A Letter to the Churches in the United States of America
To the churches scattered throughout the cities, towns, farms, suburbs, mountains, plains, coasts, and forgotten places of the United States of America:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.
I do not write to you as though another gospel has been given, nor as though the word once delivered to the saints has grown old and must be replaced. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever. The faith has not failed. The Scriptures have not dimmed. The throne has not moved. The Lamb has not loosened His grip upon His people.
But many among you have grown dull of hearing.
You have Bibles in abundance and hunger in scarcity. You have sermons without trembling, worship without surrender, doctrine without obedience, activism without holiness, and sentiment without repentance. You have multiplied teachers, conferences, broadcasts, platforms, and opinions, but the narrow way has not widened because your age prefers comfort. The gate remains narrow. The cross remains heavy. The call remains, “Follow Me.”
You dwell in a land of abundance, yet many of you live as paupers of the soul. Your houses are full, your screens are bright, your calendars are crowded, your opinions are sharpened, and your hearts are thin. You have gained instant access to the voices of the whole earth, and yet many cannot hear the whisper of God in the secret place.
Hear, then, what the Scriptures have already spoken.
The Lord does not measure His church by the size of her buildings, the polish of her productions, the favor of her politicians, the cleverness of her branding, the reach of her platforms, or the applause of her enemies. He measures by faith, hope, love, endurance, obedience, mercy, holiness, truth, and faithfulness to Christ.
Do not say, “We are rich, we have prospered, and we need nothing,” while your children are discipled by strangers, your marriages are withering in silence, your poor are invisible, your old are lonely, your young are anxious, your men are passive, your women are weary, your leaders are entertainers, and your prayers are brief.
Do not say, “The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord,” while injustice sits comfortably in your habits, lust is hidden in your devices, bitterness is preserved as wisdom, greed is renamed stewardship, cowardice is called prudence, and worldliness is marketed as relevance.
The Lord has not called you to preserve a Christian costume over an unconverted life.
He has called you to be saints.
I. Concerning Your Nation
America is not Israel.
The covenant people of God are not marked by a flag, a border, a constitution, a language, a skin, a party, a pedigree, or a nostalgic memory of former greatness. The household of God is built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone.
Yet do not despise the land in which God has placed you. Seek the welfare of the city. Pray for kings and all in authority. Honor what is honorable. Defend the innocent. Speak truth in the gate. Do justice. Love mercy. Walk humbly with your God.
But remember this: no earthly republic can bear the weight of the Kingdom of God.
When you ask politics to save what only Christ can redeem, you build an idol and call it strategy. When you treat your political enemies as though they are flesh-and-blood embodiments of darkness rather than sinners in need of mercy and truth, you forget that you too were once foolish, disobedient, deceived, and enslaved to various passions and pleasures.
Do not confuse loyalty to neighbor with loyalty to party. Do not confuse courage with rage. Do not confuse discernment with suspicion. Do not confuse prophetic boldness with the appetite to humiliate. Do not confuse the Kingdom with a voting bloc.
The Lord raises up kings and removes them. He frustrates the plans of peoples. He laughs at the nations when they rage against Him. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, but cursed is the people who borrow His name while rejecting His rule.
If you would bless your country, be the church.
Preach Christ. Raise your children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Honor marriage. Care for widows. Protect the fatherless. Visit the prisoner. Welcome the stranger without surrendering wisdom. Expose evil without becoming evil. Pay what you owe. Speak what is true. Refuse bribes. Reject partiality. Work with your hands. Share with those in need. Keep yourselves from idols.
A righteous remnant is more useful to a nation than a million baptized slogans.
II. Concerning Your Divisions
You have torn one another apart over many things, some weighty and some vain.
There are matters in which you must not yield: the holiness of God, the lordship of Christ, the bodily resurrection, the authority of Scripture, the reality of sin, the necessity of repentance, the grace of salvation, the judgment to come, the created order, the sanctity of life, the call to sexual purity, the worship of God alone, and the gospel by which sinners are reconciled to God.
Stand firm in these things.
But many of you have treated lesser matters as though they were the pillars of heaven. You have devoured brothers over methods, styles, personalities, speculations, suspicions, and tribal signals. You have mistaken loudness for conviction and cruelty for clarity.
The servant of the Lord must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting opponents with gentleness. Gentleness is not weakness. It is strength under the government of God.
If you speak truth without love, you have not improved upon cowardice; you have only dressed pride in armor.
If you speak love without truth, you have not improved upon cruelty; you have only made death sound polite.
Christ is full of grace and truth. Learn Him.
III. Concerning Your Worship
The Father seeks those who worship Him in spirit and truth.
He is not impressed by emotional manipulation. He is not impressed by dead formalism. He is not impressed by fog machines, nor by bare walls, nor by organs, nor by guitars, nor by liturgy, nor by spontaneity, if the heart is far from Him.
Sing, but do not sing lies.
Pray, but do not pray as performers.
Preach, but do not preach yourselves.
Serve, but do not serve for recognition.
Give, but do not buy applause.
Fast, but do not advertise hunger.
Gather, but do not imagine that attendance is the same as obedience.
The assembly of the saints is not a weekly religious product for consumers. It is the meeting of a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession. You come not merely to receive content, but to offer yourselves as living sacrifices.
Let your worship form you into people who can suffer faithfully, forgive deeply, repent quickly, give generously, discern wisely, and die without fear.
If your worship does not make you more like Christ, ask whether you are worshiping Christ or merely enjoying the sensation of being religious.
IV. Concerning Your Wealth
You live in an age where luxuries are called needs, restraint is called oppression, debt is called normal, and greed is called ambition.
The Lord is not opposed to provision, inheritance, labor, ownership, building, planning, or profit honestly gained. The ant gathers. The wise steward prepares. The worker deserves his wages.
But woe to those who add house to house and field to field while their neighbors are crushed. Woe to those who sell the needy for a pair of sandals. Woe to those who use dishonest scales and call it business. Woe to those who grow fat on exploitation and then thank God for their success.
You cannot serve God and Mammon.
Many of you do not believe this, though Christ Himself said it.
You have baptized Mammon and made him a deacon. You have put him on the finance committee. You have asked him to sponsor the youth retreat. You have allowed him to teach you the meaning of security.
Repent.
Use money as a tool, not a master. Feed your households, but do not worship comfort. Build, but do not boast. Save, but do not trust in barns. Give, but do not perform. Help the poor, but do not use them to display your virtue. Refuse envy. Refuse resentment. Refuse the lie that life consists in the abundance of possessions.
The treasure you keep is the treasure you may lose.
The treasure you surrender to God is the treasure no thief can touch.
V. Concerning Your Bodies
Your bodies are not meaningless shells. They are temples of the Holy Spirit.
Do not despise the body as though salvation were escape from creation. The Word became flesh. The Lord rose bodily. The dead in Christ shall be raised. Creation groans not to be discarded, but to be liberated.
Therefore glorify God in your body.
Flee sexual immorality. Honor marriage. Guard your eyes. Discipline your appetites. Rest without laziness. Labor without worshiping productivity. Eat with gratitude, not slavery. Reject both vanity and neglect. Care for the weak body, the disabled body, the aging body, the unborn body, the grieving body, and the body no longer useful to the economy.
The culture around you is confused because it has severed the body from creation, identity from truth, desire from holiness, and freedom from obedience.
Do not answer confusion with hatred.
Answer with embodied faithfulness.
Let your marriages be honorable. Let your singleness be holy. Let your homes be places of peace. Let your children see repentance, not merely rules. Let the lonely find family among you. Let the wounded find patience. Let sinners find truth without mockery and mercy without deception.
VI. Concerning Your Children
Your children are being catechized.
If you do not teach them, another priesthood will.
Do not imagine that neutrality exists. Every screen, classroom, song, advertisement, joke, algorithm, and ambition carries a doctrine of God, man, sin, salvation, body, purpose, and destiny.
Teach your children diligently when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise. But do not teach with words only. Teach with your schedule. Teach with your spending. Teach with your repentance. Teach with your marriage. Teach with your patience in traffic and your speech at the dinner table.
Do not provoke your children to wrath by hypocrisy.
Do not hand them a faith made of slogans and expect it to withstand fire.
Give them Scripture. Give them prayer. Give them examples of courage. Give them work. Give them beauty. Give them laughter that is clean. Give them discipline that is just. Give them fathers and mothers who confess sin. Give them elders worth imitating. Give them a church that is not embarrassed by Christ.
And when they ask hard questions, do not panic.
Truth does not fear examination.
VII. Concerning Truth
You live in a time when lies travel at the speed of light and wisdom often walks on foot.
Do not bear false witness, even against the wicked.
Do not share a report merely because it serves your side. Do not clothe rumor in the garments of discernment. Do not call suspicion prophecy. Do not mistake cynicism for maturity.
The devil is the father of lies. He does not become your ally when his lies are useful.
Let your yes be yes and your no be no. Verify before you accuse. Correct yourself when you err. Refuse the intoxication of outrage. Test every spirit. Hold fast what is good.
The truth does not need your sin in order to survive.
Christ is the Truth. If you defend truth by falsehood, you have already defected.
VIII. Concerning Suffering
Do not be surprised by fiery trials.
You were not promised dominance. You were promised a cross.
You were not promised that the world would understand you. You were told that the world hated Him before it hated you.
You were not promised that obedience would preserve your reputation, income, friendships, comfort, or safety. You were promised that those who lose their lives for Christ’s sake will find them.
But do not seek persecution as a badge. Do not confuse consequences for foolishness with suffering for righteousness. Do not become obnoxious and then call rejection martyrdom.
Suffer for doing good, not for being harsh, reckless, dishonest, lazy, or proud.
When you are reviled, bless. When you are slandered, answer with a clear conscience. When you are wronged, entrust yourself to Him who judges justly. When you are afraid, remember the resurrection.
The blood of the martyrs is precious.
The tantrums of the comfortable are not the same thing.
IX. Concerning the Poor, the Stranger, and the Forgotten
The Lord hears the cry of the afflicted.
If your doctrine is precise but your mercy is absent, you have not understood the God who defends the fatherless and the widow. If your compassion is loud but your truth is absent, you have not understood the God who calls sinners to repentance.
Do not outsource mercy entirely to the state and then boast of biblical faithfulness. Do not outsource righteousness entirely to policy and then call it love. Laws have their place. Justice matters. Order matters. Borders, courts, penalties, and rulers are not meaningless. But the church must not lose her own hands and feet.
Visit.
Feed.
Clothe.
Listen.
Protect.
Correct.
Disciple.
Bear burdens.
Open your table.
Remember prisoners as though in prison with them. Remember the mistreated as though you yourselves were in the body. Remember the elderly who sit alone. Remember the single parent. Remember the child without a father. Remember the veteran who cannot sleep. Remember the man ashamed to ask for help. Remember the woman hiding bruises. Remember the teenager drowning in silent despair.
You cannot love mankind in theory while despising the neighbor God placed in front of you.
X. Concerning False Teachers
There are wolves among you.
Some sell miracles. Some sell outrage. Some sell permissiveness. Some sell nationalism. Some sell revolution. Some sell therapeutic self-worship. Some sell end-times charts to avoid present obedience. Some sell grace as permission to remain unchanged. Some sell holiness without grace and crush the bruised reed.
Test them.
Do they confess Christ according to the Scriptures?
Do they preach repentance and forgiveness of sins in His name?
Do they honor the authority of Scripture?
Do they bear the fruit of the Spirit?
Do they exploit the flock?
Do they flatter the wealthy?
Do they excuse sin?
Do they make disciples of Christ or dependents of themselves?
Do they love correction?
Do they walk in the light?
Do not be naive. The serpent quotes Scripture when it serves him. The wolf may have a publishing deal, a podcast, a collar, a seminary degree, a stadium, a healing ministry, a political following, or a soft voice.
Christ’s sheep know His voice. Learn it.
XI. Concerning Hope
Do not despair.
The Lord has always known how to preserve His people.
He preserved Noah through the flood, Abraham among idolaters, Joseph in Egypt, Israel in bondage, David in exile, Daniel in Babylon, Esther in Persia, Elijah in despair, Jeremiah in ruins, Mary under scandal, Peter after failure, Paul in chains, and John on Patmos.
He can preserve His church in America.
But preservation does not always look like influence. Sometimes it looks like pruning. Sometimes it looks like loss. Sometimes it looks like judgment beginning with the household of God. Sometimes the lampstand is threatened before the city notices the room has gone dark.
If the Lord humbles you, do not call it abandonment.
If He exposes your idols, do not call it attack.
If He reduces your numbers, do not assume He has reduced His power.
If He strips your respectability, do not assume He has stripped your calling.
The Kingdom is not fragile. It does not require your panic. The gates of Hades shall not prevail against the church of Christ.
The Lamb wins.
Therefore repent without despair. Obey without boasting. Fight without hatred. Build without presumption. Vote without worshiping. Mourn without hopelessness. Rejoice without denial. Prepare your children without fear. Speak truth without venom. Love mercy without cowardice. Await His appearing without date-setting madness or sleepy indifference.
XII. Final Exhortation
Return to your first love.
Return to the Scriptures.
Return to prayer.
Return to the table.
Return to the poor.
Return to your households.
Return to the older paths.
Return to the simplicity and depth of Christ.
Do not ask first, “How can we save America?”
Ask first, “How shall we be faithful to Christ in America?”
For if the church is faithless, no election can save her. If the church is holy, no empire can defeat her.
You are a city set on a hill. Do not hide. You are salt. Do not lose your savor. You are light. Do not imitate the darkness in order to reach it. You are ambassadors. Do not defect to the kingdoms to which you were sent.
The Lord Jesus Christ is not campaigning for office.
He is seated at the right hand of God until all His enemies are placed beneath His feet.
He does not need to be made King.
He is King.
So kiss the Son. Take up your cross. Wash one another’s feet. Break your bread with glad and generous hearts. Confess your sins. Forgive your enemies. Raise your children. Bury your dead in hope. Welcome the repentant. Rebuke the unfruitful works of darkness. Endure hardship. Keep the faith.
The night is far gone. The day is at hand.
Put off the works of darkness.
Put on the Lord Jesus Christ.
And let the churches in America hear what the Spirit has already said to the churches.