A Gospel Centered Relationship with the Government

We're traveling through the book of Romans, right?

So we planned this over a year ago.

This is not a message that we prepared because of where we find ourselves in today's uh time and cultural context.

We prepared this a year ago to be able to go through Romans and just so happens that we find ourselves in a cultural climate where this is a tension-filled topic.

Here's a couple things about that.

One is that sacred mission, uh, we're gonna do very little in our time to allow the culture to dictate the pulpit.

So the culture's gonna go back and forth on all kinds of stuff, right?

That shouldn't mean that the pulpit zigzags across time to try and keep up with where the culture's going.

Uh what we want to do is we want to demonstrate that the word of God stays steady, it stays its course, the pulpit doesn't shift, and we're gonna find ourselves still talking about culturally relevant things because of the relevance of the word of God forever and ever.

Amen.

And so uh this morning we're gonna be talking about something that's really challenging.

Here's my hope.

My hope is number one, you don't hear my opinions, you you don't hear my philosophical bent, you don't hear what I think.

I have labored to be able to present to you God's word.

That's my hope.

That you hear what God has ordained for us through his word, by his spirit, and how we should conduct ourselves as Christians who seek to live life of worship unto him.

That's my hope this morning.

And so this is gonna be challenging for some of us.

Uh uh some of us are gonna amen this, right?

Some of us are gonna think I said too much.

Some of us are gonna think I didn't say enough.

Uh, and so here's what I hope we see.

I hope we see Christ exalted.

I hope we see ourselves as people who live lives of worship, sacrificially giving ourselves over uh for the glory of God, for the good of our neighbor, as we see these two commands.

All of the law of God is is summarized and distilled down into what?

That we might love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love our neighbor as ourselves.

So that's the end result.

That's the end conclusion.

Now, how do we get there, right?

And so um I'm gonna stick to my notes a lot.

I'm gonna try and not, you know, ad-lib or or or go off the dome, as they say in the hip-hop world.

I'm gonna try and stay tethered to the text.

I'm gonna try to stay tethered to my notes so that um I try to say what I've thought through, meditated through, prayed through uh here.

So if I look more like this than my normal, that's why.

But uh we're moving on in this letter.

So so again, if we think about the train of thought and in com and Paul composing this letter, uh we're we're moving on, not into something new, but a continuation of what has been said, right?

And so he's talked about in the top of chapter 12 that we are gonna live lives of spiritual worship.

This is our sacrifice, this is what our duty is to live lives of spiritual worship.

And we're gonna renew our mind, we're gonna renew the way that we think uh so that we can be transformed and conformed into the image of Christ.

And then he gives us some understanding of, well, then what does that look like, right?

And he gave us this reality that we're gifted diversely in the body.

We should use those gifts for the benefit of one another.

And then he says, if you're gonna love, if you're gonna live a life of love, here's what that should look like.

This is what genuine, non-hypocritical love should look like in the context of the church and in the context of the world, right?

It's distinct in how we love one another within the family of God and then how we're supposed to engage with and love the world on the outside.

And so now he's gonna transition into uh really trying to help us understand a difference between love for individual and love for institution.

The aim of this section of this letter is to communicate a normative relationship with Christians and governing authority.

Let me let me say that again.

What's the goal and aim of this text?

It is to communicate to us a normative, a normative reality and relationship with Christians and governing authorities.

This passage is not aimed at giving us answers to every contextually nuanced situation we might encounter in our relationship with the government.

So so if we if we approach this text as a blanketed every circumstance, every possible contextual reality we might find ourselves in in Christians, and it's and it's a one-for-one answer for everything we're ever going to face, then we're not understanding the purpose of the text.

The purpose of the text is to help us understand a normative relationship between Christians and governing authorities.

If God was going to design such a thing and we were to function perfectly within that design, according to what is good and beneficial and beautiful, this is how it would look.

And so Paul's gonna talk about our disposition in relationship to governing authorities, but but he's not gonna leave it to just our disposition.

He's also going to address what the governing's heart responsibility and authority actually should look like as well.

So he's not just communicating to us, he's also laying before us, well, what should the government then look like if this to be a true reality?

Some of us we might leave frustrated because the Bible leaves too broad a space for liberty in our response to government, where we have to work out our own salvation in fear and trembling.

We have to be bound to conscience and respond from faith.

While we must obey clear prescriptive commands of the Lord, there are an array of situations and circumstances where two brothers respond differently to governing authorities and both being found faithful in their conscience.

Let me say that again.

So, so there's prescriptive commands of the Lord.

We have an obligation to obey, obey, that's a key word, the prescriptive commands of the Lord that he gives to us.

But here's what we want to say.

Where the Bible speaks, we listen.

That's important to our understanding of how we are supposed to navigate this Christian life.

Where the Bible speaks, we're gonna listen.

Where the Bible is silent, we are not gonna speak for it.

So what that means is that there is then liberty, Christian liberty, where the Bible is silent.

We're not gonna try and speak for it from an authoritative position.

We are gonna try to allow ourselves for Christian liberty to flourish, work out our own salvation in fear and trembling, and at the end of the day be bound by our conscience, right?

We're gonna navigate what that looks like.

The Bible is clear that all that does not come from faith is sin.

With this in mind, let's hear what the Spirit is revealing to us through this letter in what our normative, gospel-centered relationship with government should look like.

Let's dive in.

Verses one through two.

Uh, here's what we see in this summary of verses one through two.

God establishes governance.

Where does governance come from?

It comes from God.

What does that mean?

It's good.

Anything that comes from God is good.

We have to understand that in our relationship with created things, right?

Uh when we try to do this all the time.

We try to say what God has called good, we try to call it bad.

The culture's doing this at very fast pace and in very bold ways.

Uh the family structure of that God said was good, the culture's gonna call bad.

Uh uh patriarchism and headship of the Father.

Uh what the what the God called good, the culture's gonna call bad.

Uh, when we look at all these different things, work, uh uh, family, sex, we have a temptation uh to call things bad that God called good.

We we can't do that.

We have to then submit to and try to see rightly why God has called it good and then how and we in redemptive ways seek to live it out.

And so if governance is of God established by him, governance is good.

At the onset here, we are given what our normative disposition to governing authorities ought to be.

Ready?

Subject to them.

That's our normative disposition.

Paul comes right out the gate with it.

He's not holding back, he's not trying to smoke screen us and at the end of the passage, aha, gotcha.

You gotta submit to them.

No, no, he's saying right out the gate, subject to them.

This is our normative disposition toward governing ruling authorities.

This does not mean total submission or total obedience.

Make that clear.

Subjecting ourselves to governing authorities, the Bible is not commanding us to walk out total submission or total obedience to everything that they do.

It's about a posture, a posture that seeks to take the lowly place in the relationship that gives honor to the other party.

We see this context in our own call to be submitted to one another.

So when we look at the Bible, what's very important for us to be able to be able to wrestle through and exercise our understanding through is to have a much broader hermeneutic, a broader discovery relationship of biblical interpretation.

Because what we're aiming to do is understand, well, what does the Bible really say about this throughout Scripture?

If we took this verse out, plucked it, and tried to just use it in isolation, we're gonna have a lot of issues, right?

I'm gonna show you a couple other verses where we're gonna have a lot of issues if we try and do that.

Uh, but when the Bible talks about submission, it is not talking about total blind compliance.

It is not talking about complete obedience.

Uh, it's talking about a posture of being the lowly position in the relationship, preferring one another over yourself, honoring one another in our language, in our uh behavior.

Let's look at Ephesians 5, 19 through 21.

It says this addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

So here Paul is writing to uh the church at Ephesus, and he's saying that our normal disposition to one another should be submission.

Now, does that mean that you have to obey everything I say?

No.

That's called bad.

That's bad church.

Not good, right?

We get ourselves in trouble when pastors try and do that now, but no, bad.

Am I supposed to obey everything you say?

No.

There's not a call to total obedience, there's not a call to blind compliance.

Uh what's Paul saying?

Should we prefer one another over ourselves?

In submission, should I seek to take the lowly place in our relationship?

Should I seek to bestow honor upon you greater than in on myself?

That's what Paul's calling us to.

That's what submission to one another looks like.

Nowhere in there, nowhere in this passage is there an expectation to obey one another.

Nowhere.

But to give honor, respect, and to prefer our brother over ourself.

Let's try to holistically understand submission from a more robust biblical hermeneutic even further.

Let's look at Ephesians 5.24.

Y'all like this one.

Now, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

Praise the Lord God Almighty.

He is glorious forever.

Amen.

Now, you take that text out in isolation and you apply toxic masculinity on top of that.

You apply a man who has not submitted to his head, you apply a man who loves himself more than his wife.

You have abuse, you have oppression, you have harm and detriment?

That's not what the Bible is calling for here.

Let's look at this more holistically.

Is this to be blind obedience?

Wife, submit to your husbands in all things?

Is it to be to the detriment of her health and safety or of her children's?

By no means.

There's no possible reality for that outcome.

Here's why.

Though the husband is the wife's head, his head is Christ.

Though the husband is the wife's head, he has a head.

He has a head, he is called to submit to.

And that head is Christ himself.

Let's look at this in uh 1 Corinthians 11, 3.

It says, But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ.

The head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.

The husband might be the head of his home, and he might be the head of his family, but his head is Christ Jesus the Lord.

And so we have to submit ourselves to his headship first and foremost.

Though the wife is called to submit to the husband, the husband is called to love his wife like Jesus loves the church.

Let's look at Ephesians 5.25.

Husbands, love your wives.

Prescriptive command, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

So the context of wives submit to your husband in all things is in the understanding that the husband himself is submitted to his head who is Christ, and that he is seeking to love her as he's been commanded to lay his life down for her, for her flourishing and good.

That's the understanding of a robust biblical understanding of what submission in the home should look like.

Are wives to submit in obedience to husbands no matter what?

No.

In fact, when the husband refuses to submit to Christ as his head and love his wife the way that Christ loved the church and laying down his life for her, the husband has abdicated his own headship over his wife.

You have forfeited what should be yours.

Because you have sought to serve self rather than to serve others.

You have sought to be your own God rather than to submit to the God of your soul.

Yet it is a high calling, women, to posture yourself in submission, to take the lowly place of the relationship, of following your husband as your normal disposition.

So what's Paul talking about to wives?

What's your normal disposition to submit yourself to your husband?

That's the normative disposition.

Does that mean in every circumstance through blind compliance?

By no means.

God loves us more than that.

God loves women more than that.

So why is subjection to government to be our normal disposition?

Paul says, For there is no authority except from God.

And those that exist have been instituted by God.

Here we see that all authority is delegated and not absolute.

So the first thing that Paul helps us understand is that this God is not giving the government absolute authority.

And so they have a responsibility in that delegation.

They have not been handed over authoritarianism, they have been delegated a sense of power.

Ultimately, the authority is God's, not man's.

And he delegates it to them.

Inherently, that means that the governing powers must remember that they are not God Himself.

And that their authority has been delegated to them from the ultimate authority of the true and living God.

So I told you, Paul's going to talk about their responsibility as well.

When we talk about this normative relationship between us and government, he's going to say, What's your normative disposition?

Subject yourselves to governing powers.

Why?

Ultimately, it's because their authority and power has been delegated to them by God.

Now, they are not God Himself, they are delegated authority and power by God, who is the ultimate authority.

The ultimate authority for us and all of his creation.

If we have a normative posture of resistance toward government, we are demonstrating a resistance toward God and what he has established.

Again, I'm talking about normative posture.

If we set ourselves up and against government, continually in our posture, if we are fundamentally in our being resistant toward them, we're communicating a resistance toward God Himself.

What Paul's helping us understand, you want to live a life of living sacrifice, which is your reasonable worship to God?

Subject yourself to government.

Let that be your posture.

Let that be the normal posture that you hold toward them.

Do not hold yourself in resistance against them fundamentally, because in so doing, you're resisting the very authority that God has delegated to them.

Order is a kingdom value.

God is a God of order.

And order is a kingdom value.

God establishes governance to uphold that kingdom value of order.

When we have a disposition of resistance, we are demonstrating that the kingdom value of order is not a shared value of ours.

Nor do we value those who God has put in place to uphold such a value of order.

God is not a God of chaos, He's a God of order.

He desires order.

And so in his putting in governance is to establish order for us.

Praise God for laws, right?

You ever watch uh The Purge?

Nah, I ain't about that.

Like, I'm going somewhere else.

There's a submarine somewhere I can probably let the uh uh seems like many of you haven't watched it.

Nonetheless, anarchy, death, destruction, it's bad, right?

Uh God is not a God of chaos.

Here's the beautiful thing.

God understands that we can't govern ourselves.

God understands the depravity of our heart that we don't have the ability to govern ourselves.

Let laws not exist and see what man does.

Oh, I think we saw that, didn't we?

Maybe just a few months ago.

Let laws not exist and see what man does.

God knows that we cannot govern ourselves, and so he delegates authority to governing powers to help govern us.

Why?

Because he values order.

Those who resist God's order through governing powers will incur judgment, Paul says.

We're gonna get into this in a little bit.

We'll get into what this judgment looks like and on what grounds that judgment is determined as necessary further down the text.

Let's go to three and four.

Verses three and four, if we're to summarize these uh verses, we'd see that government is God's servant for your good.

This is critical to our understanding.

Government is God's servant for your good.

If we desire to have a clear conscience in our relationship to governing powers, then we should strive for the good.

We should strive for the good.

It is those of us who work for the good, live a quiet and peaceable life, and strive to have our lives being subject to the authorities that have no fear, Paul says.

You want to not be afraid of governing powers, Paul says, right?

Then live a life that is good.

Live a life in subjection to the government, live a life of peace and quiet where able.

Paul says, if you live in such a normative disposition of subjecting yourself to government, of living peaceably and quietly, and striving for the good in society, you have no fear of these governing powers in a normative relationship, Paul says.

We live in such a way to have a clear conscience.

We don't have to live in terror of the governing ruler's power.

When living for the good, we can expect their approval, not fear their judgment, he says.

So as long as we're living peaceably and quietly, as long as we have a posture toward them of subjection, as long as we're working for the good of one another, Paul says you can actually expect their approval, not fear their judgment.

But this section here next is critical to our understanding of this passage.

He says, This about the governing ruler, for he is God's servant for your good.

So Paul qualifies him.

Paul qualifies him as God's servant for your good.

First and foremost, the governance that God has established has been delegated the responsibility to be his servant.

For our good.

So this word servant is the diaconist.

It's the same language that we get for deacon.

When we see the deacons of the church, they serve the church's physical needs for their good, for their flourishing.

And so this same office that is held in governing power is to work itself as a what?

Public servant.

That's where we get this language from.

He is to be a deacon amongst society.

It is establishing the governing power first as a servant or minister of God, not first as an authoritarian.

Paul's making that very clear.

Who is he?

He's a servant for your good.

He's not an authoritative power.

He is a servant under God for your good.

Paul says, for our good.

Who is to be determining what our good is?

That's a relevant question, isn't it?

Who is to be determining what our good is?

It is determined by the God of whom they are servants of.

Goodness and wickedness can only be defined by God alone.

As them being God's servants, they are called to impose his ethic on society, not their own ethic.

As being servants of God, what he has claimed good, they are to foster and cultivate within society.

What he is called wicked, they are to judge and execute with justice in society.

It is not their own ethic, but it is God's ethic that they are to impose on society.

They have no authority to act of their own ethic of goodness or justice, because they are servants of God to establish order through his ethic alone.

Paul goes on, but if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain.

Again, wrong according to what or whom?

We have to ask this question.

Where does this sense of wrongness come from that must be judged?

That Paul's calling to be judged according to how God has established government.

Being the government is, in its normative essence, to be an authority to establish order through the imposing of God's ethic, his sense of goodness and justice, then any sense of wrongdoing is found there also.

So again, if God says this is good, what is their job as God's servants, delegated authority for our good, is to see that good flourish within human society.

And what God calls wicked, what is their obligation and duty as having delegated power from Him?

To punish that wickedness, to judge that wickedness.

If we do wrong, if we live in a disposition of resistance to that order, God has given him the sword to execute justice.

He goes on to say, for he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer, rooted in the identity of governing powers, should be in being servants of God, whose justice is carried forward by the sword if necessary.

It's God's justice that is to be carried forward.

It is the delegated power that God has given them, the state.

He has given them also the position of an avenger toward wrongdoing.

And it is his wrath, God's wrath, that is to be executed here and now by the state on wrongdoing.

So let me try to let me try to synthesize this or massage this a little bit, right?

Here's what he's saying.

God has determined what is good and what is evil.

He has delegated governing rulers with power to be able to see that order take place within society.

And he has said, this is what I've called good, this is what I've called bad.

And he says, you have a responsibility to impose my ethic as servants of me onto society for their good.

Ultimately, it's for their flourishing.

And he says, if you do wrong, if you execute wickedness in your life, then the government has been given also the sword by God Almighty to execute justice on wickedness here and now.

He's not talking about giving them over to God's uh wrath in an eternal sense, where our souls are judged in all of eternity.

He's talking about wielding the sword here and now to see wickedness judged by whose wrath?

God's wrath.

God's wrath on the wrongdoer.

Again, this isn't their, it isn't their intrinsic uh power, it is not their intrinsic determination of what is good, it is not their determination intrinsically of what is evil, nor is their intrinsic uh serving of justice uh through uh the the wielding of the sword.

All of this is from God and of God.

What we are being shown here is a normative reality.

It's the design of God for governing authority in our relationship with them.

What should our posture be to those who rule?

Let's kind of work through this.

What should our posture be to those who rule?

To be subject to them.

Because they have been delegated authority from God.

Why have they been delegated authority?

Because God is a God of order, and he has designed for them to establish order through governance.

How are they to establish order?

By being servants of God and imposing his ethic of goodness and justice on society for human flourishing.

Because of these things, we as Christians, as people who have been purchased by the blood of Christ and brought into his family as a people who are not citizens of this world, but we are citizens of another world, another kingdom, yet we find ourselves residing as alien exiles in a foreign land, we should not hold a posture or a normative disposition of resistance, but of subjection.

Y'all tracking with me?

This means yes, this means no.

If we were to summarize verse five, we would see this that it's motivated by consequence but bound by conscience.

God disciplines to motivate us, God disciplines and chastises us uh for for conformity even to Christ.

Uh God is not uh uh a person who backs away from discipline or consequence.

He says, therefore, one must be in subjection.

He gives two reasons.

Not only to avoid God's wrath, motivated by consequence, but also for the sake of conscience.

We're gonna get into that.

Now, because of all that we have stated, we should not only do what is right and subject ourselves to authority, because of fear of God's wrath being executed on us here and now, but also for the very sake of our conscience.

Conscious, conscious, our conscience binds us to do what we know is right.

But conscience has a limit.

Conscience cannot rebel against what is known is right, what has been prescriptively commanded by God, but conscience cannot also do what it believes is wrong.

Conscience at one time binds us to be obedient, but it also sets limits to that obedience.

So where am I going with this?

Conscience plays a factor in our response to governing authority because it compels us to be subjective to them, because God has prescribed that to us.

It compels us to be obedient to them in the ways that line up with how God has declared we are to be obedient with Him as well.

But it gives us freedom to set limits, to be bound by our own conscience of what we believe is good or bad or wrong.

Let's try to work through this a little bit.

We are a confessional church and we hold to the London Baptist Confession of 1689.

It's something that we hold as one of our authoritating governing documents.

And it speaks to conscience.

Um, and I think this is very, very uh uh proper for what we're diving into this morning.

Let's look at what it says in chapter 21, paragraph two of the London Baptist Confession.

It says, God alone is Lord of the conscience and has left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men.

Let's let's pause there for a moment.

Where is your conscience liberated?

Where is your conscience free of the doctrine and commandments of men?

God is Lord of our conscience, not man, which are in anything contrary to his word, so what has prescriptively been communicated through the Bible or not contained in it.

What did we say at the beginning of this sermon?

Where the Bible speaks, what are we gonna do?

We're gonna listen.

We're gonna submit ourselves to it, we're gonna we're gonna obey.

Where the Bible is silent, what are we not gonna do?

We're not gonna speak for it.

So it's both in what God has that is contrary to his word, where God has spoken, or not contained in it, where he has remained silent.

Next, so that to believe such doctrines or obey such commands out of conscience is to betray true liberty of conscience, and the requiring of an implicit faith, an absolute and blind obedience, is to destroy liberty of conscience and reason also.

That's weighty.

That's from 1689, not 2021.

You ready to apply this to vaccines?

Let's get into it.

Let's look at the way conscience can play itself out in the life of a Christian with vaccines.

First and foremost, I want to say this.

We'll get into this a little bit further in just a moment.

If the government is forcing you to do something with your body, they are overreaching.

They are taking upon themselves to establish authoritatively their own ethic rather than to be submissive to God's.

We will work through this in a moment.

But let me earmark this by saying we should not be getting vaccines because any authority or governing power is forcing us to.

No way.

But let's work at it through conscience.

First off, we have to understand there's freedom.

Why is there freedom?

Because the Bible doesn't speak to vaccines.

The Bible doesn't directly, implicitly, or prescriptively tell us that we have to get vaccinated or that we cannot get vaccinated.

The Bible does give us principles of understanding, right?

Of loving our neighbor.

But God also gives us prescriptive, explicit realities of what loving our neighbor looks like.

Guess what?

We have to obey those things.

To be hospitable, we have to obey that.

Why?

Because God's implicit and uh explicit in how we are supposed to love our neighbor in that specific way.

We're supposed to be generous, are we not?

Why?

Because that's a command of God.

Now, on vaccines, the Bible is silent.

So you know what we are not gonna do?

We're not gonna speak for it.

Why?

Because Christian liberty resides there.

So there's freedom.

And there's a freedom that by conscience you and I can come to different outcomes.

Praise God.

You can have two brothers who are bound by conscience, who are working out their salvation in fear and trembling, who are submitting themselves to the prescriptive commands of God, explicitly how He's commanded us to live our lives.

We are submitting to him, and we see, we come to something like vaccines, and we see liberty.

We see freedom.

The God of the Bible has not spoken here explicitly or implicitly, and so what is it?

Christian liberty now resides.

So what do we have to do?

We have to be found to be bound by conscience.

And there is a brother who can love the Lord, submit to his word, and love his neighbor as himself, and land on the hill of getting the vaccine, and there's another brother who can love the Lord, be submitted to his word, and seek to love his neighbor as himself and land on the hill of not getting vaccinated.

Can I get amen, someone?

Okay.

You might not like this, but this is the Bible.

Where there is Christian liberty, we can be bound by conscience and have different outcomes.

Now, let me tell you something else.

Anything that is not done out of faith is sin.

We're gonna get into this in Romans 14 a little bit more in conscience, but but here's what we cannot do, also, as brothers in Christ and sisters in Christ.

If I'm on this hill and my brother's on that hill, to try and compulsively command them to get to this hill and out of compulsion, not out of faith, they walk over because they are so guilt-ridden in the decisions that you are trying to heap on them, shame and condemnation?

Guess what you've just done?

You've caused your brother to sin.

Because they didn't do it out of faith, they did it out of guilt and shame and compulsion.

We are trying to bind the consciousness of our brothers where Christ has given us liberty.

Shame on us.

How many of us have compelled our brother?

How many of us have shamed and guilted our brother where there is freedom to act like we want you to act, to do what we think is best.

Well, brother, great.

You went to the Lord in fear and trembling, and that's the outcome you came to.

But there's liberty here because the Bible's silent on it.

I came out on here.

You know what we should do?

Champion one another.

You submitted to the Lord in fear and trembling.

Honor to you, brother.

Not you better get on this hill or else you're wrong.

But that's what we've done.

The church has done more harm and damage by causing one another to sin, by violating their conscience, where the Bible has given us freedom in the last two years than anything else.

Shame on us.

Moving on.

He goes on in verses 6 through 7: Pay to all what is owed to them.

Pay to all what is owed to them.

Paul says, Because of this, you also pay taxes.

For the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing.

In a normative situation through God's design, we pay taxes to support those who are public servants, to do what they have been delegated by God to do.

Because of their position in society and their work as God's servants for human flourishing, we should pay to them what is owed.

Not limited to financial compensation alone, but also in respect and honor.

1 Peter 2, 16 through 17 says, live as people who are free.

Not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, ooh, but living as servants of God.

Honor everyone.

Love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the emperor.

Let's visit for a moment the notion of paying what is owed to them.

I think this is critical to understanding for a moment in the context we find ourselves in in today's day and time.

So Paul says, if pay to what's owed to them.

If it's taxes, pay taxes.

Does that sound familiar to a story you've maybe heard in the gospels about Jesus' encounter with paying taxes?

Jesus is met with his disciples with a question about paying taxes.

In Matthew 22, 19 through 22, we we read about this story.

When they ask about paying taxes, his response is this show me the coin for the tax.

And they brought him a denarius.

And Jesus said to them, Whose likeness and inscription is this?

They said, Caesar's.

Then he said to them, Therefore, render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.

When they heard it, they marveled and they left him and went away.

I want to read this clearly and try not to get too worked up.

Our bodies do not bear the likeness of Caesar.

Fundamentally, our bodies bear the very image of the true and living God alone.

The kingdom of God is not of this world, yet it is possible to be a true citizen of the kingdom and quietly subject ourselves to the civil rule of a foreign governor.

But only insofar as these delegated authorities request from us what has been given to them and not demand from us what is God's.

This is God's body.

My marriage is God's marriage.

My children are God's children.

This church is God's church, they belong to God.

They do not bear the likeness or inscription of Caesar.

I have an obligation to the God I serve to worship him and glorify him in the things which are his.

And so I have a word for Caesar.

You have no claim on what is God's.

You have overreached in your authority and the power that has been delegated to you, and we are not going to sit by quietly any longer.

If you stretch out your hand against our bodies, if you stretch out your hand against our marriages, our children, or our churches, don't be surprised when you pull back a disfigured limb.

What is yours you can have.

In fact, with joyful hearts we will subject ourselves to your governing rule.

But what is God's you cannot have, and you have no claim on.

You have mistaken yourself for God, and now it is his wrath that you should fear and tremble under.

Amen.

So what's the main idea this morning?

We subject ourselves to government as they serve God.

This is our normative disposition.

We subject ourselves to government as they serve God.

This is to be our posture, our God-honoring response to governing powers.

Now it's crucial to understand that I did not say as they are serving God.

For some reason, the American Church is out of its mind and thinks that every Republican is a Christian.

You are very wrong.

And we do this all the time.

We do it with movie stars too.

Oh, I think they're a believer.

Like the like that gives you a clean conscience to go watch their filthy movie.

Or I heard Bieber sing a worship song.

Um we do this, right?

We we we we try to sedate our own conscience rather than be bound by it by somehow saying every Republican president is a Christian.

Uh show me evidence, show me signs, show me fruit, show me submission to Jesus as Lord of life, show me that they can exegete a text for God's sakes.

They can't.

None.

A pagan can still serve the purposes of God in cultivating order for the purpose of human flourishing through imposing God's ethic on society.

They do not have to be in right standing with Him to be able to do what they have been delegated by the sovereign to govern.

Isn't this a freeing illumination?

You don't try to have to convince your family members that such and such Republican candidate is a Christian when everything that comes out of their mouth is contrary to it.

Is that not freeing for you?

It is for me.

I'm gonna vote for who I want to vote for, y'all.

We no longer have to impose Christianity on the candidates we like to try and justify our vote.

The governing authorities are not God, nor do they hold an authoritarian position over us.

They are called to be vice regents.

A person called to act in the place of a sovereign ruler, not through their own power, but through the power delegated to them.

Not based on their ethic, but the sovereign's ethic.

They are vice regents of the true and living God, but their governing authority is abdicated when they fail to submit themselves to these truths.

Yet as they do submit to God's design and function for government in society, we are to subject ourselves to them also.

We are to live quiet and peaceable lives before them.

We are to respect and honor them.

A God-honoring, gospel-centered relationship with government is to make every effort to live in peace with them.

You see how a lot of this, what we talked about last week, and how we love one another in genuine love, translates over to this very subject matter.

What's happening in society should not be on us as blame.

Because we've made every effort to live peaceably with them, because we have worked to see the good in one another, because we have been subjected and take the lowly place in the relationship, because we have sought to live peaceable and quiet lives.

It shouldn't be because of us, society is in disarray.

But we can only allow government to go so far in their reaching.

And when they have overreached and they try to stake claim on things that are God's and not have been given to them, then we have to stand up.

We have to have a voice.

We have to fight back for, for goodness sakes, men in this church.

We have to be willing to die for something.

We have to be willing to lose our jobs for something.

We have to be willing to be cast out of our friend circles for something.

We don't believe anything's uh uh worthy of loss.

Christ counted it all as worthy to be lost as he went to the cross of Calvary.

Praise God.

You want to be a real man?

Be like Christ.

Be a man who's willing to stand up for righteousness and holiness no matter what it costs him or his family.

And you stand there as their rock that they can count on and hold on to because you're committed to pastoring them and shepherding them and providing and protecting them against an outstretched, overreached hand of government.

Here's our story.

I'm gonna get into that some more.

Though many of us really struggle in our relationship with government, we fail to live lives of worship fueled by genuine love in response to the institution.

Many of us, we have a posture of resistance.

We have a posture of resistance.

We fundamentally hold a posture and disposition of resistance when it comes to our relationship with the government.

We do not desire whatsoever to honor them, to respect them, or to subject ourselves to them.

In an extreme way, this is in the ideology of anarchy.

Do you know what anarchy is?

It's chaos.

It's not order.

Anarchy in its very nature is a state of disorder, contrary to God, refuting the very order God desires to have in his creation.

Human flourishing happens in the context of order, not chaos.

Human flourishing happens in the context of order, not in chaos.

But most of us in this room don't struggle with disorder, we struggle with dishonor.

We saw this in the church with our previous president, and we are seeing it now with our current one.

The tables have just turned.

We're not talking about specifics of their abilities or policies.

We're talking about stiffened heart postures.

A defiant refusal to respect, honor, or live peaceably and quietly among them.

Church, we are to make every effort to see these things cultivated in our hearts towards governing authorities.

Respect, honor.

We have to work tirelessly to see them demonstrated and displayed in our lives.

We should be cautioned when we approach governing rulers with this heartened disposition of resistance, because I would be very concerned with where else it manifests itself in our relationship with God and one another.

I can tell you this: a man or a woman's heart who's hardened in resistance as a normative disposition, I'll put money on it.

I don't know if betting's really bad, but um I'll do it.

That they have that same heart toward their spouse, toward their children, toward God Himself.

We should be frightened when our normative disposition toward government is from such stiff-heartedness, because it would not shock me that we will see that in other aspects of our life.

Some of us we have a posture of blind compliance.

Blind compliance.

We see this passage and are unable or unwilling to go beyond the face value of it.

We fail to understand it in context or search the whole of scriptures to have a fuller understanding of it.

And I see this happening in two ways, two different ways primarily.

Some of us are just pacifists.

We do this out of a perceived God-fearing life.

We may present our lives as those who are working to honor God in our relationship with the government, but in the process, we allow for the governing powers to lay claim to what is not theirs and to impose an ethic that is not God's.

We hand over our families, our children, our churches, and the like to the state.

We are people without a conscience bound up in righteousness.

We throw up our hands and simply say, give it over to God.

No, church, God has given you responsibility.

God has given you responsibility to act, to see righteousness cultivated, to see holiness fostered.

Not to throw up your hands and let go and let God.

But he said, put your hand to the plow and get to work.

I'm not talking necessarily about going to war against government or driving them back by force.

That's another sermon for another time.

But I am talking about taking a stand against unrighteousness and wickedness, taking a stand against tyrants and those who have abdicated their delegated authority.

I am talking about holy defiance.

Look throughout the Bible at the examples of righteous men who allowed the commands of the Lord and the binding of their conscience to cry out, no more.

We see this in Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

Their conscience and the command of God bound them to say, No more, throw us in the fire.

Daniel said, No more, throw me in the lion's den.

All throughout the biblical scriptures, we see men who stood up and said, No more.

We see it in women as well.

In fact, one of the greatest stories of the Reformation I see is when the authority governing powers of the church who held power with the state came to a woman who had just converted to Protestantism, who believed in the doctrines of grace to say that we are saved by grace alone, in Christ alone, through faith alone, not in the right order, but you get it.

She believed these things.

As she was bearing her child, these nuns came around her and begged her to recant her faith in Christ alone, by grace alone, through faith alone.

She said, I am bound to my conscience, and the Lord who has revealed this to me, I cannot recant my faith.

You know what she did just a couple weeks later?

She handed her baby to the arms of a friend, and they casted her into the bottom of a lake.

She was willing to take a stand against tyranny, against ruling authorities who overreached.

Because, church, let me submit something to you.

There might be no greater loss than the loss of your faith and the loss of your conscience.

What are we as people if we lose those things?

If we gain the world but lose our soul.

Man.

One great example we have of this is the apostles who defied governing authorities for the glory of God.

Acts 5, 37 through 27 through 32 gives us this story.

It says, And when they had brought them, the apostles, they set them before the council, and the high priest questioned them, saying, We strictly charged you not to teach in this name.

Yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching, and you intend to bring this man's blood upon us.

But Peter and the apostles answer, We must obey God rather than men.

The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree.

God exalted him at his right hand as leader and savior, leader and savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.

And we are witnesses to these things.

And so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.

What did the apostles look at the ruling governing powers and say?

Nah, you've overreached.

We're going to obey God and not man.

And they counted it all as lost.

They counted all but one apostle was put to death by governing powers.

The man's hand who is pinning this letter defied authority at times in his life to write four letters from a prison cell itself and to find him at his end of his life beheaded by the governing powers of Rome because he defied them.

But some of us, it's not because we're pacifists, unfortunately, it's because we love our lives too much.

We will give up anything to gain just a day.

And that's what we saw all throughout COVID.

Government, give me whatever you got if you'll just promise me tomorrow.

I'll give up everything.

Just give me tomorrow.

Forty-two million children were murdered in the womb while we were on lockdown.

We were willing to give up anything just to gain a day.

Yet we don't realize that we're creating death and destruction for those after us when we do this.

We really don't believe there's anything to die for anymore, do we?

We've lost what it means to stand up for what is right and be willing to accept the losses that come with it.

We have a weak conscience and are bound more by survival than righteousness.

Our blind compliance is because we are blinded by this world and all of its empty promises.

James 4, 4.

You adulterous people.

Do you not know that friendship with this world is enmity with God?

Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

This world has nothing for you, it has nothing for me.

All of its promises are vain and empty.

And men, this comes on us.

Are we going to teach our sons that there's something to die for?

Are we going to instill in them honor and nobility and virtue and valor?

Are we going to show them what it looks like to count everything as lost so that you can serve and worship your God, so that you can have a faith that is unwavering, so that you can have a conscience that is clean and raise up holy hands before Him?

Are we going to stand up and show them that?

Are we going to continue to be weak and absent fathers who do not disciple our children in the obedience of God, in the righteousness of Christ, in the submission to his word?

That their residency does not reside here, but it resides in heaven.

And that there is no true king but God Himself.

If we look at the end of Malachi, we come up in this intertestamental period where God was silent for 400 years for his church.

There was no other prophet for 400 years.

And here's what God promised in Malachi.

You know what he said?

He said, I'm going to send Elijah.

He's speaking of John the Baptist.

He said, I'm going to send Elijah.

And here's what he's going to do: He's going to turn the hearts of the fathers over to the children, and the hearts of the children over to the fathers, so that I do not come on this land and curse it.

You want to know what the curse of God is on a nation?

It's where fathers don't love their children and children don't love their fathers.

And that's how we get to the place that we're at today.

It's fathers who did not love their children.

They said they loved them because they went to work and cast checks, but they didn't, they weren't there present with their emotions.

They weren't there present in their presence.

They didn't bring God's word to them and disciple them throughout the scriptures.

They didn't teach them what it was like to pray with them, to have faith, to not bow their knee to governing powers that overreach, to stand up for what is right, to be willing to lose the CEO position so that you could be at home with your family.

And what did that cultivate?

Children who hated their fathers.

And what did that get us?

Men, I can guarantee you, your families will love you more if you lived in a double wide trailer making$12 an hour if you were there with them.

Hugging them, loving them, sharing your life with them, sharing the scriptures with them, praying with them, loving your wife, kissing her, showing godly affection toward her.

Your house, your status, your bank check.

They don't care.

They want you.

But when we give them stuff instead of giving them us, we cultivate a society where children hate their fathers.

And what have we said?

We said, hey, school systems, raise our kids.

Hey, government, raise our kids.

We've abdicated what God, the good gifts God has given to us, church, and we're paying for it.

We're reaping what we've sowed.

Shame on us.

I better quit.

They said we're done.

I knew this was going to be a long one, I'm sorry.

Gospel conviction.

In his death, Jesus subjected himself to governing rulers.

And in his resurrection, he reigns as our only true king forever.

He did this for us perfectly.

I love the masculinity of Christ in the face of Pontius Pilate.

Pontius Pilate says, Do you not fear me?

He said, No.

You don't take my life.

I lay it down.

If I wanted to, I could call down the multitudes of angels to wipe you out.

I could call down fire and sulfur from heaven to eradicate you.

Do you not know who you're talking to, Pontius?

But he didn't have a heart of resistance.

Even in his ability to overcome these governing rulers, he subjected himself to them because that was his normative disposition.

He understood.

But he did it for a greater cause.

He did it for the cross.

He did it for the cross so that we could be taken out of this world and brought into another one.

And in his resurrection, what does he do?

He reigns as our only true king forever.

There is no king but God.

There is no king but God.

All power that exists in this world has been delegated from his ultimate sovereign authority.

So what do we do?

I'm closing up.

Number one, we need to pray for our rulers.

I'm gonna figure out some type of system, some type of way of accountability, something.

Or you all figure it out for yourself.

Every headline you share about our current presidency, every meme you share about our current presidency, every conversation you have about our current presidency, I want it to match one for one with a prayer for our current presidency.

I'm guilty.

I want to repent and be held accountable as you're uh one of your pastors this morning.

I have failed to pray for our presidency.

I have failed to pray for governing rulers.

I have had an unrighteous heart and my posture toward them.

We need to pray for our rulers.

Why?

Because it softens us.

Why does God tell us to pray for our enemies?

Because it softens us.

We should be a people who desire to see righteousness in the White House.

Absolutely, yes.

So let's pray for it to get there.

Let's pray for wisdom.

Imagine if our presidency got filled with the Holy Ghost and saved.

This world would be different.

It still wouldn't be our hope.

It still wouldn't be our eternal residency.

There's still something better that's coming on the horizon when Christ comes from the clouds and triumphant victory.

There's still something greater.

We don't hold on to this, but imagine to see human flourishing happen because they were submitted to God.

Do we pray for our rulers?

Number two, do we live quietly and peaceable lives?

Quiet and peaceable lives.

What this means is in our normative posture with government, we should be quiet and peaceable.

We should be people who don't cause a fuss or a ruckus.

We should be a people who is going to be able found not to cause issues unnecessarily in society.

But to live quiet and peaceable lives.

Lastly, so I've gone too long, keep our conduct honorable.

We should keep our conduct honorable.

First Peter says that there's actually a missional implication in this in keeping our conduct honorable.

It is this that on the day of the Lord they will actually cry out and worship him.

Do you ever think about the decisions you make, the way that you live your life, the way you conduct yourselves in society, that it has missional implications on unbelieving people?

Our conduct should be honorable so that when even though they seek to speak evil against you, on the day of the Lord, they will actually worship him in response.

That's how we should seek to live our lives.

I hope this was helpful for you.

I hope this builds out a faithful biblical worldview for us to navigate our lives in the current cultural context we find.

This doesn't speak to every nuanced situation.

I admitted that on the front hand, I tried to hold to that as much as I could.

There's a lot of times where we have to submit to biblical community and work out our salvation in fear and trembling.

We have to be committed to not speak where the Bible's silent, nor to try and violate our brother's conscience through compulsion, guilt, or shame.

There's going to be a lot of circumstances that you and I face throughout this life where the Bible just isn't clear.

Can we love one another through that?

Can we have charity toward one another through that?

And can we do our best to try and work out our salvation in fear and trembling?

But this does help us understand what is our normative posture.

It's not defiance, it's not resistance, it's subjection.

So let us seek in all things to live that way first and foremost.

Amen.

Let's pray.