Hope in Humbling Times – Acts 1:1-11

• November 1, 2020
• Pastor
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Acts 1:1-11

I want to invite you to take your copy of God’s Word and turn with me to Acts 1.  This morning I’m going to start a little 4-week series on Hope.  This will take us up to the beginning of Advent, where we’ll celebrate the birth of Hope.  But for the next several weeks, I just felt we would all need to be reminded of the hope we have in Christ.  So, if you have your copy of God’s Word, would you join me in Acts 1.  As you’re finding your place, listen to this story.

In 1996, an underwater sea salvager named George Tulloch maneuvered his ship directly over the wreckage of the Titanic which sank in 1912.  He went down in a submarine that had a robotic arm, in order to do what nobody had ever done before – salvage pieces and artifacts from the Titanic.  Now, as you might imagine, there was a huge controversy about this.  Nevertheless, Tulloch came back up with all sorts of things: reading glasses, dishware, jewelry, and so forth.

While he was down there, he discovered that there was a piece of the starboard side hull that had broken off and was laying away from the rest of the wreckage.  The piece weighed around 15 tons and measured 26 feet by 12 feet, and he decided that it would make for a great Titanic exhibit.  So, his team went back down and began securing this “big piece” with ropes and they raised it up (2 ½ miles) to the surface of the North Atlantic.  As they were trying to complete this salvage expedition of the “big piece” a storm arose and it broke free at the last moment and sank back down in the inky darkness of the ocean.

Well, George was determined that he was going to do something.  So, he took a sheet of metal that they had available and went back down in his submarine and located this “big piece” and attached that sheet of metal to it.  And on that sheet of metal were these words: “I Shall Return.”

For history buffs out there, like me, that sounds a little bit like Gen. Douglas McArthur when he was fleeing the Japanize from the Philippine Islands on March 11, 1942.  And as you know, Gen. McArthur did, indeed, return to the Philippines on October 20, 1944.

Well, true to his word, two years later (in 1998), George Tulloch returned and successfully raised that starboard side hull piece from the wreckage of the Titanic and here it is (show pictures).  I’ve been calling this part of the Titanic’s hull the “Big Piece” because that’s what it’s referred to today.  It’s on display in the Luxor Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, NV.

This is a computer-generated image (CGI) showing where the “Big Piece” would have been positioned on the Titanic.  The portholes that you can see on the “Big Piece” came from C Deck and were part of cabins C-79 and C-81.  Although these cabins were unoccupied, nearby cabin C-83 housed New York theatrical producer Henry B. Harris and his wife Irene.  Also, nearby was the cabin occupied by W.T. Stead, the most famous journalist in England at the time.  Irene Harris survived, but both her husband Henry and W.T. Stead lost their lives in the disaster.

Well, long before Gen. McArthur said it, and long before George Tulloch engraved it on the side of the Titanic, it was said of Jesus.  If you have your copy of God’s Word you’re going to see that in Acts 1.  I want to take us there this morning.  Follow along as I read:

¹ In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, ² until the day when He was taken up, after He had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom He had chosen.  ³ He presented Himself alive to them after His suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.

We have, at best, three accounts of Julius Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon with a handful of German mercenaries, and yet nobody questions that event.  Why?  Because western civilization has changed.  We have no written documentation or eyewitness accounts that Hannibal ever crossed the Alps with elephants, but we know he did.  How do we know?  Because Rome was attacked.  And yet, here we have an incredible record of Jesus’ appearing over the course of 40 days to His disciples speaking about the kingdom of God.

On that Sunday morning He appeared to Mary at the tomb.  On that same night He appears to ten of the disciples: Judas is not there, and Thomas is not there.  A week later He appears to the disciples again.  This time Thomas is there and we get that famous confession from Thomas after he touches Jesus’ wounds, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28).  He appears to his half-brother, James, who would go on to become the leader of the church in Jerusalem and the author of the Epistle of James.  He appears to two of His disciples on the road to Emmaus.

He appears in the morning and the evening.  He appears in the light and the dark.  He appears inside and outside.  He appears to 500 people at one time.  He appears to them in Jerusalem and the Sea of Galilee, and now He’s back in Jerusalem outside the city on the hill that we know as the Mount of Olives.  And that’s where we are.  That’s the background.  Let’s continue with verse 4:

⁴ And while staying with them He ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, He said, “you heard from me; ⁵ for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”  ⁶ So when they had come together, they asked Him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?”

Now they had two good reasons for asking that question.  The knew the prophecy of Zechariah 14:4, where the Prophet Zechariah, speaking of the future coming of the Messiah said this, “On that day His feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives that lies before Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives shall be split in two from east to west by a very wide valley, so that one half of the Mount shall move northward, and the other half southward.”  That’s where they’re gathered.  That’s where Jesus’ has appeared to them in Acts 1.

They also knew the prophecy of Joel 2:28-29 where Joel writes, “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions.  Even on the male and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit.”  Jesus had just told them to stay in Jerusalem because His Spirit would be given to them.

So, they had two very good reasons, two very good prophecies that were leading them to the conclusion that perhaps this was the time (the chronos) when Jesus would restore the kingdom of Israel.  And notice Jesus’ response (v. 7), “He said to them, ‘It is not for you to know times (chronos) or seasons (kairos) that the Father has fixed by His own authority.’”  You might recall that Jesus spoke about this earlier in His ministry.  In Matthew 24:36 Jesus said, “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.”  So Jesus says, “Hey guys, don’t worry about that.  Don’t worry about the day and the hour, the time of year or the season.  That’s not for you to know.”

But notice what Jesus does tell them in verse 8, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”  Jesus says I don’t want you worrying about the time.  I don’t want you worrying about the date.  I don’t want you worrying about when I’ll come back.  What I do want you to concern yourself with is this: you be the witness in the world at this time!  Did you hear that church?  I want you to be sure that you got that.

Jesus did not say that He wanted us to be concerned about the political situation.  He didn’t say that He wanted us to be concerned about the bottom line and economics.  He didn’t say that He wanted us to be concerned about religious liberty.  Not that any of those things is bad.  Indeed, the Bible has an awful lot to say about those things, as I believe we saw in our study in Romans.  No, what Jesus said was I’ll take care of the return, you take care of the witnessing.

⁹ And when He had said these things, as they were looking on, He was lifted up, and a cloud took Him out of their sight. ¹⁰ And while they were gazing into heaven as He went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, ¹¹ and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven?  This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw Him go into heaven.”

In the few remaining minutes that we have, before we take the Lord’s Supper, I want to give you 4 reasons for hope in these humbling times.  Three of them are implicit – that is, they’re not expressly stated in the text but rather are clearly implied.  The fourth is explicit and is mentioned in verse 11.  The first is the completion of Christ.

Completion of Christ

Remember, this event that we’re reading about in Acts 1 is taking place after Jesus’ resurrection and Jesus has been with His disciples for 40 days.  It’s as if this is His encore.  When you go to the opera or a performance of a symphony or an orchestra, at the end of the regular performance people used to holler out “Encore!”  Today, when you go to any concert or musical or special performance and the show is over, if the audience continues their applause after the group or conductor leaves the stage, then usually they come back to play another round.  That’s kind of the sense that we get.  Jesus was resurrected and now He’s been called back for a 40-day encore.  But eventually the show must end, and verse 9 says that “as they were looking on, He was lifted up, and a cloud took [Jesus] out of their sight.”

It’s as if God, Himself, is writing it in the clouds: It Is Finished!  It’s done.  It’s completed.  Those things that were intended for salvation have been accomplished.  Now let me tell you; I’m not aware of anybody else in history (and believe me I’ve read a lot of history) who with their last dying breathe sat up on their deathbed and said, “I finished it all.”  No, what you generally read is, “I can’t die now.  I have too much to do.  I can’t go now.  There are still things left for me to accomplish.”  And yet, Jesus, while He was on the cross exclaimed “tetelestai!”  It is finished!

What was accomplished on the cross of Calvary was the greatest work in human history.  It restored and redeemed mankind back to the Father, and Jesus could say “It is finished.”  Now do you realize what that means for you and me?  There’s not a single thing that you or I need to do in order to help complete the work of salvation.  Indeed, we can’t do anything – for to do something robs God of the glory and the honor and the praise that’s due to His most holy name.  There’s nothing the Roman Church can do.  There’s nothing the Baptist Church can do.  There’s nothing the Methodist Church or the Presbyterian Church or the Pentecostal Church or the Lutheran Church or the Episcopal Church or the Community Church can do.  Jesus did it all!  And His ascension is the implication that the work of salvation is done.

Listen, if you’ve repented of your sin and accepted the grace of Jesus Christ through His life, death and resurrection, then let me tell you something; there’s nothing that can happen on Tuesday that will ever snatch you out of the Father’s hand.  You’re eternally secure.  Your ultimate hope in life isn’t pinned to a ballot box or the White House.  It’s been pinned to Calvary’s cross and you have a mansion in heaven that’s being prepared just for you.

The second hope in these humbling times is the exaltation of Christ.

Exaltation of Christ

The ascension of Jesus into heaven – described here in Acts 1 – highlights His exaltation.  The Apostle Paul described this very event in his Epistle to the Ephesians when he said, “I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God’s power for us who believe Him.  (Listen, here it is.)  This is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead and seated Him in the place of honor at God’s right hand in the heavenly realms.  Now He is far above any ruler or authority or power or leader or anything else – not only in this world but also in the world to come.  God has put all things under the authority of Christ and has made Him head over all things for the benefit of the church.  And the church is His body; it is made full and complete by Christ, who fills all things everywhere with Himself” (Ephesians 1:19-23).

Folks, listen to me.  Christ rules over everything.  He rules over this universe, over this world, over governments, over nations…  You say, “Now wait a minute, pastor.  We’ve got a world that’s in confusion and chaos because of a microscopic little virus.  Wait a minute, preacher, do you know what China is doing in the South China Sea?  Pastor, do you know that they’ve declared they’ll be number one militarily and economically by the year 2050?  And you wanna tell me…  Have you seen the stock market lately?  Do you see how the Republicans and Democrats treat one another?”

Christ’s ascension is proof positive of His exaltation and He’s in control: not Xi Jinping, not Trump, not Biden, not Putin, not Boris Johnson, not Kim Jung-un.  Jesus has been exalted and He’s in control.  He’s got a plan.  It may not be our plan, but make no mistake about it – He’s in control.

The third hope in these humble times that we see in Acts 1 is the impartation of the Holy Spirit.

Impartation of Christ

We’ve seen the completion of Christ, the exaltation of Christ, and now the impartation of Christ.  What did Jesus tell them in Acts 1?  They were to remain in Jerusalem until they received the power of the Holy Spirit.  Do you remember back in John 7 “On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, ‘If anyone thirsts, let Him come to me and drink.  Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, “Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”’  (Then John adds this little commentary for us.)  Now this He said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified” (John 7:37-40).

Well, Acts 1 is the fulfillment of John 7.  Jesus has been received into heaven.  He’s ascended back to the Father and Jesus sends forth His Spirit on the Day of Pentecost and the disciples begin proclaiming the Good News of Jesus and thousands of people repent of their sin and accept the Lord Jesus as their Savior.

Now here’s the interesting thing about Acts 1-7.  Those seven chapters cover approximately eight (8) years, and all eight years are spent in Jerusalem.  You’d have thought they would’ve taken the world by storm in those eight years and gotten on with Jesus’ instructions to go to Judea, Samaria and the rest of the world.  After all, they now have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit but they didn’t.  It’s not until Acts 8 when they move on from Jerusalem to Judea and Samaria.  Do you know why?  The Jews kill a deacon of the church.  Somehow, when you kill a deacon of the church, the church decides it’s time to move.

“Pastor, I’m not sure I know what your trying to say.”  Simply this.  There are some of us in these humbling times that are afraid to get on with the mission of the church.  We’re hunkered down.  We’re glued to our televisions and our computers and our social media feeds.  It’s like we’re waiting for someone to tell us it’s okay to get back in the pool after eating lunch.  We need to remember that we have the Holy Spirit of the living God at our disposal and there’s a charge to the church that hasn’t yet been fulfilled.  We need to take the gospel of Jesus to our Jerusalem, and our Judea, and our Samaria, and also to the ends of the earth.  We need to be on mission.

Fourth, and finally, in these humbling times there’s hope because of the consummation of Christ.

Consummation of Christ

This is the only reason for hope that’s explicitly stated in the text.  The previous three were implied from the fact that Jesus has ascended into heaven, but this one is right here in black and white.  Look at verses 10-11 again, “And while they were gazing into heaven as He went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven?  This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw Him go into heaven.’”

There it is right there.  Did you hear it?  This same Jesus…  This very one…  Not an imposter.  Not an ambassador.  This Jesus that you know and love with all of your heart, mind and soul, will come again in the same way as you saw Him go.  And if you read ahead, in Revelation 19, then you see Jesus coming on the back of a war horse with every single believer with Him to consummate His kingdom on earth.  Why?  Because if you know Jesus as your personal Savior, then you were made for a happy ending.  Let me tell you how it’s all going to wind up.  Let me tell you what the consummation of Christ looks like.  Let me share with you the greatest hope for these humbling days.  Are you ready?

¹ Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.  ² And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.  ³ And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man.  He will dwell with them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God.  ⁴ He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”  ⁵ And He who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” (Revelation 21:1-5).

Folks, if you’ve repented of your sin and accepted the free gift of God’s grace through Jesus Christ, then you get the happy ending.

Listen to me church.  Tuesday is going to come and go, and we’ll either have the same president or a new president.  Neither result changes the fact that Jesus has completed everything that you and I need in order to be made right with the Father.  The final vote that’s cast on Tuesday doesn’t change the fact that Jesus has been exalted and rules and reigns over every nation and government and people on the planet.  Whether your candidate wins or loses doesn’t remove the Holy Spirit of God who indwells us and empowers us for His glory.  And whether we’re looking at a Republican administration on Wednesday or a Democratic one doesn’t replace the fact that this same Jesus will come again and make all things new.

So, there you have it – four reasons to hope in humbling times: the completion of Christ, the exaltation of Christ, the impartation of Christ, and the consummation of Christ.

Missions Emphasis – Rodrigo Rodriguez Ministries

• October 26, 2020
• Pastor
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Mountain Hill Community Church hosted one of its ministry and missions partners, Rodrigo Rodriguez Ministries, this weekend.  The congregation at Mountain Hill has supported Rodrigo and his wife, Mary, and their music missionary (i.e. “musicianary”) ministry for several years.  This weekend we were able to preview a new 15-minute documentary on Rodrigo’s life and his personal testimony.  If you would like to be a part of sharing this short evangelistic video with your friends, family, or another church, please click this link https://youtu.be/ZA-_COAUIs8.  You can also learn more about Rodrigo’s classical guitar background, how he uses his talents in music to share the gospel, purchase his music and Mary’s artwork, or book Rodrigo to play at your church or evangelistic outreach by visiting his website https://www.rodrigorodriguez.net/.

Greetings, Guidance, and Glory – Romans 16:1-27

• October 18, 2020
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Romans 16:1-27

Let me invite you to take your copy of God’s Word and turn with me to Romans 16.  We’re finally at the end of this 6-month journey.  I hope you’ve enjoyed our time in Paul’s epistle to the Romans.  It started out as a 12-week study and turned into a 25-week study.  And honestly, we could’ve spent so much more time here.  There’s so much more treasure to be mined in this book than what we had time for.  In fact, today’s sermon is one of those that could have easily been broken up into at least 5-6 separate sermons.  But alas, I’m going to try and jam everything together in one final summary.  So, if you’re ready, I’d like to ask the congregation to stand one last time as I read our passage today:

¹ I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a servant of the church at Cenchreae, ² that you may welcome her in the Lord in a way worthy of the saints, and help her in whatever she may need from you, for she has been a patron of many and of myself as well.

 ³ Greet Prisca and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus, ⁴ who risked their necks for my life, to whom not only I give thanks but all the churches of the Gentiles give thanks as well.  ⁵ Greet also the church in their house.  Greet my beloved Epaenetus, who was the first convert to Christ in Asia.  ⁶ Greet Mary, who has worked hard for you.  ⁷ Greet Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners.  They are well known to the apostles, and they were in Christ before me.  ⁸ Greet Ampliatus, my beloved in the Lord.  ⁹ Greet Urbanus, our fellow worker in Christ, and my beloved Stachys.  ¹⁰ Greet Apelles, who is approved in Christ.  Greet those who belong to the family of Aristobulus.  ¹¹ Greet my kinsman Herodion.  Greet those in the Lord who belong to the family of Narcissus.  ¹² Greet those workers in the Lord, Tryphaena and Tryphosa.  Greet the beloved Persis, who has worked hard in the Lord.  ¹³ Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord; also his mother, who has been a mother to me as well.  ¹⁴ Greet Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermes, Patrobas, Hermas, and the brothers who are with them.  ¹⁵ Greet Philologus, Julia, Nereus and his sister, and Olympas, and all the saints who are with them.  ¹⁶ Greet one another with a holy kiss.  All the churches of Christ greet you.

 ¹⁷ I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them.  ¹⁸ For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive.  ¹⁹ For your obedience is known to all, so that I rejoice over you, but I want you to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil.  ²⁰ The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.  The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

 ²¹ Timothy, my fellow worker, greets you; so do Lucius and Jason and Sosipater, my kinsmen.

 ²² I Tertius, who wrote this letter, greet you in the Lord.

 ²³ Gaius, who is host to me and to the whole church, greets you.  Erastus, the city treasurer, and our brother Quartus, greet you.

 ²⁵ Now to Him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages ²⁶ but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith – ²⁷ to the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ!  Amen.

Father, I pray for all of your saints here today – that you’d bless them, that you’d fill them with your Holy Spirit, that you would use this message to strengthen and encourage and guide.  I pray that you would make servants out of us.  We want to serve you.  We want to serve our children and our parents.  We want to serve our friends and our neighbors, as well as strangers and people we’ve never met.  So God, grant, I pray that you would come and help me now to minister this Word and apply it for the glory of Christ in the hearts of your people, and draw people out of darkness.  I pray that some dead hearts would beat again.  In Jesus’ name, amen.

In this last sermon there are only three words that you need to remember: Greetings, Guidance, and Glory.  Those are my three points and those are three ways that this final chapter breaks down.  Verses 1-16; 21-23 contain the greetings.  Verses 17-20 contain the final guidance.  And verses 25-27 make up the final doxology.  Just a quick reminder, the word doxology is an English word that we’ve carried over directly from the Greek.  It’s made up of two Greek words: doxa (meaning “glory”) and logia/logos (meaning “reason/words”).  So, in essence, when you see or hear the word doxology what’s being expressed is glory-words, or better yet expressions of glory.  That’s what a doxology is.

Greetings

So, let’s start with the greetings.  And I know that some of you are thinking, “What in the world is there to see and learn from a whole bunch of names that I can hardly pronounce?”  Well, quite a lot, really.  I’m going to give you six very quick observations about this laundry list of names.  So, if you’re taking notes get ready.

1. Notice the names.

There are 27 named people in these closing verses.  More people are greeted, but 27 are named.  Surely, we should learn from this that names matter.  I wish I could call you all by name.  Jesus does.  John 10:3 says, “The sheep hear His voice, and He calls His own sheep by name and leads them out.”  Strive to know each other’s names.  Names represent people, and knowing people’s names indicates relationship.  Paul is working here at building relationships with brothers and sister in Christ.  Let’s be like him in this way.

2. Notice the different the relationships and partnerships.

It’s remarkable to see the different words that Paul uses to describe these people, and their relationship to him and to each other: sister, brother, servant, saints, patron, fellow workers, church, firstfruits, kinsmen, fellow prisoners, beloved, approved in Christ, elect, mother to me.  The more you and I connect with people the more enriching are the ways that they bring blessing into our lives, and us to them.

3. Notice how Christ-saturated these relationships are.

Verse 2: “Welcome her in the Lord.”  Verse 3: “My fellow workers in Christ Jesus.”  Verse 5: The “first convert to Christ.”  Verse 7: “They were in Christ before me.”  Verse 8: “My beloved in the Lord.”  Verse 9: “My fellow worker in Christ.”  Verse 10: “Apelles, who is approved in Christ.”  Verse 11: “Greet those in the Lord.”  Verse 12: “Greet those workers in the Lord.”  Verse 13: “Persis, who has worked hard in the Lord.”  Verse 14: “Rufus, chosen in the Lord.”

This isn’t a simple list of greetings.  This is the way a person who is drenched in Christ talks about his friends.  When you write your family or friends, or when you talk on the phone, or send an email, is Christ in that dialogue?  Paul can’t go two or three words without mentioning Jesus.  Jesus said, “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matthew 12:34).  If Christ isn’t in our speech, and in our emails, and in our telephone conversations, then maybe we have a heart issue that needs to be addressed.  Let’s be a church drenched with Jesus like Paul in Romans 16.

4. Notice where the church is located in Rome.

Verse 5, referring to Prisca and Aquila: “Greet also the church in their house.”  So, there’s a church that he gives a generic greeting to through Prisca and Aquila.  Then there are all these other names.  Look at verse 14: “Greet Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermes, Patrobas, Hermas, and the brothers who are with them.”  That probably means: the church that meets with these brothers.  Similarly, in verse 15: “Greet Philologus, Julia, Nereus and his sister, and Olympas, and all the saints who are with them.”  And there are probably other groupings.  So, we learn that the church in Rome was really churches in Rome.  May the Lord multiply Bible-believing, Christ-drenched churches in our communities.

5. Notice the most common command – to greet.

Thirteen times in sixteen verses Paul tells them: Greet so and so.  And greet so and so.  Who’s he talking to?  The introduction in Romans 1:7 says, “To all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints.”  If I am talking to Larry Stokes, I don’t say, “Greet Larry Stokes.”  So, it seems that Paul expects this letter to be read and taught and passed around by the leaders of the church in Rome.

6. Notice the love that permeates this chapter.

Four times Paul uses the word loved or beloved.  “My beloved Epaenetus” (v. 5), “Ampliatus, my beloved in the Lord” (v. 8), “my beloved Stachys” (v. 9), “Greet the beloved Persis” (v. 12).  And then we read things like: “Greet Mary, who has worked hard for you” (v. 6) and Prisca and Aquila “risked their necks for my life” (v. 4).  This is the language of love.  May the Lord take last week’s message on striving together in prayer and draw us into these kinds of relationships.

Guidance 

Paul then moves from greeting to guidance.  You’re like, “Come on, Paul, can’t you leave it alone?  Can’t you just conclude your 16-chapter letter and be done?”  The fact of the matter is this – and you know this to be true if you leave with a teacher or preacher – they’re always looking for an opportunity to teach.  Now be careful; if you’re a parent (and most of you are), you do this too.  You’re always looking to offer some direction or guidance to your children, and that’s a good thing.  Paul can’t help himself, and neither can I.  There are three very quick observations that I want us to see.

1. It’s possible to go overboard on this.

In verse 17 Paul says, “watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught.”  I hesitate even to say it, since I don’t think this is the temptation of most churches or most Christians today.  But it’s possible, and there are churches and people that do go overboard.  What I mean is that they become so obsessed with spotting doctrinal error that they lose their ability to rejoice in doctrinal truth.  They’re like dogs that are trained so completely to sniff out drugs at the airport, that even when they’re off duty they greet everybody that way.  It doesn’t make for a very welcoming atmosphere.

So, let’s ask the Lord to help us get the balance right here.  We must do this.  We have to be on guard against false doctrine and false teaching.  But this is not the main thing we do.  Vigilance over error is necessary, but joy in the truth is dominant.

2. There is such a thing as a body of doctrine.

Don’t miss the obvious.  There is a body of doctrine that someone can go against.  There is a doctrinal standard.  There is something you can depart from.  Paul refers to it in several ways.  In Romans 6:17, he calls it the “standard of teaching to which you were committed.”  In 2 Timothy 1:13-14, he calls it “the pattern of sound words . . . and good deposit entrusted to you.”  In Acts 20:27, he calls it the “whole counsel of God.”

The caution here, of course, is that we must not put every minor opinion in this category so that there’s no room for any disagreement.  Remember Romans 14 – eating certain foods and celebrating certain holy days?  What I believe Paul is referring to here is a faithful summary of biblical essentials.  It would include things like the nature and condition of man, the nature and work of Christ, the nature and work of the Holy Spirit, and the nature and work of God the Father (to name a few).  Of course, one of the greatest challenges is deciding what belongs in this body of doctrine.  And when you pastor a Community Church you sometimes find yourself saying, “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.  And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling…” (1 Corinthians 2:2-3).

3. False teachers are deceptive.

Verse 18 says, “By smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive.”  “Smooth talk” doesn’t necessarily mean slippery.  It just means pleasant and plausible.  And the word for “flattery” is simply blessing.  So, the reason we must be so vigilant over biblical doctrine is because false teachers don’t gain a following by being rough and harsh.  They gain a following by being nice.

It’s rarely popular to resist false teachers in the church, because they’re almost always perceived as bringing a blessing and speaking with winsome words.  They’re gentlemen.  They’re ladies.  And Paul says the innocent are carried away.  Hence, he says, “Watch out for them.  And avoid them.”

Glory

That brings us to the last observation in this magnificent epistle – the glory of God.  Paul’s final word in Romans (just before “through Jesus Christ!  Amen.”) is his acclamation of the greatest fact of all: God’s glory!  In order to drive this final observation home, I want to quickly review the many times and ways that Paul highlights the glory of God in this letter.

And although the word “glory” is not there, I think we need to start with Romans 1:5 because the substance of glory is there.  Paul says, “We have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of His name among all the nations.”  That little phrase “for the sake of His name among all the nations” is Paul’s way of saying that the name of Christ must be glorified above all other names, and all other persons, and all other ideas, and all other possessions, and all other possible dreams.  Paul’s mission is to glorify God through the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And in order to offer the Good News of Jesus, the nations need to recognize their need for a Savior.  So, Paul begins in Romans 1:21 by addressing the condition of our hearts and says, “For although [the nations] knew God, they did not honor (the word is “glorify,” doxasan) Him as God or give thanks to Him.”  How did they not glorify him?  Verse 23 gives the answer; they “exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images.”  And of course, the image most common then (and today) is not one that we carve in wood or stone, but the one we see in the mirror.

Then Paul turns to the Jews and shows them they’re in a similar condition.  In Romans 2:24 he says, “For, as it is written, ‘The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.’”  In other words, you don’t glorify God’s name either.

Paul sums up the condition of all humans in Romans 3:23 with this definition of sin: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”  We are created to treasure the glory of God above all things, and none of us does that.  This means we have committed an outrageous crime against God – far more serious than murder or rape or theft or lying.  Therefore, we stand under the wrath of God and need a Savior.

The salvation that Jesus brings, delivering us from sin and death and judgment is received by faith.  Paul illustrates this faith with the case of Abraham in Romans 4:20 and shows how it relates to the glory of God: “No distrust made [Abraham] waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God.”  In other words, one reason that faith is the way that God saves us is that faith gives glory to God.  The fact that we even have faith and are able to exercise it brings glory to God.

Then in chapters 5 and 8, Paul shows that our salvation through Christ secures for us the hope of the glory of God.  This is the ultimate gift of the gospel. Consider Romans 5:1–2: “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Through Him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.”

And in Romans 8:18, Paul says this hope makes all the sufferings we have to experience in this life worth it: “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”  The glory of God will be so overwhelmingly satisfying that the horrors of a long illness and a painful death will be as nothing in comparison.

Then in Romans 8:21, 30, he speaks of our sharing in that glory so that we, too, become glorious, God-reflecting persons.  Verse 21: “The creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.”  First, we are made glorious at the resurrection, then the whole creation is made a suitable habitation for the glorious children of God.

Then verse 30 says that our being glorified is so certain that Paul can speak of it as virtually completed: “And those whom He predestined He also called, and those whom He called He also justified, and those whom He justified He also glorified.”  So, the glory of God is our supreme hope, both in the sense of seeing and being, beholding and becoming.

Then in chapter nine, Paul begins to tackle the question of God’s faithfulness to His covenant with Israel, and the related question arises in verse 14 about God’s righteousness in view of His sovereignty over so much lostness and so much evil.  In verses 22–23, Paul gives his ultimate and final answer to the question, and he does it with a view to the glory of God.  He says, “What if God, desiring to show His wrath and to make known His power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of His glory for vessels of mercy, which He has prepared beforehand for glory.”

The highest and deepest and most ultimate answer to why the world is the way it is is that in His infinite wisdom, the sovereign God chose to allow this world to reveal the fullness of His glory – including the glory of His wrath and power and mercy.

Then, as Paul finishes his description of the inscrutable ways of God in dealing with Israel and the nations in Romans 9–11, he concludes with this doxology: “For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things.  To Him be glory forever.  Amen” (Romans 11:36).  God is the ultimate origin, the ultimate sustaining power, and the ultimate goal of all things.  Therefore, to Him belongs the glory.  And may all praises rise to Him!

Then, in Romans 15, as Paul is finishing his handling of how weak and strong Christians should relate to each other in the church, he tells them the purpose of the church and how Christ set the pattern for how to build the church.  The purpose of the church is in verses 5–6,
“May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Displaying the glory of God is the aim of the church.  That’s why Christ bought you and me.  That’s why He builds the church.  Not just isolated, individual worship, but united voices, whether speaking of or singing to the glory of God.

Then in verse 7, Paul gives Christ as our pattern.  He says, “Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.”  Jesus does everything He does – including welcoming you and me into His family – “for the glory of God.”  You are saved by Christ for the glory of God.  You are welcomed into His family for the glory of God.  This is humbling, because we’re never the final reason for anything – God is.  God gets the glory, and we get the joy.

And then in verses 8–9, Paul underscores Christ’s pattern of building the church by showing that this is the very reason He came for the nations, “For I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God’s truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy.”

Which brings us finally back to where we started in the closing doxology of Romans 16:27, “To the only wise God, glory!  Forevermore, through Jesus Christ!  Amen.”  Is that the cry of your heart?  Do you love the glory of God?  Psalm 19:1 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God.”  And Isaiah 6:3 says, “The whole earth is full of His glory!”  God is calling out to you: behold My glory!  God is calling out for our attention and admiration every day.  So, as we close, would you join me in reciting the Gloria Patri: “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.  As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end, amen, amen.”

Striving Together in Prayer – Romans 15:30-33

• October 11, 2020
• Pastor
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Romans 15:30-33

Let me invite you to take your copy of God’s Word and turn with me to Romans 15:30-33.  George Mueller was a great missionary.  And the thing that’s probably most known about him is prayer.  He lived a very sinful life until he was 20 years old, when he came to know Jesus, and then he went to school to become a missionary.  After completing seminary, Mueller went before the London Missionary Society to see about becoming one of their missionaries, but he was turned down because he led such a sinful life prior to being born again.

 

So, Mueller said, “Lord, what do I do?”  And George felt the Lord wanted him to pray.  So, he prayed for an entire year.  After the year ended, he prayed again and said, “Lord, what now?”  And he felt as though God wanted him to go to Teignmouth, England.  So, he took his savings and went to Teignmouth and went to the only church in the city – Ebenezer Chapel – and said, “I’d like to speak with the pastor.”  They said, “Our pastor resigned last Sunday.”  George Mueller said, “Well, I went to seminary to be a missionary and God called me to come to this city.”  They said, “You’re hired.”

 

He becomes the pastor.  Then they start orphanages.  The entire time they’re covering everything with prayer.  Interestingly, one of the things he stopped was the practice of buying seats in the church.  That’s how the church was raising money.  You paid a rent on your seat.  He got rid of that and put the offering plates in the back of the church, because he didn’t want people giving out of compulsion but out of their own free will.  By the late 1800’s, the amount of money given to missions by this little church in Devon County, England was $7.5M.  They started more orphanages than any missionary organization before or since.  And all of that came out of prayer.

 

When George Mueller got saved he had five friends that didn’t know Jesus.  He prayed for them every day.  Three of them got saved in the first decade of his ministry.  The fourth friend got saved 25 years later.  Mueller got saved at the age of 20 and began praying for these five friends.  The last friend got saved when Mueller died at the age of 92, because he heard his friend praying for him.  That means George Mueller strived in his prayers for this last friend for 72 years.  And that’s what I want us to consider this morning – striving together in prayer.

 

Romans 15 concludes with Paul describing his missionary work among the Gentiles (vss. 14-21), and his plan to visit Rome after a detour to Jerusalem to take and offering to the Jews.  And we pick up with verse 30:

 

³⁰ I appeal to you, brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to strive together with me in your prayers to God on my behalf, ³¹ that I may be delivered from the unbelievers in Judea, and that my service for Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints, ³² so that by God’s will I may come to you with joy and be refreshed in your company.  ³³ May the God of peace be with you all.  Amen.

 

Now, the fact that Paul asked the believers in Rome to pray for him was not unusual.  He asked the church in Corinth to pray for him, “You also must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many” (2 Corinthians 1:11).  He called upon the Ephesian and Colossian believers to pray for him, “To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel…” (Ephesians 6:18-19, Colossians 4:3).  And twice, he asked the church in Thessalonica to pray for him and his friends.

 

So, why am I highlighting this?  Because, sometimes we think that Paul was such an extraordinary, godly saint that he wouldn’t need folks to pray for him.  Yet he didn’t see himself that way.  He saw himself always standing in the need of prayer.  You need prayer.  I need prayer.  We all need people who will pray for us whenever possible.  Some of you may be wondering, “Why do we have prayer meetings?  Why have prayer chains and prayer groups?  If God is God, and it’s His power that makes a difference in answering prayer, why does it matter how many people ask Him?”

 

One answer is that the more people that are praying for a thing, the more thanks and honor God will get when He acts.  We see this in 2 Corinthians 1:10–11, “And [God] will yet deliver us, you also joining in helping us through your prayers, that thanks may be given by many persons on our behalf for the favor bestowed upon us through the prayers of many.”

 

The assumption behind the answer of this question is that the divine purpose of prayer is to magnify the greatness of God.  Prayer exists for the glory of God.  Jesus said in John 14:13, “And whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.”  The aim of prayer is that the Father be glorified through Jesus.  So, the more people there are praying for something, and thus depending on God for mercy and power, the more people will give Him thanks and glorify Him when the answer comes.  That bring us to the first point I want us to see this morning.

 

Pray Intentionally

 

Paul would never have requested prayers similar to how some people pray today: “Lord, please bless all the missionaries.”  In verses 14-21 Paul has just finished offering a brief summary of his work.  He’s taken the gospel to the Gentiles.  The Gentiles congregations have recognized their spiritual indebtedness to their Jewish brothers and sisters in Jerusalem, who are struggling financially, and so they want to send them a financial contribution.  Then, if all goes well, Paul plans to visit this congregation in Rome (hopefully gaining their financial support) and then on to Spain.

 

If someone were to listen in on your prayers over the last week, would they hear a zeal for God’s glory among all the nations?  Would they hear concern for the more than two billion men, women, and children who are among groups still unreached by the gospel?  Would they hear compassion for imprisoned and endangered brothers and sisters in persecuted countries?

 

Would they hear prayers for God’s mercy and justice amidst crises in Latin America or conflicts in the Middle East, or on behalf of the starving in sub-Saharan Africa, the trafficked in South Asia, and refugees forced from their homes around the world?  Would they hear pleading for the health of the global church in places where it does exist and for missionaries who are planting the church where it does not exist?

 

If the answer to any (or all) of the above questions is “no,” I simply want to encourage you to incorporate praying for the world into your regular time alone with God.  And I want to encourage you in this way because God has invited you to pray in this way.  To be more accurate, He has commanded you to pray in this way.  But as with His other commands, this is an invitation from God to participate with Him in what He’s doing in the world.

 

Just think about it.  On your way to work, or on the way to a doctor’s appointment, or as you’re headed to the golf course for some fun among friends, we can pause and play a part in what God is doing in North Korea, or North Africa – among the unreached, among the persecuted, and among the suffering in places where we may never go and in the lives of people we may never meet (at least this side of heaven).  And God has not only invited you and me to ask Him for requests around the world; He’s promised to answer our requests according to His word.  That brings us to the second point, which is…

 

Pray Intensely

 

Paul asks them to “strive together” with him in prayer (v. 30).  That word “strive” has, as its root, the Greek word agonidzo.  It’s the word from which we get our word “agony.”  Paul was asking the Roman Christians to agonize with him in prayer.  True prayer is a spiritual battle ground.  It’s an intense endeavor that requires real energy, fortitude, and perseverance.  It’s not for the faint-hearted.  Remember, prayer in the power of the Holy Spirit is prayer against the will of the Devil.  Real, authentic, meaningful prayer will be resisted by the enemy.  So, Paul calls on the Romans to strive together with him in prayer.

 

One of my favorite stories about this kind of “striving together” comes from the life of Dwight Moody (D.L. Moody).  He was a fantastic 19^th century preacher from Chicago.  After one particularly exhausting period in his life, he journeyed to England for a little vacation, a little rest and relaxation, a little holiday (as they say on the other side of the pond).  He didn’t intend on preaching, but he did accept an invitation to preach one Sunday morning and one Sunday evening.

 

In the morning service he didn’t feel any anointing at all, but in the evening service about 500 people indicated a desire to accept Jesus.  Moody couldn’t figure it out.  Having met with the pastor, they determined that indeed everyone was apparently serious and desired to be born again.  So, Moody told the congregation that he’d be leaving in the morning for Ireland, but the pastor would meet with them.  That next week, Moody received a telegram from the pastor asking him to come back.  Apparently, the crowd on Monday had been even larger than the one on Sunday night.  So, Moody returned to England.

 

That’s a pretty remarkable story by itself, but here’s what happened behind the scenes.  There were two sisters who were members of that London church, one of whom was essentially a bedridden invalid.  When her healthy sister returned from the morning service and reported to her that D.L. Moody (from America) had been preaching, her ill sister said that she would’ve fasted and prayed for him during the morning service.  She told her sister to leave her along and not let anyone disturb her the rest of the day so that she could fast and pray for God’s anointing on Moody’s preaching at the evening service.

 

That’s striving together in prayer.  Without question, prayer is the hardest work that I do in ministry.  It’s harder than studying, preaching and counseling, primarily because I sense the most opposition in prayer.  But it’s also the greatest and most rewarding work as well.  There’s no doubt that there’s a direct correlation between the difficulty of prayer and its importance.

 

Besides praying intentionally and intensely, Paul asks the church in Rome to pray intelligently for him.

 

Pray Intelligently

 

There are three specific requests that Paul makes in verses 31-32.

 

First, he asks them to pray for his safety in Judea.  If you go back to the later chapters of the Book of Acts, you’ll see that a prophet named Agabus actually predicted that Paul would be bound by his enemies.  But because of the prayers of the church, he was spared.  He was saved by the working of the will of secular authorities.

 

Verse 31 of Acts 21 says, “And while they were seeking to kill him, a report came up to the commander of the Roman cohort that all Jerusalem was in confusion.  And at once he took along some soldiers and centurions, and ran down to them.”  So here we see an answer to prayer.

 

First, someone willed to run and tell the commander there was a riot.  Second, the commander willed to take it seriously and came to see.  Third, the rest of the verse says, “and when they saw the commander and the soldiers, they stopped beating Paul.”  So, their evil will was restrained and they stopped short of killing Paul and the prayers of the Roman Christians 1,300 miles away were answered.  God influenced the wills of someone to inform the commander, the will of the commander, and the will of the mob.  And Paul was spared.

 

Second, he asked them to pray that his service to Jerusalem would be accepted by the saints.  By that, what he means is pray that the Jewish believers in Jerusalem would actually receive the relief money that he was bringing them.  Again, Acts 21:17-20 gives us the answer:

 

“And when we had come to Jerusalem, the brethren received us gladly.  And now the following day Paul went in with us to James, and all the elders were present.  And after he had greeted them, he began to relate one by one the things which God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry.  And when they heard it they began glorifying God.”

 

So, we don’t read anything about the church rejecting Paul or his ministry.  God had heard the striving of His people in Rome, and He had acted.  The fruit of the Holy Spirit is love and joy and that is what Paul met in the church of Jerusalem.  God heard and answered with the love of the Spirit.

 

Third, Paul asks that they pray for his success in coming to Rome.  Paul says he wants to arrive there “by the will of God.”  Of course, Paul does arrive in Rome but it’s not under the conditions he would’ve chosen.  Nevertheless, the prayer was indeed answered.

 

Don’t neglect the amazing influence you have in the world for good through prayer.  By prayer God calls us to join Him in shaping history.  By prayer we’re able to influence the wills of presidents and kings and senators and governors and mayors (1 Timothy 2:1–2).  By prayer we’re able to influence the wills of professors and writers and entertainers and editors and pastors and elders and missionaries.  By prayer we’re able to influence the wills of our friends and our enemies.  We’re able to influence the wills of our children by prayer, and our husbands and wives and mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers and neighbors and colleagues and fellow students.

 

The amount of transforming good we can do by prayer is incalculable.  Don’t neglect this great work God has put into your hands.  Let’s use both our instruments to win people over to Christ.  Let’s work to change people’s minds with truth and people’s wills with prayer.

Let’s Just Praise the Lord – Romans 15:7-13

• October 5, 2020
• Pastor
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Romans 15:7-13

I think it’s safe to say that those of us that watched the presidential debate Tuesday night were sorely disappointed.  There’s no denying that it was the most awful interaction between two grown – supposed to be internationally influential and respectful – adults aired on national television.  It was terribly sad (literally speaking).  While most of us here know how to engage people in constructive and respectful dialogue when we disagree, there’s a large segment of our society that’s taking their ques and learning from that.  I believe that’s what I found most upsetting.  Clearly, although both men claim to be followers of Jesus Christ, neither have taken to heart the principles found in His holy Word:

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.  Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.  Live in harmony with one another.  Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly.  Never be wise in your own sight.  Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all.  If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.  Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”  To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.”  Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (Romans 12:14-21, ESV)

Anyway, while it was a horrible debate and I hope they’ll cancel the remaining two, it makes for a great sermon introduction to Romans 15.  Let me invite you to take your copy of God’s Word and turn with me to Romans 15:7-13.  Last week we considered how the church is supposed to address disputes over non-essential matters of the faith.

We’re supposed to extend liberty; meaning that there’s room for differences of opinion on things that the Bible doesn’t specifically condemn (as wrong) or commend (as right).  We need to be careful here.  There are plenty of both.  The Bible speaks rather forcefully about a lot of behaviors and attitudes that are clearly wrong, and on such matters, we need to see them that way.  So, this isn’t an opening to make the Christian life relative to whatever whim society is embracing at the moment.  At the same time, however, there are many behaviors and attitudes that the Bible is rather silent about and we need to extend liberty in non-essentials of the faith.

The example that I alluded to last week was whether Christians should mask or not mask.  I hate to break it to you, but the Bible is rather silent about masking in 2020.  Now, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t principles that we learn from the Bible that can help us make an informed decision.  I’ve read multiple articles by pastors and theologians that argue for both positions.  I’m just saying that you won’t find any explicit passage, or group of passages, that fully and finally settles the matter.  Therefore, we need to be careful that we don’t quarrel over disputable matters.

Second, even when there’s disagreement, we need to respond in love and not cause harm or hurt to our brothers and sisters in Christ who aren’t quite where we are in their understanding.  The stronger believer needs to be willing to lay aside his/her rights and freedoms in Christ for the sake of the weaker.

And finally, Paul told us to always look to Jesus as our example – exemplify the Lord.  Jesus came to serve, not to be served.  He came to give Himself as a ransom for our sin.  He took upon Himself the reproaches, and criticisms, and accusations, and sins that were mine (and yours).  So, when all else fails, remember Jesus.  Look to Jesus.  Exemplify Jesus.

And today we conclude Paul’s practical exhortations and encouragements.  He’s called us to offer ourselves as living sacrifices.  He’s called us to submit to governing authorities.  He’s called us to the urgency of evangelism – “[y]ou 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.  The night is far gone; the day is at hand.  So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light” (Romans 13:11-12).  Remember that: get up, get out, get going?  He’s called us to not pass judgment on one another over disputed things, and not cause each other to stumble.  And finally, Paul encourages us all (Jewish believer in Jesus and Gentile believer in Christ) to praise the Lord together.

Let me invite you to stand with me as I read our text this morning (beginning with verse 7):

⁷ Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.  ⁸ For I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God’s truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, ⁹ and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy.  As it is written, “Therefore I will praise You among the Gentiles, and sing to Your name.”  ¹⁰ And again it is said, “Rejoice, O Gentiles, with His people.”  ¹¹ And again, “Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles, and let all the peoples extol Him.”  ¹² And again Isaiah says, “The root of Jesse will come, even He who arises to rule the Gentiles; in Him will the Gentiles hope.”  ¹³ May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

The Goal Is the Glory and Praise of God

Paul’s goal is never merely good human relations.  That’s a means to his ultimate end.  Paul’s ultimate aim was the same one that Jesus had – to display the glory of God, to display the beauty of God, the greatness of God, the many-sided perfections of God.  All of creation, all of redemption, all of church, all of society, all of culture exist to display God.  Nothing and no one is an end in itself: only God.  Remember Romans 11:36, “For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things.  To Him be the glory forever.  Amen.”

Church worship services, church Sunday School classes, church committee meetings, church small groups, church evangelism, church missions – all of them exist for this one ultimate thing – to make much of the greatness of God.  That’s why you and I were created.  That’s why we exist – to proclaim the goodness, greatness, and glory of God.

Would you join me in prayer that God would make this the atmosphere at Mountain Hill?  We won’t have succeeded if we’re known as a friendly place.  And we won’t have succeeded if we’re known as an unfriendly place.  On the other hand, we’ll be on our way to true success if we’re known as a people obsessed with the glory of God.  If our friends speak of the glory of God.  If our children and grandchildren love the glory of God more than the glory of sports or music or fashion.  If our career people pursue the glory of God more than the glory of financial success.  If our older people rejoice in the hope of the glory of God just over the horizon.

Almost everything in American culture threatens this radically serious, God-centered passion to see and savor and show the glory, the greatness, the beauty and worth of the full range of His perfections, His eternal being and unchanging character, His independence and self-sufficiency and holiness, His infinite power and wisdom and goodness and justice and wrath and mercy and patience and grace and love.  Almost everything in American culture threatens to make our minds and our hearts and our worship shallow and casual.

I plead with you to pray with me that God stagger us with a proper sense of His greatness, and to that end that He would give us what Paul calls a “spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him” (Ephesians 1:17).  Oh, how we need to know God and to feel something of the wonder of His glory.  Oh, that we would pray the prayer of Moses in Exodus 33:18: “Show me Your glory.”

So, we know where Paul is going in this text – the same place he’s always going: the glory of God.

How Do We Glorify and Praise God?

Now how does he help us get there?  How do we become the kind of people who are of one mind in denying ourselves, sacrificing legitimate freedoms to please others, and being able with one voice (in spite of all the differences between weak and strong) to glorify God together, to praise God together?  How will we become that kind of people?

I want you to notice that his answer isn’t church programs or relational mechanics or external technique.  There are at least four things Paul says and does here to help us become the kind of people who can joyfully build up others and make God look glorious.  I’ll just mention them briefly and then close by focusing on the last one.

First, Paul draws our attention to Christ.  We saw it last week, in verses 1-6, Paul points to Jesus.  But he does it again (here) in verses 7-8, “Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.  For I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God’s truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy.”  

In other words, to become the kind of person who joyfully serves others rather than using them, consider Christ.  Look at Christ. Especially look at His sin-bearing, substitutionary work on the cross.  This is how we change: “Beholding the glory of the Lord, [we] are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18).  Look to Christ.

Second, Paul reminds us how essential the Scriptures are.  Paul quotes from the Old Testament four times in order to demonstrate that it was always God’s plan to glorify Himself by bringing together Jews and Gentiles.  The reality of a people from every nation and tribe and tongue and language worshipping and praising God and giving Him glory is rooted in the Scriptures.  Would we avail ourselves to God’s holy Word?  Would we allow the Scriptures to speak to us and inform us and change us?  If we want to glorify and praise God we must know and live the Bible.

Third, Paul reminds us that we will never survive in the path of self-denying, sacrificial love if we don’t have hope.  Hope (elpis, is the Greek) is mentioned at the end of verse 12, in the quote from Isaiah, and then Paul uses it twice in verse 13: once at the beginning (as an adjective describing who God is – He’s the God of hope), and again at the end (as a noun – that thing we possess).

If you hope in Christ today and not in money and health and friends and joy and government, that hope is the work of the Holy Spirit.  You did not create it.  By nature, our will is at enmity with God.  We’re born depraved.  And the essence of that depravity is self-exalting, self-reliant, self-determination.  Therefore, if the glory of God is going to become our highest goal and treasure, then we must be born again by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Fourth (and finally), he shows by example that we must pray for all this to happen, because it’s all God’s work in us.  Paul shifts from teaching and exhorting to praying in verse 13, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.”

Paul has reached the end of his ability to persuade.  His longings for this church are beyond the reach of man.  God must do it, or it won’t be done.  If we’re going to look to Christ, God must incline our hearts to look to Christ and open our eyes to see His glory (2 Thessalonians 3:5).  If we’re going to meditate on His Word, God must incline our hearts to His Word (Psalm 119:36).  If we’re going to endure and be encouraged, God must give us the endurance and encouragement through His Word (2 Thessalonians 2:16).  If we’re going to have hope that sustains our love, God must make it abound through the Holy Spirit (Romans 15:13).

And if we’re so dependent on God for Romans 14 and 15 to come true, then, Mountain Hill, let us give ourselves to the precious privilege of prayer.  If Paul had to pray to see his teaching change people, so must we.

Cancel Culture and the Church – Romans 14:1-15:6

• September 27, 2020
• Pastor
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Romans 14:1-15:6

Cancel culture, have you heard of it?  The news headlines are full of stories showing the effects of it:

• James Bennet resigns from New York Times after Cotton op-ed backlash
• Canceling Harvard’s Steven Pinker – maybe not, but you could be
• Boeing communications boss Niel Golightly resigns over sexist article
• Constitutional law professor faces backlash after questioning Kamala Harris VP eligibility

Cancel culture is defined by Dictionary.com as “the popular practice of withdrawing support for (canceling) public figures and companies after they have done or said something considered objectionable or offensive.”  Based on that definition, the cancel-culture that appears to be a relatively new phenomenon is actually old school revisited.  The original cancel-culture was when humanity sought to cancel Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary.

However you look at it, there’s no denying that the cancel-culture vibe is beginning to trickle down into our individual relationships.  Although I’m not on social media, every day, I hear about another post or tweet that starts out with the disclaimer, “If you disagree, just unfriend me now.”  Again, the irony is that this isn’t too different from the church that Paul was writing to in his epistle to the Romans.

Let me invite you to take your copy of God’s Word and turn with me to Romans 14.  Going way back to our first sermon in this series, you might recall that the church in Rome was originally started by Jewish converts to Christianity.  But along the way Emperor Claudius expelled the Jewish Christians, and Gentile followers of Christ moved into the church.  Eventually the Jewish believers were allowed to return and now you have a mixed Jewish/Gentile congregation, and one of Paul’s purposes for writing this epistle was to reconnect the church, to unify the body.

See, Paul knows that the church cannot be unified behind him in the spread of the gospel if they’re not one with another in daily Christian living.  It was Paul’s desire to visit this congregation soon after writing this letter, and he wanted to find a place unified in Christ and loving one another.  He was hoping that the church in Rome might unite with him in extending the gospel to Spain, and beyond, but in order for that to happen they needed to be united.

The same is true of us.  The same is true for Mountain Hill.  Unity among Christians is how the world knows that Jesus is our Lord.  Jesus said, “By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35).  May we become unified in the essentials, extend liberty in the nonessentials, and love one another in all things – that the gospel of the kingdom may go forth in power and purity to those yet to hear.

Unity Encompasses Liberty

The first thing that Paul emphasized was extending liberty over questionable matters.  Follow along as I read verses 1-12:

¹ As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions.  ² One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables.  ³ Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him.  ⁴ Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another?  It is before his own master that he stands or falls.  And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand.

 ⁵ One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike.  Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind.  ⁶ The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord.  The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God.  ⁷ For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself.  ⁸ For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord.  So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.  ⁹ For to this end Christ died and lived again, that He might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.

 ¹⁰ Why do you pass judgment on your brother?  Or you, why do you despise your brother?  For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God; ¹¹ for it is written, “As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.”

 ¹² So then each of us will give an account of himself to God.

The key to understanding Paul’s directive is the last word/phrase in verse 1.  The NIV renders it “disputable matters.”  The NKJ translates it as “doubtful things.”  And the ESV calls it “opinions.”  The original Greek word is dialogismos.  You might hear our English word dialogue, in there.  Its original meaning was reasoning that is self-based and therefore confused.  The term implies one confused mind interacting with other confused minds, each further reinforcing the original confusion.

Here’s why I say that this is the key to this entire passage.  If you just blindly read Romans 14:1-12 without understanding and discernment, then you’ll be tempted to come away from the text believing that it’s always and forever wrong to judge someone.  You’ll sound like the secular world when they quote Matthew 7:1, “Judge not, that you be not judged” thinking they have a clear understanding of that verse.

Paul is not saying we should refrain from making any and all judgment calls.  Why?  Because just a few pages ago, in Romans 12:9 he told us to “Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good.”  How, pray/tell, are we to know the difference between evil and good if we’re not ever allowed to make judgment calls and use discernment?

No, what Paul is talking about here is discerning what is right/wrong in matters that are neither commanded nor forbidden in Scripture.  They’re matters of personal preference and historic tradition, which, when imposed on others, inevitably cause confusion, strife, ill will, abused consciences, and disharmony.  In those kinds of issues, we need to extend liberty to one another.

For the Roman church it was eating food sacrificed to idols and which days were considered holy.  And that makes sense when you think about the congregation of the church in Rome: Jews/Gentiles.  Jews grew up with very strict understandings of what could and could not be eaten and even how they could be produced and prepared.  And, of course, who could forget the fourth commandment to “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy” (Exodus 20:8).  But the Gentile believers didn’t have any of that baggage.  “BBQ ribs!!  Ooo, great!!  Never mind that it’s pork and it was sacrificed to a pagan deity.”

Does this problem exist in the modern church?  You better believe it.  Just think of the areas that have been “hot buttons” in the 20^th-21^st century church:

• Consumption of alcohol,
• Ownership of luxury items,
• Forms of recreation like movies, dancing, and playing cards,
• Christian school, homeschool, and public school,
• Length of hair and what to wear,
• Styles and manner of worship (screens vs. hymnals),
• Modes of baptism (dunking, sprinkling, infant, believer) and even
• To reopen or remain closed, to mask or not to mask.

Many tales are told about the greatest preacher of the 19^th century, England’s Charles Haddon Spurgeon, also known as the Prince of Preachers.  He ruffled the feathers of not a few Christians in his day by his lifestyle choices – particularly his penchant for fine cigars (a man and minister that I would have loved to share a stogie with).  Of course, compared to today, there was relatively little public awareness of the ill effects of tobacco on the body, but smoking with shunned nonetheless by many Christians – but not Spurgeon.  On one occasion, a young man approached Spurgeon and asked what he should do about a box of cigars that had been given to him.  Spurgeon’s reply (I love this), “Give them to me and I will smoke them to the glory of God.”

On another occasion, America’s greatest preacher, Dwight Moody, visited London and in conversation with Spurgeon, asked the British preacher when he was going to give up smoking those awful cigars.  Spurgeon’s reply (poking a finger into Moody’s considerable midsection), “When you get rid of this, I shall get rid of these.”  You must know, however, that these men were dear friends.  So, what sounds a bit harsh was really fun among colleagues.  (I must admit that a long look in the mirror and I realized I was behind in the count 2-0, so I stopped looking for more illustrations.)

As long as there is unity around the person and work of Jesus Christ and the biblically-based foundations of faith in Jesus, there can be sweet fellowship in the Lord.

Unity Evidences Love

In verses 13-23, Paul raises the discussion of food and sacred days to a higher level.  He began by suggesting that eating or not eating were equally valid choices; and they are, depending on where we are in our understanding.  But there’s something even more important in the kingdom of God than being right, and that’s to act in love.  Follow along as I read:

¹³ Therefore let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother.  ¹⁴ I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean.  ¹⁵ For if your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love.  By what you eat, do not destroy the one for whom Christ died.  ¹⁶ So do not let what you regard as good be spoken of as evil.  ¹⁷ For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.  ¹⁸ Whoever thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men.  ¹⁹ So then, let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding.

 ²⁰ Do not, for the sake of food, destroy the work of God.  Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for anyone to make another stumble by what he eats.  ²¹ It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble.  ²² The faith that you have, keep between yourself and God.  Blessed is the one who has no reason to pass judgment on himself for what he approves.  ²³ But whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from faith.  For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.

Now I know what you’re thinking, because there’s a part of me that’s thinking the same thing.  Part of you is saying to the weaker believer, “Dude, grow up!  Girlfriend, get a life!  Y’all stop whining!”  But what Paul does here is to take the focus of responsibility off of what the weaker believer cannot do in good conscience and place it on what the stronger believer can do in good conscience.

I love Kenneth Boa’s illustration of this in his commentary on Romans.  He says, “The stronger believer’s conscience is like an umbrella that is large enough to cover the weaker believer’s conscience.  Therefore, the stronger believer has the responsibility to ‘cover’ the situation instead of asking the weaker believer to cover more than his or her umbrella of conscience can handle.”  And that got me to thinking…

We’ve all been invited out to eat with some friends or met up at a restaurant to celebrate a birthday and the waiter/waitress brings the bill, and sometimes there’s this fight that ensues to see who can pick up the tab for the table.  It’s like this badge of honor.  Now sometimes that’s done out of pride and arrogance.  It’s a way of showing off.  But if you’re among family or friends, sometimes you want to do that.  It’s a way of expressing your love to the group.  “I got this.  It’s my pleasure.”  That’s what Paul is trying to get us to see.  If there’s a disagreement with a non-essential of the faith, then the stronger, more mature believer should give up their position – not because it’s not right but because it’s the loving thing.

See, there are two extremes on this continuum of Christian liberty.  On one end are folks who think they have to legislate their lives and the lives of everyone around them.  That’s legalism.  But on the other end are those who never met a rule or guidance they thought applied to them.  They’re loose cannons, always creating problems on the basis of their “freedom” in Christ.  That’s license.  Neither is what liberty is all about.  The best definition of liberty is the freedom to lay down one’s rights or desires for the well-being of another.

So, unity embraces liberty.  There’s room for different opinions on non-essentials of the faith.  But unity also evidences itself in love when those non-essentials could harm or hurt a weaker believer.  The stronger should be willing to cover for the weaker.  Finally, Paul argues that unity follows the example of Jesus Christ.

Unity Exemplifies the Lord

After all, it’s the person and work of Jesus that united the Jews and Gentiles in the first place.  It’s ultimately the person and work of Jesus that unites any of us to each other.  So, by imitating the Lord Jesus we will bear with the weak and glorify God.  Follow along as I read this last section, Romans 15:1-6:

¹ We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves.  ² Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up.  ³ For Christ did not please Himself, but as it is written, “The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on Me.”  ⁴ For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.  ⁵ May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, ⁶ that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

This is one of those places where studying multiple translations is a good idea.  Many versions of Romans 15:1 say that we “ought” to bear with the failings or weaknesses of our brothers and sisters.  And that’s certainly fine, but it’s not the best – especially for today.  Dr. David Jeremiah, in his Living by Faith Bible study series writes, “Too many churches are caught up in what I call ‘the oughteries’: you ought to do this and you ought to do that.  There might have been a time when you and I would’ve been moved by ‘oughtness.’  Perhaps in the Leave It to Beaver or Father Knows Best era of the 50’s.  But that just doesn’t work today.”  We need something with a little more force, and in fact that’s what the original Greek word meant.  The Greek word is opheilomen, and it referred to a legal obligation.  Paul doesn’t just say we “ought” to bear with one another, but rather that we’re obligated to.  And he doesn’t just count on us listening to him, but he points us to Jesus.  He does what every pastor should do: point people to Christ.  That’s what makes Christianity different.  Other faiths may say they believe in God, but we point people to God who became man and went to the cross – Jesus.

Listen, follow me here.  Belief in God is good.  That’s a starting point.  But how many gods of the major world religions came to mankind in the form of a person?  None, except Christianity.  Allah didn’t come to serve his people.  Buddha was never a god to begin with.  He was just a regular guy (5^th BC) that started a religious movement that ultimately became known as Buddhism.  Which of the many gods of Hinduism came to serve?  None.  Only Jesus…

Mark 10:45 says, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”

2 Corinthians 8:9 says, “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich.”

And who can forget Philippians 2:5-8, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, Who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men.  And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.”

Paul’s point is simple.  The reality of the gospel is more than sufficient to have each of us looking out for the best interests of others and thereby maintain unity in the body of Christ.  Remember, Christian unity does not mean the elimination of diversity in the body.  As the late Ravi Zacharias always used to say, “Unity need not be uniformity.”  There is latitude for differences of opinion in the body of Christ as long as the gospel is not overthrown in the process.  God seeks unity amidst diversity, which shouldn’t be a surprise given that He’s one in essence and three in person.  So, as we live in harmony we reflect Him and the unity among diversity that characterizes His very existence, and we bring glory to God.

Our whole lives are to be about the business of glorifying our God.  We accomplish this at Mountain Hill as we love each other without badgering one another with our beliefs on nonessential matters – all the while standing firm upon the bedrock of salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

Let me conclude with this illustration from A.W. Tozer in his book The Pursuit of God.  He writes, “Has it ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other?  They’re of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard to which each one must individually bow.  So, one hundred worshipers meeting together, each one looking away from himself/herself to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be, were they to become “unity” conscious and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship.”

As we see division along party lines grow and riots tear our cities and nation apart, may our church not fall victim to the same.

Wake Up Call – Romans 13:11-14

• September 20, 2020
• Pastor
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Romans 13:11-14

Let me invite you to take your copy of God’s Word and turn with me to Romans 13.  This is the last week we’ll be in Romans 13 (I promise).  In fact, we’re finally moving into the 4^th quarter in this sermon series from the Book of Romans.  The guys will appreciate this (ladies, maybe not so much).  When college football players get to the beginning of the 4^th quarter they all raise their hands in the air signaling the number four with their fingers.  Everybody signal the 4^th quarter, this morning.  Go ahead, everybody’s doing it.

I don’t think it would be a stretch for me to say that we live in a fallen world today, right?  It seems like every year, every month, every day the boundaries get pushed a little bit further and further out.  The crimes become a little bit more shocking.  The headlines seem to be more and more depressing.  And that moral line that so many of us grew up with gets a little bit more blurred.

All around us, we have reminders that Jesus is setting the scene for His return.  All you have to do is take a look at the news headlines of 2020.  You have the COVID-19 pandemic, riots, hurricanes, tornadoes and wildfires abound, and there’s significant movement of nations coming into alignment in the Middle East.

Let me tell you something.  This might not be the message you wanted to hear this morning.  This might not be the message of hope that you were expecting to get.  But it’s only going to get worse.  It’s not going to get better.  The headlines are only getting more depressing.  Violence is only going to increase.  The moral line is just going to continue to get blurred.  The outcome, the scenario for where our world is headed isn’t up.  It’s further down.  It’s just going to get worse, which makes today’s message all the more difficult.

I read an online article this week titled Young Adults Struggle with Morality.  And it said this, “A nationwide survey by The Barna Group indicates that Americans have redefined what it means to do the right thing within their own lives.”  The article continued by saying that researchers asked adults which, if any, of eight behaviors with moral overtones they’d engaged in during the past week.  And a majority of adults had engaged in at least one of these eight behaviors during the past week.

And here’s some of the findings from their poll.  65% admitted to using profanity in public.  38% had engaged in sex outside of marriage.  37% had lied.  33% admitted to intentional exposure to pornography.  25% had gotten drunk.

The article concluded by saying, “We are witnessing the development and acceptance of a new moral code in America.  Millennials have had little exposure to traditional moral teaching and limited accountability for such behavior.  The moral code began to disintegrate when the generation before them – the Baby Busters – pushed the limits that had been challenged by their parents – the Baby Boomers.  The result is that without much fanfare or visible leadership, the US has created a moral system based on convenience, feelings, and selfishness.

The consistent deterioration of the Bible as the source of moral truth has led to a nation where people have become independent judges of right and wrong, basing their choices on feelings and circumstances.  It is not likely that America will ever return to a moral traditional code until the nation experiences significant pain from its moral choices.”

But despite all of that, you know what’s incredible?  God still loves you.  God still cares for you.  God still wants a relationship with you.  God sought you out when you were far from Him.  God wanted you when you wanted nothing to do with Him.  God desires a relationship with you in spite of all the bad things you’ve done, in spite of your natural state.  Romans 13:11-14 is God’s wake-up call.  It’s a wake-up call to the church, to humanity, and to America.

We’ve all been on vacation somewhere or stayed in a hotel and asked the front desk to give us a wake-up call, right?  It’s such a convenient feature.  You can have them call you.  And they’ll wake you up.  If you spent any time in the military, they’ll give you a free wake-up call too.  Unfortunately, that one doesn’t come with a snooze button or a roll-over-and-they’ll-call-me-again in 15 minutes feature.  Sometimes, when the wake-up call comes or Reveille is played it’s disorienting.  It’s jarring.  Because you’re still sleepy.  You’re still tired.  You’ve lost track of where you are.

Well, the same is true in the church.  There are a lot of Christians who are sleeping.  And when that wake-up call comes, when God tries to get our attention, and we start to wake up, it’s disorienting.  It’s jarring.  It’s confronting upon our senses.  But what should our response be to the fact that Jesus could come at any moment?

If we’re asleep and there’s a wake-up call that’s about to come, what should our response be?  Well, some people get so excited about the fact that Christ is going to return, they disregard all responsibilities.  And they simply wait for His return to get them out of the mess that they’re in.  They just give up.  They say, “Man, the world is so messed up.  The world is so beyond repair.  It can’t be saved.  So, I’m just going to give up.  I’m just going to hide my head in the sand.  I’m just going to sit passively by and wait for it all to go to hell (literally) so I can go to heaven.”

Other believers are secure in their eternal destiny and they’re simply biding their time.  And yet, the Scripture teaches that there are definite responsibilities that we have to attend to in light of the coming of the Lord.  There are certain dangers that we need to be careful of.  And there are certain things that we need to actively do.

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 says, “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price.”  Our breath, our lives are in God’s hands.  Our lives are not our own.  They’re on loan.  They’re temporary.  And guess what?  They’re fading quickly.  (Like I’m telling you anything you don’t already know…)

And when God gives this life to us, He gives it to us with the intent that we would invest it.  We’re called to bring heaven to earth.  We need to preach the gospel.  We need to care for widows and orphans.  We need to feed those without food.  We need to house the homeless.  We need to reach out in love to the refugee and the immigrant, to protect those who can’t protect themselves.  This isn’t the government’s job.  This is the Christians’ job – the Church’s job – to care for our neighbors, or cities, or state and our nation.

And Romans 13 gives us some instruction for what we’re supposed to be doing in these final days.  Assuming 2020 is one of those birth pains the Scripture tells us about, and assuming this is God’s wake-up call to the church, we’re going to see three things in this text that God wants.  He wants us to get up.  He wants us to get out.  And He wants us to get going.

Follow along with me as I read Romans 13:11-14, “¹¹ 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; 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.”

Get Up!

The first call we see is to get up.  Look at verse 11 again with me.  Paul says, “Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep.”  Keep in mind this text is addressed to believers.  We need to get up.  A spiritual alarm is being sounded.  A bell is being rung across the globe to every believer in every single church.  This is a wake-up call.  The time has arrived.  It’s time that we get up.

Let me ask you, what are the traits you look for in a good alarm clock?  Do you look for one that’s really quiet and doesn’t make a lot of noise?  (If you don’t want to wake up, that’s what you look for.)  No, the traits of a good alarm clock are that it’s loud enough to wake you up, and strong enough to survive being pushed onto the floor or thrown across the room.

You don’t want one that’s like, “(Beep, beep, beep, softly) Hey, it’s time to get up.  If you want to wake up, there’s some things you need to do today.”  No, you want one that says, “(Honk, loudly) Get up!  Wake up!  It’s time to get to work.  There’s a lot to do today.  Stop being lazy.”  But a lot of us are just content to hit snooze.  Keep it going.  Keep the sleep going.

There’s this game that Melissa and I used play in the morning.  Do you remember having to wake your kids up?  Something weird happens.  When our kids are really young they want to wake us up super early.  But as they get older, they never want to wake up.  See if this doesn’t sound familiar.

We used to come in really nice and knock on their door and say, “Jordan…  Parker…, it’s time to wake up.  We gotta get ready for school.”  And usually, their response was silence or roll over and put the pillow over their heads.  Well, this game progresses.  And over the next 15 to 30 minutes, it progresses a little bit more urgently with each call.  Finally, it ends with, “Parker!  Get out of bed!  School is in 10 minutes!”

God’s call to the Church is increasing in urgency.  The time is at hand.  God has been calling us for a long time.  And His voice has gotten louder.  And He’s letting us know it’s almost time.  You need to get up.  1 Corinthians 15:34 says, “Wake up from your drunken stupor, as is right, and do not go on sinning.”  Ephesians 5:14 says, “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”  We need to wake up from our spiritual sleep.  We need to wake up from laziness.  We need to wake up from apathy.  We need to wake up to the urgency of the days in which we live.

Do you realize the urgency of the days in which we live?  Do you realize that God has placed a call upon your life?  Do you realize that God has put you where you are for such a time as this?  The lateness of the time…  The soon coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ…  It’s urgent.

Paul writes something very similar in 1 Thessalonians 5 concerning the coming of the Lord.  He says, “So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober.  For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night.  But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.  For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with Him.  Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing” (1 Thessalonians 5:6-11).

Folks, many believers are asleep today when they should be awake.  Many believers in this church are asleep.  You may be Christians.  Don’t get me wrong.  You’re going to heaven.  Your salvation is secured.  But you’re sleeping when you should be rising.  We have to realize the urgency of the times.

Let me ask you, are you living your life as though you were asleep?  Are you secure in your salvation?  Do you know that you’re going to heaven but are you just kind of hiding your head in the ground?  Are you just biding your time until the Lord returns?  Do you have perspective that, “Well, the world is too far gone anyway?  So, I might as well just sit back and wait for God to come back.  He’ll sort it all out.”

Or are you doing what your Master told you to do?  Are you investing yourself for God’s return?  Maybe God has been whispering to you.  Maybe you’re asleep and God has been calling you.  And He’s been saying very gently, “Get up.  It’s time to wake up.  It’s time to get moving.  I’ve got a plan for you.  I’ve prepared something for you.  I want you to do something.  I want you to achieve something.”

And maybe up until now, you’ve just been rolling over in bed and putting your pillow over your head and saying, “Don’t talk to me, God.  I’m trying to sleep.  I’m too tired.  I don’t have the energy to do what you want me to do.  I don’t have the capacity.  I don’t have the strength.  I don’t have the knowledge.  I just need to sleep.”  And perhaps that voice has gotten louder and louder and louder.  And maybe today is your wake-up call.  Maybe the Holy Spirit is preparing you to get up.

Look at verse 12, again.  Paul says, “The night is far gone…”  What Paul is referring to here is the time until Christ’s return.  Now, if the night was far gone when Paul wrote this, how much more so is it today?  How much closer is God’s return, do you think?  I don’t think we have to look that far.  Again, just looking at the headlines.  World economics are changing.  Crime and violence are almost beyond control.  Local governments are throwing in the towel.  Cities around our country are bankrupt in every conceivable way: education, finance, morals…  Natural disasters are increasing.  Just in the last 20 years (2000-2020), there have been more than twice as many natural disasters than the previous 100 years.

In Luke 21:28, Jesus told His disciples, “When these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near.”  I think these signs began a long time ago.  Some of us didn’t look at them.  We refused to acknowledge them.  But I think now the alarm is ringing.  And I think it’s time for us to look up because the Lord is coming.  And we are to be about His business.

Get Out!

Our second point is that we need to get out.  Specifically, we need to get out of our sin.  Look at verses 12-13 again.  Paul continues, “Therefore, let us cast off the works of darkness.  And let us put on the armor of light.  Let us walk properly as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy…” (NKJV)

The phrase “cast off” is a Greek word that literally means to fling away as though it were an unclean thing.  We recently acquired another dog (to my chagrin).  Now we have two animals living at home.  Needless to say, I have a lot of experience with unclean things.  The dog we recently got is only 7 weeks old, so naturally we’re in the potty-training stage and the kitchen table has been moved out to make room for a portable pen.

While we’re home, we’re trying to take Stella (an Italian mastiff) out every 2-3 hours.  But let’s be honest, it isn’t enough when we’re working and the boys are at school.  So, it’s not uncommon to have to deal with a little poop in the kitchen.  Not like on a regular basis, but enough that I don’t like it.

Now, I don’t walk up to the poop and carefully, gently pick it up and say, “Oh, so sweet.  Stella left me a treat, a little surprise.  I’m going to keep it.  I’m going to put it in a jar.  I’m going to name it.  I’m going to put it on my counter.  When Melissa gets home, she’s going to be so excited that Stella pooped.  I can’t wait.”

No.  I pick it up, and I throw it in the trash.  I get an entire roll of paper towels.  I’m like, I don’t care about the environment right now.  I don’t want to touch that poop.  I’m getting the whole roll.  I’m going to scoop it up so I don’t have to touch a single bit of it.  I don’t want to see it.  I don’t want to smell it.  I want it gone.

Why don’t we do the same with sin?  Fling it off…  Throw it away…  Get rid of it – realizing the destruction it brings, the stench that it has, the pain that it causes.  Why do so many of us pick it up so gently and say, “Oh, it’s kind of cute.  I like my sin.  I’m going to hold onto it.  I’m going to put it in a jar, and put it in my closet just in case I want to come back to it.”?

We’re called to fling it off like clothes sprayed by a skunk.  Throw it away once and for all.  Get rid of it.  And what is it we’re to cast off?  Well, JB Phillips says, “The night is nearly over.  The day is almost dawn.  Let us, therefore, fling away the things that men do in the dark.  Let us arm ourselves for the fight of the day.  Let us live cleanly as in the daylight, not in the delights of partying or getting drunk or playing with sex nor in quarreling or jealousy.  Let us be Christ’s men and women from head to foot and give no chances to the flesh to have its fling.”

There are three sets of two mentioned here, depending on your translation it’s: revelry and drunkenness, lewdness and lust, and strife and envy, or perhaps it’s more descriptive, orgies and drunkenness, and sexual immorality and sensuality, and quarreling and jealousy.  In either case, I want us to notice two things.

First, when our parents said that nothing good ever happens after dark, they weren’t lying.  They got that piece of advice directly from the Scriptures.  The first two groups of activities are clear enough, I believe.  The picture that I get in my head is Mardi Gras.  If you’re from Louisiana, and more specifically, New Orleans, I’m sorry, but that celebration is the quintessential stereotype of this verse.  There’s simply no place for that kind of activity in the life of someone who has been redeemed by the precious blood of Christ.

And if you’re wiping your brow and breathing a sigh of relief, then let me invite you to notice the second thing about this list.  It also contains activities that many “good, decent Christian” folk find enticing.  That’s right.  Paul includes quarreling, bickering, self-centered arguing, jealousy and envy among sexual immorality.  Positionally, we have been justified and declared holy by God.  That was Paul’s argument for 11 chapters.  But when Jesus returns, when salvation is at hand, He won’t come for His own in the realm of darkness.  He’ll come for His own in the light.  And that brings us to the last point.

Get Going!

Look at verse 12.  He says, “put on the armor of light.”  Why?  Because there’s a war.  You don’t put on armor unless there’s a war.  You don’t put on a bulletproof vest unless you plan on getting shot at.  Many believers are shocked to find that the Christian life isn’t a playground.  It’s a battleground.

God has called us as His spiritual soldiers – not just to hold ground but to gain ground.  He’s called us to take enemy territory.  He’s called us to take back our city.  We shouldn’t be complacent as we see the crime rate rise.  We shouldn’t be complacent as we see homelessness and poverty spread through our streets.  We shouldn’t be complacent as babies are being murdered before they’re born.

We should be gaining ground.  We should be going out into our city.  We should be making change, not just sitting in our churches holding our bibles hoping that they don’t come for us.  We should be gaining ground.  We shouldn’t just be defenders.  We need to be advancing the cause of Christ.  We need to invade enemy territory.  And sure.  Some people might say, “Well, Pastor, the game’s won by the defense.”  Okay, but if the offense doesn’t score a single point, the best you can do is tie at zero.  We need to be advancing.  We need to focus on our offense.  We need to get going.

Keep in mind, many times the defender is at a disadvantage. They’re simply waiting around for the enemy’s next attack, hoping they can survive.  In contrast, the one that’s advancing takes the initiative: where, when, and how to attack are options for the one on the move.  Under the direction of our commander-in-chief, the Lord God Almighty, we have to seize the moment and invade enemy territory in this critical and strategic period of time.  Or as in the case of Esther, for such a time as this.

Time is short, and eternal destinies literally are hanging in the balance.  And Satan knows this is the critical and strategic period of time.  We all know he’s dramatically stepping up his efforts.  Again, look at the news.  Shall we do any less?  Shall we not respond in kind, a war over the souls of men and women who are either caught alive by God or caught alive by Satan?

Many believers are asleep.  They don’t want to rock the boat.  Others are running in retreat or even falling away from the Lord.  We can’t retreat.  The battle is too important.  Winston Churchill said, “Victory is not won by evacuations.”  Church, we cannot give up.  Can we choose right here and now to not give up on our state?  Can we choose right here and now to not give up on our country?  Can we choose not to run away, but can we stand arm in arm, and recognize there’s a battle afoot?  And the battle is not with flesh and blood, but against spiritual forces and principalities.  The battle isn’t across the political aisle.  And the battle definitely isn’t across the church aisle.  The battle is with Satan.

The war is going to be won spiritually, not politically.  The battle we fight is a battle that God has called us to.  And it’s a battle that we can make a difference in.  It’s a battle that can change the eternal destination of people from hell to heaven.  That’s where the battle is.

Verse 14, Paul says, “Finally, put on the Lord Jesus Christ.”  Or literally, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ.  Look, once you get up, the second most important thing to do is to put clothes on.  Aren’t you thankful that all of us chose to put clothes on this morning when we woke up?  Church would be really weird if we didn’t.

When I wake up in the morning, I put on my clothes.  And I intend for them to be a part of me all day long to go where I go, to do what I do.  And if, for some reason, those clothes come off of me, we have a problem.

Paul is saying, put on Jesus Christ when you get up in the morning.  Make Him a part of your life today; going with you everywhere and acting through you in everything you do.  Call upon His resources in your life.  JB Phillips said, “Let us be Christ’s men and women from head to foot.”  Literally, enter into His views and His interests.  Imitate Him in all things.  Have you put on Jesus Christ today?  Have you entered into His views and interests?  Are you imitating Him in all things?  Or are you putting on the world?  Are you entering into the world’s views and interests?  Are you imitating the things the world does?

Let me tell you, the world is not the answer.  Beauty is a $532 billion industry that ultimately won’t make you pretty.  Education is a $1.3 trillion industry that ultimately won’t make you smart.  Diet is a $72 billion industry that ultimately won’t make you lean.  Pharmaceuticals is a $1.5 trillion industry that ultimately won’t make you healthy.  Ultimately, the world can’t save you from yourself.  God desires the world to look to us for change, not the other way around.

As we close, I read a story online titled “Fire means early wake up call for hotel guests.”  A fire forced dozens of hotel guests to leave their rooms early Thursday morning.  The fire started shortly before 4:30 in the morning at the Comfort Inn.  Firefighters managed to contain the flames to a conference room, but smoke spread through all five floors of the 127-room hotel.  No one was hurt.

It would be a shame if we had to wait for the fire to wake us up.  God is calling us.  Wake up.  It’s time to get up.  It’s time to get out.  It’s time to get going.  Let’s not wait for the judgment day.  Let’s not wait for Christ’s return to wake up.  Let’s realize the urgency of the hour.  Let’s not waste our lives on the empty pursuit of pleasure and sinful activities like drunkenness, and sexual immorality, and gossip, and jealousy.  Instead, let’s realize a battle is raging.  May God help each of us to be Christ’s men and women from head to foot.

Church and State (Part 2) – Romans 13:1-7

• September 13, 2020
• Pastor
• 0 Comments

Romans 13:1-7

Can we begin this morning by agreeing that one of the hardest things for us is to do – as people, let alone as Christians – is to obey authority?  Are we in agreement on that?  I mean, in a way, that’s what Genesis 3 is all about, right?  God gave Adam and Eve some instructions and what happened?  They rebelled.  They rejected God’s authority and did what they wanted to do.  And the rest of us have suffered the consequences of sin and their own sense of rebellion from that day until the present.

We don’t like the word “submit,” do we?  We bristle anytime we hear someone say, “You must do this… or You can’t do that…”  We think to ourselves, “Don’t tell me what to do.”  Maybe you’re one of those people who is even brazen enough to say that out loud, “Don’t you tell me what to do.  I’ll tell you what to do.  You’re not the boss of me.”

One of the things that we learn early in our youth is that we don’t want to be “bossed around.”  Think about it for a minute.  It starts when we’re toddlers, doesn’t it?  Our parents tell us to do something and what’s our response?  “No!”  Or if our parents tell us not to do something, then what do we do?  We look at them and we look at the line in the sand, and we look at them and we step over the line even as we’re looking at them.  Right?

And it continues into our teenage years and young adulthood.  We might see compliance but it’s only because kids know parents pay for the house and the food and the car and most of the clothes, and they’re not truly ready to be on their own.  But, as they turn to go clean up their room, you hear them mumble under their breath, “I can’t wait until I’m old enough to leave.”  We don’t like authority.

And just in case you think you’ve outgrown it as senior adults, I’ve heard many of you say, “I have a problem with authority…”  And when I ask why, the response has always been, “Nobody does what I tell them.”  So, whether we’re young or old or anywhere in between, we don’t like to obey authority.  That’s just our nature, and that brings us to the critical problem with our understanding of Romans 13.

Last week, we began considering Paul’s instruction to the Christians in Rome as it relates to how they should respond to the government.  And we saw two positive teachings emerge from the text.

First, all authorities – even those we would classify as “bad” – are ordained by God.  That’s what verse 1 clearly says, “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities.  For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.”  God is ultimately in charge.  This was and is His plan to govern the world.  God’s in control.  Whether it’s Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, Queen Elizabeth, or Donald Trump – they’re only ruling and reigning and exercising authority because God is ordaining it.  God is allowing them to do so.

Don’t misunderstand what I’m saying.  I’m not saying that God approves of everything these leaders say or do.  Nor am I saying that God is up in heaven pulling strings on paper dolls or inserting His hand, as it were, into a puppet’s mouth and causing them to do and say only what He would have them to.  No, what we mean by God’s sovereignty is that He uses the free actions of human beings to accomplish His will.  Any person living and breathing and moving about today – whether a ruler or just a “regular Joe” – is doing so only because God is sustaining them and upholding them.  God is in charge, even over kings and presidents and rulers.

Second, we saw that submission is done out of reverence for God.  When we submit to the government, or the police officer, or the teacher we’re doing so out of reverence for God not out of reverence for the ruler.  Although the person in authority might be a respectable person, and we might submit to them willingly, we’re ultimately doing it in recognition that all authority comes from God.  And those authorities are for our good.  Civil government is a “common grace” from God to mankind.  It’s for our good that we have authority structures.  We considered places where the governing authorities have given way to gangs and anarchy, and agreed that life could be worse.

So, all authorities are ordained by God and He gives them to us for our good.  But historically and biblically we know that civil authorities don’t always reward the good and punish the bad.  In fact, they often reward bad behavior and punish good behavior.  We also know from the Bible that God has approved of His people not submitting to some civil authority.  And that leads to the following three questions that we’re going to deal with today:

1. What evidence does the Bible give that God sometimes approves of His people not submitting to the authority(ies) He put in place?
2. When is such civil disobedience right, and what should it look like?
3. How does such civil disobedience fit with Romans 13:1-7, and why are the statements about the goodness of government stated here with such unqualified absoluteness?

These questions aren’t merely theoretical.  I’m not asking these questions just because I’m a pastor and I like to sit around and debate deep theological issues.  These questions are very practical.  If you’re a Christian living in China or North Korea or Vietnam or several Islamic states, you’re confronted with the question of civil disobedience daily.

But you say, “Pastor, I’m not living in any of those places.  I live in the United States – a country built upon freedom with certain unalienable rights like life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

To which I would reply, “Indeed you are, but have you forgotten how this country got started?”

The ideals of America that we think are automatic were born in the crucible of questions surrounding civil disobedience.  Today’s news headlines are full of scenarios where these questions aren’t merely theoretical – they’re practical.  So, let’s begin this morning by looking at a few biblical examples of civil disobedience.

Biblical Examples of Civil Disobedience

The first is Acts 5:27-29.  This is probably the most well-known.  It’s certainly the one quoted most frequently whenever civil disobedience comes up.  The apostles have been going around Jerusalem performing miracles and proclaiming the Gospel, and so the High Priest and Sadducees had them put in prison.  We’ll pick up with verse 19, “[D]uring the night an angel of the Lord opened the prison doors and brought them out, and said, ‘Go and stand in the temple and speak to the people all the words of this Life.’  And when they heard this, they entered the temple at daybreak and began to teach.” (19-21a)

Then let’s jump down to verse 27, “And when they had brought them, they set them before the council.  And the High Priest questioned them, saying, ‘We strictly charged you not to teach in this name, yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching, and you intend to bring this man’s blood upon us.’  But Peter and the apostles answered, ‘We must obey God rather than men.’” (27-29)

In other words, even though God said to submit to people in authority, He doesn’t mean: Obey them when they forbid what I command or command what I forbid.  The command to submit to man does not make man God.  It gives man authority under God, and qualified by God.

But what about some examples where that qualification lead to disobedience.  Daniel 6:6-10: Then these high officials and satraps came by agreement to the king and said to him, “O King Darius, live forever!  All the high officials of the kingdom, the prefects and the satraps, the counselors and the governors are agreed that the king should establish an ordinance and enforce an injunction, that whoever makes petition to any god or man for thirty days, except to you, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions.  Now, O king, establish the injunction and sign the document, so that it cannot be changed, according to the law of the Medes and the Persians, which cannot be revoked.”  Therefore, King Darius signed the document and injunction.

When Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he went to  his house where he had windows in his upper chamber open  toward Jerusalem.  He got down on his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he had done previously.

Notice how blatant Daniel’s disobedience is.  It’s in your face.  The language of verse 10 is obvious – he went to the upper chamber, his windows were open toward Jerusalem, he got down on his knees (not once, not twice, but three times a day), just as he had done previously.  This was an open act of disobedience to the civil authority.  As a result, he was thrown to the lions – a punishment (note) he did not resist.  Keep in mind that there is no explicit commandment that one must pray on one’s knees at an open window three times a day.  This was Daniel’s conviction about God’s will, not an explicit command in the Bible.

Now flip back a few chapters to Daniel 3:16-18: the case of Daniel’s friends, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.  It was slightly different.  The decree was made that all should bow down before the king’s image.  In other words, Daniel was forbidden to pray, but his friends were commanded to worship idols.  Instead, they said: O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter.  If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us out of your hand, O king.  But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.

This was civil disobedience on the basis of religious conscience.  As a result, they were thrown into the furnace.  And (note) they did not resist.

Or how about Exodus 1:15-20?  This is early in the slavery narrative of the Israelites (before Moses was born): Then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwifes . . . “When you serve as midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them upon the birth stool, if it is a son, you shall kill him; but if it is a daughter, she shall live.”  But the midwifes feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live. . .  So, God dealt well with the midwifes; and the people multiplied and grew very strong.

The midwifes disobeyed the king’s order to kill the babies.  By the way, one response to these last two texts is that they portray disobedience to a command that requires sin.  But what about civil disobedience to laws that are not requiring you to do anything?  They are just forbidding you from doing something that you feel morally bound to do?

Besides the case of Daniel (earlier), the Bible gives several other examples (e.g., Kings 18:4,13; Joshua 2:3-4).  For example, Queen Esther is honored for disobeying the law against unsolicited approach to the king.  King Ahasuerus had decreed that Jews were to be annihilated young and old, women and children (Esther 3:13).  Mordecai, Esther’s uncle asked Esther to intervene for the Jews to save their lives.

Esther responded by reminding Mordecai that any unsolicited approach to the King was against the law.  She could be killed (4:11-12), unless the king had mercy on her and raised his scepter. Mordecai told Esther that perhaps God had allowed her to come to the kingdom for such a time as this (4:14).  So, Esther calls for a three-day fast.  Finally, she resolves, “I will go to the king, though it is against the law; and if I perish, I perish” (4:16).  The effect of her intervention was that the Jews were spared.

But even if there were no explicit instances of civil disobedience in the Bible we would have to ask some tough questions: Is it morally right to jay walk to stop a rape?  Is it morally right to break the speed limit to rush a dying wife to the hospital?  Is it right to break into a neighbor’s house to put out a fire – or save a child?  And that brings us to question number two.

When Is Civil Disobedience Right and What Does It Look Like

Under what conditions might civil disobedience be morally called for? One could say with the apostle Peter: Obey God rather than man (Acts 5:29).  In other words, if the law commands what God forbids or forbids what God commands then you must break the law.  But the problem with that simple guideline is that much of the civil disobedience in history has involved doing things that are not clearly commanded by God.  Sitting down on the sidewalk in front an abortion clinic in 1989 was not explicitly commanded by God in the Bible.  Eating in a white-only restaurant in St. Augustine, Florida in 1964, and marching and praying in Montgomery, Alabama in 1965 were not commanded explicitly in the Bible.

In other words, some Christians have come to the point in history where they believed laws were so unjust and so evil, and political means of change had been frustrated so long, that peaceful, non-violent, civil disobedience seemed right.  What factors should we take into consideration to decide if we should do that kind of civil disobedience?  It seems to me that it would be a combination of at least these four things.

1. The grievousness of the action sanctioned by law. How atrocious is it?  Is it a traffic pattern that you think is dumb?  Or is the law sanctioning killing?  How harsh is it?
2. The extent of the law’s effect. Is it a person affected here or there?  Or is it millions?  Does the law have an incidental inconsistency?  Or is it putting a whole group of people into bondage because of their ethnic origin?  How big is it?
3. The potential of civil disobedience for clear and effective witness to the truth. This is the question of strategy, and there will certainly be room here for differing judgments about whether a particular act of civil disobedience will be a clear and effective statement of what is just.  Strategy to clearly communicate.
4. Critical mass; we can’t take it any longer. Historically, there appears to be a flash point of moral indignation.  An evil exists for years, or perhaps generations, and then something strange happens.  One person, and then tens of thousands of people, can no longer just get up and go to work and say, “I wish it weren’t this way.”  I believe that’s what we’re seeing today.

So, if and when that time comes, how should civil disobedience be carried out?  What should it look like?  This is part two to the question, and rather than give you a checklist I’m just going to offer a comment or two.

First, the words of Jesus rule out all vindictiveness.  Any and all action based on the mere expediency of personal comfort and safety is not the right way to proceed.  That’s the point of Matthew 5:38-42, where Jesus calls for us to turn the other cheek and give the cloak off of our backs and walk two miles instead of one.  In other words, civil disobedience doesn’t act merely out of concern for your own private benefit, your clothes, your convenience, your possessions, your safety.

Instead, by trusting Christ, become the kind of person who is utterly free from these things to live for others.  We want to be a living sacrifice for the oppressed and the oppressors; the persecuted and the persecutors; the dying children and the killing abortionists.  The tone and demeanor of this kind of civil disobedience will be the opposite of strident, belligerent, rock-throwing, screaming, swearing, violent demonstrations.

We’re people of the cross.  Our Lord submitted to crucifixion willingly to save His enemies.  We owe our eternal life to Him.  We are forgiven sinners.  This takes the swagger out of our protest.  It takes the arrogance out of our resistance.  And if, after every other means has failed, we must disobey for the sake of love and justice, we will first remove the log from our own eye, which will cause enough pain and tears to soften our indignation into a humble, quiet, but unshakeable, “NO!”  The greatest battle we face is not overcoming unjust laws, but becoming this kind of people.

Why Does Paul Speak with Such Absoluteness of Civil Obedience?

If the Bible allows for civil disobedience sometimes then why does Paul speak the way he does in Romans 13?  Why is there such a seemingly unqualified absoluteness of the rights of civil authority?

Again, I have three answers to suggest.  I offer them for your consideration, not as something I am completely sure of.  Paul doesn’t say why he speaks this way.

1. Paul is probably writing to be read by government officials as well as by the church in Rome.

In other words, he knows that this letter will find its way into Caesar’s household and into the hands of the civil authorities.  He wants them to understand two truths.  One is that Christians are not out to overthrow the empire politically by claiming Jesus is Lord, and not Caesar.  Christians submit to laws and pay taxes and show respect and do good in the community.  Leave us alone.  We’re not revolutionaries against your throne.  We’re harmless lovers of lost and hurting people and will do much good in your empire.

2. Paul writes the way he does to demonstrate to the civil authorities that their positions and powers are based on God’s sovereignty and God’s moral law.

Imagine being Claudius or Nero or President Trump or Queen Elizabeth and reading Romans 13:1, “For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.”  It’s a powerful statement that you ARE NOT God.  You’re not absolute.  You’re secondary not primary.  You’re not in control, God is in control.  So, the absoluteness of the statement could be intended to leave Caesar no wiggle room.  God is absolutely above Caesar (no wiggle room), but that means for Christians: Yes, God has put governments in place and submission should be our first impulse, but no, they are not absolute.

Then consider Caesar reading verse 3.  Not only does Paul want civil authorities to know they are based on God’s sovereignty, but also on His moral law: “For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad.  Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority?  Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval.”  Here’s a clear declaration that civil authority must itself submit to the moral law of God.  There’s right, and there’s wrong, and government isn’t the one who determines it.  Government conforms to it.

So, Paul has two devastating things to say to Caesar.  One, you are not God.  Two, your laws are not the highest laws.  Paul writes the way he does because he knows that what he wants to say will have a greater impact on the governing authorities if he writes this way.

3. Paul is more concerned with our humility and trust in Christ, than he is about our civil liberties.

Listen, this is going to punch some of you in the gut.  This is going to take the wind out of some of your sails.  Paul risked being misunderstood in his instruction on submitting to the governing authorities because he saw pride as a greater danger to Christians than government injustice.

In Paul’s mind, faith and humility and self-denial are vastly more important for the Christian than that we be treated well by the government.  And the reason is this: being persecuted unjustly is not the reason anyone goes to hell.  Rather, being unbelieving and arrogant and self-indulgent is.  Jesus never promised His people a fair fight.  He promised them the opposite: if they treated the master of the house like the devil, how much worse will they treat you.  The main issue is not being treated justly in this world by civil authorities.  The main issue is trusting Christ, being humble and denying ourselves for the glory of Christ and the good of others.