What Does the Bible Say? | Politics

Intro

Hey y’all! Y’all doing okay? I know we are almost done with the semester, how’s everybody looking coming in to the home stretch? Seniors, y’all making it? Really are y’all juniors making it? I know junior year was one of the harder years because of all the testing you have to do. Did y’all have to do a lot of testing this week? I heard it was a testing week this week.

Okay cool.

How many of y’all have seen saving private Ryan? Okay, if you haven’t ask your parents but it’s a great movie, brutal movie shows a pretty unflinching look at some of the horror of war during WW2. But the movie is most famous for its opening scene. The movie opens up at D-Day, the largest amphibious assault in world history. basically British and American troops all try to land on the beaches of Normandy France, the Germans know they are coming and have fortified the peach with mines, barbed wire, other big metal things that make it hard to land a vehicle on the beach. AND on top of all of that, the germans set up machine gun pill boxes, which was basically a concrete bunker with a couple machine gun teams inside firing down on the beach as the boats pull up. These boats would pull up, the door falls forward, and the guys inside are supposed to take off running, but the gunners would train their sights on these boast, so as the door fell, they are lighting them up, wiping out whole teams of infantry. But the opening scene shows all the brutality, then as the US and British forces actually do start to take the beach, the medics have to start doing their job. They had the awful job of looking at someone for like 20 seconds and determining if they were going to survive their wounds. In one scene you see a medic write letters on the helmet of some men, marking where they needed to go to be treated, but some they wrote F. which was for fatal, they weren’t surviving. they weren’t making it off the beach kinda thing. But he term for that is triage, everybody say “triage.” What they are doing is prioritizing time and resources for people who have a chance at making it, and people who have no chance at making it. The reason I’m telling you this, is because we are going to be looking at a topic that everyone has opinions one, and is dominating pretty much all of our lives. and one of the things were are going to talk about is how do we prioritize our beliefs and what should inform those beliefs.

So tonight, this is our second to last night in this series we have been calling “What does the bible say?” And tonight we are going to talk about Politics. We are going to look at what the bible says about politics, governments, and what should inform our beliefs on those subjects.

Context

So with that, let’s get in to it. If you have a bible, go ahead and turn to the book of Romans, chapter 13, verse 1-7. If you don’t have a bible and would like one, go ahead and throw a hand up and we will get one to you.

While you are flipping over there, let me give you some context as to what is going on here.

The Book of Romans was written by Paul, we talk a lot about Paul, because he wrote most of the new testament. We know about Paul, used to be Saul, persecuted the church, met Jesus on the road to Damascus, believed in Christ, started following the Lord. Goes on to to be the Paul we all know and love. Paul wrote romans.

He wrote romans as a letter of encouragement and to tell them he was going to come and see them. He also wrote the book to teach them about Christ. This is book is the book all the high minded theologians love because there is some much theology in the letter. A ton!

So Romans 13 is one of the more famous chapters in Romans, and the bible, that deal with government and politics. So this passage is going to be our spring board tonight. and then we might jump around the bible too.

Main Idea

So our Goal tonight, is to look and see how scripture informs our beliefs and how should we prioritize those beliefs according to scripture.

But before we read the scripture, let’s pray for our time in the word tonight.

pray

Okay cool, so let’s read this passage, read with me

English Standard Version Chapter 13

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. 2 Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. 3 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, 4 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. 5 Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience. 6 For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. 7 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.

God is sovereign over the nations.

Okay cool, so if we are going to see how the bible informs our political beliefs we need to start with what God has to say about rulers, and nations, and governments.

so right off the bat, we see that God is the one who is in authority. All of scripture points to this if we flip over to Isaiah we see the scope of what Paul is talking about here in verse 1 let me read it for you really quick

English Standard Version Chapter 40

15  Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket,

and are accounted as the dust on the scales;

behold, he takes up the coastlands like fine dust.

Let me show you what that looks like

So I have this giant bucket here and some water, well actually this is beard oil. But look at this bucket, Scripture says the nations are like a drop in the bucket

drop oil in to the bucket

I don’t know about you but that’s nothing. The nations are nothing to the power and authority of God.

So we see that God is in control. This made abundantly clear in scripture. Nothing that happens in the world is outside the authority of God.

Then we see verses 2-7, we aren’t supposed to resist authorities. Do good, pay your taxes, be a good citizen. But what does all of that mean?

Am I really just saying that we need to be good little citizens, hail caesar, and go home?

nope. The point i am trying to make here is that God is the one who is sovereign over the nations. If you’re writing things down write that down. God is sovereign over the nations. What Paul is saying here, and what God is saying through his word here is not that, you should be a good citizen just because — but that God has put you in certain position in this world so that you may join in the building of the kingdom, and join in the mission of God.

Let’s remember Paul is writing this to letter to Romans, in Rome, under the power of Rome. This is the same Rome who will behead Paul in the few years after Paul wrote this letter. Paul is saying “what ever the government throws at you, your goal is to preach the Gospel.”

This whole time in this series about what does the bible say, we have seen a certain theme, which is we are to know God more, and point others toward Christ. So if we wanted to, we could pack it up and go home.

But we aren’t going to, now that we have a framework for looking at what God says about governments and nations, we still need to figure out how does the bible inform our beliefs on politics. Because, Politics are important, but they are not the most important thing. So how do we decide what is an important thing in politics and with our fellow christians? Because the state of politics have shifted from mundane administrative things to ideological sides of moral debates. So how do we christians work through this? Because there is not a clear cut favorite today, honestly, christians should feel politically homeless. Christians should not fit like a glove in to either political camp. We should be wrestling with some of the things both political side have, because neither have a monopoly on morality.

Think of it like this, you can be a christian and want a strong national defense, you can be a christian and want fiscal responsibility, you can be a christian and want to see the flourishing of the free markets. You can also be Christian and want refugees to be taken care of, you can be a christian and want healthcare to be provided for everyone, you can be a christian and think police reform might be a good idea. But if you think about these things, there isn’t a party that has those things, and is honest about how they view those things.

So how do we navigate those things as christians with how we view our nation, and how we interact with the world and other believers.

Triage

So what do we do? How do we think through political ideas and statements in our day, and how do we interact with the world and other believers.

Remember the medic writing letters on wounded soldiers helmets? He was using all of his training and knowledge about his field to make judgment calls about if these people are going to live or die, and then prioritizing resources. Prioritizing things over other Things

We can do the same. Think about Paul again, writing romans in Rome to the romans, under roman rule. He’s telling them to pay taxes, submit to local authorities, you know don’t get crazy. But if we know Paul we know that he had intense belief and defied local authorities in spreading the gospel. So was Paul sinning? no. Paul just kept the main thing, the main thing. The Spread of the Gospel is the main thing.

So how can we do this?

Everybody raise your hands, now make a fist, that is a tight grip you have there, the fist is closed. The fist is ready to fight.

Now let’s start with christianity. There are some beliefs in the christian faith we need to hold tight to, and we should die for. Like the divinity of Christ. The exclusivity of Christ, meaning that Christ is the only way to heaven. That Salvation is not based on works, but on the saving grace of god through faith in Christ. Those are the beliefs we should keep a tight grip on, those are the things we should die for in this world. The foundational truths of Christ we should keep tight in our grip.

Now everyone, take that fist and loosen it, like you would hold pencil or something, not super tight, but you could hold something with it, you don’t have a death grip or anything, just a nice normal grip. There are beliefs that we don’t need to die for, we should hold them because the are correct. We should have good understanding about them and hold to them, this might determine which sort of church you go. The best example of this is probably baptism. We are baptist, which mean we hold to baptism by immersion for believers only, we don’t baptist babies, and we don’t sprinkle. Now across the street, the methodist baptise differently, they sprinkle. We don’t see that represented in scripture, I’m not gonna ever be a member of a methodist church. This doesn’t mean i think all methodists are wrong and gonna die and go to hell, i think you can follow Christ faithfully and be a methodist. We can still do things with them, we can plan events with them, if there are some methodists at fuge, great! We can hangout, might not agree on how church is carried out, but we can hangout.

Now take your fist and open it, like you are going to shake someones hand. These are open hand beliefs, these are beliefs in church that do not matter in the long run, like what kind of music do you sing on Sunday morning? What translation of bible do you preach from? do you believe the rapture is going to come before or after the tribulation, should you wear a tie to church? Is the song reckless love the biggest threat to christianity in the last thousand years? Those kinds of things, you can go to church, and call them brothers and sisters in christ if they believe differently from you about those things, you can take that open hand and shake their hand with it on Sunday morning because at the end of the day you both agree on the close fisted things, and know that the end goal is to make disciples of all a nations.

And this thinking we can apply to politics, and if we are being honest with ourselves, there are a lot more open handed things in politics than there are closed fists when it comes to how christians should view politics. The first thing is that for the most part politics should not be a closed fisted thing in and of its self. If you can’t look at someone who has different political views than you and see that they are also made in the image of God and are worthy of basic dignity and respect, maybe it is you who should rethink your views of politics as a whole.

Now there re somethings that fall in to politics today that are closed fisted issues, like sanctity of human life, marriage, the family, those things are expressly talked about in scripture, and are worth being closed fisted with, we should hold tight to those beliefs because they are the beliefs of God almighty. But for the most part what counts as politics are going fall under loose grip, and open hands, and that should be how we look at it.

So what dose the bible say about politics? it says be informed, but don’t make politics the end goal, write that down,

don’t make politics the foundation of your world view. Politics should be informed by our views that spring from the bible, not the other way around. Christianity does not fit in the view that Christian belief leads to political power. If we make christianity a means for political power you are worshiping a christ not found in the bible, the Christ of the bible says take this power you desire, this life you desire and nail it to the cross and die to yourself and follow me.

Point to Christ

So why does this matter? Why would we include this in a series about what the bible says? One, look around at the world we live in. everything in this world right now is being made in to some sort of political issue.

Let’s do a thought experiment for kicks and giggles, think back to last year, when the pandemic first started, look at masks. Basically, they figured the virus is transferred by breathing, let’s cover our mouths and noses, then one party said, man these are annoying does that even work? and the other side was like, “They’re anti-masks!” so the other side doubled down and said “Heck yeah we are, lets burn all of them and then cough on people!” then the other side doubled down again and said “I’ll raise you burning masks by making them mandatory even in your house legally.” Think about that for a second, i literally had people make constitutional arguments about how mask mandates are illegal, and are stripping basic rights. like one, it’s not that big a deal.

How did masks, small piece of cloth become a lightning rod? how did it go from “hey this thing is airborne, masks might help, do with that what you will, to, You are literally killing grandma or Masks are against the constitution and are a precursor to socialism. Because the society we live in has made a God out of politics, the society you guys are growing up in and going to shape in the years to come have been worshiping itself. So we as christians need to be informed about politics, but the way we are informed should come from our beliefs about Christianity, not the other way around.

So why talk abut this, because we in the church need to know where our true focus should be. We need to see god for who he is, as the one who is sovereign over all things. We may come to live in a society who comes to hate us, and actively works to destroy us, but that is okay, because we know the one who is sovereign over all. We know the one who puts rulers in power and takes rulers out of power, we know the nations are but dust on a scale for God. He hold them in his hands, using all things to work for His glory.

So this text tonight is calling us as believers to see God for who He is, as God on the throne, not as God of the republicans, or God of the democrats but as the Sovereign Lord of all creation. This is calling us to in all circumstances preach christ crucified, preach the Gospel.

if you are here tonight and do not know the Lord as savior and ruler of your life, know that this text is asking you to consider, who do you follow? Which God will you follow, the God of this world, the god of devision and confusion, the god who says you can reign and rule, are you gong to worship yourself, or are you going to see God as the ruler and Lord of this world and live your life following after Him? Who are you going to follow? Know that Christ is the ultimate thing,

pray with me

consider the god you follow