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An archive of Jacob Nannie's Sermons & Teachings
This sermon is titled "A Countercultural Family" and it's on Romans 13, verses 1-7.
It is the fourth residency sermon I preached at Christ Community, to the Shawnee campus,
and it was preached on October 6th of 2004.
This sermon was particularly difficult.
It was addressing Paul's words about Christians obeying government.
And I started this sermon with a section on being a vulnerable preacher.
October 6th was nearing the election day of the 2024 election, and this is an election
that is post-COVID-19, with a president re-running for a second term—both presidents running
for a second term—both vehemently opposed to each other, and it was really tough, really
contentious time, and some might say it still even is.
And so preaching a sermon on the Christian's place within government, and how to disobey,
and why we should obey, was a tough sermon.
I felt conflicted.
I think our preachers felt at least some level of conflict.
And since we felt that way, I started out with a section on being a vulnerable preacher.
That's what I was taught by Pastor Andrew when I lived in California.
Write the listener into the mind of the preacher.
And I think this sermon went really well.
I think it was really encouraging and well-received, and I think it shaped how I view my place
within politics and the Christian life.
So here is a countercultural family on Romans 13, 1 through 7.
Good morning.
My name is Mitch Holtus, and today's Scripture reading is from Romans chapter 13, verses
1 through 7.
We are now the word of the Lord.
Let everyone submit to the governing authorities, since there is no authority except from God.
And the authorities that exist are instituted by God.
So then, the one who resists the authority is opposing God's command, and those who oppose
it will bring judgment on themselves.
For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad.
Do you want to be unafraid of the one in authority?
Do what is good, and you will have its approval.
For it is God's servant for your good.
But if you do wrong, be afraid, because it does not carry the sword for no reason.
For it is God's servant, an avenger that brings wrath on the one who does wrong.
Therefore, you must submit, not only because of wrath, but also because of your conscience.
And for this reason, you pay taxes, since the authorities are God's servants.
Continually attending to these tasks, pay your obligations to everyone, taxes to those
you owe taxes, tolls to those you owe tolls, respect to those you owe respect, and honor
to those you owe honor.
This is the word of the Lord.
You may be seated.
Well, good morning, everyone, my name is Jacob Nanny, I'm the pastoral resident here, if
we haven't had a chance to meet yet, and we have a tough text this morning.
This is the reason Paul is not here this morning.
That's not the reason he's not here this morning, but, you know, when I was first learning to
preach, really learning and being trained in preaching, the pastor who was teaching
me taught me a really valuable lesson that I treasure and try to practice in preaching,
and that is bringing the congregation into the mind of the preacher, letting you guys
know where my heart's at, how I'm feeling, and being vulnerable.
And friends, I have to tell you this morning, this text makes me nervous.
It's a fairly easy text to study.
There's not a lot of ambiguity around it.
It's not difficult in an academic way.
Paul's words here are incredibly simple to read and understand, but very difficult to
live.
And what has had me nervous about this message is, how will I and how will you apply what
the apostle Paul teaches here?
How will you and I respond to the challenging words, "Let everyone submit to the governing
authorities"?
And if those words themselves are not challenging to you, we have a further challenge in the
separation we feel from Paul's day and our own day.
Paul's writing 1,975 years ago.
That's a very long time.
And we know Paul is writing to Christians who are in Rome under the ruler, Emperor Nero,
around the year 57 to 58 AD.
You and I are Christians, but we're not in Rome, we're in America.
We're not under a tyrannical ruler, and we're not in the year 57.
Again, Paul's words are simple to state and understand, but very difficult to live.
And the text leads us to ask at every turn, "Well, what about this, Paul?
Let everyone submit to the governing authorities, but what about this situation?
What about this government?
What about this leader?"
And these are all great and good questions.
The most central question being, how do we, Paul, apply this text as 21st century Christians
who live in a democratic republic?
This text also makes me nervous, if I can be more transparent, because in just 29 days,
the United States will have a new president.
And it's moments like these in history that bring out a lot of emotion and a lot of opinion.
It's moments like these that some of us are really stressed out about what's happening
in the nation, and some of us, for some reason, are really excited about what's happening
in the nation.
And in a season that seems to have built in division, my worry is that this text will
add to that division.
Yet despite my nervousness and anxiety as someone trying to rightly handle God's word,
I believe that the Spirit of God can intervene into difficult texts and difficult situations
and bring us, His people, humility and unity as we live as the body of Christ.
I so deeply desire those words that the author of Hebrews writes when he says, "Let us consider
how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together as
is the habit of some, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day
drawing near."
So my prayer as we enter into this message is that through this difficult season and
difficult text, we are bound up together in Christ, and that we as a church would stand
out as a unifying community committed to loving God and loving neighbor.
Amen?
There's the introduction.
We are continuing our study in the book of Romans, if you don't know already, and we're
looking at what it means to live as a family of God.
And I want to remind us that just a couple weeks ago, we looked at Romans chapter 12,
one through two, where the Apostle Paul says, "In view of the mercies of God, I urge you
to present your body as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.
This is your true worship.
Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you
may discern what is the good and pleasing perfect will of God."
Everything that follows these verses is application of these verses.
Two weeks ago, I preached on verses 3 through 8 of chapter 12, looking at what it means
to live as a united family in humility and diversity.
Last week, Pastor Paul talked through verses 9 through 21, detailing the Christian love
ethic.
And this week, Paul is instructing us on how living sacrifices live in response to governing
authorities.
And despite that chasm we feel between Paul's day and our own, there's no doubt that his
words are still relevant and applicable for 21st century Christians.
And again, Paul begins with this incredibly simple, challenging thesis statement.
Here's a big idea.
Do you want to know what Romans 13, 1 through 7 is about?
And do you want to know what this message is about?
Here it is.
Let everyone submit to the governing authorities.
It's simple, right?
It's a simple statement, but it's incredibly difficult to live, and it brings questions
to our mind immediately.
And one of those questions you might be asking is, okay, let everyone submit to governing
authorities.
Who is everyone, Paul?
He's writing to Christians in Rome, and in the context of all of Romans, it's easy to
say that, and it's true to say, that he's writing to Christians.
Let all Christians in Rome submit to the governing authorities.
The second question you might have is, who or what is Paul talking about when he says
governing authorities?
This one is a little bit easy to answer as well.
He's writing to Christians in Rome, which is the capital of the Roman Empire, and that
evidenced by verse 7 as well, which we'll get to later, don't worry, I promise I'll
talk to you about taxes.
That evidence is that he's talking about the Roman government.
Okay, two questions out of the way.
But the third and final burning question, it's a burning question for me, as you think
about this passage, is what does Paul mean by submit?
Does everyone submit to the governing authorities?
There are two possible meanings for this Greek word that stands behind the English word submit.
One of those meanings could mean obedience.
While submit might at some point include obedience, the Greek word that Paul uses, as one scholar
says, does not mean so much to obey or do the will of someone, but rather to lose or
surrender.
If Paul had meant strict obedience, there was another perfectly good Greek word he could
have used in this passage, but he did not.
And so a second, more likely definition is that Paul, what he means by submit is to be
in a subordinate position.
In other words, what he means is to recognize that there are authorities who are above you.
This is the same word he uses in other passages, such as Ephesians 5.21, where he tells Christians
"Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ."
And when we hear those passages, we don't think of obeying every single Christian in
the room.
We think of recognizing that there are other Christians who have authority over us and
who instruct us.
So this type of submission, as Douglas Moo puts it, means that we acknowledge others
have authority over us, and this usually means obedience, but sometimes disobedience is compatible
with biblical submission.
So in summary of this first point, Paul is telling us in verse 1, in the first half of
verse 1, he wants all Christians in Rome to submit to the governing authorities.
All those who have been transformed by the renewing of their mind and are living as sacrifices,
those Christians should submit to the governing authorities.
But here's the thing, Paul's words, submit to the governing authorities, are extremely
counter-cultural to our day.
They grind against our ears as we hear them.
He's out of step with what we believe in 21st century America.
We live in a society and culture that abhors authority and authority structures, that prioritizes
personal autonomy over authority of social, religious, or institutional authorities.
In his book, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, Carl Truman details the prevalence of
this worldview.
Here's what he says in chapter 2, "The rise of the modern self is a story about the gradual
dethroning of external authorities, whether God, tradition, or even nature, and their
replacement with the internal feelings and personal experiences as the primary guides
for life."
This is the state of most people today.
And while some of us might wholeheartedly agree with this evaluation of the culture,
we can't forget that this is the same air that you and I breathe.
I'm sure some of us here today are gradually dethroning authority in our lives.
Maybe you as a Christian do well in obeying Christ and submitting to his authority, but
there might be some part of you that is still in the process of letting God rule over your
heart.
The Church is not exempt from the attempted rise and triumph of the modern self.
So even though we're a bit separate from the culture, we can recognize that even for the
Church today, Paul's words, "Let all Christians submit to governing authorities," still just
grind against our ears.
They're intensively countercultural.
Yet despite this friction between modern culture and biblical ethics, we must obey the inspired
words of God and the inspired words of the apostle.
We must recognize that this respect and submission as well, though, this respect and submission
to authority does not mean blind obedience to the governing authorities.
In fact, sometimes disobedience has to be had to properly honor governing authorities.
That sounds counterintuitive, doesn't it?
Sometimes disobedience must be had to properly honor governing authorities.
You might ask, "When is such a disobedience okay?"
The answer is that when we disobey the demands of authorities, that would lead us to sin
against or reject God, because our ultimate submission ought to be to God alone.
Allegiance to God alone means submitting to the governing authorities.
And the first thing Paul does with this statement, "Let everyone submit to the governing authorities,"
is defend it theologically.
Why should Christians submit to governing authorities?
Because God is the ultimate authority and the institutor of earthly authority.
All authorities are under God's authority and under God's control.
However, it's not as though God has divinely instituted Western democratic republic government.
God has not divinely, in my opinion, instituted what we call "the state."
Government is a result of a growing family.
It's the extension of a large family.
One of my favorite theologians, John Frame, puts it this way in his book, The Doctrine
of the Christian Life.
He says, "What we see in scripture, rather, is a kind of gradual development from family
authority to something that we tend to call a state.
What we call 'the state' is simply a certain level of complexity in the government of a
large family."
And I bring this up because I think it might help us understand what it means to submit
to governing authorities when we think in family terms.
It helps us to kind of take in those abrasive words, "Let everyone submit to governing authorities."
If I were to stand here before you today preaching, let every child submit to their parents, everyone
would be excited.
There'd be no opposition.
All the parents would be standing up in the room, waving me off with their Bibles for
preaching fire, because that's a good message.
But the problem we face and the tension we feel is that we are a part of two different
families.
We're a part of the earthly family and also the heavenly spiritual family.
And I believe that we should think of submitting to earthly family, earthly authorities, the
same way we think of submitting to parents, employers, and even church leaders.
And we do that by respecting authority in a way that pledges allegiance to God.
Because it's God who is the ultimate authority.
Now Paul is not coming up with new theology here.
This is deeply rooted in the Old Testament.
This is a belief that has been going on for centuries at this point in the Old Testament.
For example, Daniel 4, 17 says that, "This is so that the living will know that the most
high is ruler over human kingdoms.
He gives them to anyone he wants and sets the lowliest of people over them."
So Paul is drawing on the ancient belief that God has authority and control over all authorities,
whether they're governing authorities, parents, employers, or Christian leaders.
He believes this so deeply that he essentially states the same thing twice in the latter
half of verse 1.
There's no authority except what God establishes, and what God establishes is established by
God.
And he follows up with a very simple and logical application.
So then, the one who resists the authority is opposing God's command, and those who oppose
it will bring judgment on themselves.
Maybe most of us aren't out here publicly and viciously defying the government, but
have you ever experienced negative consequences from opposing the authority figures in your
life?
How many of you have gotten in trouble with your parents before for opposing their authority?
Lots of us.
And this is a common example I see.
Usually it's with younger children.
They get themselves in a tricky situation where they might fall or get hurt, and the
parent very calmly says, "Don't do that, you're going to fall," and the child usually locks
eyes with the parent and does it anyways, and they fall over, and tears ensue.
And so in that situation, in a small but significant sense, the child has experienced judgment
for disobeying parents.
But on a much greater and scarier scale than that, the same is true when we kick against
God.
Whether we're kicking against God's authority or governing authorities, when we resist God's
authority, we are bringing judgment on ourselves.
God is the ultimate authority, and all existing authorities are instituted by him.
And it's at this point you might be asking yourself, "But what about if we have this
leader?
What if this person is in office?
What if this government is ruling over us?
What if God appoints a bad or evil authority?"
That's a good and really important question for us to ask.
And luckily we have examples of it all over Scripture, what it looks like to live the
sacrifice that submits to governing authorities, even when they're evil and bad.
And one of the best examples of this is in the book of Daniel, in Daniel chapter 6.
In this chapter, in the book of Daniel, there are people who are out to get Daniel.
They don't like Daniel, and so they get the king to make a decree that says if you worship
other gods besides the king, you ought to and will be thrown in the lion's den.
Once that decree was signed, the Bible says that Daniel knew it was signed, and his immediate
response was to go and pray three times a day.
That's submissive disobedience.
A simple task that to the governing authorities of Daniel's day seemed like violence.
And so one day his captors came, and they threw him in the lion's den.
And as the stone rolls over, the king says a peculiar thing.
He says, "I hope your god is with you."
And Daniel records that God was with him, that the angels came down and shut the mouths
of the lions, and that God had preserved Daniel.
It is through Daniel's submissive disobedience that the king makes a new decree that all
should worship the god of Daniel.
That submissive disobedience.
Daniel did not go out and start a riot or revolt.
He simply obeyed God.
The early Christians knew submissive disobedience as well.
Early Christians in Rome were able to truthfully tell the government, "We are good citizens.
We pay our taxes.
We honor the authorities.
We don't stir up any riots or revolutions.
We just can't say that Caesar is Lord."
Because their ultimate allegiance was to God alone.
And it's in their submissive disobedience of saying that Jesus is Lord, not Caesar,
that the early Christians were reminding the ruling authorities that they ought to be servants
of God.
That they are not God themselves.
And this is just not an ancient problem.
This didn't just happen in ancient times.
Today there are Christians in China, for example, who are good citizens, but they cannot bow
down to the governing authorities when those governing authorities defy Christ.
One of these Christians is Pastor Wang Yi.
He's a pastor of Early Rain Covenant Church in China.
And in December of 2018, he was arrested during a government raid on his church, his church
that was not registered with the Chinese state.
And he was charged with inciting to disrupt social order, and after attending a secret
court was given a nine-year prison sentence.
He's expected to be released in 2027.
Before his arrest, he sensed that this was coming, and so he wrote an open letter detailing
why he pays allegiance to Christ and not the Chinese state.
And if you want to know what submissive disobedience looks like in 21st century life, you must
read this letter.
I highly recommend you read this letter.
In that letter, he states this, "On the basis of the teachings of the Bible, in the mission
of the gospel, I respect the authorities God has established in China.
For God deposes kings and raises up kings.
This is why I submit to the historical, institutional arrangements of God in China.
For this reason, I accept and respect the fact that this communist regime has been allowed
by God to rule temporarily.
I am joyfully willing to submit myself to their enforcement of the law, as though submitting
to the discipline and training of the Lord."
Did you catch that?
He says he will joyfully submit to the governing authorities, yet he was arrested for defying
governing authorities.
Pastor Yi's faith in the midst of persecution is a solid example of submissive disobedience.
He did not cause riot, revolt, revolution, though the Chinese government did charge him
with this.
Instead, he, in his allegiance to Christ, took his allegiance to Christ seriously over
the unjust laws that he was presented with.
Pastor Yi had allegiance to Christ over the governing authorities.
Are you prepared to follow in that same example?
Are you prepared to follow the example of the early church who said, the example of
them saying, "We are good citizens, but just can't say that Caesar is Lord"?
Are you prepared to follow the example of Daniel, that when decrees are written against
your religion, you will still obey Christ?
It's easy to say that we will defy the governing authorities when they rub up against our Christian
faith, but you and I don't have to say that in face a punishment of death.
And church, I pray that that day never comes.
And thanks be to God that you and I are not facing such persecution today.
Today we can submissively disobey without fear of death or the fear of stepping out
of God's will.
So when God appoints bad, or maybe even evil leaders, we must remember that submission
to the governing authorities is submission to God, but we must also remember that our
ultimate allegiance is to God alone, not the governing authorities.
We have to remember that we have a theological basis for submitting to these governing authorities,
because it's God who sets them up.
All earthly authorities are instituted by God.
All earthly authorities are under God's authority and under God's control.
And when we resist submitting to these authorities that God has set over us, we resist God.
And beyond this theological reason, there are some practical reasons that the Apostle
Paul gives and lays out as to why we ought to submit to the governing authorities.
And these practical reasons are in verses 3 through 5.
In verse 3, Paul tells us that the governing authorities are established with the intent
of bringing welfare, therefore the Christians should not fear governing authorities.
In the first half of verse 4, Paul tells us that the governing authorities are established
to mandate good, therefore Christians should encourage them mandating good.
In the second part of verse 4, Paul says the governing authorities are established to be
an avenger of God's justice, to bear the sword.
And this should point us back to Romans chapter 12 verse 19, where Paul says, "Don't take
vengeance because vengeance is the Lord."
God has given the state the right to avenge his name and bear the sword.
These are all practical reasons why we should submit to governing authorities.
But the governing authorities, therefore, are our servants, not our masters.
They are our servants, not our masters.
And again, you might be asking, "Well, what if this leader's in power?
What about this type of government?"
We have to recognize a crucial fact that Paul, as one scholar says, is not discussing in
exhaustive fashion the relation of Christians to the governing authorities.
It's not his intent here.
It's not his intent to answer all of your questions about 21st century Western authorities.
Which is why, I think Paul knew this in the back of his head, that there's many more years
to come of Christ's power.
This is why in verse 5 he sums up the application this way, "Therefore, you must submit not
only because of wrath, but also because of your conscience."
First, we should submit to governing authorities to avoid wrath.
The wrath of the governing authorities, but also the wrath of God.
During the time of Paul writing this letter, there was a tension between the Jews, of which
the Christians were tied to, because they were seen as an offshoot of the Jewish movement.
Tension between the Jews and the Roman Empire.
And Paul does not want Christians to stir up and add more to this tension.
He does not want any Christian to stir up controversy or anarchy.
conservative disobedience never looks like anarchy.
It never looks like violence.
It never looks like revolt.
Because if you do that, and if the Christians had done that in Paul's day, they would have
experienced and incurred punishment from the Romans.
But by God as well, because as we discussed, God sets up the Roman authorities.
God sets up all authorities.
And second, we should submit to the governing authorities because of our own conscience.
That is, our transformed and renewed minds, which is how Paul phrases it in Romans 12.1-2.
True and good submission to governing authorities looks like living as a sacrifice, holy and
pleasing to God.
It looks like living and operating as a citizen with a transformed and renewed mind that's
been transformed by God's mercies.
And again, you might be asking, but what about this leader though?
I mean, come on, what if this person is put in place?
What if this nation is ruling?
What if we're under tyranny?
What if we're under a bad regime?
And again, as he asks us questions, I want to remind you, Paul is not trying to give
you a full theology of the Christian in the state.
And to hold on to that expectation as you read this passage is to miss the purpose of
his encouragement to the Christians in Rome.
The purpose and intent of this passage is for Paul to encourage the Christian that he
or she should view their responsibilities as citizens by first evaluating the situation
they find themselves in.
You and I live in a different situation than Paul's day.
You and I even live in a different situation than the Chinese Christians.
We have to first evaluate our situation.
And second, after evaluating our situation, we should respond as people with renewed minds,
transformed hearts, that are living sacrifices pleasing to God.
Submitting to governing authorities is simple.
It's simple, not easy, when we have a sensible evaluation of the current state of the culture,
the current state of politics, and with that evaluation we respond as living sacrifices.
An even more direct application of this is what Paul gives us in verses 6-7.
He says to you, "Pay taxes, since the authorities are God's servants, continually attending
to these tasks.
Pay your obligations to everyone, taxes those you owe taxes, tolls to those you owe tolls,
respect to those you owe respect, and honor to those you owe honor."
When you're doing these things, what is the disposition of your heart?
Do you do these things begrudgingly?
Do you do these things with bitterness?
Are you honest with your taxes?
Do you pay the tolls that you have?
How do you talk about governing authorities at the local, state, or federal level?
Do you show honor to all of those who have authority over you?
With all these answers, I want you to answer these questions in your mind, and as you have
those answers in your mind, ask yourself just one more question.
Is this how a living sacrifice pleasing to God would act and think?
Am I acting according to the mercies that God has shown me?
Or am I acting to my own internal feelings and desires, as Carl Truman detailed earlier?
And while we're called to do these things, to honor the governing authorities, to pay
taxes, to do these very practical things, we must bear in mind that our allegiance,
our ultimate allegiance, is to God.
We must honor and respect governing authorities, but our ultimate allegiance is to Christ and
his kingdom, not the earthly kingdoms.
Sometimes we may submissively disobey the governing authorities, but church, there is
never a situation where you are allowed to submissively disobey God.
In our current political and cultural state, you might be asking, "What or who should
I submissively disobey?"
And I would say to you, "That's the wrong question to ask; the right question to ask
is how does a living sacrifice pleasing to God live in this situation?"
As you think of those questions, you might also, you need to guard yourself against fear.
Fear of social persecution, fear of financial persecution, maybe even fear of physical persecution.
Because that fear, if given into, will lead you to blind obedience.
There will be times in your life where you will face some form of persecution.
When the threat of persecution is facing you, don't give in to blind allegiance.
Don't give in to blind allegiance in the face of fear.
You should take that fear and submit to Christ.
At all times and in all situations, our ultimate allegiance should be to Christ.
And at all times and in all situations, our ultimate allegiance requires our death.
No matter what, that might be a death to the self, or that might be a physical death.
Ultimate allegiance to Christ means living a life of self-denial and sacrifice.
And so through the what abouts and what ifs of your life's journey, you might run into
areas where you're not sure how to live.
So again, you must remember that your answer to how should I live should be informed by
how living sacrifices pleasing to God submit to the governing authorities.
How living sacrifices pleasing to God live in general.
And when you're unsure about how to live, even with that question in your mind, even
with that criteria in your mind, when you are unsure, it's in these times that you ought
to look to Christ.
Christ submitted to the governing authorities, and he was killed for it.
Christ submitted to the governing authorities, but his ultimate allegiance was to the Father.
He says that he only does what he sees the Father doing.
And for Christ, that meant going up against Rome, going up against the Jewish religion
of his day.
And he was killed for that.
But much like the story of Daniel, the faithful submissive disobedience that Christ lived
led to 1,992 years of victory.
Nearly 2,000 years of Christ's power has been on full display because he submissively disobeyed
the governing authorities and held ultimate allegiance to his Father.
When living as a sacrifice pleasing to God, when it gets tough, look to the faithfulness
of Christ, to the faithfulness of Daniel, to the faithfulness of early Christians, and
to all the saints down through the ages that have lived in every form of conflict, every
form of government.
And as you look at these saints, look at how God was glorified in and through them.
Look to these things and believe that as you, you sitting here today, submit to God's authority,
as you do that, God will be glorified in and through you and maybe, maybe he'll lead through
your submissive disobedience, through your submission to him, maybe you'll change a whole
nation.
But maybe you're here today and you don't believe in Jesus.
And though you don't believe in Jesus, you believe, you feel the tension and stress of
our current culture and political state.
Maybe this has left you in a pit of despair.
That's you today.
I want to tell you that there is hope.
In fact, there is a ruler, there is a leader who will rule and lead perfectly, who does
rule and lead perfectly.
There's a leader who will always reward good, always reward good and always punish evil.
There's a leader that when you submit to him, your life will be forever changed for his
glory and your good.
There is a leader that exists that you don't have to ask the questions, "But what about?"
or "But what if?"
And that leader is Jesus and his kingdom.
And so when you feel that tension, whether you're a Christian or not, turn to Christ
for hope and peace in the midst of a turbulent world.
Pray with me.
God, we thank you for government.
We thank you for hard texts like this that Paul has for us today.
We ask that you help us to discern how to live as Christians in our day.
How do we glorify you in and through our lives?
Help us to keep that in the front of our minds, what it means to live as a living sacrifice,
holy and pleasing to God.
In Jesus' name, amen.