Sermon Tone Analysis

Well good morning church!

Glad that you’re here.

If you have your Bible, and I hope that you do, turn with me to Romans chapter 13.

Romans chapter 13.

Before I begin, I want you to know something… and then I need to know something.

What I want you to know is… I love you.

And what I need to know from you is… Do you love me?

Ok… So I want to give you a warning this morning… I’m probably going to tick off a lot of you this morning… and so, if I do, I want you to remember that you just said that you love me… and I desperately need you to remember that I love you.

And, if I do tick you off this morning, it’s not because I mean to… it’s not because I’m trying to… It’s because I’m trying to be faithful to God’s Word in this subject.

You know, they say in conversation, there are two things you should never talk about… Religion and Politics.

Today… As we continue our series call Tough Issues, we’re going to completely ignore that rule and we’re going to talk about The Gospel & Politics.

Let me begin by saying this.

Our call as believers… as followers of Jesus Christ is to have our lives completely anchored to the gospel.

How God has loved us through the life and death and resurrection of Jesus.

And if we are… and when we are anchored to the gospel, we will be able to respond to life’s most pressing questions within the framework of the gospel.

Almost 8 months ago, we began this series with the question of, how do we respond to homosexuality.

And I began that sermon by asking some very fundamental questions… and I’m going to ask those questions again because there are a lot of emotional responses to a topic like politics.

And sometimes, very well meaning people can get out of the bounds of the framework of the gospel without even realizing it.

I’ve told you multiple times from this pulpit… I have to force myself to pull away from politics because I, personally, go too deep down that rabbit hole… and find myself outside the gospel framework.

These questions help us make sure we are within the framework of the gospel as we begin to talk about this subject.

The questions are…

When it comes to right and wrong…

When it comes to what is true and what is false…

When it comes to how life works best…

When it comes to how to find joy, meaning, and significance…

Who gets to decide these things for Me???

If we go back to Genesis chapter 3, we see this thing called the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Did you ever wonder what that tree was?

Why Adam and Eve weren’t allowed to eat from it?

Was it that when they ate, although they had been naked the whole time, they now just had a knowledge that being naked was bad… so therefore, they put clothes on?

Did they get a download of information when they ate of that tree that they didn’t have before of what is good and what is bad?

That’s actually not what it was at all.

It was a determination in their hearts.

It was the determination that “I” will decide what is good and what is evil.

So, all the way back to Adam and Eve, we have wanted to make that call… what’s good… what’s evil… naturally speaking, we don’t want God to determine what’s right and what’s wrong… what’s true and what’s false.

And every time we sin, this is exactly the dynamic in our own hearts.

God… you might say that this is wrong… but no thanks… I’m going to do what I decide.

However, when a person decides to put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ and what He did in His life, death, and resurrection… when a person decides to call Jesus capital “L”… “Lord”… That person is, in essence, saying… I don’t get to determine that for me anymore… Jesus gets to make that call.

I’m going to live withing the gospel framework of Jesus Christ.

And hopefully, you have made that decision.

Here’s where the problem comes in though.

When you and I stand up and say… we don’t get to make the call of what’s right and wrong… God does… that’s offensive to our culture.

Let me give you an example of this.

I don’t know how many of you “Like” our Facebook page or Subscribe to our YouTube or Rumble channels, but all the sermons I and Pastor Matthew preach, get posted on those sites along with Faithlife.

Typically, we don’t get a whole lot of comments… neither of us are John MacArthur or Paul Washer… we’re not nationally known preachers… and so while there may be a comment here or there, there’s not a ton.

However, when I preached on Homosexuality back in January, we got several comments… Many were filtered and deleted by YouTube for being offensive… but one that is still there, I wanted to share with you…

The commentor made this statement… “this preacher has a problem and wants to suppress others life's and liberties”.

Here’s the thing… I don’t want to surpress anyone’s life or liberties?

My entire point in that sermon was… I, nor anyone else gets to decide if homosexuality is wrong… except for God.

It’s not what I say… it’s not what Congress says… it’s not what the Supreme Court says… it’s simply what God says.

The timeless, eternal, God, Creator, King of the universe has a better clarity than I have gotten in my 43 years of life.

He gets to decide.

But that is offensive to our culture.

And the reason it is offensive is because we have traded the authority of God for the authority of public opinion.

Church, we are called to stand on the authority of what God says.

So with all that in mind, let’s see what God has to say about this subject.

Romans chapter 13… beginning with verse 1…

In this passage, Paul is encouraging us to be a good citizen.

Paul is saying… submit to your leaders.

Jerry, if you don’t mind, put verse 1 back on the screen for me.

I’m going to ask y’all to do something… and some aren’t going to like it… but I want to ask you to participate and answer out loud anyway.

Even with all the controversy surrounding the 2020 election… according to this passage… according to God’s Word, who instituted Joe Biden’s authority?

How about in the 2016 election… Who instituted Donald Trump’s authority?

Now that everyone is offended… Look… It’s so very important for us to understand that God institutes all those that govern.

But Pastor Joshua… the stolen election, Russian collusion… Listen… Is God sovereign… or is He not?

This is not me saying this… this is clearly coming out of Scripture.

And if we truly understood this, I’m convinced that my Facebook feed would go down by half.

Look, you may disagree with a political party, you may disagree with a political figure, you may disagree with their policies… but if we believe God about this, it will have a direct impact on how we talk about those politicians.

To be blunt… it would have a direct impact on our trash talk.

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t speak out about things you disagree with… but I’m saying it should have direct impact on HOW we talk about it.

And it absolutely needs to have a direct impact on how we pray for our leaders.

Here's how Paul says it in First Timothy chapter 2…

So… If you lean towards being a Democrat… Let me ask you… When was the last time you prayed for Donald Trump?

If you lean towards being a Republican… When was the last time you prayed FOR Joe Biden?

Not that God would get rid of him… but prayed FOR him?

Prayed for his soul?

His leadership?

Prayed that God would give him wisdom and insight and that he would incline his heart to God in the execution of his duties?

You may object and say… “There’s no way that I’m going to pray for politician X. He’s just too corrupt and evil”.

Then I would invite you to read Isaiah chapter 45, Romans chapter 9, Daniel chapter 2, Acts chapter 2 and the surrounding chapters there.

You know what you’ll see?

You’ll see that God has often used corrupt, evil, brutal people to fulfill His purposes.

I’m not going to re-read it… again, Jerry will put it back on the screen… but notice the phrase in verse 4. How many of you believe that Trump, and now Biden are in office for our good?

Again… Who gets to decide?

You or God?

Does God work ALL things for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose?

Or does He not?

But Pastor Joshua… Paul couldn’t have been talking about Biden.

Listen… Do you understand the context in which Paul said this? Rome was in power and the Roman authorities would eventually execute Paul for his proclamation of Jesus.

Paul wasn’t naïve… but he’s talking about this principle that it is the purpose of government to protect its people.

Paul knows that this statement does not apply to every king or president… but even when the government is all jacked up, there is still a principle… a basic semblance that government is providing a basic infrastructure for the good of the people.

Things like roads and bridges and sanitation and military protection.

Things to keep society from descending into complete chaos.

And then if we jump down to verse 7, Paul again is saying be good citizens wherever God has placed you.

Pay your taxes… and show honor and respect to your leaders.

Now… We have to hold the encouragement of Romans chapter 13 up against the idea… What happens when a government authority compels you to do something that is against what God commands?

This was a question that was on the hearts of a lot of people through the pandemic.

This didn’t happen here, but in some places, government authorities said the church wasn’t aloud to meet when clearly the Scripture tells us to meet together.

We see the answer to this question play out in Acts chapter 5.

You can turn there if you like… but it will be on the screen for you.