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Romans 12:18-13:7
18 If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. 19 Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it1 to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” 20 To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
13:1 Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. 3 For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, 4 for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience. 6 For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. 7 Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.
(ESV)
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
If you have a Bible, I invite you to turn to Romans chapter 13. Romans 13, we've been going through the book of Romans for a little over a year now. A few months ago, as we were entering into Romans chapter 9, A man who was visiting, he came up to me after the service. He was a first time visitor. And so we were chatting.
Jeffrey Heine:He says, you know, it's actually really strange for me to, to to come and visit a church. And I said, why is that? He goes, well, typically, I've always had to work on a Sunday. I said, well, what did you do? He goes, well, I used to be a pastor until last week.
Jeffrey Heine:I was like, oh, since there is a story there, what happened? He goes, I was preaching through Romans. And he goes, and, we hit Romans 9. And, things just really got heated. There's a lot of controversy.
Jeffrey Heine:And, and then by the time we got to Romans 13 and stuff, I I finally I realized like, I can no longer serve as pastor here. It gotten so bad. It's like, great talk. And, what do you say? So as we've been going through Romans, we've been digging into some pretty heavy stuff.
Jeffrey Heine:I mean, we've looked at sin, predestination, God's relationship with Israel. I mean, we have we have dug in. And through all of that, I really have felt the spirit of God moving in our midst. I have seen such fruit. He has united us together.
Jeffrey Heine:I think we haven't just survived over these last few months. We've thrived as a church. But now I enter into what I see is, my greatest challenge as a preacher, as we hit chapter 13. Because I get to talk to you about submitting to your government authorities and paying your taxes. Can I get an amen?
Jeffrey Heine:Laughter is not the same as an amen, people. Like, I saw I saw what you were doing. Alright. Can I get an amen? Amen.
Jeffrey Heine:Man, we're gonna work on that. I'm just glad I didn't have to preach on this during an election season or, like, as you're filing your taxes. So we're gonna begin in chapter 13 verse 1. I've got so much 12, is there in your worship guide just for some context. Beginning in verse 1.
Jeffrey Heine:Let every person be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God. And those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore, whoever resists the authorities, resists what God has appointed. And those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad.
Jeffrey Heine:Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his his approval, for he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore, one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God's wrath, but also for the sake of conscience.
Jeffrey Heine:For because of this, you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. Pay to all what is owed to them. Taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, Respect to whom respect is owed. Honor to whom honor is owed. This is the word of the Lord.
Jeffrey Heine:Yes, amen. Pray with me. Our father, would you be so kind to us that you would send your spirit to gently open up our hearts and our minds so that we can hear from you? So that our minds might understand the words in front of us, that our hearts might be able to receive it, so that we could look more like you, Jesus. I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore.
Jeffrey Heine:But Lord, may your words remain and may they change us. Pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. So let me ask you this. How did things go this past Thanksgiving dinner?
Jeffrey Heine:You know, when your family and your extended family are all gathered together, how did it go when politics was brought up? You know when one family member said, I'm so glad Trump's no longer in office. While the other family member puts on their MAGA hat. When you brought up politics or somebody brought up politics, was it a very unifying, loving experience with your family? Alright.
Jeffrey Heine:So, why the heck does Paul bring up politics here? I mean, why did why does he do this? Well, it's because we're family. We're supposed to love one another. And He has just talked to us about being family and loving one another.
Jeffrey Heine:And in particular, he talked about how we are to overcome evil with good. And Paul, he is telling us here that the way we overcome evil with good is by submitting to our government authorities, because the government authorities were the evil that so many of them were trying to overcome. Christians were being severely persecuted at this time. And so this is naturally leads out of chapter 12 in which you're supposed to love your enemies. You're supposed to overcome evil with good.
Jeffrey Heine:And they're like, well, what about the government? And he's like, this is how we love the government. We submit to them. We honor them. We obey them even though they don't deserve it.
Jeffrey Heine:This is how we overcome evil with good. And if possible, try to live at peace with everyone. Now, if you know your history, you know that these verses have been misunderstood at times or even greatly abused at times. They were used to tell slaves that they needed to just respect and obey the government. Hitler even used these verses to strong-arm any citizen who questioned his authority.
Jeffrey Heine:He just said, I'm here by God's authority. I'm God's servant. Here's the problem when we come to this text. This is as, one of the commentators, he put it this way. This passage does not tell us what we ought to do when a government departs from the role God had given it.
Jeffrey Heine:It doesn't specifically explain what to do when our government is committing a moral wrong. Neither are we told what to do in the midst of a revolution. It also, doesn't show us which form of government is best. It doesn't even commend democracy. I mention these things because many of the difficulties found in this chapter result from what is read into it, rather than from what it actually teaches.
Jeffrey Heine:So with that in mind, I'd like for us to just take a step back, have a 20,000 foot view here, and let's just start with the big picture about this text. And then I'm gonna work from there. This is what I believe Paul's main point in all of this is. Because we, as Christians, believe Jesus is the true Lord of this world, we don't need to pick up any unnecessary quarrels with the lesser lords. Even though governments are not perfect, and even at times they can be evil, we are to submit to them while trusting that Jesus is still the one ultimately on the throne and everything is happening under his watch.
Jeffrey Heine:So I think that's Paul's 20,000 foot view of of how we are to submit to the governing authorities. Okay. So now let's dig into the verses. Verse 1. Let every person be subject to the governing authorities.
Jeffrey Heine:Now this idea of being subjecting ourselves or submitting to authorities is not a new concept in scripture. You find those words many places. Paul tells children, for instance, you know, to honor and to obey, to submit to their parents as to the Lord. In Colossians 3, servants are told to obey, to submit to their earthly masters, as to the Lord. Employees are to work for their supervisors, as for the Lord.
Jeffrey Heine:This is not a new thought in scripture, this idea of submission. And of course, the people or the institutions that we are commanded to submit to are not perfect by any means. There are no perfect parents. There are no perfect bosses. There are no perfect governments.
Jeffrey Heine:Wives, you're asked to submit to your husbands. You look at them and you're like, you're not perfect. So we're asked to submit to people who we know know are not like God. Now I find it very interesting that the moment we hear this this word submission, it does something in us, doesn't it? The moment we are told to submit to authority, you know what our mind immediately jumps to?
Jeffrey Heine:Yeah, but what about in this situation? Well, yeah. Well what about in this scenario? Didn't you immediately when I was talking about you need to submit to your submit to your governing authorities. So like, yeah, but what about?
Jeffrey Heine:That's what we do. Why is it? It's very telling about us. It's very telling about our nature that we immediately want to jump to the exception. And what it says about us is this.
Jeffrey Heine:We don't wanna submit to any authority. We don't want anyone to tell us what to do. And we'll look for any excuse not to submit to that authority. We all want to be the one in charge, and so when we come to a text like this, let's just acknowledge our nature. Let's acknowledge our fallen nature that we're rebellious.
Jeffrey Heine:There's sin inside of us. So before we even think of every exception to submission, first, I wanna just ask you a general question. We'll deal with some exceptions. But before that, I wanna just ask you a general question. Do you think it is generally a good idea that children obey their parents?
Jeffrey Heine:Do you think it's generally a good idea that employees obey their supervisors? Do you think it's generally a good idea that we obey the laws of the land? Absolutely. I mean, I know that sometimes, you know, having to drive under a certain speed limit is a pain, but could you imagine living in a society in which there were no traffic laws? In which everyone is lord of their own car behind their wheel, they get to do whatever they want?
Jeffrey Heine:It will be absolute total chaos. These laws are good. These governing authorities are good. God gave us government because he is not a God of chaos. Government is God's gift.
Jeffrey Heine:I want everybody to say that out loud. Government is God's gift. Hurt, didn't it? A little? Now you might be thinking, okay, Joel.
Jeffrey Heine:I hear you. I hear you. You even forced me to say that. But if Paul actually knew, like if he could look 2000 years and if he actually knew how corrupt our government was, He would have never commanded this. Let me give you a news flash.
Jeffrey Heine:The emperors of Rome were not Abraham Lincolns. I mean, the 3 emperors that Paul got to see in his day, here they were. 1st, there was Caligula. Caligula regularly dressed up like a woman. He either slept with or killed every family member.
Jeffrey Heine:He made his horse a senator. Imagine that. Alright. And then there was Claudius who came after him. He wasn't quite as sexually deviant, but was every bit as evil.
Jeffrey Heine:And then there was Nero, who was currently the emperor as Paul wrote this. Nero would go on to be the cruelest, most sadistic ruler of all time. I mean, we know the stories about Nero, how he intentionally set fire to Rome and blamed it on the Christians. And while Rome was burning, he goes out on his balconies playing the fiddle or the harp laughing at it. Nero would go on to crucify countless Christians.
Jeffrey Heine:He would even light up Christians and use them as human torches in his courtyard. Once, he got so mad at his pregnant wife, he kicked her to death. But then he felt remorse about it, and so he found a young boy who happened to look like his wife, had him castrated, and then renamed him his wife's name. These are the emperors. These are the emperors that Paul is saying to submit to.
Jeffrey Heine:So so before, whatever happens after the next election, before you put on that bumper sticker that says, not my president, you know, just just remember that Paul understands what it's like to be under a corrupt government. Hear me. The early church never ever had the privilege of having one of their own in power, and it never thwarted God's plans. Their submission to these authorities did not depend on it being their man. Here in the US, we are nowhere close to the persecution and the hostility that these 1st century believers faced.
Jeffrey Heine:And it is to that government that Paul is now saying, submit. Honor. So let's let's listen to Paul in this. In these verses, he's going he's going to describe to us the power of government, the power and responsibility of government, and then also our responsibility to government. So let's look at the power and the responsibility that government has and then let's look at our responsibility as citizens.
Jeffrey Heine:Then after that I'm going to Avondale brewery and the elders are gonna come up for q and a. Alright. Paul tells us 3 things about the power and the responsibility of government. First thing he tells us is no political leader is actually God. No political leader is actually God.
Jeffrey Heine:In verse 1, he tells us that their authority comes from God, but they are not God. Why do you think Paul would feel compelled to tell us that? To say something like that. It's almost like he thinks people would be tempted to worship political leaders as God or their savior. For that people would serve their political parties with such devotion.
Jeffrey Heine:You could only describe it as religious devotion. Thank goodness we've progressed. Thankfully, 2000 years has completely washed that away from us. The emperor in that day said he was divined and demanded worship. Paul says he's not God.
Jeffrey Heine:Our leaders are not God. They're not our saviors, nor are there political parties. This is such an obvious point, people. Such an obvious, it's one I wish I did not have to make. But when there is such blind devotion given to certain political leaders, or to certain political movements, sometimes you just have to, from the pulpit, say that's idolatry.
Jeffrey Heine:That's political tribalism that has no no place in the church. The last, the last 2 years, haven't been a fun time to be in leadership during the pandemic. I mean the pandemic's had, like, tons of challenges. Anybody's been in leadership. It's just been a very hard place to be.
Jeffrey Heine:Pastoral leadership has been really hard. The last Barna study that just came out, said that 40% of pastors have seriously considered quitting over the last 2 years. Many of my friends have quit. They just gave up, they couldn't take it anymore. That Barna study said, Here's the top two reasons why these pastors are quitting.
Jeffrey Heine:1st, just stress from the job. 2nd, political division. Can I tell you the last 2 years, the pandemic was it was it was a nightmare? I mean, I'd love to to have a meeting without the word COVID ever mentioned again. But as much as that wore me down, the political division nearly broke me.
Jeffrey Heine:It was brutal. To get up here and preach some of the things we preach about love and unity, and then see some of the things that were posted from our members. I lost friendships who are members of this church because I wouldn't endorse certain candidates. It nearly drove me to the point of like, I'm I'm about done. Jesus had 12 men gathered together.
Jeffrey Heine:Political extremes. All they got to talk about was religion and politics. Alright? He gathered the 12 men together and one of them was Simon the Zealot. He was the most extreme political party.
Jeffrey Heine:They believed they should kill those who worked for Rome. Then he got Matthew the tax collector who worked for Rome. He's like, and y'all are my disciples. And if you love one another, if you love me and you love one another, the whole world's gonna know what I'm doing here. What do you think the world saw when they saw us?
Jeffrey Heine:Dude, was it a testament to Jesus? Let's move on. Second thing that Paul teaches us about the power and the responsibility of government is this. The government authorities work for Him. They work for Him and are or supposed to work for Him because God is the one who put them in that position of authority.
Jeffrey Heine:So they're not God, but God's the one who gave them that position of authority. So our leaders, both good leaders and bad leaders, would not be in the position they're in unless God had ordained it. Trump would not have been in power unless God had ordained it. Biden would not be in power unless God had ordained it. Notice I'm not getting, like, any amens at any part of this sermon.
Jeffrey Heine:Everybody's, like, on edge. What's he gonna say? Jesus himself, he he taught us that all authority comes from God. I mean, we see this in John 19 when Jesus is in trial. He's on trial.
Jeffrey Heine:He's before Pilate. And Pilate's making all these accusations, asking all these questions, and Jesus is just silent. And finally, Pilate says, don't you know I have the authority to give you life or to take it? And finally Jesus speaks up because you would have no authority unless god gave it to you. But Jesus is recognizing that moment.
Jeffrey Heine:Pilate had the authority, but it came from his father. Let that sink in. The person who would go on to execute Jesus got that authority from his father. But Jesus can rest in that because he knows that God's plan will never be thwarted, even if it means going to the cross. We all know as Christians, the battle's been won.
Jeffrey Heine:We know where history is headed. It is headed where every knee will bow and every tongue will confess Jesus' lordship, and he is gonna come and rule in this world, the redeemed world forever. That's where it's headed. And no political leader, good or bad, can ever thwart that plan. There's a confidence in that.
Jeffrey Heine:Alright. 3rd. 3rd thing, final thing we see about the power and responsibility of government, is God gave the government's power in order to promote good and to punish evil. Look at verses 34. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad.
Jeffrey Heine:Would he have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval. For he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer.
Jeffrey Heine:Okay. So we saw earlier in chapter 12, just a few verses before this, how God said to the individual, you do not have the right to execute vengeance on anybody who harms you. Leave that to God. And now God says, I will execute the vengeance though through the government. So he denies that to the individuals, but he grants that authority to the governments.
Jeffrey Heine:He has given them the sword. The power of the sword. And now the power of the sword here, the wield the sword means that the government, the state has it has the right to inflict penalties, severe penalties, including death. That mean people were not spanked with a sword. This is a harsh penalty.
Jeffrey Heine:It's death. The state has the power for capital punishment. The state has the power to go to war. But they're not free to just hand out those punishments or free to hand out wars however and whenever they want. Not at all.
Jeffrey Heine:Paul calls the government authorities who use the sword his servant. Did you notice that? I mean, verse 4, God calls the government authorities His servant. In verse 6, He calls them a minister of God. And if I can't take offense to that, you can't take offense to that.
Jeffrey Heine:The governing authorities are ministers to God. To be a servant or to be a minister to God means that the civil magistrate has the responsibility to operate under God's moral code. A servant is not free to do whatever they wish. A servant must obey their master. So rulers are called to support what God says is right And they are called to punish what God says is evil.
Jeffrey Heine:So finally, we get to the question you all been waiting for. So what do we do when that doesn't happen? What are we supposed to do as Christians when our governing authorities don't act like servants of God? What are we supposed to do when they support what is evil and they punish what is right? I I mean, verse 4 says that when government is operating well, then you should be afraid when you do wrong.
Jeffrey Heine:But what if it is the opposite? What if you're afraid now of the government when you do right? What if the state punished a doctor who refused to give an abortion or to give gender altering drugs? What if the state prohibited evangelism or denied the church the right to gather together and worship? What if the state punished pastors for not performing same sex weddings?
Jeffrey Heine:What if the state discriminated against certain races? What if you were drafted to fight in an unjust war? What are Christians supposed to do then? Those are really good hard questions. Can I say that Paul, he only hints at the answers to those questions in this text?
Jeffrey Heine:If you actually want to really begin to answer those questions, you you gotta get outside this text and look elsewhere in scripture. Go back to places like in Exodus, where we see the ruler of that day, pharaoh, he made a evil command that all of the Hebrew male children were to be thrown into the Nile. Once they were born, they would be thrown into the Nile and killed. And he find that the Hebrew midwives, they ignored that command. And at risk of their own lives, they saved those children.
Jeffrey Heine:And they were praised for it. When Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were commanded by the government to bow down and worship to a giant statue, they practiced civil disobedience. They refused. They publicly spoke out against it. They boldly went to King Nebuchadnezzar and they said, we will never do such a thing.
Jeffrey Heine:We will never bow down to an idol, even if it means our lives. Later, the king, he issued a command that one was to only pray to Him. You couldn't pray to any other god, you could only pray to Him. And Daniel, who worked for the government at the time, practiced public civil disobedience. He went in a very open place and he prayed.
Jeffrey Heine:And he was thrown into the lion's den for it. The Old Testament is full of examples of God's people refusing to obey immoral laws. In the New Testament, we have in Acts chapter 4, we see Peter and John, they were told to stop preaching the gospel. Stop telling people about Jesus and their response was this. No.
Jeffrey Heine:We cannot stop speaking what we have seen and heard. So then Peter was thrown to jail. In Acts chapter 5, the governing authorities, they said, once again, you're not allowed to preach. And it says that Peter and all the apostles said this, we must obey God rather than men. Jesus is the higher authority.
Jeffrey Heine:Of course, we've seen civil disobedience here in this city in Martin Luther King Junior. And his letter from a Birmingham jail is just such a great example of this. You read through that letter, and he acknowledges the God given authorities of people. He respects them and honors them. And then he pleads with them to act like ministers and servants of God.
Jeffrey Heine:Civil disobedience, publicly pleading with them, and then he went to jail for it. This is our calling as believers. If the state commands what God forbids, or if it forbids what God commands, then our duty as a follower of Jesus is to speak out against it and to exercise civil disobedience. Let me say that again. If the state commands what God forbids, or if it forbids what God commands, then our duty as a follower of Jesus is to speak out against it and to practice civil disobedience.
Jeffrey Heine:You know, we do have something that the early Christians did not have, or that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego did not have or Daniel. None of the apostles. We do have a right to vote. None of them enjoyed that right. They could only speak out against evil and then suffer the consequences for it.
Jeffrey Heine:We could speak out against evil, and then we can vote. And so being informed as to what is good and evil and voting accordingly, I would say is our Christian duty. Alright. So now, what does submitting to government actually look like? We've seen the power and the responsibility that government has.
Jeffrey Heine:Now, what does it look like to submit to these governing authorities? Well, it means that we obey them. We obey their laws, not out of fear, but out of our because of our conscience, we obey their laws. And it also means we pay our taxes. Can I get an amen?
Jeffrey Heine:Once again, people, you laugh. I see what you're doing. Can I get an amen? Amen. Yeah.
Jeffrey Heine:We get to pay our taxes. This is more for my sake too. I wanna say this. My daughter, Caroline, last year, she, she got her first real job, at Jenny's Ice Cream. And so, she is, you know, all day, you know, just scooping it's hard work.
Jeffrey Heine:I mean, you come home, your wrists are sore. She's just scooping ice cream all day. But it was all gonna be worth it because of that paycheck. And so she gets her 1st paycheck and she's just studying it. Like, I mean, she was expecting so much more.
Jeffrey Heine:And she's like, what happened? It's like, it's called taxes. I mean, she wasn't taxed when she did babysitting, but but now the government's involved. And so the the government takes away these taxes. And she's like, oh my gosh.
Jeffrey Heine:They took away so much. I said, I know. You know? And now let's talk about tithing. And so now out of a joyful heart, we give, you know, the this money to the Lord as well.
Jeffrey Heine:And it was an educational day for Lauren. I mean, for, Caroline. Lauren and I are still learning this. One of the most practical ways that we submit to the government is we pay our taxes. Once again, can you imagine the ethical, like, conundrums that that put the early church in?
Jeffrey Heine:I mean, I can almost hear them asking Paul, are are you really saying, I'm supposed to give money to this evil group of people who are then gonna use that money to do evil things. Like, they're they're gonna use my money to persecute Christians. I mean, for Paul, he is likely paying the wages of his future future executioner. Paul knows that. He says, pay your taxes.
Jeffrey Heine:Listen, if we decide we can't ever give money to certain people or to governments who do immoral things, then you know what? You can't ever give or pay money to anyone. Once again, like, can you see, like, we're being freed by by being tied up in all these knots about this. We know that Jesus is Lord, so we don't have to like squabble over all these things about the lesser lords. We don't have to get caught up in knots all about this.
Jeffrey Heine:Paul just says, pay your taxes. Now, when Paul tells us to do this, he's most certainly referring back to Jesus's words about taxes. Look at verse 7. Pay to all what is owed to them. Taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.
Jeffrey Heine:I mean, Paul has to have in mind Jesus' words that we find in Matthew 22, in which he talked about taxes. You remember the story. I mean, it is it's classic Jesus. It's such classic Jesus. Jesus has, you know, the these 2 different Herodians and the Pharisees hated one another.
Jeffrey Heine:But like, but can't we all all I mean, the the Herodians and the Pharisees hated one another, but are like, but can't we all agree we hate that guy? And so the the Herodians and the Pharisees unite together against Jesus. And so they come up to Jesus with this trick question. It's a trap. Jesus, are we supposed to pay taxes to Caesar?
Jeffrey Heine:I mean so the trap is laid there. The the reason it's a trap is because there's seemingly no good answer at all. I mean, if Jesus says no, well, then the Herodians have him arrested. Because he's trying to lead now a revolt against Rome. He's, he's not submitting to Caesar as, as the king over the land.
Jeffrey Heine:But if he says yes, well, then all the Jews begin to riot because they hated the Rome Romans. So in, you know, typical Jesus fashion, he gets asked this question. He's like, any of y'all have a coin on you? Like, people are like, yeah. I got one right here.
Jeffrey Heine:So just hold it up. And I hold it up and he goes, whose whose image is on that? Well, it's Caesar's. This will then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's. Render to God the things that are God's.
Jeffrey Heine:The things that are God. And in one sentence, that's all it took. The trap laid, but in just one sentence, Jesus set up the validity of human government, while also setting up its limits. Everyone there was using, you know, Roman coins, which all had Caesar's image on it. And that coin was used to to buy clothes, to buy foods, to buy property, to pay for transportation, roads.
Jeffrey Heine:Therefore, all those things belong to Caesar. So they should pay him. But what did Jesus mean when he said, and render to God the things that are God's? His implication is this, Okay. You pay Caesar this because it has his image on it.
Jeffrey Heine:Who in front of me has the image of God? Every human in front of him. We are created in his image. And what he is saying in that moment is like, that's fine. You pay to Caesar that little thing, but you owe your entire lives to God.
Jeffrey Heine:He is the higher authority. Even Caesar owes his very life to God. Render to God the things that are God's. So let me ask you, have you rendered your life to God? Have you offered Him?
Jeffrey Heine:Since you were created in His image, you bear His likeness, have you offered to Him your very life? Have you surrendered your life to him? Have you submitted to his kingship? If you're scared to do so, let me just tell you this. Submitting to the lordship of Jesus is not like submitting to any of those lesser governing authorities.
Jeffrey Heine:It is such a sweet submission because Jesus does not wield power like all those lesser lords. Jesus came He said, the son of man didn't come to be served, but to serve. He uses His power to serve. He's gentle. He's kind.
Jeffrey Heine:He seems to be irresistibly drawn to the weak and to the powerless. You go in John 13, which, you know, the night before Jesus was betrayed, and it says that in that moment, he knew that all things, all power was his. You read it says, that he had all authority. And do you know what Jesus did in that moment when all authority was given to him? It says he took a towel, and he washed his disciples' feet.
Jeffrey Heine:And then he went to the cross so that they might be his. He went to pay a debt that we can never pay. That's the lordship of Jesus who we submit our lives to. The one who says, come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. Wouldn't you love that rest?
Jeffrey Heine:Listen. The early church once again never had the privilege of having their man in power. But you will never see them as you go through acts, wringing their hands in anxiety. You know, or living a life of despair because, oh gosh, old Nero's at it again. Oh my gosh, what are we gonna do?
Jeffrey Heine:You don't ever find that. No, instead they gather together, they would pray, God's power would come, they would be filled with joy, and with a peace that the world cannot explain. Because they knew who was really in control. They knew that God's plans would never be thwarted. They knew who their true king was.
Jeffrey Heine:Do you? And wouldn't you love to have such rock solid confidence? Jesus is saying that is yours today. You can have such peace. You can have such joy if you will just render to God the things that are God's.
Jeffrey Heine:If you would give him your life. Pray with me. Lord Jesus, because of our sin, because of our nature, we find it so hard to submit to any authority and especially yours. Lord, through your spirit, would you show us that what you're asking us to do is such a sweet surrender. You're asking us to come to you that we might have life.
Jeffrey Heine:So I pray for those who have not render to you their lives that they would do so in this moment. We pray this in the sweet name of Jesus. Amen.