Speaker: If you want to divide a room, say something political.
If you want to divide, divide a room further, talk about Jesus this morning.
We're gonna do both.
But what I love about the Bible is that the Bible gives us some commands
and gives us guidance and gives us principles to live by, uh, that
really apply to every sphere of life.
And the realm of how our Christians should engage with
politics is no exception to this.
So what we're gonna talk about this morning, on the one
hand, is incredibly simple.
But on the other hand, as we strive to live it out, as we strive to apply
it, as we strive to think about what this looks like in everyday life,
it it can get really difficult, really hard, and really messy.
It's one of the reasons why I love this place.
It's one of the reasons why I love the church.
Because God's given us this place for the messy times.
God's given us brothers and sisters in Christ to help us navigate hard
things, to help us ask and answer questions, to say, okay, Lord, I, I, I
believe that your word has everything necessary for life and godliness in it.
And yet, sometimes we're gonna ask ourselves questions that there's not
a chapter in verse that specifically addresses that particular issue.
And that's where we have the spirit within us, and that's where we have brothers and
sisters in Christ to come alongside us, to encourage us to point us to Christ, to
help us to confirm thoughts that we have or to redirect thoughts that we have.
And I think when we think about the Christian in politics, the Christian in
government, I find the church to be a particularly encouraging place for us.
This morning we launched a brand new series called Submitted Living.
Submitted living.
It's gonna take us through the next five weeks, and we're gonna look about
all kinds of different relationships that the Christian has, where
we're called to live in submission.
And that first area that we're gonna look at this morning is how a Christian
should engage government, how are Christians should live in submission to
the governing authorities in this world.
And what I want us to think about this morning, just simply put, is this, in
every corner of your life, in every facet of your life, God is our ultimate
authority in His word, our ultimate guide.
No matter what we come up against, no matter what we face, at the end of the
day, God is our ultimate authority, and his word is our ultimate guide.
One Peter chapter two.
We're gonna be in verses 13 through 17.
One Peter chapter two, verse 13, begins with these words.
He says, be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution.
Be subject.
It's in the imperative voice, meaning it's, it's a command.
He's ordering us.
He's telling us, he's not saying, Hey, I, I'm, I'm gonna
suggest that you should do this.
This is a command from Peter.
He says To be subject, which is the word huso, which means to be placed
under, to be placed in submission to an authority is what the word means.
It's the word that's used in one Corinthians 1527, where Paul wrote, for
God has put all things in subjection.
Under the feet of Christ.
But when it says all things are put in subjection, and that's our word
that we're talking about here, it's plain that he is accepted who put
all things in subjection under him.
In other words, Paul's saying one day God is gonna place everything under the
authority of in subjection to Jesus, except for of course the Father himself.
But Paul says, we are, or Peter says, rather, we are to be subject,
we're to place ourselves under the authority of, and then he goes on
and says, every human institution.
Every human institution, the word institution is actually
from the Greek word for creation.
And so Paul says, we're to place ourselves.
Peter says, we're to place ourselves.
I, if there would've been one author of the New Testament, it would've
been way easier for pastors.
Can I just tell you guys that Peter says that we should place ourselves
in subjection to every human.
Agency that God has created is the idea there.
And he says, institution here instead of creation.
The ESV translators at least have, because he's going to define that
as whether to emperors as supreme or governors here in the rest of
verse 13 and then into verse 14.
So he is talking specifically to us about the institution of government,
but really he's talking about the, the institutions that God has.
Put in place that God has created and it, it's helpful because I think Peter
is framing the way that we think about government here, right off the, the bat.
For us to think about government first and foremost, and those that are in the
positions of authority that they have as those that have been placed there by
a God who has created it to begin with.
Government is not a man made institution, but a God instilled creation.
If you go back to the Tower of Babel, we can see how from the time of the
tower, Babel onward, men in, in mankind has been gathering with people of
common language and common culture.
And whenever that takes place, they gather in a common location.
And then they set up government, they set up rulers, they set up
kings, they set up governors.
This is the way that mankind has operated from the Tower of Babel.
And in fact, it, it even predates that.
This is part of the created image of God within us as human beings.
If we go back to the garden in Genesis 1 28, God said to
Adam and Eve, God bless them.
And God said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth
and here it is, and subdue it, and have dominion over it.
The word have dominion over The word in the Hebrew means to rule
over to exercise governance over.
And so mankind is created in the image of God to govern.
And so the, the idea of government, the idea of, of what we consider
to be politics and everything else, that in essence is part
of our image bearing of God.
It's something that God made within us.
You think back to Israel.
Israel was supposed to have God as their ultimate ruler, their
Lord, their king, their master.
They were intended to be a theocracy, which means that God is the king.
God is the ruler.
He provided as their governor, as their ruler, as their king.
He provided for them a law and a system of justice, and he gave them judges
to help to settle disputes among them.
He divided the people into separate tribes and made heads of the tribes.
And then when they entered into the promised land, God gave specific
territories with borders to the tribes.
And so you see God designed even for his people, Israel government,
to be a part of their identity.
Even after they rebel in one Samuel chapter eight, they go to Samuel
and they say, we don't want your kings, your sons to be judges.
We want a king to be like the nations.
God still condescended and acquiesced and gave them a king in that sense.
If you go to Daniel chapter two and think about the gigantic statue that
Nebuchadnezzar has the vision of, we see more of the fact that this is part of
God's plan government is that is because when Daniel receives the interpretation
of the dream, Daniel prays this way.
He says this in Daniel 2 20, 1 of God, he changes times and seasons.
He removes kings and sets up kings.
Removes kings and sets up kings.
And so God is the one behind that.
And even when you consider that the image itself, the statue, all of
the different parts of the statue represented different governments.
And it stretches all the way through what we're still looking to the future for.
And that is the reconstitution of the Roman Empire or the
new Babylon at that time.
And then finally, the fifth kingdom.
The kingdom cut from the, the mountain as a stone, uh, cut without hands or without.
Tools, and that's gonna be the fifth and final kingdom.
That's the kingdom of Jesus.
And so government, as we think about it, we have to be careful not
to think that government is a bad thing, or that government is a sign
of man's rebellion against God.
Rather, government is something that God has designed, that God
is behind, and it's a way that we image him in how we pursue it.
As long as we pursue it, rightly we read it during our scripture
reading, but Paul reinforces this.
He says in Romans 13, one, he says, let every person be subject to the
governing authorities for there is no authority except from God.
That's what Daniel was saying back in Daniel chapter two.
God, you set up kings like Nebuchadnezzar, one of the most wicked people that had
ever walked to the face of the planet.
God, you put him there.
And you remove him.
Paul says, there's no governing authority except from God, and those
that exist have been put there by God.
And so government is not a manmade institution, though it may be a man
corrupted institution, but as we as Christians think about what is our
relationship to government, it's important that we frame it by understanding that
that God has designed it, that it is something that is from him and as we
participate in it, the way that he calls us to the way that he wants us to.
There's something about worship there because we are imaging God through our
desire for and execution of government.
Point number one this morning, along those lines, is this recognize.
God's design in human government recognize God's design in human government.
God's design in the, the governments that are, are put in place by him
are gonna look different in different seasons, in different times.
You think about the government that Peter was writing about versus the government
that you and I are under now, and they couldn't be more vastly different.
You've got an empire, you've got a constitutional republic.
There are rights that we have, there are privileges that we have, there are things
that we can do that the, the audience that Peter was writing to couldn't do.
And yet there are truths that transcend no matter what the, the type of government
is that it's part of God's design.
We do live in a, a great nation, and I was reminded of that when I went to
Israel back in 2019 and I was struck by how many people there talked about
America like it was the promised land.
Like they, you, you guys are from America.
You guys have it so good there.
And, and some of them were like, you guys have malls and you can shop and buy really
nice clothes and malls and things, but a lot of them just loved the, the culture.
And, and love the freedoms that we have.
Trump was a, a hero at the time, and that was before, you know, everything
that was right around the time that he had moved the embassy and, and
everything else was going on at that time.
And so people were really excited about Trump.
They were really excited about America.
They just thought, man, you guys have it so good there and, and we really do.
We really do.
And, and yet at times we can take that for granted.
So I want us to think about how should we think about the government that we get to
enjoy as we have a, a dual citizenship.
And here's what I mean by that.
Remember what Peter's doing?
He's writing to us as those that are exiles.
Those that are sojourner and exiles.
So we have a dual citizenship in that we have a citizenship in heaven, which
we'll get to and talk about a little bit later on together this morning.
But we also have a citizenship.
That's the daily citizenship that we interact with as citizens of
the United States of America.
We're here and, and let's just admit there's no perfect government
in our government that we.
Our under currently is a, a government that's ruled by sinful human beings,
just like the last administration and the next administration.
There's no perfect government, but as Christians, how do we operate knowing that
the government has been designed by God and there's a way that we can image God
in the way that we interact with this.
I think in a room like this, there's probably three main camps.
When people think about government.
There's those that love the government.
People in here that have the Constitution tattooed on their back.
They, you know who, who you are.
You watch the Patriot once a year at least, and you just think to yourself,
this is the greatest place on earth.
Then there's those that look at you like you're from planet Mars.
There's those in this room that that really, I mean, I don't
know if hatred might be too.
Strong of a word, but these are the people that have the stockpiles of food.
You've got a, a shelter that's buried 40 feet underground.
You have your bug out bag, and you have a cabin that's located in Montana that
nobody has ever stepped foot besides you and Sasquatch, and you are ready to go
as soon as the stock market collapses.
There's that group too.
And then there's a third group, and maybe this is, is.
The largest group.
I, I, I, I don't know, maybe I'm wrong, but there's a group that's
probably generally disinterested in government here that says, man,
as long as it doesn't really mess up my life, I, I don't really care.
I think the words that Peter writes here in one Peter two 13 be subject
for the Lord's sake to every human institution has something
to say to all of us in this room.
If you're in that camp, that's, that's pro-government.
You got the constitution there on your back.
You, you love it.
You're America first, right?
America.
American America.
You got the American flag.
Great.
That's awesome.
Lemme just encourage you remember, it's, it's part of God's design to
ultimately point us back to him, right?
Government is, is designed by God to help us to image God, which means it
should remind us that there is a greater reality beyond the image that we see.
And so as much as we love things like the, the democracy that we have and the
order that we have and the, the justice that we see, the political process, let's
make sure that as we love those things, we are allowing that love of those things
to drive our affections back to God.
Say, man, I, I love the Lord, because the Lord is the perfect
demonstration of all these other things.
So yes, I enjoy them and I'm thankful for them, and this is good.
But man, I, I, I, I love God because God's the perfect.
And then I would say the other thing is, as much as you enjoy this country and
you enjoy the freedoms that we have, and you enjoy the way that things operate,
let that stir your affections for that fifth kingdom from Daniel chapter two.
Let that stir your affections for when Jesus comes back and sets up
the perfect rule, the perfect reign.
When he's gonna reign for all time and there will never be an end to his reign.
There's no term limits for Jesus, right?
And that's gonna be the, the, the place where government will be perfect because
it will be his rule and his authority.
So if you love the government, that's great, but remember as his image bearers
and as the government is meant to image God, get your affections to him.
Don't let them terminate it.
Just saying, man, I, I, I love the nation.
I love the, the way that, that our nation operates.
Second group.
If, if you're there and you're the the bug out group, you got your bag
ready to go, you're a little bit more anti-government, if I can put it that way.
Can I just remind that group this morning that this is part of God's design, right?
I, I mentioned government is not manmade man, corrupted maybe, but not manmade.
And so as we think about this as part of God's design, we have
to interact with it as that.
And so if we think about our government, I, I think it's probably helpful for
us to say, well, what is it that I don't trust about the government?
And I think some maybe have been, listen, listening to so many different
talking heads and, and maybe podcasts and things, and, and you're worried about
all these what if scenarios and actually none of them have really happened.
And so you've developed a spirit of cynicism towards everybody that is
a political leader in a political position, and, and you've got a heart of
bitterness and even perhaps a lack of, of submission, which is revealing perhaps
a lack in of trust in God's sovereign.
Romans 13, right?
God is the one that sets up authorities.
He put the authorities in place.
I'd also ask of, of this group are, are you stewarding your rights
as a citizen of this country?
God's given you a great privilege to be here.
I mean, if you think about where we sit compared to where Peter's audience sat,
I think there's a great right that, that we have a great privilege that we have
to, to exercise the rights that we do to be a faithful citizen and, and even to
affect the change that we'd like to see.
By doing things, by being involved.
Third, if you're part of the disinterested group, lemme just encourage you to,
to remember that again, just like I was just saying, God has given
you a, a stewardship to be used, not to be ignored, and so I get it.
You may not ever be the, the person that's listening to the, the political
podcast and everything like that, and, and I, I fully understand that
I'm, but I would say don't, don't ignore God's call for you to image
him by being involved in the process.
By, by playing the part that he's given you to play by being that dual
citizenship and, and doing the things that he's called you to do here.
And now, no matter where you fit in any of those three camps.
And, and maybe there's more camps that I'm not considering and, and
maybe some of you're like, well, I'm kind of in multiple camps.
Lemme just land on this with all of us.
Lemme just ask us the question, how is our heart towards our
brothers and sisters in Christ who may disagree with us in the room?
Because that's important too, right?
I mentioned at the very beginning, if you wanna divide a room, talk about politics.
I, I hope in the church that we don't divide the room in the
church by talking about politics.
'cause our greater allegiance is to Jesus more than anything else.
I think Jeremiah has some helpful words for us, uh, as to our thought process
about the government that we find ourselves under currently, and, and how
we should be in interacting with it.
And that's for no matter where you fall on this is is Jeremiah 29, 7.
Jeremiah writes this, but seek the we welfare of the city where I have
sent you into exile and pray to the Lord on its behalf for in its welfare.
You will find your welfare now.
They're going into exile in Babylon.
This is more of a leap for us to make the connection here, but we are
spiritual exiles, and so while we are here in spiritual exile, I think we
can approach this and think, okay, government is part of God's design,
and right now we can interact with it.
We can participate in it to seek the welfare of this place where we
have been sent into exile and to pray for the Lord on its behalf.
Pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare we will find our welfare.
And so we as, as Christians, need to be careful not to be overly cynical,
but to recognize God's design.
In human government, you may say yes, but isn't God's design
broken and marred by sin?
Uhhuh it is, but so are the other institutions that God
has created and designed right?
Marriage is broken and marred by sin.
Family broken and marred by sin.
And yet in those, what do we think?
We think, okay, yes, those are broken and marred by sin, but we don't give up.
We don't say, well, we're not gonna get married, we're not gonna have families.
What do we say instead?
We said, well, how can I redeem those things for the Lord?
How can I engage with them in a way that is gonna honor the Lord?
And I think we can do that when it comes to the Christian and government as well,
the Christian in politics, God created it.
God designed it.
God employed it as a way for us to bear his image.
Peter goes on here to clarify even further for us what this looks like.
Who, what are the governing institutions?
And this is what he says here in verses 13.
The last part in verse 14, he says, uh, be subject 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 praise those who do good.
This is where we get down to brass tacks, right?
This is where you're like, okay, preacher, what you got for me?
What you gonna say?
Lemme just say at the outset.
Uh, it, nevermind.
I'm not gonna say that God gives us a filter.
Uh, this is where we get down to the question of what is our
biblical obligation for how we engage with the government, and are
there any exceptions to the rule?
That's what we begin to, to talk about here.
And, and Peter says that we are to be subject to these emperors as supreme
or governors as, as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise
those who do good for this is the will of God, that by doing good, you should
put to silence the ignorance of foolish people live as people who are free,
not using your freedom as a coverup for evil, but living as servants of God.
And so Peter identifies two particular parties in verses 13 and 14.
He says, be subject to the emperor as supreme.
The word in the Greek is king basals.
But for Peter it would've been undoubtedly the emperor.
'cause the only one with supreme authority during Peter's day was the emperor.
And so this was either Claudius or potentially Nero, depending
on when, uh, Peter wrote this, they were to sub be subjected.
They were to submit themselves to the authority of the em.
And you've probably heard horror stories of what the emperors would do at this
time, especially Nero, and you can think about that as regards to what
Peter's calling his audience to do here.
But also he says to the governors that have sent by them or through
them, and the term governors is really kind of a catchall term.
Uh, this would've referred to the the pro pro procurators.
Words are hard sometimes procurators the pro consoles or
those, even the tax collectors sent by the emperor on his behalf.
And so these are the authorities that they were to submit to.
And the reason is, is because their primary responsibility, if you
look at the text, their primary responsibility was to punish those who
do evil and praise those who do good.
And, and if that is happening, that's a good thing.
And so this goes back to God's design for government.
God designed government to be a, an institution, an agency of his
that would punish the evil doers and praise those that do good.
We're seeing that happen a little bit right now in our current administration.
I don't wanna get overly controversial, but our current administration is looking
at those that are breaking the law and saying we are gonna bring justice
against those that are breaking the law.
We're gonna call what is, what is wrong, what is evil?
What is a law breaking offense, a law breaking offense, and
we are gonna bring justice.
And then our administration currently is also praising those that do good.
For example, Charlie Kirk being awarded the The Medal of Freedom posthumously.
Is an example of holding up somebody and saying, this one was doing good.
He was seeking the welfare of the nation.
He was standing for things that were right and good.
And so that is the, the administration that is our current administration,
commending those that do good and pursuing justice for those that do evil, right?
That that's what government was meant to do.
This is the overarching design of government.
We see it here in one Peter.
We also see it in Romans chapter 13 or 13.
Yeah, verses three and four for rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad.
Would you have no fear of the one who's in authority?
Then do what is good and you will receive his approval for
He is God's servant for your.
But if you do wrong, be afraid for he does not bear the sword in vain for
he's the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrong doer.
This is God's design for government.
This is why government exists to condemn the evil doer and
to praise those that do good.
Does it always work this way?
No.
Right.
No.
Absolutely not.
And, and you've lived through enough administrations and so have
I had to realize that that's true.
That there's no perfect government.
That government is gonna be corrupted by sin, and yet there's still good to
be found and to be recognized by us as Christians when the government does do
this, and we can participate even in this.
And that's what Peter means in verse 15 when he says, this is the will of God.
That by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people.
So when we do good and, and when we're even recognized
as those that are doing good.
Then we're gonna put to silence the ignorance of foolish people.
The, the world expected, the, the Christians, and still does to be
those that are rebellious and those that are disruptive and those that
are, are anti-authoritarian and anti-government and all those things.
And there's a time and place for that that we're gonna get to for.
But there's also a time and place for us to show the world that, that we can submit
ourselves and and pursue good things.
This is similar to what we talked about last week, that by pursuing
honorable behavior amongst the world, that we will put to silence
those that wish to slander Christ.
And we can do that as well when it comes to our engagement with politics.
And so we submit because this is part of God's design when the
government is working the way that he's called it to work, but.
How do we do that?
How should we submit ourselves?
This is where we look at verse 16.
Peter says, live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a coverup for
evil, but living as servants of God.
The word live is provided by the ESV translators.
It's not there in the original Greek.
In the original Greek.
It, it's better to understand this as Peter's command.
Be subject for the Lord's sake.
And then we get to verse 16 as people who are free, not using
your freedom as a coverup for evil, but living as servants of God.
In other words, this is not a separate command from Peter.
He's still talking about our submission to governing authorities.
We submit as free people, which is a bit of a paradox.
You don't often think about a free person submitting themselves to someone,
and he's gonna take that paradox even further 'cause he's about to say that
we are slaves of God on top of that.
Uh, but there's some points about our submission that are informative
for us here that we can pull from verse 16 First, we see that our
submission to the governing authorities in our lives is freely offered.
We are free.
In fact, we read about this recently, I believe, in our daily
Bible reading, Matthew chapter 17.
Uh, there's a question about paying taxes, and they asked Simon Peter, Hey
Simon, why doesn't your teacher pay taxes?
Simon asked Jesus.
Jesus says, well, what do you think Simon, from whom do Kings of the
Earth take toll and their, their tax from, from their sons or from others?
When he said from others, Jesus said to him, then the sons are free.
And yet Jesus then said, however, do not give an offense to them.
Go to the sea.
Cast a hook.
Take the fish that comes up, and when you open his mouth, you'll find a shekel.
Take that and give it to them for me and for yourself.
And so Jesus is saying that because of our EE, essentially because
of our heavenly citizenships being sons of God, we are free.
And yet we can still submit even as he models for us here, as those who are free.
So our submission is freely rendered.
It's freely rendered.
Second, our submission though, being freely rendered is
still not an excuse for evil.
It's, it's not a coverup for evil.
I, I think of the person that's pulled over by the police officer because
they're clearly breaking the law.
They're speeding.
And they refuse to acknowledge the authority of the police officer.
They want to say, well, I'm a sovereign citizen.
I'm exercising my sovereign rights.
I don't have to do what you tell me.
Okay, you can go to, you can go to jail, like you're gonna get
handcuffed and be taken to jail.
That's, that's your freedom, I suppose.
But that would be an example of using our freedom as a coverup for evil.
And so it's freely rendered, but it's not an excuse for evil.
Third, it's, it's offered, as I mentioned a moment ago, as slaves of the Lord.
As servants is the word, but the, the idea there is is slaves of God.
So we are to be subject as people who are free, not using our freedom
as a coverup for evil, but living as servants or slaves of God.
Though we are free from our slavery of sin, we are not autonomously free
as Christians, we are been brought into, in Roman six talks about this.
We have been brought into a subjection to now a servitude to the Lord to God.
And so that means our freedom in Christ is a servi freedom.
Our freedom is a freedom to do what is right as the Lord and Savior sees fit.
And this last part that our freedom is A, a freedom subjected to the Lord is what
leads us to this exception clause here.
This is the part that you've been waiting for.
Okay?
When are you gonna tell me that I don't have to obey, right?
Mm-hmm.
Back in verse 13, I skipped over a phrase and I did it on purpose
'cause I wanted to get here first.
Peter says, be subject.
And then he says, what For the Lord's sake.
Be subject for the Lord's sake.
So when we understand as servants of the Lord and that our submission is for the
Lord's sake, what we begin to understand is what we talked about at the beginning.
That as followers of Christ, our ultimate authority is God.
And our ultimate standard is his word, him being our, our primary authority
is going to, that is gonna govern how we understand our submission
to any authority in this world, let alone the governing authorities.
For Peter and his audience, one of the ways that this would've provided
a, a, a specifically challenging, uh, context is through the Imperial cult,
the the emperor worship, that there were citizens of Rome that were required to
come and render an offering to Caesar and, and proclaim Caesar is Lord.
And Christians could not under a good conscience, subject themselves to that.
They couldn't submit to that command because that would
be to offend and disobey God.
Once we have come to see government as, as God's creation, we have to conclude
that we have some obligation to it and we do have an obligation to it.
Generally speaking, we should submit to the government that God has put
over us that said that submission isn't blind trust, and it's not
without his parameters, and the parameters that God has given to us
are found in the pages of God's word.
Our second point this morning, along those lines is this submit only so far as
a biblically informed conscience allows, it's a lot of words submit only so far as
a biblically informed conscience allows.
This is the parameter.
Put another way, obey the governing authorities, except when and
until they're commanding you to sin, obey until or accept where
they're commanding you to sin.
And, and this y'all is where we see the simplicity.
And yet the, the profundity of this, the simplicity and the complexity
both together, the standard, the guideline is very simple.
Obey unless it's gonna make you sin.
The complex part is determining what constitutes sin, and that's
something that we have to wrestle with.
The word sin comes from a, a Greek word that literally means to miss the mark.
To miss the mark.
Synonyms include transgressing, falling short, incurring guilt.
And so in other words, I can't subject myself for the Lord's sake
as a servant of God to any authority.
If the authority is telling me, asking me, ordering me, commanding me to break
his law, or to transgress his commandments or to fall short of his standards where
those found, they're found in the Bible.
That's why we have to have a biblically informed conscience for this.
One of the clearest examples I think that we find in the pages of God's
Word is found in Acts chapter four.
Peter and John had been out ministering Peter and John had just healed a lame man.
Peter and John were, uh, attracting a massive crowd and the religious leaders
of the Jews, the Sanhedrin, which was a governing body of the Jewish people, a, a
a people with, with governing authority.
They called Peter and John before them.
And they concluded at the end.
Look, I guess all we can do right now is just tell them they have to stop.
And so they call Peter and John in and they say, you can't do this anymore.
You can't preach Christ anymore.
Stop it.
Peter responds and he said, whether it's right in the sight of God, and
that's what we're talking about.
That's our question.
That's the standard.
That's where we have to do the hard work as Christians to be careful
to think and to contemplate.
Is this right in the sight of God?
Peter says, whether it's right in the sight of God to listen
to you rather than to God.
You must judge for.
We cannot, but speak of what we have seen.
And what we have heard, Jesus had commissioned the apostles to go and
be the witnesses of his resurrection to go and proclaim the gospel.
And these people were telling the apostles, stop doing
what Jesus told you to do.
And so this was not a problem for them to have a biblically
informed conscience that said, no, we're not gonna obey you in this.
Right.
So when we talk about conscience though.
What are we talking about?
We probably need to, to do a little bit of work on that term.
Uh, conscience is this.
William Ames, a Puritan writer, says, the conscience of a man is a
man's judgment of himself according to the judgment of God of him.
So it's our judgment of ourselves according to God's judgment of us.
And so we're gonna assess ourselves, our actions, the things that we
do, our behavior according to what God thinks about those things.
That's what should be informing our conscience.
There's another author, um, another Puritan author, William Fenner.
And, and Fenner put it this way.
He says, conscience is joined in commission with God's own spirit to
be an instructor unto us in the way we should walk, so that the spirit and
it are resisted, and obeyed together and grieved or delighted together.
And so there Fenner is basically just saying when you're in Christ, the idea
is that the conscience is wed to the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, and the way
that happens is the more we ingest God's word, the more we give ourselves
over to the study of scriptures, the more biblically informed we are, the
more our consciences will be biblically informed, and the more we will be able
to make decisions that are right and true according to what God wants us to do.
For the disciples, their biblically informed conscience told them they were
not free to obey the Jewish authorities.
There's, there's probably, again, maybe not three, but, but two groups that I
could speak to in this room that would hit a lot of us when it comes to this idea
of our biblically informed conscience.
The, the first group would be the group that, that's not bringing
their conscience into matters of political engagement enough.
This group is, is kind of on in the the go along mentality.
Probably a lot of those that would be in that disinterested group that
I talked about earlier this morning.
This is the group that that's willing to just kind of go with the flow.
The, the separate and sacred are separate categories for this group,
and, and, and this group is, is ready to disobey if something major
happens, but their assumption is nothing major is really gonna happen,
and so I'm just gonna go along with the flow and not think much of it.
This passage in one Peter should remind you if, if that's where you're at,
that even if you're going to obey.
Your obedience should be offered first and foremost as a submission to the Lord and
only then a submission to the government.
In other words, if, if you find that it's pretty easy for you to submit to the
things that the government is calling you to do, such that it doesn't really ruffle
any feathers in your life, and it's not really anything that you lose sleep over.
You know what?
Praise God for that.
And at the same time, remember that your simple act of submission is
really more about your submission to the Lord than it is about your
submission to the governing authorities.
That's why we have to bring our, our conscience in, even when
it's something that's easy for us to do or that we agree with.
For example, your obedience to the speed limit is less about your obedience to
the governing authorities that posted that speed limit, and it's more about
your obedience to the Lord because you are submitting as a servant of God.
Paying taxes.
I'm gonna bring that up again in just a minute here.
But paying taxes is more about an act of worship to God than it is an act
of worship or rendering any sort of submission to the governing authorities.
Casting a vote on election day is an act of worship more than it
is about you as a citizen of this country doing your citizenly duty.
And so I'm just saying, I, I, I think all of us, whether it's easy for you
or whether you're skeptical of what the government's doing, we need to
remember that, that God is in it.
All that secular sacred divide is, is a false dichotomy that when we operate
and when we do these things, when you drive on the road and you obey the
traffic laws, you are offering an act of worship to the Lord because you're
subjecting to yourself, to the governing authorities as a servant of God.
The second group though, this is the group that probably brings the conscience
in maybe a little bit too much.
Only in that the conscience begins to be informed by personal
preferences more than the word of God.
There there's matters of preference that aren't the same thing as as
matters of sin matters of conscience,
for example, where the government spends your tax money.
I don't believe is a, is a, a matter of your personal holiness.
And I know that's, that's, that's controversial and, and I, I understand
that, and I, and I don't say that lightly because I know there have
been times and, and may come times again where our tax money has gone
to fund things like abortion, gender reassignment surgery, things like
that, that I am abhorrently opposed to.
And yet at the same time, I, I think back to.
The era that Peter wrote and the era that Paul wrote and the era
that Jesus was was living in when he commanded those to pay taxes.
And we have to remember that the Roman Imperial cult, the the emperors, what
were they using the tax money for?
They were building coliseums.
They were holding gladiatorial combats.
They were throwing Christians to the wild animals and funding
that with the tax money that was being paid by some in the church.
And so there seems to be that God allows for there to be a, a separation
of complicity between us and what the funds are ultimately gonna be used
for by the ones that use those funds.
Now, the protests may come in and say, okay, but what if we
become aware of those things?
What if we now all of a sudden are told by our government, you are
paying our taxes to us and now we're gonna take your taxes and go to
use them to fund these things here.
This is why we need the church in one another.
This is where it gets really hard, and if you are gonna make a, a decision
in, in a personal act of conscience to say, you know what, I, I think
biblically I need to withhold my taxes, then I would say, okay, I want you not
to sin against your conscience, and I also want you to be ready to face
the consequences for those decisions.
And there may come a time for that for us as Christians, and this is what I
mean, that, that there's, there's not gonna be the black and white answer
that we need every time on this.
That we need to be able to apply wisdom.
We need to seek counsel, we need to, to have our, our mind saturated with as
much of God's word as we possibly can.
And then I would say this, I don't think it's wrong.
In fact, I, I think it's absolutely right that we as Christians vote against.
The use of our tax funds for these sinful things, I think it's
right that we lobby against them.
I think it's even right that we would protest.
I think when we look at the rights that we have as believers, so long
as these rights are not leading us into sin, I think we should use every
right at our disposal to fight against evil being present in our country.
What this is from Peter, and what I'm suggesting here I don't believe is,
is him calling for us to be a doormat?
I think it's for us to be careful to make sure that when we resist, we
are truly resisting because we can say this is truly something that I
can't do for the sake of the Lord.
I can't do as a servant of God.
Lemme give another example.
If the government were to come to us and say, you need to register your church
with us, we're making a, a national registry of all of the churches in.
The country.
I, I honestly, y'all, I could not argue that that would be sinful
to register with the government.
I'd have questions, I'd say, man, I, I don't know that I love
that about the administration.
Let's see if we can change some of that and let's, how can we go about what,
what access do we have to do that?
But I don't know that I could in that moment say, no.
It might get there.
For example, if you go to China, the government wants churches to be registered
in China so that they can control what's being taught from the pulpit.
All of a sudden when we gain more information, now we have a different
understanding of what the stakes are.
And so if that were the case, if they were saying, we want you to register
so that we can come in and control what you're teaching and preaching there,
we're gonna say thanks, but no thanks.
And again, like I said a moment ago, be prepared to suffer the consequences.
If the government were to put tight restrictions on what types
of guns that you can and can't own,
that may sin against the Second Amendment in your eyes, but I
don't know that that's a sin.
Biblically speaking, you may not like it, and I'm not again asking you to like
it, but I'm asking you to understand that, that we can't conflate the
constitutional rights that we have and the biblical rights that we have.
Praise God for the Constitution.
Love it, thankful for it.
But at the same time, think about Paul in Acts chapter 16.
Paul is a Roman citizen in a Roman colony, is arrested and wrongly
imprisoned, and yet he doesn't immediately throw a flag on the plane
and say, what are you guys doing?
Don't you know I'm a Roman citizen?
You're infringing upon my rights.
Paul said.
Hey, let's, let's pray.
Let's sing.
There's this earthquake.
The jail cells open the jailer's, like, oh, man, I'm done.
I'm, I'm gonna end my life.
Paul says, don't hurt yourself.
We're all still here.
That man and his family get led to Christ.
And then Paul says, oh, by the way, there's this matter of my citizenship.
And so Paul was willing for the sake of the gospel to set aside some of his
rights that he had to serve the Lord.
And so I'm, I'm, I'm not suggesting that we despise the rights that
we have as American citizens.
We just can't conflate being an American with being a Christian.
And some of those rights may be taken away and we may have to subject to
some of those things being taken away.
Again, not as doormats.
We can fight, we can use the venues that God gives us to, to
pursue correction to those things.
We can try to vote people out of office and lobby and protest.
We can do all of those things and I, I would say we should as good stewards.
But we have to be careful if we're gonna say, no, I'm not going to subject,
I'm going to disobey the command to subject to the governing authorities.
I have to make sure that I'm doing that on the solid ground, that
this is something that I am sinning in if I obey what they're doing.
Richard Baxter talks about a, a dangerous error he calls it.
He says There's a dangerous error grown too common in the world that
a man is bound to do everything, which his conscious tells him is
the will of God, and that every man must obey his conscience as if it
were the law giver of the world.
Whereas indeed, it is not ourselves, but God that is our law giver.
So we have to make sure that our, our conscience is truly biblically
informed and not that our conscience is informing our view of the Bible.
During 2020, this whole conversation left the realm of the theoretical and
landed in our laps at the church where Pastor Rod and I were serving together.
Suddenly, we were receiving mandates from governing officials telling us
where we could and couldn't hold church.
How many people could gather at one time together, even in a home where I had to
wear a mask where I had to be vaccinated.
Uh, whether we could sing, whether we were allowed to be outside
singing together or inside singing.
We were told at one point that to visit someone from our church in
the hospital, we had to have proof with us of our COVID-19 vaccine
as pastors.
During this time, we would gather together daily to talk about things.
We would look at the latest mandates, we would look at the numbers of
hospitalizations, the deaths.
And we would together pray and seek the Lord's will for how
we should shepherd our church.
Through that season,
we did make some decisions that went against the mandates during that time,
and yet there were also decisions that we made that were biblically informed.
Every time we did that, for example, they said, no singing, and we
said, no, we're still gonna sing because it's a biblical command.
This is part of what the church does when it, she gathers together, so we sang.
We still gathered in homes because again, the, the meeting together of the
church body is still something that, that God's word calls us as Christians to do.
And we didn't enforce mask policies or the vaccination on our staff
because we felt that there was also a biblical command to steward our bodies.
Well, that could not be usurp by a governmental mandates.
On the other hand, when they said.
Move outside we did because we had space to be able to do that.
So when the government said you need to move outside, we did because we
could, we had space and we were also in a climate in Southern California
that we were able to do that and, and that allowed us to continue to
worship and to continue to do church.
Was it ideal?
No, but we, we felt like, okay, we don't feel like they're asking us to
sin by moving outside to have church.
For some churches they did and, and that was also a biblically informed decision.
There were some churches that looked at their body and said, we don't
have a, a parking lot, large enough.
We don't have a space where we can gather outside so effectively by
asking us to be outside, the government is asking us not to have church.
Sorry, that's a deal breaker.
We're still gonna gather and we're gonna gather inside.
That was still a right decision, I believe, for them to make because it
was a biblically informed decision.
I, I, I hope we never have a situation like that come up again.
But if we do, it's situations like that, they're gonna take these
things out of the theoretical and again, bring them into our lab.
And Peter's not asking for us to agree with every decision the
government makes, or even to like every decision the government makes.
Use your freedoms.
Use your rights to exercise and affect the change that you want to see.
But he is asking for heart to trust the Lord enough to submit unless
it's directly leading you to sin,
and don't lose sight of.
The big reason for this, again, for this is the will of God that by doing
so, you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people, that
we would be able to rob the world of ammo to critique our savior.
If you're in the medical field, say you're an ob, GYN, and the
government comes to you and says, you have to perform abortions.
Should you continue to practice if the government makes that declaration?
I would say the answer is no.
That's a case where your disobedience is preferable to obedience, even if
it costs you your job because you're going, they're asking you to sin.
If the government comes to us as pastors and says, you have to perform same sex
weddings, should we acquiesce to that?
And I would say the answer is absolutely not, because that is
asking us to do something that is sin.
And so there are situations where.
We would say, now it's time to disobey.
We just have to be careful about those situations and make sure we are making
decisions that are biblically informed.
This is a tall order.
This is a massive order, and it's one that's really complicated when
we get down into the weeds and we've just barely scratched the
surface this morning together.
But if we're gonna make such important consequential decisions for us and our
families based on biblically informed consciences, this is obvious, but we
have to make sure that our consciences are indeed biblically informed.
Two things.
On that note, that's one of the reasons why we do the Daily Bible reading
among others, but that's one of the reasons why we're saying we want
you in God's word every single day.
It's one of the reasons why Pastor Rod and I do the the Daily Bible Podcast.
It's why we encourage that, because the more you are in the
word of God, the more biblically informed your conscience will be.
It's hard to have a biblically informed conscience that's
not informed by the Bible.
So being in God's word on a regular basis because it is our ultimate standard
and authority in this is so important.
And then the second thing is this.
If you want your conscience to be biblically informed, this is another
reason why the church is so important, and I've hit this already this morning.
Lemme just hit it again.
It's so good to have brothers and sisters in Christ who will help you make
decisions or who will help be right there with you thinking through these issues
as we make these decisions together.
And so we want to be there to, to help you with that.
And if you're facing a decision individually, maybe you've got a situation
at work or you've got a situation, we're gonna talk about work a little
bit more next week, but maybe you've got a situation with the government
you're struggling with, let me encourage you to talk to other people about it,
to meet with other believers about it, to talk to your community group about
it, to talk to us as pastors about it.
We'd love to walk through that and help you make that decision with you.
Proverbs 1114 where there is no guidance of people falls, but in an abundance
of counselors, there is safety.
So we submit only so far as a biblically informed conscience allows.
Peter's gonna end with these four staccato commandments.
He says, honor everyone.
Love the brotherhood.
Fear God, honor the emperor.
Honor everyone.
Love the brotherhood.
Fear God and honor the emperor I, I think there's a pattern
here, and the pattern is this.
It's A B, B, A, not meaning a as in this is first and most
important, but just the pattern.
So you have A and A, and those are the outside two commands here.
You've got honor everyone.
And then the last command, honor the emperor.
Okay.
Those are things that we've been talking about so far together.
Honor is for everyone.
Last week we talked about this.
Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable.
That is something that we should be doing as Christians.
We should have this, this mentality towards other people that we
want to show them different.
Show them honor and then also, yes, honor the emperor.
That's what we've been talking about.
Th this whole sermon is how we can honor the governing authorities in our lives.
And we do that recognizing God's design for human government.
And we also do that understanding that there's a limit.
If, if they're asking me to stand, I, I can't honor them in that 'cause
I have to honor God above that.
And so those, those outer commands there, I think are the, the general precepts.
This is how you interact with the world.
But then the inner two commands are, are how you interact with, uh, life
as Christians outer two commands.
Honor everyone.
Honor the emperor, if I can put it this way.
That's our earthly citizenship.
The inner two commands love the brotherhood and fear God.
This is our heavenly citizenship.
And I think these are the, the, the thrust of what Peter wants us to be doing.
Love is for believers.
Love the brotherhood.
One John 4, 10 11 says, this is love.
Not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the
propitiation, which means a word, that it means the satisfaction of God's
wrath, the appreciation for our sins.
And then he says, beloved, if God has so loved us, we also
ought to love one another.
We should be loving each other within the church body.
And then the second thing is fear.
God.
This is the foundation for everything else.
Fear is for God alone.
And, and, and it's a fear that is a, a worshiping fear.
It's a reverential fear.
It's not a fear that he's gonna cast us into hell, but it's a fear that
says, God, you are, you are God.
And I am not.
It's one that respects him.
It's one that trusts him.
It's one that loves him.
It's one that obeys him.
It's one that worships him.
Peter seems to be giving these general commands as he sums things up, and
I, I, I think again, he's stressing we have an obligation here on Earth,
but there's also a greater obligation as those exiles and Sojourner and
that is to one another as believers in Christ grounded in a fear of God.
Final point this morning, along those lines is this, prioritize
your eternal citizenship.
How we engage government as believers, we have to prioritize no matter
what our eternal citizenship.
Verse 17 again, but our citizenship, or, sorry,
lost my train of thought, obviously, verse 17.
Honor everyone.
Love the brotherhood.
Fear God.
Honor the emperor.
Philippians three, Philippians three, verses 2321.
Paul says, but our citizenship, our citizenship is in heaven.
And from it, we await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform
our lowly body to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him
even to subject all things to himself.
And so do we have obligations to the world as Sojourner and exiles?
Yes.
But our ultimate obligation, our ultimate allegiance, is to our
ultimate king, to the one that will reign in that fifth kingdom.
And so, yes, we honor everyone.
We should do that church.
We should be a winsome place.
We should be winsome people.
We should be people that are, that, that the, the world looks
at us and wants to be around us.
We should honor those that we disagree with politically.
Man, that, that's a huge point, right?
Our social media post, we should, before we hit post, we should
say, does this honor everyone?
We should honor the emperor.
It's been the whole sermon to this point.
I don't need to rere that.
I would only add this.
How about praying for those that are in those positions
of authority in our lives too?
I referenced Jeremiah 29.
One of the ways that we can seek the welfare of the city is to pray
for those that are in the power.
Pray for the governing authorities in our lives.
That's another way for us to honor them as citizens of this earth.
But then there's our citizenship in heaven.
Part of that is right here in this room, loving the brotherhood.
This place, the church being around believers should feel different.
From any other place in the world, there should be a respite, a refuge, a place
where you are able to love and be loved.
And if we don't have that happening, we've got something that's wrong.
This room is filled with people that you have eternal relations with, that
you will spend eternity with in New the new Earth, under the reign and
rule of Jesus as our ultimate king.
Paul writes in Galatians six 10, he says, so then as we have opportunity
to let us do good to everyone.
And especially to those who are the household of faith.
We have a different obligation as brothers and sisters in
Christ as citizens of heaven.
And then we also finally want to fear God.
We want to fear God as citizens of heaven, as those that have an eternal citizenship.
Again, this is the foundation of everything that we have in the end.
If asked to choose between God and man, we will always choose God.
And so your identity as a follower of Jesus is the catalyst
in all of this discussion.
Your relationship with God changes how you relate to this world and how you
relate to the rulers of this world.
Your primary allegiance should always be to those you will be in heaven
with God first and then his people
in every facet of life.
God is our ultimate authority in His word or ultimate guide.
That certainly includes the realm of of politics.
And again, this may be simple, but the application of the Conte concept is not
always as easy, and that's why it's so encouraging to do all this in the context
of the local church and to do this with God as our God to do this with the Holy
Spirit within us, and to do this through giving ourselves over to the word of.
He's our ultimate authority in his word, our ultimate guide.
Let's pray together.
Father God, we live as citizens of this earth and we do so thankful
for the privileges, the rights, the, the freedoms that we have,
especially in, in this country.
And, and we readily admit that there are believers around the world
that don't enjoy the same things that we get to enjoy right now.
And so we want to be thankful of those things.
We want to steward them well.
Lord, we don't want to take them for granted and ask such.
Lord, I pray that we would think carefully about this question.
How as Christians, do we engage with government?
How do we engage with, uh, politics?
How should we think about, how should we conduct ourselves, Lord?
So help us, I pray, to have the wisdom and discernment to know how to do that best.
Lord, we long for the day when Christ is gonna come back and set up that
fifth kingdom and, and we are gonna be with him forever and ever and ever.
That there will be no end to that kingdom as Daniel two talks about.
Lord, until that day, we find ourselves here, help us to be good ambassadors,
good representatives of you Lord, to be able to walk in that dual citizenship.
Engaging as citizens of this earth, but also looking forward to our ultimate
citizenship, which is in heaven.
And until Jesus comes back, may we be a faithful bride and a faithful Lambs name,
and we pray this all in Jesus' name.
Amen.