Living Hope Church

Pastor Phil Steiger: If you would open your Bibles and turn with me please to the book of Romans. We are now in Romans chapter 13. If you think now we are going to pick up and go light speed, you have another thing coming. Romans chapter 13. In a moment, we are going to read the first seven verses. We are going to spend some time on these first seven verses for a handful of reasons. As I was going through this week, I was reminded of a couple of things.

Not that long ago, how many of you remember this little thing called COVID? How many of you would rather not remember this little thing called COVID? It was not that long ago during the COVID mandates and the COVID lockdowns. It was not at all uncommon to hear people say the church and Christians were supposed to obey everything the government told them to do because of Romans chapter 13. That was a common thing to hear. I would hear that often in the air, on the news, and in social media feeds.

Because of what I do, I was a part of a handful of Zoom calls listening to county and state officials talking about how things would adjust during that period of time. Sometimes there would be religious exemptions, and so often, I or someone else would simply ask if there is a religious exemption to this. Immediately, as if the Russian bots were on cue, I immediately got from random people on the internet that you are supposed to do everything you are told to do by the government because of Romans chapter 13.

Let us pray and close because now we know everything there is to know about Romans chapter 13. Is that what this passage of Scripture teaches? Are Christians supposed to simply, maybe even blindly, obey government authority in all things? Now, this is often a popular view. In my experience, it is often a view from those who have not read the rest of the Word of God, who maybe do not even take the rest of the Word of God very seriously or as a matter of actual authority.

Does Romans chapter 13 teach that we obey in all things, period, end of statement? Here is a thought to stick in your back pocket. We are going to spend some time on this and we are going to come back to this a little bit later on, but I want to give you this. You can walk around with this for a little while. The man who wrote the first seven verses of Romans chapter 13 was thrown in jail, put on trial, and beheaded for disobeying the authorities. So, what do we do with Romans chapter 13?

This is going to be good stuff for us. These first few verses of Romans chapter 13, especially these first seven verses, give us a chance now to talk about the relationship between God, government, Christians, and the church. In some ways, these next couple of sermons over these few verses might feel a little bit different, but it is incredibly important for us. This is important stuff. It was important stuff for the Christians who originally read this, and it is important stuff for Christians who read it now, even in our culture.

This is a big deal. It always has been and it will be until Christ himself comes to set up his eternal and perfect kingdom, his government with him as King forever and ever. I am looking forward to that day. When Paul writes this, he writes to Christians who have little to no influence in their world. There is no such thing as a vote. You cannot donate to your favorite politician. You cannot pass out flyers, you cannot put signs in your front yard, and you cannot do this on social media.

None of that existed. This passage of Scripture is written to those Christians. This passage of Scripture is also written to you and me here and now. We live in a very different world and political and governmental atmosphere than they did. So, the Word of God was written to them, and the Word of God is written to us as well. What is our relationship to government? Keep in mind that government is different than politics. Politics is the work of individuals to implement the power of government, but government is a different thing.

What is our relationship to the government? Do Christians still have a role to play in the public square? It is important to ask that question because there are plenty of people who say no. There are plenty of people who say Christians should not be allowed to say certain things. Christians should not put themselves out in the public square. Pastors should not be allowed to. For all kinds of weird reasons, we are asking the question: Do Christians still have a role to play?

Another important question is what is God's relationship to government and governmental authorities? These are big questions. This is big stuff here in these few verses that we are going to deal with. In our passage this morning, a couple of the thoughts that are going to hold this together for us today start with the fact that God created the order of civilization. Something as basic as what we would call the rule of law, the peace and the order of a mature and stable civilization, the idea that every person is valuable, has rights, and is made in the image of God.

All of this relies on the Word of God and people living out the Word of God. All of these things spring from God's creation of government and divinely appointed leadership and authority. It is critical for Christians to do what they do in order to maintain the kind of civilization that God creates in his Word. God created the order of civilization. Christians have a role to play. We do. Christians are not passive observers from the world around us. God intends us to be salt and light in every conceivable part of our world.

God's people will one day be with Christ when he comes to set all governments right and establish his own kingship for all of eternity. Let us read our passage of Scripture this morning. We are going to read the first seven verses, and we will get about halfway through the first phrase this morning. Chapter 13, 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. 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: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed." There is a lot here in this passage of Scripture.

Beginning at the very top of this passage, chapter 13, verse 1, remember again to keep these things in context. It is very easy for us when we read the Word of God for our brains to hit an unconscious reset button when we change chapters. Paul did not write in chapters and verses. When he gets to chapter 12, verses 1 and 2, presenting our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable, do not be conformed to the image of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that we may then learn what is the will of God, that is the header for all of this.

Not just those things in chapter 12 we spent time with, but the rest of 13 and on it goes. We are working on presenting ourselves to God—body, mind, and spirit—as those who are going to be transformed into the image of God. We are still inside of that context. From there, the Apostle Paul starts here in this particular passage, the first phrase of chapter 13, verse 1: "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities."

This opening line and a couple of others give a lot of people the sense that Paul is simply telling Christians to obey the governing authorities at all times. It is very easy to see why. To someone who has not read the rest or worked through the rest of the theology that God gives us about governments and authorities and what God is owed and what other human beings are owed, it is very easy to just kind of leave it there.

As we get started in this passage of Scripture and we hear "let every person be subject to the governing authorities," a good question to ask to get ourselves started in this is the question why? Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. There are political movements in the world around us today who would say nobody should be subject to governing authorities, and let me tell you why. Paul tells us this, and so we ask the question why. Why should we be subject to any governing authority at all?

Another way of putting this question is, "Says who?" I am told to do this, well says who? By what authority? Who says whether this is good or bad or right or wrong? Is Paul saying this to Christians in Rome out of fear of the authorities in Rome? You have to do this because if you do not do this, you are going to get sideways with the authorities and things are going to go bad for you. The Apostle Paul when he writes this book is already in some trouble.

He will eventually be in trouble with the governing authorities in Jerusalem, both the Jewish authorities and the Roman authorities. He is going to make his way by the end of the book of Acts to a prison in the city of Rome. Does he write all these things to say, let's be careful, don't cause any trouble, don't say things they don't like, just obey and do what they tell you to do? Is that why Paul says we should do this? It is not, because the next two phrases tell us why.

"For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God." Here is where we begin this morning so that we can understand what Paul is thinking and what the Word of God tells us about these kinds of structures in the world today and God's relationship to governing authorities. God created government to establish order, to promote the good, and to punish evil. That phrase is loaded. We go all the way back to the beginning of the story in Genesis, those first three chapters, and we watch God create authority structures even there.

We make our way through the rest of Scripture, and God has a lot to say about his creation of governmental authorities, why they exist, and how they should exist. We make our way all the way to the end of the book of Revelation where Christ himself comes and puts everything right. Government authorities rarely do everything God wants them to do. Christ has to put all of this right. Keep that in mind. The first phrase is important. God created governmental authorities. None of these things exist unless they were created by God.

God instituted the authorities that exist, the position and the role that exists because of God. God created them to establish order, to promote the good, and to punish evil. Paul is going to say things like governments need to be a threat to the evildoer. Why? Because God created them to promote the good, to punish evil, and to manage the order that he has created. Those words—order, good, and evil—are all defined by the character and the Word of God.

We begin with something like this: Be subject to the governing authorities. Why? Because this is how God has created things. This is how God has put things together. We go to some other parts of the Word of God that help us fill out what God intends, what God wants, and God's recognition that governmental authorities can be unrighteous. They can fail to do the things that God has called them to do. In 2 Samuel chapter 23, David is giving one of his parting sermons.

I take this from the King James because I like the way it puts the language here in 2 Samuel 23:3. This is King David saying this: "The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spake to me, He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God." David acts as this fountainhead of kingship in the Old Testament, leading us to the Messiah. But he himself was deeply flawed and broken as well. What does he tell us at the end of his life?

The God of Israel, the Rock of Israel has told me that those who rule must be just and they must rule in the fear of God. This is how God has intended things. The book of Proverbs is full of theological information on how God intends these things to work. Proverbs chapter 8 is a chapter about wisdom. It is from the perspective of wisdom. In Proverbs 8:15 and 16, wisdom says this: "By me kings reign, and rulers decree what is just; by me princes rule, and nobles, all who govern justly."

This does not mean that everybody who governs, governs wisely. It means this is the intent that those who are to govern justly need to govern according to the wisdom of God. This is the intention of a passage like this because we have other passages that help us understand this. Proverbs chapter 16:12: "It is an abomination to kings to do evil, for the throne is established by righteousness." We are going to come back to this thought because this becomes incredibly important, even in our history as Americans.

Biblically speaking, when a ruler becomes a tyrant, when a ruler becomes a dictator, when a ruler rules unjustly or against the will of God, they abdicate their position before God and in our eyes. It is an abomination to kings to do evil, for the throne is established by righteousness. We are going to see in the Word of God that governments exist to protect the lawful order established and created by God, based on his character and revealed in his Word.

We also see that governments and governmental authorities are accountable to God's Word. Governments are accountable and authorities are accountable to the Word of God. This is why this begins with obedience, because the Apostle Paul can say this. God has established a system in society where there are governmental authorities that are intended to oversee the common good, to handle God's kind of order, and to punish evil.

As followers of Jesus Christ, we are going to obey governmental authorities, but we also recognize there is unrighteousness and there is tyranny and there is evil and there are those who go against the Word of God. That is where the Apostle Paul finds himself at the end of his life as well. We need to see this in Romans chapter 13. Governments are not off the hook. They cannot simply say anything they want, order anything they want, and that is therefore then the Word of God.

Governments are not off the hook. They are responsible to God to maintain order and to assure things like what we would call equal protection under the law, to protect the weak from the strong, including protecting citizens from the power of government itself. This is how the Word of God sets these things up. Government according to the Word of God is intended to establish as level a playing field as it possibly can for every member of its society.

It is impossible for government to create equal outcomes. That is not its job. Its job is to do these other things to protect righteousness, order, the common good, and to punish evil. This is the 250th anniversary of America, the Declaration of Independence specifically. We spent some time with this a little while ago. But I want to read part of the beginning of the Declaration of Independence so that we can hear how these ideas that we are dealing with here influenced the world that you and I live in.

Listen to this because this is familiar language to us, but the more you understand where this language comes from, it is theological in its roots. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

There is a certain kind of authority that citizens have over government as well. But just think about some of this language here, even based on some of the stuff that we have already read this morning. We hold these truths to be self-evident. This is important. In most cultures in human history, the truth that everyone is created equal in the sight of God and we have rights that cannot be taken away by government—that idea, that truth—is not self-evident to the vast majority of human history.

It is only self-evident to those who have been trained and raised up according to the Word of God. If you believe that God exists and you believe that God created everyone in his image, and it does not matter male or female, any background at all, every human being is of infinite value before God and infinite value therefore to each one of us—only then does it become self-evident that everybody in this room and everybody you know is made in the image of God and has rights that government cannot take away.

Even inside of this little thing is just packed with biblical theology. The idea that every person matters and that government should protect that comes right out of the Word of God. We read this halfway through these first seven verses here in Romans chapter 13, that the purpose of government is the good of its citizens. This has been common teaching for the church for 2,000 years. The church before the Roman Catholic institution, the Catholic church itself, and the Protestant Reformation moving forward—this has been common teaching amongst Christians for 2,000 years that the purpose of God's government is the good of society.

We are going to read a couple of portions of a sermon that was given in 1750 by a 29-year-old pastor by the name of Jonathan Mayhew. He was a pastor in the city of Boston, and this sermon caught the attention of some really important figures and you know most of their names. But in Boston in 1750, he preached a sermon about whether or not Christians owe unlimited obedience to the government.

Here is part of what he says inside of that sermon: "Rulers have no authority from God to do mischief." I love the language of the 18th century. Rulers have no authority from God to do mischief. Therefore, if they do mischief, they do not have that authority from God. We have God-given systems of government and authority to oversee the common good, all those kinds of things. There is also a biblical model and role for leadership. God institutes a role of leadership in the Word of God and tells us what it should be like when people are in positions of leadership, from parents in the home to people inside of politics and government.

Romans chapter 12:8 we dealt with a little while ago. Speaking of the gifts that the Spirit gives the church, one of them is leadership. The passage simply says, the one who leads, with zeal. The word zeal there is great. It means to do things with diligence and to strive well, not just all kinds of pent-up energy, but to do things well and with energy. We saw this biblically: that leadership is the gift and the responsibility of working to see the will and the good of God done among others.

Even the role of leadership, biblically defined, is not for the popularity, fame, wealth, and power of the leader. It is for the good of those who are led. This is how God creates us. This is why God creates systems of government and individuals who are in positions of leadership. Another incredibly important passage of Scripture very early on in the development of the people of God is a passage of Scripture that was actually very important early on inside of the American colonial system, even on the Mayflower itself, and then working its way through the system that we have now is Exodus chapter 18:21.

Exodus chapter 18:21 is recognized as a verse that creates what theologians call the Hebrew Republic. This is about governmental structure amongst God's people. "Moreover, look for able men from all the people, men who fear God, who are trustworthy and hate a bribe. And place such men over the people as chiefs of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens." This piece of advice comes from Moses's uncle Jethro.

He shows up in the camp, and there are all these people, and everybody is bringing every sheep complaint to Moses, and he spends all day dealing with these things. Jethro pulls him in and says, Moses, there is a better way of doing this. And it is not just let's set up some individuals to deal with the tens and hundreds. He says we need to find people of a certain kind of character. Those are the people that you then, Moses, need to put in these roles of leadership.

It becomes the foundation of what biblically we sometimes call the Hebrew Republic because we have these layers of leadership and the way that Protestants especially see the role of government and the roles of those who belong in government. We are subject to authority because God has ordained authority for the good of people, and he holds authority accountable to himself. When God does this, God does not give away his authority; he delegates his authority.

God did not establish governments to take his place and to become godlike entities on Earth. That is not why he established government. We are in a world where we watch exactly that happen, governments beginning to take these kinds of roles upon themselves where they usurp the role of God inside of the lives of people and in the side of culture. I want to talk about something here that comes through the Protestant tradition.

When we talk about God establishing authority, biblically speaking, God establishes fundamentally three pockets of authority on Earth to manage things. He delegates his authority to three different places. This comes from a Christian pastor and theologian who was also for a little while the Prime Minister of the Netherlands. His name was Abraham Kuyper. He wrote this in an essay called Sphere Sovereignty.

So the sovereignty that God gives different spheres. This is important to how these things work. Recognize this: God is the supreme authority. There is no authority above him. And what God does to manage things here on Earth is he delegates authority to basically three pockets of people. The very first organization that God created and gave authority to is the family. The family. There is a way of seeing how God has put all leadership together on Earth through the lens of Adam and Eve and their family and what God told them to do.

The very first place of authority that God gives is the family. The second place that God gives authority is his people. In the Old Testament, we see that as the nation of Israel. In the New Testament, we see that as the church, everyone, Jew and Gentile, who belongs to Jesus Christ. So God has given authority to the church, and the church fulfills a certain kind of authority: the sphere of faith and worship and moral teaching.

When we gather together, we are doing something unique as the church of Jesus Christ. The third sphere that God gives sovereignty to is the government. To do things like maintain order, to deal with good, and to punish evil—the kinds of things we do not have the power or ability to do, God gives the government the ability to do this. The geometry of this is really important. Recognize biblically that on a fundamental level, the authority of the state, even though they oversee these great big things, is not technically above the authority of the family or the authority of the church.

In this biblical view, nothing is above God, but God delegates certain kinds of authorities to other spheres, other pockets here on Earth to manage certain things on his behalf and according to his Word and according to his will. The most common error made is to get rid of God and to move the state into the place of God. That is the most common error made: the state replaces God.

If an individual does not believe that God exists—or a god of any kind of authority—in the end, the only natural replacement for God for that individual is the state. If a state pronounces itself as atheistic or a state decides it no longer wants the church around, it itself is becoming God functionally in the lives of the people around it. Where God is the one who is the supreme moral authority, the provider of all things and of meaning, of power and goodness and what is right and wrong and true and false, the state says that entity does not exist, but we do.

Now we are going to become who tells you what is right and wrong, true and false, and we become now the surrogate god inside of culture. Every political ideology that denies God's existence puts the state in his place. There are plenty of people inside of what is called the church who do this as well. Because they do not see the Word of God as authoritative and they have decided that the state is right and God is wrong in a lot of cultural areas, what they have functionally done is they have gone ahead and swapped those two things.

The state is above God, God is beneath the state, and we are going to do what the state tells us is right or wrong, on and on it goes. So it is not just the atheistic world, the socialist world, the communist, Marxist world. Sometimes this happens inside of the church as well. It is not a random fact. It is not a coincidence that the final world ruler—what we call the Antichrist or the man of lawlessness—is depicted as a worldwide dictator.

Because he, Scripture literally says, he will set himself up as God. That is what happens. It is natural for this to happen. Inside of our context specifically, I think things like this have to be said. Socialism, according to one of the most influential socialistic writers, communists of the 20th century—a little Italian dude that almost nobody knows, but he has been powerfully influential, his name was Antonio Gramsci—he wrote, quote: "Socialism is the religion that must replace Christianity."

He knew as an atheist it was a religion. He also knew in order for that political ideology to come to fruition and become communism, you had to get rid of Christianity. You had to get rid of God, you had to get rid of the church, and you had to break the family in half. Socialism is not being sociable. Socialism is not equality, happiness, and fun and freedom from capitalism. Socialism is poverty and oppression, division, hatred, envy, covetousness, and strife.

It is not democracy. Let us just say there is a political movement in our culture called the Democratic Socialists of America. The very point of putting the words democratic and socialist together is to make you stop thinking. Because those two words are a contradiction. Socialism, and they will tell you we are establishing democracy, they are doing exactly the opposite. It is in the minds of socialists and communists, the religion that must replace Christianity.

Every political ideology that gets rid of God must become god. We have to know these things. We have to understand these things biblically. This is why it is critical for the Christian to understand the biblical understanding of how these things are intended to work. The Christian and the church are vital parts of the health and accountability of government and the good of our neighbor.

We individually, as families, as churches, are vital, ordained pieces of how these things work—government, governmental level, political level, as well as the community level, the neighborhood level, the family level. So the Christian needs to fight for, to advocate for God's will to be done amongst our authorities. Why? Because when the Christian wants government to act according to the will of God, we are simply seeking the order that God created for all of us and we are seeking the good of our neighbor, whether they want it or not.

This is why the Christian must be engaged with the world around us. When governments are in line with God's will, we easily and we happily submit ourselves to governmental authorities because God has instituted them to do the things God wants them to do. When governments are not, we advocate for God's good above all else. This is part of our job. We are often told that Christians have no place in the public square. But the truth as a matter of fact is precisely the opposite.

Let us go back to Jonathan Mayhew. Here is part of what he says about what happens when God-ordained authority turns into tyranny, when it takes the place of God. This is profound. Listen to how he talks about it and listen to his conclusion. "Tyranny brings ignorance and brutality along with it. It degrades men from their just rank into the class of brutes. It damps their spirits. It suppresses arts. It extinguishes every spark of noble ardor and generosity in the breasts of those who are enslaved by it.

It makes naturally strong and great minds feeble and little and triumphs over the ruins of virtue and humanity." This is true of tyranny in every shape. There can be nothing great and good where its influence reaches. For which reason, it becomes every friend to truth and humankind, every lover of God and the Christian religion to bear a part in opposing this hateful monster. Everywhere people replace God with themselves, it destroys the soul of your neighbor. He is 100% right.

It corrodes the image of God. It upends the way God has created us to work in his good order. When Christians pull back, when Christians act like we are not allowed to do that, or it is too political for me to say things like that or for a pastor to say things like that, when the Christian church pulls back, there are consequences around us when we do that. Justice is turned back and righteousness stands far away.

For truth has stumbled in the public squares and uprightness cannot enter. Truth is lacking and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey. That is an incredible passage of Scripture. Justice is turned back and righteousness stands far away. Why? Because there is no truth out there. Because people believe lies, live lies, preach lies. There is no truth out there. So what happens if you are a truth-teller, a truth-liver? What happens if you are a follower of Jesus Christ inside of a world that values falsehood and injustice?

You immediately make yourself a prey. You become the target, you become the bad guy if you follow Jesus Christ justly, wisely, and courageously in a world where things have gone awry. But what does a world need when that world has gone awry? It needs courageous and brave Christians to walk in the footsteps of Jesus Christ everywhere they go, to speak the truth of Jesus Christ, the gospel of Jesus Christ everywhere they go, whether or not we make ourselves a prey does not matter.

The world needs Jesus Christ. And we are the ones who bring it in every sphere. Proverbs chapter 8: "Does not wisdom call? Does not understanding raise her voice? On the heights beside the way, at the crossroads she takes her stand; beside the gates in front of the town, at the entrance of the portals she cries aloud." Wisdom goes, the wisdom of God, the wisdom of Jesus Christ, the wisdom of the church goes everywhere people are and speaks.

This does not say the wisdom of God fits neatly and tightly inside of the four walls of the church in your personal devotion time every morning. It says the wisdom of God goes everywhere. Goes to the crossroads. Are there people there? Then wisdom goes there. Is there activity there? Is there God-ordained work and leadership there? Then the wisdom of God is supposed to be there. Followers of Jesus Christ, the church of Jesus Christ is literally instituting—instituted by God to make a difference in every sphere of life.

I want every one of us to have the courage of this truth. To have the courage of what God has called us to do. To then have the wisdom of what it means for us to live this out where God has put us, wherever it is, however it is. It is going to be different for every one of us. But I want us to have the courage to live this out even if we make ourselves a prey to falsehood. When we work to be people who love Jesus and people who walk in integrity and in the virtues of Jesus Christ, we make a difference and we are supposed to.

When we work to make our homes as Christ-centered as they can possibly be, we are the salt and light that God wants us to be. When we walk into our jobs, when we follow the things that God has called us to do, wherever that is, friends, we do it as followers of Jesus Christ so that the world can see this, so that the world knows Jesus Christ. We are going to keep walking through Romans chapter 13 and through the rest of this and all that the Apostle Paul tells us in this passage of Scripture.

But this morning, I thought it was very important for us to see this very thing. This is how God has built the world. This is what God intends for these structures of authority, and he intends you and me to have voices in every one of those spheres. Amen? Let's pray.