The Church is the World’s Conscience, not Its Policeman - Bryant Martin

Like, where's the breakdown there? Because if they're saying, "This is the right way to do it," and you're saying, "Mm, that's not the kingdom of Christ. That's not how Christ operates." Tell me more about that. What do you say to those people? Well, there's many places we go with that, right? You know, we can go into the teaching of Jesus, the teaching of the apostles, um, to overcome evil with good, uh, put heat coals of fire in their head. You know, there's just so much here, um, and many ways I could go with that. But I think maybe I'll do just say two things there. I love the analogy of what the conscience is to the body, the Christian is to the world.

Okay? So the conscience is not, it's not connected to our body with with ligaments and bones and, you know, it's not able to make us move physically. It's, it's the, it's like the soul, the spirit, the conscience. And I'm not going to try to parse all that out, but it's this in us, this innate understanding that God has put in us that, um, and, you know, you can look at just the basic things of like, it's wrong to kill. You know, any human on this earth understands that it's wrong to kill. They might not even have heard of God or the Bible or Jesus or anything, but they just understand, right? It's in there. And then when you do that, your conscience, you know, of course, convicts you, condemns you.

You're going against your conscience. Of course, you can harden your conscience, but the conscience is there nonetheless. And so it is informing, it is informing us. It is, um, um, exerting a form of pressure upon us. Mm-hmm. But it's not through an actual muscle or bone. And so the same way it is with the church to the world. So we live in the world as righteous people, you know, as it says, you know, so Ephesians 2 here, um, uh, right after the Christ humility and exaltation, where we light in the world, we're supposed to be children of God who are faultless in a crooked and perverted generation among whom you shine like stars in the world.

Just love that idea. You know, does, does, is there an actual, like, physical force with a star? No, it's just this amazing body, millions of miles away that's shedding light. And we go, wow, look at the stars. It's amazing. You know, look at the Milky Way. Um, so we're supposed to be like stars in the world, uh, shining a light. And then you have, um, over here in, uh, 1 Peter 2, uh, period, uh, verse 9, you know, a very common, uh, verse, but you're a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his possessions, and may proclaim the praises of him who has called you out of darkness and into his marvelous light.

Okay. So, um, so the, the church is this light. It is this holy nation, these holy people, righteous people that are really harbingers of the future, right? Uh, we're showing people what it would look like if the whole world would obey Jesus.

Um, so we're the society that's proclaiming a future righteous nation, uh, that will sometime happen, the new heaven, new earth. And so we are proclaiming that, but we're never forcing it. Just like the conscience doesn't force the body. So therefore the church does not force the world. But we're there. We're a force to be, you know, we're definitely forced to be reckoned with. Uh, and especially if we're being faithful. We're not being faithful. No, it's just, you know, we, we, um, just go by the means of the world and we're, and we're apostasized and that, that witness is gone, which is very sad. And I think, you know, as obviously as Anabaptist people, and we've struggled, you know, as king people who struggle with this, we become materialistic, become the, call the quiet in the land, you know, all these things where, you know, we haven't always been faithful and to, to being really, um, this, this nation or this city on a hill.

Uh, and so, you know, that's one way, um, I like to think of it is, you know, just as the conscience is the body, the church is to the world. We never force, but we're, we need to be there as we're there faithful. We are, um, a force to be reckoned with in the world. Absolutely. Another way I like to look at it too, I have this little program here. Oh yeah. Uh, or this little, uh, design, rather, rather crude. It's actually a picture. I just had, um, Daniel print off for us. Um, this was a whiteboard that I had at a church where I talked, um, as we, as we were thinking about this, um, you know, the calling of the Christian.

And so, you know, one, another way to look at it is the, is, is the understanding that nations, um, are the governments, you know, Romans 13, they are a preserving grace. Mm-hmm. Uh, and, and grace is put there intentionally. Like there is, there is a, uh, a sense of dignity to that work. You know, a good police officer brings, um, order in chaos in ways in, in, in the community. A good government does. Obviously, there's governments on a continuum from evil governments to governments that were more, that are more, um, righteous, maybe you could say, or more according to the way of, of Proverbs, um, you know, that are kind of lining themselves with, in general, with kind of the grains of the universe, of the way that God has created the world.

And so they are a preserving grace. They bring order in chaos. They make it safe for us to go to the, go down to the downtown to the store, um, even in the middle of the night. We can walk on our streets there and stay college. We're not fearful because in general, there's a good government. So they preserve humanity.

And then, um, of course, this little drawing here helps you kind of see, you know, this person has his allegiance to cast with the United States, a very small part of the world, right? Um, but nonetheless, it's a preserving grace. And over here is the redeeming grace. And that's what we're part of. And we are part of a global nation, right? We even have the universe here. Uh, we are serving, uh, the ways of God in the world. Um, so the person in, in China who's a believer is my brother and my sister. And we are, God is our father and Jesus is our elder brother. You know, we be a, a brotherhood. We're, we're part of the church.

God's called out people. And so, you know, we're, we're, we're, we're, uh, a part of the big plan. Um, when people begin, when people become political, uh, and align themselves with a, uh, a political group within their nation, their plan becomes very small. But we're part of a huge, uh, work that God is doing in the world. And so we're part of the redeeming grace, which is where we lead people to Christ. And they, and, and through that, they become, they experience a new birth and become, uh, a new person in Christ. Uh, old things are passed away. We hold all things to come new. And they become that, that new humanity that's now part of God's nation.

And where they get change, you know, from the inside out, right? As only the power of God and the Holy Spirit can do. And so, um, that's another way that has really helped me as I talk with people. I say, yes, we need to pray for the government. You know, it is a grace. It's in Romans 13. But there's many people over here.

Don't waste your life preserving. Come and join us redeeming. This is where God's truly at work. This is where God is truly changing the world.