Have you ever locked eyes with a stranger and just known — before a single word was spoken — that they were a believer? That inexplicable, instant connection? That’s what this episode is all about.
No matter where in the world you’re listening from — whether you’re in New Zealand, Nigeria, France, or right here in North America — you know what it feels like to belong to a nation. You know your flag, your food, your music, your history. That sense of belonging runs deep. It’s who you are at your core.
But here’s what the Word of God lays out so beautifully, and what just lit me up when I first heard it taught by Dr. Kenny Francis: the church is literally called a nation in Scripture. Not a metaphor. Not an analogy. A holy nation — with its own language, its own culture, its own attitudes, its own music — and a belonging that outlasts every border and every flag that’s ever flown.
In this episode, Dad and I dig into what that really means — from the seismic shift of Pentecost to the structure of the local church community, from First Peter to Philippians. We talk about what makes us recognizable as citizens of this spiritual nation, and why that identity has to be the deepest one we carry.
This isn’t just theology. This is your story — and mine.
Key Takeaways
Jacob Paul: Welcome to the Truth in Love podcast with your hosts Kimberly Faith and John Mac. The Truth in Love podcast seeks to present God’s timeless truth through the lens of his remarkable love.
Kimberly Faith: Well, dad, this is a great, great topic that we’re talking about today because I think it pertains to every person in the entire world, because everybody belongs to some nation.
John McLarty: You might say it’s a very relatable topic.
Kimberly Faith: That’s right.
John McLarty: Our new word, relatable.
Kimberly Faith: That’s right. And you know, we talk about this a lot how the Bible is often couched in terms of being old fashioned or out of date. But if you really know God, and if you study his word, you find, you discover, that it is actually the most relatable book that was ever written because it was written inspired by God who created us and knows us. And so I just wanted to camp out on that word relatable for a minute.
John McLarty: Yeah. And God wants to have a relationship with us.
Kimberly Faith: That’s what’s so remarkable.
John McLarty: It’s amazing.
Kimberly Faith: So remarkable.
John McLarty: He makes this world so relatable and it gives us spiritual truths.
Kimberly Faith: Yes.
John McLarty: So many of the things we see in the physical world give us spiritual truth and this is one of those things.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: This idea of a place of belonging, a nation, a country.
Kimberly Faith: Right. And so just to give people the, you know, everybody that’s listening to this, kind of the bottom line up front. We’re going to talk about the church as a nation and it’s not, I think the church has throughout history gotten a really bad name by a lot of things that happened and were done in the name of God.
John McLarty: Exactly.
Kimberly Faith: Just a lot of lawyers have bad names, doctors have bad names, policemen at any profession because of the bad eggs, right? And, I also want to just apologize for my voice. I am very grateful for my friend, great friend, Jeanne Champagne, who concocted some herbs for me to make my voice actually even to be picked up on a mic today, been suffering from acute bronchitis for about ten days and so I think my voice has dropped a couple decibels.
John McLarty: Well, Kim, you sound a lot better than you did three days ago.
Kimberly Faith: Well
John McLarty: And we’ll attribute that to the great physician with the help of the concoctions of Jeanne Champagne.
Kimberly Faith: Herbal
John McLarty: The herbal concoctions.
Kimberly Faith: The herbalist, right.
John McLarty: The herbalist. She’s actually a certified herbalist.
Kimberly Faith: Right, right.
John McLarty: I saw the picture of the brew she was cooking up. I think it was mullein and
Kimberly Faith: Oh, a whole bunch of stuff.
John McLarty: All kinds of stuff.
Kimberly Faith: Well, so going back though, I, you know, we know that this podcast gets heard all over the world. And so every person listening to this comes from a different national story. Different flags, different foods, different languages, different histories, and different cultures, right? And what this podcast is really emphasizing is the church as a national culture. Not in the sense of a physical nation, but more of a spiritual nation. And how that needs to be our greatest identity even above our physical national identity. Because it is a permanent spiritual identity that we’re building. Does that make sense?
John McLarty: Yeah. And this isn’t to take away from that pride of the nation you’re a part of because that is even a picture.
Kimberly Faith: Yes.
John McLarty: That’s a picture of how we should feel about the nation that we’re a part of in God’s thinking.
Kimberly Faith: His kingdom, you know. And we’re going to, it’s interesting to me, you know, this idea actually for this podcast came about, when I was listening to a sermon by Doctor Kenny Francis. And he showed us in scripture where the church is actually referred to as a nation. And, we’ll get to that in just a minute, but I want to bring this up now because just to kind of connect the dots, you know, I’ve traveled quite extensively all over the world and, it’s so interesting to me how, and I truly enjoy in, you know, being invited into other cultures, but it is so interesting how when I meet somebody, let’s say I was for example in New Zealand and I met somebody from The US, and there was this connection that was instant, an instant connection. Oh, you’re from Georgia. Oh, okay. Yeah. And so we had all these things to talk about. And what this podcast kind of is designed to do this, the thoughts in this podcast is to build that spiritual national identity that we have as believers. You know, it doesn’t matter where I travel, that same national connection, meaning spiritual connection, spiritual national connection happens. I can be on a plane and like I was I was flying back from Denver a couple weeks ago. And I was sitting next to this guy and I didn’t even have to really hear him talk to know he was a Christian. He had a peace about him. And so eventually, we struck up a conversation and come to find out he was a pastor. And, we had a little mini revival in our aisle and talked about the Lord and it was just, but we knew. We had that instant connection.
John McLarty: So yeah. And similar to running into an American in France or something.
Kimberly Faith: Right. Right.
John McLarty: An example I have of that strong national identity is the family that led us to the Lord were Latvians.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: And at the time we met them, Latvia as a distinct nation had been absorbed into the Soviet Union.
Kimberly Faith: Oh.
John McLarty: So and there had been attempts to, you know, say diminish or even destroy their sense of national identity. But they were in America, they flew the Latvian flag and they, I don’t know if you remember this, they would wake up in the morning and sing the Latvian national anthem.
Kimberly Faith: I did not remember that.
John McLarty: Yeah. And then when the Soviet Union collapsed and Latvia became a nation, got their sovereignty back, some of them moved back.
Kimberly Faith: Interesting.
John McLarty: So that’s a strong identity. And I just say that to say that this idea of the church as a nation and the kingdom of God, that we’re citizens of that heavenly kingdom, that is a strong identity, stronger than our, you know
Kimberly Faith: Well, it’s everlasting.
John McLarty: Yes. Our sense of identity as Americans or Latvians or the French.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: Something else that you kind of brought out, if somebody came and you met someone here and they were from France, you would know just as soon as they started talking.
Kimberly Faith: That’s right.
John McLarty: You know, maybe the way they dress, the way they talk, the songs they sing, the food they like.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: So there are these distinct cultural practices that identify nations.
Kimberly Faith: It’s funny you mentioned that because Jeannie, the lady you were just talking about, actually Jean, she’s French. And she was telling me that a lot of these herbal remedies and stuff that she makes, well, that was inspired from her family. She made me this vapor tent concoction that I boiled and then put a towel over my head and inhaled. She said, oh, yeah, that was commonplace in our family. And her family is French. So you mentioned France. That’s why I brought that up.
John McLarty: Interesting.
Kimberly Faith: And so that is part of her culture. And I think you bring up a really good point, and that is that the first culture that we should be representing is the culture of the kingdom of God.
John McLarty: Exactly.
Kimberly Faith: And that’s, when Jesus said, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it, which we’re going to get to that. You know, he was building a nation that was meant to last forever. So no matter where you’re listening to this podcast, you will understand the idea of a national identity. You’ve got your food, your flag, your music, you’ve got, you know, other cultural norms. And so casting that upward to this idea of a spiritual national identity is just to me, it’s the way Brother Kenny presented this was just brilliant.
John McLarty: Right. And I’m glad you mentioned that because we do have, thankfully and blessed by the Lord an international audience. So we’re not diminishing that at all. In fact, we’re building on that.
Kimberly Faith: Yes. Yes.
John McLarty: Because you can relate to, being from whatever country, you can relate to what we’re about to discuss.
Kimberly Faith: Absolutely. I mean, you think about when you hear your national anthem play, how it makes you feel. It’s because our national identity is so powerful. It’s who we are at the core. It’s where we belong. We know we belong. And that is a very deep human need. And the crazy, wonderful, awesome thing, I just can’t think of enough, you know, adjectives to describe this, is that the Bible actually frames the church in a way that gives us that same sense of belonging and blessing and knowing that we’re included that we experience in our physical national identity.
John McLarty: And to just build interest in this podcast for our listeners, when I first heard this message from Brother Kenny, I’ve been a Christian for fifty years and I knew that Christians were to be distinct, and you know, identifiable, but I never related to the church as a nation. And then it’s not just kind of something, you know, an analogy, that it’s like this is like this.
Kimberly Faith: Right. It’s right out of God’s word.
John McLarty: Kenny pointed out the church is literally a nation referred to as a nation by Jesus.
Kimberly Faith: Let’s read First Peter. Just go right to that, First Peter 2:9 and 10. Do you want to read that?
John McLarty: Sure. First Peter 2:9 and 10. But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, his own special people that you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Who once were not a people but are now the people of God who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy.
Kimberly Faith: I mean, think about that. We are a chosen generation. In other words, it wasn’t an accident. This is, and let’s not confuse this with the, we aren’t preaching here or we aren’t talking here about the, what some people believe is predestination. We’re not talking about that.
We’re talking about the gift that for those who have accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and savior, we are in that gift of the benefits package
John McLarty: We’re chosen in him.
Kimberly Faith: Right. We’re chosen in him. And a royal priesthood, I mean, think about that. Can you imagine being royalty and being part of a, I mean, we are part of a royal family when we are born again. And he uses this word holy nation. That’s pretty direct.
John McLarty: You know, and the word holy is kind of set apart. Distinctive.
Kimberly Faith: Yes. And you know, God calls, in that verse he identifies his own special people. And the Greek word there means treasured possession, which is I mean, to think that God who created every treasure on earth considers us his treasured possession, I can’t wrap my mind around that. I honestly can’t.
John McLarty: And we talked about this in earlier podcasts. God didn’t just save us from hell
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: Like pull us out of the roaring creek and just set us on a creek bank and say see you later.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: He perceives us and treats us with loving kindness. So we are a special people.
Kimberly Faith: Well, and that’s right. And so just thinking about this, for anyone who’s listening, if you are a born again believer, this is for you. This is something, being part of this holy nation. You’re not just an immigrant. Okay? God says, I will make you part of this nation. And what’s interesting is that if we go back to the Old Testament, God used nations in his plan. And I don’t know if you remember the story of, I just want to use this example of during the Babylonian captivity out of the book of Ezra when Cyrus, the king of Persia, which is now modern day Iran, gave an edict. You remember that?
John McLarty: That’s a great story. And this is a little aside here. There are Iranians who still refer to and talk about Cyrus the Great
Kimberly Faith: Really?
John McLarty: The king of Persia. And one of the things Cyrus did that was distinctive, he was one of the first kings that you might say allowed religious liberty.
Kimberly Faith: I didn’t know that.
John McLarty: There were others, you know, there were the Jews there and there was kind of a religious group called the Zoroastrians. And so this was Cyrus’ idea.
Kimberly Faith: Kind of his legacy then.
John McLarty: Yes.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah, very interesting.
John McLarty: He sent Ezra back to rebuild the walls
Kimberly Faith: That’s very interesting.
John McLarty: In Jerusalem.
Kimberly Faith: Why don’t you, do you want to read Ezra 1:2-3, which is kind of just where we’re taking the story from?
John McLarty: Yeah. So thus says Cyrus, king of Persia. All the kingdoms of the earth, the Lord God has given me. The Lord God of heaven has given me. And he has commanded me to build him a house at Jerusalem which is in Judah. Who is among you of all his people? So he’s asking the captives. Who among you of all his people may his God be with him and let him go to Jerusalem which is in Judah and build the house of the Lord God of Israel. He is God which is in Jerusalem.
Kimberly Faith: I mean, I have a hard time believing that Cyrus was not a believer the way this edict is written.
John McLarty: Yeah. Because he talks very personally about all the kingdoms of the earth, the Lord God of heaven hath given me. And he’s talking about God.
Kimberly Faith: Right. His God.
John McLarty: Which is the God of the Bible.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: And he has commanded me to build him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah.
Kimberly Faith: Right. Right. And you know, this is a Persian king from a different nation, and has become an instrument that God is using to restore his people. You know, and Cyrus even returned all the sacred articles stolen from the temple. It goes on in Ezra later in that same chapter to talk about him entrusting them to Sheshbazar, the prince of Judah. So he recognized that the Jewish nation was a separate
John McLarty: Right.
Kimberly Faith: A separate, and distinct ethnos. They had a covenant, they had a law, they had a way of worship.
John McLarty: National identity.
Kimberly Faith: Right. And so, you know, as we’re connecting today to this global audience, you know, God uses any nation to carry out his purpose. And, you know, and what you know, another interesting thing about, you know, Cyrus saying with the passage you read, he said, who is among you of all his people? He’s calling for many Jews that want to go back. They’ve been in captivity for seventy years at this point. What’s interesting, I was reading some history about this, only a very small remnant of the Jews actually went back. And they’d gotten comfortable where they were. And, you know, then we see of course, several hundred years later the coming of Christ. And let’s shift to that because this is kind of a seismic shift. When Jesus comes and this is where he ordains the new nation.
John McLarty: And this is a tremendous shift, so let’s just camp out on this a little bit because all through the Old Testament, God is using nations and we know a lot about nations. Persia, Babylon, the Syrians, the Egyptians, all these nations are mentioned in the Bible.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: And here in this seismic shift, a new nation is brought forth
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
John McLarty: That does not fit the definition of all the nations that they had been accustomed
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: Up to that point.
Kimberly Faith: You know, Jesus, you know, I love reading the gospels. Jesus is so, he’s so kind to everybody except for the religious leaders that are false, you know? And in Matthew 21:43-45, we see him talking about this, you know, announcing basically this stunning reality of a new kingdom. And he says, therefore I say to you and he’s talking to the religious leaders.
John McLarty: The religious leaders of Israel.
Kimberly Faith: That’s right.
John McLarty: He’s talking to yeah. The representatives of Israel.
Kimberly Faith: Right. The people who are supposed to represent the house of God. He says, therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruit of it. And whoever falls on this stone will be broken and on whomever it falls, it will grind them to powder. I think the religious leaders knew exactly what he meant. He was talking about them.
John McLarty: He was, and they knew it. Yeah. They perceived he was talking about them.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah. But you know and so Jesus mentions this new nation that he’s come to build. And I don’t want to, you know, at all portray that Jesus didn’t have kindness and compassion and sorrow over these religious leaders and the leadership of the nation of Israel. Because you know, later in Matthew 23, he laments. He laments over them and over the nation of Israel. He says, oh Jerusalem, oh Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her. How often I wanted to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. See, your house is left to you desolate. I mean, there’s real grief in those words.
John McLarty: Yes. They had rejected him.
Kimberly Faith: Yes.
John McLarty: And so he wasn’t rejoicing about it.
Kimberly Faith: That’s right.
John McLarty: He was saddened about it. And what’s really interesting in the context of where we’re going with this is if some of those religious leaders of Israel perceived what he was saying and you know, of course they rebelled against it and they decided they needed to kill him
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: Around this point actually.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: But they would have normally been thinking, well, what nation is he going to give the house of witness? Kind of where God in this distinct way resides and is the light of the world, they might be thinking, is he going to give it to Egypt?
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: Is he going to give it to Rome?
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: Is he going to give it to you know, back to you know, the Persians?
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: And the whole idea of the church just so blew out the normal thinking of the day as a nation.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: And that’s what’s so fascinating about this study we’re doing.
Kimberly Faith: Well, you make a really valid point. The religious leaders have gotten so far from the relationship with God and into the religious, keeping religious ceremony, instead of worshiping God for who he says he is, that they couldn’t even conceive this eternal kingdom. They were so, it’s kind of like, I think the apostles, the disciples of Christ, you know, of the 12, struggled with this as well.
John McLarty: Right.
Kimberly Faith:They really thought that Jesus was coming to conquer the Romans. It wasn’t, in their minds, it took them a while to kind of understand. And I think, I don’t know this, but it seems like after his resurrection, it kind of stuck like, oh, this is the eternal kingdom. This is the Messiah bringing in his eternal kingdom. This is not about conquering Rome. And we don’t want to, now, we want to make sure we clarify The setting aside of Israel was not a permanent thing.
John McLarty: Right.
Kimberly Faith: And, you know, and let’s read, if you don’t care, would you read Romans 11:25- 27? This is just some verses to remind us that God hasn’t forsaken his promise to Abraham, to David.
John McLarty: All of God’s promises are still true.
Kimberly Faith: That’s right.
John McLarty: But Israel has been set aside.
Kimberly Faith: That’s right.
John McLarty: That’s a great point.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
John McLarty: So yeah, this out of Romans 11:25-27. For I do not desire brethren that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion. This blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved as it is written. The deliverer will come out of Zion and he will turn away ungodliness from Jacob. For this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins.
Kimberly Faith: Right. Israel’s story is not over.
John McLarty: It’s not over.
Kimberly Faith: And God will reclaim his people. But this is the church age. This is the age that Jesus set up because Israel as the house of witness had failed to maintain the candlestick for lack of a better way to put it.
John McLarty: This is interesting because this is, you read the book of Acts, even the saved Jews that have become Christians, they didn’t take this, this was a hard pill for them to swallow. Right. They’re like, wait a minute. You’re not really, the church, the power of God, the house of witness isn’t really going out to the Gentiles and leaving Israel. So they wanted, you know, the Judaizers.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: They wanted to follow Paul around. Say, wait a minute, wait a minute, you still need to
Kimberly Faith: Right. Do all this
John McLarty: As a Christian, do all this Jewish stuff.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: And Paul contended with that.
Kimberly Faith: He did.
John McLarty: And they got it straightened out.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: But it took a council at Jerusalem to get it straightened out.
Kimberly Faith: Exactly. You know, I think about when the veil was split in two. The holy of holies was exposed. That’s where the presence of God had been for years and years, right? And I think Jesus was at that point passing the baton. We are given a real bright sign, I should say, on the day of Pentecost. And, you know, I don’t know if we can call this, this is the birthday of the church, but it seems like there were definitely a lot of things going down that signaled this is the beginning.
John McLarty: Yeah. The empowering for sure.
Kimberly Faith: The empowering. And, so let’s I think we should read about Pentecost, because I think this is definitely an amazing miracle that happened. I think a lot of times very misunderstood by some strains of religions. But, do you want to read Acts Two?
John McLarty: I’ll do the reading, Kim, since your voice is a little iffy today.
Kimberly Faith: My voice is bad.
John McLarty: I love to read the word of God.
Kimberly Faith: Okay.
John McLarty: Yeah. So this is out of Acts Chapter Two.
Kimberly Faith: And this is about fifty days after Jesus’ resurrection.
John McLarty: Right.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah. Okay.
John McLarty: And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues as the spirit gave them utterance. And there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under Heaven, Perthinians and Medes and Elamites and those dwelling in Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya, Well, that’s a wide range.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: adjoining Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs, we hear them speaking in our own tongues the wonderful works of God.
Kimberly Faith: This is such a miracle. And you know, they weren’t just gibberish. It was not gibberish. Now, the Cretans may have thought that what they were hearing, that the Libyans were hearing, was gibberish, but it wasn’t. This was a miracle of proportion no one has ever seen, never been recorded in history before.
John McLarty: Yeah, it’s almost the flip side of some that you hear today are speaking in tongues and no one understands it and it needs interpretation. In this setting, everyone heard this message in their own language.
Kimberly Faith: Right, their mother tongue.
John McLarty: Their mother tongue. So if you were from Egypt, you’re hearing it in Egypt. If you were from Mesopotamia, you’re hearing Mesopotamian, whatever that is.
Kimberly Faith: Right. Well, and what the whole point was that we see later in Acts Chapter Two that the Lord added to the church daily those who were saved. You know, people were coming from everywhere and, you know, this miracle that happened, morphed into evangelistic effort, but this is where it began.
John McLarty: You know, I just was reading this thinking about the geographic extent of this. I mean, Mesopotamia, that’s over in modern day, that’s Iran and Iraq. That’s the Tigris Euphrates River Valleys, Mesopotamia.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: That’s a long way from Jerusalem.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: And then going the other way, Rome.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
John McLarty: So, you know, from Rome to Mesopotamia is a long distance.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah. And this is a very clear sign of the Holy Spirit empowering the church. Like there’s, you know, they
John McLarty: People from every nation that
Kimberly Faith: That’s right. What a useful empowerment. You know, it wasn’t like they were, you know, parting some waters or something like that. So they were speaking a different language that they’d never learned because the Holy Spirit was empowering them to share the gospel. It says, the wonderful works of God. They heard in their own tongue the wonderful works of God. I would have loved to heard that sermon.
John McLarty: And it’s interesting because the churches, the great commission was to take the gospel to every nation.
Kimberly Faith: That’s right.
John McLarty: And here, as the church was empowered, look what happened. All the nations had been gathered to Jerusalem
Kimberly Faith: Wow.
John McLarty: And heard that message of the wonderful works of God.
Kimberly Faith: I hadn’t thought of that, dad. You know, Jesus in Matthew 28, about he said go ye therefore into all the world preaching the gospel, making disciples and preaching the gospel to every creature or every person. I’m just paraphrasing because I don’t have it in front of me. But well, first of all, I will just say this. That happened in such a God ordained way. I mean, who would have thought all these people would be gathered for
John McLarty: Yeah, the grand kickoff
Kimberly Faith: Right. Was orchestrated
John McLarty: That brought them all into one place
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: And gave the message.
Kimberly Faith: Orchestrated by God, only God could have
John McLarty: And then those people went back to their respective nations.
Kimberly Faith: Right, right. But the nation, the spiritual nation, had birthed to be carried out to all these other physical nations and perpetuated, multiplied is their word.
John McLarty: And that’s an interesting distinction because they went back to their different nations, but this new nation had been birthed, this new nation which was the church.
Kimberly Faith: Right. Yeah. Let’s look at
John McLarty: It was something they had never, it would have never occurred to them.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: That the house of witness, instead of being passed to Rome as a nation was this new thing we’re going to discuss called the church, but the church as a nation, as a distinct ethnos.
Kimberly Faith: I like to think about it, the difference between a spiritual nation and a physical nation, you know, or geographical nation maybe is a better way to put it. These people were part of the birth of God’s spiritual nation.
John McLarty: Right.
Kimberly Faith: And they went back to their geographical nations and started these churches. And so, you know, let’s kind of segue a minute and look, what does the church as a nation look like? And because we know it’s not a geographical thing, right? We know it’s not, you know, The United States Of America or Brazil. It’s a spiritual nation and, you know, we could probably do 14 podcasts on what the church is supposed to look like because there’s so much. And we do talk about, you know, in our Bible concept study about the church, we talk about this in a lot of detail. But I like to kind of focus on what makes us recognizable as a part of the nation called the church. You know, because we know, we’re going to talk about the structure kind of in a little bit, but just globally, what identifies our church culture?
John McLarty: Well, this is the part of the message that Kenny brought that just really lit a light bulb in my head because, so a nation is typically identified, it’s a culture. So someone, let’s just use Spain, someone visits from Spain, well they speak Spanish. They may enjoy a certain kind of food. They have a certain kind of dress. They’re very and something very notable is you know if they come over here especially dressed in their, you know, traditional garb, say they’re at a folk event
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: You know, oh, that person’s from Spain
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: Or from France or you just think of any, you know
Kimberly Faith: Any culture.
John McLarty: Any culture. So language, they have a distinct language. They have distinct customs, dress, food, and a way of thinking. An identity. A culture.
Kimberly Faith: It flows through the entire nation. And you know, when you’re saying a language, I think about, you know that’s like actually, thank you for pointing that out because Colossians 3:16 says, Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. You know, the word of God should be our language. And, you know, that’s a very deep thought. The word of God being our language. Not a deep thought in the sense that I’m coming up with something really really rich, but the fact that God’s word is so rich.
John McLarty: Right.
Kimberly Faith: And when we, you know, the Psalm says, thy word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path, right? There’s Psalm 119. If you ever want to just see all the benefits of God’s word in one chapter, Psalms 119 is probably one of the best chapters in the Bible to see all of the benefits of God’s word. Those benefits should be how our language is characterized. And when we speak God’s wisdom, what’s amazing to me is that we can have the wisdom of God in our language.
John McLarty: Right. Well, this was so fascinating because as we discuss the idea of the church as a nation, you think, well, what distinguishes a nation? Well, boundaries. So the church has no geographic boundaries.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: But then other things are language, but then, music, food, just the culture in general. And then kind of what Brother Kennedy explored is, well, let’s think about this. This new nation, that’s the church, does the Bible have anything to say about the language of this new nation? We don’t all speak, you know,
Kimberly Faith: Greek, Hebrew.
John McLarty: Or Hebrew.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: We don’t all speak Italian.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: But does the word of God have something to say about how we should speak?
Kimberly Faith: Yes.
John McLarty: And another distinctive characteristic of nations is song, the songs they sing. Does the bible have something to say about the songs of this church nation?
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: And once you start looking for that
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
John McLarty: It’s all over the place. This verse you just read.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
John McLarty: Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom. So our language should reflect the word of Christ.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: It should dwell in us richly. And then look at this, admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: So we have, you might say, some instructions for our music.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: Instructions for our language.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah. And you know, and again, we’re just kind of scratching the surface of this because we could also talk about the attitudes of the people of this nation. You know, we’ve spent a lot of time going through the beatitudes in the first, when we first started doing this podcast, I think there were nine podcasts about the attitudes of Christ based on the beatitudes. What those are and when we as a church nation inculcate the attitudes of Christ, you know, blessed are the meek, blessed are those poor in spirit, all those things, it produces a fruit in us. And this fruit is really quite irresistible. And it is the fruit of God’s spirit.
John McLarty: And I really love that, Kim. I actually hadn’t thought about that before, that a nation has attitudes. So we won’t speak about all nations, but I just think some nations are known for their attitudes. Like the Italians are zealous and they’re passionate and they love their food and they love their singing and they love their gatherings. And then let’s just say some other nations might be known for being more stoic. But, yeah, these attitudes of the church as a nation are these, the beatitudes
Kimberly Faith: Well they are.
John McLarty: The fruits of the spirit.
Kimberly Faith: And it makes you think about it. If you came to a geographical nation where they overflowed with love, joy, just peace, they were kind, they were long suffering, they were just good, they were faithful friends, they were gentle, they had self control, they wouldn’t need any laws. They wouldn’t need any laws because they were just like that.
John McLarty: Right.
Kimberly Faith: And if the church as a nation, if we are this way, we are representing Jesus Christ through his spirit.
John McLarty: And say a nation was known for those characteristics of, you know, love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness. You would know when you’re around those people.
Kimberly Faith: That’s right. And you’d want to be there.
John McLarty: And you’re going to yeah, that’s attractive.
Kimberly Faith: You’d want to be part of that nation. And that’s, you know, when, one of, one of my children was asking me the other day, mom, how do you share the gospel with, maybe coworkers? And, you know, the first thing that popped into my mind, this goes back to speaking God’s word, right? When you are constantly, you know, letting the spirit flow through you and the fruit of his spirit, the fruit of God’s spirit is being manifested in you. You don’t have to proselytize anybody. They’re going to come to you and say, I want what you have. And that is because everybody wants all those things. The fruit of the spirit are not, who doesn’t want more love? You know?
John McLarty: That’s an excellent point. So it’s kind of a two sided sword. It’s not self righteousness
Kimberly Faith: That’s right.
John McLarty: Because this is God’s righteousness. But say that if you started to work in a new place, there should be something about a Christian that’s distinct
Kimberly Faith: That’s right.
John McLarty: From the culture of this world.
Kimberly Faith: Almost shockingly so.
John McLarty: Yeah. Yeah.
Kimberly Faith: It’s remarkable. And it’s not something we can produce on our own. We cannot manufacture the fruit of the spirit.
John McLarty: Right.
Kimberly Faith: God’s spirit has to do that. And that kind of segues into our next kind of little thought on this. As a nation, we are called to have different thoughts. We’re called to think with the mind of Christ. And we’ve done at least one or two podcasts on how to have the mind of Christ. But Philippians 4:8 kind of dumbs it down for us. I hate to use that word in context of the Bible, but I need to
John McLarty: Make it simple.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah. I know. You’re always correcting me on that.
John McLarty: Relatable.
Kimberly Faith: Appreciate that. Relatable, dad. But you want to read Philippians 4:8.
John McLarty: And I love this because this is part of the renewing of the mind, the battle of the mind. Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there be any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things.
Kimberly Faith: The kind of
John McLarty: I love that.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah. I love that too. It kind of reminds me of the podcast we did about, the cancer analogy where we had the sins of omission, the sins of commission. Both of them are cancer, cancer causing. And nobody wants cancer. But if we’re meditating on things, thinking about things that are the opposite of any of the things you just read in Philippians 4:8, that’s like a cancer on our soul, right? And if we’re failing to feed ourselves with God’s word, which is the first point we talked about in this thing, this section about what does nation look like, then that is also a cancer. We’re feeding the cancer of sin. And that’s what causes us to lose this identity as a nation, is sin. You know? It’s plain and simple.
John McLarty: So I love this idea, this new nation is without geographic boundaries, it’s without a common language as in Hebrew, Rome, you know, Greek, but it’s distinctively, it’s got distinct characteristics.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: And I don’t think we’re going to look at them right now, but there are verses like Let your speech be seasoned with salt and let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth. So if someone were to do a study on this, the characteristics of this new nation, the Bible has a lot to say.
Kimberly Faith: It does, it does.
John McLarty: Even, you know, in terms of food, you know, everything with thanks to God and then to avoid gluttony.
Kimberly Faith: Right. Right. And it kind of comes back to
John McLarty: Our singing, glorifying God.
Kimberly Faith: The verse in Colossians, I don’t have the exact but it’s whatsoever you do, do all for the glory of God. And that’s whatsoever. I mean, whatever you do, every area of your life, do for the glory of God.
John McLarty: So a Christian should be distinct in this culture, whatever culture, you know, you’re in. You might be in, you know, you might be in England listening to this. You might be in France. Here we are in America. But even as living in America, the Christian nation, as ambassadors for Christ, we should be as distinct as if someone was here from Mexico.
Kimberly Faith: That’s right.
John McLarty: Oh, that person’s from a different country.
Kimberly Faith: And it’s not hard from the standpoint of when the light shines, this is a dark world. When you have a light, it goes a long way. And Jesus is the light. He is the light of the world when we’re putting aside ourselves and making room for him in every area of our life, whether that’s your work, it’s your family, it’s your recreation, whatever, that light is penetrating a lot of darkness.
John McLarty: Well, just picture this. Here you are a Christian and you start a new job. Let’s just say you get a job at Walmart or McDonald’s. And you show up and your personality is characterized by love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control. You think you’ll stand out?
Kimberly Faith: Yeah. Yeah. You sure will. You sure will.
John McLarty: And you know, not in a self righteous way.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: Like, wow.
Kimberly Faith: You always point back to the Lord.
John McLarty: This person’s asking me about my family and concerned about my mother had a fall and, you know, who my kids are.
Kimberly Faith: And you know, at some point they’re going to ask you, why do you care?
John McLarty: Yeah. Why do you care?
Kimberly Faith: And every time somebody, you know, asks that question, we can always say, I’m not capable of caring. It’s Jesus in me that you can know him too. He cares more than I could ever care, but he’s giving me the power to care for you because of how he cares for me. And then people want to know, how do I get that? Right? Go right to the well, right? So, yeah, that’s really good, dad. I think I’d like to kind of also hit on when we’re talking about this church as a nation, I really want to talk about the structure briefly. I know we’re kind of running out of time.
But there’s, I think, a very dangerous misconception that there’s this universal church membership. And I want to, just briefly break that down. Because I think it’s important. It’s important to understand that churches are, the church is not a top down empire. It’s more like a republic of local communities. Because every church if you look at the New Testament, every church is talked about in the context of a local community.
John McLarty: Right. The things the church, this new nation, is expected to do can only happen in a local assembly.
Kimberly Faith: That’s right. That’s right.
John McLarty: Love one another. Care one for another. Encourage one another.
Kimberly Faith: Right. I mean, if you think of First Corinthians 12:26. It says, if one member suffers, all members suffer with it. Or if one member is honored, all members rejoice with it. You can’t do that globally.
John McLarty: How can a universal church do that? Exactly.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: This can only be carried out in local assembly.
Kimberly Faith: That’s right. And even like Galatians Six, it says bear one another’s burdens and fulfill the law. You know, if somebody is overtaken in sin, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness considering yourself lest you also be tempted. In other words, there’s compassion. There’s no ability to show universal compassion, but that’s a very one on one experience, accountability, community. You don’t have a community, let’s say you’re a member of the, I was a member of volleyball league, you know, and I had a team, right? Well, I didn’t have the same fellowship with another team as I did with my team. My team, there was accountable. We practiced together. We studied, did drills together. We held each other up. If one person gets injured, we cover down for them. So it’s very important if you read the New Testament globally, all the scripture, it never talks about a, you know, amorphous universal church that you just can glom onto. No. There are individual churches that make up the entire church, body of Christ. But the structure is, maybe this isn’t a good example, but the republic is made up of local communities.
John McLarty: Local communities.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
John McLarty: Well, here’s a good example just to camp out on this just a little. People do, there is a generic, the Bible does sometime refer to the church in a generic way.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: Like you know, God said to the church or you know, okay, here about this, Jesus said I will build my church.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: So that’s generic. And the best example I’ve heard of this lately from Brother Kenny. He says, You can use the sentence, Thomas Edison invented the light bulb. But if you want to use a light bulb, there’s not a universal light bulb.
Kimberly Faith: I love that.
John McLarty: You have to turn on a light bulb. To get the benefit of a light bulb, you have to have one, a local light bulb
Kimberly Faith: I love that.
John McLarty: And turn it on and get the light from it.
Kimberly Faith: That’s a great
John McLarty: There’s no universal light bulb
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: That Thomas Edison invented.
Kimberly Faith: That’s a very good example.
John McLarty: There is the church.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: Jesus said I will build my church.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: But to experience the church, you have to find a local assembly. That’s a church.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: It’s people.
Kimberly Faith: And you have to build community, you know?
John McLarty: Exactly.
Kimberly Faith: One of the things when I disciple people and they always say, well, I can’t find a church that makes me comfortable. I always use this example because it makes the most sense to me. Well, the church is, you know, the bible said the gates of hell will not prevail against it, right? The church is not a country club, the church is a unit. It’s a unit in spiritual warfare.
John McLarty: Right.
Kimberly Faith: You’re not joining the church to get comfortable, you’re joining the church to be part of a community like an army unit or
John McLarty: A band of brothers.
Kimberly Faith: That’s right.
John McLarty: A team.
Kimberly Faith: A team. Or you can use a sports analogy.
John McLarty: Yeah.
Kimberly Faith: You know? And you’re supposed to, the holy spirit is the one who joins us to churches and takes us to another church.
John McLarty: Exactly.
Kimberly Faith: Not because we’re mad about the color of the carpet. It has to be the holy spirit. You have to, just like with a family, you have to work through things sometimes and they’re not easy because we’re all humans. And so I don’t mean to get off on that, but
John McLarty: No, that’s important.
Kimberly Faith: It’s just one of those things that a lot of people and I’ve been kind of this way sometimes as well, you tend to get, I can do this on my own, isolated and think you don’t need the church, but we do. That’s the structure God put together. We need the church as part of our identity to remind us Iron sharpens iron, right?
John McLarty: Iron sharpens iron.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: Was going to use that exact verse.
Kimberly Faith: So it’s a commitment. We can’t take it lightly because it’s the most important nation we’re part of, you know?
John McLarty: Well, I put together a devotion recently and it’s the renewing of the mind. We’ve had a lot of studies, podcasts on renewing the mind, but through the fellowship of believers.
And a lot of our influences for Christian growth
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: It’s not just us tucked away in a log cabin, you know, reading the word. It’s, as helpful as that can be.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: But as we observe other Christians and interact with them
Kimberly Faith: Yes.
John McLarty: Our spiritual growth is enhanced.
Kimberly Faith: Well, just like this podcast came from Kenny’s message and teaching. And, you know, so I just would encourage you wherever you’re at, wherever you’re living, you know, before you’re a citizen of your nation, an employee, a parent, you know, you have the opportunity to be a citizen of a holy nation. And Philippians 3:20 reminds us, our citizenship is in heaven. And you know, this is a real privilege. This doesn’t mean like you said earlier, it doesn’t mean we abandon our earthly nation. It means we are an influence to the culture of our nation. You know, we talk about, in our politics, we talk about a lot of separation of church and state and how the church doesn’t belong in politics. Well, I’m not, you know, I’m super super, proud of the state of Rhode Island, which was the only one of the 13 colonies that actually established, if I’m right about this, religious freedom. All the other colonies were like, no, you have to be a Methodist or whatever to join this to be a part of our State.
John McLarty: The freedom of conscience.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: Freedom of choice. Yeah.
Kimberly Faith: So when I talk about the Christian culture influencing our nation, that is the principles of Galatians that we just talked about, you know?
John McLarty: Fruits of the spirit.
Kimberly Faith: The fruit of the spirit. Because the more our nation collectively has the fruit of the spirit represented, the less we need 5 million laws to keep everybody in line. Because we’re teaching people how to act based on their relationship with God instead of forcing them by having man made laws. Does that make sense?
John McLarty: Yeah. There’s some quote from a study in American history, those that will not govern themselves must be governed by others.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
John McLarty: So the more we govern ourselves,
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: The more we can live in a nation that allows liberty.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: So Christians contribute, you might say, to a nation of liberty.
Kimberly Faith: Yes. Yes. I mean
John McLarty: Because we want to, you might say, do right because it’s the right thing to do because we love God.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
John McLarty: Not because the state is forcing us to conform.
Kimberly Faith: Right. And it’s, you know, think about, would you rather have a nation of citizens who want to do the right thing because it’s the right thing.
John McLarty: Amen.
Kimberly Faith: Or a nation of citizens who are under the hammer and sickle to be forced to do what’s right or
John McLarty: Just behave, not rob each other.
Kimberly Faith: And according to some man made edict of what’s right and wrong as opposed to Jesus who gave his life to die for us, to reconcile us into relationship with himself so that we would have a heart, a new heart. What does the Bible say? I will take away your heart of stone and give you a new heart.
John McLarty: A new heart.
Kimberly Faith: And that’s you know, if you’re listening to this and we kind of winding down here, and you have never placed your trust in Christ as Lord and Savior, that’s the first step to being part of this nation that Christ said that he would build and that the gates of hell would never prevail against. Being born again is the first step. And if you are born again, and it doesn’t matter what flag flies by your window, there is a nation that transcends every border and lasts forever and that is the church.
John McLarty: The church.
Kimberly Faith: And it’s
John McLarty: Find an enclave of that nation
Kimberly Faith: That’s right.
John McLarty: That Jesus built the church and join
Kimberly Faith: And the bride of Christ.
John McLarty: Through, you know, being led of the holy spirit as to which one.
Kimberly Faith: That’s right. So dad, I appreciate you bringing this full circle for me because I know we had talked about this podcast and it was kind of your idea to really dig into this because I think it’s such an important subject.
John McLarty: It’s really encouraging and challenging. And you know, it was really a plan of Jesus to, you know, to take the gospel to a nation with structure to the whole world as part of his plan.
Kimberly Faith: That’s great. Well, this has been good, dad, and I appreciate it. Appreciate God’s word.
John McLarty: Very good.
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