Highland Park Baptist Church - Sermons
God, Government, and a Biblical Worldview
As you know, we've been in the book of Job for a number of weeks, but we're going to move from the book of Job today, and we're going to look in Romans chapter 13. And a few years ago, as we were entering an election cycle, I preached from Romans 13. I feel led to the Lord to share that with you again today as we move toward the 4th of July, the independence of our nation. I just simply want us to look at God, government, and a biblical worldview this morning from Romans chapter 13. I pray that if you were here a number of years ago when we moved through this text that you will remember some of this, or that you have taken notes, and it'll be fresh to you today. Romans chapter 13, follow with me in verse 1. Paul records, "Let every soul be subject to the higher powers, for there is no power but of God, the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resist the power, resist the ordinance of God, and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good works but to the evil. Will thou then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good, and you shall have praise of the same. For he is the minister of God to you for good. But if you do that which is evil, be afraid, for he bears not the sword in vain. For he is the minister of God a revenger to execute wrath upon him that does evil. Wherefore you must need be subject not only for wrath but also notice this, for the sake of your own conscience. For this cause you pay tribute also, for they are God's ministers attending continually upon this very thing. Render therefore to all their dues tribute to whom tribute is due custom to whom custom fear to whom fear honor to whom honor. It has been said, and I say it quite often myself, that as Christians we find ourselves living in two worlds. We have dual citizenship if you will. And what I mean by that is we are living here in this temporary world but our citizenship is in heaven. The Bible says that we have a new name that will be given to us when we get to heaven. We have an eternal home that has been prepared for us by the master carpenter of this universe. In fact he's been gone 2,000 years now preparing a place for us. That is our real home, that is our eternal home and that will be our permanent address. However we all have a temporary address down here now. We all have a temporary home that is down here now. And though we have a longing to be at our permanent home, our permanent address and see our Savior face to face, it is necessary that you and I live in this world now, in this temporary walk of life. Now one day we'll see Jesus, one day we'll put our hand in His nail scarred hand. One day we will enjoy all that He has created for us. Until then we live in this temporary world that is broken, this world that is fallen. And as we live here we are to be wise stewards. As we govern this world, as we try to govern society in a way that is wise, in a way that is prudent, as we try to govern the affairs of life in a way that would promote health and healing to our culture. We live in a culture, especially here in western culture, where it's a pluralistic society where it is the belief that absolute truth does not exist, which that is a contradiction itself, right? To say that there is no such thing as absolute truth, that everything is subjective, everything is relative, that it just kind of depends on the situation. Well that makes it all the more important that we understand what the Bible has to say and that we develop in our lives a biblical worldview. It has been said that the best way to show that a stick is crooked is not to argue about it or spend time denouncing it, but it's to lay a straight stick beside it. The Bible, if you will, is our straight stick. The Bible determines truth and how we're to live out that truth. The world view, the biblical worldview, we understand that the Bible has something to say about how we raise our children, how we manage the finances of our life. A biblical worldview says this is how I'm to treat my spouse and how I'm to interact with my family. A biblical worldview says this is what I believe is truth and error and this is what is right and this is what is wrong. And we look at this world through a biblical lens. It tells us in the scriptures even how to manage and to be wise stewards over our culture. And yes, even how to select the leaders that will lead our nation. David Jeremiah was asked how he would advise voters to vote and what he would say and he says this. What do I do if none of the candidates represent my core beliefs? He said everybody wants to find someone who represents who they are. Unfortunately, there isn't anybody like that, probably not ever again. We're down to the point where we need to elect people who we're pretty certain will not be against us. Somebody who will allow us to live out our faith. We live in a imperfect world, a fallen world. We are fallen people ourselves living in fallen bodies and we have fallen leaders who lead a fallen culture of ours and there is nothing perfect about any candidate that will ever step on the stage. But we do have great hope and comfort that there is one perfect in this universe and he is seated on his throne in absolute majesty and glory. And his name is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the only one who is perfect. So now living in this world, we have to deal with imperfect leaders and imperfect people and imperfect policies. And we have to try as best as we can to navigate through this life with a biblical worldview. James Madison once wrote these words. We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions, upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves according to the Ten Commandments. Now, that was one of our presidents many years ago. We know that keeping the Ten Commandments does not save you and it does not make you a Christian. But I think there are wonderful guidelines to lead our lives. And I'm heartened to know that the state of Louisiana says let's put them back into schools. And I'm heartened by some of the things that I hear from Oklahoma that talks about once again beginning to teach the Bible as part of the curriculum in our public school system. Only good things in my estimation would come from that. But we still live in a fallen world. A nation for the most part that has pushed God out of national life. Solomon said in Proverbs 14, righteousness, exalts a nation. But sin is a reproach to any people. In Proverbs 29 he says, "When the wicked bears rule, then the people mourn." And here we are in this election cycle in our country. And it's a very important election. And I want to encourage you, exercise your right, your prerogative and your duty as an American citizen to go to the polls and vote your conviction this coming election. I want you to pray about whom you would vote for both locally on the state level and on the national level. And take it very, very serious. God has entrusted this into our care and has given us an opportunity to choose our leaders. And I would say to you, choose wisely. You may not feel like the best candidates are running. You may feel like as you approach this election that you might have to choose the least of the two that you might feel are the least of the two evils. However you feel about that, I want you to pray and seek God's face about whom he would have us as his people to place an elected offices that best represent our nation. And can help us have policies that best represent what God has to say in his word. Having said that this morning, we're looking at Paul's letter to the church at Rome in a message entitled, "God the Government and a Biblical worldview." God the government and a Biblical worldview. And I want us to examine this relationship between the Christian to human government. There are some who will say that the Christian should never have anything to do with government offices, that the Christian should never run for office or be involved in political affairs at all. I disagree with that. I said in the first service this morning, I think, and I know that I would sleep better at night if every local official that served our town and our county and our state if they were every single one of them were Christians. Now I don't know anybody's heart, I don't know who is and who is not, but I think I would sleep better knowing that every person that led our city and our state and then our nation if we knew that they were all Christian people and that they had the Holy Spirit living in their heart. So I would encourage you to support people who as best as you can determine stand for what is truth biblically. I would encourage you if you feel led to run for some kind of a political office to do that and to do that with integrity and to do that with character and to do that to represent God's voice in the world that is so fallen all around us. So heaven said all of that as we look at Paul's letter to the church at Rome and we look at God, government and a biblical worldview, I first of all want you to see the role of government. Notice what the Bible says in verse 1, "Let every soul be subject to the higher powers, where there is no power but of God, the powers that be are ordained of God." Now remember the historical context. When the Apostle Paul was writing this, there was one primary political power, at least in Paul's world around the Mediterranean and that was the Roman Empire. They had conquered pretty much everything around the entirety of the Mediterranean Sea and Rome at first was a republic but quickly became a monarchy where all the power was invested in a single individual known as the Caesar. Caesar had unilateral authority. Thumbs up or thumbs down would determine life or death. When Paul wrote this, Nero was actually the Roman emperor at this particular time. Nero was the one that was on the throne and it was somewhere around 56-57 A.D. In just a few years, about five or six years after Paul writes the book of Romans, it is Nero that orders Paul's execution. It is Nero whom they say that set fire to a good portion of the city, burned most of it down and then blamed the Christians for that and used them as a scapegoat. So it was under very, very difficult circumstances that Paul addresses this issue of God, the government, and what we would now call a biblical worldview. When Rome ruled the world, they ruled almost all the entirety of the Mediterranean other than what we would now call Israel, that is at least for a while. There were two brothers, the Hasmonean brothers, who ruled what we would call Palestine or Israel. They had an internal conflict with each other, couldn't get along with each other. They appealed to Rome, asked Rome to come down and settle their disputes. When Rome did that, they occupied the promised land and they never left. And because of that, the Jewish people would find themselves under the same kind of oppressive government that the Apostle Paul is writing about here in Romans chapter number 13. Rome would use governors to govern the promised land. They would put people like Pontius Pilate, for example, in power. Governors like Felix or Festus that you find in the book of Acts. They would put people like King Herod, who wasn't really a king, but King Herod as the king of the Jewish people, the king of Judea, who was an absolute tyrant. And in the days of Jesus when Christ was born, Herod ordered that all the male children under the age of two taken from their mother's arms and to be exterminated to be killed. So you can understand a little bit as Paul writes this, what the environment would have been like with an oppressive Roman government. So Paul wasn't writing this when everything was going well and everything was going swimmingly. He was writing it under very difficult circumstances. So what is the role of government? What is our role to that government? Look at the word subject in verse number one. He says, "Let every soul be subject to the higher powers." It comes from a Greek word that means to arrange under. It carries the idea of placing oneself under the authority of something else. It's used in Romans chapter eight when Paul said, "The carnal mind is at enmity with God, for it is not subject or under the law of God. It cannot be." So it's rendered as submit in some particular passages or translations. But what Paul is saying is this, that as we look at government's role that Christians within this government system are living as the government is leading society, how are we to live? Well, we are to strive to be model citizens at all times because that is a good testimony. If you pay your taxes, we don't like it, but that's a good Christian testimony. Amen, Church? Boy, you are quite as a church mouse in here. My goodness, nobody likes the tax idea. But as Christians, we're supposed to pay our taxes. We're supposed to respect law enforcement. We're supposed to keep the laws of the land. As Christians, we are to follow the laws of the land. As Christians, we're to do everything that we can to be good, productive citizens of our culture. Because that says to an unbelieving world that I submit or I come under the authority of the government that I see has been placed there by God. So yes, we are to do everything that we can to be good, public, and private citizens. There are basically three institutions that God has built into society, three institutions that are so vital. There is the family. Now listen, have you ever seen a time in American history where the family is under attack the way it is today? But God instituted the family. God determined how marriage should look in a family, that it would be one man married to one woman, and that that's God's design for the family. Man may try to rewrite that and erase that and cloud the issue, but God's institution for the family is one man married to one woman. That's God's design. God designed the family, God designed the church, and He instituted the church. It is called the body of Christ. We are the Ekklesia, the called-out assembly of people group that have responded to the truth claims of the gospel. We've turned our backs on the world. We've decided to follow Jesus. We become part of His body. God designed and instituted the church. Man didn't do that. It was birthed from the heart of God. So God has instituted the family. God has instituted the church, and God, yes, has instituted human government. It is God who placed government in the position that governments are in for His good. What is that role of government? Not every place in the world has a democracy like we have. Not every place in the world gets to choose their leaders. Not every place in the world has an opportunity for people to go and to express their desires and their wishes at the voting booth. But we are fortunate that we still have the ability to do that. So what is the role of government? Whatever form of government a system may call themselves under God, the role of government is to restrain evil and to promote social order. A government is to restrain evil, to say no to that which is harmful to its citizens, to say no to that which prays upon the citizenry. Government is to restrain evil and to promote that which is good, that which is wholesome, that which is positive, that which is healthy. Now according to these passages, all power, all governmental authority, all power regardless of if it's a president of the United States or a dictator somewhere else in this world, all power is ultimately given by a sovereign God. The Bible says that God holds the king's heart in his hand and he turns it like the rivers of water wherever he pleases. So there may be good leaders and there may be bad leaders. And for whatever purposes that belongs to the mind and the heart of a sovereign God, all power is ultimately God ordained. God may have used men like Nebuchadnezzar in the past who were wicked men, but ultimately to accomplish the purposes that he wanted to accomplish. So ultimately all power, all authority is God's power and God's authority. Again there might be some good men and women who are in authoritative positions in the political scene. There might be some bad ones, but ultimately God has all the power. For example, you remember the night of Jesus' trial. Jesus is standing before Pilate and Pilate says to him as he asks him what is truth. You remember that dramatic scene in the New Testament? And Pilate says to Jesus, do you not know that I have the power to release you or have you crucified? You remember what Jesus said? You don't have power to do anything unless my Heavenly Father gives that to you. All power ultimately belongs to God, but he has set up human government to promote social order and to restrain evil. Listen, may I say this morning that it is not the government's role to take care of us from cradle to grave. It is not the government's role to give us everything that we need. It is not the government's role to give us everything that we want. It is not the government's role to take the place of God in human society and in our lives. We depend on God and ultimately not the government. Amen, Church? We depend on God. He is our Father. He is our leader. He is our elder brother. We depend upon him and it is not the government that is able to give us everything that we need at every phase in our life. It has been said that a government that can give you everything that you want is also big enough to take everything that you have. So we do not trust that the government is mandated to take care of everything that we need. No, the government is there to restrain evil and to promote social order. Secondly, I want you to note the rule and we are subject to that, to be underneath that authority. Secondly, I want you to note the rule of government. Look in verse two, if you're listening, say amen. Whosoever therefore, verse two, resists the power, resists the ordinance of God and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. So we've established the authorities, are rulers that God has for his purposes ordained. No matter how well or how poorly that power is used, ultimately it always comes from God. For example, remember Pharaoh in the Old Testament. Pharaoh, Pharaoh enslaved God's people for 400 years, the Pharaohs of Egypt. The Pharaohs ordered that male babies be taken from their mother's arms and thrown into the alligator infested waters of the Nile River. Pharaoh was an enemy of God, but listen to what the Lord said to Pharaoh, "For this reason I have raised you up that I might show my power in you." Who raised up Pharaoh? God. Who demonstrated the power of God through Pharaoh's life, a corrupt wicked man? God, the same in the book of Daniel. Nebuchadnezzar had a dream, Daniel came to interpret that dream and Daniel said to the king that the rulers of the kingdom and the men, God gives it to whomever he chooses. So ultimately it is God's power. And for his purposes, during the days the Apostle Paul was riding to Rome and the days that Christ walked this earth, Rome was the power, was the government, and it was a suffocating government. Rome had an incredible tax system. Do you know under the Roman Empire, basically a tax collector, the job was sold to the highest bidder? If you wanted to be a tax collector and work for Rome and exact taxes from the Jewish people, then what you could do is you could exact from them whatever you wanted as long as Rome got their cut. What was Levi who became Matthew in the New Testament? What was his role? He was a tax collector. What was Zacchaeus? What was his role in the New Testament? He was a tax collector. Both of those guys were hated men because they were really extortioners who were charging their people greater taxes than what Rome had even placed upon them. They were keeping the excess and they were given to Rome what Rome demanded. What was it that Rome demanded from its citizens, by the way, of taxes? They had what was called a poll tax. A poll tax. Everyone, males that is from the age of 14 up to 65, had to pay this poll tax for breathing, for living. And the women from ages 12 to 65 had to pay this poll tax just for breathing. Just for being alive, you had to pay Rome a certain amount of taxes on top of that. There was the income tax. That was a 10% flat rate. There were taxes on roads, taxes on harbors. There were import taxes. There was the ground tax. One tenth of all grain of all proceeds of the grain. One tenth of all of that was to go to Rome. You were taxed on how many nets, if you were a fisherman, how many nets you threw out. You were taxed on every single fish and how many fish that you brought back in from those nets. If you lived in the first century under the Roman government, if you had a cart that was pulled behind a donkey or a mule or something like that, you were taxed based on how many wheels that that cart has. Makes me tired just thinking about it. But that's the way the tax system was set up. And people found themselves under this oppressive, heavily taxed government. So when Jesus came on the scene, you could imagine what those who believed him to be Messiah were really hoping for. They were thinking, here's a guy who finally will get us out from under this oppressive governmental system. And we want him on our side to put down Rome and to establish his kingdom here on this earth. So they began to call for Jesus to make a public or choose a public side, which side he wanted to be on. But when you look at the life of Christ, he never did that. He never called for some kind of a political insurrection or a political overthrow because his emphasis was on getting people saved. And as people's hearts and lives come to know Christ and come to know the Lord, the byproduct of that we believe and we hope and we pray for is that we develop a world view like God wants us to have. And that we don't see the world the way the ladies own the view, I call it the spew that we don't see the world based on how the spew sees the world. We see the world through the lens of what the Scripture has to say. We don't see the world, take for example the abortion issue, we don't see the abortion issue as Bill Mar would see that issue and say there's enough of us alive today and he says to the unborn baby, you're not going to be missed. And that yes he says abortion is murder and I'm okay with that. We don't see the world that way. We don't view the world that way. I'm telling you that is the personification of evil if you ask me. We see the world through the lens of Scripture, through the lens of what God has to say and what his word teaches us. But when Jesus came they were saying we want you on our political side, there were many different factions that were pulling at him. Two of the primary ones they were the Pharisees who were religious Jewish people who hated Rome and the influence of Rome and they didn't want to pay taxes and they said Jesus we want you on our side. There was the Herodians and they were a group of Jewish people who were loyal to Herod and they wanted the tax flow to continue to come in. They said Jesus we want you on our side and they began to pull at him to get him on one side or the other. But Jesus always kept the main thing the main thing and he preached the truth. And listen it is beneath us as a church to preach anything other than the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. I don't preach Democrat, I don't preach Republican because you've heard it said many many times that the Lord when he comes back it's not going to be on an elephant or a donkey either one. But having said that we recognize we still have a responsibility to go to the polls and to vote and to vote as best as we can we may not like any of the candidates. We may not believe in how they live their lives, we may not like their personality, we may not like their persona, we might not like them as individuals but that's beside the point. What we have to look at is what are the policies that are being enacted. You see a church we have to stand for what is truth. We have to stand for what is right and preach what is right and preach what is truth. Do you know listen as a church family you know what governs this body? Is this right here? What the Word of God has to say. You know how I live my life I try to live it by what this has to say there are many times that I fail but this is how I try to live my life this is how I want us to live our lives is by what this right here has to say because the Bible says that God's Word is forever settled in heaven and it is always true it transcends time it transcends culture it is always true and everything in life is to be looked at through what the Scripture has to say that's why that's why we believe that the universe began at a moment in time at a definite point in time God spoke it into existence that's why we believe that every little baby regardless of the conditions of conception every single baby is precious in the sight of God and deserves an opportunity for life every single baby is precious in the sight of God we believe that because the Scriptures teach that we believe in the Scriptures that it says that Jesus Christ is the very Son of God that he came into this world that he died on the cross of Calvary to pay a sin death that whoever would trust him could have a brand new life in Christ Jesus we believe that the Bible teaches that heaven is a real place it is filled with real people people who've accepted Christ we believe that because the Bible says it we also believe that hell is a real place filled with real people who have rejected Christ as their Savior so my point is when they were pulling at Christ choose one side choose another he didn't do that because he never said upon this rock I'll build my country on this rock I'll build my nation though we love our country we love our nation Jesus said upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against the church there may be a day that America as we know it will no longer exist I pray that that'll never happen but there will never be a time when the church is not the church of Jesus Christ he says not the gates of hell will not prevail against it so our world or our our lives we're living in a temporary world right now headed for a permanent world and this temporary world is broken and God says here's the role of government here's the rule of government and look at the reason for government while you're in this temporary world notice verse number three he gives us really three reasons that you can kind of just look at this for yourself the first one is to discourage evil he says for rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior but for evil in other words a good government deters evil by the policies that it puts in place secondly a government is to promote good verse three do what is good and you'll have the praise from the same that government can reward that which is that follows the laws of the land thirdly the government serves as a minister of God to enforce punishment is what he says in verse number four and that the government has a responsibility not individuals but government has a responsibility to exact punishment for those who violate the law and those who who break the law and those who harm other people's property or other people's possessions or other people themselves the government has a rule or has a responsibility to protect its citizens that's the role and the rule and the reason for government look at the response what is our response verse five he says be subject that we that we live beneath the laws of our land but also for a good conscience sake for this cause you pay tribute your god's ministers according attending excuse me continually up on this very thing render therefore to all their dues tribute to whom tributes do custom to who custom fear to whom fear honor to whom honor so that may beg the question if you're here today pastor darrell what about if the government enacts laws that are contrary to the word of god what are we to do if we are to subject to to live in subjection to the laws of the land if we're to surrender to the governmental authorities to their leadership which is biblical then what are we to do if those laws violate what god's law has to say we always stand with god's law and there may be times in civil government where we have to say no and we don't want that we don't accept that we reject that and we use the full force of our voting ability to go to the polls to say no we don't want government to take care of us from cradle to grave we want a government that recognizes that every single life even that of the unborn is absolutely absolutely precious we want a government that says that we believe that we're to stand with the nation of israel we want a government that believes that marriage is between one husband man and one wife and we use all of our voting power all of our influence to go to the polls to say this is what we believe the bible has to say about these issues we may not like again the person we may not like the personality but we always have to look at the policies of every elected official local state and national what do their policies say what do their policy is say about those institutions of family of the church and the role of government in our lives i pray during this election cycle that you will do just that to be sensitive to the leadership of the holy spirit and that as you vote know that every one of us will be accountable to god as we choose our leaders will we be choosing perfect people no but we want to look at every policy through this lens and say if that policy does not line up with this then we're going to try to vote some vote for somebody else when that choice comes up but just know sometimes it looks bleak doesn't it sometimes it looks downright frightening and we don't know what tomorrow holds but can't you rest assured tonight knowing who holds tomorrow amen