I look at our country's flag this morning with a mixture of emotions.
Today is the anniversary of Al Qaeda's attack on the Twin Towers in New York City in 2001. I was a student at Southern Seminary taking a Hebrew I when a student came into class late while informing us of the attack. After class, we all congregated around any television we could find, watching the footage and hearing reports of who was responsibile and why.
Then in 2012, four dignitaries were killed in Benghazi, Libya, when members of Ansar al-Sharia, an Islamic militant group, attack two different US government buildings. Four Americans were killed while defending the complex: Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, Sean Smith, as well as CIA operatives Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods.
On August 27, a shooting took place at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis while a Catholic school was observing mass. Two dead, 21 injured, and lots and lots of questions regarding the state of the shooter.
Earlier this week in Charlotte, DeCarlos Brown stabbed Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on their Light Rail, igniting questions about ebb and flow of the criminal justice system.
And yesterday, with the assassination of Turning Point USA Founder Charlie Kirk (only 31 years old), who was speaking at an event at Utah Valley University, we have a compounding of flashpoint of tragic events all transpiring during the same time of the year. While I didn't follow Kirk's career as closely as other political conservatives, I did see enough of his work online to note that he sought to engage college students (among others) on the issues of the day. And, as Albert Mohler noted on his podcast this morning, he went from being a secular conservative (almost to the point of full-blown libertarian) to a conservative whose values were formed by his new-found faith in Christ. (It should be noted that the last message he had for the students at Utah Valley University was the sharing of his faith in Christ and trust in the Scriptures.)
And now, I look to the Scriptures, a place that anchors me far more than our country's flag every did because, in Christ, our primary citizenship is in heaven (Philippians 3:20-21). How should we react?
Nehemiah Helps Us
Last night at our Wednesday night study and prayer time, we looked at the book of Nehemiah. Nehemiah and the people of Israel were in exile in Persia due to their unfaithfulness in their Promised Land. Nehemiah received news about the dire situation in Jerusalem. So Nehemiah faced a crisis.
Now it happened in the month of Chislev, in the twentieth year, as I was in Susa the citadel, that Hanani, one of my brothers, came with certain men from Judah. And I asked them concerning the Jews who escaped, who had survived the exile, and concerning Jerusalem. And they said to me, “The remnant there in the province who had survived the exile is in great trouble and shame. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates are destroyed by fire.”
No walls, no gates, no protection, no safety. This was a crisis of the first order. Where did Nehemiah go? I'll tell you where he did not go: inward to vengeful anger, or outward against the perpetrators. He brought the issues that arose from the crisis upward. Look at verse 4:
As soon as I heard these words I sat down and wept and mourned for days, and I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven.
Weeping and mourning--for days. As well as the continuation of fasting and praying. Nehemiah shows us a few things with this reaction:
First, he didn't seek to articulate the pain from this crisis right away. For us, when we hear of crises that arise, what do we do? We take to our keyboards and find a social media outlet to articulate, pontificate, and gesticulate our views on the matter. Some chose the pray, others chose to share their brokenheartedness over the acts itself and the apparent state of our nation. Others, however, chose to say that, for example, Charlie Kirk had this coming for his controversial views and confrontational manner of engagement (I'm looking at you, recently-fired MSNBC correspondent Matthew Dowd, among others).
I appreciate how some pastors have already thought through the issues that arose from this and other acts and helped articulate well how we Christians should respond. We need those voices, and we ourselves need to make sure we're sitting down and thinking through these matters (myself included, even as I realize I may be violating my own advice).
We need to stop, weep, mourn, fast, pray, and seek after God for wisdom. Yet, we must also possess another needed trait.
Secondly, Nehemiah had a resolve.
In Nehemiah 1:4-11, Nehemiah's prayer possessed some helpful components: adoration (1:5), confession (1:6-7), and for a desire for success and mercy for his people (1:11). In the midst of this prayer, Nehemiah remembers God's promises and seeks to remind God of those promises:
Remember the word that you commanded your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the peoples, but if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them, though your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there I will gather them and bring them to the place that I have chosen, to make my name dwell there’ (Nehemiah 1:8-9).
He prays for the faithfulness of God's people in a foreign land. The Word grounded his resolve--and, honestly, is there any better anchor than this? But how would this play out? At the time, he didn't know. He was praying for a heaven-sent success and mercy. And from this prayer, a strategy formed.
In Nehemiah 2:1-8, five months after the prayer in Nehemiah 1, he serves King Artaxerxes in sadness--no matter how much he tried to hide this. Sadness in the presence of the king usually ended badly (and deadly). Yet, one could conclude that there was a good relationship between the king and his cupbearer (a trusted position, to be sure).
The cat of sadness was out of the bag, so Nehemiah exclaimed his concerned about his homeland (Nehemiah 2:3). When the king asked his request, we see in 2:4 what Nehemiah did: “So I prayed to the God of heaven.” I call this a flare prayer. This prayer ensued from the larger, deeper prayer, weeping, mourning, and fasting from Nehemiah 1.
From here on, we see Nehemiah clear about the strategy and tactics needed to rebuild the wall. God was gracious to grant his request (2:8), and God provided resolve for Nehemiah to return under safe conduct to encourage and recruit men to “arise and build” (Nehemiah 2:20) even when critics abounded.
What's next for us?
God's people need a prayerful resolve to see the crisis before us; to mourn, pray, weep, fast; and then from that time before him, to resolve to obey and declare His glory among the nations and wonders among all peoples, regardless of the cost. In an effort to seem above the fray and a longing for a seat at the societal table, we have given up ground and compromised the gospel.
The gospel offends, even as (I believe) we shouldn't. The moment we start venturing into the deep end of the biblical pool and make waves, there will be resistance. Yet, we see how far our society has drifted away from the design God has for His created order. Marriage? Family? Care for our children? Sexuality? The gospel? Safety? In an effort to reach the culture, we risk becoming like the culture, and then there's little difference.
By resolve, that doesn't mean we are ugly, self-righteous jerks. What it does mean is that where God speaks, we heed. And since all of creation belongs to Him, we should be ready to share on where God has spoken. And, most of all, ready to share the gospel of Christ so that hearts and minds are transformed to receive His gospel and His Word joyfully and gladly.
Pray, mourn, weep, fast, take time in His Word, but then ask God for a resolve to do what He calls us to--the Great Commandment, the Great Commission, and the Great Calling in the culture. Stand strong and move forward for the glory of God and the gospel of Christ.