This is the manuscript of a message I delivered at Desert Shores Community Baptist Church on October 16, 2022.
So, Pastor George asked me to talk about politics. UHG! Please don’t zone out on me just yet! If you are like me, you are already tired of the political advertisements that are flooding the media. If I didn’t know Pastor George better, I’d think he was trying to get me into trouble. But hear me: the worst thing we can do as Christians is to fail to participate in elections. We are blessed with a form of government that allows citizens to express their opinions by voting for representatives who will carry their wishes to the seats of power. I believe we are shirking our duty if we don’t remain engaged in the political process.
The question I want to address is how we should be
engaged as Christians. I am going to be rooting my comments today in the
thirteenth chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans, but we will find there are
many passages of Scripture that can help us understand what our role should be.
Let’s begin by looking at the first few verses of Romans 13. [Romans 13:1-3 All
citations are from NASV unless noted.]
1 Every
person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no
authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God.
2 Therefore whoever resists
authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will
receive condemnation upon themselves.
3 For rulers are not a cause of fear
for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do
what is good and you will have praise from the same.
In this passage, Paul makes it perfectly clear that
Christians have a responsibility to submit to government. The Apostle explains
that this is the case because God has ordained government as a requirement of
civil society. Because God made us, He knows human nature; He knows that we
need structure to keep our proclivity toward independence under control. (Original
sin?)
There is something this passage doesn’t say, but it is
important for us to understand; it doesn’t say that the individuals who are in
authority are necessarily good people. Authority is good; authority is from
God. We have to remember that Paul most likely wrote this when Nero was the supreme
authority over his life. Nero was not a good person. Nero is thought to have
been responsible for some of the worst persecution of Christians (and anyone
else who refused to worship him). One of the stories is that he hung Christians
on posts, covered them with tar, and set them on fire as streetlamps.
Yet Paul commanded submission to Nero.
I should probably add at this point that there is one
biblical exception to Paul’s command. It is found in [Acts 5:29]. When Peter
and John were called before their governing authorities, the Jewish Sanhedrin,
they were told they had to stop preaching about Jesus. Peter answered them
plainly, “We must obey God rather than men.” I believe this confirms that Christians
can justifiably refuse to do anything an authority asks if it would cause them
to violate one of God’s commands. This doesn’t mean there won’t be consequences
if we refuse to obey man’s law: Peter and John had been held in jail; Paul
spent quite a long period of imprisonment because of his obedience to God
contrary to the law of the land. The early disciples understood, as we should too,
that disobedience to God would bring a far more serious penalty that
disobedience to men.
This exception to submission to authorities brings up an
important point for us. Jesus faced this dilemma when He stood on trial for His
life before Pontius Pilate. The Jewish leaders had brought Jesus to Pilate with
charges of treason saying that He claimed to be a king. This is treason because
Caesar was the only person who could appoint subordinates (like King Herod).
The Romans did not permit the Jews to execute anyone, so the Jews had to appeal
to Pilate, their Roman governor, to get Jesus killed.
The exchange between Jesus and Pilate is instructive. We
read in the Gospel of [John, chapter 18:33-38a]
33 “Therefore Pilate entered again
into the Praetorium, and summoned Jesus and said to Him, “Are You the King of
the Jews?”
34 Jesus answered, “Are you saying this
on your own initiative, or did others tell you about Me?”
35 Pilate answered, “I am not a Jew, am
I? Your own nation and the chief priests delivered You to me; what have You
done?” (Pilate thinks Jesus is innocent.)
36 Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of
this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be
fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My
kingdom is not of this realm.”
37 Therefore Pilate said to Him, “So You
are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say correctly
that I am a king. For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the
world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.”
38 Pilate *said to Him, “What is truth?””
We will get to Pilate’s fascinating question of truth in a
minute, but let’s look first at Jesus’ explanation of His kingship: He said, “My
kingdom is not of this world.” Notice: Jesus did not deny that He is a king. He
frequently announced the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven throughout His earthly
ministry. But hear Him: it is the Kingdom of Heaven – not a kingdom of this
world. If we enter Jesus’ kingdom by trusting Him with our eternal destiny, we
place our citizenship in an otherworldly realm: Heaven.
The Apostle Paul points to this reality in [2 Corinthians
5:17-21].
17 Therefore
if anyone is in Christ, he is a new
creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.
18 Now
all these things are from God, who
reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of
reconciliation,
19 namely, that God was in Christ
reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them,
and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.
20 Therefore,
we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us;
we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.”
Understand this: ambassadors travel to foreign countries as
representatives of their governing authority. Paul says we are like ambassadors
from the Kingdom of Christ begging people to turn their hearts to God.
Peter makes a similar point in [1 Peter 2:9-10a]
9 But
you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may
proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His
marvelous light.
10 for you once were not a people, but
now you are the people of God.
So, we might ask what it means to be “other worldly.” How do
we behave with this dual citizenship? Note that in [John 17:14-17] in Jesus’
prayer on the night He was betrayed confirmed with His Father that
14 “I have given them Your word; and the
world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of
the world.
15 “I do not ask You to take them out of
the world, but to keep them from the evil one.
16 “They are not of the world, even as I
am not of the world.
17 “Sanctify them in the truth; Your
word is truth.
The language the authors of the New Testament used to
describe our condition helps clarify what we should be like. For example, the Greek
word Paul chose in [Philippians 4:20] is interesting.
20 For our citizenship is in heaven,
from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
21 who will transform the body of our
humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the
power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.
The Greek word for “citizenship” (v.20) could better be
translated as “commonwealth.” I like the word commonwealth because it speaks of
being concerned about the common good. So, although Paul says we wait “in
Heaven,” he has also made it clear that we are still here on earth as
ambassadors – in the world but not of the world as Jesus said.
Again, I will ask: what does Christian involvement in
government look like? There is a group of people speaking out in America today
who have been called Christian nationalists. They are getting quite a bit of
interest from the secular media, most of whom believe the Christian
nationalists represent all Christians. Unfortunately, they do not properly
interpret the biblical responsibility toward government because they are
proposing a theocracy like that of Old Testament Israel.
Christianity Today has a helpful article which
differentiates Christianity from Christian nationalism. They explain that
historically Christians have, “worked to advance Christian principles, not
Christian power or Christian culture, which is the key distinction between
normal Christian political engagement and Christian nationalism. Normal
Christian political engagement is humble, loving, and sacrificial; it rejects
the idea that Christians are entitled to primacy of place in the public square
or that Christians have a presumptive right to continue their historical
predominance in American culture.”
The US Constitution specifically prohibits favoring one
religion over another. The founding fathers may not have imagined the small
world/global village nature of 20th
century America. The religious freedom they envisioned encompassed primarily
variations of Christianity or Judaism. We are in a different world from theirs,
but the Constitution remains the law of the land. Christian nationalism strains
against religious plurality as we know it today.
The majority of the public sees the name “Christian” applied
to this group of nationalists and assumes they represent all Christians. This
is at least partially a result of the fact that many people are not careful to
discern truth from lies. Anyone can call himself a Christian, as the writers of
the New Testament warned us. Non-believers are ill equipped to make the
distinction between who is and who is not a true Christian. However, it is a
believer’s first responsibility to examine the claims of a person or movement
to decide if their position aligns with biblical truth.
This brings us back to Pilate’s question of Jesus, “What is
truth?” Getting to the truth demands an inquiring mind. Cornelius VanTil, a Dutch theologian of the 20th century
is famous for having encouraged believers to view all things through what he
called biblical spectacles. He insisted, “The Bible gives us the
presuppositions we need to interpret individual facts rightly. It is the
spectacles by which we can view all of life rightly.” Let me break that down
for you. Presuppositions are the things we bring to our investigations which
color our interpretations. For example, if one presupposes that there is no
God, and all things exist through time and chance, one sees the universe in a
certain way. If, on the other hand, one assumes that the universe was created
by a loving, communicating, all-powerful God, things appear quite different.
I believe it is our Christian responsibility to represent
Christ in response to all our 21st century issues. However, as
sojourners or ambassadors from another kingdom, we should not expect to find
our rules of behavior, the “law of Christ,” fully encoded in America’s laws.
That is the Christian nationalist goal. The true aim of every Christian is to
be the salt and light Jesus commanded; Or as Paul recommended in Philippians
2:14-15 our goal is to
14 Do
all things without grumbling or disputing;
15 so that
you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above
reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you
appear as lights in the world.
Notice Paul says we may disagree, but we must to it
agreeably: without grumbling or disputing.”
So how does a Christian engage in a “humble, loving, and
sacrificial way as the Christianity Today article recommends? Let’s look
at some examples and consider the Christian approach. First let’s think about
abortion. There is no doubt that a biblical opinion would call abortion the
murder of a human being. Scripture repeatedly says that God knows a person and
has plans for that person even before conception. The thing growing in a
mother’s womb is a human being.
We don’t even have to resort to Scripture to argue that
human life begins at conception; logic dictates that fact. If the entity that
exits the birth canal is a human being, then it was human one second before,
one week before, nine months before. The secular debate about abortion has
always centered around the concept of viability – when is the fetus capable of
living outside the womb. The real question should be when is the fetus NOT a
human being. Logically, humanness begins at conception. The fertilized egg will
not become anything but a human being, therefore human rights inhere from
conception. Logic and the Bible agree. No surprise there!
Does this mean that we shun women who have chosen to have an
abortion. NO! Of course not. We love them as Jesus loves them – just as they
are. We are humble, loving and sacrificial. Maybe we ask if we can help. Maybe
they are struggling with the consequences of their decision – many women do. We
need to be there for them.
For a second example, we can see that the homosexual agenda is
also clearly unbiblical. The Levitical law and Paul’s comments in Romans 1
clearly call homosexual behavior an abomination. It is true that some
Christians point out that we are no longer under Old Testament law, and they
believe Paul’s comments in Romans specifically refer to male temple
prostitutes. They are right about the law, but the argument they use to dismiss
Paul cannot be maintained. There are numerous references throughout the New
Testament that carry the implication that perverted sex, particularly
homosexual behavior is a sin.
Again, there is sound evidence outside Scripture that
homosexual behavior is less than ideal. Christians understand that God
instituted marriage between a man and a woman for His own purposes. Even
secular psychologists have determined that children raised by parents of both
genders are more likely to thrive. Surprise: God knew what He was doing when He
ordained the mother-father-child family institution. It is the proper basis of
all human society.
Then there are the physical consequences of perverted sexual
behavior. The AIDS epidemic among homosexual males brought this to light some
time ago; monkey pox is sounding the same alarm today, and there are other
sexually transmitted diseases that plague them as well. Studies have shown that
homosexually active men have a reduced life expectancy due to the consequences
of their behavior. We don’t even need to mention Paul’s comment that they would
“[receive] in their own persons the due penalty of their error.”
So, do we hate homosexuals? Again, NO! We must love them
humbly and sacrificially just like Jesus. Sadly, the church has not done a good
job of accepting homosexuals the same way we accept all other sinners.
Let’s look at one more issue where Christians might have a
biblical opinion. It’s another part of the broader LGBTQ agenda: the “T” stands
for transgender. Again, I think we are on sound biblical footing to say that
those who deny their biological gender are saying, in effect, that God made a
mistake by putting their soul in the wrong body. That’s pretty arrogant if you
think about it – God didn’t know what He was doing when He made me. The proof
that this is a ridiculous idea is found in the fact that transgender
individuals have a much higher rate of mental disorders. Studies show that
those who complete “gender affirming” surgery and take hormones to alter their
bodies have a suicide rate twenty times that of the general population.
I think we often can promote our agenda without using
Scripture. Unhealthy behavior is bad for individuals, and it has consequences
for society at large. For this reason, the government requires warning labels
on tobacco products; the government has outlawed illicit drugs; the government
has mandated seatbelt use in automobiles. It is totally legitimate for
Christians to push for this kind of government action. We don’t have to mention
that it happens to follow God’s rules.
In each of these examples, I think Christians would be
acting in a “humble, loving, and sacrificial way” if they attempt to correct
people who are violating God’s rules. The thing we need to keep in the
forefront at all times is that we are all sinners. Jesus didn’t come to save
“good people.” Paul reminds us that Christ died while we were still sinners.
God’s love is unconditional; that means we must show His love first, then talk
about behavior changes.
When Jesus identified God’s Word as the source of truth, He
preceded that assertion in John 17:17 with a request that the Father would, “Sanctify
[His disciples] in the truth.” To sanctify something is to set it apart
for a specific purpose. If we are going to be living proof that Jesus’ prayer was
answered, we must set about mining and distributing truth. We need to put on
our biblical spectacles as Van Til would say. We need to follow the advice
of the Psalmist and meditate on God’s Word day and night. We need to
refuse to be conformed to the world and be transformed by renewing our
minds with the Word. We need to set our minds on things above not on
things of earth. These acts of sanctification will give us the ability to
follow John’s admonition to test everything to determine if it is
from God.
The Bible says that in the last days things will get worse
and worse before the end comes. The Bible predicts that men will behave badly
and be proud of it. When I see the shameless depravity of our politicians,
when I think of the debauchery that is standard fare for Hollywood and
television, when I think of the audacity of the LGBTQ movement with their
claims of legitimacy, or when I mourn the millions of unborn children
slaughtered since Roe v. Wade, I can't imagine a more striking fulfillment of
those Bible words about the end times. Things are getting worse and worse.
Scripture also records Daniel’s prophesy that there will be some in the last
days who will remain righteous and "be mighty and do exploits." It's
beginning to look like just doing right thing will be the mighty doing exploits.
Maybe just voting would qualify.
I am going to close with a thought from the Romans 13
passage I started with.
Romans 13:7-8
7 Render
to all what is due them: tax to whom tax is
due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor.
8 Owe
nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has
fulfilled the law.
After commanding submission in the first part of the chapter,
Paul said we should honor and respect those in authority, and, yes, pay taxes
when they are due. But then he finished the thought by saying, “Owe nothing to
anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law.” When the New Testament
commands love, it is not a warm fuzzy kind of love. The Bible never commands us
to like anybody. To love in the New Testament sense means to care
for someone – to want the best for them – whether we like them or not. I want
to suggest that the most loving/caring thing we can do for someone is to assure
that the policies and practices of government follow God’s plan. As I said
before: God made us; He knows what’s best for us. I bet you never thought of
voting as an act of love for your neighbor. Maybe you should.
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