Whose Side Are You On?

The Wrong Side

Many years ago, back when I was in middle school, our youth group at church did youth retreats every year.

I always loved going on these youth retreats. I don’t remember where this retreat was, but like a lot of retreat centers, it was in the middle of nowhere. At least 2 hours from civilization. Which is great until there’s an emergency.

It was Saturday and we had some free time so all the guys went and found a field where we could play some football. For whatever reason, there were no adults with us and so we decided to play tackle football, none of that 2 hand touch stuff!

The first thing we did, as you might expect, was to choose 2 team captains. And then one by one, each team captain would choose who they wanted on their team. One team captain was on one side, and the other captain was on the other side.

You knew which team you were on because of which side you were standing on.

At this point, in middle school, I couldn’t have weighed more than a 100 lbs soaking wet. I’m tall, skinny, fast for sure… but when it came to football I would not be hard to tackle!

On the other team was my friend Ben. Ben was in high school. He was easily over 200 lbs. Maybe 250. Ben was a big guy. But he was easily the most lovable guy on the field. He was a big teddy bear. Kind heart. Just a great human being.

I’m on one team, my team has the ball. My friend Ben is on the other team. He’s on defense. Our quarterback drops back to throw a pass. I go out as a wide receiver. He throws the ball, not to me… to someone else. But it doesn’t matter.

Big Ben cuts in front of our receiver and intercepts the ball!

What you have to know about me is that secretly, I’m highly competitive. I don’t like to lose. So when Ben got the ball the last thing I was going to do was let him score.

Remember, he’s pushing 300 lbs. I might weigh 90! He’s barreling down the field. I’m running right at him thinking I can tackle him. And then…

Have you ever seen a fly hit a windshield?

I fell down. Hard.

He fell down! I did it! I knocked him down.

He was stunned. His mouth was covered in blood. He thought he had busted his lip. He didn’t.

Turns out, his teeth went through my ear into the back of my head. If you’ve ever wondered about this scar on my right ear, now you know. It was a 2 hour drive to the nearest hospital and it took over 20 stitches to sew this part of my ear back together.

After that, whenever we picked teams, I made sure I was on Ben’s team.

Whose side are you on?

That’s a question we’re always having to ask and answer. That’s a question the church needs to ask and answer over and over again.

Whose side are WE on?

I am often inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail. He was writing to the white influential pastors in Birmingham who were unwilling to do what was right. They were making a choice about which side they were on and history would prove the point that they should have made a different choice.

In his letter, he writes…

“There was a time when the church was very powerful–in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being “disturbers of the peace” and “outside agitators.”‘ But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were “a colony of heaven,” called to obey God rather than man. Small in number, they were big in commitment. They were too God-intoxicated to be “astronomically intimidated.” By their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contests. Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an archdefender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church’s silent–and often even vocal–sanction of things as they are.”

– Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 16 April, 1963

Dr. King wanted these Christian men, leaders of their churches and their communities, to reconsider – Whose side are you on?

The Lord’s Prayer

Whose side are we on?

In many ways, the Lord’s Prayer is subversive.

In a world that celebrates self reliance and independence, Jesus teaches those who would choose to follow Him to rely on God for daily bread and depend on Him for everything they need.

In a world where kings and kingdoms rise up and wage war, seek power and glory, Jesus taught his disciples to be citizens of Heaven and to pray for the Kingdom of Heaven to come to Earth. When Jesus taught his disciples to pray, he was teaching them to choose sides.

The team captains have already been chosen, but unlike that day on the field with my friends, the team captains aren’t choosing teams. We get to decide which team we’re on.

In Matthew 6, Jesus teaches his disciples to pray this prayer we’ve been learning from.

In my grandfather’s Bible, the King James version of the Bible, this prayer ends with these familiar words…

“For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.”
– Matthew 6.13b

1947

If you have a more recent translation of the Bible, you may make this interesting discovery… that those words aren’t in your Bible! And you may wonder, “Why not?!”

Before 1947, every Bible that was printed contained these words to end the Lord’s Prayer. “For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.” But after 1947, that changed.

What happened in 1947?

In 1947 there were a couple of young men, goat herders, who were walking through the desert near the Dead Sea in Israel with their herd of goats. One of the young men was throwing rocks into the caves as they walked along.

No big deal. Until he threw a rock in cave and heard a crash! He walked into the cave and discovered all these ancient manuscripts hidden in these containers in the caves.

Many of these manuscripts were ancient copies of scripture! Including copies of the gospel of Matthew!

This was a significant discovery for a lot of reasons, but one of the biggest reasons was because these manuscripts predated anything we had access to before!

The amazing thing about this was that is proved the reliability of our scriptures. The copies of scriptures we had before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls were incredibly accurate. Any differences that were found didn’t change the meaning of the text or anything we believe.

But one of the differences that was discovered was that these words, “For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen,” were added later on, probably toward the end of the first century.

Which I think is really interesting. Why would Christians near the end of the first century add this little doxology to the end of the Lord’s Prayer?

“For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.”

The 1st Century

These Christians were living in a day in time when the Roman Empire dominated the known world.

The Emperors of Rome were designated as divine. They were seen and worshiped as gods. They thrived on power. People entertained themselves with gladiator games where only the strong survived. Then came along rulers like Nero and Domitian who seemingly hated Christians. Had them killed, burned at the stake, at every opportunity.

Josephus, a Jewish historian, was surprised Christianity even survived this time. But it did. In fact, instead of the Empire putting an end to Christianity, it grew. Why?

As the kingdoms of the earth grew stronger, as those with power continued to enforce their way, as gladiators and Emperors and everyone in-between sought glory, these small groups of Christians kept forming and growing and moving and making more disciples across the known world. From Judea to Samaria to Greece, then Turkey, to India and Ethiopia and beyond. How? Why?

A Different KINGDOM

They were living as citizens of a different kind of KINGDOM ruled by a different kind of King.

They understood something that sometimes is hard for us to see. They saw the team captains, they knew they had to choose a side, and at the end of praying this prayer that they probably prayed at least three times a day they declared their allegiance to another King, another Kingdom, who had a different kind of Power, and they pledged their lives to live for His Name, His Fame, and His Glory.

They decided it was too small a thing to live only as citizens of any earthly kingdom. And it was certainly too small a thing to live their lives building up their own kingdoms. No. They wanted to leverage their lives for a different kind of Kingdom!

32 times in the gospel of Matthew Jesus taught them about the Kingdom on Heaven. 32 times in the gospel of Luke Jesus spoke of the Kingdom of God.

In this Kingdom, everything is the way it’s supposed to be. People forgive and are forgiven. In this Kingdom, the lame walk, the blind see, and dead rise again! This Kingdom is like a pearl of great price. This Kingdom is like a grand banquet table where all are welcome, known, and loved.

This Kingdom isn’t like the kingdoms of this world. Because the King of this Kingdom is different.

A Different Kind of POWER

He’s got POWER.

Rulers, emperors, earthly kings have a certain kind of power. They command humble servants and military leaders. They can decide who lives and who dies. They can up your taxes and take away your lands.

Sure, that’s one kind of power. People live for that kind of power. They even kill for it.

Even today, people will do almost anything to have power. And people love to make power plays in their company, in the world, in our schools, and even in the church. It’s like some people can’t help themselves. They’ll leverage whatever power they have or they think they have for their own personal gain or satisfaction.

That’s one kind of power.

But the kind of power these early Christians were tapping into was a different kind of power.

Before Jesus left planet earth he told his disciples they would receive power. Holy Spirit power. He told them that the Spirit of the living God would be living inside of them and it did and it was and it is! You see it all throughout history.

How else could you possibly explain how Christianity even survived through every attempt to put it to an end? How else could you explain how Christians have repeatedly put themselves in harms way in service of others through epidemics and pandemics, through persecutions and martyrdoms, through every attempt and effort to put an end to this movement of God?

The only explanation is that there is a different kind of power at work. And it’s not the kind of power that imposes its will on others. It’s not the kind of power that subdues its enemies and conquers those whom they oppose or disagree or just dislike.

It’s actually the kind of power that serves others, lays down its life for others, and willingly sacrifices for others, friends and enemies alike.

The religious leaders at the time of Jesus wanted power, but they didn’t even have the power to put an end to Jesus. They had to get the help of the Roman governor, Pilate, to kill Jesus.

Pilate thought he had the power to decide who lives and who dies! He condemned Jesus to death by crucifixion! But we know how that story ended!

Jesus actually had all the power. Not Pilate. Not the Roman Emperor.

And Jesus still has all the power. Not you. Not me. Not any political leader. Not the CEO of any company or corporation. Jesus. Only Jesus. Only the one who defeated the grave.

A Different Kind of GLORY

And because of that, He alone deserves all the GLORY!

You may wonder, what exactly is glory? What does it mean to want glory, to have glory, to give glory?

Literally, the word glory means weight, or splendor, or majesty.

We live in a world that loves glory, we just don’t call it that. For some people, their day is made when they get 100 or a 1000 or 10,000 likes on social media. There’s a certain kind of glory that comes with that. A certain kind of fame. A person like that, we might say they carry a lot of weight. That’s it… they have glory.

You’ll hear people build themselves up and then play it off as a “humble brag.” There it is again. People want you to know how good they are, what they’ve done, why you should think of them as important. People want to matter to you. And you want to matter to people.

In fact, if you’re being honest, you probably care more about what people think about you than you care about what God thinks about you. That’s how concerned you are with your own glory.

These early Christians, they knew they had to make a decision. Whose kingdom are we building up? Whose power are we living from? And whose glory are we living for?

They remembered the prayer of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane before his crucifixion, Jesus prayed, “Not my will but yours be done!” – Matthew 26.39

And so they lived not for their kingdom, their power, or their glory… They prayed, and they declared, “For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.”

And then they said, “Amen.” Literally – “SO BE IT!”

Whose side are you on?

I literally have a scar on the side of my head that will forever remind me of the day I chose to play for the WRONG TEAM!

Choose wisely whose side you’re on!

You can live for your Kingdom. You can keep buying or building bigger houses. Bigger cars. Bigger everything.

And you can keep striving for power, making power plays every chance you get, using your power to have your way, get you way, and make your way to the top.

You can keep living for your own glory. You can build your platform. You can become an influencer, a top executive, you can serve on as many boards as you want, you can. You can have a lot of fame, name recognition, and you can carry a lot of weight when you walk into the room.

But one day, the curtain will fall. We’ll all gather at your funeral and your accomplishments might get an honorable mention. People will come, and then they will walk away. And if you just lived to build up your own kingdom, if you lived so you could leverage your power to have your way, if you lived your life for your own name, fame, and glory, what you’ll realize when the curtain falls on the story that was your life was that your name was too small a name to live for.

Choose wisely whose kingdom, whose power, and whose glory you will live your life for.

It’s time to Choose Sides

What if you choose to live for another Name?
Another King of a different kind of Kingdom,
With a different kind of power,
Whose glory outshines the sun?

We’re picking teams today. You get to choose whose side you’re going to be on. I’m gong to stand with those early Christians who declared their allegiance to the King of Kings whose Kingdom will never end.

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