Sunday 04 • 22 • 18

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. Therefore, whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed and those who resist will incur judgment. 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. 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 a servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore, one must be in subjection not only to avoid God's wrath but also for the sake of conscience. For because of this, you also pay taxes for the authorities are ministers of God attending to this very thing. 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. — Romans 13:1-7

This is the word of the Lord. Would you join me in prayer together?

Lord, I pray that the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts would be pleasing and acceptable in your sight. Lord, you are our rock and our fortress and our redeemer. We pray these things in the name of our Savior Jesus. Amen.

So I love the movie, the animated movie Shrek, and for a lot of reasons, but my favorite character in the movie Shrek is Lord Farquaad, who is the diminutive and also power-hungry leader of the kingdom. And Lord Farquaad, played by John Lithgow, is a single man who realizes one day the one thing that is missing from his leadership and his kingdom is a queen. And so he sets his affections on the Princess Fiona. But the problem with Fiona is that she is captive in a castle that's guarded by a fire-breathing dragon, and there are lots of people who have tried to rescue her and have died in the attempt. So Farquaad, himself being a coward, gathers the bravest knights in his realm together, and he holds a competition. And the last man standing will have the privilege of going on his behalf to rescue Princess Fiona. And this is what he says—this is his inspirational speech to his knights:

Brave knights, you are the best and the brightest in all the land. Today, one of you shall prove himself. The champion shall have the honor—no—the privilege to go forth and rescue the lovely Princess Fiona from the fiery keep of the dragon. If for any reason the winner is unsuccessful, the first runner-up will take his place, and so on and so forth. Some of you may die, but it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.

Now I love Lord Farquaad because he is such a caricature of the world's politics and the world's politicians, right? My agenda, my goals, my aims, and all at your expense. You're going to make things happen for me. And some of you may die, but it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make, right?

Now this passage is all about Christianity and politics. I know—I know—the two things that your grandma or your parents told you that in polite conversation, you never bring up, and we're going to do both at the same time in the same sermon. Let's go.

All joking aside, this is an important passage for us as we go through Romans, particularly for our church, and that's for a number of reasons. First is we are the closest church in our denomination to the state capital, and we think a lot about what that means as a church, about what it means to be a church that has people among us who have or currently do work for state and local government. It's important for us because we're trying to be a community that gathers around Jesus and him being central and not a particular agenda or political party. That's not our unifying focus—Jesus is. And third, we live in a world where we perceive there are many Lord Farquaads in office, and that's been the case for Christians throughout the centuries. But particularly right now, and it's really hard. It's really important for us to be thoughtful as God's people in how we relate to, how we think about, and relate to our government.

And today I'm going to look at this passage from two perspectives. First, we're going to look at the content. Second, we're going to look at the context. So we're going to look at what this tells us directly—how do we think about government and how do we relate to those in authority over us? But second, we're going to talk about the context of this passage because it has as much or more to say about how we relate to one another with regard to our politics than anything else.

So let's look at this first together. Content. This is one of the fullest teachings in the New Testament about government and about how we think about and relate to government. And it would be very easy to look at the Bible in this area and say how naive or out of date.

How could Paul possibly understand how complex and difficult politics are today? What in the world can we learn from a 2,000 year old text about politics and government? Before you dismiss that out of hand, consider who Paul's lord was. I want you to think about this. Paul is talking about Rome, which is a very anti-Christian government. In the time of his writing, there were no Christians in any positions of leadership in any civic office, state, local, or national. There was a government that was in place, and his lord was the emperor Nero.

Now Nero was at the beginning of his rise to power somewhat sane, and as he went further, he became more and more maniacal and more and more crazy. He had his own mother executed—the woman who actually helped get him into power—and he's notorious for his persecution of the early Christian church. He's a very dangerous person, and this is the guy within his context that Paul is writing about in Romans 13. Hard—hard in a way we don't understand. And he's writing to Christians in the capital city. He's writing to Christians in Rome, telling them how to relate to their government.

This is really important because there were two kinds of thinking about politics that were very much alive in the early church. One was: Jesus is king. We don't have to obey Caesar. Jesus's kingdom is already here, so we don't have to pay taxes. We don't have to obey Caesar. The other was: Jesus will be king, so we should kill Caesar. Uprising. And actually, at the time of writing—scholars think this was written between 55 and 58 AD—there was a huge tax revolt in the city of Rome led by some people who worshiped and followed this guy named Chrestus. Sound familiar? Following Christ. And there was a huge tax revolt. So Paul is speaking to real people in a real capital city about a real situation, and they're trying to figure it out. This has a lot to say to us. This is a very helpful, surprisingly modern passage for us to engage in.

The Purpose of Government

In this context, I want you to think about the position or the purpose of government. Paul tells us this: First, he says government is God's idea. The first thing I want to say is, like, government—God's in favor of it. God thinks it's a good idea. The Bible identifies three institutions that are given to us to guard against decay in our society and to promote the common good, and they are parents, the church, and the state. All of those come from God. God invented this.

This is what we read in verse one:

The authorities exist—have been established by God.

That's a really strong statement that says God is in favor. God is in favor of some form of government. Verse four:

The authority is a minister of God to you for your good.

And then verse six, he calls the rulers servants of God regardless of their personal convictions or their political parties or how they think about even their faith. These people are given by God. Do you see how this challenges what is soup du jour right now? Right now it is very in vogue to be anarchist, to be like "government bad. Government is always bad." And the Bible challenges that here. It says government in and of itself is not evil.

Now it doesn't mean that everything the government does is right. And I think it's interesting in this passage where Paul doesn't use the word obey. He uses the word submission or subjection with regard to government. So there's just some ways you have to think about this. We'll come to that in a moment. But government itself is God's idea.

Second, we see here government has both a negative function and a positive function. See what the purpose of government is—read verse four: it is in part to bear the sword. That is, it has the right to imprison, to fine, to even put people on death row and to execute. Government has the right to punish people who break the law. And it's right to have that because we know of societies from history where there is no higher law and everybody has their own sword. We call that the Wild West, and it didn't work so good. It's right to have an organization that is charged with keeping order by punishing what's wrong.

But then he says on the opposite of that, the purpose of government is not just to restrain behavior, but for the good, for the common good. Now Paul doesn't enumerate much about that—as much as he does about the negative. And some people have been like, "Well, then the government should be extremely limited and just punish evildoers." But that's kind of an abuse of this passage.

Just because he doesn't enumerate a lot more about this, there are other places that describe the purpose of government being promoting virtue and promoting the common good. Limited government is appropriate for a fallen people. This is the third thing I want you to see.

Limited Government Suits a Fallen People

Government is good, but as we know, it can be easily abused. The more power placed in the hands of an individual or a group or a particular party, over time, becomes dangerous. The nineteenth century historian Lord Acton said famously, "Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely." You've heard this one. There's lots of history that recounts that to us, and that's not a surprise actually biblically.

The reason that's not a surprise is in the early pages of your Bible. In Genesis chapter three, we read about the fall of humanity—Adam and Eve, the serpent, and the fruit. At the fall, what is introduced into humankind? Corruption. Sin and corruption. Sometimes these terms are confusing. We use the word "total depravity." It doesn't mean we're absolutely as evil as we could be. But as Tim Keller says, it's not that all of us are as bad as we could be, but it's not for lack of talent. We all have within us, because of sin and decay and corruption, capacities which if unchecked, if given opportunity, will harm, will take advantage, will destroy others around us.

We've been reading through the book of Romans. Romans has a very full vision both of the nature of human sin and the incredible graciousness of God's redemption. This is why we say: unless there's checks and balances in government, limited government suits us as a fallen people because we need checks and balances.

Interestingly enough, it was Jesus Christ who introduced the first theory of limited government. In Matthew 22, in his sermon, Jesus introduces the first theory of limited government. Tim Keller says of this: when Jesus said, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, give to God what is God's"—this is the very first theory of limited government in the history of the world.

Give to Caesar the money. That's his money with his symbol on it. He printed it. But don't give him the allegiance.

What Jesus Christ is saying is that you may give Caesar some of what he wants—his money—but you can't give Caesar ultimately what he wants. That is completely accepting his system of coercion, his system of injustice, his system of execution. He wants ultimate allegiance. He wants no one to sit in judgment on him, and we can't give him that.

Remember when Jesus was standing on trial before Pilate. Pilate says to him, "I have the authority to kill you or set you free." Jesus says to Pilate, "You would have no authority unless God gave it to you." I think that Paul is drawing on that as he writes Romans 13, and he tells us then how we think as Christians about how we relate, what is our posture toward the government.

Our Posture Toward Government

If the purpose and position of government is established, what's our posture toward government? Let me start with one word. You saw this in verse one and verse five: the word subjection or submission.

Now in our culture, submission is a bad word. Nobody wants to submit to anybody. But as Christians, this is absolutely essential to our understanding of what it means to be a Christian. You can't say, "Come in, Jesus Savior, go away Jesus Lord." You can't pick and choose part of it. Part of our conviction as to what it means to be a Christian is to say, "I am not competent to run my own life."

When people stand up here on Sundays and take vows to be members of this church, we say, "Will you do you trust and basically entrust your life to Jesus Christ? Are you competent to run your own life?" No. I am not. I submit myself to Jesus. This is part and parcel of what it means to be a follower of Christ—to say, "I trust him. I give myself to him. He is in charge of me."

If you are not a Christian here, anything I say from this point forward in the sermon about submitting to the government is not going to make a bit of sense to you. Unless this is part of your vocabulary first—"I submit myself to Jesus"—otherwise, we have no category for this. This is absolutely essential to our understanding of what it means to follow Christ: we submit ourselves to the Lord Jesus Christ first.

He starts off here in verse one and five with subjection, submission—submitting ourselves to governmental authorities. But that doesn't mean blind obedience. It does mean that we treat authorities as if they're put there by God.

Daniel 4 tells us God rules over human governments and gives to them whomever he wishes. This means that we do things like we obey the laws. We respect the governing authorities. You pay taxes, and Doug cut corners, very apropos to this past week. Right? You pay your taxes. You don't cheat the government. You don't drink till you're 21 years old. You subject yourself to the traffic laws. You don't smoke pot. It's illegal.

See, this is verse 7:

Give to everyone what you owe him. If taxes, taxes. If revenue, revenue. If respect, respect. If honor, if honor. — Romans 13:7

This is a very clear echo of Jesus' words:

Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, give to God what's God's. — Matthew 22:21

I don't have to tell anybody here though how hard that is, do I? I mean, think about American history. Ask the British how much we love our freedom. You know what I'm telling you? You know, we don't want your stinking tea. We don't want your stinking king. Don't tread on me. You know, this is not just in our history, it's in our childhood. Nobody has to teach toddlers how to say no or teenagers how to be rebellious. We do not want to submit to anybody, any authority over us. It is natural for us to feel like I wanna overthrow and I wanna tear down and there's a Lord Farquaad and I don't like what he has to say. Isn't that natural for us or am I the only person here? Y'all awake this morning? I don't feel like it. Alright. Y'all with me? Okay.

The Babysitter System

See, and yet, Paul says here that the government is put in place like the babysitter system. You all know how the babysitter system works? So some of you are using the babysitter system right now. Some of you are employed in the babysitter system now. Some of you are thankful you have nothing to do with the babysitter system now. But let me remind you of how the babysitter system works. Right? Babysitter is hired by the parents, shows up at the designated time at the parents' house, and parents say, here are the rules of our home. Here's screen time, bedtime, food. Here's the things we don't really care about. Here's the things we do. Babysitter's like, I got it. Then parents turn to the kids. You better listen to the babysitter or there's gonna be a reckoning in the morning. Least that's how it works in my place. Right? So that's right. There's a reckoning in the morning if you don't listen to the babysitter.

Parents leave. And when the parents leave, the babysitter can do really whatever they want to. They are supposed to represent the parents and do what the parents say and execute that within the household. But they can watch TV and let the kids run around and draw on things with Sharpies if they wanted to. Right? They're totally free to do that. But when the parents come home, they will hope that the house is clean, the kids are in bed, and they're gonna ask for a report. How are my kids? They were great. Oh, good. No reckoning tomorrow. Right?

So that's how the babysitter system works. Kids who obey the babysitter, babysitters do what the parents say, and that's how the system all plays out.

Now, look, when Paul calls us to subject ourselves to the governing authorities, the babysitter, he's doing so not because the babysitter's flawless but because the babysitter has been put in place temporarily by the parent for us to obey, has been put in position there. We give respect to the sitter, we're the kids, not because of the sitter but because of the parent. We're giving respect to the parent's authority when we give respect to the sitter. And when we do so, we're showing we respect God. We respect the parent.

The Present Challenge

Now I don't have to tell you this is really hard. And can we be real for a moment here? Can I be transparent with you? This is hard when we have a president who tweets things and stories come out about him that we never would have imagined twenty, thirty years ago coming from a president. This is hard when on social media, you see video of civil authorities abusing their power, racial profiling, doing things that, at least on camera, look terrible. This is hard in this cultural moment, isn't it? I don't think I'm alone. And that's not a political statement. That's just a statement of, like, it's hard. This is a hard moment for us. It's hard when there are laws that we're like, that's a dumb law. Why do we have to obey that one?

How do we subject ourselves to people that we may not respect or laws that we don't respect? This is really important, y'all. How do we do that?

Romans 12:1 — Romans 12:1

See, this part of the book of Romans, Romans 13 comes after Romans 12. I know you didn't need a pastor to tell you that this morning. But Romans 1 through 11 are all filled with this incredible theology.

How sinful we are, how much we need Jesus Christ, how thorough and fully he has paid for our redemption, how there's nothing left for you to do, how incredible God's grace is. We've walked through that since August and it's been an awesome ride. We hit Romans 12:1 and it's like a hinge on the book. It goes from all the things that God has done to how do we respond to God's grace.

Therefore, in view of Christ's mercy... — Romans 12:1

There are all these commands, including this chapter. How we think about the authorities that are put over us and how we relate to them is only an overflow of how we respond to the gospel. It's only an overflow of that because we're not called to respect our leaders for themselves. They are just the babysitter. We are called to respect the babysitter because there's a parent behind the leader. There's a divine parent behind the leader.

We're saying, "Look, I obey Jesus because of his incredible grace for me. I submit to Jesus because he's rescued me." The gospel tells me I'm not my own anymore. I belong to him, so I submit to leaders that I may not like and laws I may not agree with out of respect—out of respect for the ultimate leader and his ultimate laws. This is the gospel lived out in real time, and it's hard and calls for us to dig deep into the gospel to do so.

Conscience and Evaluating the State

But I want you to hear this really clearly: because of conscience, we don't just obey the state. We also have to evaluate the state because of conscience. Romans 13 is not some blank check like, "Hey, leaders, do whatever you want to. We're blind lemmings. We'll just follow you." No. It calls us because of conscience to evaluate the state.

Now, a conscience isn't what you may think of with Jiminy Cricket—"Let your conscience be your guide." It doesn't mean if you feel like this law is agreeable to you, obey it. My conscience doesn't have any problem with me stealing this, so I'm going to steal it. No, that's not what we're saying. You can't quote that from me today. I did not say that.

This is what conscience means though: conscience means we have an inner voice. An inner voice that calls us to obey a higher authority and to evaluate all earthly authorities in light of that one. We have something inside of us that guides us in how to do this. We obey God above all else. Conscience says there is obedience, but there's a limit to it at the same time.

Paul's radical principle is: we obey our government out of Christian conscience, out of obedience to God alone. And that cuts two ways.

First, it cuts this way: Christians should be the best of citizens. We obey laws even when no one's looking, even when there's no civil repercussions for us not obeying. Christians are called to obey even when people aren't looking. Your boss should say, "Christians, my best employees. Christians are the best citizens of our city because they care not just about doing the letter of the law. They care about the whole thing."

But it also cuts another way. We evaluate whether the state's laws, the government, are in line with God's law. We evaluate whether we are being told to do things that are actually contrary to what God says.

If government leaders are supposed to be promoting the common good and working for our good, and if they require the doing of wrong, then we are supposed to evaluate that and respond accordingly. This is the justification for civil disobedience. This is implied here and explicit elsewhere.

So Acts chapter 5: Peter and the other disciples are being brought before the civil leadership, the Sanhedrin, for preaching the name of Jesus even when they're told not to. And you know what they say?

Whether it's right to obey God or you, we're going to obey God because he is our ultimate authority. — Acts 5

They're cutting this way with it. They're saying, "We are beholden by conscience to obey God, not the state in this sense, because you're cutting against us."

When the state commands what God forbids or forbids what God commands, then civil disobedience is not disobedience—it's a Christian duty. Not just a right, it's a Christian duty.

This is what Paul surely has in mind with the teaching of Jesus:

Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, give to God what is God's. — Matthew 22:21

The magistrate has limited authority. We may pay him taxes, but we don't give him our ultimate allegiance. In Paul's day, civil authorities were viewed as divine—Caesar was a deity. But Paul is saying, no. No. No. God alone gets that.

This is why it is right at times for us to protest. It is right at times for us to say, "No more. You can't do this." We're not blind lemmings. We're to evaluate the state and ask, is this appropriate? At times civil disobedience, protests, demonstrations, even revolution are necessary.

In England during the Stuart monarchy, there was an idea called Rex Lex—God, the king is the law, the divine right of kings. The king does whatever he wants. But a Presbyterian pastor named Samuel Rutherford stood up in his pulpit and said, "No. Lex Rex. Not king is the law, but law is king. We obey God. We don't obey earthly authorities in the same way. And earthly authorities need to be evaluated in the light of God's law."

Keep Your Planets in the Right Orbit

We must keep our planets in the right orbit. Yes, we respect and honor our civic leaders even if we disagree with them. Even if you think they're Lord Farquaad, you still give respect, honor, courtesy, and deference to leadership because of God. Yet we don't drink the Kool-Aid.

Americans love Kool-Aid. We've always loved Kool-Aid, and we especially love political Kool-Aid. It's really obvious if you go on any social media how much Americans believe in and put their hopes in political systems, political leaders, political ideologies, the next government, the next person. When we're doing that, we're drinking Kool-Aid that we shouldn't be taking in.

I love this quote from Anne Lamott: "A hundred years from now, all new people. A hundred years from now on this planet, all new people. People who are in leadership now, the people whose names are in the news now, the people who we think are a big deal now are not even going to be a blip on the pages of history. There are things we think are a really big deal, and we get all worked up over them. They're not even going to be written down in the history books. It's just not a big deal."

Can we keep our planets in the right orbits then? If Jesus Christ is central, if we say in our solar system he is the center and everything goes around him, can we put our politics in the right orbit and say, "This isn't everything"?

Is Jesus On Our Team?

This needs to be said over and over because for a lot of Christians it's hard. I want to ask you this question: Was Jesus a Democrat or a Republican?

That laughter is the right answer. The answer is no. If you look back and read the New Testament honestly, if you're an honest reader of Jesus' words, you're going to find that he doesn't fit neatly into either political party's agenda. In many ways, he's more conservative than conservatives, and he's way more liberal than the liberals. You just can't force him into one of those molds.

We need to stop asking, "Hey, is Jesus on our team? Is Jesus on our side?" and ask it the other way: Are we on his?

One of my favorite pictures in the Old Testament is Joshua chapter five. Joshua is a commander of the armies of Israel, about to invade Canaan, the land of promise. He's waiting, told to wait here for the armies of God, the commander of the army of the Lord. A mysterious figure shows up—clearly some kind of military figure. Joshua asks, "Are you on our side or on their side?"

The commander of the armies of the Lord says, "No."

I love it. He's saying, the question is not, "Are you on my side?" It's, "Am I on Jesus' side? Am I really listening to him? Am I really following him? Am I really giving my allegiance to him?"

That question—am I on his side?—you should ask that in lots of areas. We should be asking that in lots of areas of our lives.

So that's the content of this passage, but I can't stop my sermon there because we're a church.

And this is what I mean by this: our politics are not just things that we individually think about, but they're a way that we live together, and they affect the way we live together. So it's really helpful to me to look at the context of this passage. We'll do this really briefly, but I want to show you this.

Romans chapter 13 comes between Romans 12 and 14. I know, captain obvious comment for this morning, but I want you to understand this. A lot of people look at Romans chapters 12 through 16 as sort of arbitrary interesting topics. Oh, now we're gonna talk about politics today. But the theme of 12 through 16 is love and unity. This passage fits neatly between chapter 12—which we talked about last week, which talks about love within the body of Christ and unity within the body of Christ—and chapter 14, which is about not judging each other over non-revealed issues.

That's curious. Do you think that might just be a coincidence? I don't think so. Because politics is one of the hardest things as a body of Christians together to not judge each other about and to love and to seek unity within. It's so important that we think about this.

I think politics can become a weapon that we use against each other. So pardon my euphemism in this, but we need to check our concealed carry this morning on how we're carrying our politics within our body.

Years ago—this is way before we moved to Raleigh—I remember reading this. It was national news. It made the AP wire. It's from the Durham Herald Sun. It says: "After watching the presidential debate Thursday night, two UNC students ended up slapping each other when fighting over who Jesus would vote for in the election. According to the police report, the concept of 'turning the other cheek' came up, and James Austin, 19, of Granville Towers in Chapel Hill, slapped Robert Rollins, 22, of Carrboro on the cheek in Rollins' house. After that, Rollins slapped Austin, and Austin landed on the concrete patio, possibly striking his head according to the report. Rollins called for an ambulance and took Austin to the UNC hospital to be examined. No charges were filed."

I love that. What a picture of the church, right? Division. Slapping each other over who Jesus would vote for. That doesn't capture the church.

But listen. If Jesus can have among his own executive board, his own disciples, Simon the Zealot, who's a political extremist, and Matthew the tax collector who's in the pay of the Roman Empire, don't you think there's a way that we can become a purple church? Get it? Right? There are red states, there are blue states. There are no purple states. And sadly, there are red churches and there are blue churches. Can we be a purple church?

Four Applications for Becoming a Purple Church

Let me give you four brief applications on how we become a purple church.

First, not judging one another. I read this on a blog in the past week about politics. This is another church. A woman said, "I couldn't believe it when I pulled into the parking lot and saw a Trump sticker beside their church bumper sticker. But when I realized whose car it was, I realized not only am I in a small group with that person, but I actually love this person."

I love that admission. Can we look past politics to people? Can we do that?

Number two, be careful about your preaching. What is social media except for a shouting match? What is it except for shouting at each other about different perspectives? I love this brief open letter to other people by Scott Sauls. He posted this: "Dear person passionately pursuing, pushing your political agenda on Facebook. Congratulations. You have convinced me to change my vote. Thank you for helping me to see the light. Appreciatively yours, no one."

Can we turn that down?

Number three, it is wrong to question someone's faith because they don't vote like you do. That's wrong. As I said, the Bible is more conservative than the conservatives, more liberal than the liberals. A lot smarter people than me and a lot smarter people than you have struggled to understand Scripture and politics, and it doesn't fit neatly into any of the political parties or any of the political agendas.

Can we all lower the blood pressure? It is wrong to question someone's faith because they don't vote like you do. Can we learn from each other? Can we listen to each other?

And finally, worship the great unifier. One of the best things that you can do is find someone in your church, in your community group who you have zero in common with politically and sit next to them next Sunday. Sit beside them as you sing the songs about Jesus, as you confess your sins, walk with them to the communion table.

Remember, worship is the great leveler. It says: I come with empty hands. I come in desperate need of God's mercy and grace.

I come on no merit of my own, no intelligence of my own, no righteousness of my own, nor no moral uprightness of my own, all the things that we think are badges of honor in the Weebillos of the universe. And we come when we come into this place, we come to worship as the great leveler. The best thing that you can do is to worship next to someone who disagrees with you. It is impossible to love someone you disagree with when you secretly believe they need Jesus more than you do. It really is. It's impossible to love someone you disagree with when you secretly believe they need Jesus more than you do. No. We all need him the same. So can we all come to the table with him together?

My hunch is that within this room, all of us have things that we need to deal with in this category. And let me just put it back in the babysitter paradigm. Some of you need to deal with the parent and you have never dealt with the parent. You've never submitted your life to the Lord Jesus Christ. You still think that you're competent. And this morning, my invitation to you is like, give your life to Jesus. You know, you're gonna mess it up but he won't. He's gonna redeem it and he's gonna change it and it'll be transformed in ways you never imagined and your joy cup will overflow. It's not gonna be easy but trust him. He designed you. He knows how to perfect you.

Some of you need to deal with the babysitter and you have rebellious hearts. And there are ways that you are cheating or doing things wrong or cutting corners that you need to rectify. Or ways that you have a heart that's like, I don't like that person and I'm not gonna submit. And you need to change your attitude. You may need to change what you put on social media.

And some of us need to deal with the kids, the fellow kids in the house because we have hurt one another by things we've said. We've cut off relationships. We've pretended like people are dumber than us. We've been ugly toward other people and the thoughts of our hearts, if maybe not our actions. And we may need to go and actually ask some people to forgive us or say, you know what? I shouldn't have said that. That was wrong. Maybe it's your family but you may need to go to some of the other kids in the family and go and say, you know what? I've been kind of humbled in this and would you please forgive me?

In any case, God has put us under authority for his good so that we might grow as followers of him who know most of all what it means to be in relationship with him.

Let's go to word in prayer together. Lord, we need you every hour. There's not a day goes by that our need for you goes away. And in this area, where we confess that we think we know, we pray that you'd come by your power and both humble us and encourage us. We pray for greater unity that we might become a more purple church. In Jesus name, amen.