How We Should Act Series

Romans 13:1-14

Getting on The Same Page as God about How We Should Act

Introduction

A. When your growing up it seems like everybody is trying to teach you how to act

B. Your parents, your teacher, your Sunday School teacher, your boss at your first job, your professors at college, every were you go people want to tell you what to do and what to say

C. However, the question that I want to know, and I hope it is the question that you want to know, is how does God want me to act?

D. What does God expect of me?

E. I¡¦m I suppose to be a some sort of radical political activist? I am supposed to be a doormat? I am supposed to let someone else do whatever he or she want? I am supposed to wear just one uniform?

F. How should we act?

G. Today we are going to take a look at the Behavior God expects

H. We are going to look at how we should act in

a. Politics

b. In Privacy

c. In Public

I. (1-7) Politics

A. Explanation

1. God is Sovereign, He knows all and is in control of all, nothing has ever happened that God did not know was going to happen

2. God has established all forms of government

3. Therefore, to rebels against the authority of the government is rebelling against God

4. If there was no authority, no government, there would be absolute anarchy

5. I am sorry to say that anarchy would not be good for anyone, there would be no standard of behavior, it is impossible to remain at and anarchy state

6. Therefore we have various forms of government, we have people who are in authority over us

7. Now if we refuse to follow the authority, look at 2nd part of verse 4, ¡§He is God¡¦s servant, and agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer¡¨

8. Starting with verse 6 Paul talks about everyone¡¦s favorite subject, taxes

9. Note what Paul says here, we are to pay taxes, tolls, and everything that we are told to pay

10. We have the authorities which are God¡¦s servants according to verse 6 giver their full time to governing,

11. They should be pay, by us, the tax payer

12. It does not say, it would be nice to pay them, it says it is due to them

B. Application

1. Let¡¦s apply all of this to our lives

2. Government is needed

3. There is not way that we would be able to have roads, phones, water, sewer, electricity, security, protection, without a government

4. Now there will be times when the government makes a decision that you do not agree with, I guarantee it

5. When that happens, you do have a right to express your disagreement, you do have a right to say you think something is wrong

6. However, you do not have any right to bomb an abortion clinic, you do not have a right to start a violent rebellion.

7. Daily we should be in prayer for our leaders of this country, we should be praying that God will give them the courage to make the right choices, that God will change their hearts if their hearts need to be changed.

8. If we are going to live in this country, we enjoy certain privileges this privileges are not free

9. Someone has to pay for the roads, someone has to pay for the police and fire department, someone has to pay for the court system

10. You might not agree with how they are handling their income, you might think that there are spending to much

11. However, that does not give you any reason not to pay your taxes.

12. If you think things are not being run right what should you do? Get involved, offer possible solutions, but you still must pay the taxes that you owe because you are a citizen of this country

C. Illustration

1. Understand something here; I am not saying that you should not try to pay as little as legally possible. For example if there is a deduction that you can take, by all means take it.

2. The problem comes when we fail to report income, and when we falsely try qualifying for a deduction we do not qualify for. I knew someone in Georgia who has 4 dogs, all 4 dogs a social security number, he called him his ¡§children¡¨ That is wrong

3. There is nothing wrong with taking as many deductions as possible, as long as your not lying about the deduction

II. (8-10) Privately

A. Explanation

1. Paul moves from Politics, to talking about how we should live our lives privately

2. The Lord¡¦s prayer towards the end of it has the phrase ¡§forgive of our debts as we forgive our debtors