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Father, I thank you that you're good, that you're gracious, and that you brought us together today. I pray that in this place you would stir our hearts for you, as you already have been doing, through these songs we've sung. And I just pray that we would give us the ability to hear rightly what's about to be said. Uh that we would not um we would not mishear anything and and that it would it would not cause us to be distracted from what's the most important thing, and that's you, Jesus. Uh you deserve our worship, you deserve our honor, our uh you deserve our lives. We believe that as Christ's followers. And so I just pray that um you would receive honor and glory through this message and help us to know how to apply what we're about to hear from your word. We pray it's all in your strong name. Amen. All right. So as we get into the word, um uh we're gonna be in Romans chapter 13 today, and I encourage you, if you have your Bible, pull it out. We're gonna start there, and then we're gonna read a second passage today uh from Mark chapter 12, but we'll get there when we get there. Uh but right now, if you want to pull your Bible out and look at Romans chapter 13, we're gonna we're gonna read a section of text there that I think that will really help us understand what the Bible has to say about government and about how we should view the role of government. And then the second half of the message today is gonna be more about how do we personally interact and engage in the government. Uh, how do we respond to, how do we uh how do we have a right view of our role in in uh and being under government? So that being said, uh if it doesn't take much observation at all to look around our country and to see that we are a disillusioned and a divided people right now. Uh politics has created uh a lot of mess. It's not ultimately the root issue, but if you notice uh through social media and you know news outlets, I mean, you just turn on the TV and it's a mess, right? Uh there's there's never been in my lifetime a polarization as strong as there is right now. I know for some of you who've maybe lived longer than I have, you'll remember times where it was more polarized or was as polarized because we tend to see only what we see right now and and feel what we feel right now, and so we forget that historically there's been a lot more moments in history where it's been worse. Uh there have been many times over the course of human history where uh governments were in disarray and there was upheaval and there was struggle and there were bad leaders and all those kind of things. So we're we're definitely not at a place that's unfamiliar territory for the human race. Are you with me? Sometimes we only see and feel what's going on right now, so we kind of lose sight of a bigger perspective, and I think that's why church history and history in general is helpful for us because it kind of puts things into perspective. But I would say that if you notice what's going on because of social media, which is a relatively new development, people can hide behind computer screens and keyboards, and they can type uh mean things. Uh they can promote their ideas, and it has created a divisiveness in our country. And so increasingly people are polarizing in the sense that they are gathering with the ones who agree with them and disconnecting from the ones who disagree with them. Uh and so now you've got, even in Christian circles, a lot of division, and uh which I know is frustration to our God who says we are to be a unified people. But when you make side issues, primary issues, you will get division. When you take things that aren't supposed to be front and center, and you try to make those your uh your front and center issues, you're going to have division. And just the human nature, uh, just being human, we struggle uh with not promoting our ideas and rejecting other people's ideas at the sake of actually rejecting people, like holistically rejecting them. So we can't even have civil conversations sometimes about the things that we disagree on. But I want to go ahead and put your mind at ease this morning. Uh maybe it's not at ease if I when I say this, but at ease, I'm not gonna stand up this morning and tell you who you should vote for. Okay? I'm not gonna stand up here and tell you this is the candidate that you should vote for in the upcoming election. So some of you are like, man, I wish you'd just tell me, right? But you're like, I'm glad, thank you, or I was gonna walk out. Um but here's the deal: that's not my role, that's not my responsibility, that's not the church's primary place and voice in our culture, is to tell you who to vote for. But I do think it is my role, and it is our role as a church and as a leadership to make sure you have a biblical understanding of God's agenda for humanity and for government. And in saying that, I want to remind us before we even read this passage from Romans chapter 13, because it came up in our elder meeting this week, you guys know that when God created the world, that the way it was supposed to function was God's in charge and we are under his authority, right? So, in essence, God created a theocracy. God's in charge, he's the king, he's the creator, and we are under his leadership. But because we rebelled, right? We rebelled and we sinned, Adam and Eve, we can point to them, but we're all rebellious. Because we have a problem in human nature called sin, where we rebel, God, of course, cursed the world, and now we we had to have a system, a structure beyond just his theocracy, where in fact we even begged him for it. Humanity, and I'm talking about humanity here, begged him for a leadership structure in order to actually function. So the people of Israel, God's holy people, well, you know what they were doing whenever uh they were back in their day when they got to their place and they got settled and established in their land, they started hollering for a king. They wanted a king, they wanted a leader, they wanted to be like the other nations. It actually says that in this in the text. And then they get it, and guess what? They're not happy about it because government and authorities and leaders are humans, therefore they're not perfect, and they fail us, right? They don't do things the right way. God warned them, but they they still uh said, no, we want this, and we have government and we have systems uh to give us leadership and oversight because it was part of the fall, the implications of the fall. Maybe you don't see it that way, but it actually is. So I want us to read from Romans chapter 13 and hear some important words from the apostle Paul, who's writing. And remember when we read things like Romans or 1 Corinthians or any of these letters in the New Testament, I just want to make sure you're you're crystal clear. Paul is the author, but God is ultimately the one inspiring the writing. Okay? And it's very important that we see it that way because this isn't just Paul's opinions, it's not just Paul, this human being who is imperfect, who was fallible, writing these things, but God inspired him through the Holy Spirit to write these things, and they have applications and implications for us today. So just make sure that we're on the same page there. So Paul's writing, the first 11 chapters of Romans, if you know anything about the book, are uh describing to us the gospel. They're telling us what Jesus has done for us. They're telling us who we were in our sin and how God, while we were yet sinners, Romans 5.8, while we were yet sinners, Christ what died for us. And this whole beautiful picture of what we have gone through and what we can experience because of the work and the person of Jesus. And so when you get to chapter 12 in Romans, Paul actually turns the corner and he starts talking about how we now live in light of what Christ has done. And this is consistent with all of Paul's letters in that it's always about what uh our identity is in Christ before our activity for Christ. So it's always a question first of do we believe the gospel and what God has done for us before we just start behaving and acting out of that. So uh we we want to make sure that you and myself, we were reminded that this morning that when we give instructions uh from the text, we always start with our gospel identity first. We start understanding who we are, what Christ has done first, and then here's the response to that is how we live and behave in our everyday lives. That's really, really important. I can't tell you how important that is, uh, and definitely don't have enough time this morning to unpack that with you. But just know that when Paul gets to this, he's starting to talk about some real practical ways that the gospel shapes our everyday life. And he talks about government, and I'm sure they were pretty surprised by that. I'm sure they were a little bit caught off guard. Paul, what are you talking about with this government thing? Why'd you throw this in here? And Paul's trying to tell them that the gospel has implications for how they interact and engage with government, how they view government. So, verse one from chapter 13 of Romans. If you've got it in your Bible, it's great. There's some Bibles under the seats, but also it's on the screen. Everyone must submit to the governing authorities. Just stop and think about that for a second. Everyone, literally in the Greek, all souls, if you have a breath, if you are living, you are to submit. That word submit there is to arrange your life under, to arrange uh who you are, what you have under, right? The authority. He says, you should submit to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God. Now that's a powerful statement, right? Ultimately he's saying God is really the authority. It's not just these governing authorities, it's ultimately God. And those that exist are instituted by God. So who established government? Interactive. Who established? God established government, okay? He put in these systems, he put these systems in place to give us oversight. We're going to talk about three purposes. So then, the one who resists the authority is opposing God's command. That's a really intense uh instruction there as well. And those who oppose it will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Do you want to be unafraid of authority? It's a good question for parents to ask their kid. Do you want to be unafraid of authority? Do what is good, and you will have its approval. For government is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, because it does not carry the sword for no reason. For government is God's servant, an avenger that brings wrath on the one who does wrong. Therefore you must submit, not only because of wrath, but also because of your conscience. And for this reason you pay taxes, since the authorities are God's public servants, continually attending to these tasks. Pay your obligations to everyone, taxes to those who you owe taxes, tolls to those you owe tolls, respect to those you owe respect, and honor to those you owe honor. So I could give you a number of implications of this passage on the role of government, but I want to give you three, okay? And if you're uh if you like to geek out and you like to read, uh there's a book by a guy named Wayne Grudham. He's a really a theologian, he's written a lot of theology books. We used him, uh we use him to train theology uh here at Point and some of his systematic theology, but he actually wrote a book on the Bible and politics, theology and politics. And uh so if you'd like to uh read more in depth on that, I encourage you to do that. Uh, but he talks about the implications of government uh from a biblical worldview. And I want to give you three roles that God has given because notice again, who created government? God did. And he's given them the roles. Now, I want to make this caveat. As I read off these roles, you're gonna be tempted to say, Well, our government's not doing a good job with that. Don't get hung up in that, okay? Uh, because we can all throw stones at that, we can all be frustrated about how they're not doing this well, but I want you to see biblically the purpose that God has for government. So the first one is this the role of government is to temporarily, notice that word because we're gonna come back to it later, temporarily provide order. To provide order. So, if you have a driver's license, uh you probably had to take a test, right, to get that license. Uh, you probably had to have an eye test to make sure you could actually see. That's all part of government, isn't it? Restrictions, guidelines to make sure that the people are driving understand the laws for our traffic system who can actually see the road they're driving on. That's a good thing. Uh point is that there are guidelines, there are there are laws that provide order, that provide guidelines uh for us that are helpful in terms of organization. Um you think about it. If you're in your car and you're driving down this toll road out here, and you're driving, which I mean the speed limit's like 80, right? And you're driving 80, and there's cars coming the other direction. Thankfully, there's order to that, and that people are driving on the right side of the road in the right lanes, hopefully, right? Have you ever been to a country where they don't have that? I have. I feared for my life. I'm just praying the whole time, right? My wife and I have gone on a couple trips where there was a place, it's like these people do not know what they are doing. There's no there was no order. So government creates order. That's just a really practical application or implication of that. But traffic laws, we see those, and hopefully all of you guys abide by our speed limits, right? Yes. Okay. Confession time. Um, but you you abide by those those those laws because those bring order, those bring uh guidance to us. So it provides order. The second thing you'll notice is that the government also provides protection. That's what God gave it the role to do, to provide protection. Now, this is taking another step just from our laws, but our laws obviously do provide protection because they protect us from one another and the foolish things that we do. Uh, and so the government has these laws. And by the way, um, if you know anything about our country and our laws, at least the founding fathers, when they created our laws, they founded them on biblical truths, right? Biblical laws that were there. Uh, but there are there are other things that are there that are not included in Scripture. But this idea that we have these laws to protect us from one another, but then we also have a military, right? And government, it creates a military system which protects us, defends our freedom, uh, even fights for our freedom. And some of you have participated in that process of fighting for our freedom. And that's something that is a benefit, right, of being under a government is because we have this. Now, again, how however you feel about military, or if you like it or don't like it, or if you're for us being in battles, uh wars or not, or how uh isolated we should be, or how involved we should be in the world scene, the world scene, the reality is that the government, God created government with this idea that we would be protected by uh the the govern the uh the military or some sort of protective protective force that's there. And so we see that all through the Old Testament. We see that all through the Bible, how that God uses uh armies to protect his people. There is a part of that. And again, that's part of the sin nature. That wasn't God's original plan. He didn't want people to kill each other, he didn't create man so that we would hurt each other. But in a sinful fallen world, there are bad people who do bad things and they have to be defeated. And that happens at times. Now, we know that not only has God provided order, not only has provided protection, but he also has given the government uh the opp the role of promoting good. Of promoting good. Again, we're not gonna exegete to death this passage from Romans 13 this morning for the sake of time. I want to get into a second passage. But notice what he says in that passage on several occasions. He talks about how that it's for our good, right? He even says, Do what is good and you will have its approval. For government is God's servant for your good. Okay, so to promote good. They do this, how does the government do this? They do this by punishing bad stuff, by bringing justice, being bringing consequences when people disobey the law. So in our country, how this plays out, obviously, I'm not saying anything new, you don't know, but if you break a law, there's a consequence there. And certain laws, uh, depending on what that law that you break, there's different intensities of consequences. So you can end up in jail, uh, and there are some places where you could even lose your life. And this is not new. This goes all the way back into the scripture in the Old Testament. You find how God set up laws and how he also set up consequences when you disobeyed those laws. So that's one of the things that government does is promotes good by dissuading people from doing the wrong thing through discipline, through consequences and justice. Now, that being said, anytime you don't have government in place doing these three things, it's not a good thing. So, regardless of how you think our government is performing on these three issues that God has given us in Romans chapter 13, we can see that if you don't have government, it's not a good thing. We hear we call that anarchy, right? If you read the Bible, and if you've read the Bible before and you get to the book of Judges, anybody read the book of Judges? By the time you get to the end of the book of Judges, you see what happens when people throw off leadership. It is a dark, terrible thing because human people, human beings, drift, right? They drift towards darkness and depravity. And so we see the implications of that in the book of Judges. But regardless, God has given these three primary roles to government. Notice what I didn't say. I did not say that government is there to fix all of our issues. Right? Didn't say that government was there to fix all of our issues. Now I know this to be true because I've interacted with a number of you and people in our community. There are generally two different camps right now in terms of how people are feeling about government. One, there's people who are very anxious, fearful, stressed, worried. You might say they're freaked out right now. They're really freaked out about what's what's happening in terms of who our next president might be. That's probably the primary thing here. But they're just freaked out about in general where we are headed as a country in our government. Then I hear another crowd of people, and maybe this is coming primarily from the younger crowd, uh, who says, we don't really care. Just whatever. You know, they basically are indifferent, uh, kick the government to the curb. We don't really want to get involved in that. We don't really care about that. Okay? And what I'm telling you is that neither one of those are good. Neither one of those are healthy, right? We don't want to have this idea that we're just anxious and stressed and fearful, which by the way, reveals that our hope is in government to fix all of our issues. Because there are some people, and again, I want you to hear my heart. My goal is not to just step on people's toes and offend people this morning, but just to be honest about what I observe. There are some people who believe if we just got the right president in place, or we got the right policies in place, or we just got the right economic strategies in place, that the world would be perfect. It would be all great. And I want you to know that's bogus. It's not true because what we have in America or in the world in general is not a rule problem, it's not a leader problem, it's a heart problem. And it's inside of every single one of us. We have an issue because we ultimately, at the end of the day, I'm talking about Nick Schock here, as well as everyone in this room, we ultimately struggle with authority. We resist authority, and ultimately we struggle with God's authority and resisting God's authority. But some people would say, well, if we could just get this person in office, or this per then everything would be awesome. And it wouldn't be. Because we would have more issues, we'd have different issues, we'd have other things that would still cause problems for us because that's the world we live in. It's broken, it's not all right. Now I'm not saying that we can't see good come out of good leaders or good policies. I think there's the good that can come out of that, but it's not going to fix all of our issues because all of our issues are not political issues. Maybe I'm just saying that uh to you're like, duh, you know. But I want you to make sure that you understand and we understand that. And for those of people who are indifferent to it, I want you to notice in the in the Bible, God does have a role for his people to play and to be involved in in government. And we're gonna get to that in just a minute. So you can't just say I don't care. You can't just say I don't really give a rip. You can't just say, I don't want to be involved in it, and I'm not gonna talk about it at all, and I'm not gonna even engage in it. I think God actually has a purpose and a plan for his people to be involved. So, that being said, I want us to look at what Jesus teaches us, because that's where I find the most help is looking at his example. Paul's already given us some great words, some wise words, some godly counsel, but I want us to look at what Jesus does in Mark chapter 12. So if you have your Bible, again, now flip over to Mark chapter 12. And if you're part of a life group, one of our smaller communities that makes during the week, we're gonna look at both these passages in life group this week, and we're gonna ask some questions that will hopefully diagnose our own hearts and how we feel about some of these things, and help us make some practical applications to all of this. Mark chapter 12, verse 13. Now, Jesus is not far away at this point from uh going to the cross, and these guys they are committed uh to Yeah, that's how I feel too. Um Jesus is about to go to the cross, and these religious leaders they are committed to getting him in trouble. They're committed to trying to get him to say something, to do something that will get him killed. Now ultimately we know they've succeeded. Uh they used a multiple Multiple ways to get to him. Jesus Judas betrays him and he goes to the cross. But it was not uncommon for people to come and try to trap him. And that's exactly what's going on here in this scene. Verse 13 says this. Some of you will know this text as soon as I start reading it. You're pr pretty familiar. Then they sent some of the Pharisees and the Herodians to trap him by what he said. Okay. When they came, they said to him, Teacher, we know that you are truthful and defer to no one, for you don't show partiality, but teach truth truthfully the way of God. So here's, if you would say in our common day, uh, this idea of you've got two different camps on some major thinking of their time. So kind of think if you had somebody representing the Republicans and somebody representing the Democrats, okay? Uh the Herodians, Pharisees. Now, again, very different in terms of what they thought, but just go with me. They're different ideas on this issue that they're about to ask them about. And then what do they do? They butter him up. They start saying, We know, Jesus, man, you're you're wise, you're awesome, and and we know that you uh don't show partiality, and we know that you teach truthfully the way of God. Anytime somebody starts to butter you up, you better be aware, right? What's the question coming after? Just like when your kids start buttering you up, okay, now what do you want? So here they go, they're buttering him up, they're saying these things about him, and then they say, Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not? Now you guys may be thinking, well, that's not really a big issue. You've been in church, you've probably heard some of this before. If you haven't, maybe you don't know what's what's going on here. But they ask this question, and then they say, Should we pay or should we not pay? Just to put it really bluntly. Should we pay this tax or should we not pay this tax? But knowing their hypocrisy, Jesus said to them, Why are you testing me? As if they were fooling him, right? He knew exactly what they were doing, that they were trying to set him up. Bring me a denarius to look at. So they brought one, and he asked this question Whose image and inscription is this? Caesar's, they said. Then Jesus told them, Give back to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. And they were amazed at him, as am I, because he took a situation that could have been really volatile and he diffuses it completely with this brilliant answer, this brilliant response, as is typical with Jesus, right? Incredible wisdom and discernment in how to handle this. Now, for us, let me just give you the short version of why this is a big deal, because you've got the Herodians who are all for uh going after the Roman government and being uh fully on and embracing that and becoming full and fully involved as Roman citizens, and that was like the progressive group, right? And then on the flip side, you've got these Pharisees who are holding on to the old ways, they're holding on to the Jewish traditions, and they're saying, we can't do that. If we get involved in that, then we're we're basically denying our citizenship as these God's holy people, his holy nation, his chosen people. And so it was a major issue between these two groups because they saw this tax as sort of a dividing line. In fact, we might say this is the hottest political issue of their day. And if you paid that tax and if you were really involved in that, uh the Jewish leaders would see you as a traitor, right? They'd see you as a traitor. That's why tax collectors were bad dudes because they saw them as these, like they were in bed with the pagan government, this oppressive government. And so in this, you've got this tense moment where Jesus is put on the spot, and what does he say? He says, Bring me a coin. Bring me a denarius, which was the coin, the common coin of their day. And they would have to pay this poll tax with this coin. And he holds it up and he says, Whose picture is on it? And they answer Caesar's. That's right. They answer Caesar because that's whose picture was on the coin. Now, what's humorous about this is that around the outside of that coin, inscribed in Latin, were several things. And one of the phrases that was on that was son of the divine. Now, you think we have issues with our leaders today. Caesar thought he was God. Okay? Now, if you go to North Korea, you might find the same thing today. There's a leader there who says that uh atheism is the natural, national religion, and he has 50 titles to express how he is God. Okay? What I'm saying to you is that this guy thought he was God. In fact, it says the son of the divine. That was on his money. And Jesus holds this up, which is pretty ironic considering that Jesus is the Son of God, and he says, what is on it? It's Caesar. And he says something that cuts right to the heart of the issue. He says, give to Caesar what is Caesar's. But give to God what is God's. Now, why was that so significant? Well, because obviously he doesn't say don't pay the tax. He says, No, that's what you should do. Pay the taxes. If this is Caesar's, give it to Caesar. But the reason why, if he had stopped there, these Pharisees would have been ballistic. They had gone off on him. But he doesn't stop there. What does he say? Give to God what is God's. Every Jewish person standing in the crowd, hearing Jesus said that, would know exactly what Jesus was saying. Because they believed, after studying Scripture and living out their faith, that every human being is created in the what? The image of God. Meaning that every human being has God's image imprinted on them. So what was Jesus saying? Oh, give Caesar his coin, but give yourself to God. That's why they couldn't get angry. They were amazed. They were blown away because they knew that he was diffusing both. He was actually appeasing both in that statement saying, Give yourselves to God and give to Caesar what is Caesar's, because Caesar's stuff is Caesar's stuff. It's temporary. But give to God what really matters, and that's yourself, your life. So Jesus teaches us three things from this and how we can engage in this issue of politics and government in our world today. Okay? Again, there's a lot more that could be said, but I don't have enough time this morning, and I want to just speak these into us. Let's hear this. Let's ask God for help to know how to sort through it and to apply it into our everyday lives. First, uh, we should participate in our civic duties but give ultimate allegiance to God. We should participate in our civic duties, but give ultimate allegiance to God. Now, Romans chapter 13 already said this, and now Jesus is saying the same thing. Because Paul got his cues from who? Jesus, okay? Paul didn't come up with this stuff on his own. He's getting his cues from Jesus. And Paul says you should pay your taxes. Jesus is saying you should give to Caesar what is Caesar's. You should pay your taxes. Christian in the room, if you are not paying your taxes, you're not honoring God. Alright? If you are trying to get out of your taxes, if you are being dishonest about your taxes, you are stealing money from the government, okay? You may say, I'm, well, I don't believe the government can use my money wisely. Why would I give them my money when I know they're gonna just, you know, use it, abuse it for bad things? What I'm telling you is that the Bible teaches us pay your taxes. That's your civic duty. We're to honor the authorities that are in place. So in our lives, Christians, we should honor our taxes. We should follow the laws of our land. We should obey the traffic laws. We should obey those things that are there that God has put there as a protection over us because of putting government in place to protect us. So we should participate in our civic duties. Another way that we can actually participate, because I know that some of you came this morning thinking, well, should I vote or should I not vote? Some of you may have that on your mind right now. You're thinking, I don't, I, I don't like this candidate, I don't like this candidate, should I even vote? Um again, I'm going to leave that between you and God. But I want you to understand that if you don't vote, you are voting. Right? So if you don't vote, that is a vote. And in our lives, we need to understand that God can use the Christian community to impact and influence government for good. So don't discredit what we can do from a place of belief in Scripture and in God's morality that we can actually influence the government. But if we all check out, that will also influence government. Because you guys know this, but in a government that is a democracy or a democratic republic, guess what? The leaders reflect who? The people. The leaders reflect the people. And you're like, I don't reflect that, they don't reflect me, right? But here's the thing. If we check out and we make that as our vote, if you will, then we are, in essence, saying here's what we are succumbing to, or what we are willing to say. Now, I all I want to say on that is if you say I'm not gonna vote, and you have a clear conscience on that, you've prayed about it, do not complain. Do not complain. Okay? So I want us to remember that this morning because I hear people all the time say, you know, well, I didn't do it. Somebody, those people did. And all I'm telling you this morning is that we do have a role to participate. In fact, you guys know a guy, you may know of a man named William Wilberforce. You ever heard of him? A man who was engaged because of his convictions by God and the Holy Spirit and the Word to help end slavery in his day. The man was an amazing man. And he used his love for God and his love for people to move him, to compel him, right? To see slaves, slave trade ended. What about Martin Luther King Jr.? I mean, one of the greatest activists in our country. I respect that man greatly. He wasn't a perfect man. I don't know any perfect men except for Jesus. But I know this, that he he loved God and he, from his place of belief in God, he helped to see civil rights changed, transformed in our country. He was involved. And I believe that God put him on this planet to engage in that and to help change and shape our country. And I believe that he was being obedient to God in the things that he did, from the best of my understanding, right? What I'm telling you is you don't have to be William Wilberforce, you don't have to be Martin Luther King Jr., but you do need to participate. You need to be involved, and you need to speak from a place of your convictions, your beliefs as a Christ follower. Now, how you speak is crucial. How you speak is crucial. Christians that are, as I said earlier, hiding behind computer screens, tossing out political stuff, like, please stop. Please stop. Okay? It's not helpful. You are, I want you to understand the significance of that. We are willing to give up our Christian witness for our political ideology. That is not helping anyone. Let's have conversations with people. Let's be respectful and kind and grace-filled. Can we do that? Can we make a commitment to actually talk about these things in a way that honors God, that loves people, even if we disagree with them? Because we are not helping the gospel mission advance when we just lob these bombs and we just say things to people that are unkind, that are that are. I'm not talking about, again, we we need to speak from a place of conviction. You can even get amped about it, but we need to be gracious as we speak truth or we speak from our place of conviction. I need to be gracious. Christians ought to be the ones who we can have civil conversations about these things. We should not be contributing to the increased polarization and division. So that being said, we we should participate. But remember, our ultimate allegiance is to who? It's to God. That's our ultimate allegiance, it's to God. It's not to um our civil duties, our civic duties. Second thing I want us to notice, kind of jumping from that piece of uh giving ultimate allegiance to God, is we should obey our earthly leaders but worship God alone. We should obey our earthly leaders, but we should worship God alone. We should not only respect authority, we should obey their instruction. And so if you're like disobeying an instruction from the law, you're not honoring God. There's a connection that's there. Um, we have a whole generation of people coming up in the United States, and we've had them before, who are anti-establishment, and therefore we kind of give ourselves a pass. And Christians, listen, Christians, we've got to say we are going to obey the authorities God's put in place. Now, that being said, there may come a day where we have to choose God or government. Right? There may come a day. There are many laws right now already in our country that I disagree what they allow people to do. I disagree from a place of when I understand the scripture, I would say that is not godly. That's not what God's intent was. It's not being imposed on me, but it is a law of my land that I live in. There may be a day, and we increasingly are seeing this happen, where those laws may be imposed. I'm not a doom and gloom guy. I'm not the that America's going to hell in a handbasket guy. I'm just telling you that governments without God will naturally drift towards increasing immorality. Uh they'll they'll start to take God's role and God's place, and they'll start to use that power, right, to propagate ideas that are not godly, not good. But at this point in time, I don't feel personally like that there's laws that I'm being forced to do things that are ungodly, unbiblical. Um but if that day comes, if that day comes, I'm standing with God. Let me say it differently. It is okay to disobey the law of man when it causes us to disobey the law of God. It is okay to disobey the law of man when it causes us to disobey the law of God. You guys remember the story of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the Old Testament? Some of you have been in church, you know that. It's a great story. Yeah. Your great story where you get Daniel, he and his buddies are taken to this foreign land, Babylon, and they're told they gotta bow down to this leader. And instead of bowing down, they say, No, we're not. We're not gonna bow down. Daniel, in fact, opens his windows and he prays to God instead of bowing down to this leader, to this statue, even. And they what do they do with him? They throw him in a lion's den. What about these other three, his buddies? They refuse to bow down and they get thrown in a fiery furnace. But here's the thing: when if that day comes that we are asked to do something that would be disobeying our God, we're gonna choose God. I'm gonna choose God. Because I know that ultimately my worship goes to God. I obey my earthly leaders, but only to the point that they lead me to obey God. God is the ultimate authority, not government. Right? And Jesus shows us that even in what he says about give to Caesar what is Caesar's and what is God's is God's, because our lives belong to God, even though our stuff, our money could sometimes go to our government. Okay, final thing. We should honor our nation but live for the kingdom of God. Don't misunderstand what I'm about to say, okay? We should honor our nation, but we should live for the kingdom of God. Um there are some that when we sing the national anthem are more worshipful than when we sing praises to Jesus. Um I sing the national anthem. I have no problem singing the national anthem. But I don't worship our country. I don't. I'm so thankful I get to live in the United States. Anyone else thankful you have to live in the United States? When I travel around the world, I mean I see other countries, I experience other places, and I'm like, man, you know how blessed we are in the United States? How blessed to have the freedoms, even the fact I can get on a plane and go to another country so easily, like we will on Tuesday. What a gift. To raise my kids here, to do life here. I'm so thankful for that. But I want you and me to both understand that we can honor our nation, but we don't live for this nation. Not only that, but some people can tend us to think that because we're Americans, because we are in the United States, that somehow we're better than everyone else. Listen, I hope you know this. We're not. That we are not better just because we're American. And that we have not taken the place of Israel. We're not God's holy nation. We're not God's gift to the rest of the world, all right? And so the reason why that's so important is because we can take this so far that we can have an arrogance in our heart about America. And God has a way of reminding us that we need to humble ourselves before Him. And we need to see that God loves all people. When God had a holy nation, Israel, he gave them a specific task for that for that season of the history where they were pointing the other nations to this to God and reflecting God's glory to the nations. America has not taken that position. We are not the center of the universe. Okay? I believe we are a great nation. We are a part of something that's really amazing. But here's the thing. Ultimately, Jesus in this story is pointing us to a better kingdom. He's pointing us to the real kingdom. He's pointing us to a kingdom that is not temporary but eternal. In fact, Philippians chapter 3, verse 20 says this our citizenship is in heaven, from which we all eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. You know where our ultimate citizenship lies as a believer is in heaven, not in the United States. Let me kind of help us zoom out for a second. You guys know how young America is as a country? You you realize that Jesus in this scene with this coin with Caesar, where is Caesar today? He's dead. Where is the country that he was leading? It's gone. If Jesus doesn't come back, America probably won't be here forever. Because this is not an eternal kingdom. This is a temporary nation. And the reason that's so important is because if you put your hope in this temporary nation, you will get sidetracked and you will get so consumed with it and you will forget what really matters. You will miss the bigger, most more important reality. That is that we are citizens of the kingdom of heaven and that our president is gonna come and he's gonna go. But our king will remain forever. Our king will remain forever. Because who is our king? Jesus is our king. Listen, I'm not trying to nick a jab here on anybody's slogans. But Jesus is not about making America great again. He's not about making America great. Jesus is about making his kingdom come. That's what he prayed. Your kingdom come, your will be done. That's what Jesus wants. Again, vote for who you feel compelled to vote for in your conscience as we go into this election. Pray for those leaders. Be involved and invest in the process. Influence others. But at the end of the day, put your hope in God. Because no matter who is in the White House, Jesus is on his throne. No matter who leads this country, in the political system and in the government system that's established for us, which by the way is brilliant. And the forefathers that set it up were brilliant. Our hope doesn't reside here. We live for a better kingdom. And Jesus is pointing to that very thing. Jesus is our king. Will you choose fear or faith this election season? Will you choose fear or faith? If you look at just what's here in temporary, this temporary nation, these temporary leaders, I mean, let's be honest, you're gonna be anxious, you're gonna be stressed, you're gonna be worried, fearful. But if you look at our king and you remember who our God is, you can walk in faith. You can find hope. And I encourage you this season to do that very thing. Let's pray. Father, we confess our need for you this morning. Um as we said on the front end of the message, you created the world to be a theocracy where you were in charge. And now, because of our sin and our rebellion, we have government, and that government is not perfect. But God, we know that you can use it for our good. And we so we pray for that. We pray for good leaders. We pray for good presidents, we pray for good senators, we pray for good congressmen, we pray, God, for good leadership across the board, both locally, state, um, nationally. We pray for good leadership, God. But ultimately we put our trust in you. Our hope is in you, God. And when it's not, would you remind us, would you draw us back to remember that we respect our leaders, that we obey our leaders, but we don't worship them, and ultimately we live for a better kingdom. God, as we continue our day today, may you give us a real perspective that reflects your heart for this world, for our own country. We love you.