LIVING IN SUBMISSION

Romans 13:1-7

INTRODUCTION:   

An Idaho sheep rancher was approached one day by a stranger in a suit.  The stranger said, “If I can guess how many sheep you’ve got, may I have one?”  Thinking this to be impossible the rancher agreed. 

The stranger connected his laptop computer and wireless modem, entered a NASA site, scanned the ground using satellite imagery and GPS, opened a database and 60 Excel tables filled with algorithms, then printed a 150-page report on his high-tech mini-printer.  He turned to the herder and said, "You have exactly 1,586 sheep here."

Stunned by the correct answer the rancher told him to choose his sheep.  The man selected an animal, slung it over his shoulder and started to walk away.  The rancher said, “Hey, if I can tell you who you work for can I have that animal back?”  “I guess so,” said the stranger.”  The rancher said, “You work for the government.”  “Now, how did you figure that out?” asked the stranger.  “Well, you come in here uninvited, tell me something I already know and then charge me for the information.  Now put my dog down.” 

You know, there’s just not a lot of respect for government in America today.   But in our text for this morning, Paul says we should submit to the government anyway.

¹ Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. ^2 Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. ^3 For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. ^4 For he is God’s servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. ^5 Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience.

^6 This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. ^7 Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.

The first question we should ask and answer is why did Paul write this?

William Barclay observes, “In Paul’s case there was one immediate cause of his stressing of civil obedience.  The Jews were notoriously rebellious.”  Barclay goes on to talk about the terrorist acts of Zealots whose hometowns seethed with insurrection.  They were known as dagger-bearers” who were “sworn and pledged to a career of murder and assassination.”

“They also wrecked the houses and burned the crops, and assassinated the families…who paid tribute to the Roman government.”  They were the Taliban, the Al Qaeda and the Mahdi Army all rolled into one.  They were insurgents bent on the overthrow of the existing government and the establishment of a fundamentalist religious state.

In contrast to armed insurrection, Paul is laying out the principle of submission to authority.   Does submission to authority mean blind obedience?  Well, let’s look at the wider Biblical context to see what we can learn.

One of the first things we can learn from Scripture is that God created order.

I.          GOD HAS CREATED ORDER

In high school English, Mrs. Chagnon taught us a term: Onomatopoeia.  Onomatopoeia is a word or a grouping of words that imitates the sound it is describing.  Examples would include: click, buzz or hum; woof, bark or purr; splatter, splash or gush.

In Genesis 1:1-2, Moses recorded:

¹ In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. ^2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

 The Hebrew words for “formless and empty” are thahoo vavahoo.  Don’t those words sound hauntingly formless and empty; devoid of substance and structure?

Perhaps the best symbol of that chaotic formlessness is water.  Water almost demands some external force to define its shape.  Pour it into a glass and it is cylindrical.  Pour it into a box and it becomes rectangular, pour it on a plane and it spreads out into a shapeless mass.  Water even requires gravity and friction to become a drop.

It is not surprising then that at the beginning of creation, Moses described the formlessness and chaos of the emptiness by saying “darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” 

Into the void of space and time, God brought Himself.  Where there was nothing, He created something.  God replaced formlessness with form, void with matter, disorder with order, chaos with creation.

He created light and separated it from darkness.  He created sky and separated it from the waters beneath it.  He created universes and solar systems and established them in their places in the sky.

He created land and separated it from water.  He created life and ordered it into plants and animals with each plant and each animal reproducing after its own kind.

The ordered creation is evidence that God is a God of order.  So it ought not to surprise us that He has ordered societies. 

II.         GOD HAS ORDERED SOCIETY

Several years ago, when a couple of my nephews were pretty young, their grandparents (my Mom and Dad) took them to a concert by a college orchestra.  They got there early and before long the members of the orchestra began to take their places on the stage.  As will often happen at such a concert, the musicians began to warm up by playing scales, practicing runs and playing different passages from the music they were to perform.  Each person was doing his own thing to get ready for the concert.  But one of my nephews, unfamiliar with this practice, leaned up to his grandpa and said, “They aren’t very good, are they?”

In truth, as the audience was to soon find out, these musicians were VERY good.  Once they were under the direction of the conductor, they made beautiful music.  But the same talented musicians, lacking direction and order, could only produce noise.

So it is with any grouping of people.  Societies must be ordered, organized and supervised.  Without order, there will be chaos 

And so it is that God has ordained authority.

III.        GOD HAS ORDAINED AUTHORITY

God established that society will be ordered and organized.  And He has established that this will be accomplished through positions of authority and responsibility.

Any job site requires a foreman.  Any production operation requires a supervisor.  Any team requires a captain.  And any army must have a commander.

The New York Times ran this in a piece about basic training in the army:

Recruits have been going through basic training since 1917, when a peacetime Army needed to train two million civilians for World War I. Its mission remains essentially unchanged, but the philosophy and techniques have changed markedly since the draft ended in the early 1970's.

Soldiers from earlier times might be surprised to watch the physical training drills in today's Army. The recruits wear running shoes, not boots. And they don gym shorts and shirts instead of heavy fatigues. Running in boots, say Army officials, caused shin splints and other discomforts, a notion that most veterans do not dispute. When it comes to marching - and there is still plenty of that - the dress code still calls for boots.

Activity on the post is regulated by a device that measures the relative heat, humidity, wind speed and sun exposure. When conditions get too oppressive, physical drills are modified, or halted altogether. For example, arduous training would be halted for the day if the temperature reached 90 degrees, with 85 percent humidity, direct sunlight and little or no breeze. In the old days, training was sometimes halted because of weather, but the extremes had to be greater.

Some physical training drills now include aerobic exercises set to music, but no one wears leotards. And drill sergeants no longer announce a break by saying, ''Smoke 'em if you got 'em.'' Since 1987, cigarettes and chewing tobacco have been forbidden during basic training.

Are there classes to help smokers quit? Yes, and they last about 10 seconds. The drill sergeant says, ''Get rid of your cigarettes, private.'' The recruit says, ''Yes, drill sergeant.'' End of class.

You see, while much has changed about basic training, one thing that hasn’t changed is that the chief goal of basic is for the recruit to learn to respect authority.  Ask any veteran who has served in combat and he or she will tell you that lives (yours and those of your comrades) depend on everyone respecting authority.

What is true in the military also applies in our civilian society.  We have to learn to respect authority.

When Sandy and I came back into Clay City from Philadelphia on Friday evening, we were greeted with the sight of State Police cruisers, flashing lights and cars pulled over on Main Street.  Over the course of a very few minutes, I saw several people stopped for speeding.  The obvious intent was to get people to begin to obey the posted speed limits in our town.

Now you may make more money than that State Trooper.  You may have made better grades in high school than he did.  You may be better looking than he is.  You may even be a better driver than he is.  But the fact remains that when those lights go on, you’d better respect his authority.  Because in the absence of respected authority, society regresses into chaos.

Just watch the evening news.  Look at Pakistan.  Look at Iraq.  Look at the many hot spots in the world.  When society does not respect authority, the consequence is anarchy, tyranny and chaos.

So, as the apostle Paul has observed, God created authority.  That is, He has established that there will be authority.  That does not necessarily mean that he has put a particular candidate in office or a particular leader in control.  But He has established that there will be authority to order our societies.

Paul goes on to teach that rebellion against “the authority” is rebelling against what God has instituted.  That is, rebelling against the principle of authority is actually rebelling against God.

The principle is submission to authority – not necessarily to blindly obey.  Blind obedience would mean always doing everything that an individual in authority has said to do.  But clearly that is not what Scripture has commanded.

·     Daniel was thrown in the lion’s den because he didn’t obey an ungodly command.

·     Shadrack, Meshak & Abednigo were thrown into a fiery furnace because they would not obey an ungodly command.

·     Paul and Silas were singing in prison because of their civil disobedience of preaching about Jesus when they had been told not to.

In fact, Scripture is full of the stories of people who obeyed God at the risk of their own lives at the hands of hostile governments.  Jesus Christ, himself, was executed as a criminal by the government of his day.

So what is the principle here and how do we make it square with the clear example of Christian history?  The command is not to blind obedience but voluntary submission.  Submission is the recognition and acceptance of our place in an organized society.

CONCLUSION:   

On October 8, 2001, President George W. Bush established the Office of Homeland Security in response to the attacks on the World Trade Centers less than one month earlier.  But it was the apostle Paul who established the requirement for homeland security some 2000 years ago and it is to recognize that God has ordered society and has established the principle of authority so we will not revert back into chaos.

Will you join me in singing a prayer to God on behalf of our nation?

 INVITATION:            #576 – “America”

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