Special Post-Election Episode: Our Responsibility
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Hey, everybody, welcome to a special post election edition of the andy Stanley leadership, pak Sandy. For the second we going to row, I want to depart from our standard leadership center content to talk about, well, to talk about what everybody else is talking about, the state of the state, the future of our nation, in light of what we have just gone through, or you might say, suffer through.

You can't help but wonder, is this experiment and representative government even still working? And my answer to that question is, IT will continue to work as long as we, the people, work in. But everybody's got to do their part, right? So for the next few minutes, i'm going to define what i'm convinced is our part by hour.

I mean, my part and your part, but first, a little U. S. History to set this up. After declaring independence from britain, our founding fathers went to work writing our constitution.

You know that creating this timeless document was not a casual endeavor, to say the least, do in part of the fact that our founding fathers disagreed with each other about so many things. In the end, pretty much everybody involved was unhappy about something, but happy enough about most things to ratify. Which reminds me of one of my favorite winston churchill quotes.

He said, democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried. And I think we would all agree anyway. During the ratification process, our wise founding fathers acknowledged there was more work to be done. They needed to add language that would limit specific government powers in order to protect specific personal freedoms.

The result was, of course, the bill of rights, and we take these rights for granted, or at least I know what I do, but the notion of placing enforceable limits on government to protect the rights of individual citizens was largely unprecedented in the world. IT was truly revolutionary for most of human history. Human rights were neither promised nor protected to this day.

Millions of people, women and children in particular, live without the basic rights guaranteed by our bill of right. We're guarantee the right to do process trial by a jury of a free press. But and this is where you come in.

This is where we come in. Government enforce laws and rights are not enough. Something else is needed, something that can't be Mandated, namely individual responsibility. And here's why I say that when IT comes to freedom, most of us think in terms of individual freedom, not collective freedom.

But here's something we all know from personal experience, especially if you're apparent right must be coupled with responsibility, or things go terribly wrong, right? Right must be coupled with responsibility, or things go well, things go terribly wrong. At some point, an adult handed most of us a key to their car and let us drive away alone for the first time.

Remember that we were legal and we had a right, but our parents were banking on us being responsible. And if we weren't, well, i'm sure you were. Anyway, our founding fathers understood this relationship.

They knew they could not enforce individual responsibility. That was up to the individual. John Adams, the second president of the united states, put in this way he wrote, our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.

IT is wholly inadequate to the governing of any other. This is a remarkable statement coming from someone who had help craft the U. S.

constitution. He considered that masterpiece of democracy, holy, inadequate for governing, irresponsible people. Truth be told, our bill of rights actually guarantees us the right to be irresponsible.

But if enough americans exercise that right again, things will go terribly wrong. In fact, my guess is that the issues that currently concern you most about our nation are connected to the irresponsible behavior of its citizens. right?

Truth is, laws are limited. Laws tell us how long we can go before we, well before we go to jail. Rights tell us what we can demand for ourselves, but there is something neither constitutional law nor the bill of rights can do.

They can't make us more responsible. They can't inspire us to greatness. They don't create a love of virtue or an appreciation for doing the right thing simply because is the right thing to do.

Laws and rights don't require or inspire us to treat others the way we want to be treated. Think about IT traffic laws don't create curious drivers. Assault and battery laws don't ensure someone is kind.

Civil laws don't make citizens more civil. The right to free speech certainly doesn't encourage edifying, encouraging. And as you may know from personal experience, neighborhood association rules don't necessarily create good neighbors.

They just put gardens around potentially bad neighbors. All that to say, laws put limits on the self serving expression of our rights guaranteed to us by the bill of rights. This is why you can't come in in my house uninvited to exercise your free speech.

So to sum up, the billiards reflects what we are entitled to. Federal, state and local laws tell us what we are allowed to do, but that's just not enough. Those two alone actually Foster division to join ads.

Point, a third component is necessary to use one of his terms. The third component necessary is when I law tells what we must do more, tells us what we ought to do, rides divorce from personal responsibility, eventually undermines personal freedom. Rights apart from responsibility breeds anarchy.

E, because eventually my expression of freedom will infringe on yours. In short, liberty apart from responsibility eventually undermines liberty. And the solution is, well, the solution is you.

The solution is me. The solution is us. We, the people.

In the first century, one of jesus most famous followers made the following statement. And yes, his context was very different than hours. But the principle certainly applies the impossible.

Paul wrote the following. He wrote, you, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. In other word's, freedom was our creators idea is the cry of the human heart.

But the creator knew what we know. We have a tendency to abuse our freedom. So paul issues this morning, he writes, you, my brothers and sisters were called to be free, but do not use your freedom to indulge yourselves.

In other words, don't confuse liberty with entitlement. Don't ask how low can I go or what can I get by with? And then he adds this, and this would change everything.

In fact, this would change everything in our homes, our neighborhoods, certainly our nation. He writes, you, my brothers and sisters were called to be free, but do not use your freedom to indulge yourselves, rather serve one another humbly in love. His point, don't be selfish with your freedom.

Be responsible with your freedom. True, we don't have to. You have a right not to. But the world changes if we all decide to, if we decide to put one another first, to honor one another, to respect one another, or at least treat one another respectfully.

And if we don't, if we choose to live, litigate and demand our way like, like everybody else, the possible power x predicts our current national climate. This is amazing. This is amazing.

He writes, if you bite into vour each other, in other words, if you demand your way at the expense of others, if you buy IT into vour each other, watch out, he writes, or you will be destroyed by each other. Look around isn't true. Our division is consuming us.

We are devouring one another. We, the people have become our own worst enemy. Our enemy is not the other party.

Our enemy is division caused by laws and rights divorced from personal responsibility. Selfishness is dividing us. Selfishness always divides.

Self lessons always unite. But again, you can't legislate self lessons. You can't legislate kind or patient.

You can't legislate others first. You can't legislate the golden rule. Those are choices.

So let's choose them. Let's obey the law, exercise our rights. But let's not stop there. Let's be more than law abiding, rights demanding.

Let's refuse to leverage our freedoms, our right to indulge ourselves at the expense of other people. Let's refuse to exercise our rights in a way that harm, or in french, upon the rights of other people. Instead, let's look for opportunities to serve one another.

Let's participate politically, but let's go the extra mile. Let's live responsibly. So is our national experiment with democracy still working?

IT certainly can work if we, the people, will work IT. So let's get to work. Thanks for listening to this special post election episode. We will be returning to our regular format next week to be sure to join us right here on the understanding leadership forecast.