Title: What have you got to lose?
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Intro:
When you were in school, I suspect you had to learn the Pledge of Allegiance. You probably also had to recite it most mornings, and if you were like me, you probably did so without realizing how offensive it really was. There is one little phrase – just two words – that completely changes the entire thing. There are two words that if they weren’t just rote recitation really should have made us stop and really think pretty hard every morning about what we were saying. It was just two words that should never be spoken lightly: Pledge and Allegiance.
I know, you were probably thinking I was going to something else. But those two words – pledge and allegiance really are the focus of what the pledge is about, and I’d challenge anyone to convince me otherwise. But those two words – pledge and allegiance shouldn’t be something we speak lightly. Especially today, in a society were we value freedom and autonomy and getting for ourselves more than anything else. Those are some pretty counter-cultural words.
This morning we’re just read a pledge of allegiance in scripture. And, yes, in that one, it truly was ‘under God.’ But this morning, I really want to think about those words, what it means when we pledge that allegiance. I want you to get the full force of what is being asked. They’re both words you know, but it’s worth pausing to reflect on what they mean.
That first word – pledge – is more than just something the preacher expects you to cough up when the money’s short. A pledge is a promise – a sacred contract that you freely offer. I know I just made fun of it, but think about what it means when you pledge to your church or the local PBS station. It’s a promise that you make that says, “I will support this. I’ll give you my money, my prayers, I stand with this.”
Especially out here where we live amongst farmers, we know what it means to give our word. It’s not something we ever do lightly. If we break our pledge, people don’t trust us, and if we break our pledge, they really shouldn’t either. Faithfulness, truthfulness – these are things we want to expect.
So, we know that we are going to promise something by saying a pledge. But what is it that we are going to promise? Well, our allegiance. Back in medieval days, your liege was the guy in the castle who kept you safe when the barbarian horde came up over the mountain. He promised to lay his life for you. In return, you promised you’d stick by him no matter what. He was the Lord of the Manor, and you did what he said – or else when the horde came? Well, he wouldn’t let you in.
Nowadays, there are lot fewer barbarians around, so we don’t have nearly as many ‘liege-ences as we used to. That said – eight years ago, on July 11th, 1998, I certainly pledged my allegiance to one woman in particular. I said, no matter what, I’m going to stick with you. Whether we’re rich or poor, sick or healthy, whether our kids go to Harvard or San Quentin, I’m stickin’ with you. We promised we’d be there for each other, no matter what.
Nine days out of ten, we know why made that promise, and on the tenth day – well, sometimes we just have to remember that we did. After being together for as long as we have been and especially now that we have had two great kids together, it’s just not fair to say, “Oh, I’m not in love with you today, so you’re on your own, baby.” We pledge our allegiance to our wives or our husbands, because we love them and we know that they love us. It doesn’t matter if the kids are screaming, I don’t have to wonder.
When we pledge our allegiance to the flag, and to the republic for which it stands, we’re making the same declaration. It may do things we don’t like from time to time, but we know that it’s been good to us. And let’s face it – for every scandal or mishap or bad policy we can cite from the news, we also know that in our day to day lives, this is still a country that does great things.
But as Christians, we have one more allegiance – and its one that’s even better. We have chosen to freely pledge our allegiance, not to our family, which may last 50 years, or to some country which hasn’t even been around 500 years – but rather we have given our allegiance to the God who has been around every one of the years that ever has been or ever will be.
We’ve pledged our highest allegiance to the highest one of them all.
Some days, you might not understand him. Some days, you might not even like him. But try living just a few minutes completely without him. You can’t! He’s everywhere. He is the very author of our lives, he is the one who gives us breath.
But guess what? An evil god could demand our allegiance – he could even compel it. But our God doesn’t do that. He asks us, begs with us and pleads with us to choose him. He woos us like a lover. Most of the time, he’s so subtle, we don’t even notice.
But then, we look out at the garden and we see that little bouquet of day lilies he gave us, growing where we didn’t plant them, but where the wind did. Sometimes, we look at the sunset, and if we’re in tune with it, we realize he’s given us a beautiful picture to hang on the walls of our minds. We breathe in and we smell the scent of chocolates he has sent our way, and they don’t even add a pound.
He’s a good God.
But sometimes, there are rivals for our affections, and that’s when we have to ask ourselves, do we really want to pledge our allegiance to him? Sometimes, that unkind remark we could make just seems so sweet. That forbidden fruit tempts us. Oh, our God, we think? He’s a pushover – why should I listen to him? Or we think to ourselves. That God of ours, he’s so unfair. He wants me to love him more than anybody else. Who does he think he is? God? Well, Ok, you know what I mean.
It comes in very subtle ways.
Maybe we see that attractive person over there and just fantasize for a minute. What would it be like if I… But our God has simply said ‘No.’ Lovingly, to be sure – but sometimes love means you say No, not for your own good, but for theirs.
Maybe it’s that Sunday morning football game or that late Saturday night that tells you – choose your bed. Stay at home where its comfortable and where I’m happy. Who wants to go hear that boring old preacher read from that dusty old book anyway? But is that really your allegiance?
Or maybe it’s direct. When that person mocks our God in front of you and everyone else – God? Why that’s just some narrow-minded backward superstition. Nobody with any sophistication or class believes in him any more. Are you willing to stand up and say, “No! That’s my God you’re talking about. I’ve chosen him, and he’s been good to me.” Or, will you just let slide?
Ultimately, every sin you can name boils down to just one question. Will you hold your allegiance to your God, or will you listen to his enemy, the world? One way or the other, the very presence of sin means that you will lose something. Either you will die to your own sin, or your old self will be crucified. Either way, it will no longer be you who live. But if your allegiance is with Christ, let me tell you that Christ will live in you.
In a conflict of loyalties, let me implore you, choose God at all costs.
Especially on July 4th, when you think about allegiance – when you think about loyalty, there is one name that leaps head and shoulders above the rest.
He was only 21 years old when the British took Manhattan. A young schoolteacher, a graduate of Yale University, he had signed up right after the Battle of Lexington and Concord. When General Washington had to retreat from New York, he volunteered to stay behind and report on British troop movements. He was a spy, and there was nothing dishonorable about that for him.
On September 21, 1776, he was caught. On his body they found maps and letters that made it clear what he had done. Had he been wearing his country’s uniform, he would have become a POW. As it was, he could be treated like any other civilian and be executed for his crime.
The next morning, as he was being led to the gallows, he was asked if he had any regrets. You and I both know Nathan Hale’s response: I regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.
But do you know who turned him in? It was one Major Robert Rogers, and old American war hero from the French and Indian Days. If it can be said that any European pioneered the concept of the hit and run, invisible guerilla warfare that is completely contrary to the stilted uniformed battles of the past – that would be Major Robert Rogers. In large part, the fact that settlers were able to move over the Appalachians was due to him.
But Major Rogers loved the applause of high society, he also liked to drink and gamble. And so, deep in debt and intoxicated by the lures of what he missed, he simply sold his allegiance to the highest bidder. First, he tried to offer his services to George Washington, but was refused. So, he sold his services to the British, not altogether unlike that other great American general, Benedict Arnold.
You see, unlike Nathan Hale, Robert Rogers didn’t realize that
sometimes allegiance means you have to give something up.
Most of the time, when we think about making pledges in order to secure something desirable, we ask ourselves, “What have you got to lose?” And, when it comes to a great God like ours, that’s a reasonable question.
But sometimes, we forget the admonition of Scripture – as we read earlier. The question isn’t, “What have I got to lose?” but “What have I – What must I lose?” There is an old life that isn’t always compatible with the allegiance we’ve chosen. And its in those times that we really must choose, which life am I going to live?
Truth is all of these guys are dead – Arnold, Roberts, and Hale. Not one of the fleshly lives they lived is still available to them. One of these days, we will be gone too. But if we choose our allegiance well, we can still live with our liege, our Lord of all.
Ultimately, we can choose loyalty to our Lord or to ourselves. Whose allegiance do you pledge?
Would you pray with me?
Long Branch Baptist Church
Halfway, Virginia; est. 1786
Sunday, July 02, 2006
Enter to Worship
Prelude David Witt
Invocation Psalm 30
*Opening Hymn #508
“America the Beautiful”
Welcome & Announcements
Morning Prayer
*Responsive Reading [See Right]
*Offertory Hymn [See Insert]
“And Can it Be?”
Offertory Mr. Witt
*Doxology
*Scripture Matthew 10:26-34, 37-40
Sermon
“What Have You Got to Lose?”
Invitation Hymn #191
“I Have Decided”
Benediction
Congregational Response
May the grace of Christ of Savior / And the Father’s boundless love
With the Holy Spirit’s favor / Rest upon us from above. Amen.
* Congregation, please stand.
Depart To Serve
RESPONSIVE READING
What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Don’t they come from the evil desires at war within you?
You want what you don’t have, so you will do anything to get it.
You are jealous of what others have, but you can’t get it, so you fight and wage war to take it away from them. Yet you don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God for it."
You adulterers, disloyal to God! Don’t you realize that friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God?
I say it again: If you want to be a friend of the world, you make yourself an enemy of God.
What do you think the Scriptures mean when they say God yearns jealously for that the spirit he placed within us?
But he gives us even more grace to stand against such evil desires. As the Scriptures say, “God opposes the proud but favors the humble.”
So humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come close to God, and God will come close to you.
Wash your hands, you double-minded sinners; purify your hearts, for your loyalty is divided between God and the world.
My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
But if you refuse to serve the Lord, then choose today whom you will serve. Would you prefer the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates? Or will it be the gods of the Amorites in whose land you now live? But as for me and my family, we will serve the Lord.” And the people replied,
We would never abandon the Lord and serve those other gods. For the Lord our God is the one who rescued us and our ancestors from slavery in the land of Egypt. He performed mighty miracles before our very eyes. As we traveled through the wilderness among our enemies, he protected us."
-James 4:1-9; Galatians 2:20; Joshua 24:15-17
