Living Up to Your Name

A Christian's word ought to be worth something.

A handshake ought to matter. A verbal commitment from a believer ought to be worth the same as a 10-page contract. Paul is in a culture that is saturated by stealing and lying and cheating. In fact, it was so pervasive that he would write to the Ephesian believers, and it's a little shocking that he's going to write this to believers, put away falsehood and tell the truth and steal no longer. Living the Christian life successfully means living in a way that God has determined and commanded. The apostles taught the first century Christians to be obedient and to pray for their Roman rulers unless a law required disobedience to God. They were to live according to God's standard in a truly dark culture, demonstrating their commitment to the Lord by being good citizens. Today, we're also called to submit to authorities, graciously obey the law, and shine our light in the world. In other words, we are to live up to the name we wear, Christian. Welcome to Wisdom for the Heart.

Stephen Davey has a message for you today called, Living Up to Your Name. When the emperor Trajan opened that Colosseum in Rome that everybody who's in Ozover in A.D. 70, so many wild animals and human gladiators, slaves, gladiator is kind of a romantic term for a slave, get out there, you're going to die anyway. So many died at the opening of the Colosseum that historians say the sands of the arena were literally saturated with blood.

A later emperor held gladiator games that lasted four months straight, sell out crowds every single day, and in the end, 10,000 gladiators died. And the Christian's absence from that bloodlust was well known. In fact, one Roman politician complained to a church leader, and I quote, you do not go to our shows. You take no part in our processions or our parades. You shrink in horror from our sacred gladiatorial games. In other words, how dare you? Do you think you're more righteous than us?

Do you think you're better than us? Do you think by your absence, you mean to imply anything to us other than the fact that you are accusing us of being wrong? Back in Rome and here in America, don't dare insinuate that someone is doing something wrong, much less sinning without inviting hostility and anger. And this growing sect of Christianoi was gathering early on storm clouds of resentment and hostility and economic turmoil and anger and hatred. The emperor Nero would soon cover Christians with tar and tie them to poles and light them on fire to serve as lighting for his garden parties. One emperor so vengefully attempted to wipe Christianity off the face of the earth, he demanded every church leader imprisoned and every scrap of scripture burned.

In fact, one historian said of that time that the dungeons were so filled with elders and deacons, there was no room for criminals. Now what would the Spirit of God say to those Christians then and now? Would the apostles say something like tap into the power of God, you're going to have a wonderful life? Or hang on and eventually your community is going to come around and they're going to be reasonable and they're going to appreciate your moral stand and your convictions and what you believe is right and wrong and they're going to come around and eventually vindicate who you are.

So just hang on. Yes, it is true that time does vindicate some things. Today that Roman Empire is dead and the church is fully alive. Today parents name their sons Paul and their dogs Nero.

You got to chuckle over that vindication. But that's not what the apostles told the church to do, was it? Mount an insurrection, complain, argue, ultimately disobey any and every law because by the way, you are a citizen of another empire and Nero is the puppet of the devil.

I mean that will preach, I think. Instead they wrote these startling instructions like Titus chapter 3, if you want to turn there and look at verse 1, where he's talking to these believers and they're coming out of a culture, historians said that Cretans were always on the verge of revolting. And he says to them in this text, for them to be subject to rulers, to authorities, to be obedient.

You've got to be kidding. In other words, unless these rulers try to make you personally disobey God, you obey their laws. It's another way of saying the Christian is not above the law. And by the way, we read this and we've had nearly 2,000 years of instruction and the church has developed thoroughly our relationship in the city of man heading for the city of God and how that tension exists and we've preached on it often. But these Christians are just getting this.

They're just getting the news. Wait. Be subject to rulers, to authorities. Be obedient. We're not above the law. The New Testament principle is true to this day even in our country where we are not suffering. We're not being persecuted, by the way.

If you think you are, just study a little church history. But we live under the law just as the Romans and the Ephesians and the Colossians and that congregation in Ephesus pastored by Timothy and the churches on the island of Crete where Titus was the leading elder establishing elders in his congregation. Even the little laws. I had a guy come to me and say, you know, you should have mentioned speed limit. I said there's a reason why I didn't.

You know, but isn't that convicting? What about meeting city codes for your building project or your business? You know, you drive up to a little restaurant that has that sign on the wall. It's white and it has a grade. 99.5. They're always in the 99s. I don't know what that means. But I went to one the other day that was 92.5 and I almost wanted to keep driving.

I didn't know how bad it might be. Those are codes and laws. You don't need to pray about getting your car inspected. You might pray while your car is inspected like I do for a miracle. You don't need to pray about paying minimum wages to your employees. You don't need to pray about getting your license renewed, which I'm thinking about praying about because last week I discovered they made a mistake. I was at the bank and had to show them my driver's license and I stood there waiting and I just kind of studied it.

Typically you don't even look at it, right? I stood there and I noticed, of course, the picture of that old man. Old is the emphasis.

And then I looked at the writing and I realized I'd made a mistake. I'd gotten it renewed last year. It should last for 10 and they wrote the renewal date is 2016. I had one year. I've got to go back and stand in line at DMV for seven days until I get it again.

Can you believe that? Be subject to rulers. Maybe I'll just not get it renewed, by the way, and hope I never get pulled over because I never be subject to rulers and to the DMV. By the way, this is more, and whatever the laws are that you find irritating, this is more than sort of a teeth-clenching, kind of jaw-grinding obedience.

If I have to, I guess I will. In fact, turn to 1 Timothy and look at chapter 2. He adds to it, which I think even further mystifies the first century believers. He says this, as he adds to this concept, first of all, then, or that is as of a priority, then, I urge that entreaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings be made on behalf of all the believers. Oh, wait.

Of all men. What are you thinking of, Paul? For kings and all who are in authority.

Wait, wait, wait now. I can see praying about them, but giving thanks for them. Timothy, I want you to thank God for your authorities.

I want you to thank God for those laws. I want you to thank God for the king and pray for them ultimately for their salvation. Listen, one of the most remarkable distinctives about Christianity is our attitude toward those in authority. And you think, wait, there's a madman on the throne. That's what I would write, verse 3, in between the lines.

Nero, society is depraved. It's time to just huddle up and wait for the next event to happen prophetically. We're going to wait. In the meantime, we're going to ignore.

We're pulling away. Society is depraved. Sexual norms are out the window.

The emperor is bisexual, is married publicly, a man and a woman. Adultery, idolatry, abortion, prostitution, drug addiction, all those I could have dealt with, but we don't have enough time. All of those were taking place under the protection of the law. If there was anybody who would have no desire to thank God for any of it, if there was ever a church that could be let off the hook in terms of submitting, it would be Paul and these early Christians. By the way, I hear little rumblings from church leaders about revolting because it's gotten so bad. Study church history.

You just study the implications of these texts and others and what happened. Rather than mount an insurrection to unseat Nero, rather than try to coerce culture to be a little bit more morally upright, they just simply began to live up to their claim. They began to live sexually pure lives and lives in faithful monogamy. They just began to raise children. Raising girls would have been very unique.

Most families would leave them, abandon them because they couldn't carry on the legal estate and one particular city back in the first century was pulled, historians pulled it and looked at the records and out of 600 families, only two of them raised more than one daughter. So you have these families. I think of Paul Funches, our pastor, with five girls.

That is unique. God bless them. God help them. The church just begins showing marital harmony and commitment. The church begins to show honor and respect wherever they can and they submit to the authority of those over them, ultimately submitting to the authority and the verdict of those authorities that call for their death. They do not fight their way out of the arena. They stand there. Isn't that remarkable?

No wonder. Their blood was the seed of the church. See, they're living up to the name of their leader who also submitted to the verdict of his authorities calling for his death as he died for the faith. So how do we treat our authorities? How do you treat your parents? How do you treat your professors?

Do you do your homework? That's another way of saying you're showing respect for them. How do you treat your elders, pastors? How about your supervisor? Oh, Stephen, you don't know my supervisor. Oh, what a wicked man, what a wicked woman that is.

Like Nero, maybe? What's your attitude toward the town council and the city codes? I'm stepping on my toes here. I know a pastor who built a home, put up a handrail on his front porch because the codes required it and as soon as the inspector came and gave him the certificate and left, he took down the handrail.

What are we trying to get away with? I know of one pastor, I'll share briefly his story, his church. They paid quite a price for this issue as they submitted with a good spirit to antagonism. It's a large church that had searched for quite a while. I read the pastor's account of it. I did a little more research because it was so unusual.

I found it was indeed all true and he really didn't tell all of it. They'd found in California a 130 acre hill or mountain. They bought it, quite expensive, just off a major freeway. After months of designing their church facilities, things got complicated. The neighbors came and complained that that church, if it was built on top of that mountain, is going to ruin their view. Town council sided with the neighbors.

The church had to completely redesign its project to be built on the side of the mountain. By the way, I can tell you stories of tens of thousands of dollars we had to put into shrubbery just to keep the lights from your cars from hitting the windows of neighbors' houses. So after months, they began to build and an endangered bird known as the California black-tailed gnat catcher was discovered to nest on that mountain.

In fact, a pair of them. And the church was then allowed to build only on 25 acres. The other 105 acres had to be dedicated to those birds. Then the church was told that heavy construction couldn't take place on the mountain during the gnat catcher breeding season, which lasted seven months. Between February and August, eventually the noise of heavy construction could ruin their romantic life.

I don't know. But anyway, the church willingly waited until the end of breeding season, but in the interim inspectors had scoured the land and they'd found a bush called the coastal sage. Once again, the church was forbidden to build wherever that bush grew.

Then, as they're digging, a pottery shard was found by construction workers in a blackened rock they believed was started by a fire from a number of centuries ago. And they had to protect that property, cover it with special soil. Finally, the buildings were completed, but then the parking lot created even more problems. Government officials cited, quote, light pollution, end quote, from so many parking lot lights.

We have the same issues, by the way, out here. They demanded that the church light poles be lowered from the normal 20 feet to 3 feet. And the pastor finally did count her tongue in cheek.

It was fine, so long as your cars are only six inches high. This news release was like a nightmare. And the church was delayed, delayed, delayed more than ten years because of these issues.

And when it was all said and done, it cost the church $18 million more than they planned. So what do you do? Submit and understand there's a reason for antagonism and pray. Let me quickly cover another commitment we effectively make to our community. We promise to pay taxes and every debt in a timely manner fulfilling verbal, legal, and financial commitments.

Let me go through this fairly quickly. Taxes are a difficult issue. Obviously, in our own American history, it's been quite contentious. The first real threat to government forced revenue in American history took place in 1794. It was called the Whiskey Rebellion. Primarily in Pennsylvania, farmers were pretty upset about their whiskey being taxed and so they burned down the tax collector's home.

Hopefully no Christians among them. It took Congress to put down the revolt by military force. Taxes were repeated. Issue of conflict even through the Civil War where they finally decided that anybody making over $800 owed 3% of it to the government to help pay the bills.

It didn't really work all that well. Then in 1862, Congress created the Internal Revenue Service and that, of course, solved everything. One thing has remained constant as Benjamin Franklin famously quoted in 1789, nothing is certain except death and taxes.

So what do you do? Well, you might be tempted to think that since a Christian, again, is a citizen of heaven, he gets a free pass. In fact, again, I've heard church leaders talking about it's perhaps time to stop paying taxes. If anybody has a right to a loophole, it would have been the Apostle Paul.

If any church had the right to say forget it, it would be these believers. Yet in Romans chapter 13, he says, and you also pay taxes. I just hear those early Christians saying rats, whatever that is in Greek, at that command, you also pay taxes. Why do you have to write that? Because they're wondering, do we have to pay?

Surely not. Render to all what is due to them tax to whom tax is due. He's talking about believers paying taxes to Rome and Nero is on the throne.

Christians are not exempt. So what that means is in a couple of weeks, you're going to get your W-2 in the mail. You don't need to go write in your prayer list, I'm praying about paying my taxes. Would you pray with me?

Ask the Lord to give me wisdom and direction. I'm going to lay out the fleece tonight. If it's wet, I won't pay.

If it's dry, I'll do it again. That's Gideon. No, here it is.

Paying taxes is not an option. But let me give you the higher perspective, all of it. Could anyone today be more absolutely unique and distinctive in their testimony than delighting in honoring God by paying every single cent that is due?

How different is that? And that goes for every financial commitment as well. A Christian's word ought to be worth something.

A handshake ought to matter. A verbal commitment from a believer ought to be worth the same as a 10-page contract. Paul is in a culture that is saturated by stealing and lying and cheating. In fact, it was so pervasive that he would write to the Ephesian believers.

And it's a little shocking that he's going to write this to believers. But he says in Ephesians 4, put away falsehood. What do you mean put away?

Because as we talked about last Thursday, that clothing just wants to come back on, doesn't it? Put away falsehood and tell the truth and steal no longer. Stop stealing.

The word for steal is the Greek word klepto, which gives us our word kleptomaniac. Stop stealing stuff that doesn't belong to you. Don't take stuff home from work.

Don't fudge on an account. Don't take what is not yours. Sixteen million dollars is stolen from retailers by their employees. Listen, 16 million dollars is stolen from retailers by their employees every single day.

It's up to a 10 billion dollar problem. An unbelieving culture is known for lying and stealing and cheating and violating contracts and dodging, fudging. The Apostle Paul says, listen, one of the most compelling ways to live up to your name, to demonstrate the Gospel to your community is to just tell the truth and pay your taxes and keep your hands in your own pockets. Warren Wiersbe illustrated this kind of commitment to honesty and integrity when he retold an event that took place in New York in 1805. A number of Indian chiefs, tribes, and warriors were convened at Buffalo Creek, New York to hear a Gospel message delivered by a missionary by the name of Mr. Cram from the Boston Missionary Society.

He preached the Gospel and when it was over, one of the chiefs named Red Jacket stood and responded. He said this, and I quote his translation, we are told that you have been preaching to the people in this same town. These people are our neighbors. We are acquainted with them all. We will wait a little while and see what effect your preaching has upon them.

If we find it does them good, makes them honest and less likely to cheat us, we will consider again what you have said. What difference does your name tag mean to you? Is it one of those cheap, you know, little paper name tags you put on maybe at a job interview or a reunion?

Is it something you put on on Sunday, but it tends to peel off under the pressure of Monday? Let's go public with our Christianity, us ordinary people, demonstrating a remarkable commitment to pray for those, to submit to those graciously in authority over us, to pay our taxes, to keep our word, to graciously follow the law. And in so doing demonstrate the undeniable characteristics of a different life, a changed life. Let's live up to our name, Christian. Being subject to those in authority over us is part of what it means to live as a Christian. There may be areas of authority over you and frankly you wish that agency or department didn't even exist, but they do.

Being subject to authority is part of how we live up to our name. Living up to your name is the title of the message you just heard here on Wisdom for the Heart. Our teacher, Steven Davey, is working through a series called Going Public as he explores what it means to live for Jesus in our current culture. We're always thankful when you take the time to introduce yourself and share your thoughts and comments about our ministry and let us know how God's using the teaching you hear to strengthen your walk with him. Our address is Wisdom for the Heart, P.O. Box 37297, Raleigh, North Carolina, 27627. If you'd like to send Steven a note or maybe support our ministry financially, you can use that address. Again, it's Wisdom for the Heart, P.O. Box 37297, Raleigh, North Carolina, Join us tomorrow for more wisdom for the heart.