Hope Lake Country Podcast Jason Ewart

In the 1900s, the American Dream wasn’t about individual wealth and possessions. It was about community flourishing. That dream didn’t just want the grass at our house to be green but our neighbors as well. Today, the American Dream is simply the individual pursuit of more. Today we have more and consume more. More cars, more square footage, more technology, and more possessions. We also have more debt, more anxiety, more loneliness, and a bigger environmental footprint than ever before. Americans continue to consume and are never satisfied. Jesus warned about the deceitfulness of wealth and the desire for things because they won’t give us the life we are looking for. The truth is the more we consume, the more our possessions consume us. When we can break free from our possessions, we have space to pursue what truly matters.

The American Christian Church is known for being divided more than it is known for being united. It’s known for what it’s against rather than for what it’s for. Church people have behaved with as much as (or more) godlessness as people who don’t go to church. As a result, Americans haven’t left the church because THEY don’t believe what Jesus teaches, but because the CHURCH doesn’t seem to believe what Jesus teaches. If we’re going to make our generation think twice about throwing baby Jesus out with the church bathwater, it will only happen if we return to the number one value of God’s Kingdom.

Culture wars become an incredibly divisive topic within American culture. As a nation, we’re at odds over immigration policy, gun laws, abortion, support for Ukraine, support for Israel, and more. Some Christians respond by retreating from these culture wars. Others respond by attacking their cultural enemies. This Sunday we’re going to see that Jesus did not intend for us to retreat from culture wars. Nor did he intend for us to fight them. He taught us that the objective isn’t to win culture wars, but to pursue something far more important.

The trust that citizens have in government institutions has been cratering in recent years. The
public’s faith in the government is at all-time lows. But how’s your faith in God? Is it also
running low? Because there’s an important link between your relationship with God and your
relationship with the government.

Jesus never fought to reform the political system of his day. Neither did the early church. Instead, they loved the people sitting in institutional chairs (along with everyone else) and invited them to repent and believe. They di it without taking up political positions? Why? Because they weren’t interested in saving Judea, they were interested in saving Jews. They weren’t worried about saving Rome. They were worried about saving Romans. Their focus was fixed on what happens after this life because they didn’t see their earthly home as their native
land. They saw heaven as their native land. America is not a city on a hill. The church is. And we will be the light to all the earth when we firmly plant our feet in the soil of our true native
land.

We live in an age of expressive individualism, and Americans uphold “freedom” as our highest value. But what began in America as political freedom, hallmarked by empowering citizens and giving everyone an equal vote, has devolved into radical individualism, in which no one has the right to restrict the individual. And this is one reason why society is fragmenting. It’s going to get worse until we realize that a lack of restrictions doesn’t lead to freedom but enslavement. It is the careful selection of the right restrictions that leads to freedom.