Nation

Well, good morning, everyone. So glad to be with you on this 4th of July. My name is Jonathan Drake and I'm the Niagara Falls Campus pastor, and excited to be able to open up God's word with you today. We're gonna be going to 1 Peter 2 in just a moment, but as we're getting there to conclude our Church Reset series today, you know, looking at the last couple of weeks with Pastor Leroy and Pastor Edwin, who both gave phenomenal messages in this series, they're both preaching from their home campus. While we just started to regather at the Regal Cinema at 10:00 AM on Sunday morning. So I was thinking, man, how could I preach from the Niagara Falls location at this point? But to be honest, we're in the middle of a construction project. Since we wouldn't be able to do that from Regal, I thought, well, maybe we could do it from our project on 66th Street from our facility there. But the good news is that our crews are working quite literally around the clock, that it was so busy with contractors and our team that are working that we couldn't find a time to record it there. So, here's just a couple of images from what's going on there. You could see that we are in the middle of construction, and I'm so excited that our teams are working as hard as they are, super thankful for the contractors that are making this project a reality. And so we'll update you in the not too distant future about as that progress continues, but really excited that as a Niagara Falls congregation, we were able to gather in the Falls at the Regal. So that's going on on this day, Sunday, July 4th. But as we celebrate here in the United States, the 4th of July in our nation, I recognize that there's a ton of people watching, who are connected to our church and you're actually watching from another country. So like every single week, I even checked in with our social media team just to confirm this, every single week there's people watching from all over the place, not just the USA. So, Canada, Japan, Germany, the Philippines, India, a bunch more places that are connecting with us each and every Sunday. So as we open up the scriptures together today on this 4th of July, recognize that not everyone watching is celebrating that holiday, but as we recognize that holiday today, we're gonna be looking here in the scripture in 1 Peter 2 that the church is called a nation. Look with me at what Peter says in 1 Peter 2:9, he says, "But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, there it is, God's special possession that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness and into his wonderful light." So, Peter says, you are a holy nation. And in this series that we've just been building on each and every week, talking about what, or really rather who the church is, this is what we're talking about today. The church is called a holy nation. And now the words that Peter uses there really quite literally hagios in Greek means holy. Ethnos in Greek means nation, is where we get our English word ethnicity from. So, that this is actually speaking of a holy people. He's not talking about necessarily a government. He's talking about a people. And Peter says, you, believers are a holy nation. Now, he's writing this. And if we looked at the beginning of the letter, we would see that he's writing to God's elect that are scattered throughout really parts of the Roman empire. And they're people of a diverse background. And he's really specifically like just looking at the facts. Peter, a Jewish man is writing to a predominantly non-Jewish audience. And Peter says, you are a holy nation. He's talking about this group of believers that are quite literally embedded in the empire of their day. And Peter says, you are a holy nation, but this word, this phrase, doesn't just come out of thin air. It doesn't just come out of a moment of inspiration. Peter is actually drawing on his own Jewish heritage and breathing new life into some terms that were first applied to the people of Israel. Look with me at where those ideas come from, at least one of the places that they come from in Exodus 19, beginning in verse three, this is what the record says. "Then Moses went up to God and the Lord called to him from the mountain and said, 'this is what you are to say to the descendants of Jacob and what you're to tell the people of Israel, you yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt and how I carried you on eagle's wings and brought you to myself. Now, if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations, you will be my treasured possession. This is gonna start to sound familiar. Although the whole earth is mine, God says, you will be for me, a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites." Now, isn't it astounding that as Peter lifts out of Exodus 19, and he's also has in mind a passage in Isaiah 43, that we won't look at today, as he lifts these terms out, you hear some of the same themes that he writes to these believers in 1 Peter 2. It's clear that he's trying to connect the dots that what was originally said to Israel, now in Jesus, some of those same statements are being pronounced to believers living in the middle of the Roman empire, Gentile, non-Jewish people. And the fact that this is coming from Peter, who at one point in his personal history, wouldn't even have a meal with a Gentile. Now he's speaking to them with this incredible clarity and really giving them, bestowing on them, a title that was previously given to Israel is really astounding when you think about it. But what is the significance of this term and what happened in the life of Israel that this would now somehow be applied to believers? Well, in Exodus 19, if we just sat in the context for a minute, we would see and discover that Israel is really standing at the base of the Mount called Sinai. And in Exodus chapter 20, the very next scene after Exodus 19, that's how it works, 19 then 20, in Exodus 20, God is giving the law to the people. He gives them the 10 commandments. So, in a way after rescuing these people from bondage, he brings them out of Egypt into this wilderness area around Mount Sinai as he prepares for them to eventually get to the promised land. But he inaugurates, it's almost as if God is inaugurating a new people, a new nation right there at the base of Mount Sinai. And then he's telling them, and here's what it's gonna look like to be my people. And he gives them the law. And when you study that, you recognize that these laws that were given were so that God would create in Israel a distinct and holy nation, that they would be a distinct people. And as you study the law, I know that sometimes as you're reading the Bible through, maybe you're reading the Bible through in a year and you get to Leviticus and you start to really just slow down with all of the laws about sacrifices and red heifers and all of these things, but pay attention to why that law was given. So that God's people would be a distinct people, that they would be set apart from something and set apart to something, that should sound familiar to you. And the reason for that is if you study the laws, really, they live the Israelites live in such a way that is so different from really every other nation around them. I mean, their ethical code was such that it really stood in stark contrast to the pagan world all around them on all sides. I mean, they had a sexual ethic, a financial ethic, a justice ethic, a marriage and family ethic. And of course, everyone remembers a dietary ethic that was so distinct from the nations around them, so that they would be seen as a holy nation, that they would be God's holy nation. But that wasn't all that it was for. This was for something, it wasn't an end to itself. God didn't just give the law to Israel to make them a gallery of saints, to make them a museum of really wow spotless individuals that wasn't it at all. God gave them the law so that they would be a distinct people among the nations so that they would be able to reach the nations with the good news of who God was, the one true God. That's really what it was all about. Years and centuries after Exodus 19, the prophet Isaiah wrote. And he said things repeatedly and clearly along this line. And part of his prophetic message to Israel and Judah was that they had entirely missed the point of why they were even created as a holy nation in the first place. In fact, one of the things that Isaiah says is in Isaiah 49:6, look at what this says. God says this through Isaiah. "I will make you as a light for the nations." Why? "That my salvation may reach to the end of the earth." This is what the holy nation existed for, to be a light for other nations, that God's salvation would actually reach the ends of the earth. Hold on to those statements. God's heart all along had been to use one particular nation to reach other nations, but, this holy nation did not live up to its title. If we were to study and take a deep dive, which we don't have time for today, if we took a deep dive into the journey, the wanderings and meanderings of Israel, not just in the wilderness, but after they are settled in the promised land, we would see how wildly inconsistent they became. And although I'd love to take a deep dive, I think what I can pull out for our purposes today, as we talk about this title that we're looking at in 1 Peter 2 is that in Israel's history, there were three trouble signals that we could pull out from their story that constituted their demise, that shows how they progressively walked away from their role as a holy nation. Here's the first thing. Here's the first trouble signal. They followed the gods of the nations. They followed the gods of the nations. That might seem so astounding to us, how Israel could do that. But after they were settled in the promised land after Joshua, Moses' right-hand man, after Joshua led the people into the promised land and they were settled there, we start to read that that generation begins to die off and Joshua himself dies at a ripe old age. But then the writer of the Book of Judges includes this insight in Judges 2, beginning of verse 10, look at what he says here. "After that whole generation had been gathered to their ancestors." Okay, that that whole generation is those that had entered into the promised land then they died, after that, "Another generation grew up who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel. Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the Baals or Baals. They forsook the Lord, the God of their ancestors who had brought them out of Egypt." And then this is so troubling. "They followed and worshiped various gods of the peoples around them. So they arouse the Lord's anger because they forsook him and served Baal and the Ashtoreths." This happened in Israel's history that they walked away from the one true God. So many concerns in that short passage, obviously that another generation arose or grew up that did not know the Lord or the things he had done. How could that possibly happen, right? Well, we'll come back to that. But also that they forsook the Lord. They turned away from the very one who had just two generations prior rescued their grandparents from slavery in Egypt. Remember that first-generation died in the wilderness. Then the second generation that moved into the promised land they have now died. And now this generation just removed from their grandparents who were slaves in Egypt and saw God do miraculous things to rescue them. They turned their backs on that God. And then also that they followed and worshiped the gods of the people around them, the Baals and the Ashtoreths just synonymous for pagan worship that they gave themselves over to the gods of the nations around them, and so quickly. That's the first trouble signal from the story of Israel, but there's a second trouble signal and it's this. They wanted a different king, one like the nations. They wanted a different king. They wanted a king like the nations. If we were to fast forward a couple centuries and get through the period of the judges, we'd make our way to Samuel. And Samuel was the last of the judges in Israel. And it's under Samuel's rule in Israel that the people become restless. And they come to Samuel with a request, we want a king. Samuel tries to convince them otherwise, but they persist. And in 1 Samuel 8:19-20, it says this, "But the people refuse to listen to Samuel. 'No!' they said. 'We want a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.'" Flip back one side, I wanna go back to that one phrase. "Then we will be like all the other nations." But God made you to be a distinct nation. Well, we wanna be like all the other nations. They wanted a king. They wanted a different king, one that was visible to them. You see, the reason I said that they wanted a different king is intentional 'cause you might be thinking, no, they didn't have a king. They just had judges. They just didn't want any more judges. They wanted a king instead, no, they wanted a different king. Because in a conversation that's recorded between Samuel and God, Samuel was basically saying, God, what am I supposed to do with this request? What am I supposed to do with this? They say they want a king. I mean, Samuel was absolutely devastated as you would be as I would be. But listen to how that interaction goes earlier in chapter eight. "And the Lord told Samuel, 'listen to all that the people are saying to you, it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king.'" They have rejected me as their king. They wanted a different king. They didn't want a king that they couldn't see. They wanted a king that they could see. They didn't want to just be Israel with kind of designated rulers in their midst. They wanted a king that was visible that they could point to and that they could revere, that was in the flesh. They wanted a different king. They weren't happy. They weren't satisfied with the king that they already had. And God says, Samuel, they're not rejecting you. I know it may feel that way. Truth is, they're rejecting me as their king. They wanted a different king. That's the second trouble signal for the people of Israel, but there's a third and they're probably more, but just these three for now, they imitated and even surpassed the ways of the nations. They imitated and in some cases even surpassed the ways of the nations. As we journey through the story of Israel and we make our way to the Book of 2 Kings. Now, if you're reading 1 and 2 Kings, you're reading a lot of this kind of pattern. And so so-and-so became king and he did evil in the sight of the Lord. That refrain happens over and over in 1 and 2 Kings. But as I was recently just reading through those books, just in my normal reading daily time with God, this phrase stood out to me and it was this in 2 Kings 17:14 and 15, "But they would not listen and were as stiff-necked as their ancestors who did not trust in the Lord their God. They rejected his decrees and the covenant he had made with their ancestors and the statutes that he warned them to keep. They followed worthless idols and themselves became worthless." What a statement. "They imitated the nations around them although the Lord had ordered them, 'do not do as they do.'" They imitated the nations around them. They started to copy their practices and their ways, wait, God had given Israel a distinct code and ethic that they would follow and be this holy nation and distinct people. But they started to imitate the ways of the nations around them, but something even worse than that in 2 Kings 21 says this, "But the people did not listen," are you catching this theme? "Manasseh, who was one of the kings, he led them astray so that they did more evil than the nations that the Lord had destroyed before the Israelites." They did more evil than the other nations. They went further, they surpassed the other nations around them. Are you kidding me? This holy nation that God had designed and really liberated from bondage that they are now not just imitating their neighbors, but they're doing worse evil than them. I mean, this is a sobering reality to study the story of Israel. It's in fact, pretty baffling when you think about it, that they could get this far, but why did this happen? Why did this happen? Well, one of the Psalm writers gives us this insight in Psalm 106, which actually serves as kind of a summary of the story of Israel in some ways. "But they mingled with the nations and adopted their customs." But they mingled with the nations and they adopted their customs. This holy nation became so intertwined with the other nations that there was no longer any distinctiveness because they adopted all of the customs of the people around them. Customs that if we took time to outline would make your skin absolutely crawl. This mingling in Hebrew actually implies kind of like giving yourself in a pledge to someone which was often used to speak of a relational or sometimes financial kind of a commitment. In other words, you're binding yourself together. That's what the Psalmist says about Israel. They bonded themselves with other nations. But listen very carefully, the problem is not that they were mingling with ethnicity. Don't misunderstand. Because after all, like in the lineage of Jesus, in his genealogy, there's actually a bunch of people who are non-Jewish. So, like Ruth was from Moab, she's not Jewish. And Ruth is like the grandmother to King David. So, it's not that there was a mingling of ethnicity that was the problem, don't misuse this text as some have attempted to, the problem was the mingling of priority. They adopted their customs, they mingled with the nations and adopted their customs. So, what happened in Israel story? Well, in short to summarize, they missed their God given opportunity to be a light to the nations. God's heart remember was to use that particular nation to reach all the other nations, but that particular nation became so like all the other nations that they lost their ability to reach the other nations. Do you follow that? God's, kings and customs proved to be their undoing. So what happens is the majority of the tribes are taken away by the Assyrian kingdom and they're scattered all throughout the Middle East. And then about 130 years later, Babylon captures the remaining tribe of Judah, which included Benjamin and they're carried away into exile. And though after 70 years of captivity in Babylon, there was a remnant of Judah that did come back to Israel and did rebuild the wall and rebuild the temple. Although that is true, Israel was never the same. That holy nation was decimated. And so world empires, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, they all swiftly swept up the Judean region every time the hand of power turned over and Israel was never the same. And for a while it seemed that all hope for Israel was law lost, but there was one Israelite who embodied all that Israel was destined to be, Jesus. He remained forever faithful to Yahweh, one God. He followed in his ways, followed the law perfectly. And even as it pertained to earthly kings, one time a group of people tried to trap Jesus by asking him if it was right to pay taxes to an earthly king, his name Caesar, right? And he steps through their trap, proving that it is possible to both honor an earthly king while remaining truly allegiant heavenly one. But more than that, more than that, Jesus became, he became the bridge to God that Israel failed to be. His death, his resurrection, and the spreading of that message to all of the world opened up, his death and resurrection opened up a pathway to the father so that people from every tribe, not just one, every nation, not just one, every tongue, not just one, all could be forgiven and accepted and made whole in Christ. And this new people is the church. Its who we've been talking about in this series, the church. The church is not a replacement for Israel, but rather a fulfillment of Israel. As Pastor Jerry has put it in times past, we are not Israel supplanted, we are Israel expanded. And so all of this and much more, all of this goes into the backdrop of this one tiny phrase in 1 Peter 2:9, "You are a holy nation" and that's all the backdrop for who we are. And it has a huge impact on our ability to represent the gospel to the world. So we would be wise to learn from our spiritual ancestors. We would do well, not just to study their mistakes, but to actually uncover where the same heart posture may exist even in us. The church as a holy nation gets into trouble when we repeat the same paths and follow the same troubling things that we see in Israel's past. So, here's what I wanna do. I wanna take a minute and talk about three ways that the church misses her calling as a holy nation. Here's the first one. The church misses her calling as a holy nation when we follow the gods of the nations. The church, we, miss our calling as a holy nation when we follow the gods of the nations. The names have changed, but the problem persists. No longer Baal or Ashtoreth but now they're under new aliases because maybe the gods of the nations around us go by these names; money, sex, power, or status. There's a lot more.

It's interesting though that both John Piper and Tim Keller who are trusted voices in the Christian church of our time, they have each written books about warning, warning believers about the false gods of each of those three; money, sex and power. In fact, his book, "Counterfeit Gods," Tim Keller, he says this, and this is incredible. "The true God of your heart is what your thoughts effortlessly go to when there is nothing else demanding your attention." The true God of your heart, where are your thoughts effortlessly going when there is nothing else demanding your attention. You might be a parent of a small child and you might be thinking, when is that? When is the nothing else demanding my attention? When are those moments? 'Cause I have about five minutes between bedtime and my bedtime, right? But where do your thoughts effortlessly go when there's nothing else demanding your attention? That would be an indicator of which God you're worshiping. So, which one is it for you? What is it for you? Who is it for you? Is it a relationship? Is it the desire for more money? Comparing yourself to people on social media that have the things that you don't have and appear to have it all. They don't, but appear to. Is it power influence or status or to exert your will in your way? What is your God? You have to do the heart examination. I have to do the heart examination on this because there are dire consequences if we walk away from the God who rescued us and serve another God. That's not something to be trifled with. Remember what was said of Israel? That they followed worthless idols and themselves became worthless just like them. We don't wanna mess with this. And this matters for like a bunch of reasons, but at least one of the reasons that this matters is because our children are watching what we worship. Our children are watching this. And I don't just mean, do you have worship music on in the car? I'm talking about who or what we worship. Well, but I don't have kids. Okay, but you've already heard a message that you are a part of a household of faith in the local church. And so there may be children in your local church that you don't have a biological connection to, but you have a spiritual responsibility for, because you're either reinforcing or undercutting a message that their parents are giving them. So, who or what are you worshiping? Our kids are watching what we worship and they are picking up on a lot more, a lot more than we may initially think. The writer of the Book of Judges made that connection for us. Let me take you back to a couple of those verses in Judges chapter two, "Another generation grew up who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel. So they followed and worshiped various gods of the peoples around them." Another generation grew up, how does this happen? How could this possibly happen? Their parents didn't talk about it and didn't live it. Their parents stopped talking about what God had done. The Psalms declare, the Psalms tell us, let one generation declare your works to another. And that's the job in the church. Because if we're not talking about all that God has done to rescue us out of darkness and into light, we're missing it. We're missing it. Maybe their parents stopped talking about it. Maybe their parents stopped living it. Maybe their community of faith around them was inauthentic about it. But either way, a generation arose that did not know the Lord nor the things he has done. May that never be true in our churches. The second way that we miss our calling is when we want a different king than Jesus. We want a different king than King Jesus, because maybe we don't have any room in our lives for the kind of king that Jesus is. Perhaps we want the kingdom in full force here and now and the disciples, they actually had that same thought. You know, right before Jesus went back to the Father, the disciples ask him, are you now at this time gonna restore the kingdom to Israel? They're thinking, okay, death, resurrection, you got this man, like, you can do this. And now it's been like 40 days since he was resurrected from the dead. And there's still no talk about restoring the kingdom to Israel. They wanted to see their nation resume its original place. And Jesus basically says, you're asking the wrong question. Look at how Jesus responds to that question in Acts 1, he said to them, "It's not for you to know times or seasons that the father has fixed by his own authority, but you will receive power when the holy spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth." What did God say about Israel? That he would make them a light to the nations that his salvation would reach to the end of the earth. You see, if I were to paraphrase what Jesus says in acts 1:7-8, it would be this, you're asking the wrong question. This kingdom that I've been talking about, isn't what you're thinking of because this isn't gonna be a governmental takeover yet. That's not what this is. Instead, it will be geographical, Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, ends of the earth, and it will be political, Jesus is Lord, Caesar is not. But stop worrying about when the Romans are gonna leave Palestine 'cause I know that's your most important question. Stop worrying about that. Instead, get to work on expanding my kingdom by being my witnesses. Jesus completely flips the expectation upside down. Completely flips it. Israel and of course the disciples had in mind that the Messiah would be a military powerhouse who would just decimate the Roman empire once and for all, but that's not what Jesus came to do. That was not the purpose of his advent. And that's also why Jesus previously told Pilate, "My kingdom is not of this world." He didn't mean that this only applies to heaven. No, he was saying, I'm not talking about kings and kingdoms like you talk about them, Pilate, my kingdom doesn't fit into your box that you've constructed. Instead, my kingdom goes beyond and through every other nation and every other empire. And it will last longer than every other nation and every other empire. This is King Jesus, but maybe your expectation isn't what Jesus is fitting in with. Maybe he doesn't fit what you're looking for in a king. And he's used to that by the way, so, he's fine. One of the ways we know this is because of how we respond to the kings teaching. All of us at some point are gonna be offended by what Jesus has taught. You know, people like to say empty phrases, like, well, I think Jesus was a great moral teacher. Okay, well, which teachings do you like? I always wanna ask that and find out like, what are you talking about, right? Jesus was a great moral teacher, sure, which chapter and which verses are we talking about? Well, you know, there's some people who really like what the king has to say about loving your enemies and forgiving them, but they don't wanna have anything to do with what the king says about sexual morality or divorce or how to handle your money. They don't want any of that. They like this part, they don't like this part. Other people like the really hard, tough sayings of Jesus. Like I have come to divide with a sword, they love that and they think that they're in God's will because they're miserable. Like that's how they compute, like, man, if this is a tough saying, I'm gonna just hate it and I know that in God's will then, right? And they have no room for, turn the other cheek, lend without getting anything in return, bless those who persecute you. I got no room in my life for that. All of us at some point are gonna take offense at what the king has to say. But the true revealer of whether he is our king or not is not whether we agree with him, but whether we serve him, whether we do what he says, because we can look out into the nations and find ourselves substitute kings, who will give us their teaching, who will tell us what we wanna hear. And we can look out into the scope of the nations, even within our own nation and find voices that say the things that resonate and we don't take offense at. And so whether we're looking for that in a cultural voice or a celebrity, or even a celebrity pastor, whatever that even is, or whether we're looking for a different king in a president, or a governor, or a mayor, whether or not we're looking there, we have to recognize there is only one king and his name is Jesus. The church misses her calling when we aren't looking at the king anymore and are instead looking for another king, a different king who suits our purposes. And one of the ways you can tell that you want another king is if you try to use the kings words for your agenda and not just do what he says. I could say more. I'll end it there though. There's a third way we miss our calling. And it's when we mingle with the nations. We're just repeating history at that point. The church misses her calling as a holy nation when we mingle with the nations. Remember what we looked at in Psalm 106, that Israel mingled with the other nations. Well, here's the problem with that. When they did, they, in a sense forfeited their ability to confront evil in those other nations. And that was their job, to be light in darkness. Remember Isaiah, you will be a light to the nations, a light to the Gentiles. And so here's the danger for us. I'll say it this way. When the holy nation becomes mingled with other nations, that cycle repeats itself. But lemme be a little more clear, when the church, when the church becomes mingled with the nations or even just one, we forfeit our ability to bring the light of the gospel. Why? Because if we are so wed to our culture, if we are so intertwined with the world around us, if we mingle with the nations like Psalm 106, the gospel distinctiveness that we were designed for becomes almost unrecognizable. We don't have any ability to step outside of that mingling and say, wait a minute, this isn't right. Wait a minute, this is unjust. Wait a minute, this goes against God's design. Wait a minute, there's a better way. But when we're all immersed in it, our voice is just lost in the crowd or maybe worse, we join in with the nations and maybe go past them just like Israel did more evil than the nations around them. We have to be mindful of this. We need to be sober-minded about this. Let me remind you from our text, our original text in 1 Peter, why God made us a holy nation. Here it is, "But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession. And here's this phrase, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light." That you and I may declare the praises, the excellencies of the God who called us out of darkness into light. We wouldn't go back into this darkness once we've been called out of that darkness that you and I may declare the excellencies, the praises, the virtues, the mighty deeds of the God who has called us out of darkness. This is why God made us a holy nation. This is the reason our existence. It's all aimed at setting us up to fulfill our mission and our purpose. And so this holy nation, the church, is our true identity because it informs our purpose. So you might be wondering if we are a holy nation, the church, and we should be cautious about mingling with the other nations. What does that mean for this nation, the USA? Because I need to remind you of something, 1 Peter 2:9 is not about America. 1 Peter 2:9 is about the church written to believers in the midst of an empire that is opposed to God. And Peter tells them, you are this holy nation. Right now, right where you are, even though you're in a nation that is not holy, you are a holy nation within it. So what does that mean? How do we sort this through, right? You thinking, man, oh, I was hoping he wouldn't go there. Don't be nervous, 'cause I'm not. What does that mean? Here's what it means. It's right for us, in America, it's right for us to celebrate the birthday of the nation that we live in, the nation that we love and pray for. Look, I love visiting other places. I love visiting other countries. I love living in America. I don't wanna live in another place. And if, unless God says otherwise, this is where I wanna live and where I wanna die, in this nation. I love it here. And I pray for it. And at the same time, the gospel demands that my primary allegiance is to the kingdom, not a country because I am already part of a holy nation in Christ that must influence and indeed determine how deeply I tie myself together with an earthly nation. Did you catch that? And if ever, if ever I, me, if ever I become so mingled with this nation's ideology at the expense of gospel reality, then I am in danger of compromising my true citizenship in Christ's holy nation. I hope you heard my heart in what I just said in as much as you heard what I said. Of course, C.S. Lewis had a way of articulating this in a way that few could compare to. And so there's an excerpt from his book, "Mere Christianity." It's a little bit lengthy, but stay with me because this is so, so important. Look at what C.S. Lewis says, "If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world." You've heard that part before, but here's how he continues. "If none of my earthly pleasures can satisfy that desire that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, only to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care on the one hand, never to despise, I love this, never to despise or be unthankful for these earthly blessings, so true, and on the other hand, I must take care, never to mistake them for something else of which they're only a kind of copy or echo or mirage. I must, this is the statement I want you to pay attention to, I must keep alive in myself the desire from my true country, which I shall not find til after death. I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside. I must make it the main object of my life to press on to that other country and to help others do the same." Man, why does he have to say things so good? I must keep alive within myself the desire for my true country. I hope you love the place you live, but I hope you love more the country you were made for. And if we tie ourselves too tightly to the things that are temporary, then we will miss what God wants for us. So, what does that mean? It means I am sober-minded as best as possible about my earthly dwelling. On one hand, I don't despise it, but on other hand, I don't confuse it for what it is just an echo of. I have to be sober-minded and so do you. The gospel after all, guards against. Does not endorse, guards against and indeed prevents ethnocentrism, hypernationalism, but also guards against cynicism and pacifism. The church is a holy nation that is sent to all nations, which means I, you have more in common with a Christ follower who lives in another country than maybe your neighbor down the street. If we understand the holy nation rightly, we see that this matters, this citizenship matters. You know what? It's why Mark and Kathy Cushing, dear members in our church, they live in Niagara Falls, Ontario. And there's a reason that when I look at them, when I'm around them, that there is something that the holy spirit ignites in me that I recognize in him and her, a common citizenship. They live in a different nation with a different government structure and I haven't seen them as much as I'd like to in the last 15 months, but they're my family. And if we understand that where we get our passports from does not define us, but rather where our true citizenship is. The church is a holy nation that is sent to all nations, which means it will never be confined to one single nation. The church is a holy nation that is sent to all nations, which means that even in America, I am a foreign ambassador for Christ sent to declare the praises of the one who rescued me. The church is a holy nation that is sent to all nations. And God has strategically embedded his people in this nation or the nation that you live in on purpose for mission. That's why we as a local church would grieve the heart of God to ever be known as a white church or a black church or a brown church. In this local church, we would grieve the heart of God if we followed the gods of our nations, the gods of our nation, that if we classified people by how much money they had, or by how outwardly beautiful they were, or by how much power they had, about how many followers they had, if we classified people like that in the church, just like all the other nations, we would grieve the heart of God 'cause we've imitated them and followed in their ways. That's what the world does. That's what the nations around us do. But we are a holy nation. We have been called to a different way. And if I could distill down to a single statement, everything that I've said and everything I'd want you to remember, it's this, God created a holy nation, made up of every nation to reach all the nations. This is who we are. This is the church. God created a holy nation, made up of every nation to reach all the nations. You know, someday in eternity future if we were to look into heaven, we'd see this event just as John saw it in Revelation 5:9. He saw this, "And they sang a new song saying, 'you are worthy to take the scroll,' go back one side, 'and to open its seals because you were slain and with your blood, you purchased for God, persons from every tribe and language and people and nation.'" God in Christ, the lamb to whom they are singing, purchased people from every nation. And so he created this holy nation called the church that is not a government or a geography, it is a people, so that they would reach everyone that God paid for in Christ. And so Jesus said in Matthew 28, where our mission arises as a church, "Then Jesus came to them and said, 'all authority in heaven on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father and of the son and the holy spirit and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always to the very end of the age.'" That's why we exist. And if we allow anything to get in between us and that mission, then we will not live into our calling as a holy nation. The mission is why the holy nation was created. And so this holy nation began with the blood of its founder, Jesus, and he inaugurated this nation, this holy nation with a meal. Most nations begin with a war. His nation begins with a meal. Most nations trace their history to a battlefield where blood is drawn. We trace ours to a table where blood is offered. That's why we celebrate the reality that we've been set free from sin, once we were not a people and now we are his, because we have been bought with the imperishable blood of Christ.