Voting Our Values

These are my notes for today's sermon.

Voting Our Values
2 Timothy 3:1-5

Main Idea

Christians have every reason to be informed and engaged in the coming election

Introduction

We’re are only two days from our country’s next presidential election, so I thought it would be appropriate for me to step away from our study of Abraham and talk with you instead about the subject that is on all of our hearts and minds.

Knowing exactly where to begin can be a daunting task. Some people believe that Christians should not be involved at all in politics. Others believe that politics are the primary means by which Christians will usher in kingdom-like living. Personally I would challenge both of these opinions.

Not Involved At All?

The notion that Christians should not be involved at all in politics often stems either from a misunderstanding of the separation of Church and State.

The separation of Church and State does not necessarily mean that the Church has no legitimate reason to be involved in the affairs of the State. It all depends on what you believe makes up “the affairs of the State.”

For example, the State claims it has the right to define marriage or when life begins. In other words, the State claims that the definition of marriage or the determination of when life begins belongs in the political realm and is to be kept separate from the realm of the Church. By crying “Foul!” when the Church asserts jurisdiction over subjects like these, the State ends up claiming that it has the exclusive right to define marriage or to determine when life begins.

Obviously, that kind of claim coming from the State is unacceptable. It also borders on the ridiculous. Take marriage for example. The definition of marriage as a sacred union between one man and one woman is based on Scripture. God is the One who invented marriage, so it is natural for us to look to His Word for how marriage is to be defined. Of course, there was a time when most human governments in Christianized world—most, including our own—based their laws governing marriage on the biblical principle. But now, having rejected Scripture, many of those same governments, including our own, are moving toward definitions of marriage based on non-Christian political correctness. So what’s happened is this: the State has taken ownership or jurisdiction from the Church of an issue that originally and rightfully belonged to the Church. And, at the same time, they have said to the Church, “Stay out of it!” Worse yet, they say, “The Church shouldn’t be allowed to say or determine anything about this issue.

All of this falls under the rubric of twisting beyond recognition the legitimate principle of separation of Church and State.

The most important thing to remember about the separation of Church and State is the question, Who has jurisdiction over what? And then the next question is, What is the Church’s motivation or what is the State’s motivation for claiming jurisdiction?

Issues We Have An Interest In

The reason why I am explaining these things is to get to the point that there are issues at stake in this election in which we Christians have a biblical interest. And the ability to express our interests by voting is a sacred privilege. (It is a right in our country, but it is a sacred privilege when we consider the political landscape of so much of world history.)

If you want to know what those issues are, I’ve already identified a couple of them: the sanctity of marriage and the sanctity of life.

But those are not the only ones. There are others. For example, we have biblical interests in issues like health care, our stewardship of the environment, the genocide in Darfur, the defeat of radical Islam, and the defense of Israel. We also have biblical interests in the care of the poor and others who need help and who cannot help themselves. We have biblical interests in educating children and in how they are educated.

One candidate recently called education is the civil rights issue of our time. I buy into that. We have biblical interests in seeing to it that the next generation is educated. Can you imagine how different our own ministry would be if none of our constituency could read or write, or if all they knew about life and the world came from television, video games, Hollywood, or the street?

I could go on here, but I think you get the point. There are issues at stake, from the presidential election on down to the lowest office up for grabs—issues in which we Christians have a biblical interest.

Usher In the Kingdom?

A few minutes ago, I said that some Christians believe that politics are the primary means by which we will usher in the kingdom. Let me say now how false I believe that perspective is. There is nothing in Scripture to indicate that Christians are somehow going to usher in Christ’s kingdom with their political power.

The Bible describes it in just the opposite way. At the end of the age, there will be a growing apostasy, a growing alignment with the world, not an advancing kingdom of the Lord, but a growing alignment with the world, until finally Jesus returns and personally defeats his enemies and rescues his saints to usher in his kingdom. Meanwhile, the greater danger for now is for Christians to be weakened by compromise with the world and a lack of faithfulness to the Lord and His Word. See 2 Timothy 3:1-5; 4:1-5.

A Very Slippery Slope

The downhill slide toward compromise and alliances with the world is (to use a worn-out phrase) a very slippery slope.

Over the last week or so, I’ve been reading through 1 and 2 Kings and 1 and 2 Chronicles in preparation for Sunday School lessons we’re going to be studying next quarter in adult classes. What’s fascinating is you find some of the same “political” issues we face in those books.

As I read, I found myself saying, “Oh no! Why did you do that? Why did you turn away from the Lord like that!” The nation of Israel went from its zenith to its nadir in a very short period of time—less than 350 years. At first, that sounds like a long time. But please understand, Israel’s descent from its zenith to its nadir was not a gradual descent. It did not follow a straight line gradually slanting down to its lowest point. After Solomon’s reign, there was an almost immediate steep descent to near bottom that flattened out and then continued until finally the bottom was reached.

Let me describe for you Israel’s descent to their nadir. It began with…

1. Personal compromise with evil – 1 Kings 11:1-8. Solomon’s heart turned away from the Lord because of his love for foreign women. He facilitated and personally participated in worshipping their “gods.”

which was followed by…

2. Inability to make wise decisions/elevation of political expediency over obedience to God and His Word – 1 Kings 12:25-33. Solomon’s kingdom was divided after his death. Jeroboam, who ruled the northern kingdom of Israel, worried that the people might rebel against his rule and instead follow Rehoboam, who ruled the southern kingdom of Judah from Jerusalem. So Jeroboam “made two gold calves.” He set one up in Dan in the way north, and the other near Bethel, the city near where Abraham first stopped and worshipped the Lord in the promised land. Jeroboam told the people: “Here is your God [meaning the golden calf] who brought you out of the land of Egypt.”

3. Susceptibility to major error – 1 Kings 12:25-33. The people bought this. And they weren’t ridded of it until the reforms undertaken by Josiah, the king of Judah, who raided the area near Bethel and destroyed Jeroboam’s altar, nearly 300 years later.

4. Ineffectiveness of God’s counsel – 1 Kings 22. Eventually in the line of kings in the north, we get to Ahab, who gathered prophets around himself who would say what he wanted to hear. The word of the one true prophet, Micaiah, Ahab simple did not want to hear. He would rather murder Micaiah than allow his word to carry the day.

5. Conscious abandonment of God’s commands – 2 Kings 17:7-20, especially v. 16. This is the passage where God spells out why He cause Israel, the Northern Kingdom, to fall.

6. Leading the rejection of God’s commands – 2 Kings 21:9. Under Manasseh, King of Judah, Israel “…did greater evil than the nations the Lord had destroyed before the Israelites.”

7. Complete ignorance of God’s Word – 2 Kings 22. Hilkiah’s find under Josiah’s rule indicates that God’s people had been operating for years without any knowledge of the Word of God. They had lost their most valuable resource for national success (see Joshua 1:8).

8. Continuous returning to evil as the default – 2 Kings 23:31ff. Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah—all of them “did evil in the sight of the Lord” in the years that followed the reforms of Josiah.

If you look these over, you’ll notice a mix of both intentional and unintentional consequences of Israel’s behavior on their way to their lowest point. What fascinates me is the placement of #7 in relation to #1. Israel did not begin their descent because of their ignorance of God’s Word. They began their descent because of compromise with the world.

Our Own Nation

Our own nation has been making compromises with the world for many years now. So it’s not surprising to see some of the very same mix of intentional and unintentional causes/consequences showing up here.

But here’s the thing. With this mix of intentional and unintentional causes/consequences, Israel experienced the rise of its enemies, the pollution of its religion, the disappearance of its wealth, and the total collapse and defeat of its society.

That seems to be the way the whole world will go, according to the Scriptures, and that’s the bad news. The good news is, there were long periods of time in Israel’s history, where they enjoyed “bumps” of peace and prosperity and revival. We don’t know how long it will be until the time of Jesus’ return. So in the meantime, we should do all we can do to honor the Lord and to serve Him.

That includes voting—voting our values, which requires us to be informed and engaged.

Applications:

1. Pray – 1 Timothy 2:1-4
2. Know what biblical values are and embrace all of them, not just some of them.
3. Be informed, vote our values first. Vote the values of your heart based on the Scriptures over the value of your 401k.
4. Keep in mind that the way you live is as much of a vote as in the vote you cast in the ballot box on Tuesday. See Psalm 1.
5. Live out your values even if the political environment does not favor them. Do not wait for politicians and government to provide you with the means to do what is right.