Well, welcome back to Struggling Wellcast and we're glad that you have joined us and trust that you're having a good day. but that's not always an easy thing to do in the world we live in. Like life's hard. There's a understatement. life's hard on a big picture sense. life is hard on an individual personto person sense. it's not easy living in the world today.
No, it's not. And especially in the culture or you know what, I shouldn't say that especially because I think that our culture since Adam and Eve have been struggling,
right?
but when you just said that, it made me think about how easily I can be elated or deflated.
Like, you know, it can be a good day. Things are perking along. And usually the good day involves things that I have designed and because I think I'm an incredible designer of my time, not but I can get a phone call with a piece of harder news like somebody's had to go to the doctor because they have, you know, suspicion of something and I can feel myself deflate. Boom. I can read the news and you know that's that place where I get caught and I maybe read a good story. There's not many of those, but I read a story and I'm like, "Yay, humanity is not going down the drain." And then I read something right or hear about some crazy thing that's happened, yet another shooting, yet another, you know, murder of some kind or politicians that are at each other's throat and I can feel myself deflate. What about you?
Yeah, I think that there's a false sense. I'm going to make this a little more pointed to us and to America. I think there's this false sense of a hope we have in our country that leads us to leads us to thinking that if we can just turn it around, whether it's in a political way or whatever, that somehow we're going to regain everything we wanted here on this earth in our lifetime. And I just don't believe that's true. And I think therein is a big struggle. in scripture in first Peter says this speaking about us, the church. He says, "You're a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation." Well, a people for his own possession, that you can proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness and into his marvelous light. So we often talk about this when we travel. and been to other countries. We represent the country that we live in. We represent America. We want to be we want to be a good example of what it means to be an American. I also think that we have a responsibility according to what Peter says there to be a representative of a different nation which is a heavenly nation which is the kingdom of Christ. By the way, same language he uses in the Old Testament in Exodus to describe the people of Israel. Not just so that we can brag that hey, we're part of this club. but because we have the chance to proclaim him through how we behave. And I'm not sure, this is just my thoughts. I'm not sure that idea of being a part of his nation, God's nation, even enters into the fact that we going to respond as Americans more so than we are about responding like Christ would want us to respond.
You know, you're walking on very thin ice here because there's a good chance. I mean, you might be cancelled within the next 3 or 4 seconds.
Well, I know that. I realize that, but it's really true. I really think that we don't give credence to the responses we have to the world we live in, to the responses that we have to things we don't like. And there's so much here not to like in the day and age we live in that we don't give credence to the fact that we're to respond as Christ followers. course because we have a second citizenship.
you know back in the New Testament when the Christians were you know forming churches and everything they lived in the Roman culture
and if you do any study about the Roman culture it was deplorable there was a lot of horrible things going on children were being sacrificed I don't mean like giving up for adoption, but I'm talking about were killed. there was a lot of sexual confusion. There was a lot of grooming of younger kids. It was an awful time. And yet in that place there was the church, the Christian church. How did God ask them inspired? And we see the inspired version through the scriptures. What were some of the things that they were told?
Well, yeah. I mean, and go I'll go from Peter. to Paul. Paul in his letter to the Phil Thessalonians said that I urge you to aspire to live quietly and to mind your own affairs and to work with your hands as we instructed you so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.
Okay, here we go. The dog again who just added hairball. But let me just interject here. We I don't for whatever reason our sweet dog is very needy this morning and since our studio is our kitchen table. please forgive us. someday we'll have a big fancy No, we won't. Never.
But
so, so let me go back to what I just said.
I'm sorry, squirrel.
I know. So, it So, here we are to the Thessalonians. It's I aspire, you should aspire to live quietly and to mind your own affairs and to work with your own hands as they've been instructed so that you can walk properly before outsiders.
And so over and over again in scripture there's a higher calling that's been put on us. And I think where we sometimes, and I do the same thing, we'll go, "Yeah, but that's not fair." Or, "Yeah, but I'm an American. I have the right to say whatever, whatever." But we're again, New Testament, we're told to live as aliens and strangers.
What's that indicate to me? Well, this isn't my final home,
right?
Eternity is.
However, I still think not. No. However, but we still need to be responsible citizens and to navigate that through the well let's call it the grid again back a couple of weeks ago the grid of being a follower of Christ and a friend of ours comes to my mind this man is very much very interested in what's happening in world affairs financial word world affairs he and one of his sons keep up with a lot of this stuff but here Here's the thing I want I think is important to know about this man and what makes him so dear to you and me is that his love for the Lord and his desire for people to know Christ trumps even his responsibility as a citizen in the United States of the city he lives in. That's his main thing is the kingdom of God.
Yeah. And there's that brings to me the other interesting thing is okay so I have a responsibility to live as a responsible citizen. What happens if being a responsible citizen to eternity to the heavenly kingdom that I'm part of?
Mhm.
Is different than being a responsible citizen to the country I live in.
So I got I'm going to go now outside of our country.
Okay.
So there are people who live in dictatorships. There are people who live under communism. and they have a responsibility to be good citizens of their nation. What if being a good citizen of heavenly kingdom is different than being a good citizen of the nation that you live in?
Should I give an example?
Well,
denying Christ. Is that what you're
Well, no. I don't not I'm not going to go that far because that's somewhat a simple one. But what if being a good citizen of a country would say that you don't protest something, but as a citizen of the king Om you feel like it's appropriate to protest something that was an injustice against human life.
Are you going to give like five easy steps to being a Christian in a hard world?
No, I'm not. That's my whole point. I don't think it's an easy thing to do.
Yeah.
I but I think sometimes what happens is we can default to the land that we live in to the country that we are citizens of. We can default there and ignore the fact that we are also citizens. of another kingdom. And Christ said it in the biatitudes and in the sermon on the mount, it's an upside down kingdom.
It's it doesn't reflect the values of any nation necessarily. It's a different way of looking at life. And so but I don't often go there.
Yeah. It's a much bigger view. It's you know one of the things that we have been able to experience is overseas travel. and some have been really fun vacations, but a lot has been going to a third world country. And, what I always find interesting is when they have, like a picture of Jesus on their walls, let's say, he doesn't look like you and me. He looks like them. And so, what it's done to me is realize that there's a whole world that is perceiving Jesus, God the Father, excuse me, and the Holy Spirit. through their grid of their country. And in America, we have I it's a great country. I'm glad I live here. I would not do well in some of the other countries where you get squashed or where women are, you know, shrouded in draperies. But we are not the I don't think that when Jesus returns, oh, here it goes. I might get cancelled big time. I don't think that the vortex of his return is the United States. Right. I again I just think that there's we have to be reminded that the gospel is not based on any one country.
No,
the gospel is the good news of salvation through Christ. And when that's becomes a part of you as you accept that then you do enter a citizenship that doesn't have its final home here in this world. It has its final home in eternity. when he comes back and he creates the new heavens and the new earth. And so that's the important piece that I guess I'm saying we have to wrestle with and we have to struggle with is how do I balance those two things? How do I how do I live with the tension? And I don't have five simple steps to do it.
but how do I balance the tension of making sure that the gospel is not some Americanized westernized gospel but that it's the gospel of Jesus Christ. which applies to all peoples and all nations at all times.
So, you're not going to wrap this up with a bow?
No, I'm not
because you wouldn't like it if I did.
No, I wouldn't.
I don't have a bow to wrap it up with either.
Well, thank you so much for listening to us today. And we hope that maybe some things were stirred. we are not trying to be controversial on purpose, but when you follow Christ, you are immediately controversial in a way to represent him cuz he was us. so our hope and our prayer for you as listeners is that you will wrestle. You'll ask God how you should navigate through the world as it is. and we just trust that you'll be in the word of God. And our dog Gus has one last hairball to share with you.
And we'll sign off till the next time. And we'll see if Gus behaves better next time. Thanks so much.