Pastor Tony Evans talks ‘Kingdom voting,' says Church has become bad example of who God is
Pastor Tony Evans, the longtime pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Texas, launched a new sermon series, titled “Kingdom Voting,” on Sunday, preaching on what God has to say to Christians about how to vote.
The pastor began his sermon acknowledging that a conversation on voting can easily become toxic, as people take sides and remain dedicated to their positions.
There’s divisiveness not only in the culture but also in the Church “that has facilitated disharmony, disunity and conflict in the broader society,” he said months ahead of the presidential election.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
And that is due to a lack of proper Kingdom perspective when it comes to God’s activity in society," the Dallas pastor noted. This is why “the Church has become as bad as, or worse than, the world, allowing ourselves to be a poor example of who God is and how God functions with regards to government.”
So how should a Christian vote?
“Until the Church gets it right, the culture can’t get it right,” he emphasized.
The Kingdom perspective is in the Bible but the problem, he said, is that people who profess to be Christians often “change books,” or take part of the book, when it comes to their political positioning. We can’t ignore “the whole counsel of God,” he warned.
“Kingdom voting is the opportunity and responsibility of committed Christians to partner with God by expanding His rule in society through civil government,” Evans explained. “It’s only to the degree that you include God’s person and God’s policies in society through civil government — as He defines it, not as you prefer it — that we can begin to see healing in the Church so that it can be modeled in the culture.
“The further God is removed from the life of an individual, from the life and definition of a family, form the life and definition of the Church, from the life and definition of the citizenry of a society, the more chaotic those entities become.”
He quoted Joshua 5:13: “While Joshua was near Jericho, he raised his eyes and saw one who stood facing him, drawn sword in hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, ‘Are you one of us or one of our enemies?’”
Some can interpret that to mean, in the context of voting, that conservative candidates are on Christians’ side because they too are conservatives, and that Democrats are against us as they are against conservatives, the pastor told the congregants.
Reading the next verse, Evans underlined that the commander of the army of the Lord said he’s on the side of “neither.”
“God’s political position" is that “He is a Kingdom independent.”
God is not on our side just because we are Christians, he emphasized.
You may decide to vote for a Republican or a Democratic or a libertarian candidate, he said, but “every Christian should be a Kingdom independent.”
God does not want to take sides, Evans added. He is there to “take over” because He rules the nations.
