I am certain there will be no small amount of flag waving in many of our churches this coming Sunday, given we have just celebrated the 237th anniversary of our nation’s independence. In 2010, July 4th fell on a Sunday. I used the opportunity to preach a message detailing the reasons why I believe patriotic themes and elements have no place in Christian worship. I gave five reasons why:

• Because patriotic elements in worship risk placing country on the same level as God and God will not share his glory with any other entity or person: Isaiah 48:11

Objection: But here in America we have unique freedoms to worship God, therefore we should honor the country in our worship because it grants us this and other freedoms.

Response: “We are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights.” America has not given us our liberty. We worship God not because we are free to do so but because God demands our worship.

In the context of public Christian worship, we recognize no other Sovereign but the Lord Jesus.

• Because of the Nature of Worldly Kingdoms: John 18:36

No matter how benevolent, the kingdoms of this world are ruled by fallen men and women who have been corrupted by sin.

• Because the Church is “one holy catholic” Church

Christians are a people called out from every other kingdom on the earth in order to be a kingdom of priests to God:

John 15:18-19 Colossians 3:11 1 Peter 2:9-10

The priority of the Church is the good news about Jesus to all the nations of the world, not just America.

• Because the Church as the visible representative of Christ’s Kingdom on earth is higher in authority than any earthly kingdom: Revelation 15:3-4; Revelation 11:15

The Church does not exist because America exists. America exists because the Church exists.

The State, as divinely appointed by God, fulfills roles and functions (specifically rendering justice and keeping the peace) for which the Church gives thanks to God. Romans 13

From the Barmen Declaration:

“The Christian Church is the congregation of the brethren in which Jesus Christ acts presently as the Lord in Word and sacrament through the Holy Spirit. As the Church of pardoned sinners, it has to testify in the midst of a sinful world, with its faith as with its obedience, with its message as with its order, that it is solely his property, and that it lives and wants to live solely from his comfort and from his direction in the expectation of his appearance.

“We reject the false doctrine, as though the Church were permitted to abandon the form of its message and order to its own pleasure or to changes in prevailing ideological and political convictions.”

• Because the Church is the exclusive domain of Christ as King and must be free from all other competing allegiances.

This is the overarching principle that governs our life together as God’s redeemed people: “Christ is all and in all.” Nothing we do in our worship should serve to advance the notion that anything is competing for the honor and glory due Jesus as our Sovereign King and Lord.

PDF NOTES: Why Patriotic Elements in Worship are Incompatible with the “One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church”