Integration of Church and State

What up crossing family? It is so good to be with you.

You guys are smart. You chose second service because

everybody who came to 1st service got baptized.

I preached my first sermon ever with what, underwear?

And we've been trying to get people out of here early so I

can go home and get dry. I am so glad that you guys are

here. We are in the middle of a four

week sermon series called Don't Take the Bait.

During this series we're going to be examining the role of

faith and politics. You guys know this.

Over the next six months, there are going to be people who are

going to be losing their friendships, losing their

reputation, losing their influence, losing their peace,

and losing their minds. We want a better story.

We want to live by a better code, a Jesus code, if you will.

And I believe that if we do that this political season, we could

strengthen our reputation, we could increase our influence, we

could maintain our peace, and we could keep our sanity.

Our target for this series on the wall that we're aiming at is

first Peter chapter 2, verse 12. Live such good lives among the

1 Peter 2:12

pagans. This is people who don't have a

relationship with Jesus that though they accuse you, people

who do have a relationship with Jesus of doing wrong, they may

see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.

I want to welcome those of you joining online, those of you on

who are part of the crossing inside, and of course, those of

you gathering at all of our different locations.

If you missed last week, as we were getting ready to jump into

this series, we put out a couple ground rules.

The anytime we do a series like this, we kind of put some ground

rules in play. The first one is no emails until

after the series. We want to get through all the

information before we engage in dialogue.

And most of you are really well behaved.

I only got 1 e-mail and it just simply said go Trump and I was

like that's funny, well played. OK so the second one is all

dialogue is going to take place face to face.

We want to have civil conversations about civil

issues, and we believe that e-mail, text, and social media

are like the worst possible platforms to communicate grace

and truth. So if you e-mail, we're excited

about it. We're going to find a time where

we can get together and talk about it #3 is we want to take

time to process the information before we reject it or react to

it. God just might be revealing

something that's for your good. He might be revealing something

that you just simply aren't ready to hear.

The Word of God is designed to help us, to encourage us, and to

empower us, but it's also designed to correct us, to

rebuke us, to challenge us. And if we are never being

challenged or confronted, we will not be changed.

You see, the Word of God and the Spirit of God is designed to

transform us into the likeness of the Son of God.

And so when we reject the message, we reject the

Scriptures. It's not just to our detriment,

but it's also to the detriment of those we love because we rob

them of us becoming who God created us to be, commanded us

to be. Christ died for us to be.

Last week we talked about how as Christians we have a better

citizenship and we have a better Kingdom, and this reality must

inform our attitudes, our actions at all times, especially

during divisive political seasons.

Today we are going to talk about the integration of church and

state. And I know some of you are

going, I think you messed up. Bear with me.

We're going to take the long way around the barn.

But the last 6 minutes of the message, it'll all make sense.

What I want to do first is in order to kind of set this up, I

need to give everybody kind of a, an American history civics

lesson. All right?

Now, those of you who are super engaged in politics, you like,

preach. Those of you who don't care

about politics, you like, I don't get it.

Just go on the journey with me. OK?

So the United States of America has a democratic form of

government, which means that it derives its power, its

authority, from the consent of its citizens who participate in

free and fair elections. That means that for Americans,

there is an authority higher than the president of the United

States, and it's you and me, the people.

Now, the United States of America is not a direct

democracy, but a constitutional Republic.

This is important because that means that you and I don't have

to vote on absolutely every single issue.

Imagine every single day us having to vote about absolutely

every single thing that is happening in America.

It'd be crazy. So instead we participate in an

election and we elect people into office who will handle

those voting or the all the things that need to be voted on.

And this is all put together through a framework established

by the US Constitution. Now, the US Constitution

instituted 3 branches of government, a Trinity of, of

government here for America in the federal system.

And you guys know this, It's the legislative, the executive, and

the judicial. So the legislative, they make

the laws. These are like the politicians

that you elect and the executive branch, they execute the laws.

This is where like the president.

And then you have the judicial branch, which is like the

Supreme Court, judges and stuff like that.

And they interpret the law, make the law, execute the law,

interpret the law. And the way this is put together

is that each of the branch has powers over the other branches

of the government, so that way it limits them.

So one particular branch of government cannot become more

powerful than all of the others through a system called checks

and balances. In addition to this, the

authority of the federal government is limited by the

power granted to the states in what is called federalism.

Now this is a dumb name for this because you think that this

makes the federal government bigger, but it actually makes

the federal government smaller. This is actually, if we were

naming it, we would call it statism, not federalism.

But they weren't asking us. They were doing this all on

their own. This was established in the 10th

Amendment of the Constitution, which is the end of the Bill of

Rights, and this is what it says.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the

Constitution, no prohibited by it or by it to the states, are

reserved for the states respectively, or to the people.

In other words, the bedrock of our system is the people.

It's you and me. Do you know what is also not

mentioned in the Constitution? Political parties.

Interesting. And you know what else is not

mentioned in the Constitution? The separation of church and

state. People say it over and over and

over again. Separation, church and state.

Separation Church and state. Not in there.

Let's unpack it. In the First Amendment to the

Constitution, this is what it states.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of

religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

What they're saying is the state can't make a church.

That's what they're saying. They're saying a church can

operate completely independently.

Your ability to practice your religion cannot be interfered by

the state, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or

abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, or of the right

of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the

government for a redress of grievances.

Out of this one amendment, we get the freedom of speech,

freedom of religion, freedom of the press.

We also get the freedom of assembly, which means we can get

together as a church and hang out and have a whole lot of fun,

which you guys do not appear to be having yet, but we'll get

there. It also means that we can get

together and do all kinds of other activities.

We go to baseball games, football games.

We can get together marching, parades.

We can even get together and protest.

And Speaking of protests, some of you might be going.

I'm just not a big fan of protests.

I think that's really bad. I totally get it.

I just need to be upfront with you.

Ark's particular vein of spirituality has been labeled

Protestant. Protestant, and we earned that

name back in the 1500s. Our vein of people kind of got

frustrated with the Catholic Church, and we kind of believe

that people could learn to follow God in an intimate,

personal relationship with God and through God's word and

through God's Spirit, we could have a relationship with him.

And the Catholics kind of had a different strategy, which was a

Pope and tradition and the Bible.

And we were kind of like, well, we don't necessarily need the

tradition and we don't necessarily need the Pope.

We can probably just get it through the word of God and the

Spirit of God. And they said no, and we said

yes, and we protest and they called us Protestants.

So we're protesters. OK, now we are also given the

right in the First Amendment to petition, which means that you

and I have the ability to write to our congressional leaders,

write to our governors, write to our presidents and disagree with

them passionately. Say you messed up, you shouldn't

have done that. Now the first are in the Bill of

Rights, the 1st 10 amendments of the Constitution, which all of

you guys know are heavily influenced by a judeo-christian

worldview. And this is an

oversimplification. Please.

So please don't write me about this when people say a

judeo-christian worldview or a judeo-christian work ethic, or

anytime you hear somebody kind of saying that this is it in its

most simplistic terms, OK, overly simplified.

If you were to read the Old Testament as God's word to the

Jews, and if you were to read the New Testament as God's word

to Jesus followers, you would have a Judeo Old Testament

Christian New Testament worldview.

That if you were to pick up the Old Testament and put it over

your left eye and the New Testament and put it over your

right eye, it would create a lens through which you would see

the world, a judeo-christian worldview.

That's what they're actually saying.

And our Bill of Rights, our governmental system was heavily

influenced through a judeo-christian worldview.

So say what you want to say about America, but living in

America is an incredible privilege and we have all

benefited drastically from it. Those of you who have traveled

widely on vacations, and even more specifically on mission

trips, have probably come to the conclusion that there really

isn't a better place to live. And we can get upset at our

leaders, and we can disagree with them passionately.

And we can let them know that they have messed up.

And we can do so knowing that we are protected legally in our

right to do so. You can't do that in a lot of

countries. Try having your own opinion.

Try having a Bill of Rights that protect you like our laws

protect you. Try living out your faith or

saying you disagree with the leaders in India, North Korea,

China, Russia, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Bahrain, I could

go on and on. So while America has her flaws,

we should still be thankful for her, thankful to those who have

led her, thankful to those who lead her, and especially

thankful to those who defend her.

When our Constitution was completed, George Washington

made this statement. I do not expect the Constitution

to last more than 20 years and 237 years later it is the oldest

written active constitution in the world.

Now all this is to set us up. For this part, let's talk about

the separation of church and state.

If what the founders had as their goal was to keep the

church out of the state, I need you to know they did a really,

really bad job. Oftentimes when I'm interacting

with people, they say, well, that's separation of church and

state. And what they mean is, is that

there is can be nothing biblical, nothing Christian,

nothing religious at all affiliated with anything that is

a part of our government or our schools.

And if that was what the framers of our Constitution, if that is

what the guys who were participating in the founding of

our country meant, I need you to know they did a really, really,

really like horribly bad job of living that out.

Let me show you in a pretty important document, we'll call

it for just giggles, the Declaration of Independence.

It states that we hold these truths to be self-evident, that

all men are created equal, and that they are endowed by their

Creator. You know what that is?

That's religious talk. That's church talk.

What did this Creator endow them with?

With certain unalienable rights. Rights are of life, Liberty and

the pursuit of Happiness. And that to secure these rights,

governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers

from the consent of the governed.

This is religious talk in the Declaration of Independence.

Or how about this one? Lincoln in his Gettysburg

Address, after the four score and seven years ago our fathers

brought forth upon this continent a new nation.

Stated plainly at the end of his address are these words, that

this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that

government of the people by the people and for the people shall

not perish from the earth. Religious talk.

Let's go deeper in the US Capitol building, a pretty

governmental building. Do you know what they have a

Chapel. Do you know what you do in a

Chapel chapeling? You know what chapeling consists

of prayer and worship to what's the word God?

In fact, they have a stained glass window with George

Washington kneeling in prayer with and I know this is going to

mess you up. Those of you who are for the

separation of church and state, they have these words written

underneath the window that stained glass in the US Capitol

building. Preserve me, O God, in thee do I

put my trust. That's Psalm 16 one, and I'm

telling you, they're going to do something else that's going to

really frustrate you if you're big into the separation of

church and state, because our political leaders have been

doing an awful lot of Bible in. Because right here is a Bible,

and it's open to the 23rd Psalm where we talk about where people

get an intimate, personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

It's right there in the US Capitol building.

Like I told you, if they're trying to keep Jesus out of the

politics, they sucked at it. In fact, if you were to go into

the House of House of Representatives, behind the

speaker's podium, printed or scribed into the wall, are these

words in God? We.

Yeah. It's also on your money.

Have you noticed that? I haven't.

I don't have a whole lot of money, but I keep an emergency

$100 bill. Back when $100 would really get

you out of an emergency. Now it gets you like a Kit Kat,

some Skittles and a glass of milk.

Like, you know, I went to register the other day.

You want a gallon or you just want a cup?

And I was like, yeah, I brought my own cup.

I mean, just pour it in there. 72 dollars.

Yeah. Anyhow, printed on your money.

Wouldn't it weird for the separation of church and state

that our government decided to put God on our money?

Just saying, if you were to go into the Rotunda of the US

Capitol building, there are eight large, beautiful

paintings. And two of them, I'll be honest

with you, pretty religious. One of them is the Baptism of

Pocahontas. Pretty religious.

Baptisms are kind of a church thing.

Not a lot of baptisms, you know, Stop.

Stick to the script, OK? I told you I got it right here.

OK Or how about this one? There is Pilgrim leader William

Brewster holding an open Bible with the words the New Testament

of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

This is in the US Capitol building.

OK, You're like, OK, that's maybe one building.

OK, let's keep going. The Library of Congress has

these words chiseled into the walls.

John 15 The light shineth in darkness, and the darkness

comprehendeth it not. This is King James Version

stuff. Obviously they didn't have the

cool versions of the Bible that we have today, so we're going

old school for a little bit. But that's just because what

they carved on the wall. Proverbs 47 Wisdom is the

principal thing, and therefore get wisdom with all thy getting,

get understanding. Chiseled onto the walls of our

government are these religious words.

How about this one? Micah 68?

What doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly, to love

mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?

Psalm 19 One the heavens declare the glory of God, and the

ferment showeth his handiwork. The Library of Congress also has

a statue, hate to bring this up, of Moses, who?

Pretty religious. And guess what?

He's holding the 10 commandments.

You know what else they have in there?

A statue of Paul. You know, the guy who wrote half

the New Testament. All right, if you were to go to

the Supreme Court building, you know what you'd find?

At the top of the east entrance are the images of three

lawgivers, Moses of Israel, Confucius of China, and Solon of

Greece. Moses is the central and largest

figure. And guess what he's holding?

He's holding the 10 commandments on the wooden doors to the main

entrance of the courtroom. And on the outer bronze doors

are images of the 10 Commandments.

The Great Hall of the Supreme Court features images of Moses.

There's another image of Moses on the outside of the building.

He's inscribed between two lamps signifying the giving of light.

If you were to go to the Washington Monument, I could do

this all day. If you were to go to the

Washington Monument, you would notice it is filled with

references of God and the Bible. In fact, a Bible is enclosed in

a capsule in the monument's cornerstone.

Inscribed on the east face of the very top of the capstone is

a 6.5 aluminum capstone. If you've ever seen pictures of

it where like there's this point that's gleaming on the top of

the Washington Monument, that is the 6 1/2 LB aluminum capstone

that's pointed on the eastern side of it.

The side that faces the sun, the part that gleams in the sun are

written. These words Laos deo praise be

to God. Many of the 36,000 marble and

granite stones are inscribed with Bible verses and references

to God, such as the following Exodus 2826 Holiness to the Lord

John 539. Search the scriptures or

Proverbs 10/7. The memory of the just is

blessed or Proverbs 22 six. Train up a child in the way he

should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.

In other words, when they were building the Washington

Monument, they were doing the exact same thing that we do when

we start a campus. Build a stage and put in steps.

They wrote scripture all over it.

The founders of America were never trying to keep religion

out of the state. They were trying to keep the

state out of religion. This was in direct response.

Thank you. They did it.

I'm just telling you about it. I wasn't there.

This was in direct response to the abuse imposed by their

British overlords in 1534. King Henry pushed through what

is this is, and how bold do you have to be to do this?

This is what he did. He pushed through the Act of

Supremacy. Which made him and all of his

heirs supreme head of the Church of England.

Hear me. Our founders were trying to keep

kings from being popes and popes from being kings.

They were trying to make sure that the government did not

establish for itself its own religion and was able to bring

forth the powers of the government to force people into

that religion. They were not trying to keep

faith out of politics. They were trying to keep

politics out of your faith. Why does this matter?

The reason I'm telling you all this is because today secular

progressives will try to shame you into thinking that you

cannot bring your theology into the voting booth if you're going

to vote. You'll hear them say don't force

your beliefs on people who don't share them.

And yet at the same time, what they are in effect doing is

forcing their beliefs on you. For instance, right now there

are people pushing for the reduction of parental rights

around issues of gender and sexuality.

And so they're going to scream at you.

You're trying to impose your morality on other people without

realizing, or more likely not admitting that they are doing

the very same thing in America. Your rights are that you get to

bring your worldview into the booth just like they do.

Take the issue of abortion. Now, I hate using this as an

illustration, but this is probably the most clarifying

example that I can give. And if you are a part of this

church for any period of time, we have preached on this issue

and what I believe to be a very kind, caring and compassionate

way. And so please do not hear this

from your church as us trying to score cheap points, but trying

to illustrate a very serious point.

What people tell you is that if you oppose abortion, you are

imposing your morality on a woman without acknowledging that

if they get their way, they are imposing their morality on the

baby. Josh Howerton says it this way.

It is never the question about is never been about whether or

not morality gets legislated, It's whose morality gets

legislated. So when you and I vote in a

government that is answerable to the people, in a government that

is of the people, by the people, for the people, you get to bring

your worldview into the booth just like everyone else.

And if you get to bring your worldview into the voting booth

as a Christian, make sure your worldview is biblical.

Make sure your view of the world is cross shaped and full of both

grace and truth. And just as a quick reminder,

here are some tenets of our faith.

Christians have a belief in human dignity.

Christians believe that every person is made in the image of

God and have intrinsic, eternal and undeniable value.

That means it is Christians. We love and value people from

womb to tomb. Who does this include?

Everyone. Even those who don't have the

same political views as us. Even our enemies, Preston

Sprinkle writes. Jesus's command to love your

enemies was the most popular verse in the early church.

It was quoted 26 places by 10 different writers in the 1st 300

years of Christianity, which makes it the most celebrated

command among 1st century Christians.

Matthew 544, Love your enemies was the so-called John 316 of

the early church and enemy love was the hallmark of the

Christian faith. Right now, you guys all know

about John 316. You probably got an aunt and a

cousin and a brother who's got a John 316 tattoo somewhere on

their body. You've been to a family member's

house for Thanksgiving and there is the John 316 Hobby Lobby nook

that she has decorated. Some of them have like the big

circle thing with like the the doily and some people have just

the painting with like the gathered hands and pray and

they've got John 316. If you were to go to a 1st

century church, they'd have gone to the 1st century Hobby Lobby

and they've got the enemy love banner.

This is my enemy love corner. Enemies gather here.

OK, eat, pray, enemy. OK.

That's what they they've been all about it.

Think about this. Christians were known for how

they loved and treated their enemies.

How far we've fallen, Christians, the way we talk

about Republicans and Democrats is not becoming The way we talk

about President Trump and President Biden is at times

shameful. They are image bearers.

God loves President Biden. God loves President Trump more

than you love your son or your daughter.

Jesus bled and suffered on the cross for them as much as He

suffered and bled for you. James three says this.

I'll just do the 1st 2 verses with the tongue.

We praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human

beings who have been made in God's likeness.

Out of the same mouth come praises and cursing.

My brothers and sisters, this should not be.

Christians have a belief in the sinfulness of man.

We are fully aware of how messed up and jacked up people are

because we own mirrors. We've seen ourselves.

We know what people are capable of.

Therefore, you and I should not be surprised when systems

created by sinners create sinful experiences and produce sinful

results. So what do we do when those

things happen? We do what Christians do when

people mess up. We love them, confront them, and

hold them accountable. This is an area where every

single one of us could improve. We are so busy defending our

candidate and accusing the other party of whatever they're doing

that our credibility ends up getting hammered.

You know what we should do if we were Christians?

If you like a particular candidate or you like a

particular party platform, you know, what would really like set

you apart and make you come across as incredibly mature and

thoughtful is if you're like a person who leans Republican,

when Donald Trump does something stupid, go, yeah, he did

something stupid. We got, we got that one wrong.

Hey, I mean, I like these five things in our party platform,

but I really don't like these three things.

If you're a person who's a Christian and you, you lean

Democrat, you'd be like, man, when when Joe Biden did that, he

missed it. I hated that too.

There's something in your party platform.

You're like, look, the reason I kind of lean Democrat is for

these five things, but I absolutely hate like these two

or three things. You know what that does?

It gives you credibility. But right now, we are so aligned

to our parties that we can't even admit when our party gets

it wrong. But we know full well that our

parties get it wrong because our parties aren't Jesus, and Jesus

wouldn't have been on the cross if people actually had it

figured out and had everything together.

So the fact that Jesus exists means that President Trump and

President Biden and Republicans and Democrats get it wrong

sometime. And when we admit that they get

it wrong sometime, it's just evidence that the gospel of

Jesus Christ is in effect. Real Christians believe deeply

in neighbor love. That means that someone's

gender, political affiliation, sexual orientation, life

choices, religion, ethnicity, race, and present circumstances

are not nearly as important to us as the answer to this

question. Do they need love?

Do they need help? Do they need Jesus?

Mark chapter 12 verse 31 says this.

Mark 12:31

The 2nd is this. Love your neighbor as yourself.

There is no commandment greater than these.

The first one is love the Lord you God with all your heart,

mind, soul and strength. Paul writes to the church in

Philippi, Philippians chapter 2. Read through this thinking about

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

how you voted in the past. This is the exercise I did this

week. Do nothing out of selfish

ambition, oops, or vain conceit, oops.

Rather in humility, value others above yourselves, oops.

Not looking to your own interests, oops, but each of you

looking to the interest of the others.

Our political allegiance and vote should consider the needs

of others before ourselves. It should consider their good

first and foremost. We spend a lot of time voting in

our own interests. If you're a teacher, you vote in

your interests. If you're a fireman or a police

officer, you vote in your interest.

If you're a union person, you vote in the interest of the

union. If you're not a union person,

you vote against the interests of the union.

If you're a marginalized group, you vote for a candidate who

promises to unmarginalized your marginalized group.

If you're a self-employed person, you vote in the best

interest of the self-employed people.

If you're a rich person, you vote in the interest of you be

able to keep your money. If you're a poor person, you

figure out how to get other people's money, and you vote for

a president who promises to give you that.

We all vote in our own interests.

What if we were to vote thinking, How do I leverage my

vote for the maximum glory of God?

How do I leverage my vote in a way that is for others?

Christians hold fast to the example and the ways of Christ.

While it may feel at times like we are at war, we do not wage

war as the world does. Our fight is spiritual in nature

and sometimes we can take the bait.

We can get lured into taking matters into our own hands,

getting our hands dirty when by any means necessary, and judge

our candidates by their wins and not their tactics.

Or we can trust and believe that God's way really is the best

way, That our character matters, our witness matters, and our

tactics of love and mercy and truth and grace and prayer are

indeed powerful. And they are the godly path

forward. Several elections ago I was

watching 2 candidates get interviewed about a particular

issue and its intersection with their faith journey and one of

them answered with incredibly eloquent words and basically

said my faith says that this is wrong, but my faith is personal

and I promise not to take my faith to work.

And I was livid. I was so incredibly upset.

How could you possibly keep your faith at home?

I'm voting for you because I want you to take your faith into

the office. I want you to take your faith

into politics. I want to know that you're the

things that you believe about God are good and that you want

to make sure that you are doing things in alignment with him.

That's the same right that everybody else gets.

If everybody gets to take their atheism into the White House, if

everybody gets to take their particular brand of religion

into the White House, I want you to take yours too.

You get to take your worldview. How could you possibly leave

your faith at home? Oh, sticked.

And I bet you can guess if I get warmed up, I'm pretty warm and

man, I, I, I. And then I was pretty sad

because while I haven't said what he said, I have done what

he did. I have kept Jesus out of certain

parts of my life. He was just honest about it.

Is there an area of your life that you've kept off limits to

Jesus? How's that working for you?

I love Jesus. Whoa, I just don't want him in

my politics. How's that working for you, man?

I'm a big fan of Jesus, but Jesus super personal.

So I'm not going to bring Jesus into my marriage.

How's that working for you? You decide not to bring Jesus

into your online consumption. How's that working for you?

I'm not going to bring Jesus into my business.

How's that working for you? I'm not going to bring Jesus

into my business dealings, my parenting.

How's that working for you? I'm not going to bring Jesus

into my money, my friendships. How's that working for you?

Our actions betray us. The Bible is incredibly clear

that God is pleased with faith. And when you and I choose to

believe that God's way is the best way, it becomes our

witness, our story. It's our power.

It's our means of impact. That's why Jesus says in Matthew

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

chapter 6, seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness,

and all these things will be given to you as well.

Satan wants you to keep your faith separate from your vote.

If you're going to vote, don't take the bait.

Satan wants you to keep your faith separate from your life,

Don't take the bait. Satan wants you to chase godly

things, but to do so in worldly ways and with worldly

strategies. Don't take the bait.

Satan wants you to follow your candidate better than you follow

God. Don't take the bait.

Satan wants you to promote your candidate more than you promote

God. Don't take the bait.

Satan wants you to defend your candidate more than you defend

Jesus. Don't take the bait.

Satan wants you to know more about the amendments to the

Constitution than the 10 commandments.

Don't take the bait, He wants you to know.

Satan wants you to know way more about the Supreme Court than

about the Sermon on the Mount. Don't take the bait.

He wants you to know more about your party platform than you

know how to lead someone to Christ.

Don't take the bait. And he wants you to know more

about your American rights than your Christian responsibilities.

Don't take the bait. What Satan tries to get us to

believe is that we have to treat our party platforms and our

political politicians as God. But being elected into office

doesn't make you a God. Raising from the dead does.

So seek His Kingdom and see what happens.

We're moving to a time of decision.

To those of you who have yet to start an intimate, personal

relationship with Jesus Christ, it's Election Day and Jesus is

not nearly as concerned about who occupies the White House as

He is about who occupies your house.

And in the center of your house is your heart.

And he stands at the door and he knocks.

Will you let him in? It's Election Day and you can

continue to live life on your own terms, or you could

surrender and turn over power and control to Him.

And the testimony not just to the people who call the crossing

home, but by millions of Christians worldwide or in

America and billions of Christians worldwide, can be

summed up in two statements. That making Jesus the Lord and

Savior of their life was the single greatest decision that

they ever made. And their biggest regret is that

they didn't do it sooner. Why are you holding it off?

Why are you waiting? If you were a country, you

wouldn't want to live there. Your policies are bad, your

roads are bad, your economy's bad, your justice system's bad.

If you were a country, you wouldn't want to live there.

And Jesus says I'll take it and watch what I can do with it.

I'd love to rain from there. If you were to look at my life,

if you were to take a hard look at your life, the areas of your

life that you've turned over to him look completely different

than the areas that you haven't. I know there's some of you who

are going, Clayton. I would love to start that

relationship with Jesus. But I got to be honest with you,

there's just some stuff in me that is just so jacked up, so

messed up. I just can't see a path forward

with Jesus coming in. This week I was in, I was in

Hebrews in my morning time and I got into Hebrews 4 and it says

nothing in all of creation is hidden from God's sight.

Everything is uncovered and laid bare before him to whom we will

give an account. That means that there is nothing

that has happened in your life, nothing that took place in your

past, nothing that you are doing in your present.

That has escaped the notice of God and knowing you in ways that

nobody else could possibly ever know, and knowing better than

everybody else all the reasons not to, He still extends His

love to you. I've never known love like that.

My wife, she loves me, but she doesn't know everything about

me. She doesn't know every thought

that I've ever had go through my head.

I've never experienced love like that.

That the person who knows me, he knows all the things that I've

done that are bad, that I've forgotten that I did, and he

still promises to come and reign and redeem and restore.

Tell you what, if you don't have a relationship with Jesus

Christ, you're missing out. If you're here today and you're

going, you know what, it's time for somebody else to be in

charge. You could start a peace treaty

with the King of Kings today. Right over there underneath that

screen, there's going to be two people.

While people around you stand and sing and some of them come

to the steps and pray, you could walk right over there and begin

asking some questions and getting some answers, and you

could begin the process of electing a king that will change

everything to the rest of you in the room, to those of you who

already have a relationship with Jesus Christ, it's Election Day

for us too. Because every single day we have

to choose who's going to win, our flesh, our spirit, us, or

God. Every single day you have a

choice. Are you going to follow after

Him or run from Him, surrender to Him or fight against Him?

And what's the area of your life that you haven't turned over to

Him? In the areas of my life, turned

over to Christ, there is peace and there is order and there is

potential. In the areas I have not turned

over to Him, there is conflict, there is chaos.

Isn't it weird to say that we've made Jesus Christ our Lord and

Savior? We've kind of focused on Savior.

When I die, I'm not going to go to hell.

I'm going to go to heaven. I have placed my eternity in his

hands. And then it's like, but yeah,

but my marriage, I think I'm going to handle that one.

My parenting, my finances, I think that's a bad trade.

If you can trust Him with your eternity, you can trust Him with

everything else. But you got to choose.

It's Election Day. Would you guys stand with me?

Heavenly Father, I'm asking you to do a work right now in our

church, in the lives and hearts of people that can hear my

voice, not just in this room, but watching online.

Now that you would take ground in ways that only you can take

ground. Now that you would give us the

strength to identify and repent of the areas that we haven't

turned over to you and God, that we live differently because of

you. Your name I pray.

Amen.