Saddleback Church Pastor Andy Wood tells congregants to vote for the godlier candidate
Saddleback Church Lead Pastor Andy Wood urged members across the megachurch’s 15 locations in Southern California to apply their faith and conscience and vote for the candidate whose life and policies “more closely align with the Word of God” come Election Day on Nov. 5.
“We are not in a moment where Jesus is on the ballot, friends, and we're like, ‘What do I do?’” Wood said during his sermon on Sunday titled, “Critical Filters for Moments of Decision.”
“You've got to ask this question: which candidate and issues more closely align with the Word of God?” he said, as the nation weighs whether to elect Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, or former President Donald Trump, who is the Republican presidential nominee.
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“I'm concerned how many people don't know what they're voting for. They don't understand the propositions. They don't know. Did you know that for both the Democratic and Republican nominees for president of the United States of America, you can read their plan, you can read their beliefs?” Wood asked.
“They have it all put on the internet, and you can today, go home and download it and read it. And know what they believe and know what they've done in the history, their past,” he continued.
“When we hire people, we say the best indicator of future performance is past behavior. So if you want to know what a person's going to do in the future, look at what they've done in the past, and they're telling us what they're going to do. They're telling us their beliefs. And I've got to ask, which of the candidates more closely aligns with the Word of God? And then vote based on your conscience,” Wood added.
Before urging the congregants to vote for the godlier of the two candidates, Wood cited new research from Evangelical pollster George Barna and his team at the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University, showing that as many as 104 million people of faith, including 32 million self-identified Christians who regularly attend church, are unlikely to vote in the upcoming presidential election. He warned Christians against opting out.
“Now, in my humble opinion, this is problematic. If you are a follower of Jesus, you have a responsibility in culture. And I believe followers of Jesus should be integrated into serving in the culture that we're in, and this includes our vote,” he said.
Wood also noted that Christians are charged with seeking to glorify God in all that they do, and that includes their voting.
“The glory of God is our Supreme motivation. First Corinthians 10:31 says whether you eat or drink or vote or whatever, you do it all for the glory of God,” he said.
Wood also raised concern that the Church, through various influences in media, had become too much like the world.
“In church, at large, in our country — and this is it, the world is outpacing the church with the shaping of our worldview, so we have so much coming at us. And if we're honest with ourselves, for a lot of us, the algorithm is influencing our worldview more than God is, more than the Bible is. [F]or many of us, we've got so many messages from the media channels that we watch and we're confused,” the megachurch pastor said, calling the confusion “a challenge that followers of Jesus face.”
Wood raised concern that 14 states have trans "healthcare" shield laws. The Williams Institute at UCLA, notes that as of Aug. 2024, 17 states and Washington, D.C., have shield law allowing permanent bodily disfigurement via the prescribing of puberty-blocking drugs, cross-sex hormones and elective castration for boys and mastectomies for girls.
“Several of these states have laws that say if a child has been unable to obtain parental consent […] for their transition in gender, the state can take their child from them. So a state can decide that a parent who says to their 14-year-old son, you can't change your gender, they can define that as abuse. That is not abuse,” Wood said.
“That is shepherding a child that is not at a place that they can make that decision. That's a parent's job. The state does not have the authority to do that. And friends, again, from a heart of love, this is an evil law. It's evil.”
The California pastor added that 12 states allow abortions for up to nine months.
“This is evil, it's evil before a living God. And for followers of Jesus, there's confusion because we don't want to call it evil. But I would remind you what God's Word says in Isaiah 5:20: God is just, and God is love. God is Holy and God is merciful, but God will not violate His standards for a blessing upon people,” Wood said.
“What I want for you is that when you mail in your ballot or go in and vote here in the United States of America, that your conscience before God would be clear. That's my hope for you. And at the end of the day, there's some things that might happen,” Wood explained.
The Saddleback Church pastor warned that even though voting for the godlier candidate is not an assurance that that person will be the eventual winner, Christians can be assured that the Church will continue regardless of who wins.
“The person you want to win, might not win. The person that you vote for might not be the next president. The thing that you put down for a proposition might not happen. And the question is, can the Church still thrive regardless of who's in office? And that is a resounding yes,” Wood assured.
“From generation to generation, Christians were burned at the stake in the first century of the Early Church, and the Church grew exponentially. Jesus said, 'I will build my Church, and the Gates of Hell will not prevail against it,'” he said.
“And what if the person you want to win, I want to win, doesn't win? I would say, friends, God causes kings to rise and fall, kingdoms to rise and fall, and He is supreme. He is the one who is the authority. He is the one who is seated on His throne,” Wood added.
“Yes, we're in a critical hour. Yes, your vote matters. Go and make a difference. […] But at the end of the day, have faith and confidence that God can do what God says He will do, regardless of what happens.”
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