Romans 13 - Submit to authorities

Chapter 13 of the epistle to the Romans: “...Submit every person to the superior authorities because there is no authority except from God and those that exist by God have been established.

So whoever opposes the authority to what is established by God resists and those who resist bring condemnation to themselves. Because the magistrates are not instilling fear in the one who does good, but in the bad. So you want not to fear authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from her, because she is a servant of God -that is, the person in authority is a servant of God- for your good, but if you do what is bad, fear because she does not carry the sword in vain, for she is a servant of God, avenger to punish the one who does wrong. Therefore, it is necessary to be subject to it, not only because of the punishment, but also because of conscience, since for this you also pay the tributes, because they are servants of God who continually attend to this very thing.

Pay to all what you owe, to whom tribute, tribute; to which tax, tax; whom I respect, I respect; to whom honor, honor. Do not owe anyone anything, except to love one another because he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law, because you will not commit adultery, you will not kill, you will not steal, you will not bear false witness, you will not covet and any other commandment in this sentence is summarized: you will love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no harm to our neighbor, so the fulfillment of the law is love and this knowing the time that it is and time to get up from sleep because now our salvation is closer to us than when we believed. The night is advanced and the day is near, so let us discard the works of darkness and put on the weapons of light, let us walk as day, honestly, not in gluttony and drunkenness, not in lust and lasciviousness, not in strife and envy, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and do not provide for the desires of the flesh.”

The Lord bless his word. Remember what we have said that these Chapters from 12 onwards of the epistle to the Romans are very low level Chapters, they are paternal advice from the Apostle Paul for the believers, applying all those things that he has just established in the Chapters previous. Now, like he sits in the living room rocking chair with you, and begins to give you grandfatherly advice, fatherly advice about how you should live that life as a child of God, that life of a renewed mind, of a renewed spirit, as a living sacrifice before the Lord, expressing the values of the Kingdom of God.

And he takes time to touch on key areas of human life where we can put into practice that principle of living a life that pleases the Lord, according to the great calling we have received. In the previous Chapter, he just touched on issues of how we Christians should live with one another, how we should behave in the responsibilities we have in the church, how we should treat each other in love, preferring one another.

Last Sunday we talked a lot about this aspect of the attitude of mercy and generosity, forgiving those who offend us, blessing those who curse us. Those who persecute us, treating them well, identifying with those who mourn and those who celebrate as well, being humble and not treating the person of lowliest position with a sense of superiority from us, but, hobnobbing and partnering with each other and having that benevolent, merciful, generous attitude towards each other. All of that was in Chapter 12.

Now, he enters another dimension, another very important aspect and the first 7 verses of this Chapter 13 have to do with how we relate to legal authority, that is, how should we Christians treat the police, the government of our nation or our state, all civil authorities, how we should behave, the laws with which we interact in life. In other words, what kind of citizen should a child of God be, what kind of citizen, how should we relate to authority?

And evidently what Paul says is that the Christian must have an attitude of respect towards civil authorities, and I would say much more than that, it is towards all authority. He's talking about higher authorities and he's referring specifically to governments, the people who carry the gun here. He talks a lot about what today we would call the police or the military or the government in Washington or here at City Hall or the State House, the state house, the governor, etc. But I think that more than that, it has to do with authority in general, all the authorities that are over us.

But let's talk for a moment, so as not to complicate things immediately, about how we should relate to the authorities. Everything that has to do with the government that is over us. Well, Paul says, hey, you have to be model citizens, you have to obey the laws of the nation where you are. You have to distinguish yourself by being respectful of authority, not rebelliously, rebellious, not looking for ways to evade the law. They must respect all laws and be citizens who exemplify submission to authority.

Did you know that one of the problems Christians had was that they didn't worship Caesar? The Roman Empire had declared that Caesar, that is, Caesar was like the emperor, the emperor of the Roman Empire that ruled much of the known world. The Roman Empire had established its law over many nations on earth and Christians only accepted Jesus as God and the Father, they worshiped only God, as did the Jews. So, the Christians had a serious problem and that is that they did not worship Caesar, they did not worship the Roman emperor. In that sense then, the Roman Empire viewed them with great suspicion and in fact for this reason they were also persecuted on many occasions, because they did not kneel to adore Caesar as God. This caused them many suspicions of not being good citizens.

It is interesting then that Paul, when writing to a church that was in Rome, deals with this subject, that is revealing, because it is evident that he wanted to clarify to the Christians what their attitude should be, because many times there could be Christians who said, well, we belong to a higher kingdom, our king is Jesus Christ and we do not respect the Roman authorities who persecute us and who do not accept Christianity. Paul says, It is not so. We have to submit ourselves, we are in the world, we benefit from certain privileges and protections offered by civil life and we have to submit to that law and at no time can we be identified as rebellious people.

I think there was also an element there of defending oneself and healing oneself before the Roman authorities. Many of the great fathers of the church in the first centuries wrote many times to the emperors and the rulers in the different provinces where they lived, letting them know that the Christians were subject to their law, that they prayed for their superiors and wanting to clarify that. They simply said, we do not adore Caesar as our God, but we submit to Caesar and recognize his dominion, we are not a subversive force that is trying to destabilize the government, quite the contrary, we are respectful people.

And the Bible is full of various calls to respect authority, and that's important for us to understand. For example, if we look at First Timothy, Chapter 2, there it says in verse 1:

“....I urge first of all that requests, prayers, petitions and thanksgiving be made for all men –and then he adds- for kings and for all who are in eminence so that we may live quietly and peacefully in all piety and honesty....”

In other words, one of the things that we As Christians we have to pray for our authorities, we have to pray for President Bush even if we don't like him. How many say love to that? Ok, if you don't like him, or by President Clinton in his time, or by any president. We have to pray for Patrick Deval, we have to pray for anyone who is in authority so that the Lord will enlighten them, not eliminate them, but enlighten them, enlighten them, and give them wisdom so that they can make just decisions and establish laws that are according to the will of the Lord and that we can live lives in peace. Because if they are enlightened by God they are going to make just laws then it is to our benefit that we bless those who are in authority. That is part of God's call.

Look at that, we cannot curse our authorities, I think we also have to talk about them with respect, if we are going to criticize them, we can criticize them but it has to be in a non-disrespectful way. In Titus, Chapter 3 there is also another call, very interesting, it says there, in verse 1:

“.... Remind them –Paul says to Titus, a shepherd on that island of Crete where he is Tito shepherding- remind them to submit to the rulers....... -go, hold on- ...... to the rulers and authorities, to obey, to be willing to do every good work...." < /p>

Okay, that's verse 1, and lastly in First Peter, Chapter 2, verse 13 onwards, it says:

“....For the Lord's sake, - look how interesting, it is not because you prefer it or because you want to do it, but out of respect for the Lord-....submit yourselves to every human institution, be it the king as superior, or the governors, as sent by him for punishment evildoers and praise those who do good, because this is the will of God that by doing good you silence the ignorance of foolish men, as free, but not as those who have freedom as a pretext for doing evil, but as servants of God. Honor everyone, love your brothers, fear God, honor the king....”

In other words, there is an attitude there... it's a mixture like fearing God and honoring to God is mixed with also submitting to authorities. I believe that there is so much cloth to cut, brothers. Volumes and volumes in human philosophy have been written around this idea of how we should relate to the state. But it is evident that the most important thing is that, that the essential position of every Christian man or woman must be a position of respect for authority, and of submission to authority.

We have to be exemplary in that sense. Pedro speaks to them there, he tells them to behave in such a way that we silence the ignorance of the people. Because? Because the Christians were a new religion, people did not know what to make of them. They did not recognize the deity of the emperor, so they were under suspicion. A lot of rumors were being said about Christians, so they were forced to be very law-abiding people to show people, those accusations against us are lies; we are people of God, we respect authority, we are not here to subvert authority.

And we as Christians have to always remember that, that we have a great responsibility to exemplify good civil conduct, to respect the laws as much as possible, to walk righteously, to pay our taxes, to pay our debts. that we have, not to go around quarreling, but always respectfully. Because authority, says Paul, is instituted by God.

That is, what I think Paul meant by that is that the very source of the concept of civil authority. Many books have been written, Rousseau, Lock, well, many writers have written about the origins of government, because that's not always... Well, we biblically believe so, but many theories have been made about how government arose. concept of government in humanity. Man benefits from having a state, from having an authority that builds roads, that establishes public service systems, that has police, an army to protect the people, that prevents the weak from being oppressed by the stronger in society, that there is no pitched war in society, and that is from God. That is a grace that God has given to fallen humanity, which is not governed by God's law. Governments are not perfect, but it is the best we have, so we have to respect it and we have to help them by praying for them and in every way cooperating for their progress.

Now, a question may be, what happens when a government is bad? Because notice how interesting that Paul here paints rather the image of a government that functions fairly. He is talking about, in verse 4:

“.... because he is God's servant for your good.... - right?, later on- .... he is God's servant , an avenger to punish the one who does evil....”

So I think Paul is describing a government that functions properly. Now, I believe that in this complexity of the word of God there is room, first to resist laws that are contrary to the law of God, definitely. For example, the Jewish women and midwives did not respect Pharaoh's law to kill all the Jewish firstborn as Pharaoh wanted, instead they let them be born and told Pharaoh, these Jewish women are so healthy that they give birth before Before we arrive, before the ambulance stops at the door, they already have the baby in hand. So how many sisters would like to be like that, right? Say amen, glory to God. So they violated, they did not respect the unjust law.

And I believe that there is a place, there are governments so terrible, so bloody, so oppressive that I believe there is a place to resist them. This nation was born from a revolution against the English empire that was establishing unjust laws. They tried to negotiate, it was a long process for England to treat them more fairly, but things escalated until there was bloodshed and finally the North American colonies said, no more, and broke with the mother country. And this nation today is born from that rebellion and almost all nations, if we look through history, are born from some break with some empire, with some unjust nation or whatever, as they interpreted it.

That is, there is room. An Idi Amin in Africa who killed thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of people has to be resisted, had to be resisted. That animal had to be put out of its misery and disposed of somehow, it was a human beast, completely demonized.

And I think one has to also... there's a tension in Scripture, we don't have time to discuss it so thoroughly, but as much as possible I think what the word says is the following Brothers, the essential position of the Christian, the first position must be one of respect for authority, and as much as possible we have to try to relate to the superior authorities from a perspective of respect and compliance with the laws and only in extreme cases, where no other recourse remains, where we have exhausted all recourse within the legal system to change an unjust law, you should then, and only with fear and trembling, with great sadness in heart and commending ourselves to all saints ever and for having, we must undertake a rebellion against authority.

That's for me, and within that you may not agree. There are many people who say, no, you have to respect authority one hundred percent even if it's a beast that is in that position of authority, you have to respect it because God allows it to be there, you have to pray for it, etc, etc. I don't go to that extreme and neither do the great thinkers of the church go to that extreme. I do not believe that the word of the Lord, even, theologically in all its extension, there is room to believe such a thing.

But, I do say that in everything... God, and here I am going into another very important thing, God views authority with extreme seriousness, because he... does he know that kings are take care of each other right? The first emperor of the universe is God, that is the first authority so he is very jealous of how we relate to authority and he faced his great crisis, so to speak, countless centuries ago when his most exalted creature rebelled against him. It was Lucifer, Luzbel, and the Bible gives us to understand there that there was some kind of civil war and rebellion of a large number of angels, led by that creature that is called today Satan, but who was Luzbel, the most powerful creature. high that God had created and there was a rupture and a rebellion and God expelled those angels from his presence. Those are the demons and those terrible beings that today do so much harm to humanity. And God is very sensitive to that, also the human race has rebellion written in its heart too, the disobedience that took place in Eden, and from then on we see that rebellion of the human race against divine authority. God hates rebellion in any form, any rebellion against authority, anything of the heart against authority, that to God..... there is a passage that says that for God rebellion is like witchcraft. He sees it in that very, very serious way.

And brothers, here is something very, very important that I want to go deeper into, to the fundamental principle of all this. Because if we only stay in, ok, respect the law, pay the taxes, that kind of thing, it's very superficial. I believe that, brothers, we Christians who understand the structure of the spirit must have respect for all authority with which we enter into a relationship, so that we always, if we are at work, for example, and we have a boss, we have a superior, a supervisor, as far as possible we have to respect that supervisor. Yes, amen. Say amen even if you don't believe it. We have to relate to that person, you are my superior and I am going to give you respect, and you know what? Don't do it like that child whose mother put him on his knee and then asks him, are you still on your knees?, from the other room, and he says, yes, I'm physically on my knees but inside I'm standing. We can't be like this. We have to be subject to authority within and without. There are many people who grudgingly respect authority, but inside they have rebellion in their hearts. No, Christians love, even like, to submit to authority.

Young people, listen to this, pay attention. Please pay attention young people and try to listen to me for a moment. Youth, you are in a generation where you do not like to respect authority, this is a rebellious generation. For many years, especially in this country and in many other countries around the world, he has been preaching that authority should not be respected. That is a devilish lie. That is the demon spirit. You must respect your teachers, for example, the youth must make life pleasant for their teachers. How many say love to that? Young people should honor their teachers and not say, honor your parents.

We have to respect our parents, our authorities. The first authority, our God and then our parents, and that is for all of us. Honor your father and your mother, it is one of the commandments. And that is something that my God is speaking to me so much at this time. I feel that it will be one of the distinctive messages of my life, to call this generation, especially the youth, to respect their parents, to reconcile with their parents, to respect and venerate parents. People don't know how much pain they cause themselves when they take a rebellious stance against their parents.

I went with Abigail, my daughter, to the University of Pennsylvania this past weekend, I returned yesterday, we were there for two days and I saw a scene that I feel was like the Lord put it on me there for me to look at. My wife says that I am, remember that I told you, that I am one of the most quarrelsome people in the world, I am always observing things, when I am in a restaurant. And I was going to the place where we were going to finish the first meeting, Abby was already there, and you had to walk about a block or so away, and there were a lot of parents there with their children because it was an information session and all that, about the university. And they passed by me, first a young girl passed by who was from the department where Abigail would be, if she goes there, and about 17 years old, finishing high school, a senior high school, North American, and the two parents came. I only heard her when she passed by here by my side, and she said, 'I know, I know....', I know, I know, she told her in English, and kept walking. Then the two parents came, the two parents behind her, who had surely paid her ticket, they will surely pay for her years at the university, they have fed her, they have given her clothes and all that, but this girl was in front of her. they eat, I measured the distance on occasions. Sometimes I would go almost 20 feet in front of them, and here goes the dad, a big man about 6 feet two, behind her, they went like this and the mom, the poor thing behind the dad, also with a little distance. And the girl, at all that she gives, didn't care.... There came a time when she opened a door and I almost think she let go, she grabbed it because it was too obvious. And me watching this scene while I was behind them, right? looking at this rebellious girl, walking in front of her parents, ashamed of her parents, because that is something that nowadays they have become accustomed to in this culture, that boys are boys and are like that, they do not give information to their parents, they do not respect. And like the parents laugh at each other and like that's supposed to be the norm and that's the way boys are, etc.

Brothers, I, until death, will rebel against that system. And this little girl was like the symbol of a whole generation that despises authority and that despises its parents. And I don't know who I'd get more angry with, her or her parents, because they allow that kind of indignity and that kind of offense. That young lady doesn't know the damage she's doing to herself, you know? Because in the long run that is going to come back to her, it is going to rebound to her. That kind of rebelliousness of heart is the most damaging thing in the world. And we parents, says "....do not conform to this century...." means that we cannot conform to this culture. This culture says that it is okay for children to rebel against their parents, this culture says don't correct your children, don't confront them, don't talk loud to them, don't punish them because you're going to deform them, because you don't want to be an abuser, this and other. That is a lie from the devil. You have to throw it in his face. We have to help our children and teach them for their own good to be respectful towards their parents, to be respectful towards their teachers. Not only to be respectful but to honor them.

To honor means to express preference to them. Honoring means being proactively accommodating with your parents, with your teachers, with the people who are in authority over your life. God, this is a basic principle, brothers, our hearts must always be tender against authority until that authority rebels, unworthy of my respect, and then I have to find a way to deal in a different way, but the basic position , “the default posture of a child of God should always be respect for authority until they prove themselves unworthy, utterly unworthy of that respect, of that honor.”

And, brothers, I tell you that there is something special that crowns a young man who respects his adults, how beautiful a young man is, a young man who respects his authorities, his heart grows pure and pleasant and he has something different in the face, and adults go out of their way to help and bless them. But when there is that rebelliousness of heart, that, I do not owe anything to you, and you owe everything to me, that is diabolic, that is harmful, that brings destruction and punishment to the youth. It's not going to go well. You don't see what the word says that for you to do well, respect your parents, and for you to have long days.

There is something precious that this culture has lost, which is respect for gray hair, respect for authority in any manifestation. Sometimes we are disrespectful to our spiritual authorities, in our hearts we have things against them. And, brothers, I tell you for your own good, do not allow... because that stagnates you, that stagnates you, you cannot grow, you cannot advance. Black eyes, social failure, going from place to place, clumsiness in spiritual understanding is accompanied by rebellion against your authorities. But when one respects authority and delights in giving honor to whom one owes honor, there is great blessing there. How many say amen?

Amen. That is why Paul concludes by saying in verse 7, “... pay everyone what you owe, to whom tribute, tribute, to whom tax, tax; The one I respect, I respect, the one who honors, honor....”

In other words, let's not just limit ourselves to respecting the law because he has a gun that can shoot me or write me a ticket If I don't respect it No, whoever you owe honor or respect to, give it to them and give it to them joyfully because they will also give you respect. You're going to have respect too, from your children, from someone you're going to be in authority over, whatever, so let's give it to each other. Respect your authorities and others will respect you. Let's respect the authorities in the church, the hujier, the person who attends the parking lot, anyone who is placed in authority in a position, in a ministry or whatever, let's be people freely, give honor generously, give obedience, courtesy. That belongs to God and the church, the family, the youth, the citizen who is governed by this respect for authority will be blessed and will prosper. Amen.

I'm going to leave it there so as not to complicate too much, so that that central thought remains in our spirit. If your parents hurt you when you were a child, there are people who do not relate well to authority, I have observed many of these people over the years, they often do not relate well to authority because there is a grudge against a father or a mom, abusive or oppressive or didn't treat him right, or abandoned them or whatever, and that root of bitterness is in their hearts and prevents them from relating wisely to authority. So, there is always resistance, there is complication, there is something that when that person does anything, it kind of bothers you extra, because you are already predisposed to see the flaw and imperfection in that authority. So, you see it with magnifying glasses.

And we have to heal from that. It is you who is hurting, not the person, not your parents. Drop that. Forgive, let go, let that go and enter another stage of your life in which you relate positively with authority because it is from God and it is for your blessing. So if you detect, intuit, in your heart any kind of thing against a person who is in authority in your life, fix it, talk to that person if necessary, tell him what you feel, why, if he offended you, if Did something. Dare to tell that person, talk to them and fix things but do not stay in an attitude of rebellion and resistance to authority because it is not healthy for you and it will not be a blessing to your life. But if you love authority, if you respect your parents, if you venerate your parents, if you honor them and your authorities in general, you will do much better and God will bless you greatly.

To the Lord be the glory. Father, we bless your name, you are the highest authority and we gladly submit to your authority. If we have to crawl on the ground, Father, which you don't ask us to do, we would gladly do it because you deserve that and much more. We want to be children who honor you, Father, I want to be a child who honors you. We want to obey you, we want, Lord, to please you in everything.

Father, we want to have a church of people who respect authority, exemplary people, exemplary young people, young people who are characterized by that sweet, calm, respectful attitude that will lead them towards prosperity. We bless those youth, Father, this morning, may your word be engraved in their hearts, and any of us, forgive us if in some way we are not exemplifying this posture of respect to which your word calls us.

Today we pledge to examine ourselves and do everything in our power with the help of your holy spirit to live up to your call to respect higher authorities. Thank you for the sound advice of your word, in the name of Jesus. Amen. Amen.

Brothers, God bless you very much, we thank you for being here this morning, be blessed. Go home with the blessing of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. We bless you. Amen. Amen.