Wake Up, Look Up

Hello everyone, and thanks for listening to Wake Up, Look Up, a podcast where we connect events happening in real time to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Zach Weihrauch, and in today's episode, we're asking the question, can you put down your politics? This is prompted by an op ed piece I read in the Wall Street Journal recently by Ben Sassy, who was formerly a senator in Nebraska and then later the president of the University of Florida. A confessing Christian, a kind of conservative thinker who had a great argument. I thought about how politics should be more like the Super Bowl. Now, hear me out, or I guess I should say hear him out on this. His point is this. by the time you're watching this, you've probably coming off watching the Super Bowl. 127 million Americans, it's estimated, watched the game alongside you, many of them rooting for the Patriots, rooting for the Seahawks, arguing over whether or not one team would win or the other. But Sassy says, we love the Super Bowl. We make chip, we bring chips, we make dip. We have a good time rooting for our team. And then when it's over, we let it be over. We go back to our actual lives. We. We go back to work Monday morning to the things that. That matter. It doesn't matter who you were rooting for in the Super Bowl. It doesn't matter the trash you were talking. It doesn't matter what. How you felt about the halftime show, because that's a game and the game is over. What he says is that politics should be a little more like that politics. That's not a game. But he says it should be the kind of thing that we can argue about and then put aside to get into the things that actually matter. We ought to be able to argue about it over chips and diplomats and then kind of lock arms and move forward, raising children, building communities, advancing the things that actually matter in life. His fear, and I think he's right on this, is when politics becomes your identity, when it becomes all that matters to you. The problem is not only do you see everything through the lens of the political world, you can't actually put it down. Everywhere you go, there are political conversations. In fact, a good test for this is whether or not people kind of brace for impact. When you walk into a room, if every conversation ends up being about Donald Trump, for example, one way or the other, you have a balance problem. We have a balance problem. Look, First Corinthians 13, 2 is so important here, because here's what it says. If I have all faith, as so to move mountains by what I have not love, I am nothing. The Bible calls us to faith. It calls us to the kind of faith that can move mountains. Paul is riffing off of something Jesus himself said in the Gospels. But what Paul is saying is, even if you have the kind of faith Jesus wants you to have, if you don't love, it's meaningless. So let me rephrase this for those of you who maybe are struggling to put down your political identity, even. Even if your political party is right about everything, and they're not. Even if all your political opinions are right, and they're not. But you have not love. You are nothing. So here's a quick test for you. Everybody in your life probably knows how you voted, how you tend to vote, and which political party you think is right. Do they know you love them? In fact, really, to extrapolate out on Paul's argument, we would be to say this. Your political enemies know that you think they're wrong. They know you think they're a danger to the country. They know you think that all their views are wrong. But do they know that you love them? Because you see the idea out there that being right is what matters. And if you are right, you can be a jerk. And if you are right, you can be obnoxious. And if you're right, you can be insulting and demeaning and unkind. And look, that might be the cultural zeitgeist, but it is not biblical. Though I have all the right views on politics, if I don't have love, I am nothing. Sassy's point is, when we watch the Super Bowl, we get that we don't really care if the Seahawks or the Patriots win. We, want to have a good time with people that we love, and then we put it down and we go do life with them. It's. If you don't see politics the same way Sassy is arguing, and I agree with him, you have mixed up the order of things. We should want to be known for love more than we are known for our political views. And if we get it wrong, we need a little more chips, a little more dip, a little more community, and a little less politics. Hey, thanks for watching this episode of Wake Up, Look Up. If you enjoyed it, please help us get the word out by sharing it with someone you think might benefit from it. And while you're here, make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel to get further content or even download the CCC app, where you'll find even more resources to help you grow in your faith and relationship with Jesus Christ.

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