Pastor Matt: Is there ever a time when we, as followers of Christ are justified in not following our governing authorities? How would you answer that question? How would you support your answer Biblically? These are just a few of the questions I hope to look at during our time today as we continue the series, Understanding the Times, where we are really trying to understand the world around us that we’re living in right now. Last week, we launched the series, and last week’s message was really a set-up for the entire series. I mentioned that we’re going to be breaking all the rules. Those rules are what you normally don’t do in polite company is talk about religion and politics. Well, that’s exactly what we’re going to be talking about this week and again next week, specifically looking at politics and government.
Last week, I broadly looked at truth and history with you. I told you that in order to understand the times we need to realize that as Christ-followers we are in a spiritual battle. We also need to realize that Truth exists, and it conforms to reality. The purpose of history is to learn from it, not necessarily to like it. I also mentioned that with this series we’re more water skiing across the surface rather than scuba diving deep down into all of the issues. But, I’m going to be providing a lot of resources for you, so make sure to check out the handout that you can download and look at all of the new resources that we’ve added this week. Also if you missed last week’s message, you can check out last week or any other part of this series on our website, hopechurch.com or our YouTube channel or on our audio podcast.
This week, we’re going to be narrowing our focus a bit. Again, last week was pretty broad. This week we’re going to get a little bit more narrow and look specifically at the purpose and limits of government. Then, what are our responsibilities and obligations as followers of Christ? How should we be interacting with our government? I’d like to begin our time this week similarly to how I did last week. That is, I want to start out in prayer, then I want to go straight into the Scriptures and look at several passages that talk about government and our relation to it. Would you bow with me, as we start, in prayer? Father, You are the sovereign Creator of the universe. You spoke, and worlds were formed and created. Your Word is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword. It pierces to the division of soul and spirit. Your Word is a lamp to our feet, and it will stand forever. Please speak to us from Your Word today. Help me to clearly and accurately talk about these matters we’re looking at. Please open our hearts and our minds and help us to really look at things from Your perspective. I ask this all in the name of Jesus. Amen.
When it comes to thinking about government and how we should relate to the government, there’s really four key passages that we find in Scripture. I want to look at those with you now. We’re going to start with Romans 13:1-7. “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: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.”
1 Timothy 2:1-2 says, “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior.” 1 Peter 2:13-14 says, “Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good.”
Finally, Matthew 22 starting in verse 16 says, “And they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, ‘Teacher, we know that you are true and teach the way of God truthfully, and you do not care about anyone’s opinion, for you are not swayed by appearances. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?’ But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, ‘Why put me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the coin for the tax.’ And they brought him a denarius. And Jesus said to them, ‘Whose likeness and inscription is this?’ They said, ‘Caesar’s.’ Then he said to them, ‘Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’ When they heard it, they marveled. And they left him and went away.”
There is a lot packed into those four Scriptures we just looked at, and I want to spend the rest of the time looking at what we see in those verses and looking at it in light of the entire Bible, God’s complete Word to us. To help give us a better understanding of the purpose and the limits of government, I would also like you to watch a clip from part two of a video I created with, again, Josh Hofford and Carla Holiday. You may remember from last week that we looked at a video segment from part one. This week, I want you to look at a video segment from part two. So, check out this video. (Video begins)
Pastor Matt: Why do we have the form of government that we have? A lot of people are confused about it. If we did one of those “Jay Leno Man on the Street” with “What form of government do we have?,” we probably wouldn’t get the right answer. So, I want to start there with “Why do we have the form of government that we have?” Maybe start with “What is the form of government that we have?” Then, we can backtrack and say why the founders decided on that.
Carla: Well, the Constitution states clearly that the form of government that we will have is a republican form of government. It’s very clear. It states that that’s their intent and that’s what they expect to continue having in perpetuity.
Josh: There’s a couple different options that the founders had, as we talked about earlier. They were Enlightenment thinkers. They had a deep, rich understanding of history, so they had a couple of different options. One, you could choose a democracy model from Ancient Greece. They agreed pretty quickly that that would not be a good idea because of the way direct democracy works. It excludes a whole bunch of people, and just how it works, it was not going to be good. So, then they thought, “Well, could we go to the Roman model?” Well, do you want the empire model or the republican model? The Roman republic is quasi where they landed, at least in principle. There are a lot of things that are very different. They had a lot of options to choose from, as we’ve talked about already. So, they took the republican form of government from Ancient Rome with some other influences, but the Bible was the base. They may have built the frame from Rome, but the Christian gospel, the Judeo-Christian philosophy are the principles that you find in the Bible, certainly set the foundation.
Pastor Matt: It seems like what they were rebelling from, the big concern that they have, was tyranny. It was someone, who is ruling who is or will eventually become a tyrant. So, add into the discussion now, we have this republican form of government, and then they made some distinct choices for separation of powers and the different branches of government. Talk about how that plays into what the founders were trying to do from the beginning.
Josh: It was very important to the founders early on that a republic be established. They had to walk a really fine line, and you see this happen in the Federalist Papers and some of the early documents that come after the Revolutionary War. The founders really landed in one of two camps. They’re federalists or anti-federalists. Guys that want a lot of power for the states and folks that really believe that a strong, central government was necessary to restrain the mob or to keep folks in line. You have some good comments on the Bill of Rights that eventually became part of the U.S.Constitution. That was a big concern for the founders that individual liberties be spelled out and not just assumed in the document. One of the arguments was that it was just assumed here. You had to lay it out very clearly because there was this temptation towards tyranny. They all understood that evil and the desire for power resided in everyone’s heart, and you can’t just survive on assumptions. It must be spelled out and spelled out very clearly, which is why all of the amendments in the original draft are specifically chosen and put in the order they are on purpose. It’s not arbitrary, the way they’re put together.
Pastor Matt: I want to focus our discussion now on the First Amendment because I think this is a huge thing that is right in our faces right now with everything going on. It’s also an area that I think that there’s a lot of confusion and misunderstanding, and I would even go so far as to say that those in the government in the different branches don’t even understand the First Amendment. That’s one of the challenges that we’re facing right now. Carla, I know that you have the First Amendment, so if you’ll start by reading the First Amendment.
Carla: Okay, so here’s the First Amendment. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press or the right of the people peaceably to assemble to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
Pastor Matt: What do you want? What do you want the world to know about the confusion that exists right now? We’ve talked a lot about this, and you guys have a lot of really helpful things to say. So, let’s just talk about why the founders put that there, and what we’re seeing today and how those clash.
Carla: I’m going to say something very briefly, and then I’m going to toss the ball to Josh, because he’s the government expert over here. We commonly hear this referred to in another way as the “establishment clause,” which is the first part of the statement we just read, and the “free exercise clause.” When you hear those words, they’re talking about those first two parts of the First Amendment.
Josh: So again, one of the questions that you asked earlier was, or asking questions, such as “How did we get here? How did all this happen?” I think that the same logic has to be applied to this. Where did that first part of the First Amendment come from. If you ask that question, the answers are very obvious to folks that are listening to our first discussion. These folks, the founders, came from an empire that had a state religion or a state church, the Church of England. They wanted to be sure that it was not government overreach that was either going to establish a state religion or stop people from practicing their own faith. I think you said it best earlier, Carla, that it was not the government’s concern that religion was going to overtake things. It was just the opposite. The concern was that government was going to force itself on the faith community and Christian community. This right here was a bulwark. It was supposed to be a bulwark, and by the way, it means exactly what it says. These were not arbitrary words. They wanted to make it very, very clear that the Congress isn’t going to make anyone be a certain faith that they don’t want to be. Fair enough, however, “or prohibit the free exercise thereof,” so free exercise means free exercise. It’s not like these people thought these words had a different meaning. It’s exactly what it says.
Carla: Right. People, who were in England who opposed the Anglican Church and didn’t believe it adhered to the Bible or Biblical principles, were persecuted. They were put in jail. There were things that happened to them, and that’s why so many of them fled to the colonies and then to the states in order to avoid this kind of persecution. (Video ends)
Pastor Matt: Our government, at any level, is certainly not a perfect government. But, our founders actually went to great lengths to try to create a form of government that would be able to last and be able to endure. In fact, they created that form of government with the Scriptures in mind. We had a whole lot of fun filming part one and two, and hopefully you had a chance to watch part one of the video with Josh and Carla. If you didn’t get a chance to watch that, I would encourage you to go back and watch part one, then check out the rest of the video we looked at this week. We only got to see a small clip, but I would highly recommend that you check out the rest of it when it’s available later this week.
Let’s start water skiing again across the surface and take a look at the purpose and limits of government and what is our responsibility as followers of Jesus Christ. As we look at God’s Word, we see really that there are three purposes of government. Those three purposes are actually ordained by God Himself. The first purpose is to create order. The only way for us as citizens to lead quiet and peaceful lives, as we read in 1 Timothy 2:2, is for the government to create order so we can live quiet and peaceful lives. The next purpose that we see ordained by God is to uphold the natural, moral law and security of negative rights. There’s a whole lot in that second point, so I want to break it down piece by piece with you.
Starting out to uphold the natural, moral law is one of the purposes of government. Romans 2:14-15 says, “Even Gentiles, who do not have God’s written law, show that they know his law when they instinctively obey it even without having heard it. They demonstrate that God’s law is written in their hearts, for their own conscience and thoughts either accuse them or tell them they are doing right.” What does this mean? This is basically saying that we instinctively have right and wrong written on our hearts by God Himself. That’s the way that He made us. That’s the way that He created us, and even the Gentiles, who didn’t know God, had a conscience and knew right from wrong. This inherent sense of right and wrong is often referred to as “natural, moral law,” and it really has to do with our conscience. The government and part of its purpose is to uphold natural, moral law—the things that we would agree on because of our conscience, the things that are right and wrong.
When we start talking about the second part of this point, which is to uphold the security of negative rights, you might be wondering—What in the world is a negative right? Would I want a negative right? Why does the government need to uphold a negative right? Well, when we talk about rights, we sometimes refer to them as human rights or natural rights. They’re really grounded in the fact that God made us. God Himself made us. He expects us to live out our common purpose. In fact since God made us, He gave us certain rights, and no one but God Himself can take those rights away from us. Negative rights refer to the rights a person already has, rights that have been given by God simply by the fact that we were created. Rights that no one other than God can take away—in fact, these negative rights are referred to in the Declaration of Independence.
This may sound familiar to you—“We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” It’s interesting that a couple of the words there in the phrase, those last two words—liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Those are actually Biblical words, but they’ve sort of lost some meaning since this document was written. I want to look at them really quickly with you. Liberty actually means “freedom.” Biblical freedom is to do as one ought to do not to do just as one wants to do. The idea of happiness really has to do with virtue. In the Bible, a happy life flows from righteous living. One of the purposes government has is to uphold the security of these negative rights—rights that are given by God, rights such as life, liberty, and freedom or the pursuit of happiness. Righteous living we could say. Those rights or those freedoms no one should stop us from exercising. In fact, these are some of those rights that we see in the amendments. Specifically in the First Amendment, we see this.
The third purpose of government ordained by God is to punish sin. The apostle Paul and Peter both agree on this last point. We can see in their writing. In fact, Paul says in Romans, “For he…” ...talking about the governing authority… “...is the servant of God. He is an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer.” Then Peter says to punish those who do evil. Biblically, Scripturally when we look at the purpose of government, purposes that have been ordained by God, we see there’s three main purposes: to create order, to uphold the natural moral law and security of negative rights, and then to punish sin, which we commonly refer to in our country as crime.
Again, there’s no perfect governmental system, but our founders did go to great lengths to create a system that would serve its citizens and would accomplish the purposes that we find in Scripture. However, because governments are run by humans and all humans are fallen and sinful, all governments have some problems. They have some problems that they have to solve. This happens at the local, state, and national level. I want to look at two common problems that all governments have to solve. First is to limit the citizens from violating the rights of other citizens. In fact right now in America, we’re witnessing a great tension on this problem when a government fails to adequately deal with this one. In fact, this is one of the reasons we pay taxes. We pay taxes for order and for protection, and there are many places around our country right now that they are not getting what they’re paying for. The government is failing them in these areas.
Here’s an example for you. Whose rights have priority? Do the business owners’ rights have priority or homeowners’? Or the patrons at a restaurant? Or the drivers on a highway? Or the protestors? Or the rioters? When a government doesn’t adequately deal with this first problem, then what we see is anarchy. We see rioting and looting, and we see people’s negative rights being violated. The second problem that all governments have to deal with is to limit itself from violating the rights of its citizens. How far can a government go? What exactly can a government do? What should it not do? What can it tell its citizens to do? To stay at home and not leave? To limit the number of people that they can have over in their own private residence and do what they want in their home? Or, for a church to not meet and do activities? In fact, it was because of this second problem that the founders created this separation of powers.
I want to share a quote with you from Noble. It says, “The three-branch model was patterned after Isaiah 33:22–‘For the Lord is our judge’ (referring to the judicial branch that we have. ‘The Lord is our lawgiver,” which is where we get our legislative branch. Then, ‘The Lord is our king,’ which is where we get the executive branch.” Our founders had this problem in mind when they created the separation of powers, when they created the three branches of our government so that no one branch could become too strong and violate the rights of its citizens. Because all governments are run by humans, by sinful, fallen humans, there are also two problems that all humans have because of sin. I want to look at those with you for just a moment.
Those two problems are usurpation and abdication. Usurpation means to violate the God-given rights and freedoms of others. It’s basically the fact that we take what we want. That’s a way to usurp someone. Because of sin, we violate these rights of other people. In fact, we’re seeing this happening now all over our nation where people are violating the rights of others. The second problem is abdication. Abdication is to force others to bear your responsibilities. We give up what is ours, and we don’t take responsibility for it. Simply put, because of sin, we have a tendency to want to usurp. That is to take the freedoms and liberties of others but also abdicate, which is to force others to bear our responsibilities. Think about that for just a moment. There’s this natural drift that occurs. A natural drift for those in power, including our government officials, they usurp (take the rights and the freedoms of those under their authority) while those under their authority drift toward abdicating (forcing others to bear their responsibility rather than accepting it for themselves).
If you're a parent, you see this play out in a very simplistic way, and you see it play out like this. Our children, especially when they’re younger, take the toys of their siblings. They usurp. They take what is not theirs, but then they also very quickly abdicate that they don’t clean their rooms. They don’t want to clean up after themselves. They abdicate what is their responsibility to do. But, here’s the thing. Leaders also abdicate. If you look at what’s going on right now in cities, like Portland and other cities, where their “peaceful protesting” has turned into anarchy and rioting, the local and state leadership has actually abdicated their responsibility to protect their citizens. At the same time, citizens also usurp. We’ve seen that over the last several months in that citizens are walking into stores whose windows have been broken and taking items that they didn’t pay for. They’re usurping. They’re taking what is not theirs. They didn’t go into the store during business hours and pay for the merchandise. They took it themselves, so it’s very easy for both citizens and government to both usurp and abdicate.
Given these two problems that are because of our sinful, fallen nature. Given these two problems, is there any wonder why socialism seems to be the magic answer to the problems that we’re facing right now? We’ll come back to that in a moment, the idea of socialism. The Sovereign Creator, God, who created this universe, designed it with purpose. He actually set humanity up in a way that we could be stewards or managers of what He’s created. We see this in Genesis chapter one. We see it in what’s called the Great Mandate or what’s sometimes referred to as the “cultural mandate,” the fact that God gave humanity three jobs to do. Our management assignment of the world that He owns and that He created… So, our management assignment is this, three things—to fill the earth, to subdue the earth, and to rule the earth.
When we look at how God has designed humanity and we look at it in light of the Great Mandate and we look at in light of the totality of Scripture, we see that God has actually created some different spheres of stewardship. Each one of these spheres of stewardship has a design. It has certain rights and freedoms. It has limits to it, and there’s an accountability component in that that sphere is accountable to someone or someones. There are many spheres of stewardship, but as you look at the entirety of God’s Word, the Bible, we see that there are four primary spheres. I want to take a look at those with you now.
The first sphere of stewardship is the self, actually me. As an individual, I have a sphere of stewardship for myself. In 1 Kings 18:21, we see Elijah challenged the people. “How long are you going to sit on the fence? If God is real, then follow him. If it's Baal, then follow him. Make up your minds.” So, there are many things that we need to make our own personal choice in, and one of those is—Are we going to follow God or not? Another sphere is family—the family unit. Ephesians 5:31 says, “For a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” A third sphere is the church. Colossians 1:18 says, “And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.” It’s talking about Jesus Christ as the Head of the church. Then, the fourth sphere is the state. Romans 13:1, which we looked at earlier, says, “Let every person be subject to governing authority.” Then, Psalm 22:28 adds this. It says, “For royal power belongs to the Lord. He rules all the nations.” The state is a sphere, but it shows us that God rules over the state.
In an effort to really understand this and grasp it, I want to show you a few diagrams, so that you can visually see how things work. First, I want to show you the four spheres—state, self, family, and church. You can see they are each their own unique sphere, but they also overlap and interact. There’s crossover, so for me personally, I am myself. I am also in a family as a husband and a father. I’m the head of my family. In my church sphere, I happen to be the lead pastor of Hope Church, and then I’m also a citizen. I live here in Tarrant County in the state of Texas in the country of the United States of America. So, there’s interaction between all of the different spheres.
Another way to look at this in light of Scripture is this second diagram where you see there are these four primary spheres, and then I’ve put a couple of other circles in there because there are other spheres. But, these are the four primary ones. God rules them all. God is over all of them, so each one of these four spheres and any other spheres of stewardship all exist under God because He is the Ruler of all of them. I’ve also included a chart in your handout. If you want to look on the second page, you’ll see the relationship between each one of the four spheres, as well as the design, the rights, the limits, and the accountable to.
What I’ve attempted to do in this chart is let you see how things work here in our country, here in the United States of America, as we look at the government sphere from a Biblical worldview. I want to spend the rest of our time today looking at the state sphere, because I think this is where there is a great deal of confusion right now presently for us. As followers of Jesus Christ, we want to know how we adequately and appropriately relate to the state, given all that is going on in the world around us right now.
In the Bible, the design of the state is to maintain order, to punish evil, and to commend good. We saw that in the Scriptures that we looked at when we began. The state’s job is to create and maintain social order that is peaceful, so that we as citizens can live peaceful lives, according to Timothy 2:2. In America, the rights and freedoms of the state include constitutional rule over civil society. They include the right to arrest, to punish, and even to kill when necessary. Those are within the rights and freedoms of the state. Contrary to what some government officials are practicing today, there are actually limits. There are limits on what the state can do.
The state is limited to protecting rights. It doesn’t… it’s not supposed to violate or rule over the other spheres, as long as those spheres aren’t violating the rights of others. What do I mean by that? Here’s an example for you. Take the home sphere. According to the Bible, you have a family. That’s one of the spheres. In the family the way God designed it, God’s purpose is that there is a father and a mother and however many children that He blesses. The father is the head of the home. Now, a father has the right and the privilege to lead his family in the way that he feels best before God. Part of that, according to the Bible, is that parents are to discipline their children. But should discipline clearly violate and become abuse, then the state could step in at that point, because the father has crossed the line. He has moved from just discipline to abuse.
Also, if he decides that he wants to abuse his wife. He can’t do that. You can’t do that under God,and you also can’t do that according to the state. There are times, appropriately, when a violation has occurred, that the state can step in. If I’m just minding my business and I’m deciding what I want my children to do with schooling and how I want to raise them and train them, the state has no business interfering in my family and in my home life.
Finally, the state is accountable. They think that they are the ultimate authority often, and we’re seeing this across our nation right now with some mayors and governors. The state is actually accountable. The state is accountable to God. It’s accountable to the people, it’s citizens. In America, the state is accountable to the constitution. The federal government is accountable to our U.S. Constitution, and the states are also accountable to their state constitutions. According to the Bible and in this visual representation that we have of the spheres of society, we can see that God is the Head and over all of them. This is how the rest of these spheres—self, family state, and the church—fit in. You can see that very clearly. We looked at this a moment ago.
Right now in our country, there is an aggressive statist or socialist movement that is really trying to get a hold of our government. A socialist movement is founded in an atheistic worldview. It’s a very different worldview from the Biblical worldview. It would put the state in the place of God. It would say that everything falls under the rule and the dominion of the state, including the church. We’re seeing this play out right now in places, like California, where churches are actually prohibited from meeting together inside their buildings like we’re able to do here in the state of Texas. We see this in other countries. Actually, countries that are practicing socialism, we see how this played out in the past and how it’s presently playing out in other places in the world.
Hear me on this. God is still sovereign over all regardless of what the state thinks or does. But the way that the entire governmental system is set up in a statist or socialist nation is that the supreme head, the supreme authority according to this atheistic worldview, is no longer God but the state. Therefore, all of the ways that the government interacts with its citizens is very different than what our founders created here and what we’ve been experiencing for nearly 250 years in the United States of America.
I want to shift our conversation slightly and look at two common misunderstandings when it comes to government. The first common misunderstanding is around the First Amendment. What’s the relationship between Church and State? You heard in that brief clip that you saw with my conversation with Josh and Carla. You heard us talking about this, and I really want to invite you to watch later this week the full discussion that we had. It’s a little bit less than an hour, and we talked in greater length about the First Amendment and the relationship between Church and State. What I want you to understand right now is that what is occurring in our nation right now, the way that this amendment is being talked about, the way that separation of Church and State is being talked about, is actually completely opposite what the founders had in mind. It’s a complete 180 degree difference from what our founders had in mind when they wrote those documents.
The purpose of the First Amendment was to make sure that there was no state religion that was established, and then it was so that the citizens could be free to practice any religious beliefs that they wanted to. It was not to keep Christians and Biblical ideas and principles out of schools, to keep them out of the government, to keep them out of the square, like we are commonly seeing today. In fact, you may or may not know this, but the phrase, “separation of Church and State,” is actually nowhere in the founding documents. I would invite you to go look. It’s not there. It’s not in any of the founding documents. It’s not what the founders intended. In fact, I want to invite you to take 30 to 60 minutes this week, use the links that we’ve provided for you in the handout, and read the Declaration of Independence. Read the U.S. Constitution; read the Bill of Rights. Then, if you want a bonus assignment, read the Texas State Constitution. Read it for yourself. You might be surprised what’s in there and what’s not in there. How does that match up from things that you’ve been hearing in the media and that you’ve been hearing over the years.
The second common misunderstanding is related to that question I asked you when we began. Is there ever a time for us not to submit to the governing authorities? Let’s go back to Romans 13 and look at Romans 13:1-3. “Everyone must submit to governing authorities. For all authority comes from God, and those in positions of authority have been placed there by God. So anyone who rebels against authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and they will be punished. For the authorities do not strike fear in people who are doing right, but in those who are doing wrong. Would you like to live without fear of the authorities? Do what is right, and they will honor you.”
A simplistic reading of Romans 13:1-3 would suggest that, no, there’s never a time to rebel against our governing authorities because it starts out saying that everyone must submit to the governing authorities. Let me ask you a question. Why, then, did the midwives deliver the babies of the Israelites and refuse to kill them even though Pharaoh gave that command? Why did Rahab violate the King of Jericho and not turn the Israelite spies over to them? Why did David run from King Saul, who as king, had issued an arrest warrant and an execution warrant for David? Why did God establish David’s kingdom? Shouldn’t David have obeyed Saul’s arrest warrant and died a martyr? Why did Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refuse to bow to the golden statue? Didn’t God save them and rescue them? Why did Paul, the Apostle Paul who wrote Romans 13, refuse to leave the Philippian jail after he was ordered to leave? Shouldn't he have submitted to the governing authorities as he subscribes in Romans 13?
In fact, it’s pretty interesting. You can read that Paul actually demanded that the governing authorities come escort him out of the jail. Let’s look at Acts 13:36-37. “The jailer told Paul, ‘The magistrates have ordered that you and Silas be released. Now you can leave. Go in peace.’ But Paul said to the officers: ‘They beat us publicly without a trial, even though we are Roman citizens, and threw us into prison. And now do they want to get rid of us quietly? No! Let them come themselves and escort us out.’” In each of these cases above, the authorities were either ordering individuals to violate the law God had established, or the authorities themselves were violating the Supreme Law, which their orders or actions were to follow.
Biblically, civil authorities have no legitimate authority to order citizens to violate God’s law or to violate civil law. Equally, they have no authority to command citizens to be subject to their rule or their authority that is violating their own constitution that is in authority over them. In other words, here in America, the civil authorities are subject to the Constitution of the United States and the constitutions of the states that they are operating within. Here in America not even the President of the United States can order or command us to violate something in the Constitution. Our governor can’t command us to violate something in the state constitution of Texas where I live.
As a Roman, Paul’s rights had been violated, and in violating his rights, the magistrates had actually violated the higher law above them that they were supposed to be limited by. The authorities in Philippi were the rebels. It wasn’t Paul. The authorities were committing the crime, not Paul. In fact, the authorities knew this, and this is why they were terrified because they didn’t want to be punished for violating the rights of a Roman citizen, which they knew was wrong. Here’s the thing. Romans 13 is extremely important in understanding our times that we’re living in right now and in understanding how we are required by God to be faithful disciples of Jesus Christ.
Here at Hope Church, we live within the Heart Attitudes. Heart Attitude number seven says, “Follow spiritual leadership within Scriptural limits.” We also desire to follow our governmental leadership, our governmental authorities, but within Scriptural limits. That’s the key term here. Whatever our authority, whether it be within the church or within the state—in fact, if I ever tell you to do something that violates what God says in the Scripture, then you should not listen to me. You should not follow me. You are to follow your spiritual leaders within Scriptural limits. Whether the State or the Church or anyone tells you to do something that goes against Scriptural limits, that’s where we have to be aware.
There are two exceptions to the Biblical requirement of submitting to authorities. We’re not required by God to obey man-made laws or human authorities that command us to disobey God’s law. If anyone tells you to disobey God’s law, you don’t do it. We see this clearly in the Bible of people refusing to disobey God’s law. The second exception is that we’re not required to submit to civil authorities that they themselves are violating the higher law of civil authority that they are to be subjective to. Back to my original question. Is there ever a time when Christians are justified in not submitting to the authorities? My answer to you would be yes, but it’s not something to be taken lightly. It’s not simply a matter of liking or not liking a law or what they tell us to do.
Here’s a real life, real time example for you. I know that many of us question wearing masks. We don’t like it. We question the science behind the mask order that we have right now here in Tarrant County where Hope Church is located and where many of us live and work. I know that many of us would prefer not to wear masks here at Hope Church on Sunday, and I actually share your opinion. But in this current moment, I believe that the mask ordinance from our county is an example of not liking a law and not actually being a conflict or a danger of dishonoring God’s law to follow man’s law. For that reason, we’re choosing to wear masks here at Hope Church on Sunday mornings. If the political or religious freedom landscape changes in the future in our state or in our county, we will adjust our strategy, as necessary, that we put priority and that we obey God’s law over any law of man that would seek to violate God’s law.
Here’s the thing. If we’re able to do both, we should do both. So, what do we do? What can we do as followers of Jesus? Here’s a couple of things we can do. Pray and act prudently. We must pray and ask God for wisdom and favor with our civil government. For us here at Hope Church, that’s the city of Fort Worth. That’s Tarrant County. That’s the state of Texas. That’s the United States. We need to have good timing and good procedures when our rights are being violated. We must find non-violent ways to act and to operate within the Biblical confines and make appeals whenever possible if there are things that are taking away from our liberties and our freedoms. But, there may be a time in the future where Christians will simply have to refuse to obey the laws of man, the laws of the state, or the laws of the country, in order to obey God’s laws.
Again, we’re seeing this right now in parts of our nation where churches have been ordered and commanded not to meet. We don't have that problem here in Texas right now. Praise God that we don’t. We need to be praying for the churches and our brothers and sisters that are in the states that have a very hostile view towards Christians. We need to be prepared in the future to be persecuted and harassed and maybe even victims of unlawful seizure of life, property or liberty. Because of the wisdom of our founding fathers, they set up a government system that’s not perfect, but it’s one of the best out there. Based on Biblical principles, they wrote a constitution that has endured for 244 years. Today, it’s continuing to endure in a time when the average lifespan of a governing document is just twenty years.
This week, I want to leave you with a quote from Gary DeMar. He says, “Christians who refuse to vote, for whatever reason, are getting what their non-vote brings.” Once again, I want to encourage you that the two most important things that we can do right now as followers of Jesus are number one, to pray, and number two, when the time comes, to vote. Vote in line with Biblical principles and a Biblical worldview. Would you bow with me in prayer?
Father, thank You that You created us to love us and to have a relationship with us. We ask for Your help during these difficult and uncertain times. we seem to be so far off from where the founders intended when they created this nation. Thank You for the 244 years that we have existed as a nation and the many ways that You have blessed us and prospered us over those 244 years. I ask that You would bring revival, that You would bring awakening, that You would bring repentance in our nation at this time. Please cause Your people to open their eyes, to see what is occurring, and to turn to You for help. We ask, Father, that You would remove the wicked from positions of power and influence, that You would confuse their plans and their counsel, and that You would raise up Godly men and women to positions of power and influence, who would boldly speak out for what is true, for what is good, and for what is pleasing to You. Please show us what our next steps are and give us the courage to take those next steps whatever they may be. I ask this in the name of Jesus. Amen.
