Wake Up, Look Up

Hello, everyone.
Thanks for listening to Wake Up, Look Up, a podcast where we connect events happening in real time to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
I'm Zach Weihrauch.
In today's episode, we're talking about the American moral decline, and we're asking the question, is Russia the new promised land?
This is prompted by an unbelievable article I read in the Washington Post recently about a family, and this family typifies, believe it or not, a growing trend of Christians who are so concerned about the direction in which America is moving culturally that they've decided to move to Russia to reinforce their Christian values.

In fact, Russia is advertising something they launched in August of twenty twenty four called the anti woke visa.
And, basically, they've identified 47 countries, one of which is The United States, that they are arguing are moving in a woke direction.
And if you wanna escape wokeness, you can do that by moving to Russia, and in three years of living on this visa, become a citizen.
Russia's beginning to ramp up a social media campaign, but by the way, run by a woman who was convicted in The United States of being a spy that's advertising to American families, not just American families, but to Christian families that if you're worried about the direction your country country is going in, maybe you would be happier in Russia, which shares your values, which is laughable, by the way, considering that in Russia, president Putin, so called, can't has his political opponents killed.
Russia, which has a horrific track record when it comes to human rights, but somehow, apparently, they better represent the values of Christianity.

Russia is positioning itself, if you will, as the promised land for American Christians who are worried about the direction of their country.
Well, this podcast is not going to be an anti Russian government podcast.
I don't have that kind of time.
The evidence is too overwhelming.
Instead, it's gonna be a podcast aiming at the undercurrent of this.

Because I think there's something going on here that lives in your heart and in mind that is insidious and actually anti gospel.
Let me walk you through the logic here.
First, understand this.
No earthly nation is righteous.
None.

Including, by the way, when Israel was a theocracy and God was its leader.
Have you read the old testament?
Even then, with God, leading his people through Moses, through Joshua, through Samuel, through you name them, the people were wicked.
That's because anywhere there are people, there is sin.
And one of my old favorite old preacher jokes is about a guy who lived on a deserted island, and when they finally picked him up, they pointed to two huts on the beach.

And they said, what's that first building?
And he said, oh, that's my church.
And they said, what's the second building?
He said, that's my new church.
I left my old one.

It's a funny joke because it makes the point that even on a deserted island with a church with one person, we find reasons to be upset.
People are people.
They're sinful.
They're wicked.
You're sinful.

I'm wicked.
Every country, therefore, has its problems, Russia and America.
The Bible, by the way, doesn't mince words about this.
It tells us the cultures we live in are tainted by sin.
But here's the biggest point.

The Bible tells us not to try to escape sinful culture, but to engage it.
Jesus actually prays in his high priestly prayer in the gospel of John.
He says to God, I don't want you to take them out of the world, but to be with them in the world.
Jesus literally says that running out of your country because of the sin is the opposite of what he wants for you.
By the way, doesn't that make sense?

Because it's pretty much the opposite of what Jesus did.
Jesus happened to live in a perfect kingdom.
It was called heaven.
You might have heard of it.
And he left heaven to come to our broken world in order to rescue us.

So as the people of Jesus, we don't run from brokenness.
We run to it with the gospel, the message of ultimate restoration.
Listen.
Injustice can be confronted by the gospel.
It can be changed.

Trading America for Russia or any other country is simply trading one brand of corruption for another, one version of sinfulness for another.
Now listen, you're not gonna move to Russia and neither am I, but that doesn't mean the idea of retreat doesn't appeal to us.
Many of us spend our lives trying to build our own kind of Christian country within the larger country, and that isn't what God wants.
We are sent into the world.
Jesus says in the gospel of Matthew chapter 28, go in to the nations.

The apostle Paul in Acts 17 is brokenhearted over the sin in Athens, and as a result, he shares the gospel.
He doesn't build a Christian community bubble, and he doesn't move to Russia.
So let me ask you some difficult questions in response to this podcast.
Are you retreating?
Do you have friends that don't know Jesus?

Have you shared with them your faith?
Are you participating in the pushing back of evil?
Are you participating in the work of Jesus to make all things new?
The kingdom of God is on the advance, and we don't retreat into so called safe places.
We wanna live lives on the cutting edge of kingdom advance, believing that greater is he than it is us than he is in the world.

There is a promised land coming, and I have to tell you, it's not America, and it certainly isn't Russia.
It's a kingdom led by the one true king, Jesus.
Hey.
Thanks for watching this episode of Wake Up, Look Up.
If you enjoyed it, please help us get the word out by sharing it with someone you think might benefit from it.

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Have an article you’d like Pastor Zach to discuss? Email us at wakeup@ccchapel.com!