How many goals can occupy the position of first in your life? Only one. “If you stay focused on one mission—seeking first Christ’s agenda of righteousness every sphere of your life and world—then,” says Jesus, “everything else will take care of itself.”

This past week, while studying George Barna’s Millennials in America report, I read “One of the most attention-grabbing attributes revealed in this research regarding the Millennial way of life is their widespread desire to identify a purpose for living. Three out of four Millennials are still searching for their purpose in life.” This evidence that Millennials want a life of purpose reminds me of the popularity of Rick Warren’s book, The Purpose Driven Life, which has been translated into 137 languages and sold more than 50 million copies. There is weighty evidence that human beings are designed to want a purpose for living. This episode series is designed to help the men listening accomplish exactly what so many Millennials—and so many humans in general want: experiencing the satisfaction and joy of knowing that they are accomplishing the purpose for which they were created. Our goal for this episode is to frame a biblical, one-sentence description of the mission that Christ assigned us—so that we can stay focused upon it.
So far in this series, Don’t Waste Your Life: Rule It for Jesus, we saw that the foundational commitment required to overcome a disordered way of life is the conviction that our inner private world of the spiritual must govern the outer physical world of activity. Then we observed that the only way to connect our everyday lives to God’s mission for us is intentionality. We observed Jesus demonstrating this intentionality by shutting out his outer world and retreating to a quiet place to discuss his mission with his CO, as a regular part of his life. Today we examine a third requirement for staying focused on our mission: mission clarity. A clear target on the wall to aim for is essential for living according to our mission. Fuzziness about our calling is a major cause of inaction. Competing internal drives take us down paths that consume our time and energy. I am reminded of the conversation in Lewis Carroll’s, Alice in Wonderland, between a disoriented Alice and the Cheshire cat. The cat’s sage wisdom is summarized in the famous quote, “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there.”
Let’s return to football for an analogy. The more I enjoy a son who coaches high school football, the more complicated I realize the offensive and defensive game plans have to be—and that’s just at the high school level! Nevertheless, as complicated as forming a game plan is, at least the mission is clear and simple. In fact, you could state the mission in one sentence. We need to move the football into the opponent’s endzone more times than they move the football into our endzone. Yes, there are extra points, safeties, field goals, and touchdowns. But at least the mission is clear: move the ball downfield on offense and stop them from moving downfield on defense.
What about our mission from Jesus? Is there some way to bring crisp clarity to our target on the wall by stating our mission in one sentence? After all, there are 7957 verses in the NT alone that relate to our mission. No wonder our understanding of it is so fuzzy! I believe Jesus has given us a one-sentence summary of our mission. It is just nine words: SEEK FIRST THE KINGDOM OF GOD AND HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS (Mt 6:33). I believe this rich sentence is as accurate a description of the Christian’s mission as saying “The object of football is to get the ball into the opponent’s endzone more times than they get the ball into ours” is of the game of football. But Christians today often miss the simplicity and power of this mission summary. Why? Here are three reasons.
1. Many Christians today come from traditions that misunderstand the term kingdom of God. The Bible-believing Christians of the twentieth century in America were significantly shaped by a movement called Dispensationalism, which believed in inerrancy but denied the significance of the created material world, promoted an overly spiritualized Christianity, denied God’s command to Adam and Eve to shape culture (the cultural mandate), and instead urged separation from the “evil” world. Its view of the end times (called Premillennialism) deemphasized the present rule of Christ’s kingdom, teaching instead that Christ’s kingdom does not come until the return of Christ. This view ignored the command to seek the kingdom, because it saw the kingdom as primarily future. It mistakenly understood the words of the Lord’s prayer, “May your kingdom come. May your will be done” to be a request for Jesus to return soon, instead of a request for Christ’s present kingdom of righteousness to spread over the earth. Tim Keller explains:
Some conservative Christians think of the story of salvation as the fall, redemption, heaven. In this narrative, the purpose of redemption is escape from this word; only saved people have anything of value, while unbelieving people in the world are seen as blind and bad. If, however, the story of salvation is creation, fall, redemption, restoration, then things look different. In this narrative, non-Christians are seen as created in the image of God and given much wisdom and greatness within them (cf. Ps. 8), even though the image is defaced and fallen. Moreover, the purpose of redemption is not to escape the world but to renew it…it is about the coming of God’s kingdom to renew all things (“Our New Global Culture: Ministry in Urban Centers” article).
2. The second reason some believers miss the Matt 6:33 summary of our mission is that when they hear seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, they hear this command primarily as the evangelistic call to be saved. Good theology teaches us that the only way any of us is truly righteous is to be “declared righteous,” i.e. justified by God the judge through our faith. We default to thinking that seeking righteousness any other way means pursuing self-righteousness. To seek righteousness feels like moralism to us.
However, and it is a big however, IT IS THE LORD JESUS CHRIST HIMSELF WHO COMMANDS US TO SEEK FIRST HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS. Righteousness (DIKAIOSUNE) in the NT is not just a term to describe our being declared legally righteous by God the judge; it is also the term that describes our sanctification—our character growth into holiness. DIKAIOSUNE is whatever conforms to the moral will of God. It describes right living. It describes what is just, what is wholesome. To pursue righteousness is to pursue wholeness, the restoration of everything on earth broken by sin. It is to make life the way it was supposed to be before Adam and Eve brought sin’s destruction into the world. It is to restore shalom—complete flourishing over every inch of the earth through restored harmony with God, within ourselves, with other humans, and with the material world. Jesus’ mission was not only to justify (declare righteous) the elect; it was also to transform their character and restore wholeness (“rightness”) to his entire, good creation. Seeking righteousness is not moralism; it is our mission!
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A mother church (a church that plants other churches) would often ask me to help reach these former attendees. And, I would interview them in focus groups. I found they didn’t often leave the church because of a tension or disagreement … but because of access. As they grew in their faith and became more involved in the church, they also were no longer traveling just once or twice a week to the church. Because of ministry opportunities, committee meetings, training, etc. they were now driving multiple times every week to a church. Their journey of discipleship was being impaired, because longer travel distances created a barrier to access.

There’s always been an almost impenetrable barrier to church health and growth. But innovators such as Charles Fuller, Billy Graham, Chuck Smith and David Fusco have been able to break it. What is this barrier and why is it so powerful?
For almost 40 years, researchers have found that the distance people will drive to a church is a main factor in their attendance and long-term commitment. Recent research from the Baylor University Religion Survey confirmed this. Baylor found that a majority (68%) of church attendees drive under 15 minutes to a church. While this pertains to the majority of attendees, some may drive longer in rural areas and shorter in congested areas.
Research continues to support that this four-decade thesis holds true: the majority of your attendees will always be coming from within a 15-minute drive.
How I learned about this barrier from my mega-church experience.
As I was studying church plants as the minister of evangelism and church growth at a megachurch, I found that the majority of people who stopped attending our church did so because they found a church closer to where they lived. I remember interviewing one person who said, “We liked the preaching. And the worship was outstanding. But we travel almost 40 minutes each way. And that’s time we could spend as a family. And, as we got more involved, we traveled back and forth even more often. Now there’s a church just 10 minutes from our house. It isn’t as good, but it’s good enough.”
After interviewing dozens of people, I discovered that an initial factor in their attendance was the good preaching and excellent worship of our mega-congregation. But over time the tedium of a longer drive would wear upon the attendees. They would then find a church nearer home. It might not offer preaching or worship as professionally. But the shorter drive would promote more family time, as well as allow more trips back and forth in their volunteer efforts.
My thesis, in part, was that though initially attracted by high-quality preaching and music, over time people found a church nearby that was “similar enough” in theology, worship, volunteer opportunities and quality.
What causes this barrier? Access. Here are first two of three principles to overcome it.
I would soon be asked to help coach churches that were suffering from this barrier. I discovered the solution usually involves three principles.
1. As people are moving out of the neighborhood and into areas further than a 15-minute drive away, there are new cultures springing up around most churches.
Sometimes called suburban flight, more recently it’s occurred in the reverse, with a gentrification of urban areas (i.e. young suburbanites moving back to the inner city).
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The resistance to socialist ideology remains powerful in the West, ironically,  especially among the “Proletariat,” the working class. Roughly half the electorate in the US is anti-socialist or “reactionary.” Some recent European elections appear to be in part a repudiation of internationalism, if not socialism per se, though the two go hand-in-hand.And the most powerful voting bloc opposed to socialism, at least in the US, is indeed the Church. This is because the natural law moral commitments of the Church are opposed to socialist ideology.

As it supplants Revelation [Revolution] acquires the influence of a new Religion of Humanity, kindling in the hearts of its confessors a fanaticism that acknowledges no distinction of means in order to attain its ends.
Groen van Prinsterer, Unbelief and Revolution, 1847
The Christian…imagines the better future of the human species…in the image of heavenly joy…We, on the other hand, will this heaven on earth.
Moses Hess, A Communist Confession of Faith, 1846
Why is This Happening?
Polling indicates that currently, only 18% of Americans are “satisfied,” with the way things are going in the US, with 81% believing that our democracy is “threatened.” Politically-alert Americans hardly need reminding that our political division is disturbing, with both major parties threatening that if the other is elected, this could mean the end of our country. Indeed, we seem to be coming apart. The cause of the polarization is far more than discrete policy disagreements over defense or taxation, or mere regional factionalism. Rather the cause is an ideological crisis. In fact, it is the culmination of a centuries-old religious war.
An impressive number of books, including by Evangelicals, sounds a deafening alarm that variations of “critical theory” or “identity politics” are taking over our republican form of government, the news media, education, corporations, charitable foundations, and even churches — placing our society and even our civilization at risk.[1] Some trace the ideology to the early 20th century, to the Frankfurt School, or limit it to the rise of “identity politics,” denying that it has anything to do with classical Marxism.
What then we are dealing with? While the Church must recognize a dangerous trend, we can’t address it adequately unless we understand its origins. This will help us detect it, and also resist it when it has begun to influence the Church itself. We cannot afford to be “…the incompetent physician who fights the symptoms but does not know the cause of the disease.”[2]
Natural Law, Humanism, and Socialism 
My thesis is as follows: Just as natural law is the moral theory of Christendom prior to modernity, socialism is the moral theory of modern atheistic Humanism. Because modern socialism is born of another religion, Humanism, it is hostile to Christianity-based natural law; indeed, it seeks to destroy it.[3] Its hostility to Christendom and to natural law is analogous to Baal or Moloch worship in the Old Testament, the practice of which continually threatened the worship of Yahweh. And just as ancient Israel had to resist pagan idolatry, the Church must resist the siren’s song of socialist ideology.[4]
The extreme dangers of socialism should be well-known, but in a kind of collective amnesia, no doubt intended by some, these dangers are often ignored or explained away. As Milan Kundera said, “The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.” Joshua Muravchic estimates that since 1917, 100 million people have died under socialist regimes, including the Soviet Union under Lenin and Stalin, China under Mao, and Cambodia under Pol Pot.[5] In addition, severe prohibitions on freedom of speech, secret police, the arrest, persecution, and assassination of political opponents, forced labor camps, wiretapping and other forms of surveillance, and religious discrimination are typically constitutive of socialist regimes. The detection of socialist ideology should be met with the same alarm as calls for the reintroduction of chattel slavery or concentration camps. Tragically, for reasons I will explore below, this is not happening.
Part of the reason for our forgetting is that as a cultural phenomenon, socialism is not necessarily linked to theory — socialist convictions can develop without direct exposure to socialist theory proper, sometimes through a naive desire for a perfect world free of inequality, but also through guilt for one’s advantages, or the incentivizing of envy. Guilt manipulation goes hand in hand with the vice of envy, wherein those with advantages, whether earned or not, are resented by those who see themselves as inferior, the “superiors” then responding with guilt and seeking atonement through compliance with their demands.[6] This is of course the strategic genius of the Oppressor/Oppressed distinction, i.e., that envy, a violation of the 10th Commandment, can be weaponized to produce guilt, one of, if not the most powerful incentive in the human psyche.
If a political candidate or party is socialistic, the Church must oppose that candidate or party by uniformly voting against them at the very least, if not pursuing all legitimate political means to defeat them. In our American political context, there are two dominant parties, the Democrats and the Republicans. As is well-recognized, the Democratic Party has been trending steadily toward socialism at least since the election of Barack Obama in 2008. Despite its manifest flaws, the Republican Party offers the only political instrument the Church has to resist our nation’s further slide into socialist policies and practices.
Natural Law and the State
The witness of nature together with Scripture affirms three institutions ordained by and under the sovereignty of God, each independent and possessing its own authority, yet deeply interrelated: the church, the family, and the state. When the integrity of these three are violated, e.g., when the state demands reverence and loyalty due God alone, or violates the sanctity of the family by hiding gender confusion from parents, or requires that Christians remain silent to accommodate modern ideology, the result is not only idolatrous, but calamitous for all three institutions.
A key element in maintaining the integrity of the three institutions is private property. The integrity of private property is recognized by Scripture in the 8th and 10th Commandments, “You shall not steal” and “You shall not covet,” as well as numerous additional verses and passages (e.g., Deut. 19:14; Prov. 23:10; Rom. 13:9). Private property defines and restricts the boundaries of each institution and is thus a buttress against the depredations of innate depravity. National borders function similarly to prevent the absorption of one state by another, or indeed, all of humanity under one tyrannical state. National borders also provide persecuted peoples with the opportunity to escape discrimination and persecution, as we see historically with the Moravians, the Huguenots, and the Puritans.
Whereas socialism assumes the cause of human evil lies in how society is organized, and believes the transformation of society will liberate people to express their inherent goodness, Christian natural law assumes the opposite, that the cause of evil lies in the human heart.[7]  Neither the state nor the church may demand that Christians hand over their property (1 Kings 21:1-23). Private property thus justifies efforts to resist the tyrannical absorption of family and church by the state.
According to the fifth commandment, certain forms of inequality are “natural.” The man is the natural and biblical head of the family, and men are to lead the church. All must respect persons in authority, whether they are teachers, employers, or political leaders (1 Pet. 2:13; Titus 3:1).
Ultimately, all authority is given by God in Christ (Rom. 13:1; Matt. 28:18). Thus, mere government by consent of the governed is not enough without recognizing the authority of God because all authority is given by God, and he demands worship. Government by consent of the governed in a republic, with strong checks and balances to prevent tyranny by any one branch, is arguably the best form of government ever devised by man, yet for government by consent of the governed to function properly, the voters, or a critical mass of them, must recognize God as sovereign and vote according to the creation order he designed for our well-being, as the Founders recognized. When the voters reject this, or begin voting against the natural order, God allows a society to become degenerate and self-destructive (Rom. 1:18-32).
Depending on how far along a society is in becoming depraved, honest, candid discussion in mutual respect between Christians and non-Christians will become increasingly difficult, such that “finding a middle way” will require moral compromise. Consequently, there will be increasing conflict between those who fear God and those who reject him.
Socialism: A Very, Very Short History
In confronting socialism, the first thing the Church must realize is that socialism is less an ideology than a phenomenon.[8] It is akin to a virus that can affect a society’s thinking such that the state begins attacking or undermining other institutions God has established, especially, the church and the family. Thus, socialism is hardly new. Secondly, we must realize is that it is one of the most powerful forces in human history. A popular misconception is that socialism began during the French Revolution. In fact, socialism predates Christianity by several centuries. It has a long history across disparate cultures. Ancient Egypt and the Inca Empire employed elements of collective control that resemble modern versions of socialism. In Assemblywomen, Aristophanes depicts a feminist-socialist coup d’etat in which private property is banned, children are raised “in common,” and full sexual equality is demanded by law, along with “free love,” the rejection of monogamy. Plato recommends a socialist state in his Republic which institutes collective ownership, and replaces the family with common parenting and state assignments for procreative coupling. Thomas More’s Utopiaabolishes private property and legalizes euthanasia, though he retains the sexual morality of traditional Christianity. In the era of Christendom, splinter groups led by Anabaptists sought to create socialist societies, often with horrific results.
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