The Kingdom's Ambassadors
Notes
Transcript
Call to Worship: Psalm 67:3-4 // Prayer
Call to Worship: Psalm 67:3-4 // Prayer
Adoration: Father, we are filled with joy because of you. You rule the nations with justice, and you sent your Son to take on human nature for our salvation.
Confession: But in spite of your power and goodness, we turned aside from You. We have trusted in earthly success, in the approval of people, in our own abilities, for our salvation and glory. Father, help us to see the evil of this; and forgive us, for we have sinned against you.
Thanksgiving: And hold your Son’s cross before our eyes, that we may again look on him, and remember that we’ve been forgiven. We rejoice in his love.
Supplication: Please teach us to say to ourselves: “For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence; for my hope is from him. You only are our rock and our salvation, our fortress; we shall not be shaken. On You rest our salvation and our glory; our mighty rock, our refuge is You” // and we ask for this same attitude for Bethany Baptist Church, that they might have an ethos as a congregation to say, “God alone is our rock,” and that you might shine your light in their hearts and through their witness in their neighborhood // and we ask that in every gospel-preaching church in PDX, you would prepare us to reach upcoming generations with the gospel—to receive and love and speak Christ to them, that by your power and goodness, many who have not even heard the gospel yet might hear it and turn to you // we pray for the church in India, that you would cause their hearts to overflow with your love as they contemplate the gospel, and that they might be filled with power and boldness to take the gospel to their neighbors // to the word… give us grace as we consider what it means to be ambassadors of your Kingdom...
Family Matters
Family Matters
Small group signups (back table)
Right after benediction: table set-up + tree decorating;
Christmas Eve services: no Sunday School, 11 am service, 7 pm carol sing, etc.
Benediction
Benediction
May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us, Selah
that your way may be known on earth, your saving power among all nations.
Sermon
Sermon
Read: ?
Intro
Intro
So, we’ve been asking the question, “What is the relationship between a believer and his nation and government?” And last Sunday, we saw that we are exiles among the nations. That’s what it means to be a believer in this age.
But, if we are exiles, then shouldn’t we care less about the nations of this world? And shouldn’t we just let governments do what governments do, and not worry about it? That might seem right at first. And there’s some truth in it. But it’s off balance. We’re also supposed to be the salt of the earth. And so, based on that, some will react in the opposite direction, saying that our task is to establish God’s Kingdom by making each government subject to Christ. But as we saw last Sunday, that approach isn’t quite right, either.
So, how do we find the biblical balance of these things? How can we live as exiles, and yet as the salt of the earth?
Well, there is a second name, alongside “exiles,” for a group of citizens who have a king, but don’t live in their own country: ambassadors. And as it happens, that’s exactly what we are. We’re are not just exiles, but also ambassadors of the coming kingdom, living among the nations.
And we’re going see this in two steps:
First, we’ll look at the diplomatic situation that exists between us and the nations,
Second, we’ll consider the diplomatic mission that we’ve received as ambassadors to the nations.
The Diplomatic Situation
The Diplomatic Situation
So… the diplomatic situation:
You know, this would be much simpler if Scripture had only one way to describe the nations: if everything sounded like Psalm 2—the nations rage against the Lord—or like Romans 13—the government is God’s servant for your good.
But as we saw, Nations are a mix of good and evil. And that’s the complex situation we find ourselves in as Ambassadors of the coming kingdom. Let’s take a look at both perspectives in Scripture:
[Positive Perspective] Romans 13 says:
Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.
So, this is a positive perspective. Human governments come from God...
And because of this, we’re supposed to obey them.
Paul continues:
For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience.
Did you see that? The government is God’s servant for your good. This is a very positive outlook on government.
And Paul explains that when you do wrong and the government comes after you, they are expressing God’s own wrath against your wrongdoing… even though they probably usually don’t know
So when you submit to the government, you’re not just avoiding the forces of human justice
But you’re also protecting your own conscience by obeying those whom God place in authority over you
Paul goes on:
For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.
So how has God commanded us to relate to the government? Not just, “don’t break the law,” but also, “pay your taxes,” and even, “give honor to government authorities.”
Now, some say that, since this passage describes human governments in a positive way, it applies only to good governments.
And then, the logic goes, since our government is out of line, and condones evil, we can ignore Romans 13.
Is that true?
Well, what government was Paul talking about in this passage? The Roman Empire. The violent, pagan Roman Empire. And how did he describe them?
“That pagan Roman official? He is God’s servant for your good.”
“Give honor to whom honor is owed.”
So, Romans 13 actually applies very well to our current situation. Whatever evils and frustrations our government has, we are to obey, pay taxes, and give honor.
Now, I know it’s not always that simple. There can be complex questions about what it actually means to “be subject to the governing authorities.”
But at least, Paul is calling for a basic posture of submitting to and honoring the government, even when it is pagan and unjust. It is still God’s instrument to restrain evil, for our good.
[Negative Perspective] But now, listen to Psalm 2:
Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain?
The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying,
“Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.”
What do the kings of the earth lead their people to do? To rage against God and Christ. To rebel against his sovereign rule over them. That’s what nations do.
And how does God react? He laughs at them, and terrifies them by saying:
“As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill.”
God has made Jesus King—and this is bad news for the nations!
Why? Because a day is coming when Jesus will (verse 9):
You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”
So, a day is coming when the evil plans of the nations will be catastrophically defeated.
So, yes, the nations are God’s instrument to restrain evil, for our good. But there is a very different side to them also—they rage against King Jesus.
In their culture, in their law making, in their wars—in every aspect of national life, nations produce good things, and we benefit from them. And yet, in all these areas, nations rage against the Lord.
What is the theological category for the segregation laws in our history books? Casting off God’s cords, who made all people in his image.
And laws that permit the murder of children in the womb? The same. And land grabbing by a larger nation from a smaller one? Rage against the Lord.
History is absolutely full of it, even in Western Civilization, where nations have been less bad because of Christian influence, this same basic characteristic of raging against God can be seen everywhere in history.
So then: that is our diplomatic territory. We are ambassadors to the nations—nations which are God’s servants for our good, and which rage against God and reject the rule of Christ—including the United States of America.
The Diplomatic Mission
The Diplomatic Mission
=> As far as diplomatic assignments go, the nations are not easy territory!
=> But, it is a great honor to be ambassadors in the service of our King.
OK then, if the nations are our diplomatic territory, what’s our diplomatic mission?
To represent Christ.
=> But what exactly does that mean? Let’s break it down into two areas: faithful living and gospel witness
First, faithful living. When Christians live faithfully, they bring blessing to those around them. This is why Jesus said, “you are the salt of the earth”—Christian influence preserves and gives flavor to a world that tends toward moral decay. And this is true in every area of life.
I was reminded about this recently on the topic of marriage. Within Christianity, we struggle with our marriages, don’t we? There’s so much work to do in reclaiming a Christ-honoring vision for marriage.
And yet—compare the average serious Christian marriage to the average Muslim marriage, and there’s no comparison.
Why? Because Islam doesn’t have a concept of the husband loving his wife to the point of dying for her—dying to self and dying literally, if needed. That’s based squarely on Christ’s love for his church, and it begins with the husband and wife leaving their parents to start a new social unit, after the pattern of Genesis 2:24.
But here’s the thing: it’s not just true Christians who’ve had better marriages—countless millions of people, who don’t even realize it, have had much better families than they would have simply because the idea of the husband loving his wife in that way became a common cultural value in Western Culture through the influence of Christianity. We are the salt of the earth, and Jesus meant for us to take that seriously.
We represent our King’s goodness to the world in every facet of our lives: home life, work, education, hobbies, horses, hunting, construction, raising children, relating to your next door neighbor—you are the salt of the earth.
And, that includes politics. We are to represent Jesus in the political arena.
Now, there’s a difficulty here: I just said that we are to represent King Jesus in the political arena of the Nations that are actively raging against him. There’s a lot of tension in that idea! And, I think that we naturally want to escape that tension. We want a political theology that allows the church and the government to coexist with no tension, no battle, no problems.
On the one hand, we may try to escape that tension by ignoring politics. By fading out of culture and society and huddling in a Christian corner. But when Jesus said that we are the salt of the earth, he didn’t give us any exceptions. So, when we have opportunity, we should seek to influence the political arena with the values of the Kingdom of God. More on how to do that wisely in a moment.
On the other hand, we may try to escape the tension by trying to subject governments to Christ. This is a view known as “Christian Reconstructionism.” The idea is that one job of the church is to baptize the nation, including its government—and once that’s done, the government is under the full authority of Christ. Eventually, there’ll be no more raging of the nations. But this runs afoul of Scripture in at least three ways:
It forgets that human governments are common grace things, as we saw two Sundays ago—commissioned in Noah’s covenant, they were given by God to preserve, not as a tool for redemption
It ignores the Bible’s teaching—as we saw last Sunday—that believers are always exiles in this world, until Christ returns to make all things new
It ignores what Psalm 2 and other Scriptures say about the raging nations in the last day: they will be dashed to pieces like pottery by Christ.
So, we need to avoid these errors: the error of giving up on politics, and the error of putting our hope in politics and trying to redeem the government
Instead, our posture in politics should be this: we are ambassadors of a coming kingdom, and we represent our King. And I want pause for a second to talk about what this looks like in practice.
There is a myth out their which says, “Politics should be religiously neutral.” The myth is that politics even can be religiously neutral.
Everyone brings their own “gods” into the political arena—the hopes, values, and goals they think should drive lawmaking.
No one is neutral. Not atheists, not agnostics, not humanists, not Christians. Everyone who participates in human politics is operating from assumptions about how the world works and what is true and good.
Everyone is bringing their religious beliefs to the task. And you should absolutely bring God’s Word to bear on your ballot.
The real question believers should ask is, “what principles from Scripture are appropriate to enforce in a nation’s law code?
Do not murder? Yes. Do not steal? Yes. You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve? No.
Why? Well, what is God’s purpose for government? To restrain evil, but not to enforce worship or change hearts. That’s what the Holy Spirit does.
But God did institute human government, and God does speak to what a just government looks like.
That’s why it is one hundred percent valid to oppose abortion on the basis that unborn babies bear God’s image. As we saw in Genesis 9, it is absolutely the government’s job to restrain and punish murder--because human life is precious since it bears God’s image.
But who can redeem an abortionist? Or a mother who has done that to her child? God, by the blood of Christ and the Spirit’s power. Not the government.
But while we are doing this—representing King Jesus as his ambassadors to our nation—we need to keep this in mind: our degree of influence in politics will come and go.
And some believers live in countries where the average person has NO say in political outcomes.
And the early church had virtually no political or cultural power at all—yet in their generations, the Kingdom of God went forward with power. Why? Because they preached the gospel, and many heard and believed.
So, we’ve been talking about representing King Jesus as his ambassadors by living faithfully, including in politics. But if anything, that’s the less central part of our diplomatic mission.
What is the central part? Announcing the gospel.
Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
That is our diplomatic message!
Repent and believe in Jesus—and we cannot back down from that message. If we do, we are unfaithful ambassadors!
Paul continues in the next verse:
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
It is this message, and this message only, which can turn a spiritually dead person into a living citizen of God’s Kingdom.
So, it is this message, and this message only, which can expand the kingdom’s borders
Brothers and Sisters, you might find yourself on the same political side as unbelievers—maybe even working with non-Christians in support of a good law. But we must never, never compromise the gospel because we’re trying to get something done in politics. It is the gospel, and not our political action, which is the true hope of all people.
And so, as ambassadors, here’s the stance we take:
“We are diplomats from a King who, when he returns, will dash all the wicked nations to pieces like pottery.
But today, our message from him is peace: all who take refuge in the Son are eternally blessed.
He was made sin on your behalf, so that you could be declared righteous, forgiven, and reconciled to God.
Surrender to him, trust his death for your salvation, and enter his Kingdom.
And it is declaring this gospel to the world which is our central diplomatic mission.
Conclusion: The Diplomatic Life
Conclusion: The Diplomatic Life
So then, what does it mean to live as ambassadors of Christ among the nations?
First, as ambassadors, we honor our earthly government and work for the good of our nation, since it is a gift from God // But we are not trust or hope in it—on the last day, it will give way to that better country, whose builder and architect is God.
Second, we expect persecution, since we live among the nations that rage against our King.
Third, we do good, including in politics, since we are the salt of the earth—the earth that God loves.
And fourth, we prioritize the message that Jesus has given to us as his ambassadors: the gospel of peace with the coming King.
May Christ grant us grace to live as faithful ambassadors in our own country and community.
Communion
Communion
As ambassadors and exiles—citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven—we partake in heavenly realities even as we live on earth. United with our King, we are seated with him in the heavenly places.
And the Lord’s Table is one such heavenly reality. It is an act of communion with Christ—a preview of the wedding feast to come. But because it is an act of communion, it is only appropriate for believers. And so, if you are a believer who has already symbolized your faith through baptism, and are in good standing with your local congregation, we welcome you with joy to participate in this with us. But if you are not yet a believer, or you don’t know what that means, we ask that you don’t participate in this, but instead watch as we partake of the bread and the cup and think about what this means: that Jesus gave himself up to death, so that if you come to him, you also will find forgiveness and life.
Passing out the bread + Cup
1 Corinthians 11:23-24 “…the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.””
1 Corinthians 11:25 “In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.””
1 Corinthians 11:26 “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”