SPEAKER_00: We're gonna dive right in today.
SPEAKER_00: We've been in Romans as a community, and I'm gonna encourage you if you did not get we do have notes every week, and some weeks they're just like blank papers.
SPEAKER_00: This week there's a whole lot of fill-ins.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna try to be faithful to it, but we are gonna cover a lot of ground this week, so I'd encourage you to take some notes to wrestle with what we talk about.
SPEAKER_00: Um but because of that we're gonna dive in pretty quickly today, but just a real brief review.
SPEAKER_00: We've been in the letter to the Rome written by Paul, and we've been studying it for about six, seven months now, and it's been a wonderful journey.
SPEAKER_00: If you remember, Romans is often broken into two parts.
SPEAKER_00: There's Romans 1 through 11, which is gospel instruction, and then in Romans 12, there's it's often noticed as like a pivot that we are now into gospel application.
SPEAKER_00: What do we do in the light of these mercies?
SPEAKER_00: And actually I want to read again Romans 12, 1.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the mercy of God, to present your bodies as living sacrifices holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
SPEAKER_00: Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good, acceptable, and perfect.
SPEAKER_00: And so Romans twelve is this pivot, and we're in the second half of Romans, and we've been going through with Paul.
SPEAKER_00: He's kind of been fleshing out in the light of the gospel, in the light of God's mercies and all that God has done, how do we live?
SPEAKER_00: And he says that we have our minds renewed in the light of these mercies, and and then he's begun to go through these different areas of life and society, and he's he's really asking the question, what is God's will in these areas?
SPEAKER_00: If you have your mind renewed, you're gonna know God's will.
SPEAKER_00: What is God's will?
SPEAKER_00: And he started, we talked about about a month ago, he started with how we view ourselves and having sober-minded judgment, how we see ourselves in community.
SPEAKER_00: For a couple weeks he talked about genuine love, how we care for each other, and then he sort of pivots with this phrase practice hospitality.
SPEAKER_00: God's will is that we have a love for the outsider.
SPEAKER_00: And then last week we talked about what is God's will when bad things happen to us, when evil happens to us.
SPEAKER_00: And so today is going to be a continuation of last week.
SPEAKER_00: It's it's still wrestling with the question of injustice, and it's it's really pivoting, though, and it's asking the question: what is our relationship as gospel people with governing authorities?
SPEAKER_00: Which I know is everybody's favorite topic.
SPEAKER_00: Uh we talk about this in church all the time, right?
SPEAKER_00: How our relationship with the government should be and politics and all those good things, and so that's where we're gonna be today.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna dive right in.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray together, and then I'll read the passage.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we welcome you in this place.
SPEAKER_00: We acknowledge your presence here.
SPEAKER_00: We pray that you would speak to us this morning.
SPEAKER_00: We do ask, Spirit of God, that you would renew our minds with your word and help us to not just be hearers of the words, but doers of the words.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: It's in the name of Jesus we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna read Romans thirteen one through seven.
SPEAKER_00: Let every person be subject to the governing authorities, for there's no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, whoever resists authority resists what God's appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.
SPEAKER_00: For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad.
SPEAKER_00: Do you wish to have no fear of the authority?
SPEAKER_00: Then do what's good, and you'll receive its approval, for it is God's servant for your good.
SPEAKER_00: But if you do what's wrong, you should be afraid, for the authority does not bear the sword in vain.
SPEAKER_00: It is the servant of God to execute wrath on the wrongdoer.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, one must be subject not only because of wrath, but also because of conscience.
SPEAKER_00: For the same reason you also pay taxes, for the authorities are God's servants, busy with this very thing.
SPEAKER_00: Pay to all what is due to them, taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due, and honor to whom honor is due.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: This is God's word.
SPEAKER_00: Right.
SPEAKER_00: Is this anybody's life verse now?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe somebody in government's in here thinking, I love this passage.
SPEAKER_00: This has really helped me maintain power as a king.
SPEAKER_00: Um I remind people of this all the time.
SPEAKER_00: No, we we typically read through this pretty quick.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so I've kind of broken today into three main sections.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna talk about just sort of the plain meaning of the text and the words, then we're gonna talk about when we're called not to submit, and then we'll end with sort of what does this mean for us today as gospel people living in America?
SPEAKER_00: What does it mean for us?
SPEAKER_00: And so we're gonna follow along with the outline and we're gonna begin in verse one.
SPEAKER_00: And in verse one, he talks about the call for submission.
SPEAKER_00: Let every person be subject to the governing authorities, for there's no authority except from God.
SPEAKER_00: And for those authorities that exist, they've been instituted by God.
SPEAKER_00: He calls, Paul calls for submission.
SPEAKER_00: He calls for a posture of coming under.
SPEAKER_00: The word submission doesn't mean blind obedience, as some have tried to make it mean.
SPEAKER_00: It does mean to become subject to, to respect as over.
SPEAKER_00: It means to acknowledge that the authority above you is legitimate.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying our basic posture should be to submit to authorities.
SPEAKER_00: Governing authorities would have been Caesar, it would have been the magistrates and governors, it would have been military forces and the administrative apparatus of Rome.
SPEAKER_00: He's writing to this group of people and he's saying our general posture should be to submit to these people.
SPEAKER_00: The phrase authorities actually means somebody who has jurisdiction, somebody who has like the right.
SPEAKER_00: It actually conveys a sense of superiority, meaning like it's qualitatively different, somebody who is sort of actually worth submitting to.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody who is under authority.
SPEAKER_00: Notice he says they are under God's authority.
SPEAKER_00: The authority they have is a delegated authority.
SPEAKER_00: They don't just have unlimited power, but they have authority from God.
SPEAKER_00: Philosophically, we might define authority as the ability to describe reality.
SPEAKER_00: It's the ability to say what is so and to align with God.
SPEAKER_00: Now, a lot of people have wrestled with what the word submit means, and one thing it clearly doesn't mean is blind obedience.
SPEAKER_00: And we know this because we can actually look at the life of Paul.
SPEAKER_00: Paul did not blindly submit to authorities.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to flip over just real quick to Acts 16.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you know this story, but but Paul's in Philippi, and he has an unfortunate incident where he spends the night in prison, and he doesn't come out quoting Romans 13, shockingly.
SPEAKER_00: He comes out after his unfortunate night in prison, and he says, These magistrates sent word that we're to go out and be peaceful, but Paul says, You've beaten us in public, you've condemned men who were Roman citizens, and you've thrown us in prison, and now you're going to try to dismiss us secretly?
SPEAKER_00: He's enraged.
SPEAKER_00: He clearly has a category for these people who are supposed to be just, and when they're not just, he's going to call them out.
SPEAKER_00: It is the same thing with the Jewish Sanhedrin a few chapters later, when they're not treating him right.
SPEAKER_00: He has this category.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a blind obedience, it's not like we're called to do every single thing that the government says you are to do, and we'll talk a little bit more about that later, but but there is a general call to submission.
SPEAKER_00: And then we see in verse 2 and 3 a theological reason or the need for submission.
SPEAKER_00: He says in verse 2, whoever resists authority resists what God's appointed.
SPEAKER_00: And for those who resist, they'll incur judgment.
SPEAKER_00: For rulers are not tarrers to the good conduct but to bad.
SPEAKER_00: The theological reason he gives, the need for submission, is that these people are appointed by God.
SPEAKER_00: This is not a new thought.
SPEAKER_00: Throughout the entire Jewish scriptures, there's this understanding that kings and people in power are appointed by God and removed by God.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul's giving a theological need.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, look, God is sovereign.
SPEAKER_00: These people are appointed by God.
SPEAKER_00: So that is why there's this general call that we are to be in submission to these authorities.
SPEAKER_00: He goes on, though, to give some practical reasons for submission in verses three through five.
SPEAKER_00: He says, rulers are not a tear to good conduct, but to bad.
SPEAKER_00: Do you wish to have no fear of authority?
SPEAKER_00: Then do what's good, and you'll receive its approval, for it is God's servant for your good.
SPEAKER_00: But if you do what's wrong, you should be afraid.
SPEAKER_00: For the authority does not bear the sword in vain.
SPEAKER_00: It is the servant of God to execute wrath on the wrongdoer.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore one must be subject not only because of wrath, but also because of conscience.
SPEAKER_00: He gives a very practical reason.
SPEAKER_00: You'll stay out of trouble.
SPEAKER_00: Look, if you don't want a speeding ticket, you cannot speed, right?
SPEAKER_00: We all know that.
SPEAKER_00: If you're on 161 and you're going 80, it's possible that you're going to incur the wrath of a state patrolman.
SPEAKER_00: It's possible if you're in downtown Granville and you're going 26 and a 25, you could incur the wrath of a police officer.
SPEAKER_00: We all understand this at its most basic level.
SPEAKER_00: If the authorities are doing what they're supposed to be doing, then of course, if you are doing what you're supposed to be doing there, there shouldn't be a conflict.
SPEAKER_00: There shouldn't be a conflict.
SPEAKER_00: In verse 3 through 5, though, he also gives us some of the purposes and the methods and even the limits of government.
SPEAKER_00: He gives the purpose.
SPEAKER_00: They're to punish what's good.
SPEAKER_00: They're punishing what's good and therefore, or punishing what's evil, and therefore are good.
SPEAKER_00: The government has a purpose.
SPEAKER_00: The governing authorities are supposed to be about justice.
SPEAKER_00: He's picking up the theme he was just talking about a few verses earlier, about how we don't seek vengeance for ourselves, but there is this appointed apparatus for judgment.
SPEAKER_00: And so he gives sort of the scope, he gives the method.
SPEAKER_00: He says the government wields the sword.
SPEAKER_00: The government has coercive power.
SPEAKER_00: The government has the ability to punish.
SPEAKER_00: He also, in these verses, gives the posture of government.
SPEAKER_00: He says, the government are servants.
SPEAKER_00: The government posture, government authority should be servants.
SPEAKER_00: They should wield the sword.
SPEAKER_00: They should punish what's evil, reward what's good.
SPEAKER_00: And of course, the tool, the sword, gives us a clue as to the limits of government.
SPEAKER_00: What is a sword good for?
SPEAKER_00: A sword is good for restraining evil and punishing evil that's already occurred.
SPEAKER_00: Paul gives no suggestion here that the government is going to somehow eradicate evil.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, if we follow along in Romans, we see that the problem humanity has, the sin problem, is much, much deeper than what the government can deal with.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, Paul's whole case has been that only the gospel is capable of overcoming the human dilemma.
SPEAKER_00: The human dilemma is that we have not pursued God, we have not wanted God, we have set ourselves up as gods.
SPEAKER_00: And so Paul clearly does not think that the government is going to somehow do what he's been preaching that the gospel is going to do.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, he offers this limited role.
SPEAKER_00: They're going to punish evildoers.
SPEAKER_00: Even the phrase evildoers, he doesn't say they're going to punish all evil, he says they're going to punish the wrongdoings of evil, the fruits of evil.
SPEAKER_00: And that'll be important when we come back to that later.
SPEAKER_00: And then fourth, he also shows us the proper way of submission.
SPEAKER_00: He says in verse 6 and 7, For the same reason you pay taxes to the authorities, because they're God's servant, busy with this very thing, pay to all what is due to them, taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due, honor to whom honor is due.
SPEAKER_00: He's picking up and expanding on one of the famous teachings of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus was asked, they tried to trick him, like, should we pay our taxes?
SPEAKER_00: And he asks whose inscription is on the coin, and it was Caesar, and he famously said, Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's.
SPEAKER_00: Paul is saying basically the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, Render unto Caesar, render unto governing authorities what is theirs.
SPEAKER_00: They need revenue to do their job, to do their vocation.
SPEAKER_00: Their vocation is meant to be good.
SPEAKER_00: And so you should render unto Caesar what is Caesar's.
SPEAKER_00: So the proper way to submit is to do certain things, to act in a certain way, to give to Caesar what is required.
SPEAKER_00: And so that's the basic meaning of these verses, but like everything in Scripture, there's a context.
SPEAKER_00: He's not writing an interesting theological paper as a third-year seminary student.
SPEAKER_00: He's writing a letter to real people.
SPEAKER_00: And so what is the context for these instructions?
SPEAKER_00: Paul's writing to a group, a minority group in Rome of Jews and Gentiles, many of whom are former slaves.
SPEAKER_00: He's writing to people who are oppressed.
SPEAKER_00: He's writing to people who are who are under the thumb of Rome.
SPEAKER_00: He's writing to many Jewish Christians who have been expelled or lost their businesses.
SPEAKER_00: He's writing when the emperor is Nero and his tax policy is incredibly unpopular.
SPEAKER_00: He's writing to a government authority that will ultimately be the one that kills him.
SPEAKER_00: The taxes and the plunder from the Jewish community largely will be used to build a Colosseum that will be used to persecute Jews and Christians and many, many others.
SPEAKER_00: He's writing in an era where revolution is in the air.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, many of the people in this church community, they would know of the occupation of Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: They would know and they would probably even be tempted to support some of the unrest in the area.
SPEAKER_00: About ten years after he wrote this, there would be a Jewish rebellion.
SPEAKER_00: And that's when Rome would come in and destroy the temple.
SPEAKER_00: So he's writing to a group of people that would have been super easy to say, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: Fight back.
SPEAKER_00: Have a revolution.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, he doesn't say that.
SPEAKER_00: He also is probably aware that Roman authorities are going to read this letter.
SPEAKER_00: That this is not going to stay a secret.
SPEAKER_00: And so he's aware that what he says could be very inflammatory.
SPEAKER_00: And so what he basically writes to this small minority of people that have very little power and are persecuted, what he basically writes is as far as you can, submit to these leaders.
SPEAKER_00: Submit to these leaders.
SPEAKER_00: And at the same time, build this alternative community right in the midst of Rome, this Jesus community.
SPEAKER_00: And this community is wonderfully subversive.
SPEAKER_00: But it's not an open revolt.
SPEAKER_00: I think Paul's concerns are probably pretty practical.
SPEAKER_00: He knows that they have no chance of winning a revolt, for one.
SPEAKER_00: And two, he doesn't want this community to be destroyed.
SPEAKER_00: He wants them to have this certain posture.
SPEAKER_00: And I think as we begin to dive in a little bit in a minute to when we shouldn't submit to governing authorities, I think we need to pause and not rush past.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of times when there's a rule in the Bible, we immediately go to the exceptions, and some of the reason we do that is because we don't like rules.
SPEAKER_00: We don't like the plain instruction.
SPEAKER_00: So the plain instruction, to summarize, the plain instruction is Paul is not anti-government, he's not an anarchist, he believes it's a real vocation, position, appointed by God.
SPEAKER_00: It's meant to be a servant, it's meant to bring some of the justice here and now.
SPEAKER_00: He's writing in an ancient Near East where the problem was never really too much government.
SPEAKER_00: It was that cities were constantly in chaos.
SPEAKER_00: Government is not the enemy in Paul's mind.
SPEAKER_00: And he's writing this knowing full well that governments are not just all the time.
SPEAKER_00: We read this and our immediate reaction is like, what if it's a bad ruler?
SPEAKER_00: Paul is writing to people living under far worse leadership than most of us will ever live under.
SPEAKER_00: And these are his words, his basic posture, your posture, my posture, our basic posture is to recognize that authority is from God, to try to live at peace with it, to try to honor it, to give it all that it's due, because we have a hope in something else.
SPEAKER_00: So how do we know, or when do we know, we should not submit to governing authorities?
SPEAKER_00: If it's true that this verse doesn't mean blind total obedience to governing authorities, what are the exceptions?
SPEAKER_00: What is outside the bounds of normal Christian submission to governing authorities?
SPEAKER_00: I think to dive into this, we have to first acknowledge that if you're here and you're a follower of Jesus, we have an authority above all other authorities.
SPEAKER_00: That before governing authorities, we are loyal and we are allegiant to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And this means that there can be times where we are called to not submit to governing authorities.
SPEAKER_00: The first two, which are on the back of the notes, these are just a list of questions that help us process when we should not submit.
SPEAKER_00: The first two are governing authorities commanding what God forbids, or are governing authorities forbidding what God has commanded?
SPEAKER_00: If it's true that governing authorities are under authority, if it's true that they do not have unlimited power, but they have delegated authority, then governing authorities themselves are under God's law.
SPEAKER_00: Samuel Rutherford in 1640s wrote a famous book called Lexerex, which is basically saying the law is king, not the king is law.
SPEAKER_00: And his basic argument is when he exposites Romans 13, he's saying their authority is borrowed.
SPEAKER_00: Their authority is borrowed.
SPEAKER_00: Not every authority, every authoritative act that they do, not every act is authoritative that an authority does.
SPEAKER_00: You might think of a police officer, he pulls you over.
SPEAKER_00: If he gives you a ticket for speeding, that's within his calling.
SPEAKER_00: That's within his responsibility.
SPEAKER_00: If he steals your wallet, while giving you a ticket, just because he's an authority doesn't mean stealing your wallet is authoritative.
SPEAKER_00: He can actually step outside his vocation.
SPEAKER_00: He can actually be an anti-authority.
SPEAKER_00: He can actually rebel against the very gift he's been given.
SPEAKER_00: And so we have this category of the government can actually be against what God has commanded, they can forbid it, or they can command what God has forbidden, or they can forbid what God has commanded.
SPEAKER_00: We see this throughout the scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: From Egypt and Exodus, the midwives rescuing babies out from Pharaoh's nose.
SPEAKER_00: To Daniel refusing to stop praying.
SPEAKER_00: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego not bowing down to the king, the apostles and Acts chapter 5 saying, You can't command us to not preach.
SPEAKER_00: We have to obey God rather than you.
SPEAKER_00: There's a long history of if the Lord has commanded something, then the governing authorities cannot forbid it.
SPEAKER_00: And to be honest, this is probably the easiest case of when we should not submit.
SPEAKER_00: The easiest case is really simple.
SPEAKER_00: Is something being commanded or forbidden that God is against?
SPEAKER_00: But it gets trickier than that.
SPEAKER_00: What happens when the injustice is not perpetrated on us?
SPEAKER_00: What happens when it's not me that's suffering or being made to do evil, but when the government is doing evil to somebody else?
SPEAKER_00: Which leads to the third question.
SPEAKER_00: Would my compliance make me complicit in grave injustice or prevent me from fulfilling a clear obligation of love?
SPEAKER_00: Would my compliance make me complicit in injustice?
SPEAKER_00: What do we do if the government is unjust or injust to our neighbors?
SPEAKER_00: Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote a famous paper soon after Hitler came to power.
SPEAKER_00: Called Christians and the Jewish Question, and he was wrestling with the responsibility, and he gave three escalating responsibilities of the church when the state is being unjust.
SPEAKER_00: The first one he gave is the church is to question the state.
SPEAKER_00: The church is to question whether the state is acting justly.
SPEAKER_00: As Christians, we are to question whether governing authorities are being just.
SPEAKER_00: The second escalating responsibility he gave is that we are to help those who are the victims of injustice.
SPEAKER_00: If the state is being unjust to people, and there's people being run over by the wheel of injustice, we are called to care and to help them, to be on their side, to support them, whether they are Christians or not, whether they're in our tribe or not, we're called to love them as our neighbors.
SPEAKER_00: The state cannot command me to not love my neighbor.
SPEAKER_00: And if my neighbor is in need, there is an ethical obligation of love.
SPEAKER_00: And then the third escalating action, he says, sometimes we're called, and he uses a famous phrase, we're called to put a spoke in the wheel of injustice itself.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you can't just keep watching people get run over by the wheels of injustice.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes, he argues, love breaks the wheel.
SPEAKER_00: Breaks the wheels of injustice.
SPEAKER_00: It actually resists.
SPEAKER_00: And he used this thinking, this paradigm to wrest with the question, how should the church exist at the beginning of the Third Reich, at the beginning of this German state that was persecuting people?
SPEAKER_00: I think for us in our context, we we have to acknowledge that even though not every injustice is going to rise to that level, we have to acknowledge that there are injustices in our country.
SPEAKER_00: We live in a world with injustice.
SPEAKER_00: If what Paul is talking about all through Romans and his doctrine of sin is true, then we live in a world of injustice.
SPEAKER_00: Sin has pervaded the human heart, it's gotten everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: I think one of the things that I often see and feel is in middle class America, middle and upper class America, we get defensive if people say that our governing authorities, our state, is not just.
SPEAKER_00: The state is not your mom.
SPEAKER_00: You should expect the state to be unjust because it is filled with people whose hearts, Paul say, are bent, twisted, who have idols.
SPEAKER_00: We should expect sin to affect individuals, we should expect sin to affect systems.
SPEAKER_00: We should look for and see injustice all around us.
SPEAKER_00: When we see immigrants who are not being given due process, when we see toxic waste being dumped in poor communities who have no ability to fight back, when we see violent rhetoric from people in power, which is a form of injustice, which does cause people to view other people differently and wrongly, we have an obligation to ask the questions ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: Am I speaking up?
SPEAKER_00: Am I questioning the state?
SPEAKER_00: We have an obligation to ask, am I on the side of those being run over?
SPEAKER_00: Am I supporting them?
SPEAKER_00: Are there needs on my mind and in my awareness?
SPEAKER_00: And then ultimately at times we even have to ask the question: do the wheels of injustice need to be broken?
SPEAKER_00: The fourth question that can help us when we should not submit to governing authorities, can I resist in a way consistent with Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: We're not just called to resistance, we're called to resist in a way consistent with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Martin Luther King Jr.
SPEAKER_00: wrote often about this, and one of the most famous sections in his letters from a Birmingham jail, he talks about how we have this obligation to obey just laws and an obligation to not obey unjust laws.
SPEAKER_00: But we don't obey in a certain way.
SPEAKER_00: We are followers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And he gives us some keys that I think are really helpful in thinking about resisting in the way of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: First, he says resistance must be morally serious.
SPEAKER_00: It's not that speed limit irritates me or that tax law is annoying.
SPEAKER_00: It has to be morally serious.
SPEAKER_00: Are people's dignity being violated?
SPEAKER_00: Are people suffering unjustly?
SPEAKER_00: Is it a morally serious resistance?
SPEAKER_00: Second, it is not deceptive.
SPEAKER_00: Resistance is open.
SPEAKER_00: He says we should say, I am resisting, and here is why.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not secretly resisting, but I'm openly resisting.
SPEAKER_00: This is a way, he argues, of not obeying the government even as a form of submission, of honoring the government.
SPEAKER_00: Third, he says it must be nonviolent.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing in Romans 13 overrides Romans 12.
SPEAKER_00: We don't repay evil for evil.
SPEAKER_00: We don't become the thing we're resisting.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, he argues that we are to resist nonviolently.
SPEAKER_00: We're not to let our anger come back on them.
SPEAKER_00: We are not to make the other person the enemy, but we are trying to eradicate evil and injustice itself.
SPEAKER_00: And then forth, not only are we to resist nonviolently, not only are we to do it openly, not only are we to do it in a way that Jesus would do it, but we're doing it in a way that accepts the consequences.
SPEAKER_00: This is probably one of his most powerful ideas.
SPEAKER_00: He argues that resistance in the way of Jesus says, I'm going to resist this unjust law, but I'm also willing to accept the consequences of my resistance.
SPEAKER_00: And in this way, I'm still honoring the governing authorities by accepting their consequences while at the same time I'm resisting what is unjust.
SPEAKER_00: You and I, as followers of Jesus, we have an obligation to have a basic posture of submitting to government authorities, but we also must obey what God has commanded.
SPEAKER_00: God has commanded us to love our neighbors.
SPEAKER_00: He's commanded us to fight for justice.
SPEAKER_00: He's commanded us to support those in need.
SPEAKER_00: And so there are times where we must resist, but we can do it in a way that is honoring of governing authorities while also honoring the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: So what does this mean for us?
SPEAKER_00: What does this mean for gospel people?
SPEAKER_00: How does this all connect with what Paul has been talking about in Romans?
SPEAKER_00: He's been talking about living in the light of the gospel, what the gospel produces in us.
SPEAKER_00: And so, how does the gospel produce our relationship to government in a different way?
SPEAKER_00: How does it form that?
SPEAKER_00: I just want to offer four things.
SPEAKER_00: These are not exhaustive, but we're going to land the plane on these four things.
SPEAKER_00: It says, one, we're to seek the common good through government without putting our hope in government.
SPEAKER_00: We're to seek the common good without putting our hope in it.
SPEAKER_00: This is tricky.
SPEAKER_00: I think one of the implications of what Paul is saying is, he's saying government's good.
SPEAKER_00: It can restrain evil, but it's the sword.
SPEAKER_00: The sword can only get us so far.
SPEAKER_00: It can't build the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: It can't build or do what the gospel we've been talking about for months, and what Paul has been writing about, what the gospel is going to do.
SPEAKER_00: The kingdom of this world, the governing authorities, it can restrain evil, but it can't change the human heart.
SPEAKER_00: And so we acknowledge that this apparatus, it should work for the common good, and we can even be a part of that work, but at the same time, we acknowledge that we can't put our hope in it.
SPEAKER_00: Our future can't rest in it.
SPEAKER_00: Our hope is not in who's on the Supreme Court, not in what political party is in power.
SPEAKER_00: That is not what shapes our future.
SPEAKER_00: That is not where our heart puts its weight.
SPEAKER_00: And because of that, the gospel frees us.
SPEAKER_00: It frees us.
SPEAKER_00: One good litmus test of whether the gospel has freed you politically is how devastated you are when politics don't go your way.
SPEAKER_00: If you're devastated when politics don't go your way, might I suggest to you that you've put too much hope in this restraining, ordained by God apparatus.
SPEAKER_00: Second, though, we use political power to serve our neighbors, not to control our world.
SPEAKER_00: First, we use it to serve our neighbors.
SPEAKER_00: Government is an important function.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, some of us in here are already serving in government roles.
SPEAKER_00: You're already public servants.
SPEAKER_00: And some of you, you're called to that.
SPEAKER_00: It's a valuable, meaningful vocation.
SPEAKER_00: And our posture in that should be to be servants.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine gospel people shaped by the gospel serving.
SPEAKER_00: People who speak kindly of their enemies.
SPEAKER_00: People who do not use their power to benefit their tribe, but seek the common good of all.
SPEAKER_00: The world needs gospel people serving as governing authorities.
SPEAKER_00: We need judges and magistrates.
SPEAKER_00: We need prosecutors and defenders, we need politicians.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us were called to that role and it's noble and it's good.
SPEAKER_00: And it's an incredibly challenging vocation, too, because you're called to serve in it with all your heart while also keeping in mind the limits of the role.
SPEAKER_00: It won't bring the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: It won't bring complete justice.
SPEAKER_00: But it does have a power.
SPEAKER_00: It can bring a little bit of the judgment and justice of the future into the here and now.
SPEAKER_00: And because it can bring us that foretaste, Paul's saying it's good.
SPEAKER_00: It can be good.
SPEAKER_00: At the same time, though, we don't use these powers to control our world.
SPEAKER_00: I think in every environment where there's a majority Christian or it's a representative form of government, there's always going to be this temptation.
SPEAKER_00: Temptation is going to be to cozy up the church and the state and to begin to work for some project where the government's roles, its powers are expanded to fulfill some sort of Christian project.
SPEAKER_00: We have people using phrases like, I want a Christian government, I want Christian laws, I want Christian rulers.
SPEAKER_00: And the idea in our mind, the project, is that somehow we should have some form of Christian nationalism where somehow the gospel is a form of dominion.
SPEAKER_00: It's taking over this sphere.
SPEAKER_00: And we think, because we believe we're right and we're true, that we would administer justice better.
SPEAKER_00: But I think when we really look at this passage, Paul is, he's cutting that down pretty sharply.
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing in these texts suggesting that that's the role of government.
SPEAKER_00: And I think we make a number of missteps when we try to do that.
SPEAKER_00: One, it is true that while we all have different views of human flourishing, it is true that we as Christians, as gospel people, if we're in political office or we're in a representative democracy, it is true that we can bring our vision of flourishing into the conversation, into the public dialogue.
SPEAKER_00: We can help laws be more just.
SPEAKER_00: We can help governing authorities use their power for good.
SPEAKER_00: But the tool of the church has never been the sword.
SPEAKER_00: The tool of the church is persuasion, not coercion.
SPEAKER_00: The tool of the church is to offer up the gospel, to offer up and to try to persuade men in the vision and the way of Jesus, to tell people what God has done.
SPEAKER_00: And that doesn't mean we shrink back.
SPEAKER_00: But there's a very big difference between Christian supremacy and Christian influence.
SPEAKER_00: A second misstep we come to all the time when we see this merger of church and state, we see this misstep of whose Christianity?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, when you say you want Christian influence, do you want the Catholics to run the country or the Presbyterians?
SPEAKER_00: Do you want the Methodists to be in charge or the Amish?
SPEAKER_00: Whose vision?
SPEAKER_00: See, the Bible might give us principles, care for the poor, fight against economic injustice, but there's a variety of ways to do that.
SPEAKER_00: A variety of legitimate ways to do that.
SPEAKER_00: And so just saying we should have Christian this or Christian that and to use it as an adjective, it doesn't actually answer the political question.
SPEAKER_00: Third, it overrides what we talked about or the limits of government.
SPEAKER_00: The government is able, and in political theology, this is wrestled with.
SPEAKER_00: Should the government punish people who are greedy?
SPEAKER_00: People who are prideful?
SPEAKER_00: People who boast?
SPEAKER_00: I think this text suggests that the answer to that is no.
SPEAKER_00: The people punished are wrongdoers.
SPEAKER_00: The context is not seeking revenge for yourself.
SPEAKER_00: The government is limiting people, hurting each other.
SPEAKER_00: It's not purging evil.
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing in this text that suggests that in Paul's mind that the church in Rome was to grow in influence and power until they would control the state and make it advantageous for Christians.
SPEAKER_00: Furthermore, the gospel given in Romans, I think, actually argues against this idea that Christians would always be better in office.
SPEAKER_00: Paul's view of sin seems to be that it affects us all equally and devastatingly.
SPEAKER_00: His argument in Romans 2, if you remember, he goes in on the Gentiles, the non-religious people, and then he goes in on the religious people and says, What?
SPEAKER_00: You're the exact same.
SPEAKER_00: You have the same idols of the heart.
SPEAKER_00: You'll use power the same way wrongly.
SPEAKER_00: So he has a devastating critique of sin and humanity, but at the same time he has this view of common grace.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Some of you obey the law even though you don't know the law.
SPEAKER_00: It's written on your heart.
SPEAKER_00: Why should a Muslim be able to run for office?
SPEAKER_00: Because of common grace.
SPEAKER_00: Because the law of God is written on all of our hearts, because we're all made in the image of God.
SPEAKER_00: There is no form of Christian supremacy in Paul's argument.
SPEAKER_00: Furthermore, we have to contrast or hold intention Romans 13 and what else the Bible says about the state.
SPEAKER_00: Probably one of the most poignant contrasts is Romans 13 and Revelation 13.
SPEAKER_00: In Revelation 13, the state becomes the beast.
SPEAKER_00: John has this vision where in the end political power is misused.
SPEAKER_00: An empire, actually, it begins to demand not what Caesar is owed, but what the Lord is owed.
SPEAKER_00: Tim Keller writes about this.
SPEAKER_00: There's always this line, he calls it the lordship test.
SPEAKER_00: As the state grows in power, it inches closer and closer to the lordship test.
SPEAKER_00: And eventually the state becomes the beast when it begins to demand lordship.
SPEAKER_00: Caesar no longer demands the things that belong to Caesar, but Caesar always ends up demanding the things that belong to God.
SPEAKER_00: This is the inevitable bent of the human heart.
SPEAKER_00: And so, Christians, we have a skepticism of unchecked political power.
SPEAKER_00: We have a skepticism of any sort of moral superiority.
SPEAKER_00: We acknowledge that God's grace is spread amongst all his people, that we can find wisdom and justice in every corner of the world.
SPEAKER_00: The third thing we see is that we are to maintain, I think, a prophetic witness to governing authorities.
SPEAKER_00: A prophetic witness to governing authorities.
SPEAKER_00: If what I've said is true so far, one of the implications of this is that as gospel people, we are called to be a prophetic witness to those in power.
SPEAKER_00: Bonhoeffer said we are to question the state.
SPEAKER_00: Walter Brugman writes this idea that the church is to, as a prophetic critic in his book, Prophetic Imagination, we're to be critics of the state, but also to energize it, to imagine a more just world.
SPEAKER_00: At the same time, we both criticize and we help imagine better worlds.
SPEAKER_00: But either way, one thing that is clear is if the authority that God has ordained governing authorities is misused, we are called to be a voice that calls that out.
SPEAKER_00: One of the dangers of the state and the church getting too close together is when they merge, who is left to be a prophetic voice?
SPEAKER_00: The church's role as a prophetic witness is not to control the king.
SPEAKER_00: It's to remind the king that he's not Lord.
SPEAKER_00: The church's role is to speak on behalf of those whose voices are not being heard.
SPEAKER_00: To be a witness, to call out, to not be silent.
SPEAKER_00: One of the other gospel implications I think we see of this is just the reminder that no earthly government is the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: No earthly government is the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: By giving the government a role, we see that the role of the government is distinguished from the role of the church.
SPEAKER_00: There is no place for a Christianity wrapped in a flag.
SPEAKER_00: Or a Bible wrapped in a flag.
SPEAKER_00: They are separate.
SPEAKER_00: When we merge them together, we find that the church loses its prophetic witness, and we find in the merger that what ends up getting promoted is political ideologies that oftentimes do not reflect the image of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Paul keeps us here from putting our hope, he's saying, Listen, the gospel, it's giving you a different story.
SPEAKER_00: We're not caught up in the revolution.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because we are already a part of a different revolution.
SPEAKER_00: It reminds me of the office, Jim Halpert.
SPEAKER_00: When he's asked by his boss to not cause any mischief, he says, I've already promised other people that I would cause mischief.
SPEAKER_00: Paul is saying, look, you're a part of a revolution.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is Lord, his kingdom has already broken in.
SPEAKER_00: You're a part of a counterculture community.
SPEAKER_00: This revolution won't spread by the sword.
SPEAKER_00: He says, people will come to faith by the proclamation of the gospel and hearts will be transformed and renewed.
SPEAKER_00: It'll be from the bottom up, it'll be from the inside out.
SPEAKER_00: But if we are consumed with that, then we know that being combined, church and state, to marry the two is to use the world's methods to try to accomplish what God's accomplishing in a very different way.
SPEAKER_00: If anybody had the right to wrap their religion in a flag, it was Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And they offered Jesus, Satan offered him the kingdoms of the world.
SPEAKER_00: The people tried to make him king.
SPEAKER_00: He could have overthrown Rome and he was asked multiple times to.
SPEAKER_00: And he refused them all.
SPEAKER_00: He would have had God's laws perfectly.
SPEAKER_00: But he did not take up the sword.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, he modeled a way of cruciform love.
SPEAKER_00: And so as we wrestle with being gospel people in a political world, we're not called to be apolitical.
SPEAKER_00: We're called to be engaged but not consumed.
SPEAKER_00: We're called to some of us to have a vocation in this area for all of us to be prophetic witnesses to these powers.
SPEAKER_00: But we do not give them our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel frees us.
SPEAKER_00: It frees us.
SPEAKER_00: There's a wonderful freedom when you believe that God is at work, that the kingdom has broken in, that there is another revolution underway.
SPEAKER_00: Paul's letter to the Romans is wonderfully subversive.
SPEAKER_00: Paul argues that Jesus is Lord, not Caesar.
SPEAKER_00: He argues that Jesus is peace, not Rome.
SPEAKER_00: He argues that there is no distinction between Jew and Gentile.
SPEAKER_00: God is making one community in a state that was full of the class system.
SPEAKER_00: He is wonderfully subversive.
SPEAKER_00: And in fact, this little community, you might say, in the end, they're going to win.
SPEAKER_00: People name their dogs Nero and their kids Peter for a reason, as one comedian once joked.
SPEAKER_00: They are going to outlast the current governing authorities.
SPEAKER_00: But how they posture themselves is shaped by the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: It's marked by the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: For us, and this is a final implication, I think for us, we are in a particular context.
SPEAKER_00: In the United States, Romans 13 has been used to justify slavery.
SPEAKER_00: In the United States, Romans 13 has been used in all sorts of ways.
SPEAKER_00: Politics has been married to religion in all sorts of ways.
SPEAKER_00: We are not in the Roman Empire.
SPEAKER_00: But I think Paul's instructions to us would be very, very similar.
SPEAKER_00: I think he would write to us build a wonderfully subversive community.
SPEAKER_00: Speak out, obey God's law before you obey man's law.
SPEAKER_00: But as far as you are able, submit to the government.
SPEAKER_00: When you cannot, resist in the way of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: But the key is where you put your heart.
SPEAKER_00: Where you put your heart.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel frees us to not put our heart in these earthly powers, to not put our hope there.
SPEAKER_00: As the gospel renews our minds, we begin to believe that Jesus is Lord over Caesar.
SPEAKER_00: That Jesus is Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we thank you that you have called us to both participate and be a prophetic witness.
SPEAKER_00: That you've empowered us to speak the truth with the power.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you that we do live in a country that we can offer Christian influence.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you, Lord, for the grace and that.
SPEAKER_00: We ask, Lord, that you would show each of us here today expose by the light of your spirit our relationship to the governing authorities.
SPEAKER_00: Where there's bitterness, where there's hatred, where there's generalizations, where there's misuse, where there's wrongdoing.
SPEAKER_00: Shine your light, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: We believe that every area of life is meant to be impacted by your gospel, and so we ask that you would baptize us again in the good news of Jesus, that we would be caught up in his story.
SPEAKER_00: It's in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.