Four Myths Americans Believe About Politics

The hope of the gospel unites the most unlikely of people. From all tribes, tongues, nations, and even political parties. As members of Christ's eternal kingdom, we can declare that even in moments of great division, Jesus retains the power to heal, restore, and offer an eternal hope. Good to see everybody this night and weekend.

We believe here at the Summit Church that nobody ought to ever worship alone. And so whether you're here at one of our four campuses that we are meeting together in on Thursday nights, or whether you are part of a home gathering, or whether you do find yourself alone this weekend and you are staring in front of a computer screen. We want you to know that in a very real way, we really are together. We come together to build each other up and to speak to one another and sing to one another and encourage each other. And so it's just been so incredibly encouraging for us to be able to re-gather in some new ways.

We've been gathering the whole time just in homes, but to take this next step. So I'm excited to be here. Aren't you guys?

I know I'm talking to some people at the other campuses. I think you guys are excited too. People here at Capitol Hills are very excited. So wherever you are, if you are excited to be here, just say, Amen. Amen.

Or there in your homes. I heard you, sir. I heard you speak too. We are in a series called Flags. And in this series, I'm trying to persuade you to rally behind a different flag this November. In ancient Israel, the Israelites called God.

I explained this last weekend. They called God Jehovah Nissi, which translates literally as the Lord is my flag. The Lord is the banner that I march behind. As Christians, we live as strangers and exiles in this country, which means that we belong to it. And that means that we participate in things like politics and in things like business. It is our home in one sense, as we often say, good politics is simply a way of loving your neighbor. But the primary flag that we are to rally behind is not Republican or Democrat or Libertarian or Green Party or Constitution Party or Independent or anything else.

We might think that certain candidates or even a certain political party does a better job in certain situations. But ultimately, we are not the party of the donkey or the elephant. We are the people of the Lamb. John 18, if you got your Bible and I hope that you brought your Bible, I want to show you another place in Scripture where Jesus taught this. Leading up to Jesus's trial and crucifixion, when the soldiers came to take Jesus prisoner in the Garden of Gethsemane, the apostle Peter pulls out his sword and he tries to take off one of the soldier's heads. Now, thankfully, he missed, though he ended up slicing off that soldier's ear and it falls to the ground. And then in what is perhaps one of my favorite moments in the life of Jesus, Jesus very patiently reaches down, he picks up the guy's ear out of the dirt and he reattaches it to the soldier's head. By the way, you have to wonder what that experience is like for that soldier, right? I mean, you come there to arrest this guy, but he just picked up your bloody ear off of the ground and reattached it.

I don't know about you, but I feel like that would make me lose some of my motivation for arresting him and pulling him into trial. Jesus then turns to Peter, and I'm going to read for just a moment in the book of Matthew. I'll catch up to you in the book of John in just a minute. Peter, he looks at Peter and he says, Peter, put your sword back in its place, because all who take up the sword are going to perish by the sword. Peter, do you think that I cannot call on my father? You really feel like I need your sword.

You feel like I just couldn't call on God right now and he would provide me here and now with more than 12 legions of angels. This kingdom that I am bringing, Peter, it doesn't depend on you bringing it in by force, nor is this kingdom going to be sustained by your sword. Later that night, Jesus is going to stand before Pilate, who is the Roman governor in charge, and Pilate is going to ask him directly, are you the king of the Jews?

He's speaking, of course, politically, to which Jesus responds, now John 18, verse 30, go to verse 36. My kingdom is not of this world, he said. If my kingdom were actually of this world, my servants would fight. But as it is, my kingdom is not even from here. The savior that we hope in, the savior that we adore, the savior to whom we pledge our first allegiance, did not bring a kingdom that would operate by the same rules as earthly kingdoms do.

And that means that political weaponry and military weaponry would be of little value in sustaining or advancing this kingdom. So using those two stories, let me address four myths that Americans believe about politics. These are myths, I will tell you, that are believed as much inside the church as they are outside the church. And they're myths that make seasons like the one that we're in and are about to go through, they make them feel very dark and very hopeless. For most of us, what we're feeling going into this season is anxiety, cynicism, despair, am I right?

That's what most people feel, but some of us feel going into this. I'm going to tell you it's because we believe these four myths. Myth number one that I'm going to give to you. Myth number one is that politics are of first importance. Now by the way, these things are so ingrained into us, I'm actually going to have you say each one of them, we're going to say them together.

So on this first one here is what I want. I want all the men, I want you guys to say the myth, and then all the ladies, I want you to just correct them by saying, that's a myth. So all the guys, you ready? We're going to read the myth, and then all the ladies, you're going to come right after it and you're going to say, that's a myth.

You ready guys? Alright, we're going to read the myth? Alright, read the myth. Politics is of first importance. There you go. Okay, they told them.

Let me explain why they said that. Alright, this is a little bit of a repeat from last week, so I'm going to be brief on this one, but I do want to cover it again, because this really is the crux of what Jesus is saying. Politics are important, but they are not issues of first importance. And that is because the solutions that we need, the human race needed, were not primarily political solutions, they were heart solutions. Thus, Jesus did not come first offering politics, he came first preaching heart change. I hope you realize that that approach was unique among all the religious leaders that had come before him, or the ones that came after him. Moses' ministry, for example, had a political dimension to it. We've got the Torah, the first five books of your Old Testament, and its meticulous social and legal codes. Muhammad, who founded Islam, his leadership was almost entirely, it was primarily political. He rode in on a white horse and he conquered cities and he left laws.

I'm reading a book right now on Confucius and Buddha, and even their religious forms were largely political. Jesus was one of the only religious leaders who avoided that. We saw last week that when Jesus was presented with particular social justice questions, he responded to one of them by saying, man, who appointed me as a judge or arbiter over you?

Did he say that I asked you because he was incapable of giving an opinion? No, I mean, certainly he was capable, he was the son of God, he was wiser than any of us. He just knew that his task was different.

God had not appointed him, the father had not appointed him to play that role. His role was to preach the gospel to people on both sides of that issue. As further evidence of that, I pointed out that there were all kinds of social and political reforms that were needed in the first century world. In fact, arguably there were more needed in their world than we have in ours, as many as ours needs. Yet you do not see the apostles prescribing political solutions to really any of them.

And it's not because they weren't smart enough to think of answers. Now I don't know about you, but I for one would have loved, I would love to read a letter from the apostle Paul outlining his planned reforms for the Roman Empire. Paul was certainly capable of that kind of analysis, but in an act of incredible self-discipline, Paul chose not to wade into those waters so that he could preach the gospel to all. Of course, and this is very, very important, the gospel that Jesus and the apostles preached, that gospel would plant the seeds that would ultimately lead to all of these societal reforms, believing the gospel almost always has political ramifications. But the point was that the church as an organization, we said, and the apostles as its representatives, they kept itself focused on preaching the gospel and proclaiming those things that Jesus explicitly commanded, where you could have a verse and a direct line to the application. We talked about the difference last weekend of the church, difference between the church's organization and the church's organism. As an organism, that's what most of you are a part of the church, as the organism, you infiltrate every dimension of society. And whatever dimension of society you go into, you take God's wisdom and his shalom into that dimension. That's politics. As an organization, however, the church as organization limits its platform, focusing on proclaiming the gospel and making disciples.

The two roles are complementary, but they are not identical. And because of that, Jesus had a way of bringing into close community people from different political persuasions and uniting them in a more pressing cause. We've talked before about Simon the Zealot and Matthew the tax collector. When Matthew lists out the 12 disciples and he puts their names, he attached those two descriptions to him, I'm a tax collector, and then he attached Zealot to Simon.

And that shows you a couple things. Number one, they were divided on what to do with what was arguably the most pressing political question of the day, and that is what to do about Roman occupation. On one side, the tax collectors, they felt like, well, for the time they're the God appointed authority and we just ought to cooperate with them. And the Zealots were like, nope, they're a bunch of imperialists who stole our land.

They're thieves and rapists, and we ought to get swords out and we ought to fight them. So it tells you that they were divided on that. It tells you, secondly, this was a really important part of who they were, a major part of who they were, because you would choose that to identify. So and so the Republican, so and so the Democrat, that's just who they were.

Both of them brought their perspective onto the team. And I am sure they had some really incendiary discussions around the campfire. In fact, my feeling is Jesus probably made them room together whenever they would go off. And I'm sure when Jesus gave out room assignments, Simon was like, you got to be kidding me, not that pink-hearted commie Matthew. And Matthew was like, no, not that MAGA hat-wearing knuckle-dragging Neanderthal Simon. And you'd pass by their tent late at night and they'd have their fingers up in each other's faces and they'd be going at it. But here's the point. The unity they found in Jesus superseded that difference.

And they would end up loving each other enough to die for each other. And the cause that they rallied behind superseded those agendas. Jesus would not let tax collector politics or zealot politics define his group of disciples. Their mission was more essential.

The gospel flag flew higher. As a pastor, as a pastor who works in the church as an organization, I do not talk about many of my political views. And that is not because I do not have them.

And it's not because I don't think they are very, very good ones. It's that my calling is different. And I know that if I discuss these things from the pulpit, I know that what I say will be interpreted as representing the authority of this church. Even if I give all kinds of disclaimers about these being only my own personal views. And what would happen is that the summit church would get identified by my politics. And that would keep me from being able to preach the gospel to all of the people in the triangle. Which is neither red nor blue.

It's kind of purple. Like I've told you, there are some things we've got to be clear about. So I want to make sure I'm saying that. The wrongness of discrimination. The wickedness of injustice.

The wickedness of abortion. But I've told you I might be wrong in some of my dotted line opinions about the example I used last week was the war in Iraq. I might be wrong in my perspective on global warming. I might be wrong in my opinion on nationalized health care. But friend, I am not wrong about the gospel. And I do not want to let my opinions on any of those former things keep people from hearing me on the ladder. So the first myth is that politics are of first importance. Friend, not only has our nation as a whole bought into this myth, the church has bought into it too. And that's shown by the fact that functionally we care more about how our neighbor votes than where they spend eternity.

How do I know that? Because y'all, I get more angry emails about politics from both sides than all other issues put together. I wish I get a good angry email about how we ought to double our missionary force.

And just write, just use curse words. It doesn't bother me. Just go ahead and tell me why we're not doing a good job. I get angry emails about why we need to plant more churches or raise up more volunteers to help care for single moms, or protect the unborn, or recruit more mentors for the prison ministry.

But sadly, most angry emails I get are about me not saying enough or the right things about the race in November, or they think I ought to talk about this issue more, that issue less. Let me ask you to consider, when you walk by your neighbor's house and they've got that annoying sign in that yard, promoting the wrong candidate, is your first instinct, how could they be so dumb? They look like nice people. They look like they can put words together and make a sentence.

What's wrong with them? And thinking about how you might possibly slip into their house at night, or slip into their yard at night and destroy their sign without them knowing. Is that your first thought or is your first thought, I wonder if they know Jesus?

And praying for them. Listen, most of us can't be close to somebody who doesn't share our political views. I know that because I saw a study that showed that almost 70% of Americans say they don't have any close friends.

No close friends who vote differently from them. And that is because, for us, politics are of first importance. That's the first myth. Alright, so here's the second myth.

Politics are of no importance. Alright, this time, ladies, I want you to say the myth, and gentlemen, you get to correct them, okay? Only time that you can actually do this, okay? And wives, I need you to give a little indulgence to your husband, just let him do it just as once, okay? Ladies, you say the myth.

Say it. Politics are of no importance. Not as confident this time, right?

You men have been down this road before, alright? Yeah, in reaction to the first myth, some Christians just avoid politics altogether. But that's not right either because, like I said, good politics is a way of loving our neighbor. The gospel has political implications. God has called his people to be salt and light in all spheres of society, and to bring his shalom, that word means peace, into every dimension. The earth is the Lord's and all the fullness thereof.

The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. There is not one square inch of the entire cosmos over which Jesus does not emphatically declare mine. Christians, as members of the church's organism, that means they seek to apply the Christian worldview into all the spheres of society. That applies, by the way, to more than just advocating for the sanctity of life and marriage, as important as those things are. In fact, I think you can make a pretty compelling argument that the greatest social benefits the Christian worldview has bestowed on the world are its teaching for the respect for individual liberty, freedom of conscience, the dignity and equality of all people, the importance of the rule of law, the insistence that all people ought to be equal before the law, teaching the inherently corrupting power of authority and thus the need for checks and balances.

Those things were largely unheard of before Christians, and in some cases Jews, introduced them. There's a fascinating book called The Poverty of Nations. It's co-written by a Christian economist and a Christian theologian that demonstrates that certain kinds of governments create poverty because they come from a flawed view of man. To understand how economies thrive, they demonstrate, with good evidence and facts, you've got to understand how God made people. And they show that the governments that operate according to a biblical view of man end up seeing the greatest economic flourishing.

So we realize that these things always have implications and that's what you do. The freedoms that we have today came from Christians who got involved in politics. So we cannot sit idly by and say politics just don't matter. They do. We need to urge people, you, to apply God's wisdom to all of creation, business, economics, care for the poor, education. So our second myth is that politics are of no importance.

They are. That's why 1 Timothy 2 tells us, pray for kings and all who are in high positions that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life. Pray for them. By the way, it stands to reason, doesn't it, that if Paul commanded us to pray, then we who have experienced an answer to that prayer, which is we are able to worship freely, that we ought to advocate for the preservation of those rights. That's why you see Paul, by the way, use any chance he gets before a Roman governor, almost one of the things he always says, Jesus saves and you should let us be free to preach. Go back and look at it. Acts 16 is 21, 22, 23, 24, and 26.

You'll see him doing that in all those chapters. It was a major thing. Jeremiah 29, 7, which Pastor Brian preached here on a few weeks ago, tells us, he says, Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I've carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for that city, because if it prospers, you too are going to prosper. By the way, that city was Babylon, the epitome of evil. He's like, you live in Babylon, right? So the wrong guys in the White House. The movies they're making are bad, but you need to seek the prosperity of Babylon. And that means working for justice, advocating for equality under the law, helping promote good education and business, security, defense, many other things.

All right, seek the peace of the city, and that's getting involved in politics. So myth number one is that politics are of first importance. Myth number two is a picture of no importance. Myth number three is I see everything clearly. Okay?

Now here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to say the myth, and this time you get to correct me, okay? So I'll say it, then you say, that's a myth, right? All right, so I see everything clearly.

Now why are you all so confident talking to me, but then to each other, you're like, all right, so here's my feelings. In the garden, Jesus said to Peter, those who live by the sword will die by the sword. Those who live by the sword will die by the sword. The sword has a role in society.

The Bible says so, Romans 13. But the point is, its use is limited, and it will fail you eventually. Sword here would not just be limited to military power. Sword here, if you understand what Jesus is saying, is going to mean any earthly weaponry. The sword of our intellect, the sword of rhetoric, the sword of our political perspective is limited, and so ultimately it will fail us.

Those who prosper by it will die by it. I am humbled when I realize where some of the greatest Christians have gotten politics wrong. Several great British pastors that I quote were wrong on the justice and helpfulness of British imperialism throughout the world. Billy Graham, right, dear Billy Graham, went on record late in the Vietnam War, endorsing both the Vietnam War and the trustworthiness of Richard Nixon. A Southern Baptist leader whose name you may not know, his name was W.A.

Criswell. He was kind of a godfather of what they call the conservative resurgence, coming back to good theology in the Southern Baptist Convention. He failed not only to support the cause of civil rights in the 1960s, he opposed it. He said it was all Marxist in origin. He would later, by the way, go on record saying, I have never been so wrong in my entire life. I told you, policy always looks so clear to us in the moment, and it's okay. It's okay if we get stuff wrong, sometimes we're human.

But the point is, we have no business tying the credibility of the church to things that we are neither called nor competent to adjudicate. Last week, I told you how a committee that I was a part of representing a bunch of churches was how we got the helpfulness of the Iraq War wrong. Here's another one, some of you actually remember this one. Remember the situation with the kid from Covington High School back around January 2019? Washington Post puts up a picture, a little video that circulated of this really smug looking kid in a MAGA hat, staring down this Native American, looked like he was grieving, and it seemed like a perfect illustration of kind of white condescension. So, a lot of Christian leaders, including me, took to the airwaves. This is not acceptable, right?

It's an example of hate and bigotry that we need to eradicate in our country. Only problem is, it wasn't true. Truth turned out to be the opposite. The kid was minding his own business and had been provoked by the man. He and his family ended up with several million dollars in a settlement from the Washington Post and the news outlets.

It was one of the largest defamation cases on record. Again, I want to tell you, it's okay that we get things wrong. We see through a glass darkly.

We're limited. The sword of our intellect, our perspective is going to get stuff wrong. But the point is, as a pastor or as a church, I should not tie the church's reputation or the integrity of our message to an opinion. I am neither called nor competent from my vantage point to administer. My calling is to preach the gospel. Yes, I preach justice. My calling is not to get overly encumbered in the political dimensions of earthly kingdoms. I might be wrong on one of those, but friend, I keep telling you, I'm not wrong about the gospel.

I'm not wrong about the Bible. And I don't want to let anything as important as those things are, I don't want to let it get in the way of this. Now for you, since most of you don't work for the church, you can be freer in expressing your perspectives. I get that. I encourage you that way.

But you should, right? But as you do, please don't let the smug and historically naive assumption that you see everything clearly make you look down on other believers who see things differently. By the way, even when you're positive that they're wrong, even when there's no doubt about it, realize that it's still not a first order issue, usually. Now listen, if Simon the Zealot and Matthew the Tax Collector could get along, then Democrats and Republicans can get along here.

These things should not cause division. Myth number four. My party is the party of God. This time you get to say the myth, I get to correct you, okay? You say it, say the myth. My party is the party of God.

That's a myth! You shouldn't believe that. If Jesus' kingdom is not an earthly kingdom, it follows that no earthly party is going to be his party either.

I'll say that again. If Jesus' kingdom is not an earthly kingdom, it follows that no earthly party is going to be his party either. The left and right are both earthly parties. And that means they're both going to get things wrong. By the way, I'm not saying that both parties are equally right or equally wrong or there's never a wiser or more righteous choice.

I'm just saying that earthly institutions are always shaped and always corrupted by sin. Both left and right have political idols they trend toward. And we as the people of God should be in one sense, we ought to be above both sides. Above both parties.

That means willing to affirm them where they get things right and critique them where they get things wrong and giving our soul to neither of them. The wrong question to ask is whose side is God on? Which party does God belong to? What we ought to be asking is what does God say about this issue? Tony Evans says we're like Joshua when he encounters the angel of the Lord's presence and he says to this angel, are you for us or for our enemies? And the angel with his sword drawn says, neither. But as commander of the army of the Lord, I come. Jesus did not come to take sides. Jesus came to take over. Right? Salvation does not come right in on the back of a donkey or an elephant.

He walks on his own two feet. Now listen, I feel like a huge part of my job in this season is simply to undermine, to undermine your confidence in both parties. Both of them are earthly.

Both of them are going to get stuff wrong. I want to undermine your confidence in both of them and if I can be totally honest, I feel like I'm called to undermine your confidence in America in general. America is an earthly kingdom. It is fallible and it is tainted with sin. Listen, just so we're clear, I'm a huge America fan.

Okay? I grew up and remain very patriotic. I do not take the unique achievements of our Constitution for granted for one single second. But for me, that love and that appreciation turned into idolatry.

And as a young man, I started to invest all my hope in it. And so politics became a first order issue to me. And that meant that I couldn't stomach other people who saw things differently from me.

When politics are a first order issue, then you can't tolerate people who see things differently because you have to be agreed with your close friends on first order issues. Otherwise, you can't have fellowship. And Jesus said to me, put up your sword. My kingdom's not of this world. I'm not building a kingdom here. The United States is not my kingdom and it shouldn't be yours.

And I'll tell you that after I embraced that, a huge change came over me. Notice that I'm not giving up on America. I'm not down on America, but I do not look at America as my ultimate home and I do not look at the United States of America as the world's primary hope. And because of that, I can be unflinchingly honest about America's faults, both her past faults and her present faults. Yes, America has many great virtues.

Again, this is why we're being transparent here. I get teary-eyed even reading some of the old stories or reading about great battles. I love patriotic songs. It's kind of awkward and weird around our house on July 4th.

I love that holiday. But I also know that she has grievous sins, past and present, because she was built by fallible, sinful people. Our founding fathers were so screwed up that Jesus had to die to redeem their wretched souls.

And that means that, yes, they can make great contributions, but it's an earthly kingdom. The hope of this world is not found in the stars and stripes of our flag. The hope of this world is in the scars and stripes on our savior. Redemption does not come from our Constitution. Redemption comes from his resurrection. And so now I'm seeking a kingdom, and I hope you will too, that is not headquartered in Washington, D.C.

I'm seeking one whose foundations cannot be shaken, whose builder and architect is God. And here was the great thing. After ceasing to worship America, I was able to start loving her again only differently. She let me down. She let me down big. Some of you are in the same spot. Let me down.

How did we get these two candidates? What happened? She let me down, right? But now I can see things differently. I can see things Christ-centeredly. I can love her as my city, even though she's not my ultimate home.

It's just where I'm exiled for a while. No party's God's party. Both are earthly parties.

That means both are going to get things wrong. And by the way, different ones of us are going to think different positions should be prioritized. Some of you are going to say, well, because candidate one gets issues A, D, and E right, then I should vote for him.

And others of you are going to say, well, because candidate two gets B, C, F, and G right, I should vote for him. You might agree with other Christians on every single issue, but you might rearrange the priority. And you might have strong opinions about why your priority is the right one. And you might be right. But see, that's where we ought to give each other space.

We can agree on what the Bible says about issues, even if our political calculus looks different in how we translate that into who we vote for. And you should talk about it, by the way. You might want to be mums, not the word on this. You ought to go out to lunch. You ought to sit down over coffee and talk about why you see things the way you do because your approach might be wiser than somebody else's or theirs might be wiser than yours, but it shouldn't be a source of division. It shouldn't have been in the first century.

It shouldn't be in our century. So you ought to return to where we first started. What emotions are you feeling going into this election? Anxiety, cynicism, despair? If you're not feeling that, just flip on MSNBC, Fox News, CNN, 10 minutes is all it'll take. I promise you, you'll be filled with those three emotions. But I'm telling you, if you understand what Jesus said here to Pilate and you disabuse yourself of these myths, those emotions will be replaced by two different ones, two much better ones, hope and urgency. Hope, friend, listen, at the end, at the end, Jesus wins. When Jesus went into this trial, there was only one vote that mattered, and God cast it when he raised Jesus from the dead. When your candidate gets resurrected from the dead, you win. Our kingdom wins, and that is not contingent on what happens or does not happen in November. That's not to say it's not gonna be rough and rocky. It's not to say it's not gonna hurt sometimes. We're gonna get knocked down. It's gonna get discouraging. Our country's gonna make wrong turns.

We're gonna choose bad leaders, but friend, Jesus still wins. A few years ago, I went to watch a movie with a couple of our black pastors. It was the movie Creed. Remember where Rocky Balboa trains up Apollo Creed's son, who's played by Michael B. Jordan, to box? At the showing that I went to, literally everybody in the theater was African-American, except for me and Curtis Androska.

And I'm gonna tell you, it was the single greatest movie-watching experience of my entire life. You would have thought that we were in an actual live fight. People were cheering and groaning like it was happening in real time. I remember one time when Creed, in like the last scenes there, where he gets knocked down, and it's kind of slow-mo, and it's quiet, it's silent, and he hits the mat, and you can hear his body kind of bounce off the mat, and it was totally quiet in the theater, and the woman behind me yells, Lord Jesus, help him, help him. She stands up. She's like, help him, Lord. Help, baby, get up.

Get up. It was so much fun. It was so much fun. Here's the thing. Everybody in that theater, we all knew who was gonna win.

There was one guy whose name was on the title of the movie. Yet we could still enter into the pain and disappointment of the moment because we knew who was gonna win at the end, and because we knew who was gonna win at the end, we could sit through the disappointment of the whole movie because we knew at the end it was gonna be hope. That's how we should feel with politics. Yeah, we might get punched from time to time.

We might get knocked down. What I'm telling you is that we can look ahead already and see Jesus standing victorious at the end. His kingdom's not dependent on that. He already overcame it. He got elected one time when God said, you come out of the grave.

He cast one ballot, and it was over. Instead of cynicism, we can have hope. Instead of despair, we should have urgency because, see, people need Jesus. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter if they're Democrats or Republicans or if they're independent or green or constitutional or libertarian.

It only matters if they know Jesus. Y'all, I don't know where everything is headed in our world. I really don't. I don't know where things are gonna look like in the first week of November.

I don't know where they're in January. I don't know where our culture or society is going, but, see, I know where Jesus is going. So, sure, let's talk about politics.

Let's talk about it. But here's our main talking point. Both Democrats and Republicans need Jesus. And the ultimate salvation that we are looking for is not found in an office in Washington.

The salvation we're looking for was hung on a cross outside of Jerusalem. So, yeah, let's talk about the economy. But our main message is that both the rich and the poor need Jesus. And, yeah, let's talk about race. But our main message is that people of every race need Jesus, and Jesus came to make one equal, unified family of brothers and sisters out of all of us.

And, yeah, let's even talk about COVID. But let's make clear that whether we ever get a vaccine or not, we're all gonna die eventually, and we all need Jesus. These subjects matter, but Jesus matters most of all. Jehovah Nissi, he's my flag. He is my victory. Is he yours? Is he yours because that's the kingdom you should give your life to?

That's the flag you should be flying from the castle of your heart. Listen, I wanna end this with just us praying together. Let me put back up on the screen here, 1 Timothy 2, 1 through 4. There's gonna be a verse right there.

You're gonna see it. Pray for kings and all who are in high positions that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life. He desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. At the end of the day, that's what he cares most about.

What I want you to do is I know it's social distancing. I want you to, I'm not gonna get you into groups, but if you're with your spouse or your family, certainly you can pray there, but could you just take a few moments here? Can you pray for our president? Pray for our future president? Pray for our governor election? Pray for local elections, mayors, senators? By the way, do you pray for these guys regularly because men and women regularly? Because God tells us he commands us to do this. When's the last time you prayed for the candidate of the other party to get saved and come to the knowledge of the truth?

Because if not, I don't care what you post on Facebook. You're not obeying the Bible. Are you praying for these guys? Let's pray for them. Let's pray for this next Supreme Court justice that God would appoint somebody who would protect freedom, the rights of the innocent, deliver us from this scourge of abortion and would uphold peace in our country. So why don't you just take a moment once you pray for that, and then I'm gonna close this in prayer.

Right now, bow your heads there, whether you're in your home or you're one of our campuses, pray with the person beside you if they're in your family. God, our country. God, our country needs Jesus. And yet we want you to help guide this election so that peace is upheld and freedoms are preserved and that the economy would be stimulated so that people could have provisions for their families.

For to be generous. Because most of all, we're praying for the awakening in the United States. We're praying for an awakening here in the triangle. God, I pray that Donald Trump and Mike Pence, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Pray for Cal Cunningham and Thom Tillis.

Pray for Dan Forest, Roy Cooper. God, in the myriad numbers of local elections, I pray, God, that you would give leaders who would uphold justice and peace. And I pray that if any of those that I just named don't yet know you as Savior.

And I know many of them do not. I pray, God, that you would lead them to the knowledge of the truth. God, give them repentance.

Let them have a moment like Paul had on the Damascus Road and let them encounter Jesus, we pray. God, we need you. Our country needs you. Our church needs you. We need an awakening, God, because we were headed to the grave. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.