Our Allegiance to His Allegiance

We began our worship this morning proclaiming the public nature of the gospel. This gospel, the good news that Jesus is King having destroyed the power of sin and death by His death and resurrection and having ascended to the right hand of the Father – this gospel is public. And that means that this table is necessarily also public. Paul says that by this meal, we are proclaiming the death of Jesus until He comes. When you eat this bread and drink this wine, you are eating with your King, you are swearing your public allegiance, your public fealty to King Jesus, proclaiming that you stand with Him and with His saints in life and in death. But this oath that we swear rests on an even more important oath, God’s oath, His covenant, His promise sworn in the blood of His own beloved Son that for all those who trust in Him, their sins are washed away, their lives are hidden with God in Christ, and now nothing can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord: not your sin, not your doubts, not your fears, not your failures, not school boards, not supreme courts, not rogue judges, not presidents or governors or city councils or mayors or cancer or an Ebola virus. You have been purchased by His blood. He has won you. You are His trophy, His prize, His crown. So when we proclaim our allegiance, we proclaim our allegiance to this steadfast love, our allegiance to His oath, our allegiance to His allegiance. Your salvation, your forgiveness, your security does not rest on you; it all rests on Him. Faith is simply leaning into Him. And we proclaim this gospel to the whole world and invite everyone everywhere to come with us to the feast.