Romans | Week 8 | Tom Mercer | Echoes Church

The big idea

God's strategy for the spiritual war we're in is that the world would see Jesus through how we submit to authority, love without conditions, and avoid pettiness.

We live behind enemy lines, and life is hard because this is not heaven. But Jesus, our commander, has a clear objective for the daily battles we fight: that the world would see Him clearly through us. Romans 13-14 lays out the strategy — accept authority, always love, and avoid pettiness — lived out in front of the eight to fifteen people who watch our lives most closely.</thesis> <parameter name="key_points"> <parameter name="points">[]

Point 1 of 5

Pastor Tom opens by saying life is hard because this is Mesa, not heaven — we woke up behind enemy lines. Just as no military commander goes to war without an objective and strategy, Jesus had both before He drafted us, and that objective and strategy are laid out in Romans 13-14.

Point 2 of 5

Using the analogy of television evolving from black-and-white to 4K, Pastor Tom traces how God gave increasing clarity about Himself through creation, the written word, and finally Jesus in high definition. He explains that 95% of people become Jesus followers because of someone they already knew, since 91% of our sensory receptors are devoted to sight — we believe what we watch, not just what we hear.

Point 3 of 5

Working through Romans 13:1-2, Pastor Tom shows all authority is established by God, even oppressive Roman rule, and rebelling against it invites judgment. He distinguishes three categories of submission (easy, hard-but-required, and truly forbidden by Scripture) and warns that we often relabel category two as category three because we don't want to submit, not because we can't. He points out Satan's goal isn't bad government but no government — anarchy — because structure is what provides the relationships through which the gospel spreads.

Point 4 of 5

Pastor Tom distinguishes Greek words for love (eros, philios, storge) from agape, a word he says barely appears outside Christian writing — a no-matter-what, I-will-always-have-your-back love only God truly embodies. He walks through Romans 13:8-10, showing love fulfills the whole law and is owed as a continuing debt, always to our neighbor, meaning our front row of family, friends, and coworkers.

Point 5 of 5

Pastor Tom unpacks Romans 14's Roman controversy over meat sacrificed to idols and over which day to worship, showing Paul's answer is essentially 'stop quarreling' because these are matters where sincere, godly people land in different places. He warns that holding opinions too tightly can destroy — cause a loss to — a brother or sister for whom Christ died, quoting John Maxwell that we cannot overestimate the unimportance of practically everything, and applies it to modern fights like politics.

Take it into your week

Pastor Tom frames the whole choice as: do you want to get your way, or do you want to change the world?