Summer In Rome | Romans 13:1-7

What does it mean to trust God when the people in authority over us are far from perfect? In this message given by our Next Gen Director, Gage Skivington, from Romans 13:1–7, we discover that our peace isn't found in trusting people—it's found in trusting the sovereign God who places authority where He wills. As we learn to surrender our lives to Jesus and pray, "Not my will, but Yours be done," we'll see that submission becomes an act of faith rooted in God's unchanging character, not our changing circumstances.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:12

They warned me they were gonna do that. Welcome to a little bit of Wednesday night midweek culture right there. Um, how's everybody doing? If you're not awake after that, unfortunately, I don't know what to tell you. Um my name is Gage. Um, those were very kind words for Pastor Ben. I appreciate it a ton. He hypes me up a little bit more than I think I'm worth. But um I serve here at DCC as the next generation director, so my main role is to oversee our ministry programs to youth and to children at our church. So please keep me in your prayers. I appreciate it so much. Um, but today I get to study the scriptures with all of you, and that's something that I'm incredibly grateful to do. And we're continuing our series through the last few chapters of the Apostle Paul's letter to the church in Rome. And it might seem a little bit strange for us to pick up towards the end of a letter. We're picking up in chapter 12, and this is a 16-chapter letter, so we're past the halfway point here. But there are a couple really good reasons as to why we chose to do this. See, Paul's letter to the Romans stands out a bit when you compare it to the rest of his letters. See, most of the time, Paul was writing to a person or a group of people that he had known or that he had at least met before. But with Romans, Paul was writing to a church that he had never gotten the chance to meet, to a city that he had never actually been to. It's clear from the very first chapter that Paul is eager to have the chance to meet them, but because of quite a few different circumstances that you can read about in the book of Acts, he just hadn't had the opportunity to do that. So, since he couldn't physically be there with them, he decided to write them a pretty lengthy and pretty detailed letter to tell them everything that they needed to know from him until he had the chance to actually get there face to face. This letter can be split into two pretty distinct sections based off what Paul is communicating in chapters 1 through 11. Paul gives a beautiful and comprehensive theological treatment on a couple topics. He talks about righteousness, which is our good relational standing with God. He talks about the function of works or the things that we do or don't do because of what God has commanded. And he also talks about the idea of unmerited grace or forgiveness given to us by the Father through the sacrificial death and resurrection of Jesus that is sealed upon us as believers by the Holy Spirit. And it has nothing to do with what we can do, will do, or have done, but everything to do with the sacrifice of Jesus and our faith placed in that. See, Paul's theology was not just intended to be information the church would come to know and to even understand and simply leave it at that. He intentionally chose to focus on these topics because the church in Rome, like all of the other churches that Paul wrote to, had some issues that needed to be addressed. Rome specifically was experiencing a pretty sharp cultural division within the church. The Roman church could be divided into two main groups, the Gentile Christians and the Jewish Christians. See, those Jewish Christians were the ones who had grown up in Jewish homes observing all of the commandments and the law written in the Old Testament scriptures, in addition to the additional regulations that the Jewish leadership had placed to kind of protect them from breaking those rules. Well, they'd received Christ, they had an almost natural tendency, because of their upbringing, to default to a works-based mindset of righteousness. Their subconscious thought was: for God and I to have a good and a right relationship, I must obey his commands well. But then we had this other group, the Gentile Christians. They, on the other hand, grew up in this Greco-Roman culture and context without so much of a knowledge of the Old Testament commands of God. Because of that, they naturally kind of ran with the idea of unmerited grace almost to the neglect of obedience at all. Their subconscious thought was if grace was made possible by Jesus' sacrifice alone, his sacrifice was enough to cover my sins, then I can do whatever I want because all is covered. When you look at both of these understandings, neither of them are fully right in their understanding of righteousness or its achievement. Their differing beliefs led to conflict, and this conflict led to division in the church, and this conflict, in large part, is what Paul aimed to address in his letter to the Romans. Paul's theology, his understanding of who God is and the nature of grace and how it's received, what it looks like to live a life honoring to the Lord, all of those things had implications on the day-to-day life of believers. If the theology were applied to the lives of believers in submission to the will of the Holy Spirit, the Church would look how Jesus prayed it would at the Last Supper. Like a community that was united with him, and as a direct result of that, united with one another. It could bring a beautiful peace and a resolution to the issues faced by the church in Rome. And that is my summary of the first eleven chapters of this book. Now the second half. This last bit of the letter, chapters 12 through 16, puts some skin and bones to the theology that Paul beautifully laid out in the first part of his letter. Paul gives incredibly specific examples and applications of what it looks like to live your life like you actually believe what he is saying is true. So this morning we're gonna pick up in Romans chapter 13, verses 1 through 7. And as you heard in the scripture reading, Paul goes into the incredibly light and incredibly exciting topic of submission to governing authorities. They give the young guy the hard one. You know what I mean? But we got this. It starts Romans chapter 13, verse 1. He says, Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. Those are two great buzzwords to make sure that we're all awake. Submission and governing authorities. It's the very first thing written in this section of scripture, and I know that we're excited, but before we get any further, I would love for us all to just pray and ask the Lord to show us his will for this text. So if you guys would bow your heads with me, Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the fact that it is profitable for correction and rebuke, Lord, that it it builds us up in the ways of righteousness, Lord, that it's not just knowledge, but it's the revelation of who you are, Lord, and your character, that when we look to it, we can see you more clearly. Thank you that you've preserved it for thousands of years and that we get to study it this morning. I ask that by your spirit you would just open our eyes to what you mean by this, Lord, that when you, when we have any hesitancies or pushbacks, Lord, that you would communicate your heart directly to us, and that we could just look more and more like your son, Jesus, after this morning. We love you, and it's in your name that we ask these things. Amen. Alright, earlier this year, Pastor Ben gave us all a sermon that was on pretty much the exact same topic as what we're talking about today. It just came from 1 Peter chapter 2, verses 13 through 25. And in that sermon, he brought up a point that I thought was funny, but it was actually really insightful. He said, You don't have to remind someone to do something that they don't or that they do want to do. They just want to do it. You don't have to remind a child to eat more candy, right? But at the same time, someone who doesn't want to do something typically does need a reminder to actually do it. Growing up, my teachers needed to remind me to do my homework. My parents needed to remind me to do my dishes, my notifications need to remind me to check my emails. Something I love about Paul here is that he knows that. He doesn't just tell us what we should that we should do something, he's also giving us the reason as to why we should do this. The reason as to why Christians should willingly submit to the governing authorities over them. So let's see what this reason is. We'll jump into our text, Romans chapter 13, verses 1 and 2. Paul writes, 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 authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. Off the bat, I want to make a couple of observations from this text. The first observation is that all authority is from God, and any authorities that are present have been instituted by God. Second, to resist authority is to resist God and invite judgment upon yourself, whether it be from the delegated earthly authority or the source of the authority himself, the Lord. For a long time, the church has used this section of Scripture along with a handful of others to uncover a beautiful political theology concerning the nature of government. And that's good, and that's completely valid. I think God has shown time and time again that he likes order. We see it starting in the first verses of Genesis chapter 1, when the earth was formed without form and void, the Lord spoke and brought about order. When the nation of Israel crossed over into the promised land and it was in a state of chaos without proper leadership, the Lord raised up time and time again judges to govern over the people and bring order to this community that was his. Even when government seems disorganized, inefficient, and frustrating, even imperfect government brings about more order than no government at all. But I think to take this scripture as exclusively referring to politics and national governance is a bit narrow and misses the complete authorial intent of Paul in these scriptures. When you take a look at that phrase governing authorities, it's clear that it's much more of a general term referring to those exercising some form of power over another or others. So by definition, yes, the president of the United States is absolutely a governing authority, as is Congress, as is the state governor, as is the mayor, as is your board of directors, as is your supervisor, your principal, your fifth period English teacher, your sorority president, your parents. I'm sure in some way, every person in this room has some authority that they exercise over another. Truly anyone who has any authority is who Paul is talking about here. His call is for believers to be subject to their authorities in the specific areas that they hold that authority. But what does it mean to be subject? It's pretty simple. It means to submit to them, to honor them, to respect them, to obey them. Sitting with this text alone, it seems very simple. Paul is being very straightforward. He's very clear, but if it's so simple, then why do we as believers struggle so much to actually do it? Why is it so enticing to disregard authority? And when I say disregard authority, I don't mean some big public display of disregarding authority, like committing a crime that the government has said is illegal. Usually, most of the time, it is much, much smaller than that. Usually it looks more like stretching your lunch break a little bit longer than you're willing to clock every day. To drink when I'm under the legal age limit, to collab with chat when I'm trying to finish an assignment that is clearly stated as being closed book. Text is clear, to not submit to authority is sin, but sin, even when it's unintentional, is always motivated. There's always a reason behind sin. I can't remember any time in my life where I've sinned without some motivation, some reasoning behind it. I don't do it just to do it. There's usually a want or an unmet need that I'm taking into my own hands. Whether that want is a physical want, emotional, relational, social, there's always something that drives sin just like any other behavior. If we want to address the sin, we must bring the motivation to the Lord and let him show us how that desire is fulfilled in him. So, what drives our resistance to submit to authority? On the surface, I think I've identified a few reasons that I know I have felt, and I think that at least one other person in this room will be able to relate with me, so I'm gonna go down the list. The first, I think that the authority figure, what the authority figure has said is unwise. Or I don't trust the authority figure has my best interest in mind. Maybe I think that what the authority figure has said doesn't apply to me or that it was intended for somebody else. Maybe I don't think that the authority figure has the moral authority to tell me what to do in the first place. Or, lastly, I don't think that the authority figure should be in power in the first place. These are just a few that I've had off the top of my head. And then to add to that, just a little bit of a cultural reflection on us as a people, I would go so far as to say that submission to authorities, when you really look at it, does not appear to be a naturally American trait at all. What do I mean by that? That's a massive claim. Let me explain myself. Let's look back just over 250 years ago into the past. Our country was at a pretty tense spot with England, conflicts were ramping up, the Declaration of Independence was sensed and adopted, the USA was functionally created and declared its own independence from England. It was motivated by a rejection of British authority. The years leading up to the Declaration of Independence were where slogans like no taxation without representation came about, events like the Boston Tea Party or just general British tax resistance at all. Our nation was essentially founded on an unwillingness to acknowledge and submit to authority. I'm not bringing this up to say whether it's permissible or not, good or not. I'm bringing this up to say that it makes sense for us as a people to struggle with submission to authority. It tends to go against what we have been raised to believe is valued by our society. This cultural apprehension to submission to authority just continued to evolve as the U.S. Constitution was written and our nation adopted some core stances on government. One of these core ideas is consent of the governed. We probably learned about it in civics class. It's the idea that the US government is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. It holds that the source of authority in the American government is the American people. While the sentiment behind that is great, I think that the implications can be problematic and unintentionally perpetuate a resistance to submission to governing authorities. It's much easier to reject a human authority than a divine authority, especially when that human authority is assumed to be given authority based on the support of those who are in subjection to it. It's much easier to say no to something someone else tells me than to a command the Lord has clearly given me. When authority comes from man, it can be denied, but our text this morning tells us that all authority finds its source in the Lord, not in man. Romans 13, 1 and 2, I'll read it again. Paul writes, 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. I'll put our points back up from this text. These points are very clear in the text, and at the same time, these truths and their implications probably don't sit comfortably with everyone. Can we get the two points? These points are clear, and at the same time, the truths and their implications probably don't sit comfortably with everybody in the room. They probably don't sit comfortably with most of the people in the room, and I can certainly tell you they don't sit comfortably with me. And it's okay to say something like that. But I think those are the places when we're reading the scriptures that we have to lean in and seek the Lord's heart in that question. Paul continues his argument without shying away from that discomfort, and we are going to follow as we continue through the text, because I believe that the Lord wants to show us something through the discomfort that we're feeling. So let's continue in our text. Romans chapter 13, verses 3 and 4. He continues, he says, For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. But do you have no fear over the one who's in authority? Then do what's 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 and an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer. Couple more observations that I have from these two verses. One, rulers are instruments who are given authority by God to execute his judgment. And two, all rulers are God's servants for the good of his people. All rulers are God's servants for the good of his people. For some rulers, this makes sense. You agree with everything that they say, you back them wholeheartedly, and submission to them is easy. Or maybe you don't agree with everything that they have to say, but you're willing to submit because you see the end goal and you guys can kind of get there. You know, you think it's gonna be okay in the end. It'll end up fine. But then there are other authority figures, and this statement by Paul seems unimaginable or even untrue. How can verses three and four be true when we have we've had rulers throughout history like Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Fidel Castro, Genghis Khan, Emperor Nero? I mean, these people have done some of the worst, most heinous things a human has ever done to other human beings. How can their authority come from God? How can it be for the good of God's people, and how can they be servants of God? I think those are all incredibly fair questions, and they're unavoidable when we're talking about a text like today. And they're ones that I've been wrestling with quite a bit as I've studied and prayed through this text for this morning. As I've talked through this text with Ben and Nate and I've spent time in prayer, the place that the Lord brought me to make sense of all of this were actually the final days of Jesus' life, where he himself had a very had a few very direct interactions with what I would call corrupt authority. See, after the Last Supper, on the night that Jesus was betrayed, he took his disciples to the Garden of Gethsemane at the Mount of Olives to pray. It was nighttime, so it was dark. Jesus clearly had quite a bit on his mind. But during his time in the garden, Jesus was met by a crowd of men affiliated with the high priest, who was the main Jewish authority at the time, and they were led by one of his very own disciples, whose name was Judas. It was an all-out betrayal. Judas handed over his teacher and his friend, the one that he'd followed daily for the past three years, the man that he had constantly learned from and been cared for by, all for just thirty pieces of silver, knowing exactly what these men planned to do with him. Judas showed which man was Jesus by giving him a kiss on the cheek, and the men moved to grab Jesus and bring him to the high priest for a trial, based on nothing but false accusations. When the other disciples stepped in to defend Jesus, one of them went so far as to cut the ear of one of the other men off, and Jesus called the disciples back. He healed the man's ear. The Gospel of Matthew even tells us that Jesus said if he wanted to, he could call down twelve legions of angels to stop what was happening, but he didn't. Instead, he willingly went with the man. He was honoring and remaining subject to the governing authority, when he had every right not to. Jesus was beaten and he was mocked on his way to be tried by the high priest, only to be met by an unfair trial when he arrived before the council. Yet the whole time he did not lift a hand, let alone resist subjection to authority, even authority as corrupt as the Jewish council. Jesus was then sent to be tried by the Roman government, specifically the region's governor, Pontius Pilate. After being questioned, Pilate arrived at a verdict, and I'm going to read that verdict for us this morning. It's from Luke chapter twenty-three, verses thirteen through twenty-five, if you want to follow along. Neither did Herod, for he sent him back to us. Look, nothing deserving of death has been done to him. I will therefore punish him and release him. But they all cried together, Away with this man and release to us Barabbas, a man who had been thrown in prison for an insurrection started in the city and for murder. Pilate addressed them once more, desiring to release Jesus, but they kept shouting, Crucify him, crucify him. A third time he said to them, Why? What evil has he done? I have found him in no guilt deserving death. I will therefore punish and release him. But they were urgent, demanding with loud cries that he should be crucified, and their voices prevailed. So Pilate decided that their demand should be granted. He released the man who had been thrown into prison for insurrection and murder, for whom they asked, but he they he delivered Jesus over to their will. Pilate, the presiding authority himself, said that Jesus had done nothing worthy of death, but instead planned to still undeservingly punish him and then release him. But the Jewish people were not happy with that. They wanted Jesus dead, so Pilate eventually gave in to their unjustified request. He released the convicted criminal who was worthy of death and turned Jesus over to be killed by the Jewish people on the cross. During all of this, Jesus complied. He did not reject authority, but he continued in submission, as Paul writes in Philippians 2. Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but he emptied himself by taking on the form of a servant. Being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Jesus showed what it looks like to live in subjection to governing authorities, even corrupt, sinful, and unrighteous governing authorities. But what Paul wrote in Romans holds true even here. Remember the four observations we made. All authority is from God, and any authorities are present, have been instituted by God. To resist authority is to resist God and invite judgment upon yourself, whether it be from the delegated authority or the source of authority himself. Rulers are instruments who are given authority by God to execute his judgment, and all rulers are servants for the good of his people. Although the Roman government and Jewish council did not use their authority in a way that honored the Lord, their authority was still from him. Jesus did not resist them in a way that made him deserving of their judgment. In part, it's through the authority that the Lord exercised his judgment on mankind, on Christ. In doing so, although the Roman government and the Jewish religious authority did not know it, they were serving God. They were servants of God, used by him in his plan to reconcile all of creation back to himself, without even realizing it. Jesus was not, Jesus' death was not the end of the story. Through Jesus' resurrection, he showed us that he is the ultimate authority, that no decision or sentence of man, no matter the degree of human authority, will ever have the final say, because that belongs to the chief and source of authority, God himself. The most important question that we're going to ask this morning is what about Jesus letting get through all of that without resisting authority? Don't miss this. This is probably the most important thing that we'll talk about. Just before Jesus' arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane, he says something that shows us how he got through this without rejecting authority. Luke chapter 22, verses 39 through 44. It says, And he came out and went, as was his Custom to the mounts of olives, and the disciples followed him. And when he came to the place, he said to them, Pray that you may not enter into temptation. And he withdrew from them about a stone's throw away, and knelt down and prayed, saying, Father, if you were willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done. And there appeared to him an angel from heaven strengthening him, and being in agony, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling to the ground. Verse 42, that right there is it. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done. Jesus knew that his life was not his own. Yes, he willingly submitted to the governing authorities, but the only reason he was willing to be able to do that was because he was first and foremost fully submitted to the will of his father. If the father says go, he said yes. If the father said stay, he said yes. Jesus' life was not about comfort or security or desire or plans. It was about being with his father, knowing his father, and trusting his father, even when it didn't make perfect sense. Not simply because he had to, but because he knew his father to be good, compassionate, loving, wise, strong, just, holy, true, and worthy of absolutely everything that Jesus had to offer. This is why submission to earthly authorities made sense to him. Because Jesus ultimately knew who was in charge. And no matter what happened, he trusted his father. Jesus was willing to submit to authorities because he lived in submission to the Father. He submitted to the Father because he truly knew him, and he knew the Father because he spent time with him. Something we cannot afford to miss is that we are no different. If you've placed your faith in Jesus, if you've given him your unconditional yes, your life is not yours. First Corinthians chapter 6, verses 19 and 20. The context is primarily in a discussion on sexual immorality, but the principle still stands. Paul writes, or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. We, in our sinful, broken state, were consigned to death. Eternal punishment, separation from God in hell. But because of Christ, he came, lived a perfect life, and died on our behalf, taking our sin and our shame, nailing it to a cross, dying, our sin died with him, and he rose again, showing victory over sin and death. Because of that, we were made alive. Our baseline was dead. We were dead, but because of Christ, we are alive. It's not my life. I did not give me my life. No authority on earth gave me my life, but Jesus, through his death and resurrection, gave me life, so my life is his. And Jesus understood that. That is why he had his unconditional yes given to the Father. You say go, I say yes. Paul opens the second section of his letter in Romans with his beginning appeal to the church in chapter 12, to by the mercies of God present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to him. As long as your life is not a living sacrifice made unto the Lord, submission to authority will never make sense to you. As long as we continue to believe that our life is still our own after we have placed our faith in Jesus, submission to authority will never make sense. If you don't do that, submission to authority, not to mention anything with the walk with Jesus, will ever make sense. Why does any of this matter? Why does it matter if we don't submit to authorities? Well, aside from inviting judgment of the Lord upon us and violating our own conscience, as this text clearly states. Towards the beginning of the sermon, I give a couple of reasons of what I would call surface level examples of why we tend to resist authorities in life. We can throw those up on the screen, they're right there. The reason I said they are surface level is because I think there's a common thread under each of them that ties them all together, and that thread is a hesitancy to let go of control. Each of these reasons assumes it is my decision as to whether someone is worthy of authority or not. Are they wise enough? Do they have my best interest in mind? Are they talking to me? Do they have moral authority? Do I actually think that they should be where they are? If I deem them as worthy of authority that they have, then I'm willing to submit. But this places me functionally at the position of the one who bestows authority. Paul says there's no authority except from God. The role I'm trying to fill belongs to the Lord, and I must surrender that area of control to Him to experience His peace. Experientially, a failure to submit to authority will cause and perpetuate feelings of anxiety, a disturbance of peace, because it's rooted in a grasp for control over something that we were never created to have. If our willingness to submit to authority is considered on our perception of their worthiness, then there will be times when we believe in authority is worthy. Submission will be easy and we'll feel a temporary peace, but we all know people. They change their minds. They change stances. How many times have you sat through a political campaign watching somebody who harped on a specific issue only to elect them and find that they completely forgot the cause that they ran on? We change our mind about their worthiness of authority based on our standards, and just like that, our peace is gone. We continue to feel the frustration of facing judgment and consequence when we fail to submit to an authority that we don't want to obey, rather than living in the peace that comes with accepting the authority that is instituted by God and honoring Him through submission. Recognizing authority is coming from the Lord and rooting our willingness to submit in our trust in the unchanging sovereign Lord, rather than trust in a constantly changing person, allows us a more steady and true peace that is independent of the circumstances that we find ourselves in. So back to our question: how can we reconcile the existence of horrible rulers like Hitler and Nero and Stalin with our text from Romans? I'll be very honest with you, off the top of my head, I don't know exactly how God used them as his servants to bring about good for his people. I really don't. But just because I don't know how the Lord did something doesn't mean that he didn't do it. He's promised to, so I can trust that he has or that he will. Does this mean that what they did is okay because God can make good out of it? Absolutely not. The Jewish leaders and the Roman government were not justified in their murder of Jesus, and God used what they did to do one of the most beautiful things ever. He didn't make it okay. The beauty of our sovereign God is that even when earthly authorities miss the mark, when they use the authority that they've been given by him to do evil, he is able to redeem it. So our hope as believers cannot be shaken, because it's contingent on him and not us or any other person, power, or principality that will all come to fall. When a ruler misuses the authority the Lord has given them, it displeases him and he promises judgment. But he's also clear that the judgment in that situation is his responsibility alone. Just a few verses before this text of this morning, he says, Paul says, Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. Submission to his authority means trusting that he will bring vengeance where vengeance is due. It's his ultimate authority that gives us the assurance that our sin has been paid for and that grace is on the table to be received by faith in Christ. Assurance that when we are in him, nothing can separate him from us, because he has the final word. And also, please don't hear this and think that this means that we as believers need to be quiet with our heads down in complete agreement no matter what the government does. Submission and subjection are not the same thing as agreement. I know I said the United States was founded on the rejection of British authority, and I just want you all to know I'm grateful to live here. This is a beautiful country. Please don't think that I dislike America. But in this country, we have the constitutionally protected rights, like the ability to petition the government, to peaceably assemble, to speak what we believe, to vote, to advocate. It's not a failure of submission to exercise the rights that this nation has given us. That is us acting in our submission. We're just obeying what they told us that we could do. Submission is not required when an authority is demanding idolatry or disobedience to what the Lord has clearly commanded. That's very clear in Scripture. And this is a great and a nuanced conversation that I would love to have with each of you after service. I just don't have the time to right now, right here. So please find me if you want to talk about that. But what do we do now? He continues that. Chapter 13, verses 5 through 7, the rest of our text for the day. He says, Therefore, one must be in subjection not only to avoid God's wrath, but also the sake of conscience. For because of this you also pay taxes to the authorities, and 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. But to live out our Christian life in submission to authorities so long as we are honoring the Lord in doing so. Ultimately, if you don't hear anything else, I want you to hear that submission to authorities will start to make sense when you acknowledge that the true source of authority is the Lord, and your life is lived first and foremost as a living sacrifice unto the Lord. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you. We thank you for the fact that you just don't only tell us easy things, Lord, but that you bring the difficult things to us as well. But as you bring the difficult things to us, Lord, that you allow us to see just deeper depths of your heart, Lord, that you don't just tell us what to do, but you also tell us why. You show us how it's the hands of a caring father who's guiding your child away from doing something that is going to hurt them, that is going to bring them away from you. Lord, I pray that as we just um continue our time this morning, um, worshiping you, that you would help us to fix our eyes clearly on you, that we would trust you, that we would know that above all you are sovereign, Lord, that you are the source of all authority, that all authority finds its home in you. And because of that, Lord, that we can just live lives surrendered to you, trusting that you um you got it all, Lord. There's nothing that you can't do, and we trust you. So, Lord, I ask that you would just continue to shape our hearts to look more like the heart of your Son, Jesus. And we ask all of these things in his holy name. Amen.