Why Christians Submit to the Government

1:00All of the people who did not vote for Donald Trump, and even some who did, some of the most unhappy people decided to protest. And they protested with signs like this. This movement became known as Not My President. And it gained so much steam that organizers decided to stage rallies on February 20th, 2020. 2017, that they named Not My President's Day. As it turns out, America is a free country, and freedom of speech is protected in the Bill of Rights. What you don't have the freedom to do is change the facts.

1:49And the fact is, Donald Trump was their president. A few very, very long years and a pandemic later, Joe Biden was elected by the American people to serve as the 46th President of the United States of America. That is a fact. And at least half the population was unhappy about that fact. Everyone who did not vote for Joe Biden, and even some who did, some of the people were so unhappy that they decided to protest. And they had signs like this.

2:32The movement became known as Stop the Steal. And such awful crimes were committed on that particular day that that event, like 9-11, is simply known by the date, January 6th. As it turns out, the election was not stolen. And in fact, Joe Biden was their president. What do both of these events show us? That many Americans, plenty of whom who claim to be Christians, do not seem to understand how our government works. But far more importantly, they don't seem to understand what the scriptures teach about how Christians are called to relate to the government and to governing officials.

3:29Friends, we are in a moment in our nation's history where we are all badly in need of teaching from God's word as it pertains to these matters. All of us who profess to be Christians need to have our hearts and our minds, our affections and our thoughts transformed and shaped not by cable news networks, but by the word of God. And so today, my hope is that God will help us to grow in our understanding. And not just our understanding, but the way that we live, the way that we talk, the way that we act as citizens because of his word and his spirit.

4:18Now, if you are new here, if this is your first time at New Life or if you've only been coming recently, we've been walking through the book of Romans for about a year and a half. We paused that series for the last couple of months. Months to focus on Advent, the first coming of Christ, with a view towards the second coming of Christ. And so we did that through the Christmas season. And today we are back in the book of Romans.

4:43And so I want to remind you about the structure of the book of Romans. Romans is like a lot of Paul's letters in the sense that the first two-thirds or the first three-quarters are all about the gospel of Jesus Christ. So what Paul is showing us in Romans 1 through 11 is that God created all things, including you and me. And he created us to worship him and bring him glory. But Paul testifies that we have all turned away from him and we have served and worshipped created things rather than the creator who is praised forever. We have God's law written on our hearts and in our minds through our consciences. He has revealed his law to us in his word, but we have all violated God's law, every person, knowingly or unknowingly, we've all turned away from it.

5:36The Bible calls that sin. Paul says that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and that the wages of sin is death. And as a result, we need to be saved. But we cannot save ourselves. Our works are not sufficient. There's no amount of religious stuff we can do. There's no amount of times that we can go to church. There's not enough times that we could take communion. We can't get baptized to wash ourselves. Away our sins. We can't do anything that's going to make up for our sin. And so, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. He came, he lived perfectly, he died, and he rose again so that through faith in Jesus and in Jesus alone, we could be forgiven.

6:19That is what Romans 1 through 11 is all about. And so now, in this back third of Romans, what Paul is going to do as he does in many of his letters in that back third is he's going to show us what does it look like to live in light of the gospel. Since those things are true, since we have been justified, we've been counted righteous by faith, how should we now live our lives in light of that truth?

6:46And so that teaching began last chapter in Romans 12 that we finished up at the end of the fall. That chapter is all about Christian relationships. How do we relate to God in light of the gospel? How do we relate to ourselves in light of the gospel? How do we relate to each other in the church in light of the gospel? And how do we relate to our enemies in light of the gospel? And so today in Romans 13, Paul is going to shift that focus once more. And he's going to answer the question, how do we relate to the state, to the government, in light of the gospel?

7:26So here's what we're going to learn this morning in Romans 13, 1 through 7. Out of obedience to God, we must submit to the governing authorities. Out of obedience to God, we must submit to the governing authorities. And here's our outline. Here's the two reasons we do that. First, because governing authorities are appointed by God. And secondly, because governing authorities exist to restrain evil. So let's start in verse 1 with that first point. We submit to governing authorities because governing authorities are appointed by God. Look at verse 1.

8:10Paul says, Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. Now let me pause there. When we read the Bible, our tendency is to read the Bible and understand the words in our own time, in our own context. But before we think about what these words mean for us today, we have to understand and ask the question: what did these words mean when Paul wrote them to his original audience? If you don't understand how the words were originally intended, you cannot rightly apply them to your situation today.

8:49And so understand, Paul is writing to the church in Rome about AD 57. So when he says the governing authorities, he's not thinking. Of the American government with our legislative and executive and judicial branches. He's not thinking of that. He's thinking of the Roman Emperor Nero and everyone who worked for him. Now, Roman rule, at least as it was experienced by the average person in the Roman Empire, was essentially martial law. You had soldiers in every community patrolling and ensuring that the peace, the Pax Romana, if you remember learning about that in school, they were ensuring that the peace was kept.

9:33The Romans did not want trouble. They went to a lot of time, a lot of expense, a lot of lives to gain what they had won, and they did not want trouble. And so, generally speaking, if you paid your taxes and you paid homage to Caesar, they were going to leave you alone. Unfortunately, those two things were the most problematic for the Jewish people. Their entire way of life was built around worshiping and obeying the one true God.

10:06So they didn't want to fund the Roman government and all of its pagan practices. They didn't want Romans telling them what they could do and where they could go and how they could do it. The Jewish people despised the Romans. They took their land, they taxed them, they forced them to do all kinds of stuff. The Romans mocked the Jews and their strange religion. But in general, the Romans tolerated them. That was not the case for the Christians. Because you see, the Romans looked at the Christians, and they see a people who have no temple, they've got no statues, they've got no sacrificial system, they hold closed meetings that they referred to in the first century as love feasts, where there were rumors about them eating the flesh and drinking the blood of some crucified Jewish rabbi named Jesus. It was all too much.

11:06And so the Romans began to persecute the Christians. And just a few short years after Paul wrote this letter, a fire broke out in the capital city of Rome in 64 AD. Nero may have set the fire himself in order to make room for his ambitious building projects, but at any rate, he was under a lot of pressure, and so he blamed the Christians. And that started one of the worst periods of persecution in church history. Both Paul and Peter were martyred during those years.

11:41So I share all of that background to kind of help you understand that when Paul writes, let every person be subject to the governing authorities, he is not picturing your friendly local congressman that you can call up and get an appointment with, and you can share your Concerns with, and if you don't like the job that he's doing, you can vote him out at the next election. That's not who Paul has in mind. He has in mind the all-powerful Nero, the Roman emperor, and everybody in that system that's making life hard and dangerous for Christians.

12:21So Paul commands Christians to be subject to the governing authorities. We are to obey, to submit to, those officials in charge. Why is that? Look again at 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. So the reason that we are to be subject to the governing authorities is because they have been instituted by God Himself.

13:11God is in charge of who is in charge. And we see that demonstrated all throughout the Bible. Consider a couple of examples. First, Daniel chapter 2. Look at what Daniel writes. God changes times and seasons. He removes kings and sets up kings. Look at John chapter 19 on the screen. So Pilate said to Jesus, You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you? Jesus answered him, You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above.

14:04Friends, God is in control of who is king, who is president, who is on the Supreme Court, who is in charge at every level of government throughout the entire world. That does not mean that God is responsible for their sinful choices. The Bible teaches that God cannot be tempted by evil. He does not tempt anyone. He does no wrong. God is not responsible for the sinful choices of human leaders, but he is responsible for putting them in that position for his own reasons.

14:45And what that means is we just do not have to despair after elections. We don't have to lose our minds and act like the world is falling apart. You don't have to make statements like, now that these people are in charge, America is doomed. Sometimes after elections, Christians will say things like, how could God let this happen? How could God allow so-and-so to get elected? I don't know what I believe about God anymore because this person is now in office.

15:28Now, something you need to understand about me is I love America. At sporting events, I am one of six people singing the national anthem. Super awk every time. In the whole section, there's Pastor Allen singing. Everyone else kind of like, who's singing? Why would you do that? We fly a huge American flag in front of our house. It's so big it's almost absurd. When you walk to the front door, you have to be careful. You might get hit by America.

16:05I play golf. In my golf bag, I have three head covers. I have one head cover that says, Don't tread on me, the flag from the American Revolution. I have one head cover that is the American flag. And I have a third that is a stuffed, bald eagle that goes over my driver. His name is Eddie. I love America. When people ask me, how could God allow that? You can take that picture down, good grief. I love America, but when people ask me, how could God allow so-and-so to get elected, I don't know what I believe about God anymore because that person is in power. I want to ask them, what kind of leaders do you think we deserve?

16:56Do you think that your obedience alone, your worship alone, merits a good leader? Even if we'd been perfectly obedient to God, which we haven't been, would that merit that when there's an entire nation of people, many of whom are professing Christians, who ignore God, mock God, and don't obey God's commands? What kind of leaders do we deserve? We are an ungrateful, arrogant, greedy nation. That is a fact. So if God gives us good leaders, he is treating us better than we deserve, isn't he?

17:38And if God gives us wicked leaders, then he is treating us as we deserve. But friends, either way, God is in charge of who is in charge. And sometimes in his infinite wisdom, wicked nations get good leaders, like King Josiah. And sometimes in his infinite wisdom, Infinite wisdom, wicked nations get ungodly leaders like King Ahab. But either way, that's up to God. As Christians, we obey authorities because every authority has been instituted by God. If we resist the authorities, we are resisting what God has appointed. Now, you need to understand that when Paul says that, if you resist the authorities, you're resisting what God has appointed, has instituted. That is a general command for ordinary circumstances. That is not an absolute command to be obeyed in all circumstances. Because as Christians, we obey the state until the state requires disobedience to God.

18:51Look at what John Stott wrote. He said, Whenever laws are passed which contradict God's law, civil disobedience becomes a Christian duty. And we find a lot of examples of that in Scripture, don't we? Think about the book of Exodus. Pharaoh commands that all of the male children be put to death. And the Hebrew midwives say, we're not doing that. And they allow all of the male children to leave, disobeying, to live disobeying the Pharaoh's command. Think about the book of Esther. Queen Esther goes to King Xerxes. She approaches him to save the Jewish people, although approaching the king without being invited was illegal.

19:44Think about the book of Daniel. King Nebuchadnezzar sets up this golden image and he commands all people to fall down and worship it. But Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refuse to do that. Then later in the book, King Darius issues a decree that everyone can only pray to him for 30 days. But Daniel refuses to do that. And instead, he goes on praying to God three times a day. You think about the book of Matthew, which we just saw over the Christmas season. King Herod tells the wise men, you find baby Jesus and then come tell me where he is. But the wise men go home by a different route and they disobey the king's command. And then, of course, in the book of Acts, the religious leaders threaten the apostles and they say, you are not allowed to preach or to teach anymore in the name of Jesus. And they tell the religious leaders, we have to obey God rather than man.

20:48So, friends, we obey the governing authorities unless the governing authorities call us to disobey God. And then, as John Stott says, a civil disobedience becomes a A Christian duty. But keep in mind that if we get to that point, we have to count the cost of civil disobedience. Queen Esther knew what it was going to cost. And so she said, I will go to the king, and if I perish, I perish. She knew that execution was a real possibility. Think about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They faced the prospect of the fiery furnace, and they said, King, we believe that God can deliver us out of those fiery flames. But even if he doesn't, we will never bow down and worship your golden image.

21:49Or think about the Apostle Paul. The prophet Agabas comes and he tells the gathered Christians in this particular city that Paul is going to be arrested in Jerusalem, and they all break down and they start crying. And look at how Paul responds in Acts chapter 21. He says, What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be imprisoned, but even to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.

22:21So we obey the governing authorities unless they command us to disobey God. And at that point, civil disobedience becomes. Our Christian duty, no matter the cost. So, friends, let me ask you this morning: are you living your life in submission to the governing authorities? I want you to think about the past week. Think about the past month, the past year. Are you living in submission to the governing authorities? Your words, your actions, your decisions is your family.

23:08Are you living that way as a business owner? Are you living that way as an employee? Listen, you might think certain laws are dumb, certain laws are pointless, you may even think some laws are counterproductive. But unless you can say with a clear conscience before God that it would be sinful to obey what the government is telling you to do, then our calling as Christians is to submit. We are not trying to give non-Christians one more thing to hold against the Christian faith, the Christian church, the Christian gospel. No, we are trying to show them, just like Paul is trying to show these people in the Roman Empire. That as much as we can be, Christians are model citizens.

24:06So we vote in elections. We volunteer in our kids' schools and community organizations. We support our police officers and firemen and our military. We show up for jury service all 10 times a year. I am certain they think I only work on Sunday. They have the audacity. Every time they're like, this guy's a pastor, get him out of here. I'm like, you knew this last time. And they have the audacity to ask me, do you want your $7.15? I'm like, yes, I do. Yes, I do. I'm going to McDonald's and getting half a biscuit for this trouble.

24:56But I show up every time just to get rejected. You know what that feels like? So our fellow citizens may reject Jesus, but we do not want them to reject Jesus because Christians that they know only talk about loving their community, only talk about loving their country, only talk about loving their neighbors. Submit to governing authorities because they've been appointed by God. Let's now look at the second half of verse 2, where we'll see that we submit to governing authorities because governing authorities exist to restrain evil.

25:45Verse 2. 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.

26:31Now we have to remember that we live in a sinful and fallen world. And because of that, sin and evil will run rampant if they go unchecked. At times, God restrains evil Himself through direct intervention, but most of the time, God works through means. And here in Romans 13, we see that the primary Means that God uses to restrain evil is human government. Now, think about this. The government's primary job is not to pat citizens on the back for doing the right thing, for living how they're supposed to live. When we do what we're supposed to do and we live how we're supposed to live, Paul says we'll receive approval from the rulers. If we do what is right, we've got nothing to fear, at least in theory. And that's because, as Paul says in verse 4, human rulers are God's servants for our good. That's how we're called to view public officials. We are called to view them as God's servants for our good.

27:48Even those who aren't believers, even those that we may disagree with, God installed them for our good. Their role, to put it in the words of our founding fathers, is to make sure that citizens can enjoy life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. So, human authorities are God's servants for our good, and we'll receive their approval when we do what is right, but that's not really why the government exists. No, the government exists to restrain evil, to keep evil from spiraling out of control, because that's what happens when there is a No government.

28:33All of human experience and all of the Bible shows this. You remember last summer we went through the book of Judges? What is the refrain in the book of Judges? Look on the screen, Judges 21. In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. Friends, anarchy is awful. Awful. The book of Judges and all of human history proves that to be true. And so God instituted human government to restrain evil, to keep people from murdering each other without any fear of consequences.

29:15To keep people from yelling fire in a crowded room, causing panic and a stampede that could injure people. To keep people from driving 100 miles an hour through a school zone. To keep someone from deciding, you know, I actually would like your house, your wife, your child, and I'm stronger than you, so there's nothing you can do about that. God, in his mercy, has set up rulers who have the authority to hold people accountable. And we see this as early as Genesis chapter 9. Look on the screen. As soon as Noah and his family get off the boat, this is what God says. And for your lifeblood, I will require a reckoning. From every beast, I will require it. From man. From his fellow man, I will require a reckoning for the life of man. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed. For God made man in his own image.

30:16Murder is a capital offense because it is killing someone in cold blood who was made in the image of God. So the human ruler, as Paul says in verse 4, is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer. Make no mistake. The government's job is to make you afraid to do wrong. The authorities restrain evil by saying: if you endanger the public by speeding, you are going to pay a fine.

30:57If you steal from your fellow citizen, you are going to prison. If you murder someone, you are going to be executed. Those are crimes, ultimately because they fail to love God and neighbor. And so, in His mercy, God established the human government to restrain that evil. And the way that the human government does this is by making evil expensive. Think about. That principle. If you've taken economics before, you understand the principle that as the cost of something goes up, demand for something goes down. The government's job is to make evil expensive and therefore less desirable. So, anywhere in the world where doing evil is cheap or free, as it is in many countries where there's no government or bad government or corrupt government, evil is everywhere. And it's everywhere because it's free or cheap.

32:00But where evil is expensive, like it is in America, you get a lot less of it, thank God. So, staying on the topic of economics, as they say, there's no free lunch. So, if you are eating for free, someone else paid for it. So, who pays for these rulers, these servants for our good? We do. Look at verse 5. Therefore, one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God's wrath, but also for the sake of conscience. For because of this, you also pay taxes. For the authorities are ministers of God attending to this very thing. Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.

33:02Friends, public services are not free. When you get into a car accident and the police department and the fire department show up, that's because our tax dollars fund their salaries and those services. Our tax dollars fund our streets and our stoplights, our courts and our prisons, our schools, our military. None of that is free. So look at verse 6 again. We pay taxes because the authorities are ministers. That word is literally deacons or servants attending to this very thing. All of those things that I just named and more. So what is our responsibility as Christians? This is the broad general principle. We are to pay to all what is owed to them.

33:53Pay to all what is owed. We should never be in a position where we owe something that we are unwilling to pay. So we pay taxes, which are the cost of public services. We pay revenue, which is money exchanged for goods or services. We pay respect, which is admiration for what someone has done. And we pay honor, which is worth ascribed to someone because of who they are or because of the office that they hold. So as Christians, we pay. To everyone, what is owed? Christians are not freeloaders. We are not societal parasites constantly taking, but never giving back. We pay what we owe. So, as Paul is going to say in verse 8 next week, we don't owe anyone anything except to love them.

34:51So, friends, we are to be subject to the governing authorities because they exist to restrain evil, not just to avoid God's wrath, but because of our consciences, because we know that it's right. God instituted human government for our good. Now, as we close, I think it's important to address a question that's probably been bouncing around in your head throughout this sermon. And the question is: this: What about when rulers are not a terror to bad conduct, but to good?

35:32In other words, what do you do when you have people serving in government who are not living as God's servants for our good, but as Satan's servants for evil? Because throughout human history, that's been the case over and over again. Think about what we see in the Bible: Sennacherib of Assyria, Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, Darius of Media and Persia. Herod the Great, all of the Caesars. In more modern times, it happened in Germany under Hitler, in Russia, under Stalin, in China, under Mao, in Iraq, under Saddam Hussein.

36:18It's happened in our own beloved country, the United States of America. You don't have to be a great student of history to know that the leaders of our country either voted for or allowed the enslavement of human beings, supported the forced removal of Native Americans from their ancestral lands, set up and kept in place Jim Crow laws after the Civil War. Our justice system has wrongfully imprisoned and even executed innocent people, while guilty criminals have walked away free.

36:58And the saddest part of all of this throughout human history is that in our fallen world, even when good, godly men and women are in charge, some of these things happen. Think about King David, the man after God's own heart. He decided as king that he wanted another man's wife. So he sent the Secret Service to go get her. And then when he found out that she was pregnant, he told the Pentagon to make her husband go away. That happened to one of the godliest people in the world. Bible.

37:33Think of how disappointed you would be in King David. Think about how unsettling that would be for you to know this man that you've seen worshiping and leading the nation to love and serve God alone is capable of doing things like that. Even the best leaders are sinners, imperfect men and women who may do things that are unethical or illegal. And thinking about that, especially if you are a person who has suffered at the hands of a governing authority who did not act as God's servant for your good. But as Satan's servant for evil, it could lead you to despair, to become jaded and cynical and bitter, concluding that all governing authorities are shady crooks.

38:24And so let me remind you this morning of the last verse that we covered in Romans chapter 12, right before Advent. Look on the screen. Romans 12, 21. It says, Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Friends, that is God's command to you and me. You know who did that? Jesus. Jesus was not overcome by evil, but he overcame evil with good. If anybody in the history of the world understands the miscarriage of justice, it's Jesus of Nazareth.

39:08Jesus is the Son of God who took on flesh. So he is the only human being in history who always perfectly submitted to his heavenly Father and perfectly submitted to human government. He gave to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's every day of his life. He was tempted to hate the Roman government just as much as the next Jew, but he didn't. He was tempted to become a zealot just like his disciple Simon and rebel against the government, but he didn't. Instead, Jesus subjected himself to the governing authorities. Even when they dragged him into a kangaroo court in the middle of the night and made false accusations against him and exchanged him for an insurrectionist and a murderer, it is the greatest miscarriage of justice in human history.

40:03But all of that happened according to God's perfect plan to put him to death in our place so that he could rise again and so through faith you and I could be counted righteous and forgiven. That is the good news. And friends, that good news continues because Jesus promised that he would return. He would return to reign over us forever in the new heaven. Heavens and the new earth, where perfect justice will always be carried out, where he will be king for all eternity. Look at Revelation 11.

40:42It says, Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven saying, The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever. And the 24 elders who sit on their thrones before God fell on their faces and worshiped God, saying, We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty, who is and who was, for you have taken your great power and begun to reign. The nations raged, but your wrath came in the time for the dead to be judged, and for rewarding your servants, the prophets and saints, and those who fear your name, both small and great, and for destroying the destroyers of the earth.

41:31Isn't that what we all really want? We want somebody to come and destroy the destroyers of the earth. We want somebody to come and reign with perfect righteousness and justice. And so understand this. Every bad king, every corrupt politician, every tyrant, every dictator reminds us that this world is not our home, that our hope is not in. This world, but it is in Jesus and in heaven. And every good ruler, every good authority is just a glimpse, the smallest glimpse of what it's going to be like to live forever with Jesus as King.

42:17So, friends, pray for those who are in authority. Be subject to them out of obedience to God. And let every one of them, the good and the evil, point you to the perfect ruler, Jesus Christ, who is coming soon to reign in perfect righteousness. Let's pray. Father, we see the commands here in Scripture. For a lot of us who have been following Jesus for some time, this is not new information that we are to submit to the governing authorities.

43:03And so we recognize that whether this is the first time we're ever hearing these truths from your word, or if we've heard them our whole life, the problem is not really that we don't know what we should be doing, how we should be living. The problem is that it's hard to do this. It's hard to submit in general. And it's hard to submit to impact. Perfect, sometimes corrupt, sometimes evil governing officials. But that is what you call us to do out of obedience to you, as long as they aren't calling us to sin.

43:49And so, Lord, we pray not so much for our understanding, but for our hearts, that we would be submissive people. God, for anybody here who has made a practice of name-calling, of belittling, of berating government officials, I pray that you would grant them repentance and that those words of cursing would be replaced with prayer. I pray that you would show us all of the ways that we are not submitting to the government. I think of the highway and the five years of construction that we are about to endure and are enduring even now, watching people drive past me with a posted speed limit of 60 miles an hour at 80 miles an hour while workers are present who have families.

44:55It's just the smallest things that we have decided. Those laws, those rules do not apply to me. I pray that we would set a better example. I pray that we would submit. And God, we do pray that you would treat us better than we deserve. We pray that instead of unrighteous rulers at every level of government, federal, state, and local, we would have righteous rulers. We pray that many of them would be believers in Jesus, but even if they're not, we pray that they would make wise and righteous choices so that all people can thrive, so that the church can exist in peace and we can go on preaching the gospel as we are doing today and as we do every day in our daily lives.

45:45God, we thank you for your word and for the way that it addresses every aspect of life. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Thank you for listening to the sermon audio from New Life Baptist Church in College Station, Texas. For more information or to support our ministry, visit us online at newlifecs.net.