At the
church where I serve, we are currently going through a sermon series entitled
“Vote for Jesus”. During this series, our hope and our prayer is to accomplish
three specific goals. First, our hope and our prayer is to demonstrate that Jesus
is not a republican and Jesus is not a democrat. Instead, Jesus is God and as
God Jesus is the one that we are to place our hope in, not a political party.
Second, our hope and our prayer is to equip and empower us to think critically
and Biblically when it comes to the issues that our culture is faced with that
often find themselves expressed in the political process. And third, our hope
and prayer is to provide a framework from the message and teachings of Jesus
when it comes to how we as followers of Jesus are to engage in the government
and in the political process in way that reveals and reflects Jesus to those
around us.
This
week, we asked the question “Well Dave, if what you have said is true: If
government was designed by God to represent Him in a way that promotes good for
people and punishes the evil of people; if we are to seek to influence
government towards its divine design and towards the message and teachings of
Jesus; then what kind of government is the right government? Does Jesus promote
socialism? Communism? A monarchy? Democracy? A republic?
That is
a great question. And this week, I would like for us to ask and answer that
question. To answer that question, we are going to spend part of our time
together discussing what is referred to in church mumbo jumbo talk as a
Biblical world view. Now when anyone talks about a worldview, this word simply
refers to how someone views the world. Pretty deep, huh? A world view is a
mental map, so to speak that one uses to help navigate the world effectively.
Another way to think of a worldview is that a worldview is a prism through
which we look at the world so as to help us analyze, interpret and respond to what
is occurring around us.
So when
we use the phrase, a “Biblical world view” we are referring to using the
message and teachings of Jesus and the letters that make up the Bible as the
roadmap to navigate the world. When we use the phrase, a “Biblical world view”
we are referring to using the message and teachings of Jesus and the letters
that make up the Bible as the prism by which we look at the world around us so
as to help us analyze, interpret and respond to what is occurring around us.
Now
that leads to the natural question, which is “Well, Dave, what is a Biblical
world view”? I am glad you asked. In any world view, three questions are asked
and answered. The first question revolves around the issue of the origins of
the universe, or creation. The first question is “How did it all begin? Where
did we come from?”
The
second question revolves around the issue of what is referred to in church
mumbo jumbo talk as the fall. The second question is “What went wrong? What is
the source of evil and suffering? Why is there war and conflict?” The third
question revolves around the issue of what is referred to in church mumbo talk
as redemption. The third question is “What can we do about it? How can the
world be set right again?”
Now
with that in mind, let’s take a minute and look at how a Biblical world view
would answer those questions. A Biblical worldview maintains that the world
began as a result of the Creative actions of God as the Creator. In other
words, God is the uncaused cause of everything that exists. There is a God who
exists outside of creation that created everything that exits. In addition,
everything that God created was very good. A Biblical worldview also maintains
that the One true God reveals Himself and His moral standards clearly in the
letters that have been preserved and recorded for us in the Bible.
Now an
immediate response or objection to the answer to this first question would be
“Well Dave if there is One God who created everything from nothing and
everything that He created was very good, then why is the world so jacked up
and messed up?” If that question is running through your mind, I just want to
let you know that that is a great question to be asking. And that leads us to
the answer to the second question, which is “What went wrong? What is the
source of evil and suffering? Why is there war and conflict?”
The
short and simple answer to that question is that what went wrong is we went
wrong. While humanity was created to live in relationship with God, every human
being, following in the footsteps of our first parents, Adam and Eve, selfishly
place ourselves over God and others and do things out of that selfishness and
rebellion that hurt God and others. All humanity has a selfish bent to love
ourselves over God and that selfishness leads us to reject the relationship
with God that we were created for. And part of that selfishness and rebellion
is to reject and rebel against the clear moral standards that have been
provided by us by God in the letters that make up the Bible.
Now
this reality leads to several important implications when it comes to the issue
of government and politics. The first implication is that human nature is not
basically good. And human nature is not morally neutral. Instead human nature,
at its core, is driven by selfishness that results in us being flawed, fallen
and broken people.
The
second implication is that human beings are responsible for their actions,
because we were created by God to live lives of responsibility, but reject that
responsibility to do things that are irresponsible. And a as result of the
selfish bent that human beings have to live rebellious and irresponsible lives,
God, as we discovered the first week in this series, created the institution of
government to represent Him in a way that promotes good for people and punishes
the evil of people.
However,
while government was designed by God to represent Him in a way that promotes
good for people and punishes the evil of people, government was never designed
to be the object that we place our ultimate hope in. Government was never
designed to be a vehicle that fundamentally changes human hearts. And
government cannot rescue someone from the selfishness and rebellion that
separates them from God.
Now
that leads us to the third question, which is “What can we do about it? How can
the world be set right again?” A Biblical worldview maintains that there is
nothing that any human being can do, in their own power to restore the
relationship with God that they were created for as a result of the selfishness
and rebellion that has separated them from God.
Instead,
God initiated the process of making things right again by sending His unique
one of a kind son, Jesus Christ, as “God in a bod”, to enter into humanity to
live the life we were created to live but refused to live, and then willingly
allowed Himself to be treated as though He lived our selfish and sinful lives
so that God the Father could treat us as though we lived Jesus perfect life. It
is God’s activity through Jesus that results in followers of Jesus receiving
forgiveness and the relationship with God that we were created for by
believing, trusting, and following Jesus as Lord and Leader. And there will be
a day when Jesus will return to set the world right again and usher in the
kingdom of Heaven in the fullest sense.
In the
meantime, as we talked about last week, as followers of Jesus, we are to seek
to influence government towards its divine design and towards the message and
teachings of Jesus. We are to live our lives as followers of Jesus in such a
way that our hope is firmly planted in Jesus and not the government or
politics. As followers of Jesus, we are to seek opportunities to shine the
light of the kingdom of Heaven into the dark, spaces, places and people around
us as we strive to influence people toward Jesus and the relationship with God
that they were created for. As followers of Jesus, we are to seek opportunities
where we can influence civil government in way that promotes the welfare and
well-being of the nation.
Tomorrow,
we will use the framework of a Biblical view as a roadmap to address the
question of what type of government is the right type government…
No comments:
Post a Comment