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Following Jesus in Politics | Romans 13:1-7

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Senior Pastor Damein Schitter continues our summer series, Following Jesus in Politics, preaching from Romans 13:1-7.

Speaker 1:

Hello everyone. This is Pastor Damian. You're listening to Sermon Audio from New City, orlando. At New City, we believe all of us need all of Jesus for all of life. For more resources, visit our website at newcityorlandocom. Thanks for listening.

Speaker 2:

If you're able, please remain standing for today's scripture reading, which comes from Romans 13, verses 1 through 7. Let every person be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore, whoever resists the authorities, resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment, for rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good and you will receive his approval, for he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain, for he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore, one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God's wrath, but also for the sake of conscience, for because of this, you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God attending to this very thing. Pay to all what is owed to them.

Speaker 2:

Taxes to whom taxes are owed. Revenue to whom revenue is owed. Respect to whom respect is owed. Honor to whom honor is owed. This is God's word. Thanks be to God. You can be seated.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, hannah. Thank you, hannah's fan club, all right. Well, this morning we're continuing on in our sermon series this month, four weeks in a row, on following Jesus in politics. Last week I reminded you that every summer, end of summer, we take on a topical series and it's called Following Jesus In, and this year we chose Following Jesus In Politics. Now, I know some of you weren't here last week, and so I'm going to sum up what I preached in a short paragraph. Essentially, what I said is that Christianity, that is, the gospel, is public, but it's often been privatized, and Christianity is political, but it's often been partisanized. And what we need as Christians, in this moment and always, is a call to political discipleship, a way to follow Jesus in politics and public life that resists privatizing our faith and partisanizing our faith, and that's easier said than done. How do we follow Jesus in faith, hope and love in a world that is good, yet fallen?

Speaker 1:

One of the things that's so attractive to many people in the world about America is that America is built on a narrative of freedom. We are the home of the brave and the land of the free, and from the outside we can see warring partisan messages. And because there's so much partisan fighting and frustration, it's actually easy for us to miss that often all sides of a debate are actually standing on common ground and that common ground oftentimes is actually a misunderstanding of freedom, not a commitment to it. You see, freedom is not freedom from a master, it's freedom to serve the proper master. In our popular modern understanding of freedom, there are only two categories the free and the oppressed, and in this view, freedom would mean that if you're free, you're actually free from everything. But in reality what you've now become is a slave to new masters of ambition and pleasure and reputation, fame, power, and the list goes on and on. In fact, imagining something else is hardly possible in the end, and it's certainly not livable. In other words, the type of radical freedom often communicated in our culture today is a freedom that serves neither tradition nor innovation, only self, and it puts all authority in the hands of each individual.

Speaker 1:

When we think of something like this, gk Chesterton puts this reality so well, imagining living in this type of radical freedom, when he says if you draw a giraffe, you must draw him with a long neck. If, in your bold, creative way, you hold yourself free to draw a giraffe with a short neck, you will really find that you are actually not free to draw a giraffe. The moment you step into the world of facts, you step into the world of limits. End quote. You see, freedom is not freedom from a master, it's freedom to serve our proper master in the way that he calls us to serve him. So the biblical pattern of freedom is a little more complicated than you might think in one sense. In another way it's just honest and obvious. The biblical pattern of freedom is freedom for service. We're free to serve the right master. As one philosopher says, someone is always free from something and people to serve the right things and the right people.

Speaker 1:

And of course, anytime we talk about freedom, lurking in the background is the reality of authority. It's right there in the fifth commandment, this idea of authority, god-given authority to honor your father and mother. This, more broadly, is to honor the authority that God has put in your life and in our text today Paul talks about in Romans 13,. He develops a Christian relationship with the authority of the state. Now what's important is Romans 12,. Paul is developing the marks of the Christian life and in chapter 13, he takes on three specific areas to further develop the marks of the Christian life, and the state is one of them, and so that's the context of our passage today. So today we're going to explore this together in three points.

Speaker 1:

Okay, the first is that our text today calls us to submit to authority, it calls us to resist injustice and it calls us to persist in holiness. Okay, so the first thing what do I mean by submit to authority? We read the text. It seems very clear Verse 1, let every person be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore, whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. So Paul's working out what it means that Christians are not to be conformed to the world and that our lives are now fueled by the mercy of God and we have renewed minds. Right, romans 12.

Speaker 1:

And what this text serves as, at least, is a reminder that helps us understand that the Christian relationship to governing authorities is central to what it means to live a life marked by Christian love, to live a life marked by Christian maturity. And what Paul most simply says is that God institutes government. And this means many things, but the first thing it means is, like in all things, god is the ultimate authority. So in order for God to be able to say you should submit to governing authorities, it requires him to be in charge of governing authorities. While God ordained that there are state powers and authorities, only God deserves our ultimate allegiance.

Speaker 1:

Again, when we talk about these complicated things, these statements are really easy to say and they're relatively easy to understand, but to live into, to live out, to wrestle with and through in real life, it becomes a challenge. In fact, if you're like me at all, you do struggle a bit with the universal and blunt language. Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. Right, all of the ideas, all of the thoughts of yeah, but or what about, come in instead of just first sitting and recognizing that what he's calling us to is clear. And this thought is all the more striking to me when we remember that at that time there were no Christian authorities, global, regional or local. It was not a democratic republic. It was not a democratic republic, it was Caesar. And so when we get our minds in this place, it should humble us, it should maybe confuse us. And just to be clear what I mean, what might confuse us? The idea that God has ordained all governing authorities and that this idea is consistent all throughout Scripture, no matter who the governing authorities were. The universal and blunt language is clear.

Speaker 1:

Now, what I want to do briefly is outline the four principles from this passage as it relates to the role of the governing authorities. So, in other words, why would God put governing authorities over us? Why is this a good thing? And it is a good thing, it's a very good thing.

Speaker 1:

Well, first, the church and the governing authorities have different roles and Christians have duties to both. We are dual citizens. We see this in Jesus' words give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's. Ben's going to preach on that next week to elaborate on that. But one helpful way quickly to say is that Jesus' point, there is not that. What we need to do is live life sort of like we sort our laundry and put dark with dark, colors with colors, white with white. In other words, the role of the Christian is to sort out what belongs to God and what belongs to Caesar. That's actually not what's happening. What's happening is that Jesus is saying everything belongs to God and in God's authority. Some things belong to Caesar and Ben will elaborate more on that next week, but we shouldn't be threatened by this.

Speaker 1:

Second, the role of the governing authorities is to promote and reward good and restrain and punish evil. This is the role of governance and states and authorities, whether it is at any level, all the way from the federal government to local police force. This is God's design and it's good. I already said that Romans 13 emerges from Paul's teaching in Romans 12, and I just want to remind us that good and evil were a theme in Romans 12, and they continue to be a theme in Romans 13. In Romans 12, 9, paul tells us that we are, to quote abhor what is evil and hold fast to what is good. Yet in verse 19, just a few verses later, he says yet we are not to avenge ourselves. This is the role of the state, verse 4,. So when the state punishes evildoers, paul actually says it's serving as God's ministers. This is a very broad word that he uses here. He uses this same word for Christians serving in the church and other places, and so they really are God's servants. God is sovereign over them. Third, paul gives us in these verses a very positive concept of the state and of governing authorities, and what he says is conscientious Christian citizens will submit to that authority, honor their representatives, pay their taxes and pray for their welfare. They will also encourage the state to fulfill its God-appointed role and, insofar as they have the opportunity, we as Christians will actively participate in the work of the state, our civic responsibility.

Speaker 1:

There's no confusion. What would I say? There's no conflict, ultimately, between us as Christians engaging the state around us. Okay, we talked about that inclination last week of privatizing our faith. That's not what the Bible calls us to.

Speaker 1:

Government, clearly from this passage and others is a gift of God and without it we would have chaos. Now, to imagine that there's any other truth to that is naive. To say say that without government we wouldn't have chaos is naive. Without government, without authorities, of course, we would have chaos. If you didn't have proper authority in your life, the inertia, the movement of your life would be toward chaos, not towards goodness, not towards righteousness, not towards holiness. The only people who thrive in chaos are opportunists and predators. But God has designed government and authorities as good servants of his to bring order, to punish what is evil, to promote what is good. To sum it up, we're to submit to the state's God-given authority because it's been given these purposes order, justice, virtue, prosperity and safety.

Speaker 1:

Now, some of you have waited as long as you can. Your minds have been populating with all the examples of corrupt governments, all the examples of yeah, but, and we're going to get there. That's my second point. But we have to sit just for a moment in this reality of Romans 13, because we have been malformed by our culture to say that the self is the final authority. But this is not a biblical idea. Okay, so if there's friction, if it rubs against something inside of you, there is at least some good to that, and I just want to pause and think about that and let that happen just for a moment Now.

Speaker 1:

Is Paul saying that his call for submission is absolute? Well, the answer to that is, of course, not, because the only absolute submission is to God himself. That's what he says in verse 2. For there is no authority except for God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. So again, I'll ask an answer. Is Paul saying that his call for submission is absolute? The answer is no, but why? Why? Well, the simplest answer is that there are examples in Scripture when God's people faithfully did not submit to the governing authorities.

Speaker 1:

And what's important to see here, and what I want to show us, is the gospel is equally hostile to tyranny and to anarchy. It's equally hostile to both. In the case of both, what do you have? Injustice? And so that leads us to our second point is that we should submit to authority. And so that leads us to our second point is that we should submit to authority, and in our submission to authority, ultimately God as the authority, we, their submission to God ultimately had to resist the authorities or the state. There's something I want to say here Is, in these examples and in our examples, that we would rightfully do this. We don't resist because we necessarily think we can transform society, but because we believe in our resistance, we showcase our true and ultimate allegiance. What we actually showcase is the politics of our king, the king of kings. Okay, so this is a theme I want to keep coming back to in the second point. So the second point again is we must resist injustice as we submit to God's ultimate authority.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so let's look at this when Pharaoh ordered the Hebrew midwives to kill the newborn boys, they refused to authority. Okay, so let's look at this when Pharaoh ordered the Hebrew midwives to kill the newborn boys, they refused to obey, right? The midwives feared God, ultimately, and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do. They let those boys live, and that was right. When King Nebuchadnezzar issued an edict that all his subjects must fall down and worship his golden image, shadrach, meshach and Abednego refused to obey. That was right. When King Darius made a decree that for 30 days, nobody should pray quote to any god or man except himself, daniel refused to obey, and that was right. And when the Sanhedrin banned preaching in the name of Jesus, the apostles refused to obey, and that was right. And when the Sanhedrin banned preaching in the name of Jesus, the apostles refused to obey, and that was right.

Speaker 1:

Now, all these were, in a sense, heroic refusals, in spite of the threats which accompanied those edicts. They had skin in the game. It cost them something, and in each case, its purpose was to demonstrate their submissiveness to God, not their defiance of the government and this is really important In every one of these examples and to resist injustice, in line with Romans 13,. The goal of resistance is to demonstrate our submissiveness to God's authority, not our defiance of the government, and this is very important. In other words, we don't disobey a law because we don't like it, but when it requires us to disobey something God commands, or obey something God forbids explicitly, then we resist. Why Insubmissiveness to our God? Now, what about a more modern example?

Speaker 1:

The civil rights movement in the 1960s was characterized by peaceful resistance among black protesters and their allies against Jim Crow laws and restrictions against voting. And, of course, one of the figureheads of this movement that we know is Martin Luther King Jr, and he actually, in line with his philosophy of resisting injustice, not pursuing vengeance, not pursuing vengeance, he had all of his, all the people joining their movement to adhere to the following pledge. They were called the Ten Commandments of Nonviolence and I'm gonna read them to you. Okay, remember this is in the face of resisting unjust laws, where the government is not calling evil evil, but it's calling it good. Okay, this is the context.

Speaker 1:

Commandment one all people who join this movement meditate daily on the teachings and life of Jesus. Number two remember always that the nonviolent movement seeks justice and reconciliation, not victory. Three walk and talk in the manner of love, for God is love. Four pray daily to be used by God in order that all men might be free. Five sacrifice personal wishes in order that all men might be free. Five sacrifice personal wishes in order that all men might be free. Six observe, with both friend and foe, the ordinary rules of courtesy. Seven seek to perform regular service for others and for the world. Number eight refrain from the violence of fist, tongue or heart. Nine strive to be in good spiritual and bodily health. And ten follow the directions of the movement and of the captain on a demonstration. So you see, authority, the right use of authority.

Speaker 1:

The goal was not to pursue vengeance as lone vigilantes. There was so much structure, so much teaching, so much training, so much organization that went into the resistance of injustice. When you think about these marches, they weren't just done on a whim. There were people thinking of childcare. There were people thinking of how do we deliver food? There were people thinking of how do we pick people up when they're released from jail, because there will be other people waiting there to kill them. But yet how do we not loiter so that we don't get arrested while we're waiting? To do this? It took all types of organization. It was very much like a military in that sense. Logistics were everywhere in order to fight injustice, to resist it, ultimately in submission to God. Now, of course, the civil rights movement was not done perfectly, but, yes, it was done prophetically and at great cost, as one journalist wrote. We faced tweetings, they faced beatings. It cost them something.

Speaker 1:

And to follow Jesus in necessary resistance, if you're interested in that, will be a call to bear a cross. It will be a call to risk, it will be a call to lay down your life. To follow Jesus in necessary resistance will be a way to bear a cross as we hold governments accountable for not rewarding the good and not punishing evil. Now, how do we become those types of people, how do we become the type of people that have opinions rightfully so, that look out and see things that are happening in any given political administration in our country and see them as wicked and wrong? How do we become the types of people who follow Jesus in public life, the types of people who would be willing to do so at the cost of your safety, at the cost of your reputation, at the cost of your safety, at the cost of your reputation, at the cost of your job? Well, we need to, and this is in the context of Romans 12 and 13,.

Speaker 1:

Not only submit to authority, not only resist injustice, but also to persist in holiness. There's a clear call yes, to submit, yes to resist, but also to persist in holiness. In the Bible, prophetic teachings are intended to encourage responsibility and repentance in the present, not to look to the future and withdraw from the present. God's prophetic teaching, the call to prophetic word against injustice in the Bible is a call to repentance and responsibility now, in the present. The prophet Daniel teaches us a lot here.

Speaker 1:

As a high servant in Babylon, you know, if you know, one thing about him is that he prayed three times a day, that he pursued holiness in this way. Now we don't know exactly what he prayed. We may have some ideas, but we know that he committed himself to practices to protect the malforming influence of Babylon, to realign his heart with the proper love of God and his kingdom. And when his political opponents wanted to take him out, you might remember, they couldn't find anything against him. He was a model citizen in Babylon. He served in the high courts. So what they had to do was they had to accuse him of something. So they created laws that outlawed his holiness. This is what they had to do to get at Daniel, they had to create laws that outlawed his persistence toward holiness.

Speaker 1:

In Paul's letters about the end of history 1 and 2 Thessalonians he argues that waiting in the already and not yet which we feel in Ben's prayer and the realities of yesterday afternoon and of the surrounding years, we feel the weight of the already not yet. We feel the pain of injustice in every direction. We know that the time is drawing near. We are in the last days, as the New Testament writers say. Well, there's a proper way to respond to that and engage that. And there's an improper way.

Speaker 1:

And Paul, in his letter to the first and second Thessalonians, he argues that waiting in that time means two things holiness and hope. You see, god's people need to become a distinct people in light of Christ's return. And Paul in first and second Thessalonians applies that to three realms Sexuality, citizenship and the church. And I'm just going to speak to citizenship for today. And when Paul speaks to hope and holiness in citizenship in the final days, he says that the coming of Christ compels holiness, not political insurrection or political withdrawal. Paul also says this waiting will consist of being good citizens of their city. He says we are to live quietly mind our own business, essentially, and work.

Speaker 1:

As author Patrick Schreiner writes. The temptation for us that is, you and I is to think we need to upset the order because Jesus is coming back, lashing out at those who persecute us, meddling in other people's business and quitting our job so we can concentrate on spiritual things. Are always Christians mistakenly wait for Jesus Now? While it, of course, is vitally important to proclaim the gospel, to introduce people to Jesus, help them move toward faithful discipleship as they participate in family life and church life, it's also tremendously important, even in these last days, to see that our holiness doesn't just say inward, but moves outward, into the world as distinct people cultivating the flourishing of life through our activity and culture politics, education, medicine, business and every area of public life. To be a stranger, which we are, an alien, which we are a sojourner, a pilgrim all of these things are true of us, and yet it means that our sense of belonging to God will exist with some level of tension with our dual citizenship. We are citizens of the kingdom, we are citizens of the United States of America.

Speaker 1:

Author Vince Baycoat is helpful to me here. In his book on political discipleship rather, it's the title of the book he says. This quote Holiness is not supposed to be cloaked in the chambers of pious hearts, but displayed in the public domains of home, school, culture and politics. Because we continue to wait for the day that Christ sets all things in their proper order, we find the path of sanctification to be a challenge, yet the Holy Spirit bids us to listen to His voice and surrender to His power. If we heed this call and continue down the path of transformation, our private and public practice will produce more amazement than exasperation, and even our enemies will see that we act like those who are becoming more human. You see, holiness, in general is to be conformed more and more to the image of Christ, and that has become more and more human. To see life rightly through the lens of the kingdom of God, which is already here and yet still coming. Rightly through the lens of the kingdom of God, which is already here and yet still coming, to recognize that we live in a good world that has fallen.

Speaker 1:

This is the tension that we live in, and so what does that have to do with us as a congregation at New City? Well, I could say a lot of things, but I'm trying to give you time back, since I went so long last week, so I'll say this. But I'm trying to give you time back since I went so long last week, so I'll say this the gospel must challenge our public life and if we as Christians want to occupy the high ground which we actually ejected from when we privatized our faith decades ago, what we have to do now is to engage movements that begin with the local congregation. We have to be shaped first here in this new society, in a society where the reality of the new creation is present, it's known and experienced. Now, I know it's not fully experienced, it's not fully known, but it is rightly known, it is rightly experienced, and that is the thing that will shape us in our public holiness Is to experience God's kingdom in his church.

Speaker 1:

Leslie Newbigin says it this way it will be movements that begin with the local congregation, in which the reality of the new creation is present, known and experienced, and from which men and women will go into every sector of public life to claim it for Christ, to unmask the illusions which have remained hidden and to expose all areas of public life to the illumination of the gospel. But that will only happen as and when local congregations renounce an introverted concern for their own life and recognize that they exist for the sake of those who are not members, as sign, instrument and foretaste of God's redeeming grace for the whole life of society. Now listen, I just want to, in closing, pick up briefly on these three words sign, instrument and foretaste. Think of a sign, just like you would. You're holding up a sign, but what Leslie Newbigin, rightly, is saying is that, as Christians, we in and ourselves are a sign.

Speaker 1:

As we enter the world around us, we are displaying an allegiance. We are displaying an allegiance to an ultimate kingdom and he's saying that when we experience that rightly, we're displaying the allegiance of God's kingdom. And this does a number of things, but one of the things that it does is it makes us a foretaste which is the third thing he said in that we move into spaces, even now, where there's a type of non-anxiousness about us or maybe that's too strong, I should say less anxiousness about us, that for some reason we become some of the least anxious people, as we are signs of the coming kingdom, as our allegiance is to something beyond this world, because you see, of course, that unless our allegiance is to something beyond this world, we aren't much use to this world Because we are on the same level. There's no transcendence. We make everything here, everything now. There's no transcendence. We can't see beyond, we can't live from the future into the present. We are trapped in this imminent presence. But if we can taste the kingdom of God and our allegiance can be there, then we are free to enter in as instruments into this world, displaying, like signs, the kingdom coming.

Speaker 1:

And in that summary, as we're formed here in this new society, we're sent out every week to be signs, instruments and foretaste of God's coming kingdom. So, as we saw, when we submit to authority we're submitting ultimately to God. When we resist, we're not resisting because of our preferences. We're resisting injustice in submission to God and finally, to be the types of people who do this with joy and finally, to be the types of people who do this with joy, who do this as sign, instruments and foretaste of that coming kingdom, we must persist in holiness. We must persist in holiness for the sake of the world. Let's pray, father. We recognize that we have so long to go. There is a gap between that holiness you call us to and the reality of our lives so often. And all we can do, lord Jesus, is cast ourselves on you, the one who took our death, that we deserved the greatest injustice of all. And you set us free, free to serve, free to love. And so we receive that free gift of grace this morning. We receive it, and we ask that you would help us see that type of freedom as good, and it's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.

Speaker 1:

Now, this is the time where we always take just a few moments to reflect on what we heard, and so I'm going to invite you to reflect on two things. One, maybe your view of freedom was off, maybe your view of freedom was more like the modern view of freedom, which is true freedom is freedom from all constraints, as opposed to the biblical pattern of freedom. That freedom in Christ is actually freedom to the proper constraints. Maybe you can reflect on that, and maybe there's some repentance to the proper constraints. Maybe you can reflect on that and maybe there's some repentance, some curiosity there. And the second thing I would just point you to is pay attention to whatever's happening inside of you, whether it's anxiety, anger, fear, confusion, and I would encourage you to offer that in prayer to the Lord. Let's take a few moments and do just that.