I love the 4th of July.
Anybody with me?
It means it's summertime, who likes summer?
I like it less now that my kids are at home all summer.
I'm joking, I love spending time with my kids.
And so I love that about it.
It means a few days off, it means food and family.
I like to smoke meat.
And the only thing bad is preacher can't smoke is meat, amen.
And so that's what we do.
And I just love getting together with people.
I love spending time with my church.
I'm looking forward to the picnic today.
It's 4th of July, it's about all that stuff.
But more importantly, it's about our nation.
It's about the declaration of independence
that our founders made
against the tyranny that they were experiencing from England.
And we are blessed as a nation, aren't we?
We have historically had an incredible amount of freedom.
I'm thankful for freedom.
Freedom allows us to do what we're doing here today.
I'm thankful for people that paid the price throughout history
so that we can do what we're doing here today.
I believe what we're doing here today is
among the most important things we can do, amen.
And to worship our God as the word of God
tells us to the freedom of conscience we have
to worship him the way that he's told us to.
And our country in many ways has been a force for good
in so many ways around the world.
Not that we're perfect, but God has blessed our country
and we ought to be thankful for him for what we have.
I love our country.
Do you love it?
I hope you do.
For some reason, that feels out of style.
But I think it's right to be patriotic.
I don't care what the styles are.
So I love our country and I believe God has blessed our
country.
But as I think about where we are as a nation today,
I wonder if we're really experiencing a growing
and thriving freedom today.
Is freedom growing or declining?
Yeah.
I believe the answer is it's declining.
Are we headed in the right direction as a nation?
I believe the answer to that is no.
And I'm not saying that because of any particular
elected official that isn't a statement about political party.
I believe the objective answer on what is going on
our country and whether there's, if we're going in the
right direction, I believe the objective answer is no.
There's a problem.
Our country is in a mess.
Relationally, culturally, financially, morally,
spiritually, politically.
It's in a mess.
Now as an individual citizen, I can only affect what I can
affect.
I'm a part of my neighborhood.
I'm a part of my city, my church, my family.
I can do things to make a difference in my sphere of
influence.
Is that true for you?
We can't affect everything.
We can affect something, right?
So that being said, I pose this question for all of us.
What can we as individual citizens who believe in the
Lord Jesus Christ, and I believe that many of us,
most of us in the room today, know Jesus Christ
as a savior, and if you don't, I'm going to make it very
clear how you can know him as savior.
It's the most important decision you could make.
You must make.
But as a people, as citizens who do believe in Jesus Christ,
what can we do to play our part in helping to solve the
problems that face our nation?
Now, I have good news today.
You guys look really down as I'm saying this, right?
You guys are like, man, Debbie Downer,
what are you talking about?
You can play a part in affecting good and lasting change
in our country.
No, you.
You can't.
I can too.
We can make a difference in our family, in our schools,
and in our neighborhoods.
We can help be the answer to these problems together.
And in fact, let me say it more urgently and more strongly
and more passionately.
We must do our part.
We must do our part to answer the cultural and political
and relational and financial and moral and fundamentally
spiritual problems that we have in our country.
We have to do it.
I normally preach verse by verse through the scripture.
If you were here last week, you heard the 23rd sermon
in the book of Hebrews.
We've gone verse by verse through Hebrews
and we've got another 15 or 20 to go, so it should be fun.
But in this particular month of July,
I wanna talk about maybe the most important thing
I've brought to you since I've been your pastor.
It is not a change in vision of what the church,
you know, the church was started,
this church was planted in 1953.
And I am thankful for Pastor Milleone,
who planted this church and gave more than 50 years
of his life to pastoring this church.
And Pastor Milleone was known as a soul winner.
He led people to Jesus and he was a man
that preached the gospel.
And then David Schaefer came after him,
another man, phenomenal preacher,
phenomenal exposer of God's word,
loved, loves God's word, is still working in ministry
and still doing great commission ministry today.
Brother Mike Spahn continued that tradition,
and I mean tradition in the good way
of preaching the word of God
and winning people to Jesus and discipling them.
And so the vision really hasn't changed,
but I'm gonna articulate the vision
and how we're gonna wrap our arms around this vision
in these five sermons in the month of July.
And we'll get back to Hebrews
when we get back to it in August.
And so if you're here today and you're like,
man, this is a different kind of message,
yeah, it's gonna be a little bit different.
It's called a topical message.
But I think it's an urgent message.
And I think after these five weeks,
you're gonna understand not only what our mission is,
but how we're gonna do it here.
We have to do it.
We have to.
We don't have an option.
There's so much at stake.
Do you feel it?
I hope you do.
How will we respond to the problem in our nation,
to the problem in our county,
to the problem in our communities,
to the problem in our families?
We have no choice as believing citizens,
but to address this problem.
And if we don't understand the problem
and God's solution to the problem,
we'll never address the issue.
And so that's the focus I wanna have today.
Our believing, every believing citizen
must respond to our problem as a nation
by understanding three solutions to our problem.
The first solution is the past and declining solution.
The past and declining solution.
And that's God's answer to some of these problems
that are inherent in human beings with three institutions.
God has instituted three things
over the course of history that have dealt with
the problem of sin and the problem of evil in our world.
The first institution I wanna be referring to today
is marriage and family.
In Genesis one, God made man in his own image.
When I say man, I am including humanity in that.
He made man and woman in his own image.
It says in Genesis one, 26, it says,
in God said, let us make man in our image
after our likeness and let them have dominion
over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air
and over the cattle and over all the earth,
over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
He made man, as it says here,
to have dominion over everything.
And he made man in his own image.
It doesn't mean that God has a body,
God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit,
our triune.
Jesus took on flesh and dwelt among us when he came,
but God himself is spirit.
And the Bible says those that worship him,
worship him in spirit and in truth.
And so God made man in his own image.
It did not mean that he made him with,
he's not in his own image in the sense that he has a body.
He has made in God's image in the sense that he is,
he has a person, he has personhood.
He has relationship, he has intellect.
Man is moral, man is moral, man is spiritual,
man is body, soul and spirit.
And so we are made in God's image
and every person has intrinsic value
more than the chicken we're gonna eat this afternoon.
And all God's Baptist said, amen, right?
We are not just, we are not just the end
of natural processes.
We are not meat machines.
We're not moist robots.
That's not what we are.
God made man in his own image.
And it says that God also made man, male and female
and physically created man and woman to procreate.
In Genesis 1.27 it says,
and so God made man in his own image
and the image of God created he, him,
male and female created he, them.
And God blessed them and said unto them,
be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth
and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea
and over the foul of the air and over every living thing
that moveeth upon the earth.
That the means that God, this means that God's plan
for every human being created after Adam
is to be connected to somebody else.
God's plan for the planet was that it would be filled
with human beings that start out in families
connected to a mom and a dad.
Do you agree with that?
It was God's idea to steward kids to parents.
A mom and a dad.
It was God's plan that parents steward
the upbringing of their children.
First and foremost, this was to be done
in the context of marriage, one man and one woman
for one lifetime.
In Genesis 2.18 it says, and the Lord God said,
it is not good that man should be alone,
I will make and help meet for him.
The word meet here means appropriate or fitting for him.
And that's exactly what he did.
It says in chapter 2 verse 21,
and the Lord God caused his deep sleep to fall on Adam
and he slept and he took one of his ribs
and closed up the flesh instead thereof.
And the rib which the Lord God had taken from man
made he a woman and brought her unto the man.
And Adam said, this is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh, she shall be called woman
because she was taken out of man.
Therefore, this is really important.
This is some of the first teaching in the Bible
that is apart from just telling them what happened.
The first part was that he said, when I made man,
I made man in my own image.
Here's like when I made man and woman,
the reason I did it the way that I did verse 24,
therefore, because I made man and woman this way,
shall a man leave his father and his mother
and shall cleave unto his wife,
and the two shall be one flesh.
And they were both naked, the man and his wife,
and were not ashamed.
And it was this institution of marriage
that God designed to bring,
designed to be a building block of civil culture.
Moms and dads raising kids and stewarding their upbringing.
This institution is God's plan.
Institution number two that God ordained.
The second institution ordained by God
that I want to speak about is human government, human government.
The Bible tells us in Romans 13, this weighty passage
on when it comes to speaking about our relationship
with this institution and God's intention for us.
Romans 13, one says this,
let every soul be subject unto the higher powers.
For there is no power but of God,
the powers that be are ordained of God.
Whosoever therefore resisteth the power,
resisteth the ordinance of God.
What does that mean?
The powers that are in place were ordained,
they were there because God had a plan
for civilization that there would be government,
that there would be hierarchy, that there would be power.
And so if you resist the government
as it submits to God,
that's key,
then you're resisting God.
Verse three, for rulers are not a terror to good works
but to evil.
But thou then not be afraid of the power.
Do that which is good and thou shalt have praise of the same
for he is the minister of God to thee for good.
But if thou do not do that which is evil,
be afraid for he beareth not the sword in vain.
Anybody ever been driving and in your rear-view mirror
you see red and blue flashing lights
and you go, and what do you immediately do?
In fact, you lift your leg up off of the accelerator
and you look at your speedometer and go,
what's the speed limit?
What am I doing wrong?
They're there as a terror to bad works, not to good works.
That's God's fundamental thing for them.
Let's see.
Verse four, for he is the minister of God to thee for good,
but if thou do what is evil, be afraid for he beareth not the sword in vain.
For he is the minister of God a revenger to execute
wrath upon him that doeth evil.
Wherefore, you must need to be subject not only for wrath,
but also for conscience's sake.
For this cause also pay you tribute,
for they are God's ministers attending continually to this very thing.
Render therefore to all their dues, tribute to whom tribute is due,
custom to who custom is due, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor.
This could be a whole message,
so I'm not going to say everything I could say,
but I will say this.
We find here that human government is a check against anarchy.
Lawlessness leads to all kinds of negative outcomes.
The government ought to be a check against lawlessness.
We understand here that human government is ordained of God.
This does not mean that God approves of everything that the government or a leader does.
Who agrees with that?
What it does mean is that God has ordained that there be a power that is a check
to the potential evil that exists in the world.
We also learn that this human government is subject to God.
Our leaders will answer to God for how they handle their duties.
We all will, won't we?
We will all answer to God for the stewardship that he gives us.
When human government tells its people to do something that goes against God's will then,
it is the duty of those people to disobey.
Knowing that there will be ramifications for that obedience or disobedience.
The last institution that God ordained is the local New Testament church.
Institution number three is the ecclesia, the assembly, the church.
It's the body of Jesus Christ.
He is the head.
Jesus is greater.
You guys agree with that?
He is the head of the church.
What he said is that there are some people who are more or less aware that the Lord
told that he loved and gave himself for the church.
Ephesians tells me that it is a mystery that was previously unrevealed,
which is now being revealed.
He says in Ephesians chapter five verse 25,
husbands love your wives even as Christ also has loved the church
and gave himself for it that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing
church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing,
but that should be holy and without blemish.
So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies.
He that loveeth his wife, loveeth himself.
That's my life verse, I love that.
For we are members of his body,
sorry, sorry, verse 29,
for no man ever yet hated his own flesh,
but nourished it and cherished it,
even as the Lord of the church,
for we are members of his body, of his flesh,
and of his bones.
For this cause, does this sound familiar?
For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother
and cleave unto his wife,
and the two shall be one flesh.
This is a great mystery,
but I speak concerning Christ in the church.
Why is a definition of marriage so important
as one man and one woman for one lifetime?
It's because that when God designed marriage,
he had Christ in the church in mind.
That's why it's important.
It's not just important
because that's how we designed the world for human flourishing.
It's also important because every husband and wife
are a picture of what God wanted to do from eternity past
to bring lost sinners to a savior
and to make them one body in the local assembly.
Does that make sense?
God does things on purpose and for a reason.
God always had in his plan the redemption
of all who would believe in his son.
He elected to save those who would put their trust in him.
He designed the marriage of man and woman
to represent Christ in his assembly.
And it was his plan that this called out assembly
be his body in the world.
Paul told Timothy about that expectation
of what the church ought to be
in 1 Timothy 3, 14 and 15 where he says this,
these things right eye into thee, Paul says to Timothy,
hoping to come to these shortly.
But if I tarry long that them is know
that how the audits to behave thyself in the house of God,
which is the church of the living God,
the pillar and ground of the truth.
What we steward in the church,
okay, are God's people and God's word.
That's a big deal.
So I wanna point out that all three institutions
ordained by God are made up of God's people.
Three institutions ordained by God are made up of people.
Have you noticed?
Who's in a family?
People, who's in the government?
People, who's the church?
People, it's people.
In our culture, they're made up of the American people.
So let me ask you a question.
To speak to our problem,
how are these institutions faring in America in 2023?
Let's talk about the decline of marriage and family.
All of these institutions are in decline.
The divorce rates are not good.
The amount of people living together
and doing married people things
without marriage commitment is on the rise.
We're trying to redefine what God has already defined
when it comes to marriage and gender.
The family is not doing well.
What I'm about to read to you was written back in 1996
and I would submit it hasn't gotten better.
Since 1970, this is from the Brookings Institution,
which is a left-leaning organization.
This is what they said back in 1996.
Since 1970, out of wedlock birth rates have soared.
In 1965, 24% of black infants and 3.1% of white infants
were born to single mothers.
By 1990, the rates had risen to 64% for black infants
and 18% for whites.
Every year, about one million more children
are born into fatherless families.
If we have learned any policy lesson
over the last 25 years,
it is that for children living in single-parent homes,
the odds of living in poverty are great.
The policy implications of the increase
in out-of-wedlock births are staggering.
Now, if you are a mom in a single-parent home,
I'm not saying that there's destiny there.
What I am saying is that God designed family to be
children raised by a mom and a dad.
That's God's plan.
According to the US Census Bureau,
18.4 million children, one in four,
live without a biological, step, or adoptive father
in the home.
This contributes to poverty, incarceration rates,
behavioral and psychological problems.
Birth rates themselves have been cut in half since 1950.
From 24 births per 1,000 people down to 12 per 1,000 people
in our country, the family's in decline.
Like literally, there are less kids.
The decline in our government.
First institution was marriage and family.
What about government?
No matter what side of the aisle that you're on,
an objective look at our government
does not lead to an encouraging view.
Corruption is on the rise,
no matter the party affiliation.
Spending is out of control, out of control.
The government is growing in size
and infiltrating our lives in more and more intrusive ways.
Are we more free or less free than we were five, 10, 15,
20 years ago?
Yeah.
What about churches?
Our churches are on the decline.
According to the Christian post,
which cited a Gallup poll in May,
church attendance is in decline.
Overall, Gallup found that 31% of America's
attended religious service at a church mosque,
synagogue or temple in the past week,
online or in person, improvement from 30%
who said the same in 2020 and 2022,
as well as the 29% measured in 2021.
The 31% weekly attendance rate remains lower
than the 34% recorded in 2019, the last full year
before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic
that led to restrictions on in-person church services
and the Ascent of Virtual Church Services.
From 2016 through 2019,
Gallup's church attendance rates registered at 34%
dropping to 31% between 2020 and 2023.
You know, churches are closing in our country.
In 2019, approximately 3,000 Protestant churches
were started in the US, but 4,500 Protestant churches
closed according to estimates from
Nashville-based LifeWay Research.
The Evangelical Research Organization
analyzed congregational information
from 34 denomination in groups,
representing 60% of US Protestant churches
to arrive at the church plant and close their numbers
for 2019.
So many churches, even of the ones that are still here,
so many churches are not staying faithful to the Lord,
to His word, to His mission or to His people.
The church is in decline.
Now God has given all three of these institutions to us,
and their arse to steward.
Our stewardship is in decline.
This solution, our institutions are in decline.
So what's the solution to the decline of our institutions?
If those are solutions to human flourishing,
who agrees?
God desired the family to be what the family ought to be
so men could flourish.
It's a good gift.
God designed government, human government,
so that we could flourish.
Who's glad that basically when you're headed home today,
you know that there's not gonna be bands of robbers
attacking you, right?
I'm glad for that.
I'm glad that there is a check on evil.
And I'm thankful for the church.
God loved and gave them so for it,
but it's all in decline.
So what are our solutions?
Well, there's a present and partial solution.
This deals primarily with political engagement.
Part of the solution to our nation's problems
is political engagement.
God has called us to be salt and light in this world.
So how do we make a difference in our world?
I wanna give you a case study in Ohio right now.
Since Roe versus Wade was struck down as unconstitutional
on June 24th, 2022, there's been a flurry of activity
on both the pro-life and the pro-abortionist side
of the debate.
This is because abortion has not been outlawed.
Now that Roe versus Wade has been struck down,
the decision has just been put in the hands
of state lawmakers and therefore the people of the states
in which they reside.
On Monday, June 26th in the courier,
a highly biased editorial masquerading as a news article
was on the front page.
I agree with the first part of the title
of the article which read Ohio is ground zero.
And then it says, this is the part I don't totally agree with,
but some would agree, two elections to decide
if women have reproductive rights,
that's one way of framing the argument.
Of course, I would say there are two elections to decide
if women have the right to end the life of a child
in their womb.
Of course, this is the crux of the issue.
Since it's a baby in the womb,
it's wrong to kill that baby.
On August 8th, there will be a special election
with only one issue on the ballot.
Should state law require that any proposed amendment
to the constitution of the state of Ohio
receive the approval of at least 60%
of eligible voters voting on the proposed amendment.
Now, Ohio's current constitution can be amended
as it stands right now by a simple majority.
That means in the history of Ohio,
our state constitution has been amended
160,000 times more than the state of Ohio.
That has been amended 170 times.
Now, I believe that our forefathers are wise
in how they proposed an amendment
to be changed to our US constitution.
I'm not talking about a bill being proposed
or legislation being proposed.
I'm talking an amendment to the constitution.
Do you understand what I'm saying?
The state constitution, what is proposed
and on the ballot in August is whether or not
we're gonna go from a simple majority of 50%
to a 60% vote being the threshold
for an amendment being made to the Ohio state constitution.
Now, our forefathers, when they proposed
how to make the US constitution being amended,
this is what it takes.
An amendment may be proposed by a 2 thirds vote
of both House and Congress,
or of 2 thirds of any of the state's requests,
won by a convention called for that purpose.
The amendment must then be ratified
by 3 fourths of the state legislatures
or 3 fourths of conventions called
in each state for ratification.
That means I believe if I'm not mistaken
that our federal constitution has only been amended 27 times.
Is that right?
27, 28 times.
As opposed to, like compare that to Ohio
where it's been 170 times.
And that's because it's way easier
to change our state constitution
than it is to change the federal constitution.
Even those on the side of the abortionists in Ohio
admit that this proposed amendment
is about the abortion issue.
If they wanna make an amendment that secures
a woman's right to an abortion,
they need to only get a simple majority.
In the August special election to be held on August 8,
the proposed amendment is that the state law
should require that any proposed amendment
to the constitution of the state of Ohio
receive the approval of at least 60%
of eligible voters voting on the proposed amendment.
I'm told that if the amendment does not pass
the chances of an amendment being made to the constitution,
that would outlaw any regulation on abortion
would be much greater.
The second election to be held in November
is called the reproductive rights amendment.
Here's what it says.
Every individual has a right to make and carry out
one's own reproductive decisions
including but not limited to decisions on
contraception, fertility treatment,
continuing one's own pregnancy, miscarriage care,
and abortion.
Now this would make a right to abortion
and no regulation on abortion
a part of the constitution of the state of Ohio.
It means that the door would be open
to have abortions up to and including
all nine months of pregnancy.
The language is written in such an intentionally
broad way as to include things like the lack of need
for parental consent for abortion
or even transitional surgeries and more.
Now some of you may be thinking,
Pastor Ben, are you telling me how I should vote?
What I'm telling you is that you should vote.
That's what I'm telling you.
And when you vote, you should consider
what the scripture has to say on every subject.
And understand what the current issues are.
I'm not telling you how to vote.
I'm telling you that you should
and that you have a stewardship of that.
And I believe that God made you a person in the womb.
And that that child in the womb is made
in the image of God.
And that child in the womb is made in the image of God.
So what does scripture say about voting?
Here's an easy one.
This is simple.
To him that knoweth to do good
and doeth it not,
to him it is sin.
You do know that politics matters, don't you?
It does.
Let me show you a picture.
This is a picture of the Korean Peninsula at night.
You have South Korea and you have North Korea.
What do you see in South Korea?
What do you see in North Korea?
What you see in South Korea is freedom.
What you see in North Korea is dictatorship.
Do politics matter?
You better believe it.
And if God's people don't give their voice to the processes
that have been given to us to steward
and the institution that God's given us to steward,
what's at stake?
Maybe a few little babies.
Maybe our right to be here today.
I believe that we ought to be good citizens of our country
and our state.
I believe we should be engaged politically.
I want you to know that to vote in the August special election,
you have to be registered to vote.
And the last day to register to vote is July 10th.
And so if you're not registered to vote, you should register.
The last day to request an absentee ballot is also July 10th.
Early in absentee voting can start on July 11th.
And if you've not registered to vote or if you've not requested
the absentee ballot, you can do that today in our lobby.
We have a table set up with the forms that you need to be able
to do that.
I believe it's on each and every one of us to get educated
on these issues and vote.
I believe that people with ill intent wanted to put this in
August because they know August is a potentially low turn.
This is my opinion, a low voter turnout.
I believe we've got to get God's people to the polls.
Souls to the polls, that's what we need.
I believe it's on each and every one of us to get educated
on these issues and to vote.
Now, a few weeks ago, I was meeting with about 20 or so
pastors in the area where we were being presented with this
information about upcoming elections.
And there was a time of discussion and someone asked a
prescient question and I was so, so thankful for this.
Not everybody in the room was Baptist, but all of them believe
the gospel the way I believe it, which I'm very grateful for.
But this was the question.
Let's say that the vote goes in the way we want it to in August
and then in the way we want it to in November.
Isn't there just going to be another attempt and another vote later?
And then it led to this question, what's the long-term answer?
And I want to encourage you with this.
Almost in unison, we all came to the same conclusion.
Evangelism and discipleship.
Jesus Christ and the gospel is the answer to this.
That's the answer.
Repentance and faith in Christ is the answer.
And that's the last and ultimate solution I want to speak to today.
The urgent and eternal solution, spiritual revival through great
commission engagement.
The problem is sin and sinfulness.
The problem is the sinful hearts of men and women starting with me.
Repentance and faith in Christ is the answer.
Paul put it this way.
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God,
that you present your bodies a living sacrifice,
wholly acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service,
and be not conformed to this world.
But be transformed by the renewing of your mind that ye may prove
that God is a miracle.
What is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God?
Our issue is moral and spiritual.
And so ultimately political things can't solve our problem.
Do you believe that?
influence the politics rather than the politics
influencing the spiritual and the moral.
Repentance is merely turning from the way we think
about the world and thinking the way God thinks.
For people to think the way that God thinks,
they must be made spiritually alive
by the mercies of God.
They must be transformed by the renewing of their minds.
How does that happen?
How do people's hearts get changed?
How do people's mind get changed?
A man that changes a mind against his will
is of the same opinion still.
There has to be transformation on the inside.
God gave us a plan.
It's his plan.
It's his mission.
It's called the Great Co-Mission.
If you walk into our foyer,
you will find five banners that quote
from all five of the Great Co-Mission passages.
The most famous of which is this,
and Jesus came and spake unto them saying,
all power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.
Go ye therefore and teach or make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son
and the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things
whatsoever I have commanded you, and lo,
I'm with you always, even to the end of the world.
The Great Co-Mission is the mission
that God the Father handed to God the Son,
and that the Son of God handed to his disciples
who went out and won people to Christ,
started churches with the power of the indwelling
of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus says, Jesus said, as the Father has sent me,
even so, send I you.
Do you guys feel this?
God didn't call us to make anybody
a certain political party.
God didn't call us ultimately to be just great Americans.
He called us to follow Jesus
and to make disciples of Jesus Christ.
These disciples would do the work of evangelizing,
helping people experience conversion.
They would then teach them to follow all
that Jesus taught them to do.
People who get saved are born again from the gospel
and from the Spirit, and the word of God
changes their hearts and transforms them
from the inside out.
That transcends and transforms politics.
Jesus didn't come to reform the government.
He came to transform people.
Transform people make transformed decisions
and make a difference where they are.
Our families are made up of people.
Our churches are made up of people.
Our government is made up of people.
And Jesus loves and gave himself for people.
He died for them.
So my job isn't to try to convince them,
first and foremost, about tax policy.
My job is to tell them about Jesus
and how we can save their souls.
If we want those institutions to function the way
that God desires and the people need to be transformed
and the transforming work has been handed to us,
to believers and to churches.
Two slides I wanna show you just to kind of
help you understand where we're headed, okay?
First is this, if the transforming work
is going to affect our families,
if that transforming work of the great commission,
the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit,
that all is gonna happen in such a way
that it affects our families, our neighborhoods,
our country, our state, and our nation,
then we must make Jesus Christ's last words, our first work.
What did he say?
Go make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son,
and the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe
all that I've commanded you.
And we do that in our homes.
We do that in our families.
And we do that in our neighborhoods.
And we do that in this church.
You're not dismissed, you're sent.
His final words must be our first work.
Number two, the great commission mandate
of evangelism and discipleship cannot be unknown and undone.
We must make that work our primary focus.
Focus.
We must make that work our primary focus.
It must be our commission vision.
We do it together.
We must do it together as a church body.
Over the next four weeks,
I'm going to share with you,
I just shared with you the problem
and I started on the solution.
Next week we're gonna talk about our mission, our mission.
The week after that we're gonna talk about our strategy.
We need to have a plan of helping people
who don't know Jesus come to know Jesus.
And we need a plan for people who are coming to faith
in Christ to know what it means to obey all that he taught.
And then once those people are becoming obedient
to all that Jesus taught,
one of the things that we need to teach them to do
is to go reach other people who need Jesus.
Who need to be taught, are you getting the plan?
That's what we need to do.
And so over the next few weeks,
I'm gonna teach you what our mission is,
what our strategy is,
and I'm gonna teach you what our target is
to help everybody that's a part of our church family know
what the next step is for them in their walk with the Lord.
The Great Commission isn't just for foreign missions.
It's not just for people we're supporting over there.
The Great Commission has been handed to us to do here.
It's our mission and it's our strategy.
So what's the ultimate solution?
Do we need to vote?
Absolutely.
But more importantly, we need to help people
understand the gospel.
And if you're here today
and you don't know what I'm talking about,
let me be very clear to you.
The Bible says that the gospel is this,
that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.
He was perfect.
Being God, he never sinned.
He was born without a sin nature, being man, he could die.
He lived a perfect life without sin
and he died on the cross for our sins.
When he was on the cross,
he was dying for your sin and mine.
We as sinners have nothing to offer to a holy God
that will make him accept us.
There's no righteousness that we can offer to God
that will do that.
But God did say that if we would place our faith in him
and what he did on the cross for our sins
that he would save us
and that he began to transform us from the inside out.
He didn't just stay dead, he rose from the dead.
That's not a good preaching point
but it's a historical reality, Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
died and rose again.
And the people that followed him didn't say follow Jesus
because he was a great teacher, although he was.
They didn't say to follow Jesus
because he was really moral, really ethical,
really sage, although he was all those things.
They said to follow him because he proved himself to be God
by dying and rising again from the dead.
And the promise of the Bible and the promise of God,
the Father, God, the Son and God, the Holy Spirit
is that when we put our faith and trust in him,
our sin debt can be forgiven.
Your sins could be forgiven.
You can be guaranteed by God himself
to be able to know that when you die,
you'd spend forever with God.
Not because you're good but because he's good.
That's the gospel.
And in the end, if we get all the politics right
and we miss that, we've blown it.
Do you get it?
If we tell people to vote right
but we don't teach them how they can get right,
we've missed the point.
And if you're here today, you don't have to die
and be separated from God forever.
Your sin can be forgiven
and heaven could be your home.
So what's your decision?
If you're here and you're a dad,
God has made you the leader of your home,
that institution that he married.
If you're a husband or a wife,
he's made you to be a picture of himself and his church.
How are you doing at that?
If you're here and you're a church member,
you're a part of God's body,
who he's stewarded this mission to,
how are you doing at that?
Are you telling people about Jesus?
Are you making disciples?
If you're a citizen of this country,
you've been stewarded with the opportunity
to be salt and light through the processes
that God has allowed us to all enjoy being in this country.
How are you doing at that?
Are you engaged?
Do you know what's going on?
Do you know more about the NFL
than you do about what's happening in the news?
And in your government, it matters.
How's your stewardship?
Would you bow your heads and close your eyes with me?