Next weekend, as a country and as a culture, we will
celebrate Labor Day, which marks the unofficial end of summer. For most
families, however, summer has already ended. A summer of family vacations,
picnics, and mission trips is now in the rear view mirror. Students are already
back in school. Fall sports have started. Next week, the college football
season kicks off. And this year, as we
enter into the fall, there is another season that looms on the horizon. And
that season is the 2012 election season. Now, it’s not that we haven’t heard
about the upcoming presidential election; it seems as though we have been
talking about the upcoming presidential election for the past several years.
However, there seems to be something different about this
presidential election. There seems to be more urgency with this election. There
seems to be more energy with this election. There seems to be more emotion with
this election. There seems to be more that is hanging in the balance with this
election. There has already been a great
deal of rhetoric; there has already been a great deal of political mudslinging;
there has already been a great deal of partisan debate and demagoguery. There
seems to be a recognition that we are at a crossroads as a nation. There seems
to be a recognition that the outcome of this election will profoundly shape the
future of the nation.
Now as a church, we do not endorse political candidates
and as a pastor, I will not use Sunday morning as a platform to endorse a
candidate for president. As a church and as a pastor, I will speak about what
the Bible teaches about many of the contemporary issues that we face as a
nation. And on Sunday nights this fall, our Sunday evening Connection Point
service has being doing just that so that,
as followers of Jesus, we can look through the lens of a Biblical
worldview that enables us to vote in an informed manner when it comes to the
many issues that our country faces.
But what if I told you that you actually vote every day
on an issue that is far more important than a presidential election. Whether
you are a republican, democrat or independent; whether you are a member of the
tea party of the occupy wall street movement; whether you would consider
yourself active or inactive in politics, you cast your ballot every day in an
election that has far more at stake that who will be the leader of the free
world for the next four years. Now you might be wondering “what do you mean I
vote every morning? How can you say that I cast a ballot in an election every
day? And if that is the case, how do I vote, and what am I voting for?”
If those questions are running through your mind, I just
want to let you know that they are fair questions to be asking. And my response
to those questions is this: Every morning, you cast a ballot every day with
your head when it comes to this election. Every morning, you cast a ballot
every day with your heart when it comes to this election. And every morning,
you cast a ballot every day with your hands when it comes to this election.
And the ballot you cast in this election is for one of
two candidates. Either you cast a ballot to vote to live your life as a
religious-centered person; or you cast a ballot to live your life as a
gospel-centered person. With your head, in other words how you think about a
relationship with God; with your heart, in other words how you feel about a
relationship with God; and with your hands, in other words how you practically
live out your day to day life, you are either living your life as a religious-centered
person or a gospel-centered person.
Now you might be wondering “what is the difference? And
does it matter?” So in this election season, we are going to be spending our
time together in a sermon series entitled “vote no on religion”. During this
series, we are going to look at a letter that is recorded for us in the New
Testament in our Bibles today called the Book of Galatians. And in this letter,
we will discover that this election has been going on for thousands of years. We
will discover the difference between a religious-centered person and a
gospel-centered person. And my hope and my prayer is that God would move in our
heads, our hearts, and our hands, so that we would come to a place as
individuals where we vote no on religion and vote yes to living gospel-centered
lives that reveal and reflect Jesus and His message of rescue through the
message of the gospel to the world.
Tomorrow, we will begin where the book of Galatians
begins…
No comments:
Post a Comment