Our Role as Citizens

All right.

It is great to see you guys.

Thank you so much, guys, for leading us in worship and our team aren't they awesome, man.

They do a great job.

We have such an incredible worship team that lead us both here at social circle and they rotate back and forth.

So great to see you guys.

My name is Russ.

If I had a chance to meet you and one of the pastors here at Church of the Grove, I want to say welcome to all of you, especially if it's your first Sunday, second Sunday, you're kind of new to us.

We just encourage you to keep coming back, look for opportunities to get connected and get you know build relationships.

I think it's a research to fact.

If you go to a church and you just sit in the auditorium and stare at the back of somebody's head for several months, you probably won't stay in the church.

You'll gravitate out, you'll kind of just gravitate out.

It's when you build at least a few significant relationships.

And you do that through joining a serve team, maybe joining a community group or a small group Bible study, and you connect with a few people and you build those relationships.

And that's what our prayer is for you as we worship.

So we're in this series.

It's just a two-Sunday series.

And if you were here last week, thank you for coming back, offended or not.

I'm glad you're here.

If you're not here, you know, maybe maybe you are a bit offended, which means you're probably not watching online, but hey to you anyway.

And um uh and so we we we we talked about this this significance.

I don't know if y'all know this, but Tuesday is a fairly significant day in the life of our country.

We we will elect a president, and so I'm sure y'all are caught by surprise on that.

Um it has escaped you.

And so last week, if we were here last, if you were here last week, we talked about how followers of Jesus we we belong to another kingdom.

We don't belong to an earthly kingdom.

We we we we are citizens of a of a country and this earthly kingdom, but but it's really not where our true citizenship is found.

Um uh and so first and foremost, we don't belong, our allegiance should not be to a political party, our allegiance should be to the kingdom of God.

And so our allegiance isn't to a candidate, our allegiance is to Jesus.

And so he is our king.

We really don't have to elect a president because we've been assigned a king.

And so we are thankful for our country, we're thankful for the freedoms, and we're thankful for the freedom that God has given us to be a part of the process.

And so last week we we kind of laid a little bit of a theological foundation of politics, saying that we not only belong to a radically different kingdom with a radically different king, but we also are ambassadors of this new kingdom, and we are ambassadors of our king Jesus.

We're called to bring the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven to this world.

And this is why Jesus, when his disciples said, ask Jesus, Jesus, would you teach us to pray?

And he said, Pray like this.

And he gives the Lord prayer, and in the Lord's prayer, he says, Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

And so we want to see God's kingdom become a reality on this earth.

And so our king desires that we would bring his kingdom to this world, not through power or forces.

And if you wanted to take a little journey back into church history, one of the worst, darkest periods in church history is the period of the crusades, when in the name of the kingdom of God, um armies were called to march and to and they they slayed every person, everything set fire as they traveled from Europe to the Holy Land.

And of course, the the crusades laid a foundation that we still really haven't overcome.

A lot of the tension in our world between uh religions and belief systems and cultures go back to that period where we, when I say we, I say that people who claimed belief in Jesus.

Those who said they wanted to follow Jesus were motivated to take the world by force rather than to carry out the teachings and the character and the beliefs of Jesus.

And so it's rather, instead of power, instead of force, it is through humble service, it is through demonstrating our love to our neighbors.

That is how we see the kingdom of God advanced.

And you you think, well, this isn't a very successful strategy, but this is how Christianity really has made its mark throughout history.

It's being willing to serve, being willing to run into difficult situations.

Uh Tacitus, a Roman historian, uh, speaks and writes uh extensively about those Christians who during times of plagues or pandemics, and you've got to remember, they didn't have, they had not discovered antibiotics, and so any any little sickness or disease would would have the potential of running rampant and killing hundreds and thousands and potentially even millions of people.

And Tacitus talks about how the Roman citizens scattered out of these areas where where the plague existed.

And he talks about these unusual people called little Christ, Christians who ran into the plague, ran into the periods of sickness.

They made sure that those who had died of disease that they had a proper and honorable burial.

Those who were still alive, they treated them with medicine.

And so those types of things, those types of responses throughout history has really helped the kingdom of God and the church make its mark.

And so sadly, many of us many of us miss the historical power and roots of Christianity.

The kingdom of God began thousands of years ago and it's and it has grown and taken new ground ever since.

And we're blessed to live in a country where we have the freedom to worship, what we call the freedom of religion.

And so some argue that these rights are being taken away from us, and maybe, maybe, maybe that's a concern.

Maybe it's it's a little bit bigger concern, maybe it's not.

But we do enjoy the freedoms, the freedoms that I took advantage of this week as I went into the voting booth and I cast my vote.

And I go in praying, Lord, let me, let me give me supernatural Holy Spirit insight into how I am to cast my vote.

So I'm asking the Lord.

But it's not necessarily the voting that marks us.

I mean, that's a beautiful freedom that we have.

It's living out a kingdom ethic that marks us, that identifies us.

And so all of us, when we think about the freedom that we have and exercising our voting opportunity, let's remember that's that's a very small piece.

It's really us living out the character of Christ.

Christianity not only survived the lack of religious liberties that we've seen throughout history, but it's even thrived in some of those uh places and some of those times throughout history.

And here's what this shows us: it shows us that Christianity doesn't need politics, politics needs Christianity.

I won't say that again because some of you over here didn't get that.

See, see, I wrote this down because I want to say it the right way.

Christianity doesn't need politics, politics needs Christianity.

And see, they got it over there.

So, do y'all get it over here?

Do I need to say it again?

Harrison's got it.

He gave me the thumbs up.

So we'll move on.

And so early followers of Jesus were under the Roman Empire.

You get remember, Christianity is birthed.

While Jewish people and then believers are occupied under Roman domination.

Who is their Lord?

Who's the Lord of the Roman Empire?

Is Caesar?

It is Caesar.

That was a statement.

That was a rally cry, a statement of allegiance to say Caesar is Lord.

And the believers, the church is born, and they wouldn't say Caesar is Lord, because that would mean that their allegiance would be to Caesar.

What did they say?

Who is Lord?

Jesus is Lord.

That's where that statement comes out of that culture.

In contrast to what was required by the Roman Empire, that people would verbally declare Caesar as Lord.

And the believers said, we're not going to do that.

Jesus is Lord.

One of the reasons they were persecuted so severely.

And so everyone was expected and demanded to bow down to his power.

Gerald Sitzer says this.

He said, Christians did not accommodate to Rome, neither did they isolate from Rome.

Instead, they immersed themselves.

Listen to this, they immersed themselves in the culture as followers of Jesus and agents of the kingdom, influencing it from both within as individuals and as a community.

You see it?

He says, we didn't run from the culture.

We immersed ourselves in the culture.

We didn't become like the world.

We maintained our integrity and our character while we were in the world.

That's where that statement comes out of Scripture.

We're to be in the world, but not of the world.

And so followers of Jesus belong to a different kingdom, a different ethic.

Different king.

They lived, so they lived differently.

That should be the end result.

Sitzer goes on.

He calls it the third way.

He says it's the third way.

He said they didn't immerse.

Talking about Christians during the Roman Empire, they didn't immerse themselves in culture.

They didn't separate themselves from the culture.

So they didn't say, hey, let's become like the people that don't believe like us.

But they said, let's not escape and wall ourselves off from the people that don't believe like us.

There is a third way, he says.

And the third way is to say that we are agents of the kingdom of God.

We are agents of the kingdom of Jesus.

And we live immersed in the culture for the purpose of influencing the culture.

And so the early church stood out in the Roman world.

Larry Hurtados says that the church stood out because it had a unique social vision that is still unique today.

It includes beliefs and it includes practices.

What set early Christianity apart?

And I think this will be up on the screen.

Look at some specific ways that the church set itself apart.

It became a multi-ethnic, multiracial community.

People that gave their allegiance to Jesus, but they were from all over the world.

Remember Pentecost?

It was a festival in Jerusalem.

And so Jewish believers from all over the world came to Jerusalem.

So all different languages, all different ethnic groups, different races, all coming at the time the Holy Spirit would be poured out, the gospel would be preached, and lives would be changed.

And on the first day of the church, Peter preaches 3,000 get saved.

All of those 3,000 from different countries, different cultures, different ethnicities, different languages.

Faith was bigger than your race.

As a matter of fact, let me teach you a principle out of Scripture.

There are not many races.

There is one race, and it's the human race.

There are many ethnicities, many nationalities, many cultures.

But we're also what set Christianity apart.

Highly committed.

They were highly committed to caring for the poor and the marginalized.

They didn't just care for their own.

They cared for those that had needs.

They were non-retaliatory, which means they took it serious.

When Jesus says to turn your cheek, do not respond.

Do not respond in in light to those that persecute you.

They were marked as a commit committed people to this idea of forgiveness.

They were strongly and practically against abortion and infanticide.

Now, as I'm writing this, reading through this, thinking about this, I know the culture and politicians make abortion out to be a political issue.

It's not political, it's a moral issue.

And listen, the reason they were known in the early church is because the Romans practiced they practiced this habit called exposure.

Where if they didn't want a child, they would allow the child to be born, but they would take the child out into the wilderness and just lay it out in the elements and leave it.

For animals, for the cold, for the weather.

And so Christmas, when the church was born, these Romans would decide, because of convenience, or what they thought was convenient to them at the time, they would leave a child, and here were the Christians hiding.

And while the child is left, they come and they take the child.

It's just a value of life.

And then finally, they were revolutionary regarding their ethic concerning sex or sexuality.

See, in the Roman world, sex was merely an appetite.

Married women, listen, listen, you want to say that here's what the so there are there's one political party that will call the other progressives.

The other political party wears progressives like a badge of honor.

But we we need to understand that things have changed greatly when it comes to how men and women treat one another, and Christians had a huge part in that.

During when the church was born, women were treated as if they were property.

In the Roman world, married women could only have sex with their husbands, but men could have sex with any female or male that they wanted to.

Early Christians taught and believed that sex was not for self-gratification, but for giving one's whole life in a consensual marriage covenant between a male and a female.

This took enormous power away from men and the upper class, and it was a huge reason why Christianity was so attractive to women because it empowered them.

Tim Keller, the late pastor author, he says this about the early church.

He said the early church was strikingly different from the culture around it in this way.

The pagan society was stingy with its money and promiscuous with its body.

A pagan, what is a pagan?

A pagan is a non-believer.

Somebody that's chosen to live by the world standards rather than follow Jesus or believe in the Lord, believe in God.

And so a pagan gave nobody their money and practically gave everybody their body.

And the Christians come along, the church is born, it begins to multiply like crazy.

And here's what identified them Christians come along and they gave practically nobody their body, unless it was a married spouse of the opposite sex, and they gave practically everybody their money.

You see the difference?

Now, I I give you some of this historical background information, not to bore you with needless information, but to help us understand and see that Christianity has always been about another kingdom, a different ethic.

Not belonging to and imitating the kingdom of this world, but living a radically different way of life that causes others to take notice.

Throughout history, and especially here in America, things have changed.

For the most part, we fall into this trap of allowing our politics to shape our beliefs rather than our beliefs shaping our politics.

You see it?

Instead of quietly and powerfully living out our faith as Christ calls us to, the American church and its leaders have clamored for more power, more political control.

And the very essence of what it means to follow Jesus is to lay control down.

And to pick up a towel and wrap it around our waist like Jesus did, and wash feet.

Serve.

Live with in with humility.

Which means we don't think less of who God has created us to be.

We just think of ourselves less.

And so our political goal is not to win, but to help.

Huge.

Huge change.

Listen, this will change how you walk into the booth and vote.

I'm not here to win.

I am here to serve.

How can I help?

How can I make a practical difference in this culture?

Now, I part of me wants to ask you if you've already voted.

Is that bad?

Just to ask you if you voted?

I mean, is that prying?

How many of you have already gone and voted?

Man, you guys are on top of it.

I cancel cancel the whole sermon.

I mean, I'm not changing anything.

I'm trying, I'm thinking, man, I'm gonna I'm gonna impact, we're we're gonna change the world.

You've already voted.

Go dogs.

I'm sorry.

All right, a couple things.

We're we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna land this real quick and we're gonna pray.

If I can't, if we can't change your mind, then we can pray for what happens this week, can't we?

And the next week.

And the next week, all the way into January and moving forward.

That's what we can.

And so Michael Ware says this Christians participate in politics not as an act of imposition, but out of a spirit of loving service.

And so if you go back to the Old Testament, to the nation of Israel, God's chosen people, they're blessed by God.

They're blessed by God to be a blessing to others.

Because of their disobedience, there are consequences to disobedience.

Because of their disobedience, God allowed his people to be overcome and conquered by another nation.

And this happens not just once, but it happens multiple times throughout history.

But this specific account I want to read out of Jeremiah, where God's people are taken captive and they are marched to a foreign land.

And this land is called Babylon.

And so what do they do?

What do they do?

If you go and and read through the Psalms, there's one put one particular psalm, and I wish I had made note of it.

I think it's Psalm 127, but if not, it's somewhere in that area.

But they write this psalm about how they sat on the banks of the river in Babylon, and it says, We hung our harps.

The 21st century version is we hung our guitars on the willow trees as we sat and we wept by the river of Babylon.

And the Babylonians mocked God's people.

They said, Where's your song now?

Because God, Israel is known for music, singing, clapping, dancing.

Where's your God now?

They said.

And so they they mocked, they mocked God's people for crying and weeping.

They felt hopeless.

But God says, even though you are in a foreign land, even though you are taken captive, I am with you.

I won't leave you or no forsake you.

Now I'm I am actually paraphrasing this is Russ's standard version.

Now I'm gonna get to the ESV, English Standard Version, Jeremiah 29, verses 4 through 8.

Jeremiah 29:4–8

4 through 8.

And so this is in the midst of despair.

God speaks and says, you still have purpose.

You still have and so I want to I want to I want to just mention this to you.

It is only of recent history, and and it's a small piece of history, and a small number of Christians that have actually had the ability to vote for their own ruler, and that is pretty much the history of Christianity in American culture.

Most of God's people throughout history have not had the freedom to vote for who will be their king or their leader.

And you go do the research and you'll see that.

But in this particular section of the story of God's people, they have been taken to Babylon, and God is trying to help them understand that you still have purpose.

Verse 4, thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles.

Exile is when you are taken out of your homeland and you are exiled to a foreign land.

To all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.

Here's what he says Build houses and live in them, plant gardens and eat their produce.

Take wives and have sons and daughters.

Take wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage.

That they may bear sons and daughters, multiply there and do not decrease.

And here's what he says, verse 7.

This is what I think applies to us.

But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you in exile and pray to the Lord on its behalf.

Stop there.

What?

I mean, I'm I'm living in a foreign land.

I've been kidnapped and taken by force on a multi-day journey.

Living in a foreign land, foreign languages, foreign culture.

And God says, seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you.

And he says, and pray to the Lord on its behalf.

For in its welfare, for the in the welfare of the city, you will find your welfare.

Here's what I hear from this.

We will not find our welfare through a political candidate.

We will find our welfare in how we seek the welfare of the community we live in, the state we live in, the city we live in, the county we live in, the country we live in.

If we seek the welfare of our community, what does that mean?

It means Shalom.

And in Jewish life, Shalom is this holistic sense of peace.

And it encompasses physical, emotional, financial, social, spiritual, well-being.

And I alluded last week, and I'm not going to go into the Sermon on the Mount.

Matthew 5, 6, and 7.

That is the constitution of our faith.

The Sermon on the Mount.

It's how we live out our faith on a daily basis.

5, 6, and 7.

We want to see God's kingdom be brought to earth.

We want to see us influence people toward Christ and not toward a political party.

Our goal is not to win, but it's to help.

Why don't we have to win?

Alright, so that I'm going to give you the opportunity to respond back and answer that question.

Why don't we have to win?

We've already won.

Yes, Jesus is already won.

Right?

He's already won.

I don't have to win.

And so understanding that is I care less about who you vote for and I care more about who you live for.

And so what I want to do is to finish our time today in prayer.

He says, seek the welfare of your city and pray.

Pray for your city.

Pray for your country.

Pray for your community.

Now, we should vote.

I said this last week.

Let's not take for granted this beautiful freedom that has been fought for, died for, blood has been shed for our freedom.

Let's exercise it.

And I see most of you have already.

Man, way to go.

And so can we pray?

Can we spend a this is going to be a prayer time that's not going to be a three-minute prayer time.

We're just going to take our time.

I preached really short so we'd have time.

And so as our team is going to just kind of behind me lead us into some time of worship.

But I want to invite you to pray.

And I want to listen, when God's people pray, there ought to be people at the altar.

There ought to be people kneeling at their chairs.

There ought to be people praying together, praying over one another.

And so I want to ask you, if you want to like get positioned, come to the altar.

We're going to spend a few moments in prayer.

We're not going to rush through this.

And so would you bow your heads?

And as I as we bow, if you want to come to the altar in the next few minutes, would be a time to do that.

Let's first pray that our vote should reflect the love God has for our neighbors.

We don't just vote for our own interest, we vote knowing that our vote has the power to impact people's lives, people that we call our neighbors.

So let's just pray.

Let's just spend a few moments in prayer.

Father, we ask that you would take our vote.

And as we, many of us have already cast our votes, we've already been a part of the process.

Help us understand and help us move forward to make an election like we have at this historical moment in the life of our nation.

May it be more about who we live around.

May it be more about our love for you and our love for our neighbors.

Just spend a moment.

Ask the Lord to give you love, give you a love for your community and for the people that we live around.

As we're praying, I just want to think about the words of Paul.

He says, Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility, consider others more important than yourselves.

Everyone should not look to his own interest, but rather to the interest of others.

So we're praying that God would give us a great love for him and a love for our neighbor.

Secondly, may our vote be based on truth.

May it be based on truth, the truth of Scripture.

May we have a biblical worldview when it comes to casting our vote.

Just pray right where you are.

Father, give me, give me wisdom and understanding in how to interpret political processes through the lens of Scripture and through truth.

Father, we pray, we pray for you to give us a heart for your word.

Give us a love for your word.

Give us a discipline to stay in it and read it.

Let's pray.

In addition to those things, let's pray for our national and local issues.

National and local issues.

I know there's so much attention placed on the election for our president, and that's that is huge.

That's important.

But sometimes we we overlook and we forget about some of the important local issues.

Local issues that impact our our community, our neighborhoods, impact our schools.

And so we need to we need to pray.

Pray for our nation, pray for people to have a healthy biblical worldview when it comes to national issues.

And God, may we be, may we be attuned to the local issues for our community.

God, that that is at the heart of our four generations initiative.

It is to prepare our church to reach our local community as it continues to grow.

People continue to move into our county, into our area, into our little town, into our city.

Pray for our Walnut Grove leaders, our mayor, our city council.

We pray for our county.

We pray for our schools.

We pray for our leaders in the school system.

We pray for our local leaders that impact our cities and our county.

Father, would you give wisdom?

God, give leadership.

Father, we pray for wisdom and discernment.

Just right where you are.

Ask God to give you wisdom and discernment.

God, give us wisdom.

I love what James says.

He said, if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God.

Who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given to him.

So, Father, we we want wisdom and discernment.

Give us wisdom and discernment.

And let me just ask where you are.

Pray for your elected officials, pray for people by name that you know, or maybe you don't know them personally, but you know their names, who serve, or who's running.

And just pray for them by name for a second.

Let's pray for our the marginalized, the weak, the poor.

Lord, we lift up, we lift up widows, we lift up refugees, we lift up orphans, we we pray for the unborn.

We pray for those who do sojourn.

We pray for the immigrants.

Father, we pray that you would use us, use your church, use your people to model what it means to care for and to love.

Father, we pray for your church.

We pray for your church to be a powerful force for good in this world.

We pray for the church in America to be unified in Christ, to be unified in Christ, for us to have conviction and to live our convictions out.

I pray specifically for Church at the Grove, Father, that you would work in us, that we would be salt and light.

We read in Matthew chapter 5.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

He says, You are the salt of the earth.

You're the light of the world, a city on a hill.

I pray that we would pursue unity and reconciliation, maybe where we differ.

We've been at odds.

I'm gonna I'm just gonna leave this moment open for you just to spend a moment.

Let's just give a moment where you can lift your voices, your hearts to the Lord, and you pray for the specific need situation that God brings to your mind and your heart.

It's okay to lift your voice up.

It's okay to pray out loud.

But let's just sit in this moment, and our team will close us out.

Father, may your will be done.

May we be the people that you call upon to lead the way in our culture with the character of Christ.

May we have a heart that demonstrates your love, your love for people.

Father, we love you.

We thank you.

It's in Christ's name.

Just spend a moment between you and the Lord.