Our Supreme Allegiance
This message was originally delivered at the Godward Life Conference in Minneapolis on Friday, September 26, 2025.
The best-case scenario in this moment would be if Jesus came back!
— if he’d just rend the heavens, return, make all things new …
That is the best thing that could happen right now, and for as long as we’re here on this earth, that is always the best thing that could happen at any moment — which then means that everything else here, even at its best, can only be second best. …
So I hope this conference ends up being the third(?) best thing you did with your weekend.
Honestly, this morning I can’t imagine anywhere else I’d rather be than here talking to you on this topic assigned to me: “Our Supreme Allegiance: Devotion to the Risen Christ.”
Let’s read 2 Corinthians 5, beginning in verse 6:
This is God’s word.
6 So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, 7 for we walk by faith, not by sight. 8 Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. 9 So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. 10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.
11 Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others. But what we are is known to God, and I hope it is known also to your conscience. 12 We are not commending ourselves to you again but giving you cause to boast about us, so that you may be able to answer those who boast about outward appearance and not about what is in the heart. 13 For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. 14 For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; 15 and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.
16 From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
This is God’s word.
[Prayer]
This morning I wanna tell you three things about Jesus as our supreme allegiance …
What it means
Why it matters
How it looks
Nothing fancy here … this first point goes like this:
#1 - What does it mean for Jesus to be your supreme allegiance?
Well, in Paul’s words, for Jesus to be your supreme allegiance means, verse 15, that you “no longer live for yourself but for him who for your sake died and was raised.”
It means you live for Jesus.
Or as Paul says in verse 9, you make it your aim to please Jesus.
That’s your highest goal, your chief ambition.
Maybe the simplest way to say it is that Jesus as your supreme allegiance means JESUS MAINLY. … Jesus more than anything else.
He’s not merely one of several, first on the top of some deck, but he is far and above every other loyalty in your life, and in fact, all those other loyalties are swallowed up in the one pursuit of magnifying his glory — this is the Godward life, the Christward life.
In the language of Scripture, this is …
the “good life” of Psalm 73,
the “one thing” of Psalm 27,
the “pressing on” of Philippians 3.
Affections Too
Jesus as your supreme allegiance means he’s first in your devotion and also first in your affections. It has to be both, devotion and affection. And this is an important point of clarity, because I think the devotion part is most obvious. It’s most visible, maybe more action-oriented.
But JESUS MAINLY can’t be merely a reality of the will, it must be of the heart. His glory is your goal, not because you’ve been conscripted, but because you love him.
Paul says this in verse 14: “the love of Christ controls us” —
now when he says “love of Christ” does he mean Christ’s love for us OR our love for Christ?
The answer is Yes — I think he intends both … of course the love Jesus has for us is the foundation. That’s the only way we’re here — “we love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19) — but we really do love him. We have affections for him.
We know this matters to Jesus. Remember that conversation Jesus had with Peter on the beach, after his resurrection? (John 21)
Jesus appeared to the disciples and asked Peter three times, “Peter, are you [devoted to me]?” — No, what did he say? … Do you love me?
That is the question for us. Jesus would ask us the same way he asked Peter?
Can you imagine him asking you … Do you love me? … Seriously? … Are you sure?
I have kind of an odd memory, but it’s there … [so I’m gonna run with it]
It was a moment in my life when I realized that I actually loved Jesus.
Now I grew up in church, so I had known for years that I should love Jesus, but one day my junior year of college, I was standing in the kitchen of my apartment, scrambling some eggs — that’s the odd part — I was scrambling some eggs and just thinking … and it occurred to me in that moment that I loved Jesus … that was the discovery. I really loved him and I truly wanted to live for him …
Now that moment wasn’t my conversion — I had been a Christian — but this was a turning point in my walk — I don’t Peter wasn’t converted on that beach, but it was something, right? —
At the very least, it was a memory, and for me, a kind of milestone. With the affection came a new resolve —
I’d like to call it “the productive power of a deepened affection.”
That’s what a supreme allegiance is, a fusion of affection and devotion …
Some historical examples might help …
Historical Examples
Let’s start with Thomas Brooks (1608–1680). He was Spurgeon’s favorite Puritan (also mine). Listen to how Brooks talked. In 1654, he wrote:
I can live only in Christ, who is my life, my love, my joy, my crown, my all in all.
Oh, the hearing of Christ affects me, the seeing of Christ affects me, the taste of Christ affects me, the glimmerings of Christ affects me; the more I come to know him in his natures, in his names, in his offices, in his discoveries, in his appearances, in his beauties, the more I find my heart and affections to prize Christ, to run after Christ, to be affected with Christ, and to be wonderfully endeared to Christ. …
The more I know him, the more I like him;
the more I know him, the more I love him;
the more I know him, the more I desire him;
the more I know him, the more my heart is knit unto him. (Heaven on Earth, 184)
You think that man loved Jesus? [the love of Christ controlled him!]
Now hold that [here] for a second, and lets go back a hundred years to Spain. …
… to Ignatius of LoyOLA (1491–1556) … he was the 16th century Catholic who started the Jesuits — I read a book about him a couple years ago and he would not be a speaker at this conference! He got some things badly wrong, sometimes weird, but one inspiring thing about him — I’d say the most Protestant thing about him — was his solider-like zeal for Christ.
He had been a soldier, full of ambition, was wounded in battle, then converted. And his transformation was encapsulated in a famous prayer he prayed, that goes like this:
Take, Lord, receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, my whole will, all that I have and all that I possess.
You gave it all to me, Lord; I give it all back to you.
Do with it as you will, according to your good pleasure.
Give me your love and your grace; for with this I have all I need.
I hear that and think, that’s devotion to Jesus. It’s the same idea in John Calvin’s personal seal: “My heart I offer to you, O Lord, promptly and sincerely.” The Oswald Chambers version is my utmost for your highest.
Total surrender. Zealous commitment. Radical singularity.
This is devotion — it’s being all-in! — and devotion belongs together with affection.
Affection without devotion is sentimental;
Devotion without affection is duty;
Devotion and affection is true allegiance
If Jesus is your supreme allegiance, it means neither shallow nor cold, your heart is aflame for him.
He is your all-consuming passion and your all-satisfying treasure.
Through and through, you are JESUS MAINLY.
That’s what it means.
Now why does it matter?
#2 - Why should Jesus be your supreme allegiance?
The short answer is that Jesus is worthy, but let’s track with Paul in verse 9 … 2 Corinthians 5:9 ….
Now, some key background on the Corinthians is that many of them are being swayed by a false teaching which one commentator calls “a super-spirituality associated with an over-realized eschatology.”
They were confused about the overlap of the ages — that right now we live between the resurrection of Jesus in the past and then final resurrection to come in the future.
They were being told that all the blessings of that future resurrection age were in full swing here and now.
So Paul has been explaining:
we are very much still on this earth, and it’s broken;
there are afflictions, and we have these bodies — and we long for these bodies to be glorified! God has given us Holy Spirit now as the guarantee that will happen — so there is an overlap —
But again we’re not there yet — we walk by faith, not sight.
Now we’d like to be with Jesus where he is; it’s better to be at home with him … but either way, our aim, our goal in both ages, is to please Jesus.
He’s our supreme allegiance even when we’re still here — that’s verse 9.
Now why? That’s verse 10.
The Coming Eval
Verse 10:
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.
When Paul says “we … all,” he’s talking about Christians — New Covenant believers who in Christ have had their sins forgiven, who in Christ know that there is no condemnation — each of us will stand before the judgment seat of Jesus.
This is something we probably don’t think enough about, and it can be a bit confusing.
If in Christ we’ve been forgiven, what is this judgment about?
How do I receive what I’m “due” when my debt has already been paid?
The best way to think about this future moment for Christians is that it will be an evaluation by Jesus where he either commends our work or not. Paul talks about the same thing in 1 Corinthians 3 [see Barnett; 1 Cor 3:10–15; 4:5].
What’s at stake on that day is not our salvation, but it’s the rewards we may or may not receive because of how we lived out our salvation on earth.
It’s your end-time review. That Day is coming, Paul says.
Life Here Matters
Why would Paul tell the Corinthians that this is the reason for wanting to please Jesus?
It’s because he’s making sure they know(we know!) that our lives in this world are of consequence. What you do here matters.
Don’t mistake faith in Jesus to mean that you’re virtually in heaven already, that we’re only just passing through here, heads down, that ministry and morality are pointless.
The Corinthians were doing that! Many in our day do that.
And at root, look: it depersonalizes Jesus.
It tries to cut the Savior out of our salvation — enjoy his benefits but ignore him. And Paul won’t have it. He tells us: you will stand before him one day.
We make it our aim to please Jesus now — Jesus should be our supreme allegiance now — because one day we’re gonna look Jesus in the face. …
Imagining That Day
This is where the imagination helps. We have to really picture this. It’s harder for us than it was for Paul, and its especially hard for those who think Christianity is just a worldview.
But the real person, Jesus of Nazareth, the risen Christ, he’s gonna lock eyes with you one day,
and it remains to be seen what he will say … and what you will say — TBD —
but I know that you will not say on that day: “Jesus, I overdid my devotion to you. Jesus, I loved you too much.”
What will be clearest in that moment is that Jesus Christ is worthy to receive all power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing forever and ever, and your regret will be that you only had one life to give him, and of that life you gave too little.
“Just one life,
’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done
For Christ, will last”
That’s why Jesus should be our supreme allegiance now.
The third point …
#3 - How do we live here when Jesus is our supreme allegiance?
And this is the big question, right? All the other stuff has been introduction, but we had to start there —
Supreme allegiance to Jesus means devotion and affection
And this matters because Jesus is worthy; one day we’re gonna see him —
So then, how does all that look now?
How do we live in this world with Jesus as our supreme allegiance?
We live three ways … happily, holy, and helpfully …
We live happily.
You’ll notice in verse 15 that Paul says Jesus died for us for a double purpose: one positive, one negative:
the positive is that we live for him;
the negative is that we no longer live for ourselves.
The classic word for this is self-denial.
We do not live for ourselves — and the rookie Christian hedonist scratches his head — Wait a minute: Should we not live for ourselves or should we live to pursue our everlasting joy? Do we deny ourselves or seek our happiness?
Jesus helps us here: What did the man do in Matthew 13 who found the treasure in the field? He sold all that he had to buy that field. He denied himself what is lesser in pursuit of what is greater. That is true self-denial — it’s the sacrifice of any earthly pleasures for the sake of gaining greater pleasure in God.
It’s “staying for the best things” — that’s the phrase from John Bunyan in The Pilgrim’s Progress.
This is the best illustration I know of self-denial: Christian, the main character, observes a room where two children are seated beside each other, named Passion and Patience. Both were told to sit tight and “stay for the best things,” which would come at the beginning of the next year.
But then someone came and poured out a bag of treasure at their feet, and Passion jumped down from his chair, scooped up all the treasure, and “laughed Patience to scorn.” But in no time, the treasure disappeared and Passion was left with nothing but rags.
And Christian got the message. He said, “Now I see that Patience has the best wisdom … because he stays for the best things.”
Patience did not live for himself — he renounced the transient treasure — because he pursued the superior pleasure. And he did it with joy. Just like the man who sold all he had to buy the field!
“Not living for yourself” doesn’t mean we mope around in misery, but we are living for Jesus … and it’s good to live for Jesus.
I remember years ago, as a church planter, I was having a hard time getting enough volunteers. We needed more people to serve on Sundays, and I was complaining to an experienced pastor, and he said,
Hey, do you realize the amazing honor it is to serve Jesus?
We get to serve Jesus. The pastor has to believe that first, then go tell your people it’s a GET-TO!
We get to live for Jesus! That’s how it looks when Jesus is our supreme allegiance. We live happily.
We live holy.
Now I know the big question is how we navigate a world of multiple allegiances, and we’re gonna get there, but we can’t overstate the importance of our personal holiness in this world.
Get this: personal holiness is the safeguard against us commandeering Jesus for our cause apart from his glory.
And this is always a temptation, but maybe more so when Jesus is a hot-topic globally. And that’s a fact right now. Right now Jesus is being talked about in the ‘mainstream’ all over the world, and in that we should rejoice! And should want more!
Let’s pray daily for a true awakening! We need a movement of the Spirit!
And if God were to send one, it is the responsibility of Christians to steward it, which requires that we not get so swept up in how Jesus changes this world that we forget how Jesus changes me.
This is personal holiness. I dare to say, holiness in private.
Our supreme allegiance to Jesus matters when no-one else is looking. Paul is getting at this in verse 13. Look at verse 13. Paul says, “For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you.”
Paul is saying there is a way he relates to God that is different from how he relates to people. Remember, the Corinthians were really impressed by ecstatic behavior. They wanted to see super-spiritual expressions — tongues, visions, revelations — their gatherings were a showcase of who was closest to God, and they wanted to see more in Paul. But he refused.
He didn’t deny the experiences. In Chapter 12 he says he knows a guy.
Here he’s clear those moments are for God. Which means what they saw in Paul was just the tip of the iceberg.
And this is just the opposite of how many live today. Many tend to present as more than they are, and speak higher than what they live.
They make it appear as if their allegiance to Jesus is supreme, but the fly on the wall would say otherwise. The sincerity of our allegiance is measured by the earnestness of our prayer closets. We live holy.
We live helpfully.
This is the second part of verse 13. Paul says, “if we are in our right mind, it is for you.” For y’all.
This is the part where we remember that in this world our supreme allegiance to Jesus involves other people … and with people other allegiances.
This is why we say JESUS MAINLY, not Jesus only — not yet … not in this world.
This is when you remember you have a wife and kids and a dog,
and your kids’ school, and nine different youth sports teams scattered throughout the year, and you pul for all of them. And you’re also a pro sports fan, maybe.
You also belong to a church. You live in a neighborhood … in a city … in a state … in a nation … where you also have extended family and you care about them. You’ve also got friends.
All of these count as allegiances, loyalties. They’re people.
How do I live with Jesus as my supreme allegiance among all these other allegiances?
How do I orient to them?
Helpfully. … that’s the word … Helpfully.
What is helpful is to ask:
How can I persuade every other allegiance to join me in making Jesus the supreme allegiance of their lives?
JESUS MAINLY means Jesus more than anything else — Jesus far and above every other allegiance — but that’s just theoretical until you want to bring those other allegiances in submission with you to your supreme allegiance.
We don’t ignore other allegiances and we don’t pretend they exist on the same plane. But every other allegiance gets brought under and swallowed up into the one pursuit of magnifying the glory of Jesus — it’s about pleasing him!
So we position ourselves in all these other things as ambassadors for Christ.
We can say that with Paul! We engage every other allegiance in our lives with God making his appeal through us — see Christ! See Christ! Christ is our supreme allegiance. That’s living helpfully.
***
There’s a story of Henry Martyn, the 19th century missionary in modern-day Iran, that inspires me … one day Martyn was meeting with a Muslim scholar who told him about a time when Muslims were persecuting Christians in Russia.
The scholar said that the Muslim prince had killed so many Christians that finally “Christ from the fourth heaven took hold of Muhammed’s skirt to entreat him to desist.”
Martyn was sickened by the comment, and the scholar asked him what was wrong. Martyn replied, “I could not endure existence if Jesus was not glorified. … it would be hell to me if He were to be always thus dishonored.”
Brothers and sisters, that is supreme allegiance.
For Martyn, his allegiance was so strong, so overcoming, that the only existence tolerable to him is one where Jesus is glorified.
That sounds like a man being shaped for heaven. Isn’t that what we long for?
For Jesus to come back — the rend the heavens, return, make all things new.
For the one whose supreme allegiance is Jesus Christ, for as long as we’re here, that is the best-case scenario. The second-best scenario is to bring with us as many people as we can.
Father, fill us afresh with your Holy Spirit, make the fire in our hearts for Christ burn brighter and hotter, in his name, amen.
