Dual Citizenship for Christians: Honor, Debt, and Love

From the sermon preached on May 3, 2026

Christians who hold dual citizenship (citizens of this earth and citizens of heaven) are called to honor the authorities in their lives even when those authorities are corrupt, difficult, or outright unjust. This is the plain teaching of Romans 13, and it is one of the most countercultural ideas in all of Scripture. It was hard to swallow when the Apostle Paul first wrote it, and it is no easier now.

There is probably someone in your life right now who holds some kind of authority over you and does not use it well. Maybe it is a boss who runs hot and cold and makes your workday miserable. Maybe it is a parent whose approval has never quite arrived. Maybe it is a landlord who holds the lease over your head, a local official who uses power as a weapon, or a supervisor who keeps asking you to cut corners you are not willing to cut. The quiet question underneath all of it is the same: do I actually owe this person anything? Paul's answer, rooted in Romans 13, is uncomfortable and clarifying at the same time. You do. And here is why that is actually good news.

The first thing Paul does in Romans 13 is remove the loophole. He does not say, "Submit to good authorities." He does not say, "Honor leaders who deserve it." He writes to a church living under the Roman Emperor Nero (a man who murdered his mother, killed his stepsister, and would eventually have Paul himself executed) and he says this: "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God" (Romans 13:1). That is a stunning statement. It would have felt nearly impossible to the early Christians reading it.

Respecting corrupt leaders was not an abstract theological exercise for first-century believers. It was a daily, costly, personal decision. The Roman Empire did not just tax Christians; it tortured and killed them. And yet Paul, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, advocated not revolution but wise, faithful, dual citizenship. He was telling followers of Jesus to live well within a broken system while keeping their deepest allegiance anchored to a different kingdom entirely. Respecting corrupt leaders was not the same as endorsing their corruption. It meant refusing to let someone else's failure become an excuse for your own.

This is not just ancient history. When a person concludes that because their teacher is unfair, no teacher deserves respect, or that because one law enforcement officer abused their position, no officer is worth honoring, Paul says that leads somewhere dangerous. It leads toward chaos, toward a posture where the only authority you recognize is your own. That is not dual citizenship. That is just pride with a grievance attached. Respecting corrupt leaders is hard precisely because it requires you to act out of your own character, not theirs.

One honest step: Think of the authority in your life who is hardest to honor. Not the one who is easiest. Write down one concrete thing you owe them (one financial obligation, one act of professional respect, one word you have been withholding) and make a plan to pay it this week.

Romans 13 takes a turn at verse 8 that is easy to miss if you are focused only on the authority and taxes section. Paul writes: "Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law." This is the pivot. All the financial obligations, the taxes, the revenue, the respect and honor paid to governing authorities; all of it is preparation for this one irreducible debt. Owing the debt of love is not optional. It is not a spiritual bonus for people who have their lives together. It is a permanent moral obligation for anyone who has received the love of God.

Lead Pastor Ryan Mustered shared a story from early in his engineering career that illustrated this plainly. He had a boss who frequently needed him to stay late, which strained his family life and cut into ministry commitments. The tension was real. His wife Melinda eventually suggested a solution he did not love: offer the boss every Saturday morning in exchange for a consistent end time on weeknights. Pastor Ryan agreed. His boss was relieved. The compromise honored both the relationship at work and the one at home. Twenty years later, that same former boss reached out through LinkedIn to say he had been watching Pastor Ryan's work and was glad to see him thriving. What had looked like a frustrating imposition turned out to be a relationship worth tending. Owing the debt of love often works exactly like that: costly in the short term, clarifying over time.

Owing the debt of love does not mean pretending that hard things are easy. It does not mean absorbing abuse in silence. Paul is clear that if an authority asks you to do something sinful, you can and should decline, and you should do it respectfully, with a clear explanation rooted in your higher allegiance. What you cannot do, as a dual citizen of heaven, is use that one refusal to write off everything you owe. Loving difficult neighbors means staying at the table even when you would rather walk out.

One honest step: The next time you are tempted to write someone off entirely because of one thing they did, ask whether there is still a debt you owe them. Not approval, not trust you have not rebuilt yet, but basic human honor. Start there.

Dual citizenship for Christians is the organizing idea of the whole passage. Pastor Ryan, drawing on work shared by Goodland Campus Pastor James McGovern, framed Romans 13 this way: verses 1 through 7 describe how to live well within the earthly kingdom, and verses 8 through 14 describe how to live well within the kingdom of God. Both sets of obligations are real. Neither cancels the other. Dual citizenship for Christians means you are always operating in two registers at once, and the tension between them is not a design flaw. It is the design.

Paul connects this to the commandments in a way that is worth sitting with slowly. He works through them one by one: do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not covet. Then he says they are all summed up in a single sentence: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Romans 13:9). The commandments are not a checklist of behaviors to avoid. They are a description of what happens when love breaks down. Adultery is a failure of love. Murder is a failure of love. Theft is a failure of love (including stealing time from an employer, or credit from a colleague, or dignity from someone who cannot fight back). Dual citizenship for Christians means living out the law of heaven even when the laws of earth would not require it.

The hardest version of dual citizenship for Christians shows up not in dramatic moments of persecution but in ordinary ones. It is showing up on time for a boss you do not respect. It is paying a bill you are technically able to avoid. It is speaking well of a leader you disagree with in front of people who expect you to pile on. These are the daily choices Paul is describing. In practical terms, this means paying what you owe: financially, professionally, relationally, and treating people with the basic dignity of their role even when they are not living up to it. As Pastor Ryan put it, the ills of our society neither empower us nor excuse us to respond in an ungodly manner.

One honest step: Name one place where your earthly obligations and your kingdom values are in tension right now. Not to resolve the tension today, but to be honest with yourself about what dual citizenship is actually asking of you in that situation.

Romans 13:7 lays out the full scope of what is owed: "Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed." The word translated "honor" in that verse carries the sense of a price, a value, an esteem. It is not a vague sentiment. It is the assignment of worth to a person because God placed them in your life, regardless of whether the world agrees that they deserve it.

From Watseka to Ashkum, from Gilman and Milford to Clifton and Cissna Park, and across the county line into Goodland, Indiana, the people in this part of Iroquois County know what it means to honor an obligation even when it hurts. They pay their debts. They show up. They shake hands on deals that never get written down and keep them anyway. That is not a small thing. Trinity Church, with campuses serving this community and beyond, is a place where that instinct toward integrity gets grounded in something larger than willpower or reputation. The debt of love Paul describes in Romans 13 is not about being a pushover. It is about living in a way that reflects a King who honored every one of his obligations, including the one that cost him his life.

There is one debt in Paul's accounting that never reaches zero. You can pay off your creditors. You can clear your taxes. You can eventually give back every measure of respect and honor you owe to the difficult people in your life. But the debt of love, Paul says, is permanent. The one debt that never fully disappears is the debt of love itself; because God loved us when we owed him nothing, we carry a permanent obligation to love others in return. "The one who loves another has fulfilled the law" (Romans 13:8). If you have received the unconditional love of God while you were still getting things wrong (and all of us have), then you carry a permanent obligation to pass that love forward, especially to the people in your life who are making it hardest.

That is not a burden Paul is adding. It is a description of what it looks like when someone has genuinely received something worth giving away.

If you are ready to take a next step, we would love to welcome you at Trinity Church at our Ashkum, Goodland, or Watseka Campus. Wherever you choose to visit, you are welcome. You can plan your visit below.
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