Living in the Kingdom of God

Because they understand something about religion, and that is that the God that people worship has more power and authority over people than the government would have. So they want a department of religion to be able to control what they can't control, the religious or spiritual dimension to a person's life. Jesus described here in this situation what it meant to be in a world of divided loyalties, the kingdom of God and the kingdom of men. In this passage he's talking about giving to God what was his. Now when Jesus was describing this, he'd already started, this is in the latter chapter of Matthew where he's confronted with the issue. But beginning in his ministry in chapter 5 of the book of Matthew, Jesus lays out for us what it is that God requires of us. He goes back to the Old Testament, the very foundational story about the people of Israel where God drew them apart and said, now here are the rules by which I want you to live. These spiritual rules will give you life. If you ignore them, you will die, spiritually and even physically. So now he takes these same concepts of the Old Testament and begins to explain to us what God expects of us. We know what the kingdom of this world is about and he lets us know what the kingdom of God is about. Jesus came pronouncing that the kingdom of God was at hand where God ruled his people. In chapter 5, we call the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus runs through these things to let us know what God requires of us. Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and give to God what is God's. His allegiance for his people is spelled out in behavior, how he wants us to live. In this passage he starts by talking about the fact that the Old Testament law is not to be done away with but to be fulfilled and then he explains how it's to be fulfilled. He starts off by saying, God is not satisfied if you don't kill somebody. If you are a follower of his, you should not be angry. Every time you're angry, you violate the principle of God. He wants you, here he's describing, give to God what is God, give him your temper, move away from that. He said, no one is to lust. It's not enough that you simply don't commit adultery. You must fight inside of yourself the lust for another human being, man or woman. God demands control of our sexual lives. He said, when you're married, you must protect your marriage. I said I would make you one and you must protect that oneness at all times. He said, you must keep your promises and when you say that something is true, you must follow through and do exactly what you promised. I want to control the things that you say and the things you do. You're always to tell the truth. No one is to ever expect when they find a follower of mine that they say something that is wrong. Don't ever try to get even with people when they hurt you. Don't fight with people that are around you. Turn the other cheek. Love your enemies, not just those who are your friends, but your enemies. Care for those who are unable to help themselves. When you find people who can't provide their necessities, you help them. Don't display your religion before people so that people will look at you and think you're a wonderful person. Make sure that you live privately what you say is the truth. And whenever you live around people in your world, you're going to find they worry about all kinds of things. Where are my money going to come from? How am I going to be able to make it? All the problems that arise. He said you should be different than all those people around you. No matter what happens to you, don't worry because I've made a promise to you. I'm going to give you guidance, so don't worry about your choices. I'll help you. I'll provide for you, so don't worry about your provision or what you're going to eat or food that you're going to need. I'll provide your clothes. I'll protect you. Don't worry or get afraid when you think things are desperate for you. I will protect you. And don't worry about your life. I'll make it a powerful influence on all the people in the world around you. Trust me. Do not condemn or judge people that are around you. These are powerful requirements that God makes of us. He says these are to be precedents above and beyond anything else that the world requires. And anywhere in the world where you have a government that tells you you can't do these things, you must fail to obey your government. Because the kingdom of God takes precedence over everything else in the world. Jesus is defining for us what it means to live in the kingdom of God. He is the ultimate authority for our life. He has first choice over our behavior. He has first choice over our values. He demands to control these things. These are priorities that nothing in the world should take away from us. Now this was not Jesus' battle with the Pharisees who were around him. It was fierce because of the hatred that people had for the Roman government then in control of the land of Canaan. They were afraid that the Roman government taking over their land would keep them from being obedient to God. They were sure that giving money to the pagan people was an insult to God. They tried to trap Jesus by getting him to say he was opposed to paying the taxes that were due. Jesus didn't say he was opposed to it. He said there are two worlds that you live in. And when you give your life to God, he owns everything. The things that he tells you to do must be the priorities for your life. Nothing in the world, no government, no one in the world should keep you from giving this kind of lifestyle to me. Jesus was letting us know what it means to allow God to control our life. It is our thoughts, it is our values, and it is our purpose that God controls. But he also knew that we live in a world where there are political forces. All of these political forces are given to us by God. He does not define for us exactly what it means to give to Caesar what is Caesar's. He simply addresses the issue of paying the tax. We are faced with a circumstance in our own country, and every Christian around the world is too, of deciding what is it that I give to God and what is it that I am required to give to the country in which I live. These definitions are important to us because we as Christian citizens have a responsibility both to the kingdom of God and to the place where we live. How do we define the difference between those two? Now, Paul was dealing with this issue in the Romans, the book of Romans, because he was writing a letter to the church that was in Rome. The church that was in Rome was facing, they were facing the same kind of financial problems that the people of Israel were facing when Jesus was addressed. The ruler at that time was Nero. Nero later became famous because of his persecution for believers, but at the time Paul wrote this letter, he wasn't that far along in his rule. But he was a man of great energy and passion, and he wanted to build buildings for Rome, and so he built one building after another, huge buildings at great cost, and the taxes were going higher and higher and higher. And Paul knew, writing to the church at Rome, that there was some conflict about whether or not they should pay these taxes. There was revolt all across the Roman Empire, and the church was part of that. Paul now writes to people living in a pagan world, under a pagan government, instructions filling out what Jesus said, pay to Caesar what is Caesar's. In chapter 13 of the book of Romans, Paul defines, for these followers of Christ, exactly what he wanted them to do. How do you define the place that God's kingdom has in the political world in which you find yourself? Paul starts with the assumption that God is the authority of the world. In the Ten Commandments, he made it clear that he gave some authority to parents, so your children are to obey parents because the authority they have over the children belongs to God, and he's given it to the parents. Then he says, I've given to the kings around you authority too. Here is a definition that Paul describes for Christian citizenship. Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. This principle is very clear. Since God is the ultimate authority of the world, any human being who has a position that has authority is given that authority by God. He chooses to share it. So every parent who has authority over their children, they have that authority because God gives them that, and he chooses to let them have that authority. If you see animals that raise their children out in the wild, they may nurse them a while, but they don't have authority over them. God has given that to parents. Now he says it's not only true there, but everywhere. He talks about it in the church later on in some of the writings he gives, but here he talks about it in terms of the secular government in the world. All authority God gives to the governing, to these who are governing. There is no authority except that which God has established. So if you have a community that has a mayor, that person in position of leadership in the community is given that position by God. The authorities that have been established have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted. And so those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. A very powerful, alarming, and startling thing, Paul says. Now some people think, well, you know, if I have a leader in the country who's not a Christian and lives and does bad things, then I don't have to pay attention to that authority. But in this situation, Nero was not a follower of Christ in any sense of the word. Nero was adopted by the person in charge of the Roman Empire, I've forgotten now exactly what they call him, but the emperor. And he was adopted by this emperor because the emperor was choosing him to be his successor. So he brought he and his mother to Rome to live. And Nero and his mother started thinking, you know, it's going to be a long time before he dies and I get power and authority. So let's help him out. And they poisoned him. So Nero then became the emperor of Rome. He lived a little while like in that position of power, not very long, until he decided in this place of authority, he had a mistress, I'm tired of my old wife, and so he poisoned her and married his mistress. And then he went on a little while and his power and authority got greater and greater and he found another mistress more becoming to him. And so he had to exile this woman because she had powerful influences, her family was, so he exiled her out of the country and married his second mistress. And then his mother got upset with him. And she wanted his stepfather, who they had poisoned, his original son to now be the king. I don't know what the falling out was about. And he decided to poison his own mother, which he did. Then he decided that he was through with his mistress, his new wife, and he had a young man castrated and married this young man. This is the Nero about whom Paul writes. He's given this position of authority by the authority of God. And you recognize his authority because God has placed him there. It's hard for us sometimes to think of people who don't deserve respect and respect them. I remember one time I was asking Richard, Richard, we were talking about authority, he was talking about the military, and he said, whenever you meet someone in the military you salute them if they have a rank greater than yours. And he said, even if you don't like them, and even if they're jerks, you salute them. Because you're saluting the position and not the person. That's what God is telling us in this passage. All people in positions of authority are placed there and God has authority over them. The Bible doesn't say that God put Nero in the place he was in, but by the process of human activity, Nero was in the office of authority that God had established. There are many people who get in positions of authority that God didn't want them there, but once they're there, they become accountable to God for what they do. That's his instructions. All the people in authority, whether it's parents, or whether it's governing officials, or whether it's leaders of the church, are personally accountable to God. Because the position of authority and leadership that he's given them, he has set up. And they've moved into that spot. And once they get there, they are now accountable to him, he works for them. It's like you hire an employee, and the employee works for you. You don't expect people who come into your business to go around telling your employees what to do. You would say, well, who do they think they are, telling my employees what to do, trying to discipline my employees. God said, all the people in government places work for me, and I will take care of them. You can only imagine Nero's life did not end very well. God took care of him. Every person in positions of authority, whether it's from parents, or whether it's church people in positions of authority, or whether it's secular governing people, all are accountable to God, whether they know it or not. Because he said, all of these I've placed in authority. I don't want you to rebel against their authority, because I'm their boss. I will take care of this, in my own wisdom, in my own way. God is helping us to understand that the Christian citizenship that we're assigned to is different than in the pagan world, where there's rebellion, overthrows, all that kind of thing is not a part of what God asks us to do. Never once did Jesus talk about the Roman government when he was talking about to his people, except in instance like we read. Now John the Baptist talked about Herod in very bad ways, and it got him killed. When John the Baptist was in prison, he asked people to go talk to Jesus and see what he was doing, because I think he thought Jesus was going to continue the same ministry that he had, of attacking Herod and telling how bad he was. But Jesus never did that. Instead, he pointed John the Baptist to what he was doing. The blind can see, the lame can walk, and sinners have been forgiven. He was simply saying to him, I'm not interested in dealing with the civilian authorities in this world. I'm about the kingdom of God, and the work that God has sent me to do. When you look at Paul's writings, in the middle of all this pagan activity in the Roman Empire, he never addresses the Roman government in any kind of negative way. Paul is not concerned about who the ruler is, or how he behaves, or what he acts like. He accepts all of this. His idea was that God has placed these in a position of authority, and he has a purpose for it. The Roman Empire now has made a way by which I can travel around and preach in all these different places. And this has provided a missionary avenue for me. Whatever they do in Rome, however they act, they're accountable to God. Now, what I want you to do, Paul is saying, is I want you to act like the perfect Roman citizen. Pay your taxes, do what you should do. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from the fear of one in authority? Then do what is right, and he will commend you. For he is God's servant to do good. He called Nero God's servant. He didn't mean that everything Nero did was what he approved of. He meant that whatever Nero's doing, he is accountable to me for what he does. He uses the very same word here, servant, in the Greek language that is used for deacons in the church. He says, Nero is my deacon. He belongs to me, and he's assigned to my servant. But if you do wrong, be afraid. For he does not bear the sword for nothing. Not only is he in a position of authority, he's in a position to exert authority over you. He is God's servant, the same word used again, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. I've given him this authority so that he will punish those who violate the law. If he misuses it, then he's accountable to me for what he does. Therefore, conclusion, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment, but also because of conscience. Not only should you be afraid of civil authority or political authority because of the power they hold, but if you do these things to rebel or disobey, the Holy Spirit should come inside of you and tell you what you're doing that's wrong. This is also why you pay taxes. Taxes are to be paid. Remember, these people didn't want to pay the taxes. They thought it was misspent money. But Paul directly addresses, pay the taxes that are required. He required them to pay them because he wanted them to be in the kingdom, this earthly kingdom, exemplary citizens, so that no one in government would fear the church. They would not be afraid that they were going to rebel against this authority. Nero was surrounded by people who wanted to kill him, you might imagine. You don't get in that vein yourself. Submit to the authorities as Jesus submitted to the authorities even though they killed him. That's our model for this. This is why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God's servants. He uses that word again a third time. These people work for me. I will take care of them. For the authorities are God's servants who give their full time to governing. Then he ends this last verse. Give everyone what you owe him. If I placed a position in authority, then your debt is to make sure you give that position in a person authority what is necessary for them to do the work that they think they should do. If you owe taxes, pay taxes. Which we talk about different kind of taxes, revenues he uses, like if you have tolls that you pay for the roads. Revenue then, for revenue. If respect, then respect. If honor, then honor. All of this I'm sure didn't sit very well with the people who were reading this letter that Paul wrote. They were followers of Christ and their moral conscience was badly damaged by the behavior of Nero, the ruler of Rome. But what God is telling us in this story is that what is more important to him than anything in the world is not the earthly government under which we live. He takes care of that. But it is that the kingdom of God would be advanced. Now, God is interested in the kingdom of God being advanced. And it's to be advanced through the work of the church. I remember when I was a student in seminary, and the Vietnamese war was on, and a lot of the churches at that time were really anti-war, and they'd hold rallies. If you went to some of those churches, you had to be against the war and a Democrat to feel like you'd fit in. I remember at the time, leaders of Southern Baptist Convention, we were constantly talking about these political churches and how they would miss their goals. And then something happened. Jerry Falwell had a great influence saying, what we need to do is change the course of America by electing a president who will change the course of our country morally. So he got everybody to go to their local areas and get in the political system and elect local delegates who were sent to the state to elect bigger delegates, and then to the national convention to nominate the president he thought would rescue us. You know, since that time, very little moral things have changed in our country. Getting a president who's a good Christian didn't change our country. Having Supreme Court people who are good Christians doesn't change our country. It was never God's plan that it would. What he wanted was simply a government that would allow the church to do its work. Now, things have changed very dramatically. In fact, conservative churches are very involved in politics. You see it every day. Almost the same thing that happened years and years ago with the left side is happening with the right side. In fact, you go to some churches, if you're not a Republican, you're not very welcome. And we're all kind of naive about this. We just believe what people tell us. God has a very important requirement of us, that we tell the truth. We should never tell things that are not true, that we don't know are true. You should never pass on things unless you check to make sure that they're really true. Because many of the things that go on in our conservative Christian churches are not always exactly accurate. You know, I think the political ads that we've all seen, all the pictures of the candidates who were taken some time ago, because I think if they were taken now, they would have much longer noses and their pants would be on fire. You see, in the political world, not telling the truth is not a problem. That's why it's so difficult for someone who's a follower of Christ to engage in this. We have a standard that is far higher than the rest of the world. That when you say something, it ought to be true and you ought to know it's true. And whenever you do something, it ought to be what you know is right. I don't know that God ever has one political candidate once in an office and another. If he had that kind of litmus test, I think Nero would have died in boyhood. He didn't. Nero went on to do infamous things, burning Christians on their cross, feeding them to the lions. He was not a good man, but I think he paid for it in hell. God takes care of those who don't pay attention to him. We instead are forced to look at circumstances and say to God, what do you want me to do? And he outlines this. We're not to criticize and judge people we don't know. We're to tell the truth at all times. We're to make sure that our word is correct. And if we don't know what the truth is, shut up. God puts us as a disadvantage in the political world because telling the truth does not necessarily make it easy for you because people want to know that you will tell them what they want to hear even if it's not true. But we are called to be different in this world. You're going to go vote Tuesday. I don't know what political party you've been a part of, but I want to suggest something to you. And before you go, you pray about what God wants you to do. Set aside your political interest in the past and just say to God, if you'll tell me who I should vote for, I will do it. Who you vote for does not change the world, but how you act will. What God wants you to see is to have a group of people in the world that are different than all the rest of the people in the world. We can't be simply Democrats or Republicans. We are Christian Democrats or Christian Republicans, followers of Christ. Sets us apart in a different way from all the rest of the world because it is through your life that God intends to change this earth. I read a story about a man who did a study of where missionaries had gone, evangelical missionaries around the world, and everywhere evangelical missionaries went, the culture changed. The culture was more open to transformation. The morals of the community changed. The political structure changed. It was more democratic and more open to helping people who were in need. The gospel changes the world. I know our country hasn't been the way it should be, but it's not because of the president or the courts. It's because of us. You know, if every person here today were this next year to make a disciple, in seven years we'd have 12,800 disciples in this community. But you know, a lot of people have never, ever made a disciple. Teaching them to obey all the things that God has taught us to do. That's where our failure is. It's not who we elect in these offices that's going to change the world. It's what you do to find the people God's ready to bring into his kingdom, and you give the energy and effort to make friends with them, share Christ with them, and help them to grow to be an adult follower of Christ. That changes the world. The church bears the full responsibility for the moral condition of our country. And it's because the moral condition of our churches are in desperate straits. That's the issue. Give to Caesar what is Caesar's. And I think you're doing a pretty good job of that. But give to God what is God's. And that's where the moral collapse of a nation comes from. Would you bow your heads, please, for a moment? You have to simply ask yourself, God, does my own life reflect the difference from those around me at work where I live? You have to ask yourself, has there been a time in my life when I was far more passionate for you than I am now? You have to ask yourself, have I ever really yielded my life to give God everything? There are many people who can't say yes to those things. And the number has been growing since the establishment of this country. God wants to transform the world. But he cannot show people what he wants to make of their lives until he can show them someone who's allowed him to shape their lives. Would you be one of those people? Lord, we know what the kingdom of God means. It means people whose lives are ruled by you. Search my heart. Are there places in my life that you don't rule? Expose those to me. I want to live for you more than anything in the world. I ask you to search all of our hearts. Expose to us the laxness of our faith and trust in you, our failure to take seriously what you tell us is critical for us. Guide us as we go to the polls to vote, that people will be placed in positions of authority that would help us, that help us not to depend on human agencies for the spiritual kingdom. Transform us. Now I ask, Father, if there are those of us here who need to make some kind of change in our lives, that you'd make it clear to us right now. There are people here who have never surrendered their lives to you. They know they should. They've talked about it in the past, but they just haven't. I want to ask today that you'd say to them, you are the problem in this land. Get yourself straight with me and it will change your world. There are people, Father, that you want to become part of this fellowship. Make it clear. This is a time when we wait for you to say, I am the Lord. Here's what I want you to do. And for those, Father, who say, okay, I'll do it, we give thanks. For those yet unable to trust you, we ask for your kindness and patience. In the name of Jesus we pray. Amen. I'm going to ask the instruments to play. I'll be here at the front. Kathy will be here with me. If there's something you want to say to God, you want us to pray for you, we'll be here with you to share your, to pray with you and to share what you want to say to God. Whatever God says to you, do it. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Would you stand please for prayer? You've given us an overwhelming job to transform this world. We can't do it without you. So we pray for your wisdom to be able to make choices this week. We pray for the courage to do what you tell us to do. We pray that the lives that we live around the people will be a signpost pointing them to you. We ask that through our lives you would change our homes, our neighborhoods, our community, our state, our nation and the world. In the name of Jesus we ask for this. Amen. For closing we're just going to sing the last verse of My Country Tis of Thee. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪