seem like the churches I’ve known have taught on the poor and needy with the same intensity as the prophets. I don’t think that’s uncommon in the evangelical church. At least, it hasn’t been my experience.

Why is that? Is it because our political ideologies help us see some disadvantaged groups but skip others?  Is it because we have Jesus now, so we don’t have to worry about the poor and needy? There’s a reason our Scripture reading today is first an Old Testament prophet that preaches about the needy and warns of God’s wrath. And our second reading is Jesus himself, a prophet who does the exact same thing. Jesus preaches about the needy and warns of God’s wrath for those who do not help them.

Jesus will judge all people on how well they care for the needy.

Like the prophets judged the nations for their level of societal justice, Jesus warns of something similar when he returns. Before it ever gets to the individual, Jesus gathers the “nations” (ethnos). Ethnos can mean “Gentiles” (non-Jews) or nations of people. Jesus gathers all nations and people for the final judgment.

Matthew 25:31-32 (ESV)

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.

Sometimes in and around ancient Palestine, the sheep

On the morning of Thursday, February 3rd, 1994, a room of political and religious elite gathered in the ballroom of a swanky hotel in downtown Washington DC. Members of Congress were there, as was the President and Vice President, Bill Clinton and Al Gore, Hilary too. But there was also someone there you might not expect, Mother Teresa.

An 83-year-old nun from India, Mother Teresa had spent a lifetime caring for the poor and needy in the slums of Calcutta, the malnourished and thrown away. She’d received the Noble Peace Prize in 1979, but she still didn’t fit the suits and ties in that room with her humble blue and white nun’s habit. But today was the National Prayer Breakfast, and they had invited Mother Teresa to speak.[1]

And when Mother Teresa got up to talk, you could barely see her head over the podium, engraved with the Presidential Seal of the United States. And two big black microphones rested right on her forehead.[2] You couldn’t see her face until she turned to the side. But although she looked frail, she spoke with power.

She began by talking about the importance of love and how, starting with the family, we are to live lives of love for God and neighbor. But we’re not to just say we love God, but to show it by sacrificing for our neighbor. Mother Teresa called her audience to “be willing to give until it hurts.”[3] And something about that rang true, didn’t it? Because she had lived a life of giving until it hurt.

That gave weight to her next words as she spoke out prophetically against children putting their parents in nursing homes and forgetting them, as she spoke out against boys and girls taking drugs, and as she spoke out against abortion. She said, “But I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because Jesus said, ‘If you receive a little child, you receive me.’”[4] Long and resounding applause filled the ballroom.

If you were in that room behind that podium surrounded by some of the most powerful men and women in the world, would you speak truth to power? Would you speak prophetically? That’s what “S” in “F.L.O.U.R.I.S.H” stands for, “Speak Prophetically.” Most of us are never going to have a chance to do what Mother Teresa did. But we do have opportunities every day, small opportunities to speak prophetically, to speak truth to power in our contexts, in our families, jobs, and communities. Maybe if we are faithful in those little moments, God will call us to speak up in the big moments too.[5]

During the Ockenga Fellows Program, we talked about the concept of “faithful presence.” My black brothers and sisters in Christ pointed out that sometimes Christians need to speak up and advocate for justice, even specific policies. Believers need to exercise not just “faithful presence” but “faithful prophetic presence.”[6] We need to be faithful to Jesus, present where he has us and speak with boldness and courage. Faithful presence can be too passive.[7] Sometimes faithful presence needs prophetic power.

To speak prophetically is to speak truth to power.

The Hebrew Bible is full of the writings of prophets and stories of prophets speaking God’s truth to the powers that be, whether governors and kings or cities and nations. To speak prophetically sometimes meant “future-telling,” but most often, it meant “truth-telling.” Not just, “This is going to happen in the future,” but “Here are the consequences that are going to happen if you break God’s laws.” The prophets were God’s covenant lawyers who reminded his people of the terms of their covenant agreement. If you honor and obey me, I will bless you, but I will curse you if you dishonor and disobey me.[8] The prophets didn’t speak their own truth but God’s truth to those in authority and the people as a whole.

We find many examples of prophets speaking God’s truth to power throughout the Old Testament, Samuel to King Saul, Nathan to King David, Elijah to King Ahab, Isaiah to King Ahaz and Hezekiah, and our prophet today Amos to king Jeroboam I

I want to start today’s sermon with a quiz. By a show of hands, I want you to guess whether the following portion of tweets are about a sports team or politics. These are actual selections from tweets:

His biggest win yet.

Let’s hear it for your [blank] champion[1]

Sports or politics? “Let’s hear it for your 2021 #NASCAR Cup Series champion. . . ” Sports!

Heads, we win.

Tails, you cheated.

Give me a break man.[2]

Sports or politics? Politics! How about this one?

 [Blank] is a rough old sport, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.

But you pick yourself up and get back out there as hard as it is.

Don’t give up and don’t lose faith.[3]

What do you think? Sports or politics? “Politics is a rough old sport…” Politics!

PATRIOTS WIN!!! DOMINATION!!![4]

This one is kind of obvious, but you can hear it, “Democrats win! Republicans win! Domination!!!” I found these Twitter posts searching for words like win, lose, team, patriot, and victory. Politics and sports aren’t so different. Imagine you’re in a stadium, holding up a poster, the crowd is cheering and chanting, everyone is wearing their team’s colors, red or blue. You could be at a football game or a political rally.[5] Are you “red team” or “blue team”?[6] Or maybe team purple?

At the end of Israel’s wandering in the wilderness, God led the Israelites across the Jordan and into the land of Canaan, the promised land. As the twelve tribes approached the very first city, Jericho, their leader Joshua encountered a supernatural messenger, maybe an angel, perhaps God himself.

Joshua 5:13-14 (ESV)

When Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua went to him and said to him, “Are you for us, or for our adversaries?” 14 And he said, “No; but I am the commander of the army of the Lord. Now I have come.” And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped and said to him, “What does my lord say to his servant?”

God called Israel to invade Canaan. So, you would think this supernatural messenger would have said, “I’m on your side, Joshua! I’m on your team, Israel.” But he doesn’t. This messenger says that he leads God’s armies, and he has come. And the only proper response is to fall on your face and worship, to leave your side, your team, and join God’s. Instead of identifying as red or blue, or like a sports team, God calls us to follow Jesus, to get on his team.

Jesus’ opponents try to force him to pick a side.

Jesus claimed to be the Messiah, God’s promised king, when he rode into Jerusalem on a donkey.[7] That’s a bold political statement. But instead of driving out the Romans, instead of using his supernatural powers to free his countrymen, Jesus drives out the money changers from the temple grounds and tells parables criticizing Jerusalem’s religious leaders (Mark 12:1-12). This upsets the powers that be, uniting the Pharisees and the Herodians to get rid of Jesus.

It’s kind of like college football. I got my undergrad from Colorado State University, CSU. CSU is in a big rivalry with CU Boulder. Uck! Can’t stand them. But here’s something that both CSU and CU agree on. The Nebraska Cornhuskers are the worst. Nobody likes them. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. That’s what happens to Jesus. The Herodians and Pharisees, two enemies, unite to take out Jesus:

Mark 12:13-14 (ESV)

And they sent to him some of the Pharisees and some of the Herodians, to trap him in his talk. 14 And they came and said to him, “Teacher, we know that you are true and do not care about anyone’s opinion. For you are not swayed by appearances, but truly teach the way of God. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not? Should we pay them, or should we not?”

The Herodians supported Herod Antipas, the ruler of Galilee. They approved of his big government over Israel, Judea, and Jerusalem. They would have reported to Herod if Jesus was anti-taxation because that would mean he was anti-Herod.[8] They probably admire

I’m a low-level sci-fi nerd. One of my favorite action movies is the Matrix. The Matrix is a movie about everyone being stuck in a computer-generated world and having to break free to the real post-apocalyptic world outside. In the Matrix Trilogy, there’s a scene where Neo, the hero of the movie played by Keanu Reeves, gets stuck in a subway station. This subway station is where people and programs secretly travel between the real world and the computer-generated world, the matrix.

The name of the subway station is “Mobil Ave,” which is an anagram for “Limbo.”[1] When Neo gets sent to the limbo train station, he tries to get out by running down the tracks. But it takes him right back to where he began. If he were to run down those train tracks a hundred times, it would take him back to where he started a hundred times. Even if he turned around and ran in the other direction, he’d end in the same spot.

Neo cannot travel from the computer world to the real world or the other way, no matter how hard he might try. That’s kind of where we are in our series, in limbo. God gives us a vision of flourishing in Genesis 1and invites us to seek it, but the fall in Genesis 3 hinders us. Maybe all your life, you’ve run down those subway tracks, worked hard, voted hard, cared, only to end up back at limbo station.

In this series, we’re trying to get out of limbo station. We’re trying to work towards the flourishing God intended for our world, using the word “F.L.O.U.R.I.S.H.” as an acronym:

F – Faith, Not Fear – We talked about not allowing fear to drive our politics, but faithful presence.

L – Love God & Neighbor – We talked about our faith shaping our politics and the Good Samaritan.

O – Other Peoples’ Good – We talked about biblical concepts like shalom and the common good.

One of the reasons I want this acronym to be memorable is that when you think about politics with a friend or go to vote, you can remember some of the Bible’s principles for political engagement. But that doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy. How are we supposed to exit limbo to find God’s flourishing in the real world outside? What policies and politicians can best achieve shalom and the common good?

There is a gap between biblical flourishing and policies & politicians.

The Bible gives Christians a sense of what God’s flourishing looks like. On your left, we have Biblical shalom and the common good; and on the right, we have public policy. But how do we get from our vision for flourishing to making it a reality when there’s a gap between them? How do I know there’s a gap?

1. The Bible is not a public policy manual.

Just like the Bible is not a science textbook, it is not a public policy manual. God gives his special covenant nation Israel laws and ordinances to follow in the Old Testament. And in the New Testament, Jesus gives his followers a new ethic to live by, the Sermon on the Mount. But God’s word does more than just tell us how to live; it exposes our hearts.

Hebrews 4:12 (ESV)

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

The Holy Spirit uses God’s Word to expose our idols and insecurities and apply his love. God desires to reveal our idols within our politics so that we can love him more. He won’t let false idols take his place. Do we come to scripture looking for it to confirm our political opinions or to expose our hearts?

Several years ago, I tried to sit down and write a book explaining the Biblical position on modern-political issues like abortion, immigration, homosexuality, gun control, and more. I was going to call it The Political Platform of Jesus Christ. Great idea, right? Just vote whatever the Bible says. It turns out the Bible was not written with my modern-American political issues in mind.[2] The Bible isn’t a textbook for American politics.

Several authors have written books like these,

We are now in our fourth week, third word, of our sermon series, Faith & Flourishing in Politics. F stands for “Faith, Not Fear.” L is “Love God & Neighbor,” and today we’re on O, “Other Peoples’ Good.”

A British game show in the late 2000s tested whether people would put other peoples’ good before their own. The show was called Golden Balls, which was named after golden balls the size of tennis balls that had money from £10 to £75,000 (pounds sterling). The show started with four contestants, but the game eliminated them down to two who had to end by battling for the total they had won so far. It all came down to the contestants choosing “split” or “steal.” Each contestant had a choice they would reveal:

If they each chose to split, they would both walk away with half the money.

If they each chose to steal, they would both walk away with nothing.

If one contestant chose to steal and the other split, the one who decided to steal would walk away with all the money, and the one who chose split would walk away with nothing.

At this point in the game, the game show host directs contestants to talk to each other, at which point they make promises that they will split the money with each other.  There’s a famous episode where a big tough guy sits across the table from a young pretty blonde girl. He promises that he’ll split the pot, £100,000. He says it over and over. And she’s so sweet and timid. And when they both open the balls, she steals it all, and the man collapses with his face in his arms.[i] Some call it “the most savage game show moment of all time.”[ii] What would you do? Would you split or steal? Would you seek both your good or only yours?

As we move from a British game show to thinking about our world, how should Christians live? We’ve been asking, “How should the church engage in the world?” Should we focus on preserving ourselves, on protecting our group identity and beliefs? Or does God somehow call us to prioritize others?

God calls his people to seek other peoples’ good.

In the first book of the Bible, Genesis, Adam and Eve and all of humankind broke their relationship with God. God exiled us from the garden of Eden, which was a temple where God dwelled with people. But God had a plan. Later in Genesis, God called a man named Abram (later renamed Abraham) and said that out of his descendants, he would form a great nation that would bless all the nations (Genesis 12:1-3, 15:1-6). Abraham fathered Isaac, who fathered Jacob, who fathered the twelve tribes of Israel. Israel was supposed to love God and be a light to the nations, but instead, they rebelled and acted selfishly (Exodus 19:6).

God promised Israel that if they sinned against him, he would banish them into exile just like he once banished Adam and Eve from the garden. And that’s what eventually happened. They kept sinning, so God expelled them from his temple in Jerusalem, which had garden imagery all over it (1 Kings 7:20, 36). God sent Assyria and then Babylon to take his people into captivity. When Babylon captured Jerusalem and Judah, all seemed lost. But God had a surprising plan for Israel. Even though his people were now in exile, God wanted them to live like they were in the temple garden of Eden. Remember the Genesis one mandate?

Genesis 1:28 (ESV)

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Remember Genesis one? God took chaos and created order, beauty, and flourishing. Then God gave people the right to do the same thing by making them in his image and giving them dominion. He called us to go out and be fruitful and multiply and create flourishing out of the chaos, and politics is one way we do that. We take our society and culture, and we try to order it for good. Now skip forward to Israel in Babylon. Israel is in a state of chaos, in disorder. Their rule

If you were to describe our nation’s political landscape, how would you depict it? Would you describe amber waves of grain and a fruited plain like America the Beautiful sings? Or maybe more likely, you would describe a barren desert with a tumbleweed blowing by, a snake slithering under a rock, and a lone cactus. I imagine most of us today feel politics are more like a desert than a field of wheat.

But what if, as you were looking at that political desert, you spotted a small, wiry tree breaking through the hard desert sand? Would that, could that, inspire you? What if you could slowly, with lots and lots of work, transform a small patch of that desert into a garden? Would you do it?

For one retired couple in northern China, that’s not a rhetorical question. A husband and wife have spent fifteen years slowly transforming the desert into a forest again by planting and watering drought-resistant saxaul trees.[i] Saxaul trees look like big scrubby bushes, but they can grow large enough to provide shade and life to the desert. This couple has spent fifteen years planting trees and watering them. It has cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the desert winds have blown over many trees. But despite hardship and setbacks, this couple has transformed 165 acres of desert into a forest.[ii] When they looked at the desert, they had a vision of a garden forest, and it changed everything.

When I go on social media, click on my favorite websites, or listen to the news, I sometimes feel like it’s a desert. It seems like everyone is arguing and fighting, and nothing good is growing. But what if we as Christians could envision a flourishing garden? What if God calls Christians to do the hard, slow, painstaking labor of trying to transform our world from a desert into an oasis?

That would be incredibly difficult and might not succeed. That couple lost many trees. But maybe, just maybe, we could transform a small corner of our desert, 100 acres, into something greener. Did you know the Bible starts in a garden? And it’s actually in the garden that God introduces government. Before any city or society, God introduced the concept of rule, ordering our world, of politics.

God created politics to help creation flourish.

Do you think politics are a bad joke? “What do you get when you mix religion and politics?… Politics.”[iii] Or maybe you think of politics like nuclear energy. Can be great, but didn’t we use it to invent the atomic bomb? Did you know that God actually invented politics, and he only invents things with creation’s good in mind? In Genesis one, God took a chaotic and formless void and created the planets, the stars, the oceans, fish, land animals, the sky, and birds. It was like God took a barren desert and made a flourishing garden. And then, you know what he did? He invited a man and a woman to come and tend the garden with him.

Genesis 1:26-28 (ESV)

26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

27 So God created man in his own image,

in the image of God he created him;

male and female he created them.

28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

When God made men and women in his “image” (v26-27), he granted them his divine authority to care for creation. To be made in God’s image meant you could rule creation like God, bringing order to the chaos. In fact, God gave humankind “dominion” (v26, 28) over the whole world. But “dominion” isn’t “exploitative lordship” but “stewardship.”[iv] We were supposed to take the messy goodness of creation and play with it and order it and bring out even more goodness.

That word for “fruitful

The actual sermon on Sunday, September 26th, came out much differently than the one written below. Please watch the video of the service here to see how the Spirit moved.

This summer I started reading (and am still reading) a book by Skye Jethani called With. In With Skye talks about the four different ways people generally relate to God (pp. 6-7, 169-170):

Life Under God — You may relate to God this way if you feel like you never measure up. You feel like if you can get yourself or your family to obey God, God will bless you. You try hard not to disobey. You’re afraid of what might happen if you do. God will be angry with you and judge you, so better not make him mad. Do you relate to God this way? Are you living life under God?

Life Over God – Or maybe you relate to God on the other end of the spectrum. You don’t believe there is a God, so you ignore the very thought of him. Or you believe that God has created the world in such a way that if you live a good life, do what’s right, and don’t hurt others, God will bless you and you will be happy. God created the world in such a way that if I operate according to his rules or values or principles, I will be blessed. Do you relate to God this way? Are you living life over God? 

Life From God – What if you take a different approach? You continually ask God to bless your life and to give you the things you want. You pray all the time and expect him to move. When things get hard, you pray, but as soon as things return to normal you forget about God. Or, you get upset with God when he doesn’t give you what you want. You want God to do things for you, but don’t actually want God himself. Do you relate to God this way? Are you living life from God? 

Life For God – This, perhaps, is the approach many good Christians take. You want your life to matter, to not waste your life, to be radical for God, and so you fill your schedule or life-goals with things you can do to make a difference for God. God has given you a mission, and you will fulfill it if it’s the last thing you do. You are a servant of God and you know that’s what will make you a success. Do you relate to God this way? Are you living life for God?

Two weeks ago Bernie preached about Jesus’ story of the Prodigal Sons. The first son, the younger one, asked for the father to give him his inheritance and then he went and spent it on a lavish lifestyle in a foreign country. The younger son didn’t want a relationship with the father, but his inheritance from the father. When we don’t really want God, but worship him so he’ll give us a successful career, or marriage, or make us better parents, or just to get our fire-insurance—that’s living life life from God (See With pp. 73-74).

But if you’re a good Christian who always obeys, you might be living more like the older brother. There’s the son that ran away and lived a lavish lifestyle, but there’s also the older son who stayed home. That son god mad when he heard his brother had returned home and his father had welcomed him by killing the fatted calf. He refused to go inside to the party and the father had to beg him to come inside and join the party. Jesus was talking to the pharisees and religious lawyers of his day, the most religious people of all. They were living life for God. They thought if they did what God wanted God would be pleased. You might be an older brother if you think what God wants most is your service, and not your heart. (With pp. 93-94)

We can live life under God, over God, from God, and for God. But what if none of these ways are what God intends? What if we’re supposed to relate to God a different way, not for what he can do for us or what we can do for him, but for who he is? Skye Jethani calls this other posture:

Life with God

Life with God is what God intended all the way back in the Garden of Eden. Eden was supposed to be a place where people knew God and lived and worked and played with him. I watched the BibleProject’s video on the Tree of Life this w

It seems like in the last couple years many of us have lost ones we loved—parents, siblings, friends, to covid, to cancer, to sickness of all kinds. As I’ve been thinking about my dad’s death, and those of you who have lost someone, I wanted to preach a message that could encourage us, and remind us of some of the resurrection hope God has given believers. 

But I also recognize that as I preach this, me sharing my personal story of loss might bother some of you, it might be too much. So this is a content advisory, which I guess is the new way of saying trigger warning. If it’s too much to hear my story, no one will be offended if you need to go inside or go for a walk. Let’s pray.

If you could only summarize the gospel message, the heart of Christianity, with one word (besides “Jesus”) I think that word would be the word, “resurrection.” The resurrection is the true story that Jesus died and then had the audacity to come back to life again, even new and better than before. And it even gets better because Jesus extends the resurrection promise to any who will repent and believe in him. If you will put your whole life on Christ, he promises he will never forget you as you walk through life’s hardships and on that final day when your story draws to a close, he will not forget you in your death, but will raise you back up again.

This really matters! As I was sitting with my dad in the hospital with a face mask, a face shield, gloves, and disposable scrubs we talked about the resurrection. I read most of John 6 to him and re-read this verse:

John 6:40 (ESV)

For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

I thought my dad was getting better, but still there was something deeply assuring to talk about the resurrection. My dad believed that if he looked to the Son, and believed in him, he would have eternal life and one day Jesus would raise him up again. And I know many of your loved ones believed the same.

After my dad died, I turned to another Scripture passage about the resurrection that I want to share with you today. The Apostle Paul wrote this passage to some really new Christians who were wondering what happens to believers when they die (1 Thess 3:10). Paul explains God’s resurrection promise—that one day Christ is going to return, and bring back the dead in Christ too. Today I want to tell you about the resurrection promise and how it can give us hope for our future and for today.

The Resurrection Promise:

I find two truths contained within the resurrection promise that give me comfort.

1) The dead in Christ are only “sleeping.”

Look at how Paul describes those believers who have died. Does he even describe them as “dead?” How does he describe them? Twice, he says they’re “sleeping.”

1 Thessalonians 4:13-14 (ESV)

13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. 14 For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.

Paul describes Christians as “sleeping” because he wants to redefine how we understand death. Death feels so permanent and awful, but what if for Christians, it’s more like a really long nap, from which they will awake? I don’t mean soul sleep, that those who die will be unconscious till the resurrection. When we’re absent from the body, we’re present with Jesus (2 Cor 5:8). But rather, to those who are left behind it’s good to think about it like sleeping because it’s only temporary.

I think it’s really interesting, really providential, that the first week I was back in Colorado, prior to my dad’s death (my dad’s sleeping), Mark preached on John 11, Jesus’ raising of Lazarus from the dead. 

Lazarus’s sisters, Mary and Martha, send for Jesus because Lazarus is sick and they know Jesus can heal him. But when Jesus hears that Lazarus is sick, h

Today I want to share a passage I was meditating on during sabbatical. I started reading the gospel of John and for a while, I got caught up on these two verses.

John 1:12-13 (ESV)

But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

These verses caught my eye because they talk about Christians being identified as children of God. I wrestle with what it means to be a child of God. Do you know what that means? Do you get it? Other pastors tell me all the time how important this is, and how identifying as children of God can make a huge difference.

I went into sabbatical really wanting to experience what it means to be a child of God.  See, I don’t believe everyone is a child of God, only people God adopts into his family. But just because I know a “theological truth” that “I’m a child of God” through faith in Christ doesn’t mean I really get it in my heart. 

Unfortunately, I can’t say I figured it all out on sabbatical, but I want to share a few things the Lord is teaching me. Three words help us find our identity as children of God: blood, flesh, and will. 

1a) I’m not a child of God because of my blood.

I’m sorry if you’re squeamish about blood, like I am, but the passage talks about it. “…he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood…” I won’t be showing you any pictures of ER or Grey’s Anatomy. My mom used to like watching those shows when we had an old TV that had lots of static and the color wasn’t very good. When we got a high-def television, she didn’t like them as much. Too much blood! Blood may be kinda gross, but it’s also really significant for identity.

Remember who wrote this book. Jesus’ disciple John wrote the gospel of John, one of Jesus’ most beloved disciples. He’s Jewish, but he’s writing the gospel of John to a mixed audience made up of Jews and Gentiles, non-Jews. In the verse right before ours, John says the Israelites rejected Jesus and then adds, “But to all who did receive him.” One of John’s most important messages in the gospel of John is that “all” or “whoever” believes in Jesus receives eternal life, whether they have Jewish blood or non-Jewish blood. 

That’s a complete turn of events because for over a thousand years the story they’ve been living has been all about blood. Back in Deuteronomy 14:1 God identified the Israelite people as “the sons of the Lord your God.” The Israelites were to be one blood. The sign that marked all males as Jewish was a sign stamped in blood, circumcision. The Israelite people, and Jewish people today, still find a lot of identify and security in believing they are children of Abraham and God’s chosen people. But John is saying you’re not a child of God, or Abraham, because of your blood type or mark made in blood but through faith in Christ Jesus.

I was able to make progress on my Doctorate of Ministry (D.Min) this summer. One of the people helping keep me accountable is Pastor Nathan Willems, the English Pastor at CBCGL. We’ve been reading each other’s chapters and encouraging one another. His project is about second-generation Asian-Americans and identity formation. He’s now the English pastor, but he was the Youth Pastor for many years, and found that children of immigrants, second-generation immigrants have a difficult time figuring out who they are. Am I Chinese? Am I American? Am I Christian? I feel out of place. In his paper, he shares this quote from the book, Becoming Asian American:

One of Meg’s most vivid early memories, from when she was about 8 years old, was that of a group of neighborhood children, primarily white, following and harassing her as she walked home from school. They pulled their eyelids up to make fun and chanted racial slurs. When Meg got home, her parents comforted her. Besides advising her to ignore the attacks, they also emphasized that she should take pride in her Chi