Obey God, Then Government

Transcript

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[0:00] Well, I thought I'd give a little update before we begin today. First of all, I'm really grateful to this body for just allowing this time of rest for sabbatical. Not all churches do that. And I'm really just grateful for this group of people who understands and knows the need for recharging. And that is very much what it was, was a time of rest and recharging. It was busy. And so sometimes it felt like I was running and running. But there was rest and recharging in the meantime.

[0:36] First, I went back to Minnesota and traveled around to Wisconsin and Michigan also, just visiting family and friends. Because oftentimes when I go back to Minnesota, it's just to see my immediate family. And I have very little time to spend with, like, the people beyond my immediate family. So it was nice to see friends from college, friends. Friends from seminary, friends from high school. And actually, there was a family reunion. So I saw my entire extended family as well.

[1:07] While I was there, I went to Michigan and took a retreat for a weekend where it was actually a silence retreat. And so I, as an introvert, this was just very welcome to my soul. Not only did I not have to speak to people, like, I wasn't allowed to speak to people. So I was happy as a clam. But I'm a very, very anxious person in general. And I like routine. And my sabbatical was not a time of routine. So during this retreat of silence, I just kept hearing the word peace over and over. Peace, and it's going to be okay.

[1:51] Because I was so worried before I left for sabbatical. Because I tend to judge my personal worth on what I can do. And do for other people. Or how I can be useful. And so not working for an entire summer made me kind of think, well, what is my worth? And during this time, am I going to be worthless to other people? And this retreat of silence, God just eased my soul and allowed me to recenter. And know who I am based on who God made me to be. And not what I can do of my own, with my own hands. Or of my own accord. So it was a very peaceful way to enter into sabbatical.

[2:37] I studied the book of Isaiah in depth. So first I took time just to read it straight through over the course of a couple of days. And I let the words wash over me. But then I read it back over throughout the rest of my sabbatical, a chapter at a time. With the aid of commentary. And I read it again. And really took the time to just dig into it. And it's such a rich book. It's a perfect example of how the Bible is a living word. Because it can be read over and over. And at any time or place in history. And it still has new things that pop out. And still so applicable no matter when or where you read it.

[3:22] I also did some writing. It was mostly from this, I got this before I went on sabbatical. I got this prompt. prompt book of spiritual prompts that help you reflect over your spiritual walk and they encourage you to write based on these prompts. So I did a lot of writing from that book, but I also finished up some various writing projects that have been on my back burner for a while, so it was kind of nice to get those done. I moved apartments, so that was busy because as soon as I got back from Minnesota, I moved the very next week, so I packed and moved in less than a week, which was kind of chaotic, but it was good. And Adele helped me, which was really, really nice, and she's not here today, but I'm really grateful for that.

[4:12] Then something that's been on my bucket list for a while has been traveling to Poland. And so I went with my mother, which was also something on her bucket list. We saw Krakow and Warsaw, and we had a really great time. It was a little surprising to me that it was so much like the United States, actually, but it was a really great time. It was beautiful. The people were wonderful.

[4:45] We had really heavy food. . Like, really heavy, which is food I grew up on at, like, Christmas time, but not on a daily basis. So it was good, but good to have a salad when we got back. We also went to Auschwitz and Birkenau. So we were actually at Auschwitz on the day of the anniversary of the death of Saint Maximilian Kolbe, which was August 14th. And there were memorials set up in his remembrance, and they held this huge event in his honor. So during World War II, Saint Maximilian worked for a friary, where he and all of the other friars provided shelter to refugees from greater Poland, and they hid about 2,000 Jewish people from the Germans. And he also, during that time, wrote several anti-Nazi works that were written about him. They were published by the friary. And so the friary was shut down, and Kolbe was arrested, and eventually he was sent to Auschwitz. And there he lived out God's love while he was imprisoned. So he took care of the people around him. Often it was at his own risk because Nazis weren't a fan of taking care of the people they were trying to harm. So it made him subject to more beatings by the guards. And he could have ignored the pain of others. And he spared himself some of this extra attention.

[6:21] But he had an obligation as a child of God to care for others. His story really stuck out to me. And it actually is going to feed into our sermon for today. One day, there was a prisoner that escaped from Auschwitz. And this was a really rare event. Very, very few people escaped. And even fewer remained free.

[6:48] So this angered the guards. And to set an example to the other prisoners, the guards chose 10 men at random to be starved to death in starvation cells. And one of the men that was chosen begged for his life for the sake of his wife and children.

[7:08] And St. Maximilian heard him begging for his life. And he offered to take his place in the prison. And he took his place in the starvation cell. And the guards allowed it to happen. So for two weeks, he and those in the cell with him were denied any food or water. And they were already very, very malnourished being in Auschwitz. So two weeks, very, very few people, if any, were expected to survive from that group. But every day, St. Maximilian led those that he was in the cell with. He led them in prayer. And at the end of two weeks, he was miraculously still alive along with three others. And so this infuriated the guards. And he was killed by lethal injection instead. And so his last act of rebellion was to raise his arm and just calmly wait for the lethal injection. And he refused to show the guards fear.

[8:11] So St. Maximilian, along with many others, was killed. But what really matters is that all of those others stood against the Nazis as this ultimate act of devotion to Christ. And if you're not familiar with St. Maximilian, then surely you know Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who continued to write letters of faith from his prison cell while also defying the Nazis and many, many others. And so these are the stories that I was digesting as I meditated on our sermon scripture for for this morning because it's very easy in the United States to follow the scripture that we're going to read. To submit to the government here is not very hard.

[8:54] It's not very hard to pay taxes and show respect to our government. We might not like it all the time. We might not always like our politicians and leaders, but we're also not forced here to follow laws that contradict our faith.

[9:11] But we do know there are plenty of governments who have abused their people and acted unjustly against the rule of God. So these are the things that I was juggling as I prepared through this sermon. But before we go any further, let's go ahead and look at our passage for today, which is Romans 13, 1 through 7.

[9:39] Let everyone know that God is the Lord of all things. Righteousness is the Righteousness of the Righteous. for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended.

[10:21] For the one in authority is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God's servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment, but also as a matter of conscience.

[10:47] This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God's servants who give their full time to governing. Give to everyone what you owe them. If you owe taxes, pay taxes. If revenue, then revenue. If respect, then respect. If honor, then honor. Let's pray.

[11:11] Our good and gracious God, we thank you for your word, and we ask your blessing upon it this morning. Help us to hear the words that you would have us hear. Open our hearts and minds, and give us willing spirits. These things we pray in Jesus' name, amen.

[11:33] So throughout history, the Bible has been abused. In ways that take scriptures like this one, and use them to oppress others. And our job is to remain faithful to the Bible, while also remaining faithful to the character of God. And we're going to do our best to do that today.

[11:54] I read a phrase from an author online while I was looking through this passage, and I've adopted it for today, and that's subversive submission. So we're going to explain to you how to do that, and I'll explain that as we go, but for now, just keep that in mind as we mull over this passage.

[12:13] We read earlier a scripture from Exodus about these two midwives in Egypt who did their very best to thwart Pharaoh's plans, and they were blessed by God. They were blessed by God because they directly defied the authority of Pharaoh. And that seems to stand in contrast to this passage here from Paul.

[12:44] There were other people who defied authority, governing authority. Daniel defied governing authority. Plenty of people in the Bible, the apostles defied this authority. And they were commended, and yet here Paul is saying, let everyone be subject to the governing authorities. And that's what he's saying. For there's no authority except that which God has established.

[13:10] So why should we submit to the government? First and foremost, it's because God is sovereign over it. God is above the rulers of this world. So by God's power and authority, he's given these rulers power and authority. Daniel 4.17 says, The Most High is ruler over human kingdoms, he gives them to anyone he wants, and sets the lowliest of people over them. God allows people to obtain positions of governmental authority. And then God uses these people to act out his will in the world. So sometimes we don't like it. Sometimes the people he raises up are straight up corrupt. And sometimes they make questionable at best decisions.

[14:04] Daniel 2.20 says, Righteous people have the Righteous those decisions have been made by the people, we have a second job. And that is whether they're the person we voted for or not, our job is to submit, honor, and respect our leader as the people that God has placed in leadership for that season. So I guarantee that everyone here can think of a political leader that they've disagreed with, even disliked. But disagreeing and disliking is different from dishonoring and rebelling. So the passage says, whoever rebels against the authority is a rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. God uses the laws of this world to enact judgment, disrespecting authority and rebelling against God. Rebelling against it can lead to legal consequences. So our judgment will come at the hands of humans through the judicial system, but in God's time our judgment will also be eternal at God's own hand. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from the fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended, for the one in authority is God's own.

[16:04] Righteousness is the Righteousness of Righteousness. Righteousness is the Righteousness of Righteousness. Righteousness is Righteousness. Righteousness is Righteousness. Righteousness is Righteousness Righteousness time his purposes have to been to bring healthy order out of the chaos because of our human chaos and sinful nature we need to have boundaries so that we can learn to love one another properly without boundaries every human just does what they want we saw it in the in the Bible in the time of the in the time of the judges every person just did what they wanted they did what was right in their own eyes and it was chaos it was unhealthy the people needed guidance in leadership it would be like Lord of the Flies or any book that has ever been written about this government list lawless society human nature is to put your own self above other people at all costs so that your own self can be taken care of and sometimes to take care of your own self you hurt others we need boundaries and consequences to deter us from harming others in an effort to put ourselves first so the purpose of government is to support order now as Christians were called to love each other as ourselves and to put other people first and governments put structures in place so that even if we

[17:52] don't love each other as ourselves at a minimum we are giving others the same chances chance to thrive that we give ourselves. So not only should we obey the law, but in many cases, we should go above and beyond the law to truly show God's love to others and our love and devotion to God. And the laws of this world should be the very barest base standards of our obedience.

[18:20] We should obey simply because God calls us to obey. We can get hurt at the hands of humans, but we know that God will never do anything to harm us. So if God calls us to obey, then we can trust in that. We can know that we are seen and heard and loved and provided for at his hands. And so therefore, we can obey the laws of this world, not just because there will be consequences if we don't, but we can obey simply because we trust in God to have our best interest in his heart.

[18:59] And I feel like all of these things make sense to most of us, but there's a huge problem with this passage, because what do we do when a government is truly evil and oppressive? Like we saw with the story of St. Maximilian or with the story of the midwives, these governmental systems were not unknown to Paul, though. Paul did not live in a democracy like we do today. He lived in a democracy that was not known to Paul. He lived in a democracy that was not known to Paul. He lived in a democracy that was not known to Paul. He lived in a democracy like we do today, where we have laws in place to protect our leaders from getting truly out of hand. And the Bible has plenty of examples of these governments. So like our first reading today talked about the two midwives who went against Pharaoh and the Sanhedrin forbade Peter and John to preach about Jesus, but they responded, judge for yourselves whether it is right in God's sight to obey you. Rather than God. That suggests that the Sanhedrin was against God because it says rather than. It didn't say you and God. It said you rather than God. In Revelation, we see that resisting the beast, which is representative of certain governments, was a sign of faithfulness to God.

[20:22] So at the time that Paul wrote these words, there were some very radical ideas about what it meant to be a god. And so, as we look at the book of Revelation, we see that the book of Revelation is a very radical idea about what it meant to be a Christian. There were certain groups that thought that commitment to the Lord required an absolute rejection of anything at all that could be considered worldly. They rejected government. They rejected any human institutions like marriage.

[20:47] They did so in outright rebellious ways. They were causing chaos. As Christians, people were looking at them and saying, those Christians are not going to be able to do what they want to do. Those Christians are bad news. Those Christians are rebellious. Those Christians are out of hand.

[21:05] Furthermore, around the time of the middle of the first century, there was a great amount of discontentment and distrust toward the government. Not just by Christians, but by everyone. There was a resistance to paying taxes that led the way to a tax revolt in the year 58. And so with these things happening in Britain, we see that the government is not going to be able to do what it wanted to do. And so the Roman Christians, in their broader society, the Roman Christians had their doubts about whether they needed to obey the government or pay taxes at all. And so they weren't supposed to conform to the world. They couldn't trust the government, and nobody particularly likes taxes to begin with. The apostles had this big job in correcting the people's behavior. They had to not only tell people that these institutions were okay, but that they were actually ordained to be ordained by God himself. So with the idea that the government acted on God's behalf and even doled out his justice, it made it easier to trust the government as well as obey its laws. And it's very likely that Paul chose to write this passage as an attempt to provide kind of a balance for the situation.

[22:24] Especially for these extremists who rebelled against any form of human institution. But that doesn't diminish its commands to us today. It's part of the Bible and so we know the Bible to be the inerrant rule of God. And this is a passage inside of it. So it may have been used to balance the scales, but it still exists today and it's still a living word for us today. So how do we apply it in modern contexts? And how do we understand it?

[23:00] Right now, the Righteous Right in our worldly government, we are first and foremost citizens of the kingdom of God. So our first obedience is to him. And our second obedience is to governance that he has placed us in. So if there's ever a law in the worldly government that forces us to go against God's law, we have a duty to oppose it. And God's law is the law of mercy and compassion and justice. So subversive submission requires us to live for godly compassion and godly mercy and godly justice.

[24:01] Even if a government's laws don't force us to go against God's law, if that government is outright oppressing or hurting a people, our job is to stand up against it. Like Saint Maximilian. Like the Archbishop Oscar Romero, who was killed in 1912. Like the Archbishop of the United States in 1980 for standing against the government in El Salvador. Like so many political martyrs. And even in our biblical examples, like these two midwives, that is just as much a part of the Bible as this passage by Paul. God supported their act of rebellion. God rewarded them for this. God called them to it. We are called to stand for God's law first, which favors the well-being of every person.

[24:52] Even if it means we face the consequences of worldly governments in the process, that's the subversive part. But the submission part is equally important. That means that we submit to the worldly systems of government that do follow God's law. Even if we don't particularly like it. That's part of living for God's compassion, mercy, and justice.

[25:15] So the next time you're paying taxes or serving on an unwanted jury duty, you can do it. You can take heart that you're not only obeying biblical commands, but you're actually actively participating in the dawning kingdom of God. Let's pray.

[25:36] Our good and gracious God, we ask for your mercy. We ask for your strength in helping us to obey. Helping us to live as though we're living for you in all aspects of our lives. Even in following government, that sometimes frustrates us. God, give us strength to live for you day by day. These things we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.