Father, we pray that your spirit be in and over your word here this morning, that he do his work in our hearts and in our lives. In Christ's name we pray, amen. Well folks, it is that time of year again. In approximately 66 hours, half of our nation will be awakening with a smug smile on their face and a spring in their step, and the other half will be calling out sick from work, shaking their fists angrily at the sky, or grimacing annoyedly at the election results. Some people are gonna take to Facebook, they're gonna take to X, they're gonna take to Instagram and Snapchat to celebrate a big V, and others will take to the same platforms to vent, to seethe, and to sarcastically comment. Now, depending on your given work environment and your own political leanings, you'll either be smirking on that day, all along with your fellow compatriots, or you'll be trying to avoid catching the eyes of those with whom you disagree and with whom you work. Unless, of course, you're given to gloating and your particular candidate wins, then you'll go out of your way to make sure that you make lasting, awkward eye contact with that particular person with whom you disagree. Well, according to the research organization Open Secrets, which is a public access research group that tracks money in the US politics and the effects that that money has on the elections and policies and da-da-da-da-da-da, the presidential candidates and their supporters have spent $5.5 billion this election cycle. Now, much of this is spent on advertising and campaigning alone, $5.5 billion. In 2020, Adjusting for inflation over 7.5 billion dollars were spent was spent on the election cycle So combined that's 13 billion dollars over two election cycles Now to put that in perspective the total money spent of the prior four election cycles 2004 to 2016 with adjustments for inflation are right around 13.5 billion dollars that means that our nation as a whole has spent the same amount in four and a half years on the elections as we did over 16 years in the previous elections. And in four more years, we'll do it again. And four more years after that, we'll do it again. Round and round and round we'll go. And unless something dramatic changes, we'll continue our trajectory toward greater and more palpable division. I read an article from the Christian news slash satire website, the Babylon Bee. And maybe you read it this past week. The headline was this. So it's satire. Keep that in mind. 453rd election mailer changes man's mind. Nearing the end of what has been a whirlwind election season, one candidate in a race won over what could potentially be the deciding vote as a 453rd election mailer changed a local man's mind. Norm Cross had remained staunchly on the fence about the race for a vacant seat on the city council, unable to decide between Linda Breckenridge and Pat Dorton. Fate swung in Dorton's favor, however, however, as the 453rd flyer sent to Cross's house sealed the deal. This one really convinced me, Cross said. I wasn't sure who to pick, and the first 452 mailers didn't make the choice any easier. But this 453rd mailer, yeah, it suddenly became so clear. You've got my vote, Pat. When asked for comment, Dorton said he was confident his campaign's persistence would pay off. I'll bury a human being in election mailers if that's what it takes, he said. Sometimes the first few hundred flyers just don't get your point across well enough. So you end up needing to dump several hundred more into each voter's mailbox. Sooner or later, they'll give in. That's what running for public office is all about anyways, gradually driving people so crazy that they'll vote for you just to make you stop bothering them. At published time, with Norm Cross's vote now in the bag, Dorton staff had reportedly turned its attention to his obstinate next door neighbor, Gilda Chambers, who had not yet decided who she would vote for despite receiving all 453 mailers. Round and round and round we'll go unless something dramatic changes. We'll continue our trajectory toward greater and more palpable division. Now I said, unless something dramatic changes. Because Christian, you and I are called to be that dramatic change. You see, there's one thing that we have which the rest of the world does not and cannot. We have an unshakable faith in the one true God. but I fear that there's a natural tendency in us seeking to either shroud that faith behind a particular political affiliation or use our faith as a battering ram against those whom we disagree. Both approaches are misguided. We are called to have a visible faith amid a divisible world. Now what does this faith look like and how do we show it in our lives? In this passage we're introduced to a nameless man with visible faith living amid a divisible world. We'll see some characteristics of this faith. When you have this faith in God, your life will dramatically change. When we have this faith in God, our lives will dramatically change. So the passage opens and immediately we're introduced to the division of the current day where we have verse two, but the Jews refused to believe stirred up the other Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers. So right off the bat, that's the way the gospel works. As soon as it's introduced, as soon as you have a declaration that Jesus Christ died, was buried, he rose again, and now there's a command that has gone out for all people to turn to him in faith. That's not something you can just brush off and say, it's no big deal. Because it is an objective reality that demands a verdict and also demands an answer from each person. We have this division starting. So Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there. In spite of the division, they still stayed, speaking boldly for the Lord. They were unperturbed by all the chaos around them. And God confirmed this message of grace by enabling them to perform signs and wonders. But again, it says, verse four, the people of the city were divided. Some sided with the Jews, others with the apostles. There was a plot afoot among both Gentiles and Jews. So, okay, now we have the Gentiles, some of them joining in cahoots with the Jews, and now they plot to mistreat them, Paul and Barnabas, and to stone them. So it's only at that point that Paul and Barnabas says, okay, we got to get out of Dodge. And so they get out of there and they head to the cities of Lystra and Derbe and to the surrounding country. where they continue to preach the gospel. Now verse 8 is where we're going to be spending a lot of our time. What strikes me here is that Paul, in the very next verse, when he sees this man, he looks at him, and just by looking at him, he says, this guy has faith to be made whole. And friends, that's the visible faith that you and I are called to have while we're living in a very chaotic and divisive world. And the first part, the first element of this visible faith is that it lives in hope. This man had been crippled from birth. We've met a couple people like this in the gospel narratives as well, as well as earlier in the book of Acts. You have the man who was born blind in John chapter 9. And here we have a man who's been crippled since birth, and where's the hope? Where's the hope? What hope does he have to ever walk again? And yet here he is sitting under the teaching of Paul and Barnabas. And when Paul looks at him, he sees a man who has faith to be made whole. The first part of visible faith is that it lives in hope. And there's a hope for a dramatic change. As long as you and I are still here, there's always hope for dramatic change in our lives. I heard a number of years ago, a preacher used a really good illustration. And so I'm going to borrow it from him, but it's okay because I gave him credit, where he says that he was holding up a newspaper, and he said, when you have a newspaper, anyone still read newspapers now? Yeah? I know we get them on our phones nowadays too, you get news on your phone, but he held up a physical newspaper. And he says, you and I are often responsible for a lot of what goes on in the story itself. Like if your life is a newspaper, you could say that the story of the article is your life. But what Jesus does, when he claims ownership over you, the moment that you turn to him in faith, is that he rewrites the headline of your life. That it no longer needs to be your sin. It no longer needs to be the headline of your frailty of faith, your past, your present issues, whatever it may be. He rewrites the headline, and he says, not guilty. He says, my child, my beloved. That's what Christ does. And as Christians, we must have a hope for dramatic change. Paul says, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old has gone. The new is here. But that's not all that we hope for. We hope for communion with the divine. And this communion, or this fellowship, it happens within the context of our local church. It happens within the context of fellow believers who are also on their journey of faith somewhere, who are struggling with many of the same issues that you are battling with yourself. Lack of faith, financial instability, frustrations at work, loss of loved ones, whatever it may be. These are all things that are common to the hurt of living in a fallen world. This man is willing to be there, sitting in faith, listening to what the apostle has to say. Within a Christian community, we are blessed with two relationships, two things we most desperately crave, a relationship with our maker and a relationship with our fellow man. So first, our visible faith allows us to live in hope. But second, our visible faith We show visible faith by listening to God's word. You have this man who's sitting there and he has faith to be made whole. And he's listening to what Paul says. Verse 9, he listened to Paul as he was speaking. He was hanging on every single word. Here's a man who, for all likelihood, was going to live his life as a cripple, subsisting on the generosity of those around him. When he didn't get his pittance of alms or whatever it may be, when he didn't get his little piece of dry bread, he'd go hungry that day. Maybe for multiple days at a time. And here he was hanging on every single word of grace that Paul was proclaiming. What he could have done was say, it's not fair. And maybe he'd been that way before. Maybe he thought that way before. So how come this happened to me? And chances are you've been that person, too. Why did this difficulty have to enter my life? Why did this pain or heartache have to enter my life? Instead, this man was hanging on every single word that Paul was saying. He was listening. My question to you is, are you listening to God's word? Psalm 119, a beautiful hymn, or psalm hymn, whatever you want to call it, of delighting in God's word and God's law. If you read through the different verses, it's a very long psalm, but if you read through the verses, there's only like 10 or so verses where the word law or one of its synonyms is not mentioned. where over and over you have the psalmist saying something along the lines of, I delight in your word. Your law keeps me from evil. Your law is glorious. I meditate on it day in and day out. We have the psalmist who's just meditating on God's goodness through his law. And verses 9 through 12 says this, how can a young person stay on the path of purity? By living according to your word. I seek you with all my heart. Don't let me stray from your commands. I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. Praise be to you, Lord. Teach me your decrees. Friends, is that our spirit when we approach God's word? Lord, teach me. In your word is life. Your word is the only thing that's going to keep me from wandering off the right path. How can I stay on the path of purity? by living according to your word. Or the opening book, the opening psalm in the book of Psalms, Psalm chapter one, the blessed life. Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the company of mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord and who meditates on his law day and night. Augustine said, the faith will totter if the authority of the Holy Scriptures loses its hold on men. We must surrender ourselves to the authority of Holy Scriptures, for it can neither mislead nor be misled. I said it once and I'll say it again, this is life itself, friends. This is life. Our God who is life has given us his word so that we can partake and participate in his life as we submit and follow it with our lives. The primary source of our morality should be God's word. If the ambiguities of moral relativism of our current day leave you frustrated, they leave you confused, overwhelmed, and disheartened, it's high time you turn back to the living, breathing, and life-giving word of God. Though it may not cover every single case study that our modern era presents us with, it does contain all things that pertain to life and godly living. Are you reading it? Are you reading it prayerfully? Asking God, Father, help me understand this. Help me apply it. God, change me through your life-giving word. Do you have the kind of relationship with God's word that Martin Luther had when he expressed, the Bible is alive, it speaks to me. It has feet, it runs after me. It has hands, it lays hold of me. I don't know about you, but I want to see our community changed by the gospel. I want to see people come to faith in Christ who have no hope in and of their own pursuits. I want to see lives changed in an eternal way. And it must start and it must end with the power of God's word. Are you listening to him speak? He says, come to me, learn from me, let me take your burdens, I will give you rest. Visible faith listens to God's word. But finally, visible faith learns from God's commands. You have the picture of this man who immediately after Paul says, you have faith to be made whole, get up. The man jumps up and he starts walking around. A man who all medical science would be completely baffled. His feet shouldn't have any muscles. He hasn't been able to walk for 30 plus years. There's no way. And in a moment, his life changes like that. And he doesn't just get up. He starts walking around. And then he fades from the history books. That's all we glimpse of this guy here who had a miracle done to him, the likes of which none of us, maybe some of us can relate to to some degree, but most of us haven't experienced this sort of thing. At that the man jumped up and began to walk. We know that it's one thing to hear, but it's another thing to listen. Suppose Paul had said, hey, get up and walk. And the guy had said, I can't. I've never walked before in my life, what are you talking about? He didn't know because he had faith to be made whole. It's one thing to hear, it's another thing to listen. I can hear what you're saying, but it may not mean I'm actually listening. None of you have ever experienced that with your spouses before, ever. Uh-huh, yeah, yeah, uh-huh, yeah, yeah, uh-huh, mm-hmm, yep, okay, got it. What'd you just say? You can listen to what I'm saying, but it may not mean that you're actually learning. Because there's hearing, then there's listening, but then there's listening, then there's learning. You can listen to someone and still not learn anything. You know exactly what they said, but you're not applying it, or you're not taking the time to think it over and see if it's worth applying. Every teacher or parent knows that listening is not the same thing as learning. Your kids, your students may look like they're paying attention, but every so often you catch a glimpse of the truth. They aren't. During the work from home craze a couple of years ago, pre-recorded himself attending a Zoom meeting for work. Now, he knew that he was going to have to participate in the Zoom meeting. So based upon some previous meetings, he thought, OK, I think I understand the questions that they're going to ask. So I'm going to pre-record all these different responses to any sort of questions that they could ask. And so if a question like that gets asked, I can press the button, and it'll jump into that pre-recorded snippet of me answering that question. And he wanted to see if he could get through the whole work meeting. without ever actually being on live, him just sitting and pressing the buttons to answer and respond. And his turn came about to give his side of the presentation for the work that they were doing. And so, remember, off-camera, with just having the pre-recorded video playing, he clicked on his response, gave the synopsis of the work that he was doing, they asked a couple questions, and he had them, for the most part, somewhat answered. And so he was able to click on those, and he was able to answer and make it through the whole meeting without people suspecting anything. Now, chances are, I dare to say that that guy was listening for cues. Like, OK, if they ask this question, I have to press number one so that this video clip plays. He was listening for cues, but he probably wasn't learning from the things that were being said. Because he was so focused on his own agenda and what he was doing. And friends, what true faith does, what visible faith does, is it doesn't bring an agenda to God's word and say, God, agree with me. It doesn't bring in pre-programmed snippets to go, okay, beep, all right, God agrees with me there because I'm making him fit my own opinions and perspectives. It sets aside all those agendas and say, God, I've come to listen to you speak through your word. That is a spirit that's ready and willing to learn. And true faith, this visible faith, relies not on what we can see, but on what we know God will reveal. Paul says, therefore we do not lose heart, though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. Since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. Looking at Paul for a second, how did he know that this man had faith to be made whole? What was the guy doing? Did he have some look in his eye? I'm of the persuasion that he saw through to this man's soul, that the Holy Spirit gave him a direct line of sight to this man's soul in such a way that Paul knew immediately this guy has faith. When God speaks, we follow. And at times when he's silent, we seek him while we're doing the next right thing. Because oftentimes in our lives, we don't have direct answers from God. I don't know about you, but while you're driving here to church, think about when you're driving here to church this morning. If you came up from the beach and you were down at the beach, What stopped you, once you turn onto Route 1, from going, you know what, I can't see the church, so it may not be there. Or let's say you turn onto Duck Trap Road, or you were going across Duck Trap Bridge, what kept you from going, you know what, I can't see the church, so I might as well not even go because there's a chance it may not be there. I might as well head home. We often hyper-spiritualize faith. But the biblical understanding of faith is trusting in truth, not wishful thinking. But there is a sense in which that trust demands a measure of what we call sightlessness. And during these times of sightlessness, we need to cling to what we know to be true and move forward along the path we know to be right. So when you aren't getting clear-cut, direct answers from God, do the next right thing. I think the book of Proverbs is the ultimate guide during these seasons of uncertainty. It lays out principles for wise living. Rather than fixing us to black and white commands, it gives us guardrails for our lives. If life's moral ambiguities in the societal and political or your own personal life are bothering you to no end, open up the book of Proverbs. and allow it to challenge your thoughts, to challenge your feelings, to challenge your desires, and to challenge your actions. It's as though the book of Proverbs is this wise sage who asks you the question, after you've laid out your case for why you should do X, Y, or Z, he asks you the question, do you think that's the best idea? Have you considered these other variables over here? You see, God doesn't always spoon feed us. Instead, he expects us to get up from the table, till the soil, plant and water the seed, and work diligently until the time of harvest comes. He expects us not only to listen to his word, but to learn from it and act accordingly. Visible faith learns from God's commands. God wants our faith to be visible, especially while we're living amid a very divisive time. Visible faith lives in hope. hope for dramatic change, that our God is still doing a work in hearts and lives today. Visible faith listens to God's word, but it doesn't just listen, it also learns. I've heard so many Christian leaders make how one votes in our 2024 election a mark of obedience or disobedience to God. There are Christians today who find themselves unable to vote, for any candidate in good conscience. There are Christians today so frustrated with American evangelicalism and its often pompous hypocrisy that they'd rather see America become secular in hopes that the church will become cleansed of its growing thirst for political power. And there are other Christians who peaceably want a Christian nation and are going to vote in a way that most preserves traditional Christian values, at least at a policy level. Folks, this is the world in which we live. This is the chaos of our current climate. And yet all of us, all of us, unite around the bloodstained banner of Christ. And here's the question that I want to leave each of us with, especially going into what is going to be an incredibly divisive week, probably coming months as well, probably next four years. Here's the question I want to leave you with. Are you allowing any other banner in your life to fly higher than the one that says, I am a Christian? It's time we allow our visible faith to become the very mark of our lives. It's time we live in hope, we listen to God's word, and we learn from his commands. Father, we come to you now, thankful that you reign That your son, our savior, is sitting at your right hand. Thank you that all the nations, including our own, is as a drop of water in a bucket. That the king's heart is in your hand, like the rivers of water, you turn it wherever you will. That the prince of darkness is grim, We don't tremble for him. God, his rage we can endure for lo, his doom is sure. One little word will fell him. We thank you for the privilege that we have in our nation to be involved in some small part in the way it is governed. This is a privilege that many people have not experienced. We pray that you would guide us by your word and by your spirit in conjunction with our conscience to do what is right. But ultimately, we do not place our hope, our certainty on any human being. We place it in the God-man, Jesus Christ, who has washed us free from all our sins, both past, present, and future, and whose sacrifice we celebrate right now. Thank you for all you have done or doing, will continue to do. In Christ's name we pray, amen.