What is government? In most people's minds it turns to Washington DC, their state capital, or the realm of civil government. The secularist has done their job well because even in the church that is where most of our minds drift. To be Biblical, government starts nowhere near the political arena. In fact, government, rightly understood, simply means order and exercising of authority.

Government does not start with others, but rather it starts with God and then moves to ourselves. When the Bible speaks of government, in the singular, it refers to the rule and reign of Jesus Christ (Isaiah 9:6-7). If Jesus is indeed Lord of all, then He is the Author of all order and authority. There can be no person, institution, or civil authority out of the scope of His reign. No institution is independent of His ways and precepts. The minute any person, group, or organization rejects the ways of God, it has put itself in peril.

God set up government from the earliest moments in the book of Genesis. It is called "self-government". The first order that should come to anyone's life, is the order of self-control and responsibility. This means that as individuals we recognize the ways and rule of the Lord and implement that order into our lives. That order is God-centered. It is not perpetuated by selfishness, unrestraint, and disrespect for your fellow man. It is the ability to live life in such a way that respects the design of the Creator in the creation. This self-government is from THE HEART. Someone who cannot self-govern themselves must be FORCED by law to obey lest they trample on the rights of others by their selfish pursuits. (This is why Civil Governments are established)

However, no society or nation will ever work properly until we understand that we must first govern ourselves in our pursuits and passions before we can ever assume to govern peoples and nations. To deny self-government is to abdicate personal responsibility. No nation will last for long when we lose the moral imperative to live well because we want to and not just because we have to. Freedom is not the ability to do only what the carnal heart dictates, but rather true freedom is the ability to live abundantly under the hand of God Who has established His boundaries in order to make life peaceful and joyful.

So, if government starts with the individual and God desires to be King first, over individuals lives, what can we begin to see as we consider what needs to happen in our country?

1. Larger and larger Civil government is not the answer to our problems in America. We must find ways to reduce the size of Civil Government in order to put the responsibility of order and authority back on the individual. Again, this is not to say that there is not a place for Civil Government (We will eventually talk about that), but it starts in our hearts. People need to feel the burden for personal responsibility again and not be lulled into the deception that Civil Government can fulfill all their wants and desires in life. It is their choice to be governed by God or not and the repercussion of that choice needs to be felt. (We will also visit the topic of compassion later as well)

2. The next level of government is FAMILY. The family must be valued and strengthened in every way possible and certainly not harmed or undermined. That is why marriage is to be esteemed (between one man and one woman), divorce is to be avoided if possible, and abortion needs to be stopped. Anything that assaults the family needs to be avoided and challenged. Family is our first level of support and structure in difficult times.

3. Certain precepts begin to develop as we see the unfolding of government even in these early stages. We see power and responsibility being invested in the individual. That is why Jesus instructed people in His day and not civil institutions. Never do we see Jesus addressing Rome, Pilate or Herod and tell them they lacked compassion or needed to start a new program to "help" everyone. No, instead He looked at people and said, "YOU show compassion, YOU put the Samaritan in the hotel, YOU go the extra mile, YOU give up your cloak." (Again, we will show you the place for proper civil help, but get this in your system first) The principle emerges that government works best when it can be distilled down to the individual and family.

I will stop there today and promise you that I will come back to the concepts of anarchy and radical individualism (selfishness) as well. But allow the Lord to start building in you the concepts so as a Christian you will not be led astray by rhetoric on either side of the political spectrum. We are just getting started!

Pastor Baird