Where is your citizenship?

Serving with YWAM, which has an amazing international representation, I could talk to ten people and get ten different answers around the lunch table; however, if I asked during a time of prayer or worship, the resounding answer would be “Heaven!”  With so much of our lives tied to the here-and-now, our functional citizenship matters and is understandably on the forefront of our minds; we actually have to work to remember our spiritual citizenship, so much of which is unseen.

This is hardest when our environment seems so far from where we desire it to be.  When brokenness, injustice, and corruption are all around us, we can lose sight of God’s Kingdom in our efforts to fix the earthly kingdom.  Sometimes, we can believe we are fixing it for Him, while ultimately creating only a faded facsimile.

This isn’t new.  The Apostle Paul and his contemporaries faced this as a well:

Join together in following my example, brothers and sisters, and just as you have us as a model, keep your eyes on those who live as we do. For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.
Philippians 3:17-21

 

They too saw brokenness, injustice, and corruption, and Paul emphasized “but our citizenship is in heaven.”  What does this mean though?  does “eagerly await a Savior” mean we sit back and do nothing about our current reality as we wait for Jesus’s return?

Paul invites us into something more powerful than sitting back or driving change.

• Paul wants us to know where we place our confidence.  In the face of hardship, we tend to have an idea of what needs to happen for things to be better, and who can get it done, and therein lies our confidence.  There are many Christians who have put their full faith in politicians, usually as a result of fear of some impending outcome (which is sometimes stoked by said politicians.)  Scripture is clear that humans are perpetually driven by motives, agendas, and emotions; as Jeremiah 17:9 puts it, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick.”  It is not wrong to keep our eyes on leaders — Paul calls for it in verse 17 — but we must be mindful of who they are watching.  The person we are looking to may seem fine, but who they follow can lead them to “set their minds on earthly things.”  This is why Paul says, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.” (1 Corinthians 11:1)  His life was driven by giving up the earthly things (v7) and he precedes his invitation to follow him with “whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” (1 Corinthians 10:31)  Placing our confidence in the wrong thing will inevitably let us down; Paul positioned his mind differently, putting no confidence in the flesh, and all in God:
  • “Watch out for those dogs, those evildoers, those mutilators of the flesh. For it is we who are the circumcision, we who serve God by his Spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh— ” (v2-3)
• He makes it clear human capacity is not just limited, it may be garbage.  When we see things that need to change, we look to the strongest, the smartest, the richest, and the most connected to make it happen.  So much of our reality is controlled by power and wealth that we will align with the powerful and wealthy if it means things will get done; unfortunately, history has frequently revealed that the powerful and wealthy can veer self-serving to disastrous results.  Paul himself was actually in a tremendously influential position, and had successfully used his power to address huge issues against God; it was later that he realized his pursuit killed future brothers and sisters in Christ.  Upon meeting the true Jesus, Paul looked at his human capacity and realized it was not only insufficient, but actually detrimental to the cause of Christ:
  • “…though I myself have reasons for such confidence.
    If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.
    But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ…” (v4-8)
• Paul knows there is a true goal that the lesser goals must come under.  Desiring what Christ desires does not mean that we disregard all else.  Jesus intentionally shared from Isaiah to make it clear that he cared both for the eternal body and the physical body.  Paul knew that in order to truly impact the here-and-now, we must live into Jesus’s mandate in Matthew 6:33: “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”  At any point we pursue lesser goals — no matter how important — at the expense of seeking God, we fail both.
  • “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” (v12-14)  

You may feel strongly about certain agendas, but if you fight for them without first 1) addressing where you’ve placed your confidence, 2) owning the limitation of human capacity, and 3) naming the most important goal, your fight may be in vain, or worse, go against God Himself.  The Teachers of the Law felt strongly about upholding the law, but many 1) put confidence in themselves, 2) believed they had full power and authority, and 3) decided their purpose was to take down all perceived threats, and as a result they pursued the brutal murder of the Son of the God they claimed to serve.

The only way to avoid falling into this is to embrace that our citizenship is in heaven, and that is an entirely different Kingdom than the one we know.  Scripture is clear that God can restore nations, but the pathway there is not reliant on man alone.  Understanding what Kingdom citizenship is will reshape our understanding of who God is, what He can do, and our role in the midst.  This does not come without a cost; as Paul shared in verses 4-8, it cost him all of his power, influence, reputation, and safety, as well as giving up the reality he had known for decades.  He had to let his mind be renewed around how God’s Kingdom works, and set his eyes on the Christ who had called him.  What was vital for him then is vital for us today:

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
Romans 12:2