JUL 29 2018 | The Politics of Jesus S1E2 | The Politics of Jesus: Episode 2

Sea Change Church · The Politics of Jesus · "The Politics of Jesus: Episode 2" Pastor Adam Stadtmiller · July 29, 2018
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Good morning, church. My name is Devin. I'll be doing the reading for today. So the reading is out of Romans 13, 1 through 7. Let everyone be subject to governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted. And those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.

For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear? No, sorry. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended. For the one in authority is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid. For rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God's servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.

Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment, but also as a matter of conscience. This is also why you pay taxes. For the authorities are God's servants who give their full time to governing. Give to everyone what you owe them. If you owe taxes, pay taxes. If revenue, then revenue. If respect, then respect. If honor, then honor. The word of the Lord. It's my man right there, Devin.

If you don't know Devin, get to know him. He's an honorable man, good man, and you can trust him. His wife, Eden, is one of our elders in training and on our finance committee. If you're a member, you'll see them and her today explaining some of the stuff that we got going on here at the church. We're super excited about. Before we get started, let me just do a couple pulpit announcements. One, I did announce the junior high and middle school trip.

We were kind of in jest, having a lot of fun with that. I just want to say that really lean into, if you have a middle school that doesn't have anything to do, getting them to that camp. If you've been to camps, those can be life-changing decisions. And when I had my heart attack in UTC back in the day when I was 19, I sat up on my bed after I'd called 911. And I remembered a vision came in my mind of when I had gone forward as a middle schooler at camp and given my life to Jesus.

And I just knew that that moment was there and it mattered when things mattered. When I gave my life to full-time ministry, I was a counselor at a camp. Camps are really cool. They're like pause buttons, cathartic moments. So please, we had three, I think three people signed up at the break, which was awesome. And we just want to take a good group. The junior high group, middle school group is doing awesome. This series, the two weeks, I'm only doing two weeks on the politics of Jesus.

That's deep enough water for me. But we're going to be moving into talking about Jesus. We've been in the Old Testament a lot. And there's a new series starting next week called Stuff Jesus Said. And Jesus said some awesome stuff. And he said some crazy stuff too. Like, what are you talking about, Jesus? I've got to bring a sword. What do you mean? So we're just going to look at some of those. Jeff Edwards, thanks for, he's doing some great job with our media and the graphic design and all that.

So that'll start next week. And I'm finding that the series are really good at just getting people engaged. And we've had, it's been very exciting to see people come. My physical therapist is like, hey, when's your next series start? And so it is a great way to keep people engaged and doing things. And they are episodic. At the end of the year, every series, King David, secular humanism, the stuff Jesus said, Jonah, all that is going to be on some thumb drives.

We're going to do it all at once. And you can just, I think there'll be like five bucks just to recover. We're going to get our costs back. And you can just give them to somebody for Christmas. And they can just have a year of hearing from the word of God. Or you can just catch up on what we did. Or you can just go to the website and check that out. Before we begin, let me just pray. Get my heart set. Get your heart set.

And then ask Jesus what he wants to say today. Lord, we just want to thank you, God, for your kingdom. And your kingdom come, your will be done. And we bless you. We want to set our hearts aright. Get the chess pieces of our hearts set back up on the board, God. And abandon ourselves to you and to your heart, God. Let our soul be in checkmate to you. And just bless us as we speak. Speak deeply in Jesus' name. Amen. We're in the Politics of Jesus series.

And it's a little bit more than the Politics of Jesus. One of the things I'm trying to do, I had some great response from the congregation. I actually didn't have anything negative brought to me. There was a lot of positive. And I was surprised. Three to five people came up to me and said, The reason we left our old church is because it was too political. That was really, really interesting. Now, I had a sense that that was happening.

But there's a lot of people that are looking for a safe space to experience God but not be exactly told what they should do in an authoritarian manner or in the name of God. And so I spoke about myself and my mission as a church is to provide a safe, sacred space where you can explore the kingdom of heaven's politics. And then you can go out and we trust you to know the word of God and to determine what that means for you.

How to put those into action. And that's one of the things we're going to talk about today is our politics have to be more, as a believer, more than just a vote. It has to be an organic, grassroots, starting at your doorstep every single day, how you live your life. And how you influence people with otherworldly politics and to keep our eyes on the kingdom of heaven and making sure that when it comes to politics, the capital P for politics has to be kingdom of God politics.

And then how does it influence every other stream of culture that we are a part of? How does that influence your CrossFit class? How does the kingdom of heaven influence when you go to the store? How does it influence when you're trying to park at La Jolla Village? Where does all these things? Or when you're dealing with traffic coming up Torrey Pines. 25 years, like Eddie Foyer said, is long enough to get that street fixed.

But 25 years, we're still working on it. I wasn't here all those 25 years. To begin, I want to once again pull us back from getting into any perhaps particular issues, candidates. You're not going to hear that from me. But I guess the thing that I wrote this morning, I don't know if this is in your notes because I always let them breathe. In my heart, Hemingway said to go away from your work. You can't constantly work on your writing.

You need to go away and let it go to a subconscious level. So I don't look at my sermon from Thursday until Sunday morning. And I let the soul kind of work on it incognito. And then in the morning, I get back up. And the thing that I came up with today that I think is super important, and I think super important for believers and secular people as well, whether you believe in a soul or not, is this. It says, what are your politics doing to your soul?

It's a really good question. What are your politics doing to your heart? What are they doing to your emotions? And I'm going to give you a spoiler alert because at the end of this, there's a scripture about spiritual gifts, excuse me, spiritual fruit, the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience. And it says, against these things, there is no law. Meaning that no matter what the law says, that you can live, thanks to Christ, above that law, and you should be able to have peace, joy, self-control, all of these things you should have in your life.

And if you're not having those in your life, especially when it comes to the laws, especially when it comes to politics, it means that you're not metabolizing the politics of the world correctly. The scripture says that against laws, even the law of heaven, we'll get to this in a moment at the end of the sermon, but this is where I want to go, that there is no law against those things. There is nothing that should be able, no law, no political system, no thing that happens in your life that God does not supernaturally have the power to overcome and to give you peace that transcends what?

Understanding. And so spiritual fruit always has the ability to hurdle or overcome anything that gets in your way. And so when it comes to looking at the divisiveness of our culture, which I think it's incredibly divided around the world for a number of reasons, you can talk about those at another time, but have you had the ability, and I ask myself this question as well, do I have the ability to metabolize whatever's going on around me in a way that says, beyond my understanding, I can have peace.

And so my question to you is, you know, you can just check out. I don't think the whole like, I'm just checking out. Now I've tried that the whole, you know, I need to take media fast. I'm on one right now. I'm doing a eight week media fast right now, trying really hard. I'm only, you know, posting, I'm trying my best not to post and different things. Um, but for the most part, just taking a time away. And that's, I think that's important, but just checking out for the sake of checking out, because you don't want to deal with it anymore.

I don't think is the nature of what the gospel speaks about. The gospel speaks about being able to engage with culture, no matter what it is, no matter if, if, if people are being thrown to the lions, as was in the first century, thank God, the Christian martyrs of the first century just didn't check out. And so there is a temptation just to save the heck with it all. That's the world. But how do we enter in, in a way that doesn't destroy our souls?

And I don't know about you, but the, the culture is very acidic to your soul. And one of the things that we'll, we'll, we'll talk about in regard to, um, you're, you know, making your, your, your politics, making you more or less human is that one of the keys to authoritarian politics or authoritarian religion, in my opinion, because I see them as very similar, is that both try to dehumanize the opponent or the person that they disagree with.

There is a, a desire to dehumanize that other side, whether it be dehumanizing the people that you would call on the right, or the people that you would call on the left, and both sides, especially if you were to check out and read the media, you're going to see a lot of dehumanization. It's calling people names. It's, it's calling them, giving them labels. It's giving them brands. And immediately, when you can dehumanize something, then in the end, as we have seen in human history, eventually you can kill it.

Let me say that again. It is rife in human history. I'll give you a few examples in a moment. Been doing a fair amount of study on this. And the playbook has always been the same. Whether it's fundamental Christianity in authority, which you don't want, by the way, which trials, some of the, some of the, the Quakerism, I don't want to blame it on the Quakers, but excuse me, some of the Puritanism of the, of the early American, the early Americas.

You look at once I said, like last week, the Spanish Inquisition. One of the things is to dehumanize people. They're a witch. And as long as they're a witch, then we can kill them. And that's what ended up happening in the Salem witch trials. I was studying those this week. And so one of the keys is to dehumanize. And what I have caught myself, once I started studying this again, I realized how easy the trend is in your life to begin to dehumanize someone.

One of the ways to do this is just with a name. Oh, that guy's just a blank. Oh, she's just a blank. But you wouldn't fill that in with child of God. You wouldn't fill that in with someone who's being created by God and God's image. And the Bible, in regard to dealing with any political system or anything you disagree with, or a culture that it is counter-cultural to the kingdom of heaven, is constantly saying that, and constantly trying to humanize people.

And we have to be very, very careful as believers not to dehumanize, even people we stringently, dehumanize people, even people we stringently disagree with. And so, I guess the question to you, just to frame this entire final message, is what are politics doing to your soul? And have you figured out how to metabolize the news of the politics, or what's happening in society, or just the news of society separate from politics, that may be moving further away from the truth, may be moving closer to it in some ways.

How do you metabolize that, in a way that doesn't ruin your soul, and bankrupt you, and keeps people in the highest human form, which is created by a God who loves them, and to give them dignity. And so, I just, that's where I want to start. And that is a different framework than we've been taught. Because you don't often win a lot of arguments when you do that. Although you might bring a lot of people closer to the kingdom of heaven, and true politics.

I wrote in the notes that, and this is my thinking, but I believe that politics, and I think they're important, are ultimately about three things. Now, they're about a lot more than this. This is not a definitive list. But there's three things that I came up with. And the first is governance. The Bible speaks about the governance. It's overseeing people. Moses had governance. Jethro comes to him. How do we govern the people?

Human relationships. How do we help them get along? That's what governance is all about. It's about helping people function together well. When you see the dysfunctional aspects of governance, when it no longer functions, it is no longer heeding the call to what it actually is. It is going against the framework of its own definition. Governance is meant to make things work together. So first is governance. The second is law.

Because laws help make that, you can enforce the governance. Now, one of the things about scripture is, with the laws of God, we can now, with the laws of God, we're free from, and this is Romans, I can't get into the whole book of Romans, although in January, we're going to, excuse me, in February of next year, we're going to be going through the book of Romans. Want to let you know that. Oh yeah, some fans of Romans.

Great. Wait till we get there. The, you know, one of the, one of the things you'll see is, you are free now to follow the law without compulsion. That's one of the best things about Jesus dying on the cross, is that he fulfilled the law so you don't have to, so now you can because you want to. He fulfilled the law so you don't have to, so now you can because you want to. You don't have to give to God because the Bible says, if you don't give to God, as in the Old Testament, you're robbing the storehouse, you're doing all this, you're doing that, that has been fulfilled.

Now, if you want to give to God, you can just go up to God and say, God, I don't have to because Jesus did it for me, but I want to. The freedom, God wants people that are freedom. You are free from the law when you decide to follow the law for the sake of Christ, not because you have to. We'll talk more about that in Romans. But, in regard to earthly law, law is meant for governance, and then when governance doesn't work, then you put the laws in place to force people to do what you need them to do.

And so, a lot of people are trying, the more you see laws having to be enforced, the more dysfunctional a culture is. Make sense? The more you see laws having to be enforced, the more dysfunctional a culture is. And so, what you find is, as a culture gets more dysfunctional, it becomes more litigious. It becomes more of like, let's make a law. And that is why, what's going on with Supreme Court and all these things, why it's such a huge deal for everybody, because what they're thinking is, well, if we can't just get along, then we're going to make you get along, and we can do it with laws.

Laws cause a, it causes it oftentimes, when you have to enforce the law, not that there shouldn't be law, God forbid that there shouldn't be law, but when you have to enforce it, over and over again, it's because the laws are being broken, and the citizenry is becoming less functional. So it's about governance, it's about law, and here's the problem. It's about power. And this is where it gets screwed up, is because people like power a lot.

The church likes power a lot. They always have. And not just the power that comes when you release things that aren't the weapons of this world, because Jesus is saying, if you want to change something, pray, watch what I can do. If you want to change something, have faith. If you want, you know, give forgiveness, where forgiveness is not necessary. If you want to change the world, use these invisible tools, and then let me come in supernaturally, and watch what I can do.

But the church often, and myself in my own life, because you can take this down to the governance of your own life, right? You have your own little kingdom. All of you are running your own little kingdom. And you all have your own little dominion that you run. And the question is, are we going to submit that to the laws of God? And so, we see here that oftentimes, we want power. And here's just a few, that, that, that, as I'm studying, because I've studied history.

I've really enjoyed studying history. This week, I've been reading a ton this week. This week, I started reading Uncle Tom's Cabin, about finished with Solzhenitsyn's, if you've not read that, the Gulag Akhapeliko, which is a phenomenal book. If you want to know about where democratic socialism goes, and what happened in Russia, three to six million people just exterminated between 1918 and 1945. Most people don't know that.

It was a massive extermination of people, in order for a governmental system. But history has shown, that neither the church, this is true, nor the secular world, possesses the ability, to manage absolute power, in the political arena. It doesn't take much historical understanding, to see when there is not a check and balance, of power, that things go awry. Let me just say this again. Because there's a lot of Christians, that gosh, if all the Christians were just in charge, it would be awesome.

All the Christians have been in charge, before. Wasn't always, off with your head! It wasn't always great. Let me just read this again. Politics has ultimate, excuse me, history has shown, that neither, the church, nor the secular world, possesses the ability, to manage absolute power. I think there are some, somewhat godly, political systems in the world, you can find. Or at least, move towards that. Absolute power, in the political arena.

And one of the things I've, I've, um, realized, is that, the church, is always fighting, against becoming, political. And the world, is always fighting, to not have their political systems, become religious. You gotta think about that. That might, you might have to go chew on that, for a while. But if, I said last week, and let me, restate what I said last week, if you look at Rome, what does, Caesar eventually become?

He's a deity, in Rome, right? There's gods, there's all these different things. It's a political system, that's based on, Greco, it's Greco-Roman, it's based on Plato, and the city state. But even Plato, is speaking about, the immortality of the soul. And so there's always this, murky water, between, politics, becoming, religious. Now this is something that Marxism, tried to get out, with atheism, but I, you know, we could argue on another, discussion, and you can go back to my talk, earlier in this year, on, on secular humanism, that even atheism, I believe, is a form of faith, that has an anti-faith in God.

I can't go into all that today. But what we have found, is there's a blurry line, between, churches, wanting to maintain, religion, religion, and not becoming overly political, and political systems, becoming too religious. I'll just give a couple, that we see. And once again, let me just state, I put here in my notes, to say it again, Christ is a humanizing force. That's the overall backdrop, of everything that we're doing.

You see a power struggle, is happening. The Spanish Inquisition, 1391. Google search, chronological history, of the Spanish Inquisition. You're going to see, through these, I'm going to name two political systems, that are secular, I'm going to name two religious systems, and the playbook, for dehumanizing, silencing, and eventually exterminating, the enemy, is the same. Because it's people. And people are broke. You can put Christian, on their forehead, and give them a label, but we need to be very careful.

And one of the ways, to be careful at church, is to continue, to humanize people. To continue to see them, as children of God, that are in need of redemption. And if they only, got an experience with Christ, if they only got an experience, to meet the Savior, that we know, that we have met, that they would be changed, and their hearts would be changed. And this is the premise, of everything I'm saying today. The humanization.

Let me just give a couple examples, because I think we need, historical examples, because we're losing, our understanding of history. We have a very, I mean, we have a very shallow history. If you ask people, well, you know, back that up. Where do you see this going? Where, you know, very few can give you anything, further back than the Vietnam War, if they can even do that. Or even know why the Vietnam War started, or how France was involved, in the beginning of the start of that.

We need to know our history, because it keeps us safe, from repeating it. And it looks to me, like we're beginning to repeat, our history over, and over again. And we have to be, a humanizing force. Let me say it again. We have a power source, Spanish Inquisition. The Puritans, 1692 and 93, with the Salem Witch Trials. The Bolsheviks, which is socialist Democrats, in the workers' union, in the 1900s. Read Solzhenitsyn.

Just read the first, I don't know, 75 pages. It'll give you a good understanding, of the playbook, and what they were trying, to accomplish there. Estimates, three to six million people, exterminated, just because of their beliefs. The Nazis, obviously, dehumanizing the Jews. The Spanish Inquisition, was against the Jews. The reason that started, they dehumanized the Jews. Study the histories, the chronological histories, of the Nazis, the Bolsheviks, the Puritans, and the Spanish Inquisition.

And you're going to see, whether religious or secular, they have the same playbook. Dehumanize, grab power, and exterminate. That's how it works. We have to be very aware, of that in our politics, that we are the force, that says no, our culture is not going that way. What are your politics, doing for your soul? Looking at this, we see these power struggles. And here's the playbook, I'll just quickly go through it, and then I want to get back, to the scripture, but I thought we needed, to set this up historically, because I think we need, to understand, not just speak about, always the Bible, but looking at history as well.

You have labeling, and shaming. The playbook, calls for labeling, and shaming. You see that. You have silencing. You have legislation. Then you have heresy, people that have said things, against what has been legislated. You have arrest, and execution. That's how it works. That's history. The Christ factor, is to come in, and to change society, and bring level, into those balances. What then, is the role, of the Christ follower, in politics?

I've got to say, it's more than your vote. I mean, I think it's really easy, just to think, if we can just get this person, in political office, or if we can just get this vote, to happen, or we can just make this, we can legislate morality. You can't legislate morality. The legislation, morality, is an individual decision, that happens in the human heart, when it's touched by God. And from that point on, they start living, differently.

And so, one of the things, I was talking about this week, in regard to, you know, living out your politics. Took the issue, of immigration. Okay? Big, hot topic issue. And I said, whether you are pro-immigration, or against immigration, let me show you, how to live it out, as a Christian. You go with Joe Brandy, and you get on a little bus, and you drive down to Mexico, and you go to this orphanage. Because let me tell you, what's going to happen.

Why do people immigrate? Because where they are, is not as good, and there's no hope, and so they want to go somewhere else. I just finished, the grapes of wrath. Those Okies in Oklahoma, did the exact same thing. They came from Oklahoma here. Why? Because it wasn't good anymore. And Californians, I don't know if you know this, used to spray the fruit down, with kerosene, so there'd be no extra fruit left, so they could feed themselves, because they wanted them to go home.

They would take crops, and dump our crops, into the water, so that people, American people, white American people, would starve, or go home. Destroy the crops. You know that that happened? That's exactly what happened. In California, the dehumanization, they're just Okies. They're just poor hillbillies, dehumanizing, over and over again. And so the question is, when it goes to immigration, why do people leave? If you're against immigration, well then go make that country better.

One of the best things to do, is to go make another country better. Because I don't think people want to leave. I don't think people want to leave their families, and where they grew up, and the things that they're used to. Do you want to leave? No, they leave because they often have to. So if you're against immigration, get on a bus, and go make the place better. Because the best way to stop immigration, is to help someone become better.

But if you're for immigration, one of the things that you can do, is go down there, and help kids. Or you're for migrants, or people that have been abandoned. You go work with some orphans. And you can help some orphans, and people that have been oppressed. No matter what side of the aisle you're on, you can live your politics, by going on a trip. Now let me just tell you, one of the things that Kai, Bev, myself, and Joe are working on, in regard to our missions.

Every missionary that you see on that board, almost every, I don't want to be definitive, we are going to try to make them, not only visible for you, but accessible. So that you can actually go there, pick up that little card, and if you want to go to juvenile hall, and work with Wixom, and you care about kids, and what's happening with juveniles, and kids that are having issues, you can go down there, and you can actually go work with them.

If you have, you know, with the sanctity of life, and you want to go work with caps, you can go work there. If you want to take a trip, plant with your purpose, and go plant in gardens, in indigenous communities, because one of the number one reasons, for human trafficking, is that people can't feed themselves. And if you can teach them, how to feed themselves, and how to farm, and to have a little plot of ground, to feed themselves, one of the number one reasons, that they send their daughters, and their sons out, into sex trafficking, or to try to go somewhere else, where they become human trafficked, is because they don't have the ability, to sustain themselves.

So if you want to come against, human trafficking, other than just arguing about it, or voting about it, then go help with plant with a purpose. We want to make all, we want to just put the ball, in the tea for you. So that your politics, is not just about arguing on Facebook, or just, you know, waiting for the midterms. As soon as the midterms gets here, whoo, I'm worried about those midterms. The midterms happen every day, on your doorstep.

The midterms happen every afternoon, when you drive. The midterms happen everywhere you go. And this is so important, to live our faith, and to make a difference. I hope that matters. So what's the role? God is calling believers, to influence all streams of culture. It says in Philippians 4.2, this is Paul. And Paul was awesome. Paul knew that the best way, to speak to Caesar, was to have himself, committed to possibly, you know, a death sentence.

And so he says, I want to go talk to Caesar. Who wants to go talk to Caesar? Paul. Because he said, this is the only way, I can get an audience with Caesar, because I want to win, the whole Roman Empire to Christ. Paul was ultimately, non-political in so many ways, but when it came to his politics, he wanted to go have a face to face. See I love that. Paul doesn't, you know, isn't always talking politics, he's very apolitical, so is Jesus.

But Paul also, wanted to change the house of Caesar. And in the book of Philippians, Paul was making so many converts, that Caesar couldn't help, but have Christians in his very house, who were waiting on him, pouring his water, making his food, and we see it in Philippians. Paul was changing the culture. Look what it says. Philippians 4.22, All God's people, here send you greetings, especially those who belong to, what?

Caesar's household. Wow. Wow. You had Christians in the household of Caesar. That is so powerful. Why? Because people were living out grassroots faith every minute. They were metabolizing their politics in a way that changed the culture at their doorstep every single day. They were humanizing people. And saying, just because you're the household of Caesar, doesn't mean you're a fill in the blank. Paul appeals to Caesar, as I just told you in Acts 25.11.

But there is nothing to their charges against me. No one can give me up. Thus, to them. Thus, I appeal to Caesar. What a great plan. Appealing to Caesar. And that's what he did. Imagine if you could get an audience with your favorite or least favorite president, or dictator, or whoever. If you could have that moment, what would you say? It's a great question. Pick your favorite, the most powerful person you know in the world.

Could be Putin. Could be whoever. What would you say? Do you tell him off? That's got to change. That's got to change. Or would you stand before him like Paul did every time he was in front of a tribunal? You know what Paul did? Well, there's this guy named Jesus. And I got to tell you about him. He died on the cross. And you look back at the law, and it was awesome because some of the, you know, when Paul was in captivity for a couple of years, one of the Herods, one of the, I forgot the exact one, one of the pilots, one of the Herods, kept saying, he kept Paul around because he wanted to keep talking to Paul about this Jesus character.

See, Paul was always leveraging everything he could for a discussion about Jesus. And I just love that about him. He'll talk to you in worldly arguments. He'll talk to you about, hey, let's use a worldly argument. But eventually, he's going to get back to his Jesus. I just got to, I just got to ask, in this politically toxic climate, does it come, where, where does the road end in your conversation? Because the destination for followers of Christ should be the heart of Jesus.

Hey, we can talk about this, but let me do, let me tell you why, because of Jesus and how much he loves you. And we get back to that. So antithetical to the way we do things these days. Let's look at verse three. And this is verse three in this text that says, we need to follow all rulers. Now, Pastor Jim and I, we had lunch, and we had a little bit of a disagreement, a beautiful disagreement, on what this passage means.

And he said, well, I won't tell anyone that I think differently. I said, no, no, that's the best thing. I want to know that we, we're going back and forth on this. So if you want to get Jim's opinion, which isn't right, you can, no, I'm just kidding. Always drop the Harvard card on me. You know what I mean? It's Harvard. Point Loma Nazarene, eat that. Put that in your spiritual pipe and smoke it. I believe that in this scripture, it's talking about the godly leaders that God has put in place.

And Jim thinks that defangs it, and that God is saying we should follow all leaders, because God has put them in place. I don't want to put words in Jim's mouth, because I got to be careful not to do that. But you can ask him his take on this later on. But I believe in verse three, when it says that you should follow leaders, it makes a clear point that the rulers that are in place are doing good, according to God's judgment.

And that is why you want to follow them, because there was this big argument in the first century. Well, these are Romans. We're not going to follow them. We follow the law of God. And so there's this argument, because once again, Jesus and Paul were living in a bipolar political system, with a defunct theocracy, which had become the, you know, a broken down Jewish system that had asked for a king, and then lost the king, and been taken over.

And then the other religion, the other political system was the Romans. And so Paul says, for rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from the fear of the one in authority? Now, I believe Jim would say that if you do what's right before God, you never have to fear, no matter who's in authority. What I think the passage is saying, and Jim could be right, but what I believe it's saying is, you know, you can be free from the one in authority, because this is a godly leader that I'm speaking, that I have put in place, and when you do right things, you will have, they will not come against you, because you are doing right things.

My argument to Jim, and to others, would be, how could this apply to Hitler? How could this apply to Mao? How could this apply to Genghis Khan, or whoever else? And you can ask Jim on that. I believe this, as it says in the notes, that this scripture is referring to godly leaders, but nonetheless, I think it's important to respect all leaders, as children of God, and to pray for your leaders, and to care for them in prayer.

That's what Daniel did, when a law, litigious once again, went out, and they said, you may not pray, because they knew that Daniel would pray. What does Daniel do, when a law comes out, that he disagrees with? He prays. And what's the secret sauce of prayer? Praying. If you want to get good at praying, the only way to do it, is to pray. The scripture says, no one knows how to pray anyways, so you're in good company. No one knows how to pray, but the Holy Spirit just takes those prayers, and you know, he just, I love that word today, metabolizes.

He filters your prayer, and gives them to God, perfected. Every prayer you pray, that is prayed to Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, lands perfectly. It's like you're on this plane, you know, and then all of a sudden, the pilot's like, let me just, I got this, I got this, because you're going to crash this bad girl. It's not always a bad boy, it's not always a bad girl, I want to be, you know, I want to be a misogynist.

So, verse three. So the key is for those that do right. Now, the question I guess is this, is when does Christian resistance, come into place? When do we say no? And that's when I showed, the mission last week, and if you got a chance, to see the movie, The Mission, and there's that, between Jeremy Irons, priestly character, and then Rodrigo, who's the warrior, who's defending the indigenous people in Brazil, against an ungodly governance, coming in and trying to, you know, destroy them.

This actually happened, and you can Google liberation theology, if you want to look later on, it came into liberation theology. If you're from Brazil, many of you are here, you understand the struggle, between the church and the people, and what has happened there. When do we stand up, and how do we stand up? I'm not going to exactly tell you, how to do that, but I think there are times, when you need to hide Jews. I think there's times, where you need to, go to the border, and care for someone, who is not cared for, and say, you know what, I don't care what your political opinion is on this, that's a person, and I'm going to care for a person.

And separate, it doesn't mean, that you're putting a political bumper sticker on. But where are your politics, going to meet grassroots? And this really convicted me. Because I can easily move into, just waiting for the next vote. Just wait, you know, just sit on your laurels, and then hope it all works out. As opposed to changing lives, in the moment. Coming in for a landing here. How do we live this? Daniel, it says in Daniel 6.10.

Well, before I say that, Christian resistance to ungodly authority, is abundant in the scripture. You'll see that over and over again. Christians standing up, and saying no. And how you say no, while still humanizing other people. That's the key. Remember the movie Gandhi? When the British were there, and they stood, I don't know if you remember the movie, and the Hindus came up, and they stood in a line, and the guy would hit them with the butt of the gun, or punch them in the face.

One would fall down, and the next one would come up, and there was lines of thousands of them. And they just kept getting hit in the face. And it was like, eventually, the guy just breaks him. Because you can't hit somebody in the face, that many times over and over again. Eventually, at some point, that was that passive resistance, but it was definitely resistance. So as a Christian, how do we resist in a way, that humanizes people?

And are you willing, to take a bullet for Jesus? Daniel always prayed to God, three times a day. Three times a day, he bowed, and he prayed his knees, and prays, and prays to God. A prayer, and prays to God. Even though Daniel, heard about the new law, he still went to his house, and prayed. I like that. He got up, went to the upper room of his house, opened the windows, faced Jerusalem. Daniel bowed down on his knees, and prayed, just as he had always done.

Prayer. It's more powerful than a vote. Let me just say that again. Prayer. It's more powerful than a vote. And when I said last week, I was, can your prayer, on a Tuesday night over dinner, stop a war in Africa? I had to ask myself, do I really believe that? And I had to reconvince myself, with faith, that I do believe that. And I began to look at conflicts, in the world, in a different way. And when I heard about things, saying God, for my little car right here, maybe you can change something.

Maybe one prayer. There are so many places, in the scripture, where God looks at one person, and he says, that person's prayer, your prayer. You could have been in the Bible, by the way. Stop seeing this as a bunch of, people way out there. You could have been in the Bible. Your story, your story of redemption, and your prayer. And we have got to start praying again. And once again, say God, I believe, you know, that this one prayer, can cause an avalanche, of the kingdom of heaven.

Acts 5, 29, Peter and the other apostles, replied, we must obey God, rather than human beings. And there are times, where you have to do that. There will come a time, perhaps, when you have to, hide a Jew. as they did in World War II. Or, stand up and say no. Or, at some point, say, not on my watch. Or, there was a line in the sand here. And no matter what you have to do with me, because you can read, you know, Fox's Book of Martyrs, if you want to read about Christian resistance, that's another book you can read.

Fox's Book of Martyrs, will give you a good understanding, of what resistance looks like, as you're fed to the lions. That's Christian resistance. And they'll be remembered, in eternity, it says, that the martyrs, it says in scripture, those that were beheaded, will rise, as the first. That those that were beheaded, for Christ, that is a form of resistance, by the way. Letting them take your head. As opposed to signing the confession.

Ah, I confess, I don't believe in Jesus. For a believer, this is the final bit. For the believer, all politics, then, are to be filtered, filtered through the lens, of scripture. And applied through the leading, of the Holy Spirit. And this is what really hit me. Because, and I was thinking about, how do I say this? And I felt like this is the key, that God said to me. If you're free, from the law, of God. The law of God, is the law, right?

That's the one that, if you're in sin, it brings shame. It brings guilt. It brings all that, the condemnation, that's upon us, because of the law of God. And because of Jesus, blessed are those, whose sins are not counted, against them. You are freed from the law. Which means, even though all that, condemnation exists, for those, that are not under, the blood of Christ. Even with all that, condemnation, you can dance on the top of it, and say, I am free in Christ.

Christ loves me. God loves me. My heart is open. I can have peace. I can have joy. I am free. And when I felt like God said, if you are free, from the law of God, the only law that really matters, then why are you letting human law, and human politics, ruin your soul? Because if you are free, says against these things, the fruit of the spirit, against these things, there is no law. You're free, to be in joy, and to peace.

But yet, so often, it's so easy to walk around, and look what's happening, and lose our joy, and lose our peace, because of that. I want to say, if you're free from the law of God, you are free from the law of man, to keep you in bondage, to the curse. Man, that hit me like a ton of bricks. I'd never seen that before. And I thought, man, I got to get free. I got to get free. I got to change. I'm going to read this verse, and then we're done.

So I say, is that the fifth time I've said we're done, Carol? You just keep telling them, we're going to be done soon, and it keeps them happy. So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Ah! I had some ways this week, I didn't do that. Thank God that your sins are not counted against you. So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won't be doing what your sinful nature craves. But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives.

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, fruitfulness, gentleness, self-control. There is no law against these things. Nothing should be able to take this from us. But it's a fight every day. To put ourself on the tracks of God's love and be steamrolled by the freight train that is his power, that is his heart, and his love. And so I want to ask you this. I want to challenge you to reset everything you've been thinking about the divisiveness that we see in our culture.

I'm not going to talk about it a lot. There's only two weeks I'm bringing it into the sanctuary, but I thought it needed to be said. And to go back with the word of God and say, God, what, where am I dehumanizing people? Where am I not on track? Where do I not have peace? Where am I worried? Where am I fearful? Where am I concerned? I'm concerned. You can see this in prayer meetings. You go to prayer meetings with people, you can see as they pray from the place they're praying from is that they're scared to death or they feel like God has given them influence and power over those things.

And to sit quietly, just take a half hour, go sit in your regard, go somewhere and say, God, reshape my heart. Give me the love for people again and let me change lives. That'll be the end of politics for the next 20 years. It's good. We'll talk about it again in about two decades. With that, Chris, come on up and lead us in some worship. If you would stand.