(upbeat music) - Welcome to the Craig T. Owens audio blog with Craig's blog posts in audio format to go. Craig's new book, When Sheet Bite, is available now at CraigTowens.com. - How Christians can live biblically in an election season. - I am deeply concerned about the words and actions of Christian Saints during these past election cycles. Here's what I believe the Bible shows us our words and lifestyle should be. This is the audio of a sermon I shared with my congregation on Sunday. If you would like to watch the video of this sermon, I've shared that link in the show notes. - I think in my 15 years of being at Calvary Assembly, what I'm gonna do today is probably five times at the most, probably less than that. That just as strongly as I felt, the Holy Spirit's lay a word on my heart to share. I just as strongly felt him saying, not this time, gonna have to set that aside. There was a different message that he, I've been struggling with the last couple of weeks. It's been heavy on me, and the Spirit just would not let it go. I felt a lot like I made me think of Jude when Jude writes his letter to the church. He says, I was really looking forward to sharing something with you guys. And as I began to put pen to paper, I felt the Holy Spirit just compelling me. Here's what Jude wrote, dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the Saints. That's us, the Saints, right? For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago of secretly slipped in among you, they're Godless men who changed the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only sovereign and Lord. I was looking forward to sharing the next message in our series and God willing. We might return to that next week as we're discovering about how to step into our gifts and step out of our comfort zone. But there's been something that has weighed heavy on my heart. And that is the way that I hear Christian Saints talking and the way that I see them behaving during an election cycle. In the past couple of election cycles, it seems that the rhetoric and the actions have ramped up a little bit. And it's distressing to me for our nation, but it's even more so for me within the body of Christ. Last week I was listening to John Stone Street. He's the man who took the baton from Charles Colson after Mr. Colson had passed away in leading this great organization, the Colson Center. And John said this, I'll put it up on the screen for you. He said, currently politics is carrying far more cultural weight than it is able to bear. We're putting a lot more weight on the political process than it was intended to bear. We're asking politicians and we're asking our government to do things or we're looking to them to do things that they weren't designed to do and we're turning this over to them. Now, the problem is that we have different, we've got political parties that have different stances and I understand that. But what's happening is people are gravitating to their one party or the other is that they are vilifying the people that are on the opposite side from them. And that shouldn't take place. Now, there's a quote from Chuck Colson, the man that served President Nixon and was radically and completely saved and did a 180 and did some great things in making Christians aware of the proper place of where Christians step into the political process. And there's a quote from him that I, whenever I share it, people always smile at it. And he said, "Salvation will never arrive on Air Force One." And that's true. But you know, the flip side is true as well. The apocalypse isn't gonna arrive on Air Force One either. Because if we start saying, I've gotta get my candidate in office, the election has got to go this way, this time, or our country has done for. When we say that, what we're doing is we're putting a political process above God's plan. Twice Daniel in speaking to unquestionably, at the time that Daniel was saying this, unquestionably, the most powerful man on planet Earth was Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon. And Nebuchadnezzar got pretty full of himself. He said, "Look at all of these things that I have done." And Daniel reminded him, twice, he uses this phrase, "The most high is sovereign over all the kingdoms on Earth, and he gives them to anyone he wishes." King Nebuchadnezzar, you are here because God placed you here. Now, I realize back in Israel, it's not like there was a political process, a political system where you would vote. But would anybody in Israel have voted for Nebuchadnezzar to be the king? Nobody would have voted for him. And yet Daniel, an Israelite, Jewish man, says to Nebuchadnezzar, "God placed you where you are right now." If we begin to elevate a political process, if we say, "This is what, oh man, it's got to be this candidate. It's got to be this party. We got to win this election." If we don't, we're done for, where's God's hand in that? We're elevating, at best we're putting it on the same level with God, but a lot of times we're putting God down below it. And we don't, we can't do that, we can't do that. Listen, I hope this doesn't burst anybody's bubble. Maybe it may be a wealth, no, I don't. You guys are too smart for this. But you do realize that there is no perfect political candidate, right? - I'm not sure. - Okay? And there is no perfect political party, and there's no perfect political agenda, okay? As Christians, especially Christians here in the United States of America, we have the privilege and the responsibility to participate intelligently in the political process and the election process. We, as Christians, should be studying our Bible. What does God say? We should be in prayer. We should be studying the lifestyle and the policies of the candidates and ultimately to participate in the process, we're going to have to vote. But we're going to vote for an imperfect candidate. Sometimes I think that we believe that we're voting for the perfect candidate and somebody else is voting for the one that has no perfection in them at all, nothing good in them at all. We are all voting for an imperfect person as a part of an imperfect political party that's standing on an imperfect political platform, okay? We're going to have to make a choice. It's quite possible that in this room, in your house, with your coworkers, you're sitting next to somebody living with somebody, working alongside somebody that is going to vote the opposite way that you're voting. That is a very real possibility. But they have hopefully, prayerfully, done the same thing. They've studied God's Word, they've prayed, they've done their research and in good conscience, they're voting for the other imperfect candidate that's different from the imperfect candidate that you are voting for. Now, you don't have to, please don't know show of hands, but just think to yourself, have you decided who you're going to vote for in the next election? If you have, is there anything that anybody could say to you that would change your mind? I'm going to guess no. So we try, we talk to somebody, if they've said, I've made up my mind, this is what I'm voting for, we have to be very careful how we're treating them. Let me show you, first of all, what the Bible says about how we're not supposed to treat these people. Moses, as you know, is in Egypt, he is in a leadership position in the Egyptian government, but he's not an Egyptian. He's got Jewish blood in him. And he comes out one day and he sees a couple of fellow Jews that are duking it out with each other. So look what he says. The next day, Moses went out and saw two Hebrews fighting and he asked them, they asked the one that's in the wrong, why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew? Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew? I want to key in on those two words, fellow Hebrew. The word that he uses there, the Hebrew word, means a friend who is a fellow citizen. These are Jewish people living in a foreign land. They are subject to the laws and the government of the Egyptians, but they have to follow those laws, but their citizenship is elsewhere. Does that sound at all like Christians? We're citizens of heaven. We happen to be living here under the oversight of a government that is, sure we're citizens of the United States, but we have a higher citizenship as well. And I think that what Moses is really saying by using this word that he says, your fellow Hebrew, he's saying, do you realize this is your own, we're part of the same family here? And I think that he's also saying, what would the Egyptians think about this? The way that you're behaving, are you behaving like you are citizens of God's land, of Zion, or are you behaving just the way that the Egyptians would behave? Stephen, when he retells this story in his sermon in Acts chapter seven, he says it almost the same way. He says the next day, Moses came upon two Israelites who were fighting. He tried to reconcile them, tried to get them to put aside their differences by saying, man, you are brothers, why do you want to hurt each other? This phrase here, you are brothers, he uses a different word in the Greek, it's the word Adelphos. Now, literally speaking, Adelphos means this, from the same womb. They are humans who were born biologically from the same mother. That's what Adelphos means in its strict translation. But here we are very early on in the Christian church. The Christians took this word Adelphos very early on at the beginning to mean brothers and sisters in Christ. We are born of the same Holy Spirit into the family of God, and we should treat each other like brothers and sisters in the family of God. So, and notice how he says it here, they were fighting and he was trying to reconcile them. Guys, stop hitting each other, stop fighting with each other. Do you realize you're trying to win a fight right here that is rather temporary? Because he said, when he says you're Adelphos, you are brothers and sisters in Christ, do you realize that you are going to spend eternity with each other? And you want to fight over this thing right now? Maybe in the moment, it seems like it's a really big thing. But let's step back for a second and realize we're talking about eternity here. So whether it's Moses saying fellow citizens or whether it's Stephen saying not just fellow citizens, but members of the same family of the body of Christ, what are you doing? What kind of testimony is this sending? If you're going to behave like everybody else in the world is behaving, why would somebody look at this and say, I want to be a part of the family of God? You're behaving like everybody else. What's the difference? Why don't I just keep on doing what I'm doing? You're attacking your brothers and sisters. Okay, so that's, I can do the exact same thing. So he has both citizens of the same country and in a lot of cases, saints in the same family of God, we have to do better. Now listen, you could take somebody on both sides of the political spectrum. You could take somebody as far right as you can imagine, somebody far left as you can imagine. And if you said to them, what you stand for, what you believe, what you're voting for, do you think that this is the best for our country, they're both going to say yes to you. Neither one of them are going to say, no, you know what, I'm trying to, what I'm doing right now is trying to destroy the country. But that's what we do when you look at somebody on the opposite side, you go, they're trying to destroy the country. They don't think that they are, but then they look back at you and say, well, you're trying to destroy the country. You don't think that you are. We've got to do better than that. In "The Lord of the Rings" books, Tolkien wanted to talk about, and there's an underlying theme of how people are getting manipulated by the evil that's in the culture. And his character, Gandalf, walks in to a situation where there is literal blood that has been spilled. Men that are part of the same family, the same city, the same unit in the military, they have pulled out their swords, they've drawn swords, and there are, the blood has been spilled, there are dead bodies on the ground. And in Gandalf's mouth, Tolkien puts these words, work of the enemy, such deans, he, the enemy loves, friend at war with friend, loyalty divided, and confusion of hearts. Does that sound at all like the agenda of our adversary of the devil? He's the author of "Confusion." He wants to see friend, family, citizen divided, and at each other's throat. He doesn't want to see people getting along and sharing a common understanding of what they need to do. He wants us to be polarized and at each other's throat. And well, does he say it, this is the work of the enemy. When we start seeing people that are calling out, vilifying somebody because you are voting the opposite way that I'm voting, you must not have it right, you must be, and how dare you, and what's your, and this is going back and forth, and the division is becoming wider. It's work of the enemy. Paul said this through this letter to the Church of Galatia, therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, but who especially, especially to those who belong to the family of believers, especially inside the church with the saints. Now, Jesus talked about the opposite way of this. He says, if anyone says to a brother or sister, and he uses the same word here, Adelphos, and if you start saying you're an empty-headed fool, you don't know what you're doing, where is your head on this, how could you possibly, where he says, when you start saying that to a brother or sister, you're putting yourself in danger. Because you're saying this to a fellow saint that you could potentially be sharing all of eternity with, but you could also buy your actions, like name-calling them, by separating from them, by ostracizing them, because they're going a different way that you're going. You could lead to the path where they completely walk away from everything. Why would we risk gamble, jeopardize eternity over an election? Because this next election, any election, isn't bringing salvation, and it isn't bringing the apocalypse. And you know what? Listen, if I'm wrong and it does bring the apocalypse, then that just means that the arrival of Jesus is even sooner, even so come, Lord Jesus. I'm fine with that, if that's what that brings about. But like Daniel said to Nebuchadnezzar, you were God's chosen servant. Nebuchadnezzar brought God's judgment on Israel. Maybe God needs to bring judgment on our nation, and he'll do that through the person, or people that are in the offices that they're in. Let's stop vilifying the people that are voting the opposite way that we are. Let's do a poll talking to his friends at Philippi. He pleads with them. If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, you are brothers and sisters. We are united in Christ. If you have any comfort at all from his love, if any fellowship with the Holy Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love being one in spirit and purpose. Step back from the temporary situation that you're in, and look at the eternal setting. Two chapters later, he makes it very specific with an example here. I plead with Yodiah, and I plead with Cintecae to agree with each other in the Lord. We're not told what their disagreement was. We have no idea what their disagreement was. But let's just say, for the sake of our setting today, let's say that one of them is voting for a candidate with an R after their name, and the other one is voting for a candidate with a D after their name. Let's just say that. I plead with Yodiah, and I plead with Cintecae to agree with each other in the Lord. Not on your ballot preference, but can you agree in the Lord that you're not gonna allow this election, this issue to separate you? Because then he goes on and calls in the whole church to help, yes, and I ask you, loyal yoke fellow, help these women who have contended at my side in the cause of the gospel, along with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the Book of Life. The saints' names in the Book of Life. Let's not argue with them, name call them, separate from them, question their motives, question their thinking, question their ballot, their voting process, because there's still names that are written in the Book of Life. Agree in the Lord. It's okay to agree to disagree with somebody. It's okay, you wanna vote that way. I disagree with your vote, but you probably disagree with my vote as well, but let's agree that we're not going to lose friendship over this. We're not gonna break fellowship over this. I'm not gonna think ill of you because of this. Let's agree in the Lord. This last summer that we just went through, I'll show you the verses up here that got me thinking from Isaiah. And I will make mere boys, their leaders, and mischievous children will rule over them. And the people will be oppressed, each one by another, and each one by his neighbor. The youth will assault the elder, and the contemptible person will assault the one honored. And I wrote this down in the summer when I read these verses. I wanna read it to you just as I wrote it down here. God gives nations the leaders they deserve. They are leaders in that they occupy an office, but they don't necessarily lead people, nor care for their citizens, because as I first says, they don't have the wisdom to lead, nor do they care about anyone but themselves. But this is the inevitable result of a nation that turns its back on God. These phrases I'm here, these mere boys and mischievous children, what that means is people that don't have the skills or the temperament or the experience to do what they've been asked to do. Kinda like that quote from John Stone Street as I said earlier, you were asking the political system to carry more weight than it could. They're not prepared for it. Here's how the amplified version says verse three here. And I will make boys their princes and with childishness, they shall rule over them with outrage instead of justice. When you listen to some of our political candidates talking, does it sound at all to you like childishness? I'm on the playground sometimes with kids and it goes like this, you're ugly. No, you're ugly. Yeah, well, you're stupid. Well, you're stupider. Yeah, well, you're uglier. Well, that's what a lot of our political candidates sound like. That person's ugly, that person's stupid and no, you're ugly and you're stupid. Well, that sounds like the mere boys. That sounds like mischievous children. That sounds like just yelling things. Why do we want to say, yeah, my mischievous candidate is so much better than the other mischievous candidate. And anybody that supports that mischievous candidate got to be completely separated from me. Listen, I like this, I heard, again, John Stonestream, that same talk, he used to phrase I'd never heard before. And he called the church to be pre-political. What does that mean? Well, think about this. Jesus said all of the law is fulfilled, loving God and loving our neighbor. Matthew 25, he says, let me give it to you this way. If somebody's hungry, feed them. If they're thirsty, give them water. If they're in prison, if they're sick, if they need clothes, get them what they need. The government does all those things right now because the church isn't. We need to be pre-political. We need to be so doing the things that Jesus tells us to do, that we see the first church doing in Acts, that there's no need for the government to come in and feed the hungry because we don't need you. We already did that. Well, we need to bring in the bottles of water. Nope, we already took care of that. Well, we need to set up this hospital. We need to set up this program to help inmates get rehabilitated back into the site, already did it, got it covered. We don't need you here. Pre-political, not waiting, said, well, boy, there's a lot of problems around here. Which candidate can be in office that's gonna fix all these problems? We don't need a candidate. We don't need a government to fix it. The church is supposed to fix it. If we don't like what we're getting in Washington and in Lansing and in our other state capitals, we need to look in the mirror because politics is always downstream from culture. The political process has become bigger and the government has taken on more because the church has abdicated their responsibilities in these places. We don't look to an election. That's not our hope for our salvation. Here's what Paul said to his front Timothy. This is why we work hard and continue to struggle for our hope is in the living God who is the savior of all people and particularly of all believers. That's why our hope is. So I wrote it down this way in my notes. The way we treat both fellow U.S. citizens and the way we treat our brothers and sisters in Christ is either gonna point people to Jesus or it's gonna point people to man-made political systems. We're either going to say, well, gotta get involved in the political process and you better stand for your candidate and you better put down the other candidate and the other party or we're not gonna get anything done or you can say we don't even need them to do that because we're gonna take care of it. We're gonna either point them to Jesus or we're gonna point them to a political process. We have to do better at this than we've done before. I have to do better than I've done at this before. I'm not gonna put that on. I'm not gonna say we, I have to do better than I've done before. We need to set a better testimony for people to follow than we have. So Lord, would you help us in that? Help us to look in the mirror. Help us to listen to the Holy Spirit. As David said in Psalm 139, "Search our hearts, see if there is any offensive way." Even if it was a thought that we were thinking about somebody who maybe is voting differently from us or supporting a candidate different than what we would support. And we've thought ill of them. Holy Spirit convict us so that we can ask forgiveness and we can repent from that line of thinking and we can be more aware of it the next time, that we squash that thought before it ever can begin to form in our minds. Point out to us anything that is offensive and lead us in the way everlasting. Let us realize that you are the sovereign God, you are most high and you supersede every political process, every political candidate, every party agenda, your will will prevail. Help us to do better as we interact with our fellow citizens in our great country but especially as we interact with fellow brothers and sisters saints as a part of the body of Christ. In fact, may we be so noted for behaving and speaking differently that people outside of the church will, they can't help but notice the way that we're behaving and realize that there's something different because our hope is not in an election. Our hope is firmly in Jesus and that's why we work hard so that everybody can see that hope in Jesus. Help us, the great in Jesus' name, Amen. Craig's new book, When Sheep Bite, is available now. To order, go to CraigTowens.com. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) [MUSIC PLAYING]
