June 7, 2026 - “Render Unto God the Things That Are God's”

June 7, 2026-OVUMC 10:30 Spirited Traditional Worship

Pastor Mike Macdonald

The Scriptures are Matthew 22:15-22.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:07

What can was a wheel again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Oh bread that there's not so that makes me white at snow. No other found I know. Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Nothing but the blood of Jesus. For my twenty fitly. Nothing but the blood of kids. Oh break us up. Nothing but the biggest.

SPEAKER_02 3:32

You've probably figured out by now that I am not Pastor Sang or Pastor Justin. I have shoes on. If you're new, my name is Mike McDonald. I'm a retired United Methodist pastor from the Western North Carolina Conference. And we're delighted to be here, and I'm delighted to have this opportunity to preach today. If you would please sign the registration pass or in the Psycho helps us keep track of things here. This is a few weeks or three weeks in a row. We just want to check and make sure everybody's okay. So that helps us do that. Shannon and I were talking, neither of us didn't know of any announcements.

SPEAKER_00 4:40

Good morning. Let us pray. Dear Lord, we gather today with grateful hearts, thanking you for your unending love. We invite your Holy Spirit to move in this place and open our minds to receive your word and our voices to sing your praises. Amen.

SPEAKER_04 4:59

If you'll stand now for the choral in Troy to have a join me in the call to worship, I was glad when they said to me, Let us go to the house of the Lord.

SPEAKER_00 6:12

Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked. For the Lord God is a sun and shield. The Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless. Almighty. Blessed is the one who trusts in you. Now if you'll join us in the uh lead me, Lord, which you can find in your hymnal on page 473, or you can follow along on the screen, and that'll be followed by the praise song No Longer Slaves.

SPEAKER_04 8:37

You surround me with the song of deliverance from my enemies till all my fears were gone. I'm no longer slave to feel I am a child of God, I'm no longer slave to feel I am a child of God from my mother's womb. You have chosen me. I'm not slave to feel I am a child of God, I'm no longer feel I am a child of God, I'm no children of God. I just went round in perfect love. You rescue me to like the stand and street. I am a child of God. I'm no longer slave to feel I am a child of God. I'm no longer slave to feed. I am a child of God.

SPEAKER_00 12:03

While you're standing, please turn around and greet these children of God. Let us pray. Almighty God, we come before you this morning with grateful hearts. You are the light that never fails, the love that never fails, and the hope that never disappoints. We praise you for the beauty of creation, the gift of light, and the grace that makes us new each morning. Your mercy is deeper than the ocean, your faithfulness stronger than the mountains, and your joy brighter than the rising sun. You are a refuge and our strength, our hope in times of trouble, and our peace in every season. We pray for your people, Lord. Strengthen those who are weary, comfort those that are grieving, and bring peace to those who are troubled in spirit. Encourage those who are discouraged, provide for those in need, and guide those sick in wisdom and direction. We pray for the sick, the sick, the lonely, and the hurting, along with those who are prayerless. May they know your healing touch, your comforting presence. We pray for our country and our leaders, our pastors, our church. Unite us in love, and may our hearts be open to your word and our love, our lives transformed by your truth. Hear us now as we unite in one voice and pray the prayer our Lord Jesus taught us. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespassed against us. And lead us not in temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. At this time I'd like to invite the ushers to come forward for our morning tithes and offerings. We return a portion of what you have provided as an act of worship. Please bless these gifts, and may they be used to further support your work at Ocean View and in the community. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap him in what he said. So they sent their disciples to him, along with their odians, saying, Teacher, we know that you are sincere and teach in the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one. For you do not regard people with partiality. Tell us then what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor or not? But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, Why are you putting me into this test? You hypocrisy. Then he said to them, Whose head is this? And whose title? They answered the emperor. Then he said to them, Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperors, and to God the things that are God. When they heard this, they were amazed, and they left him and went away. This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God.

SPEAKER_02 25:52

Thank you, Choir. This is going to be a unique sermon for me. I'm a word nerd, and unique has a very specific meaning. It means one of a kind. And so when I hear somebody say that that's rather unique or somewhat unique, it just grates on every nerve in my body. Because either it is unique or it isn't. One of a kind or it isn't. And for me now, this is going to be a unique sermon. Now it's going to be unusual in a couple of ways, but not unique. And one way that it's going to be unusual is that I'm going to preach a topical sermon. About, and I didn't just, this is a real number. I've preached in 50 years somewhere around 2,000 sermons. And this might be about the 20th topical sermon that I've preached. I almost always do exegetical, which is a fancy seminary word that means I take one passage and I just dig as deep as I can into that one passage. But of course, today I'm going to be going on the topic and going all across the Bible to see what different verses in the Bible say about that. So that leads to the second thing that's going to be unusual for me. I've done this before, but it's been 28 years since I've done it. But I'm going to be quoting a lot of scripture, as I said, and I just didn't want to try to memorize all those different scriptures. So I'm going to be reading some things from my notes. So those things make it unusual for me. But here's the thing that makes it unique for my preaching. Every other sermon I've ever preached, almost 2,000, I've been aiming for the head and the heart. I've wanted to inform and inspire. But today, I'm not anti-heart, but I want to speak to your head. Okay? In uh Galatians chapter 1, verse 18, God says to his people, come, let us reason together. And so that's what I want my sermon today to be in the spirit of us coming together as a congregation to reason together about the word of God. Now my topic is this. It's a question, is Christian nationalism a Christian? Now I'm pretty sure some of you are irritated, maybe even irate, because people don't want religion uh the politics brought into the church. And I pretty much agree with that. I've never been a political preacher. I've never told people how to vote, what party to support, and I'm not going to do that today. In fact, I promise you, I'm not going to talk about politics today. It's all going to be about religion, or better, it's all going to be about our Christian faith exclusively. Christian nationalism has two parts. The nationalism, which is the more political, and I'm not going to talk about that. But then the Christian part. I think that's an appropriate subject for a preacher and for a congregation. So we're going to be talking about is the nationalism within Christianism, is the Christianity within Christian nationalism true to the gospel? Okay? Now, what is Christian nationalism? Well, the first thing I need to say is, when I say Christian nationalism, I'm not calling them an ugly name. That's how they refer to themselves. They say, we are Christian nationalists. And, you know, I could talk an hour just trying to define it, but I won't do that. But the Christian nationalists believe that Christians should be in charge of American society. They identified seven key areas in which Christians must control society: family, religion, education, media, entertainment, business, and government. There is a book of essays about Christian nationalism written by Christian nationalists, for Christian nationalists, and it's been called Invading Babylon, The Seven Mountain Mandate. And this is what it says in the introduction to the book. Each chapter offers a different perspective on relevant ways to infiltrate and influence our society with Christian values and standards. And the word infiltrate is defined as enter or gain access to an organization, place, etc., surreptiously and gradually. Okay, so the question is, are we called, as Christians, to rule over society? And I'm not going to be acute, but the answer is no. You remember after Christ had fasted in the wilderness for 40 days, then the Satan came to tempt him? And one of the temptations is Satan said to Jesus, look at all these powers and kingdoms and nations. And if you'll just worship me, I'll give them all to you. So you see the temptation to try to rule over the world the nations? That comes from Satan, not Jesus. That's in direct contrast to what he just taught, what Jesus taught. You also remember when James and John came to Jesus, and they said, Lord, when you come into your glory, grant us to be seated one at your right hand and one at your left hand. Now they weren't talking about where they wanted to sit up in heaven. The Jews of Jesus' day, including his disciples, wanted a Messiah who would be a military figure who would come in, kick out the Romans, re-establish the kingdom of David as a great political power on earth, claiming all the territory that had ever belonged to David and Solomon. And so when Jesus was the great king over this new Israel, they wanted to be at his right and left hand. Now when the other ten disciples heard this, as you can imagine, they were pretty, oh it's a word I want to use, but it's not polite for church, they were pretty hacked. And this is what Jesus said to them. So Jesus called them and said to them, You know that among the Gentiles, those whom they recognize as their ruler lords it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you. Instead, whoever wishes to become great among you should be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be a slave to all. For the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve. Jesus, don't try to be up there lording it over people. I came to serve, and that's what I want you to do, is to serve. Now the the Christian nationalists have what they call the dominion mandate. Dominion means in control, having dominion. And they base this on the Great Commission. When Jesus, after his resurrection, says to the disciples, go there, go therefore into all nations, baptizing in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. And make disciples. And so they say, when Jesus says make disciples, he's talking about being charge of the nations. That's make these nations into the disciples take control. With all of our Bible studies and Sunday school, this is a very biblically literate congregation. So this is not a rhetorical question. I want somebody to say it. What's the rest of that passage? They left something out. What's the rest of it say? Go therefore. Baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And oh, y'all don't make me liars. Come on. Teaching them to observe all that I have taught you. So the Great Commission is not about going out and ruling. It's about going out and teaching people about the Word of God. So we're not called, as the people of God, we're not called to rule over society. We're called to serve and to teach. Now the second aspect of Christian nationalism I want to talk about is the idea that God loves Christians more than non-Christians. Their idea about our country is that it was established by Christians for Christians, and therefore Christians should be in charge. Now I'm not going to talk about the accuracy of that or any of that because that is the political part. I promise you, I wasn't going to go there. But it's based on the idea that God loves Christians more than non-Christians. And that because God loves Christians more than non-Christians, we don't have to show non-Christians the same love and caring that we show to our fellow Christians. Now, this is not really a new problem in Christianity and Judaism. From day one, when God said, You are my chosen people, there's been a great temptation to take that to mean that we are God's, that God loves us more than he loves other people. We're just his favorites. And it's possible to read the Bible that way. If you go to Genesis 12, 3, you can read this. Now the Lord said to Abram, Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house, the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse. If you stop there, that sounds like, hey, all right, pat ourselves on the back. Yay, God, He's for us. We're His people. But just like I didn't read to the end of the Great Commission, I didn't read to the end of Genesis 12, 3. So this time I'm going to read it to the end. Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and those who curse you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. God's purpose of blessing Christians is so that we can be a blessing to all the people in the world. Another place in the Bible it says he has made you a royal priesthood. And what do priests do? Priests bless people. Priests look after people. They don't rule over people. They bless and protect and serve. And God calls us to be a blessing to all nations. Another passage I want to share is from 2nd Isaiah. I can't prove this, but I am absolutely convinced for myself that when Jesus taught us to pray, Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven, this is the passage that he was thinking of first and foremost. And this will probably sound familiar to you. This is from Isaiah 2, 1 through 6. The word that Isaiah son of Amah saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. In days to come, the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills. All the nations shall stream to it. Many people shall come and say, Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways, and that we may walk in his paths. For out of Zion shall go forth instruction and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations and shall arbitrate for many peoples. They shall beat their sword into plow shares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nations shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. O house of Jacob, come and let us walk in the light of the Lord. God's vision for creation for earth is not one group of people ruling over the others. It's for all the nations to live together in harmony. And yes, all the people are coming to Jerusalem. Not to be ruled over, but to learn, to be instructed, so that they too might walk in the path of the Lord. Now, Jesus dealt directly with this issue of what kind of love do we owe to non-Christians? The parable of the Good Samaritan, lots of times is we're we think it means the lesson is we should help other people. And that's that's not wrong, but it's far from right. You see, we hear all these names in the Bible about Hittites and Amorites and this it and that it. They're just names to us, they mean nothing. But the Jews of Jesus' day knew who these different peoples were. And at the top of their list of hatred, and hatred is not too strong of a word, at the top of their list for hatred were the Samaritans. Now it was mutual. The Samaritans felt the same way about the Jews. And so when the lawyer asked Jesus, what is the greatest commandment? Not in good faith, it says to test him. A lot of that going around with Jesus. But he said, What is the greatest commandment? And Jesus said, Well, you answer. You tell me. What do you say? And he quoted two of the most familiar passages out of the Old Testament. You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart and all of your mind and your strength, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself. He said, Hey, A plus, go to the hell of a class. That's right. But the lawyer couldn't help himself. He was a lawyer. And when he says, and who is my neighbor? He was looking for a loophole. Because the more narrow you can define who is my neighbor, the fewer people you have to love as you love yourself. And the more people you can put outside of the neighbor category, the more people that you can rule over and control. Take advantage of. So when Jesus tells the parable of the good Samaritan, he's not just saying help people. He's saying to that lawyer, when you're told to love your neighbor, that includes Samaritan. Today he might say that includes. Muslims. The people that a lot of Christians think it's okay to hate because they're out. They've rejected God. They're outside of God's care. He's saying, even the Samaritan is your neighbor. And look what else he does. He makes the Samaritan, this despised Samaritan, the hero of the story. And he asks the lawyer, now which of these proved neighbor? And the lawyer hates the Samaritan so much he can't say, well, the Samaritan, he just says, the one who. Didn't want that word in his mouth. And we got a lot of retired preachers here and active preachers. I don't think Jesus would have too much respect for our nation. Because it's a priest and a Levi that walk by on the other side. I don't know, a mailman or something. But then he is saying that maybe that so-called heathen Samaritan knows more about God's love than the professional religious people. See, when they heard that, when the Jews heard that, they understood it. And a few of them might have said, oh yes, that's good. But probably most of them were angry. Because they had just been told that they had to love the Samaritans just like they loved themselves, just like they loved their fellow Jews. Now, today, a lot of the Christian nationalist preachers say to hate people, Muslims at the top of the list. This is what Jesus said. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you might be children of your Father in heaven. To follow Christ, we can hate no one. Even if they are our enemy. And this feeds into the idea that God loves Christians more than non-Christians, and that our country is for Christians. And so it's okay to mistreat non-Christians and immigrants. Because we don't have to love them like we love our neighbors. Now, I'm not going to talk about immigration policy, green cards, and asylum. There's nothing about that in the Bible. That's the political end of it. And I promise you, I'm not going to talk about politics. But I am going to talk about the Christian gospel. And you might be surprised at how often and how specific the Bible addresses the issue of how to treat aliens, immigrants, whatever phrase you want to use, but how to treat them once they're here. Once they're here. Slaves don't think that's okay. And we're told to remember that we are slaves, not slave masters. Why bring this up? It agitates people. It's not comfortable to talk about. So why talk about? Why bring it up? Well, I don't think the issue now is so much about preachers bringing politics into the church. I mean, I won't say that never happens, but mostly what we're dealing with now is politicians trying to drag the church into politics by claiming that what they are doing is in the name of God and is acceptable and desired by God. Silence gives consent. So we must speak out to prevent two things from happening. One is that people might not know better and they hear all this and think, oh, okay, that's cool. I can be that kind of Christian. That's taking them away from the gospel. Or people look at the cruelty, the favoritism to certain groups, and say, that's repulsive. I want no part of that. And reject the true gospel. Not realizing that what they're rejecting is the false gospel. Silence gives consent. And we must render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's. And how we love and treat other people belongs to God. And only to God.

SPEAKER_03 52:48

People in need of forgiveness, of grace, and of mercy. Here we come together. Because we do not control this table. This is God's table. And God gets to say who gets to sit and who gets to come. So as we come to this table this morning, here we do communion in several ways. Our primary way is intinction, where you receive a piece of bread, you take that piece of bread, you dip it in the cup, and you partake. Another way is we have little pre-filled cups that are all gluten-free. So feel free to use those if you need that. But we also have gluten-free bread for intinction with a separate cup. You can take it at your seat with the cup, you can come to the altar with your cup, or you can receive, and then pray at the altar. So I invite you now to go through the liturgy of the great Thanksgiving, of the reminder of what this table is. So the Lord be with you. Lift up your heart. Let us give thanks to the Lord our God. It is right and a good and joyful thing, always and everywhere, to give thanks to you, Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth. And so with your people on earth and the people in the company of heaven, we praise your name and we join your unending hymn. Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might. Heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Holy are you, and blessed is your Son Jesus Christ. By the baptism of his suffering, death, and resurrection, you gave birth to your church, delivered us from slavery to sin and death, and made with us a new covenant by water and the spirit. On the night in which he gave himself up for you. He took bread. He gave thanks to you and he broke it. He gave it to his disciples and said, Take. This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me. And then he said to his disciples as he gave it to him, drink this to all of you. This is my blood of the new covenant poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this as often as you drink it. In remembrance of me. And so, in remembrance of these, your mighty acts in Jesus Christ, we offer ourselves the praise and thanksgiving as a holy and living sacrifice in union with Christ Church, offering for us as we proclaim the mystery of faith. Christ is risen. Christ will come again. Pour out your Holy Spirit on us gathered here and on these gifts of bread and wine. Make them be for us the body and blood of Christ that we may be for the world the body of Christ, redeemed by his blood. By your spirit, make us one with Christ, one with each other, and one in ministry to all the world, until Christ comes in final victory, and we feast at his heavenly banquet. Through your Son Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit in your holy church, all honor and glory is yours, Almighty Father, now and forever. Amen. I invite our communion stewards to come forward. Let us pray. Eternal God, we give you thanks for this holy mystery in which you have given yourself to us. Grant that we may go into the world in the strength of your spirit to give ourselves for others. In the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, we pray. Amen.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:19

If you want to stand, and we're going to sing, they'll know we are Christians by our love.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:00

We will one day be restored, and they'll know we are Christians by our love, but our love and no we are Christians by our love. We'll walk with each other, we will walk hand in hand, we will walk with each other, we will walk head in hand, and do Brandon is that God is in our land, and now no, we are Christians by our love, by our love, yes, now we are Christians by our love We will work with each other, we will work side by side, we will work with each other, we will work side by side, and we'll curve and give them by Android, we are Christmas by our Lord, by our Lord, and the no, we are Christmas by our love. And all praise to the first week that I thought he's done, and all praise to the spirit who makes us fun.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:36

And the no be a Christian I love, I don't know, the no be a Christmas I love you who were uh here last week, uh we're not losing our mind. We know we sang that last week, too. But I like it because this was the perfect song. In front of you to lead you, and beside you to comfort you. Now I am for it.