Allegiance to the Kingdom: Navigating Faith and Politics

Here are the selected quotes from the sermon transcript:

1. "who are followers of Jesus or seeking to follow Jesus, that politics cannot adequately deal, these political parties cannot adequately deal with what is facing us. The more we depend on public policy to do the heavy lifting of the way of Jesus, the more we turn politicians or political parties into like low -key, lowercase m messiahs. And I just want to humbly submit to you, the more we lose our calling in the world." [05:15] (29 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2. "Our calling, the argument that I want to make, I'm just going to put it out there at the beginning, is to bear witness to this other world, this kingdom, this thing that Jesus, I just always want to imagine like what was Pilate's face when Jesus was like, my kingdom, you can't see it. If you're a follower of Jesus, we're told some things in the scriptures, and we're going to dive into these things in a minute, that we are citizens of heaven." [06:04] (29 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3. "philippians 3 17 join together in following my example brothers and sisters and just as you have us a model keep your eyes on those who live as we do for i have often told you before and i'll tell you again even with tears that many live as enemies of the cross their destiny is destruction their god is their stomach their glory is their shame their mind is set on earthly things so he's saying look there's this just there's a group of people in a way of being in the world where your eyes are set on stuff that isn't good isn't true isn't beautiful isn't lovely isn't right isn't just or it's distorted perverted just like it's just not the stuff and then he says but our citizenship is in heaven our citizenship is in heaven philippi a colony of rome where the currency and ethos and ethics and government are just like rome is he uses this same language to describe the church then as a colony of heaven this raises all sorts of questions by the way there's even translations that use" [12:46] (72 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4. "One of the greatest ironies of the history of Christianity is that its leaders constantly give in to a non -Christ -like vision of power. Power can be good. Power can be used well. Structures and systems can be used well. But we have seen a caving to something else. A sort of earthly, fleshly political power, military power, economic power." [22:32] (27 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5. "It seems easier to be God than to love God. It seems easier to control people than to love people. It seems easier to control people than to love people. It seems easier to own life than to love life. What makes the temptation of power so seemingly irresistible? Maybe it's that power offers an easy substitute for the hard work of the devil." [24:30] (22 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


6. "When Christians mistakenly think that they are furthering the kingdom by pronouncing which political options, candidates, or programs are the real Christian ones, they might be letting themselves get, distracted from the one task people in the kingdom are given. Our task, first and foremost, is to do what Jesus did. This is how the world changed. I'm all about exercising your right to vote. Again, next week, representative democracy. We're gonna get into it." [33:08] (29 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


7. "He goes around showing us what this new citizenship that we are to have looks like. He notices people. He blesses people. He goes out of his way to find those that are lost, and then he tells his followers. He tells us here in 2024 on the eve of an election, he says, be like this, and you'll be blessed. You'll be participating in the joy and have heaven now. It's a better way. It's a different way." [34:24] (30 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


8. "History is filled with folks coming together, forming close -knit communities, meeting each other's needs, caring for one another, blessing our city without kings and without presidents. His is a theology and practice for the people" [35:10] (18 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


9. "Today, we pledge our ultimate allegiance to the kingdom of God, to a peace that is not like Rome's. We say together, we pledge allegiance to the gospel of enemy love, to the kingdom of the poor and broken. We pledge allegiance to a king that loves his enemies so much he died for them. We pledge allegiance to the global church that transcends the artificial borders of nations. We pledge allegiance come on, to the refugee of Nazareth, to the homeless rabbi who had no place to lay his head. We pledge allegiance to the cross rather than the sword, to the banner of love above any flag." [47:58] (40 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


10. "We pledge allegiance to the one who rules with a towel at our feet, to the one who rides a donkey rather than a war horse. We pledge allegiance to the revolution that sets both oppressed and oppressors free. We pledge allegiance to the way that leads to life. We pledge allegiance." [49:36] (22 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)