Sermon on Matthew 22:34-46: Loving God and Neighbour in an Election Season
Finn Chirnside, Associate Vicar at Sumner Redcliffs Anglican Church, preaches on the two great commandments and their implications for how Christians engage with politics, elections, and everyday life.
Summary
Finn Chirnside preaches from Matthew 22:34-46, focusing on Jesus' two great commandments — love God and love your neighbour — and what they demand of Christians in the context of a New Zealand election. He argues that true love of neighbour cannot be properly defined without being rooted in the love of God, and that no political party or system can substitute for that foundation. He challenges the congregation not to colonise the concept of neighbour-love with their own cultural or political agendas, but to let Jesus define it — which, he argues, should make every voter uncomfortable with at least some aspect of their preferred party's policies.
A substantial portion of the sermon focuses on the cross as the fullest and costliest expression of both commandments simultaneously: Jesus demonstrating perfect love of the Father through obedience, and perfect love of neighbour by dying in humanity's place. Chirnside dwells at length on the thief on the cross — the first person to recognise Jesus' death as a victory and coronation rather than a defeat — as an illustration of the extravagance of God's love and what it means to be shaped by the cross.
He closes with a personal call to visible, costly Christian discipleship. Drawing on his own conversion story — brought to faith partly through a doctor who risked his professional standing to tell him his problem was spiritual, not merely medical — Chirnside urges the congregation not to be hidden Christians but to live in a way that is recognisably shaped by love of God and neighbour, even at personal cost.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Opening Remarks: New Baby and the Election
Finn Chirnside: We just had a baby three weeks ago, and I am very tired. I'm going to be straight up. So if I seem particularly unhinged — because I already have a reputation for being a bit of a psycho — if I seem particularly unhinged, just ignore it. We can excuse the bad theology for about three months. And if we get past three months and the theology is still bad, then maybe it's just me. But yeah, so that's fun. We're doing good. He's actually really good. Home birth — I'm going to tell everybody — home birth, unplanned, unsupervised. So I had to deliver the dude. Yeah, thank you so much. It wasn't entirely the fact that the labour took so long that we went home. It was just a 25-minute active labour and then baby. Anyway, so that's fun. I'm tired.
I thought, when you're back after a couple of weeks off and you're tired, just play it safe. Talk about something that we can all just go, "Oh, that's nice." But I thought, nah, stuff that — let's talk about the election. Why wouldn't that be fun?
Here's my thing: is anyone else sick of the different polls? Honestly, I'm so annoyed by it. One comes up and says, "Christopher Luxon's going to win by four billion points." The next one says, "Chloe Swarbrick's going to be prime minister somehow, but you don't know how." And then the next one says, "No, Chippy's going to do it, it's great." It's just a bit annoying. It feels like they're trying to suck in attention for clicks. It feels like they're trying to re-enchant people who look at politics with apathy and disdain — because that's a lot of us now. We just kind of look at politics and go, what's the point? Nothing's working.
The thing I find really fascinating about this election — and elections in general — is that we're trying to come together for a common good when we can't define what the common good is. I think that's what makes it tough. If you ask someone in the Green Party and someone in the ACT Party what New Zealand should look like, I think the answers would be profoundly different. That's really hard to do good politics in, if you don't have shared values.
I'm not a political scientist. I'm just a tired person. But one of the things that makes Jesus so special is that to take him seriously means allowing him to crash into our world and redefine every part of our lives — including not just how we should do politics, but how we should view something like an election. What is the posture we should go into this kind of thing with?
Harry last week spoke about how, because we are images of God, we are made for God and made lovingly by God — and so we should give him what he's owed, which is our whole selves. This is not because God is selfish, but because he's kind. To be in harmony with the created order is the most sensible way to live. You don't stick a fork in a microwave, put it on for five minutes, and go, "What the heck, why did that go wrong?" It went wrong because it's not designed to work that way. So wouldn't it make sense that the smartest thing to do is to live in harmony with how creation itself is wired? And if it's wired by God, then the best thing to do is be in step with how he has called us to live in the world.
The Passage and the Pharisees
Our reading this week — I'm totally ignoring the Son of David section, because that's like six weeks of material, I'm not going to lie, that's a rabbit hole. But the commandments section is focused on something so simple yet so profound, and the most difficult part is not importing our own cultural lens onto it. When it comes to a word like love, that is tougher than we could possibly dream.
This passage is found in Jesus' ongoing dialogue in Matthew. We've been going through Matthew for a while. Jesus is engaging with these religious leaders — Pharisees, Sadducees, a bunch of different groups — and they're trying to work out who this Jesus thinks he is. What's his deal? What does he want? He's working miracles; they're not denying that. But they're trying to work out: is he a threat? Is he really the Messiah? Why doesn't he look like they expected?
So much of what has preceded this passage, and what comes after it, is Jesus challenging the religious institutions for what he perceives as an ingrained hypocrisy. They have missed the heart of the law and boiled down the beauty of their religion to a brownie-point system, which places the elite — who had the time — on top, and the common people below them.
The passage before this one features some blokes called the Sadducees. They were a group of religious leaders — pretty much hyper-conservative would be a good way to look at them, because they only believed in the first five books of the Bible. They didn't believe in the resurrection of the dead, or at least they didn't think it was there. So they came up to Jesus and tried to trap him with a question about the resurrection of the dead. His answer is so good that they can't respond. I won't go into it because it's really complex, but it's a great answer.
Then the Pharisees — another party of religious leaders, who did believe in the resurrection of the dead — come to challenge him as well. And here's the thing: Pharisees are a complex picture. It's very easy for people with microphones, and for Christians in the modern West, to go, "Man, all the Pharisees were just the worst." And to look at people and say, "Pharisee spirit!" because they asked a question. Modern evangelicalism does that all the time. It's very easy to label people as Pharisees if they question something — a doctrine or a church practice. And undeniably, a lot of the Pharisees Jesus challenges were just anti-him because they didn't like him. But what's wrong with asking questions if the intention is right?
I want to go out to bat for this particular Pharisee. Because the Pharisees at their best were trying to protect the people of God from false prophets and messiahs. They wanted to encourage a way of living that blesses the heart of God. That's a good thing. Scripture also tells us that after Jesus dies and is raised, religious leaders come to follow him. Pharisees become key leaders in the early church. They're not all numpties we can just brush away.
I want to take a moment to honour this Pharisee, because it's actually a good question to ask a potential Messiah: "What's the most important commandment?" It would actually be weird if he didn't ask it. Seeking to verify the truth of something isn't a bad thing, as long as your heart posture is right. The scripture seems to affirm this guy. In the parallel text in Mark, Jesus says to him afterwards, "I think you are not far from the kingdom of God." He doesn't say anything that nice to many Pharisees, but there's something about this guy where Jesus goes, "Actually, you're on the right track. Well done."
I want to encourage a culture in this church — and Harry and I and Crystal want to encourage a culture — where if you're trying to work stuff out, you're actually welcome here. I don't care what you think. I don't care where you're at. It's the heart posture that matters. If you're going to rock in and just try to be annoying because you think it's funny, I haven't got time for it. But if you're trying to find truth for the sake of truth, and you're trying to process things and understand your faith and who you are and your place in the human story, God bless. I hope you feel welcome here.
The Two Great Commandments
Anyway, let's talk about the rest of the passage. The teacher of the law asks Jesus what the greatest commandment is. Jesus answers his question not with one commandment, but with two.
The first is to love God above all others. Jesus here is quoting the Old Testament — he does this all the time. This one is called the Shema. It comes from Moses' speech in the book of Deuteronomy — the fifth book of the Bible. It's basically a huge speech from Moses, who led the Israelites out of Egypt, reiterating all of the things they had agreed to with God after being set free from slavery. He starts a big part of it with this thing called the Shema. It's called Shema because the first word is "hear" — which in Hebrew is Shema. "Hear, O Israel, the Lord is God, the Lord is one."
The second commandment Jesus quotes comes from the book of Leviticus, right in the middle of the first five books. It comes from a block in chapter 19 where Yahweh — the name of the God of the Bible — is reinforcing a lot of what he's already said earlier. This happens a lot. You see a lot of double-ups, and it's usually because he's trying to get the point across. It usually follows story moments where the Israelites have done something really silly. God says, "Hey, don't worship golden calves," and then straight away they're sitting down and being merry in front of a golden calf. Read between the lines about what actually happened. And then afterwards: "By the way, make sure you really don't do that."
Chapter 19 is kind of split into two parts, and this verse about loving your neighbour as yourself ends the first part. Whenever God wants to make a point in the law, he always says, "I am the Lord." He always whacks you with "I am the Lord" if he really wants to emphasise something. And that's how this verse ends.
I want to read the preceding verses leading up to it, because I think it's helpful to see what's going on here. This is from verse 9:
"I am the Lord. Do not defraud or rob your neighbour. Do not hold back the wages of a hard worker overnight. Do not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block in front of the blind, but fear your God. I am the Lord. Do not pervert justice. Do not show partiality to the poor or favouritism to the great, but judge your neighbour fairly. Do not go about spreading slander among your people. Do not do anything that endangers your neighbour's life. I am the Lord. Do not hate a fellow Israelite in your heart. Rebuke your neighbour frankly so that you will not share in their guilt."
And then it climaxes with: love your neighbour as yourself.
These are super practical instructions. It's not an extensive list, but it's giving a little microcosm — a vision of what it looks like to love your neighbour in the kingdom of God. It is putting others above yourself, even if it comes at your own expense or cost.
Loving Your Neighbour: Practical and Historical Dimensions
One of the small practices in the Old Testament that I love — and that the early church observed for about 1,500 years before we stopped — was not charging interest. The church considered it a massive problem if you made money off loans. A serious problem. I can't underestimate how big a deal it was. Then, not the Reformation's fault exactly, but kind of during the Reformation era, we just stopped doing it. And it's different — making investments is very different. It's not saying investments are bad. It's saying making money off other people's need — "Can I borrow $1,000?" "Yeah, cool, if you pay me back at 10%" — no way, not allowed. It was a massive thing.
It's always about care for the poor and the foreigner, and people who don't have the means, skills, or simply the good fortune to care for themselves. In the modern West, I think people with disabilities fall into this category — our "poor and foreigner" category. It's about loving all people with the same neighbourly love and not picking sides.
Did you notice that thing where it says don't show partiality to the poor or favour to the great? It's actually saying don't prefer the poor or the rich. That's tough, depending on how Marxist you are. God never says, "Don't defraud your poor neighbour, but totally do it to your rich neighbour." He never says that anywhere. He rips the rich, but that's God's prerogative. It's not our job to trick rich people and say, "Can you please give me some money because you have to, because you're rich." Not at all.
And here's the point: both these commandments demand that true love for God consists of love for others. And love for others can only be rightly defined by seeking what is best for them — which is defined by God, and is ultimately God himself.
Jesus Extends the Boundaries of Neighbour-Love
Then Jesus comes along and extends the boundaries of this neighbour-love outside the commands of the Old Testament. Love for neighbour — which could so easily be interpreted as love for those who are like you, look like you, maybe vote like you — becomes love your enemies. If you're supporting ACT, can you love Chloe Swarbrick? I'm serious. Can you see her as an image of God? If you're a Green voter, can you look at David Seymour with any compassion? Come on — this is the stuff.
Nowhere is it more obvious than in the parable of the Good Samaritan. In the Gospel of Luke, a man actually asks Jesus, "Who is my neighbour?" — because he's trying to back himself up after Jesus hits him with this commandment. And then Jesus tells this parable.
Basically, there's a bloke trudging along the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. He gets robbed — not great at all. He's bleeding on the side of the road. A Levite walks by — a crucial part of the temple system — and the Levite goes, "Oh, I don't know about that," and crosses to the other side and walks past. Then a priest walks by. And the priest doesn't even have the excuse of needing to stay ritually clean to make it to the temple in time — he's coming home. He's going from Jerusalem to Jericho, leaving the temple, having just come from the throne of God in Jewish thought. And he sees this person bleeding on the side of the road and goes, "No thanks."
Then a Samaritan comes by. I can't underestimate enough how much, stereotypically, Samaritans and Jews hated each other. It was really, really bad. Jews looked at Samaritans as basically a lower caste. There was no obligation for the Samaritan to do anything for that man. He didn't have to do anything. But instead he cares for his wounds, he pays for his care, he goes ridiculously over the top when no law or system would have called him to that standard. He could have picked the bloke up, stuck him outside an inn, and said, "See ya!" Instead he pays for everything. That's extraordinary.
It's echoed in the Old Testament too. There are two main stories like this. You've got Nineveh — we've talked about this before — where God sends Jonah to get Nineveh to repent. They are like the worst people in history, but they repent and they change. And there's also a story about a bloke called Naaman, who was the captain of the enemy's guard, and he goes and gets healed by Elisha. So you've got these little things. It's not like God just changed his mind — it's Jesus extending it and saying, "Actually, with me, I do expect more."
Often in scripture you'll see these moments where they try to sum up the entire heart of the law in a little phrase. My favourite is this one from the book of Micah: "He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." Do you see how being with God, justice, and mercy are all together? You can't separate them. True versions of both — you can't separate them.
Back to Genesis: Images of God
This is kind of where everything in the Bible comes back to Genesis. In Genesis you have this little moment where God is walking in the cool of the day, and there seems to be an assumption that this is a recurrent occurrence. So whenever you see a verse like "walking humbly with God," your mind should be going back to Genesis — back to that state of what the garden was like. And one of the big things in the garden was that everybody had equal value and dignity.
The phrase "images of God" in ancient Near East thought was only really used for pharaohs or kings. Not queens, actually — pharaohs or kings. And so for God to come along and say, "Hey, all of you are kings and queens" — that's actually what it's saying. You have that same status and value. That's a crazy thought. And then what does that say about how people view each other? You've got to have a Genesis-informed way of viewing other humans as images of God — even if they don't necessarily act like it or agree with you. That's what scripture calls us to.
To walk with God is to do what you were always designed to do. Are you here and you feel like you have no purpose or hope? Are you looking at the world and going, "Oh my gosh, it's all about to implode"? Does nothing seem to matter? I just want to say to you: you were made for God. You were designed with intentionality and care by God himself and called into the family of God by Jesus himself. No matter what your circumstances are, no matter how much you like Luxon, no matter how much you like Chippy, no matter how angry or tired or anxious you are — you were made for God, and you will only find true satisfaction for your soul if you align yourself with God.
Every human would probably say we have this kind of ache for something more. Lots of people would say that's just a way to handle the craziness of the world. I'd say: why? Wouldn't it make much more sense that we have an ache for something more simply because there is more? And by aligning ourselves with God, we become changed and we're given a new heart and a heavenly vision for the love of neighbour that is God-defined and not defined by ourselves.
Back to the Election
Right, back to the election. I'm not going to rip you out for who you vote for. I'm trusting that you, through prayer and discernment, have come to a place of, "I'll vote for this person because of whatever." God bless you. Just pray about it. Think about it. That's all I'm saying.
But here's the thing: whoever wins, they're not going to fix it. No matter if Chippy or Luxon or somehow David Seymour does some crazy power play, or Winston does something — no matter who wins, we won't see all the problems go away. That's the story of humanity. Politics can play a crucial part, but it's not the end all and be all.
Pope Leo wrote this massive piece about AI — very good stuff — and he's got these bits in it where he talks about how important politics is for the promotion of the common good. But then he also talks about how it's not the end all and be all. Part of that reason is that the love of neighbour, if it is preached in politics, becomes untethered from its root in a secular system — which is the love of God. And you can't have true love of neighbour without love of God. And when misshapen values get infused with the macro power of the state — I'm not a Philippine Marxist revolutionary, hear me out — it just becomes a system that can be brutal, even if it was trying to do good things.
I worked in disability support for two years, and some policies that were meant to be good for disabled people were horrific for them. Tens of thousands of dollars in funding lost, and kids who needed care just stopped getting the money. I've also seen where that same law change meant the guys who didn't need the help got more help. I had a guy on my staff team who was legally blind. He used to Lime Scooter from Parklands to Wigram every day. And then I got in a lot of trouble because I said to him, "You probably shouldn't be Lime Scootering to work meetings, considering you're not allowed to drive." And that was actually technically discrimination under the law at the time. Things with good intentions, because it's such a high-level system, can't have the love of God. Of course it's not going to work.
The Church's Moment
My honest belief is that the church is moving into an exciting era. I don't think it's going to be fun, necessarily. I don't think it's going to be easy. But I do think it's brimming with potential.
In the midst of wars, petrol prices going up, exploited food budgets, the increase in international organised crime, French riots, toxic populism, Holocaust deniers making a comeback, a broken media system, the rise of AI, and an ever-increasing gap between the rich and the poor — all of it is smacking us in the face and calling us to the reality that the world is in desperate need of a love that comes from outside the human story, because we clearly aren't doing a very good job.
The church — us as a community here, but also the church corporate — will have to display radical, constantly adaptive, and outrageous ways of loving our neighbour. I'm convinced of this. The church has always done this. I just think we're going to need to ramp it up. I think for a little while we got a bit comfortable and said, "Oh, don't worry, they've got the benefit. They're sorted." I don't think it's going to cut it for much longer.
This is not me saying, "Give more money to the church." I'm not asking for that. I'm just talking about your posture towards this world. I think it's going to need to be a little bit more outrageous.
Jesus, when he talks about the actions of the Good Samaritan, says, "Go and do likewise." The most effective force for good in world history has been the church. It just objectively has been the church. And it's because it's been Christians who've gone all in and had a vision of a community breaking into the now. There are so many wonderful things happening even in this room already. I saw Murray Kennedy earlier — Pathway. We've got Boys and Martyrs here. I know the people in here who give tens of thousands of dollars to charities every year. I'm not knocking you. I just think there's a call to less comfortability, more risk, and more joy as a result of that.
I don't have specifics — I said I'm running a little unhinged — but I think for some of us, now is the time to dream. Now is the time to reawaken dreams that maybe we've had for a long time, that for different reasons we've let die or put on the back burner. I dare you to consider ramping those up again. Because if we don't do it, no one really will. People will try to counterfeit it, but I think the church is the only institution that can do truly transformational work that lasts. I've got a bias, but I think history would testify to it as well.
Love Must Be God-Defined
In the famous passage in 1 Corinthians 13, Paul the apostle writes that love rejoices with the truth. That is to say that true, God-defined love is in step with the good, the beautiful, and the true. Love is only real love if it is true love. Love, if it is not true or leading to truth, is not real love. And because God is the truth, and as scripture says, God is love, we must allow God to define our love.
In politics in particular, people will use this passage — the love of neighbour — to justify their own social agenda. Have you noticed that? It's a good one. But what happens is that people colonise the verse with their own definition of love. They won't let Jesus inform it, but they use his spiritual authority to justify it. If we take him seriously, we should find that Jesus will affirm some things about our politics, but he will challenge a lot of them. He should.
Whoever you vote for — and sorry in advance — there should be something in their policies that you struggle with. There should be something where, if you sit down with Jesus and read through their list, there's something where he'd probably go, "I don't know about that." No matter what side you swing on, whatever your priorities — economic left, social left, social right, anti-immigration, pro-immigration, whatever — there should be something where, if you read that list in Leviticus 19 and then paired it up with that party's politics, Jesus would probably go, "Are you sure that lines up?" I think that's a fair call.
So, all that to say: politics is a good system. Democracy — yay, very nice. I'm not saying don't vote. I'm just saying we've got to rightly order who's in charge of the world and who's going to fix it. The thing that must inform and define our love is the love of God. We can't let the culture define our love. Otherwise we'll look at ACT's or the Greens' or National's list and go, "Man, they've nailed it. There's nothing wrong there."
Jesus says to remain in his love. And some of the simplest ways we can do that — that will transform us to be these different kinds of people — are things like prayer, silence, and scripture. Depending on your stage of life, this will look different. I've just had a kid. I'm not running on three hours of prayer each day. I'm running on a ten-minute Lord's Prayer, "Please Lord help me, I'm going crazy," and that's it. That's fine. But if you want to be transformed, if you want to genuinely love your neighbour, it isn't going to happen by waking up and reading a Stuff article. It's going to happen when you keep showing up to God. Who do you show up to first? What has your attention? What has your heart?
The Cross as the Fullest Expression of Love
Jesus not only preached this message — he lived it. In fact, he died in perfect harmony of loving God and loving neighbour. That's what the cross is. It was the desire of God to work within Jesus to reconcile the world to himself — to bear our burden of sin and shame, to enter death and shatter it from the inside out. That's pretty high on the loving-neighbour thing, but it's also the desire of God himself. So it's the loving God too. Jesus shows perfect love of the Father in his obedience, and perfect love for neighbour by dying in our place. As Paul says, he became sin so that we might become God's righteousness.
Jesus demonstrates love in his prayer of forgiveness for those who are killing him and mocking him. In the middle of his death, he literally shows love to his neighbour — a thief on the cross. This story is extraordinary.
If you haven't heard this before: Jesus is in the middle of dying. The cross was not a good way to die, to put it softly. He's crucified, with one thief on the right and one on the left. They both start ripping into him — joining in with what the Pharisees and religious leaders are doing. And then at some point, one of the thieves goes quiet, and something clicks as Jesus is dying. I can't imagine what that was. Was it the way that Jesus died? Did he watch Jesus pray for their forgiveness? Was it just some Holy Spirit moment? I don't know. But this thief rebukes the other thief. He says he's getting what he deserves. And he says to Jesus, "Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom."
Jesus is probably coughing blood at this point. He doesn't have to reply. He could very easily just think, "Oh yeah, I'll remember that guy, that'd be cool." But what I love about this is that this is the first guy to get it. Have you noticed that? The first person to truly realise who Jesus actually is — and that somehow the cross is a victory and a coronation and not a defeat. He's the first one to get it. No one else gets it. And he somehow looks at Jesus dying on the cross and goes, "He's winning." That's extraordinary.
And then Jesus gives him so much more than he asked for. He's not just going to remember him. He says, "Truly I tell you, you will be with me in paradise today." Come on. That's what it's all about. If we let that story inform us and define us, we can do extraordinary things for God's name. If we let Stuff or the NZ Herald or whatever it is define us, we'll just be like the rest. Which sounds mean. It's just true.
Closing Challenge: Don't Be a Hidden Christian
So in closing, just to tick someone else off: when you die, do you think people would be shocked to find out you were a Christian? If you were at your own funeral and a co-worker or an old friend turned up, do you think they'd go, "Oh what, you were a Christian?" Or do you think they'd go, "Oh, I knew they took it seriously — but I didn't know they took it that seriously. I just thought they went to church because it was nice, they liked the band, they liked the electric guitarist." Do they know you take Jesus seriously?
I want to say this as a final thought: I wouldn't be here without people who embodied love of God and neighbour. Just straight up, I wouldn't be. I've talked about this before, but one of the first people to bring me to faith was my doctor. He probably broke some medical code by doing this, but basically he said to me, "I'm just going to go on a limb here. Your problem is not mental health, it's spiritual health. And you need to go to church." I'm not sure doctors are allowed to do that. He took a risk, and he loved me, because he didn't actually care about his job in that moment — he saw what actually mattered. That's extraordinary.
I had other people who went out of their way for me, constantly, to let me know that they loved me, but also that it was God who primarily loved me. They saw the bigger picture and they led me to a greater love, which was the love of God.
So I say in closing: don't be a hidden Christian. Don't just be someone who votes for Christian policies, whatever that means, and then comes back to it every three years, and the rest of the time you're just a statistic on a poll. If they call you up and say, "Are you a Christian?" you say, "Yeah, sure." If you've been in the game for a while, don't just be a person in the seats. Give your life for something greater.
You will have all of eternity to go to the true Sumner Beach and go for a surf. The Christian vision is ultimately new heavens and new earth — so you'll probably have a Sumner Beach. It would just be the best possible version of it. It's a very C.S. Lewis idea. But you don't have all the opportunity to live the Jesus stuff and make him known amongst the world that doesn't know him. That's now.
Without being too risky — have good things, enjoy your life. But maybe there's a season where our priorities need to shift and we need to let the Holy Spirit give us a whack and actually ask: what's the game we're playing here? I'm aware that saying that in a place like Sumner is potentially contentious. But ultimately, the big end game here is eternal. We'll have all these beautiful, true, and good things coming for us. But there's so much we could do now if we let God shape it, if we let the cross shape our story.
I'm not asking for money for this church. I don't care. I'm just asking and praying that you'll be people who, when others go to your funeral, they say, "Flipping heck, that person was amazing. Didn't they love Jesus with their whole heart? Didn't they just change their workplace or their world? Or didn't they just love their grandkids so well? Or didn't they love their kids even when their kids were bullying them and hating them?" That's the kind of stuff that's eternal.
Let's allow God — I think we're going to need it — to just whack us and fill us with the Spirit and use us for his glory.