00:00: We have been studying through the book of Romans, the greatest book ever written, the greatest letter ever written, an astounding look at the Christian faith and its implications for the believer.
00:15: And we've reached chapter 13, and last week we began to look at the first seven verses of Romans 13, which deals with the relationship between the Christian and government, and how the Christian needs to relate to the government.
00:31: And we laid out just kind of the big picture, and I promised I'd come back this week and deal with some of the whatabouts.
00:39: Let's start off by looking again at the passage, Romans 13, 1 through 7.
00:44: The Apostle Paul writes to the Christians in Rome and says, Let every person be subject to the governing authorities.
00:53: For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.
01:00: Therefore, whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.
01:09: For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad.
01:14: Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority?
01:16: Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval.
01:21: For he is God's servant for your good.
01:24: But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain.
01:29: For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer.
01:36: Therefore, one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God's wrath, but also for the sake of conscience.
01:43: For because of this you also pay taxes.
01:46: For the authorities are ministers of God attending to this very thing.
01:53: Pay to all what is owed to them.
01:55: Taxes to whom taxes are owed.
01:57: Revenue to whom revenue is owed.
01:58: Respect to whom respect is owed.
02:00: Honor to whom honor is owed.
02:02: The core teaching of that passage is let every person be subject to the governing authorities.
02:16: That's the core imperative.
02:18: Christians, be subject, be in submission to the authorities over you.
02:25: And in this passage, it is in particular dealing with governmental authorities.
02:34: That is the core message of that passage.
02:37: I think when we think about trying to embrace this today, we need to recognize that Christians today need to be discipled into some things and out of other things.
02:49: Christians need to be discipled into obeying Jesus in all things.
02:54: into what it means to be a Christian and to follow Jesus.
02:59: Matthew 28, 19, and 20, the Great Commission tells us, Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.
03:16: So Christians today in America, Christians today in any country, in any culture, in any day really, need to be taught and discipled into observing or obeying all that Christ has commanded us.
03:32: Because we don't by default live in full obedience to Jesus.
03:37: But we also need to be discipled out of some things.
03:40: Discipled out of assumptions and cultural standards and familial traditions and norms to the degree that any of those things are not in sync with God's word.
03:57: Every given culture, whether national, ethnic, historical, every group, every family has its own particularities, and some of those things are more, and some of those things are less in sync with God's word.
04:13: But I don't believe that there is any group out there, including this congregation or any congregation, that is perfectly in sync with God's word at every point and in every detail.
04:24: When we think about government, I think there's a tendency in America for the default reflex of most Americans to be resistance to authority, not a readiness to submit to authority.
04:41: The default thing is, no, you can't tell me what to do.
04:45: But the default reflex of an increasingly mature Christian is toward a submission to authority rather than rebellion against authority.
04:56: And I think that that's not simply an old age, well, you know, whatever, I just kind of roll with things, but rather an intentional choice to submit to authority because it's an extension of their following Jesus.
05:14: The Apostle Paul in this passage listed four reasons why he called Christians to submit to governing authorities.
05:20: We talked about these last week.
05:21: I'm only going to highlight them briefly, but we need to get those in our head.
05:26: Number one, God has put governmental authorities in authority over you, and therefore to rebel against them is to rebel against God.
05:34: That's in verses one and the beginning of two.
05:37: 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.
05:47: Therefore, whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed.
05:51: Okay, that's reason number one.
05:54: Number two, government is not man's creation, even though we have a hand in government, but rather government is given to us by God for our good.
06:03: That's verse four.
06:04: He, that is the one who rules, is God's servant for your good.
06:08: God is using him.
06:09: God has a purpose for the one in power, and it's for the good of those governed.
06:16: Third, government has a legitimate authority to punish us for wrongdoing.
06:20: That's a genuine right purpose of government.
06:24: Verse four, he, the one in power, is God's servant for your good.
06:28: But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain, for he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer.
06:37: Government serves that purpose as well.
06:41: And finally, government is about maintaining right and wrong.
06:45: Rulers are not a terror to good conduct, verse three, but to bad.
06:50: Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority?
06:52: Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval.
06:56: For he is God's servant for your good.
06:58: But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain.
07:02: He is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out wrath on the wrongdoer.
07:07: So again, you see this, there's an enforcing by government of do the right stuff, don't do the wrong stuff.
07:15: We see it also again implied in verse six.
07:18: Therefore, one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God's wrath, but also for the sake of conscience.
07:25: Meaning, there's something in us that we call conscience, the sense of right and wrong, and we need to recognize that when we are not in subjection to authority, our conscience is going to, to some degree or another, convict us.
07:39: Yeah, you're not doing the right thing here.
07:43: Now, we have to ask some questions.
07:47: Because in this passage, it seems like Paul is being very absolute.
07:51: This is it, and that's the end of the story.
07:53: And I don't think he intends to be understood that way, because the rest of Scripture provides us with a more holistic and nuanced view of things.
08:02: Now, I can hypothesize why he might have presented it this way in writing to Rome, but they'd be hypotheses only, so I'm not going to go down that road.
08:11: And instead, I'm going to try to challenge our thinking with some questions.
08:17: Is it always true that Christians must submit to governing authorities?
08:20: What about bad or immoral rulers?
08:22: Are there exceptions to the rule of Christian submission to governing authorities?
08:28: We look at history.
08:29: We could ask questions like the U.S.
08:29: Revolutionary War, our rebellion against England, was that right in God's sight?
08:37: We could look at the Civil War, dealing with issues of slavery in our country, and rebellion against the national government at that time.
08:46: We could look at World War II and Japanese-American internment camps, where 120,000 people of Japanese ethnic ancestry were put into basically prison camps.
08:59: We could look at the Civil Rights Movement, sit-ins and peaceful protests.
09:04: We could look at the German Christians hiding Jews from the Nazi government.
09:11: Even today, we could look at masked government agents who refuse to show identification, refuse to show a badge or a warrant, forcefully taking people off the street and throwing them into non-governmental vehicles, whether they be non-citizens without legal right to be in the country, non-citizens with legal right to be in the country, or even, in some cases, American citizens.
09:37: We could ask, what about Christians in other countries, like China or North Korea or Iran or other countries, where their freedom is limited to non-existence?
09:47: What about bad rulers?
09:49: Well, let's start there.
09:50: The Bible tells the stories of many wicked kings.
09:55: You read through the Old Testament, and you read about wicked king after wicked king more often than not wicked kings, and they were in power by God's decree.
10:05: Jeroboam was the first king of the divided nation of Israel.
10:11: So we have this one people group, nation, Israel, 12 tribes.
10:16: They have three kings, Saul, David, and Solomon.
10:20: And after that, they split into two nations.
10:21: And Jeroboam was the first king of that northern group of 10 tribes.
10:25: And he was one of the most wicked kings in Israel's history.
10:29: In fact, he becomes the standard by which bad kings are measured.
10:32: You go through the history after that, it's like, oh, he was like Jeroboam, and he did this and that.
10:37: He becomes the example, right?
10:39: In today's America, you might say, oh, he was a Benedict Arnold.
10:44: Benedict Arnold being the stereotype standard of betrayal and traitor.
10:49: Jeroboam was the standard of a wicked king.
10:52: And in 1 Kings 12, verse 15, describing some of the twists and turns that resulted in Jeroboam coming into power, we read, it was a turn of affairs brought about by the Lord.
11:05: This wicked king ended up as king by God's sovereignty.
11:11: Or you can look at Jeremiah 27, verse 6, describing the pagan king, Nebuchadnezzar, who was over the Babylonian Empire, who came into the land of Israel, destroyed Jerusalem, and destroyed the temple.
11:28: Jeremiah 27, 6, God speaking, says, Now I have given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, my servant.
11:39: Now that doesn't mean that Nebuchadnezzar was a good guy in the sense of a servant of God, but rather God had his purposes and was using Nebuchadnezzar to accomplish those purposes and caused him to conquer the land of Israel.
11:54: Or consider the conversation between Jesus and Pontius Pilate.
11:59: Pontius Pilate was the Roman governing authority.
12:02: This is when Jesus has been arrested and they're engaging.
12:05: John chapter 19, verses 10 and 11.
12:09: Pilate said to him, You will not speak to me?
12:13: Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?
12:18: Jesus answered him, You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above.
12:27: And so Jesus himself, when facing the literal death penalty, as an innocent man, recognized that Pilate did have authority to do that and that that authority came from heaven, from God.
12:43: Yes, we must accept, Christians, that even evil rulers are in power by God's sovereign will.
12:50: That doesn't mean that we like those rulers.
12:52: It doesn't mean that we say, Oh, well, if they're in power, they must be good.
12:55: And the things that they do are good.
12:57: Quite the opposite.
12:59: We can be discerning enough to say, This is not righteous.
13:02: This is not just.
13:03: This is not right.
13:07: And yet, God's sovereign over this situation.
13:11: Sometimes, wicked rulers come to power because God is punishing people for sin.
13:17: That is one of the things that we find in Scripture.
13:20: We are called, as Christ followers, to submit to governing authorities, even evil governing authorities, as part of, as an extension of, our submission to Jesus Christ.
13:38: When Paul wrote this to the Romans, the Roman emperor at that era, at that time, was Nero, a wicked, pagan, anti-Christian, unrighteous ruler.
13:51: We don't simply get to say, I don't like the current government.
13:55: I don't like the current political party.
13:57: I don't like the current this, that, or the other of the government of the moment.
14:04: Therefore, it doesn't apply to me.
14:06: Romans 13 applies to American Christians living under a democracy.
14:11: North Korean Christians living under a dictatorship.
14:14: Saudi Arabian Christians living under an absolute monarchy.
14:19: And Iran or Afghanistan Christians living under a theocracy.
14:25: Now, are there exceptions?
14:27: Are there exceptions to the rule that Christians submit to governing authorities?
14:32: Absolutely, yes, there are exceptions.
14:35: Let me show you that from, I think, the clearest, most explicit example, Acts chapter 5, verses 27 to 29.
14:43: This takes place in the context of the early church.
14:46: Jesus has been crucified, raised from the dead, ascended into heaven.
14:52: So Jesus is no longer on earth.
14:53: The early Christians are trying to figure out how to live as Christ followers, trying to proclaim the message of Jesus.
15:00: And the Jewish authorities are not having it.
15:02: And so they are coming down hard on the Christians.
15:05: And in Acts 5, 27 to 29, we read this.
15:10: When they, Jewish authorities, had brought them, the apostles, they set them before the council.
15:18: And the high priest questioned them, saying, we strictly charged you not to teach in this name.
15:24: Yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching, and you intend to bring this man's blood upon us.
15:31: But Peter and the apostles answered, we must obey God rather than men.
15:38: Jewish authorities said, hey, we told you to quit talking about Jesus.
15:42: Quit teaching religious stuff in the name of Jesus.
15:44: And you keep doing it.
15:46: And in fact, you keep blaming us for his death.
15:49: We told you to knock it off.
15:51: And Peter and the other apostles in unity said, you're forcing us to make a choice between obeying you and obeying God.
16:00: And we will obey God, even if it means disobeying you.
16:03: That's the dilemma that they were faced with, and the choice was clear.
16:07: And I think that absolutely applies in any context.
16:11: Christian, when you have to make a choice between obeying government and obeying God, you choose God every time without exception.
16:19: That's the principle right there.
16:23: Now, I don't think that means every time you don't like what the government is doing that you simply throw off their authority.
16:33: Right?
16:33: Jesus was repeatedly challenged with tax stuff.
16:38: They tried to bait Jesus when he was on earth into taking stances that would get him in trouble with the authorities.
16:44: Hey, do we have to pay taxes to Rome?
16:46: Right?
16:46: Because if he says no, then Rome's going to be all over him.
16:50: They can get him put to death for it.
16:52: And Jesus is like, no, you still pay your taxes.
16:54: Even in the Romans passage, yeah, you still pay your taxes.
16:57: And he said that in a context where a lot of that money was used for not good things.
17:02: So I would say to you Christians, even if the American government today, or next year, or next decade, or whenever, is doing some things with your money that you don't like, some things that are not righteous, we still got to pay our taxes.
17:16: But there are instances when we have to choose between obeying God and obeying man, and we choose God.
17:25: Let me give you an illustration of how I see this principle.
17:28: Babysitter.
17:30: Let's suppose when my kids were toddlers, I told them, as a good parent would, no playing with matches.
17:35: You can't have anything to do with playing with fire.
17:38: No matches, no lighters, no candles, nothing with flames for you guys, right?
17:44: Because they're toddlers.
17:44: They're not to do that.
17:47: And then we hire a babysitter to come watch the toddlers, because we want to go out and have a date night and have nothing to do with our children for two hours.
17:54: Glory to God.
17:56: And in that time that the babysitter is there, they need to obey the babysitter, because that babysitter there is an extension of our parental authority.
18:04: We've put that babysitter over them, and they have to obey the babysitter.
18:07: But the babysitter says, hey, I'm going to light some candles.
18:10: Help me light the candles.
18:11: Those children should say, no.
18:15: Those toddlers should say, nope, mom and dad, don't let me do that.
18:19: And the babysitter should then back off and say, oh, the higher authority does not allow this.
18:25: I won't go there.
18:25: But suppose that babysitter does push.
18:28: No, no, no, it's okay.
18:29: Go ahead and do it.
18:30: Join me in this.
18:32: Those children have an obligation to obey me as the parent above and in contradiction to the babysitter, right?
18:38: Similarly, the government has a measure of authority from God over people, but we don't obey government when obeying government would be disobedience to God.
18:52: Last week, I gave the illustration of the government requiring us to paint our houses blaze orange.
18:58: About the dumbest legislation I could think of off the moment, off the cuff, but I'd do it, because in no way am I sinning against God by painting my house blaze orange, right?
19:12: But I would go out of my way to disobey if the government explicitly required me to sin.
19:21: If the government said, Christianity is outlawed.
19:25: You cannot be a Christian.
19:26: That is now illegal.
19:28: Well, I'd keep being a Christian, and I would disobey.
19:30: But I would go out of my way to obey every other law and requirement of government that I possibly could without disobeying Jesus.
19:41: So if the government says, being a Christian is illegal, and you have to paint your house orange, I'm going to keep being a Christian, and I'm going to paint my house orange.
19:49: You see what I'm talking about there?
19:51: Obey anywhere and everywhere you can, and disobey only where you must out of your faithfulness to God.
19:58: Let me give you some biblical examples of some of how this might play out.
20:05: Daniel chapter 3.
20:07: We're in the Babylonian Empire, pagan empire, with an absolute king who can do what he wants, and he's convinced to set up a big golden image of himself.
20:23: Hey, king, make a giant gold statue that looks like you, and tell everyone they can only worship this.
20:32: Text says, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter.
20:41: If this be so, our God, because he's about to sentence them to death, if this be so, our God will serve, whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king.
20:54: But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image you have set up.
21:02: So they're commanded by government to worship this golden statue, so we won't do it.
21:08: We will not do it.
21:09: Nor will we worship your pagan gods, even if that means you throw us into this fiery pit unto our death.
21:16: God can save us from it, but we don't know what he's going to do.
21:21: They refused to disobey God, right, because God says, you worship no one but God, no other gods before me, God's the only one that gets worshipped.
21:30: They say, so we can't worship these other things, even if that means death penalty for us.
21:35: That would be akin today to the government saying, you must worship Allah, or you must worship the gods of Buddhism, or Hinduism, or some other religion, and if you don't, we're going to put you in the electric chair.
21:51: The Christians should say, we will not worship any other god, even if that means you put us in the electric chair.
21:58: God could save us from the electric chair, though we don't know if he will or won't.
22:01: Either way, we refuse to worship any other god.
22:06: These folks obeyed God, disobeyed government, and accepted the consequences without knowing how God was going to work it out.
22:15: Let me give you another example.
22:16: Exodus chapter 1.
22:18: God's people, the Israelites, are in Egypt, in slavery, and the king of Egypt, the pharaoh, told them that they had to put to death all the baby boys when they were born.
22:32: We read in Exodus 1, 15 to 20, the king of Egypt, the king of Egypt, said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shipra, and the other Pua, when you serve as midwife to the Hebrew women and see them on the birthstool, if it is a son, you shall kill him, but if it is a daughter, she shall live.
22:53: But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live.
23:01: So the king of Egypt called the midwives and said to them, why have you done this and let the male children live?
23:08: The midwives said to Pharaoh, because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.
23:20: Interesting.
23:21: They lied to the king.
23:24: We're already told that even if it was a boy, they let him live, and then their answer to the king is, hey, we get there after the fact.
23:32: We just clean up after it's basically over and done because they have their kids so fast.
23:39: Verse 20, so God dealt well with the midwives.
23:45: If you wonder how God responded to these midwives refusing to kill the baby boys and deceiving the unjust, murderous king, we're told, God dealt well with them.
24:01: In response to that.
24:02: So, God dealt well with them.
24:04: And the people multiplied and grew very strong.
24:07: I think this is a sanctity of human life issue where they say, obeying government or protecting the lives of innocent people.
24:14: We protect the lives of innocent people.
24:15: That's the higher priority.
24:16: I think this is akin to hiding the Jewish people from the Nazis, saying, protecting innocent life outweighs obeying the government here.
24:25: similar kind of thing.
24:29: Or you can look at the story of Esther in the book of Esther.
24:34: An odd situation.
24:38: Pagan government, the king decides to have a contest wherein he will end up with a harem and finally a new queen.
24:46: And a Jewish girl, Esther, ends up in this situation and becomes queen.
24:51: And there is a racist political leader named Haman who conspires to create a genocide throughout the empire against the Jewish people and have them wiped out.
25:05: That's found in Esther 3.13.
25:09: And Esther's, I believe it's uncle or cousin, her relative, who is a father figure to her, suggests that she approach the king to initiate conversation conversation.
25:22: The problem is, if she initiates conversation with the king, even though she's married to him, if she or anyone else takes the initiative to talk to him, that's a capital offense.
25:33: She could be put to death for so doing.
25:39: And her father figure, Mordecai, says to her, 4.14, who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this.
25:50: saying, yeah, you might be put to death.
25:53: But who knows whether God might have put you in this very situation so that you could risk your life for the sake of overcoming and preventing this genocide that is in the works.
26:04: And her response, verse 16, go, go, gather all the Jews to be found in Susa, the city, and hold a fast on my behalf and do not eat or drink for three days, night or day.
26:14: I and my young woman will also fast as you do.
26:17: Then I will go to the king, though it is against the law, and if I perish, I perish.
26:24: Her answer is basically, seek God's favor, I'll do the same thing, and then I will break the law, and I will seek the welfare of the Jewish people, even if it costs me my very life.
26:44: Let me give you one more.
26:47: Daniel in pagan Babylon.
26:49: Daniel chapter 6, verses 6 through 10.
26:52: Some of the other political leaders don't like him.
26:54: They want to eliminate him.
26:56: And so, they come up with this, a plan to get the king to sign a law saying that if anybody prays for the next month to anybody but the king, that they'll be put to death.
27:12: Ridiculous thing.
27:13: Hey, let's set up a temporary law for just a month just so we can get this Daniel guy in trouble and get him killed.
27:19: That's essentially what's going on.
27:20: And the passage goes like this.
27:24: These high officials and satraps came by agreement to the king and said to him, O king Darius, live forever.
27:30: All the high officials of the kingdom, the prefects and 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 30 days except to you, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions.
27:49: 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.
27:59: Therefore, King Darius signed the document and injunction.
28:02: Now, that should have never happened.
28:04: Right?
28:04: All these political leaders conspiring together coming to the king.
28:08: Hey, you should do this.
28:09: We all agree you should do this, death penalty included, and create this law that cannot be changed or revoked.
28:16: Like, once you do this, it's a done deal.
28:17: No take backs.
28:19: Oh, okay.
28:20: He signs it.
28:22: Verse 10.
28:24: 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.
28:33: He got down on his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God as he had done previously.
28:42: Now, that's interesting.
28:43: He continues the same pattern that he already had where he's praying towards Jerusalem three times a day.
28:52: Is that a biblical requirement?
28:55: No.
28:56: There is no biblical requirement to pray three times a day or that it must be done towards Jerusalem or that it must be done in a publicly visible manner.
29:06: He'd been doing it that way, but he didn't have to.
29:10: Now, he did need to break the law in that he needed to continue to pray to God.
29:17: And he should have broken that law and continue to pray to God.
29:21: But he didn't, by God's law, have to do it in a publicly visible manner.
29:29: He could have tried to wriggle around this, say, well, it's only 30 days.
29:32: I'll just make sure that I pray privately only for the next month.
29:37: Then I won't be put to death.
29:38: He could have done that and been in obedience to God and in obedience to the government, but he chose a path of what we would call civil disobedience.
29:48: He said, no, I'm going to continue to do what I've been doing and make a public statement by so doing, even though it means, and I understand that it means, I'm going to be thrown into the lion's den.
30:00: And he didn't know how that was going to work out.
30:02: So he said, though it may cost me my life, I will stand up in a moment of civil disobedience.
30:09: And he didn't fight the consequences.
30:13: He allowed them to throw him into the den.
30:16: And only by God's grace was he saved from the death that was almost certain to come.
30:23: That's interesting.
30:24: I think that means that there's a place for civil disobedience.
30:28: God protected him in this situation.
30:31: There is a time and a place for civil disobedience.
30:35: Now, I would love to expound all the details of exactly when and how that is.
30:41: I can't do that this morning because I don't think I have enough clarity from the scripture to give you a list of rules on what exactly that does and does not look like.
30:51: I have a lot of convictions that go beyond what I have shared with you this morning, but they are my convictions that I think are in accordance with scripture, but I cannot prove every detail of it from the scripture and so I don't think you should hear that from me in the pulpit and so I won't go there.
31:09: I don't have all the answers and I think that honestly, there's a degree of discernment that Christians need to exercise in how they stand up for what is righteous and just in response to unjust government.
31:26: I thought about doing three sermons on this topic.
31:29: I decided not to.
31:30: that third sermon would have been a look at New Testament teachings of Jesus about how Christians are supposed to respond to persecution and opposition to gather some of the tone and tenor that Christians should have in response to unrighteous actions by others.
31:55: I'm going to instead just share one brief passage from Matthew chapter 5.
32:00: Jesus taught, you have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy but I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and the unjust.
32:23: You therefore must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.
32:27: let me close with a few themes that I think are biblical and should be playing through our minds and in our hearts as we consider the question of civil disobedience and the general principle of obedience to government.
32:45: Number one, obedience to God above all.
32:50: We never compromise on that.
32:52: We obey God at all times.
32:54: And when we consider the possibility of civil disobedience in particular circumstances, it cannot be about personal preferences or what is convenient for us.
33:08: And I think the New Testament places much greater emphasis on Christian humility and on Christian submission to God and Christians seeking the good of others than it does on Christians demanding our individual rights or personal freedoms or seeking our own good.
33:31: I think during the civil rights movement, Christians of all ethnicities should have been leading the charge and it shouldn't have been left to be primarily the black people, Christians or not, taking the brunt of governmental opposition.
33:52: I think Christians should be leading the charge not for our own benefit primarily, but for the benefit of all when and if civil disobedience is appropriate.
34:04: And I think biblically, there seems to be a time for civil disobedience, but it's not something to take lightly or to go into flippantly.
34:14: I'm going to close with a quote from John Piper on this topic that I think is accurate and faithful to the biblical tone of Jesus' teaching.
34:25: The tone and demeanor of Christian civil disobedience will be the opposite of strident, belligerent, rock-throwing, screaming, swearing, violent demonstrations.
34:39: We are people of the cross.
34:42: Our Lord submitted to crucifixion willingly to save his enemies.
34:47: enemies.
34:48: We owe our eternal life to him.
34:50: We are forgiven sinners.
34:52: This takes the swagger out of our protest.
34:56: It takes the arrogance out of our resistance.
35:00: 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 unshakable no.
35:23: The greatest battle we face is not overcoming unjust laws, but becoming this kind of people.
35:32: There is a time for civil disobedience, for public demonstrations, but it should not be done with an anger and a sticking it to the man tone.
35:46: It should be humble, dependent on God to work things out, saying, we cannot go in this direction.
35:54: We will not join in this because it is unjust in God's sight.
36:01: Let's pray.
36:04: God, would you help us to first be ready to submit to you in all things.
36:14: may our heart increasingly be, I follow Jesus.
36:18: Jesus Christ is Lord.
36:20: He is Lord of all and he is my Lord and I will submit to him in everything and continue to mold us into that so that we know where real submission to Jesus must play out in our lives, what needs to be changed in us so that we are discipled out of disobedience and discipled into obedience to Jesus.
36:40: and may that even extend to how we relate to government that we say God has put fill-in-the-blank government over us at every level regardless of political party regardless of whether we more or less align with any given group or government or governor or president and may we also be open to the leading of your spirit when civil disobedience might be the right way to stand against unrighteousness and the abuse of power and authority but may it be about you first and foremost and your ways not about us and our rights and our preferences and may we have the wisdom to discern the difference we pray these things in Jesus name amen