Wake Up, Look Up

Hello, everyone. 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, is the Cybertruck Satan's car? That might sound like a curious title, but it's prompted by a hilarious well, I should say hilarious and awful article I read in the Atlantic by Sahil Desai called my day inside America's most hated car.

In the article, Desai decides to spend a day in the Washington DC area driving around in a rented Cybertruck just to see what kind of response, he would get. This is because the Cybertruck, of course, is made by Tesla. Tesla is owned by Elon Musk, the world's richest man, and maybe at this point America's most divisive man because of the work he's doing in to cut the federal government. And what Desai found is that the cyber truck is the lightning rod you might think that it is. In fact, he talks about driving around in DC and being given the finger 17 times that day.

People were yelling at him, raging at him, and then on the other side expressing loyalty to him. He said some people, saw the cyber truck as a kind of giant MAGA hat, which either made them love him or hate him. It was a symbol of everything you thought was right about politics or everything you thought was wrong with our world. It's interesting because Desai said his experience of driving the car was great. He he said a lot of cool features, fun to drive, very fast, very strong, but his experience of being inside the car was awful because of the way he was treated.

Now this podcast episode is really not about the cyber truck and it's not about Tesla and it's not about Elon Musk. It's about you and it's about me because this truck, this rider's experience within the truck is actually indicative yet again of the rapidly divisive culture in which we inhabit. An Us versus them kind of culture where you either love something or you hate it. You're either for someone or you're against them. They're your hero or they're your enemy.

The bible warns us about this kind of behavior. Galatians five, Paul talks about be the church being careful of the divisions that conform within it. That those divisions are always from the flesh and never from the spirit. Because the fault line that lies between, Elon Musk and the rest of the world or those who are for the Cybertruck and against it, that fault line goes into the church, not just outside the church. And Paul tells us there will always be reasons for us to be divided.

But those reasons never trump the reason for us to be united, which is our common experience of the grace of Jesus Christ. And in fact, the divisions that separate us inside the church are indicative often of a lack of appreciation for understanding for the gospel that unites us. Jesus tells us, he's he tells us, look, you have heard it said, don't murder. But then he says, if you even look at someone and say, you fool, you're guilty of murder in your heart. That's because hate is a heart posture.

Murder is simply a symptom of that heart posture. So if somebody drives down the road in a cyber truck and you give them the finger according to Jesus, you're as guilty as though you've killed them. Because the truth is, you have killed them, at least emotionally, relationally, intellectually, in your mind, and in your heart. That's Jesus, not not me. The Bible warns us about a kind of virtue signaling that is always wanting to look good and come off as good while harboring hatred for other people in our hearts.

Paul says in first Corinthians 13 that it really doesn't matter what you do or what you say if you don't have love to God. You're just a banging noisy symbol. And if you've ever heard a kid learning to play percussion, you know, that's not a great sound. The truth is that most of us need to repent of the divisions that are out there in the world that are running through our hearts. Most of us need to repent from the reality that we have more in common, we think, with those we politically agree with than those who agree with us on the value and worth and work of Jesus Christ.

It it should not be. Brothers and sisters, what is your Cybertruck? What is the thing when you see it, when you hear it, when you come across it, that instantly causes you to put someone in the category of them, the bad guys, your enemies, those you hate? Listen, if an answer came to mind, you need to repent of that divisiveness. If an answer didn't come to mind, probably you need to repent of pride because that divisiveness lives in me and it lives in you.

It's anti gospel. It's in the way of Jesus. It's not good for you. It's not good for me. It will not lead us somewhere good.

Is this Cybertruck Satan's car? No. But let's make sure neither is your life and neither is mine. Hey. Thanks for watching this episode of Wake Up Look Up.

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