The Civility Challenge

Before I dive into the message for this morning, I just want to give you a little sneak preview of what's coming up. We start a new series next weekend called "Every Day Sacred," and this is about how do I bring my faith into my everyday life, not just leave it on Sunday, but how do I get it Monday through, you know, Saturday, my speech, my attitudes, my relationships. This is a verse-by-verse series in the book of James in the Bible. I am super stoked about this. I think you guys will love it. It's gonna be our summer series this year. It starts next weekend. Hope you can join us too.

Now grab your message notes that look like this as we wrap up our series, "Counterculture Christ." Now we've been doing in this series, we've been seeing how in our cultural moment right now in our country, we are dealing with three big issues: out of control materialism, just raging anxiety like we've never seen before in our culture, and incivility at just toxic levels. And we've been noticing how Jesus, in the heart of the Sermon on the Mount, addresses all those three issues in order.

And so what we've been doing is we've been going through the very middle of his most famous sermon, the Sermon on the Mount, verse by verse, to see what Jesus has to say about those very relevant issues. And this morning we wrap up with incivility. What is incivility? Well, you can define it this way: disrespect, rudeness, the negative toxic atmosphere of constant condemnation and judgment of others at the drop of a hat that is so rampant in our country right now.

Does it feel to you like everywhere you go people are more angry than they used to be? Like on the road, there's people more angry and in stores and restaurants, and it's just like there's this contagious incivility going on right now in our culture. Everybody is talking about it. In fact, CBS started their Sunday morning newscast like this: "Just how rude has life become? And just how much is the tone of our politics to blame?" Our cover story is reported by Martha Teichner.

Does it sometimes seem as if our politics has us all backed into our ideological corners? Does it seem as if insults and name-calling have taken the place of civil dialogue that incivility has gone viral? Incivility has gone viral, and viral is really the word one researcher uses. This little animation shows how incivility is like a bug. It spreads virally, and most people believe we are in an epidemic of this right now.

A brand new survey that came out last week shows that 95% of Americans believe we have an incivility problem. Basically, every single person, no matter if you're left, right, in between, or you don't care, everybody's like this is out of control right now. Seventy percent believe incivility has risen to crisis levels. Eighty-four percent have personally experienced incivility, and I find this next one really sad and alarming: 59% say they've quit paying attention to politics because of incivility. They're just sick of it.

Just sick of what they're seeing coming out of D.C. and politicians on the left and right just calling each other names and acting like kindergarten bullies. And what's happening is that most of us, 59%, are withdrawing from participation in our democracy because they're so sick of that kind of behavior. And so, by the way, if the rest of us withdraw from participation in democracy, then who's left? The bullies.

So how are we going to get over this? What are we going to do about it, and why is there so much incivility in our culture right now? What is happening in this cultural moment? Well, sociologists are starting to study this, and they have a name for this. Now they say this happens in every culture all the time, but in America, there has never been a cultural moment where they believe this has been higher. It's a phenomenon they call tribalism. That means Americans are all in their own little tribes, and everybody outside of my tribe is an idiot.

Now some of you are thinking, "Not me, I don't do that." Well, let me demonstrate right now how this is happening right here in this room. You're so good at this; this is kind of an experiment. This is a little edgy for us. I'm gonna ask you some questions about where you stand on basic divisions in American society, and I want everybody to shout out which side you are on, all right? And be very honest, right? Can we do this? We're all Christians here. Here are some current divisions in our society that everybody's talking about. Ready? Are you Coke or Pepsi? Just go ahead and shout it out right now.

Wow! All right, I picked one right away. All right, Niners or Raiders? Let me put it this way: Niners or Las Vegas Raiders? Raider fans—oh, sorry, too soon. Dodgers or Giants? I am surprised that Dodger fans dared to yell out their choice right there. All right, now I could move on. I could ask some really substantive things, things that really matter. Maybe I could ask—I won't—but I could ask Democrat or Republican. I could ask D.C. or Marvel. But instead, I'm gonna go straight for actually what is legitimately probably the most divisive issue in our culture, especially in churches and families today: are you over or under? Just shout it out right now.

Wow, there are some passionate people here! You know what I found in every service? In every single service, the over people are like, "Anyone who's not in my tribe is an idiot!" Right? How can you not be an over? Seriously, we're all getting into our own little tribes, and what happens, obviously, on a lot of other issues, you start to think that everybody outside your own little group, they're all bad. But I love what Rick Warren said: "In America, we've got to learn how to disagree without demonizing each other." Amen.

So how do we do that? Well, Jesus talks about it in Matthew 7, and you and I really need to listen to this because, you know what else is interesting? In that poll I just quoted from, it was the one where 95% of the vast majority of people say absolutely we have an incivility problem on our hands. Yet, watch this: when asked, "Do you see yourself as part of the problem?" almost everybody answered, "Well, no." Isn't that amazing? It's all those idiots out there.

Jesus says, "Listen, you got to start with yourself." I call his teaching the civility challenge because if you and I don't start with ourselves, then literally nothing is ever going to change on this issue. So he calls us to take a closer look at our own actions, our own attitudes, because incivility was actually tearing apart the society of Jesus Christ too, if you know anything about the first century.

So let's start with Matthew 7, starting in verse 1, and let's read this out loud together. All right, let me hear you. Here we go: "Judge not, or you too will be judged." This is one of the most popular verses in the Bible, and it's also probably one of the most misused verses in the Bible. Everybody wants to approach this and interpret it from their own direction to make life easier on themselves. Like I've heard people say, "Hey, the Bible says judge not, so mind your own business. Do not tell me what's right or wrong. Do not tell me how to live my own life." Mom and dad, is that what Jesus meant here? Did he mean never critique, never discern, never correct anybody, never help somebody going astray? I don't think that's what Jesus meant.

In fact, I'll say there are times that I need my sister and my brother in Christ to say, "René, you are thinking wrong, you are doing wrong, you are saying wrong." All right? Now, religious people misuse this verse too. In fact, it was interesting; I googled sermons on this this past Monday when I wrote this sermon, and the vast majority of messages I found—I mean, it was like, I don't know, man, 80% of them were all about basically how it doesn't really mean don't judge. Christians really should be judging. We should be telling all those bad people in the big bad world how bad they are because we stand for righteousness. And actually, I don't think that's what Jesus means here either.

And I've also heard this verse used by—and this is probably the worst misapplication—unjust rulers and corrupt pastors and politicians and abusive husbands and fathers to say, "Don't protest against my actions because the Bible says don't judge." And that is definitely not what Jesus meant. So what does this verse mean? Well, I think it's very straightforward, but let me use an object lesson to explain. I'm gonna put a picture on the screen, this kind of a vintage object, and I want you to see if you can tell me what this is. Shout it out. This is a what? Very good! We've got some old-school people. This is one of those old tape labelers. How many of you used to love these old tape labelers? Right?

When I was a kid, I could entertain myself literally four hours with these things. I will never forget the very first time I borrowed one from a friend, and I borrowed like five of his tape rolls that would go in these things, and I used them all up. I was happy for—I literally labeled every single thing in my life. I started with the reason I borrowed it: the dividers in my school notebooks, you know, science, math, English. And then I went crazy as I realized all the labeling possibilities. It struck me everything in my life needs a label. I'll never lose anything again! I'll be neat from now on.

So every drawer on my dresser got a label. I got a label: socks, underwear, like I might forget. And then each shelf on my bookshelf: Hardy Boy's books go here, Charlie Brown books go over here, and then on to everything else in my room: desk, chair, lamp. If anybody who didn't know me had toured our house, they would have thought I was an exchange student studying English because everything, light switch, it was all labeled in my room.

But you know what? I think that is still one of the favorite things for most people to play with. It's very entertaining, the label maker. We especially love to label people. You can't see those labels, but they're still there: he's a bad guy, she's weird, he's cool. And the labels we put on people early on when they're little, they tend to stick for life, for good or bad. You probably still remember labels that were put on you as a kid: you were a brain, you were a jock, you were an artist, a klutz, you were skinny, fat, so hyper. And the labels can still hurt, can't they?

Well, here's what's really sad: a lot of people see Christians as nothing but labelers, and they see church as a giant labeling society. We sit in here, and what we do, a lot of people perceive, is put labels on people: those people out there especially, they're sinful, they're worldly, they're unspiritual. And that perception that we sit around labeling people, that is a problem if we ever want to reach people. And you know what is an even worse problem than the perception that we are like that? The fact that we are like that sometimes, and that's the tendency that Jesus is addressing in this verse: kind of a personal or religious tribalism that leads to labeling those others out there.

You size them up and you write them off. And I don't know about you, but I really need to hear this because although I really like to think of myself as not having a problem with this, as being like a non-judgmental person, there are times when I can be so self-righteous. And of course, we're always blind to how we label other people, but I do. And I mean, I'm gonna take a risk and be very honest with you about the people that I tend to label. I think I feel good about myself because it's not the kind of people that most Christians tend to label. I tend to label other Christians, if I'm honest.

I tend to look—I tend to stereotype entire denominations, and I'll say, "Well, those Christians over there, they mean well, but they're really all about the ritual, very ritualistic church, and probably these people don't have a personal relationship with Jesus." Just there's a label! Just wrote off several million people. Or these people over here, they're very emotional, and they're really interested in kind of phenomenon and emotional things, and they really don't really have any depth. Let me just put a label on another several million people. And these people over here, they bring their Bibles to church and they study their Bibles a lot. They sure know their Bibles, but they don't do anything for the community, though, not like we do. Label, size them up, and write them off.

And God's been convicting me about that. I don't think I've ever said that out loud, but in my heart of hearts, now people might break out of that stereotype, might go, and I might think to myself, "Well, what a wonderful exception to the label. Everybody else deserves." Now, you may not deal with that. You may never struggle with labeling people. You may never struggle with judging people at all. You may never have a problem with people who hold different political opinions than you. You may never stereotype people who voted different than you or people who look different than you or people who say bad things about Christians or bad things about you. All of that may just roll right off your back, but I have a feeling that all of us here need to listen to what Jesus says.

So here's the civility challenge: before you judge, always filter your responses through these four principles. And I really want to challenge you to make this daily. So I made them rhyme. I made them spell out a word. I did everything I could to try to make these memorable. But also grab your message notes, and I want to challenge you to look over this outline every day and to try to consciously filter all your responses this week. Try it this week to see what a difference it might make.

So you can—I made them spell out the word R-I-S-E: rise. So you can rise above the incivility fray. And this isn't just to improve the temperature of our society; this will improve the temperature of your marriage, of your working relationships, of your relationships with your kids, everybody you're in a relationship with. So R-I-S-E. R stands for the principle of reflection. Reflection: whatever you give out gets reflected back at you when it comes to how you treat people.

So before you say anything, ask: Am I willing for this content and tone to reflect back on me? Verse 2: Jesus says, "For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured right back to you." Jesus is—that's what's gonna happen. So do you want to have your cynicism or your criticism and your tone? Are you willing for that to be reflected right back at you? Well then go ahead.

As Jesus says right after this passage, in kind of the conclusion to the sermon, in verse 12: "So in everything do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the law of the prophets." To our point today, you could paraphrase it: judge unto others as you would have them judge unto you. So just think about that for just a second. How would you like people to judge you? What would you like? Because people are gonna judge you. How would you like them to judge you? I'll go first: I would like them to judge not, but if that's not possible, then I'd like them to judge accurately, completely.

In other words, when you judge me—and actually, I do need judgment sometimes. I do need it. I need guidance. But I'd like you to judge me accurately, as in completely. I'd like you to know me well enough to take my current stresses and pressures under consideration, my family background under consideration, all the struggles I've gone through in my life under consideration. In other words, I want you to judge me in context. And isn't that what you want? You want people to see the whole story. Isn't that how you want to be judged?

You want to be judged only on that one bad decision you made or only on that whatever? You don't want people to judge you only on your tattoo or only on your haircut or only on the car you drive or only on the neighborhood you live in. You want to tell people, "Please put this—put whatever you see in context." You know, a youth pastor mentor of mine named Chap Clark once told me, "René, you're gonna be preaching sermons, and people are gonna come up to you so angry afterwards about something that you said that really made them upset." Or they'll email you; they'll be so mad. It happens almost every week. But I'm so glad I got this advice from him. But he said, "When that happens to you, always say this phrase to yourself: there's a story behind that."

You may never know why whatever you said just triggered something, but tell—be gracious to them and tell yourself, "There's a story behind that." And if I knew the story, I would understand why they're responding to me that way. This is such a great tool. Tell yourself when somebody you see is acting in ways that you would never see as acceptable, "There's a story. There's a context that I don't know." And this really helps when you're tempted to judge.

There's an old ad campaign with this as a theme. I want you to watch a couple of these. Look at the screen. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that killed him! When you don't know the whole context, it's easy to judge hastily because that's the way you'd like it reflected back at you. And then the second principle is this: the principle of introspection. Ask yourself, "If I made a rigorously honest self-inventory first of my own character defects?" This is where Jesus goes in the next verse: "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? Why do you do that?" Well, actually, that's kind of an easy question to answer, isn't it? Why do I do that? Well, one, it's way more fun, right?

Two, it's way easier because actually I didn't even know I had a plank in my own eye, right? And that's why Jesus says, "How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there's a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite! First take the plank out of your own eye." Now watch this because then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. When I have processed my own mess, then I'm actually able to help you with your mess because then I'm coming from a place of humility and a place of experience.

And you know what else? You are much more likely to receive my comments when I say, "Look, I struggle with this." In fact, you want to learn how to help people without judging people? Learn to honestly say, "I struggle with this." When you can honestly say that, guess what? People are going to receive what you say to them. Watch this because then you're not a judge; you're a guide. People don't want to judge, but they love a guide. And you can only be a guide when you've gone through the process of introspection and looked at yourself first.

And then the third part of the civility challenge is this: before you say a word, filter everything through the principle of selection. Select carefully who you critique. Ask: Is this the right person, place, and time for this message? Jesus says, "Concentrate on the receptive." Here's the way he puts it in the next verse, verse 6: "Do not give dogs what is sacred; don't throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet and then turn and tear you to pieces." He's saying concentrate on receptive people.

And by the way, would you agree with this? There are times that you're receptive and times you're not receptive, right? I mean, you can turn from a receptive person into a non-receptive, defensive person in the same day. What's a key? Timing is key. Late at night, right before your spouse drifts off to sleep is probably not the right time to say, "We need to have a serious talk about the things you do that drive me crazy." They're not going to be receptive. That's "pearls to pigs" time then.

But this verse goes even deeper than that. Watch this: Jesus is using words "dogs" and "pigs" that were words used in his Jewish culture to refer to Gentiles, to people outside the faith. Now, to our modern ears, those words sound like an insult, but they're not. The principle is this: there are some teachings that are meant for insiders, not Gentiles, not outsiders. In other words, the Christian ethic is really for those who are committed to being Christians. Does that make sense?

So don't hold those to it who haven't even claimed to be Christians. Or here's another way to put it: don't be surprised when the world acts worldly, right? That's what the world is. Don't yell at the world. Be less worldly. That is just not gonna happen unless they're transformed by God. The point is be careful not to make it sound like our faith is about behavior modification. It's not! "Hey, you people, what's wrong with you? Try hard to change!" Our faith is not about external behavior modification; it's about internal transformation, a personal relationship with God that changes our behavior incrementally as we realize how loved we are by him.

So look at these first three parts of the civility challenge: reflection: do I want my tone, my attitude that I'm taking here to be reflected? And ask this of everybody you interact with: the people at the store, your own kids, the people at work. Introspection: am I rigorously honest first about my own character defects so you can come across as a guide and not a judge? Selection: is this the right person, place, and time to receive this, or is this just gonna start a giant argument? Then why even say it? Jesus would say, "Don't throw your pearls to pigs." But if you think these first three R's are challenging, wait till you see the E because you haven't heard anything yet.

This final point is both the toughest to apply and also the most beautiful, and it's this: the principle of elevation. Elevation: don't reciprocate; elevate. When they go low, you go high. Ask yourself, "Am I redirecting people to what really matters, to God's love?" Now, don't miss this because this is really the heart of the message. Look, I want to circle back to a few other verses that happened earlier in the Sermon on the Mount, and I want to start with chapter 5, starting in verse 43. I'm gonna put these on screen. These may be the single most challenging countercultural verses in the entire Bible for our culture right now.

So let's read these verses out loud together. Let me hear you say it: "You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.'" Pause. That's exactly what we're seeing happen in our culture right now, right? All right, here we go. "But Jesus says, 'I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.'" You know why he has to say this? Because no matter how civil you are, some people are gonna be less than civil toward you. They're just gonna give you an earful. So then how do you respond? You get a free pass? "I try to be nice and godly to you, but if that's the way you want to play it, here you go." Now Jesus says, "When that happens—and it will—love them, pray for them." And pray for them not like, you know, "Dear Lord, please let an anvil fall on their heads." You know, just pray for them.

I gotta tell you something: this past week, I went to an amazing conference of pastors of all kinds of churches all around the Bay Area, all kinds of denominations, including the denominations that I can tend to stereotype sometimes. And you know what I discovered? They love Jesus, and they want nothing more than to transform and change the entire Bay Area for Jesus Christ. I've discovered that proximity is one of the best cures for prejudice. Have you discovered this yet? When you make friends with people who maybe you tend to label.

But I want to tell you one story. I'm at a young pastor, Dawit, and Dawit is from the country that many say is the worst place to be a Christian on earth. And I don't really want to say the name of the country because I don't want to get his family in danger. But here's why his story is so relevant here: Dawit's brother has been in prison for the last two years. You know what his crime is? He's a Lutheran. And in his country, they have decided to do a full court press persecution against Lutherans. Why would you pick the most mild people on the planet? I don't know, but that's what they're going for. And his brother has been in prison for two years, literally underground, as in he hasn't seen the sky or the sun for two years.

Well, Dawit escaped, but this last September, he decided, "I need to go back and encourage my brother." And so he got back into the country, he visited his brother seven times over the course of a week, went to see him every day, helped his wife and kids move into a safer neighborhood for them, brought his brother communion. They prayed together. Amazing! Well, when I heard this story, I said, "Dawit, I'm literally preaching on the verse that says to pray for those who persecute you." It's easy for me to preach that; I'm not really under any persecution. How do you do that? Because your family really is getting hammered by actual persecutors. Do you pray for those who persecute you?

He says, "Oh yeah, absolutely we do every day. My brother and I held hands and prayed for them." I said, "Are you kidding me? What do you pray for them?" He said, "Well, they're getting old, and they're going to die soon, and after what they've done to so many people, we fear that they will just receive the wrath of God when they die, and we don't want them to." And so he said, "My brother and I pray for their souls. We pray that they will find God's salvation in Christ Jesus." Wow! I think that attitude is one reason, as you can tell, that he just overflows with joy instead of bitterness because that's the way he's processing all these things that are happening to his family, the way his brother is too. They're in the prison.

I don't know how people have mistreated you and your loved ones, but my guess is not that bad. So can you pray for their relationship with God? And Jesus says, "Do this that you may be children of your Father in heaven." And watch this: this is where Jesus addresses that root cause, that tribalism. He says, "Because he—watch this—causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous." If you were God and some of your moods, would you do that? Wouldn't you withhold the sun if you could or the rain if you could from some people? But Jesus is saying, "Does God look at tribal boundaries? Does God look at human labels? Does God even gauge people on their righteousness quotient when he sends the sunshine and rain? No! So you be like that with your love and with your grace."

God sends his rain and sunshine on people no matter what their politics, no matter what their gender identity is, no matter what their religion is, no matter what their immigration status is, no matter how righteous or how evil they are. He lavishes his gracious gifts on them. Why? Because they are children of God, image bearers of God that God loves. And you and I have been given a mission to bring the message of grace just that indiscriminately to the world. Jesus says, "You're the light of the world, so let your light shine before others that they may hear your good arguments." No! "See your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven." Look, he does not say you are the moral policeman of the world, so go bust some bad people. He doesn't say you are the judges of the world, so go pronounce your verdict. He says, "You're the light of the world. You have a mission to shine a light, to focus glory toward your gracious heavenly Father."

And what this means is this: don't settle for making a point instead of making a difference, which a lot of Christians do. It's always easier to make a point than to make a difference. Always! Making a difference actually takes longer; it costs more. But that's the way the world is changed. And the best way to make a long-term difference in this world is to introduce people to this God. These verses aren't in your notes, but the God who loved the world, the whole world, with no exception, so much that he gave his one and only Son so that whoever—whoever, no exceptions—believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. Everybody knows that verse: John 3:16. Do you know the next one? "For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world but to save the world through him." If God, the only being in the universe who actually has the right to condemn, did not send his Son into the world to condemn but to save, how in the world are we communicating that idea by condemning anybody?

Right? And here's where it gets so personal for me. You know, it is both the biggest obstacle to people coming to faith in this God and yet also the biggest help, depending on how we relate to one another, the church. Because there's a lot of people who expect the church to just be a giant labeling society and not even getting along with other people, just splitting church splits all the time. But when they see this—when they see that a church is not focusing on our differences—we've got all kinds of different politics here—but we focus on the point of the Venn diagram where we overlap. We may disagree on a lot, but where do we overlap? Our faith in Jesus Christ. That is so powerful.

You know, I'll tell you something that kind of drives me crazy. In fact, I just heard it this weekend. Somebody said, "I don't know if I can go back to my small group." Why? "Well, there's this one guy in my small group who always brings up politics." And you know what? I've heard this about people on the left and the right, so I'm not picking on any party here. But in his particular group, it was one guy who had a certain political opinion about stuff that's going on in D.C., and he said he just brings it up at every small group, and it's, you know, he makes it sound like if we don't agree with him, then we're not good Christians. This drives me bananas as your pastor because what church is supposed to be like, what Jesus came to create, is a body where there's all kinds of disagreement and distinction politically and socially and in every other way, ethnically, racially, but there's commonality about our love for Jesus and how Jesus loves us and how we want to build his kingdom.

In fact, think of this: when Jesus set up his team of 12, he deliberately chose Matthew, the tax collector, who was absolutely in league with the Roman Empire, and Simon, the zealot, who absolutely wanted to throw over the Roman Empire. If you know anything about first-century politics, you could not find two people who have political views that were more extreme than those two. And Jesus deliberately picks them for his team. Why? Because it glorifies God when people who are that different focus on building the kingdom of God together. And when our culture sees what's happening in a church not as a homogenous labeling machine but as people who are not all the same but unite around Jesus, that is so countercultural these days that people think this moment culturally, where there's so much incivility, this can be the church's finest hour.

Because people can look at us, and what they're longing for is some place, some family, where people are respected for their different political opinions on a variety of things, and they can discuss those things as kind of interesting discussions. But they all know what really matters is how much God loves us and how much we love God and how much we want to advance the kingdom. Man, that is powerful because that's what people long for. There's so many people just sick of feeling like the only place I'm safe is my own little tribe where every single opinion is the same. What we have here, what Jesus came to create here, is profoundly powerful.

This verse isn't in your notes, but you know that the night before Jesus was betrayed, he prayed a prayer with his disciples, and he said, "I pray that you make them one, Father, as you and I are one." And then he says this: "For when they are one," do you know what he says next? "Then the world will know." When they are one, when all these people who are different, when they are one—not he doesn't care if all our political opinions are the same—but when they are one in terms of a focus on building the kingdom, the world's gonna go, "Something powerful is happening there! Something powerful and different." Now praise God! Amen.

Now I suspect some of you are thinking, and I want to wrap up with this because I hear this a lot these days: "Hey, polite people don't change the world, do they?" I want to go back even earlier in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus says this: "Blessed are the what? The meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are the what? Merciful, for they will be shown mercy." And here's the big one: "Blessed are the what? The peacemakers, for they will be called children of God." I like what N.T. Wright says: "When God wants to change the world, as the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount make clear, he doesn't send in the tanks; he sends in the meek, the broken, the peacemakers, the pure-hearted." He says, "Now those people don't change the world?" What human being has impacted history more than any other human who's ever lived? I'd argue it was Jesus. And yet, when condemned to die, he didn't retaliate. What did he say? "Father, forgive them." What did he do? He prayed for them and blessed them.

What the world needs now is more of that. And if you want to change the world like Jesus, we follow that role model, not other role models in our culture. Now, I know this is hard, so I put some other great Bible verses in your notes. Read these this week when it's getting tough. But again, the reason we do any of this, treat people graciously, is because our hearts have been touched, our imagination has been captured by what Jesus did for me on the cross. If that is my Savior, then I want to change the world like he changed the world.

You know what occurred to me this morning? On the cross, God was putting labels on everybody, everybody, every single person who will ever live. You know what his labels say? You can't see them, but you can know what they say: beloved, image bearer of God, called to be in my family. And when we go out and we see everyone without distinction as having those labels, that's when we will be countercultural Christians, and we will change the world. Let's pray together. Bow your heads with me.

Heavenly Father, this is not easy. It's easy to say; maybe everybody wants to say this, but it's not easy to do. And so we ask that you would change us from the inside out to truly be reflective of your grace and your love to a world that needs it so much. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.