Johnny Sanders (00:12)
Hello, hello, welcome back everyone to another episode of faithfully engaged here on faithful Fridays You might hear me cough a little bit. it's kind of an update for this week. I've had a strange sinus issue really for the past couple of weeks and Seems like it's finally starting to come out. So apologize for any coughing that might happen on stream today Hope you all have had a a wonderful week

This week for me personally has been just a crazy one very very stressful in a lot of ways if you know me in my personal life Know that me and my family were involved in a very strange Accident on the road that we were driving down the road and there's some type of road debris and the way drove over the top didn't think too much about it. But for some reason

It triggered the side airbag that went off there and left a pretty nice, well, you might be a little queasy if you see it, but a nice little, there you go, yeah, nice little burn there on my left arm there that the side airbags got me. Thankfully, it's just a bruise, just a scab, and stuff. Like it's nothing bad, but it kind of hurt a little bit, a little scary.

But thankfully everything's okay. but it was just, something we didn't have planned, for this week. And that's how our lives work. Sometimes we don't always have life, life planned out, the way that we think it'll go, but we're very grateful. very appreciative that God helped protect us and that nothing really bad happened other than our van getting the airbags going off on it. But, everybody was safe.

Nobody else in the car was affected at all. It was just me, which is certainly the way I would rather that be. But yeah, kind of a crazy week as far as that goes. certainly hope you all have had a good week. Also very glad that this week that Rumble Studio is playing nicely and I don't have to wait a long time to get it all set up. There were some weird glitches on the back end there last week. But anyway, it's great to be here and talking with you all. So.

Johnny Sanders (02:35)
The discussion I wanted to get into today is sadly one that I'll even catch myself here kind of forgetting a little bit about it. Not as on the top of my mind as it probably should be, which is that President Trump has had yet another assassination attempt. If you've been living under a rock or something.

This past Sunday there was It was initially announced a gunshot in the vicinity of President Trump when he was golfing on the golf course and I think West Palm Beach there in Florida When I first saw that gunshots in the vicinity, it was like okay. Well, thankfully he's safe, but I was thinking maybe I don't know some type of robbery or something like that in the area and that was kind of initially what people were thinking that it was something kind of unbeknownst to him wasn't involving him, but he was just an area and was safe. Later, turns out it looks like those gunshots were actually the Secret Service that were looking at the man that was attempting to assassinate Trump is certainly what it looks like. He's a couple of holes away from where Trump was going to be going to have a good line shot for him. Secret Service shot at him.

They didn't get him, but eventually, they caught up with the guy when he ran away and was under arrest. I don't really know what's going on with that. I know Florida was trying to keep them in the state instead of going to the, to the feds. That's, that's a whole, whole thing. But anyways, that was, if you think back on this, like just go back 10, 12, 20 years ago, whatever. Think of if this was Obama, if this was Bill Clinton or George Bush or whoever, any type of president, even Joe Biden. Anybody else, this story alone would be huge. Like somebody lining up to shoot the president, albeit in this case, President Trump is not the sitting president, but still presidential candidate. That alone, a presidential candidate. That's a big, big deal.

Johnny Sanders (05:01)
And it's just kind of crazy. We've already had the previous attempt, which was way more dangerous than actual shot that hit Trump in the ear. that was a big deal, but that one's been kind of downplayed here recently. We kind of forget about that, but this latest one, like it just didn't really get the buzz. And then I get it. There wasn't a shot fired from him. Trump wasn't actually under fire, but this is a big deal. and we're just not.

Johnny Sanders (05:42)
I know people who tune into this show, to this podcast are certainly more conservative-minded, but to people who are not conservative, people who are very liberal, we don't want this. Nobody wants this. Nobody on the right wants this, or at least I hope nobody on the right wants the return fire on the other end, for liberal candidates to have assassination attempts. This is not the culture we want to live in. But here we are. And I think what's sad that there's a recent poll and I'm going to fudge on some of these numbers. Certainly look it up. I don't remember the name of it, but a recent poll looking at what people felt about the assassination attempt. I believe this was just the first one, but it might've included the second one. Regardless.

From liberals, it was something around like 14 % were like, “We're okay with Trump getting shot”, which is just staggering to me, and even more, were, “We're questioning whether it was okay or not”. Look, that, that answer has got to be zero. Like, wait, we, we can't advocate for this type of political violence, but again, this is the culture we're in. That we're in is extremely divided. This culture does not seem to have a high view towards God and has rejected God in many, many ways. So we are faced here as conservative Christians. What are we going to do about it? Well, I'll say this first before we get into the scripture that we've got to be active. We've got to be able to vote to be a part of the culture.

Voting alone is not going to save this culture. Let me be clear on that. We are not going to just save it at the ballot box, but we can't play this passive move. Whatever's going to happen is going to happen. Let's retreat. Let's just get in our bunkers and let it play out. No, we got to be front and center. The fact of the matter is here going just to the election. This is going to come out to turn out. If people are going to turn out to be able to cast the vote more enthusiastically.

Johnny Sanders (08:03)
for whatever candidate, whether it's Trump or Kamala Harris, that's the person that's going to win. It's not about getting these undecideds to decide. There's not a lot of undecideds anyways, or we're already in a kind of polarized society. It's who's going to show up and vote. Who is actually going to get there, count the votes. And that's something as Christians, we need to be a part of that.

Again, that doesn't need to be the end all be all, but we do need to participate in this because this election does have ramifications. And even if Trump is not your ideal candidate, which I can definitely understand why you might think that way, we do have to look at what we're faced up against. But particularly if you're in a swing state like Pennsylvania or North Carolina, Georgia, things like that, conservative Christians need to show up. That's number one. And number two.

We got to pray. We got to, again, as much as us showing up and being active in the voting process is extremely important. This culture is sick. It really is. We have massive issues that are going to go way beyond. Let's assume Trump wins presidency. Let's Republicans, conservatives win everything forever. That's not good enough. It's just not. Our culture is really, really sick and we need to pray for revival.

revival for the American church, for the American culture to return to God and pray for God's grace, God's mercy through this because our culture desperately needs it. To think that a presidential candidate not once but twice had legitimate assassination attempts. One was an inch from the dude's skull. This one, he was a whole or two away from this being lined up. And to have a

considerable chunk of the population think that's okay. Good. It's sick. It's gross. We are desperately in need of God to change our culture. And for us to look ourselves in the mirror, what are we doing? Are we not just voting right, but are we spiritually right? We've got to lead that charge here as Christians and to not just be in the background and hope things get better. Hope that we vote well enough.

Johnny Sanders (10:24)
But whatever whatever happens happens. We can't have that so that being said let's get into the scripture today and The the main verse is going to be Romans 12 to but I'm actually going to read Romans 12 1 through 3 to give a little bit more context So starting with Romans 12 1 I appeal to you therefore brothers by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice Holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship?

do not, and this is verse two, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Then verse three, for by the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. So honing in here to verse two, and I'll say this as

I try to mention often, again, if you're tuning into this and think that this is preaching or that you can use a resource like this in place of church, you're dead wrong. You absolutely need to be involved in a Bible -believing church that's going through scripture on a daily basis or on a weekly basis in church. And we've got to look at some of the context. This little snippet's not going to be good enough. So just adding that little warning there.

Looking in at verse 2 there, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good, acceptable and perfect. Look, this world is gross. It's broken. It's sinful. This is not new. That's what I want to emphasize here. The world ever since Adam and Eve and sent into the world, it has been a disgusting, deprived place. It just has been.

And if we are conformed by the world, which mind you does not just include the left, that does not just include leftist politics, although I think sin is very highly apparent there and it's not just in the background, it's a part of the platform in many ways. That being said, sin is everywhere. Sin is in your church. Sin is everywhere and we need to resist it. We cannot be

Johnny Sanders (12:52)
Conformed by this world that it's just not good enough I'm not gonna get too much into this but there's another thing this week. There was a a well respected pastor that was just caught into some type of Inappropriate relationship. I won't comment more on that because I don't know more than that You can certainly look that up if you if you wish. The only reason why I bring that up is Sin is everywhere. We cannot trust a pastor. You cannot trust

a book that's not scripture. We cannot trust anyone fully. You need to take everything, including this own podcast, and match it up against scripture. Is scripture affirming that? If yes, then great. We praise God for godly men and women that have been able to use ministries and different things to help impact other people, even local churches, local pastors. We praise God for that. But if it's not,

According to scripture if it's going against that if then it's worldly and we need to reject it That means we need to be in scripture. We need to be in a Bible believing church that holds us accountable We cannot risk being conformed by the world That sin is there that sin is in your heart We need that forgiveness of sin from Christ if we could do it on our own We wouldn't need Christ, but we can't so do not be conformed to the world. We cannot and

It's not just as easy as just voting. That goes in your own church. We need to be very aware of what sin is and what sin is not. And we do that by knowing the Word. Moving on. But be transformed by the renewal of your mind. Again, we don't do this renewal of our mind by doing some meditation or having some kind of enlightenment or something like that. We get that from God and God alone. That's the only way we can get that transformed.

transformed renewal of our mind. We get that through Christ. We get that through that forgiveness of our sins. We have that when God has saved us. And then this testing piece. This is part of why I chose this verse to look at that by testing you may discern what is the will of God. That's what I'm talking about. We go through trials. We go through trials in our families, in our churches, right now definitely in our culture. And that testing

Johnny Sanders (15:20)
that we're going through can help us discern what is the will of God. Give a quick story. During COVID 2020, things were just rough. just were not feeling that fellowship and church any longer. We weren't able to have a lot of face -to -face conversations. Never in my life had I faced or had I understood how important that the meeting together of believers was during COVID.

I always knew going to church was important, but when a lot of that was taken from me in the middle of that, taken from my family, we really felt it. And while that was tough, I know that for a lot of you, that was a tough time, especially if you weren't able to attend church for whatever reason. There was a lot of testing going on. But you know what, personally for us, we were able to find our current church during that time. Because of that testing, it was a little bit easier to discern what was a church that was going to be

healthiest for me and my family. One that was gonna go by God's commands and not simply just the world around them. These testing moments that we have as a culture, that you have as a family, yeah, it's tough, sure, but it's there to help you discern things as well. And discernment is something, I won't get too deep into this, because we're have an episode on this, but discernment is something that we are greatly lacking as a society.

to those of you listening, especially men, young men that are either leading your family or hope to lead a family one day, you need to have good discernment. You're gonna have to make tough calls at times. And we get that discernment by God. We get that by knowing what is in scripture. What is the wise move to do? So often we're playing by chance. We're just playing by chance. Whatever happens, happens. Well, if Harris wins, okay, we'll just see what happens. We can't only just...

Dick, let the world dictate what's going on. We need to use some discernment. Maybe you need to help prepare, help prepare your family for what if something bad happens, help prepare your community. Maybe you need to run for office because you're scared about what's going on in the community. Maybe you need a homeschool. Don't just react. Have some discernment. Get out ahead of some of this stuff. Cause that's the good thing about having discernment is that will of God. Oftentimes it's very easy. It was very easy in 2020.

Johnny Sanders (17:47)
for me to find a church that I knew that, put it this way, I was looking for a church that if something happened to me, I want a church that I know I can entrust my wife and kids to. And we found that in 2020. And that was very easy for me to find that there. And that will of God, it is very easy to see in those testing moments, but we can't run away from that test. We have to be able to discern and be in that and know that

God, and this leads to the end of the verse, that what is good and acceptable and perfect, we have trust that God will reveal those things and that God is in those. Even in the testing moments when it's hard, even when we look at the culture that is just broken around us, it is broken. And look, there's times that I do get downtrodden. I do get discouraged. I got discouraged when I saw that poll that something like the quarter of the country.

is okay that a presidential candidate gets shot. That's disheartening and it's okay to show that emotion. But our hope is not in the culture. Our hope is in God. And we know that God uses these testing moments for his good and for the good of those who love him. And that doesn't mean it's not, that's always going to be easy. By no means is it always going to be easy, but we need to have faith during these testing times. So.

My challenge to you all who are tuning in, is if there is discernment that you are lacking, pray about it. Decisions that you need to make, go pray about it. But you've got to be in a Bible-believing church. There's no path forward where you do this all on your own and let's us figure it all out. You've got to be in a body of believers. That's number one. If you are not actively under the leadership of a of a Bible-believing church, number one, that is an emergency. You get that done now. If you're already in that and you have some other measures that you can be more involved in, local politics or to help kind of spread the word of different things that are important, I'm talking even school board elections and things of that nature, or just simply informing yourself on local elections and things like that in your area, take that step there.

Johnny Sanders (20:15)
But do not take the step of, I'm going to vote right first before you are in a Bible-believing church. That matters beyond everything. You have to be in a local body of believers. As if you're calling yourself a conservative Christian, you cannot skip that step. It has to be there first, and everything else flows from there, and be in prayer for our culture. Because again, it's sick. It's gross. I pray that God

helps us change course here. I don't know if that will be the case, but I do know I do have faith that God has this under control and he will work it out to his good. All that being said, I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. Definitely let me know if you're struggling to find a church or something like that. Feel free to reach out. Reach out to me at faithfullyengaged.com.

Shoot me an email or something like that. I've got a contact form on there. I may not be in your area, but I would love to be able to help you out. I've got some different resources to help get people connected. If you want to help the show out and join what I'm saying, feel free to pick up. Well, it's back there somewhere. I got a mug back there, but it's hidden on camera today. Feel free to pick up a mug or a t-shirt, something like that. Does help the show out. And yeah.

Just really appreciate you guys tuning in and we'll catch you on the next episode.