#Coronavirus Without Grumbling & Complaining

Coronavirus, Providence, and the Call to Local Church Commitment

Hey everybody, I'm Pastor Jeff Durbin with Apologia Church. I want to thank you all so much for watching the content right here on Apologia Studios channel. What you're about to watch is a sermon, a message from Apologia Church's worship service.

And again, I want to thank you all so much for watching, for liking, for commenting, for sharing the sermon itself. We truly believe that it's important for the Christian church to have an engagement in the public square with the word of God.

So we thank you so much for partnering with us to send this out across the world. I just wanted to say something before you actually watch this, and that is that I'm not your pastor. Though I'd love to be, I am not your pastor.

And it's very important as you're watching this, you know that it's God's design for individual Christians to be part of a local Christian church under the care of qualified faithful biblical elders. And so as much as we love all of you watching these sermons, and we're thankful to God that God uses them to bless you, to encourage you, I do want to encourage you as a minister of the gospel to get plugged into a local body of believers, particularly I think important a reformed church would be best.

But we want to encourage you to get plugged into a solid biblical church where you can fellowship, where you can worship, where you can serve, where you can be connected. That is vitally important and actually a biblical command.

And so as much as again as we love for your participation, your partnership, and we are so thankful to God that he's using these in your lives, we want to encourage you to get plugged into a local church.

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So thank you again so much for watching these and sharing them. God bless you.

All right.

Praise God for the freedom that we have today to be here and worship at least for the moment. I'm grateful to God for the opportunity to gather us together as his people. If you would open your Bibles to Philippians chapter 2, Philippians chapter 2.

We are in a study right now through Philippians. And as I was saying before providential and amazing and I'm grateful that we are especially at the time during the time that we're in right now.

So.

Today I'm going to start a little different in a different way because I want to make sure as we have the opportunity to speak on how as elders we are addressing this and thinking through this and praying and meditating through all these things.

It's important for our body to know how we're responding as elders. And so we're going to pray first before we actually begin to unpack Philippians. We're in Philippians chapter 2 right now, and we are specifically in the section about grumbling and complaining.

And that is in verse 14. But we're going to start with prayer and then we'll do some explaining about how we're handling some of the things that are before us right now. Then we'll get right into the text.

If you would join with me in prayer. Father we come before your throne with gratitude. Lord nothing's changed. Nothing. You're still the sovereign. And Lord, we know that you are the God who declares the end from the beginning.

There are no surprises. God, you are the one who is sovereign and wields everything according to your purpose. And we cling right now to the promises that you make in your word. You say in your word that you cause, you cause, that you cause all things to work together for good for those who love you.

Those who are the called according to your purpose. You are the God who has a purpose in all things. There isn't a single molecule in all of the universe that is out of your control. Everything is being sustained by you.

We know that you.

Lord Jesus,.

You carry everything along to its intended destination. And we know that as your people this moment was known by you, decreed by you, and that you are the God who loves us, who sings over us, who's called us friends.

Which is so strange. That we are called children of God and that we are here because of your grace and your love that you poured out and you set upon us. We ask God as we gather together corporately as your people that you'd bless this worship of you.

Bless the proclamation of your word and the teaching through your word. Allow me to be a faithful shepherd to your people. Teach God, your people. Let me be forgotten and your word and your promises and you remembered in Jesus name.

Amen.

Biblical Principles for Responding to Crisis

So.

It's important as we're facing really any trial that we do not respond to things that are before us reactionary, without patience, without meditation. And I want to say fundamentally it's important for us in any circumstance not to respond to trial and difficulty and confusion apart from principle.

You see one of the glories of the biblical worldview is that God has spoken. God has disclosed himself in history. He's not the God who's far off. He's not a God that's like us, that can't be trusted, that's not dependable, that doesn't know things.

There's no confusion for God. He's the sovereign one who wields everything. Things only happen because God has ultimately decreed it for his glory and for his praise and for his purpose to one degree or another.

The bible teaches, Jesus teaches that a bird does not fall from a branch dead to the ground apart from our father's knowledge, ultimately his decree. So that's the God that we worship and when we actually try to comprehend the glory of this worldview, it's incomprehensible, but there are things that are apprehendable, things that God has taught us, he showed us, he's revealed himself.

We know what God's character is like. We know what God's promises are for the future. These are things that we can hold on to with confidence. We can glory in these things that God has disclosed himself and he's told us.

Are there things that we don't know? There are vast amounts of things that we do not know and we cannot ultimately comprehend. Are there mysteries to the Christian faith? Absolutely. Are there things that are incomprehensible?

Yes. But what God has revealed to us is for us and for our children. It's for us and for our children. God has told us so when God speaks we can have certainty. When God gives us a revelation of his own will, a disclosure of his own character or his purpose in history, those are things we can hold on to, we can rest assured in, and we can stand on.

And so it's important for us in this fallen world, this is really important to say, we face challenges of communicable diseases on an ongoing basis, on a regular basis. It is a normative aspect of a fallen creation.

We can see that throughout history. Just in the last.

150 years,.

There's almost no end to the list. We can talk about the Spanish flu, the Hong Kong flu, we can talk about the Russian flu, we can talk about H1N1, we can talk about SARS, we can talk about the swine flu, we can go on and on even over the last 20 years of time.

And one thing is sure, that this fallen world constantly has the reminder that it has fallen, that it is broken, and that we are going to die. Oftentimes we don't think about this. We don't think at times about the millions of people that die around us on an annual basis from any number of communicable diseases.

Now here's the thing I want you to hear, please hear this because you know right now fingers are moving on keyboards. I am not saying that this is not a serious thing. I'm not saying that it is not horrifying in circumstances.

I'm not saying that it is not something we should take seriously and wave the hand at. That is not what's being said. I'm speaking as a minister of the gospel in the context of God's call to gather for public worship.

And I'm making sure that we keep before us biblical principles over our emotions, over our perceptions, over our fears, and that we face everything annually, daily, weekly, monthly, standing on biblical principles.

What has God disclosed? And so you should know that the elders of Apologia Church desire to be faithful to God and faithful to you, and to not respond to difficulties that we are faced with with our emotions, with our own feelings and perceptions, but we face them standing on principles from God's word.

What has God disclosed? What has God said? And so what's really important is again, we're starting off the message a little different today, a little awkward, but it's our opportunity to make sure that we speak to this issue publicly for our members who aren't here today and also for our body that is gathered here today, very important for us first and foremost to address this, the command to love one another, to love one another.

Here's what's important to recognize. There are faithful, faithful, faithful, more faithful, more, in many ways, knowledgeable and just sharper men than me who have made a different decision on this particular point.

Many of them made an immediate decision and they said, well, our desire is to love our people, so we're going to call off the corporate gathering and we're going to do it in this way. It is our duty before God, please hear me on this, it's our duty before God to respect our brothers and sisters who have made a different decision.

We need to honor them, honor their decision making and know this, that whatever they do in word or in deed, they are to do to God, for God. And our hope is that any decision being made for any local church globally is a decision being made with a heart full of love for God, love for neighbor and a desire to worship him.

But there are differences of opinion and those differences of opinion on this particular issue ought not create opportunity for us to destroy our brothers and sisters in Christ. So that needs to be kept very much at the very front of our thinking here in terms of our disagreements.

Understand this, it's a fallen world, we're fallible people, we don't know all things. And so when we're facing difficulties, the people of God, believe it or not, this is amazing, I hope it's not a revelation to you, have had disagreements throughout 2 ,000 years of church history alone.

If you didn't know that, you should get to know that. Christians are fallible and what we have is an infallible word to go to. And so what we have to do is gather around that infallible word together, even when there's disagreements amongst us.

So first and foremost, I want to call the people of God at Apologia Church to respect brothers and sisters in Christ who have a difference of opinion on this matter. It's not to say you can't talk about it.

It's not to say that you can't actually engage in some of these principles. It's to say that when we do, we need to do it in such a way that actually brings unity and not breaks us apart as the people of God.

God calls us to have unity with one another, even in the midst of disagreements. I've always gloried in the fact that Apologia Church, we are a Reformed Baptist Church. We do our catechism before service, 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith.

I think that was one of the greatest expressions of the Christian faith in the history of the Christian church. But I am grateful to God that we have Presbyterians who are members of our body. I think that is a wonderful, wonderful thing.

It's a wonderful thing that shows, I think, just amazing unity. A lot of people maybe would be uncomfortable with that, but I think that is an amazing display of unity in God's people. And so we can have disagreements with each other without harming one another, even intellectually or theologically.

Now, it seems to me that there are two primary things. This is where you want to come back now. All that's over with and out of the way. We laid down the foundation. There are two primary arguments being made right now that need to be examined in a number of ways.

A number of different angles need to be looked at as we talk about this. Number one is Romans chapter 13, and number two is the command to love your neighbor as you love yourself. So those seem to be the two primary arguments right now.

Number one is Romans 13, and number two is love thy neighbor as you love thyself, yourself. We are to make sure that we handle these two things in a way that glorifies God. So what will we hear today?

We will hear brothers and sisters who love the Lord, want to remain faithful. They'll say Romans 13 says to submit to your governing authorities. It talks about the governing authorities being God's deacon, and they are to wield the sword of justice, and you are to submit to your governing authorities.

And of course, the second one is love your neighbor. People will suggest that if you gather together for corporate worship right now in this moment, no matter how many people have this particular virus right now or complication, you are not loving your neighbor.

We've even heard people say things like if you gather together for corporate worship, you are guilty of murder. Murder. Christians tend to go off the deep end on either side rather than having a balanced perspective, right?

If you gather together to worship God, you are killing somebody. And so we need to say, okay, well, let's think about these two particular things that seem to be the primary arguments right now that are being examined.

First and foremost, Romans 13. Does the Bible teach that the civil government is God's deacon? Yes, it does. And if you've been a member of Apologia Church for any length of time, you've heard us talk about this a lot.

We believe strongly that God has instituted civil government to be his deacon. What is a deacon? It means servant. So the question has to be asked, whose servant is the state supposed to be? God's servant.

Which God? Some God? Any God? Man-made gods? The true God. So actually when you look at Romans 13, it's actually prescriptive and not descriptive. What's that mean? It's not descriptive of what the government is always doing.

We know that from modern history and just any length of history you look at. Civil government is not always acting as the deacon of Yahweh. Amen? Yes? Never. And with the Fed dropping a trillion dollars a day now, we say absolutely not.

You are wicked. Okay. Sorry, I had to go off on that one. But when we see the scriptures, Romans 13, it says that the civil government is actually instituted by God and the civil government is to be God's deacon, God's servant.

Not the servant of some other God. The servant of the true God, the living God. That's really important. Again, prescriptive but not descriptive. Now, here's what needs to be held on to and examined. Please hear me on this.

This is critical. And if you are watching right now on social media, I want you to consider this. I want you to very humbly consider this. No Christian worth their salt believes that Romans 13 means universal, unlimited obedience to civil government.

If you believe that, I am terrified of you. The Jews would have been terrified of you in Germany and we could put our finger on any other place in history where civil governments have done wicked, evil things.

How about in China? If the Chinese government commands Christians in the underground church to reveal the location of and the worship service times of other believers, are those believers in China commanded by God to submit to the governing authorities to obey that kind of commands?

And the answer is.

No. If if.

During the time of the holocaust, they come knocking at your door and they say, I want you to tell me where all the Jews are hiding. Are you now, because of Romans 13, supposed to submit to the civil government and reveal the location of maybe the Jews you're hiding under your floorboards?

The answer is absolutely not. So here's what's important. To take Romans 13 and to spread it like peanut butter across every instance in history, obey your governing authorities, is to actually abuse the text of Romans 13, which is prescriptive and not descriptive of what the government is always like or does.

And Christians, we all know this. Scripture tells us that our heroes withstood, stood against wicked ungodly governments, which were instituted by God to be his servant. They weren't always obedient to that, but we know the stories.

If you've seen VeggieTales, you know about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

Right?

They were told, bow. And the answer was no. Are we to say Romans 13, peanut butter, over everything, submit to your civil authorities? All of us recognize that when the civil government is not acting righteously in obedience to God, we have a duty before God to actually resist that kind of evil.

Now, of course, I'm going to respond to the fact that the government is saying they're trying to preserve health and life. I'm going to answer that, but I want to talk about principles. We see Peter, of course, in the book of Acts, being told, do not preach in this name anymore.

And we know that Peter said we must obey God rather than men. And now what people will say, I can hear it already, they're gonna say, yes, but this isn't an unrighteous evil thing. This is trying to protect neighbor.

My point of bringing this up is that Romans 13 cannot be used to say that there is universal, all-the-time obedience to the government. Nobody believes that. I'll give you another example of a scripture that's often abused and how we have to say there's nuance to the text.

It says in the Bible for wives to submit to their husbands and everything. Right? Now imagine now your pastors are sitting in front of a couple, they're counseling them, and we're learning in this meeting that there's actually been abuse in the marriage.

This man is harsh. He is mean-spirited. He is abusive to the wife. He's making her do things that are actually sinful. Now we're in that meeting and then the man says to me as a pastor, pastor, you know the Bible.

The Bible says wives submit to your husbands and everything. You're being a sinful pastor by confronting my behavior and telling my wife not to submit to me. Well brothers and sisters, if we cherry-pick the Bible and we proof text it out of context,.

What do we do with that?

It says wives submit to your husbands and everything. Really? Always? Or is there nuance to that text that we understand has to be there because of the consistency of all of Scripture? So when Romans 13 says to submit to the civil government, the question is this.

How do we ever understand the nuance of when we're to obey civil government or not? And the answer is this. Where the civil government fails to be God's deacon, where the civil government actually begins to hate and destroy neighbor, where the civil government actually is disobedient to godly wisdom and God's righteous standards,.

The church.

Has the duty and the right and the authority to oppose the civil government's decisions. How so? Based upon the Word of God. So what we have to say is that Romans 13, we believe it. We love civil government.

We praise God for our governing authorities and we pray for the day when they are fully submitted to Jesus Christ. Amen. So it does not teach unlimited obedience and every Christian believes that. Here's the point.

If you grant that Romans 13 does not teach unlimited obedience, then you've granted our point that we always have to examine the decrees of the government and commands of the government in light of what?

Scripture.

So that's principle number one that we are trying to look through and appeal to and pray about and meditate on as elders as we face any circumstance like this. We have to have wisdom and examination, wisdom and examination.

Now I'm going to talk really quickly. It is true. Please hear this. This is critical. A lot of people are missing this. The government does have the right to make commands that are truly wise and will protect public health and safety.

It certainly does. Yes, it does. Absolutely. And does the Bible actually teach the concept of quarantine? Well, I'm going to actually suggest this to you that the idea of quarantine for the sick is actually a distinctly Christian and biblical perspective in history.

It wasn't something that was universally practiced by pagan nations and those who are idolaters. So get this, the idea of quarantine came from us. You're welcome. Does the Bible teach the concept of quarantine?

Yes, it does. Quite a lot. There are spiritual applications to the idea of quarantine that are appealed to in the New Testament. The general equity of those ideas of quarantine. You can look at the Bible and you can look at Leviticus 13 .4, 14 .8, Numbers 5 .2, Numbers 31 .19, Leviticus 13 .2 -5, Leviticus 13 .31 -33.

We can go on and on. The Bible does teach quarantine for the diseased or the sick. And it was even used as, again, as a spiritual application. First, it was supposed to teach them something about separation and blemish and those sorts of things.

But in Scripture, you will see, and I can't go over all this today, that the sick were examined and then quarantined to protect the life and health and safety of the people of God. One of the things you do not see in Scripture is government shutting down families, abilities to feed themselves, businesses, commerce, and all the rest.

You do not see that sort of a thing in terms of a preemptive quarantine. Now, I just wanted to say this quickly. I'm going to actually expand this a little bit more on Tuesday at noon. We do Apology Radio.

Quarantine laws are biblical, but just because we have quarantine laws in Scripture doesn't mean that the government is wielding them appropriately. I want to just state that preemptive quarantine seems to me to be, in principle, the same as preemptive justice.

Preemptive quarantine seems to be, in principle, the same as preemptive justice. You ever seen the movie Minority Report? You ever seen that? Sinners. You can say it, okay? Just kidding. Minority Report, you know the story.

Minority Report, it's these people who sort of like see the future and what somebody might potentially do and then Tom Cruise drops out of the sky with his Scientology. I'm just kidding. No. And he drops out of the sky and they're capturing people.

But then he realizes, no, this is kind of wrong. You can't do preemptive justice of what somebody might actually do.

Biblical law is clear.

Somebody is innocent until they are proven guilty. By the way, you like that in the United States? You're welcome, America. That came from the Bible. Innocent until proven guilty is a distinctively Christian concept.

It comes from God's Word. Innocent until you prove me guilty. So we all hate the idea of preemptive justice or the Minority Report or the crimes that may take place because we say it's not just to punish somebody for what may be the case.

But then the argument will come. Yes, but in the case of preemptive quarantine where we destroy families, businesses, and the entire economy, what we're doing is we're focusing in upon the safety and security of society.

And I want to say, remember how I said that in principle preemptive quarantine sounds like preemptive justice? Those who would argue for laws about preemptive justice make the same arguments. It's about the safety and security of all of society.

So something to consider. These are principles, biblical principles, that we are examining. Now, I want to say that any time this is happening, we have to endure it and examine it with patience and wisdom.

We have to ask, is this righteous? Is this righteous? Is this right? Is this too heavy-handed? Is this a reaction that is appropriate? We're not saying that things could change and we wouldn't make, we wouldn't change the course of things or a decision-making to make sure everyone's protected.

But we have to do things with patience, wisdom, and we have to ask, is it righteous? Right now as elders, we realize that every year, annually, we have to face the fact that millions upon millions upon millions of people are dying because of communicable diseases all around us all the time.

Please hear me on this because I can already hear the keystrokes. Also, you're just saying this is the flu and like anybody, anything else. My answer is absolutely not. Some of the, some of the observations that have been made about people who are experiencing the farthest ends in terms of the mortality aspect of this particular virus are horrible.

This is obviously very communicable. It's a very serious illness and we ought to all take it very, very seriously. But as elders, we do not have the right as elders, shepherds of our God's people, to jump into the stream of the community.

Wherever there is panic, wherever there is fear, wherever there is a reaction, we do not have the luxurious pastors. We have to answer to Jesus for how we've shepherded. To jump into the stream of popular opinion and disrupt the corporate worship of God or to actually give a stamp of approval to the destruction of the economy.

These are real people who are hurting without jobs. You understand that? Please hear me on this. Millions upon millions upon millions of people have had their lives destroyed in just the last week and we haven't even begun to smell it.

We haven't been bitten down yet. You understand dance studios, karate schools, gymnastics studios can't endure this. You understand that? They can't endure this kind of a thing. Restaurants, travel, entertainment, people who are service providers can't endure this.

Real people who are really dependent upon that paycheck every week are already wondering today, right now as I'm preaching this, they're wondering, how am I going to feed my kids? How am I going to take care of my wife?

Because you see people can say only essential businesses should be open. All non-essential businesses should not be open. And in the background are millions of people raising their hands saying, but my business is essential to me.

To me. My business is essential to my wife. My business is essential to my children. My business is essential to my care for my aging parents. It's essential to me. And I'm going to say this with so much respect.

Please hear me on this because there's a way this can be misunderstood and I do not want it to be. If you misunderstand this, it's your fault, not mine. It is easier for a politician or a health care professional to say, just stay home.

I'm not saying that it's easy. It's easier. A politician, of course, has to deal with the consequences and the fallout. The difficulties that they will endure in terms of their own reputation if they say, shut down commerce, destroy the economy, stay home.

It's hard. It's not easy. But it's easier to say out there, you all stay home. And why is that? From a politician's perspective, he still gets his paycheck. She still gets her paycheck. It's easier for a health care professional, which we love and we are grateful to God for, it's easier for a health care professional to say to all of the community, stay home.

Shut your business down. Don't work. And why is that? Because the health care professional's paycheck is still coming. Do you hear me? So what's driving my concern here as an elder? I want you to hear me on this.

This is what I see as one of the fundamental, most important aspects of the decision-making that we make and our leaders make. Love for neighbor. Isn't it funny how that gets hijacked? It's love for neighbor that says that we should all be quarantined to our houses right now.

We should shut down commerce and the economy. It's love for neighbor. I want to say this, you're forgetting about an entire segment of neighbors, millions upon millions of them that are being destroyed right now.

You see, you've drawn a small circle around one segment of neighbors, and you've forgotten about all these ones. And love for neighbor is a principle we should uphold for both.

Aspects.

Protecting safety, life, health, but also loving the neighbors who are going to suffer. It's interesting. Monday, we woke up as elders. Here's the thing. Look, I want to be just transparent here. I'm not speaking down to you.

I'm looking at you eye to eye as brothers and sisters. And this, you may not have to experience what your pastors have to experience. And that's the phone calls, and that's the messages.

We've lost our jobs.

We don't have any income now. We don't know how we're gonna make it. Maybe you're getting those phone calls. I grant, of course, you probably are. But as pastors, we're charged with the care and duty to respond to the needs of our body, to care for their needs.

And what we see is families falling apart financially, economically. We have to face those things as elders. My wife got a phone call. There's a group of women that come to our house on occasion. I wanted to bless my wife, and we have a new baby now we've adopted.

And so I want to make it easier on her. So for the past couple of months, every once in a while, we pay these women to come over and to do a deep clean of our house, right, for Kandi's benefit. But there's about five women who come over, these wonderful Mexican ladies.

They don't speak a lick of English. And sometimes I'm like, are you talking about me, right? Because I'll be in the way, and they just don't seem happy that I'm kind of in the way. But here's what I was worried about.

One of the first things that popped in my mind is, like, these women are fully dependent upon work like this, side work like this, to survive and feed their families. And I was wondering, how are they gonna do?

Well, the boss called Kandi yesterday, very fearful, very upset. She's lost all of her business, and she was basically contacting us, pleading with Kandi, can you please not cancel your appointment this month, please?

We need it to survive. I went to a sandwich shop today on the way to pray and prepare for the message today. I went to a sandwich shop that I normally go to on occasion, and the parking lot was completely empty, and there wasn't a soul inside, except the owner.

And I walked inside, his face lit up, his face completely lit up, and he was like, oh, welcome, welcome. Well, I'm so glad you're here today, and I said, absolutely. He said, what can I get you? What can I get you?

I was like, this is some amazing service. He was treating me like a king, and so I told him what I wanted, and so as I'm finishing the whole way through, he's just blessing me and saying thank you. I get to the end where I'm paying, and he hands me it, and he basically, through tear-filled eyes, he tells me, I just want to thank you so, so, so much for coming in today.

Thank you for coming in today. I bought a sandwich. This man has no customers. There's no one coming in. His business is struggling, and he was just so grateful to God that someone went in to buy a sandwich from him.

Because people are wondering how are they going to make it, and I want to just highlight the principle of love for neighbor has to be something that all of us, but especially your pastors, have to consider when we're making decisions.

Is this loving my neighbor, or is it showing a lack of passion for their well-being? The decisions that are being made. Very important. So when we face this as pastors, we're looking at the numbers. That's all we can do right now.

We're looking at the numbers, and we're asking questions. We're trying to make godly and wise decisions as elders that respects our governing authorities and loves one another. And what we see so far in the numbers, what we see so far in the numbers, is that it is very serious.

People, of course, die. People suffer. Some people are asymptomatic and feel nothing at all. But what we see in the numbers is this.

We see a.

Consistency in terms of things that are communicable diseases that we're facing all the time. As a society. It's not to minimize how serious it is. It's not to minimize the seriousness of how easily this is communicated.

It's just to say that what we see in the numbers is something that's consistent with the fallen world that we live in. The mortality rate. Those who are showing really not many symptoms. Those who recover.

We're seeing it's very serious, and it is so sad that people are dying. But we have to ask the question as elders. When we are faced with numbers like this, are we going to be consistent? Please hear me on this.