Two weeks before a momentous election in the United States, I'm going political -- and Biblical.

Citizenship, for the Christian, is a responsibility to steward. We may feel like burying this "talent" in the ground because it's too hard to engage in the rough & tumble of political commerce. But it's not an option if we are to walk in faithfulness. As Christians, we are called to seek knowledge and wisdom actively in all areas of life. Understanding the tension between God's sovereignty and human free will is crucial for informed decision-making.

Although it wasn't planned this way, the wrap-up of the series on the Beatitudes is the perfect way to discuss this responsibility. Like all truths, balancing tensions is necessary.

We must live, not merely hear or mouth, the Beatitudes during this divisive season. We must remember the poverty of all people, mourn for the world's brokenness, and extend mercy, rather than simply seeking political victory.

We must ask ourselves hard questions such as: How much time is spent in God's compared to the news? Are we more involved in prayer or polls? Do we hunger more for righteousness or political victory?

F.W. Boreham's essay from My Christmas Book, is especially worth remembering! What matters more? Battles or babies? Politics or people?

Empower yourself and your family to engage fully in God’s grand story. Subscribe to Hi(Impact) at Stephanie Presents for insights, encouragement, and practical resources!

Book Stephanie to speak to your women, parents, Christian educators, and students.

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#christianvoting

Two weeks from today, there will be a momentous election taking place in the United States.

And today I'm going to do something a little different.

I'm going political.

If your desire is to become spiritually stronger, emotionally healthier, and relationally smarter, you're at the right place.

Speaker and writer Stephanie Smith inspires and equips you to achieve these three key aims.

If you are a parent, you also learn how to raise empowered kids ready for adulthood.

Let's get started.

Welcome to the Liveski three podcast.

As I said, in the opening, two weeks from today, millions of people from around the world will be watching television.

They will be glued to radio, their smartphones, their computers, listening for the updates as the election takes place here in the United States.

As a former history teacher, I know that it's historically accurate to say this is a weird election.

It is not usual for a candidate to hold office and then not be voted back into office and then come back and run again.

It's not that it's never happened before, but let's just be honest, it's not the norm.

Also, it is not the norm that just a matter of months before the election takes place, the primary candidate on the for the president steps down and another person steps up.

Their vice presidential pick steps up into that position.

So on both tickets, we have some things that are historically unusual.

And yes, it is also historically accurate to say this is an incredibly divisive election.

Emotions and perceptions and perspectives are at probably an all time high, or at least very close to an all time high in any election.

I don't know that I can say it is the most contested election in the United States.

We did have one some years back where there was so much animosity that one of the presidential candidates didn't even appear on the ballot in some of the states.

And if you don't know that little tidbit of information and you're wondering who that was, it was none other than Abraham Lincoln.

And in many ways, it would be easier for me to just totally stay out of this entire subject matter and not to say anything, basically to just live as if it's not happening.

But that is not being a responsible person, responsible for my calling.

Now, that doesn't mean that every other Christian, every other podcaster needs to jump in and to have something to say about this.

It is my conviction, you know, my mission is what it is to build spiritually strong, emotionally healthy, and relationally smart individuals and families.

That's pretty comprehensive in all of life.

And so how do we allow those things to influence us as we make decisions as voters.

I've also talked about on this podcast before.

I've done a deep dive into this, and if you are not familiar with the core compass of truth as I teach it, you need to go back and listen to the episodes where I really outline this in depth.

I'm not going to go through all of that again today, but you can go back and you can find those previous episodes.

It's important to clarify this from the very beginning.

I believe that we are commanded throughout all of scripture to seek for knowledge and wisdom.

We don't just expect that God drops it onto us willy nilly.

Wish that that were so.

But we are told to seek.

We are told to pursue.

That involves initiative and action on our part.

And we see that principle both in the Old Testament and we see that as well in the New Testament.

We are also shown throughout scripture that God delights in hiding some things because it is the glory of kings.

Or in other words, it is the glory of people who live keenly lives to search out and to discover those things that God has hidden.

This isn't some mean game of hide and seek.

It is a matter that we are a people species who have been given this need for curiosity and discovery.

And this is one of the ways that we are allowed to meet this need is that God didn't just give us everything that we needed to know and then, okay, well, life would be kind of boring with that.

But rather, it is a matter that he has given us this innate desire to create, to discover.

And with that means that he gives us the opportunity and the responsibility to do that.

And so as we seek for truth, we can find that in four ways.

Now, understand, I am not saying these are four equal equivalent ways, but they are four ways that together help to create safety.

We have truth that comes to us by common sense.

That's God's universal grace to us.

We also have truth that comes through creation.

And I don't just mean fossil bones and the geological record, but just the patterns that we see in creation.

The existence of order within the world, for example, echoes our own human need for some kind of order in our lives.

We also are able to acquire knowledge and wisdom through other people.

And that's not just other christians.

And it's not just other people that agree with us, because God is generous.

And just as he allows rain to come to water the fields of both the Christian and the non Christian, so he reveals truth, whether it's about how electricity works or whether it's about how the brain works to people who seek out to discover these truths.

And occasionally I will run into a person who kind of has this idea that, oh, we don't really need to be seeking out knowledge and wisdom, especially that comes from non Christians, about how the brain works or the mind works or personalities or any of that.

I mean, all we need to do is read the Bible, and that sounds great until they or someone close to them has a medical emergency.

And then I'm just betting that most of the time, I'm sure it's not going to be 100% of the time, but most of the time, you give that person a choice between having a physician who is going to operate on their brain or their spouse's brain or their child's brain, between someone who is reading the Bible all the time, or someone who has never read the Bible, but they have read and done a whole lot of brain surgeries.

Most people are going to pick the person who's never picked up the Bible, but they've definitely picked up some medical books, and more importantly, they've picked up some scalpels to actually cut in to the brains of other people.

You know, that's one of the ways that we can measure our ideas, is we take them out to their logical ends, we take them out to their conclusions, and we see if they stand up as we carry them all the way through, and not just when we look at them in these very limited situations.

And the last measure of truth, the last way that we receive truth is through the Bible.

And this is what I believe is our north star.

So just like we have Polaris in our universe, that is a.

Remains a fixed position that allows navigation to occur, astronomical navigation to occur.

Scripture remains fixed in its accuracy, not necessarily in our interpretation, but in its original form and accuracy.

It remains fixed.

And therefore, if any of those other three things directly contradict what Scripture says, then one of those other three things is wrong.

Why am I saying this?

And what does this have to do with our upcoming election?

And what does this have to do with this series that we've been going through on the beatitudes from the sermon on the mount recorded in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter five?

I am so glad you asked.

Let's dive into this.

In scripture, we see that truth is held between two things that not contradict each other, but hold each other.

Intention.

Again, it's important to understand they don't contradict each other, but they do hold themselves in tension against one another.

For example, God is sovereign.

Also, God has given people free will.

Okay, that debate about, well, is, are people like puppets that God manipulates, or is God just totally hands?

That's been going on for a long time.

And one of the reasons it has, and it should, is because there are two truths.

And it's always harder to walk a line that is held in tension than it is to just swing back and forth, hanging on to one rope.

But here's the thing.

You could actually strain a tightrope between two different places that were far away from each other.

And as long as that line was stretched tight, a person could travel along that line for incredible distances.

But if you are holding onto a rope or a wire that's only anchored in one place, and all you can do is swing from one spot to another, you are incredibly limited in how far you can go.

It is a lot easier to just hold on to one truth and just swing back and forth with that one.

But it will absolutely limit how much you can grow.

And that's one of the reasons why we tend to default to ideas that we just want to hold on to that have one anchoring point rather than doing the hard work of walking these balancing acts between two truths that hold each other accountable.

For example, I don't know how many people I've heard over the years who have talked about the from romans 13 one and two, where it says, obey your government, rulers.

For everyone who rules was given the power to rule by goddess, and those who rule now were given that power by God.

So anyone who is against the government is really against something God has commanded.

And people have taken that to mean, if a person holds an office of power, they are there because God has put them there.

And it sounds very biblical and it sounds very even God honoring.

But when we really dig into it again, we take something to its logical conclusion.

Remember, God is a God of logic.

He is a God of order.

We don't check our brains at the door when we become a christian.

Well, at least we're not supposed to.

If we take this at face value, and we only look at this in terms of how we view the roles of people in any position of power, then at some point we have to say, okay, well, where does this begin to apply?

If I have a dog catcher who has been appointed or elected in my county or my town, are they there because God sovereignly said, hey, I want you, Fred, to be the dog catcher in this town for this term.

Have you been to a department of motor vehicles?

And have you recognized how much power the person sitting across that space from you has because they might be able to keep you from driving.

They are operating in a position empowered by your state government.

Are they in that position because God said, hey, I want you sue to be the teller at that state's department of motor Vehicles and you are going to be in charge of all of the license plates that do and do not get issued?

Or is there another principle that we need to look at that doesn't invalidate this one, but it does hold it in proper tension?

What if the truth is that one God does sometimes divinely set people into places of office?

For example, we might look at the life of King David, someone that we can see didn't have any reason to become king, and yet we see throughout his life how God divinely selects, prepares, positions him, and protects them so that he can become king.

But then if we keep tracking through all the kings of the Old Testament over Israel and Judah, we don't see that same pattern with every other king.

Did God appoint Ahab?

We don't see that.

What if it's a matter that there are times that God divinely does sometimes set people in positions of power, and sometimes God lets people appoint or elect people to positions of power.

That doesn't mean that God is powerful in the first setting and he's powerless in the second.

It's just a matter that he has chosen to use his power in different ways.

If my kids are all together and we are deciding on where to go for a special meal, and maybe that meal is to honor me, maybe it's my birthday or something, I can say, I want to go, and I can name the restaurant and they can all say, all right, awesome.

That's great, mom.

I am acting empowered in that situation, but I can be just as empowered.

Empowered as if I say to my kids, you know what?

I'm really good with pretty much wherever we go.

So how about you guys all decide and I'm just going to be on board with it.

Surprise me.

I'm not acting powerless in that second scenario.

I'm just choosing to operate in power in a different way.

I believe that our citizenship is like everything else that we have in life.

No matter what nation we are a citizen of, it is something that we are to steward.

We don't get to check out and to take our citizenship and to bury that in the ground any more than we can bury any of our other talents in the ground, because it's just too hard to take those out into the real world and do something with them.

Does that mean that every single time there is an election, whether it's for an amendment, whether it's for a tax proposal, whether it's for a political office, that we have to take aside a yes or a no, or this candidate or that candidate no.

Sometimes it might be a matter of in good conscience saying, I can't support either position here.

Or maybe we say, you know what?

I really am good with however this goes, whether we pass this tax proposal, we pass this amendment or not, I think there's value on both sides, and I don't feel like in this situation that I need to choose this side.

That can be a way of handling our citizenship in good faith.

But there is a difference between that and just checking out and saying it's too hard.

I'm just going to bury that in the ground.

And as I have been looking at this, and I have been thinking about this podcast episode and with the upcoming election, I didn't plan it this way.

But I feel like that it is very appropriate for us to take what we've been talking about over these last eight weeks, looking at the beatitudes and to say if we ever have a time, that we need to not just hear this, not to just be hearers of the word, but actually be doers of the word, which is what Jesus said exemplified the life of a genuine follower, then we need to live out these beatitudes in this election season.

And so how are we going to do that?

First of all, we need to acknowledge our poverty.

No Christian is a self made man or woman.

We are all dependent on God for everything we need.

And that is retaining an attitude of humility and recognizing our neediness in this world, our need for strength to get up every day and to do the right thing.

That's part of having a spirit, of being poor in spirit.

The second that we can do is we keep an attitude of mourning about the neediness that we and others are in.

We live in a broken, needy world and we need to be more concerned about someone's suffering than their ideology, even if their ideology is what is causing their suffering.

Now hear me on this.

I am not saying that ideology doesn't matter.

I have little patience for people, whether they're Christians or not, who are lazy with their intellectual work and efforts.

We have been given a brain to think, and it wasn't just put there because God couldn't figure out what better thing to stick in our heads.

We have a responsibility with our thoughts.

We are told throughout scripture that as a person thinks in their heart, so are they.

We are taught that we are transformed by the renewing of our mind.

Our thoughts are incredibly important.

Our beliefs matter.

But there is a difference between wanting someone's ideology to shape up because it reduces or removes our conflict with them, and because we want them to be their best self, to know and to experience the divine work of God in their life.

We can want the same thing, but it also goes to, why do we want that?

That's going to say, are we choosing to have an attitude of mourning about the neediness of this world and the brokenness of this world?

Or are we just want people to shape up so it will make our life easier?

The third beatitude is about embracing meekness.

You know, genuine meekness is one of the greatest strengths there is.

A person who can stand their ground with gentleness, is powerful, and we can look at history.

We can think of Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, and, yes, even Jesus as being models of meekness that had tremendous power and influence.

Next, we need to stay more hungry for righteousness, not political victory for our candidate.

And here we just need to ask ourselves some very real questions.

Are we spending more time in the word or in the news?

Are we more focused on prayer or polls?

Not answering those questions doesn't make them insignificant.

We need to walk with the humility that says, we need to be asking ourselves very real, tangible, practical questions like this.

Next, extend mercy.

We don't want to be like the person that Jesus told the story about who was forgiven this tremendous debt he would never be able to repay.

And then he turns around and he goes out and he chokes his companion, because his.

And his companion isn't able to just return and immediately pay off this very small debt.

Here's the truth.

Heaven is not going to be divided between red and blue hats.

Okay?

Now, I know some of you are like, well, of course not, because there is no way that red hats would ever be able to make it into heaven.

And others of you might be thinking, well, of course it won't be divided, because there is no way blue hats can possibly make it into heaven.

And if you are listening to this in another country and you're like, what is with the red hat and blue hat?

It is because in the United States, we have colors assigned to our two dominant political parties, red for Republicans and blue for the Democrats.

And so that's.

That's what I'm referring to there.

For those of you who might not know that, and you.

You live in other countries, but we need to be people of mercy and remember that our primary debt is to God.

It is not to a political party.

Next, keep a pure heart.

Again, this isn't just about what we do or don't do externally.

It's not just enough to not get on your social media feed and respond to somebody's post that you think is just idiotic and letting them know how much of an idiot they are.

It's also not thinking those things in your heart.

You know, proverbs lists seven things that God hates, and we need to really take this seriously.

The first is pride.

The second is lies.

The third is shedding innocent blood.

The fourth is a schemer, a person who intentionally devises ways to commit or get other people to commit evil.

The next is a person who's quick to sin, who doesn't stop and think things through.

A false witness.

Someone whose lies can harm another individual.

And what's the last one?

A person who stirs up dissension.

Hello, do we have any of that going around right now?

The 7th beatitude also is about being a peacemaker.

Are we more focused on bringing other people to salvation, to helping them make peace with Goddess through Jesus Christ, or are we more concerned about bringing other people into the tent of our political party?

We need to really be honest about that.

And the last beatitude, about persecution.

And here's where we need to be intellectually honest as well as spiritually humble.

There is a difference between persecution that results from our enemies efforts to defeat God's work and the consequences of bad behavior.

Jesus didn't just say blessed are you when you are persecuted.

Period.

He said, blessed are you when you are persecuted for what?

For righteousness sake.

For doing what is right and right as it is defined by God, not by our ideologies.

Now, some of you might have tuned in and you might have listened all the way to the end, because you are hoping that what I'm going to do is I'm going to tell you who I am or am not voting for with our presidential candidates, or I'm going to.

I'm going to lobby who you should vote for.

I'm not doing that.

And it's not because I don't care or I think it doesn't matter.

Again, go back to the beginning of the podcast and what I've talked about in previous podcast episodes.

Our citizenship is something that we have been given that we have a responsibility to be a good steward of, and we don't get to excuse ourselves to go bury that talent in the ground because it's just too difficult to take out into the real world and have to do something with.

However, my hope is not fixed on a political party or candidate.

And as christians, that should be a true statement for all of us.

You know, there's the best selling australian author of all time, FW Boram.

If you haven't read any of his stuff, it's, it's a little different in its language than, than modern writers.

And so sometimes if you go back to his original works, then there's a little bit of language structure that you might have to kind of work around a little bit, unless you're used to, to reading that type of older style writing.

And I'm not talking archaic, okay?

I'm not talking like you have to go back and it's not like you're reading medieval monks, but.

So it wasn't that old.

He was in the late 18 hundreds to the early 19 hundreds.

But he wrote the following in his book entitled my Christmas book, a handful of myrrh, aloes and Cassia.

And I've abridged it just slightly, very, very slightly.

I haven't made any significant changes to it at all, just slightly modified the language for clarity.

And this is a powerful word that we especially need to keep in mind during this contentious, tumultuous, divisive election season.

Ready?

Here it goes.

And all the while, in their own home, babies were being born during that year.

William Gladstone was born in Liverpool, Alfred Tennyson in Summersby, Oliver Wendell Holmes in Massachusetts, Felix Mendelsohn in Hamburg, and Abraham Lincoln in Kentucky.

My friend, if you are listening and you are a citizen of the United States, I want to encourage you balance these two truths and tension.

On one hand, your citizenship is something that you are called to steward.

On the other hand, so are the people in your lives, whether they are little babies showing up in your home, whether they are your spouse, your elderly parent, your neighbor, your colleague, that person who goes to church with you and is in your small group that has a totally different political viewpoint than you have.

Elections matter, but they are not the final end all of life.

And we need to remember that as we look at this political battle, that we don't sacrifice the babies, so to speak, in our lives and the people in our lives for the political battle.

All right, my friend, that's going to wrap us up.

I ask that you would be thoughtful, you would be prayerful, and that you would make a determination to live out these beatitudes.

Go back.

Maybe what you do is every day between now and the election, or every day for now and through the rest of the end of this year, is to just read those few verses in Matthew, chapter five.

The Beatitudes don't even take five minutes to read.

But these statements can radically transform how you show up and engage in life.

And it matters because you do have an impact that is immeasurable, eternal, and irreplaceable.

Thank you for listening.

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