Kuyperian Civic Duty

Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

Good evening. Tonight is the next installment in our series Centers and Circumferences. And you can probably remember last time that Dave talked about civil disobedience, and this evening I am going to be talking about civic duty. So I want to start off by commending you for practicing your civil disobedience to hear about civic duty tonight. So, good job. The term civic duty is something I heard fairly often growing up as a kid in the mid 1960s to 70s. Seems kind of weird to think that that was like a half a century ago, a little while ago. That was just after the Ice Age kids in case you don’t know. The 60s will be remembered as one of those historical periods in our culture when seismic shifts happened that are still being felt today.

Among those shifts were attitudes on sexuality, recreational drug use, roles of men and women in society, and submission to authority. It’s very interesting if you go back, if you look at some of the metrics on some of these things and you look at it over time, you will consistently find that if these things were like low, right about 1960 they took off. it was very clearly that those 60s were a very pivotal time, not in a good way for our culture. Prior to the 60s and the Vietnam War protests, pride in America was largely universal. There were significant issues, both internal and external to the nation, but the kind of vitriol and polarization that we see today was much rare, at least where I grew up.

Now before you accuse me of being too nostalgic for the good old days, I do recognize that it was a time that was far from perfect. In fact, the tremors leading up to that seismic shift in the 60s had started decades before that. The goal of this talk isn’t to try and unravel the Gordian knot of events that has brought us to where we are today. I would argue though, that the church in America shares a lot of blame for the cultural deterioration that we’ve been experiencing in the last 50 plus years. And I use the term church in its broadest sense here.

I was curious about the use of the phrase civic duty or civil duty over time. I don’t know if you’ve seen it yet, but Google has a really nifty tool that lets you search the millions of books and articles and other sources that they’ve scanned in. And you can go back as far as the 1500s and see the frequency of a word or a group of word or a phrase’s usage over time. You can see that phrase comes into vogue or goes away. It’s a very interesting tool to play with. And I was surprised to find that the usage of the phrase civic duty actually increased in our modern era. Prior to the 1900s, it does not even really show up on their little system, but its usage has been increasing quite a bit from the 60s on, we just see it ramping up.

And perhaps different terms for civic duty were used prior to the 1900s, so it didn’t make it into their search engine. Or maybe the increased usage reflects the rise of republic forms of government and the expectations that the citizenry will be more involved in public affairs. I mean, you think about it, just even in American history, our republic form of government, the concept of civic duty worldwide, you don’t go to China and hear a lot of talk about civic duty, lots of parts of Europe in the past, you don’t hear those kind of talk going on. So it does sort of make sense that term civic duty, that concept is probably something related to the rise of America and our Republic form of government.

If we narrow down the definition of church to just those groups within the evangelical ranks of the last 50 years, we find lots of disparity in opinions when it comes to the topic of Christians and civic duty. I’m sure you guys have all been tracking lately the debates going on with some of the major Christian influencers in our culture. John Piper most recently came out, announced that he’s not voting for either of the candidates. There’s another Christian organization out there, I’m not sure who they are, I was told about them. They’re encouraging evangelicals to walk away from the vote this time. So there’s a lot of debate out there.

But before we go any further, let’s work on a definition of what civic duty even means. Civic duty simply refers, or civic, refers to city or citizenry. And then for a definition of duty, I’d like to take you all the way back to 1828 and use Webster’s dictionary back then. and I’m gonna compare that to today’s definition so kinda see if you catch any differences. So in 1828, Webster’s Dictionary, duty. That which a person owes to another, that which a person is bound by any natural, moral, or legal obligation to pay, do, or perform. Obedience to princes, magistrates in the laws is the duty of every citizen and subject.

Obedience, respect, and kindness to parents are duties of children. Fidelity to friends is a duty. Reverence, obedience, and prayer to God are indispensable duties. The government and religious instruction of children are duties of parents, which they cannot neglect without guilt.

Now you can imagine the more modern definition is probably a little different than that. It’s a little more concise. If we turn to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary today, we find that duty is simply tasks, conduct, service, or functions that arise from one’s position, a moral or legal obligation. It was a little more precise back in 1828.

I suggest you try, and I would suggest as a side here, that you actually go back and do some comparisons of terms and definitions. Go back to the ancient dictionaries versus modern dictionaries. That is a very interesting way of looking at the cultural shift that has gone on and how definitions happen. Didn’t they just have an issue just recently? In one of the debates, there was a reference to sexual preference, and all of a sudden, they had to jump into the Merriam-Webster dictionary and change the definition because they decided that was politically incorrect. Very, very interesting. You know, that was a freebie on the side here.

Putting this all together, and for our purposes, we’ll define civic duty as this. The obligations that a citizen owes other members of the citizenry by reason of natural, moral, or legal demands. I mentioned a moment ago the disparity of opinion on civic duty that exists along our theological branch of the tree. On one end of the spectrum are those who argue our citizenship is in heaven, thus whatever civic duty we have on earth is minimal at best. And on the other end of the spectrum, there are those who seek to make America a Christian nation again, or perhaps for the first time.

The views of that former group can be summed up with these words from a well-known pastor. He wrote, as noble as a desire to reform society may be and as stirring as the emotions sometimes are when involved in the rightness of a political cause, those activities are not to be the Christian’s chief priorities. God does not call the church to influence the culture by promoting legislation and court rulings that advance a scriptural point of view. Nor does he condone any type of radical activism that would avoid tax obligations, disobey or seek removal of government officials we don’t agree with, or spend an inordinate amount of time campaigning for a so-called Christian slate of candidates.

The church will really change society for the better only when individual believers make their chief concern their own spiritual maturity, which means living in a way that honors God’s commands and glorifies his name. Such a concern inherently includes a firm grasp on scripture and an understanding that its primary mandate to us is to know Christ and proclaim his gospel. A godly attitude coupled with godly living makes the saving message of the gospel credited to the, creditable to the unsaved. If we claim to be saved but still convey proud, non-loving attitudes toward the lost are preaching and teaching no matter how doctrinally orthodox or politically savvy and persuasive will be ignored or rejected, end of quote.

Civic duty under this view could be summed up as live godly lives, obey the laws, preach the gospel, and vote. Now there’s certainly nothing wrong with that and there’s a lot right with it, But those things, but are those things the limits of civic duty for a Christian? Now near the other end of the spectrum, you have certain movements like Jerry Falwell Sr.’s Moral Majority that was founded back in 1979. Some of you are old enough to remember that group. According to a Wiki article, their explanation for what the Moral Majority was about says this. The Moral Majority was an organization made up of conservative Christian political action committees which campaigned on issues its personnel believe were important to maintaining its Christian conception of moral law.

They believed this represented the opinions of the majority of Americans, hence the movement’s name. It’s kind of an interesting side note on this when I was researching the moral majority, is they had 20 different state chapters while they were in their heyday. Do you know which state had the largest representation for moral majority? California? Close, go a little north. Washington. I was just surprised and found that interesting that we had the largest chapter of moral majority in this state of all places. Historically, we have examples of individual Christians who stepped up to confront public concerns other day.

You are all probably familiar with Wilbur Wilbur Force’s campaign to end the slave trade. But less known are several other societies that he founded. One was called the Society for the Suppression of Vice, which was aimed at reducing dissolute, immoral or disorderly practices. Their goal was to get Londoners to clean up their language and other Ancuth or irreligious behaviors. He and his buddies saw this, they just saw that Londoners were just too Ancuth too much cussing going on. And so they started a society to base, and they had members joining who would go out and campaign and try to get the city to clean up their act a little bit.

He also founded the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals to address widespread mistreatment of work animals used in the streets of London. And what we now know as the SPCA is still functioning today. But that started with Wilbur Wilberforce. In US history, there were clergymen referred to as the Black Robed Regiment. They were typically Presbyterian pastors who played an important role in shifting the colonists’ support of the King of England towards the Patriots fighting the war for independence. They were very involved in influencing that outcome. At up to that point, many colonists were still leaning towards the King.

They were like, what’s the big deal? And they were helping to agitate for them to take on the cause of the Patriots. We could go on with examples of Christians whose actions shape public affair policies and practices. So what are we to make of these opinions and examples when it comes to determining a Christian’s call to civic duty? It should be apparent that a Christian can’t absolve himself of all duty by claiming his citizenship is in heaven. Some try to do that. The scripture at a minimum causes us to pay our taxes, right? Matthew 22, Romans 13. It tells us to submit to the governing authorities, Romans 13, 1 Peter 2.

And we’re told to pray for our government leaders, 1 Timothy 2. Those verses alone disprove that we have no civic obligations at all. But do they show the extent of our civic duty? Can a Christian mind his own business, pay his taxes, pray for his leaders, and submit to them, and thus fulfill his civic duty. We can add to the minimum list of civic duties the duty to manage our own homes well. Our nation is not a group of unaffiliated nuclear families with no obligation to each other. Failures in one family can have negative ramifications on all the other families, and so there alone we have a responsibility to the Commonwealth to maintain our own homes well.

First Timothy 5.8 condemns the one who does not provide for his own household as worse than an infidel. A significant number of the social ills facing us today are directly traceable to failures in the home. So, besides managing our homes, paying our taxes, submitting to the government, What other biblical evidence can we bring into the conversation to help shape our understanding of this topic? It seems to me that there’s plenty. I believe one example from the Old Testament that hints at some kind of civic duty is found in the story of the Babylonian captivity.

Now granted, the Israelites were not thinking civic duty while they were in exile in Babylon, But it is interesting to read God’s instruction to them. In Jeremiah 29.7, God tells the captives, but seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile. And pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. God’s instruction goes beyond just praying for their captors, they were to seek their captors’ welfare. Part of seeking the city’s welfare includes, included building homes, planting vineyards, and increasing, multiplying.

Note that he commanded this to seek the welfare of the Babylonians even though he intended to destroy them eventually at the hands of the Medes and the Persians. That’s kind of a bizarre thing. Seek their welfare, but never mind, in a couple hundred years, or I forget the timeframe, I’m gonna wipe them out. But in the meantime, you guys be busy seeking their welfare. To seek the welfare of a city must imply much more personal involvement than simply coexisting within its borders while maintaining as much isolation as possible. Now this is not a proof text to support the call to civic duty, but it does lend credence to the idea that Christians ought to be tangibly seeking the welfare of the people they live among.

This is exactly what civic duty tries to achieve. It’s all about seeking the welfare of the community to the glory of God. Now, if that doesn’t make you lean towards Christians having a civic duty, consider the second greatest commandment, Sean mentioned it this morning in his closing comments, which is to love your neighbor as yourself. This command raises two obvious questions. Who’s my neighbor? And what does it mean to love my neighbor? In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus answers the first question and showed that neighbors includes a lot more than just the people who live right next door to you. Loving your neighbor as yourself involves more than just having good thoughts, wishing them well in your thoughts.

It requires engagement as evidenced by Jesus’ parable, his example of the Good Samaritan. Loving our neighbors in tangible ways has the added benefit of making our gospel witness compelling. This is confirmed in Matthew 5, 14 through 16, you know it well. It says, you are the light of the world. The city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. Notice that it doesn’t say, so they may hear your good words.

Jesus equates on covering a lamp with letting others see our good works. That requires more than just paying taxes and voting. We are to speak the gospel and live it in a way that others can see it, how it affects our lives. There are countless verses that call us to care for the needs of others. James tells us that true religion includes taking care of the orphan and the widow in her distress. Jesus identifies the sheep in his sheep and goats parable as those who fed the hungry and visited those in prison. Jesus told the rich young man to sell his possessions and go and give it to the poor. We could go on and on with commands aimed at others.

Now some might argue that these pertain to our duty towards other members of the household of faith, but I think it would be difficult to prove that we can limit the scope of those obligations to just fellow believers. Do we let our light shine only on other believers that they might give glory to God? That doesn’t make sense. Is the light we shine to unbelievers only? Is the light we shine to unbelievers only our evangelism presentations? Or is that light shining supposed to be to the world and not just to our own people? So far, I haven’t mentioned the word Kipirium, Jubilee, you’re welcome, or used the phrase one thumbs with.

By now, we should all be familiar with the premise of a Kipirian worldview, which says all of creation belongs to Christ, but is currently infiltrated by enemies of the gospel. If we believe this worldview is correct, then it should be apparent that civic duty is something Christians should be participating in. Now earlier I defined civic duty as the obligations a citizen owes other members of the citizenry by reason of natural, moral, or legal demands. Given a Kuyperian worldview, civic duty for a Christian means much more than what is normally meant. The reason should be obvious. We are not interested in simply seeking a common good that some pluralistic group sits down and agrees upon.

We are interested in seeing a commonwealth operate under the lordship of Christ. This does not mean that everyone in the commonwealth will be a Christian. It does mean that the rules that govern the commonwealth will be godly in nature and character. Christians who hold the view that the world is Satan’s domain rather than Christ will naturally see it only as a place to evangelize and advocate for limited engagement in the culture. But as we’ve seen already, this view runs counter to the truth that Jesus is Lord of all the earth. And it negates all the biblical evidence showing our call is to be in the world, but not of it.

Frankly, it’s unreasonable for a Christian to shun civic duty and then grouse about it. what a mess the unbelievers are making of things. This is akin to leaving your house for a month under the supervision of your two year old and then being upset with what ensues. Who better to run the commonwealth than Christians? Who better to set public policies for the common good? We have plenty of examples already of what happens when the inmates are running the asylum.

If you agree that Christians do have a civic duty to their earthly commonwealth, then there are a couple of more questions to consider. First, what are the ditches Christians fall into when pursuing civic duty? And second, what does civic duty look like for a Christian?

And to be sure, there are ditches and Christians do fall into them regularly. One ditch I alluded to earlier is to try to Christianize the Commonwealth. The Roman Emperor, the Adosius, right, made this mistake when he declared that Christianity based on the Nicene Creed would be the official church of the Roman Empire. He also made laws that punished followers of Roman paganism, Hellenism, and Arianism. Clearly you cannot force individuals to be Christians. In America our Constitution would not even allow such a decree, but that doesn’t stop some from speaking of restoring America back to being a Christian nation.

It is true that Christian values heavily influenced America’s organizing principles, but this does not mean that all citizens were expected to bend the knee to Christ. That day will come in the future, and Christ, not human government, will enforce it. Another ditch is equating Christianity with a political party. Where those parties align themselves or diverge from the word of God should dictate how a Christian aligns himself politically. The fight for us is not donkeys versus elephants, it’s the common good versus evil as defined by God’s laws. There should be room for debate on how to achieve the common good, but little debate on what the common good is, assuming the word is our reference point.

And from my estimation, that has become the political problem today. 50, 60, 100 years ago, I think generally there was two parties arguing for how to accomplish a common good today. Never the twain shall meet. What they view as good is so distorted, in such disparity that there’s no longer the ability to fight for a common good, and hence all the wars you see going on. A third ditch is refusing to work with others in the commonwealth unless everyone is a Christian. Now I must admit that this is an issue that has caused me more than once to shy away from community involvement. The saying to err is human but to really screw things up requires a committee sums up my fears of jumping into a lot of civic minded organizations.

I just dread the thought of the kinds of people I’ll encounter and just have to have the crazy debates. That is a real concern, but what’s the alternative? Isolation, throwing rocks at all the bad ideas these groups come up with. A fourth ditch, and one that many in our branch of evangelicalism fear, is replacing the true gospel with the so-called social gospel. The social gospel is a formal movement that was most prominent from the late 1800s to the early 1900s. Its advocates interpreted the kingdom of God as requiring social as well as individual salvation. That’s an interesting phrase, social as well as individual salvation and sought the betterment of society through application of the biblical principles of charity and justice.

It was particularly popular with the more liberal branches of Protestantism. Now some of what the social gospel movement stood for actually sounds downright kyperian. The problem today however, is that the efforts of this movement seem to have little to do with the gospel and much more to do with just social justice causes. In many cases the Protestant denominations today at the forefront of the social gospel movement have even taken in pro-abortionists and homosexuals under their wing. So, what would civic duty potentially look like for a Christian?

The answer to that question, I think in part, has largely to do with what your views are on kingdom theology. Now that topic would require a whole series of messages to explore, and I am, to be honest, no expert on that topic. But for the purpose of tonight’s discussion, I wanna give you my stab at the two views on kingdom theology. One view says that there are two kingdoms, one of this world and the other, the heavenly kingdom of God. The earthly kingdom is ruled by Satan and it’ll be done away with someday. Therefore, Christians should not spend their time seeking its transformation. That would be the view of the pastor’s quote I read earlier.

Their job, Christian’s job, is to preach the gospel and live quiet and peaceful lives as sojourners on this earth. They would point to verses like John 1836 where Jesus said, my kingdom is not of this world to support their view. The second view holds that the kingdom of God is present on earth spiritually. Luke 17, 20 through 21 says, being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them, the kingdom of God is not in ways that can be observed, nor will they say, look, here it is, or there. For behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you. This kingdom and this view is an extension of the kingdom of God in heaven.

However, the earthly kingdom has not been brought into full subjection yet. The advocates of this view would point to the Lord’s prayer for support. In that prayer, we pray, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Why would we be told to pray like that if it only refers to a future kingdom that’s gonna happen anyhow whether we pray or not? It wouldn’t make any sense to have that in the Lord’s Prayer.

This view argues it is appropriate for Christians to work to see the spiritual reality of God’s kingdom on earth manifest itself physically and for God’s will to be done here like it is in heaven. Now while I may not have expressed the two views perfectly, the second view is the one that the elders would hold to, elders here at TEC. So then, what would civic duty look like for a Christian?

Here are several suggestions then in no particular order. So I’m just gonna give you about eight different ways that we could practice civic duty. Nothing profound I’m about to say, but I would like you to really think about each one, because I think while we can give mental assent to these and say, yeah, that’s a good idea, how often do we actually do any of them? And even though we may, in our church, we may be very Kiparian thinking, has it worked its way out into our fingers and toes yet? And so hopefully it’ll prod you a little bit, you know, maybe bring a little bit of conviction and say, hey, there’s more I could be doing in this arena.

First, this one I think you guys are already doing a good job with, so keep it up. We should make sure our homes radiate Christ in all regards. Ultimately, a commonwealth will reflect the makeup of its constituent parts, which are the families. If all the families in our commonwealth were doing well, we would probably be having this topic today. That would solve 99% of the issues facing us. The number one reason we see as much chaos as we do today is because non-Christian and Christian homes are falling apart. A second way, to set an example of submitting to the elected leaders of the Commonwealth. Now all the normal limitations such as obey God first apply here.

We had lots of discussions about when’s it okay not to submit, but we gotta be careful that we don’t go off into another ditch. In these current times, we need to be very careful that we don’t foster a rebellious attitude, especially among our children. It is proper to resist unlawful and unjust actions. It is not okay to rebel just because we don’t like something. What constitutes reasonable actions for rebellion is open for discussion, but stinky attitudes are not.

Third, be a contributing member of the commonwealth through fruitful labors and generosity to others. You know, work and produce and have surplus and be able to bless others with it and help out in that way. Do not be lazy and take advantage of safety nets the Commonwealth provides. You know, we recently had this issue come up with the COVID-19 and the unemployment checks. And you guys all know that there were a lot of people that were actually making more on unemployment than they were when they were actually working. So when it was time to go back to work, they said, gee, sorry boss, I’m getting more off the government.

Christians in those situations should have said, I’m going back to work, even if it means I’m gonna, it’s gonna hurt my pocketbook. A side note that you may not be aware of is one of our senators, Ben Sasse, actually tried to put an amendment into the CARES package. That was the COVID relief package. he put an amendment in there to say, hey, make sure people on unemployment don’t make more money unemployed than when they were working, and it got voted down, so thank you to our leaders. A fourth way, yeah, fourth way. Look for meaningful ways to show care for the poor. Again, look for meaningful ways to show care for the poor.

Don’t assume everyone on the street’s a lazy bum or an addict who won’t change. Some of the ways we can tangibly do this would be to volunteer in some of these shelters or the halfway homes. We’ve got homes right here in our community, either people who are recovering and they’re in these halfway homes, you can go hang out there, visit. There’s one that Gail and I donated some furniture to that’s actually Christian based, the owner of the place is a Christian. They have Bible studies and those kinds of things, opportunities to get into those people’s lives. I’m sure they would love to have other folks who are doing well to come in and help give them some motivation and encouragement.

Be careful, when I say meaningful ways to help the poor, there’s bad ways to help the poor. A lot of people salve their conscience by just handing a buck out the window at the corner. I know our mayor is pleaded with us, don’t do that, because that money just ends up being drunk or shot up. But there are, even within, if you can go to our Marysville’s website and they have 13 or 14 different ways you can help in that process, if you really wanna get involved that way. Fifth, do not let fear of reprisal keep you from speaking out against evil. There’s a lot of talk today in current politics about the silent majority.

Well, if it really is a majority, why is it silent? Why is it not telling the crazy minority to be quiet and go away? And yet we seem to allow, I’m gonna give you guys a clue, and this is for free. Do you realize on social media that well over 90% of the voices on social media are just some Yahoo in his mother’s basement that never had a job and a day in his life, and he’s expressing an opinion and everybody freaks out like this guy is God or something? And most of these people are just nobodies who just have found a platform to flop their lips. And so we need to learn to stop reacting to that. But if it’s true that there is this silent majority, we need to open up our mouths and speak out and not be afraid.

It can be tough. It can be tough in a workplace. We have to worry about what’s the fallout. Are we going to get canceled? Cancel me? I don’t care. But we have to stop being intimidated. And I know that’s difficult, because I he was in the corporate world for a long time. And that’s a consideration he had to make. You just get out of a business meeting and you’re being told to salute this new liberal agenda. And I’ve told you guys before, by just walking out of the meeting, the vast majority of my fellow workers were fuming at what they had just been told. But not a one of them would stick their neck out and go tell HR or anybody else, don’t do that again.

So don’t let fear of reprisal keep you from speaking out against evil. Use the platforms you have to share your thoughts. You may be surprised by how many agree with you but are just afraid to speak up. Edmund Burke, famous quote, the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. I personally just gave you an example where I have witnessed the silence of the majority paving the way for the evil doers. I honestly believe to this day, if those upset employees had gone to HR and said, you do that again, we quit. They literally would have had 70 or 80% of our workforce quit overnight. Do you think that company would have said, oh, we don’t care, we’ll hire new people.

They would have knocked it off in a heartbeat. Sixth, consider joining civic organizations that are doing good work, even if they’re not explicitly Christian. bring a Christian influence into the mix. Seventh, consider how getting involved in local, consider getting involved in local government. This could be attending meetings, volunteering on subcommittees, or running for elected office. Again, Marysville is very open to that. There’s lots of opportunities. If you need ideas, you can contact people like Mark James, ways that Christians can get in and make a difference, even in the, what do they call them? the precinct leaders, you know, that’s like the lowest level of the political system.

You get in there, you get known, perhaps you move on up into the state levels and you can get in there and get a voice. Gail’s got a cousin who’s very involved in on the Republican Party side. I think that’s how she started, was just a mom showing up to the neighborhood precinct meetings. And now she’s actually at a very high level influencing the conservative voice, bring in a Christian and conservative voice to the party.

The beauty and the curse of our political system is that any nincompoop can rise to levels of influence in local government, and many do, because the truly qualified won’t be bothered. I’m convinced that a lot of these lower level political opportunities are being filled by the people in mama’s basement have nothing better to do with her life. because the people that should be in those positions don’t wanna be bothered.

Eighth, be the kind of neighbor you wished lived next door to you. Ask yourself, what kind of a neighbor do I wish I had? Be that neighbor. And above all, proclaim Christ. All of the suggestions above, as good as they may be, will be of no lasting value unless individuals come to Christ. So this isn’t a call to more political activism. This is a call to go out and seek the welfare of our commonwealth and bring Christ, bring the name of Christ into that discussion. We actually have better ideas, right? We have solutions, we have answers. We should be bringing them to the table. So in summary, one of my sons and his family live in Charleston, South Carolina, beautiful city, if you ever get a chance to visit.

There is a city building code that says, no building may be taller than the tallest church steeple. Sounds kind of quaint today, right? To this day, around this country, there are blue laws, or also called Sunday laws, today, which prohibit certain activities on Sundays. Even in Germany, where one of my other sons lives, you better stock up on your supplies during the week because on Sundays, pretty much everything shuts down. I mean, like everything shuts down. And a lot of these restrictions were implemented out of respect for Christian sensibilities. Some of it was for other reasons, but the Christian influence also caused some of these laws to come into place.

My point in bringing up these examples is that there was a time when Christians were much more influential in the public square. Somewhere along the way, we’ve enabled, through our civic disengagement, secularism to become the dominant religion in the culture. and it is a religion. The result has been for some Christians to shrink back into their stained glass aquariums and bemoan the state of affairs out there.

Christian engagement with the commonwealth is limited to these kind of people, is limited to sending out periodic rating parties on evangelism night to try and snatch a few souls. We huddle, stay away from the big bad world, and we run out there on Tuesday nights and give our DE presentations, and we hopefully see a convert or two and we bring him back into the stained glass aquarium and say, stay out of the world, that’s a bad place. Whether you believe the current state of affairs in our culture is just another low point in a constantly repeating cycle of tribulations, or you believe it is a part of an inevitable slide to a final judgment, the duty of a Christian is still the same.

To be salt in light, to let their light, to let our light shine, to proclaim Christ to all, to seek the welfare of the people that we live among. As we perform civic duty in the commonwealth, we are gonna be doing these things and more. And there’s gonna be one of two responses to our efforts. Either men will see our good works and glorify our Father, which is in heaven, or they’ll be provoked to store more wrath for themselves on the day of judgment. Either way, God will get all the glory and that is what a Christian’s civic duty is aimed at. Seeking the good of the commonwealth and having God receive the glory.

And again, whether that’s because they say, aha, you have an answer, and they give glory to God in heaven, or they tell us to go fish and they store it more wrath, both paths, God gets the glory. And so I just encourage all of us to consider these eight ways, think about how we can get more involved. Again, I think in principle, I think this church is largely in agreement that Christians have a civic duty, but perhaps you’ve been wrestling with how can I get more involved? Things can I be doing? There’s more than those eight ideas. I would encourage maybe the life to life groups to kick that around and discuss and see what we can do to begin to do a better job of getting into our community and seeking its welfare.

All right, let’s pray. Father, we give you thanks because your word stands sufficient for all times. You have revealed yourself to us, you have placed your spirit within us, and you have placed us in this place at this time with the mess that’s going on out there. And Father, I just gotta believe that your desire for us is to not just simply hunker down and wait for Jesus to come back, but to actually get out there and to certainly share the gospel, to evangelize, of course, but more than that, to even seek the good of the people that we live among. And in so doing, hopefully see many come to Christ and to give you glory.

And so Father, just take the words I’ve said and whatever was junk, throw it out, and whatever was good and right, may it just settle into our hearts and help motivate us and to consider our responsibilities in this area. And may you be pleased with the decisions and the actions and the efforts that we make in the weeks, the months, the days, the years to come.

Just, ultimate Father, I want to see you glorified first and foremost. And so we commit all this to you and just thank you for your good gifts. Just be with us as we head off into another week. We pray in Jesus’ name, amen.