Three swigs. Y'all know what a couple three is? That's a good old Southern colloquial, isn't it? A couple three? Now is a couple three just two or three, or is a couple three six? I don't know. Today as we continue on in our ongoing study in the book of Psalms, we come to Psalm 66. And I told the guys Friday morning at our Friday morning men's breakfast that I had named this, or titled this message, What Is My First Priority? And in second thought, since it's Psalm 66, I thought I might give it a subtitle, right? Get Your Kicks in Psalm 66. Y'all remember that's the old reference to Route 66, right? And we can get our kicks from Psalm 66, but I have a feeling that Psalm 66 is gonna kick us right back. Because we're talking about praising God in the public square. Praising God in the public square. Now, Paul David has given me a big old layup for this particular message, because that's what we were talking about this morning in our Bible study hour. Our outward evangelism, Being a voice in the public square, as I wrote this morning in the Sunday morning text, I don't believe that we have the option or the latitude as Christians just to sit idly by, right? I believe that we are where we are in evangelical life today because we have had close to 40 years now of just sitting idly by. Many of us have come from traditional backgrounds. The background that I came from, the traditional background I came from, when I was a teen, we were taught lifestyle evangelism. We were taught that we don't necessarily have to say anything to anybody, but Following upon the words of Francis of Assisi, who didn't actually say this, by the way, we are to let our lives be a testimony and then, if it's necessary, to verbally preach the gospel. Assisi didn't say that. He actually was driving at the fact that we preach while we hoe. That was what he was doing. He was hoeing potatoes when he gave that most famous quote. You know St. Francis of Assisi? Not St. Francis the sissy, but St. Francis of Assisi said, preach the gospel and if necessary, use words. Well, he was hoeing potatoes when he did that. And the idea was that I preach the gospel when I'm hoeing potatoes, and I preach the gospel when I stand behind the sacred desk on Lord's Day and deliver a message. That there is never a moment in our lives that we are not preaching the gospel. Now, I'm not building this message off of Francis. I'm building this message off of Psalm 66. in which three times in the first 11 verses, David makes reference to declaring the praise of God to the world, to the peoples, to the men, to man. That is, in our modern day definition, the public square. So the idea here is that as we live in this fallen world, as Christians, we live in this fallen world, with God's presence going before us, that presence calls us to take notice of all that God has done in our lives and to declare that, to offer praise to God for what he has done, who he is, the things that he has accomplished in our lives. We are to declare that in the public square. Now, I realize that for a lot of people in the room today, we would say, well, I'm not a pastor. I'm not an elder. I'm not one who is vocationally called to declare the truth of Christ. I'm trying to be faithful in my outward witness. I'm trying to share my faith with my friends and my family, and amen, I'm with you. But we in this country have been given a privilege that I think we have neglected and abandoned for far too long. Now, I'm just gonna let the cat out of the bag and say that at least a portion of my comments today are gonna be geared towards our civic duty in voting. Our civic duty in voting. It snuck up on me. Now I realize that there's been a lot of talk. I know that there's been a lot of podcasts. We all are familiar with what's been going on in this election season, okay? So I'm not gonna rehash any of that. I have my, well, technically I don't have my preferences, because I voted two weeks ago. So you can't convince me of anything. I've already voted. But we're hearing a lot of static. I was greatly troubled as I read several news stories and watched some stories this past week where apparently evangelicals have decided to sit this one out too. We're going on almost 20 years now of evangelicals sitting out of elections. And I think that's a travesty. I just think that is an abrogation of one of the greatest privileges that God has given to us. Yes, to decide who leads our nation, but more fundamentally this, to have our voice heard in the public square. And I think our habits as evangelicals in sitting out elections is not the root cause, it is actually the symptom. It's indicative of a problem within evangelical life today that we will not share our convictions, our voice in the public square. We sit idly by trying to fulfill the creation mandate by cloistering ourselves into little holy huddles of friendly folk and not sharing our faith in the public square. So I ask you, friend, if you believe in the creation mandate, how in the world are we going to fulfill the creation mandate staying at home? Look, I'm not the sharpest tack in the box, but can somebody explain that to me? How we can influence the world by staying at home? How we can share the truth of the gospel by staying at home? Is our evangelism, is our evangelical conviction reserved only to friends and family or a few co-workers or maybe the people we interact with at the gas station or grocery store? Why are we not declaring the praise of God before the world? Why is our voice not being heard? Why are our convictions not going out into the world? Well, because I think we have lost sight of our first priority. Psalm 66, verses 1 to 12. Shout for joy to God all the earth. Sing the glory of his name. Praise to him, give to him glorious praise. Say to God, how awesome are your deeds. Or maybe better said, say of God, how awesome are your deeds. So great. is your power that your enemies come cringing to you. All the earth worships you and sings praises to you. They sing praises to your name. Come and see what God has done. He is awesome in his deeds towards the children of man. He turned the sea into dry land and they passed through the river on foot. There did we rejoice in him who rules by his might forever, whose eyes keep watch on the nations. Let not their rebellious exalt themselves. Bless our God, O peoples. Let the sound of his praise be heard, who has kept our soul among the living and has not let our feet slip. For you, O God, have tested us, You have tried us as silver is tried. You brought us into the net. You laid a crushing burden on our backs. You let men ride over our heads and we went through the fire and through the water. Yet you have brought us out to the place of abundance. Father, we thank you for the day that you have given to us. We continue to praise you, Father, for your grace. for your mercy and your goodness. We thank you for the restorative work of the Lord Jesus Christ, his death on the cross, his atonement, his reconciliation before you, Father. We thank you for the spirit that takes the atonement and makes it operable in the lives of people, regenerating them, raising them from the spiritual deadness of their born condition, transferring them from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of your beloved Son. We thank you for his resident guidance and insight that you give to all of those who love you and are called according to your purposes. We thank you, Father, for your work of redemption. And we admit to you, Father, that so many times we have not only failed to complete our mission, but we have run away from it. In fear, we have shrunk back. We have given in to a spirit of timidity. and we have lost the boldness before your throne. So Father, we ask that you would forgive us now of that timidity and that you would give to us hearts on fire for the gospel and to share that in the world, Father, in the public square, that we might be salt and light in the world and fulfill every mandate that you give to us. We thank you, Father. We praise you for your goodness and your forgiveness, your mercy and your grace. We thank you for your abiding word, of which not one dot or tittle, one smallest stroke will pass away until all things are accomplished. And so, Father, we ask that now as we look upon that most reverent word, that you would cut our hearts to the quick and that you would move us, Father, from where we are to where you want us to be, that we, Father, might be your church in the world. We thank you, Father. We praise you. We glorify you. And we ask these things in your precious and holy name. Amen. Galileo had a very interesting comment on life. He said, the sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent upon it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if the sun had nothing else in the entire universe to do. It is the majesty of God, the grandeur of God, the greatness of God. It's His eminence brought into everyday life. The sun, the moon, the stars, the universe that Spurgeon said that with just a word, God flung the stars into the cosmos as if it were sparks flying off of the forger's anvil. That universe, that sun, that creation, as vast and endless and boundless as it may be, still intersects through the light of the sun to everyday life. It ripens the grape as if it had nothing else to do. And I think it's a great picture of the Word of God in our lives, the word of God in our world. You see, God is immense. The gospel is this great message to the world. The gospel is something that goes beyond our own human reckoning. How is it that the holy creator of all the universe condescended to save a sinner like me? How is it that God, out of his own love, his own glory, gave himself to reconcile somebody like me who has spat in his face time and time again and bring me back to him and adopt me as one of his children? How is that? That's a vast mystery. And yet that vast mystery does not stay in the world of theology or out in the outer bounds of the universe, but that gospel message comes and changes every human heart that it touches. that we have been given a gift in reconciliation through the blood of Jesus Christ to God the Father with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit that is perhaps the greatest treasure, greatest gift that we could ever have been given. And yet God asks us to take that gift into the world and be salt and light, right? And the Great Commission itself, go where? Go into all the nations, right? That's not just a theological statement of the universality of the gospel. That's actually a mandate that Christ has given to each one of us. Go into all the nations. Go out into the world and make disciples. Go out into the world and teach them to observe all that I've commanded you. And go out into the world knowing that Christ is with us. We are not just to sit here in the pew and soak up and sour with what God has given to us. We are to take what God has given to us and go into the world. And yet, many times, as we discussed this morning, we don't. I'm not going to waste our time today talking about agendas and schedules and priorities and those kinds of things. We know what those are. And we know, especially in this society we live in, this culture that we live in, that we're trying to pack as much stuff into a 24-hour day as we possibly can. We're trying to get as many blue widgets produced in one 24-hour period. We all know that. But I think what we may have overlooked that Psalm 66 reminds us of is setting aside time, making the praise of God part of our day in and day out life. And no, not just our quiet time in the morning. In a group like this, I would suspect that we're probably pretty good about having a quiet time in the morning. We start our day in prayer, we start our day at some level of Bible study, and we're pretty good about that. But what about setting aside time to praise God in the public square? What about praising God when we're in that difficult conversation we were talking about this morning, where it seems to be we're at odds with people, Right? Look, if you want to find a divisive conversation, they're not hard to find. We've got division everywhere, don't we? We're dividing over our ethnicities. We're dividing over our political agendas or our policies, our political lineage. We're dividing over whether or not I live on the north side of town, south side of town, east-west side of town. We're dividing over theological issues. We're dividing over I like blue shirts and you like green shirts. Right? And yes, we even divide more substantially than what we really want to admit over who won the game last night. There's division everywhere. And if we allow the division to stymie our praising God, speaking of Christ in the public square, guess what? We got a lot of opportunity to sit down and keep our mouth shut, which I'm afraid is what a lot of us as evangelicals have done. We've just gone silent. We must set aside time to praise God for who He is, that's the first thing, in the public square. Look at what David says in Psalm 66, verse 1. Shout for joy to God, here it is, all the earth. Now he goes on to say, to sing the glory of his name, to give to him the glorious praise, to say of God, how awesome are your deeds, so great is your power that your enemies come cringing to you. Look, here's the question. How does all the earth know that? How does all the earth know that they should be shouting to God? How does the earth know that they should be singing with joy over the divine creatorship of God? How is the earth to know that they should sing the glory of his name? How is the earth to know that they should give him glorious praise? And so on, to say of God, how awesome are you? See, somebody has to show it to them, don't they? Somebody has to be salt and light in the world. Somebody has to live as ones who shout for joy to God no matter where we are. We have to glory in his name. I think of my dear friend who's gone on to be with the Lord now, but John Luck was his name, John Luck. And I remember talking to John numerous times over the years. He would say, well, I don't know why luck is my last name, because I'm probably one of the most unlucky people in the world. And John was not always a pristine and stellar guy. He was a drug dealer. And he was serving hard time in Texas for selling heroin. Now, he was from the 70s. That was the drug of the day. And while he was in prison, John had a real hard life. John got hooked up with the white nationalists while he was in prison, and was angry, bitter, hated the world, and for a long time, hated God. But you wanna know something? God did a work in John's life. Right there in the middle of prison, for destroying people's lives with heroin. In the middle of the white nationalists and all of their hatred of everything, including God, God saved John right there in prison. And from that moment, not that day, but from that moment that the Holy Spirit entered John, changed his heart, regenerated him, caused him to be that new creature, that 2 Corinthians 5.17 man, right? If any man be in Christ, He is a new creature. From the moment that God made John look a new creature, every breath he had, he devoted to shouting for joy to God and declaring it to all the earth, singing glory to his name, giving praise to God. If John was saying something, he was saying hallelujah to the lamb, and then he would add whatever he wanted to say. I was with John one day. We went to, I think, Burger King to go get lunch. And as John is ordering lunch, the lady asked him, sir, what would you like to have? And we were talking about, well, are you going to have this? Are you going to have that? I think I'll have this. Well, I'll have that. And John decided, well, I'm going to have, I don't know, let's just say that John's going to have the number two combo. John goes up to the counter. The lady says, what do you want, sir? He said, hallelujah to the lamb. I want the number two combo. That was John. But John knew what it was like to live in this world without hope. John knew what it was like to have a newfound hope in Christ. And John took his mission very seriously. He always set aside time, not just at a particular time of the day, but in every instance, to praise God for who he was, who God was in the public square. God is great. God is good. We must certainly thank him for our food, right? Isn't it interesting that because we really don't emphasize that prayer perhaps with our children when they're small, that we've lost a little bit of declaring God's praises in the world at large, right? We must shout for joy before this world. We must shout before a lost world our convictions. Shout for joy to God, all the earth. Shouting for joy to God, that's conviction, isn't it? Does that come naturally? Are we bored shouting to God? Well, we might be shouting in anger. Are we born praising God? Are we born glorifying his God? No, those are all convictions that we have been given through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. We can only say of God, to God, how awesome are your deeds if we have experienced the deeds themselves. There's a lot of people in the world who see God at work, but they don't recognize it as God at work. We were talking Friday morning, I think we see an example of this, and I still, I meant to go look up the name of the hurricane and I forgot it, but the hurricane that just went across Florida, right? Cat 5 sitting off the Florida coast, apparently it's gonna hit Tampa and completely, all of the climate, let's be nice, climate people, were telling us that this hurricane is gonna wipe Tampa Bay right off the map. I mean, no more Tampa Bay, no more Orlando, no more Disney World. Oh my goodness, man, I'll tell you what, that is the end of the world. No more Disney. And yet I believe God was gracious in that that hurricane mysteriously somehow downgraded to a three before it ever came on shore. Now, climate people are saying, you know, water was cold and it was shallow, it lost, yeah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. What about God? See, I have a conviction that God is alive and at work in the world right now saving men and women and boys and girls from their sin. I have a conviction that God is still sovereign ruler of all of the created order. I have a conviction that God could fling a category five hurricane right back out into the Atlantic Ocean if he wanted to. He doesn't need Kenneth Copeland. Y'all know about that. God is still ruling his creation. I have a conviction about that. And so where am I going? Well, I'm expressing my conviction in public square. And I'm going to take it one step further. I'm taking my conviction that I'm giving to you here today, and not just letting it reside within the halls of this most beautiful building, but I'm taking my conviction out into the world where I live, and I'm being open with it, and I'm saying that all of this climate stuff is a bunch of hooey. Do we need to take care of God's created order? Absolutely. I'm not denying that. But do we do it through man-made processes? No. My convictions tell me no. My convictions tell me that I need to be active, moving in a direction that really holds the creation in its rightful place. The creation is not Mother Earth. The creation is not what we're worshiping. The creation is not the end-all, be-all, and we're not going to drown when all of the ice caps melt and raise the oceans by 375 feet. Now, that's an exaggeration, but do you see? I'm setting aside time to praise God for who he is, creator and sustainer of the universe, and I'm expressing this conviction, and here it comes, in how I vote and how I live. I know, y'all have looked at me at times when I've said things like this, and you just kind of give me that Jack Sparrow look. The pastor's acting a bit strange-er. I have a conviction and my conviction moves me to express that conviction in public square. Revelation 5, 11 through 14, John said, then I looked and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders of the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands upon thousands, saying with a loud voice, worthy is the Lord who was slain to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing. And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea and all that is in them saying, to him who sits on the throne and to the lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever. And the four living creatures said, amen. And the elders fell down and worshiped. Why? Because the glory of Christ is filling the earth. Why do we have to wait to that time in Revelation 5 to see this? Why can't we begin to work to bring that into the present day right now? Why can't we not be open and expressing our convictions in the public square. Why can we not make time, set aside time to praise God for who he is in the public square in everything that we do? Why? Richard Sibbes. Whatsoever our condition be, let us never limit God. God's people should never be better. The times were never worse. Where we be bad, God is good. Times are bad, God is good. He can alter all. When there is no hope of escaping, no likely issue, God can make it good. All right, let me put it in context. Richard Sibbes is saying, when you think Tuesday is just going to be the worst thing in all of human history, God can make it better. Why? Because regardless who winds up at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, God is still sovereign. God is still the creator of the universe. God still sustains every aspect of his created order. There is not one Adam that goes anywhere without God's permission. God has given you the breath that you breathe right now. He's giving you the electrical synapses in your brain that is processing auditorily what you're hearing and coming to some sort of synthesized thought about what is it that Pastor Rusty is actually trying to say. God's doing that, right? Where'd you hear that? Where'd you hear that? Rusty, you just said that. Yes, you're right, I did. Why? Because I have a conviction to express my belief about the sovereign creatorship of God, who He is, in public square. And that's not just right here. You guys who have been with me on Friday mornings over the years know that I've had people come up to me and say very unnice things to me after they have intently listened for about two hours at a table at IHOP, at a table at Denny's, at a table at Old South Diner. If they didn't like it, they could've gone on, but they sat there for two hours listening and then came and berated me at the end of it all. Y'all know that, right? Yeah, those of you who've been around are laughing, because that's happened. It's not just here. It's everywhere. I have a conviction. We should have a conviction to express those convictions in the public square. Well, not only that, but number two, we must set aside time to praise God for what he has done in the public square. We're expressing our voice, our beliefs, not just a conviction, but the everyday practical outworking of that. Psalm 66, verse 5, come and see what God has done, right? Come and see that the Lord is good. Come and taste and see that the Lord is good, right? Come and see what God has done. He's awesome in his deeds, where, now catch this, look, verse five, where is God awesome in his deeds? Toward the children of man. Now, I realize in a highly theological discussion that we might get into parsing of thoughts, Is David speaking to the nation of Israel? Is he calling them the children of man? Or is he speaking to the world more broadly? Well, I suppose you could make a reasoned case either way if you took verse 5 in isolation. But verse 5 is not in isolation. Because we just saw in verse 1 that David said, all the earth. And we'll look down here just a minute. In verse 6, he says, all peoples. All the earth is not just Israel. Never has been in the Old Testament. All the earth is not an indication of the nation of Israel. So I don't think, in accordance with verse 5, that David is talking about just Israel. And certainly, all the peoples is not a reference to Israel within the Old Testament. Frequently a reference to the nations, to the Gentiles, to the public square. And so we're to come and see what God has done, his awesome in his deeds towards the children of man, towards the public square, to the lost world. We're to say things like, I don't believe that the hurricane that went through Florida just downgraded because cold water. I think the hurricane downgraded as it went across Florida because that was God's divine purpose. Now don't ask me why. I don't know why. I don't know the mind of God necessarily, nor do I have to, to affirm that God is at work, right? God is at work everywhere. And you literally have to have your eyes closed to miss God at work. How many of y'all saw the sunrise this morning? Look, I realize time changed, hour extra sleep, probably stayed in bed, may not have caught the sunrise this morning. Okay, let's back up. How many of y'all caught a sunrise sometime this week? Okay, had to get up, go to school, be at work, I'm driving early, there's the sunrise, all right? Was that a beautiful sunrise? Yeah, of course it was. You realize how fragile the sunrise is? It only takes the Earth to get out of kilter a fraction of a degree on its axis, tilted on its axis. If it gets off its axis just a fraction of a degree, cataclysmic events begin to happen on the face of the planet. If the Earth, which is spinning through space roughly at 1,000 miles an hour, rotating, right? If it slows down or speeds up, one mile per hour, cataclysmic events happen in the world. The sunrise that we take for granted day after day after day, 365 days in a calendar year multiplied by how many every years you've been alive, you have witnessed a sunrise every day that you've been alive. Has there ever been a day the sun did not rise? Ever? Of course not. Why? Because God sustains the rising of the sun by his divine hand. God is at work in something as simple as a sunrise to prove that he is still here, still alive, and still superintending everything. Don't try to convince me that the Earth has enough inertia to keep it spinning at 1000 miles an hour in its rotation. Don't try to convince me that gravity and the pull of other planets or the pull of other solar systems keeps our Milky Way galaxy held together in such timely precision. If the scientists had their way, they would employ the theory of entropy and chaos, and they would say that the world is slowing down microscopically, perhaps, micromically, perhaps. in its spin. It is deviating from its path in its orbit around the sun, its annual orbit. It's deviating just ever so slightly because the universe is literally just kind of exploding and slowly spreading apart. That's what the chaos theorists would tell us. That's what the entropy guys, scientists would tell us, that the world is falling apart. And yet, For, and here you go, you listen carefully to what I'm about to say, for the last 12,000 years, the world has been going just like it always has. Why? Because God holds it together. Christ holds it together. Christ sustains his created order. It's not the processes that he created back then that's holding everything together. It is the very presence of Christ that holds everything together. That's what he's done. And that's not just all he's done. That's just an illustration of what he's done. And he's doing something every moment of every day. And if you will open your eyes and see and look, you'll see it. Right? Knock, and the door will be open. Right? Seek, and you will find. Let he who lacks wisdom ask the Lord, and the Lord who gives wisdom liberally will, no, not today, come back tomorrow. No, will give wisdom. Do we seriously restrict that verse or those verses to only theological issues? Will God only give you wisdom related to your salvation? Will God only give you wisdom to how to apply this particular verse in that particular circumstance? Doesn't God give us wisdom about a lot of things? If we want to understand what God is doing in the world, if we want to see what God is doing in the world, if we want to see God's activity in the world at any moment, at any day, can we not just ask God to open our eyes and let us see God's activity in the world? You see, This is what I'm voicing now. It's born out of my convictions, that is true, but now it's the practical application of what God has done, what he is doing in everyday life. So here's a test. What has God done in your life recently? Count your many blessings, right? Name them one by one, count your many blessings, see what God has done. What has God done in your life? What's he doing? What's he doing right now? Do you mean to tell me that your life currently, where you sit right now, right there, is completely devoid of any activity of God at all, nothing? Are you a theist? A deist? Do you think God just got you started and is kind of letting you go on your own now? Or are you Trinitarian, believing that God is alive and well and working in your life right now? Right? Maybe an unsettling question, but I think it's an honest question. Do you see what God is doing in your life right now? You know, that's one of the purposes of journaling. Paul David hadn't got to journaling yet in our study, in our Bible study hour. He will, right? You will. No pressure. Why don't we journal? so that we can observe things that God is doing in our life, write them down. We may not completely understand them in the moment, but later, as we look back on that journal and we see those Ebenezers that God has established in our life, we go, wow, okay, now I see it. Now I see what God is doing. Started way back then, wrote it down, got a picture of it, and now I really understand. That's what journaling's all about. God bless you. To see what God has done. Now, where does this intersect the public square? We need to be ones who are expressing our voice in the public square. Now, not all of us are political activists. I'm not. I'm not a political activist. Frankly, I detest politics. I did not pick up the pro-politics trait from my father. My father loves politics. If you've ever talked to him, he's gonna talk to you about politics. I don't care that much about politics. I realize it's a necessary evil. It's necessary. I'm not that big on it. But I am for voicing, expressing my voice. And one of the greatest ways I believe that God has blessed us in this nation in expressing our voice is at the ballot box, voting. And I don't mean just once every four years, the first Tuesday in November. I mean all the time. I've made it a mission at my house to really keep up with our local elections, too, and the different amendments and stuff that go on throughout the year to go and voice, express my voice related to those two. Why? Because I believe that we have to praise God for what he has done in the public square. What better place to express God as sovereign creator who is sustaining everything than how we vote for various and sundry things within our society. It's expressing our voice. Philippians chapter 2, verses 5 through 11. This is the kenosis of Christ. It's the emptying of Christ. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God did not count equality with God something to be grasped, but he emptied himself by taking on the form of a servant being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form. He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name so that at the name of Christ, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father. Now, I have a philosophical question about this set of verses. How do we go from Christ humbling himself and dying on a cross to every knee bowing? You ever thought about that? How do we go? Christ is preexistent for all eternity, second person of the Godhead. has come into time and space at different times in the Old Testament in what we call a theonomy. But he's at the right hand of the Father. He comes to earth. He's born of the Virgin Mary. We're reading about that in the birth narratives. He lived a sinless life, right? Writer of Hebrews says he was tempted at every point but without sin. Sinless life. Died as an atoning sacrifice at the hands of the Jews and the Romans and Pontius Pilate. Was raised on the third day. as evidence that his sacrifice was acceptable by God the Father, was seen by over 500 over a 40-day period, ascended into heaven with a promise that he's coming back, okay? How did we get from there to every knee shall bow? That's the consummation of the age, that's Jesus' second coming. What happens in between? Well, it's described in various ways by different traditions. It has different conclusions to it according to different traditions, but the basic gist of it is, is that the church is declaring the glories of Christ and his gospel to the world at large so that at the end of time, every knee shall bow either in reverence to Christ or under the righteous judgment of Christ. Okay? So none of us here were born saved, right? I'm not talking about objectivity. I'm talking about eschatological. So if we're not born saved, what happens? What has to happen? We have to hear. We have to see. We have to be introduced to the gospel. We have to be taught the things of Christ and whether or not We'd be baptized upon professional event or we'd be confirmed in that baptism. There's a point in time that each and every one of us has to come into a reckoning with the truth of the gospel. And that only happens within the church. So the church is declaring the glories of Christ from his first advent to his second advent. The church is declaring the judgment of Christ upon the sinful people outside the covenant from his first coming to his second coming. You see, we have to express our voice, we have to declare the glories of Christ, the outworkings of Christ, the logistical, the tangible, the material outworking of the glories of Christ in everyday life. We're called to voice that in public square. Part of that is here, but a lot of that is out there. We were reading that passage in Ephesians this morning that God has given the apostles and the prophets and the teachers and the pastors, to what? Go do all the work for the church? Is that what it says? Ephesians 4, 11 and following, is that right, Paul David? Ephesians 4, 11 and following? Is it for the pastors and the elders and the prophets and the teachers to go do the work for you? No, it's to prepare the body to go do the work. So I'm not the only one here that is supposed to be being vocal in the public square. It's all of us. We're to be salt and light in the world. But what good does it do to take a candle and put it under a peck basket? Or let's put it in good old southern terms, what good does it do to take a candle and put it under a number five washtub? Does that do any good? What good is salt if it never comes out of the grinder? And I use grinder intentionally, right? So here's one for all you cooking people. We all know, serious cooking people, we were talking about this Thursday night, weren't we? Serious cooking people, salt and pepper stay in its bulk form in a grinder till you're ready to use it because it is best used when freshly ground, right? As salt of the earth, we're best used when we're freshly ground. That means that we have to be in the world and engaging the world and confronting the world with the salt of the gospel. Is it a painful occurrence sometimes? Is it difficult? Yes, most all the time, but it is best served when freshly ground. That's all I'm saying. We're expressing our voice in this case, in this season of time, through voting. That we are giving glory to God. We are bringing what we read in Philippians 2.5 to bear on what we do every day. We want to share what God has done, that he sent his son to die an atoning sacrifice, and that changes everything. Right? Doesn't the gospel change everything? Hasn't Christ in you changed everything? Then we need to voice that in public square. Number three, We must set aside time to praise God for how he has preserved and grown us in the public square. This is our maturity in voting. That's what's going on here, maturity in voting. Sadly, I don't see a lot of maturity in the evangelical community when it comes to voting. I'm tempted to say something. I'm going to hold on to it for now. I might say it later. about a particular pastor in Minnesota. Verse 8. Psalm 66, verse 8. Bless our God, O peoples. Here we are, public square again. Let the sound of his praise be heard. Why? He kept our soul among the living and has not let our foot slip. Okay, that's the first thing. Do we not realize that without Christ, all we have is being lost? Have you ever thought about that? What would life be like if there was no light? Can you imagine that? If you want to get a good example of that, I guess go to Africa. Go to Alaska in the wintertime, right? There are certain times, certain parts of Alaska at certain times of the year, they don't get any light whatsoever. It's 24 hours of darkness, right? What would life be like without light? What would life be like without time? Can you imagine that? No rising and setting of the sun, just straight, flat all the time. See, we can't even describe it without using the word time, right? Can you imagine how hopeless life would be without light? Can you imagine how chaotic life would be without time? Can you imagine how futile life is without Christ? If there's no Christ, there's no other option. You are just lost in your sin and it is done. How would you like to live 70 or 80 years realizing, knowing that at the end it's just done? I don't think as human beings we can cope with that. And we don't have to cope with that because The psalmist says in verse nine, he's kept our soul among the living. There is light in the gospel. There's hope in the gospel. Time makes sense in the gospel. Life makes sense in the gospel. And without the gospel, it doesn't make sense. And that's a divine gift that God has given to mankind broadly, but specifically to those whom he has chosen. But the psalmist goes on to say that in light of all of that, that he's tested us, he's tried us, he's brought us into the net, he's had really crushing, a lot of bad things, right? You see that starting in verse 9, 10, 11, and part of 12, that life is not necessarily a rose garden, that life is not always easy, it's not always neat, that there's trouble, There's difficulty, there's pain, there's grief. There's joy, there's elation, there are times of great happiness, great joy, but there's also times of despair. But at the end of all of that, the psalmist says, yet you have brought us out to a place of abundance. I don't think that's just an eschatological promise that one day as we stand before God in the heaven, streets of gold, gates of pearl, that everything's going to be okay. I think that is here and now, too. It is that then, but I think that's now. And even if we are under the crushing load of despair and tyranny, we're under the crushing load of despair and tyranny because that's where God has put us. It's what the psalmist just said. And he always brings us out to a place of abundance Now, granted, it may be in the Eschaton, and if it is, then we praise God for that. But I also know that tyranny and corruption in human affairs ebbs and flows. At times, it's worse. At times, not so much. At times, God brings revival and people repent and there's a breaking out of the Holy Spirit among people. which ushers in a time of peace and tranquility and prosperity, generally, if we follow history. Not always, but usually. You see, God is at work. And as we look at the things that are going on in the world, and as we are evaluating, in this case, political candidates, are they tyrannical? Are they corrupt? Are they fascist? Are they socialist? Are they whatever? I think God is calling us to use maturity, to think like adults in these matters, not like children. When I was a child, I thought like a child, I acted like a child, but when I became a man, Paul says, I put away what? Childish things. We got a lot of childish stuff going on in the world. Who stands in contradiction of that? The church does. Salt and light in the world means that we have to live as mature men and women. We have to realize that this privilege to vote has to be handled with maturity, responsibility, thoughtfulness. And thoughtfulness is not just abandoning a whole position simply because we don't like the representative. whichever way you're gonna go. We have to be mature. We have to set aside time to praise God for how he has preserved and grown us, and we can only do that if we have maturity. So what do we do? Well, I hope that we do what we've been challenged to do. and that is set aside time to praise God in the public square. If you haven't voted, I would encourage you strongly to vote. Vote your convictions. If you voted already, praise God. Amen for that. Now go encourage somebody else to go vote. And I'm saying that because here's the deal. If we don't try to influence the world around us, that all we've done is said, I love Jesus, sitting in my living room in front of my friends and family. If we believe Christ is sovereign creator and sustainer and ruler of this world, do we think that our form of government here in America is an accident? Do we think the way that our political system is set up here is an accident? Do we even think that the level of corruption that we've reached in some of our political affairs is an accident? No. Christ is still ruling the nations. He is still ruling over our nation. He has put things in place by his divine ordinance and plan, and that includes our involvement. And to abrogate that responsibility, I think in some measure, and we'll be careful, but I think it is somewhat sinful if God hasn't given us the opportunity to not avail ourselves of that opportunity where we are praising him in the process, his rebellion before the Lord. And we need to be careful there because he's called us to declare his praise before the peoples, all mankind, to the nations. And my prayer today is that we would do exactly that, not just on Tuesday, but every day, every day, that we are being salt and light in the world in very practical, tangible ways to the glory and the praise of God. Father, we thank you for the day that you've given to us. We praise you for your continued goodness your mercy and your grace. And we just simply ask, Father, that in the hearing of your word, Lord, that you would cut us to the heart. Father, we realize that you've given us a great responsibility, if nothing else, just to praise your name in the world. But yet, Father, you've given us even more than that. You've given us the formal mechanism by which we can express our convictions and our voice praise to you over what you have done and what you are doing. You've given us the right to influence the direction of our nation. We ask, Father, that you would give us the courage to go and do exactly that. And Father, whether it be for good or for ill, we know that you protect your people, that you strengthen us, you lay the burden of weight upon our shoulders at times, but your word tells us, yet you bring us to the place of abundance. So we ask, Father, that you would guide us, that you would guard us, and that you would demonstrate your goodness in and through us to the world as we glorify you in this way. We thank you, Father. We praise you. We glorify you. And we ask these things in your precious and holy name. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, we ask. Amen.