The Christian's Responsibility to Steward God's Delegated Governing Responsibility

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God has ultimate rights to delegate everything

From the beginning of creation, God—the only one who has authority to delegate anything to anyone—has given mankind a mandate to “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over…every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Gen 1:28)

Right out of the gates we blew it, eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the only restraint in the form of a command that God gave to Adam and Eve (Ge 2:16-17).

From that point on humanity’s curse was both spiritual and physical death, and we see this born out quickly in the lives of Cain and Abel. Abel brought an offering to the Lord which the Lord loved and accepted, while the Lord did not love Cain’s offering. Cain was sinfully angry and devised a plan to kill his brother (Gen. 4:6).

Now this should be a cue to us that things probably weren’t going to begin to get better for us. Wickedness continues to flourish on the earth and finally (though still very early in the Bible) God makes one of the saddest statements in the Bible:

Genesis 6:5–7 ESV

5 The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. 7 So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.”

But there is always hope with the Lord:

Genesis 6:8 ESV

8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.

The Lord wipes the earth clean and, though Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord, he was still a godly man who sinned (Gen. 9:20ff) and, just prior to Noah’s sin the Lord instituted what would grow into the way people would govern one another.

Early in Gen 9 God delegates dominion to Noah and his sins (and by extension all of humanity that would follow). Part of this was God’s declaration:

Genesis 9:5–6 ESV

5 And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man. 6 “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.

God follows this by establishing his covenant with Noah and his offspring—known as the Noahic covenant, represented by the rainbow. God promised that he will never be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again would there be a flood to destroy the earth.” (Gen 9:11-17)

Ps 8:3-8 is a worshipful song that asks an important question:

Psalm 8:3 ESV

3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,

And here it is:

Psalm 8:4 ESV

4 what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?

The answer to the question is partially spelled out in the following verses:

Psalm 8:5–6 ESV

5 Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. 6 You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet,

The Psalmist continues through v8 and then, in verse 9, we see his worshipful crescendo:

Psalm 8:9 ESV

9 O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

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God has delegated authority to govern the way we live together and treat one another.

Reading Gen 9, David Platt says,

I can almost hear God saying, “Okay, everyone, listen up. This is your responsibility together. Make sure that justice is carried out for everybody. This is a task I am entrusting to all of you.”

Do you see what’s happening here? God is delegating the responsibility for protecting each other and for prosecuting crimes that bring harm to one another. And he’s delegating it to us.

Importantly, and as no small aside, God does not give people the responsibility to prosecute all crimes that bring dishonor to him.

God gives systems of governance to humankind in order to punish things like stealing or murder, but not things like selfish pride or false religion. Selfish pride and false religion are without question crimes against God, but God retains sole responsibility for judging those crimes.

Put another way, God is not asking us to run his theocracy.

(Platt, David. Before You Vote: Seven Questions Every Christian Should Ask . DPZ Technology. Kindle Edition.)

As we read the OT, we see this go well at times and poorly most of the time.

Fast-forward to the NT, where God has formed the Church and is speaking directly to the church. But first, it’s worth noting that God has delegated general societal authority to mankind, under his direction. But as God forms a new people, organized around his the priorities of his Kingdom (The Church), God has delegated spiritual authority to those who bear His name and are united together under his leadership. (We see this is many passages.)

God’s priorities for how Christians are to live in the world.

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Christians are to live in light of the Gospel.

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1 John 1:5–9 ESV

5 This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. 6 If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. 8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

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1 John 2:15–17 ESV

15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. 17 And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.

As we pursue God’s priorities, we need to apply this to our engagement with the world. We are, after all, “the light of the world.

A city on a hill that cannot be hidden.” (Mt 5:14)

As children of light, do not love the world or the things (the materialistic aspects, philosophical or religious systems of belief).

When Paul appeals to the Roman church he says:

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Romans 12:1–2 ESV

1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

There are both a positive and negative imperatives (commands) here:

As children of light, give our whole selves to worship God (positively); and

Do not be conformed to the world (negative), but

Be transformed by the renewing of our mind (positive).

Why? So that when we are tested, challenged, tempted, we may rightly discern what God’s good, acceptable and perfect will is.

Now, moving to government. We’ve established that

God has the ultimate delegating rights because He is the Sovereign God;

God has delegated some rights (not all) to humans in general (how to care for one another); and

God has delegated spiritual authority to the church that only applies to those who claim the name of Jesus (Mt 18; 1 Cor 5, etc).

With this in mind, let’s consider our government.

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Romans 13:1–7 ESV

1 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. 2 Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. 3 For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, 4 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, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience. 6 For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. 7 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.

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God has given government to punish wrongdoing and reward living for what is good.

Every form of government in the Bible is a monarchy, where a King rules the nation. Sometimes a King has a fancy name like Pharaoh or Caesar, but at the end of the day, there's still a King and there the final authority within the government.

As we try to apply the Bible to our American governmental system, we have to understand who in the American experiment serves the role of the King.

Contrary to what you might believe, the role of the King in the United States of America isn’t just one person.

Greg Baker, Vice President of Church Engagement at the Family Leader, points out that:

The powers of the King have been divided among many different people.

We've even formed separate branches of government here to divide the power of the King. But the King is here in America. (Now, let’s remember we’re talking about earthly, temporal kings.)

Q: What are the roles of the King and how have they been divided?

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The King had the power to make laws.

In the state of Iowa, we give that power to our state legislator:

50 members of the Senate

100 members of the house representatives

In the national government give it to US Congress:

435 representatives

100 US Senators (2 from every state)

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The King was also the chief executive.

The one who controlled the bureaucracies.

Today in America, that power rests with the President United States. And here in Iowa rests with our governor.

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The King was also commander of the armies.

King David let his his troops off to war as their commander in chief.

Well today that rests with the President, United States for the US military, but also rests with the Governor of Iowa who commands our state militia, which we now call the National Guard.

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But the powers of the King also included the Chief Justice, if you will.

Paul appealed to Caesar. Why? There was no higher court in the land to go with—what Caesar said was final.

Today arrest United States Supreme Court 9 Supreme Court justices in Iowa.

Iowa Supreme Court with seven Supreme Court justices.

And the next power is a unique one.

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Head of State

It's separated out, here, but it was part of who the King was. Maybe the best example in the Bible of the head of state would be the King of Nineveh and the book of Jonah.

You see, when Jonah, the reluctant Prophet, went to Nineveh and said, "God is going to destroy this great, powerful city in 40 days unless you repent,” the people believed God and repented.

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Jonah 3:6–10 ESV

6 The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 7 And he issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh, “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water, 8 but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. 9 Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.” 10 When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.

What was the King doing here?

He was serving as the head of State of the Assyrian Empire. You see, the Head of State acts as the shepherd of a nation—the example.

Apostle Peter says is an elder is a Shepherd of the church here to lead by example.

As the Shepherd of government and the Shepherd of the nation, you lead by example.

The King of Nineveh lead by example by first humbling himself by taking off his Royal ropes. Secondly, by repenting, and praying to the Almighty God. And then after modeling it, he asked the people to do the same.

In United States of America, this unique power and responsibility rests with our president. For the state of Iowa rests with our Governor.

This is perhaps the most important role the government has when it comes to the spiritual component of a nation.

President Lincoln is seen called our nation to repentance 35 times!

But this last power is a really unique one to us as Americans.

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The power of the sovereign

Who ultimately owns the government? At the end of the day, who ultimately owns this land, and these people?

In many parts of the world that actually still rests with the monarch.

the Queen of England is still the Sovereign of England. It's her government, she can dissolve it anytime, and a Prime Minister needs her approval to form government.

In Canada, our neighbors to the North, the head of state, still the Queen of England. That's why when you get that Canadian quarter, you get the Queen of England on it, but she's also the sovereign.

The risk of the “American Experiment”

In The United States of America, our founders took an incredible risk. They give the sovereign power to "We the People.” We, the people of the United States, hold the power of national sovereignty and we exercise that every two years on Election Day, when we decide who we want to serve in our government every two years we form a new government.

What does God expect of us as we form a government?

As we saw in Rom. 13, God demands government to punish evil and reward good. We need to select individuals that available there. Actually how to do that?

But our founders understood the risk of giving it to the people.

John Adams said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people., and it’s inadequate to any other.”

Why is it such a risk?

Well when the people go astray, when the nation is made up largely of unrighteous people (as determined according to God’s standard of righteousness), when they vote they'll vote for unrighteous leaders.

So the founders said for this government actually function and requires a moral and religious people.

We know people's natural nature. It’s a nature inclined toward sin. Every one of us.

Only the Gospel of Jesus is powerful enough to transcend that unrighteousness, and as we saw last week, the Church of Jesus Christ are the ambassadors for Christ. We are the ones that bring the gospel.

America needs the church as the people exercise sovereignty and needs the church in helping to discern who is best to serve our nation as President: the one who is most qualified — or whose team is most qualified — to truly bring earthly justice by punishing evil and rewarding good.

Moreso, however, America needs the church to take care of the Sovereign of the nation—the American people.

Ultimately this happens as we live as ambassadors for Christ, living out and speaking freely of the gospel. But beyond messaging, how we affirm the gospel with our lives.

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Takeaways:

PRAY with Scripture

SLIDE - Day of Fasting and Prayer

We need to call out to God for His help, His intervention, and His mercy. It is only by His hand that America will survive and be able to thrive again.

Now, it may not be God’s will for America to be the thriving nation we’ve all been privileged to know. But as long as we have breath in our lungs, we are to cry out to God for the welfare of wherever we live. And we seek that welfare through living according to God’s Word.

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Don't be lazy, but do your homework regarding candidates and their teams

Ask the Lord for discernment and godly wisdom

Live as children of light on Nov. 3 and every day

Communion Transition

As we meet around the Lord’s Table this morning, we see a visible reminder that we serve a king who led with the truest example of servanthood.

King Jesus gave his own life for the people he came to serve - ultimately in service to our Heavenly Father.

Do you love this King?

Do you know this King personally?

If you do, eat and drink with us.

PRAY