Down to Earth But Heavenly Minded

This video is a little over 4 hours long, but is broken into 15 segments. This part is covered from 2 hour 48 minutes to 2 hour 52 minutes.

Romans 13

If, as we have seen, Romans 12 gives us the character to which divine grace transforms us, in Romans 13 we find what characterizes our relations to the world through which we are passing. If we have the practical character of which we have been speaking, though we are yet in the world, evidently we cannot be of it. We are of heaven; we belong to the new creation. Here is where we find our new origin and citizenship. This separates us completely from the old creation. This takes us entirely outside of the course of this world. But that does not empower us to regulate the world or reform its ways. We are reminded that God has authorized the governments of the world, and are exhorted to be in subjection to them. We are to see in them a divine institution, and leave those charged with the exercise of government to their responsibility to God, to be dealt with by Him who will call them to give account as to their use of the power which He has put in their hands. The Christian, then, needs to be in subjection to the governments under which God has placed him. He is to show due respect to their agents, honoring them as servants of God (verses 1-7).

But subjection to governments does not mean that Christians should be under obligation to them. In fact they should not be indebted to any one. As having found their resource in God, they should be dispensers of blessing. Themselves indebted to the love of God, they should regard themselves as under the obligation of showing love to all. In doing this they are fulfilling what the law required. It demanded love, but man in the flesh is without power to meet the demand. The Spirit dwells in the Christian. With Him there is power to produce what the law required. The requirement of the law is carried out in the Christian through the power of the Spirit without his being under law either for righteousness or as a rule of life.

What a wonderful thing this! The very fulness of the law — what was sought after by those under it, but not attained unto — through the power of the Spirit is produced in the Christian, in the measure in which the power of the Spirit is realized and depended on. How little this is understood! In how many is the measure extremely scant! (verses 8-10). May it be much enlarged in us all.

The Christian belongs to the day that is coming, which in fact is at hand. It is fast drawing near. It is nearer now than when we believed. The Christian is not of the night; but passing through the darkness, the power of the day to which he belongs should be manifested, not the power of the night. Walking here in the sense of the light of the coming day he is armored against all the temptations of the night. He needs to be awake, to be in the sense of the light — in the practical enjoyment of the things of the coming day. Let us be diligent, then, in casting off the works of darkness! May we be sincere and wholehearted in putting on the Lord Jesus. Let there be such a sense in our souls of His claim to the exclusive use of our bodies that we shall be kept from providing for the sinful lusts of the flesh (verses 11-14).