Please open your Bibles to Romans 13 verses 1 through 7. Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities for there is no authority except from God and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same. For he is God's minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is God's minister and avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil. Therefore you must be subject not only because of wrath but also for conscience sake. For because of this you also pay taxes for they are God's ministers attending continually to this very thing. Render therefore to all their due. Taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor. Let's pray. Oh, Lord, we thank you for your wisdom, which is perfect. All of your ways are pleasant ways, and we're thankful that you have delivered them to us in our corrupted ways of thinking so that we might be set right, so that we might think rightly about this world and ourselves and all the things that are around us in it. I pray, Lord, that you would use this time in this church to make the sweetest and most exemplary obedient servants of yours. Amen. Please be seated. So our text here points the finger of God on what it means to be a faithful civil ruler and also what it means to be a faithful Christian citizen. And I pray that the saints here at Hope Baptist Church will be the very best citizens, the most valuable citizens in your city, in your county, in your state of North Carolina in which you live, and in these United States. And today we're beginning this series that'll walk through various passages of scripture on our relationship with the government, specifically the relationship of the church to the government, as well as the other governments. There are various jurisdictions that God has established. Not only is there the state, there's also the church. Not only is there the church, but there's the government of the family. And not only is there the government of the family, there is self-government. There's the government of the individual. these things that our government has called unalienable rights. And this message here this morning is going to prove to be a bit of an introduction. I hope to give the second part of it in the second hour. So with all the upheaval and the confusion that has been fomented in our country, at this time in America, I think it would be helpful to walk through some of the critical passages of Scripture that speak to the matter of our relationship to the civil government. During these messages, I plan to examine a number of passages of scripture that deal with these kinds of things that help us to think biblically about these four jurisdictions that God has established. First of all, I want to deal with Romans 13, which not only teaches us about the role of the state, but our role in the state. It's very clear in verse 3 that Christians are charged to do what is good, and I think we need to make that very, very clear. What does it mean to do what is good? The civil government is charged to punish evildoers, not to promote it, and to provide some kind of protection. I'd like to also talk about our obligations to the state during this series as time goes on. And there are many passages of scripture that direct us to know how to relate to the state, how to think about the state. And of course, we would have to deal with 1 Timothy 2, 1 through 5, where we have a responsibility to pray for our civil leaders. And these are thankful, supplicating prayers, different kinds of prayers that are offered for our governors. And you find, actually, many examples of this in the Bible. The prayer of Nehemiah Ezra's prayer, Daniel's prayer. There are various prayers that godly men offer for the governing authorities. Thirdly, I'd also like to talk about what is our disposition toward the government. 1 Peter 2 is where we'll go. We'll try to walk through that passage of Scripture to try to explain it in some level of detail. Fourth, what examples are there in Scripture where men honored the authorities but yet In faithfulness to God, they disobeyed those authorities, and there are many who are in that category, and of course, some of them lost their lives. Of course, all the apostles that's kept John lost their lives for this very purpose. The apostle Paul himself, who called for the honor of authority, also tried to evade the authorities, and was finally executed by the authorities. So we have to think clearly about these things, we plan to examine those who did disobey. And there are many that prove to us that when the Apostle Paul said to obey the governing authorities, he didn't mean that it was an absolute and exclusive obedience because you have those who are commended in the Word of God for their evasion of the laws like the Hebrew midwives. We'll try to spend an entire session with the Hebrew midwives. Some of the most inspiring women in the Bible. You have Rahab, the harlot. You have Moses' parents who hid their son from the government. You have David who evaded the king. You have the prophet Oded who hid 100 prophets away from Jezebel who wanted to kill them. You have Elijah who evaded Ahab and pronounced judgment against him. You have Daniel who refused to defile himself by the king's food. You have Shadrach and Meshach and Abednego who would not bow before the idol. You had Esther who violated the no trespassing law of the king at the risk of her life. You have Joseph who fled Egypt, Joseph the father of Jesus. You have the Apostle Paul who in order to try to escape being murdered had himself lowered down the wall in a basket. So there are many many examples and we plan to deal with some of those. You also find many examples in the history of modern missions. You know you have you have Polycarp who was executed for something he would not do. And by the way, if you look at the history of persecution, it usually follows the lines of punishing those who would not do something. I think we should think about that. That's where the lines of persecution often fall. You have the fact that much missionary activity takes place in places where it's actually illegal to function as a missionary. You have William Carey who was spreading the gospel in India. It was illegal to do that. You have Brother Andrew smuggling Bibles into Russia in modern history. Remarkable testimonies. So, it's important that we understand that there are conditions that actually require obedience to God over man over the governing authority. Also I think we should try to examine how the church should respond to tyrannical or unbiblical orders toward the church and the family and the individual and we'll be encountering what it means to honor the king in the context of honoring all men. Does that mean that you obey all men? Does it mean that you always obey the king? These things are matters that have to be carefully considered. I'd like to also talk at some length about how you select civil magistrates because the Bible speaks to it and there are various passages of scripture that tell you who to vote for. And I'd like to deal with that. There are matters of involvement in politics. Should Christians be involved in politics? I'd like to, at some point, even deal with the spheres of sovereignty in these jurisdictions. Each of them has authority. Each of them has real authority. Fathers have real authority over their families. Parents have authority over their children. The church has real authority over her members. And actually, individuals have authority under the authority of God. All of these authorities must function under the authority of God, though. I'd like to maybe even touch on what types of government are most biblical and how you deal with it when you live under a totalitarian regime, which Christians often live under. It shouldn't surprise us that that happens. It may happen to us. in ways we never dreamed. I want to answer different kinds of questions during this series. I think overall, what does it really mean to be a Christian citizen or a Christian family or a Christian church? Under what conditions must the church and the family obey their civil authorities or not? There are many issues that have come to us here. Why such a series? I haven't encountered a series like this in this church. I've never preached about these things before, except when they have come up in texts along the way. I'd like to just make it very clear the reason we're doing this is that we're living in a very unusual historical moment right now, and we're living in a moment completely unexpected, completely unthinkable, where the government has encroached breathtakingly, most recently, in unimaginable areas of freedom, which have always been free in America, always up until three months ago. Three months ago. These things are unprecedented. Governors in various states are telling churches when they can meet, they're telling them even if they can meet, And if they do, how are they going to do it and how many and what they're going to do when they do meet. And it's a very, very important issue for us, having lived in a free society, because these issues really dovetail in the midst of discussions about fascism and Marxism and a communistic, atheistic view of the world that does not acknowledge the word of God. We have massive movements that pretend to be one thing, but they're another thing. How about the Black Lives Matter movement? Everyone knows Black Lives Matter, but that's not what this movement is about. This movement isn't about unraveling the jurisdiction of the family, unraveling and destroying the jurisdiction of the church and actually unraveling the American civil government. So I think we have to think clearly about what's going on. For the first time in American history, the church is being told what to do and when to do it and how to do it. Two weeks ago, the governor of North Carolina began telling my wife what she had to wear on her face. That hasn't happened before. Just this week, California banned singing in churches in California. The state has encroached like never before in the jurisdiction of the church. Here's part of the order. The order from the government to the churches in the state of California, the place where I spent the first half of my life. Places of worship must therefore discontinue singing. Chanting. And limit indoor attendance to 25% of building capacity or a maximum of 100 attendees, whichever is lower. Does the state have the right before God to legislate what happens in the church? Well, many people think that Romans 13 teaches that, but that's not what Romans 13 says at all. Romans 13 has nothing to do with the government's authority over the church. Romans 13 speaks to individual Christians about how they have an honorable disposition and do everything they can to obey the governing authorities, but Romans 13 has nothing to do with the authority of the government over the church. That needs to be understood very clearly. And if you look at the context of Romans 13, it's very, very clear. And I will, in a moment, walk us through the context to begin to examine that. In Romans 13, 1 through 7, we learn that there's only one head over the church, and that is Jesus Christ. He's the Lord of glory. He's the King of kings, and he is the Lord of lords. And does the state have the right before God to tell you How to manage the church? Absolutely not. And then there are many, many other issues that are implied here. Does the state have the right to determine who buys or sells depending on their health care? I think we should realize that what just happened in North Carolina is that sellers and buyers are prohibited unless they manage their healthcare in a particular way. Do you think that will be the end of this? I don't think so. It seems so innocuous. It's just a mask. But that mask is governing whether you can buy or sell. And that mask is all about how you govern your healthcare. I don't think we should minimize what's been happening here in our land. So how do you apply Romans 13? Here's a little piece of history. Some of you are aware of it. Homeschooling was illegal. in the United States until the 1960s and the 1970s. And homeschooling was not legalized completely in the United States until 1993. Did you know that? It was illegal. So let me pick that up back in a minute. But that had to do with the encroaching government authority over the jurisdiction of the family for education, that's what that had to do with. And now we're seeing this spread further to other areas. And so in the last three months, 80% of the churches in America aren't meeting. They're not meeting. And when they are meeting, if they are meeting, they're meeting under government restrictions. And frankly, They say they're meeting, but they're really not meeting. Because they're just herding one another in and out of a building and making sure that they don't greet one another with a holy kiss, that they don't lay hands on the sick, that they don't fellowship, that they don't take the Lord's Supper. They're not allowed to relate to one another. In other words, they're not really allowed to practice biblical Christianity. They don't get to actually participate in the things that God has commanded the church to do. They might be in parked cars. You know when the government issued their first order it just was really interesting. You could meet outside in your cars but you had to have your windows rolled up and you couldn't pass out any paper. Thank you very much. What a wonderful worship experience that must have been for all of those who practiced it. But the church is by its very nature a gathering. The word ekklesia for church, it speaks of a gathering. It has to do with people that get together. That's what churches do. They get together with people they know and they get together and they appoint pastors and they appoint deacons and they walk together in love, and they do particular things. The church isn't just some ethereal, spiritual thing. It's something that's actually physical, and it has to do with what you do with your body, and you sing with your body, and you eat the bread, and you drink the fruit of the vine, and you greet one another with a holy kiss. That's what you do in the church. And you have to ask, does the government have the right to regulate that? Well, all these things hit us so flat-footed when it happened. Nobody knew what to do. You know, it was very interesting how this happened. You remember, we were having a wedding. It was my daughter Claudia's wedding. And late in the afternoon, right after the wedding, it was kind of over and everybody was milling around. You know, our phones were blowing up because the governor said, you can't meet with more than 100 people tomorrow. So we had a, you know, instead of Debra and I putting our feet up, you know, and, you know, drinking tea in our house, giving thanks for this wedding, what we did was we were on a conference call with all the deacons and the other elders trying to figure out what to do tomorrow. So we wanted to honor the government. We want to honor the authorities. So we said, okay, well, You know, we had 97 people in this room and 87 people in another place. That's what we did. We were just trying to figure it out. We didn't know how to deal with this. We'd never even had to think about this before. And the reasons that Christians have been given for complying with all these orders is loving your brother. You've got to love your brother. And I think as time has passed, we had to ask questions. Here were my questions. Is it loving your brother to deprive them of the means of grace every week? Is it loving to make people stay home and not have fellowship with other believers? Is it loving to tell people not to take the cup of blessing and eat the bread of the body of the Lord Jesus Christ? Is it loving to tell people that they cannot sing? Is it loving to quarantine healthy people? Is this what it looks like to do good? In our text here, we learn that our responsibility is to do what is good. We are bound by divine order of God to do what is good and to obey the commandments of God. Is it loving to avoid the sick? Is it loving to stay six feet away? and keep all your brethren at arm's length? Is it loving to leave the elderly alone? Is it loving your neighbor not to allow your family to come and visit you in the assisted living home? Is it loving your neighbor to put your father in the hospital and he goes into a coma and he dies without his wife holding onto his hand. Is that loving? Is it loving to keep family members away from the sick in a hospital? Is it loving to be confined alone to die? Is that loving? Is it loving to withhold touch to those who are sick? The Bible tells me so. It is not loving. Is it loving to be the people that Jesus spoke of? I was sick and you didn't visit me. Is it loving to drive domestic violence up in a land? That's what's happening. Massive increases of domestic violence because of the lockdown. Is it loving to sequester people alone so all they have to do is look at pornography because that's skyrocketing as well. Is it loving to sequester people alone so that the suicide rates skyrocket as they have skyrocketed? Is that loving? Is that doing good? Christians are supposed to do good. Governments are supposed to do good. Governments are supposed to be a blessing to the people. I saw the News & Observer a couple days ago, our Raleigh paper, and there was this heartbreaking picture of an older woman outside a nursing home, and she was holding up a sign. I need a pen pal. I thought how heartbreaking, how heartbreaking that is. Not pen pals, how profane it is to force a person in their old age to need a pen pal, you know, no family members to come and hold their hands or read to them or sit with them. How cold, how inhuman that is. That's not loving, that's not loving your neighbor. Don't tell me, don't tell me, don't hide behind I'm loving my neighbor. Please don't do that. Pastors are not loving their neighbors when they allow this. Let's make this very, very clear. Our government is legislating these things and all of them are protected and governed by the jurisdiction of the family and the jurisdiction of the state and the jurisdictional responsibilities of the individual by ordinance of Almighty God. Don't set aside the word of God for the sake of your tradition. As Lord Jesus said. Is it loving to take a man's work away from him? Is it loving to shut down a man's business? Don't you remember the Bible says work six days. Mankind is commanded to work six days. And in the law there's this illustration of how How harmful, how ungodly, how inhuman it is when somebody falls onto hard times and they sell themselves to you as your servant to pay off their debt. And when it comes time to let them go, it's unlawful for you to take their upper millstone. Translation, it's unlawful to take away a man's livelihood. You can't take away a man's tools of his trade. That is wicked. That is sinful. And you've watched a government shut down men's livelihoods and taken away their trade. There's a man in this church right now whose trade has been obliterated. I don't know for how long. At least for a long time. The government did that to him. That was sinful. And now you have to wear a mask to buy or sell or work or walk or play or go to church or talk to somebody. Is this good? Is this the government doing good? Is this a Christian doing good by complying to such things? What is love? Well, God teaches us what love is. The Bible makes it very clear. Every law of God is a law of love. Every one of them. If you want to know what love is, don't consult your own heart and don't go to the psychiatrist. Go to God. He'll tell you what love looks like. And he teaches us what love is. When it comes to the church, it's very, very clear, and this whole context of Romans 13 makes that very, very clear. Romans 13 comes on the heels of Romans 12, and that matters, and we're gonna walk through that because you have to understand the runway upon which the Apostle Paul deals with this matter of the civil government. And what love looks like in the church is that you give people the Lord's Supper. You give them preaching. You give them singing. You give them fellowship. And you might give them a meal that they rejoice freely together in. I'm really concerned about the churches around us, frankly, that would allow this to happen on their watch. I really am. I did a broadcast with Stephen Lawson about two or three weeks ago on this subject about the indispensable presence of the preacher, the physical presence of the preacher in the congregation. Steve said something really interesting. He said, these people who aren't meeting, they need to ask if they're really Christians. You can see that broadcast online. It's very interesting. Here's my proposition. The government is enforcing the abandonment of the laws of love of God. So, is it doing good? Is it a good thing? Is it a loving thing? To bar you from your job for your fear of potentially getting the flu? Is it a good thing to call the church non-essential? Is it a good thing to applaud lawless rioters and punish the police who are trying to stop them? Is it a good thing that you can't shop, but you can loot with impunity? Is it a good thing that you can't attend church, but you can set one on fire and nobody will do anything about it? Is it a good thing that your church can meet in a parking lot with the windows rolled up, but you can burn cars in the streets? And no one will do anything about it. Is it a good thing that you can tear down statues of historical figures of the past, but don't you dare abolish the greatest racists of the last 200 years, Charles Darwin and Margaret Sanger. Don't tear down their statues. These were the ones who fomented racism in the 19th and the 20th centuries like nobody else. They were all about favored races. Frankly, Leave the statues of Charles Darwin and Margaret Sanger up. You can go visit them in Massachusetts. I've seen them. And take your children there, and you tell them what they did. And you tell them exactly what they did. History is meant to be told, not hidden. I'm recognizing that I have no idea how long I've been speaking. My son David will keep the time, as I always ask him to do. So during this historical moment, it's important to recognize that the Bible teaches that there's not only one authority in the land, that the government is not the only lawful jurisdiction in the land. And that God has actually established, by divine authority, four jurisdictions. And the government is not the only one that tells you how to live your life. Well, I want to get back to my illustration of homeschooling. It was illegal to homeschool in most states up until the 70s. Then hundreds of thousands of mothers, moms, my wife was one of them, Said, I don't think we can do this anymore. We're not going to send our children to go be educated by pagans. We're not doing that. While the spineless men stood by, these women with rebar in their backbones said, we're not doing this anymore. And the attorneys rose up to defend them. And it wasn't until 1993 till homeschooling was actually legal all over America. Now, Debra and I moved to Wake Forest in 1988. Before we moved here in California, Debra already knew she was gonna homeschool our children. She was going to the earliest homeschool conventions in the state of California in Orange County. And I'll never forget those days. Debra said, we're doing this. I said, yes, dear. So we moved to Wake Forest in 1988. That was the year that homeschooling was legalized in North Carolina. And the current homeschooling laws that were written in 1988 are the ones that govern you now. Well, what happened? Why did this happen? The early homeschoolers disobeyed the government orders. I remember it well. They did the right thing. Does anybody think they did the right thing? They disobeyed government orders. It was socially unacceptable. I mean, when we moved here in 1980 and homeschooling was legalized, but it was not socially acceptable. And everybody who was here at that time knows you were always looking over your shoulder and you kept your kids inside. The scorn, the shame, the slander against you for homeschooling your children was astounding. And we did it anyway. Thankfully, it was legal when we moved here, the year we moved here. with our two little girls. And, you know, homeschoolers, even after it was legalized, were reported by their neighbors. And so families took precautions and they tried to keep their children inside. But the cost of defying the government order on this matter of the jurisdiction of the family to educate children, was one of the social prices that you paid, the scorn that you received as a result of it, to try to walk in the ways of the Lord and to teach your children when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down and when you rise up. That's what we were doing. We didn't believe you should teach your children to think like pagans. And we were right when we did that. But I thank God for those strong, mighty women, those Amazonian women who rose up. But then when they did, they needed attorneys to rise up as well, and there were organizations that popped up like HSLDA that did that. So if you're homeschooling today, and you think it's your biblical obligation, then I want you to understand something. You owe your freedom. to the grace of God working through those who disobeyed. And I'm speaking to a younger generation. Almost everybody here is younger than I am. And to you who are younger, with the greatest solemnity that I have in my heart, I want to say, now it is your turn. to preserve the rights of the jurisdictional authorities that God has given you in your church and in your family and you as an individual. And I pray that you have the courage that those mamas did 40 years ago. Now it's your turn. Now it's your turn. Now it's your turn. Will you preserve, let me, I'm just asking you this question. Will you preserve the beauties of the jurisdictional authorities that God has established in the world today? All governed by God, not by yourself. To reject your autonomy, and to receive the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ in everything, that he would govern everything in your life, your work, your church life, your family life, every kind of life. You know, for many years, we've been proclaiming the sufficiency of scripture for church and family life, and there's never been a more critical time to do such a thing, never. All this gone before has been child's play compared to what's happening now. The text. Well, I think there's one question that people ask about this text. Does Romans 13 mean that you render everything to Caesar? I hope to answer that question. Romans 13 instructs individuals to a principled, biblically-informed submission. A principled, biblically-informed submission. You might want to write that down, because that's really the heart of this text. It's very clear that Christians are bondservants of God. And under God, they have particular responsibilities. And so in this passage there's a general statement and reasons for the general statement are given. And there's a summary of the obligations that are required of Christian people. There are specific applications that are given. You know, for example, taxes and things like that. And honors, this is an inner disposition. And here you have these spheres that are implied. But let's talk about the context of Romans 13. Open your Bibles to Romans 12. We must start in Romans 12 to understand Romans 13. In Romans 12 we learn how converted sinners live and he first addresses through their worship in Romans 12 1 & 2 that the gospel is applied by your presenting your body as a living sacrifice. You don't read Romans 13 in isolation of Romans 12. In the first 11 chapters of the book of Romans, the Lord presents the gospel and everything that surrounds the doctrine of the gospel. And then in chapters 12 to the end are the applications, how a person lives by the gospel. What does the power of the gospel look like in your life? And of course, when we get to Romans 13, it's one application, but let's be very clear, that's not the only thing. There's a runway, there's a road map here, there's a context. And so we read, I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice wholly acceptable to God which is your reasonable service. and do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. So the whole section for application begins with submission to God and not being conformed to this world. You should not read Romans 13 without understanding the context of Romans 12 verse 1. And then secondly, Paul, he instructs us on how we apply the gospel in our lives by exercising our individual spiritual gifts in the church. That's verses three through eight. Do you see that there? For I say, through the grace of God, grace given to me, everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith. For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another. Having then gifts differing according to the grace that was given to us, let us use them. If prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion of our faith, or ministry, let us use it in our ministering. He who teaches in teaching, he who exhorts in exhortation, He who gives with liberality, he who leads with diligence, he who shows mercy with cheerfulness. So there's this way of living among one another in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then thirdly, he speaks of love. All of these things are done through love. The gospel expresses itself through really practical expressions of love that's how the gospel expresses itself and the whole section carries the same idea that Paul speaks of in Ephesians 2 10 we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works that's a word that appears in Romans 13 we are prepared for good work which God has prepared for us and And all of these have to do with love. The Apostle Paul to the Corinthian church says, without love, I am nothing. Or as he said when he was in the South, you ain't nothing. So in these sections of Romans 12, we learn that the people of God are set apart, not conformed to this world, not mirroring the world, but walking in the power of the gospel in very specific practices. as they relate together. They are called to do what is good and only God can define what is good. We will probably at some point land in the Baptist Confession of 1689 which has a section about what is good. What is good. And I'll just give you a little tip off. Only what God says is good is good. And that's how you learn what's good. Don't trust yourself. Trust God. Be under his authority. Throw away your autonomy and embrace your hyponymy. You can look that word up. Hyponymy is the opposite of autonomy. So, we are called to do what is good. Now, there's a historical context that this exists in. The Roman believers were under stress from the government. And as we read Romans 13, we remember that the government, the Romans had specific pressures that they were exerting on the people. Romans 13 was written to a people who were being hurt by their government. The emperor of Rome during the time of writing was Nero. He was one of the most brutal rulers against the church. He was killing, he was restraining in every way he could the church. And in Romans chapter 8 verse 35 through 38 we read that These faithful subjects, these ones who are honoring the king, they were being killed all day long, I'm quoting from the text, by the sword, quote unquote, by the sword. And the apostle in chapter 13 is going to say, he's going to wield the sword. But Paul speaks to the Roman Christians to help them get through it, and he says that neither death nor life nor angels nor rulers can separate them from the love of God. Did you hear that word rulers? The rulers can't separate you from the love of God. Now you might get run through by the sword, but they can't separate you from the love of God, so don't worry about it. So in Romans 13 we're reading about a people who are threatened by the sword of the government and they needed sound wisdom and discernment for how to conduct themselves. And the Apostle I think is addressing two extremes that need to be acknowledged. And we see those two extremes here in the context that we're living in now. The first extreme are those who believe that the government has no authority and the civil government is bad. That's one extreme. The Apostle Paul is actually waging war against these people. You know, these are independent, self-serving people who do whatever they want to do. They don't want any kind of authority in their life. And Paul refutes that position in Romans 13. And I think implied in all of this is, you know, the apostle is acknowledging, you know, unveiled language that governors, you know, often enact poor laws and have bad motivations. But the church might wrongfully conclude that they shouldn't obey anything the government tells them and the Apostle Paul is attacking that and he's calling that sin. The other extreme is to say that the government is absolute and that Christians are obligated to obey whatever the civil authorities demand. You know, the Jews acted like that. If you just remember, just a few weeks ago we were in the Gospel of John, in John chapter 9, and the chief priests cry out to the authorities, we have no king but Caesar. Well, it wasn't even true, but that's the position they took. We're just going to do whatever Caesar tells us to do. So Paul is arguing against both of these extremes. And he makes it very clear that we ought to submit ourselves to the government, but the government also has to be governed. And Christians must do what is good, verse 3, chapter 13. So let's now get into the text. Verse one, and you have an outline in front of you. I have, I believe, four points that we will cover this afternoon. I hope you can come back. Please come back. But all of this to say is when you read Romans 13, you find that there is a king over the kings of the earth. And the children of God are obligated to do what is good. And they need to be guided by what is good. They ought to obey the government every possible way they can. And we really should. We should have an honorable, gracious, submissive spirit before our governing authorities. But what does that mean? Come back this afternoon. Would you pray with me? I pray that you would give us insight into your word. We are so grateful you've given us something beyond ourselves to help us navigate these waters. Lord, I pray for the most loving, the most obedient, the happiest citizens of the realm to be here. In Jesus' name, amen.