Navigating Nationalism, Patriotism, and Independence Day | Dean Taylor

So interesting a few weeks ago the ministry Brother Sean gave me.

So could you something along the subject of as laborers and God's kingdom?

how should I respond to Independence Day in July 4th?

And so I think this is a great question.

It's a complicated one for me and so maybe it isn't for you, but I'll just share some of my experiences and how I deal with it, and hopefully you'll be blessed with some of this.

But for the text, what I would like to do is let's turn to 1 Peter, chapter two, and then let's stand and I'm going to read this text and I'm gonna use this for the text that surrounds the many different nuances of patriotism and such like that.

1 Peter, chapter two, and I'll begin at verse nine.

But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, his own special people.

That you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light, who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy.

Beloved, i beg you, as sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul.

Having your conduct honorable amongst the Gentiles, that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may, by your good works, which they observe, glorify God in the day of visitation.

And he goes on.

Verse 13.

Therefore, because of those things, because of these addressing you as sojourners and pilgrims, as a holy nation, his own special people, and verse 13, therefore, submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, whether to the king as supreme, or to governors, as to those who are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of those who do good, for this is the will of God that by doing good you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men as free, yet not using liberty as a cloak for vice, but as bondservants of God.

Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king.

You may be seated, and that is the word of God.

Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God and honor the king.

You know, when I was a child I was raised in a very patriotism was very much part of the.

I don't know the mix of what it meant to be raised in the Taylor home.

I remember many days going, my dad taking us to Confederate war sites and battle places and things like that, and particularly the one that I think stands out the best to me is our trips to the sacred site called the Alamo.

And I remember when you go into the Alamo at least this has been quite a long since time I've been there as you go in there there's a plaque on the floor which spells out where Davy Crockett was said to have died.

And that's literally the spot.

And I can still remember my father kind of joking but kind of not calling attention of me and my brother to this plaque on the floor and kind of standing in a little bit of an attention.

If you knew my dad you'd kind of grin.

He said sons, this is where Davy Crockett died, right here on this place.

You look down on the plaque.

I looked it up last night.

It literally says legend states that Davy Crockett, born August 17th 1786, sacrificed his life for Texas liberty here in defense of the Alamo on March 6th 1836.

When you go into the different places in those days you could actually see the letter from Travis, colonel Travis, and as he calls for help for the cause of Texas and talks about, he says I call on you, in the name of liberty, of patriotism and everything dear to the American character, to come to our aid.

I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible and die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honor and that of his country victory or death sign.

Colonel Travis, those kind of things stick to you as a child.

They do Even after becoming a conscious objector.

And years later, when we were gonna move to Pennsylvania, i mentioned to my dad.

I said you know, dad, we're gonna be moving to Pennsylvania.

And he said and he wasn't kidding, son, that's the north.

And I said, in my ignorance, in my eyes, dad is, you know, is Pennsylvania really the north?

And he said with complete solemnity, son, doesn't Gettysburg mean anything to you?

And he wasn't kidding, he wasn't kidding.

I will say that there's something about that that still enchants me.

I still, when I hear the drone wine of a bagpipe, when I hear the staccato march of a fife and drum, i feel it inside of me, it's inside of who I am, that finding the place of where to put the patriot, the nationalist, the soldier is something that I struggle with, trying to find which part of this is carnal man and which part is ordained of God.

And that's kind of what I'm gonna try to get to through this message.

My father-in-law, tanya's father, was no different.

He was raised in a little town in Hungary called Genghis Pata, a little farm town, was there right at the time when Nazi Germany took over his town and was there when the Nazis took over.

He was literally in a place where his grandmother's house was one of the largest houses and they used it for a radio area for the German communications.

When they saw a Russian plane circling over and panic went everywhere and alarms and everything, and a German Nazi soldier took little less boquerous and threw him into a little makeshift barricade bomb shelter and this Russian bomb landed exactly on this house, totally exploding it and killing everybody inside.

He climbed out and saw all the death and the carnage, the car upside down, the big gun cast to the other side And then, when Germany lost, he saw the Russians come in and take over his little town of Genghis Pata And in all that, the hiding of the women and all the things that were going through all that.

It was a disaster to him and he knew that he's told the story.

He heard the stories of his father and his grandfather who was taken to Siberia and he said you know, it's not gonna be my turn.

So, on the way home once, from wherever he was, he was with a group of young resistors to the communist and finally was able to get into a vegetable truck, make his way to Budapest, from Budapest, make his way onto a train, escaped, make his way to Austria, where he then made to New York City, where he then made it to Dallas, texas.

Lots of long stories on that.

Years ago, when he was getting still very bright and I knew that I should grab this, and those video recorders were just coming out that had the hard drives built on them, i got the biggest one I could, set them on the couch, got them snacks and anything I could and popped it there and I said let's talk.

And we got four hours out of them.

But you know what, before he started talking, you know what he wanted to make clear.

He said before I get started, i wanna say something.

And he let me gather he grabbed Johnny.

He was just a baby, so let me hear this, john Wayne.

And he pats him on the bottom there and saying that He says I want my children to know and my grandchildren that this is the greatest country on earth.

Hey, believe me, i know.

He said I've been through a lot of them.

This is the greatest country on earth.

And when you look at them and of course it was messing with all my theological bumps in my head and all this, and what do I say and how do I counter and all that and I just smiled.

I said, yeah, you know, it really is.

And as I've been through different countries and I've been through different places, i will have to say that I believe it is, and I know that's prejudiced, i know that's biased, but there is something that I do truly love about America.

There is something that is and I try to find the right balance of where to put nationalism, patriotism, my love of the country, my appreciation for America and its different things In my book That Change of Allegiance, tanya and I, about our journey of Tanya and I getting out of the army.

I wrote in a chapter there of specifically wrestling over this topic.

That one, yeah, there it is okay.

Yeah, i think chapter 13 or something I can't remember.

But in there, when I began to study non-resistance, i felt conflicted in the sense that when I would read usually people who are writing from the sort of liberal school they would sort of present, i'm sure.

Thank you, they would present this idea of pacifism and some kind of here's.

I wrote it.

I'll read the quote.

I said these questions perplexed me, particularly when I weigh the arguments on both sides.

This is right from my book here.

Thank you very much.

On the one hand, the religious conservatives were trying to tell me that America was God's country, so I should embrace the agenda of the government.

Any self-respecting Christian conservative worth his salt would quickly take me to Romans 13 and show me how God had ordained the government.

On the other hand, the liberal writers were attempting to advocate some kind of political, pacifist, ecumenical, new utopian government, or global community as they might call it.

And I studied, as I studied and searched the scriptures, i found that this idea in Romans 13, in the passage that we read today in 1 Peter, to be the dividing line that distinguishes genuine biblical two-kingdom theology and that helped me.

What do you do with those that have served their country?

What do you do with this?

I remember when I was first out of anesthesia school I was working at a veterans hospital for about six months.

I remember there.

This is 23 years ago.

There was a man there who had apparently been a paratrooper in Normandy was one of my patients And so I would usually try to make conversations with them and all of this.

I said, hey, so you were in the army, so were we ever stationed in Germany?

And then this old guy said, well, they dropped me in Germany and they dropped me in France and they dropped me in Belgium.

He mentioned the different places.

And you're standing there and you're looking And again it's messing with all my theology, all my thoughts and everything that this man, be it not known that the ways of Christ and his teachings on this, out of the love for me and for the country, did these great feats.

What am I to say to him?

How do you respond to that?

I remember years later in Langston County we had a man visiting us who had his arm sewn back on, like without this part, and it was like this, and he had faked death at Vietnam, and so they looked over him and finally some surgeons were able to just attach his arm back to his shoulder and somehow he had functionality with.

That was amazing.

And yet he had these stories.

I have learned to appreciate this love and this dedication, this somehow beauty in that dedication, even by disagreeing it.

And that's where I would consider honor.

I consider one of the most startling examples of honor I see in the scripture is the way David treats Saul.

You ever ponder that Saul is throwing spears at David and all these kind of things, trying to kill David?

And then David, however, at the end of his funeral, read that sometime of just how David honors Saul.

It's amazing You think of the younger generation many times, of this honor they give and all the different things, from the littlest thing that goes on.

And to see how David honored Saul at his funeral is remarkable And I try to think of that.

Even things that I disagree, i still can respect and honor and obey the nations and what goes on.

So what does 4th of July mean to Dean Taylor?

What does it mean to you?

What does it mean for Americans today?

I Googled a little bit just to see, and it's a complicated thing even for anyone today.

What does it mean to the minorities?

What does it mean to the black population, the American Indians, the immigrants, the different ones who have suffered different things?

July 4th is a loaded.

It's a story, but it is a loaded story.

We frequently think of it as a return to the good old days as a cry.

It's basically the birthday of our country with the birthday party, and what does that mean?

though?

The President Reagan who I recall in my lifetime, also President Trump, repeated this made the cry.

Let's make America great again.

Reagan came up with that.

Trump followed that.

When was it great And to whom was it great?

People tend to ask and what does that mean And how is that packed?

I was Googling and trying to find different ways that people have used slogans and patriotic slogans.

William Henry Harrison was famous for.

His one was Tipa Canoe, and Tyler too.

He ran with Tyler, and so that was a very famous one, trying to bring up the patriotism of his military service in the War of 1812.

But you ever looked up the War of Tipa Canoe?

It was a bloody war against the American Indians which pretty much ended the whole concept of the Republic and the confederation of the American Indians, and it meant something very much.

So what is an American Indian supposed to do with that today?

Even Abraham Lincoln, who was famous for freeing the slave in 1860s campaign, was vote yourself a farm.

That's a good slogan.

Vote yourself a farm.

I didn't mean much to, even recently freed slaves in his day.

So, but what does make America different in my mind?

And I personally think there is something.

Granted, i will admit the bias, i will admit something, but I still do love America.

As I became a conscious objector, one of the things that I was put off by and grieved my spirit was somehow to embrace pacifism pacifism so called, or non-resistance, whatever you call that.

You tend to end up with this sort of anti-American, anti-authority, negative feeling, which just did something against my spirit.

There was something wrong in it, something not Christ-like, and I wrestled through this of trying to find it.

So what is it about America that I love?

I'm a student of history and I love some of these things, and there is a Christian heritage that I will admit to America.

Although exaggerated often by American evangelicals, i still think there is a Christian heritage to America that is remarkable.

That is remarkable And it's disturbingly, and sometimes just disturbingly, mixed with the national agenda, in a way that how do you ever find your way through it all?

But through the messiness of everything, i'm still amazed by it, even right from when the Mayflower.

The Mayflower arrived in Boston in 1630.

And in there, and William Bradford wrote The City on a Hill they had in them, although granted, messed up with one kingdom concept, but still this passion, mixed with their strange colonization ideas, this passion to lift up the name of Christ.

They had in their ship there the plaque that they had created in Holland.

Come over and help us.

The Macedonian call was the plaque of the first Americans as they came, and you can see this on the state building in the center of Boston.

Come over and help us On the next ship, or just a few ships later, john Elliott, who came in 1631, one of my favorite missionaries, a missionary to the American Indians.

He was the first one who wrote the Bible And one of the first things published in America was a translation of the Bible.

And you can still see right across from the old state building in Boston, the place where this first church came.

He came on those boats.

I love this guy with 23 barrels of books, 23 barrels of books.

And then you're going to America.

You're fighting through all this stuff.

You want your bread and your water and things.

John Elliott shows up with 23 barrels of books.

That was the first library in America, i'm sure.

And his passion.

It's funny when he finally learned through his funny eschatology, his ideas of the last days and finally ends up realizing oh, we are supposed to convert the Indians And he started working with that.

He did it in an amazing way which incorporated their way of life and everything.

Actually, he didn't trust his own Puritans.

He said I don't trust these newly converted American nationals here with these dirty, wicked British servants.

And so he would form them into little communities called Praying Towns the city of Nadek around Boston is named such a one and everything.

And this was beautiful And you saw his passion and his drive come out.

However, towards the end of his life, this whole thing was ruined when the Americans began to raid these different communities and put all of them on an island outside the coast of Massachusetts where they all half of them starved to death, including the original convert, and all these things were sort of mixed and mixed in a way that is just amazing when you watch it and you cry and you rejoice and you see these things.

The American Indians were very obviously mistrusting of the Americans or the British colonists at that time.

But then a new wave came the Moravians, the Methodists, jonathan Edwards, george Whitfield and these end, the Anabaptists who came by this incredible experiment, the William Penn's Holy Experiment offering everyone to come and worship God as you please to Pennsylvania And your ancestors came, and they came by the droves.

I'm wondering because it just about, i would say, 80, 90% of the people in this room had some link to the Amish Mayflower.

Does anybody know the name of that boat?

The Amish Mayflower?

That's it, charming Nancy.

Almost all of you have some ties to this boat called Charming Nancy.

It's interesting.

When, finally, you got kicked out of Bern in 1710, downriver to Holland and from Holland said what are we going to do?

Many of you, both Mennonites and Amish, began to make it to America through this religious experiment that William Penn made.

But even that's filled with irony.

You knew who was the owner of the Charming Nancy.

Yeah, it was Benedict Arnold during the Revolution, the notorious spy who was a partial owner of the.

Isn't history interesting in all the different ways and the twists and all those types of things?

But in the midst of all that, a nation was raised in the 1700s And although I find the idea of George Washington Adams, john Adams, thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, the idea that they were dedicated Christians, to be very unconvincing, nevertheless I do see them as brilliant, wealthy leaders who founded a colony shaped after the Roman Empire, i would say more of.

They were closer to deist and Masonic fraternities and they brought many of these things into our founding charters.

Nevertheless, and the government that they came from wasn't original to them, they were men who studied, and they studied the golden years of the Roman Empire.

As a matter of fact, if you follow the Roman Empire under Augustus Caesar and juxtapose that with the plans of Jefferson and Washington, it's almost like they were following the script to the T.

I mean, when you compare George Washington with Augustus Caesar, his attitude, his calling himself president instead of king and all of these types of things, it's amazing.

But it was brilliant and it did work And somehow I believe God was in charge of how all of that turned out.

Yes, that's what I said And I'll back that up in a theological point.

But in the midst of this there also was a Zion that raised up and even the secular writers have to look at the of what happened, like with the Great Awakening, with Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield and the circuit writers of John Wesley that came to America and all these different ones that the people from John Wesley that came to America, and it was amazing.

Do you realize that when you come into the early 1820s and 30s that like 35% of the population was Methodist?

just from their going out and being amazing and all the things that they were doing, and so through it all, something special did happen.

And through it all I'm amazed and I'm very blessed to be in America.

I've read at once that Voltaire, who was a French atheist, critic and sarcastic writer.

Voltaire wrote of the American Revolution during as a contemporary, as a time with the Americans.

America went out, set out to start a new Athens, but they ended up with a new Zion.

They went out to start a new Athens, in other words, the kind of praise of democracy, the almost pagan sense of brotherhood of man and this kind of a thing, but ended up with this revivals and passion and these religious people at Amish and Mennonites and Congregationalists and all these Methodists and all these things raising and changing in America into a very interesting thing.

But even those people, it is complex.

When you begin to study some of those different revivals and different things, it's easy to go well, that was sorted and that was odd.

I was studying once and I was reading some of the early circuit writers.

I really got into it for a while and I really wanted to read some of the early Methodist circuit writers And one of the biggest ones was a man by the name of Lorenzo Dow.

And Lorenzo Dow was through the west and he would be doing these little camp meetings and all these things.

And there was one story I was reading that he's in there preaching And suddenly there's in this rough and tough western somebody's heckling from the crowd Hey, you know, saying something against him And he's like you better be quiet.

You know he's preaching up there.

Finally, you know what Lorenzo Dow does Pulls up his sleeve, jumps down and decks the guy.

I'm like what do you do with that?

Peter Cartwright and his circuit writers writes his autobiography and when he's writing that he's talking about his father.

He's traveling through the Wild West with his father And the way he speaks of the American Indians is terrible.

It's absolutely terrible.

He, just his father, would shoot into a bush and end up with people dead and everything.

And they talk about it and you're reading through that and you're like God, how could you ever work through all this?

And but through it all, i see that it that it is, and I ran across a quote years ago that makes me ponder so many times.

It was actually a novel.

I haven't read the novel, but I've read the quote.

It's a great quote by LP Hartley And it says this the past is a foreign country.

The past is a foreign country.

They do things differently there, and when I try to ponder how to do things and in all these things I leave this to the sovereignty of God, the work of God.

And I'm still amazed of a government that did copy the golden years of the Roman Empire and did a decent job of coming up with a government.

This lasted this long And a people like yourself and your heritage of your ancestors, that came and had a burning passion to follow God, albeit bizarre, eclectic and all wrapped together.

So let's look at this idea of nationalism, of honoring the government and of patriotism, and how do we find our way through all that?

All right, first.

First of all, let's understand the pitfalls of patriotism.

Patriotism, that whole word, that passion, that the, that Dean has to fight with inside of me.

Where do you put nationalism and patriotism and those kind of things?

I think first of all, you have to realize that patriotism, even to an American patriot, has a very nasty side to it, a very nasty side, and it creates us into party spirits, into things like this.

As a matter of fact, if you've ever taken the time, i would encourage you to read George Washington's farewell address to the nation.

It's very interesting.

And George Washington's farewell address to the nation He warns our country that the party spirit that's wrapped up in patriotism will actually destroy our country.

I took just a little quote from it.

He says, talking about political parties.

However political parties may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines by which cunning, ambitious and unprincipled men will be enabled to divert the power of the people, to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to an unjust dominion.

I heard him say once that if we get into just a party spirit and patriotism and things, you'll be that political parties will be able to put a stick horse in power and people will vote for them, no matter what.

That's what it does to us.

We no longer think, we no longer.

It just becomes our issue, becomes our thing, our side.

Samuel Johnson, the British critic of the Americans and the writer of their dictionary wrote the very famous quote patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.

You get the meaning of that Patrotism is the last hiding place of the scoundrel, that when you have nothing left in you, you have no character, no real basis, no, nothing.

You can still be patriotic.

You can still be patriotic.

Albert Einstein said heroism on command, heroism on command, senseless violence and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name patriotism.

Now, do you think we're immune from this spirit in the church?

I don't think so.

But when you mix that patriotism with Christianity, with nationalism, you end up with a hybrid which is really bad.

Leo Tolstoy, who is the writer of the book War and Peace and several different novels in his day, said it this way the feeling of patriotism, it is an immoral feeling because, instead of confessing yourself a son of God or even a free man guided by your own reason, each man is under the influence of patriotism, confesses himself the son of his fatherland and the slave of his government and commits actions contrary to his reason and conscience.

Now, this idea of this patriotism, think of it now, not even mixing with the politics of this world, but in our own denominational differences.

A church is ruined when we end up with party spirits inside, well, that's their side and that's the liberal side, or the conservative side, or the mission side, or the church side or the I don't know the cookies side and the.

You know, we get this way and we get political with these things in a way that's devastating and these kind of things hurt us.

So how can we watch out for, for, for patriotism in a negative sense?

What's a symptom?

If I was to be a doctor and to diagnose it as a disease?

what is a symptom?

I'll tell you.

Here's one When you describe your loyalty to something more by what you hate than what you are, you're falling to the, to the disease of patriotism in a negative sense.

In other words, we tend it's a lot easier to explain your, your feeling for an abaptism or the church or or the liberal party, or a conservative party, or the cookie party or whatever it is, and you and your hatred of your opponent and this is a, this is a problem and it's totally not Christian.

If out of your mouth is spewing the negatives of your enemy instead of some sort of meaning of who you are, then you are falling prey to this.

Jesus told us to love our enemies, which is completely counter to this spirit.

And he also said and mark this in your Bible.

Would you mark 815, this spirit, this wicked part of the spirit he says, and mark 18, he charges them and it's like he repeats this, like get this, listen, this is important, you got to get this mark 815.

Then he charged them saying take heed, beware.

He said both.

He said both take heed and beware, listen.

You got to pay attention to this, beware the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Heron.

You see, they're two sides of the same coin.

We, the kind of pharisaical spirit that you know, judges everyone who's not like you and you're not like me, and I don't like this person, i don't like that person because they don't agree with me.

This flip side of that is the same thing with patriotism and and your nation and your politics and that type of a thing.

Jesus wants us to stay away from both of these.

They're two sides of the same coin, two sides.

Let's stay away from that.

Take heed, beware the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Heron.

All right, first, peter, 2, 17.

Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king, all right.

Number two the first thing I said you need to understand that the the whole pitfalls of patriotism and nationalism.

The second thing is this and I believe that God sovereignly rules the politics and borders of the earth.

Now you can disagree with me and I wouldn't blame you, but let me say it again I have wrestled over this and I've studied the scriptures and I've come to the conclusion.

And you can disagree with me, and you might, should but I still think it's true that God sovereignly rules the politics and borders of the earth and I don't believe he does that with our faith or individual individuals.

And let me back that up, and why I think it makes a difference in our understanding of nationalism and patriotism.

I think we see this from the beginning, from the, the, the hardening of Pharaoh's heart, to the bringing about Nebuchadnezzar and changing him and making him my minister, to the using of Pilate, to all the different things.

He arranges a world that makes it right for you to decide not forced, but decide to follow him.

Let me back that up with a very important scripture.

Look at Acts 17.

Look at that.

In your Bible you've passed over the scripture too many times.

It's really packed with meaning.

You know where it is.

Paul is in Athens.

He's seeing all the temples there and all the different things and all that.

It was a very cosmopolitan city.

People were coming from everywhere.

Obviously, and he says this quote and I think it's very important Acts 17, verse 26.

Acts 17:26

I think this is important for your understanding of nations that we live in.

Acts 17, verse 26 and he has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on the face of the earth watch this now and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings.

Acts 17:26

So therefore it says right there that God has determined the times, the borders, the dwellings of the nations.

But why are you a Calvinist Dean?

are you saying there that God has elected me and made me do this?

no, it's actually.

He creates this world for this reason.

So verse 27, that they should seek the Lord in the hope that they might grope for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.

I think it's interesting.

You know, calvinist reform, the reform camp, typically, are pretty political.

Right, there are some of the most political people you get in the evangelical world that the Christian world, and it's funny.

They would say that you really should get involved in politics.

But when it comes to your salvation, nothing you can do absolutely nothing.

You're elect and God predetermines that.

But you should get involved in politics.

I see it just the opposite.

God here it says very clearly he has determined the borders, the times, the nations, but just so that it you might grope after him, you might choose and seek to follow God.

He's created a world where you can do that, and I think that's a really important passage.

Another one that I love is found in Daniel, chapter 4.

Daniel 4 · chapter mention

Go to that one and mark it better.

Yet put a mark on act 17.

To go to Daniel, for here you get one of those kind of stamp verses where you get something that it's like okay, everybody, listen, i'm saying something really profound.

You kind of get that spirit in Daniel, chapter 4, verse 17, and he's again this is prophecies about the in times, about the different nations, about the kingdoms and all that.

Daniel 4:17

And he makes this statement in Daniel, chapter 4, verse 17.

Daniel 4:17

Think of that passage, that an act 17, the decision is by the decree of the watchers, that's, the angels, and the sentence by the words of the holy ones, in order that the living may know This is you, so that you.

I'm doing this, i'm saying this so you'll get it, in order that the living may know that the most high rules in the kingdom of men and gives it to whom ever he will and sets over it the lowest of men.

King James says the basest of men.

I kind of laughed at the last election when we saw the choices and I said, well, people say, well, who do you think's going to win?

I said, well, according to Daniel, chapter 4, verse 17,.

Daniel 4:17

All I know is this that God's going to get his man The choices that were given.

While we're looking at this, god says he's taking, he will rule the nations and he's putting over it the lowest of men.

Maybe that means humblest, i don't think so, but the idea then is that God is in control of the nations.

Do you get that Now?

from the beginning it has been this way, and if you get this today, i guarantee you it will change your life.

I've had people who's talked about the idea of understanding the Bible in a what's called kingdom way, where you see this kingdom of God moving from the Old Testament into the New Testament through the teachings of Jesus Christ, and when that light bulb comes on, it changes everything.

It will change everything.

From the very beginning.

There was two trees in the Garden of Eden.

Right There was a tree of the knowledge of good and evil, kind of like the law to know good and bad and the fear of the sword for doing good and bad, and the tree of life.

We were always intended to be living by grace and faith and the grace of life, the tree of life.

That's how the people of God are to live, not by law and the fear of the sword.

But God has always governed the world since then And this is an important point.

So those two kingdoms I want you to understand clearly and how they go through the Old Testament to the New Testament.

So the number three, the third thing is that we are part of the nation to come.

Number one was I need you to understand the pitfalls of patriotism.

Number two, that I believe that God sovereignly rules the politics and the borders of the earth.

And three, that the church, the people of God, are part of the nation to come.

All right question Where was the first time in the Bible that somebody, that the people of God, asked for an earthly king?

It was the first one.

An earthly king, an earthly king.

Hey, remember, it was Gideon.

It was Gideon, not Solomon, not Saul, it was Gideon.

And so after he defeated the Bell worshipers and all this type of a thing, people raised up and said let's make this guy king.

And he said, no, i won't do it And I won't do it And my children won't do it.

Well, children had a different story.

He had a lot of kids, he had a lot of boys.

He had 70 boys And after the end of them Abimelech kind of locked the idea of being king.

So he killed all of the rest of his brothers except for Jotham and wanted to be king.

And there's a parable that's in Judges, chapter nine.

Go there and put a big star on there in your Bible.

Go to Judges nine.

It's a parable we don't pay enough attention to, incredibly important for the understanding the two kingdoms.

So again, keep the frame.

First time anyone was asked to be an earthly king, abimelech killed all these other brothers.

Jotham now is seeing that he's made king.

He runs up to the top of a mountain and he gives this parable.

And the parable is so important for understanding your place as the church and the politics of the world today, i'll paraphrase it for you.

They say they came up to him and he says I'm going to tell you a story.

There was a time when a bunch of trees went out because they needed a king.

So they're going to go find the right trees to be the king over them.

And the first king they went to was the olive tree.

So they went to the olive tree and they said olive tree, you be the king.

And the olive tree said watch now, would I give up my oil to rule?

I could never do it.

I can't be your king.

So the next thing they went okay, we'll go over the fig tree, let's try the fig trees.

So they go to the fig tree and they said would you be the king?

And notice what the fig tree said?

He said would I give up my sweetness and my good fruit to rule?

I can't do that.

I can't be your king.

All right, they're not giving up.

So they go to the vine and then the trees head over to the vine and they say okay, so now you be the king.

And the vine said would I give up my fruit And would I give up my new wine?

that cheers both God and man for ruling to be king?

I can't do that.

And he said okay, what are we going to do?

All right, let's go to the thorn bushes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's go to the thorn bushes.

So they make it to the bramble bush and they say, okay, how about you be the king?

And he said all right, if you put yourself under my shadow and if anyone rises up, you'll be burned to the ground, even if you're the cedars of Lebanon.

Do you get the meaning of that parable?

The meaning of that parable is that we have a purpose alongside the rulings of the nations, the things that are the sweetness, the oil.

It's the kingdom purpose, it's the light, it's the grace, it's the love.

It's a different way that we don't lower ourselves to take parts of the politics and the things of this earth.

And that's the way it is.

It's interesting when you read the early Christians.

There was an early letter called the letter of Diagnetus And he talks about this.

It's one of the most ancient documents outside the scriptures And he talks about it.

He says the Christians don't have any particular dress, they don't have any particular vocabulary or different type of thing.

They're living amongst the world, he said, but it's like the soul within the body.

They don't partake of the things of this world, the politics, the ceremonies, the things like that, but yet they're still within the world like the soul And it's preserving it.

And it's kind of like when I remember reading in Jeremiah, chapter five, where he said run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, see now and know and seek in her open places If you can find a man, if there be anyone who executes judgment, who seeks the truth, and I will partner The same thing, of course, with Sodom and Gomorrah Find me 10 righteous people and I'll preserve.

I know it's a sordid history.

When I read about the religious history of America, i know and I get very disturbed by some of my evangelical friends who play this up in a way that I think is completely unhistorical and wrong.

Nevertheless, i still think that there is something to this lifting up of God, this in our, in all our bumblings and all of our mistakes and all of our thing, that is extraordinary to America and I love it And I think it's a blessing.

And so when I when I ponder that I'm blessed of that rich heritage, even with all its fumbles and mistakes and all those types of things, and so for me, that's what the birthday means to me a little bit.

Remember in 1 Samuel 8, 7, when we finally get to King David and Saul 1 Samuel 8, 7.

And the Lord said to Samuel they finally asked for a king.

Yeah, saul, samuel is disappointed.

They finally, can, you know, ordain or make Saul king.

David's words about it are curious, they're strange.

I mean David's part of the whole messianic promise.

If you don't have David, you don't have Solomon, you don't even have Jesus, i mean.

But yet there's still something in the sovereignty of God that sees that whole kingdom as something quite not perfect.

And 1 Samuel 8, 7, and the Lord said to Samuel heed the voice of the people and all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, they have rejected me that I should not reign over them.

Hosea, the prophet, hosea, mentions this and this is a very important point that the early Anabaptist picked up, that God gave them human government from the beginning and through these times as a rebuke.

And they quoted Hosea.

Listen to the verse in Hosea, chapter 13.

Hosea 13 · chapter mention

Oh Israel, thou hath destroyed thyself, but in me is thine help.

Hosea, chapter 13, verse 9.

Hosea 13:9

Oh Israel, thou hath destroyed thyself, but in me is thine help.

I will be thy king.

Where is any other that may save thee in all your cities and thy judges, of whom thou said give me a king in princes?

Now here's the point.

Listen, i gave you a king in my anger and I took him away in my wrath.

One of the earliest full descriptions of early Anabaptisms, written in the 1500s by Peter Ritman, mentions this specifically, this passage, and elaborates on it.

And he says the human governments of this world are a constant reminder to us of the wrath of God.

And the Schleinheim Confession, one of the earliest Anabaptist confessions, brilliantly brought the difference.

He says the world was given the ministry of the sword, but it was given that We were given the ministry of reconciliation.

We have a different sword, a different way and a different place to be.

So then, coming to that, the number of the fourth and my final point Jesus inaugurated that kingdom.

When you start to get ahold of that, the whole Old Testament will come alive to you, the prophets will come alive to you.

The whole seeing of what's coming, instead of just being some disconnected theological points of the Old Testament, new Testament.

Suddenly you will see this kingdom that in the beginning was a garden and the end will be from the rising of the sun until it's going down, but for now it's the church as an embassy of heaven.

And Isaiah, chapter nine, verse five.

This Isaiah chapter nine, was the passage that was quoted by Matthew and Mark to discuss.

This is what's going to happen with the coming of Jesus, i mean when he began his ministry, and they're quoting this in Isaiah chapter nine, verse five, for every warrior's sandal is from the noisy battle, and garments rolled in blood or their uniforms rolled in blood will be used for burning and fuel for fire.

All their weapons, all their uniforms, bloody uniforms, fuel for fire.

Then verse six, the passage you probably know best particularly.

You hear around Christmas that we hear from the Messiah's course, for unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given and the government shall be upon his shoulder and his name will be called wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting father, prince of peace.

Now watch this of the increase of his government and peace.

There will be no end upon the throne of David and over his kingdom, to order it and to establish it with judgment and justice.

From this time forever, the zeal of the Lord will perform this".

That beginning of that kingdom is existing in what we call today the church, and we're part of that When we come into Jesus and one of my favorite passages is when Jesus is before Pilate, and you know, you remember Jesus' story for the most part when he's there.

He doesn't answer a lot of the questions, right, but what was the question that he paid the most attention to?

I find it staggering that in John, chapter 17, in verse 35, pilate starts asking him are you the king of the Jews?

John 17 · chapter mention

verse 33, and suddenly it's like you see Jesus suddenly keying in on this.

Wait a minute, did you come up with that or did you hear somebody else?

Did you just ask me am I the king of the Jews?

And he goes on and talks about this.

And Jesus says and Pilate says, excuse me, am I a Jew of your own nation?

and chief priests have delivered you to me.

What have you done?

And Jesus said my kingdom watch this now is not of this world.

If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight so that I'd be not delivered to the Jews.

But now my kingdom is not from here.

It's interesting to see what Pilate does, and this is what we often do.

We often do Well, are you even a king, then Does that even count?

I mean, are you a king?

then?

It's interesting how Jesus answered back.

Catch the importance of this statement Are you a king?

then Jesus said and this passage is so, it almost just puts you back, it almost like makes you pass out.

You know, it's such an amazing statement.

Are you a king?

then?

And Jesus answered you said, rightly, that I am a king.

For this cause.

I was born For this cause.

I was born as a king And for this cause I have come into a world that I should bear witness to the truth.

Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice.

So that idea of this kingdom that Isaiah prophesied that was coming through, was inaugurated and started by Jesus Christ, is this kingdom to which we belong in.

So then, how do we dwell with this In this world, the politics and nations?

To understand the New Testament and the early Christian understand is to see that they are two kingdoms.

God governs this earth sovereignly.

Remember that point And make sure that the borders and the laws and the land would be made into a place where you can find him, where you can find God and come to him, but you are not to mix these kingdoms.

And 2 Timothy 2, 3, 4 was one of our favorite passages.

When we were in the army We, tanya and I, were American soldiers living in Germany.

Right, we lived off base.

actually, in those days we voted in American election.

In those days we paid American taxes.

I still do.

I do that one.

In those days we thought of ourselves as American.

I wouldn't have known who the burger-meister of Kaiserslautern was.

I was an American living in America and living in Germany, but I wasn't to be disrespectful.

I had to obey the laws, respect the laws onto the laws.

I was an American soldier living in Germany.

This is what we're called to be as the people of God.

The church should be an embassy of heaven.

When people come to the church, it should look like what it will look like when we get to heaven.

Thy kingdom come.

Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

As John D Martin always likes to say, the church is to show the whole world what the whole world should look like if it would follow the king On judgment day.

It should be able for people to say oh, so that's what those guys were talking about.

The church, jesus Christ, has come and has inaugurated his kingdom.

He is our king.

When they said Jesus is Lord, it was a political statement.

It meant that Caesar was not.

However, we are called to be an embassy in this time.

We are in a foreign land, we are in a occupied territory, living in the embassy called the church, with honor, respect, with the way that we should live, and we're not hiding.

So back to our passage and enclosing.

So we're not hiding.

Remember 1 Peter began 2 9, in the dressing with you are a chosen race, a holy priesthood, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession.

Why That you may proclaim the excellencies of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

Tritulia put it this way, the early Christian writing around the year 150.

He said all zeal and the pursuit of glory and honor is dead in us.

Let me say that again All zeal and the pursuit of glory and honor is dead in us.

Talking about the Christian.

So we have no pressing inducement to take part in your public meetings.

Nor is there anything more entirely foreign to us than the affairs of the state.

We acknowledge one all embracing commonwealth the world Origin addressed the critics to Christianity and they said why aren't you involved in politics.

Why aren't you helping?

He says we do help, and what I was am amazed by the early Christians, but it wasn't in an anti-Roman spirit.

He answered we actually are helping you.

As a matter of fact, we're helping you more than your own armies are helping you.

When we have an army of holiness and righteousness and fasting people calling out to God, we push back demons, we push back the things that destroy our nation.

We are why Rome keeps going protected And they made that kind of an argument and it's interesting.

They did push back for some 300 and 350 years, but when they did combine these two together, the empire fell, sort of It went on for limping in many different ways.

So how do I look at July 4th?

Navigating through honor?

patriotism Again, i think it's good for us to look at nationalism and patriotism and the pitfalls of it.

However, i do think there's something sanctified in being patriotic for the kingdom of God And I think there's something sanctified in honoring and loving your national country.

I do love America and I'm blessed with it.

Number two God establishes this world's governments and I think resting in that takes so much drama out of us understanding the events of the world.

Number three, we are living a part of the nation that is to come.

And number four Jesus established and inaugurated this kingdom and he is our king.

So, again, closing with verse 17,.

Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God and honor the king.

I think it's something that we can find, that balance, as we look through this season And, most importantly, stand strong for the kingdom and the king that we have, but also with honor, with love and appreciation for our incredible history of the place where we live.

So let's close with prayer, and I'll hand it back over to you, dear Heavenly Father.

I thank you, lord, for America, and I ask you to be with our president.

I ask you to bless him and the governments that we have.

I pray that you would help them so that we can live a quiet life, undisturbed, and have the ability to spread your kingdom, the kingdom of God.

We pray for this government, which you told us to do first of all.

How rarely we do it, lord.

And so, god, we do want to bring honor to them and bless them, but, lord, we also, lord, want to proclaim to them that Jesus Christ is the king of kings, the Lord of lords, and that we give our allegiance to you, and I pray, god, that you would give us the grace not to conflate or to confuse these kingdoms, but to proclaim you as king, with no apology.

As we stand into this next generation, may you be glorified in our lives In Jesus' name, amen.

Well, this has been helpful in guiding our thinking about.