REPLAY： Things May Change If We Make These 3 Commitments
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
184.12611
Summary
Things have been super heavy recently and I m here to remind you that it s okay to feel that way. I m not here to convince you that things will turn back the way we once were, but rather to point the finger at the people who are holding us back.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Things have been super heavy recently. If you have been
00:00:14.940
paying attention at all, you know that we have likely in our nation reached some kind
00:00:22.520
of breaking point. I know that might sound hyperbolic and I really wish it were. I actually
00:00:28.780
hope that it is. I hope that I'm wrong. I hope that things can swing back and that we as a people
00:00:34.040
learn to love liberty again. There are days when I see the possibility of that. And then there are
00:00:39.760
days when I don't see any possibility of that whatsoever. I went to dinner last night with a
00:00:46.580
friend, a friend who shares my same views, but is it political? She's not consuming the news all day.
00:00:53.640
She works in nonpolitical job with nonpolitical, but you know, left leaning people. And we talked
00:01:00.320
about this heaviness that we both feel just this sense of sadness that things are never going to
00:01:06.000
be the same again, that the America that we grew up in will never go back that the America that our
00:01:12.020
children are going to grow up in, it just won't be the same as the one that we once knew. And it was
00:01:18.300
really hard to hear her talk about this, especially because I would like to chalk up my feeling,
00:01:24.940
my feelings of sadness and just like hopelessness about the state of the country to me having this
00:01:32.640
job, like having to consume so much news and talk about it. But if people outside of my line of work
00:01:39.320
feel this way too, if you guys feel this way too, that means that it's, it's real. Now,
00:01:44.640
not everyone feels this way. Not all of your friends are going to feel this way. I would say,
00:01:49.040
especially people on the other side of the aisle, or maybe they feel this way, but for different
00:01:52.540
reasons. There are people who, who still think of all of the government restrictions for the virus
00:01:58.940
as something that is, is really for our good, that vaccine passports are amazing innovations and
00:02:07.080
mandates are beautiful manifestations of public health policy who think the DHS openly calling those
00:02:12.720
who question COVID restrictions, a terror threat to the country, that that's right on target,
00:02:18.500
that, that one day the politicians will allow us to live and travel and dine freely again. They
00:02:23.420
might be sad about some other stuff that's going on, but as far as the encroachments on our liberty that
00:02:28.200
you and I see, they just don't care about it. And they actually see it as good. And many of those
00:02:32.520
people are, are still bunkered in their homes with their children whom they refuse to send to school.
00:02:37.500
And they, they really feel that everything would go back to normal if those darn right-wingers would
00:02:43.460
just stop politicizing this and, and do what they do. I mean, they really think that somehow
00:02:48.400
the people inhibiting their happiness or the people advocating for liberty and not the politicians who
00:02:54.720
have destroyed freedoms and businesses and livelihoods and people's will to live for the past
00:02:58.920
year while flouting all of the rules themselves. I mean, these, this group of people, I would say maybe
00:03:05.480
half the country, maybe, maybe a little less, they're unable, it seems to understand how it is
00:03:11.660
possible for someone like me to say, yes, the virus is real. Yes, it can be very serious and deadly.
00:03:19.340
And I don't think we should pretend otherwise. I don't lack any compassion for the healthcare
00:03:23.380
workers who have been dealing with this. I don't, I don't lack any sympathy for the people who have
00:03:27.620
lost loved ones from this at all. I know some people who have lost loved ones from this,
00:03:31.560
but I also have to say many of the things that we are being told by our powers that be don't make
00:03:39.660
sense. They don't align with scientific data from around the world. And, and also there are a thousand
00:03:45.220
other things that can threaten and kill you as an individual and destroy society as a whole.
00:03:49.240
And we are doing a cruel disservice to ourselves and our neighbor by failing to realize that.
00:03:54.080
So they want you to believe that that stance, the people on the other side of this issue,
00:03:58.740
they want you to believe that that stance is extreme or that it's dangerous. And it's just not
00:04:03.580
like, I'm here to tell you, to validate for you that it's not, that is normal. It is thoughtful.
00:04:09.400
It is well-rounded. It is kind. It is loving. It is compassionate to think about the other risks
00:04:14.620
and the other consequences intended or not that we face, especially when it comes to public policy
00:04:20.180
that is encouraging people to stay masked and indoors. It is not wise, I will say, to believe in
00:04:26.540
grand conspiracy theories that can't be fact-checked, but it is wise absolutely to question state-sponsored
00:04:32.560
messages and measures done in the name of safety. Always. It is wise to consider those intended and
00:04:38.760
unintended consequences of public policy implemented in the name of safety. It is wise to support
00:04:43.880
transparency and truth and freedom. And those of you who understand that, as I do, may be feeling
00:04:50.860
really scared about what's to come. Painfully nostalgic for pre-2020 America, pre-2015 America,
00:04:58.220
when it seems like things just started to kind of go downhill as far as our national
00:05:03.020
cohesiveness goes. The cultural, the moral, the sexual revolutions have just been going at
00:05:09.360
breakneck speed for the past five years. And now we are facing truly unprecedented threats from foreign
00:05:16.520
adversaries that are more powerful than ever before, much thanks to our terrible foreign policy
00:05:22.800
decisions over the past couple of decades, but especially over the past few months. And let me
00:05:27.920
just say, as an aside, one thing that really bothers me right now, maybe it shouldn't, I'm willing to
00:05:36.860
admit that maybe it shouldn't bother me, but it does bother me, is that you see so many people,
00:05:41.940
and typically I would say it's like in the female, like Christian online community,
00:05:46.740
who spent every day after the George Floyd incident last summer in the months leading up to
00:05:53.000
the election, talking about politics, something they don't usually talk about, but they were talking
00:05:57.600
about politics all the time. And they usually weren't using specific terms, but just like
00:06:01.600
referencing justice and equity and equality and decency and voting very vaguely, yet very,
00:06:09.080
very passionately and relentlessly, all of a sudden they became activists after being supposedly
00:06:15.820
apolitical for a very long time. And yet now over the past few months, since the election,
00:06:21.580
since the inauguration, like they're not talking about any of those issues anymore,
00:06:27.060
at least not as loudly, at least not in relation to our elected officials. So you hear a peep out of
00:06:34.280
them when there's a story that elicits, you know, some kind of media contrived hysteria,
00:06:38.260
something about an interaction with the police or maybe Palestine, or when there's a chance to talk
00:06:44.160
about racism, they, you know, speak up a little bit about this, but they're not talking with as
00:06:50.740
much vigor as they were just a year ago about the problems this country faces. And guess what?
00:06:56.060
Kids are still in cages. Like violent crime is skyrocketed. The economy is in serious trouble.
00:07:01.160
We have an absentee president. All these things really matter. Like politics still matter. They
00:07:06.760
didn't stop mattering when you stopped caring about them or when it stopped being cool to post about
00:07:11.180
them. And so it's mostly radio silence from these same people who decided they were activists a year
00:07:16.360
ago, who were crying out Micah six, eight, when it was trendy and now really have nothing to say.
00:07:21.860
Now it's, Oh man, I'm just so tired of politics. I'm so tired of the news. Let's just unplug and be
00:07:26.600
happy. But those same people who say that they don't care what's going on in the news and in culture.
00:07:31.840
Now I can guarantee you just wait a year from now, right before the midterms, when there's another
00:07:37.520
big crisis that Democrats use to gin up outrage against Republicans and gives people the opportunity
00:07:41.960
to virtue signal on social media, they will be experts and activists again. They won't pay
00:07:46.620
attention until there are social media points to score. And they'll lecture the rest of us about
00:07:50.860
how we don't care enough about the issues at hand. Let's not be those people. I include myself in
00:07:57.080
that. Like, let's not be those people. We can't just bury our heads in the sand until the next
00:08:01.640
black square trend comes along. There are policies being implemented now that affects you and your
00:08:06.780
neighbor. There are things happening now that demands your attention and comprehension and
00:08:10.840
preparedness. They're not trending. They don't come associated with any virtue signaling points.
00:08:15.560
They're not going to win you any friends or any accolades if you care and talk about them,
00:08:22.280
but they matter. As we always say on this podcast, politics matter because policies matter because
00:08:28.140
people matter even when it is not an election year. But at the same time, and I totally understand
00:08:36.000
this. So I agree with the people who say, you know, we just need to take a step back and not be
00:08:41.180
obsessed with this. We can't allow ourselves to be totally inundated by the news. We can't be consumed
00:08:48.280
with headlines, with social media commentary. We can't be sucked into every new narrative. I mean,
00:08:53.140
that really robs our joy. And you know why? I talked about this on Instagram the other day,
00:08:58.060
because it places a burden on us that we were never meant to carry. I posted Psalm 62, 11. I think it
00:09:08.160
was on Friday that says, power belongs to God. Let me read you all of verse 11 and 12.
00:09:15.440
Once God has spoken, twice have I heard this, that power belongs to God and that to you,
00:09:22.860
O Lord, belongs steadfast love for you will render a man according to his work. Reading the news
00:09:30.880
makes us feel like power belongs and must belong to us because it makes us feel omniscient,
00:09:39.380
omnipresent, knowing everything, being everywhere at once. We see images of pain and suffering,
00:09:45.220
halfway around the world. And we're expected to think something about it, to say something about
00:09:49.940
it, to do something about it, to passionately care about it. So we're made to feel that we're
00:09:55.060
omnipotent too. Like it didn't used to be that way either. The most that you could do was read about
00:10:02.180
something happening elsewhere in the newspaper, but there was no expectation for everyone to have a
00:10:06.780
stance on it and a responsibility for it. There are lots of things that I love about technology and
00:10:13.480
social media. I think a lot of people spend a lot of time railing on those things. And there are
00:10:17.580
reasons to, there are also reasons to love it. But one thing that I will criticize it for is that
00:10:23.340
unhealthy aspect of making us feel like we have to be everywhere, know everything and do everything
00:10:29.680
about everything. I personally fight that burden. That makes me feel like I need to talk to you guys
00:10:37.740
about everything, that I have to care about everything, try to understand and then explain
00:10:44.540
everything, give you guys action items for how to address everything. And it's super overwhelming.
00:10:50.160
And it can be really demoralizing. Like I felt very demoralized, just to be honest, over the past
00:10:55.700
like week or so, because there's so much I want to talk about and want you to care about and want me to
00:11:02.200
care about and want to do something about. But I have to make myself refocus. And I have to remember
00:11:10.260
a few things that I'm going to remind you of too. Power doesn't belong to me. It belongs to God.
00:11:17.760
As Psalm 62, 11 says, I cannot control anything, much less what's happening hundreds or thousands of
00:11:24.240
miles away from me. I am not responsible for becoming an expert on everything. I am not called
00:11:30.860
to say something or do something about everything. I do not have the capacity to care about everything.
00:11:37.760
And neither do you. Someone asked me what I think about the hashtag free Britney thing. Someone asked
00:11:46.160
me this on Instagram. And I know everyone has an opinion on that, like right, left and center. And
00:11:51.660
we're all supposed to care about it. And that's great if you do care about it. I'm not slamming that.
00:11:56.720
I mean, maybe that's important for different reasons for you. Maybe you love Britney Spears. I
00:12:00.760
mean, I wish the best for Britney, her family, all the good stuff. But the truth is, I am at total
00:12:07.380
capacity for things to care about. Total capacity. I'm at the brim. And that free Britney just doesn't
00:12:14.520
make the list. And I don't know if it ever will make the list. Maybe at some point, something will
00:12:18.980
get knocked off the list and free Britney will get on my list of things to care about. But I just
00:12:23.580
don't right now. We have to recognize both our calling and our capacity. So we have to
00:12:30.880
recognize our loves and our limits, our priorities and our parameters. So in other words, we have
00:12:38.540
to decide what are the few things that we really care about? What are the things that we feel
00:12:44.480
passionate to become experts in, to stand up for, to work for, to talk about, to do and focus
00:12:50.020
on that or, or those things multiple without becoming ceaselessly distracted by everything
00:12:57.840
else. Now that doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to know about things that are going on
00:13:02.480
in the news and around the world. Obviously, I think that's important, but we can't give
00:13:07.640
our heart to all of them. We simply do not have the power to bear that burden. We are not
00:13:13.540
God. And it's also about like removing our ego and humbling ourselves. Like we have to
00:13:18.680
humble ourselves knowing that God has called us to certain things and God has called others
00:13:23.500
to other things. And he doesn't need any of us to do any of the things that he wants to
00:13:28.540
do. So what do you know for sure that you are called to do? And maybe you don't know
00:13:35.200
yet. Maybe that's something that you need to pray about, that you need to ask wisdom for.
00:13:39.340
God promises you wisdom. You know for sure though, one thing you know for sure that you don't
00:13:46.100
even have to wonder about Matthew 22, 37 through 39, that you are to love the Lord, your God
00:13:51.640
with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. And from that love, you are then to love your
00:13:56.380
neighbor as yourself. Now, as we talk about in, in my book, that loving your neighbor as yourself
00:14:03.120
doesn't mean, and much more eloquently, C.S. Lewis talks about it in mere Christianity,
00:14:07.860
doesn't necessarily mean liking your neighbor. It doesn't mean an affection. Some people think
00:14:13.500
that, okay, if Jesus tells me to love my neighbor as myself, that means that I have to like myself
00:14:18.780
and be confident in myself before I can go out and love other people. That's not the kind of love
00:14:23.620
that he's talking about. He is not saying that affection for yourself is a prerequisite for going
00:14:29.780
out and loving other people. I mean, think about how much time we would waste trying to, you know,
00:14:36.000
like how we look in our reflection before we went out to go and serve those who need our help.
00:14:42.740
The kind of love he's talking about is the love that we're born with this love that results in a
00:14:47.560
kind of instinctive self-preservation and care for ourself and drive to meet our own needs.
00:14:54.320
Like with the same natural drive, um, that we have to meet our own needs. We are to be driven to meet
00:15:00.980
the needs of other people. That's the kind of love that he's talking about. So that we know that we have
00:15:06.580
to love God and that we have to love people. And I add another one to that. So there are three
00:15:11.900
things that I try to commit, uh, myself to very imperfectly, of course, because I'm a fallible
00:15:18.800
person like everyone else. Um, but I try to apply these things and commit to these things that I
00:15:25.180
encourage you to as well. The number one thing of course is love God. Number two, love others.
00:15:30.840
And number three is we've talked about many times the title of Roger's book, live not by lies. So love
00:15:36.940
God, love people live not by lies. So what that means is number one, I will seek God as my source
00:15:42.220
of wisdom, as my source of truth, direction, strength, morality. I will by his grace, obey him
00:15:47.980
fully and completely. Um, number two, I will look at the people that God has placed in my life and I
00:15:55.140
will pay attention to them and their needs. I will seek to encourage them, to edify them, to serve them
00:16:00.020
where I see an opportunity. And this takes a lot of grace-driven effort. The natural propensity for
00:16:04.940
all of us every day is selfishness. It takes the Holy spirit to help us improve in this self-sacrifice
00:16:12.720
for the good of other people daily. And number three, I will try my best again, by the power of
00:16:18.400
the Holy spirit to refuse to say or do that, which I know is not true simply because it sounds good or
00:16:25.280
is popular or is inoffensive. I will not purposely perpetuate false narratives. That doesn't mean that
00:16:32.420
I don't get it wrong. That doesn't mean that I don't accidentally do that, but I will try
00:16:36.420
by the grace of God with all of my might, never to do that. I will not use terminology
00:16:41.640
or newfangled definitions that do not correlate with biblical reality or with reality or biblical
00:16:48.080
morality. I will not sacrifice truth for the sake of a superficial form of empathy. Uh, the goal will
00:16:55.000
never be to intentionally shock or offend or hurt feelings. That's never my goal. The goal will be to
00:17:00.240
simply insist that two and two make four. I do that for obedience to God. I do that for love for other
00:17:06.380
people and for sanity for myself. So all three of these things require me to be in God's word,
00:17:12.540
which to be perfectly honest with you is more consistent for me some weeks than others. Like
00:17:18.460
last week, for example, it was very inconsistent and I felt it. I felt the heaviness and the sadness and
00:17:25.660
anxiety characterized my thoughts. I felt the burden that I must know and fix everything to be
00:17:31.860
everywhere at once. God's word is necessary for me to know how to love God, how to love people and
00:17:38.440
how to love truth. Prayer is necessary for me to know how to do those things and to be empowered to
00:17:45.520
do those things. Talking to other people who are on this same journey is necessary for me to gain
00:17:50.920
encouragement and perspective. And that can be really hard because I don't want to burden people
00:17:54.900
with my anxieties and my worries, especially people that don't do my same job. I don't want
00:18:01.140
my friends to think or people in my Sunday school class to think that I always want to talk about
00:18:05.280
politics or that I always want to talk about the news because I really don't. But I do feel the need
00:18:11.720
to kind of, you have to have people to unload your burdens onto and your cares onto. Ultimately,
00:18:18.140
we do that on the Lord. We cast our cares on Him because He cares for us, Scripture says. But we
00:18:23.920
also have to have community and people around us who are willing to bear those burdens and to speak
00:18:28.400
life and encouragement into us. And I think that's really hard in this day and age when real, true,
00:18:33.880
profound connections to real Christian friends and Christian community, even within the church,
00:18:39.500
is really lacking. Like it's really lacking. I'm guilty of it. Most people I know, honestly,
00:18:45.960
are guilty of it. I don't know any church that is perfect at this, but gosh, like that is where
00:18:51.760
the church can stand out right now and forming real and profound and meaningful connections with
00:18:57.540
people. People are hungry for that. We're starving for that. And if anything has been proven over the
00:19:03.180
past year and a half, it's that human beings need that. We need that to survive and thrive. So we need
00:19:09.180
all of these things to accomplish what I believe to be three priorities for the Christian life, love God,
00:19:13.800
love others, and to live not by lies. It gives us the perspective that we need and perspective when
00:19:22.680
we are drowning what feels like in the depths of despair about our own lives or about the future
00:19:27.540
of the country is so crucial. And speaking of perspective, speaking of God's Word, I want to read
00:19:34.400
to you a few verses that help us remember our place in all of this. Job 42.2, you've heard me quote
00:19:41.920
this very many times on this podcast. I know that you can do all things and that no purpose of yours,
00:19:49.960
God, can be thwarted. So God doesn't need us. He may choose to use us, but nothing we do or don't do
00:19:57.320
can inhibit him even a little bit. Jeremiah 32.17,
00:20:01.160
All Lord God, it is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your
00:20:09.040
outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you. God can do all things. His ultimate purposes cannot
00:20:16.880
be thwarted. His sovereign will cannot be changed. Nothing is too hard for him. Nothing means nothing.
00:20:23.680
Nothing throws him off his game. Nothing surprises him. Nothing takes him aback. Nothing confuses him.
00:20:29.200
Nothing hinders him. Nothing is a mystery to him. Nothing and no one can foil his plans. He is not
00:20:34.880
waiting to see what's going to happen. He is not curious about what's coming around the corner. He
00:20:40.160
doesn't come in after the mess to clean it up. He is completely and totally in control of everything.
00:20:47.700
And as we already said, he doesn't need us, but he does choose to use us. And he does in his
00:20:55.020
sovereignty and in his total and complete power, omniscience, omnipresence. He does call us to
00:21:02.080
certain things. In general, I believe, as we've already established, those things to be love God,
00:21:07.860
love others, and don't lie. The second two are really products of the first, but because some people
00:21:13.920
really think that loving God simply means being nice to people, I think it's necessary to explicitly
00:21:19.100
point the second two out. So here's what this looks like. And I can't get into specifics exactly
00:21:26.880
because I don't know what, I don't know what your life looks like, but who is right in front of you
00:21:33.700
to love? And how are you to love them? The truth is you don't have to look very far for your neighbor
00:21:38.980
and we don't have to think of sophisticated ways to love them. It's our spouses. It's our kids.
00:21:45.300
It's our friends. It's our, it's our coworkers. It's our communities. It's our church. Like we
00:21:50.900
serve them. We encouragement, we encourage them. We seek to meet their needs. That can mean words of
00:21:56.540
encouragement. It could mean prayer for them, with them. It could be making them dinner. That's
00:22:00.860
something that we really like to do and that people really appreciate if someone is going through like
00:22:06.940
a hard time or a busy time or a stressful time or an exciting time, easing one burden by just like
00:22:12.960
making them food or sending them food. That's a really easy way to love people. Like all the ways
00:22:17.540
that you would like to be loved, you show that love to those that God has placed in front of you.
00:22:22.700
You steward the resources that God has already given you. Not that you imagine that God will give
00:22:26.940
you a year from now, but the ones that you have right now, you steward them for his glory, trusting
00:22:31.700
that he is going to take care of you. And yes, there are times, I would say, especially right now,
00:22:38.220
as we seem to be on the precipice of losing some of our liberties. There are times when loving the
00:22:46.160
people in your life and loving your city and loving your state and loving your country, which I think
00:22:50.540
we are called to do, means caring about a few issues that affect them and that you are also passionate
00:22:58.860
about. So are you passionate about the education policies in your area? I think, you know, we all
00:23:05.000
should be to a certain extent, but if you're especially passionate about that, get involved,
00:23:09.580
campaign with someone that you believe in running for the school board, run yourself if that's
00:23:13.800
something you feel called to do. Are you passionate about vulnerable moms and families? Volunteer at
00:23:18.360
your local pro-life pregnancy center. Are you seeing some kind of policy putting an undue burden on your
00:23:24.260
community? You should meet with your representatives. You should learn about that. Learn about the
00:23:28.220
alternatives. You should talk about it with people. You should get people to care about it by
00:23:32.340
raising up the subject in conversation. You should raise, as we say on this podcast, a respectful
00:23:37.340
ruckus about it. Get other people to join you. Work collectively. Vote, of course. That doesn't solve
00:23:45.840
all of our problems, but I do believe that we are not called to just sit on our hands in all of this,
00:23:51.700
that we are called to do something about the things that God has put on our heart
00:23:55.520
by serving in some way, by speaking up. And that might characterize one season of your life
00:24:03.680
or one day of your week or one day of your month. It might not characterize every day or your entire
00:24:09.600
life. It might not be your full mission and your 24-7 calling, and that's okay. Like, most of your life
00:24:16.020
may be done doing very mundane-seeming things. Like, do not think that God can't be glorified
00:24:24.040
in the mundane. He absolutely is. Like, our entire lives, every second, are meant for His glory,
00:24:30.620
and He can be glorified in everything we do, whether it's seen by the world or not, whether it makes waves
00:24:36.740
or a ripple, whether it's shouted to a nation or whispered to your family, whether personal,
00:24:40.700
professional, or political, we can make a difference. Colossians 3.17, and whatever you do
00:24:48.700
in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father
00:24:55.320
through Him. And I've got some more practical tips for you guys. All right, so some practical
00:25:00.440
tips. I kind of gave you some practical tips, but some more practical tips, I guess. People ask me all
00:25:06.720
the time, like, what do we do? Feels like the country's going in this terrible direction.
00:25:10.520
It feels like things can't turn around, and as I've already said, I can totally empathize with
00:25:14.460
that feeling. I feel like that myself sometimes. And in addition to just knowing that this life is
00:25:20.540
not where our hope lies, that we kind of have to, I think as Americans, I, at least, I can't speak for
00:25:26.780
everyone, but I think that we assume that things are always going, that history is always going to
00:25:31.600
right its course in our lifetimes. That, okay, by the next election, things will be better. In just a few
00:25:37.260
years, things will be better. If this goes away, or if this changes, things will be better. People will
00:25:41.360
be more sane. They'll be more normal. And yes, I do think that we've seen the pendulum swing on a
00:25:47.200
variety of political and social, cultural, religious, theological issues in throughout America's
00:25:54.420
history and throughout world history. And that is true, but we can't hang our hat on that. Like, we can't
00:25:59.360
trust in that because we don't actually know if that is true. And depending on your eschatology,
00:26:04.180
you may believe that it is absolutely inevitable that things are just going to go to hell in a
00:26:09.420
handbasket until Jesus comes back. We've talked about eschatology. I'll actually link my end times
00:26:14.660
podcast episodes in the description to this podcast so you can go listen to those. But the fact of the
00:26:22.140
matter is, like, we don't actually know. We don't know if Jesus is coming back tomorrow. We don't know
00:26:27.520
if he's coming back in a few weeks. We don't know if he's coming back in a thousand years from now.
00:26:31.340
Yes, there are some things that we know have to happen before that, but we don't actually know how
00:26:35.560
or when it's going to go down. At the same time, I understand people's, like, apocalyptic feelings
00:26:41.320
about that. And they're wondering, okay, well, do we even care about the direction that the country
00:26:47.740
goes? Like, are we even, are we just distracting ourselves with politics? Should we just remove
00:26:53.060
ourselves from everything that's going on in the political and civic sphere and just focus on what's
00:26:58.260
happening in our homes? And as I've kind of already touched on, and as I've explained many times on
00:27:02.680
this podcast, I don't think that's the answer. I do think a way to love, a way to love your neighbor
00:27:06.920
is to care about the policies that are implemented and the things that are going on. That I think
00:27:11.200
looking after the welfare of the nation that you are in is a very godly thing to do. I think it's a
00:27:17.460
very loving thing to do. Now, I know that there are people who think that you shouldn't love your
00:27:21.260
country, but I think loving your country and having a certain level of patriotism and a certain fondness
00:27:27.960
for your country's culture and its ideals is a very biblical thing to do. And it can compel you to
00:27:35.880
seek the good and seek the welfare of your fellow citizens. I think that's a very good thing. And so
00:27:42.740
we do those things. We pursue those things without trusting in elected officials to usher in our
00:27:50.580
version of utopia. Elected officials are never going to be able to fix anything, no matter the
00:27:56.560
political party. There are corrupt people in both parties. There are bad policies in both parties. Now,
00:28:03.040
you guys know where I land on that. I don't think that it's morally equivalent. But the fact of the
00:28:08.260
matter is, is that neither party, no politician is going to be able to save us in the way that we
00:28:12.480
want to be saved. They're not going to be able to make the changes that we want to, that we want to
00:28:18.980
be implemented to achieve whatever we think our vision is of some kind of great and glorious and
00:28:28.020
moral nation. It's just not going to happen. So while I don't know if things will swing back in a
00:28:33.460
different direction and if things will go a different way as far as politics and culture goes,
00:28:39.660
I do know 100% that my hope can't be in that because I just don't know. And that's not where
00:28:46.940
the Lord tells us to put our hope. Like where my hope is, is that there will be a perfect ruler or
00:28:54.240
there is a perfect ruler already. He already rules and perfect justice and righteousness. But one day,
00:28:59.940
evil will be no more. One day there will be no more wickedness. There will be no more
00:29:04.120
injustice. There will be no more oppression. There will be no more unfairness. There will,
00:29:09.640
there will be nothing to worry about. There will be no stress. There will be no concern. There will
00:29:13.920
be no sorrow, sadness, sickness, deceit, propaganda. None of that will exist. That is where my hope lies
00:29:21.300
that we are on. We are sojourners on a very, very quick temporal journey here on earth and eternity
00:29:27.940
will be gladness and freedom forever and ever. And yet while we're here, there are, there's cause
00:29:34.780
for concern and there are things to do. I think a strategy that could work depending on your definition
00:29:41.220
of work, it can, it can either buy you time or it can help you create a community in which you are
00:29:48.800
protected and your freedoms are protected and how you want to live in accordance in your values is
00:29:54.100
protected. And I think that you should polarize, localize and prioritize. So those are the three
00:30:00.240
things that I encourage you to do. And what I mean by that is that if you live in a blue area
00:30:07.460
that is solidly blue, and you are pretty sure that you being there isn't really going to turn the tide,
00:30:13.160
like it's not going to change things, then I would move somewhere red. Like I would move to a red state.
00:30:19.080
I'd move to a red city and I would make it redder. A lot of you ask me, should I move out of California
00:30:24.760
and move to a red state like Oklahoma or Idaho or South Carolina or Texas or Florida? I say, yes,
00:30:32.260
that's not possible for everyone. So I'm not saying that everyone has to do that. Um, I am saying that
00:30:37.900
if you can do that, if there's any way that you can do that, you will be amazed at how much better
00:30:42.200
your life is being around people that care about liberty and have the same values that you do.
00:30:48.060
Um, and so I would encourage you to polarize. I do not mean that you can't or shouldn't have
00:30:54.800
relationships with people who politically disagree with you. I think that it's very important. I think
00:30:58.800
that we should allow ourselves to be challenged by people who disagree with us on a variety of issues,
00:31:04.360
but I'm talking about creating a life for you and your family and hopefully your, your children in
00:31:09.960
which, uh, your freedom and the values, uh, that you want to live by are protected. That's not possible
00:31:16.740
everywhere in this country, which is really, it's sad that you have to, that you can move to a
00:31:21.760
different state and live not just a slightly different life, but a radically more free life.
00:31:27.480
Um, and so every single person I've not talked to one conservative that moved from Oregon or
00:31:33.200
Washington or California to a conservative state and regretted it. Like every message that I get about
00:31:37.720
that is like, Oh, it was the best decision of my life. I'm so much happier. Um, and I think that'll
00:31:43.160
be true for you too. Um, I, I encourage red States and red areas to get even redder than they already
00:31:50.800
are and to solidify, um, to solidify your holds on that. And so the second one then is to, uh,
00:32:00.200
localize. So care about the problems that your community is facing. As we've already talked about,
00:32:07.000
get involved with what's going on in the schools. Even if you homeschool or send your kids to private
00:32:11.740
school, you're still a taxpayer. Like, uh, you already know how I feel about public school,
00:32:16.060
but, um, you should still be involved in what is being taught there in the, and the mandates and
00:32:24.060
restrictions that are being, um, that are being placed there because you have a vested interest in
00:32:30.240
the community. And like I said, you have a monetary interest too, because you pay taxes. And so get
00:32:36.940
involved on the local level. You should seek to influence in every sphere in which God has placed
00:32:44.160
you with the values in the worldview that you have. Now I, for some reason, like people on the left
00:32:50.880
freak out when people say that, but everyone does that. Like that's what a representative democracy
00:32:57.340
is. That's what every single politician and any involved citizen does. Like you enter into a space
00:33:04.420
and you try to influence it with the values and ideas and ideals that you have. The only people
00:33:09.120
that are scared to do that are not progressives or conservatives and Christians who have been lied
00:33:14.780
to and have been told that by a conservative and a Christian speaking up about their values or trying
00:33:20.440
to shape their workplace or community or school or whatever with their values, that that's, you know,
00:33:26.060
some kind of crazy authoritarianism and some, you're just some religious nut job. Okay. Well,
00:33:32.740
the progressives are now redefining what gender and sexuality and morality and reality look like for
00:33:41.540
your kindergartner. So how'd that work out? Don't buy that lie. Every single person, no matter their
00:33:47.860
religious beliefs, no matter their political backgrounds are trying to influences the space in
00:33:53.720
trying to influence the space that they occupy. And so you Christian conservative should be doing the
00:34:00.860
same thing unabashedly, respectfully, kindly, but you should absolutely be trying to implement
00:34:07.940
your worldview and your values. And that value might just be freedom. I think that's what it is for most
00:34:15.900
people. It's not that I want you to live how I live. That's not what I want. That's not what
00:34:20.620
conservatives want. That is like a fantasy by some people on the left that I want you to be forced to
00:34:25.320
be a Christian or forced to live a Christian lifestyle. That's not true at all. Like my,
00:34:30.560
that, that is not my value. Uh, my value is Liberty and I could get into all of the, you know,
00:34:38.500
different ideas for, for governance and for society that I have, but mostly like, I want you to respect
00:34:46.720
that. I want to live and raise my family, how I want to, and I will respect how you want to raise
00:34:53.260
your family. And I'm not speaking about some kind of libertarianism because I don't call myself a
00:34:58.600
libertarian. Obviously I believe in some kind of moral foundation for the laws that we have,
00:35:03.680
but that's not the same as a theocracy. Me saying, Hey, I'm going to join the school board and I'm
00:35:08.080
going to try to move it in a direction that I want to move it in is literally what everyone does.
00:35:13.160
So polarize, localized, prioritize, pick the things that you care about. I don't even know if those three
00:35:18.120
things are in order. Um, but pick the things that you care about in your local community
00:35:23.040
and, uh, lead them, influence them, get other people to care about them. Um, I think that is
00:35:29.120
the strategy that we have to employ right now. I personally think like life is too short to live
00:35:34.980
next to tyrants and to be controlled by the petty tyrants that run some of our states and cities
00:35:41.200
and to be in constant fear of your life because so many of our best cities have been run by these
00:35:47.180
progressive policies that have led to a rise in violent crime and increased homelessness and
00:35:51.800
public drug use and all of these terrible things that really just drive down quality of life. Like
00:35:56.300
life is too short to live among that. Um, and so move to a place that shares your values, um,
00:36:02.580
try to support people that share your values, support businesses that share your values, start a
00:36:07.000
business in accordance with your values, provide services in accordance to your values. There's
00:36:11.740
a growing market for that because as conservatives are, you know, lumped into this other group that
00:36:21.080
is no longer kind of like welcome to impolite society, there's still going to be a market for
00:36:25.980
goods and services and businesses and all that stuff. And so that's what I encourage you to do.
00:36:32.020
Now, some people say, well, that's not being salt and light. That's not being a witness. Uh,
00:36:36.400
not all Republicans are Christians. Like I actually think that, I mean, there's a large percentage
00:36:41.460
probably of Republicans who aren't true Christians and who, because Republicanism and Christianity are
00:36:47.160
sometimes, um, seen as synonymous, uh, there are probably, that's probably like a bigger danger. I
00:36:54.740
would say in the Republican party that there are a lot of people who just believe that they're
00:36:58.520
Christians who are not. So just because you live in a red area and they align with your values,
00:37:03.960
as far as freedom goes, doesn't mean that there's not an opportunity to share the gospel with those
00:37:08.240
people. And it doesn't mean that you're not going to be able to communicate to people who live in
00:37:11.620
blue States and things like that. So, um, I don't really buy that argument. So that's what I say.
00:37:17.460
I say polarize in, I'm talking about in the sense of where you live and where you, um, where you move
00:37:24.480
to and then localize and, uh, prioritize. I don't mean polarize in the sense that you shouldn't be able
00:37:31.400
to have a conversation with someone on the other side of the aisle, just to clarify. Um, I want to
00:37:37.300
read this quote that I think is super comforting. Um, well, there's actually two quotes that are
00:37:44.080
super comforting. Um, the first one is from C.S. Lewis. He wrote, uh, he wrote an essay in 1948 about
00:37:51.500
living in an age where people feared an atomic bomb, um, which is an age that lasted quite a while,
00:37:57.560
gave people living at that time, a sense of impending doom. And here is what he said. He said
00:38:03.280
in one way, we think a great deal too much of the atomic bomb. How are we to live in an atomic age?
00:38:10.220
I am tempted to reply. Why? As you would have lived in the 16th century when the plague visited London
00:38:16.120
almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land
00:38:21.920
and cut your throat any night, or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of
00:38:26.920
syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor
00:38:32.860
accidents. In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation.
00:38:39.620
Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the
00:38:45.660
atomic bomb was invented. And quite a high percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways.
00:38:51.440
This is the first point to be made. And the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together.
00:38:57.500
If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb, when it comes, find us doing
00:39:03.160
sensible and human things, praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the
00:39:09.340
children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts, not huddled together
00:39:15.200
like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies. A microbe can do that,
00:39:20.460
but they need not dominate our minds. That is a word for today. I mean, what do you want to bet
00:39:29.380
that people living then who also perhaps lived through both world wars and the great depression
00:39:36.940
and the dust bowl, and who saw the continued totalitarianism throughout the world in the 20th
00:39:43.040
century, even after the wars, also thought that surely they were living through the end times.
00:39:48.160
I mean, they didn't face the same threats that we do. They didn't have a lot of the same problems
00:39:54.760
that we do, but they didn't know that. They had no reason to think this wasn't the worst
00:39:59.520
of it. People in other nations who have never known freedom, who have always known tyranny
00:40:05.180
and persecution and hardship, don't you think that they've believed that the great tribulation
00:40:09.640
was at hand? Like people have lived through what has seemed like apocalyptic struggles for
00:40:15.800
all of human history. Now, like I said earlier, this may be it. This may be the end. And maybe
00:40:21.880
things will never swing back and Jesus is going to return sooner. Maybe not. Like maybe this is yet
00:40:27.700
another bad cycle of human history and it will continue to cycle through as it always has. We
00:40:33.080
don't know. And the point is we have to deal with what is before us right now. Like our responsibilities
00:40:40.220
are not suspended because the world is going crazy. And our responsibilities are to love
00:40:46.380
God, to love our neighbor, to live not by lies. Three ways I think that we can do that in freedom
00:40:55.900
is to polarize when it comes to where we live and where we spend our time and the businesses
00:41:04.300
and the people and the organizations we support and to localize, to focus on the things that are
00:41:10.720
right in front of us and to prioritize, to focus on that, only that which we are really passionate
00:41:15.880
about and know something about and feel called to. Philippians 4, 4 through 7 says,
00:41:21.580
Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness, reasonable. We have
00:41:27.080
to be reasonable. Be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand. So there's a sense of urgency here.
00:41:33.040
Do not be anxious about anything. Wow. That's a really big blanket statement. Do not be anxious
00:41:38.640
about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests
00:41:46.140
be made known to God and the peace of God. This is a promise which surpasses all understanding will
00:41:52.500
guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. So God knew all of the things that we are going
00:41:59.880
through right now, all of the things that we've been through, all the things that are going to
00:42:03.480
happen, not just in the world, but also in your personal life. And still he told us to rejoice.
00:42:07.240
I mean, the Christians in Philippi, the Christians in some of these churches were going through hard
00:42:11.680
times themselves. And God through Paul says, you are to rejoice always. You are to be reasonable always.
00:42:17.480
You are to be grateful always. You're worried about something. Tell me about it. Present it to me.
00:42:22.540
Literally tell me about it. Not like trying to belittle your concerns,
00:42:26.500
but literally God is saying, tell me about it. Cast your cares onto me. I care for you. And
00:42:31.720
in, uh, in Matthew 10, Jesus talks about, we're not to worry about those who can throw,
00:42:38.500
um, who, who can kill our body. We are to fear the one who can throw our body and our soul into hell.
00:42:44.520
Jesus tells us that not even a sparrow falls from the sky apart from, uh, apart from the father's will.
00:42:51.860
So if that is true, if he even controls the, the plight and the flight of the sparrow,
00:42:58.580
which can be sold to, can be sold for a penny. Jesus says that how much more does he care about
00:43:03.500
us? How much more is he seeing us? How much more is he attending to us? How much more is he going
00:43:08.540
to carry our burdens and be in control of our lives? Now I have one more really encouraging
00:43:14.280
quotes to read to you that I hope just ends on a peaceful note for you guys. So this is a quote by
00:43:21.100
John Newton that I saw shared over the weekend on Instagram that I really appreciate.
00:43:26.300
And it goes like this. We can easily manage if we will only take each day the burden appointed to it,
00:43:33.020
but the load will be too heavy for us. If we carry yesterday's burden over again today,
00:43:38.360
and then add the burden of the morrow before we are required to bear it. I mean, that is
00:43:44.500
so true that we are trying to bear the burden of yesterday and tomorrow. And he is saying this in a
00:43:50.960
day before social media. And it's even more true today where we are actually like it is demanded
00:43:56.600
of us by social media and by the media in general to care about everything that's happened in all of
00:44:04.640
history and might happen in all of the future at once and bringing it back full circle to what we
00:44:09.740
said at the beginning. We don't have the capacity to do that. We can care and should care about what's
00:44:14.220
right in front of us. We should do what we can with what we are given and what we are called to,
00:44:18.640
but we can only manage today's burden. That is what Jesus says to you, that it is sufficient.
00:44:26.120
Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. Let tomorrow worry about itself. We can't,
00:44:31.020
there are things that we can do to prepare. I think that, you know, Proverbs 31 talks about that,
00:44:36.660
the importance of wise and prudent preparation and planning and all of that. But we can't put our
00:44:43.640
hope in what the future is going to look like. We also can't put our fear there either because we
00:44:47.380
don't know. What we do know for sure is that God is completely in control. Nothing is too hard for
00:44:52.120
him. All we can do is do the next right thing. All right. I hope that was an encouragement for you.