Relationships

Sermons of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Christianity, Religion & Spirituality

4.8 • 602 Ratings

🗓️ 5 May 2026

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What are the Christian’s duties and responsibilities to government and the state? In this sermon on Romans 13:1–7 titled “Relationships,” this is the perplexing question that Dr. Lloyd-Jones seeks to address. While Christians are citizens of heaven and the kingdom of God, they still live on Earth and are subject to the earthly authorities. When believers disobey the government or refuse to honor earthly powers on the basis of their new citizenship in the kingdom of God, they bring dishonor to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Christians must seek to be faithful to God by obeying his commandments rather than humanity’s, but they also are to live at peace with all. Many Christians have misunderstood this teaching and brought contempt to the name of Christ. Paul says that the government is a minister of God to bring about righteousness. When the government commands what is not contrary to Scripture, Christians should obey and live as good citizens. Natural relations are not destroyed by a believer’s new relationship with God, but it encourages believers to live in a peaceful way as far as they can. This is ultimately so that God is glorified and honored by the lives of Christians in all aspects of life.

Transcript

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0:00.0	We come this evening in a study of this great epistle to the Romans to the 13th chapter.
0:07.0	Now, this is a new section, or perhaps I should rather say a new subsection.
0:16.0	It's a part, of course, of this second great portion of this epistle, which the apostle began at the beginning
0:25.1	of chapter 12. So it still comes under the general heading of the application of the doctrine
0:33.0	that the apostle has been laying down in the first 11 chapters, particularly the first eight chapters.
0:39.3	But it is a new subsection of this great theme that he is here working out with us.
0:49.1	The gospel is something that not only is to be believed, it is to be practiced.
0:56.7	And if we fail to carry it out,
1:02.4	well, then there is no point in any amount of intellectual understanding of it.
1:09.4	Now, here we come to a most interesting portion. It's all interesting, of course, and yet one puts it like that, and there's no inconsistency in what I say.
1:13.9	If I keep on saying that this is the most interesting session we've come to, that is simply
1:18.3	one way of paying tribute to the scriptures.
1:21.9	I generally find that what I'm studying immediately seems to me at the moment to be the
1:26.3	most interesting portion I've
1:27.5	ever studied.
1:28.5	But as that is true of every portion of Scripture, it shows you what a wonderful thing
1:32.9	the whole of Scripture is.
1:34.5	But this has a particular interest as I'm going to try to show you for many reasons.
1:42.6	Now one is this.
1:50.3	It's a very interesting portion, merely from the standpoint of a study of the scriptures and the exposition of the scriptures.
1:54.3	What I mean is this.
1:57.1	It's interesting to notice the precise connection of this portion with what has gone before
	...

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