The Government of Self

Review

spheres - Christian nation?

should we be?

Today - we’ll talk about how the sphere’s relate to one another, and the fundamental requirement of the whole system working properly.

What is the required assumption of all these spheres doing what they are supposed to do?

self-government.

Gal 5:22-23 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.”

John 14:15 ““If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”

talked about this a little last week.

the idea that if a people don’t have a moral center, no form of government will work.

think about the town of mayberry

They had two cops and one was an idiot that wasn’t even really allowed to carry a gun.

but everything was fine - why? - because of self-government.

the town drunk even checked himself into jail every night to sleep it off.

the people had self government, self control

Now, this relates how?

if we don’t have self government, the other spheres fall apart.

this is why communism and marxism have failed again and again

a solely top down bureaucracy, top down change/reform doesn’t work.

because self-government is the foundation on which they’re built. true societal change is bottom up - the top eventually swings in in agreement.

this is why politicians waffle on issues, because they’re trying to make sure they don’t lose their base of supporters.

this isALSO why lame-duck elected officials get more radicalized in office, because they are suddenly no longer accountable to the people that put them there. They don’t need to get re-elected anymore.

NOW NOTICE - I’m not saying top down reform NEVER HAPPENS. But I am saying that if it doesn’t happen with bottom-up (and bottom up being the primary driver) it will fail.

revival/reformation - leads to majority influence - leads to political influence gradually being captured - leads to a Christian nation.

A nation made up of Christians who believed God’s laws wouldn’t say - well let’s keep the secularists in office and let them control the laws.

(well, that is kinda what we said because we seriously dropped the ball)

THINK OF JOSEPH - he had self-government (eventually learned it seems through the school of hard knocks)

and this made him a good ruler of… civil government.

And we see how all these things work together best.

the church instructs the family and the state on the word of God, but has no power other than excommunication FROM the church

the family has the responsibility of education of it’s children (among other things)

the state has the sword.

BUT WHEN SELF GOVERNMENT FAILS

what happens? - often one institution expands to cover the losses in the other.

in our current society the state continues to expand further and further.

billions spent on marketing campaigns to instruct you morally

billions spent on educating children in the fear and admonition of the state

but if we recaptured SELF-GOVERNMENT

and if all we did was we refused to hand off education of our children.

you see how that’d fix a lot?

And how do we recapture self-government?

BEWARE - there is a lot of “self help” or “personal discipline” stuff going around today.

I think because folks sense that we’ve lost this skill.

It’s good to do discipline and scheduling and efficiency practices. All that stuff is necessary and helpful.

but - you have to frame it correctly.

we get self government when we heed the words of the church sphere

John 14:15 ““If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”

and Gal 5 - the fruit of the spirit is.... self control.

and if we get Biblical self government - we will get everything else.