Transcript
Speaker: Welcome back to Grove Hills Podcast. We are excited you're here and joining us today for our conversation. My friends, John Ballard and Mr. Kyle Hess. Excited to have them along for the conversation. We're going to talk about something. I'm going to just go ahead and say this. We don't have like a big production team. You're looking at it. This is us. We don't have researchers. You know, they're they we're it. You've Jeff Tracy. We yeah what was it? Probably two, three.
Speaker: At least three months ago, started talking about podcast ideas and thoughts and topics. We sat down, we just said to Chad GBT, hey, give us some great topics to talk about from a Christian perspective. And whether it was intentional or not, Chad GBT landed on politics today. Here we are just six days away from the midterms, probably a little bit Further away by the time you listen to this, but obviously it's still on our mind. Politics is a constant thing here in our country. um it it literally seems like to me the minute a guy gets elected, he starts campaigning for his knis you know yeah next election period.
Speaker: So it's it's a lot to deal with. And the truth is, if you're going to live in America, you have been given some God-given rights and responsibilities as a citizen of the United States of America that sadly, too many of us just cast aside. We don't take them very seriously. So we want to talk a little bit about that today. We were just talking before we came online. We've We're not going to try to pretend like we are neutral here. We're not. Okay. In fact, that's part of the problem with our country, right? and That's right. Too many people trying to play neutral and not we being willing to speak up. ah But we are going to talk primarily about how our relationship with Christ should impact humanity. how we confront politics, how we engage the communities around us, um, how we engage in government ourselves and how we respond to people we disagree with. Because that's a place where I believe Christians have really dropped the ball in the public sector. And, um, I know that it's easy to point fingers at everybody else and go, but they're doing this or they're doing that. Um,
Speaker: If you read scripture well, what you say is that Christ expects us to take responsibility for who we are, not what everybody else does. All right? So let's start with the conversation. Politics matters, but it's never supposed to be your identity. Right?
Speaker: Politics matters, but it's never supposed to be your identity. And and to me, the the obvious place to go is ah is the book of Philippians where Paul says to us, this is not our home. There's there's something else that's beyond this. yeah For me, as I watched the aftermath of last the last election, what I saw was a whole lot of Christians who... crumble when things don't go the way they think they should. Which says to me, you're too too closely identified with your party, your political party, or your political topics. Right?
Speaker: So speak to me a little bit about that. What are we... What do we do? How do we get people to not respond that way? Yeah, there's ah I think there's a difference between um fighting for it and then just having your faith locked up in something. You can fight for it. You can stand for it. You can vote for it. You can push for it. um But if something doesn't go your way, um it's not something that should take you down personally because you're saying your hope was in that rather than your hope was in the Lord. And so there's a passion behind it. There's a love behind it. There's a drive behind it. But at the same time, ah the results are in the Lord's hands. And so do what you can fight for it.
Speaker: um But don't be so wrapped up in it that if it doesn't go your way, you're stomping or throwing a fit. you know i love the the term kingdom citizenship. ah Our kingdom citizenship should always drive our earthly citizenship. It's kind of like where we see in Scripture, render unto Caesar where to Caesar's, not so much so that it deviates from God's law. So I love what Colossians 1, kind of Paul reminds, and you mentioned Philippians, is this cool thought of remember who you are. Remember who bought you with the price. And so when you go to the ballot box, and we're going to talk about this today, but it's
Speaker: remember who's you are. And sometimes we, we compartmentalize that in America really well of like, Oh no, I can leave my faith. No, you can't. You can't leave your faith when you go to the ballot box. sure Yeah. A few weeks ago, prior to the election, Philip Anthony Mitchell in Atlanta, great, great, great pastor. challenging his people made this comment. I thought, man, this is a home run kind of statement. He said, when you enter into the the voting booth, you don't vote as a Democrat or Republican. You vote as a member of the kingdom. That's right.
Speaker: So it's not about parties. and And I think I can safely say that it's not about Republicans or Democrats because there's idiots on both sides of the aisle. There are corrupt people on both sides of the aisle. There are people who are you know you wouldn't You wouldn't trust to watch your child. right you know just Sadly, that's where we've gotten this country. And to me, that's one of the most heartbreaking things about it. I still believe that America has the greatest potential of any country on the face of the earth.
Speaker: And every election, I come away going, this is the best we have to offer. right And what's happened is our our political system has gotten so cut through, so absolute, take winner, take all that nobody who has any love for their family would dare enter into politics because it's going to rip apart. It's going to be, they're going to go over every sin that you've ever committed. They're going to tear apart every bad choice you've ever made in your life. And like, ah I promise I'll go back and pay for the milk I took in second grade, you know, I mean, for crying out loud. You're right.
Speaker: um And to be fair, that's part of the accountability system. I mean, that you know, if you you're a public figure and you do things wrong, you've got to know people are going to watch you. But I just think it's crossed some very, very yeah clear boundaries into some some bad stuff. ah So let me let me kind of skier steer off of this outline for a second and just throw two statements at you. I want you to kind of contrast them a little bit. um Hibs.
Speaker: hibs Jack Hibbs, pastor in California, made this comment. He said, it seems like after elections, people tend to want to just kind of cast it off and dismiss the results and simply say, God is in charge. And he says, it's not an untrue statement, but God was in charge at Sodom and Gomorrah, too. That doesn't mean that bad things aren't happening and that Christians shouldn't be engaged trying to prohibit it from happening. So that speaks to the reality of, man, as Christians, we have got to be willing to speak up and raise our voice. On the other end, I saw a lot of comments specifically yesterday where people were going, hey, if if the outcome of this election changed
Speaker: destroyed your faith and what was your faith in and begin with? And I think those are two equally powerful statements that kind of contradict each other a little bit. So let's let's unpack that a little bit. yeah What is the proper response when your team doesn't get the ball?
Speaker: Oh, I would say, i think I mentioned this another time before, hold on, but don't hold on too tightly. oh that's good. ah And God calls us to live in the here and now. ah You say this often, Kyle, and I love it because I've told my kids this, like be where God has planted you, like where your feet are at, be there and give 100% effort. So what does that mean for us as believers? It means that Yes, I'm not going to go full-fledged and say, oh, God's just going to have his way and we'll just let him.
Speaker: God calls participation into the into the game. And so we have to have that. And we also have to say, you know, at the end of the day, if we need to give it to God, then yes, give it to God in the midst of trusting when...
Speaker: really wacko leaders get into place and you're thinking, how in the world are we going to sustain? ah it It is, it's a hard paradox to think about, but yeah, I think we got to hold onto it, but not too tightly and kind of, I'm not trying to be political with my answer, but I think you have to run the middle ground with that to participate in the things that God asks us to participate in. Yeah. I don't feel like you dodged the question. and okay. We might circle back to it later. Yeah. Yeah. So in other words, we should be engaged but not consumed by it. Yeah, yeah. It should determine the joy or and lack of joy in our day or whatever. I think ah a lot of times we count it to that one moment of the one vote and then we're done. And it's like, man, we should be infiltrating the the school board systems. We should be attending city hall meetings. We should be active in those areas constantly. Yeah. Because we all know that it starts on the lower levels. Each one of your presidents started somewhere lower and worked their way up, and maybe except for Trump. But most of them started in these low-level areas and then ended up in presidencies. And so um I think being involved other than just a one vote every other year, every two years. and yeah you know
Speaker: I think probably there's a lot of emotion involved in that too. It's kind of like... um building up and getting ready for the championship game the whole season's riding on this you get to it and boom you lose and it's like this huge deflating feeling when it's all over with and you kind of walk away going you know where i want wall life yeah yeah so um yeah um I kind of want veer off a little bit. i want to say some other things, but we'll get to that in just a minute.
Speaker: Here's the thing that we all can agree on, I think, as Christians. Our political disagreements with other people should never cause us to use unchristian behavior towards somebody else.
Speaker: Amen. Yeah. Amen to that. We have, and y'all will know who I'm talking about when I say this, but we have a lady that used to be a part of our church. She's a nut, but everybody loved her. She's just the sweetest, kindest person. She didn't afraid to tell you what she thought, all this kind of stuff. I was floored the day I found out that she was a supporter of a party that I do not support. I'm going to try to be honest with that. That's right. And I thought to myself, you know, what what a perfect lesson. Here's somebody who I worship with every single Sunday, hugged her neck every single Sunday. She always laughed and encouraged me. I did the same for her. And it never had to be about our political differences.
Speaker: sure And I feel like that's the way we should be as a nation. That's right. You know? um So I think that's an encouragement. We all should, we should think about those things. We live in ah and a political environment, a culture today too, where it's become a bigger problem because now it's not enough just to disagree. But if I don't like the way Kyle voted, then I'm supposed to write him off. Right. You are no longer a valid human. Right. Basically for some people. Yeah.
Speaker: So, yeah. Yeah. All right, let's get down to to brass tacks. What was the big problem that you saw coming out of last election? but What broke your heart more than anything besides the behavior of Christians? Probably the statistics of, well, you just said behavior of Christians, the lack of voting from the evangelical Christian. um There's someone close to me used to complain all the time about results of elections and that person never voted.
Speaker: um And it's really aimless. It's pointless. Right. To have any thought of having an opinion about something when you didn't pull up your pants and go to work and yeah vote for, you know, vote in the system. And so yeah um probably just the lack of engagement from the Christians. those you aren't aware, I shared this with our congregation yesterday.
Speaker: Last midterm election or last election in 20, I guess it was the midterm in 22, 25% of evangelical Christians got out and voted. And I mean, I have seen huge pushes from large pastors, yeah large church pastors all across the country, organizations trying to get people out. This past election, the numbers I'm hearing are 17%. So we got worse instead of better. Wow.
Speaker: And yet we're all over social media complaining and whining about what happened. So... ah What was your most frustrating thing out last week? I think I'm going to make the the sports reference unsportsmanlike conduct.
Speaker: It's one thing to disagree, and I'm fine. I've got plenty of friends. I've even got family members. yeah Thanksgiving, we'll disagree on some things. right But I don't have to go and be a jerk. like It's one thing. um and Now, there there are sometimes where I want to be because there's things like abortion that come to light. And I'm like...
Speaker: How do you not see life? How do you not see those those things? But even in those conversations, I have to temper myself to say, i can tell them, hey, what you're doing is not right. If you follow scripture, if we see these things, this is how we have to follow it. But I would say almost to the point of, let's let's rewind the tape back to Charlie Kirk, where someone thinks it's okay to go fire a gun off and kill a person who is speaking with freedom of speech and sharing those things.
Speaker: I don't think we're, we're that far off from something else happening again, because people just think, Oh, I don't agree with you. So I'll kill you. Right. Uh, or I don't agree with you. So therefore I'm going to cut off all influence that you have in my life or participation in life. And it I just think it's a little sad that we've gotten to that point as a country.
Speaker: Yeah. Uh, Can't remember the name podcast. Two ladies on the podcast last week spent 30 seconds laughing at the suggestion they should dig up Charlie Kirk and shoot him again. Gosh. I mean how inhumane is that? this This is a man who left behind a wife and two young children.
Speaker: I don't care what you think about his political beliefs or what he stated. And the truth is, I didn't know that much about him until he got shot. right I just knew he was a conservative. Yeah. it actually made me learn more about him. Yeah. um But for the, for someone to suggest that a human being should be degraded to the point of just being a target for an assassin, that's just, that's insane. Yeah. Yeah. And it, it makes me want to pass a law. It says, you make that kind of comment. We take you out back and show you what feels mean, that just doesn't, that just, it's so foreign to me. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. It is. ah My biggest point of fifth frustration, and and I don't mean this like it's going sound, but just ignorance. Yeah. Yeah. People who vote without really knowing the facts, who don't understand the issues, who don't understand the statistics and the reasons why and the things that the connections, all that kind of stuff. People who make statements like two plus two might equal four, but two plus two doesn't equal four. i mean, you're going, those two don't even add up. You know, yeah you're you're really way off base. Yeah.
Speaker: When you have, and this is where I'm fixing cross the line from being the neutral pastor here, when you have candidates who stand in support of political ideology that says we're going to do away with the Constitution of United States, why in the world would you elect them? That's treason. That's literally treason in our country. But we're going to elect that guy. We're going him run our government. Oh, well, let's see how that works for you. yeah You know why people voted the way they did more than any other reason last week?
Speaker: entitlement yeah Who's going to give us the most so we don't have to suffer? And that's not the way free societies work. Yeah. I had ah someone when was in high school. i was trying to figure out the system of voting and everything. And they said, if worse comes to worse, just vote your pocketbook. And I'm sitting there going, okay. And I remember those words very clearly. And as I got to that age of voting, was like, yeah ah no, right? Like, I don't care what the tax or what the process or the tariffs, I don't care about any of that. Is who's promoting
Speaker: The killing of children in the womb? Yeah. Who's protecting the children in the womb, right? Yeah. Who's promoting the two genders of the Bible, where God says man and woman, and then who's degrading that? And those are the issues that started popping out to me is is where can I stand closest to the Bible in my vote? Yeah. I don't care if you take my all my money in taxes. Yeah. As long as I could do what I can to protect a baby in a womb.
Speaker: Yeah. And that's, you know, one of the complaints I've heard in recent years, especially from those on the left, is the church needs to stay out of politics. False.
Speaker: Number one, that's false. But number two, we weren't the one that crossed the border. That's right. Politics crossed over into the issues of the church. That's right. If you want to talk about highways and armies to defend and provision of public services, let's talk about that. That's government. That's politics. That's what we should be talking about. If you want to talk about whether or not a man born with a part between his legs is a man versus a woman, that is that's not politics. That is a moral issue, and the church should not only be in that conversation, it should be leading that conversation. Yeah.
Speaker: So it's not time for the church to get out politics. It's time for politics get out the church and the church to be more involved. yeah We are built on, I won't call it Christian principles because not all of it's Christian, but it's definitely on on biblical principles all over the Bible. Everything from the way our government is set up, by the way, which came from the book of Exodus where Matthew was told, i meant not Matthew, Moses was told by Jethro, you need to set up a system. Yeah. Well, we learned from that, okay? Problem is, America has stopped learning. We've chosen to become ignorant. Our system is set up to keep us ignorant so that people in power can stay in power, no matter how dumb they are. Yes. Anyway, sorry. Three questions I especially want to address with us, okay? then we'll We'll hit these pretty quickly. Number one, can a Christian be politically conservative or liberal and still be a faithful follower of Jesus?
Speaker: Ask that one more time. Say it one more time. Can a Christian be politically conservative or liberal and still be a faithful follower of Jesus? I think there's so much openness to those terms because a conservative and liberal. Yes. Like I would consider myself a conservative, definitely not a liberal, but somebody could say, Oh, how well, what are we, what are we saying?
Speaker: Liberal to somebody else might be um I'm okay with, you know, doing X with the tax system. yeah So I would say um I'm not going to be political. Okay.
Speaker: Make me go out there all by myself and stand. That's it. No, I would say that, yes, you can be follower of Christ. Now, you start going and following those up with some more questions, then maybe the line gets drawn where I would say, no, you're probably not follower of Christ. Well, we used to be liberal.
Speaker: 40 years ago is entirely different from what's liberal today. yeah So I would say I'm kind of following along the lines of your line of thinking right now. yeah um One of my brothers asks me all the time, are you a Calvinist or army? And I'm like, if you want to talk about scripture yeah and the Bible and each individual issue, I'm glad to engage in that with you. But if you try to label me in either one of those camps, it's going to come with a whole rash of assumptions about who I am in Christ. And so...
Speaker: Can you? Yes. But like to lump yourself into one area versus another area, there's a whole, whole rash of things in the conservative party that don't, yeah i don't even want to engage with. Right. But if you want to talk about individual issues, gladly I'll, I'll stand on one of those. Right. And so if I accepted all the ideologies of the liberal party,
Speaker: No, I don't think you could be a definitely follower of Christ and engage in that same thing. Extreme right, extreme left. Yes. You're looking at areas that do not align with scripture. Well, because I would even say to the far right conservative, they put their hope in the nation yeah over the the hope in God. And so right I think there is that. And you do. You got to make sure that you ask those follow up questions. I think. Listen, yeah you know, I'll be transparent about this.
Speaker: Last election, not this past year, but the one before I voted for conservative principles and values. The Republican Party betrayed my vote. They had both houses. They had the presidency. They had the opportunity to do a whole lot of stuff. They failed miserably. There's no reason we should be in the middle of the Iran war right now. That's my opinion. OK, that's a conservative opinion. and How did that in any way help address any of the problems here domestically that we need to be dealing with?
Speaker: You know, inflation, gas prices, families without food, those kinds of things. I think sometimes both parties are guilty of doing things just to spite the other party when deep down inside they go, you know, that's probably not the right thing, but it's just going to spite the other party. And it's like...
Speaker: Chuck Schumer, Chuck, I don't have a brain left in my head, Schumer, comes out after the election and says, now we're going to do everything we can to keep the president from succeeding in anything. So what if he says, we're going to give a thousand dollar raise to the Democrats?
Speaker: you're You've made a statement now that doesn't, you can't even back up that statement. You're just throwing stuff around. yeah As you can tell, pretty irate about this whole thing. All right. Number two, should pastors address political issues from the pulpit?
Speaker: Let's go. i love the the boldness that I'm seeing in this generation of pastors that are speaking clarity from the pulpit. yeah ah What we were just talking about, politics has always been in spiritual. like There's always been a sense of God wanting things to have order whenever it came to public formation of people. So yes, we need more people to speak up about Kingdom citizenship in the middle of politics.
Speaker: The first sermon I ever ah delivered was right before the 2020 election or 2016. I don't remember. But it was titled, Pray, Vote, Pray. And it was the week leading up to the election. And I got told by probably 20 people afterwards, I made a mistake. you know i kept looking I kept looking back at it going,
Speaker: I don't think so. I talked about gender. I talked about protecting babies. I talked about our convictions through the Holy Spirit of what scripture tells us to fight for. And we're fighting for it. And we're fighting for it as the body of Christ. And so my stance is for sure. I mean, we're taking these issues straight to the front line because if if the church isn't being a voice in these issues, yeah nobody's nobody's going to on that side of things. And so it's going to slowly just keep going down the drain.
Speaker: Is it fair to say that if churches choose not to be involved, then they are in essence refusing to be salt and light in our culture? Sure. I think ah Dietrich Bonhoeffer comes to mind. I'm like, you become almost complicit in some ways because if you're not going to stand up for the innocent, when the innocent, I mean, Christ calls us to stand up for the innocent. And if we're not doing it, then who is?
Speaker: I think it Sir Edmund Burke who said, the only thing that's necessary for evil to win out in this world is for good men to do nothing. Mm-hmm. And that's pretty much what happened in this last election. continues to happen. And here's here's the thing.
Speaker: i'm I'm old enough to remember back the Wednesday night that the Ellen DeGeneres show, not the not the talk show, but the actual show she used to be on. the They called it a comedy. It wasn't very funny. They had the first lesbian kiss on TV. And people went ballistic going, this can't happen. And of course...
Speaker: Mainstream media came out said, you guys are blowing this out of proportion. It's just one kiss, blah, blah, blah. I don't know if we bought into it or if we just did what we typically did as Christians. We just tucked our tail and listened to what the mainstream media told us to do. yeah um But there were people, there were prophetic voices, I would say, at that time who were speaking out saying, guys,
Speaker: We've got to respond because if we don't, the next thing that'll happen will be this and then it'll be this and then it'll be this. And here we are. I think it's a approximately 30 years after that kiss, maybe maybe a little bit less.
Speaker: we're we're reaping the consequences of not making a stand. And now we're debating whether or not there are six genders. We're debating whether or not your eight-year-old can have a sex change. We're debating whether or not, well, actually not even debating it now in L.A., part of L.A. last week in the election, they actually gave legal protections to threesomes and foursomes in marriage.
Speaker: And back 30 years ago No, that's not what they want. That's not what they want to happen. So here's what I'm going to tell you. If you're a Christian, listen this day. i want you to hear this. Okay. i'm I'm not trying to be a prophet, but, but after the last 30 years of change, I'll tell you what's going happen next. They're going to come after your children. They're going to want to ask permission to have, or not really ask it, take permission to have sexual relationships with your children without parent parental permission. yeah They are going to continue to degrade life to the point where we're going to be worldwide. Yeah.
Speaker: taking the lives of people who we just don't you're not fat enough you're not tall enough you're not skinny enough whatever reasons yeah that's going to be coming next ah thirdly it's going to be kind of a almost like a war zone in my mind because we're not going to punish evil anymore do you see where Gavin Newsom completely wiped out the death row in California, set 586 people from death row to life imprisonment. One stroke of a pen and most of those victims' families had no voice in it.
Speaker: So, I mean, we're just, we keep, it's kind of like the old saying, you keep doing stupid things and you get stupid results. yeah You know, if we're going to sit at home as Christians and not take part in the active right that we have been given to have a voice in this country,
Speaker: then we get what we deserve. So, any final thoughts? Unfortunate, if that's the direction. yeah you know Yeah. ah Praise God for people like Jack Kibbs. Praise God for people like Joby Martin and Josh Howerton and Matt Chandler and Philip Anthony Michael and other guys who are standing up and saying, okay, church, it's time to wake up. yeah um But we'll see. yeah Time will only tell. Wake up, O sleepers. yeah yeah Wake up, sleepers, for sure. yeah Any final thoughts today?
Speaker: um Control the controllables, church. if If we are in Christ and we are bought with the price and we see these things that Christ did for us, remember who you are and remember what you're doing it in light of uh that matthew 5 16 so you can give so you can give glory to your father in heaven he gives us the opportunity to good works so do them you know quit sitting on the sidelines quit saying oh man i hope this gets better you don't hope for things to get better you participate in things getting better so yeah I would encourage you to engage your kids in all these topics. yeah
Speaker: Something my wife and I have always done is we take them with us when we go voting. And we want them to feel that like that responsibility, yeah that duty from a very young age to say, this is my country.
Speaker: I'm going to fight for it. I'm going to do my due diligence to study the topics that are at hand to know what I'm voting for. So I'm not just going in there and saying, I don't know any of these names. ah This one has an R next to it, you know, or this one has a whatever um to know and to start having that conversation with them. So they understand why they understand why we're doing this. And then they feel that same responsibility to follow in footsteps.
Speaker: I think the last thing I would remind you, and encourage you of is the church's mission is never changed by the results of an election. It always stays the same. That's right. Um, In fact, I would go so far as to say that if the church the church as a whole in the United States of America, if it ever got serious about doing its responsibilities, then the government would be forced to step out of some of the roles it's taken and just play in its it's yard where it needs to play. That's right. Take care of building a military. Take care of paving roads and supporting you know public institutions, those kinds of things. Let the church handle the things the church should be handling. Amen. All right. Let me pray for us.
Speaker: Boy, that was a downer kind of podcast. I thought it fun. He's still on the throne, right? Amen to that. Father God, thank you that you are indeed in power at all times. No matter who is in the power of the house or the senate or even the oval office, Father, you're the one who is in the seat of ultimate power.
Speaker: And we thank you for that. We ask, Lord, that as the church of Jesus Christ, that we would become more unified. that we become more vocal, and that we would take the responsibility we have to use those voices to make change.
Speaker: um The church will never be what the church needs to be if we get sidetracked by those things, Lord, though. Our identity is not found in being a Democrat and an independent or a Republican. It is found in being a kingdom, a kingdom citizen, Lord. So I just pray, Father, that those who are hearing this today, that their hearts are encouraged. You have not changed. Your character is not different today because of what happened at the last election, Lord. And so today, as we walk our journey, may we be proud and courageous and vocal and loving and supporting this world and helping them to understand all the lengths you've gone to to purchase them for yourself.
Speaker: Thank you for these two guys and for their wisdom as we shared today. And for those who are listening, I pray that they are reminded we don't worship a political system and we don't worship a political party. We worship King Jesus.
Speaker: It's in his name we pray. Amen. We hope you'll be coming back to join us next time. I'm not sure what the topic's going to be, but I'm sure it won't be nearly as fun as this one was. We're glad you listened and we're glad you hit the like button and share and hope that you'll come back and join us for our next conversations.
Speaker: Bye.
