God & Country: Voting

Did you watch the latest Presidential debate?

Call me old fashioned, but I remember a time when candidates talked about issues and policies and how they would address those issues and policies. This latest debate?

Here’s why you’re terrible.
And here’s why you’re terrible.
And here’s why you’re even more terrible -er.

It seemed a bit more like I was watching an episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians.

I don’t think I’m alone. According to the latest polls, neither candidate has a majority. In fact, they are barely hovering around 40%. That means – the eventual winner will have more than half the country against them!  It’s is going to be one of the largest third candidate votes in American history. Time and time again – I see people’s reason for voting for Hillary or Trump as – They’re bad – just not as bad as the other one.

What’s a person to do?
What’s a Christian to do?  
Who should we trust to make our lives better?
 
Today we are continuing our series called God & Country. We’re looking at the Christian and voting. I wanna say right off the bat: I am not endorsing any candidates. You can give me a lifetime supply of Nacho Cheese Doritos and I’m not endorsing any candidates. I’m a pastor; not a politician. I care about spiritual -- way more than temporal.

Yet there’s a spiritual aspect to casting a vote. Because there’s trust involved in casting a vote.

Today we want to look into God’s Word and see (1) who should we trust while casting our vote and (2) what principles do we keep in mind while voting.  But before we study God’s Word, let’s say a prayer: O Lord, strengthen us by the truth; your Word is truth. Open our eyes to see what you want us to see. Open our ears to hear what you want us to hear. Open our hearts to believe what you would have us believe. Amen.

I. Voting & Trust

Our lesson for today comes from 1 Samuel 8. That's actually before where we were last week in our God & Patriotism lesson. It's before David was king. In fact, it was before Israel even had kings or a human government. 

Which is what makes this biblical studying on voting for a political candidate difficult. There isn’t any democracy in the Bible. Democracy is relatively new. In the Old Testament – most governments were Monarchies – that means – they were governments run by kings.

But not in Israel. Not in 1 Samuel.  At that time Israel was different. Israel was run by a theocracy. Theos is the Greek word for "god." That means a theocracy is a government run by God. Literally. God, their heavenly Father, was actively involved in the government of Israel.  

He would give guidance to a leader -- Moses or Joshua -- who would then lead the Israelites in battle and citizenship -- How to live, what to celebrate, what's good and what's bad. This system went well for Israel as long as they listened to God. When they listened to him, they were blessed. When they didn't listen to God, they were in trouble. 

The same thing happened when Samuel (the person for whom the book of 1 Samuel is named) became the go between for God and the people. Things went well. The Israelites had been in captivity, but after Samuel led -- they were not. 

People were generally happy with this theocracy. 

Until one day….
 
…Samuel heard a rock tumble down his gravel walkway. He looked up from his morning devotion and went to the front window: A group of men was walking up his driveway. He recognized them. They were leaders from various tribes and various families in this Israelites nation.  A congress of elected officials – that was neither elected nor official.

Samuel went to the front door to let them in. It was always good to see them. Together they enforced God’s Will. They helped pass on God’s Word of wisdom. God talked to Samuel; Samuel talked to these men; these men talked to the people. 

Together they guided Israel. 

And it worked! 30 some years earlier, Israel was a broken mess. Various sections of the country had splintered off and been captured by the Philistines and the Amorites. They were oppressed, taxed, and beaten. But, after the country repented and listened to God’s leadership through Samuel – Israel was at peace. The country was restored. The nation was blessed and had been for years.

Maybe the guys are here to talk about the good old days OR maybe they want me to speak at a high school graduation again.
 
But the people didn’t come for high fives.
They weren’t bringing him a gift of appreciation.
They didn’t even want to take selfies with him.

v.5 “You’re old." You’re not young. It’s a new era; a modern era. You don’t connect with the younger generation anymore. You can’t keep up like you used to. You should be in the hall of fame; not on the front lines.
 
"You’re sons aren’t like you." They aren’t. They just want money and they only care about themselves. They aren’t doing a good job doing the legwork for you.
 
"Appoint a king to lead us, just like all the other nations have."
 
Samuel’s smile faded. He nodded and listened as they spoke. “OK, Ok. I hear you.” But his heart wasn’t in it. Why were they rejected him? Was it something he said? Was it something he did? Was he not wearing the right clothing? Did he need a new hair style?

Samuel excused himself for a moment. He went out back to a private room. He got on his knees and he prayed to God. God, is this right? Should I listen to them? God why are they rejecting me?

God responded – with one of the truest statement Samuel had heard in a long time.

v.7   Samuel…It is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king.

Do any of you know who Chumbawamba is? They’re a one hit wonder from the nineties. But…I remember back when I was a preteen, all of my classmates were obsessed with Chumbawamba’s number 1 hit song: Tubthumper. It goes “I get knocked down, but I get up again; you ain’t ever gonna keep me down.” (Sound familiar?)

So here’s what I did. I found a BMG Music ad in the newspaper. I ordered the Chumbawamba CD. I had to order another 10 CDs (based solely on whether or not I had heard my classmates talking about them) and I spent my whole allowance to get them.

The CD came. And Tubthumper was alright…the other songs? Awful.

All so I could be like the other kids.

Essentially that’s what the Israelites were wanting. They were willing to give up the leadership of their holy, perfect, all loving, never failing, completely on their side, miracle making God – all for the sake of being like the other nations.

They wanted someone they could see.
They wanted someone that was like them.
They wanted someone who was invested in the human race.

They wanted to be like other, sinful, godless, heading toward hell people.

But then again – this is what Israel had always done. For years, they had been rejecting God’s rule. For years, they had been doing the opposite of what God said. For years, they had been appearing to follow God – but really following sinful human beings.

Themselves.

God and Samuel finished their campaign meeting. Samuel returned to the Israelites with some talking points. He had a chance to debate; to give a final warning as to why God was a way better leader than a human being. His defense is found in verses 10-18, but here are the highlights:

1) Take your kids and make army fodder. Instead of having the hand of God doing the work for you, protecting you and keeping you safe, he’ll grab your sons. They’ll be maimed and die in battle. And it won’t always be for your best interested. It’ll be for the king’s interest and the king’s legacy. For his own, selfish, human reasons.

2) You’ll lose your freedom. You won’t be able to choose your lifestyle and choose your occupation. If the king needs a farmer, you’ll be a farmer. If the king needs a baker, you’ll be a baker. If the king needs a outhouse repairman, you’ll be an outhouse repairman. He won’t keep in mind your desire and dreams for this life – he’ll give you a job…for his own, selfish, human reasons.

3) The Taxes… Oh the taxes will increase. You’ll give up a portion of your food and your goats, and your oxen and chicken, and everything that you have. Some will go to protect you, but once that king gets a taste of wealth, the majority of taxes will not happen to improve your life, they will happen for the king’s own, selfish, human reasons.

4) You’ll be slaves. Because eventually, eventually someone will become king whose sinful, selfish human reasons overtakes his policies. He’ll make you serve him – not your country and not yourself. He’ll be filled with vengeance and a complete disregard for you – and you shouldn’t be surprised! That’s what sinful, selfish, human beings do!

And you’ll call out to God for help. You’ll regret the decision you are making right now. But, v.18 the LORD will not answer you.

The Israelites thought about it.
They pondered it.
They deeply considered the thoughts of their holy, perfect, all knowing God. 

…for about 2 seconds.

v.18 “No! We want a king over us! We want to be like the other nations.”

Did you see the problem? The Israelites trusted humanity more than God. Soon, they’d put their trust in Saul – their very first human king – more than God.

It’s foolish to do.

God is holy; humans are sinful.
God is all loving; humans love themselves first.
God is all powerful; humans are weak.
God is all knowing; humans know whatever their very biased advisors tell them to know.

But this trusting of humans more than God is something that was happening back then…
…and is still happening now.

Who do you trust this election?

Hillary? Donald? Do you trust Jill or Gary or Scott?
Are you panicking because you don’t trust any of them?
Do you expect a president to completely change your life?
To fix your problems? To fix your money situation? To improve your job and heal your health issues?

If you do, your trust is in the wrong place.

Hillary Clinton will not fix your life.
Donald Trump will not make your life great again.
A third party candidate will not put your life in the right direction.
The only one who can do that; is not on the ballot.

Isaiah 43:11 says this, “God is the Lord and there is no other Savior.”

Cause when you look at our lives apart from God – there’s been a Great Recession.

• We don’t have a peaceful existence – The terrorism of guilt and depression; despair and pride – surprise, attack and oppress us daily.
• We have become spiritually poor – Sin and more sin and good intentions destroyed by sin is all we have to offer.
• Our health care is a mess – trying to soothe our sin plagued spirits with the unproven, phony salve of “I tried hard so…I hope that’s enough.”
• There’s corruption – our own sinful, selfish, prideful corruption plaguing every one of our decisions.

And you know how good candidates are at lying? We’re good at it too. Telling ourselves “I’m fine. Everything’s great. I have no spiritual problems.”

But we’re wrong. It’s a mess. And it's beyond any human being!!

But it isn't beyond God. 

• He brings peace into our lives – granting forgiveness for all of our sins and removing the burden of guilt.
• He gives an embarrassment of riches through faith – eternal life, salvation, a bag full of forgiveness that’s so heavy even the Monopoly guy would struggle to lift it up.
• He improves our health – changing our diagnosis form eternal death in hell; to eternal life with our God in heaven.
• He is constantly working in His Word to remove the corruption and lead us to truth – His truth – eternal, unchanging Truth.

Here’s the truth:

​Your Savior isn't on the ballot; he's on the cross. 

To be fair, this may not mean that you make more money. It may not mean that your health care payments go down. It may not mean that you get all of the benefits that you t think you deserve.
 
But what you’ll get; is beyond your wildest imagination.

Jesus said this, “My kingdom is not of this world.” That means he’s concerned with your life on this earth, yes, but he’s even more concerned with your spiritual, eternal life in heaven. His decisions, when it comes down to one or the other, are always going to be in favor of your heavenly glory.

Because that's better.
Because that lasts. 
Because that's how He fixes this broken world.
Because that's how He fixes this broken you.

II. Principles for this Election  
 
Jesus is the only Savior. But he's also not on the ballot. I'm not suggesting that you write in his name. (He wouldn't take the job and sadly, he probably wouldn't win anyways). 

What are you to do? What does the Bible encourage us to do in an earthly election? Keep in mind that the Bible doesn’t exactly address voting. Democracy isn’t a part of the Ten Commandments and it was never a part of Israelite government. There's not even a mandate to vote! But there’s a few Biblical principles that I think you should keep in mind.

1) Pray.
 
The Bible tells us to pray continually. It doesn’t say, “Pray continually until an election comes up; then stop praying and start making decisions on your own without seeking God’s help.” Nope. God tells us to pray about big things and little things – to help grandma get over cancer and to help me do well on this 10 question math quiz.

The presidential election fits under the category of things to pray for.
Won’t you keep it in your prayers?

Pray for God to bless America.
Pray for God to bless your heart.
Pray for God to guide you toward the best decision that you can make.

2) Use the Wisdom God gave You. 

That really has a twofold meaning. The Bible says that God made us "Fearfully and wonderfully." Therefore, we should use that wonderful mind that God gave us and the wisdom he bestowed on us.

But also he gave us wisdom beyond that. Wisdom within his Word. 

The Bible. 

Now, there is not a Bible book called. “2nd What-to-Do-in-the-2016-American-Presidential-Elections.” It just isn’t there. That means this will take some time. You'll need to learn about the candidates and then search in God's Word for what a godly leader looks like. You'll find examples of godly leaders and godly characteristics of leaders. You'll learn godly morals and godly mandates. 

It takes some time, but it's worth it. 

Don’t just do something cause all your friends are saying so on Facebook.
That’s what the Israelites did and it didn’t work out to well for them.
Take time to think about the issues and vote using the wisdom God gave you. 

3) Relax.

DID YOU KNOW: There will be some friends, some family members, even some church members who vote differently in you?

Kick them out pastor! Right? 

You do realize that every candidate in this election is a sinner?
Every candidate has sinful human reasoning?
Every candidate has sinful human motives?

There is no perfect candidate. If you’re going to disown a friend because they voted for a sinful candidate, then you’ll have to disown yourself.

Relax. Christians can make different choices for President; just as they make different choices for what type of car to drive and different choices for different types of chewing gum. You don’t need to crucify them or call them names. You don’t need to send them angry blog post after angry blog post.

You need to pray with them. You need to work with them.
You need to share God’s Word to them and with them.

And you have important work to do:

4) Move on.  
Which leads to the final point – after you make your vote – move on!

Because God didn't call us to sit around and wring our hands and worry about our government. Nope. 
God called us to share the Gospel of Jesus. 

We’ve got way too important of work to keep doing together. We need to Gather to the Garden. We need to share Jesus with our community. We need to keep telling others about our incredible Savior, Jesus Christ.

And you need to be a part of that.  

CONCLUSION:

Here’s where God helps with that.
Because the more our trust is in him, the more we calm God gives us.

To be honest, this election is quite the opportunity for trust in God. Because if I think back to the elections that I can remember – people were voting because they were confident in the candidate to do the good job. George W. Bush will fix things. Barack Obama will fix things.

This year – They won’t mess it up as much as the other person.

Which means – when trust in the candidates is at all time low – we have an opportunity to place trust in God at an all-time high.

Put your trust in the Lord, the Only Savior.
Share your trust it the Lord, the Only Savior. 
​Amen.