Matt Chandler - Protection and Provision

If you have your Bibles, grab them. Romans 13 is where we’re going to be. We’re just going to walk through this. This is week four of our «Thrones and Thorns» series, where we’re discussing how we can faithfully navigate the political moment we are in. If you know your Bible, you had to know we would get to this text. This text, along with another one in First Peter, is probably the clearest representation of what it looks like in the Bible. So, I’m happy to be in this one with you.

There are two predominant worldviews at play in the West, or let me say in the United States, right now that are at odds with one another, but they’re running below the surface. They’re not the way we’re consciously thinking; they reflect what we actually believe, and then it bubbles up into thoughts and actions. Here they are, and I’m going to simplify them for the sake of time.

One worldview believes that, over a period of millions of years—maybe longer—everything came from nothing. That’s really the belief: there was nothing, and then all of a sudden, there was everything across the span of millions, billions, or even trillions of years. According to this view, you and I, as animals, emerged from nothing, evolving over time for the purposes of procreation. It’s essentially an evolutionary accident that we have the kind of consciousness that we do. All there is, is this life—eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you will die. Eventually, in another million, trillion, or billion years, the sun will go out, and then it will all be over. Our run as a species will be finished, and that script lies beneath the hearts, minds, and opinions of men and women. It’s called a worldview. It’s not purely prefrontal cortex stuff; you’re not consciously thinking, «When the sun goes out, none of this matters anyway.» It’s just part of the foundation upon which you build your beliefs and actions. This is a prevailing worldview at this moment.

One way to see that the West is «Christ-haunted”—what I mean by that is we’re trying our best to exercise Jesus from our lives, to cast Him out—but the worldview doesn’t align. It doesn’t work. Who cares about justice and equality? Why wouldn’t we just embrace this worldview and accept that the strong should dominate the weak? Get yours; all you’ve got is today; you better make it count, right? It’s Christ-haunted. So, even people who fervently believe in this worldview can be passionately involved in discussions of equality and justice. However, I look at that worldview and ask: But why? If we got to this point by the strong dominating the weak to remove them from existence for the good of the species, then who cares about justice? In fact, we should celebrate strength and power overpowering weakness and frailty if we want to achieve a utopia in our brief existence—be it an 80-year run, a 50-year run, or a 60-year run, depending on how you eat and the will of God.

The second worldview, which is at odds at every turn, posits that all of creation has a beginning point—specifically, the creator of the universe. For us Christians, that is the Triune God. This Creator not only made everything, but He did so intentionally and with design. He created it to function in a way that allows humanity to flourish, the Earth to be cared for, and for you and I to have the best opportunity to fulfill our lives and purpose. When we die, or when Christ returns, we get a picture of eternity—a renewed, purified new heaven and new earth where you and I will live forever alongside this Creator God. It’s not an ethereal concept. Go back and listen to the Revelation series. We don’t believe we will become angels. If you ever share something at a funeral, please don’t say that that person is now an angel. The angels wish they could be us. They’re confused. We are called sons and daughters, not messengers and servants. We are the children of God, and the Bible paints a picture of a literal physical renewed location where we have literal physical renewed bodies. It appears there will be work without toil in the new heavens and new earth, where there are relational connections and celebrations—a life and world free from the brokenness of sin, going on forever.

Now, why does this matter when discussing government? Because there are two different views on what human flourishing looks like. If you were here for week one, I explained that the plan for governments is that authority is meant to lead toward truth, beauty, and goodness filling the Earth. However, this is where we get jammed up. Whose truth? Whose beauty? Whose goodness? Who gets to define those terms? If you believe that it’s just us, then we get to define the terms. Now, you must be able to ignore all of human history, which shows that we struggle to achieve that, and we keep screwing it up.