4-14-25

This is Holy Week…..a week that Christians the world over consider to be the most

important in the dates that mark our faith…..beginning with Palm Sunday and

moving through to Good Friday and Easter Sunday, this week marks the legacy

that Christians share in knowing that our God saw fit to make the ultimate

sacrifice by sending his son, Jesus to take our place……I believe that…..with all my

heart…..and I’m not perfect…..but I am forgiven……and what’s so refreshing is to

know that my President feels that way as well……yesterday President Trump

issued a proclamation and announced that Holy Week at the White House will, in

fact be holy……a week filled with prayer, worship, remembrance, and humble

celebration, right there in our nations capital……when I heard it, I could not help

but think of the Book of Joshua…..Joshua had taken the place of Moses, which

was no small thing….the Israelites were doing their usual cycle of worshipping

pagan idols versus worshipping the God who brought them out of Egypt…. and in

chapter 24 Joshua stood before the people and he didn’t berate them or belittle

them…..he reminded them who they were, and who their God was…..he

reminded them of how much the Lord had carried them through…..then he lead

them…..in verse 15 he boldly said to the people that he was appointed to lead,

that they could follow other little-g gods if they wanted to, “but as for me and my

house we will served the Lord”……it was leadership…..and faith…..and it drew

people back to the Lord…….I’m glad to see that is the tone we are getting from

our current White House…..that as for Donald Trump and his team at our White

House, they will serve the Lord…….

It was just last year that former President Joe Biden decided that Easter Sunday

was to be declared the “transgender day of visibility”……I don’t know if that

proclamation was signed with autopen or not, but the fact is that it sent shock

waves through the country…..in one fell swoop the Biden White House decided to

spend the holiest of holy days worshipping idols…..praising the created instead of

the creator……

You may also remember one of those too weird to be true, but yet it is, moments

when Kamala Harris dissed on Christians everywhere at one of her political

rallies…. a young man yelled out “Jesus is Lord” and she got that smarmy “I’m

about to school you” look that she gets and said, “Oh, I think you came to the

wrong rally”….while the audience laughed and jeered she felt empowered by her

ill-timed misguided secular sense of humor and said, “I think you meant to go to

the smaller rally down the street”…..the audience howled and guffawed and she

looked so proud…..then the reality set in as it began to be reported

nationwide…..she had so glibly mocked a man for shouting “Jesus is Lord” and

implied that that message was better suited to the Trump/Vance rally across

town……in one fell swoop Kamala Harris told Christian voters that their faith

based political views were not welcome in her camp…..Christians everywhere

took note……

So here’s my question for you……can we mix faith and politics…..”but Phil! What

about separation of church and state?!”……what about it?.....there is a first

amendment that affords every citizen the right to a freedom of their

religion……public officials are citizens too…..my salvation is not based on my

works, I don’t earn my way to Heaven, but yet the Bible does tell me that faith

without works is dead…..that I will “show” my faith to others as proof of

it……Some years ago while I was in the State Senate a bill came up that dealt with

pro-life issues…..I don’t remember which one in particular, there were several

pro-life bills that I carried, or cosponsored…..but I do remember the

opposition……there was one lady in particular who was absolutely spiteful…..just

really obnoxious….here vitriol against the pro-life measures always came across as

mean-spirited personal attacks…..she was an absolutely bitter person and it

showed……On one occasion I was accused of doing the most heinous of

things….the most unforgiveable….I was accused of letting my faith mix with my

politics! Say it ain’t so Phil! You didn’t really act like a Christian in the political

realm did you?!......well, I hope I did!.....when I got elected to represent Senate

District 10 I was not elected to be less than who I am…..I ran as a conservative, as

a patriot, and I ran as an unabashed believer in Christ…..why would I leave that at

home…..if my faith is the most important thing to me, and makes me who and

what I am, then how could I possibly not take it with me into politics….of course I

took it into my politics…..I would be a hyporcrite if I didn’t…….the truth is we had

better mix our faith with our politics….we had better pray about our vote…..we

had better mix our faith-based values and traditions and principles with our

politics….because if we don’t take those positions of faith into the public square

then someone else will take just the opposite into the public square…..

There’s an amazing story in 2 Kings 22…..it’s worth the read…..you couldn’t make

a movie better than this…..Josiah was the King….his father before him had done a

horrible job and the nation of Israel was in spiritual decay….so much so that the

most holy site (the temple of Jerusalem) was filled with idols and pagan worship

and male prostitutes…..on a purely secular basis Josiah decided to repair the

temple because it was falling apart…..and in the course of doing so the workers

found what they simply called “a book”…..just a book…..they brought it to the

King and he didn’t know what it was either…..but then he read it and realized that

he was holding the Torah….the Bible if you will…..the nation of Israel had fallen so

far from grace that the King didn’t even know what the Bible was….but once he

read it….wow!.....he gathered all the people and then he read it to them

personally…..and then he tore down the idols….and then he pledged to lead them

in Godly fashion….he called on them to celebrate their holy week…..and it says

the people responded overwhelmingly and followed his leadership…..at the end

of the story, when Josiah finally passed away…..it says in 2 Kings 23:25 that there

was never a king before him, nor after him, who turned to the Lord as he

did….think about that for a eulogy….in all the Bible, filled with names like Moses,

Isaiah, Abraham, David……no one was a leader like this one guy named Josiah who

stood in front of his people and challenged them to serve the God that they had

forgotten……

Dr. Ben Carson spoke at the Alabama Policy Institute dinner last fall and did a

wonderful job…..at one point he said something I thought was profound and so I

made a note in my phone so that I wouldn’t forget it……speaking about faith

Carson said, “it is said that there are two things we should never talk about in

public: politics and religion. But those are the two things that we must talk about

because those are where we are being attacked.”…..he’s so right, and I will go one

step further…..not only should we talk about those two things….but I believe that

we absolutely 100% unequivocally should talk about them together…..Christians

need to care about who is elected to make and enforce the laws that govern our

country…..Christians need to not only care about who is elected, but Christians

need to also vote their faith, and run for office, and seek the opportunity to carry

their faith into the public square…..it’s really simple…..either we as Christians

speak out about our faith, or those who don’t believe will speak out about our

faith…..and I would rather it be us than them……

and I’ll take it a step further…. good stewardship of that which we have been

entrusted is not only sought, it is expected…..what will we do with this country we

have been given? Will we as Christians take bold action and grow it and shepherd

it and be good stewards of it…..or will we sit on our haunches and just wait to see

what happens?......I don’t want to be that guy….I don’t want to be the one in the

end who realizes that I had an opportunity to do something to advance this great

nation in a way that increases our capabilities and enhances our strength, and

protects life, liberty and property….AND a belief in an almighty God who loves me

in spite of myself……but instead I just did…..nothing(?)……

Listen, our faith is not based on works…..I believe that…..I believe that my

salvation is assured because I have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ…..no

other way…..but there are two parts to being a Christian…..there’s making him

Savior, and there’s making him Lord of our lives…..a friend of mine said last night

in my church small group that “my salvation was instant, but my sanctification

takes a lifetime”……he was right in that we have a lifetime of work to do and as

Christians that does not mean doing it everywhere except in politics…..

Sometimes Christians need to be busy being Christians, not in a braggadocios

ostentatious way, but in a real and practical way…..

Christians…..listen to me…..faith and politics….they go together like a hand in a

glove…..if you sit it out because its politics….you’re wrong…..get up, get busy, and

be political…..put your faith in the public square……

Faith and politics go well together…..And that’s a wrap for the Rightside Way