Sermon Tone Analysis

- We have dealt with the individuality of the variety of gifting that Jesus has given to His church

Love Acts Responsibly

Date: 09-12-18 816 Echuca

- We have dealt with the individuality of the variety of gifting that Jesus has given to His church

- We have dealt with love as it acts towards those within the body of Christ & those outside of the body of Christ

- Now we look at how love acts responsibly toward the governing authorities that, Paul says, God instituted

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- Love is the motivating factor in Christian thinking – but this love is not the world's definition of love

- The world regards love as a feeling that trumps morality & righteous living

- So if we indulge ourselves in the world's way of love, it will not be long before the likes of, say, paedophilia will be removed as a criminal offence because as the slogan goes, “love is love”

- I kid you not, the decriminalisation of paedophilia is being talked about now

- An emotionally oriented love is a self-centred love – I love you because of the feeling I get being with you

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- I do not deny that there is emotion involved with love – of course there is

- But if you disconnect righteousness & morality from love, essentially, all you are doing is endorsing a feeling & if a person has a feeling of love, then no one can speak against that love no matter what it is

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- But love is not left undefined in the Bible

- The form of love that we are familiar with is a responsible love; a sacrificial love; a love that seeks to build up the other person

- We don't always achieve that &, in fact, we have failed at it miserably

- We should be ashamed before the unbeliever that, so often, all we can produce is a mirror image of their own form of love

Q.

Should we be concerned about that?

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Q.

If we are concerned, you know where change should begin?

Yes, us!

- So often, we cannot get passed pride to allow love to begin

- Pride is a great evil when we allow it to nullify a loving attitude

- People hurt each other & that hurt mutates into anger & bitterness

- Then pride comes along & says, “I cannot love that person for what they have done to me”

- We must be so careful of Satan's schemes

—10 But one whom you forgive anything, I forgive also; for indeed what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, I did it for your sakes in the presence of Christ, 11 so that no advantage would be taken of us by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his schemes.

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- No we are not – divide & conquer is his scheme & where there is anger & bitterness & pride, we run the risk of falling into his trap

- The remedy & antidote for anger & bitterness is forgiveness

- But not a forgiveness without reconciliation for that forgiveness is merely a therapeutic forgiveness & that is self-centred, designed merely as a token to ease a person's conscience

- But the whole purpose of forgiveness is for reconciliation

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- Consider our life with the Lord

Q.

What was the purpose of His forgiveness toward us?

Was it not so that we could be reconciled to Him?

- Love strives to be forgiving, reconciling, accepting

- To deny these things is to deny the cross of Christ because while we were enemies of God, that is, in attitude & action – Christ died for us

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- Chapter 12, was under-girded by love – Christian love

- Now in chapter 13, Paul addresses the governing authorities who are not Christian

- In the following half of chp. 13 which is our text for next week, he specifically addresses love as it manifests itself in fulfilling the law of God

- So love seems to continue to under-gird our actions even toward a secular or pagan government – pagan as in a government that worships idols

1. Be Subject to Governing Authorities

- The apostle begins this part of the Scripture with a very strong piece of OT thinking

- God is the ultimate authority – there is no authority greater than God

- Even Satan is subject to God's authority

- I know people ask why God allows Satan off His leash to do things to God's people

- As in the book of Job, we see that Satan had to plead for God's permission to impact Job's life negatively

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- All authority stems from God

—18 And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.

- These are some of the last words of Jesus before He ascended to heaven

Q.

Why did Jesus say this? “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth”?

- When we consider what He says next makes this become clear

- He says to His disciples that they are to go & make disciples of all the nations

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- So if, in that process, a governor or king says to the disciples, “what authority do you have to defy my command and not speak in the name of this man Jesus”, they have a firm basis for continuing in spite of the ruler's charge to stop

- They would be saying that all authority resides with Jesus and we obey Him before we obey you and this is precisely what had been done

—28 saying, “We gave you strict orders not to continue teaching in this name, and yet, you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and intend to bring this man’s blood upon us.” 29 But Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than men.

- After they received a flogging with whips, we read

—42 And every day, in the temple and from house to house, they kept right on teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ.

- They had One person in particular in whom they had to obey & He was to receive absolute allegiance

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- But here, in today's text, the apostle tells us to obey the governing authorities it seems without question

- His point I think has to be taken

- If he started to make qualifications at this point, people would see anything as a loop-hope to cause chaos & revolution, so he is black & white on the matter

- It is important in our overall attitude to government that we acknowledge, whether good or evil, that the government is there by God's will

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Q.

You might say, “how can that be, if the government is evil”?

- What Judas did to Jesus was evil but it caused all things to work together for good to those that love Christ & are called according to His purpose

- What happened to Job gives many people great encouragement to know that in spite of their circumstances they can know that God is not necessarily against them

- Joseph said to His brothers that God brought about the sale of himself into Egypt for the very purpose to rescue His people, Israel, from drought

- There are many, many pieces of Scripture that shows how God allows evil for His own purposes

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- In spite of this, we are to obey the governing authorities as those who have been placed there by God

- The same is true regarding the leaders of the church

- Not all, perhaps, deserve respect, but the “office” or position does, since that person has been placed there by God

—28 “Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.

—17 Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account.

Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you.

- Regardless of what a person thinks is right or wrong in the leader, they ought to have the willingness to submit to God's authority

Q.

One might be so bold as to say, if we are required to submit to secular government, how much more, the leadership of the church?

2. Conscience and Fear

- Tell me something: “Why is it that when we see a police car behind us, we panic as if we have done something wrong?

- We take the foot off the accelerator as if we are guilty, even though we are within the speed limit

- Sometimes, it is the shear fact that you got a surprise, but it may be that we are used to pushing the boundaries of the speed limit & we think we may be doing that when we spot the highway patrol

- What is happening there is our conscience is triggered by the thought that we might be breaking the law

- This is the conscience in play & even if we are not seeing any Police around, if we are going too far beyond the speed limit (let's be reasonable here) it is still going to trigger the conscience

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- Your conscience is a precious thing & looking after your conscience is an important part of the Christian walk

- To violate your conscience is to violate your relationship with God because they are intertwined

- To know that God's will is “X” but to deliberately go against that, is going the way of sin

- So we must be sensitive to our conscience so that we do not damage our walk with God

- We could talk for a while about this, because the forgiveness of God through the cross is so rich that He can restore the conscience when we repent from the heart

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- A blessing for your conscience is when you do good

- Being in subjection to the governing authorities will help bless your conscience

- I think the apostle is thinking of your standard type laws that governed the people of the day

- Cheating, Fraud, Stealing, Vandalism, Drunken Disorderly, riots, rebellion, Murder & the like

- If we look at what he says next, then we should see that he is thinking of some pretty serious crimes

- He mentions here that the governing authorities bear the judgement of God upon evildoers

—4 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 for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil.

- “He does not bear the sword for nothing” speaks of capital punishment