Sunday Night, August 23, 2020 PM

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Michael Dirrim Pastor of Sunnyside Baptist Church OKC Sunday Night, August 23, 2020 PM

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All right, well, as you find your way back to your seats, if you will open your
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Bibles to Romans 13, and we'll get there eventually. Let's start with a word of prayer. Father, I thank you so much for bringing us together tonight.
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I pray blessings upon our family, church family, that can't be with us here at this time.
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I pray that you would comfort and equip and encourage them in their absence from us.
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Lord, I pray that you would give us wisdom as we think about some important issues tonight, how we are to think in these times in which we live.
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May our thinking be glorifying to you and edifying to one another, something that would truly advance the kingdom of Christ.
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We pray these things in his name. Amen. Okay, so turning back to our study of sons of Issachar, we have thought about the method as a whole, about what kind of approach we should take, about various controversial issues of our time, that it is important for us to settle our convictions from the
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Word of God, see what the Word of God has to say about any given issue, and then as we begin to engage with those who are saying things that we believe to be against those convictions, that we need to be careful to clarify our terms, because we must make the assumption not that we are using the same terms.
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We should be making the assumption that we're using the same words, but different dictionaries, and so we ought to allow others to clarify what they mean, and it may be an opportunity for to clarify to them that they don't know what they mean, that they're just repeating very good -sounding things that have been entrusted to them from people who may love and trust, okay, and they don't really know what they mean, but they feel like they need to proclaim it, but we need to give people opportunity to clarify their terms, and then to see whether or not that really fits with the
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Word of God or not, to run the reductio, as it is said, to see, does this really work according to God's Word?
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Does this really agree? And then to offer Christ as the alternative, and say, you know, what we really need is
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Christ, and His wisdom, and His truth, and His authority, and we can just lean into Him and find all the solutions that we need, really, and then stick with the
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Scriptures rather than stories and statistics. Everyone has a story that is moving, can be used to convince people to see things from their point of view.
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Everyone has a very moving story, everybody does, and there are all sorts of statistics that are designed to shock, and awaken, and alarm, and so on, and everybody has those, but the
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Word of God is supreme in the authority, not people's personal experiences and numbers.
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As we talked about last week, the experts are very often wrong about everything, and all the whole cold, hard facts are overturned every five years to something else, you know, and people have made, you know, major investments in life decisions, and sweeping political decisions based on these cold, hard facts.
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It turned out to be not be true, so we have to live by faith, walking in the truth of the
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Word of God, and then I want us to always consider our hope, you know, we live in times where it's easy to become hopeless, to hope less, and less, and less, but we are a people of hope.
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These three abide, faith, hope, love, the greatest of these is love, but let us not live without one of the three
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Christian virtues, and just live in faith and love, and give up on hope. Hope is essential to the
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Christian life. So that's our approach, and we've talked about a couple of issues.
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One, we've just barely scratched the surface of the term justice, and what an important term that is being used so widely today, and something more specific we talked about in the
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Black Lives Matter movement, but very specifically just saying, should we use the slogan?
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Is that an appropriate thing to do? Let's use biblical wisdom about that. And then now we're going to talk about this question, what about Romans 13?
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What about Romans 13? To remind ourselves of the study, we're coming from 1
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Chronicles 12 32, of the sons of Issachar, men who understood the times, understood the times with knowledge of what
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Israel should do. We need to understand the times. We need to have knowledge about what we as the people have gone on to do, and we need to recognize what kind of conflict we're in, what kind of conflict we're in.
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You know, there's a whole lot of shields and batons, and Molotov cocktails, and bricks, and paintballs, and all sorts of things being used in riots and conflicts today.
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That's not really our conflict. It's not, you know, we're not to go home and make makeshift shields, and get ready for street sieges, and all sorts of things like that.
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That's not our, we wrestle not against flesh and blood, right? But there are some things you do wrestle against. There is a conflict, and we need to understand the nature of that conflict.
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Second Corinthians 10 5 says, we are destroying speculations, and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God.
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Every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God. That's what we're destroying, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, because Christ is
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King. He is King of Kings, and He is Lord of Lords, and all authority has been given to Him, and so everything that we think must be thought in terms of Christ is
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King. He's in charge of everything. Now, we have to, and all sorts of thoughts happen in our minds, and the minds of people around us.
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Lofty things are speculated against God, that implicitly, from before they're even said, based on their own presuppositions, they are denying that Christ is
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King. And we've got to be aware of that. Brother Reggie said we have to have a good nose for smelling things that stink.
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Hang on a second, that stinks, that smells funny. Probably because they're denying that Christ is
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King, but before they ever say anything else. And then first Peter 3 15, but sanctify
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Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence.
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And so, if we are going to be careful to destroy speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the
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Lordship of Jesus Christ, Peter reminds us we have to begin with this, sanctifying Christ as Lord in our hearts.
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We must be submitted to Christ. We must be submitted to Jesus Christ as Lord. At the very beginning, if we're going to think
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God's thoughts after Him, we have to think God's thoughts after Him. So, with those bits of review, I wanted to address this particular issue when people bring up, well, what about Romans 13?
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And people will bring this up, especially in regards to, lately, the efforts made by all different levels of civil government to address the
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COVID crisis and so on and so forth, which is not really unrelated to everything else that is going on, but we need to understand what
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Romans 13 is about, because very often people just say, well, government tells us we can't go to church, so, you know, we need to obey the government, right?
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Government tells us we have to do this or do that. Hey, you know,
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Romans 13 tells us to obey the government, so that's what we got to do, be good Christians, obey the government. Is that what it means?
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How we're supposed to approach that? Well, it takes some wisdom, it takes some nuance, we need to understand the times that we're in and understand what we must do.
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Bringing this into the context of, probably most of you have heard how John MacArthur's church has continued to meet in disobedience to the civil order given to them by the city, that they are not supposed to meet indoors for church.
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Feel free, no matter how old you are or how bad the weather is, you can just meet outside, that's good enough for you, but you can't, you're not allowed to meet indoors in your own facility, and if you do, then we'll be threatening to turn off your power and turn off your water, right, you know?
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And you can read all about it and the letter from Johnny Mac and his elders and all the different things that they have been talking about,
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I think they've been doing a fairly good job of trying to say, hey, look, we need to obey God rather than men. But, you know, what about Romans 13?
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You know, hey, the government, no matter how corrupt it is, I mean, they tell you to do something, you're supposed to, you know, submit.
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If you don't do that, then you're not a good Christian. And many people have criticized that approach and many other people for defying the government about whatever level that is, the civil government, whatever level it is, saying you can't do such -and -such,
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O church. You can meet, but you can't sing hymns. You can meet, but you're not supposed to take communion. Was it the
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Kentucky governor telling the churches in Kentucky how they're to think about communion? You need to really get in touch with the more spiritual sides of your faith.
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He was telling them how to think about communion while telling them they're allowed to take it. It seems to me that we need a crash course in government.
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I don't think it's an adequate response for Christians to say, well, I don't get political. That hasn't really aged well, has it?
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It's not good for us to take anything that God has entrusted to us and bury it in the backyard and say, you know, who cares? We are to be good stewards.
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So, crash course in government. We can go to Webster's Dictionary from 1828.
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What is government? You see there the definition. Government is a noun, means direction, regulation.
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These precepts will serve for the government of our conduct. It's an example sentence. Number one, means control or restraint.
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Men are apt to neglect the government of their temper and passions. Notice the very first definition for the word government isn't
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Washington, it isn't the Capitol Building, it isn't senators, it's not judges.
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The very first thing on there is about how you control or restrain yourself, how you self -govern.
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Number two, the exercise of authority. Direction and restraint exercise over the actions of men in communities, societies, or states.
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The administration of public affairs according to the established constitution, laws, and usages are by arbitrary edicts.
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Number three, the exercise of authority by a parent or householder. Children are often ruined by a neglect of government in parents.
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Example sentence, let family government be like that of our Heavenly Father, mild, gentle, and affectionate.
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So when we think about government, it is easy for shorthand just to always say the government, you know, better by the government.
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But the word government does not only refer to civil or state government. It is a word that is helpful to talk about our own conduct, our own behavior, our own thinking.
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It is a word that helpfully describes the way that a church organizes, the way that a church is run, ecclesiastical government, the church polity.
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Here we have elders and deacons and a congregation. How do we all interact? Well, that's our church government. It's also helpful when we're talking about the family.
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There is such a thing as family government with a husband and a wife, a father and a mother, and children.
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And there's a order that God has established there as well. So we need to understand that, and that's where we're going to start with our conviction.
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God has established various spheres of government, family, church, and state, or civil.
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How do we know this? Well, we can look back in the scriptures and see this very clearly, and we've already talked about Genesis 2 24 from last week.
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We talked about Black Lives Matter and so on. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.
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When Jesus reflects upon this, he says in Matthew chapter 19, verse 6, so they are no longer two, they are one flesh.
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Now listen, what therefore God has joined together, let no man separate. So who establishes family government?
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God does. God did from the very beginning. Created man and woman and gave them together as husband and wife, and said, you are your own family.
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And when children grow up and leave and get married, they become their own family. So we see that God establishes a sphere of government called family, and the way they interact is described at length in the scriptures.
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We'll look at some of those later. Also the church, Matthew 16 verses 15 through 19, he said to them, but who do you say that I am?
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Simon Peter answered, you are the Christ, the Son of the Living God. And Jesus said to him, blessed are you,
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Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you but my Father who is in heaven. I also say that you are
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Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.
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I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.
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So, I mean, there's a lot there to break out, the short of it is that there is authority entrusted to the church, there's a government in which
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Christ is the centerpiece, Christ is the foundation, Christ is the cornerstone, it's upon the rock of who
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Christ is and what he has done that establishes the church. And there's authority involved in the church, and in the version of these keys.
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But also civil governance, we looked at this last time as well, Genesis 9, 5 -7, surely
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I will require your life blood, from every beast I will require it, from every man, from every man's brother
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I will require the life of man. Whoever sheds man's blood by man his blood shall be shed, for in the image of God he made man.
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As for you, be fruitful, multiply, populate the earth abundantly, and multiply in it. In other words, if somebody murders somebody, who's going to do the execution?
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All right, who's going to do the execution? Well in this case, in Genesis 9, somebody related to you, but it's not a family issue at this point, it's everybody who's busily trying to be fruitful, multiply, and populate the earth, turn around and say, this guy murdered this person, that's against God's law, that person's a murderer and they deserve to die.
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We have to end his life in accordance with the issue of God, and this is the first moment where we say, oh, there's got to be a government installed here, that it has to be a government of the people, under the authority of God.
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So here we have civil government, and it begins with the death penalty. Now, these things can be seen at length.
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Just think about the life of Israel, okay? Just think about the way in which God organized the society for his people, okay?
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What kind of instructions did he give to his people, Israel? Weren't there instructions about how families should interact, husbands and wives and children, how they should do what they do?
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Weren't there instructions to his Levites and to his people about how to worship him, and things that they were supposed to do there?
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And weren't there instructions about judges and a judicial system, and ultimately how the kings were to operate and the elders of the city?
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You see, there were three different spheres of governance going on at the same time in this society, than this perfect society that God had made for his people.
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And the fact of the matter is that these still exist today, and we have to understand how they interact.
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For example, the thing I brought up earlier about John MacArthur's church in the city of Los Angeles, okay?
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You have a sphere of civil governance, and you have a sphere of ecclesiastical governance, church governance, and the elders of Grace Community Church are saying to their people, hey, we're gonna meet, let's have church, okay?
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And, you know, the ministers, the officers of Los Angeles are saying, you all aren't supposed to meet, you all can't have church.
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Now what? Right? And we're gonna have lots more of those types of interactions as we move forward.
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How do we need to understand that? Well, we need to be sons of Issachar, and we can't simply say, well,
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Romans 13, Romans 13, whatever the government says we have to do. We have to understand these spheres of government are distinct while they're overlapping.
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Let me give you a few examples. Do you remember the daughters of Zelophehad? Bonus points if you do.
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Huh? Yeah. So Zelophehad had no sons, so what happens to his land?
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What happens to his inheritance? He has no sons to bequeath it to, so the daughters of Zelophehad gained the inheritance instead, and that wasn't according to the code set out, you know, if you went to appeal the case to the judges, the elders at the city gates, and so on, they're like, well, that doesn't fit with what we have here.
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But the family wanted, said this is the way it should happen. Our inheritance, our land should be distributed to our own family members.
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So there's an interaction, right? Family governance and civil governance, all of a sudden there's an overlap.
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Well, how does it play out, right? Which one is more important here? Well, it has to be decided, and in this case
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God says, okay, and the family gets to keep the land, okay?
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So there's interaction there, right? So what do you do with a rebellious son? What do you do with a son that is constantly and improvingly bad and wicked and rebellious and ready to, and is against his parents and his family and is causing all sorts of problems?
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Well, the parents are encouraged at such a case with, you can't take care of it anymore.
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It's not your job at a certain level to do anything about this. You must bring him before the judges, bring him before the elders of the city.
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In which case, if he's unrepentant, they stone him to death. That's an extreme case, but the point is, if he won't submit to his family government, then what's left for him?
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I tell my kids this all the time. If you want to obey and show wisdom here, then what's left for you, you know?
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And in this case, the family is saying that there's no death penalty for treason against the state in God's society.
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There is a death penalty for treason against the family. Things aren't handled in -house, right?
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Something happens within a family, somebody murders someone, some sort of crime occurs, the state takes over, right?
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Genesis 9 says if someone kills somebody else, then that person has to be put to death. That's not the job of the family, that's the job of the state.
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Sometimes the whole family will be involved, you know, the whole family, you know, mafia crime. Everybody's involved, like Akin and his family.
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Well, they don't just get to hide that, that affected everybody in Israel. I mean, they went up against AI and lost a lot of men, a lot of people died because of Akin's sin and his family, and the state put them to death.
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So you see there's interactions, right? There's interactions with family government and state government, and there's different ways that we see that they interact.
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The same is true of families in church. There's all sorts of instructions to how families should be run from the church, right?
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So we have letters, Ephesians and Colossians, at length, instructions about husbands and wives and parents and children and how families are to conduct their family business, but the church, the elders don't come in and be the father in the family, right?
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They don't take over, they're just giving instructions from the Lord to build up.
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This is how the family should glorify God. And then, on the other consideration, is there's family considerations for church government.
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If, okay, in the case of 1 Corinthians 5, one family was so wicked and perverse, there was incest, and Paul's like, why didn't you excommunicate them?
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You can't allow an incestuous family to remain in the church. Why didn't you excommunicate this man?
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You should have done it already. Also, elders and deacons, one of the qualifications is that they have their family in order.
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You can't be an elder or a deacon if you can't manage your own household. How then can you manage the household of God? That's one of the qualifications as given.
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So you see there's an interaction, isn't there? Like, okay, your family may be a mess and we're going to help instruct you on that, but that doesn't mean you get to come in to be a major part of ecclesiastical governance if you can't handle things at home.
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So you see there's interactions, isn't there? Now, of course, we're not here to talk necessarily about the family and state and the family and the church, but the church and the state.
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But, of course, whatever happens between the state and the church easily transfers to the state and family, right?
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Whatever laws that they make about what churches can or cannot do is very easily made about what families can and cannot do.
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There's not really much of a leap. But the point that we see from the
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Scriptures is we're building our convictions and trying to understand how these work is this. The state cannot replace the church.
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We have the example, don't we, of Saul trying to replace Samuel, right?
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He's got his army together. He's doing what he's supposed to do as, you know, leader of the state. Okay, he's got his army together.
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We're ready to go do war. We've got the sword ready to kill the evildoers. And where's the prophet of God?
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Where is he at? He's not here. He's not here. Okay, we'll just do the sacrifices, right?
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We'll do the worship thing and we'll take over for that. And so he was judged for that.
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We talked about this morning King Uzziah went into the temple, tried to offer incense, which is not lawful for kings to do, but only priests.
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You see there's a separation. The state cannot replace the church. So, oh, also
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Second Kings 16, we have a wicked king of Judah going up to Damascus and seeing there an altar that the king of Syria had made, and very impressed with it, the king sends instructions back to his man in the temple, the high priest, and says,
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I want this temple built. This altar built. It's a pagan altar. He says, I want this one built.
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And so the priest said, yes sir, whatever you want, sir, and went and made a pagan altar in the middle of a temple and moved
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God's altar over to the side. Judgment. Judgment came upon them because of that.
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So the state doesn't get to do that. The church is actually to instruct the state on submission to Christ.
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How many times do we have prophets pointing at kings and saying, you're in the wrong. Repent. How many times do you have prophets pointing at kings and saying, you must repent and you must adhere to the law of God.
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I mean, that's just all for the Old Testament, isn't it? But Matthew 28, 18 through 20, we are instructed to make disciples of all the nations and people groups, yes, but however they're organized, too, we are to tell people who
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Christ is and what he has commanded, and to submit to that. The last few chapters of Acts, for example, we have
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Paul informing governors and judges and all sorts of royal officials who
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Christ is, why he's a prisoner, what his goal is, and what
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Jesus Christ is all about. I mean, you just have that all for the last part of the book of Acts. It's in the earlier parts of Acts, too, but this time and again we see that the church is to instruct the state on submission to Christ, and the church is to encourage proper submission to the state amongst their own ranks.
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1st Timothy 2, Titus 3, 1st Peter 2, there are instructions about how Christians are to live as good citizens of a kingdom or any kind of nation, how we are to live.
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There's supposed to be a distinct difference, a marked difference between Christians and pagans and how we live, and there's a proper type of submission to the state that we are to exercise.
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Why? Because God has ordained the government for good purposes, and so we are to be good citizens in that regard.
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So, I just wanted to point out that there is, while we have three spheres of government which are distinct, whether family or church or state, they often overlap.
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There's often interactions between them, and it requires some wisdom and some reflection upon the
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Scripture to understand what kind of interaction that's supposed to be, you see. We can't simply just cite one thing and say, call it good.
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This is an issue that really applies some wisdom and some thinking about. Issue for maturity.
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The thing we need to remember is that government's authority, no matter what they are, is delegated by God.
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All authority is delegated by God. So Colossians 2 .10, in him you have been made complete.
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He is head over all rule and authority. He's head over all rule and authority, wherever you find rule and authority, who's the head of it?
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Christ is, right? He's on the throne. So, the family government is under Christ's authority.
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Families don't get to do whatever they want, right? Families are accountable to Christ. The government of a family is delegated by God, and we're accountable to Christ because of it.
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First Corinthians 11 .3, but I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ.
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So, again, there's a lot there to unpack, but what's the point? There are roles and authority structures within the family, but Christ is in charge of it all.
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So, the husband, the father, is accountable to Christ, and he has been given authority, and it says that the man is the head of the woman, her federal head.
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He's responsible, and she is to submit to his leadership, but notice that as Christ is the head of every man, or in other words, of every family,
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God is the head of Christ, and we learn a lot between the way in which the father and the son interact in family government.
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Ephesians 5 .22 says, wives, be subject to your own husbands as to the Lord. It's not a bare issue of, well, he's the male, you're the female, so you have to submit.
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There are roles, and there's a family government here, and how a wife submits to her husband is really about who's in charge of the whole family.
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Who is what? Christ. Christ is in charge of the family. He's the head of every man. Children, same way,
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Ephesians 6 .1, children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Obey your parents in the
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Lord. Why would children obey their parents? Because Christ is head of the family. That's why. Honor your father and mother, because Christ is head of the family.
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So we have to understand the family's government is under Christ's authority. It's delegated by Jesus Christ. Secondly, the church's government is under Christ's authority.
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This is more easily understood, I think, but still needs to be thoroughly applied. Ephesians 1 .22,
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he put all things in subjection under his feet and gave him his head over all things to the church. Head over all things to the church.
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Whatever a church does, whatever our church is about, however we operate, whatever we think, whatever we do in our worship, everything,
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Christ is head over all of that. Over all of it. There's not some section of the church where we can farm out the surveys to ask other people, how would you like it to be done?
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Like, everything is under the authority of Christ and the church. To make the point,
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Revelation 1 .20, as for the mystery of the seven stars which you saw in my right hand and the seven golden lamp stands, the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches and the seven lamp stands are the seven churches.
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We have this vision of Christ in and among his churches, and he has the churches, their leadership in his hand.
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They're his, he's in charge, and he warns more than one of them about, if you don't repent,
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I'm going to snuff out your candle, because Jesus is in charge. So whatever government is going on in the church, accountable to Christ.
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And the state's government is under Christ's authority. John 19 10 through 11, so Pilate said to him, do you not speak to me?
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Do you not know that I have authority to release you, and I have authority to crucify you? Jesus answered, you would have no authority over me unless it had been given you from above.
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For this reason, he who delivered me to you has the greater sin. Right? Governor Newsom in California has no authority unless it was given to him by Christ.
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Governor Stitt has no authority unless it was given to him by Christ, because Christ is
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King of kings and Lord of lords, and he has all authority. He is the ruler of all the kings, of all the governors, of everybody in civil authority.
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That's what Revelation 1 5 says, he is the ruler of the kings of the earth. That'll be made even more clear when we look at Romans 13, about how the authority of the state is that which is delegated and given to them by God, and therefore it is limited and it is focused.
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So, and we'll just begin this a little bit, but I think it's important to, when we think about these things, not to start off or simply think about, you know, the obvious hypothetical cases.
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You know, if a mayor comes out and says, church attendees must kneel for Black Lives Matter before they have their worship service.
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Well, that's obvious. You know, it was like, yeah, well whatever, Mr. Mayor or Mrs. Mayor, we ain't doing that.
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That's easy, right? The hypothetical, we can figure that out. The glory of hypothetical cases is that there's always some worse scenario out there, however, that will draw the line in the sand when that comes around, right?
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We can always envision a hypothetical scenario someday, somewhere down the line, where eventually, yeah, at that point, we'll have to, you know, say no to the state or whatever civil officer.
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That's the glory of hypothetical cases. We can always come up with something that, yeah, at that point, we'll have to stand up or draw the line or whatever.
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But that doesn't help us at all with the present -day murky cases, where in fact, we ought to probably be having a more robust response.
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So what is our response to various claims that, due to Romans 13, when civil government, when federal, state, county, municipal officials tell us to jump, we ask how high, right?
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Romans 13 just, you know, obviously, whatever they say to us to do, we just, we, to be good citizens, be good Christians, we say, oh yeah, yes, whatever you want, and we'll do it with gusto.
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Should we sign up, for instance, with a covenant that they've agreed to at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary?
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They want all of the professors and staff and students to sign a covenant that says, amongst other things, we affirm together that we will follow and obey all rules, policies, advisories, and practices required by government authorities.
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You really want to sign that document? I don't want to sign that document. What's the justification behind it?
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Oh, Romans 13. Well, I don't know if that's a proper understanding or application of Romans 13, and we're going to...
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see, I had you turn to Romans 13 and I never read it, and we're already out of time, so that's a hint.
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You read Romans 13 1 through 7 this week. You meditate on it, you think on it. What is it saying?
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What's the point of the passage? What are we called to do as Christians? How are we to respond to the authority that has been delegated to civil authorities?
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Why? Why has God ordained civil authority as his ministers?
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What are they to do? And how does that relate to us meeting together as a church and worshiping
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Christ and even expand it to, you know, offering Christian education or evangelism and so on and so forth?
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And just try to meditate on Romans 13 in the current context and ask the
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Spirit to guide you, and as the Lord wills, we'll come back in two weeks.
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You have two weeks to study seven verses from Romans 13. We have flock groups next week, so we'll have to wait to September.
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September. But hopefully with the convictions that we've looked at already, there'll be some clarifying matters for you, okay?
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All right, any quick questions or observations or rebuttals before we close? Well, the thing about governing authorities is the same thing about any other authorities.
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There are always failings, and some of them really bad and obvious failings, whether in state authorities or family authority or church authority.
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Always things that are really obvious in the failings. So we have to look to the person who has delegated that authority, trust in his sovereignty, and then, okay, now what do we do?
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What do we do? How do we hold people accountable, and then how do we respond in the way that Christ would have us respond?
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Grace and wisdom. All right, let's close by singing the doxology together.