(upbeat music) - Today is July 4th, which is Independence Day here in the United States, and Matt writes in to ask this question. Obviously as Christians, we are to live as pilgrims on this earth. Is there an appropriate place in the Christian life for patriotism? - Yes, there is.

And it's right, we are pilgrims. We're called exiles, we're refugees, we're sojourners, 1 Peter 2. Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles, abstain from the passions that wage war against your flesh, or Philippians 3, our citizenship is in heaven. So the question is framed rightly. We are citizens of heaven.

We are sojourners and pilgrims on the earth. And that's owing to the fact that this world is fallen, not the fact that it's created. We're gonna spend eternity in a created world, but Satan won't be the God of that world anymore. That's what makes us feel so alien here is that the God of this world is Satan.

He holds such extensive sway. The world is permeated with sin. It makes us feel like we're not at home. We're just aching that we be done with sin and be in the presence of holiness. So when I say we're aliens and exiles and sojourners and pilgrims, I don't mean that the earth is a place we despise.

I mean that the structures we find ourselves in are so permeated with sin, we want something new. However, God means for us to be enmeshed in this world. We are not of the world, but we are in the world, and we're supposed to be in it. We're in a city and we're in a state, and we're in a country and we're in a continent.

And if I ask, now what is patriotism in this enmeshment? My answer is that patriotism is a special love for fatherland, could be a city, might love your city in a special way, a state, a country, a tribe, an ethnicity. And that love is different from the general love that Christians have for everybody or for the whole earth.

And the reason I think that's true, that there is and it's good that there is special affections for our homeland, is that the Bible seems to point in that direction in several ways. Here's an example. Paul in Galatians 6 said, "As you have opportunity, "do good to everyone, especially to those "who are of the household of faith." It's as though there's this specialness about those that are close to you, and there's a kind of affection for them that is different.

Or 1 Timothy 5, verse eight, "If anyone does not provide for his relatives, "and especially for the members of his household, "he's denied the faith." So it seems like it's right, not just to have this general love spread over the whole world, and everybody has exactly the same affections from us, but rather there's an especially.

And we know that Paul in Romans 9 said that if he could, he'd be accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen, according to the flesh. So there's something about this fleshness, this being bound together in a family way or a cultural way with a group that makes us love them with an unusual kind of affection.

And as I was thinking about it, Lewis, C.S. Lewis gave me some help because Lewis wrote this book, "The Four Loves," and philos, friendship, and eros, sex, and agape, the love of God. And the one that I think is relevant here is storge. Storge is affection. It's what you feel for a pair of slippers that your wife thinks you should have thrown away a long time ago, but they fit just right.

Or an old raggedy doll that a kid wants to keep even though it's just no good for anything except that kid. Or a sweater with holes in it that you've worn to read and study in for years. Or an old tree where you carved your initials as a young couple and you just love to go back to that tree.

You love to watch that tree. That tree means more than other trees. Or the lagoon where Noelle and I were engaged has a special place. So there's a kind of affection for a tree or a sweater or slippers, and for a city, and for a fatherland, a language, a culture.

Why? Because it fits you. When you leave it, get on a plane, go to another country, there could be excitement and challenge and stimulation. You may even find those other cultures superior in some ways to your own. But when you come home, it fits like the slippers fit. It's just full of good associations like that tree where you carved your initials.

So it seems to me that this is good and the goodness is implied in those especiallys in the Bible. God created us to be in skin and in languages and in cultures. He doesn't mean for us to despise our skin and our languages and our cultures, but to be at home in them and to feel good about them.

And when I think of other passages that point in the direction of patriotism, Romans 13 surely implies some kind of patronism because Romans 13, when it says submit to those in authority implies that a government, a country, a state has the right to use the sword to maintain order and to defend itself against aggression.

And if it does, that means God is saying it has a right to be. And if it has a right to be and to preserve what it is, then the people who live there give approval to that. They say, we like that, we're glad that we are and that we are culturally the way we are.

And they can say that without putting down other cultures. You don't have to be negative about England because you're pro-America in the sense of loving some of the distinctives that God has made in this place. So I think I would probably wrap it up by saying whatever form your patriotism takes, let it be with a deep sense that we are more closely bound to brothers in Christ in other countries and other cultures than we are to our closest unbelieving compatriot in the fatherland.

God is our King and no man, his kingdom is our final allegiance. But under that banner, it is right to be thankful that God gave us our land freely, thankful that people paid a high price to preserve it and thankful that we have these slippers that feel so comfortable.

- That's a wonderful reminder for us on this Independence Day in the United States. Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for listening to this podcast. Please email your questions to us at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org. At desiringgod.org, you will find thousands of free books, articles, sermons, and other resources from John Piper.

I'm your host, Tony Ranke. Thanks for listening. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)