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Andy Stanley - Talking Points Part 3 : What Is The Role of the Church in Politics · Andy Stanley Sermons

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Speaker 1: Question, are you familiar with this, the fundamental attribution error?
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Speaker 1: Anybody just arranging? Anybody heard of the fundamental attribution error? Yes, virtually, nobody. Good.
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Speaker 1: I'd like to know things you don't know because it
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Speaker 1: makes me look smart. So anyway, the fundamental attribution error
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Speaker 1: is actually a cognitive bias that we have all been
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Speaker 1: sucked into, especially during a political season, and it goes
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Speaker 1: like this. This cognitive bias causes us to attribute people's
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Speaker 1: behavior to their character. The reason he acts that way
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Speaker 1: is because that's what he really is, and that's who
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Speaker 1: he really is. The reason she behaves that way, and
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Speaker 1: the reason she believes that way is because that's an
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Speaker 1: indication of who she really is on the inside. But
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Speaker 1: we don't do that when it comes to our behavior.
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Speaker 1: When it comes to us, we attribute our behavior to
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Speaker 1: circumstances and environmental factors. I'm gonna give you an illustration.
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Speaker 1: So he's late, that guy, you know, he's late, that
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Speaker 1: guy at work, he's late. You know why he's late
0:53
Speaker 1: because he's lazy and he's irresponsible and he's just disorganized.
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Speaker 1: That's why he's late. And then you're late, and you've
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Speaker 1: never once looked in the mirror so you know what
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Speaker 1: the problem is. I'm lazy and I'm irresponsible and I'm
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Speaker 1: just disorganized. No, just the opposite for you. You've decided.
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Speaker 1: The reason I'm late is because i was helping my
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Speaker 1: kids get ready for school. The reason I'm late, i
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Speaker 1: was on the phone with a friend. I'm actually very
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Speaker 1: organized and very responsible. In fact, I'm so organized and
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Speaker 1: responsible i'm late. Right. This is how it works. The
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Speaker 1: fundamental attribution bias happens when we assume that a person's
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Speaker 1: actions reflect what kind of person they really is, what
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Speaker 1: kind of person she is, rather than social and environmental factors.
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Speaker 1: And we talked a lot about this last week. So
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Speaker 1: when it comes to the political scene, this is what
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Speaker 1: it sounds like. The corrupt Democrats, they're just corrupt. You
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Speaker 1: know why they act that way. They're corrupt, that's their character.
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Speaker 1: They're all corrupt. The heartless Republicans. You know why they
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Speaker 1: vote that way? You know why they believe that way,
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Speaker 1: because I've met all of them, I've done research. I
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Speaker 1: know every single Republican is heartless. They're heartless. No you're corrupt.
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Speaker 1: No you're heartless. No you're corrupt. No you're heartless. No,
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Speaker 1: you've all been sucked into this cognitive bias. Well, clearly
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Speaker 1: something's wrong with the people, right, something's wrong deep on
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Speaker 1: the inside. Right, the Democrats are all socialists, I mean
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Speaker 1: we know they are. Well, the probably Republicans are all racist.
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Speaker 1: They won't admit it, right, you're not gonna admit they're racist,
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Speaker 1: but we know they're racists. We can see their hearts,
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Speaker 1: every single one of them. Now, I hate to burst
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Speaker 1: your bubble, and you're gonna hate me for this, So
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Speaker 1: you hate me now. But then over lunch, you know,
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Speaker 1: kind of think about this. Mature, emotionally intelligent, curious, empathetic people,
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Speaker 1: they don't fall for that, but political rhetoric feeds this,
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Speaker 1: and political rhetoric grabs us by the nose and leads
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Speaker 1: us into saying all kinds of silly things and believe
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Speaker 1: in all kinds of silly things that just aren't true.
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Speaker 1: And you're better than that, and I'm better than that,
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Speaker 1: so let's just not do that anymore. In fact, you
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Speaker 1: can call people out when they start doing that and
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Speaker 1: say you know, you're suffering from a cognitive bias. They'll
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Speaker 1: just look at you like what, say, yeah, you're just
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Speaker 1: from a cognitive bias. I am emotionally, and I'm emotionally
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Speaker 1: you know, intelligent, and I'm empathetic, and so I don't
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Speaker 1: suffer from that. I used to, but then I heard
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Speaker 1: this fabulous sermon that helped me understand what was going on. Right,
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Speaker 1: when we choose to carry someone's burden in Galatian six
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Speaker 1: to two. We talked about this last week. Right when
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Speaker 1: we choose, we have to choose to carry someone's burden.
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Speaker 1: You know what we do. We listen, we learn, and
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Speaker 1: we lean in. When we choose to carry somebody's burden.
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Speaker 1: What divides us diminishes, and what unites us surfaces. We
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Speaker 1: fear less, we understand more. And what we're going to
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Speaker 1: discover today is this is how the church began and
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Speaker 1: this is how the world changed. So if he haven't
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Speaker 1: been with us, we're in part three of this series
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Speaker 1: talking points the perfect blend of politics and religion. And yes,
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Speaker 1: I came up with the subtitle myself you can decide
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Speaker 1: how perfect it is. And we've said throughout this series
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Speaker 1: that the church should be the safest place in the
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Speaker 1: world to talk about anything, and the church's sface certainly
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Speaker 1: be the safest place to talk about politics. We rarely
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Speaker 1: talk about politics. Some of you grew up in churches
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Speaker 1: where you talked about politics all the time. But isn't
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Speaker 1: it true if you grew up in a church that
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Speaker 1: talked about politics all the time, you only talked about
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Speaker 1: politics from one side of the argument, right, And so
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Speaker 1: churches get known for being super left or super right,
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Speaker 1: or more Republican or more Democrat. And we have hopefully
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Speaker 1: avoided that with all of our churches. But in this season,
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Speaker 1: with what's going on in our nation and with what's
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Speaker 1: going on on television, we decided we're going to talk
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Speaker 1: about politics. And we've said that the issue that Christians
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Speaker 1: need to wrestle to the ground is not which party
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Speaker 1: to be a part of the issue that every single
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Speaker 1: Jesus follower has to wrestle to the ground is this,
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Speaker 1: are we willing to put our faith filter ahead of
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Speaker 1: our political filter? And this is very difficult to do.
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Speaker 1: It's so difficult to do that most of you think
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Speaker 1: you've already done it. It's so difficult to do that.
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Speaker 1: Most American Christians think they've already done it. It's so
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Speaker 1: difficult to do they can't even see that it's something
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Speaker 1: that needs to be done. And many of us aren't
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Speaker 1: willing to do this. Some of you, I'm not sure
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Speaker 1: can do this. But if you're a Jesus follower, you
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Speaker 1: have to put your faith filter ahead of your political
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Speaker 1: filter to be a christ Follower first and a Republican, Democrat,
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Speaker 1: libertarian or independent second. And what I hope to convince
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Speaker 1: you of today, what I hope to convince you of
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Speaker 1: today is this that when we do things change in
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Speaker 1: culture and society, we do the world a huge disfavor
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Speaker 1: when we wrap our political ideologies with the teaching of Jesus.
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Speaker 1: And everybody tries to do this, so you don't hear
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Speaker 1: anything else I say. Hear this. Jesus did not come
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Speaker 1: to be a footnote to a political platform. He did
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Speaker 1: not come to support an existing structure. As we said
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Speaker 1: last week, he didn't come to take sides. He came
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Speaker 1: to take what over. Thank you, that's right, Tony Evansai.
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Speaker 1: He didn't come to take sides. He came to take over.
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Speaker 1: He came to replace everything that was in place. Jesus
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Speaker 1: is the king who came to reverse the order of things.
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Speaker 1: And when we edit and when we parse, and when
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Speaker 1: we filter Jesus to fit a party platform, we rob
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Speaker 1: the world, not just our communities in our nation. We
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Speaker 1: rob the world. Listen, we rob the world of the
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Speaker 1: message that changed the world. We cannot be first and
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Speaker 1: foremost party people. And I'm not talking about your freshman
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Speaker 1: year in college. Okay, we must be kingdom people. Must
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Speaker 1: be kingdom people who are willing to influence our parties
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Speaker 1: when forced to choose, come on, let's get real. When
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Speaker 1: forced to choose between you know, the lesser of two evils,
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Speaker 1: you still have to call out the evil. When forced
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Speaker 1: to choose between two imperfect candidates, two imperfect platforms, and
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Speaker 1: imperfect planks within the platform, we have to call out
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Speaker 1: those imperfections. And not for our sake, and not even
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Speaker 1: for a party's sake, for the world's sake. Now is
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Speaker 1: this a big deal? This is a really big deal.
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Speaker 1: Early Christians lost their lives over this, and early Christians
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Speaker 1: began to reshape the world because of this. They refused
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Speaker 1: unconditional loyalty to the emperors, even the good ones, and
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Speaker 1: in doing so, they moved the ethical and the moral
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Speaker 1: needle for the empire. And do you know how they
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Speaker 1: did it. They did it through culturally disruptive unity. In
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Speaker 1: a world that honored and was organized around citizenship and
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Speaker 1: wealth and power, where people purchased their way up the
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Speaker 1: ladder and purchased their way to social standing. The ecclacy
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Speaker 1: of Jesus, the gathering of Jesus, the assembly, the congregation
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Speaker 1: of Jesus that would later be called the church. It
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Speaker 1: stood in direct opposition to all of that. It was disturbing,
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Speaker 1: it was unsettling. It was actually dangerous to the empire.
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Speaker 1: This is why the Empire decided to strike back. It's kidding,
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Speaker 1: This is why the Empire decided to impose sanctions on
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Speaker 1: Christians and force Christians to declared that Caesar was lord.
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Speaker 1: They realized that this was a threat to the empire.
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Speaker 1: And here's why. And there's no way to exaggerate this,
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Speaker 1: and there's no way to describe it adequately, and there's
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Speaker 1: no way to elicit in us the emotion that those
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Speaker 1: first centuries second century Christians felt. Classes of people, classes
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Speaker 1: of people whose circles rarely overlapped and only when it
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Speaker 1: was unavoidable, came together voluntarily, came together voluntarily and regularly
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Speaker 1: to worship the crucified God. And this was baffling. This
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Speaker 1: was baffling to people of the empire, and why did
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Speaker 1: people who never had anything to do with it. I mean,
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Speaker 1: the structure, social structure was so stratified and so separated.
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Speaker 1: And why did they overcome social norms? And why did
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Speaker 1: they overcome prejudices? And why did they come overcome their racism?
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Speaker 1: And why did they overcome you know, their class separation
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Speaker 1: and their class distinctives. Why would they come together to
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Speaker 1: worship the crucifier God Because the message of Jesus was
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Speaker 1: so clear. I've come to establish a new kind of
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Speaker 1: kingdom and everyone is invited to participate in it. In
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Speaker 1: this disruptive kingdom, we can't imagine how countercultural, how disturbing,
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Speaker 1: how dangerous the Apostle Paul's words were. We read them like, oh, yeah, whatever,
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Speaker 1: because what is self we talked about this, what is
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Speaker 1: self evident to us was not self evident in the
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Speaker 1: first and second century. But because of the message of
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Speaker 1: Jesus and the power of the Church and the power
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Speaker 1: of the Cross, what was just disgusting has become self
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Speaker 1: evident to us because of Christianity. The apostle Paul writes
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Speaker 1: these words, we read write over, I'm like he will due, yeah,
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Speaker 1: but this was these were showstoppers. This was like what
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Speaker 1: there is neither Jew nor gentile. Wait wait wait wait, wait, no,
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Speaker 1: that's not how it works. We got yahweh, Yes we do,
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Speaker 1: we got yahweh. How about you? He's our god? Wait
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Speaker 1: wait wait we were sharing yahweh. Wait wait wait we're
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Speaker 1: all worshiping the same god. Wait. Okay, I got to
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Speaker 1: invite gentiles into my home and get gentile cooties. Wait,
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Speaker 1: I gotta do stuff with Jews. The Jews have ignored
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Speaker 1: us our whole life. We have nothing in common. They
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Speaker 1: won't let us date their daughters. I mean there's and Paulses.
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Speaker 1: Oh those days are over now, No, they can't possibly over.
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Speaker 1: They eat weird stuff and you know they wear strange stuff,
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Speaker 1: and they have Paulsy. Those days are over. There's a
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Speaker 1: new king in town. There's a new kingdom. And what
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Speaker 1: has been a source of you know, of conflict and
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Speaker 1: a source of tension, that's all gone away because all
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Speaker 1: have sind and fallen short and all find salvation the
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Speaker 1: same way. And what used to divide you has the
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Speaker 1: potential to unite you. There is no Jew, there is
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Speaker 1: no gentile. Wow. This next one again, we're like dub
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Speaker 1: but I'm telling you this was disruptive to the to
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Speaker 1: the to the economy. It was disruptive to everything they knew.
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Speaker 1: It was not self evident. There is neither slave nor
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Speaker 1: free in this brand new, upside down kingdom. Anyway, you're
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Speaker 1: telling me that God views me with the same esteem
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Speaker 1: and dignity that he views my master. You're telling me
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Speaker 1: that God sees my slaves the same way he sees me.
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Speaker 1: I mean, everybody knows some people are born to rule
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Speaker 1: and some people were born to be ruled over. I mean,
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Speaker 1: this is just common sense. That's the way the world works.
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Speaker 1: It's self evident. Some people are born to be ruled,
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Speaker 1: some people are born to be ruled over. I've heard
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Speaker 1: this my whole life. And now you're saying, there's this
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Speaker 1: new system where slaves and freedomen and masters and rich
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Speaker 1: and poor, and citizens and non citizens, they all come together.
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Speaker 1: And when they're together in this context, this ecclesia were equal.
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Speaker 1: What kind of kingdom is that? So disruptive? Seeds of
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Speaker 1: revolution had been sown with the words of Jesus and
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Speaker 1: the apostle Paul, then it got worse. Nor is there
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Speaker 1: male female now here's something we can't just even begin
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Speaker 1: to get our minds around slavery in the ancient world
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Speaker 1: wasn't like slavery when we think about slavery in the
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Speaker 1: United States of America. Slavery the United States of America
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Speaker 1: was driven by racism, by color of skin. In the
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Speaker 1: ancient world, hard for us to imagine everybody was a
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Speaker 1: potential slave to somebody. You miss your house payment, they
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Speaker 1: come for your house and your daughter. You miss your
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Speaker 1: horse payment, they come for your horse and your son. Everybody,
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Speaker 1: just about everybody is somebody's potential slave. And in a
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Speaker 1: culture where everybody just about is someone's potential slave, the
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Speaker 1: dignity of women drops off the table to a degree
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Speaker 1: that we can't even begin to imagine. Women would have
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Speaker 1: no dignity, no standing, and a culture that was driven
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Speaker 1: by slave trading, that everybody could possibly be somebody else's property.
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Speaker 1: Women just again, the dignitive women, there was virtually none
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Speaker 1: except in a few pockets where there was wealth and
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Speaker 1: you were related to the right people. And Paul comes
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Speaker 1: along and says, let me just tell you something. And
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Speaker 1: this new kingdom, with this new value system, with this
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Speaker 1: new king men and women have the same dignity, the
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Speaker 1: same standing, of course the men are hearing this. Going
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Speaker 1: if the women find out about this man, fortunately most
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Speaker 1: of them can't read right. The later the apostle Paul
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Speaker 1: and his letter to the church in Colossity and that
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Speaker 1: we call the Book of Colossians. He says this, this
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Speaker 1: is amazing. He talks about men and women. He says,
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Speaker 1: actually it is Peter. I'm sorry, not Paul. Peter says this.
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Speaker 1: He says, hey, men, you need to be careful how
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Speaker 1: you treat your wives. They are joint heirs with you
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Speaker 1: in the kingdom. They are joint heirs with you in
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Speaker 1: terms of what's to come. That you have the same master,
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Speaker 1: that you are accountable to your heavenly father on how
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Speaker 1: you treat your heavenly father's daughter. She's your wife, she
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Speaker 1: is his daughter. And suddenly, the dignity of this is
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Speaker 1: why I say, and I know it sounds crazy with
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Speaker 1: ladies and women, Please don't be offended. I don't know
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Speaker 1: why every woman wouldn't at least consider following Jesus for
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Speaker 1: no other reason. What he did for the status of
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Speaker 1: women and the seeds that he sowed in terms of
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Speaker 1: the status of women, it's extraordinary. It is absolutely extraordinary.
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Speaker 1: It's common sense to us. It was not common sense
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Speaker 1: in the first, second, or third even the centuries that followed.
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Speaker 1: And he says, yeah, four, you are all one in Christ. Jesus, wait,
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Speaker 1: I'm one with women, and women are one with slaves
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Speaker 1: and slaves or one with masters. Yeah, it's a new
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Speaker 1: way of thinking. It's a new world order. One is
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Speaker 1: in no distinction, equal value, equal dignity. This was so disruptive.
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Speaker 1: I'm telling you, if this caught on, if this caught on,
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Speaker 1: the fabric of the empire would unravel. And it caught on,
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Speaker 1: and this is predicted, it would looking into the future,
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Speaker 1: he makes this statement, it's so powerful. It's one of
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Speaker 1: my favorite verses in the New Testament's certainly one of
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Speaker 1: my favorite things that Jesus said. He said, the Law
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Speaker 1: and the prophets talking about being are what we would
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Speaker 1: call the Old Testament. The Law and the prophets were
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Speaker 1: proclaimed until John the Baptist. But after John the Baptist,
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Speaker 1: a new king stepped on to planet Earth, and everything
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Speaker 1: began to change. Since John the Babtist, since that time,
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Speaker 1: the good news of a brand new kingdom, the good
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Speaker 1: news of the Kingdom of God, is being preached and
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Speaker 1: look at this, and everyone is forcing their way into it.
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Speaker 1: Everyone and their eyes are being open. They're being beginning
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Speaker 1: to recognize the world in a different way. They're beginning
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Speaker 1: to see themselves in a different way. They're beginning to
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Speaker 1: see other people in a different way. This isn't a tweak,
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Speaker 1: this is a wholesale change. This is a new paradigm.
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Speaker 1: This is the upside down Kingdom of God, and Jesus
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Speaker 1: has introduced it to the world and we have been
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Speaker 1: invited to participate in it. And more importantly, we are
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Speaker 1: stewards of God's kingdom and our communities and our nation
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Speaker 1: and in our world. This is why it would be
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Speaker 1: so foolish, so foolish for any local church, or any
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Speaker 1: group of churches, or the church in general to ever
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Speaker 1: be divided over political issues or a political party, because
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Speaker 1: those parties will one day be over and Jesus will
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Speaker 1: still be the king. So work with me. Forty five
16:33
Speaker 1: years after the Apostle Paul is executed in Nero's room,
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Speaker 1: forty five years after the Apostle Paul's executed, Neros Peter
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Speaker 1: has also been executed in Nero's room. Forty five years
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Speaker 1: go by, when the Apostle Paul dies and Peter dies.
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Speaker 1: It's like, oh, no, the two you know, the two
16:48
Speaker 1: superheroes of the faith. I mean, these are the guys
16:50
Speaker 1: with the superpowers literally of the faith. They're dead. So
16:53
Speaker 1: does that mean Rome one? Does that mean the Temple one? No,
16:56
Speaker 1: Christianity just continue to spread like crazy. So forty five
17:00
Speaker 1: years after the Apostle Paul is executed in Nero's Rome Plenty,
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Speaker 1: the younger, who was the governor of an area or
17:07
Speaker 1: region that was in our modern day Turkey, realizes that
17:11
Speaker 1: as a governor, it's his responsibility to put down the
17:14
Speaker 1: growth of the Church because the emperor has sitting out
17:16
Speaker 1: an edict that we have to stop the spread of
17:18
Speaker 1: Christianity because the gods are angry. It wasn't too long
17:22
Speaker 1: after this that the edges of the Roman Empire began
17:25
Speaker 1: to fray, and so the Romans were trying to figure
17:27
Speaker 1: out what's wrong. What's wrong? Will the gods are angry?
17:29
Speaker 1: What would make the gods angry? The gods aren't being
17:31
Speaker 1: sacrificed to the way they used to be. And who's
17:33
Speaker 1: the culprit behind the gods not being sacrificed to? It
17:36
Speaker 1: must be these Christians. So there's an idiot that goes
17:39
Speaker 1: out that you're too a round up and arrest Christians
17:41
Speaker 1: and you're to force them to sacrifice to the Emperor.
17:43
Speaker 1: They don't have to quit believing one thing, but they've
17:45
Speaker 1: at least got to acknowledge that the Emperor is lord,
17:48
Speaker 1: or the Emperor is their ultimate that just where their
17:50
Speaker 1: ultimate allegiance to the Emperor. So Plenty the Younger just says, hey,
17:54
Speaker 1: you know, I've got to do what the Emperor says.
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Speaker 1: But I'm not even sure why we're doing this. I mean,
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Speaker 1: I have noticed a disturbance, you know, in our community
18:02
Speaker 1: because of these Christians. So he writes a letter to
18:05
Speaker 1: Emperor Trajan asking the question, what should I do with
18:08
Speaker 1: these Christians once I round them up? But before he
18:10
Speaker 1: sent the letter, he did a little investigating because he
18:13
Speaker 1: decided he needed to educate himself on what made these
18:16
Speaker 1: Christians so dangerous, And he incorporated his findings in this
18:21
Speaker 1: letter and it actually survived antiquity. And here's what Plenty
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Speaker 1: of the Younger discovered about the Christian community forty five
18:28
Speaker 1: years after the Apostle Paul was executed by Rome. Here's
18:33
Speaker 1: what he discovered. He includes this in the letter. Here's
18:35
Speaker 1: what I found out, the sum and substance of their fault,
18:39
Speaker 1: because clearly that it falter or we wouldn't be rounding
18:41
Speaker 1: them up, or error had been that they were accustomed
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Speaker 1: to meet on a fixed day of the week before dawn.
18:48
Speaker 1: So I set out my spies. I actually arrested a
18:50
Speaker 1: few Christians, you know, kind of beat them up a
18:52
Speaker 1: little bit, roughed them up a little bit to find
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Speaker 1: out what's going on, what do you believe, what are
18:56
Speaker 1: you up to? Why is this a threat to the empire?
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Speaker 1: And one thing I just covered is they meet together
19:01
Speaker 1: on a certain day of the week before dawn. Well,
19:03
Speaker 1: they would meet on Sunday to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus.
19:06
Speaker 1: But Sunday's a workday. There's no weekend, it's a workday.
19:09
Speaker 1: So they would meet before dawn, before work to celebrate
19:13
Speaker 1: and to worship together. Now, imagine if we moved our
19:16
Speaker 1: church services to Monday morning at five point thirty am
19:20
Speaker 1: and we'd worship for an hour together, how many of
19:23
Speaker 1: you would show up? Yeah, these are our people. This
19:29
Speaker 1: is how committed they were, This is how moved and
19:32
Speaker 1: changed they were. And when they would get together early
19:36
Speaker 1: in the morning before dawn. We found out that they sing,
19:40
Speaker 1: how's the empire gonna survive? People singing? This is such
19:43
Speaker 1: a threat. They sing responsively a hymn, and they sing
19:47
Speaker 1: to Christ as if he's some kind of God. So
19:52
Speaker 1: next time we're singing and you don't like the song,
19:54
Speaker 1: or next time we're singing and you just don't like
19:56
Speaker 1: to sing, I want you to think about this. People
20:00
Speaker 1: two thousand years ago, the people that took this to
20:02
Speaker 1: the next generation, after the Apostle, Paul and Peter would
20:05
Speaker 1: gather and they would sing. And the reason they would
20:07
Speaker 1: sing is because most people couldn't read. And not only
20:09
Speaker 1: could they not read, they had nothing to read. There's
20:12
Speaker 1: no Bible. I mean, they may have a fragment of
20:15
Speaker 1: a Gospel, or they may have a fragment of one
20:17
Speaker 1: of Paul's letters or Peter's letters. But in many of
20:19
Speaker 1: these communities there was nothing to read and nobody could read.
20:22
Speaker 1: And so they learned their theology through chance and through poems,
20:26
Speaker 1: and primarily through songs. So they would sing a hymn.
20:29
Speaker 1: This was their way of worshiping Christ as if he
20:33
Speaker 1: was a god. And here's the other thing we found
20:35
Speaker 1: out Emperor Trajan, and while they were together, they would
20:39
Speaker 1: bind themselves by oath. Ah, this is where it's gonna
20:45
Speaker 1: get dangerous. They bind themselves by not they take an oath.
20:48
Speaker 1: And I'm sure this oath has something to do with
20:50
Speaker 1: undermining the empire. This oath must have something to do
20:54
Speaker 1: with creating some kind of insurrection. I mean, maybe this
20:57
Speaker 1: is an oath that's going to create some kind of
20:59
Speaker 1: slave revolt. We don't know. But what is this dangerous
21:02
Speaker 1: oath that they take? Not to some crime. We were
21:07
Speaker 1: surprised to find out. Oh, well, what were they taking
21:10
Speaker 1: an oath for? Here's what they vowed together to do instead,
21:16
Speaker 1: but not to commit fraud. They're not gonna steal from people,
21:21
Speaker 1: or charge people too much, or treat people dishonestly when
21:24
Speaker 1: it comes to finances they're trading. They they promised each
21:28
Speaker 1: other they would not defraud people, and they promised they
21:31
Speaker 1: wouldn't steal from anybody. And they promised out loud to
21:36
Speaker 1: each other that they wouldn't commit adultery or falsify their trust.
21:40
Speaker 1: That is not followed through on a promise, this sounds dangerous.
21:45
Speaker 1: I mean, we can't have people like this in our
21:47
Speaker 1: culture and our towns and our villages. I think when
21:50
Speaker 1: plenty of the younger discovers all of us, he realizes, no,
21:52
Speaker 1: wonder I haven't heard about this. These are some of
21:55
Speaker 1: the finest people in the community, and I'm supposed to
21:57
Speaker 1: arrest them. Let me tell you what's amazing about this again,
22:01
Speaker 1: this is kind of a dud. Oh, this is kind
22:03
Speaker 1: of a common sense, you know, self evident. Right in
22:06
Speaker 1: the pagan religions, there was no morality or ethics related
22:11
Speaker 1: to pagan worship. There was civil law, you know, to
22:14
Speaker 1: keep people in line, but when it came to the gods,
22:17
Speaker 1: the gods didn't care how you treated other people. The
22:20
Speaker 1: gods didn't care how you treated your wife. The gods
22:22
Speaker 1: didn't care how you treated your children. The gods didn't care.
22:25
Speaker 1: They just wanted their blood sacrifice. They just wanted their
22:28
Speaker 1: grain offerings. You're just trying to bribe the gods. And
22:30
Speaker 1: suddenly here's this cult and they feel that somehow in
22:36
Speaker 1: their worship of their god there is a moral component
22:40
Speaker 1: and an ethical component, as if they feel accountable to God.
22:45
Speaker 1: They feel accountable to God for how they treat each other,
22:50
Speaker 1: and they feel accountable to God for how they treat
22:53
Speaker 1: people in the community. Imagine, Imagine what would happen in
22:59
Speaker 1: our community. Imagine what would happen in our country if
23:03
Speaker 1: every week Christians gathered in circles and they made an
23:08
Speaker 1: oath to each other. This week, I will not defraud
23:12
Speaker 1: anyone financially. This week, I'm not gonna steal anything, any ideas,
23:17
Speaker 1: or any credit. This week, I will be faithful once
23:20
Speaker 1: again to my wife or to my husband. This week,
23:22
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna let anybody down. I'm gonna follow through
23:25
Speaker 1: on what I promised. Imagine such a world, nor if
23:30
Speaker 1: this goes on, he says. The other part of the
23:32
Speaker 1: oath was nor to refuse to return a trust. If
23:34
Speaker 1: somebody's counting on me, they can count on me when
23:38
Speaker 1: called upon to do so. You know, plenty of the
23:43
Speaker 1: youngers like, that's it. That's all you got. That's all
23:46
Speaker 1: we could find out. We tortured a few Christians and
23:48
Speaker 1: sent some people in to be amongst them, and that's
23:51
Speaker 1: all we got. So this is the group that's angering
23:53
Speaker 1: the gods, this is the group that's undermining the empire.
23:57
Speaker 1: This is the group we're to round up in a See,
24:01
Speaker 1: this made no sense. This was so countercultural. And a
24:05
Speaker 1: culture that worshiped strength, and a culture that worshiped warfare,
24:09
Speaker 1: and a current culture that worshiped conquest and victory. The
24:14
Speaker 1: ruling class found this pathetic pitiphil. I mean, this is ridiculous.
24:19
Speaker 1: There they're worshiping a crucified you know, Rabbi, what is
24:24
Speaker 1: with this? And from their perspective, the whole thing was
24:27
Speaker 1: just kind of weird and appalling. But for many, many
24:33
Speaker 1: people found the upside down Kingdom of Jesus appealing. Christians
24:38
Speaker 1: refused to abandon the sick because they no longer feared death.
24:44
Speaker 1: Christians no longer abandoned babies because everyone's made in the
24:48
Speaker 1: image of God. And Christians no longer left children out
24:52
Speaker 1: to die that they didn't think they could afford to
24:54
Speaker 1: raise because they were made in the image of God.
24:56
Speaker 1: And as we talked about, then they would go out
24:57
Speaker 1: to the edge of the forest and the edge of
24:58
Speaker 1: villages where babies were off and left, and they would
25:00
Speaker 1: bring these children in and raise them. Who are these people?
25:06
Speaker 1: They extended dignity to their slaves and their servants and
25:11
Speaker 1: the people that weren't in their class. Who are these people?
25:17
Speaker 1: There are people? Jordan Peterson sums it up perfectly, he says,
25:21
Speaker 1: this Christianity achieved the well nigh impossible. This is the
25:25
Speaker 1: part we cannot even begin to get our minds around.
25:29
Speaker 1: The Christian doctrine elevated the individual soul. This was unheard of,
25:34
Speaker 1: placing slave and master, and commoner and noblemen alike on
25:41
Speaker 1: the same metaphysical footing, rendering them equal before God and
25:45
Speaker 1: the law. The implicit so powerful, the implicit transcendent worth
25:51
Speaker 1: of each and every soul, established itself against impossible odds.
25:59
Speaker 1: The Kingdom of God, as described by Jesus, struck the
26:03
Speaker 1: ancients as appalling, eventually appealing, and in time it became contagious,
26:11
Speaker 1: and it swept the empire like an airborne disease, and
26:16
Speaker 1: against all odds. A Nazarene cult, or as the Book
26:21
Speaker 1: of Acts they refer to it as a Nazarene sect.
26:24
Speaker 1: They're following a dead Nazarene, a Nazarene sect who worshiped
26:29
Speaker 1: a crucified rabbi with no territory, no military, no authority,
26:35
Speaker 1: no political power, no political standing, whose message was built
26:40
Speaker 1: around these pathetic two ideas, love your enemy and love
26:44
Speaker 1: each other not only survived and thrived, it shaped Western civilization,
26:52
Speaker 1: and we every single Jesus follow we're here and listening
26:55
Speaker 1: or watching is part of that movement, and we dare not.
26:58
Speaker 1: This is why we dare not be divided over party lines,
27:03
Speaker 1: knowing that one day those parties will be over. And
27:09
Speaker 1: if those who came before us, who were so different
27:13
Speaker 1: from us, if those who came before us that lived
27:16
Speaker 1: in a world we can't even begin to imagine, if
27:19
Speaker 1: somehow they were able to find common ground with each
27:22
Speaker 1: other at the foot of the cross, we have no excuse.
27:29
Speaker 1: Their culturally disruptive unity shocked the world, and eventually their
27:37
Speaker 1: message would change the world. So come on, let's do that,
27:45
Speaker 1: because come on, you know this. Let's be super honest
27:47
Speaker 1: for a minute. We run the risk of being divided
27:49
Speaker 1: over some very important issues. We run the risk of
27:53
Speaker 1: being divided over some very important issues that you are
27:56
Speaker 1: passionate about, passionate about. But again, let's be honest. It
28:00
Speaker 1: may be impossible for you and I understand this, and
28:03
Speaker 1: this is where I've gotten, you know, negative feedback for
28:05
Speaker 1: this whole series. I get this. It may be impossible
28:08
Speaker 1: for you to understand how a Jesus follower could possibly
28:13
Speaker 1: have a different view on a specific issue than you
28:15
Speaker 1: have it, just you may never get there. I can't
28:17
Speaker 1: imagine you call yourself a Christian and you're still for this.
28:20
Speaker 1: You call yourself a Christian and you're still against this.
28:23
Speaker 1: You call yourself a Christian and you can't see that.
28:25
Speaker 1: You call yourself a Christian and you don't understand that.
28:28
Speaker 1: You may never ever understand why other Christians don't see
28:31
Speaker 1: political issues and social issues the way that you do.
28:35
Speaker 1: You may never understand how they can be for what
28:37
Speaker 1: you're against and against what you're for. So when you
28:41
Speaker 1: go to vote, you need to vote your law of
28:45
Speaker 1: christ informed conscience. Absolutely, when you go to vote, you
28:49
Speaker 1: don't vote based on trying to make a bunch of
28:51
Speaker 1: people happy. You vote your conscience. But in the meantime,
28:57
Speaker 1: let's do what the early Church did, and let's carry
29:01
Speaker 1: each other's burdens. Because when you help me carry my burden,
29:06
Speaker 1: you gain understanding about who I am, where I sit,
29:10
Speaker 1: and consequently where I stand. And when you help me
29:14
Speaker 1: carry my burden, I get a better understanding of where
29:16
Speaker 1: you sit and consequently where you stand. And when we
29:20
Speaker 1: carry each other's burdens, there's something that happens that can't
29:22
Speaker 1: happen any other way, and we may never agree politically,
29:26
Speaker 1: but we can love unconditionally because we'll gain a better
29:31
Speaker 1: understanding of each other. And even if we never understand
29:36
Speaker 1: each other, and even if we never agree, if we
29:40
Speaker 1: carry one another's burdens, do you know what we do.
29:43
Speaker 1: We do the most important thing. We fulfill the law
29:48
Speaker 1: of Christ. Let me say a different way. You do
29:53
Speaker 1: not have to understand me or agree with me to
29:56
Speaker 1: love me, and I do not have to agree with
29:59
Speaker 1: you or even understand why you view things the way
30:02
Speaker 1: you do.
30:02
Speaker 2: To love.
30:05
Speaker 1: You. We can disagree politically, we can love unconditionally while
30:09
Speaker 1: we pray and work for unity. So let's do this.
30:14
Speaker 1: Let's come on. This is a unique opportunity, unique opportunity
30:19
Speaker 1: for our communities, of our nation. Let's not miss the
30:21
Speaker 1: opportunity of a lifetime, the invitation to follow the king
30:25
Speaker 1: who turned everything upside down and reversed the order of things.
30:29
Speaker 1: So let's listen, let's learn, let's love.
30:38
Speaker 2: And together we will make our towns better, we will
30:43
Speaker 2: make our community better. We can make the nation better,
30:47
Speaker 2: we can make the world better.
30:49
Speaker 1: And that's not hyperbole, because once upon a time, a
30:54
Speaker 1: handful of Jesus' followers multiply to the point to where
30:59
Speaker 1: the empire finally threw their hands up and embraced the
31:03
Speaker 1: crucified God. And if we get this right, perhaps we
31:10
Speaker 1: will leave our nation a little bit less divided. After all,
31:16
Speaker 1: one is the wind.