Government- Gods Imperfect Servant.mp4

Turn with me to Romans chapter thirteen. Romans thirteen. We're going to be

in verses one through seven this morning, and I'll give you a second to

do that. Romans thirteen one through seven. Somebody asked me just a little

bit ago, Hey, what's coming next. We're in Romans, we're back

in Romans. We're wrapping up twelve. What's in thirteen again? And I

said, oh, yeah, that's where we're going to talk about the Christians

submitting to the governing authorities. And they said oh, and then they said,

good luck with that. It's kind of interesting that we can have discussed

the wrath of God against sinful man, we can talk about the sovereignty of

God and his racious election, we've talked about all the israel stuff, and

then when we get to the Christian submitting to the governing authorities, it's good

luck with that because we don't want to hear it. And we don't want

to hear it. Not because as a congregation largely we're running around breaking the

law. By God's grace to me, we're not that congregation. Rather,

it's because although as a congregation by and large, we are law abiding citizens,

compliant on the outside. On the inside, the thought of honoring our

governing authorities is irritating. I'm already gotting amends. You just stick with it.

You just stick with it. And we know that the Lord desires truth

in the inmost parts. We want our walk before the King of kings to

be one of truth on the outside and the inside. And so that's what's

at stake this morning, when it comes to honoring and obeying what I've called

God's imperfect servants. Let me read the passage for us Romans thirteen one through

seven. Let every person be subject to the governing authorities, For there is

no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.

Therefore, whoever resists the authorities resist what God has appointed, and those

who resist will encoura judgment, for rulers are not of terror to good conduct,

but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is

in authority, then do what is good and you will receive his approval,

for he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong,

be afraid. He does not bear the sword in vain, for he is

the servant of God and Avenger, who carries out God's wrath on the wrong

doer. Therefore, one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God's

wrath, but also for the sake of conscience. For because of this you

also pay taxes. For the authorities are ministers of God attending to this very

thing. Pay to all what is owed to them, taxes to whom taxes

are owed, revenue to whom revenue revenue is ode, respect to whom respect

is honor, to whom honor is owed. This is God's word. My

aim this morning is that our hearts would be so impacted by God's good instructions,

his design, and his sovereignty in it that we would not only obey

our authorities on the outside, we would even honor them on the inside,

as He intends. So my message this morning is five basic pieces. The

first one is the instruction. What's the instruction? Be subject to the governing

authorities, the reasons for the instruction, the objections to the instruction, the

description of it, what does it look like? And then the heart in

it? The heart in it. So that's a lot, so we better

go. Let's talk about the instruction. Here we go. The instruction.

The instruction is actually quite plain, it's clear, maybe clearer than we like,

because although the instruction is plain, it's also hated. It's hated by

the flesh, it's hated by the world, it's hated by the devil.

But it is plain. It's right there in verse one. Be subject to

the governing authorities. Then he comes back to it in verse five. Therefore

we must be in subjection. And everything in between those two pieces of bread

in the passage is Paul's filling in the sandwich, which is the reasoning and

the case and the argumentation for this very plain instruction. Honor and obey the

governing authorities. That's what he intends, that we would honor and obey,

that we would respect and submit to authorities. The concept isn't hard for our

minds. It is hard for our flesh. The flesh hates authority and hates

submitting to it. I mean, ever since you were a kid, if

there's one thing you hated more than eating your vegetables, it was being told

that you had to The flesh hates authority. The world hates authority. Have

you ever seen a movie recently where the good guys were the authorities that happened?

I don't know. It's always that the authorities are always greedy boss Hog

and incompetent Roscoe the sheriff. Some of you know who these people are.

And then the heroes are the witty, clever, good looking duke boys.

The narratives are always framed so that it is absolutely ridiculous to honor the authorities

in that narrative world. And if it's not Hollywood entertainment that is framing things

that way, it's political entertainment that's framing it that way. Our flesh loves

to be provisioned with stories of how ridiculous our authorities are, especially in issues

on which we disagree. The world is constantly training us to consider authorities unworthy

of honor and obedience. I don't have to tell you that the devil hates

authority. The devil loves to sow dishonor, loves to sow disrespect, loves

to see disobedience and rebellion and the destruction that comes with it. And so

the flesh, the world, and the devil are all arranged in battle against

this clear instruction from God on don't and obey your authorities. And I know

that right now all of our heads are just noisy with objections and exceptions to

this rule. I can hear them. I'm all right, because they're in

my head too. I have the same head on my shoulders. But what

about? But what about? But what about? But what about? And

we'll touch on objections. But first, don't you think it's right for the

people of God, looking at the plain word of God, to sit for

a moment under the power of the Spirit of God and center our minds on

God's plain instruction, honor and obey the governing authorities. For us to just

sit with that for a second and take it in like this is God's intention

for us. And then then we'll touch on objections. Before we get to

objections, let's talk about the reasons. The reasons. As I said before,

between these two pieces of bread, be subject to the authorities. Be

subject to the authorities. Verse one, verse five. Feeling of the sandwich

is Paul's reasoning why it is right for the people of God to submit to

the governing authorities, and the reasoning boils down to two basic reasons. One

is a practical reason and the other is a theological reason. Let's start with

the practical reason. The practical reason that Paul gives us for the people of

God. Obeying the governing authorities is that when you obey and honor the governing

authorities, you move away from trouble and towards flourishing. In general, that's

how that goes. Let's read it in verse three and four. For rulers

and not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have

no fear of the one who is an authority, then do what is good,

and you will receive his approval for it. He is God's servant for

your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does

not bear the sword in vain. So the scripture saying that in general,

living in honor and obedience of our governing authorities means that we will live with

more confidence, more good, less fear less bad. I'll give you an

example. There were several years when I was, let's just say, involved

in illegal drug culture, which meant that I was avoiding the police everywhere.

If I was driving down the road, I saw a cop in my rearview

mirror, I figured out a way to take a turn. If I saw

a cop on the street, I figured out a way to be on the

other side of the street. And then I came to faith in Jesus and

I got clean, and eventually it got to the point where I liked approaching

the police officers just to ask him what time it was, because of the

thrill of interacting with a police officer. Here he is right in front of

me to protect and serve what time you got true? My life and my

demeanor became better in a thousand ways when I came to faith in Jesus,

and one ingredient that God used for blessing was just my becoming a law abiding

citizen. This is the opposite experience of the guy who's sitting in the courtroom

with the only God can judge me tattoo. That tattoo, by the way,

not true. Not true. If you want to make that more accurate,

you can strike the only right God can judge me. You can change

can to will God will judge me, and then you could also append to

that God will judge me, and he might use the court system and the

police department as an agent in it. That's more or less what Romans thirteen

is saying. That's what Paul say in verse three. That's what Paul saying

in verse four that honoring and obeying our authorities in general, more confidence,

more good, less fear less bad, very practical reason. But there's a

more profound reason, a more theological reason that he gives us as well.

And here it is, our authorities are appointed by God. God, in

his sovereignty, in his providence, is in charge of everything, and he

appoints authorities good ones, bad ones, mediocre ones. Let's read it.

You see it. In verse one, he says four, there is no

authority except from God. Those who exist been instituted by God. Therefore,

whoever resists the authorities resist what God is appointed. You can see it.

In verse four he says four, he is God's servant. Later in verse

four four he is the servant of God. Verse six, four the authorities

are ministers of God. You can see this. You can see how the

scriptures characterize our authorities as servants of God. And you can see that that

serves as the ground the basis the four that the whole assumption that we should,

as the people of God, honor and obey them. You see it,

you believe it? Do you live this from the heart? I mean,

it's counterintuitive to me. I've never received a mail out from the irs

and thought a message from the ministers of God, except when they're sending out

those like stimulus checks. I might have thought that then it's counterintuitive, counterintuitive.

It would have been counterintuitive to the church at Rome, right, their

authorities were not Christians, they were Pagans. Their authorities, there was widespread

corruption, power grabbing, even persecution from the governing authorities. And Scripture calls

them repeatedly God's servants and then bases the honor and the obedience that were to

show them on that. There's a lot of irony going on here, a

lot of irony that the relatively good and godly church is being in talk did

to honor, obey honor, and obey the relatively bad and ungodly authorities.

And he calls them God's servants. Yet that's what the Bible says, and

says it in more than one place in Daniel. In Daniel, who's embedded

with a foreign and evil authority, he just says, look, God removes

kings and he sets up kings as the Jewish leaders were trying to get Jesus

to undermine the Roman authorities. He says, what give to Caesar? What

is Caesar? And give to God? What is God's even to Pilot at

his trial, he says, you would have no authority over me at all,

except that which is given to you from above. We talked to our

kids, it's about this or re least we used to when we would have

babysitters. We don't do that as much anymore. When we would have a

babysitter over, we would set the kids down and we would say, all

right, kids, who's in charge of everything? They'd say, God,

good, good pastors. Kids, Who's who has God put in charge of

you? And they'd say, Mom and Dad say now, mom and dad,

we're going out, and miss Kristen is going to be in charge of

you. So disobeying and dishonoring Miss Kristen is in a sense dishonoring and disobeying

us, and dishonoring and disobeying God. The fact is that honoring and obeying

is an opportunity for the people of God to engage in worshipful obedience of our

heavenly Father. He gives to us, in this regular pedestrian way, an

opportunity for us to obey and honor earthly kings as an expression of our worship

of the King of kings. No worship here. This is honor and obedience.

Worship here and and honor and obedience. Because of it, they're God's

servants, even though they don't look like them, and we honor and obey

them for the Lord's sake. I'll just say another implication of the governing authorities

being the Lord's servants is that prayer is talking to their master, about going

over their heads, talking to their master, ask that he would give them

wisdom, Ask that he would draw their hearts to life and justice and the

rule of law and righteousness. Honor and obey, be sure to pray.

So that's the instruction. Those are the reasons, right, the practical reason

and the theological reason. Now let's just touch on objections. Let's touch on

objections because I know that our brains are just splitting right now with a hundred

What about what about if they forbid the preaching of the Gospel like they did

an axe. What about if they command the worship of idols as they did

in What about if they order the execution of Hebrew babies like they did an

Exodus. Yeah, we definitely see in scripture specific times in which governing authorities

have directed the people of God to disobey the commands of God, and the

right response we see straight from Peter and John in Acts chapter four, we

must obey God rather than man. So, of course there are exceptions,

and discerning them requires wise biblical reasoning and a tuned conscience, as Paul brought

up in verse five. But here's the thing. In many ways, we

are so conditioned by movies and stories and political pundance to always be thinking a

lot about ways that authorities might misuse their power or misswing the sword of government,

and think very little about the millions of ordinary ways that authorities judge and

do justice for our good, for good order, ways that under God are

for sure imperfect, but are instrumental in his hands for his care of his

creation and the people who bear his image. They're in his hand. And

if your heart is like mine, it just does not take much to provoke

it to chase against governing authorities, to chafe, especially if I'm being goaded

on by others, televised or not. But as the people of God,

here's what we want to wrap our hearts around. Here's what we want to

love and cherish. The plain intentions of our King, the plain intentions of

our Lord, God, his priorities, his purposes as he designed in his

wisdom. We don't want to be just feeding our minds on ways that we

can refuse them. We don't want to be like the dating couple who's chafing

under the idea of purity. And really, what really, what we want

to know is just how far can we go? We don't want to be

like the wealthy person who's just chafing under the idea of God's generosity, And

what that person wants to know is just, okay, just how much do

I have to give. I'm not saying we shouldn't develop a wise and nuanced

view of authority and of overreach. What I'm saying is that you know that

our flesh hates honoring and obeying authority, and if we make too much of

a preoccupation with how we can refuse to do it, we might find that

what's really going on spiritually as we are just feeding the desires of our flesh.

That's not the walk we want before the Lord. That's not the heart

we want before the Lord. When his instruction and his intention is that we

would honor and obey our authorities out of worship for the King of Kings.

That's his instruction. And we've looked at the reasons, we've touched, we

touched on objections. Let's talk about the description. What does it look like?

What does it look like for us as the people of God to honor

and obey our authorities. That's what Paul gives us in the last two verses

of our passage in six and seven. Let me just read it real quick.

Says, because of this right, because of the way God has set

it up, you also pay taxes for the authorities. Are ministers of God

attending to this very thing, pay to all what is owed to them,

taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect

to whom respect is honor to whom honor is oed. Okay. In other

words, what Paul is saying is there are like two aspects to this.

There's an outside aspect and there's an inside aspect. So what it looks like

to obey and honor the governing authorities on the outside looks really really normal,

just looks like being a llaw abide in the citizen. But on the inside

it looks kind of abnormal. It looks like someone who gives honor and respect

to the governing authorities. And Paul makes this point in verse seven, for

example, he makes the point poetically. He ties the outside and the inside

together with these this use of words, right, with taxes and honor and

respect and revenue. So, for instance, taxes and revenue are in Greek,

they're words that kind of like rhyme, they sound the same. And

then revenue and and respect are words that that rhyme that sound the same.

So he's poetically putting these things together. He's saying on from the from the

outside, both from what comes from your hand and from what comes from your

heart. On her own obey, he does something that has the same kind

of effect in verse six, right, he ties these two things, the

outside of the inside together conceptually because he ties the very mundane pay your taxes

to the very divine. They are administrating this as ministers of God. They

probably don't know that, but they are so. Yeah, the mail out

from the irs message from the minister of God. In other words, this

is not just an issue of outside compliance. We've been able to handle that.

This is also a heart issue. This is also a worship issue.

And this is where I have been often so wrong, and I've needed to

learn a different attitude. And frankly I should be teaching my kids a different

attitude, because, like, even just recently, I went to the Social

Security office with one of my boys. I lost their social Security card and

needed a replacement. Went to the Social Security office and there we sat an

a beige government office in metal chairs, waiting for our number, and my

heart was just so grumbly. I'm like, and I'm teaching this to my

kid. I'm like, government, is this what you get with government?

Welcome my son to the machine. I wasn't wrong about my observations. I

was just out of line. There was nothing christ Like about a heart of

grumbling against this government office. They served dozens of people while we were there,

rich and poor alike, in an orderly fashion. The assistant we got

when we finally got to sit down with somebody, was as pleasant as you

could want. And God has already used this passage to jolt my conscience,

for when my heart is given to dishonoring the governing authorities, it's not christ

Like. So again, this isn't just an outside issue. This is an

inside issue. And in so many ways, we and by we, I

mean me included, have made it a respectable practice to not pay honor and

respect to the governing authorities. David's conscience was struck when he just cut off

just a little corner of Saul's robe, a bad governing authority if there ever

was one, and his conscience was struck. And yet our conscience is so

dull when it comes to dishonoring and disrespecting the governing authorities in our lives.

The fact that this is a heart issue may be the biggest growth point for

us. So let's talk about it. Let's talk about the heart. The

heart in all of this. The heart of this challenge, I think is

actually a Gospel shaped question. And I put the question this way, do

I believe that I can trust God's care enough that I can thereby truly honor

and obey His servants, his seriously flawed servants we call the governing authorities.

I mean, if you're not a Christian, I'm not sure how you answer

this. If you don't know the God of the Bible, if you are

not in a relationship of mercy with him, then I think the heart of

every person just eventually sees an inhumane scramble to exert power over others, and

a resentment and avoidance of anyone having any power over you. It's a dark

picture, and in fact, there are plenty in the world, both leaders

and populations, who view governing as exactly that. It's a heart of darkness.

But as Christians, how do we answer the question? Do I believe

I can trust God's care enough that I can thereby truly honor and obey His

servants, his seriously flawed servants called governing authorities. And I think the Christian

answers that question. Yes, in a cole of ways. Number One,

God's care for me is permanent. It's permanent because of the grace of God

in Jesus Christ. I am the King of kings. I'm his forever.

What can a bad authority do to me? Take my stuff, take my

life, that's the worst of it. My treasure is in Heaven. My

life is hid with Christ on high. This world, this town, this

state, this country, and those who govern it this is not my home.

My home is with their Master, who has pledged his care for me

in this life and the next by the cross. His care is permanent.

Yeah, I can trust him enough. Yeah, I can trust him enough

and his care. His care is proven. He proved it on across when

I was a rebel against him, when I neither obeyed nor honored him,

he died and rose again to redeem me from being a rebel against him to

being a citizen for him. When I became his citizen, I became his

responsibility. My faith is completely there because of the Gospel. I have no

doubt that God's care for me is proven. Yeah, I can trust him

enough when he asks me to honor and obey from the heart these others,

his imperfect servants for his sake. Yeah, I can do it with a

heart full of faith. I can do it with a heart full of faith.

I can completely worship him and I can honor these completely imperfect servants of

his because my faith is in the perfect servant of his. He's proven his

care for me. It's permanent. I can walk this way. I can

walk this way from the heart on the outside and on the inside by His grace.