Tag Archives: ambassadors

Christian Nation: Where To Find One

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3quarter_globeSo what would a Christian nation look like?

Simply put, it would be a nation that in all its dealings, in everything that it was, tried to be like Christ.

Some specifics:

  1. Such a nation would not retaliate when wronged.
  2. Such a nation would not seek increased prosperity, but increased faithfulness.
  3. Such a nation would have give emphasis to taking care of those who needed it most.
  4. Such a nation would put the interest of other nations ahead of their own.
  5. Such a nation would return all territories and possessions that had been taken from other nations.

I could go on, but I guess you get the point. As others have pointed out, such a nation does exist. It is described in 1 Peter 2:9.

I don’t think that geopolitical nations of this world can be Christian. Individuals are Christians; nations aren’t. The nations of this world will one day belong to our God; for now, they are under Satan’s control, subject to his deception. We long for the day the revolution is complete, when governments are overthrown by the kingdom of God, where men pledge allegiance only to the Christian nation. That day is coming. Until then, we reside as ambassadors of a Christian nation, living in a kingdom of this world.

Living in Meshech and Kedar

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protestA few weeks ago I shared some thoughts from the songs of ascent, that group of psalms from Psalm 120-134. Psalm 120 expresses the anguish of one who lives away from God’s people, away Jerusalem, living among a deceitful, violence-loving people in places like Meshech and Kedar. I said then that we live in just such a place. The problem for many of us that live in the United States is that we want to view our land as Israel, the biblical Israel, a place of people who are under the covenant, even if they aren’t living up to that. It’s hard for us to accept our role as strangers and aliens, as ambassadors of God’s kingdom.
One way in which that manifests itself is our attempts to change the behavior of those around us. We seek to make our nation more godly by making those around us live more moral lives. We fail to recognize that what people need, what our society needs, is the lordship of Jesus. If they don’t have Jesus as their Lord, it doesn’t matter how much we improve their morality, we haven’t really helped them.
Years ago I worked one summer in a Peugeot bicycle warehouse in Compton, California (yes, I know… it’s everyone’s dream job). Among the group of guys I worked with, there was only one who professed to be a Christian. His idea of witnessing to the others was to go around telling them to stop cussing. (Meanwhile, he was the laziest worker there) He didn’t achieve even that small goal because his attempt to control the behavior of the others only met with irritation. Joseph Aldrich said something like “Don’t expect regenerated behavior from non-regenerated people.” I would have put it more simply, but the point is well made. If someone hasn’t been born again, we can’t expect them to live a new life.
We have to accept the fact that our society needs change from inside out. This is not a Christian nation in need of moral correction. This is a nation away from God in need of a Savior. We can get artificial prayers reinserted in schools, but that won’t make our kids more godly. We can get copies of the 10 Commandments plastered on every building across the country, but that won’t give people the motivation to live them out. We could make it a law that everyone had to go to church on Sunday, but until people accept the lordship of Christ, everything else they do is in vain.
If we want to change our nation, we need to bring them to the Lord. He’ll take care of changing them.

Living as ambassadors

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Spruille Braden was U.S. ambassador to Argentina in 1945. With the U.S. government accusing Argentine presidential candidate Juan Perón of having close ties to Nazism, Braden went about the Argentine countryside, campaigning against Perón. Some accounts tell of him traveling with a brass band, making whistle stops here and there as if he himself were a candidate. The strategy backfired terribly. With the slogan “Braden or Perón,” Juan Domingo Perón easily won the election.
Can you imagine the reaction today if a foreign ambassador openly campaigned for one of our politicians? Such an action would definitely hurt that politician’s cause more than help it. What if they campaigned for a certain political position? Wouldn’t the reaction be the same?
“We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.” (2 Corinthians 5:20)
We are ambassadors of the kingdom of God here in this world. When we get involved in the comings and goings of the kingdoms of this world, especially as part of our official duties as ambassadors, our actions will surely backfire. I particularly apply this to politics, yet the applications are many. When Christians involve themselves as Christians, as the church, in political affairs, our actions are doomed to backfire. When an ambassador begins to do things that do not correspond to his role, those activities detract from his diplomatic mission. When a Christian gets embroiled in worldly affairs (2 Timothy 2:4), he dilutes his Christian witness.
Let’s remember who we are: Christ’s ambassadors.