The Kingdom Perspective

Transcript:

Hello! This is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective!

Everyone knows that grumbling is the opposite of gratitude, but most are unaware of what drives it.

At the root of the grumble is unbelief in God.

Now, I need to be clear.

Grumbling is not the same as what the Bible calls “lament”. Lament is biblically condoned; grumbling is condemned. For example, there are over forty lament Psalms, and some of these could even be categorized as “complaint” Psalms. The Bible models lament but dismisses grumbling. They’re not the same.

So, what’s the difference?

Lament happens at the end of yourself, driving you to cry out to God.

But grumbling is being full of yourself (your own perspective, hurts, bitterness, etc.). You’re not open to God’s correction and training. You’re just upset you didn’t get what you want.

Lament is tenderhearted. You realize you desperately need God.

But grumbling is stubborn and hard-hearted. You refuse to trust Him.

In lament the Psalmist cries to God in his lonely distress, saying: “How long, O Lord, must I wait forever!” (Psalm 13).

However, in grumbling we don’t cry to God, but complain about Him to others—how He’s cheated, failed, or disappointed us.

Lament is laying your soul bear before God. It’s vulnerability.

Grumbling is proving yourself right. It’s refusing to take your complaint to God, while looking to others for sympathy.

Lament relies on God, and so leads us to praise Him.

But grumbling rallies others against God, leading them to question His trustworthiness.

This is why the lament Psalms do not end with complaint but with confidence in God.

My brothers and sisters, let’s follow that example and live with gratitude, not just an attitude!

Something to think about from The Kingdom Perspective.

“How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?

How long will you hide your face from me?

How long must I take counsel in my soul

and have sorrow in my heart all the day?

How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?

Consider and answer me, O Lord my God;

light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death,

lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed over him,”

lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken.

But I have trusted in your steadfast love;

my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.

I will sing to the Lord,

because he has dealt bountifully with me.”

~ Psalm 13:1-6 (ESV)

Transcript:

Hello! This is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective!

Perhaps, there is no more famous articulation in recent memory of the limits of human government than that given by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In his famous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”.

In it he reasons from the theology of St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Paul and Jesus Himself. A human law and its application are only valid to the degree that they square with the law of God. Why? Because human law is only legitimate within the bounds given by divine appointment. Human authority has limits.

Remember, Jesus told the corrupt Pontius Pilate: “You would have no authority…at all unless it had been given you from above” (John 19:11). St. Paul says: “For there is no authority except from God” (Romans 13:1). Therefore, all who wield authority have a solemn responsibility before Almighty God to do so, not as they please, but as justice and mercy would require.

Moreover, all matters of justice must be properly weighted according to the balance given in the law of God. To do otherwise is to misuse the law and so to operate in functional lawlessness. As Jesus put it, the “weightier matters of the law” are “justice, mercy and faithfulness” (Matthew 23:23), and as the prophet Micah (6:8) admonished:

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.

And what does the Lord require of you?

To act justly and to love mercy

and to walk humbly with your God.

Do you exercise your rights, powers, and authority not merely for yourself, but for glory of God and the good of your neighbor?

Something to think about from The Kingdom Perspective.

“With what shall I come to the Lord

And bow myself before the God on high?

Shall I come to Him with burnt offerings,

With yearling calves?

Does the Lord take delight in thousands of rams,

In ten thousand rivers of oil?

Shall I present my firstborn for my rebellious acts,

The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

He has told you, O man, what is good;

And what does the Lord require of you

But to do justice, to love kindness,

And to walk humbly with your God?”

~ Micah 6:6-8 (NASB95)

Transcript:

Hello! This is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective!

As chaos grows in any society, increasingly people look for someone to blame. We cry out:

“It’s the government’s fault!”

“It’s the public schools that have caused the problems!”

“It’s the church’s fault for why my family life is a mess!”

“It’s society or the culture’s fault!”

Now, social forces and institutions “out there” are indeed important. There are many layers to social cohesion, and an integrated, well-functioning society involves multiple public and private institutions. It is a structure made with interlocking building blocks. However, the most basic building blocks are always self-discipline and your homelife-management. You and your family are what society is made of.

So, unless you are humbly seeking to get your own self and own house in order, to blame-shift, simply avoids the one root issue for which you have a fundamental responsibility.

In my engagement with schoolteachers and law enforcement, and even pastors, I’m increasing stunned to hear the level of chaos they are forced to deal with—much of which should be managed at the home level. Yet, more and more is expected of them, while less and less is expected of the individual and the family. This can only go on for so long till there is a collapse or a massive social reordering. Like an automobile bridge, our public institutions have a “weight limit”. They can hold only so much before they collapse.

We can pass the buck of blame for only so long before the bill is returned to our doorstep for “insufficient funds”.

Something to think about from The Kingdom Perspective.

“Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.

Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be embittered against them. Children, be obedient to your parents in all things, for this is well-pleasing to the Lord. Fathers, do not exasperate your children, so that they will not lose heart.”

~ Colossians 3:17-21 (NASB95)

Transcript:

Hello! This is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective!

You would be hard pressed to find a better or more succinct statement of the Christian understanding of limited human authority than that given by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In April of 1963, he was imprisoned for protesting the overreach of laws mandating the segregation of races in the Jim Crow South. Writing from a Birmingham jail, he responded to white clergy that criticized his tactics in fighting these unjust laws.

King responded with gracious but pointed truth, deeply rooted in the biblical tradition. Listen:

“One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that ‘an unjust law is no law at all’” (emphasis added).

Dr. King goes on to raise the question:

“Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law…of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law.” (King, Martin Luther Jr. “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” In Why We Can’t Wait, 1963.)

Now, what is Dr. King saying? Governmental authority is legitimate only to the degree that it squares with the Law of God. When human authority runs contrary to the Law of God, it abrogates its authority and must be disobeyed.

Something to think about from The Kingdom Perspective.

“When they had brought them, they stood them before the Council. The high priest questioned them, saying, ‘We gave you strict orders not to continue teaching in this name, and yet, you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and intend to bring this man’s blood upon us.’ But Peter and the apostles answered, ‘We must obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom you had put to death by hanging Him on a cross. He is the one whom God exalted to His right hand as a Prince and a Savior, to grant repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins. And we are witnesses of these things; and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey Him.’”

~ Acts 5:27-32 (NASB95)

Transcript:

Hello! This is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective!

Have you ever considered that the act of public worship is a political act? No! Not a partisan political act in the way our division-prone society sees it, but a political act, nonetheless. In this bold political act we partake in every Sunday, we gather, publicly, and declare that Jesus Christ (the anointed King) is Lord (the absolute ruler) of heaven and earth! Furthermore, we declare that He is coming back to judge the living and the dead—that the citizens of planet earth and their would-be rulers are all accountable to one political figure alone…a King who was brutally executed on a bloody Roman cross…for us.

How this fact, has escaped our notice can only be explained by how the modern mind has neutered historic Christianity. Our contemporary notion of Jesus is way too harmless. When you begin to ponder the implications of this assertion, it is shocking and, perhaps, a bit confusing. But one thing is for certain: it must change the way that we think about our engagement in this world.

The central claim of Christianity does not remove us from the affairs of life on earth; we are still citizens of the United States (or whatever land we call our own). However, it does affect the way we imagine our engagement in the affairs of this world. As Christians, we know that the kingdoms of this world are not ultimate kingdoms. All the kingdoms of this world will come to an end, but His kingdom is forever.

Something to think about from The Kingdom Perspective.

“The Lord reigns, let the earth rejoice;

 let the many coastlands be glad!

 Clouds and thick darkness are all around him;

 righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.

 Fire goes before him

 and burns up his adversaries all around.

 His lightnings light up the world;

 the earth sees and trembles.

 The mountains melt like wax before the Lord,

 before the Lord of all the earth.”

~ Psalm 97:1-5 (ESV)

Transcript:

Hello! This is Pastor Don Willeman of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective!

According to the Bible government authority is not a necessary evil. It was established by God to facilitate a safe, functioning, and flourishing society. However, just because government is good and necessary does not make it the most basic and important social institution. There are some things that are more foundational to human flourishing than governmental authority.

Biblically speaking, the home (i.e., marriage and family—the husband-wife and parent-child relationship), the church (i.e., obligation to worship and obey God in communion with fellow believers), and the neighborhood (i.e., our responsibility to love our neighbor) all have higher importance than government.

Without the flourishing of the mediating institutions of home, church and neighborhood, we are left with sheer governmental force. When homes and neighborhoods are in chaos, governmental coercion becomes the sole ground of social cohesion, and this is not good. Rather, God intended love and trust nurtured in the home, church, and neighborhood to be building blocks to a free and flourishing society.

A government that does not respect and support these institutions, or worse seeks to destroy them, is a government sowing seeds of social disintegration or totalitarianism. And a people that does not pursue the good ordering of these basic building blocks in their own lives is asking for tyranny. The Law of the God, not the law of the state, must always be primary.

Something to think about from The Kingdom Perspective.

“One of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, ‘Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?’ And He said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.’”

~ Matthew 22:35-40 (NASB95)

“Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. The Lord God commanded the man, saying, ‘From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.’ Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.’”

~Genesis 2:15-18 (NASB95)

“To discipline a child produces wisdom,

but a mother is disgraced by an undisciplined child.

When the wicked are in authority, sin flourishes,

but the godly will live to see their downfall.

Discipline your children, and they will give you peace of mind

and will make your heart glad.

When people do not accept divine guidance, they run wild.

But whoever obeys the law is joyful.”

~ Proverbs 29:15-18 (NLT)

Transcript:

Hello, this is Pastor Don Willeman of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective.

In ancient Rome, Christians suffered persecution precisely because they did not find their hope and ultimate allegiance in the kingdoms of this world. They refused to say that the political realm of Rome was supreme, and that Caesar was “Lord”. To them, they had only one supreme political realm, the Kingdom of God, and only one Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ. Because of this they were seen by many as a danger to civil order and therefore a threat to the state. However, nothing could have been further from the truth.

It was precisely because these early Christians were anchored in an eternal political reality—their citizenship in heaven—that allowed them to engage in the kingdom of this world in such a non-divisive and redemptive manner.

If you believe this world is all there is, and the political issues of the moment are make-or-break issues, then your political engagement will be desperate. And desperate people do desperately dumb things! You will be reactionary to your opponents, vindictive when attacked, cynical in the face of corruption, and hopeless in the face of setbacks. But if your hope goes beyond the kingdoms of this world, then you will be like the early Christians, who, though maligned as troublemakers, lit the path for a new way of engaging. Listen to this 2nd century tribute:

“Christians are no different from the rest in their nationality, language or customs…. They fulfill all their duties as citizens, but they suffer as foreigners…. They obey all laws, but they live at a level higher than that required by the law. They love all, but all persecute them…. In a word, what the soul is in the body, that is what Christians are in the world.” (Epistle to Diognetus, c. A.D. 150)

Could this describe you?

Something to think about from The Kingdom Perspective.

“They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe; and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles. And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common; and they began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need. Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved.”

~ Acts 2:42-47 (NASB)

Transcript:

Hello! This is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective!

The Bible tells us that human government is established by God and therefore is accountable to God and His Word (Romans 13).

This is why government power must be limited. It must not be used for the selfish gain of those in power but for the general freedom and flourishing of all. By God’s design the government exists to curtail the work of evil and encourage the work of good (1 Peter 2:14). In the words of the French thinker Montesquieu (1689-1755), “it is requisite that the government be so constituted as one man needs not be afraid of another.” (Charles, Baron De Montesquieu, the Spirit of the Laws (1748)).

Thus, wherever possible, we have an obligation to hold the government accountable to this role, especially in a democratic republic, where the government is, after all, “we the people.”

However, just as the will of the government is limited, so too is that of the individual. We are all personally accountable to God and obligated to obey His will. This is why the Bible tells us that, though we are to “act as free men,” we must “not use [our] freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bondslaves of God. Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king” (1 Peter 2:16-17).

Especially for us as Christians, our behavior should be so exemplary that it leaves no room for bringing charges of wrongdoing. As Peter puts it: “For such is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men” (1 Peter 2:15).

This teaching should make us self-reflective: How do you live? Do you speak and act in such a manner that points your neighbors to a better society?

Something to think about The Kingdom Perspective.

“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; for you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul. Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation.”

~ 1 Peter 2:9-12 (NASB95)

Transcript:

Hello! This is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective!

In our current political climate, we are increasingly tempted to become anxious not only for any given election result but also the potential reaction to it. However, as Christians we need not be anxious nor filled with dread. Rather, we are free to walk in faith and be peacemakers.

Why?

Well, first, we can know one thing for sure, that the day after any election nothing will have changed in heaven…or even ultimately on earth. Jesus is Lord regardless of the outcome. And that is very good news…for everyone!

Recently, a dear brother commented to me about the “devastating” situation our world is in. He wondered “what people hold onto without the hope and assurance of Christ.” How true! Thank God we have a hope that goes beyond elections. Indeed! We have a hope that goes beyond the grave!

Jesus—not earthly kings, congresses, or courts—determines our fate. All earthly kingdoms shall “come to pass,” but Jesus’s kingdom “shall have no end”.

One of the most arrogant politicians of all-time, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, finally got it right after God humbled him:

For His dominion is an everlasting dominion,

And His kingdom endures from generation to generation.

All the inhabitants of the earth are of no account,

But He does according to His will among the army of heaven

And among the inhabitants of earth;

And no one can fend off His hand

Or say to Him, ‘What have You done?’ (Daniel 4:34-35)

Nebuchadnezzar had quite literally lost his mind. His self-obsessed pride had driven him mad, until he “raised [his] eyes heavenward and [his] reason was restored” (Daniel 4:34). Nothing restores our sanity like a glimpse of the Sovereign Savior.

Are you anchoring your hope in the eternal God or in earthly government?

Something to think about from The Kingdom Perspective.

“This is the interpretation, O king: It is a decree of the Most High, which has come upon my lord the king, that you shall be driven from among men, and your dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field. You shall be made to eat grass like an ox, and you shall be wet with the dew of heaven, and seven periods of time shall pass over you, till you know that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will. And as it was commanded to leave the stump of the roots of the tree, your kingdom shall be confirmed for you from the time that you know that Heaven rules. Therefore, O king, let my counsel be acceptable to you: break off your sins by practicing righteousness, and your iniquities by showing mercy to the oppressed, that there may perhaps be a lengthening of your prosperity.”

~ Daniel 4:24-27 (ESV)

Transcript:

Hello, this is Pastor Don Willeman of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective.

Aside from the foundational influence of the Apostles, in the first thousand years of the Church, St. Augustine’s influence is hard to match. However, St. Augustine was not always “Saint” Augustine. Although exposed to the gospel at an early age, he did not become a Christian until much later, in his early 30s (A.D. 386), just a few years after the Roman Empire became officially Christian (A.D. 380).

Although he was born into a Roman family in what today is Algeria, Aurelius Augustinus was probably not of European/Roman decent, but rather of the indigenous North African Berber tribes. As a matter of fact, his ancestors were probably slaves of the Romans until about 140 years before he was born.

Nonetheless, as a Roman citizen, Augustine was proud of his adopted empire and its influence in the world. As a child his home exclusively spoke Latin, the language of the Empire. His Romanized life afforded him many benefits and privileges.

However, when immersed in the culture and privileges of an empire, it is easy to confuse that empire with the kingdom of God.

Amazingly, Augustine, as a Christian, largely avoided this confusion. We have Augustine to thank for clarifying the biblical truth that the empires of this world—whether the Roman Empire or the American—are not to be equated with the “empire” of God. Jesus said that my kingdom is not of this world (John 19). The kingdoms of this world rise and fall. But the kingdom of God is forever. That’s where the Augustine anchored his hope.

Where have you anchored yours?

Something to think about from The Kingdom Perspective.

“And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever, just as you saw that a stone was cut from a mountain by no human hand, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold.”

~ Daniel 2:44-45 (ESV)