Red, Blue, & Jesus

Sermon Reflections from Ask Me Anything: Red, Blue, & Jesus | Alex Hardt | September 8, 2024


Hot topics in today’s world can make for enemies and turn others away from our main purpose which is to glorify God and tell others about Jesus. Jesus is our model of how you can live in the world, show love to others and bring glory to God. He was true to His message of love and redemption to all who believe in Him.

Jesus lived in a society where they needed to pay taxes and obey laws. In Luke 20:21-25, they came to Jesus to see if they could catch him speaking against the laws of the land. “21 So the spies questioned him: “Teacher, we know that you speak and teach what is right, and that you do not show partiality but teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. 22 Is it right for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” 23 He saw through their duplicity and said to them, 24 “Show me a denarius. Whose image and inscription are on it?” “Caesar’s,” they replied.25 He said to them, “Then give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” Jesus in his wisdom corrected their thinking and set godly priorities. The Apostle Paul spoke about obeying civil laws in Romans 13:1-2 “Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2 Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.” Part of our walk as Christians is to be law abiding citizens of the countries in which we live, vote and participate in government as we can. We are to pray for our leaders and seek to walk with Jesus in the place where he has put us.

Where we get into trouble is when we allow our commitments to party and country to become bigger than our commitment to God. We need to watch our priorities and make sure that what we say and do reflect well upon our Savior. Indulging in name calling, violent rhetoric, and violence do not follow Jesus’ teaching about what is most important. Mark 28:28-31 “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” We need to ask ourselves if what we are saying, doing, thinking or planning puts God first and our love for others second.

As Pastor Alex said we need to think of all those we reach with our words and deeds. It does not matter where they are from or who they are, regardless Jesus died for them too and loves them. We would not want our biases to turn someone away or keep them from coming to worship because of not wanting to be confronted politically. Jesus calls us to show love and reflect oneness in Him at all times.

Is this easy? No. If we do slip, we need to be quick to apologize for bringing politics into the conversation and redirect the conversation to things that are God related or glorifying to Him. I have a friend who called me the other day and said she was encouraging her young adult son to attend Bible Study at their church. It is a conservative church and he feared going as he did not want to be confronted with very politically conservative views. I encouraged her to try and get him to go as the group is a conservative group that focuses on the Bible and does not allow people to ‘talk’ politics. If they do, they are reminded that this is not the place. I do hope he will go. Another friend decided that our church was too conservative, although nothing had been said, she perceived that was our bias or leaning. It saddened me to see her leave as it was like the idea of conservatism conveyed unbending, unloving, and rigid people. That is definitely not how we want to be known. If she had voiced this concern, we could have put her fears to rest and could have possibly continued our relationship.

Being open and loving to all was Jesus’ model to us. Whether he was with the Pharisees, tax collectors, the woman caught in adultery, or his disciples, he presented a loving God who was to be worshiped in truth. It was always a matter of the heart. So we can take a lesson from Jesus, be mindful of our attitudes, and keep our hearts aligned with Him.

Linda


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