Sermon Study Guide | Series: Beyond the Ballot | Sermon: Who Are You, Really? | Scripture: Colossians 2:12; 3:1–4 | Galatians 2:20 | 1 Peter 2:9–12 |
Date: October 18, 2026

For this series we’ve developed a

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CONNECT - “A Personal Reflection”

This section is designed to help you relate personally to the theme of the sermon. It encourages you to reflect on your own life experiences and how they connect to the message.

Politics can feel personal because it touches things we genuinely care about—our families, neighborhoods, schools, work, safety, justice, and the kind of community we hope to live in. Those things matter. But sometimes, without realizing it, our political convictions begin carrying something heavier: our sense of who we are, where we belong, who “our people” are, and whether the future is going to be okay. This message asks us to begin this series somewhere deeper than a platform or a ballot: Who are you, really?

Think about your own reactions over the last few weeks. What political issue, headline, candidate, party, or outcome has had the greatest ability to change your mood, increase your fear, or make you feel defensive? What might that reaction reveal about where you have been locating your identity? Share with your group.

ENGAGE - “Exploring the Scripture”

This section invites you to dive into the biblical passage, discuss its meaning, and apply it to your life through thoughtful questions.

ENGAGE

• Read Colossians 2:12 and 3:1–4. Paul says followers of Jesus have died and been raised with Christ and that their lives are now “hidden with Christ in God.” What does that tell you about where a Christian’s deepest identity comes from?
  
  
• The message explains that “hidden” does not mean secret; it communicates something secure and out of reach. What becomes possible politically, emotionally, and relationally when you believe your identity cannot be voted in or voted out?
  
  
• The message distinguishes between ultimate things and penultimate things. Political questions can be deeply important without becoming ultimate. Why is it difficult to hold something as important without asking it to become everything?
  
  
• What does it look like when we drift toward one of the two extremes described in the message: checking out because “only spiritual things matter,” or giving politics so much weight that every election begins to feel like salvation or catastrophe?
  
  
• The message asks us to consider how much time we spend being formed by our feeds compared with Scripture, prayer, and life with Jesus. Without becoming legalistic about minutes, what voices have had the greatest influence on your emotional reactions lately?
  
  
• Read Galatians 2:20. Paul says, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” The message describes our identity in Jesus as something we receive rather than achieve or defend. Where do you still feel pressure to prove or protect who you are?
  
  
• Consider this question from the message: Where has following Jesus made you uncomfortable with your own political side? Why is the ability to answer that question an important diagnostic of whether our faith is shaping our politics or our politics are filtering our faith?
  
  
• Read 1 Peter 2:9–10. Peter calls Christians a “chosen people,” “royal priesthood,” and “holy nation.” What is striking about giving that identity to followers of Jesus who possessed very little political power?
  
  
• Peter’s language describes an identity no government granted and no election could remove. How might that reshape the way Christians think about political wins and losses?
  
  
• Read 1 Peter 2:11–12. Peter calls believers “sojourners and exiles,” but then tells them to live visibly good lives among their neighbors. How does this challenge both political takeover and political withdrawal?
  
  
• The message asks a difficult hypothetical: If the political outcome you fear most happened—not just once, but repeatedly—would your faith survive? What does your answer reveal about what you expect politics to provide?
  
  
• Peter calls followers of Jesus to live as Thoughtful Witnesses, whose conduct helps others see something of God even when they are misunderstood. What would that kind of witness look like in your political conversations over the next few weeks?
  
  
• This weekend also centers baptism—a public declaration that our primary allegiance belongs to Jesus. How does baptism challenge every identity that tries to become more fundamental than belonging to Christ?

APPLY - “Putting the Scriptures into Action”

This section challenges us to take what we’ve learned and implement it in practical ways in our daily lives.

• Do the formation math. For a few days, pay attention to what you consume. Notice how much political/news/social content is entering your life compared with Scripture, prayer, worship, and meaningful relationships. The goal is not guilt; it is simply to notice what has been discipling you.
  
  
• Ask the “own side” question. Identify one place where following Jesus challenges the assumptions of the political community you feel most comfortable with. Resist immediately turning the question toward someone else.
  
  
• Embrace the Headline Practice. Before reacting to a political headline, pause for sixty seconds:
  
  • Pause.
  • Notice what is happening in your body.
  • Name what you are feeling.
  • Ask: What is this story trying to form in me?
  • Pray for the people involved on both sides, by name when possible.
  • Engage only after doing the first five things.
    The goal is not disengagement from the news; it is refusing to let the news form us faster than the gospel does.
    
    

• Do something your ballot cannot do. Identify one concern you care deeply about and ask whether part of the response belongs closer to home—with you, your family, your church, your workplace, or your neighborhood. Take one concrete step rather than assuming political action is the only kind available.
• Return to your identity before your feed. Before checking political news one morning this week, slowly read Colossians 3:1–4. Let Paul’s description of who you already are become the first word over your day.
• Answer the question slowly: Who am I, really? Write your answer without using your profession, nationality, political affiliation, accomplishments, family role, or possessions. What remains?

PRAY - “Seeking God’s Guidance”

This section offers a short prayer to help us center our hearts and invite God to work in our lives through his scripture.

Jesus, thank you that our lives are hidden with you in God. Thank you that our deepest identity is not something we have to achieve, protect, prove, or win. You have already given us a belonging that no election can grant and no political outcome can take away. Show us where fear, outrage, contempt, or tribal loyalty has been forming us more deeply than your gospel.

Give us humility to notice where following you challenges our own assumptions, not merely the assumptions of people with whom we disagree. Teach us to participate thoughtfully in our communities without asking politics to carry the weight of our souls. Make us people whose convictions are shaped by you, whose hope is secure in you, and whose posture toward our neighbors makes your grace visible.

Remind us again who we are: people who have died with Christ, been raised with Christ, and now belong to a Kingdom that is not on the ballot. Amen.

If you have feedback on this guide or ideas that would help your group engage more deeply, we’d love to hear from you. 

Your insight helps us continue growing as a church that wrestles honestly and walks faithfully together. Contact msummers@menlo.church

FIVE DAY DEVOTIONAL

Beyond the Ballot // Week 1

Read the scripture first. Sit with it before you read anything else. Then, before you open the news, try the Headline Practice.

DAY ONE // BURIED

Read: Colossians 2:12

Having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.

Read it slowly and notice the order. Buried first, then raised.

In the first century, baptism wasn’t a private moment. It was a public declaration of allegiance in a world where the empire expected yours. Going under the water announced that the old self was dead, and the life that came up belonged to someone else.

Notice what Paul says powers it. It isn’t the strength of your decision. It’s the powerful working of God, the same power that walked Jesus out of a tomb.

Whether you went under the water this weekend or forty years ago, it’s still true this morning.

Reflect: What part of your old self do you keep trying to dig back up?

Pray: Jesus, I was buried with You and raised with You. Help me stop visiting the grave. Amen.

DAY TWO // HIDDEN

Read: Colossians 3:1-4

For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

Some of us hear “set your minds on things above” as permission to check out of everything below. Paul isn’t handing you an escape hatch. He’s telling you where to stand while you engage.

The word “hidden” describes something done and still in effect. Your life was placed with Christ, and it’s still there. Hidden doesn’t mean secret. It means secure.

Your sense of self can rise and fall with a news cycle, or it can rest somewhere no news cycle can reach. Paul says the second one is already true. Today is about living like it.

Reflect: Where have you been looking for your sense of who you are this month?

Pray: Father, my life is hidden with Christ in You. Let me live today like it’s safe there. Amen.

DAY THREE // NO LONGER I

Read: Galatians 2:20

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Politics asks you to defend an identity. Jesus hands you one.

You can’t achieve this identity, and you don’t have to protect it. It was given at the cross, and it’s held by the One who gave it. That frees you to hold your convictions with open hands, because your worth isn’t riding on whether you win the argument.

Read the last line again. Paul doesn’t say “who loved the world.” He says “who loved me.” This is personal before it’s anything else.

Reflect: What part of your identity do you feel you have to defend right now? What would it look like to set it down?

Pray: Jesus, You loved me and gave Yourself for me. I don’t need to defend what You already secured. Amen.

DAY FOUR // A NATION NOBODY VOTED ON

Read: 1 Peter 2:9-10

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

Peter takes words God spoke to Israel at Sinai and gives them to scattered believers with no vote, no seat at the table, and no side that was winning.

Nobody elected them into this. God called them into it.

If you feel politically homeless right now, this is for you. If you feel at home in one camp, it’s for you too, maybe more. You belong to a people that no election created and no election can dissolve.

Reflect: Where do you feel most at home politically? Where do you actually belong?

Pray: God, once I was not a people, and now I’m Yours. Let that be the citizenship I feel most deeply. Amen.

DAY FIVE // EXILES

Read: 1 Peter 2:11-12

Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.

Peter doesn’t tell exiles to take over, and he doesn’t tell them to check out. He tells them to live so well that even the people speaking against them end up seeing God.

About a century later, a letter to a man named Diognetus described Christians as living in their own countries as sojourners. Every foreign country was a fatherland to them, and every fatherland was foreign. Their neighbors noticed.

Try the Headline Practice today with the first story that gets under your skin. Then go one step further.

Reflect: Who is someone on the other side of the ballot that you could serve this week without trying to change their mind?

Pray: God, I pray for [name]. Make my life an honest witness to them. Amen.

The practice continues. Before you react to a political headline, give it sixty seconds. Pause. Notice. Name. Ask. Pray. Engage.

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