Worship and Vote

We have gathered to declare the Lordship of Jesus Christ over all heaven and earth.  We are not hunkering down in our Christian ghetto here away from the world; we are meeting in the midst of the world declaring Christ’s majesty over that world and all of it.  Having begun our work for this week here, resting in the completed work of Jesus and simply offering Him the sacrifice of our praise, we will then be sent out all over this little part of the world to show forth Christ’s love and righteousness in innumerable ways.

One of the ways we should do that this week is by casting our votes in the civil realm for candidates and policies that reflect the Lordship of Jesus and His Law.  In our day, there are no candidates nor are there any policies that openly announce such a submission.  No one says, “I hold to thus and such as the proper way to govern on this issue because it best reflects the law and desires of the King of kings according to the teachings of scripture.”

We do pray that one day the kind of candidates and politicians that we elect will in fact say such things.  However, because we do not have that in front of us today on our ballots does not mean that we should not participate.  Reformation is messy.  Reformation is slow.  And the kingdom of God spreads slowly, like leaven in the lump, like the smallest seed in the garden.

We do not believe that politics or the civil government is our Savior.  We do not, but the world in which we live today does.  And so we must not vote hoping to save our society through politics.  Rather, we should vote believing that God will save our politics; that our Savior, the Lord Jesus, will save our civil government.  If He does not do so, then He will certainly bring His judgment to bear – in even greater measure than He already has.  And so we come here to worship, we pray for mercy, and then we go and vote our consciences, influenced by the teaching of the Word of God and the anointing of the Holy Spirit.