Every year political winds blow our way, be it in a news story, congressional action or Supreme Court ruling. Perhaps no time, however, is as politically charged as during an election season. Our vision of the country and how it should be led are put up to public vote, a popularity contest through which we often seek validation for our own ideals. We rally around our cause or candidate and (at least more often than not in my experience) we lose. Politics isn’t just about polls, figures, and policy bullet points, but about our lives, families, and deeply held convictions. When we lose, therefore, it can cut us deeply. Often in our desire to comfort ourselves we retreat into a sentiment of, “Well at least we still have Jesus.”  Now finding comfort in Christ is by no means a wrong thing, but rather than Him being our consistent focus, He is too often our secondary one. Looking to Christ is what we often do only after what we really wanted, political achievement, is no longer a possibility.  Sure we want the Kingdom of God, but first what we really want is the kingdom of this world, then the other stuff can come. And if we can’t have the kingdom of this world, we think “well at least we can look for the kingdom to come.”

The Kingdom of God isn’t your consolation prize. The Kingdom of God isn’t a salve for your dashed political aspirations. The Kingdom of God isn’t what you settle for because you can’t have the type of representation that you want to have in this world. The Kingdom of God is the sovereign reign of the risen Christ. The Kingdom of God is the pervasive kingship of Jesus over every facet of life. The Kingdom of God is the eternal hope and steadfast conviction of Christians of every era. It is only a kingdom because there is a King, Christ Jesus; and King Jesus isn’t biting his nails over presidential candidates. “He removes kings and sets up kings” (Dan 2:21). Furthermore, “The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will (Proverbs 21:1), for, “Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases.” (Psalm 115:3).

So how should we relate to the politics of the world? We should “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness” (Matt 6:33). This means that we seek his dominion, his reign, his law, his righteousness over all of life. We dedicate our lives, passion, and every material thing we own to his service. As a knight would kneel before his King to pledge his service to the advancement of his crown, so to we must kneel to pledge our undying loyalty and service to our Heavenly King.

You cannot have a kingdom without a king. And when we say King, we mean a real king, not just a king of our imaginations, not just a king of our hearts, or a king of our private belief system, but a king over the entire universe. The title “King of Kings and Lord of Lords” means just that; Jesus Christ is the King over all kings and the Lord over all lords that ever have or will exist. God by his power raised Jesus from the dead and as Ephesians 1 says “…seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.” (v.20-23).

You see the rule of Christ, the dominion of Christ, the Kingdom of Christ cannot be disconnected from the church of Christ. Where on earth do you see the best expression of the Kingdom of God in its physical reality? You see it, in the local church. Christ is head of the church, and there as 1 Peter 2:9  says, is his “Holy Nation.” Despite a church’s errors, faulty leadership or faulty members, Christ’s Kingdom has its visible representation in the church. And, as stated before, this is because were the king is, there is the Kingdom. That is why when Christ came he told the people that the Kingdom of God was among them, because he was among them (Luke 11:20). When the church gathers there, in a special way, is Christ.

Now we acknowledge the current reign of Christ, and yet we can look around and plainly see that not all is as it should be. Hebrew 2:7-9 answers this very dilemma, “You made him for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet.” Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.”

So we see him crowned and nothing is outside his control, yet we don’t currently see everything in subjection to him. The answer the author of Hebrews gives, is that the gospel is at work; for Jesus was “crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.”

Thus our pledge means loyalty to Christ’s mission, and he has given the Church a clear mission as the visible representation of the Kingdom of God on earth. This is commonly known as the Great Commission. And how does that commission begin? It does not begin with “go” as many assume, it begins with the authority of Christ, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”(Matt 28:18). This is the authority we as citizen of the heavenly kingdom march forward with. All heaven and earth is God’s, and thus to we seek the spiritual domination of the planet. This is not done by mere political action but can only be carried out by the Gospel. While the Great Commission will never succeed simply by our effort, the Great Commission will succeed ultimately in its intent (whether for mercy or judgment) because Christ has all authority to bring it about, and Christ does not fail.

We then are heralds for a Kingdom not of this world, for the Kingdom of God is inseparable from the Gospel. Multiple times it is described as “The Gospel of the Kingdom” (Matt 4:23, Matt 9:35, Matt 24:14, Mark 1:14-15) in which men repent and believe. No other entity on earth has this task. The proclamation of the Gospel is given to the church, and if the church fails to be loyal to Christ in doing so, no hospital, charity, college, institution, non-profit, or any other entity has been tasked with this unique mission from God.

If the most important event that ever happened in human history is the coming of Christ, then the essential and unique mission of the church… is its calling by God to proclaim that gospel in word and sacrament. The gospel of Christ is its treasure; the church is the earthen vessel whose sacred obligation is to proclaim the gospel and to gather a people around that gospel, forming them through the Spirit in the Body of Christ. No other institution has that calling; no other institution will promote the gospel if the church fails in its task. So churches must take with the utmost seriousness the terrible simplicity of their task. Of course they must be engaged in deeds of charity, and they must be concerned with justice. Of course they must involve themselves in many other activities – financial, administrative, and educational. Of course they must witness in the public sphere. But the church is not primarily a political actor, a social transformer, or an aggressive interest group. If it acts primarily as one of these, it is identified and treated as one more contentious worldly group. What’s more, it loses its own integrity, its own reason for being. Currently we are witnessing many churches losing confidence and zeal for their essential and unique calling. They no longer believe their gospel message is of utmost importance. They marginalize it in their own actives and institutions.[1] – Robert Benne.

When we are Loyal to Christ, we seek first his Kingdom and the righteous of him, day by day, and let him work out the details. Thus we should not be anxious enough to lose sight of the primacy of his Kingdom no matter what political tides may come, or how dark it may get. When we are loyal to Christ, ultimately only then are we on the right side of history. So what will you do? Where do your loyalties lie? Will you despair over some ideal that is fading away? Or will you see this as a time when the light of God’s Kingdom can shine brighter? Will you retreat into one of the two ditches of either isolation or conformity to Christ’s enemies? Or will you be Loyal to Christ, by being Loyal to what Christ is loyal to? This is not a call to political apathy nor is it a call for inaction. Far from it, it is a call to gospel shaped, gospel motivated, and gospel formed action. We must seek first his kingdom and not treat it as a mere consolation prize, for if we can grasp a hold of his Kingdom we have grasped the eternal riches of his glory. March forward boldly.

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.

“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”[2]

[1] Amy E. Black and Stanley N. Gundry, eds., Five Views On the Church and Politics, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2015), 69-70.

[2] J R R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, one volume ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1994), 50.