[Sermon] Resist, Part #1

Here is Pastor Ben's sermon from Oct 5, 2025

Click here to watch.

Texts: Luke 1:46–55; Luke 4:16–21

Over the last few months, the question I hear most is: “What do we do now?” People of faith—and our neighbors of different faiths or no faith—feel the same swirl: fear, anger, confusion, and fatigue. The news feels relentless. The problems feel bigger than our capacity.

When I don’t know what to do, I fix my eyes on Jesus. And when I do that in Luke’s Gospel, a word keeps rising to the surface: resistance. Not partisan combat. Not cynicism. But the way of Jesus—the holy, non-violent, love-rooted refusal to cooperate with fear, lies, and dehumanization, paired with the active practice of God’s kingdom: truth, mercy, justice, hospitality, and peace.

That’s the heart of my new book, RESIST. It’s political in the sense that Jesus’ good news has public consequences, but it’s not partisan. This is discipleship: following Jesus in a world that forms us every day to love our tribe, hoard our outrage, and ignore our neighbor. RESIST is about a different formation.

In the same way, today’s Gospel message calls us into holy resistance: a life shaped by Jesus’ good news in Luke—good news that frees captives, lifts the lowly, resets the guest list, and turns exploiters into restorers. The Days of Awe teach us to return (teshuvah) together; Luke shows us what we are returning to: a community where mercy reorders power, tables are widened, and neighbors are seen. What we pray in Avinu Malkeinu—our longing for belonging, justice, and repair—Jesus announces and embodies. That’s the road we’ll walk today.

Magnify: What We Aim Our Lives At

“My soul magnifies the Lord… He has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly; He has filled the hungry with good things.” (Luke 1:46, 52–53)

Mary is not making God bigger; she is bringing God into focus. What we magnify forms us. If we magnify fear, we’ll be discipled by fear. If we magnify the Lord, we’ll be discipled by hope. Avinu Malkeinu and the Magnificat are songs that train our attention. They take our scattered hearts and tune them to mercy, justice, and kinship.

Howard Thurman warned, “Hatred destroys the core of the life of the hater.” If I magnify my enemies, I become their mirror. If I magnify the Lord, I become His witness.

Big Idea

Christian resistance is a spiritual practice—daily, communal, and public—where we refuse what dehumanizes and embody Jesus’ alternative: truth, mercy, justice, hospitality, and peace. It’s not partisan rage. It’s discipleship with public shape.