Dual Citizens

Following Jesus in an Election Season

In Philippians, Paul says our citizenship is in heaven. What does that mean when we’re about to vote? Some say Christians should step back from politics entirely. Others engage, but let a party claim the loyalty that belongs to God alone. Paul, writing to citizens of a proud Roman colony, offers a third way: live as citizens worthy of the gospel, and let Jesus shape, challenge, and sometimes correct every political commitment, left or right. Together we’ll ask what our political habits are forming in us and how the church’s own practices can reshape us.

Transcript

My name is Brian. I am also one of the pastors. Sandy and I are married, if you didn’t know, and we love doing life and ministry together. Today, we’re going to talk about the election because it is election week, if you didn’t notice. All the text messages that we’ve been getting and all the political advertisements, etc., that are coming in. I’m not going to tell you who to vote for, though. Besides, if you didn’t know, the IRS kind of frowns on that. Pastors, we’re not supposed to tell you who to vote for.

But more importantly, I want to talk about something that I think is more important than who gets elected this week. I want to talk about the stories that we’re hearing and the political messages that stir things up in us and what they stir up in us. Have you stopped to think about some of the messages that these political advertisements are telling you? The stories that they are stirring up in you? Some of them provoke anger. Some of them provoke frustration. Others kind of produce fear or anxiety within us. Some of them might even stir up some hope or some level of pride.

Well, maybe you’ve thought about what messages these political advertisements are sharing, but have you thought about why they’re sharing these messages? Every political message has a story to tell us. Every story tells us something that’s wrong in the world and somebody who’s responsible for that wrong. And there’s a story that there’s something in this world that can make your world, or at least part of the world, better. And whether we realize it or not, these stories are shaping the way we see the world, the way we see other people, and even the way that we see ourselves.

So, here’s the question that we’re going to wrestle with today: What stories are shaping us? And are they shaping us to become more like Jesus? I think the Bible has something to say about our identity, where we place our allegiance, and what kind of people we’re becoming.

We’re going to be in Philippians chapter 3. If you want to open up your Bible with us today, the Philippian church is the first church that Paul planted in Europe. You can read about that in Acts chapter 16. It’s a Roman colony, and it has a lot of retired soldiers. Because they had fought so hard for their country, they had fierce loyalty to Rome.

We’re going to pick up the conversation in verse 17, where Paul says, “Join together in following my example, brothers and sisters. And just as you have us as a model, keep your eyes on those who live as we do. For as often for as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction. Their God is their stomach and their glory is in their shame. Their mindset is on earthly things.”

All right, we’re going to stop here, and we’re going to get the context so we can kind of understand what’s happening in this passage. This is kind of strong accusational language, and every conflict has a backstory. So, let’s get the backstory.

In Acts chapter 16, we see Paul facing resistance because the Jesus way was threatening the way that the people in Philippi lived and did things in their city. Let’s be clear, it was also about a loss of money. Paul had exercised a demon out of a woman who was telling people’s fortunes, and they were kind of frustrated with the fact that he had taken away their ability to make money. But they dressed up their accusations in civic and ethnic language. And so, people who decided to follow Jesus faced similar resistance and persecution as they were trying to follow the Jesus way.

When Paul says, “Follow my example,” he’s calling people to live differently than the culture around them. He says that there are these enemies of the cross that are around and are causing this ruckus. We don’t know exactly what he means here, but he describes them as people whose God is their stomach, whose glory is in their shame, and whose minds are on earthly things. In other words, I think their lives are oriented towards earthly things that bring them happiness or make them feel good about themselves rather than the way of the cross.

Paul says to look back at his own past, and he recalls in verses 4-6 a list of all the things that he has done, reasons that he had to be confident in himself. So, he’s a Pharisee. He was zealous for his faith, so much so that he was persecuting the church. These things gave him confidence that he was, in fact, and could be dependent on his own righteousness or goodness.

But now he says in Philippians 3 that he considers all these things that he’s done formally to be complete and utter loss. He says they’re kind of like garbage, which is in our translation, but that’s kind of tamed compared to other translations that use words like dung and sewage. So, he says they’re basically worthless. He says this because, “I’ve discovered the joy of knowing Christ, and that is worth way more to me than all these other things that I had before.”

Paul was quite a kind of a big deal. And Paul wants to know Christ and become like him in his suffering and, in so doing, share in the resurrection that Jesus had gone through.

So, think about what Jesus had done. Jesus didn’t cling to his own status or his own power. He took the form of a servant, coming down to earth, living among us, and went to the cross and died. He went through suffering so that he could rise again. And that’s what Paul’s doing. Instead of building his life around status, achievement, or earthly desires, he’s giving himself to Christ and going through the cross, not around us.

He’s saying to the Philippians and to us, you don’t have to grasp for power. You don’t have to grasp for privilege. You don’t have to grasp for earthly glory. You can start practicing the Jesus way of self-sacrificial love. And that’s going to bring you more joy and love in the long run.

So now that we kind of understand that a little bit, I want to remind you again who he’s talking to. A bunch of Roman citizens, particularly a bunch of soldiers that are really proud of their citizenship. And with that in mind, here’s what he says next:

“But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.”

So, when Paul says our citizenship is in heaven, some people have misread this, I think, to say that, well, for us who follow Jesus, our earthly home is really heaven. And so, we don’t have to worry about this world. We can sort of disengage. We don’t have to worry about policies. We don’t have to worry about justice or any public life. And therefore, we don’t have to invest in these sorts of things.

But the problem with that comes in verse 21, where Paul talks about the transformation of our bodies. He doesn’t say or think anything about discarding our bodies. This is why I think Paul is arguing that we should put our hope in this world, not in leaving this world to escape the world. Rather, I see that Paul’s arguing that heaven is coming to earth. Heaven is the place where God rules or God’s rules are followed. So, God’s rules, simply put, are love and peace.

And this mirrors the gospel stories where Jesus is frequently heard saying the kingdom of heaven is near or here. And the kingdom, if you think about it, includes every place that the king’s authority is followed. When you think about the kingdom of God, that could be anywhere. It could be everywhere. God’s ways of love and peace could be followed anywhere in this world.

But as you and I know, and as the Philippians know, people often resist God, which is why we experience these injustices. It’s why we experience fighting. It’s why we experience hatred. And it’s why Jesus taught his followers to pray, “Your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.” And for Paul in verse 20, it’s why he says, “We eagerly await a savior from there who will bring everything under his control.” The idea is that Jesus is already king, but not everything has yet submitted to that authority or to his control.

There’s a fancy theological term that comes with that, and it’s called the inaugurated eschatology. You don’t have to remember the name, but I do want you to remember the concept. The concept, I think, is best illustrated in something like D-Day or in Juneteenth. So, I’m going to jump in with Juneteenth.

Abraham Lincoln declared that all slaves would be free on January 1st, 1863. But it wasn’t until June 19th, 1865, almost two and a half years later, when Union troops came into Galveston, Texas, and finally released the final slaves in the United States that all people in the United States were free.

Similarly, Jesus has won the victory on the cross that happened thousands of years ago. But not everybody is experiencing the freedom and the peace and love and joy that comes with that. Some people are still in bondage to sin and to death. And so, Jesus has promised to come back a second time. And when that happens, then all people will be free because Jesus’ kingdom will come in its fullness.

Again, that’s your fancy inaugurated eschatology. But you can remember the story and the concept, and that’s what’s important.

So, Paul isn’t asking them to leave Philippi. He’s not asking them to create a new city or a new community. He’s inviting them to live under the authority of a different allegiance. Our citizenship is in heaven. Remember, his original challenge here was to follow Christ’s example as he was following Christ’s example. And that example was and is self-sacrificial love.

So, to be a citizen of heaven is simply this: It’s to sacrifice your own comforts, your own privileges for the sake of others. Or I like to put it another way: Love your neighbor as yourself.

So, what does that mean when you go to the voting booth this week or if you already voted? It means that you’ll have to wrestle with the weight of different kingdom values. No doubt about that. And how those values interact with the policies that each candidate has. You’ll have to wrestle with how do these things interact and overlap.

But it also means that sincere Christians will come to different convictions in the voting booth. And yet, every Christian is called to wrestle with how truth, justice, consequences, and the treatment of other people are a part of every single political decision, even the decision that you make on who you’re going to vote for.

All right? So, I want you to remember the question that I asked in the beginning: What stories are shaping us?

In The Liturgy of Politics, Kaitlyn Schiess says, “The stories that we tell ourselves shape our lives.” So, think about the stories that you’ve seen in some of the political advertisements that you’ve had coming into your inbox, on your text message or email, or some of the flyers. Go home and watch the Vikings or some other game this afternoon, and all the advertisements that are going to be on. What stories are they telling us?

Each one of those stories is telling us a message about what the good life is. What’s good? What should we love? What should we be excited about? And every story contains a problem. A problem that needs to be solved that clearly the other party is responsible for. And the solution is obviously found in our party, whatever our party is. And if you vote for our party, well, then clearly you’ll be able to achieve the good life.

Sounds kind of like a savior claim. I’m going to save you from this horrible evil. If you vote for a party, well, I’m sorry to say they’re not going to be able to do that.

Paul’s readers would have caught the claim that Jesus was making as he was saying Jesus is Lord. They would have realized that most people are saying Caesar is Lord. But Paul’s saying we’re eagerly awaiting a savior from heaven, and that is Jesus Christ. And if Jesus is Savior and Lord, then nobody else is.

So, that doesn’t make us less engaged in the world. It makes us harder to capture. We’re not people that can be captured by one party or the other. A citizen of heaven can ask hard questions of any candidate, any party, including the one that they are voting for.

And that’s part of what Schiess’s argument is and what she says the bigger problem is that Christians are facing. She says that we tend to compartmentalize our spiritual and theological convictions from our political convictions. But she says both have moral and spiritual elements, and neither are satisfied to stay in their corner. They both want to be ultimate. And she says political values don’t stay political. They become ultimate.

I think that’s what Paul is warning us about here. He’s not saying that you can’t be a Roman citizen or a US citizen or a citizen of any earthly nation. He’s saying our allegiance is first and foremost to Jesus, and he’s inviting them to think about what kind of people they are becoming.

Schiess goes on to argue that politics, like religion, have their own liturgies or practices, and these liturgies are designed to capture our attention. They’re designed to shape our affections and inflame our passions, which is why fear is one of the biggest motivating languages of the political world. Political narratives tell us whom we should fear and what we should love.

The challenge for every one of us is that no matter who we vote for, we need to wrestle with this.

As I sort of look at the current United States political climate, if you tend to vote Republican, your desire for security and order can lead you to overlook the suffering of your neighbor and give too much power to a political leader. On the other hand, if you tend to vote Democrat, your desire for justice, equality, or inclusion can lead you to excuse dishonesty, dismiss people that don’t agree with you, or assume that somehow political power can establish or accomplish what only Jesus can do.

So, we all need to extend grace this week and into the future, and we need to leave behind the contempt that we have for political opponents. Paul in this story is literally weeping over the people who are enemies of the cross. His posture is compassion and love.

So, yes, we need to care for the truth. We need to care for justice, even when it challenges our side. Political convictions do matter, but we need to be willing to submit those convictions to Jesus.

While every political party has their own story, Jesus has a story for us as followers of Jesus. And the Christian story also has a vision of what the good life is. The vision that Scripture talks about is the reconciliation of all things to God and to one another.

The biblical story identifies sin as the primary problem that leads us to a broken world. And the solution is the only person who has ever walked this earth and not sinned and not contributed to the brokenness of the world. King Jesus went through the cross, rose again, and promises to come back and make all things right.

We can engage this week without fear of who wins the election. And we don’t have to entertain the different messages of fear that the political parties tell us. Those don’t have power. Instead, we eagerly await the day that Jesus returns to establish his kingdom because Jesus can accomplish something that no human political movement can.

Paul tells us that when Jesus comes back, he will transform our broken bodies and bring all things under his authority. And that is what we as Christians put our hope in.

Until that happens, we participate in the life of the church, which is all about reconciling the world to God. Not just the spiritual world, but all things.

I think about Luke chapter 4, where Jesus says, “I have come to proclaim good news for the poor, proclaim freedom for the prisoner, recover sight for the blind, and set the oppressed free.” These are tangible things that people were wrestling with in his world. And we get to bring good news when we show mercy to people, as Sandy talked about last week.

By regularly participating in spiritual practices of the church, we actually begin to reshape our own loves to mirror those of Jesus.

One of the sad parts of the evangelical tradition that we’re a part of is that we often make spirituality about me and Jesus. Sort of an individual thing. And while that is very important, it’s important for us to have a good relationship with God, Scripture most often speaks to the community of believers together.

Participating in church, and more specifically participating in a church like ours where there’s a diversity of people in the room, makes us rub shoulders against people who think differently than us and act differently than us. That helps us to begin to see the fullness of God’s image in the world because God has created each person to be like him. And so, if we can get to know all of God’s people in the world, we get to know more of who God is.

Participating in the liturgies of the church, like the sacraments and worship, reminds us of the gospel story. When we sing songs about God’s love and sacrifice, we remember that God has done that for us. Not just for us individually, but all humanity. And when we participate in things like communion, we remember that Jesus went through death so that we don’t have to. He alone is the person that we put our trust in.

So, what can we do this week? I want to suggest a couple of things.

I think it’s worth doing an audit of the kind of media and things that you take in in your life. What are the practices that you regularly participate in? What are the news media outlets, etc.? Even regularly watching sports, like these all have liturgies and practices that shape us.

Then it’s helpful to reflect on what those stories are telling us about ourselves and about our world and how they make us feel. Fear is one of those feelings that comes up frequently when I watch some of the political advertisements that we have in our world.

Fear isn’t always wrong. Sometimes it alerts us to things that genuinely need to be changed. You put your hand on a stove and you feel that heat, you’re going to pull it away. That’s good. But when those fears become the stories that shape our lives, and when it makes us hate our neighbors or excuse wrongdoing or put our ultimate trust in something other than Jesus, then we need to bring those fears to Jesus and submit them to him.

As Paul reminds Timothy, our God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and of a sound mind.

Once you’ve sort of gone through your audit and figured out what it is that’s influencing you, then consider what counter practices the church has that might help reshape and reform you. I want to suggest a couple here.

One that you could participate in literally this week would be, when you go to the voting booth, what would it look like for you to pray for every single candidate on the ballot? Every one of those candidates is made in the image of God. They are wonderfully made, and God loves them.

I also want to make the case that regular participation in church community is super important. When we go through hard times together, whether that’s because of us or because of you or because of something else, it brings us closer together. When we come alongside one another when we’re going through challenges, having walked through that together, we become better. We become stronger.

And it’s a good time for me to mention that we’re going to have prayer ministers off to the side over there after the message during the next section of worship. They would love to come alongside of you, pray with you, and pray for you.

As we close, I want us to become like the people God wants us to be. People who bring reconciliation in the midst of a world that is divided and hostile. Not because any particular candidate or party wins, but because we eagerly await the day when Jesus comes back and everything will finally be about God’s love and God’s peace in the world.

Let’s pray.

God, thanks that you have given us your Son, Jesus, and that you have come into this world and shown us how to live in right relationship with one another, to bring love and reconciliation and peace.

God, as we go to the voting booth this week or as we watch the results or whatever might be happening, we’re mindful that our ultimate citizenship is in heaven and that we ultimately look to you for your kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven.

We pray that you would help us to be a community that lives that out here in this community, but that it also extends out to our broader community. That we would bring your love and peace to the friends and neighbors around us.

Help us to be people who would sacrifice our own privileges and our own selves for the sake of others. Amen.