Submission is for Adults Too

Thank you, men. I read from Romans 13, so we're still in the Fifth Commandment, but in the context of the Fifth Commandment, we are going to do some jumping around. Romans 13, every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist have been appointed by God. Therefore, whoever resists that authority has opposed the ordinance of God, and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves.

For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of that authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same. for it is a minister of God to you for good but if you do what is evil be afraid for it does not bear the sword in vain for it is a minister of God an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil therefore it is necessary to be in subjection not only because of that wrath but also because of conscience let me pray Father, as we explore your word, help us to keep a proper focus on our need for Christ.

Help us to be willing to submit ourselves to everything that your word has to say and open our hearts to be faithful. We confess that we believe your word to be inerrant, infallible, perfect in every way. totally sufficient for every good work that we may be made perfect or complete in Christ. Amen. Amen. So I'm not going to preach a sermon through Romans 13.

This is a little bit of a, I guess I'll just say awkward part of it is that normally it's nice to just open a text and kind of go through that text like I did with 1 Peter. But in this case, we are actually in Exodus 20, and we're talking about the extent of the fifth commandment, honor your father and your mother. And as we read in the confession last week, this commandment, or in the catechism, this commandment extends to other relations that we have. and one of the ways that we see that is that when this commandment is spoken of in the New Testament it is very often spoken of in the same context as several other things at the same time describing slaves to masters wives to husbands all people to the governing authorities and children to parents.

And so we can see how Paul, especially in the New Testament, doesn't expand the meaning of this commandment, but explains to us its expansive meaning. So for the next few weeks, I suppose, I'm not always the best at estimating how long these things are going to take, sorry, I'm getting better, but for the next few weeks, we're going to be looking at some of the various relationships we have that require us to be in subjection. And we're also going to make sure we look at parents' responsibilities to their children so that children are actually properly taken care of and thus enabled to fulfill the fifth commandment.

There's a poem at the beginning of the Pilgrim's Progress that I think is particularly applicable here. So I think that every sermon I've preached through the Ten Commandments so far has been devastating in the sense that if you're a human being who has sinfulness still in your heart, you should have been broken at least once per commandment at some point. and I feel like it's just getting harder. And that's, I think, what I'm trying to say.

Because at least with the first commandment, let me put it this way, you can kind of hide it, right? Worship God and serve Him only and have no other gods. Well, I can kind of violate that commandment all I want, or even more than I want, even when I don't want to, in my heart. and outwardly you might not see it. In fact, hell is filled with people who spent their life being professors of the one true religion and yet in their heart worshipping other gods.

And it will be filled with many more. Churches are filled with people who are faking others out in regard to the fact that they worship idols. but when we start talking about commandments 5 through 9 even 10 a little bit but 5 through 9 in particular we're looking more at some outward actions that are more obvious outward actions that indicate the status of our heart and so my concern as the preacher and from a pastoral point of view is that these things are increasingly difficult. Maybe part of it is simply if I was just preaching the fifth commandment week one, it wouldn't seem this way.

But as I keep adding commandment after commandment and then I keep breaking them down for you and what I thought was going to be a 20 sermon series looks like it going to be 60 now I concerned that we heaping law on law on law And the law of course will crush people. Which is why I hope I remind you of the gospel. And if I forget during the sermon, hopefully the communion portion is a reminder.

But this poem now of Christian and Pilgrim's Progress, right before he goes to ascend the hill difficulty, he says, The hill though high, I covet to ascend. The difficulty will not me offend. For I perceive the way of life lies here. come pluck up heart let's neither faint nor fear better though difficult the right way to go than wrong though easy where the end is woe so I want to encourage you with Christian's poem which comes in the story almost immediately after his conversation with the man in the iron cage who is a symbol of the ultimate apostate false christian who spends his life realizing that he has crucified again the son of god and will eventually end in perdition and he's christian is warned be diligent be watchful be sober keep doing the work of the Lord.

Not to earn salvation, but it is the continuous doing of the work of the Lord that helps you to know that you are one of His. So we were looking at the hill difficulty, and Christian gets up the hill. I hate to spoil the story if you haven't read it, but he didn't get up the hill on his own strength, though, is the point. But he had to use all his strength to get up it, too. so I want you to remember that as we discuss some things that I think may be very difficult so first of all we already told the children that they're to obey and children I want you to continue to listen so last week I even had an outline for you I even put a little color in the bullet points I want you to listen this week too because this applies to you as well and if you're actually not a good boy or girl It's the governing authorities who are eventually going to take care of you.

And they are not going to be as gentle even as some of the most difficult fathers. All right? That's just a fact. But one of the first things that we all have to recognize is that we are subject to governing authorities. And this has been the most preached on passage of scripture for the last 20 months. a couple of years ago some governments decided to mandate that people behave certain ways as the result of the coronavirus and some people said okay it's a good idea we should do what they say and some of the things if they had been mere suggestions maybe we would have said okay you know we'll try it we're happy that someone's trying to help and but the governing authorities made some errors and they crossed outside their jurisdiction which means they went outside the sphere that they actually are allowed to tell people what to do.

And the most glaring one was they came into the church and said well you can't have church. Or in some cases they just strongly suggested you don't have church so that they weren't technically breaking a law or even breaking God's law in that sense. but we know what the intention was and they scared enough people away from church that in fact this church was born during the lockdown I don't call it a pandemic I call it the response to the pandemic but the governing authority doesn't have certain authority so we've heard sermon after sermon about that and some of you have read blog post after blog post explaining what the government's allowed to do and what they're not allowed to do mostly and we're all utterly aware of some of these things at this point, but I think that what happens is sometimes we disproportionately react. Okay, so I'll insert a quick story.

I don't do this much so you can forgive me if it's terrible. When I was in high school, we used to have this guy that we called Disproportionate Reaction Man. And he was that guy, and we all probably knew a guy like this. Maybe you ladies knew girls like this. Maybe they didn't punch. But he was the guy who, if you went up to him and flicked his ear or something, he'd turn and he'd punch you right in the chest as hard as he could.

And it was like, whoa, that was disproportionate to what I did to you. You kind of learned, just don't even bother this guy. And one thing I've seen in Christianity, and it's actually really amazing as I read people who were Christians hundreds of years before our time, is that they were constantly dealing with the same problems in every generation, including, you read the Old Testament about Israel.

But one thing I've noticed is that something happens that affects the church. And the church knows, well, we can't do this or that. And oftentimes the church disproportionately reacts, sometimes collectively, sometimes individual churches, and starts to do something in a way that is not exactly the way God wants. It's just the opposite of what the world was pressuring them to do, which also wasn't what God wanted.

It happens in every relationship. It happened with men and women. Men, at some point, and it repeats cyclically through history, so we can pick almost any time and we can find these things happening, but at some point in American history we say men stopped being men men stopped caring for women and children and loving women and children and they started being harsh with wives and children.

And then women, recognizing this was wrong, wanted to get away from that, and in some ways ended up abandoning marriage altogether, and forgot about the fact that God has a design for even women in a difficult situation. Disproportionate reaction causes people simply to almost, in a sense, sin in the opposite way as they originally were being tempted. And so, what I want to encourage you about today is that this verse, Romans 13, every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities is still there. even if your government's doing something wrong.

It was there when Caesar was the Caesar of Rome and shortly after this letter being written, Christians were burned. It was there during the Revolutionary War as well when some people in the colonies decided that in the course of human events that was actually a just war and that was the way to go. And I don't think they just ignored Romans 13. You have to read their explanations for why.

So what I want to encourage you to do is think. So the big problem in the world today is people don't think. Or at least it seems like maybe they think and they just think totally backwards. But the problem we all notice is it seems like people are unwilling to, for example, look at a chart that says how many COVID deaths there have been actually, and then realize that the Omicron variant is simply not that big a deal, right?

Like most of the people in this church, I think, are on the same page with that. And we get that. And we look at other people and think, why can't you see that this is now no worse than the common cold? Now the old COVID was a little different, I get it. And so we wonder, are people able to think? Well, I want you to think then.

Don't be the hypocrite that sees the problem in everybody else and then in some other area of life you're unable to think. So when we're to be in subjection to governing authorities, that means that we still have a level of submission to our government that we have to maintain. And we talked about this a little bit when we went through 1 Peter, but that includes understanding the government's limits.

This is not an absolute authority. The government can't walk in here and tell us what to preach. But I'll tell you what, the day they try and we disobey what we'll call an unjust order from the government, we may suffer the penalty of it. And individuals in here may have to willingly submit themselves joyfully in the Lord to the penalties that a tyrannical or unjust government would impose upon a Christian.

Now in your conscience you may still feel that you did the right thing. And that's good. But the government may think otherwise. There are times in your submission to the various authorities that you're under that they will be unjust. can anybody think of an example of somebody else who was unjustly punished though he had done nothing wrong and yet he went as a sheep goes to the slaughter or like a lamb who before its shear is silent anybody call it out yes Jesus did that didn't he if anyone had a right to stand up and say you've overstepped your bounds.

This isn't the government's authority to even care about what I'm saying. It was Jesus Christ. And if anyone had the right to say I'm not guilty of any of the garbage you're accusing me of or any of the lies that the false witnesses are testifying about me of, it was Jesus Christ. He wasn't even guilty of anything. And he knew it and they knew it. But he submitted himself to Pontius Pilate and let Pontius Pilate in that sense, do his will.

Pontius Pilate, of course, not realizing he was a tool in the hands of the sovereign God who by his predetermined plan had planned that through the hands of sinful men the Son of God would be delivered up so that sins would be forgiven for people like us. And you don't know in your suffering that you may undergo how God will use that to help others. I'm looking around.

We have a small church and a third of us are gone, okay? But I'm looking around and I'm seeing people who I know are already affected by mask mandates and by vaccine talk, or I call it the fake scene. There's all these things that people are affected by. And some of you think, I don't know if I'm going to have a job next week or in a month. And I understand that.

I'm in the same boat. and it can be scary. And you may have to submit to an authority, not by doing what they tell you, if it violates God or your conscience, but you may have to submit to the penalty that they impose, as your authority in some sense or other. So we are all subject to governing authorities. It's not absolute submission, I mentioned that already, But just a reminder all submission that we have to other people and the government is really it a group of people in every culture everywhere Government ultimately is some group of people or the will of those people right Even in the United States where especially as Christians we like to claim that well our government is the Constitution So I don't have to obey a governmental authority who is violating the Constitution.

So that's our little excuse in the United States why we don't have to do everything the tyrants say. I'm glad I don't live in Canada, some of these other places, okay? But even then, that Constitution is the collective thoughts of the men who wrote it. We're still just being governed by men. And those men are imperfect. And they were fallible.

They were capable of mistakes. And so there is no such thing as absolute submission to other people. Parents, remember that. Because Ephesians 6 tells kids, obey your parents and the Lord. if you're teaching your kids right and you're catechizing them and you bring them to church and they're hearing something good and they start to make Christian friends and they study the Bible and they eventually get regenerated I promise you there's going to come a day your kid looks at you and says I'm not going to do what you said because I think it would be disobeying God and you know what I think once in a while they'll be right and we'll see how humble you are how much you've grown in humility by the time your kid's able to say that kind of thing by your response to that Any kid could be wrong too.

It happens. One of the problems in parenting as a Christian, particularly in some of the more, I don't know the right word for it, but is that some parents actually are no different from our semi-tyrannical government that oversteps its balance and tries to give commands where they're not authorized. Parents, you would do well to try to figure out at your kids' different ages and stages of life, what are the limits of where you should be telling them to do certain things and where there's probably some things that you need to kind of lay off of.

That might not apply to kids in this room. At certain ages, they're just under their parents. But there comes a point where you see parents that are exercising a little too much control over older kids. and you kind of wonder, is this healthy? One of the things in 1 Peter 2, if you want to turn there, that I think is helpful to us when we look at the role of government and our submission to government he says be subject 1 Peter 2.13 sorry be subject for the sake of the Lord to every human institution that's what we're talking about having these authorities over us he describes the role of government in 14 but in 16 he says act as free people so remember you've been freed from your slavery to sin, your slavery to the prince of the power of the air, you're a free person.

And so we have these freemen, right? If you ever meet a guy whose name is Freeman, right? There used to be an NFL guy named Antonio Freeman. I thought, you know, he's probably a descendant of a slave. And the slave got free and he figured out he needed a last name and said, I'm a free man. And now he's got a guy named Freeman.

It's kind of neat. He says, act as free people, but he says do not use your freedom as a covering for evil. But use it as slaves of God. Your goal, even when you decide it's time to rebel against an unjust authority, your goal is still to be proclaiming God to people and to be a slave of Christ. This is why there's probably times in some of your lives where as much as you hate it, you still end up tossing a mask on.

And if somebody doesn't want to do that, it's their conscience. That's okay too, but each individual might have reasons why it makes sense in that context. I bring this up not because I'm concerned about this church being the start of the rebellion or something like that. I want each of you in your heart to recognize whether you are a rebel or whether you are a slave of Christ.

I do want that. I went to some of the political rallies with people, okay? And I met people who had no desire to advance the human flourishing. They had no desire to help others. They were rebels at heart. They saw a protest, so they showed up, okay? the government had told everybody to take vitamins and to stop taking pharmaceuticals and to start using natural remedies at home they'd have been there protesting that, it didn't matter, okay that's my point, they were just there to be rebellious because that fed their flesh, so I want you to watch for that my larger concern is that your children are watching your behavior that's the focus of the series right now so I can get up here I could do it for five straight weeks I could preach to kids and tell them all the stuff I'm sure they do wrong I could do home visits they'd probably see the stuff there come with specific examples you guys could probably call me it's easy right most of the people in this room could probably make a list of things that their kids could do better at that's fine that's easy and you're supposed to deal with that at home that your kids are watching your attitude about things.

They hear what you say about President Biden or Mike DeWine. They see the cartoons sometimes that we pass around, the memes. And they are learning from us how we deal with the world. figures. And so we need to be careful and cautious because they may not understand the full context of what may be an accurate and funny meme, right? Paul even confessed in saying once that he didn't want to speak evil about a ruler of the people, quoting the law of God.

And so what I want you to consider is that your children may not understand all the context here. So if we say, well, I don't mind saying it, Joe Biden is a murderer at heart. At the very least, he's a murderer at heart, and I think he's guilty of murder for his pro-abortion stance that he's held forever, as far as I know. I don't think that I'm blaspheming a dignified one in that situation. but it's because I'm explaining to you the nature of Joe Biden's sin that we know of.

But that's very different and you know the difference when in your heart you're speaking ill of someone else. And I've done it too. I've said truthful yet mean things about people who are actually the ones put over us by God in some sense. sometimes only from a heart of anger and I violated the next commandment we haven't gotten to yet so your children are watching you but in particular I want you to be concerned with whether your children are seeing a rebel and even if you're not a rebel at heart I want you to be able to consider if they don't know the difference because you're not teaching them why we're doing what we're doing this is why we don't put on masks this is why we talk about this this way so sometimes we need to explain things more and help them out your child is watching your example your child is watching your example in the church the second area where you are to be subjective and submissive to leaders is in the church the book of Hebrews chapter 13 the author writing to the people.

Some people think this was also a preached sermon. He says, Obey your leaders and submit. And the LSB, they try to help us. They say to them, it's implied. He says, For they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account so that they will do this with joy and not with groaning. He says, for this would be unprofitable for you.

So you women, you have wives, you wives have husbands that you're supposed to submit to. And Lord willing, nobody loves you more than that husband. Lord willing, if I looked at wives in here and I said, do you think your husband loves you as Christ loved the church? I would hope that wives would be able to say, well, you know, I know nobody's perfect, but yeah, I do think that's what my husband strives for.

So that's nice. You guys have a submissive relationship commanded by God with an authority figure who's actually supposed to love you and care for you. So you should actually enjoy submitting to your husband. And anybody with an employer, though, you have a submissive relationship according to the word of God which I didn't read those passages where you're supposed to submit to your earthly employer or if you were even a slave to submit to a master so if Paul wanted slaves to submit to masters and by extension the Holy Spirit wanted that you can bet that he wants us to have some submission to our earthly employer these people are over us, they're an authority in a situation where we are to submit ourselves well that can be difficult, you can have a bad master Paul even had to tell the masters how to behave towards slaves in Ephesians 6 he tells them stop your threatening you got one God over both of you he tells them But some of you probably have some nasty employers Maybe you have a nasty boss, or maybe he's just kind of an imbecile.

Maybe he's lazy and he takes credit for your work, and then he doesn't do anything. Then he makes mistakes that you have to fix. I don't think it's uncommon for that kind of thing to happen. I think it's the Dunning-Kruger effect, if you want to look that one up. That's where people get promoted right up to a level where they're incompetent. That's like a thing.

But anyway, that can be difficult. But you have to do it. You want your paycheck. So you're not going to argue with the guy about everything. You're going to do what he says. If he says you can't have Monday off, you're not taking off Monday.

It's just how it works. or if you decide to take Monday anyway, maybe you'll suffer a consequence. But here in Hebrews 13, especially you men, and if any women work too, you have an opportunity to submit to a leader who actually is designed to love you. I can't promise any of you a good boss at work. Just Lindsay. Lindsay's got a good boss, right? Jason.

I can tell you if you have a good boss today, that could change tomorrow. Do you know my company has never once come and asked me my opinion on an organizational change? Not once. I could get a new boss tomorrow. None of my business. But when you come to church, when you covenant with a local body, you are put in submission to leaders and yes I believe this is talking specifically about elders, presbyters this isn't deacons, deacons are themselves servants of the church they have some leadership qualities usually and they're very important and I wish we had deacons but you actually have a submissive attitude towards your pastors and your children will see that just like they'll see your attitude towards the government.

They might not see your attitude towards work. They might hear you complain about it. They may hear at the dinner table about what a jerk your boss is or what an idiot movie made this time. And they're learning. They're learning how to be disposed towards the authorities in their life by the way that you example for them how you're disposed towards the authorities in your life.

I joke with Jason a lot about owning his own business. You realize as a home business owner, Jason has hundreds of bosses. He doesn't have just one. I have just one. I might have three, but he has hundreds of bosses. And the way that he talks about each and every one of his customers when they frustrate him or make things difficult, his children are watching. and they're learning that this is how I look at the authorities in my life, the people who get to tell me what to do.

And if you're a parent, why would you want to model anything but submission to authority for your children? So think about your behavior. When you come to church, obey your leaders and submit to them. this is again not absolute submission if I could make a list of abusive men who have taken over churches and movements in the history of Christianity we'd be here all night so we try to avoid those kinds of things and we try to do things that would prevent that kind of thing we have a confession, and a confession is almost like a constitution for the United States I'm not the boss here my job is to execute what we've all agreed is what God would have us do but there is a point where I have to make some decisions and as Lord willing we get more elders they going to have to make decisions about things we going to do at any given moment And whether you helpful in that moment or not will be decided upon whether you have a heart of submission most of the time Because submission doesn't matter when you agree with the person, okay?

If I tell you, hey Jeremy, I want you to go take a break after church and let us clean up. And you say, okay, that's not submission, you know, unless you really want to do a clean up or whatever. But submission only makes sense in the context of being told to do something that you don't want at the moment. This is why it's hard. And it's why it's important.

And so I beg of you as a technically not even pastor today until we vote in an hour or whatever, a little bit. I beg of you as a person in this church who is as an elder and even if I wasn't I beg of you to obey church elders submit to them recognizing that it's not an absolute form of obedience and it has a sphere of authority I can't tell Sarah make eggs for breakfast tomorrow that's not ok and in fact I would to some extent depending on her attitude I'd almost say she'd be right to stand up and say I don't want to do that you know what I mean although some people would say hey maybe it's a good idea but I can tell Bert hey I want to sing a song next week called this or that and Bert no matter how much he liked some other songs it would be nice if at least he'd say hey you know for the sake of the guy doing this I want to just submit to that idea so that I can do my work with joy and not with groaning and it would be unprofitable for Bert if I'm not joyful in my service to you as an elder so your children are watching your example they see the way that you respect governmental authorities they see your attitude towards not only church elders but the church itself as an authority in your life we have moved away from that in our culture of the church having even an impact in people's lives and in their home lives and in their decisions but the church has a whole lot to say about what we should be doing in our lives In fact, the next couple sermons are all going to be about that. Specific applications of God's law and precepts into how you should be living.

To ignore that, to some extent, is to disrespect the church that Christ bought with his blood. And gave his perfect word too. But your children are watching. And they know. And if any of them have listened up to this point, I wish I could like pop open their little heads and look inside especially yours Easton I'd love to see how your brain works I want to see it though I know sometimes it's a little bit difficult it works, it works the way God made it work and you need to learn how to use your skills and gifts that God gave you in the way that he would intend and sometimes your limitations or your gifts are what helps you figure that stuff out.

But what I mean is I almost want to hear what the kids are thinking right now. Because if your kids have been listening, you should be thinking about, yeah, you know what? I've been watching my dad do this, and it doesn't sound like it accords with the Word of God. I've been watching my mom or listening to my mom, and I'm not sure that my mom is living that out.

And you know what? Forgive your parents. That was one of the lessons last week, wasn't it? Your parents are sinners too in need of a Savior and in need of forgiveness. And so what I want to remind you of is the poem. I want this to be transformational though is my point.

I don want anybody to run up here and genuflect or we don need to turn the lights down and have an altar call But I want your life to be changed I ask you if you keeping the Sabbath every different week to week and it's convicted me, I hope it's convicted you. And I want you to walk out of here with actual things on your mind that maybe you don't want to confess to everybody, or maybe you aren't ready to talk about it yet, but things that you start thinking, yeah, maybe I need to do that better, so that my children may have hope of an example that shows them how to live the life that I expect them to live. Because it's one thing to have made mistakes in the past and to tell your kids, try not to make the same mistake I already made.

But it's another thing to say, don't do the thing I'm currently doing right now before your very eyes on a consistent basis. That's called hypocrisy and it will drive your children out of the church. And then one day, they'll write a blog about you or there will be an interview about you. about how outwardly you were a Christian, and at church on Sunday you were a Christian, but the rest of the week you were a devil.

Because they know, and one day they're going to grow up and get out. So today's the day to repent. The hill though high, I covet to ascend. The difficulty will not me offend. He's talking about the narrow path. You know, King James, Matthew 7, I think difficult is the way that was narrow.

Look at verse 7, 13 and 14. Enter by the narrow gate, for the way is difficult that leads to life. He says, for I perceive the way to life lies here. Come, pluck up heart, let's neither faint nor fear. Don't be afraid. Don't faint in the day of adversity.

Listen, he says, better though difficult. So confessing sin, being honest about how much you've failed, recognizing that your children's misbehavior, their bad behavior and their disobedience may be just a reflection of them acting like their dad or their mom. Or it may be a reflection of you exasperating them or irritating them. Recognizing that is difficult, but it's the right way to go.

And it's better than wrong, though easy, where the end is woe. you will prove your salvation probably not by being burned at the stake or thrown to wild beasts I don't see that in at least the next couple of years here in the United States but you can give yourself the assurance of salvation some of you desperately want by just going home and praying that the Lord would give you the strength to start living a different life that you know you need to live and he will do it by his grace because he has promised it in his word to all those who come to him by faith Lord in heaven, we want you to be our guide. We want Jesus Christ to be our goal. We want to be conformed to his image.

And we need your Holy Spirit to change us and renew our minds. We need you to humble us that we may recognize our own failures and be able to be honest about our heart. And we pray today that you would give us, by your grace, faith to believe what your word says. And I believe, Lord, that if you do that, our actions will follow. I pray that you would help us to do the hard things that actually bring healing in our life. hard things that may even include pain and difficulty.

But that is the hill that you desire we ascend. I pray that every parent in here would look at their life and be able to recognize the areas where their submission to authority is not what you have commanded. And that for the sake of your name and for their children's sake, that they would repent. I ask you to bless the people of this church, the ones in the room, the ones watching online, by the power of your Son's resurrection, that we may enjoy newness of life.

Amen.