Can We Talk? Politics + Government

Can we talk about politics?

You should see your faces right now.

That's funny.

Some of you are like, oh no, we have to, and some of you are like, yeah, it's about time.

And you're wanting me to say what you want said.

I know you are, but it's a very serious subject.

It's very serious to God, so I'm going to treat it as a serious subject.

I'm not going to give you any of the trit little humor that goes along with politics, like I'm not going to say things like politics.

The word comes from two words poly, meaning many, and tics, meaning bloodsucking parasites.

I'm not going to say that.

I'm not going to say it so, and I'm not going to tell you that the only accurate statistic on the last several presidential elections has been this one 100% of Americans think that 50% of Americans have completely lost their mind.

That is accurate.

That is accurate.

But I'm not going to say that because this is a serious subject but sometimes, honestly, it leaves a bad taste in our mouth.

Right, for some reason, we see it argued on the media.

But it's very important to God.

But politics is just simply the actions that are connected to the governing of a nation or of nations together, between countries, especially involving debates and compromise.

That's what it actually is, and so it's really the art of getting along and moving forward Doesn't feel that way, does it?

But that's what it is Getting along and moving forward.

But how are we supposed to think about it?

You really can't think about how we are to approach the subject unless you see yourself in the middle of bigger stories.

And as Christians, christ followers and as Americans, we find ourselves right in the middle of two big stories.

One story is a bigger story.

It's a grand story.

It's the story of the kingdom of God, and there is a king in that kingdom and he is Lord of all, as we've already heard this morning that the reign that he has will have no end.

It's a capital K kingdom, and then there's a lowercase K kingdom.

That's our political context that we live in right now.

But we find ourselves right in the middle of both of these stories.

So how do we think, like Jesus, in the middle of both of these stories?

Glad you asked that question.

Turn to Matthew, chapter 22.

Matthew 22 · chapter mention

We'll find out, because we have Jesus' words on the topic here.

Ok, matthew 22,.

We'll start at verse 15.

Then the Pharisees went and plotted how to entangle him, jesus, in his words.

Ok, we see the motive immediately, right, ok, and they sent their disciples.

They didn't even go themselves, they sent their disciples along with the Herodians, saying teacher, we know that you are true and teach the way of God truthfully, and you do not care about anyone's opinion, for you are not assuade by appearances.

Tell us then what you think.

Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar?

I can't kind of hear them voice change right there, or not?

The Jesus, aware of their malice, said why put me to the test, you hypocrites?

Show me the coin for the tax.

And they brought him into an area and Jesus said to them who's likeness and inscription is this?

They said Caesars.

Then he said to them, therefore, render to Caesar the things that are Caesars and to God the things that are God's.

And when they heard it, they marveled and they left him and they went away.

Mic drop, beautiful Jesus.

Mic drop moment.

I love those things.

They're great.

Observations.

Number one it was a plot to entangle Jesus in his words.

These people had evil motives and they were just trying to argue and they were pitting themselves against Jesus, us against them.

That kind of feels like the political conversation these days right.

It's us versus them, and us is 100% right and they are the devil.

It's a mixture of bad religious people and bad political people going together to Jesus here.

That's what's going on, because the Herodians were the sect of Hellenistic Jews and their hero was Herod, and they wanted somebody from Herod's family, this dynasty of Herod, to be on the throne of Judea.

That's what they wanted.

Now the Pharisees wanted the Messiah, whoever that was going to be the son of David, to sit on the throne of David.

Both were against Jesus, both were trying desperately to cling to what power they thought they had, and Jesus had a message for both of them, the political people and the religious people.

He had a message Some things belong to Caesar, some things belong to God, and you need to figure that out, mic drop.

That's it.

So we kind of think sometimes our political environment is our.

The climate here is just like the worst, right?

Everything is so terrible and there's so much division.

It's just this.

You know it's never been worse than it is now, but I'm just telling you that's not true, because in Jesus's day, in first century Palestine, it was just as bad, probably worse than it is now.

Right, because you did have the Pharisees and you did have the Herodians, but that's not all.

You had the Sadducees, ok, so the Sadducees were these political compromisers and they were disguised as temple priests.

Basically, they were the landlords, or you could say the holders, the keepers of the temple.

But they were aligned with the Roman government.

They were aligned with the worldly system.

Ok, so there was this mixture.

It's a terrible mixture, right, and their hope was in a political system.

And I see them as woke church leaders that are in bed with this world's perversions.

That's what I see Church people who are aligning with woke policies.

That's what I see, the Sadducees.

And you understand, when you align yourself with politics and political sides, truth gets pushed down or gets redefined or gets undiscoverable.

Right, truth can be smothered or it can even be extinguished when you align with political sides.

But we're not like the Sadducees, we're different.

Our hope is not in alignment with a political system.

Our hope is in an unshakable kingdom.

It's in the capital K kingdom.

Ok, this is where our hope is, not in the small K.

Then there were the Essians.

The Essians were sort of like Pharisees, but they were like Pharisees on steroids.

They were like the Pharisees that actually thought the Pharisees were lukewarm.

The Essians were serious.

They actually completely removed themselves from the culture and they lived in caves.

That's where the Dead Sea Scrolls came from.

They were ridden by Essians, and these Essians were like separatists.

Their hope was in this cataclysmic ending, that God was going to come back somehow and right every wrong, and we're going to stay away from society until that happens.

So they were preppers, that's it.

They were just preppers, preppers waiting for a cataclysmic end.

They were preppers waiting for the rapture.

Let's put it that way.

But we're not like Essians.

That's not us.

We do not separate ourselves from this world and wait for judgment of God.

We rather we shine.

We bring hope into this world.

We offer hope to those around us.

Hoping for tomorrow is not a bad thing, but hoping for tomorrow doesn't mean you quit living today, because we're here right now and we're light right now.

And then you have the zealots.

They're even more radical, but they were on the political side of radicalism.

They're radical extremists.

They're going to bring the kingdom by force.

So they're not just prepping.

They're prepping in a different way.

They're buying ammunition and they believe if they fought Roman occupation and tyranny then God would bring his kingdom in, but they're going to do it through the power of their arm.

They're going to do it through this military might.

So that's their hope.

Their idea of a messiah was a military messiah.

Ok, we're not like zealots.

Ok, that's not who that's.

We don't hope in our own strength.

We don't look for some political figure who's going to right all of our societal wrongs.

I don't know.

Some of us are old enough to understand that ain't going to happen.

We've been through enough election cycles and heard enough promises to realize our hope isn't coming through a man, right, it's simply not going to happen.

Our hope isn't God himself.

So we have all this mess of a political climate there in first century Palestine and then.

But if you put all those people together, it might be maybe 5%, maybe 7% of the total population.

You have the other 90% to 95% of people who are just common people.

So historians gave them a name Amha Aritz.

Amha Aritz means people of the land, people of the ground.

They're just common people.

They're just trying to live.

I mean menial jobs, trying to survive, trying to eat the next day, right, and the Essins condemned them and the zealots tried to recruit them and the Sadducees hardly even noticed them, but those were the ones that flocked to Jesus.

They flocked to His message of hope.

In fact, jesus himself was one of them.

He wasn't one of those other political party.

Interestingly, he chose people from some of those political parties to be in his 12.

There's a lesson.

But he wasn't one of them.

He was one of the common people.

And these are the ones who flocked to His message of hope.

And His hope was in the good news that he was preaching of another kingdom that was coming into this kingdom.

So I don't have to be separated from God by a system of laws or traditions of man.

That's good news.

Acceptance and restoration and even relationship with God is available, and God is setting up a new kingdom through the work of His Son, a new covenant by which we can approach Him and know Him, not through our own works but through the work of His very Son.

This is good news.

This is the hope that they found.

So if we could summarize this render to Caesar and render to God thing, I would say it this way we cannot put our trust fully in the form of government that we live under, thinking that deliverance is going to come from government deliverance for our social or economic or spiritual problems is going to come solely from government.

We can't set government up as our idol.

We have to render unto God, but we cannot neglect being salt and light and allowing the influence of the greater kingdom to break into this lesser kingdom that we're a part of as well.

We cannot abdicate our God-given responsibility to be active in the context to which we replaced.

We were born at this time, in this country, under this political system.

Here we are, here we are.

We have to steward both responsibilities to God and to Caesar, and we need to be salt and light in every layer of society.

We need to represent Jesus, we need to speak for righteousness and justice and love everywhere.

We have to render to Caesar.

We have to do both.

So what I'm saying is there is an earthly kingdom and we are participants in this kingdom, but there's a greater kingdom, the kingdom of God, to which our greater allegiance goes.

But part of being true to that greater kingdom is full participation in this lesser kingdom.

You see, this is part of it.

So what does it mean to render unto Caesar?

That's really what we're talking about today In the context of the big kingdom.

How do we render to Caesar.

How do we perform our civic duty?

So let's talk about politics, and we've been talking about some hard issues the last few weeks, and so we've been approaching it three different ways.

What does culture say?

What does God say, and how should we speak about it?

So let's think about what culture says about politics.

Well, culture often tells us that we need to choose a side, and then we see all the other opposing parties as the enemy.

That's what our media culture it's really like.

It seems like that's what we're talking about.

That's the function of media right now.

Whatever side you're on doesn't matter if you're left or right, I don't care.

We don't debate anymore.

There is such thing as conversation, guys, you know where we actually talk and we actually work toward things, but we don't debate anymore.

We just demonize, we just call people names or at least our media does, let's say it that way.

And we have leaders in our political system and in the media that are contentious, and both sides are involved in this contentiousness.

They are polarizing, both sides have polarizing people, and the thing is there's a danger of that spirit.

I think it's a demonic spirit of division in our country, but the problem is, if we're not careful, that demonic spirit that filters into our hearts and suddenly we find ourselves being the dividers not the peacemakers, but the dividers.

And while we hold to truth, we do hold to truth.

There is a time to hate what God hates and love what God loves.

It doesn't matter if majority of the country believes abortion is right.

It's not, and we're going to stand for righteousness.

That's the way it is.

Okay, we're going to do that.

We hold this truth, but we have to hold this truth in the spirit of Jesus.

We have to resist that divisiveness, right?

I mean, jesus rode on a donkey once, but that was not a political statement.

Okay, the kingdom of God does not ride on the backs of donkeys or elephants.

Okay, he doesn't need it.

That's not necessary, okay.

So the non-Christian culture often uses politics for selfish gain and for control and for power, and we all understand that.

Right, we see it.

Not everybody is like that.

Not everybody in politics is that way, but often it's that way.

The Christian culture has kind of two views.

Either let's use politics for the advancement of an agenda or let's just stay out of it all together, it's a mess.

Let's be Essians, right, let's hide in the caves?

Okay, all right, but what does God say?

What does God say?

God says we have a duty both to the greater kingdom of God and to the political context in which we live.

So are you guys good with scripture?

You like scripture a lot?

Because we're going to have scripture Quite a few scriptures here and we're going to go through them kind of quickly.

Okay, because we want to look at the New Testament to see what is our position in this greater kingdom and is our position in the lesser kingdom.

So we'll start at 1 Timothy, chapter 2, verse 1, paul writing to his spiritual son, timothy Paul, who was in prison many times under his own government, under Roman occupation.

1 Timothy 2:1

Paul wrote this.

Okay, first of all, first of all, circle it, underline it, put it in bold letters.

First of all, how do we, how should we approach politics?

First of all, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.

First of all, pray and be thankful.

Oh, but Paul didn't live today.

Oh, but Paul lived in his day and you didn't.

You you're not living in his day either.

You should be very thankful of that.

What does this imply?

This?

To me, this implies that we're to be engaged, number one and that we're to be compassionate number two.

Okay, engaged means we have an opportunity to bring the power and the hope of this greater kingdom to bear on this lesser kingdom.

That's a privilege, and we do it through prayer.

And compassionate means we have to be empathetic about leaders, even leaders that we don't agree with, even leaders, even people who agree with those leaders that we don't agree with.

We have to be empathetic, we have to be Christ-like.

So, and it implies that our prayers make a difference.

If you pray, there's a peaceful and godly way of living that can happen if we pray.

If we pray, things can change, okay.

So we're encouraged to be engaged and to be compassionate.

And number two, I would say we should talk to God about politicians before you talk to God to others about politics.

Talk to God about politicians before you talk to others about politics.

Well, I don't.

There's a few things I like for you to take home with you today.

This is one of them Talk to God first about the people, and I have to tell you that this has been a real conviction in my heart this week because I realize I have failed in this.

I failed, I haven't been doing it the way I should be doing it.

I haven't been doing this.

First of all, I sometimes can become one of the name-callers because my heart's not right.

So I've had to allow the Holy Spirit to change some things in me.

This week I want to just tell you a story back in the 1980s.

This is a story about how our prayers make difference.

But in the 1980s, if you're alive in the 80s, you understand the way things used to be.

It was a real dichotomy between two superpowers, right, or at least what we understood as superpowers.

And so it was United States, it was a Soviet Union, and the Soviet Union was godless atheism, it was communist it was, it was oppressive.

We have some people who lived under that regime here with us here and felt that very oppression.

Right, you know, in the 1980s, starting in 1983, there's an organization called Open Doors with Brother Andrew and they started a prayer campaign.

It was a seven-year prayer campaign to bring down the, the iron curtain, to bring down communism, so that the gospel could come into these atheistic lands, oppressed lands, and that was, that was like, almost like the prospect of that seemed absolutely impossible.

It was such a stronghold.

How could this even happen?

But there's a seven-year prayer campaign and so I got my little email, my little snail males.

I didn't have any.

There wasn't any email at the point.

It's like I got my little snail males, opened it up and and every month they would send out prayer points.

And it was a methodical and it was strategic.

It's how to pray for, it's who to pray for, it's how we are praying for the kingdom of God to come, for the walls to fall down, for the gospel to go forth.

And we prayed.

Maybe some of you were part of that campaign, I don't know, but we prayed and I prayed.

It was a seven-year campaign, starting in 1983.

Do you know what happened before the end of the decade?

The absolute unthinkable happened.

I mean a land of atheism, a land of banned Bibles, a land of political and religious prisons.

The gospel broke into that.

The wall came down.

God moved little.

His little players you know there was little players that he put in position to make all this happen.

But I'm just saying our prayers make a difference.

Church, first of all, I urge you that prayers and supplications and thanksgivings would be made for all men, especially the kings, especially those who are in positions.

We can pray.

So I want to tell you, I want to encourage you to pray, and I want to tell you in in my best pastoral and prophetic voice if you're not praying for your leaders, shut your mouth in the name of the Lord, in the fear of God.

Shut your mouth because you do not have the right to criticize those you don't even pray for and you're not acting in love.

And that goes for leaders that you disagree with as well and the people who support those people.

Because there's this, there's this weird dissonance in our walk and the way people look to us.

So people in the world look at the Christians and they see this strange thing happening.

We talk all about love, but we act all about hate, in this area at least, and we're like building walls and we're making enemies and we're plotting against where.

I mean we're being ferrisciak herodians.

You know what our heart has to change.

It's not right, okay?

So John 18 let's see what Jesus is.

The words of Jesus standing before Pilate a few hours before his crucifixion.

Jesus answered to Pilate and said my kingdom is not of this world.

If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting that I might not be delivered over to the Jews.

But my kingdom is not of this world.

There's a capital K kingdom right.

Colossians 1, verse 13.

Colossians 1:13

He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and has transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

There's a kingdom.

He's the king of it.

We're brought into it.

Philippians 3 20.

Our citizenship is in heaven and from it we await the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Okay, we have a greater kingdom that we're a part of.

So how should we live if we're part of a greater kingdom in this context of our nation?

Well, it's really interesting.

First of all, it's interesting that Matthew the tax collector is the one that tells us about tax collectors, and he tells it twice.

There's one in Matthew 22.

There's also one in Matthew 17, when the guys were in Capernaum and the tax collector came to Peter and said does your teacher not pay the tax?

And Peter said yeah, yeah, he plays a tax.

And went to Jesus and said what do we do?

And Jesus said go catch a fish.

And I just found out that in one of the?

Is it toddler to class, three-year-old class or something there?

The lesson today is about the fish in the mouth of the fish who had the coin in the mouth.

That's really cool, so that's nice.

So so, did your teacher not pay the tax?

Yes, and so Jesus tells him to go catch the fish.

Interesting, interestingly, in this chapter 17, jesus transfigures in his heavenly glory in front of them, he heals a boy by casting out a demon and he pays his taxes.

That's the three things that happen in Matthew's gospel in chapter 17.

Okay, go catch a fish.

So Peter, who took the fish and took the coin out of the fish's mouth and paid the tax for both him and Jesus, wrote these words first, peter 2, verse 11 through 17 beloved, I urge you he's urging to just like Paul urged.

I urge you, as sojourners and exiles what are we so, sojourners and exiles?

To abstain from the passions of flesh which war against your soul.

Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable so that when they speak against you as evil doers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.

Be subject, for the Lord's sake, to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor, a supreme, or to governors, as sent by him, to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good.

For this is the will of God that by doing good, you should put the silence, the ignorance, of foolish people.

Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover up for evil, but living as servants of God.

Honor everyone, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the emperor.

This is Peter who, who also was imprisoned at times.

Observations here our, our essential identity is as citizens of heaven.

That's who we are.

We're citizens of heaven, which means number two we are sojourners, we are exiles.

We are not nationalists, we are resident aliens.

Resident aliens.

We're in both places.

We're citizens of heaven, but we live here and we should be subject to every institution.

Pay your taxes and stop at the stop sign and drive the speed limit.

We should do that and we do this.

Oh, we need to have an altar call right now.

Is this what I'm?

Wow?

And he says we do this, unto God, for the Lord's sake, we do this.

Oh, there's a higher king that we submit to.

Hmm, there's a true, real authority that we submit to, and Paul said something very like it in in Romans, chapter 13 as well, that every subject, be, every person, be subject to the higher powers.

Romans 13 · chapter mention

There's no powers except the ones God ordains.

Okay, so Paul says it, peter says it.

So which is it?

Are we, are we citizens of heaven or are we to participate in the form of government that we find ourselves in?

Which one?

Yes, yes, the answer is yes, we do both right, but I think it's more than then the speed limit and stop sign and paying taxes.

Okay, because because we have been given more in this country, we have been given a greater privilege because of our form of government, and I believe being subject to the institutions doesn't mean merely obeying the laws, but being subject to the governing authorities means participating in the political context that we were sovereignly born into.

We're, we're to be subject to the powers that be, and the powers that be in our nation is our constitution.

It's not whoever is president man we're.

We're stuck in this fight down in the mud, when the truth is, we have something so much greater in our constitution.

So we're not subject to a party or to an individual ruler, like a king, like Paul and Peter were, but to the form of government.

So can we talk about the form of government that God blessed us with.

For a minute, can we do that and our active part in it?

So, as Christians, we have a founding document.

It's the word of God, right?

And as Americans, we have a founding document two of them.

You could say it's our declaration of independence, it's our bill, it's our Constitution, right, all of that.

So our in our national context, we submit to these two things.

So I'll give you a little history lesson, because it's what I do, right, and just to remind you, because of abuses from England, the colonies in America, english colonies in America created a new form of government self-government.

Self-government rare self-government based on the fact that we've been given rights by God.

It literally says by nature and the laws of nature and nature's God.

This is where our rights come from.

So new form of government where God gives rights to all men and women, where the purpose of government, according to our Constitution, is securing those rights and ensuring those rights.

The government gets its power from the consent of those who are being governed.

I have a say so in the laws that govern me.

I'm responsible to God.

The elected government is responsible to me.

Well, to us, not to me.

It would be pretty cool if it was just me, but it's not, it's all of us.

Do you understand, though, how rare this is in all of history.

What a incredible blessing and privilege it is to have an empowered citizenship.

It's so rare.

The treasure of what we have in our Constitution is precious.

It has created a peace and a prosperity that has never been seen before, but it will not stand if we don't defend it vigorously.

We who are the governed have to defend the Constitution.

We have to, we can.

The freedom can only continue to exist if we take our responsibility to steward that that freedom, to whom much is given.

Much is required, and we've been given a lot.

It's not just obey the laws, it's participate in this form of government God has given us.

It's beautiful.

It's beautiful.

Why were you born here today?

I don't know.

God knows why we were born here today, but here we are, right here in this context, and the first settlers that came to America seeking religious freedom covenanted that this would be a special place unto God where we can be engaged in the arena where decisions are made.

So the purpose of government is to secure man's rights.

The purpose of government is not to fix every situation I'm talking about from our Constitution.

This is not a political side.

Our Constitution says this is what the government's purpose is to secure man's inalienable rights given from God, rights that come ultimately from God.

Rights don't come from the government, they come from God.

This is a brilliance of our founding fathers.

The people rule through representatives.

Experts don't rule, bureaucracies don't rule.

Non-elected institutions don't rule, as they shouldn't.

According to the Constitution, it's the people who rule through our representatives.

Our Constitution was created to limit the power of government, and it did this by creating separate branches, led, executive, legislative and judicial branches.

And actually God, the nature of God himself and also Christ himself, is reflected in these things.

I just want to read this to you from Isaiah 33, verse 22, for the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our king.

Isaiah 33:22

He will save us.

That's judicial, it's legislative, that's executive.

The Lord is our king.

This is the pattern our government was built on, and you see the brilliance of checked power, so that no man or no system is all powerful.

Not only do you see that in our Constitution and our declaration, you see that there's a transcendent power above all of it, from which these rights come.

Man, we've been given a treasure, absolute treasure, guys, and our founding fathers pledged, they coveted it themselves and all they had to this cause of freedom.

And it's our civic duty, the duty that we owe our country, our citizenship, is to be involved.

It's a little bit sad that we were once willing to fight to defend these freedoms and we would give our lives for this, and now we're not even hardly willing to engage in them Generally, across the board.

As Americans, it is very ironic that we live in the volunteer state and we're known for being willing to cross country and cross oceans to fight for liberty than many of us won't even cross the street to vote.

And why did they set up a separation of powers?

They did it because they understood the depravity of man.

They understood that we needed, because of our sinful and fallen and fickle nature, we need a Savior.

Christ is a Savior, not government.

But they knew that we had to have these powers in check because any one of these powers out of balance, or if you give all power to any of these, it's tyranny.

So it's brilliant, it's what we have, is brilliant church.

We have to steward this and the Holy Spirit through the church, the righteous ones, the saints made righteous through Jesus, the Holy Spirit, through the church, is the constraining factor in our nation.

Holding back evil, righteousness exalts a nation's sin as a reproach to every people, and if we don't do what we're supposed to do, then evil is going to be victorious.

We have to occupy, and we have to be, the immune system of this body and we have to take every possible approach to uphold righteousness.

So what do we do?

How can I get involved?

I got a long list here.

You're probably going to have to watch this video again online.

Okay, there's so many things.

How can you get involved?

Okay, here you go.

Educate yourself, educate yourself, and that means you may have to go beyond the mainstream media to get your news.

Start local, get involved in local politics, local government, run for elected positions, attend school board meetings.

This is so important.

What's going on at this level, this grassroots level, is where real change happens, where real government happens.

So get involved in grassroots political organizations.

Pay attention to where you spend your money, because economics and politics are deeply connected.

Share news about upcoming legislation that you know, talk about it, protest darkness.

Put pressure on local law enforcement to enforce the laws that are already on our books.

Here's one Be a godly husband or wife.

Embrace traditional biblical roles for the family.

Here's another one Parents are children.

Be the main disciples of your children.

Be masculine men and feminine women.

Live the way God made us to be.

Your neighbor needs help.

Step up and help him so he doesn't have to look to the government to do.

It Should be in our own hearts.

Right, pay your taxes, but study where your tax money goes.

Hold your representatives accountable and don't give up hope.

Don't stop living your life, don't stop being light, but most of all, we have to pay attention to the state of our heart, and that's what I want to end on is talking about the state of our heart.

You know, if this rings a bell inside you, if this resonates and you feel something from this message, we're going to be starting a community group in January.

That's all about this how to be involved, how to be salt and light in our political situation.

So we'll keep you posted about that, okay, so what does culture say about it?

What does God say about it?

Now, last of all, how do we talk about it?

How should we talk?

And I just want to say that different political ideologies doesn't necessarily mean we have to be enemies Because people think differently from us.

It doesn't mean we have to consider them the devil or our enemy, or, like I, can never learn anything from this person, or we build walls and we divide.

This is the way it is Okay, and it's not the spirit of Christ.

Standing for righteousness is the spirit of Christ, so we do stand for righteousness.

I have to keep saying that.

Right, we stand for righteousness, but we also have to have an attitude of our heart.

That's different.

Okay, if we can cleanse our own hearts of the hate culture that's around us, the sarcasm, the name calling, the disrespect of authority and the hatred that's in our media, especially If we could not be baited into those things, if we can walk contrary to that, then we can make a difference.

And so I want to ask you a question who are you listening to and I'm talking politically now and some of you don't listen to anybody.

That's probably fine, I don't know.

Some of you are listening, though, and who are you listening to and what are they saying and how are they saying it?

Because I just want to tell you and this is my opinion, this is not the opinion of the management.

Okay, this is Mark talking here.

There are podcasters and there are radio hosts that I probably agree with 85 or 90% of what they say.

I'm with them on the subject, but I can't listen to them because they're full of pride and they're dripping with hubris.

They're dripping with this divisiveness, you know, and it all just boils down into this name calling and it's not even debate.

It's not even really talking about the issues.

It's talking about how bad the other people are and I mean I agree with them and I can't listen to them.

I don't want that spirit to get into me.

Okay, how do we talk about politics that we love?

Love is our great commandment.

Do we sometimes hate?

Yeah, we hate what's wrong.

The fear of a Lord is to hate what is evil.

That's part of the fear of a Lord, but we don't transfer that into flesh and blood.

We war against spiritual principalities, right and powers, not flesh and blood.

Flesh and blood we love and this is our great commandment, right?

So, more than our political opinions, people need hope.

They need to see us living with kindness and love to everyone around us.

How are we going to be seen or known as different than just everybody else?

Here's how.

The spirit of Christ inside of us, the fruit of the spirit inside of us love and joy and peace inside of us, gentleness, this is a fruit of the spirit, guys.

Self-control is a fruit of the spirit.

This is the spirit we have, not the spirit of the age, and this is what will appeal to those around us who are really hungry and needing hope.

And the last thing is to pay attention to our own hearts, to repent from bad attitudes, bad motives, bad actions.

Man, we've talked about some hard things the last few weeks and some of the things are, I would say some of us would probably say, especially the sexual issues, identity issues we've been talking about.

Many of us would say, yeah, I recognize that as sin.

Yeah, that doesn't represent God.

Yeah, that's wrong and we see that, but we don't see that we're operating in a similar spirit and we're operating in a similar spirit as the world in the area of politics.

It's sin just as much.

It's sin just as much and some of us who don't struggle with those sexual sins are just as guilty as walking in the flesh, of walking without love, of misrepresenting God.

We need to have soft and teachable hearts.

We do because the heart is the issue.

The heart is the issue.

Even our founding fathers understood this.

James Madison said if men were angels, no government would be necessary.

But we're not, are we?

And Blaise Pascal said man is the glory and the scum of the earth.

And we get it, don't we?

There are some glorious things and there's some scummy things.

It's true, we're the rose and we are the thorn.

Churchill famously said many forms of government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe.

No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all wise.

Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all of those other forms that have been tried from time to time, and it's true.

It's true that some forms of government have been infinitely better in terms of serving people, and some forms of government have been horribly worse.

It's true.

But it really doesn't matter the form of government if the heart is bad.

You can have a great form of government and a bad heart, and the result is wrong it's bad, it's bad.

So we thank God for our form of government, we steward what we have, but if our hearts aren't changed, nothing's going to change.

And it starts with us.

It starts with us.

Alexander Sotsenitsyn was a Russian who was caught up in the oppression and the problem.

He was actually in a gulag for his beliefs.

He had some real insight.

He actually came to America.

He escaped Communism, came to America.

He had some real wisdom.

And he said this the line between good and evil runs not through states that means countries nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart.

The line between good and evil goes right down the middle of my heart, right down the middle of your heart.

That's why, in the middle, we read it this week, if you're reading the plan this week in Ezekiel, the Bible plan that we're reading as a church.

That's why, even though there's all of this prophecy against the wickedness of Israel and political things are going, all this stuff is happening.

Still Ezekiel says but here's what the Lord is going to do I will give you a new covenant.

I will take away your heart of stone and I will put in you a heart of flesh and I will put my spirit inside of you.

I will cause you to follow after me.

Because that's where the difference is made in the heart.

There's a reason every promised utopia ends in terror it's bad hearts.

There's a reason why revolutions that are promised never succeed.

And there's a reason that oppressions never end and promised futures never come.

This causes of bad hearts.

And so this morning, as we were worshiping, I was reminded of what God said to his people in 2 Chronicles 7, verse 14.

2 Chronicles 7:14

And he says if my people who were called by my name humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

So this tells us right there the onus is on us.

The onus is on us.

That's pretty clever.

I didn't even know that.

It's us.

It's his people, right, it's our job.

It's not the party, it's not the party.

This is why we have to bring or be a part of what God is doing in bringing the hope and the power of that greater kingdom to bear on this lesser kingdom.

That's what we're called to do.

There's a boy that seems right to man but it ends in death.

Right, if there is a man who is the way, and he is the truth and he is the life, and his name is Jesus and he's the king of this kingdom.

And there will be a day when the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ and he will reign forever.

And that's partially happening today, though not in its fullness.

It's happening today and we're part of allowing that to come into our context, our world, right now.

So we have to occupy, we have to be faithful to our responsibility and we have to be those who render to Caesar and to God.

So I want to pray for us, because this is not easy thing.

Right, let's stand up and let's pray together.

I want to pray for God to give us grace.

First, we thank you, for we thank you so much that you've called us out of darkness, lord, into the kingdom of your dear son.

First, we thank you that we're in that kingdom, god.

And if there are those here who haven't surrendered to you, jesus, they don't.

They don't know the freedom that you give and they don't know the forgiveness of sins, they don't know the lifting of the burden of their guilt, they don't understand the freedom that you've given through your blood, lord Jesus, I pray that you would open their eyes and you would draw them to you.

I pray this would be a day where they take, step a step, into that freedom.

God, thank you for that, that kingdom, lord.

But we also thank you that we were born into this country and though there's so many things we could say negatively about what's going on around us, still, lord, this is such a precious treasure you've given us, lord, that we can be a part of changing things in the spirit, through prayer, and in our action.

Lord, in the small K kingdom as well, lord, we want to be faithful.

We want to stand before you someday and say this is what we did with this beautiful and rare gift of empowered citizenship that you gave to us.

We did something with it, we participated in it.

Jesus, we tell you that our hope is in you and our trust is in your righteousness that you give.

We ask you to cleanse our hearts, lord.

We ask you to make us agents of change.

We pray that you would give us grace to spread this kingdom through the love of Jesus, to those who are around us, with sincere love, lord, and I pray for your grace and your peace to reign and the reign of this King to be evident in the families that are represented here.

God Bless them, lord.

Bless the lives of every person in these families, lord.

We pray that prayer this morning, we humble ourselves, we don't point the finger anymore.

This morning, lord, we put our fingers down, we put our accusations away, god, and we humble ourselves and we pray.

And, god, we want to see your face and we turn from wickedness, god, and we're asking you to hear from heaven and heal this land, not because we deserve it, lord, but because you're gracious.

Heal our land, god.

Turn us back to you.

Let righteousness and praise spring forth in this nation, lord.

Let the knowledge of the Lord cover the earth and cover our nation, god, even as the water covers the seas.

And, lord, I just pray that you would teach us how to act on this, you would bother us the ways we need bothering, lord, and that you would comfort us in the ways we need comforting, and we thank you for that, in the name of Jesus, amen.