God's Plan for America

Big idea: Praise God! His plan is to gather America (and all things) under the control of Jesus Christ.

1. Recognize His lavish grace in redemption (Ephesians 1:8).
2. Receive the mystery now revealed (Ephesians 1:9).
3. Rejoice that God is gathering all things under the control of Christ (Ephesians 1:10).

Applications

• Automated Transcription
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  Well, good morning, friends, family, guests who've come. My name is Dan. I'm one of the pastors here. I've been on vacation for a couple of weeks, had a wonderful time with my daughter, son-in-law, and our little one year old, Lucia. Four adults, one one year old. We made it. It was great. It's great time, and we're super thankful to be back. I got a chance to listen to John Gardner's talk last week from our summer Sunday school, so trying to keep get up to speed. But welcome, if you're here with us. Welcome. I would love to meet you if you're new. I met some people who are new returning in between hours. It's such a joy to get to greet you and meet you. We are in the book of Ephesians, and before we dive in, let me give you a couple of just a couple things are going on family wise. Yes, VBS is starting. We're really excited about that, and let's be praying about that. We have every weekend this summer we have men preaching in various pulpits, doing pulpit supply. Caleb Effinger is in Plummer, Idaho, filling in there. Dave and Lois are there, helping encourage him and giving him feedback. We have people going up to Republic. We have people going up to Ion. I remember seeing the email come through. Lone Baptist Church needs someone. Oh, if the font was just a little bit.. I've been praying for Lone Baptist Church, which doesn't exist. I own Baptist Church does, and we've been having guys preach up there, so that's been a joy. Just know that that's a fruit of the ministry of equipping that Josh mentioned, is that that sort of thing is going on. The other thing that you might not know, just before I left on vacation, the elders approved to get going on the Renault upstairs, so because of the faithful generosity toward the capital campaign and extra giving this year budget, we are able to get that going. So now it's all getting set up, and somewhere at the end of August, we'll start that project upstairs, which means bathrooms upstairs, kitchenettes upstairs, we use that all the time for growth group and equipping life, so we're really thankful that that's going. Thank you for your generosity for that. And then on a sadder note, all of you have watched the news about the earthquake in Venezuela, and I reached out to Dave on Friday and said what kind of impact the churches that he and Lois and others helped plant in northern Venezuela. A particular one, Katia Lamar, was especially impacted. The earthquake epicenter was pretty close to that. Almost every member of that church has a family member or friend who was killed in the earthquake, so it's pretty, pretty serious situation. Alcides in Zulema, who we support in Tenerife, Spain, our Venezuelan, and her grand niece was killed in that, and so we have loved ones who are suffering as a result of that. We're going to be praying for them in, in just a moment, so stand by for whatever future help that might mean required for us. I, Nathan, what's the.. we support a guy in, yeah, Gabriel Sanchez from Amazonas, from the river area. He is leading a team of Samaritan's Purse people up to Katia Lamar, so I'm going to pray for all those and join that. Put that on your list of things to pray for, and Dave and Nathan will give us updates throughout the week. So stand with me for the reading of God's Word, and we're going through meticulously wonderfully through Ephesians chapter one. I'm going to read seven through 10. I'll preach eight through 10 this morning, looking at God's plan for everything. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us, and all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of His will, according to His purpose, which He set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth. This is the word of the Lord. Lord God, we praise you this morning, for you are a God of redeeming grace.
  
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  You sent Jesus Christ to pay for our sins, to redeem us, free us from the bondage of sin, guilt, judgment. Thank you for this super abundant spiritual blessings that we have, which affect us now in the world we live in, and how we live in it, and will affect our eternity. Thank you. We just profoundly thank you. This morning, you have a plan for all things, and you are carefully orchestrating every part of it, for you are the sovereign and the Lord of all. Father, we do pray for things coming up. Our VBS, we want Spokane, we want our kids, their friends, our neighbors to hear the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ. So by your grace give us favor in our community from our neighbors, from the people who are going to go out and invite people this week, that they would come, and that our adults could be a testimony to the adults that visit, and that our kids could hear and believe. We do pray for the men who are preaching, pray for Caleb, and pray for others who are preaching in various places. We pray for the preaching in our church and in our city. We pray for the churches of our, of our city. I think of many, like South Side Christian, where Colin is preaching this morning and teaching. Pray that you would help them. Help Randy Simons as he faithfully pastors and shepherds on the South Hill at the Congregational Church, so we want that to go on, just like we want it to go on here. We do pray as our hearts are heavy for hundreds of 1000s in Venezuela who have lost loved ones and family members, so I pray for special comfort for the believers in Katil Amar and other places who have lost family or friends in the earthquake, and they're still digging through the rubble. There are still people lost that they expect to be dead that need to be recovered, and we would pray that you'd be preserving some at length who might be covered up, but we pray that you would bring a testimony to the grace and mercy of Jesus, who is compassionate on the suffering, and Lord Jesus, show yourself compassionate on suffering through the various believers and situations that would come to that area help us know in the future what, if any, role that we would play in that. Now, open our eyes to understand this word, apply it to us, our country, our city. In Christ's name, Amen. You may be seated. What's the 200th anniversary of our nation this week, you can't escape that every news outlet has an opinion about what America is and what it should be. Nathan just spent the Sunday school session talking about evaluating news sources, and Nathan, does everybody have a hot take? Everybody's got a hot take, seems like everybody's got an agenda, but the question everyone, especially Christians, should be asking first is this: What is God's plan for America? It's the title of the message, and when I say that, and I read Ephesians, every astute Bible scholar is going to go, like, "Wait, what? Wait, God's plan for America is your title, okay? So you got your little bulletin, and it's got the title, put a parenthesis, and all things, okay? So I'm glad you're faithfully reading it. I'm just not inserting America into things that shouldn't be there, but let's, let's look at Ephesians one nine and 10, and see what I mean. He says, making known to us the mystery of His will, according to His purpose, which He set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time. So, you have will, purpose, plan to unite all things in Him, things in heaven, things on earth. America is part of all things, like simple logic, simple logic. But you could put a lot of things in there. It would be a really interesting message if we said, What is God's plan for the frequency of marital intimacy in marriage? Our kids couldn't come, but all things means all things, sibling relationships, singleness, single parenting, Bitcoin - it could be in there, right? God's got a plan, but because it's the 250th anniversary, I want to focus on God's plan for the United.
  
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  States of America, because it is in here, we can apply it a lot of ways, and that's what I want to do for us this morning. Here's the big idea: Praise God, praise God, because this is about praising God for what He is doing. Praise God, His plan is to gather America and all things under the control of Jesus Christ, God's plan is that everything, including Americans and America, will be Christ-centered. Now, my primary aim for us is to see the work of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit as more glorious, more lovely, because of the plans that He has in Christ. My plan is not to elevate America as greater, but elevate Christ over America. Then there's going to be some secondary aims that are just going to follow, I won't really even talk about them, but you should feel them. One of the secondary aims is to impart or renew a Christ-centered patriotism. Patriotism is simply love for the fatherland, that's what that word means. Love for the fatherland, having our first citizenship, being in heaven, where Christ is, will give us the truest and best love for the neighbors we call Americans. Loving Christ supremely makes me love my wife truly, because I sing in a very poor way one of my favorite love songs from Ben Rector to my wife doesn't mean I love my wife more than Jesus, it just means God has given me a wife I adore, and I love her. My love for Christ being supreme affects my love and affection for my wife. That's true of your neighbors in this country called America. Loving Christ supremely makes us love our country truly. The second aim that's going to come out is, is hope. Hope in God's plan to unite all things in Christ should ignite optimism for what can happen in our country, not pessimism. Christians should have the most optimism about our country, because Jesus is and will be the sovereign Lord. I have often violated that you have too, as you decry things that grieve you in the country, things that make you lament, but yet God's plan is as we're going to see redeem people out of the country and even affect the country in this time and place, and we'll see what He will do ultimately. Third, I want to elevate Christ-centeredness in the public square. We need to follow Paul's thinking in Romans 1136 Paul, after the Gospels unpacked in the book of Romans, ends with God's plan for Jews and Gentiles. Jews remember, Paul thinks in terms of binary terms, in a sense, there's Jews and there's Gentiles, all the nations are Gentiles, and God has a plan to save people from all the Gentiles and to save all the Jews. When he gets to the end of that plan through Jesus Christ, his death and resurrection, he erupts in this praise, which says from him, through him, and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. And as we think about the public square, the marketplace of ideas, the place where we interact together in institutions that are America, it needs to be for us from him through him and to him. Often we settle for the not through him any means. No, it needs to be from him through him and to him. In the end, I'll tell you what I'm not going to be talking about. I'm not going to be talking about American exceptionalism or superiority, because this passage doesn't do that. I will not be talking about America's importance in the world, past, present, or future, and they're worthy and stimulating topics, and I mean that. I don't. I have good sarcasm, and I don't mean that sarcastically. They are. Stimulating topics. What this text deals with applies to every citizen, every person in every nation, in every nation. We just happen to live in the United States of America. Christ, having all things gathered up under his rule, is the end for which all things are created. Again, our primary aim, our big idea is this: Praise God. His plan is to gather America and all things under the control of Jesus Christ, and it should move us to greater praise, greater adoration to Him. So three ways that we praise him that will end in a culmination. Number one, recognize the lavish grace of redemption.
  
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  Recognize the lavish grace of redemption to us who are sitting in this room as Americans. If I was in Venezuela, I could say the same thing for Venezuelans. If I was in Dominican Republic, I could be saying the same thing, because we're here, we should be recognizing the lavish grace of redemption on us. Brian preached verse seven and a little bit of verse eight last week, and his third point said this: it said that we should marvel at the lavish grace that is the fountain of your redemption. That's what he talked about last week. Redemption, redemption is God's purchase from the slavery to sin, guilt, and judgment through the death of Jesus Christ, or by the payment of Jesus Christ. Redemption is a payment word, and it's, it's a payment price out of the slave market of sin, guilt, and judgment to freedom in Christ. Who does that apply to? Well, in this particular passage, verse three and four and five, you have God looking from eternity past to those who He's going to elect, predestined, adopt. Who are those people? Well, Revelation 79 gives us an expansion of that. They're from every nation, from all tribes, from all peoples, and from all languages. When you look forward to Revelation, there's going to be a multitude from all of those places. One of those nations is going to be United States of America. Now, Josh made a really important point for us last week, or two weeks ago, about individuals talking about the doctrine of election and predestination, often a difficult thing for people to hear, impossible for us to understand. God is God and infinite, and we can't quite work all of it out, but it applies not only to individuals and nations, and think it through. I'm going to follow how Josh did it for us a couple of weeks ago, and just follow that same pattern. God did not look forward into the future and say there's going to be a country, it's going to be a really great country. It will align its laws, its policies, and ambitions with mine, it's going to have great leaders. I'm going to choose that country to give my extra special blessing to. That's not what happened. In fact, if you want proof about God's choosing of nations, at least we could say it about Israel from Deuteronomy seven seven through eight. Listen to this. This is about God's choosing or election of Israel. Deuteronomy 77 says it was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that He swore to your fathers. Israel was insignificant when they entered Egypt, 70 people, but because of the promise God made to Abraham, the love He set on a people, He chose them. God chooses multitudes of Americans because of the same promise, according to Galatians 314 which applies that Old Testament truth, so that the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles. Remember, Paul thinks in pretty binary terms, Jews and Gentiles, Jews, and all the nations, but they are bound together now as one people of God in Christ, and this is a reason to give high praise to God and to give allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ, because He has lavished us with grace. Look at, look at the next lines, according to the riches of His grace, riches super abundance, lavish, that word is super abounding, overflowing. Grace is kindness, goodness, divine help freely given to undeserving people, and the most important of all is redemption. It, the forgiveness of sins, being reunited with God. The war is over between you and God. You are at peace. Three things are significant when we think of lavish grace as Americans, Americans are saved by God's lavish grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone, not by democratic principles, not by personal alignment with the founding documents, not by achievement, not by a Christian heritage, by grace that means there is no room for superiority or a superiority complex for American Christians. What you have, what you will become is all by grace. What there is left is thanksgiving.
  
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  Thanksgiving, you You should, you should thank God at every meal for the lavish grace He has poured out on you in this country. Second, God's grace is greater than all our sins. It's a different application, but think it through. All American Christians have and will fall short of full holiness, full obedience, and full love. They will pursue it. We are elect to be holy and blameless. Now that is a pursuit, but we won't achieve it, not in this life. One of the questions I listened through last week, talking about the framing of our country, the founding of our country, how many Christians were around, and how the Bible impacted our founding documents. Asked the question, what about the big American sins, and we do have this tendency to say things like, well, could a real Christian own slaves? The assumption is no, because that's a really nasty sin. So they couldn't do that. Could a real Christian enforce Jim Crow laws. Could a real Christian have an abortion? And then your assumption would be no, they couldn't, because real Christian wouldn't do that. I think we need to think a little bit better. In Genesis, we learned about a man named Lot, he lived in Sodom. He settled outside, it moved into it. He was a man of faith. Peter tells us he had some sense of righteousness when the angels came to visit him and rescue him. The town wanted the angels for their sexual pleasure, so Lot did the only logical thing that is sarcasm. He offered his daughters to be savaged by the men. Horrific. Like you read that, you go, what in the world is going on? He was affected by his culture's sin in a very profound way. After being led to freedom, his daughters were also twisted about their understanding and trust of God, and they got pregnant by their father, so we can be honest, identifying American sins in the past and the present. We can be realistic about American sins in the future, that even we have participated in. In fact, we would have the ability, then seeing sin as it is, to repent and change and call others to do the same, but my point is God's grace is super abounding. You look back at the country, look currently at the country, and you, you think God's going to flood us with judgment. He's right to do that, and He may do that from times or seasons to get our attention, and He may discipline Christians along the way, but, but I want you to hear this point. MacArthur said it as well as I've read, says we need, we never need worry that our sin will outstrip God's gracious forgiveness. Our heavenly Father does not simply give us subsistence forgiveness that will barely cover our sins if we are careful not to overdo, we can, we cannot sin beyond God's grace, because as wicked and extensive as our sins may be or become, they will never approach the greatness of His grace. Remember, it's according to the riches of His grace, which is infinite, that He's. Lavished on us, super abounded, and that is a relief and a praise for the individual. It's a relief and praise for our country. Christians will never be driven from the family of God. Third implication: significant, God, God alone deserves praise and worship for His lavish grace. God alone does whatever biblical or Christian principles impacted the founding framing documents and are an evidence of grace. They are an evidence of grace, not a reason for credit, merit, boasting. They were there by grace. God's lavish grace, then, should make us look at the present, look at the past, and extol Him for His extraordinary grace. We can look at the blessings, pray, praise Him for grace. We can look at the sins and praise Him for grace. We can look at the future and anticipate grace, praise God. His plan is to gather America and all things under the control of Jesus Christ, and right now He is gathering all things through the proclamation of the gospel and the redeemer who has died for our sins and is coming back, second, so first recognize the lavish grace. Second, receive the message that He is making known about that lavish grace, the gospel.
  
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  We should praise God, because He has given us true wisdom and insight, and He has revealed His will and His purpose. We're not left in the dark, there's no one needs to be in the dark anymore about God's ultimate plans for any person or any nation or any aspect of our lives. You don't need to be in the dark about it. Look at verse, the end of verse eight, in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of His will, according to His purpose, which he set forth in Christ. This wisdom and insight commentators point out that it is part of a series, redemption, which Brian looked at last week. The first major benefit of redemption is forgiveness. The second major benefit is wisdom and insight, that means God has given us knowledge that can be skillfully applied. He has given us insight with a depth of perception, in order that we may be able to live out the holiness and blamelessness, the role and responsibility of being adopted children of God, and true freedom having been delivered from the bondage of sin. We have wisdom and insight. The topic of that wisdom and insight is what He's made known in the mystery of His will. He's manifested it. What's a mystery? He's made it known, he's made it manifest. Another way you could say it has revealed it, he's revealed it, he's made known the mystery of his will. God's will is God's desire, God's plans. You have three things here in this passage: his will, his purpose in Christ, and his plans. He in the Old Testament, God gave previews, echoes, predictions of the coming of Messiah and his reign from Genesis to Malachi. Think of a movie trailer. When you see a movie trailer, summer movies are coming out. When you see a movie trailer, it gives you enough to be interested, have some idea of the plot, but it doesn't give away the story, does it? You got to go watch it to get the story. What God has done is given in the Old Testament, ample anticipation of a coming Messiah, but when Jesus Christ was born of a virgin and stepped into time and space, his life and the recording of all that he did, the mystery has been revealed. We know God's purpose. He has made it known. We don't need to live in the dark. If you're learning the Bible for the first time, or maybe you. You've been listening to the Bible, but you finally saying, "Uncle, like, okay, Lord, I think I should start paying attention. The gospel, the short version of the mystery, is revealed here. It is you and the world around you are estranged from God, hostile to Him. At worst, you've been in open defiance of God by your life, sometimes by your beliefs and your statements. At best, you've been head down, doing your own thing. I'm not bothering anybody, I'm just doing my thing, I but you are enslaved to your sin, to guilt, and you're bound for judgment. You're probably here this morning because you know deep down you're bound, you're guilty, and you want freedom from the guilt of your sin, the power of your sin. The Father sent Christ, the Son, to die for sins. That's what we were, just in Him. We have redemption, the forgiveness of sins through His blood. We have redemption through His blood. Jesus died. Jesus rose from the dead. He paid the price to set you free, and He's calling you right now. He's calling you: repent, submit to Christ, embrace His loving rule over your life. He's calling you out of bondage into freedom to live God's new way, and when you call on Him to be saved, you will be forgiven and reconciled. Don't delay a day. The mystery is known to you now. Whatever was secret, whatever seemed hidden, it is now laid bare and open. You I would urge you, turn to him. Turning to America, there's not been a day in the nation's history where the Bible has not been available and proclaimed. The light of the gospel shone forth from the settlers, many of which were escaping persecution in Europe or England to find freedom to worship according to the scriptures.
  
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  From the founding of the American colonies to the present, there has been freedom to hear, study, preach, teach, worship according to the Bible. God's plan for America has been to save a people by the open and free preaching of the gospel by the hearing of its people and his plan until he returns is for his people to continue the same tradition. I think of this, this manifestation of the gospel, that's that's how God's providentially done it for us. Other countries, let's pick China, for instance. Let's pick China. There were a significant number of believers in China in the early 1940s 1950s as the communists and Chairman Mao took over. By the 50s, there is a widespread purge of anything that was anti-communist, including Christians, some of the largest persecutions happened in the world in all of history under Chairman Mao. Here's how God's providence works. However, Chairman Mao, somebody was telling me two stories added to this. Story number one is that Chairman Mao needed unity in the country, so he established Mandarin as the common language, everybody has to learn Mandarin. Just everybody goes to school. So, when Bible societies smuggled Bibles into China in Mandarin, everybody could read it. Ha, Chairman Mao, Chairman Mao also wanted every citizen to be able to hear the messages about communism, and gave them all transistor radios in which Christian radio stations from Tibet broadcast the gospel in Mandarin into China. Good job, Chairman Mao. God providentially has worked in our country through the open preaching of the gospel. God has worked providentially in China through the very things that were to be anti-God. He turned in favor. Of his purposes, just step back and think of the rich legacy and tradition. I'll add one more today. Australia, Great Britain, and America are far and away the leading writers and publishers of Christian material, not that there are not others authoring in their own languages original works, they are, but the vast majority of anything being published, podcasted, viewed is in English. English, it has been open for us, and remains open for us to have rich treasures, expounding, explaining, and applying the gospel. He has revealed it to us. You ask me? asked me a title for a book about a particular topic, and I can probably give you four on any topic that has to do with Christianity. It's extraordinary. What grace is that something we deserve? Is that something that we should be thankful for? We should be thankful for it, he has made it known it is accessible. There is no reason for you not to know the fullness of God's will in America. Podcast, videos, articles, books, God has used those tools providentially in our country. Praise God. His plan is to gather America and all things under the control of Jesus Christ. Leads us to our third, that we would rejoice. We need to recognize what He has given. We need to receive this treasure of truth about the will of God. And finally, we need to rejoice that He is gathering all things under Christ's control. Who better to rule the world than the sovereign who has sent redeeming grace through Jesus Christ? We should rejoice, because God's plan for America, like His plan for all things, is to bring everything under the lordship of Christ. Here's how it unfolds in this particular passage, this particular plan as a plan for the fullness of time. So he has a will and a purpose in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in Him, things in heaven, things on earth. Think of this idea of plant - it's a big word in Greek, economy sounds like an economy, but, but think of it like this. This might help you. Somebody wants a house, you have a designer, an architect, and a builder. They all work together with a detailed start and a detailed finish, until it is all done. That is God's plan for all of time. Maybe think of it like General Eisenhower. There's a new Eisenhower movie that I want to watch. Speaking of seeing trailers and loving war movies, Eisenhower and his team planned and executed the D-Day invasion. Eisenhower was chosen as the Allied commander because he had rich and profound training and experience in logistics. He was the logistics expert.
  
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  He knew how to get things from place to place and organize them. God has a plan from eternity past to eternity future, and He is designer, architect, builder, and He is executing that plan through His Spirit for Jesus Christ, one description that I saw of it is the plan of this of this word for plan, the plan of salvation, which God is bringing to reality through Jesus Christ. Every sin, every effect of the curse on nature, every oppressive force over God's people will be dealt with. They will be dealt with in the fullness of time. What's the fullness of time? The word fullness, there may be an illustration, might be helpful. Fullness sometimes has the idea of something coming ripe, like fruit comes ripe, it's coming at just the right time. We would say in English, when the time is ripe, but let's just run with this, just for a second. How do you know when a, when a cantaloupe is ripe? It you smell the stem, if it smells like cantaloupe, it's ripe. If it doesn't smell like cantaloupe, it's not ripe. Don't put it in my fruit salad on the fourth of July, it will be crunchy and flavorless. Okay, put in my fruit salad, because we need something to offset the mushy blueberries. How do you know when a pineapple is ripe when most of the inner outside is yellow, and you smell it, and it smells like pineapple. It's not ripe if it doesn't smell like pineapple. Use your nose. I mean, I know you need a multi-colored fruit salad, and pineapples are available, and cantaloupes are available, and I don't have time to wait until they're ripe. I need a salad to deliver to the party on the fourth of July, and we all eat crunchy, flavorless fruits and vegetables. Not even the strawberries are satisfying anymore. Ripe. Here's the point about time, when it is perfectly ripe. So that means, and by the way, there's one addition, the fullness of times, probably is better translated fullness of times, which means God has had stages for which He has orchestrated things, and it just at the right time, when the world needed it, or it suited His plans best, it was ready, that phrase is used in the fullness of time from Galatians. Fullness of time, God sent forth His son, born of a woman, Jesus Christ. In the fullness of time, when the time was ripe, Jesus came. When the time is ripe, Jesus will return. There are various stages of that time, John Owen called at the time that we're in the dispensation. That's another way to translate the plan, is dispensation. This is the dispensation of the gospel kingdom, where the gospel is taking over all things through redemption, when the time is ripe in the future, Jesus will return. So, here's the goal. Here's the purpose. Where is all this going? And how do we apply it to our own country, our own lives? All things are going to be united in Him. That the phrase in the ESV is united in Him. The Him is Christ. All things in heaven all things in earth. Paul has a cosmic view here, talking about all the angelic holy angels, which are organized and ordered. Also, all the unholy angels from Satan on down there, also organized, they are rulers, principalities. Some are in open rebellion against him and seeking to destroy the saints, some are in absolute obedience to Him. All things in heaven and all things in earth has to do with with authorities in the world and countries. Look over at 121 because he is going to talk about this again. We're going to look at it sometime soon. Verse 21 Christ, after his death and resurrection and ascension was ascended, verse 28 far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but in the one to come. He put all things under his feet and gave him his head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. At Jesus' ascension, after dying, he rose, he ascended, and he reigns as king over all things. Now we are in the gospel kingdom.
  
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  His major objective is the rescue, the redemption of people from every tribe, tongue, and nation who start to begin living lives of holiness and blamelessness start taking their roles and responsibilities as sons and daughters of the King with earnestness and seriousness, who become the assistants, the partners with the Apostle Paul in proclaiming the gospel and when will this happen? Here we have a he is ruler this age. Notice, in the age to come, there is an age to come. What will that look like? Come to my Sunday school class in a couple weeks, we'll outline it. The first week we're going to talk about what all Christians agree on, and then give you some frameworks of what they don't agree on, and the second week we'll unpack my view, our church's view of that. I'm sure you'll be convinced, but here's I want to say this. At least, what's coming when Jesus returns? All Christians agree with this resurrection death is the unnatural state of man when he splits the skies. God, every believer that has ever believed, died, been buried, will be raised, reunited with their soul and body in perfection, perfected deathless life. If you and I are still here, the bodies will be transformed, and we will live forever, resurrection when Jesus returns, resurrection second, he's going to reign, he's going to rule. This is when Christ becomes the physical ruler of every nation on the planet. If you read Revelation 16 through 20, America will be like all the other Gentiles who will mostly be rebelling against God. Jesus will come and reign. It starts with the judgment. It ends with Him setting feet on planet earth after having conquered his enemies and establishing a righteous rule. The third word I would call restoration. He is going to restore all things. The very creation itself will be remade, renewed, and it will be in curseless, flawless deathless life, all things those who have high handed their rebellion against God will be judged. They will be given the place they have wanted for all history to be away from God. It will be the lake of fire. They don't want God's rule. They, they get to live in that torment away from God. And all others will be established in nations. The pattern is the same, whether you use First Corinthians 15, resurrection, reign, restoration, or you use Revelation 1920 21 Jesus will resurrect, He will reign, and He will restore. This is extraordinary news for America, isn't it? Extraordinary news today. God's gathering through redemption. One day it will be through conquest and judgment. Christians gladly, reverently submit the eternal, holy, and just God will have lavished the grace of redemption through Christ's blood, his love that was set before the foundation of the world, is enjoyed and will be enjoyed. What's God's plan for America? What's God's plan for America? It's like God's plan for Venezuela, God's plan for Checha, God's plan for England, God's plan for China. It's the gospel plan. What's God's plan for war-torn Ukraine or war-torn Middle East? Same plan. In the fullness of time, He will conquer every enemy. He will bring all things under the authority of his son, who is a loving, redeeming, and just ruler. Extraordinary news. He will reign politically as the unrivaled emperor king of the world. Nations like America, if we exist by that name, I don't see why there won't be Americans, just like one of the ancient countries was Cyrene, North Africa. There's gonna be Cyrene Ian's, because many of them were saved. The rulers in his kingdom will all be Christians. Oh, won't that be nice, with various cultural expressions, every nation will worship and obey Christ supremely. If you're an American citizen who is a Christian, what does God want you to do? Worship Christ supremely. May Christ the nation, may Christ not the nation your first love. Let me say that again, make Christ not the nation your first love. A concern about dealing with politics in a church is you, you think of politics, and pretty soon you don't know if it's the politics that that people want and the win that they want, or Christ exalted. Make Christ your first love, and you're going to love your nation truly. It's like, make Christ your first love, and you're going to love your spouse truly, or your siblings truly, you.
  
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  If you're an American citizen who is a Christian, what does God want you to do? Worship Christ supremely. He wants you to live holy and blameless. It's like any Christian anywhere, but as an American Christian, because you're an American Christian, make your ambitions and affections as an American Christian holy to the Lord. Set them apart. You were elect to be holy and blameless. Start acting on that purpose of holiness and blamelessness. As sons and daughters of the King, you have privileges. We have extraordinary privileges. You have a new identity, a new responsibility to love fellow Americans like Jesus loved people in the Gospels. You have freedom from the tyranny of sin, so use your freedom in joyfully serving God's loving purposes for this nation and the other nations, it's going to make an impact in your praying, your conversations, your lifestyle. I often hear that because we're citizens of heaven, we shouldn't really be concerned much with things here, but remember being citizens in heaven sets your first love, because that's where Christ is, but it doesn't mean that the Christians who are saved here don't make a lasting impact. Big fan of history, you've heard me share these, but let me put them all three together in the 1900s 1800s that is, John Newton, famous writer of Amazing Grace, was a slave captain who got saved, and eventually, not as quick as you would think, recognized that slavery, kidnap slavery in the slave trade was an unqualified evil. He has a desire for ministry. He gets trained in ministry. He becomes a pastor, William Wilberforce, a young parliamentarian in the House of Commons, gets saved. He remains a parliamentarian working in the House of Commons, and he diligently and forcefully fought for the abolishment of the slave trade. He brought John Newton into the House of Commons like a Senate hearing committee. Tell us about the slave trade. John Newton, who was a former slaver, now a pastor, told about the slave trade and became the national conscience of England for the horrors of the slave trade. Wasn't just him contemporaries or soon after Lord Shaftesbury, the seventh or ninth Earl of Shaftesbury, he was part of the House of Lords, so those were the higher ups, so to speak. They had inherited land and inherited place. He refused to take a political party because he always wanted God's purposes dealt with first. Most respected handler of money in the United Kingdom, a devout Christian, loved to study end times, and Shaftesbury with influence and encouragement from Charles Spurgeon, the great English preacher, sought to make an end of child labor, particularly the use of five and six year old boys, four year old boys as chimney sweeps, because they're small, they could fit in chimneys, they could clean them out, they sent them up, sent them down. Hardly a sweep lived to 20 because of the cancers and the sicknesses they would get, and he helped lead the charge to outlaw and abolish this Shaftesbury Gladstone, Prime Minister of England, Spurgeon, and a number of other preachers saw 10s of 1000s of children not getting an education, because you had to pay for an education, so if your parents couldn't afford a tutor, you didn't get an education, so you had to go to work early, nothing else to do, or you run the street, become hoodlums. They started ragamuffin schools across London, much of the UK, Shaftesbury and his cohort of people funded these ragamuffin schools, hired teachers, brought kids off the street into school, gave these kids education, and almost strictly out of guilt, British Parliament had to adopt public. Education for children. Look, we're doing it. Why can't you bring education to children? These are really practical policies. Shaftsbury was fixated on the day he stood before Jesus and would have to give account for what he did to the poor, what he did for the imprisoned, what he did for the suffering, because he loved Jesus, and Jesus was supreme. The story about Wilberforce is that he would come out of his house, I think it was in Hampstead Heath, he would walk, that'd be too far, he would walk to Parliament, and he would recite Romans eight, and he could finish after walking out the front door, reaching parliament, he could recite it all, and he did it most every day. Christ was center.
  
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  I'm saying powerful things can happen in this time and this place when Christ is center, when Christ is exalted, Christians should be the most optimistic about the power of the gospel to transform lives and therefore change the culture that's around them. So, this should make an impact in your praying, your conversations, your lifestyle. It could impact the letter writing to local school and state officials. It could infect the institutions you work in, like schools, administrative departments, military, law enforcement. Those are public institutions. Take a really practical example. One of the things that riddles Spokane is the is the addiction issue, substance abuse and addiction of all kinds. Somebody mentioned in between hours last year in Spokane, 500 people died of fentanyl overdose. That means every day one or two people are dying of fentanyl overdose. If you live on the north side, you don't see it every day, because I live on the south side, I see it twice a day as you drive through the central corridor, and you see the enslavement that people have, men and women, yeah, it's voluntary enslavement initially, and eventually that power is so great, has a powerful damaging effect on the mind, as you can see, I What should we do about that? We should at least be praying, right? Curious, this ancient term in Christian liturgy. Lord, have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy. I thank God for the men and women at this church who serve, and for its existence. Union Gospel Mission, I think, since the 40s has been providing freedom through the gospel from the enslavement of drug and alcohol addiction that affects the public square. I mean, how I wish they would have taken care of that issue, or at least worked really hard at that issue before they improved downtown. Oh, downtown is a beautiful place to go. Just keep your hands on your front pockets, or carry something - it's uncomfortable. Our hearts should break. I mean, there are real issues. There are real issues that you can pray about, participate in, and make a change for. It's true in our country. If you follow the text, it's really straightforward. God has planned for us to be holy and blameless. So, as a Christian in America, I seek to be holy and blameless as an American, because I'm a Christian. Just like I seek to be holy and blameless as a husband, because I'm a Christian. You should seek to make known the mystery of the gospel, so that people can hear, believe, be forgiven, and restored. We should pray for our leaders. We should pray for sufferers. God's plan for.. if you know God's plan for America is, then you should align your life as a Christian who's an American. God has made massive changes in the past. I don't know why another revival is not right around the corner. Why not? Jesus is sovereign, he's in the business of saving people. Let's pray. For it, Father, we thank you for this word. How powerful it is. We know you're the sovereign. You have done a work that is beyond our comprehension today. We have been given freedoms and resources as great as any time anybody has in all of history, and we are benefiting from it, and the transformation our lives is evident of it. We have extraordinary hope and optimism. We know what you rescued us from and what you changed us from. We know what you can do in our city, and that can affect every place where we work and live and interact in the public square. And so I pray that you would, you would use us, keep our eyes focused on the worship of Christ, and let all matters unfold from there. Keep our hearts fixed on pleasing you first, and whatever we do, and wherever we are, we'll speak something, and we pray that we would be given more opportunity to proclaim the gospel. We have great optimism for what you can do in this country, because of what we see. How you've changed us. Help us be faithful in Christ's name. Amen.

Dan Jarms

Dr. Dan Jarms is lead pastor at Faith Bible Church in Spokane Washington, as well as associate dean at The Master's Seminary in Spokane. He has been married for over 30 years to Linda, and has three adult children. He earned his B.A. in English at the Master’s College, B.Ed. at Eastern Washington University, M.Div and D.Min in Expository Preaching at The Master’s Seminary. His other interests include NCAA basketball, woodworking, and art.

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