“At that time, Jesus said, ‘I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and revealed them to infants. Yes, Father, because this was your good pleasure. All things have been entrusted to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son desires to reveal him. Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke up on you and learn from me, because I am lowly and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Well, we made it. This past Tuesday was election day in the U.S., and from all reports, it came off without a hitch. That doesn’t mean everyone was happy with the results, but it nonetheless came and went, and the sun still rose on Wednesday morning. As far as I have heard, there weren’t any violent protests of the results. In fact, perhaps the biggest surprise (beyond the results themselves) was that we fairly well knew the outcome by Wednesday morning. I was fully mentally prepared for chaos of some sort and a season of national uncertainty that lasted through at least Friday. But that didn’t happen. After all the turmoil of the last two presidential elections, this one felt normal. Everyone voted, we had results by morning, and now the country is preparing to move forward. Today, in light of the election, I want to talk about something else entirely. Well, that’s not totally true. We’ll still have the election in mind, but let’s take a moment today to remember there are things bigger than politics.

We have talked before about the fact that everyone worships something. There is something in each of our lives that is the thing to which we give our first and highest allegiance. We may be aware of what this is, or we may not have the slightest clue. And yet, that thing is there. The set of things to which this devotion can be given can be broadly sorted into two different categories: things that are eternal and things that are not. In the first category falls God and His kingdom. In the second category we can put everything else. Whatever else it is that we worship that is not God isn’t eternal by definition. It is a created thing.

Here’s the problem: When we worship something that isn’t eternal, we make whatever that is ultimate. That’s simply what we do. It’s what we have always done. Now, there are some things that are bigger than others in terms of these non-ultimate things to which we give our highest loyalty. The bigger the thing, the broader the coalition of diversity it can sustain. But by virtue of being a thing of this world (again, by definition), whatever it is will at some point be a point of division. Its coalition may be broad, but it isn’t infinite. This means that its followers are eventually going to come into conflict with the followers of some other created thing.

Well, when the followers of one created thing we have elevated to the status of ultimate come into conflict with the followers of some other created thing we have elevated to the status of ultimate, the results of those confrontations typically aren’t very pretty. In fact, they can get downright ugly. And why wouldn’t they? If we are fighting for the recognition and preeminence of something we have determined to be ultimate, we aren’t going to broker any opposition. And if this ultimate thing is of this world, then we are going to fight for its dominance using the means and methods of this world. This kind of tribalism and tribal warfare has marked pretty much all of human history.

Then along came Jesus.

Jesus came and invited us into something even bigger than whatever it was we had given our allegiance to before He arrived. He invited us into a kingdom that is eternal. It is a kingdom that is not of this world. It is a kingdom that has boundaries because all kingdoms have boundaries, but these boundary lines transcend whatever other lines we might have drawn for ourselves in this world. This kingdom also operates on a different set of ethical expectations and guidelines than the various kingdoms of this world. It is a kingdom that is open to everyone. No one has to be excluded from it. Ethnic divisions don’t have any bearing on it. Geographical and national boundaries are meaningless before it. Socioeconomic status is irrelevant. Racial makeup doesn’t play a deciding factor at all. Even political affiliation makes no difference.

What the kingdom Jesus came proclaiming offers the world is an opportunity for a unity amid diversity that has not ever been found anywhere else in the world or across the timeline of history. You can disagree with someone on a whole range of issues that would normally leave you hopelessly divided from one another because they are issues that fall on the list of things people elevate to ultimate status, and yet still be united under the banner of Christ.

More even than that, because the kingdom Jesus invites us into is not of this world, we don’t have to put the same kind of ultimate emphasis on the various actions of actors in this world that others do who are committed to a merely earthly kingdom. This means that even where people who are not a part of our kingdom diverge from us on one matter or another, even where they take actions that are to our immediate harm and are intended to advance their preferred kingdom at the expense of our own, we don’t have to feel threatened or react defensively. We can still love them and treat them with the kindness of Christ no matter how they behave toward us. This is because the kingdom Jesus invites us into is not ultimately threatened by any of the kingdoms of this world. It will persist even once all of them have passed away.

What this means practically speaking is that however this election (or any election) turns out was never going to change a single thing about the church (that is, the body of Christ) and its mission. Whichever side won, our job was still going to be to bear witness to the resurrection of Jesus and by eagerly and actively following His command to love one another like He loved us, to give the world around us a taste of what the kingdom of God is really like. Our work was still going to be consumed by our efforts to make disciples who go on to make disciples. Yes, the policies of one party or another might make those efforts on our part more or less convenient, but the work was still going to be the same either way. The way we are expected to approach that work was going to remain totally unchanged.

Let us know well that the kingdom Jesus invites us into doesn’t make sense to those who are committed to one of the things on that larger “not eternal” list to which we give our highest allegiance. Educated and otherwise intelligent people are going to look at it and, convinced of their own wisdom and brilliance, declare it to be utter nonsense. Jesus here and Paul in 1 Corinthians 1-2 both note that this is intentional on God’s part. He made the message to sound foolish to ears tuned to the rhythms of this world. This is because if we try to enter His kingdom on our terms, we’ll never get in because our terms are so warped by the impact of sin on our reasoning processes.

We ultimately have to be willing to place our faith in Him and His word. It is unavoidably a gift of trust. But it is a gift that He will meet and reward by giving us access in Christ to this eternal kingdom. That’s what Jesus was getting at in v. 27 here. No one knows the Father, no one comes to know God personally, unless Jesus reveals Him to them. He’s our only way. He’ll receive anybody who wants to come and be introduced to God, but we’ve got to go with Him. This is why He told us to go and spread the word. This is why there are missionaries all over the world, working diligently to reduce the number of known people groups who have no access to the Gospel message to zero. In the end, no one will be able to say they didn’t get in because they didn’t know about it. That would be unjust, and God is just.

What Jesus offers us, though, when we enter into His kingdom is more than just knowledge of God. He offers us rest. He offers us rest from our burdens. Rest from our striving. Rest from feeling like everything depends on us. Rest from warring against other tribes. Rest from trying to understand everything. Rest from defending what doesn’t have to be defended. Rest from political weariness. Rest from worry about how an election went. Rest from feeling divided from friends and family members because that don’t share our politics. Rest from worrying about the state of the country if one party or the other wins the day. Rest from fear. Rest from loneliness. Rest from anger. Rest from hatred.

He invites us to place our burdens on Him and to walk with Him as He teaches us how to love freely and humbly. He will journey right alongside us as we learn to show kindness to everyone regardless of who they are or where they are from. He will show us how to create communities where anyone can connect to the kind of relationships they need and have been missing out on until now. He will help us build His church where anyone and everyone can be united by something bigger than any of the other things to which they might have given their highest allegiance and even been willing to fight for, and experience common ground with and familial love from and for people they would have never otherwise met.

This election is probably not going to wind up spelling the end of the country all by itself. But even if it does, our kingdom as followers of Jesus will still persist. The life we have ahead of us will endure no matter what seems to rise up to get in the way. So then, let us live that life boldly and intentionally. Let us follow the path of Christ – the path of love and kindness and humility and gentleness and compassion and mercy and justice and righteousness and hope and joy and peace and goodness and faithfulness and self-control and patience and all the other things that He demonstrated for us, and which have always marked the true church since it first got started. When we do this faithfully and well, there won’t be anything that can ultimately stand in our way.