Living as Kingdom Citizens in an Uncertain World - November 3, 2024

It is my privilege to invite you to today's sermon podcast.

I have made the Apostle Paul's prayer request my own.

When he states in Ephesians 6, 19, pray also for me, that whenever I open my

mouth, the words may be given to me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel.

May today's sermon come alive to you and aid you in your understanding of God's plan for your life.

Last night, since we knew we were going to have an extra hour of sleep,

maybe, Noah and I decided we're going to watch a movie, so we picked this old movie.

I say it's old. It's only 2004, but for some, that's a lifetime away.

Noah said, I've always wanted to watch this one, Dad. I said,

well, yeah, you didn't get to watch it because you're only three years old when it came out.

But it was a movie called The Terminal. I don't know if you saw that.

It starred Tom Hanks in it, and it was about a man who left his country to come

to the United States, to New York City, to fulfill a promise that he had made

his father who had passed away.

And when he came to the United States, there was a coup in his own country,

war broke out, and he was a man without a country.

And they would not let him enter the United States, but they could not send him back home.

And so Tom Hanks, playing this man named Victor, was just stuck in the air terminal.

Stuck between two nations, stuck between two countries, not being able to do

what he wanted to do and fulfill the promise that he had made,

but not able to go back home either.

And it's really just an interesting movie as you watch it and you think about

the different themes in there, and there's kind of a love story in there as well.

And so it kind of hits all these buttons for people that like a movie with a lot of varieties.

But I was thinking about the theme of that movie and just thinking about stuck in the in-between.

And I've got to tell you, sometimes it feels like that for us, or maybe it's just me.

You know, we're a citizen of this great nation we call the United States of

America, praise the Lord.

But we also know that we are citizens of the kingdom of heaven.

That is, it's here, but it's not yet fulfilled completely.

And so it just seems like we're stuck, maybe not in an airport and definitely

not stuck in a church. I hope you don't feel stuck this morning.

The doors keep opening and closing, so I know you can go in and out.

But it just seems like we're stuck.

We want to do all these great things for God. In essence, we want to fulfill

the promise that we've made to our Heavenly Father.

But it just seems like we're pulled back or we get engaged in other things and

we're not able to fully do what we want to do.

We're not able to fully see the kingdom realized.

And so we have these struggles within, we have these struggles without.

And I think in our politically charged day and age, we really feel it.

I don't know about you, but as a pastor, I hear and I feel the pull.

You're not supposed to talk anything about politics in the church.

No, you're supposed to take the lead on politics in the church.

And so there's this back and forth, this tug of war.

And I'll just admit, I probably go too far both ways sometimes.

Sometimes I feel that I don't say enough, or maybe I feel like I've said too much.

You guys can check me on that. I'm sure if it gets really bad,

the board will check me on that. And that's what that's supposed to happen.

But in this in-between, this tug of war, it reminded me of this passage of Scripture.

All the way back in 2 Kings, 2

2 Kings 2 · chapter mention

Kings chapter 2. And this was a time where there was going to be a change.

The prophets of God, these men of God, were being led by the prophet Elijah.

And Elijah, I will tell you, if you read back to chapter 1, he was one that

didn't mind speaking about the political issues of his days.

He was one that didn't mind standing up to the kings of the day to call out

sin where sin was there and present within the kingdom.

And so here was Elijah, this great prophet of God.

Remember, Elijah is the one that stood on the top of Mount Carmel against the

prophets of Baal, where they were having a contest.

Winner take all, if you will, because the losers were going to lose their life,

whether that be Elijah or the prophets of Baal.

And in this great contest, God showed himself to be God,

to consume the offering completely that was given, even the altar that it was

upon, where the prophets of Baal, they did everything they could to get Baal

to respond, but he never did.

So here's this great prophet, but his time is coming to an end.

Elijah's time is coming to an end, and who's going to take up the mantle?

Who's going to take up the banner of God and to continue to lead these men of

God, these prophets in training, if you will?

And so there was a little anxiety, I believe, in the company of the prophets there.

Because at the beginning of chapter 2, Elijah says, hey, Elisha.

Just stay here for a little while, because I got to go to this town.

Elisha says, no, I'm going with you. I want to be present with you.

And on and on that exchange went. And then there was the company of the prophets

that kept telling Elisha, hey, Elijah's going. And what are you going to do?

Hey, Elisha, he's not going to, or Elijah's not going to be around anymore.

And so what are you going to do, Elisha?

And there was this back and forth and back and forth, and we pick up in verse

7 of 2 Kings chapter 2 to read the text this morning.

2 Kings 2 · chapter mention

Hear the word of the Lord for the people of God today.

It says, Fifty men from the company of the prophets went out and stood at a

distance, facing the place where Elijah and Elisha had stopped at the Jordan.

Elijah took off his cloak, rolled it up, and struck the water with it.

And the water divided to the right and to the left, and the two of them crossed over on dry ground.

When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, Tell me, what can I do for you

before I am taken from you?

Let me inherit a double portion of your spirit, Elisha replied.

You have asked a difficult thing, Elijah said. Yet, if you see me when I am

taken from you, it will be yours.

Otherwise, it will be not. As they were walking along together,

suddenly a chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared and separated the two

of them. And Elijah went up into heaven in a whirlwind.

Elisha saw this and cried out, My father, my father, the chariots and horsemen

of Israel. And Elisha saw him no more.

Then he took hold of his garment and tore it in two. Elisha then picked up Elijah's

cloak that had fallen from him and went back and stood on the bank of the Jordan.

He took the cloak that had fallen from Elijah and struck the waters with it.

Where now is the Lord God of Elijah?

He asked. When he struck the waters, it divided to the right and to the left, and he crossed over.

The company of the prophets of Jericho, who were watching, said,

The spirit of Elijah is resting on Elisha.

And they went out to meet him and bowed before him.

May God bless the reading of his word to your life today. Let's pray.

Father, thank you for your church. Lord, thank you for your word.

I pray this morning that we'll be encouraged, but yet challenged by the words

we just read, by the account of Elijah and Elisha, and Lord,

how you worked in the life of both of these men.

Lord, bless us now, we pray, as we continue to chew on your word a little bit.

In Jesus' name we ask. Amen. Thank you. You can be seated.

You know, in our world that's often dominated by political turmoil,

sometimes, like I said, we find ourselves at this crossroad between the temporary

world of kings and of presidents and the kingdom of God.

And there's patterns that happen in both worlds, patterns that happen in the

kingdom of God and patterns that happen that we know of and we know very well,

I think, in our own nation, in the world of kings and presidents.

And when we understand these patterns and how they work, I think it helps us

navigate some of these different things that we have to navigate.

For instance, all of the information that comes at you on all these different

commercials that have been playing for far too long.

And I know we can't wait until November the 6th, is that right,

Wednesday, when hopefully all those commercials cease.

But boy, it annoys me. And I turn the radio station when they're still playing

those things after we've already voted. So it's like, that's overkill.

But in a world that's often defined by what's your politics is.

We're called, I think, as believers in Jesus, to live first and foremost as

citizens of the eternal kingdom of God, even if we're the temporary world of kings and presidents.

And so this morning, from our passage of Scripture, I just want to share three

points with you, three points that I hope will help build you up and really

help you to live as those kingdom citizens.

Being a kingdom citizen does not preclude you from being a good citizen of the

United States of America or whatever nation that you are from.

So I just want to make that clear. I don't want there to be any misunderstanding this morning.

But I think where our allegiance lies, and I hope you'll see that this morning,

is first and foremost with the kingdom of God.

As we look through here, we saw in this great passage that God was faithful

to leave the company of prophets with a leader.

He wasn't just going to leave them high and dry.

I know in this congregation, you experienced that when you had a pastoral transition.

All the questions that came, maybe still some of the questions that you have,

but that brings up a lot of anxiety, a lot of what's next, what's going to happen.

And for this company of prophets here, the same thing. And I hope that you have

found what these men found, that God's faithfulness transcends uncertainty.

God's faithfulness to you goes beyond the times when you just don't know.

When you're not sure what's going to happen When you aren't sure and exactly

To understand what God is doing Just know that God Is faithful,

in times of uncertainty, when the world is going crazy, when anxiety is at its

highest level, just know that the kingdom of God operates on this principle

of unwavering trust in God's faithfulness.

You trusted God today? How about Wednesday? Are you still going to be trusting God?

How about Tuesday when you have to go vote? Are you still trusting Him?

You know, Deuteronomy 31.6 says this, Be strong and courageous.

Do not be afraid or terrified because of them. For the Lord your God goes with you.

He will never leave you nor forsake you.

Talk about the faithfulness of God.

If you're going in and hear Joshua, they were going to go in and they were going

to possess the land in the book of Joshua.

And there were giants over there. And the children of Israel,

they had a big task ahead of them, but God says he's going to be with them.

Lamentations 3, 22 and 23, because of the Lord's great love,

we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.

They are new every morning.

Great is your faithfulness. We sang about that this morning,

did we not? That God is faithful to his people.

God will be faithful to you. I don't know about you, but when we sang that hymn

this morning, several times came to mind about areas and times in my life where God has been faithful.

Even in the midst of my failures, even in the midst of my unfaithfulness,

God always showed up. God was always there.

When I had a need for forgiveness, guess who was there?

God. he was ready and willing to forgive to lift me up out of the muck and the

mire to plant my feet on more solid ground with which to walk to mark that mud

hole never to go back to it again god is faithful he loves us.

You know, the calm transfer of authority here. I had to think that,

boy, these prophets, the school of the prophet here, these prophets were a little anxious.

As a matter of fact, if you continue to read, which I encourage you to do,

read the rest of chapter 2, we see that they're kind of in confusion still,

and they start to ask Elisha, should we go look for Elijah?

He just kind of went up in that fiery tornado with the chariot of fire, you know, that old song.

Okay, that was bad because I can't sing.

Should we go look for Elijah? He's got to be over that mountain somewhere.

Elisha said, no, don't. And you'll see as you read. Finally,

they just go because their curiosity gets the best of them.

They come back. So we couldn't find him. Elisha's like, didn't I tell you not to go?

But there was some confusion. There's some pull there. But there's this peaceful

transition in God's leader that happened.

In the midst of this, God was faithful.

God was faithful to those men who dedicated their lives to go out and to preach

the Word, to proclaim God's Word wherever it was needed to be proclaimed.

That's something important that I think we need to remember,

because there's going to be a temptation to say things.

There's going to be a temptation maybe to do things in the next few days that

perhaps we need to trust in God's faithfulness.

There's going to be times that seem dark, but God's still going to be there with you.

Remember what He told the children of Israel in Deuteronomy,

I will never leave you nor forsake you.

And that promise is repeated in the New Testament, so it's not just an Old Testament kind of thing.

You know, I want you to trust in God's faithfulness, church.

I want you to use God's faithfulness as your anchor.

During not only societal upheavals, but in your personal transitions that you

work through, that you go through.

Just know that God is faithful to you.

You can trust his promises.

So God's faithfulness, it goes beyond, it transcends uncertainty.

And I think you got the message of that this morning. I love what it says again

in Hebrews 10.23, let us hold unswervingly to the hope that we profess,

because he who promised is faithful.

You still hold on to the hope of heaven?

You're still holding on to the hope of what God has promised you in your life?

If not, remember this verse that we have written right on our very wall,

the Lord is not slow in keeping his promises, as some understand slowness,

yet he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

God is faithful. He's not taking his time lollygagging around just so you can

suffer and suffer and suffer.

No, God is patient. He wants everyone to have the chance to come to repentance,

to turn and follow him, to experience a change in their life.

Well, I want you to know too that God writes the true story of history.

Isn't it funny during election time, some stories come out that you recollected

a little different than what's being portrayed?

That perhaps some narratives, as they like to use the word, have changed from what it used to be.

Well, when I was a kid, we didn't have the, well, we eventually,

we had the cable news network and all these things.

And, but we were just watching channel seven news or channel two news and seeing

how it was. And, you know, that's what we thought.

And, and even those stories, you see how President Reagan in my lifetime and

my childhood, my teenagehood, how he did some things. And, and then later on,

you read another story, just like, boy, I don't remember it like that.

It's a little different.

Well, I want us to be encouraged that God's the one that's going to have the

ultimate say on history.

It's going to have the ultimate say on true history, on what really happened.

You know, we can see in the kingdom of man, whether it's a king or a president,

that the winner, the victor usually gets to write the history of what happened.

When one group would conquer another group, well, the winning group would get

to say what happened and how great and victorious they were.

When we think about God's kingdom and his history, especially as we read the

Bible, we see a history and a testament of his faithfulness at work.

We see that God, in his story, puts the ugly in with the glorious.

When you think about a King David, you see the great and mighty things that he did.

But guess what's included with all the great and mighty things that he did?

Some of his greatest failures, some of his biggest mess-ups are right there.

In Isaiah 46.10, the scripture says, I make known to the end of the earth,

or excuse me, I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come.

I say, my purpose will stand and I will do all that I please.

God is the one who's going to get the final word on what is written.

In Daniel 2.21, he changes the times and the seasons. He deposes kings and raises up others.

He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning.

God is in control. God is faithful. No matter what happens, no matter where

we find ourselves, God is there and he's there with us. He was there with Abraham.

Even though Abraham made a stupid choice with Sarai and it caused a problem

that continues till this day, God was still faithful to be with Abraham.

Even Moses, though he committed an act of striking a rock instead of speaking

to and in the desperation to make sure that these people had water to drink, even in his failures,

not to mention killing a guy. God was with Moses.

We've talked about David, but we also talk about Peter in the New Testament.

Peter, Jesus said, you'll deny me three times. No, I won't. I will not do that, Jesus.

I'll be right there to defend you. And what happened with Peter?

Peter messed up and he had to be restored He did just what Jesus said he was

going to do You think about the Apostle Paul,

In his zeal, especially younger, in his younger days As younger,

I say, as a new believer There are still some things that he fought against,

In all these great and godly men The history of their failures are recorded,

But also their triumphs God's going to have the final say with you You might

just say, Mike, man, I messed up. I don't want that written in the Bible.

I don't want that written down anywhere.

But yet, we need to live into who God has called us to be.

Just because we've blown it, or just because we've sinned like everybody else,

the scripture says, God just doesn't leave us there.

He wants to exalt us, to lift us up to be the child, the masterpiece that he's created us to be.

There's this verse in 2 Corinthians 3 that really encourages us to view our

life as part of God's big story, as part of God's grand narrative,

where we have our past mistakes.

Maybe we have our current struggles, the things that we're just trying to work through.

We need to look at those as opportunities for God's transformative power and

work to happen within us.

Listen to this verse, 2 Corinthians 3, verses 2 and 3.

2 Corinthians 3:2

You yourselves, Paul says to the church at Corinth, you yourselves are our letter,

written on our hearts and known and read by everyone.

You should know that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry,

written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God,

not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of the human heart.

You're a living letter. You're a living epistle.

And that your story, what God is doing, what God has done in your life,

as it continues to be written, it's a book for everybody to read.

Your mess-ups, your failures, but also, and most importantly,

the redemption that happens as a result of those.

How God lifts you up, brushes you off, and restores you.

Well, the power of a testimony, which we don't do enough of,

I believe, and we're going to work on that, but the power of a testimony to say, I was like this,

broken, beat up, but God picked me up and He put me back together.

He set me on this path now.

Folks, people are reading you. Wherever you go, whatever you do,

whatever you say, they're making a note of it. Remember that.

While we were up at the ministers and development training, Pastor Scott shared

something, our district superintendent, with all of us that were there.

He said, do you know that a pastor status in a community once was at the top

of the list when they asked, who is the best person that you can trust outside of your own family?

Pastor for several years, decades even, was at the top of the list.

But he said, you know what?

They made another top 10 list not too long ago, and pastors weren't even in the top 10.

His encouragement in this, which if you want to call it encouragement, was to say.

Pastor, watch how you behave, watch how you are, watch what you post on Facebook,

watch all that stuff, because it's not just a reflection on you or your congregation,

but it's a reflection on all pastors everywhere.

We could probably come up really easily with a top five list of some crooked pastors.

I'm talking right here and right now, not just 30 years ago.

But it just doesn't extend to pastors. It does, but it extends to all of us, extends to each one.

We're a living letter that is being read by the people we're living with,

we're serving with, we're out in the community working with.

And so how we respond to Jesus, how we respond to the world. Boy, it's so vital.

But the great thing is, and don't miss this, that God's the one that writes the true story.

He's going to have the redemptive part where people might not always have the whole story on things.

All right, last this morning, I want you to know that true leadership flows from God's Spirit.

We saw the flow from Elijah to Elisha here in this passage.

Leadership in the kingdom of God, I want you to know, it's recognized by the

presence and the power of the Holy Spirit of God, not by political maneuvering

or just by human strength or human pride, but it's God at work that does this.

You can go back again, thinking about David, to 1 Samuel 16.

In verse 7, the scripture says, But the Lord said to Samuel,

do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him.

The Lord does not look on the things of men.

Man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart.

Here, Samuel went to the house of Jesse to anoint a new king in Israel,

and he found one of David's brothers that's like, oh, this is the perfect king for Israel.

But then God tells Samuel, he might look perfect to you, but I've got someone else in mind.

In Isaiah 61 verse 1, the scripture says, the spirit of the sovereign Lord is

Isaiah 61:1

on me because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim the good news to the poor.

He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives

and release from the darkness for the prisoners.

It's the Spirit of God on a man or a woman who steps up to pursue the call of God.

I'm just not talking in a pastoral preaching kind of sense, but I just mean

you, a man or a woman, stepping up to do what God has called you to do,

to live as God has called you to live, in the holiness of heart and in the holiness of your practice.

That it's the Spirit of God that makes the difference. I love the scene in this passage.

Melanie, hand me Annika's jacket right there. Just throw it to me. I forgot my prop.

I can tell you that Elijah's cloak was not pink, checkered like this.

But I got to have something or I'm going to throw my back out.

It says that Elisha takes Elijah's cloak that probably flitted down from heaven

as he was taken up in a whirlwind.

And Elisha takes that as he's going to the Jordan River. He rolls it up.

And just like Elijah did, where is the Lord God of Elijah?

Smack, and he hits the water in the water parts. Boy, you want some spiritual imagery?

Go back to Moses in the parting of the Red Sea. Go to Joshua in the parting of the Jordan River.

Go just back to Elijah.

The evidence of this power of the Spirit of God working and moving in the new

leader, the new leader of Elisha.

Oh, how incredible that is to see that this is God's Spirit at work.

I want to encourage us all to recognize and to support leadership that flows from God's Spirit,

that we can understand that impactful leaders, those that really make a difference,

might not always have the political clout or the public recognition,

maybe not even the recognition of the clout in the church.

But when the Spirit of God is in a person's heart, they're going to have some

kind of influence on somebody.

Going back to Samuel and choosing a new king, in verse 13 of that passage,

it says, so Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed David in the presence of his brothers.

And from that day on, the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon David.

Zechariah 4.6, don't forget this one. So he said to me, this is the word of

the Lord to Zerubbabel, not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord Almighty.

It's not by your might, not by your power, but it's by the Holy Spirit of God that things get done.

Folks, be encouraged by that. As God is writing your story, you just follow

the lead of his Holy Spirit.

Growing up, I watched some cartoons, and one of them was this little cricket.

His name was Jiminy Cricket. You remember that?

And you remember in Pinocchio, he said, let your conscience be your guide.

Well, I don't know if that's good advice. I think it is to a point.

But I think we need to pay attention to the small, still voice in our hearts

and our minds that is the Holy Spirit of God.

I think we need to pay attention to our brothers and sisters when the Holy Spirit

is speaking through them and to our life needs.

I think we need to be open to the Holy Spirit of God working.

That is what a citizen kingdom, kingdom citizen, excuse me, that's what a kingdom

citizen does, is to follow the voice, the move of the Holy Spirit.

The easiest ministry advice, the greatest ministry advice I ever received was,

find out where the Spirit of God is moving and get over there as quick as you can.

Boy, I think that's great advice.

So how do you live as kingdom citizens in a divided world? just really quickly,

four points or three points, because we really got to ask ourselves.

Which kingdom has our allegiance?

Is it the kingdom of God or is it the kingdom of men? Is our allegiance solely

to a king or a president, or is our allegiance first and foremost to God Almighty?

It's a question that we wrestle with, I know.

And there's some other things at play here. Don't misunderstand what I'm saying,

but first and foremost, I want to call you to this action.

Trust in God's faithfulness, even in dire circumstances. Just trust God.

When it doesn't look like you're going to get out of a situation,

when something looks as though it's just impending doom upon you, trust God.

God is faithful. He will always come through for you.

Secondly, I want you to view your life and the events that surround you through

the lens of God's redemptive story, through the lens of, and you can even say

the glasses of that, that God is doing something, that maybe God is not done here.

I once had an addict tell me, Mike, you know, your addiction gets really,

really ugly before it starts to get better.

He was talking about how he was working through a drug dependency.

This man had a powerful testimony of what God did in his life to deliver him

from the substances he was addicted to.

Sometimes in our own life, events just seem to be so dark, but God is on the

cusp of bringing salvation.

God is on the edge of bringing redemption to those situations. So don't give up.

Trust God and know that God is at work in redeeming your story,

redeeming your situation.

Last and not least on this, just support leadership that's anointed by God's Spirit.

Again, just get behind them and go for it. Go for what God is doing.

I know it's kind of self-serving for me to say that, but that's exactly what

happened here, that Elisha was now being followed by the school of the prophets.

And you'd go on to see that Elisha, as you read the rest of 2 Kings,

as you read the scripture, Elisha did get that double portion of the Spirit

of God working in his life.

And folks, I know you here. Well, I'm still learning you, still knowing you,

but I know there's some very influential people here, not because they've got

a lot of money, not because they have a lot of political clout,

not because of a family name, but because the Spirit of the living God rests within you.

And you submitted yourself, and God is using you to have a great influence,

not only on your family, on your church, on your community, but in this world as a whole.

So keep following, keep following and doing what God has called you to do.

Remember, it's important that we live as a new creation people in an old broken

world, because how else are we going to point people to the greatest kingdom

that there ever will be for all eternity, and that is the kingdom of God.

Whole people need to be in broken communities because we've got to point the way out.

This morning, as we turn our hearts... I want to thank you for joining today's sermon podcast.

You can find a copy of today's sermon, as well as other sermons,

and the sermon outline from today on our church's website, www.mvcnaz.org.

It is my prayer also that you will seek out a church home that recognizes the authority of the Bible.