In The World But Not Of It: A Christian's Civic Duty

Our citizenship is in Heaven, and that does not eliminate our responsibilities on the earth. Jesus said His followers are not of the world, and in the same prayer He sent them into it. That tension sits at the heart of Christian civic responsibility: you are in the world, and you have a responsibility to represent Christ in it and to become salt and light to it. This message is a biblical perspective on Christian civic responsibility, given in light of a general election. Before going any further, it is worth being clear about why I would bring that up at all. The Bible Speaks to Every Moment in History We do not make the times speak to the Bible. The Bible speaks to humanity through all of world history, at every time. So the goal here is not to take a current world event and fit it into a version of the Bible we want it to say. The goal is to take the Word of God, which is eternal and speaks to every situation in history, and let it lay a foundation of Christ and faith in us. The pulpit is not a place to push personal political narratives, or one's own interpretation of those narratives based on a prophetic bent or posture. The job of the Word of God, the job of the teacher of the Word, and the job of the pulpit is to instruct us in God's Word and lay a foundation of truth. That foundation not only gets us through the moment we're in, it prepares us to live in the days to come, no matter what they may be, good or bad. My job as a minister of the gospel is to teach you the Word of God and to do the work of studying it deeply, showing myself approved as a workman unto God who, hopefully after this message, will not need to be ashamed (2 Timothy 2:15). Your job is to listen to the Word of God, to study it yourself, and to have a life that is governed by what it says and not by what propaganda says. Don't Let Propaganda Claim Your Allegiance You have to realize that there is a propaganda machine in the world right now, devised to stir you up in one direction or another, to win your allegiance, and to serve its own purposes. Our citizenship is in Heaven (Philippians 3:20), and that does not eliminate our responsibilities on the earth. Our allegiance to Christ should not govern how we withdraw from responsibility, as if to say, "I have to stay disconnected from that, lest I become tainted by it." Our allegiance to Christ should lead us to actually fulfill the responsibilities given to us in the world. If we're not careful, we run the risk of being confused in this present hour, in a nation that happens to be your home. A biblically uninformed mindset, driven by winds of propaganda and wrong doctrine, can make us angry or ambivalent toward our nation and its process, and then we let ourselves off the hook of any responsibility toward it. Two Ways Christians Get Civic Responsibility Wrong Remember, you are in the world. You are not out of it. You are in the world, and you have a responsibility to represent Christ in it and to become salt and light to it. A confused, propaganda-driven mindset can push us in one of two directions. Withdrawing From the Process The first is withdrawing from civic responsibility as citizens altogether: "I don't vote. I don't care to vote. I'm angry about it. I'm ambivalent. I don't want to. I have no desire for it." Mistaking Politics for the Kingdom The second takes us the other way, toward a misguided representation of faith that aligns with the fervor of political fire and propaganda and calls that the manifestation of the Kingdom. Political parties are not the Kingdom of God, and you can never repackage them as that. I know that statement creates tension. Should Christians Vote? Yes. This plays out in a place as simple as the ballot box. You do have a responsibility to be in that box and to cast a vote wisely. So what does responsible citizenship look like for Christians who understand that their ultimate allegiance belongs to Christ, while their earthly lives involve real responsibility toward their community and governing institutions? It raises an important question about how believers understand their responsibility as citizens while remaining faithful to Christ and His Kingdom. When Scripture Is Used to Sell a Narrative We are living in a moment when policies are constantly being presented that are deeply anti-God and anti-family. I do not need to run a list of what those are; a cursory amount of research on your phone will point them out to you. When the governor of California puts billboards around the United States advertising that the state is open for business for abortion, and uses New Testament Scriptures to paint that picture and sell that narrative, I can tell you right now that those billboards are anti-family and anti-God. You cannot use the Scripture like that. It's evil. My job is not to withdraw and say, "I can't touch this." My job is to have something to say about it. What Jesus Prayed in John 17 Jesus said something profound in John 17:13-18. Speaking to the Father, He prayed, "But now I come to You; and these things I speak in the world so that they may have My joy made full in themselves. I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." Your Salvation Separates You Do you realize that your salvation separates you from the course of this world, its nature, and its corruption? You are not of the world. When you were born again, you left behind its corrupt system and its corrupt ideology, and you became a new creation. You are called out from this perverse generation and separated from it. That's what the new birth does, and the world hates you for it. Yet You Are Not Taken Out Then Jesus says this: "I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one." Wait a minute. How is it that you're not of the world, yet you can't be taken out of it? That is the big question people wrestle with. Here is the truth. Your job is not to run away from the world, thinking that's how you get delivered from it. Your job is to refuse to surrender to the lie of the devil and the temptation of sin and rebellion, and to refuse to surrender to the principalities and rulers seducing you into their propaganda and their ideas, while you become an agent of God's Kingdom in the world to see it changed. I know it's hard to understand, but stay with me. Not of the World, Yet Sent Into It You are to be kept from the evil one while you go into the world. Jesus was sending us into the world. How do we know that? He continues: "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth. As You have sent Me into the world, I have also sent them into the world." You are not of the world, and yet you are sent into the world. How to Stay Untainted Without Hiding What keeps you from being tainted by the world is not hiding from it. It is the sanctification of Jesus Christ going on in your heart. That work keeps you from the evil one, because you willfully choose God, and not the evil one, at every turn. That gives you authority to represent God's Kingdom in a world that hates God. If we are faithful to the purposes of God, the world may turn to love Him, if we preach the gospel and show light instead of hiding from it. That is a Christian's civic responsibility: in the world, not of it, and sent into it to represent Christ.