[0:00] But I'm speaking today on a subject that is a difficult one to address and one that I think we need wisdom for.
[0:11] ! And I will be the first to declare I do not have all wisdom and I need it from God in order to do that. And the Bible tells us where to get wisdom. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given to him.
[0:28] And so we ask God today, I ask God today for his wisdom in this subject. And we want to be like men of Issachar, 1 Chronicles 12.32.
[0:43] These men who had understanding of the times to know what Israel ought to do. And so we pray that God would give us understanding to know what we ought to do in the times that we live in and the world that we live in.
[0:57] And there is some disagreement. What we're talking about today, there are disagreements among those who wear the label of Christian on some of these subjects.
[1:10] And so I want to say that up front, knowing that there are disagreements in that way. And I want to start with what's not on your notes, reasons why there are disagreements among those who wear the label of Christian.
[1:27] And I have Christian in quotes here, and I do that on purpose. The first reason why there can be some disagreements in this area is because of misapplied directives.
[1:39] Sometimes God gives us commands or directives, and those commands or directives are intended for a specific audience. And we have to know who those directives are applied to.
[1:53] So that's where we're going to start today. We're going to talk about how God has given us as individual believers commands. God has given the family specific commands.
[2:03] God has given commands to the church and then also to the state. And so when we see a command given in Scripture, we have to know who this command is directed towards.
[2:16] And then another reason why there can be disagreements is because of misunderstood definitions. We're going to get into some of that today as well. Sometimes we'll see a word in Scripture, and different groups of people will have different definitions.
[2:30] And so what we want to do is we want to look at how the Scriptures might define that word or that topic, and then go from there in terms of making decisions.
[2:41] And then finally, I think we also have to address this as well. There are misguided adversaries within the church. Some of these people are misguided because they're well-intentioned, but they are misinformed.
[2:57] And so they, too, need to be corrected and taught correctly about what the Scriptures teach. But then also there are those who are in churches who are considered evil guides, people who are considered wolves, that those who are pastors, those who are Christian leaders need to stand and oppose and make sure that they are confronted.
[3:30] And if they are in any given local church, for instance, if we have wolves, if we have people who are evil guides in our midst, then it's up to us as the leadership of the church to stand opposed to them and indeed to expose them and to excuse them, to say it politely, from our midst, to dismiss them from our midst.
[3:55] That can be a difficult thing to do, but it's a necessary step that has to be taken, as we will see in the local church. And so I want to start with talking about these distinct authorities, different groups that these directives or commands are applied to.
[4:13] You do have this on your notes, and we'll start with the individual commands that are given. The mandate that God has given to all of us, if we wear the label of Christian, if we wear the label of someone who is a follower of Christ, the mandate that we have is to love one another, even our enemies, and we are to do that always at all times.
[4:38] That never subsides. Even when we are standing opposed to someone, our call is still to love them. Even if we would consider them an enemy or a wolf, our responsibility, our calling, our mandate from God is to still continue to love them.
[4:57] And so Jesus gave them a new commandment, that you love one another. That wasn't the new part of the commandment. Deuteronomy speaks, Deuteronomy 6 talks about loving one another.
[5:10] That wasn't new. But what was the new wrinkle in it is just as I have loved you, so as Jesus Christ loves us, we are to love one another.
[5:21] And that elevates it even more so. So our responsibility, our calling, is to demonstrate love for each other. And even more so, in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapter 5, Jesus says, Love your enemies.
[5:39] Pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. There's something about our relationship with the Lord that when we follow him, we're going to demonstrate this kind of love regardless of who we are dealing with.
[5:57] So that's a part of the mandate. Other parts of the mandate, and by the way, all the stuff that I'm sharing with you today is in no means exhaustive. And I'm not going to pretend that I can share everything that the scriptures have to say on each of these individual subjects here.
[6:15] But just an overview is what we're looking at today. But so to ever pursue holiness or a spiritual maturity, this is also our calling.
[6:27] And so in everything that we talk about and everything that we pursue as believers in Christ, we are to pursue holiness. And then also that we are to steward your own life.
[6:40] We are called to be stewards of our own lives. We don't, as believers, as Christians, we don't own our own lives. It doesn't belong to us. We've been bought with a price, 1 Corinthians chapter 6.
[6:53] And so we don't belong to ourselves. I don't get to determine what I want to do. As a believer, I submit that decision-making over to one who, the one who is in control of my life, who is the master of my life, who is the Lord over my life, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ.
[7:14] And I do that willingly as a follower of Christ. I give that control over to him. And he allows me to be the steward of what he owns.
[7:25] That is me. I am to steward all that I am in a way that honors him and is faithful to his calling in my life. Now, there are some boundaries when it comes to this.
[7:39] And those boundaries start with, do not take revenge. And so as an individual, I'm not allowed to. Romans 12 makes this very clear.
[7:50] We're not to take revenge, to take vengeance, nor do we take the law into our own hands. Do not take the law into your own hands.
[8:01] There is an entity that God has ordained, we're going to talk about shortly, that is given charge over the law. And so we have to submit to that authority in our lives.
[8:14] We're not allowed to do that ourselves. So do not take revenge. Do not take the law into your own hands. Now, when it comes to our response to a threat, and these are the issues that we're dealing with today, here's how we handle that, to refuse hatred.
[8:34] Number one, it starts with that. We don't want to respond even to an enemy in hatred. That is not an appropriate response for us. To protect yourself, absolutely, and others by fleeing or using proportionate lawful force if attacked.
[8:56] This is appropriate. This is something that God has ordained in Scripture, and there are a number of places in Scripture that demonstrate this.
[9:08] Now, as an individual, I can surrender my life to someone who comes to attack as an expression of Christ's love for me. And yet, even in a decision like that, I need to take into account who else I am accountable to or responsible for.
[9:27] In a position like myself, I have a family, I have children. Mine are grown, so my decision-making might be a little bit different when it comes to that. But if you are responsible for a wife and children, you have to take that into account that if someone were to threaten or attack you, they may then come for your wife or children as well once you as a threat are eliminated.
[9:52] So it becomes a responsible thing for you to do to protect yourself and then also to protect those that are around you if attacked.
[10:04] And then finally, we are also to forgive. Always. But forgiveness is not a mandate to return to an unsafe environment. And so just because you forgive someone does not mean that you allow that person back into your life to allow them to harm you once again.
[10:25] And so forgiveness and reconciliation are two separate things. So that's dealing with the individual. And then as we make our way through this, as we get to the end of this, we're going to have some application points from the scriptures as well.
[10:38] The second authority is the family. And we see this in scripture that the family is ordained by God. And the mandate when it comes to the family is this, that parents are God's deputies in the home.
[10:56] God has given charge over the family to parents, particularly fathers, but mothers as well.
[11:07] But fathers lead that in the home, that God-given role of providing protection. And we are also then responsible for the physical, mental, and spiritual well-being of our children.
[11:23] So that is given to parents. That is a charge that is given to parents. So the church, for instance, which we'll talk about in a moment, the church doesn't have control over your own children.
[11:37] Parents have that charge. Same thing when it comes to education. The local education system is not in charge of your children's education.
[11:49] You are. Now, you may use the local education system as a means to provide that, but you are in charge of that.
[11:59] So whatever way you decide to educate your children, however you choose to protect your children, their physical safety, their well-being, but you are given charge over that in the family.
[12:13] Some boundaries that you have as parents then, that your authority is limited to your own household. I'm not going to go into someone else's household and tell their kids what to do.
[12:25] That would be odd. Little next-door neighbor, Johnny, hasn't been doing his math homework. I'm coming over here to make sure that he does. That would be weird.
[12:35] And then parents then also have no right to usurp the church or the state. There are God-given roles for each of those, and so parents are given charge over their own families, but not over the church and not over the state, and so each have a God-given role.
[13:01] And then again, when it comes to our response to a threat, to guard children from physical abuse, from exploitation, from toxic influences, absolutely parents are given that charge.
[13:18] And then also to teach discernment to their children without breeding paranoia. This can be a big one too.
[13:29] We want to teach our children discernment, but we don't want to make them scared. We need to live confidently in the world that God has called us to live in, regardless of the threats that are there.
[13:42] So we oughtn't to respond with paranoia, nor should we be demonstrating that or teaching that to our children. We are confident because Christ is the Lord of all, and so we can absolutely trust him and count on him no matter what the circumstances are around us.
[14:04] And then finally, to remove threats to safety or well-being, even if that means cutting ties or involving authorities. And sometimes it can come to this in the family where you have to cut ties with another member of your family because of the threats to the well-being or the physical safety or the mental or the spiritual well-being of your children, or even to the point of involving authorities when crimes are being committed.
[14:36] And so that's all a part of it. Moving on to the church. The church has also some God-given responsibilities and a God-given role that is given to it.
[14:49] The mandate given to the church is that shepherds are given charge over souls, protect from, they're to protect from false teaching and also to maintain order in the church.
[15:03] This again is laid out in scripture. The boundaries also for the church to stay in its lane, if you will, that the church is not to usurp the right role of parents or the role of the state.
[15:21] And then finally, when it comes to response to threats, the church has the responsibility to confront false teaching, not to just let it go, not to just let it slide, but to confront it.
[15:38] It is important for pastors and teachers to confront false teaching and false teachers. This sometimes gets to be difficult in the sense that there are times when a pastor should and must stand before his body of believers, the congregation, and call out a name or a ministry or a particular teaching that needs to be confronted.
[16:10] And that has happened here in the past before and we've had people that leave our church because I have chosen to say something of a derogatory nature about a particular teacher, preacher, or ministry and noticing or calling out its false teaching.
[16:31] exercising discipline among our members is another aspect of this. There can sometimes come threats in that way.
[16:44] And then finally, to secure meeting spaces and provide safe environments for gathering, which is a part of why we have security.
[16:55] It's a part of why we have background checks for people who work with children or youth. these are things that we want to safeguard for the children of our congregation.
[17:08] It's a part of doing ministry in 2026. We have to take these kinds of safeguards to protect the people of our congregation, particularly the little ones in our midst.
[17:23] And then finally, one more before we get into some application of these principles, and that has to do with the state. And the mandate that the state has is this, the civil magistrate is God's minister, and I use that word on purpose.
[17:38] It sounds like a religious word, minister, but it just means servant. The civil magistrate is God's servant or minister to punish evil, to protect the innocent, and to secure peace.
[17:52] that is all a part of that. And so, that's the mandate, the boundaries that the state has. It's limited to temporal justice.
[18:05] They can't do anything touching the eternal, thankfully so. They cannot save souls. They cannot dictate doctrine nor punish mere opinion.
[18:21] that is not the role or the responsibility of the state. And when the state begins to meddle in these areas, that is when they begin to become authoritarian in nature and tyrannical in nature when they begin to do these things.
[18:42] We've seen things like this happening in other Western civilized countries. one in particular that I can think of is England. In England now where people are being arrested for thought crimes, for making posts on Facebook, there was a pastor, preacher in Ireland who was arrested for preaching in public.
[19:06] And all he did was share a verse of scripture in public. And because he did this, he was arrested. It's amazing to me that in the land of Charles Spurgeon it has come to this.
[19:24] But that is the reality of the world that they live in and we can see some of those things leading that way here in our own nation as well. And then when it comes to responses to threats for the state, it is imperative then for the state to prosecute crimes impartially.
[19:46] And we've seen some degradation of this in our own society, in our own nation where impartial prosecution of crimes is becoming maybe even rare.
[20:00] It is responsible, responsibility of the state government then to protect the vulnerable, to restrain the violent.
[20:12] That's a part of the responsibility of the state as well. And then also to defend the common good. And the state must do this all while refusing overreach.
[20:32] Which the state has a tendency to want to do. So, when it comes to some application points of this, I want to begin by talking about some key moral issues that we face today in our world.
[20:57] And again, these are all hot-button issues and everybody's going to have their opinions when it comes to that. But we're going to take a look at what the scriptures teach us about some key issues of morality.
[21:09] The first has to do with the issue of life. Psalm 139 talks about this. For you formed me in my inward parts, you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
[21:25] Proverbs says it this way, there are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him, and one of those in this list is hands that shed innocent blood. When it comes to the issue of abortion, I think the Bible is clear that God reveres, that God creates life, and he creates life in the womb.
[21:48] He knows our days before they begin, and so this is not, in my mind, a hard issue, or it might be in some circles a controversial issue, but from my perspective it is not.
[22:05] The idea of taking a life in the womb, it is still the shedding of innocent blood, even when the issue has to do with rape or incest, the solution according to our government would then be to say, let's punish the innocent one in this transaction instead of punishing the one who did the crime, and that is unfortunate to have that kind of perspective with that.
[22:40] When it comes to issues of sexuality and marriage and so forth, again, we see from Scripture how the Lord looks at this.
[22:52] This is Matthew chapter 19. These are the words of Jesus, and he is quoting from the two passages in the book of Genesis, Genesis chapter 1, Genesis chapter 2, and the subject of gender and sexuality and marriage.
[23:07] And he says it this way, have you not read, and he's speaking to the Pharisees here, who obviously have read, but Jesus is saying they've missed it. Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female?
[23:22] the idea that we can take what God has created and butcher it and allow that person to then pretend to be a different gender is something that, again, is foreign to Scripture and is abhorrent to God's design of us as his creation.
[23:42] And God said, therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.
[23:53] The subject of gay marriage is also something that some people would say, well, Jesus never spoke on the subject. Hello? I think I just read it.
[24:06] Jesus has very clearly said that marriage is intended to be between a man and a woman, again, not to be altered. And just the very concept of either two men or two women becoming married, married.
[24:21] It is contrary to nature. It is contrary to God's design. It is contrary to science. People will sometimes in our world today say, well, we have to trust the science, or we have, you know, science over scripture, and you can't bring the scriptures into it.
[24:39] Okay, I would say bring science into it, because science is on our side in these issues. the idea of two men being married is just contrary to everything, and is an affront to the way that God has created us.
[24:58] And so, again, these issues are a part of our culture. Again, well, someone might say, well, you're talking about an Old Testament passage of scripture that the Old Testament forbade homosexuality, et cetera, et cetera.
[25:16] Well, the New Testament also addresses the subject as well. In Romans chapter 1, Paul writing, he says it this way, for this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions.
[25:29] Dishonorable passions, and then he describes what these dishonorable passions are. So, these are things that he says right off the top are dishonoring to God.
[25:42] For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature, women with women. Again, the idea of a lesbian or homosexual relationship is something that is contrary to nature itself, and it's contrary to God's design.
[26:00] And the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
[26:14] And again, this is all New Testament. It's all very clear what he's referring to here in these kinds of same sex relationships that are contrary to science, contrary to nature, certainly contrary to God's design, and God would consider them dishonoring or dishonorable.
[26:38] people. And so as believers, we hold to this same standard.
[26:49] And so when it comes to these kinds of issues, and here's where I'm going to put up something that I think some may find offensive, and that's fine. I think it's good for us to have a conversation about this.
[27:01] And here's with it. When it comes to many of these headline moral issues, the official democratic platform, if you look at their platform and their leading legislation, the legislation that they want to push as a party, those legislative directives stand in contract, direct contradiction with foundational biblical norms for life, marriage, sexuality, and more issues of religious liberty, issues of gender, all of these different issues that the democratic platform says ought to be a part of our way of life.
[27:52] Now, some would say, well, don't you have problems with the republican platform? I do. Absolutely, I do. I think the republican platform is not nearly strong enough when it comes to life issues, also on marriage issues as well.
[28:09] But if you, and you don't necessarily have to do this, but if you boil it down to one versus the other, if you view an election as being one versus the other, there is one that pushes issues and things that are more of an affront to God and to Christian standards, biblical standards, than the other one does.
[28:32] Now, you might say that there is another way, another candidate that you could support. I get that, and that's fine, but you have to make those kinds of decisions.
[28:43] I'm just pointing out to you that there is one particular platform, party platform, that really is an affront about everything that the church and Christianity stands for people that need to talk about another subject.
[29:03] And that has to do with the subject of illegal immigration, which is something that in our culture is a very hot button issue. Again, there's disagreement within Christian circles on how to deal with this particular subject.
[29:19] And so I want to address that. And the sojourner is the first category of people that we need to talk about because you'll see passages in scripture like this.
[29:31] Exodus 22, shall not wrong a sojourner or oppress him, for you were once sojourners in the land of Egypt. And it's as if he equates them with widows and orphans as well in this passage.
[29:48] And it is true. When it comes to people who are here sojourning in our land, we are to treat them with equal protection and with love. In the same way that we love fellow citizens, we need to love the sojourner in our midst.
[30:04] And so that is very much so definitely a biblical directive for us to do that. The question then becomes how does scripture define what a sojourner is?
[30:16] And it does do that for us. The sojourner is someone who is a lawful resident foreigner in our midst. They're here lawfully and they're also here temporarily.
[30:29] They've come to work temporarily or to visit temporarily but they're here lawfully. And then also part of that they're supposed to be they need to be protected and loved under the law.
[30:42] So as believers even as a nation we need to be a people who would welcome and protect and even love those who are sojourners in our midst.
[30:58] And so you have this the statements you shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you and you shall love him as yourself for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.
[31:11] I am the Lord your God. The Lord makes this very clear. There's really no wiggle room for us when it comes to this subject.
[31:24] But again we have to understand the definitions. So when we come to understand the definition of a sojourner the way the scriptures view it is this is someone who has come and has legal residency in our midst.
[31:41] In other words they've gone through the process and they've gotten permission to be here and they are here legally. In that instance then absolutely we are to love and to honor and to protect those who are here.
[31:55] And they also when they come they submit to the host nation's laws. That's a part of what it means to be a sojourner. You're coming in and you're honoring the laws of the nation that you are there to be a part of.
[32:12] And so the sojourner is someone who we would then classify as a different category when we use the word illegal immigrant and the sojourner we're talking about two different groups of people here.
[32:28] Do you get that? And so when someone whether a pastor or a church says when they refer to illegal immigrants as those who are sojourners and we need to treat illegal immigrants as sojourners that's not what the scriptures are teaching us.
[32:46] The sojourner is a particular protected class or should be a particular protected class in our midst. We are to treat them with honor and love and protection.
[33:00] The second group is those who are immigrants. Now this is different from the sojourner in that this person is seeking a permanent settlement within the ordained boundaries of a nation.
[33:12] And understand that God is the one who ordains boundaries that we have in our midst. In Acts chapter 17 as Paul is preaching to the people in Athens he said this as part of his sermon there in Acts chapter 17 and he made from one man Adam every nation of mankind to live on the face of the earth having determined allotted periods the time frames that nations would rise and fall and their boundaries of their dwelling place so God is the one who determines boundaries boundaries are considered a good thing in our midst that That's something that we need to protect.
[33:58] We see this again in Proverbs 29. By justice, a king gives a country stability, but those who are greedy for bribes tear it down. This is something that if you're paying attention to the news in our world today, we see this happening quite a bit.
[34:13] The fraud that's being perpetrated by politicians who are greedy for bribes, greedy for money, greedy for power, and are willing to perpetrate fraud using the immigrant system as a way to do that.
[34:30] And we're seeing that being exposed even in our current day. And so this is an issue that's very much at the forefront right now in our nation. And so anyone that's greedy for a bribe is doing that.
[34:45] And then also in Proverbs, like a city whose walls are broken down is a man who lacks self-control. And this is where the proverb writer Solomon here is comparing someone who lacks discipline, lacks self-control, to a city with a broken down wall.
[35:04] And in that world, the city-state very much was how things worked. And so the size of our nations today is quite different from what it was back then.
[35:16] But the idea of having a border, having a wall, having protection against those who might would invade is something that's very real. And God says is a good and right thing for us to have.
[35:31] And so we see that also as an issue today. The immigrant. When the immigrant comes to settle in our midst, we assimilate them.
[35:45] And they wish to be assimilated to our language and culture. This isn't to say that they give up their own culture. Not at all. They should honor and protect their own culture.
[35:56] But at the same time, when they come to a new nation, one of the things that happens is they should learn the language of that host nation. And they should learn the accepted cultures and ways of life in that culture and adapt to it, integrate into that culture.
[36:15] And so that's a part of it. And I came across what I found was an interesting passage of Scripture concerning this in the book of Nehemiah.
[36:26] It's the last chapter of Nehemiah. Nehemiah restoring, rebuilding the wall around Jerusalem after it had been torn down. And he has been given charge to rebuild this wall around Jerusalem.
[36:41] And lo and behold, he discovers something of the people that are living there. In those days, also, I saw the Jews who had married women of Ashdod and Ammon and Moab.
[36:53] And so the Jews had a particular prescription not to intermarry with other peoples in their land, not because of ethnicity, but because of religion.
[37:05] That was the issue. And who they worshipped. Half of their children spoke the language of Ashdod. And they could not speak the language of Judah.
[37:15] And this is what made Nehemiah upset. That the people couldn't speak the mother tongue of the nation, but only the language of each people.
[37:27] And this is what I found. I don't know if I should have found this amusing or not, but I confronted them and cursed them and beat some of them and pulled out their hair. I don't know that I would do that.
[37:42] But I found that that was an interesting thing. And so while we ought to be, as a nation, we ought to be a very welcoming to immigrant cultures, to people wanting to come and to move into our country.
[37:57] We ought to be a very welcoming. It's a part of the Great Commission that we have that we want to either go or have them come and share the gospel with.
[38:09] We want to be generous in that way. But that does not exempt people from integrating into the society on which you become an immigrant of.
[38:20] I am the son of immigrants. My parents were not born and raised in the United States of America. My parents are French-Canadian, and so they had to learn English when they moved here.
[38:33] I had to learn English growing up, and my parents were so focused on this that they didn't teach us French. They only taught us English because they were concerned for how we would be raised, how we would be accepted in the new country that they moved to.
[38:53] And so the idea of a nation being welcoming is something that's very good and honoring. I think God is honored by that, but it needs to be done in such a way that is well-maintained, that is in control, that is enforced by law.
[39:12] And this next part then becomes important there, and that's the illegal immigrant. And the Bible doesn't really even have a term for this. If it did, it would be a term that I'll mention here in a little bit that's not very favorable, the illegal immigrant, the person circumventing the law and violating the established sovereign boundaries of the state.
[39:35] This becomes basically what, as a nation, we've become so worked up over. We've become something that's very front and center in terms of our politics, in terms of how we view the world around us and the news itself.
[39:53] And again, we come back to this perspective. This is something that has been given charge over to the state. Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. So the governing authorities has boundaries and has laws for immigration.
[40:08] For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. And that's true for the state as well, whether they realize it or recognize that or not. Therefore, whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.
[40:25] This is all a part of this. And then in Matthew chapter 12, in the midst of answering a different question, Jesus says this phrase.
[40:38] Now, this is a phrase that he puts into his answer about blaspheming the Holy Spirit. When they charged Jesus with his miraculous works as being the power of the devil, basically, Jesus talked about how can someone who is divided against itself thrive or work?
[41:01] How can a nation divided against itself thrive or work in that way? And he said, whoever is not with me is against me.
[41:12] And you're familiar with that phrase, right? Whoever is not with me is against me. We understand that concept. And then he adds this, but whoever does not gather with me scatters.
[41:27] And so here is where I believe Jesus was referencing here in this, that if the civil authority requires lawful entry to gather, those who enter without that civil authority, without lawful entry, act as scatterers.
[41:50] Not as gatherers, as invaders into our nation. Because they're moving here without permission, without the law.
[42:00] And they're coming and they're working in our midst, meaning that they're gathering in our midst. And Jesus said, if they're gathering in a way that is against us, they're considered scatterers and literally invaders in our midst.
[42:19] Now, this is a charge that's given to the government. So that if someone were to come to my door, or if I encounter someone, I'm not asking about their legal status.
[42:35] And if someone is in need, I'm going to provide help and resources and those kinds of things. But the state is given charge for its immigration laws, for protecting its boundaries.
[42:49] And so it is right and responsible for us as a nation to expect our governing authorities to protect those borders and to enforce its immigration laws.
[43:03] And again, it's something that as a nation, I would support, I would encourage, and again, I would take this from the scriptures, one that is very generous, one that is meant to honor those who come and welcome them in.
[43:21] Just like our family, my family was welcomed when they moved here. And that ought to be a part of our national discussion here when it comes to these issues.
[43:35] So in summary, some gospel imperatives that you have on your sheet there in front of you, that we are to show sacrificial love at all times, even to those who stand against us.
[43:49] That's a requirement. So that even if I'm serving in, whether it's I'm talking about my family, whether it's talking about in the local church or even in the state, if a believer is in the state system, even as a person, they're required to love at all times in that position, even to love those who stand against us.
[44:15] We are to stand opposed to those who would teach false doctrine. And we should also refuse to comply with specific anti-Christian edicts.
[44:27] So if a governing authority were to demand that I teach that homosexual marriage is acceptable and right, I won't do that.
[44:41] And if they want to put me in jail, then I'm willing to suffer the consequence of that. And that is happening in other portions of the, in other parts of the world. Whether that comes here or not, I don't know, but it ought to impact how we think and how we vote moving forward.
[45:00] And then finally, that we need to protect those who are entrusted to our care. So those in our community, in our homes, absolutely.
[45:14] In our church, in our churches. And then, of course, the governing authorities who are given to have police and state police and federal police and a standing army and all of that, that is the charge that God has given them in that way.
[45:35] And so we honor that. So I just wanted to basically think through and walk through some of these issues when it comes to how we think about some of these things.
[45:47] Lots of it having to do with a misapplication, a charge that's given to us as believers, but the charge to the state is different than that's given to the family or to the church.
[46:01] The way that sometimes words are misunderstood or not properly defined, like, for instance, the word sojourner. That's why there can be confusion when you hear one Christian leader talk in such a way and another Christian leader say something that's different.
[46:20] And certainly there are those within the church that mislead, whether through well-intentioned but misinformed, or whether they are actual wolves that need to be confronted.
[46:35] But we need to be careful in these ways and know when these conversations are being had. And I know that you all are having these kinds of conversations.
[46:47] Some of you love watching the news and politics. Some of you are like, I don't want to ever watch the news. I don't pay attention to politics and I don't care.
[46:58] Either way, as believers, we need to be informed as to how we ought to look at these core issues. So let's go to the Lord in prayer. Lord, thank you so much.
[47:11] Thank you so much for the nation that we get to live in. And you have ordained that for us and we believe that. Lord, we pray that as a nation we would return to you, that we would as a nation want to honor you with the decisions that are made and the choices that we make.
[47:34] But Lord, first as a church, as families, as individuals, Lord, may we seek you and honor you in all that we do and the decisions and the choices that we make.
[47:49] Even as we have these discussions and we may even have disagreements, and that's fine. But Lord, help us to honor you in all that we do, all that we say.
[48:02] Give us your wisdom, Lord, in these issues. Lord, we love you and we trust you. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.