This week we celebrate Independence Day. I am grateful to be an American for many reasons. I appreciate the protection I have of writing without the fear of censorship hanging over me. I am thankful that we gather together weekly in corporate worship: an act for which I’ve never been threatened. I am blessed to have had the opportunity to vote for local and national officials at every election since I’ve turned 18. Democracy is a gift. There’s much to be grateful for this Independence Day.

But my national citizenship is not ultimate. When God rescued me, I was granted new citizenship. The Kingdom of Heaven is of infinitely more value than the United States of America. A perfect King rules the Kingdom of Heaven: its laws flawless, and its systems just. None live in poverty. Its citizens wake up every day with joy.

As an American citizen, I celebrate my rights and freedoms. As a citizen of the Kingdom of God, I celebrate the one to whom I have surrendered my rights and liberties. As a citizen of Christ’s Kingdom, I acknowledge my profound dependence, not independence.

If your faith is in Christ, you are a subject of the King. We are dependent on him for life, for hope, for all things. Independence, spiritually speaking, is spiritual death. Paul explains the relationship this way in Philippians 3, “For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself” (Phil 3:18-21).

Do you see what Paul connects our self-realization to? Our death. If we seek radical freedom, the ability to do whatever we want, to pursue our desires without restriction, to have our bellies be our gods, our end “is destruction.”

Our sinful hearts tell us to satisfy our desires. Our culture tells us that whatever we do, we ought to fulfill our longings. Unfulfilled desires are our enemy. The one who gives into his wants is happy. The one who represses his yearnings is in misery. In fact, our culture takes this further still: you are your desires. Whether you are attracted to men or women or long to live as a man or a woman is at the very heart of your identity, our culture tells us.

We Americans have an insatiable appetite for our freedoms. We demand them. Whether it is our right to free speech, to bear arms, to fair treatment, or to our safety, we guard our rights fiercely. Jesus reminds us that as citizens of his kingdom, we give up our rights to him. He cautions, “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it” (Lk 9:24). The only way into the kingdom of God is dependence.

But here is the promise of that dependence: unlike some of our leaders who at times have left a wake of broken promises, selfish actions, cowardice, and injustice, we serve a perfect King. Whereas our leaders can seek their own good: their power, their egos, and their fame, Jesus Christ gave up his rights as the Son of God to take “the form of a servant” (Phil 2:6) to pay the price of our citizenship.

This is a kingdom worth living for. This is a kingdom worth giving our rights for. This is a kingdom worth celebrating.

We represent the Kingdom of God in the United States as ambassadors (Eph 6:20). We are trumpeters of the great and beautiful dependence we have been given in Jesus Christ.

Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash