Geopolitics or the gospel? What is our priority?

"What do we fear enough to talk to strangers about? Our spiritual mandate is to Seek FIRST God’s Kingdom. We must be obsessed with the business of heaven – because only then will the business of earth fall into the right perspective.

Jeremiah 29v13 – “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” Our passion and obsession must be for lost human beings to find and be found by this Living God – because without that they will perish.

Do we fear eternal perishing enough to speak to strangers about it? We talk to strangers about what we are obsessed with. Whether we are in a quiet revival or not – it is time to get serious about what really matters.

The divine rescue of Jesus, by His death and resurrection, utterly changes our perspective on all the “wars and rumours of wars”, the political earthquakes and the social crises, when we grasp that nothing matters more than salvation, that there is no greater thing than knowing Jesus, that the Luke 16 beggar who died at the gate was truly richer by far than the wealthy man in his mansion.

The Divine Emperor over all God’s kingdom set the agenda for us as His citizens – not only in His own obsession with the day of judgment in His parables and His intense narrow focus on salvation, but also in the evangelistic focus of His final commission as He ascended to His throne.

When we love and obsess about the Living God with all our emotion, attention and energy, then everything else will fall into place. Indeed, the Bible repeatedly tells us it is better to die of physical hunger than to be starved of the Word of God.

However, some of us spend a great deal of time and energy debating, sharing opinions about and even campaigning for one political regime or another.

Yet, imagine if we COULD find a political system that knew how to create an ideal healthcare system where most people lived to 100 in good health, a wonderful and relevant education system for all, and an economy where plenty abounded, leaving nobody hungry, unhoused, or harmed. Imagine a justice system delivering true justice without corruption, and foreign policies that genuinely created partnerships and peace.

If such a political party could deliver this right now, we must ask: Would this result in a nation on fire for Jesus? Would it produce zeal for the LORD God Almighty, and would such a nation possess ETERNAL LIFE?

Critically, would this prosperity have any lasting relevance to the true nature and destiny of human beings? Jesus warned that it is especially difficult for prosperous people to enter His kingdom because contentment with the passing pleasures and treasures of this brief life is too easy.

Deuteronomy 8 offers a powerful warning: “When you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, then your heart WILL become proud and you WILL forget the Lord your God…”

Even as those who are Christians, do we find prosperity and peace brings us closer to the Living God? When have we known His reality most of all? The book of Amos has been such a powerful challenge in this. The LORD, through Jonah, gave Israel two generations of prosperity and peace – yet instead of drawing nearer to Him they continuously failed to seek Him. They were more concerned with houses and hospitality than the eternal realities that matter so much more.

Jesus was direct: “Do not worry about food and clothing – all the basic demands of this mortal life. The pagans fight over these things. Your heavenly Father knows that you need them”. His command is clear: “INSTEAD, make God’s kingdom your obsession. Focus on what God sees as right. THEN, all these temporary concerns will be sorted” (my own amplified translation – see Matt. 6v31-33).

Jesus never commented on the foreign or domestic policies of Israel, nor the Roman or Persian empires. That is a fact that is worthy of frequent meditation.

His apostles followed this example, choosing not to inform us how they voted in Roman or Persian elections. Instead, Jesus told us we would hear of “wars and rumours of wars,” but we were NOT to be alarmed. The great, final goal of history for the church of the Living God is not to fix geopolitics, but to preach the gospel to all nations.

As Matthew 24v6-14 clarifies, though these things must take place, they are not the end of the world. Nations will go to war against nations, and there will be famines and earthquakes. All this simply shows that “something better is on the way”. Even amidst persecution, betrayal, and the cooling of love, the promise stands: “The Good News of the Kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world, so that all nations will hear it.”

This means we must spend far LESS time consumed by “wars and rumours of wars,” and far MORE time preaching the Good News of Jesus, particularly to those suffering the wars, earthquakes and famines.

A local church is infinitely more precious to this world than a million forces of mere flesh and blood. We are instructed: “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matt.10v28).

In the journals of Christians from earlier centuries, their emotional energy was grasped by their own mortality and that of their family, the faithfulness of their local church, their sins and holiness, and lessons learned from the Bible and life’s trials. There was little of the strange busyness about national and international crises.

Unless we are in positions of governmental responsibility, dedicating hundreds of hours to high-quality research on every global issue is pointless – working out what is my opinion about the conflict in Sudan, to money liquidity measures, to the tensions in the Galwan Valley [a Himalayan area disputed by India and China], or the justice of income tax.

We do not feel morally obligated to know how to fix a leaking pipe or a car engine, so why is there an expectation that we should know how to run a nation or even all the political challenges in the world? When the news cycle demands our attention, we quickly cobble together opinions to proclaim our “answers” – but even if we end up with more informed opinions, is that a good use of our time and attention?

Would the Apostle John have been wiser to dedicate his time and attention to well-thought-through opinions about Persian expansion or Roman taxation? Should Paul have told the Corinthians more of his perspectives on how the Roman empire might enact policies that were more in line with God’s kingdom?

Local church is the city on a hill. Church family life is the light of the world – the light that must shine out into the darkness of this present age. How can we write blogs or petitions telling prime ministers or presidents what policies they should enact to bring about justice, love and goodness IF we are not manifesting how it all works as a local church family?

The Lord Jesus commands us to act towards those in our local church family with justice, mercy, and humility as a life of worship before the Living God. Church is where we learn to share what we possess, allowing that generosity to overspill to those being drawn in.

Joining with nearby and global churches to pray and share resources, church is God’s answer to the world’s problems. As churches we link up together all over the world to hold out the gospel to infinitely precious men and women who are without God, heading to damnation.

When people speak to us or observe the way we live, what do they discover about our true passion? What is it that we fear enough to talk to strangers about?”