Romans 13

Romans chapter 13. Let’s begin with prayer. Lord, thank You for opening our hearts. You are so gracious and so faithful to do that every time. Be with us, we pray, and speak to us in Jesus’ name, amen. Romans 13 is divided into 3 sections, and I’m going to put them on the screen for you so that you can see them as an outline. Romans 13 Outline :1-7 The Believer and Governing Authorities The first is verses 1 through 7, where Paul talks about the Believer and the Governing Authorities, and how we as believers ought to respond to governing authorities. I’ll explain why that’s even a question. Romans 13 Outline :1-7 The Believer and Governing Authorities :8-10 The Believer and His Fellow Man Then, in verses 8 through 10, Paul deals with the Believer and how they ought to respond to their Fellow Man. What is our obligation to our fellow man? Romans 13 Outline :1-7 The Believer and Governing Authorities :8-10 The Believer and His Fellow Man :11-14 The Believer Living in the Last Days And then, in verses 11 through 14, it’s about The Believer Living in the Last Days, or how we ought to live in light of the fact that we are living in the last days. You do know we’re in the last days, right? Somebody might say, well, Paul believed that too, meaning the apostle. He did. All believers—all true believers— throughout the ages have believed that we are living in the last days, and that is the way God wanted it. Because when you and I believe that the coming of Christ is imminent—meaning it could occur at any time. But when you live that way, when you live believing that the Lord could return at any time, you’re living is different. Think of it this way. If you believed that your home could be broken into at any time—and some of you do. I mean, there’s a vigilance that you have if you live in an area of the world where that sort happens a lot—where people break into people’s homes and cars, and things like that on a regular basis—you are more vigilant in the way you love, you are more prepared in the way you live, if you knew, if you got word.

Remember the dumb show with the kid that get left home? Home Alone. I hate to say that it’s become a Christmas classic because that ought to be reserved for, It’s a Wonderful Life and the Peanuts Christmas Special. But, unfortunately, Home Alone has become a Christmas classic. There’s that scene where the boy overhears the thieves talking about when they’ll come and break into the house, so, he’s ready. If you knew—if you got word—that someone was going to break into your house at 11 p.m. on a particular night of the week, you’d be ready. Jesus told you He’s coming back, but He didn’t give us a specific time. He just said, I’m coming back, and you’re not going to know the day or the hour, so, be ready. (Mark 13:32-33) That’s how we’re to live, and it changes the way we live. That's what the last section of this chapter is going to deal with. Verses 1 through 7 is the first section. Let’s read it together:

Does it seem like we need to pray again? These are hard words to hear, but this was a very real issue and a very real question among the early believers in the church. How should we respond to the governing authorities? And the reason why is because you’ll remember they, like us, had placed their loyalty in the hands of a king. Do you ever think about that? You are under a King, and that King made an interesting statement about His kingdom. Do you remember what it was? “My kingdom is not… (of) this world,” right? (John 18:36) And they believed it. And I think we ought to believe it too. They were being taught things about their citizenship. Let me put up this little remark on the screen here for you. Paul wrote: Philippians 3:20 (ESV) …our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, …our citizenship is in heaven…” right? Which, of course, is where we are waiting for a Savior from, the Lord Jesus Christ. (I’m paraphrasing there.) But this is what the early believers were taught: The King that you and I follow is not a king of this world, and yet our loyalty is with Him. Our citizenship—our address, your permanent address—is in heaven, okay?

Well and basically, what does that mean? That’s a declaration that we who are in Christ have been translated out of the citizenship of this world and translated into the citizenship of another kingdom. We’re told that we are aliens and strangers here on earth in this world. And all that basically to say, we are not at home here. This is not our home. It feels sometimes like our home. We treat it, quite often, like it is our home, but we are not at home. Then, how should we address ourselves to the governing authorities of this place, which is not our home? Technically speaking, our subjection and submission are to King Jesus and His government, His kingdom, and His authority, which we know is above all, right? But how are we do that? How are we to respond? Paul makes it clear here. We are to submit to such authorities in the world and all that goes along with that submission— like taxes and revenues, right? Peter addressed the same issue when he wrote one of his epistles. Let me put this one on the screen for you. Peter wrote: 1 Peter 2:11a, 13-14 (NIV84)

Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world… (there it is again) Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every authority instituted among men: whether to the king, as the supreme authority, or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and commend those who do right. It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? I mean, it’s pretty clear teaching of the New Testament is that you and I are to be law-abiding citizens in whatever government structure we find ourselves living in. And this is hard, especially for those of us who were raised in the 60s. How many of us were raised in the 60s? Yeah. Some of you who weren’t raised in the 60s might remember from watching movies may be or documentaries, but there was this huge movement in the 60s called the anti-establishment movement. People walked around—hippies—I was actually too young to be a hippie, but I tried looking like one later in the 80s, when it was no longer cool. But we remember pictures of people, or maybe some of you even saw them walking around with signs: Down with the establishment! That was a big refrain of the hippie movement: Down with the establishment. The established order was bad. It was all political, I suppose, but it was called rebellion. It was nothing more than rebellion. They were couching it in political socio economic terms, but it was rebellion, the rebellion of the heart. But you know what? It stayed with us. Those of us who were raised in the 60s stayed with us. When the Question Authority Movement came along about a decade or two later, we were right there behind that: Yeah! Question authority, man! Because—down with the establishment! We thought old people were square.

--- Now we are the old people, right? And we are square. We figured that one out too. But it stayed with us. It’s inbred in us, and frankly, it follows every generation. And when we hear these words from the apostle Paul, echoed again by Peter—it says, obey the governing authorities—there’s something in us that just goes, Ugh! We get the heebie-jeebies about that whole thing. But one of the reasons why we are told to follow the established governing authorities is because they are the law. And essentially, the law is put in place to keep order. That’s why we call it law and order. That’s not just the name of a TV show. Law and order are two things that are, one is established, and the other is what follows. Law is established and order is supposed to be what follows. Orders supposed to come from the law. And here’s why that’s important to God: because He is a God of order. The Bible tells us in 1 Corinthians, our God is not a God of disorder, He is a God of order. And because He is a God of order, He wants you and I to be established and following the order of the law of the land. (1 Corinthians 14:33) Christians should be the most obedient, respectful people on the planet. How’s that one? That’s the way we ought to be. Now, because the flip side to order and law is disorder and lawlessness. In Thessalonians, Paul speaks of the antichrist to come as the one who will be called the lawless one. In fact, that is the spirit of the antichrist in the world, lawlessness. (2 Thessalonians 2:7-8) The question comes down: Who are you and I going to reflect in the world? Are we going to reflect the Spirit of our Father, who is the Lawgiver and the One who establishes order in the universe? Or are you and I going to reflect the lawless one, the rebellious one, who comes to cast off every law that is instituted among God and men? Now, this is the reality. This is the situation, whether we like it or not—whether we were born in the 60s, raised in the 60s, or raised in any other era. It doesn’t matter. This is what God’s Word has to say on the topic. What Paul doesn’t mention here in this passage is the issue of a Christian’s right to express civil disobedience. I bring it up only because, Chris… It’s probably important for us to mention it, but I’ve got to be careful even mentioning it, because the rebelliousness in us wants to use it as a license to be rebellious. But it’s not an excuse to be rebellious. It is a biblical right to stand for the Word of God when the governments of man attempt to establish contradictory laws. We see this right of civil disobedience in the Book of Acts. I’ll put it up on the screen for you in Acts chapter 4. The apostles are standing before the Sanhedrin and they say,

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…Peter and John…, (specifically) “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot speak of what we have seen and heard.” Now, this was a time, of course, when they were being ordered by the Sanhedrin, who were the Jewish Supreme Court, even though they were under Roman law. The Jews recognized the Sanhedrin as the final governing authority in their lives. They did not really recognize Rome, respectfully. The Sanhedrin was it. And the Sanhedrin said to the disciples, do not preach in this name anymore. (Acts 4:18) Now, that was the law. They laid it down as a law, and they had the right to come up with any law they wanted to. The disciples responded to that law respectfully and said, and of course, they were talking to supposedly religious men. They said to judge for yourselves whether it’s right to obey God or man. We’re going to have to obey God. In this case, God trumps. Listen, I don’t care what God told you, you cannot go 75 miles per hour in a 35- mile-per-hour zone, okay? That's one thing that God is not. You can't claim personal revelation against the law. Okay. What I mean by that is, if you get pulled over and the police officer says, you were going 75 in a 35, you can’t say, God told me to go that fast. That’s not what we’re talking about here. When we talk about the right of civil disobedience, it applies specifically to law that is contradictory to a law or a command that came that from God. In your case, in my case, these mostly going have to do with issues related to sharing our faith, and probably more so as these last days wind down. There are many countries in the world today where it is against the law to preach the Gospel or to win someone to Christ. It is against the law and you could get into serious trouble doing it. We know of people who are incarcerated right now for being open Christians in countries. We know that. So what are you going to do in a situation where it’s against the law, and God has said, do this? Well, you’re going to do it. But it doesn’t mean you’ll be rebellious about it. Are you going to be in something in their face about it? That was something the apostles never thumbed their nose at the authorities. They never were neener, neener. We've got a higher authority than you. You know what I mean? They weren't childish about it. They were still respectful. Listen, we have a calling. We have a calling from God to share the Gospel. So, have you thought about what you would do if the United States of America handed down a law that said, I mean—right now, it’s just socially unacceptable to share Christ in our culture. But who knows when that might come, when it goes from socially unacceptable or politically incorrect, however you want to say it, to illegal? What are you going to do? Are you going to keep sharing Jesus? Are you going to tell people how to be saved, even when it’s illegal? Have you thought about it? It’s something we probably should think about. But we do so, if whatever we do, we do with an attitude of respect; we do it with an attitude of honor. And that is the way we respond. Now, lest you think here for a moment that the apostle Paul’s words were written at a time when, well, his government obviously wasn't as bad as our government… And if Paul lived in the United States of America today, he might have something different to say about being obedient to the government. Oh yeah? Do you know your history? You might think some of your leaders today in the United States are not the most upstanding human beings, but they’ve got nothing on Nero. The emperor at the time was Nero. Even the Roman people considered him to be out of control and corrupt. The Jewish historian Josephus, who even defended Nero on some points, still called him a tyrant. He still referred to him as a tyrant. The nation of Rome, when Paul wrote this remark—he’s writing to the Christians in Rome, right there in the capital of the Roman Empire—he says to them, during the time of Nero's reign, obey the government. It was the government of a tyrant named Nero, to which Paul commanded the people to obey. And that's pretty significant, I think. What’s our obligation to the government? To be obedient. Not because we have to, but because we are told to. The authority of which we respond and we submit has communicated to us to be obedient. Be obedient to the governing authorities. Okay. Be law-abiding citizens, respectful if needed. If you owe taxes, pay your taxes. If you owe revenue, pay your revenue. If you owe respect—and by the way, we do owe respect to government officials and to those who keep the law. We owe a debt of respect, and we should pay it. We should be respectful, we should be very honoring people. The second section begins in verse 8. Paul says:

(Here’s why)

This is the second part of the chapter. The first section was about our obligation to the government, to the governing authorities. Now, what is your obligation to your fellow man? It is our obligation to love. In fact, he calls it a debt—a debt that we owe. In fact, it's the only debt, he says, we can—that can remain outstanding. In other words, we keep paying it. The debt to love, which, by the way, I'll remind you, ought to be the distinguishing mark of our Christianity. It ought to be the distinguishing mark of our following Jesus, right? Notice I said that we should be the most, earlier, I said we should be the most respectful, law-abiding people. We should also be the most loving people. We should be beating the world in the area of love. We should be one-upping the world always in the area of love. He talks about loving our neighbor, which essentially means taking care of your neighbor with the same motivation with which you take care of yourself. This is what we ought to be doing. This is the way our lives ought to be lived. How are we doing? If you had to give the body of Christ a report card, what grade would you give us in the area of loving our neighbors? Would you give us an A? Maybe a B? B-minus? How about a C? Ah, it probably depends on what you've experienced, I suppose—how people have maybe taken care of you. But I think what we need to ask ourselves here is: How am I doing? Now, how is everybody else doing? How am I doing in the area of showing love? Here's a quick side note: You'll notice, and I'm sure it jumped out at some of you, that in verse 8, you’ll notice Paul said, “Owe no one anything…” That statement, that phrase there, has led many to conclude that the Bible forbids incurring debt— ever. And so their response is, we should never be in debt. And I'll just tell you right now, staying out of debt is always a good idea, but this phrase is frankly better understood as conveying the idea of not allowing debts to go unpaid. Right? Not—I frankly think the NIV, which is not a word-for-word translation, but a thought-for-thought translation. I think the NIV hits it better because they’re not obligated to give it a word-for-word sort of a meaning. I think they actually hit the intent of this passage better, where the NIV says, “Let no debt remain outstanding.” Debt, we see in many other passages—in fact, many statements by Jesus—that speak of debt as just a regular part of life. What the Word says is: don't let it, if you've given your word. Be true to your word, right? Let your yes be yes, and your no, no. If you sign on the dotted line and say, yes, I’m going to make payments on this until it's paid off, then be true to your word. Don't let your debts remain outstanding. Anyway, so that's, again, a side point. Third section, verse 11. So we've dealt with what? Obligation to the government, obligation to our fellow man. And verse 11 says, “Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. 12 The night is far gone; (meaning basically over) the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. 13 Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. 14 But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.” Wow. Did you catch in verse 11 that Paul begins by saying, “Besides this you know the time…” He’s not talking about the time of day. He’s talking about the time of God’s redemptive program—the lateness of the hour, if you will, related to Christ’s return. And by this statement, he begs the question, because he says so forcefully, “Besides this you know the time…” The question could reasonably be asked: Do we? Do we know the time? I mean, I said a little minute ago that we're living in the last days, and I believe we’re in the last days of the last days, but do we all believe it? I mean, do we all see it? Do we know what times we're living in? Are we really aware of the lateness of the hour and what living ought to look like in light of that understanding? You guys remember when Jesus addressed the religious leaders in His day concerning this issue? Let me put this on the screen so we can read it together. It's out of Matthew, and it tells us that:

And the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and to test him they asked him to show them a sign from heaven. He answered them, “When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.’ And in the morning, ‘It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times.” Now, obviously, the signs of the times, in the context of when Jesus said this, had to do with recognizing their own Messiah and recognizing His coming, because God had given them all the prophetic information about the coming of Jesus in His first advent, or His first coming to this earth. He was basically telling them, you've missed it. You've missed all the markers that God has given you related to the coming of the Messiah. But I wonder sometimes if Jesus spoke to the church today, if we might receive a similar rebuke. You know how to predict, and you know how to look at things. You can look at the financial solvency of a company, you can predict the weather, you have your models and your satellites and your things in place to be able to see when this is going to happen, when that is going to happen, when this. You can predict the outcome, and you've got all these different polls that show how this is supposed to take place, and so on. But you don't seem to recognize or take seriously the signs of the times, the prophetic reality of living in the world that we live in today. I want you to look with me again at verse 12 in your Bible, would you? Go back to verse 12 and just look at that with me. He says in that verse, "The night is far gone; (meaning almost over, and he says here also) and the day is at hand.” That's the dawning of the time or the day of the Son of Man, the day of the Lord, right? I want you to notice here in that verse, Paul gives a conclusion based on his understanding. He says there, here's his conclusion: “ …So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light." Now, admittedly, we don't talk that way. I wouldn't say to somebody who was involved in sin, brother, you need to really cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. I wouldn't say that. I would say, you need to repent of all this garbage going on in your life and all this sin that you've opened your heart to, and you need to put on Christ, and so forth. That's what Paul is saying here: We need to reject the lifestyle of those whose natural state is to live in the darkness of this world. We need to reject it. We need to put it off. See, we know here. We are living in this world, but that isn't our home. And yet, we're living in it, but we're called not to act like it, the world, right? So Paul says, in light of the reality of the fact that Jesus is coming back—and by the way, there are more prophetic markers of Jesus' second coming than there were for even His first.

We know, beyond any shadow, that Jesus is returning to this earth, coming for His church, coming to rescue Israel, and coming to redeem the land. He will usher in that millennial kingdom and period of time. And we know this; these are not questions, these are realities. These are things we have every expectation of, and so forth. So, how are we living? How are we living? Paul says, I hope you're not living like the people of this world who live in darkness. I hope you're not adopting their lifestyle, all the things that make up their lifestyle, how they treat money, how they treat relationships. I hope you guys aren’t living together outside of marriage. That's what the world does. That's what the people who live in darkness do. You are to honor marriage. Marriage should be honored by all, it says in Hebrews 13:4. See, your lifestyle is to be different. It's to be other than what? Other than the world. We are to live that way in light of the fact that Jesus is coming back to judge the darkness of the world. So he says, don't be caught in it. Don't be found living in that darkness, embracing that darkness, and so forth. So he says, "...put on the armor of light." It means to embrace the character of Jesus, embrace His life that He wants you to live and that He wants to live through you as you walk through the darkness of this depraved world that we live in. But just know this: living like Him, letting Him live through you, is going to look very different from the lifestyle that the vast majority of people live today. And that means you're going to stand out, but not in a good way. In fact, you're going to stand out in a way that the rest of the world is going to be offended by. The world will be offended if you're going to stand out and live for Jesus, and they will accuse you of being intolerant. They will accuse you of being bigoted. They will accuse you of having a small mind. And you will come to know in a very personal way what Paul said to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:12, when he said,

…all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted… Not might, but will. So, how are we to live? The flesh is so strong. How do you begin to say no to the flesh? Did you notice the last verse of the chapter? It says, "14 …put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires." That is one of the most fascinating statements that the Bible gives about how to resolve those things that the world likes to call addictions. Because isn't that the watchword of the decade—addictions? And what is an addiction? It's a repeated behavior that has become a rut in your life, right? Something you've repeated over and over again. And now, you have very little control, if any at all, because you've given in to that behavior for so long. What is the answer? Well, there are multiple answers related to the renewing of the mind and on, but this one is one of the most key: “...make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires.” In other words, take that thing out of your hands, in terms of your ability to freely engage in it. Take it away. Do you know this is one of the toughest things in the world? People will tell you, I want to be free. I want to be free. Oh, yeah. Listen, I've walked down that road with some people in the last 30 years. People can talk a good fight, let me tell you, but when it comes down to the question, how badly do you want to be free? Well, what do you mean? How about if we take away your freedom to do this thing, whatever it is? How about if we literally take away your freedom? How many of your freedoms are you willing to give up so as not to gratify the flesh? What are the freedoms that you use to gratify your flesh in this way? Well, my ability to go anywhere I want, whenever I want. That helps me to be able to—and I'm just using examples here, okay? Are you willing to surrender your car keys, your freedom of movement? Are you willing to carry a cell phone? Well, we’ve got a lot of ways today to help you not gratify. Are you willing to carry a cell phone that has your GPS tracker on it all the time and have accountability partners who can always see where you are? Are you willing to do that? Well, now, wait a second here, pastor. What are you talking about here? I’m talking about not gratifying the flesh. I'm talking about making no provision for the flesh. That's what Paul says: "...make no provision..” None! You got a problem with alcohol? What in the world are you doing hanging out with people who are drinking? Make no provision for the flesh. What are you doing keeping it in your house? Make no provision for the flesh. None. Take it away. It's the only way you're going to be free. When you're at that place where you're in the hold of addiction, you're past the point of reason. You're not going to sit down and... and you're probably not going to find some magical Bible verse that's going to unlock the reality of walking with Jesus and never walking in that particular sin again. You are now living in a situation where you need to take drastic measures to be free from your sin. And boy, is that hard today. Are you willing to give up your money, your credit cards, the freedom you have to buy whatever you want, whenever you want? Are you willing to do that? See, these are the questions that we have to ask ourselves. I want to be free from my addiction, my sin, or whatever, but am I willing to make no provision for the flesh? Am I willing to literally take the opportunity away so I don’t have that opportunity? Now, is that going to change my heart? No. That's a very important thing to remember. Removing the opportunity to sin does not change our heart, but what it does do is it gives you an opportunity now to let the Holy Spirit come in and do that work of changing your heart. Because it takes off a protracted period of freedom—before we’re even thinking straight, and until we come to that point of being made strong. See, the reason you're walking in an area of addiction in your life is because you're weak. Your flesh is weak. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. That’s what the Bible says our flesh is strong. And when we've given into something over and over again, our flesh is just gone in the sense of we’re just given over to that particular area of sin. So, what needs to happen? There needs to be a work of strengthening taking place in the spirit. But that addiction means you're still giving into this thing over and over again, and the strengthening can't happen because you keep falling, you keep falling, you keep falling. It's like falling down and opening up a sore on your knee. It can’t heal because you keep falling down and scraping it. You have to have a protracted period of time where you don’t fall down, so the wound can heal. And then, after a while, it needs to be strengthened, and you need to learn to walk without falling down. But that happens over time, and that's the thing about addictions. It rarely is an overnight sort of situation. Not that God can't supernaturally just, ba-zoom, radically change, but usually it doesn't happen that way. And one of the reasons it doesn't happen that way is because I think God doesn't want it to happen that way. He wants you and me to understand, boy, it took you a long time to get yourself in this mess. And this is not going to be just a wham bam, wave of the wand, boom, it's over sort of scenario. It's not going to happen that way. You're going to learn to walk in righteousness, learn to walk in freedom, while you make no provision for the flesh. No provision. Don't give your flesh… What did Paul say about his flesh? I beat my body and make it my slave. Sounds like crazy language, doesn't it? He's saying the same thing. I dictate to my flesh. I don't let my flesh dictate to me.