1 Peter, 2:13-17

All right. I was a Presbyterian once. I found out that's why I like to read it all together. So let's do it again, because it really does something for me. So here we go. One, two, three. Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority, or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right. For such is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men. Act as free men and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bond slaves to God. Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, and honor the king.

All right. So I started off with this. He bears not the sword for nothing. I promised myself I wouldn't go on a huge hour long rant about the death penalty and why it should be in place. But we're going to have to touch on it. So please show mercy for me.

This passage is one of the four major New Testament passages as you probably have studied at one point or another. in relation to the government and specifically about our relation as believers to the government. And what you'll notice is as we look at our glance at 1 Peter, our glance at 1 Peter chart, you'll find that we're moving actually into a new section. We're kind of moving From the sanctification as salvation's process, to government, business, and marriage life. You notice that line goes all the way up. So we're moving from salvation of the believer to submission of the believer. And the belief of Christians to the behavior of Christians. and from holiness to harmony.

So if that chart doesn't give you enough broad background of where we're at, I don't know what will. It's fantastic. So we're moving into government, business, and marriage life, and today we're just covering government, which is exciting. So you know we've turned a bit of a corner here.

We've turned from what Christians believe, and Peter cranking away at belief, all the way to the practical outplay. what it's like to live out Christ in our day-to-day lives. So, all these four passages, that's 1 Peter 2, which we're in now, Romans 13, 1 Timothy 2, and Titus 3, all give us one constant, and that's that we're to be submissive to the government. And I wrote on there, if you read, they all clearly display to us that we're to be submissive to the government and obey it always.

Something wrong with that? Maybe? Is the government always going to have good regulations and good laws? Every once in a while there's been, not every once in a while, historically there have been numerous instances right where, Christians had to disobey the government in order to follow Christ, in order to be faithful to the word. So the classic first century or second century example being that the Roman government insisted that everyone get a libelous, saying you sacrificed the Roman's gods, you honored Caesar as a god, all this business.

And what did they do? They couldn't do it. So some faked it, some all trying to decide how to deal with this. Do you just stand up and get killed? Is that the call? Do you fake one? You could go buy a fake one. Just like you can get a fake social security card. Not that I've ever done it, but you can get imitation documents. It pays to have two social security numbers. Anyway, you've got all these different options that have been presented to Christians and believers throughout history.

Go to the Reformation. You've got times where you might have been a Protestant, living in a Catholic realm. You know, they got to the who's the region, his the religion period in Christian history. And if you were in a Catholic realm, do you move? Do you feel like you're called to stay there and be a light to all the other folks around you? What do you do? How do you respond to that?

So there's definitely points. I mean, always I think you can very reasonably just cross that off because it's not always the case. Yeah, so just go ahead and cross that off. I'm sorry for the error. It's amazing that 1 Peter and Romans 13 also confirm that the purpose of the government is to keep order by enforcing justice and punishing wrongdoers.

It's remarkable that the time God chose to send his son to earth, which we're celebrating this season, is specifically a time of governmental security and unity that had never been really seen before. Isn't it weird that God waited until the Roman government had basically taken over some of the largest plots of land of any empire in history? Isn't it odd that these Roman roads had just kind of magically been laid in place in time to move the gospel around the whole world? Isn't it amazing? God used government as a big tool to do that. It's pretty significant to know that ultimately the reality is that the government is always under God's control and everything in the end is going to work to his glory.

I mean, Daniel, he tells about the next coming governments and all the way up until the end of time. He's focusing on the governments. He's saying, you know what? These are in my hand. These are my control. It's not like God's letting these governments take over, letting these huge empires rule and reign for the periods that he allowed them to rule and reign. He dictated it. So anyway, it's definitely another testament to the fact that God is ultimately the one who's holding the cards. All right, let's move on to the verse.

1 Peter 2, 13 and 14 says, Submit yourself for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority or to the governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right. So, what to do, what to do. The verb here, submit, is an imperative. Now, we've noticed time and time again, as we've gone through Peter, just the first two chapters, we've seen him using these, is it, participles again and again, the ing ending. Not, you know, his usual style thus far would have been, you are submitting to the government. It's the typical, if you're walking in Christ, you're going to be submitting to the government.

My question is, why would he use an imperative here? In fact, he uses a couple, quite a few imperatives in this. Why all of a sudden does he start using imperatives? Why does he switch his track? from these nice, inviting, hey, I know you're doing this, I know you're doing that, to now you've got to do this. This is imperative. Why would he switch? It's, as Vern would say, the logical imperative, the idea that because of this, this is what should be happening. It's the logical outcome. Absolutely. It's a logical imperative. I think that's absolutely the case. Any other ideas about that?

In context of the other passages, your testimony is going to be affected. You know, I think he just we went over that last week. Your testimony is there. If you don't have a good testimony, that's going to be a problem. Obeying the government's a logical conclusion to that. Everybody can see that. Whoa, look at that guy going 75 in the 25. That's disobedience. Jesus is a speeder. I came to see Christ speeding along the Sea of Galilee. Slow down, Jesus! The speed limit's 25! But I'm under great. Well, but oh, my.

So and in agreeance in accordance with all that, and especially in accordance with the logical and the fact that it's a logical imperative would be this is probably to date. And yeah, just as I. brush back in my mind over what we studied, this is the least logical thing that's been a logical imperative. It is a logical imperative, but you got to remember that in Peter's time, and really shortly after Peter's time, it got much, much worse. But when Peter's writing this letter, the government was not a friend of Christianity.

I mean, we talked about people, what is it? In Philippi, people are trying to use governmental means to imprison the Apostle Paul because he's preaching against the idols, or because he freed the girl who had ability to tell the future. Where was I? The government is not a friend, historically, at this point, to Christianity by any stretch of the imagination. Nero's was to set the city ablaze, of Rome ablaze, and blame Christians for it, right? I mean, the government was never something that would seem natural. Not only that, as we read through the early chapters of Acts, or just Acts in general, the Jewish authorities You know, the Jewish authorities were a huge, hugely antagonistic to the faith, to believers. What do we got Peter doing? Is Peter following his own advice? I mean, he stands before him and says, you know, I got to obey what God, you tell you, you tell me, is it better to obey you or to obey God? So is Peter following his own advice? Well, yeah, ultimately, because that's the issue we talked about before, right?

The issue of when the government commands us to do something that we know to be wrong, that's when we defy them. That's when we have grounds to not obey or be submissive anymore. Nevertheless, so Peter has to make this amazing generalization that Christians are being told to go against every instinct they would ever have based on the chain of events that had occurred before this letter was written. As we move on to submit, submit, submit, it might seem more natural, at least it seems more natural to me, and I don't know if you've ever had this attitude, probably not, because you're not nearly as sinful as I am, but it's so much easier for me to say, it's so much easier for me to think along lines of, okay, you're aliens and strangers in this world, so don't obey the puny little government, because God can blow it off with a little sweep of his hand.

Like, what really is the United States government? What authority do they have in eternity? None. You know, Philippians is telling us, we have a heavenly citizenship. We have a heavenly citizenship. So it's like, well, you know, I'm not really a citizen here. Logically, why do I obey someone who I'm not? Why would I submit to someone who I'm not necessarily subject to? Because we don't want to threaten hell. It's just a bad use of time. That's absolutely right. That's absolutely right.

So anyway, as we get into submission, this word that we use here is hupotasso. And in Ephesians 5, 21 and 22, if you were here, we studied, this is a word that's used to describe the relationships between all believers. Submit therefore you to one another. and also of the husband to the wife. So it's a word that is used to describe these relationships that are not degrading.

In our mind, we have this picture of maybe a wrestler, or if you ever, I don't know, maybe this was just like when I was a kid, but it seems like it's gone on forever. You got two kids and they grab each other's hands, And then they play a submission game, like if you can hurt the other person bad enough to submit, then you win. Or in wrestling, if you like, if you can get someone to tap out, you win. They submit, you're good, right?

So we, in our culture, have identified the word submit with the word loss, or with the idea of loss for submission. Someone's yelling at you, you need to submit, you need to submit, usually you're not, and that's why they're yelling it at you. And I don't necessarily think that that's what Peter's getting at so much here. I don't think he's combining it with the idea of loss, because I think it's too fixed in his mind that we're victors in Christ. I think what he's asking for is a voluntary submission. He says, oh, that's true, you're aliens and you're strangers.

It's absolutely true that God is so much greater than any government that you're going to ever have to come into contact. Absolutely. There's no question. In the end, that government's not going to judge you by your words, actions, belief, or anything. That government's judgment really can only affect you while you're in this body, in this thing. Right? So I think what Peter is saying is, no, you're going to go to a higher standard as a believer.

You're going to submit because. because you want to. You're going to submit because it's the right thing to do, it's the logical imperative, it's the logical outcome of your position in Christ. So it's not a, oh man, I have to submit again, but to rejoice in the fact that we will submit out of our position. Does that make sense? The difference between voluntary submission and forced submission?

We're not to be, as Bev pointed out, we're not to be taken to jail to find out whether we should submit or not. And yet we're not doing it out of our weakness or out of our, we call it the lowest form of morality, punishment morality. Oh, I'm not going to do that because I'd get caught. I'm not going to do that. But you bring up that point that a common and increasingly common attitude is, what can I get away with? What will I get caught for? This doesn't even start there. It says you voluntarily submit yourself to the government Whether you're caught or not is not even the issue.

Absolutely. That's it. That's it. Yes? Part of the submission though is that God did organize and set up governments and we are to respond to his governments. They were set up for our good. They may not be right all the time, but basically we'd have anarchy if we didn't have them. Amen. Absolutely.

Once again, it's another vehicle. It seems like such a big deal to us, but it's, I think God just views government as another vehicle. It's like, okay, I've got order in place. My gospel can go. I've got it. Yes. Amen. A question, you know, the Jews have the law of Moses. Gentiles are not under the law of Moses, but the law reveals our sinful nature. Is it possible that for Gentiles just the mental law is a tool that God uses again because it's a law? Well, you know, driving 75 in the 25 mile an hour zone. We don't like to drive 25 miles an hour. We know that's the safest. We're going to go 30. We're just going to push it a little bit. Is it possible that God is using that as part of his use for the government over us as non-Jews?

Absolutely. If you've ever, I don't know, How high on this everyone is or not, but it does bear a good point. If you've ever heard of Kirk Cameron, he's the one doing all the Left Behind movies and all the other stuff. Well, he has this show called The Way of the Master and he's definitely a bit abrasive in his approach to people, but his basic approach is, have you ever stolen anything?

Oh, yeah. Or someone will say, no, and he'll say, not even a pencil, not even, just something small. Okay, well, yeah, I stole a piece of candy once. Okay, well, what does that make you? A thief. You know, have you ever told a lie? Yeah, absolutely. You know, is it okay to tell a lie? No. What does it make you a liar?

I mean, we don't have to go all the way back to the Ten Commandments. We don't have to go. You're absolutely right. Because any law we put down on someone, they're going to want to break. Did you speed on the way? Oh, man. There's certain churches, right, that teach that you reach this point in your Christian walk and you're perfected. You're done. So for the next 25 years, you're done. You're never going to sin again. No, no, it's always interesting to ask, did you speed on the way over? You know, that's not really, yes it is. That's a sin. So, I mean, it's really fascinating that any law we're going to, you know, flex against, we're not going to like it. That's absolutely, absolutely the case. Brilliant point. Okay, so. See, where the government's not directing us to violate the standards of God's word, we are to support the government, submitting to its rules and regulations, and acting as model citizens. To whom, again?

This is a difficult one to translate. Honestly, I was tempted to not even really spend too much time on this because I think the translation is good. It's really good, as it often is. And yet, in the same time, just so we all know what translators have to wrestle with and struggle with, we'll talk it over. It seems that the translators have made a good choice here, but there's a difficulty as such.

The word that's your translated institution, or every human institution, is never translated in that way in scripture, except for here. It's usually translated creation or to create as a verb. So it would really, if you were going to literally render it, it'd be to every human creation that you would translate it, which is a little bit misleading. In fact, I think one translator even said, or one commentary I read said that he wasn't of the opinion, but he was quoting someone else saying the idea that we should submit to every human creature.

And then he cited Philippians 2.3, and consider others better put what others need for our own, as the backup that we should be submitting to everyone else. We should consider everyone else's needs more foremost than our own. So as much as it is a good scriptural or a biblical principle, we don't translate things because they're one way because they fit with the rest necessarily, or just because it works out that way and this way, we want to find the right way. So what would be, what also might make that a bad translation or not the best translation? As we look at the verses. Oh sorry, creature, every human creature. What would make that, why do you think the translators of these various translations we've looked at would choose institution over creature? As we look at all those verses.

Absolutely. He's going to run right into governors and kings and he doesn't say, you know, and your neighbors and your bodies and your, your kids, submit to your kids. He'll go far. The Beatles. Yeah. Why not? John Lennon was okay. Oh, well, maybe a good, uh, biblical principle to submit to others, to put others needs before our own.

The context here just makes it increasingly obvious. The fact that we use kings, governors, and it continues to talk in this kind of governmental, like we started out by saying, this is talking about government. So the fact that that would stand in line makes sense, even though it is kind of a variant translation of that word. It's not to say it's an unheard of translation of that word. It's not like we pulled it out of thin air or anything, just that it's not ever translated that way again in scripture. All right.

While that is true, while I think that the direct context to this is certainly government, I don't think it's unreasonable to broaden it a little bit and say, you know, almost every institution, if you go into Starbucks and they say, no singing in Starbucks, go ahead and don't sing. It just makes sense.

So you see a sign around the pool, you know, don't run in the pool or don't run around the pool. Running in the pool is a little difficult anyway, but don't run around the pool. Don't do it. If you can run across the water and get away with it, do it.

You might have to have fun with the Lord afterwards. Copycat. Does anybody, I mean, does that make... If you want to reject my feeling that this is a very fair expansion of the text, I think that's fine. If you want to limit it to just government, I don't think that you're a bad person.

But it sure does seem to me that every human institution, whether that's teachers in the classroom, that's an institution, an authority set up for you, the elders in our church, It's an authority set up for us, and that we're to submit to those authorities, not unthinkingly, but in general. You know, if you don't see eye to eye on some technical affair of what goes on up front at church, or some small minor issue, then I think it's our place to maybe voice our opinions, but then submit to the elders' decision of what ultimately we're going to do, presuming that they've based their decision on godly wisdom. So anyway, I think you can extend that freely to a lot of different institutions. Your boss at work, which we'll talk about, of course, in a future week. So anyway, does anybody have any other comments on that? Did you go over submission and I missed it?

A little bit, but actually, you know, we didn't actually talk about the under attaching part. I kind of brushed over it, but hupotasso, of course, means not just to... I can't believe I blew over that. Hupotasso, this word combining two words for under and attach.

We talked about how it's not just submit, submit and losing or anything to that effect, but it's to come along under something and hold it up and support it. That it's not about just obeying and holding this heavy burden. It's about actually holding up something other than yourself. And it's a complementary role, not a role of less value or anything to that effect. Is that kind of... Oh no, that's fine. I just wanted to go over that.

Because the thing I was thinking is submission is not a destruction of the will, but it's an act of the will. My job as a father is to cause my daughter, who's four, to submit. I don't want to destroy her will so that she is a soulless, whimpering four-year-old, but I want her to understand that obedience is going to lead to her benefit. And submission is an important...

I'm learning about it much more clearly than I ever understood it prior. I tell you, at 3 a.m. I'll take the solar swim ring, blah, blah, blah. The rest of the time she could have a will. No, that's absolutely it. Once again, it's voluntary submission. That's fantastic. It's something that we're choosing to do. Governments should beg to have Christians in their country.

Can you imagine if all the people who called themselves Christians really did support and uphold the government and didn't constantly find some qualm that they have with it and say, well, that's it, God will curse this government because they did this, this, that, that, and that that I disagree with. horrible, horrible, horrible things that this government or our specific government has condoned, has said it's okay or even made completely legal.

But that doesn't give us the right to say, all right, I'm out, peace. I'm not gonna support that government anymore. You know, until we get socialized medicine, I don't support the United States. Yeah, maybe not. Even still, though, the idea is strong that it's not like we can opt out because we disagree with something about our government. Ah, the president's a Democrat again. I'm out of here. I'll support it again in four years when we get to re-vote. No. You know, that's our leader. So we'll talk a little bit about the offices in a moment. Even still. All right, so does anyone have any more comments before we move on? Government's fun. It's fun to talk about the government, right? So much to whine about.

All right, why should I do that? So we're talking about for the Lord's sake. So here's the question. How can submitting to authorities be done for the Lord's sake? What does that mean? It says for the Lord's sake up there. For the Lord's sake, submit to every institution. How can that be for the Lord's sake? How does the Lord benefit from that? We've covered it a little bit here and there, but it honors God before man. It honors God, just does. It's a fantastic thing.

Another commentary that I read suggested that the other reason is that, and actually I have it as the first reason here, it could be that submission to authorities in our lives honors God as the ultimate authority and the very clear creator of authority. God is the creator. He's the model of all authority. So to submit to any authority is in some way honoring our position to God. It glorifies God for us to do so. Just objectively, and then obviously, as we said before, people, before others, it makes a big difference. So there's no authority except that which the Lord instates and allows.

And the second reason, boy, we've really hammered on speed limit, probably because we're all there, but how many times are you driving in traffic and you see someone get cut off and you're, oh, it's a fish. There's a Christian in that car. I'm okay. Take the fish off your car. Don't drive like that and then represent me as a Christian. That's not cool. That's not fair at all. So you get all these people who hate Christians because Christians are bad drivers. It's really unfair. So I'm not criticizing you, by the way, if you have fish on your cars.

I just try not to cut people off because you have that fish and they notice. Oh, believe me, they notice. So anyway, there it is. It's so odd how apparent we do make ourselves. How many of us have a fish on a cross on our doohickey rearview? People see that. Which is more expressive? of our trust in the Lord, submitting to the authorities or the sticker?

Amen. Anyone want to take a stab? Can you repeat? I can't hear what everybody is saying. Oh, absolutely. Vern said, which is more convincing, submission to the authorities or a bumper sticker? Which is going to convince people more wholeheartedly? The fact that you've got a really convincing argument on your bumper sticker? Or the fact that you're submissive to the authorities, that your witness, your testimony is living and active?

You know how it was in those days? Everybody went around with a little fish thing on the back of their donkeys. That's fantastic. I wonder if Jesus had one on the triumphant entry? Who knows? Brain buster. Let's move on to good function. This verse clearly lays out what the good functions of government are. The agents of government are sent by God to keep the peace by punishing those who do wrong. Zodiatis, if I pronounce that properly, defines the Greek word here translated as being the execution of justice, specifically vindictive justice, vengeance. It's really interesting that Biblically speaking and we'll move on on the next page to Romans 13 4 says that as we titled the study bears not the sword for nothing and Then we've got Genesis 9 6 it says whoever Sheds man blood by man his blood shall be shed from the image of God. He has made man It's a you know, it's a pre-law commandment.

It's never been rescinded. It's never been revoked. It's a it's a good directive for government as are all these things the interesting thing is is that You know, all of these governmental good functions that we've talked about, keeping the peace, order, platform to spread the gospel, all these wonderful things that government indeed does, never talks about the government being a tool to reform criminals. It's never talking so much about the idea of reforming people as the job of the government, because what can the government do?

Like, make your sin nature a little bit better? What are they doing in prison systems today? I mean, there's great prison ministries going on, but outside of that, you know, biblically speaking, what we see is a call for the government to enforce justice, to punish criminals, not to, you know, give them three to five counseling sessions to get it right, and then we'll think about punishing you, but it talks about one of the major functions of the government being to punish criminals. And I kind of wonder if rising crime rates in America don't somehow correspond with our idea that punishment isn't effective and the idea of coming to some psychological way of reforming people is.

I know it's the case in the classroom. Classrooms today, we've gotten past the idea of punishment. We don't punish kids anymore. If you spank your kids, we'll call social services. We'll take them away. No spanking, no punishing. We don't, no way, don't, don't ever wound that poor kid's spirit by punishing them. Reform them. So now kids are absolutely unmanageable in the classroom. Because they know, like if you get punished, it's all good. Oh wow, that's a fine question for Vern.

Just to repeat it for the tape, with all the With all the protests against abortion and the Christian community being represented at most, if not all of those, how far does that go back? How far has the precedence been in line? Well, I think you're really coming back to the bigger question because there are lots of push for Christians to do this or that politically, to get this thing and you know boycott this store and you know get this law changed and make this legal appeal the reality is as you look you know you've listed the passages 1st Peter 2 Romans 13 none of those passages appeal to the believers to do that I'm not saying that that's automatically wrong but but it's interesting there's a lot of effort to get Christians to act And yet the reality is, the focus of these passages is to submit to the authority that's there. And the push to have us go about changing this and that, and boycott that, protest this, those are, again I'm not saying those are wrong, but scripture is not calling us directly to do that. What's interesting is, submit to these authorities. How many did they get to vote for? Are you saying that we should be passive? Well, no. You have to actively submit. That's one thing.

But the other point is that the priority that scripture places is submitting to the authority that's there. It does not place a priority upon going around and trying to get this enacted, that stopped, protesting this, etc. There were certainly lots of protests in the cities and towns that Paul went to. But he did not put his focus there. He put his focus on the gospel.

The gospel is going to be more effective in changing things socially then. For example, if you're teaching abstinence in the school, that's not going to cause children to be abstinent when you're talking about sex. However, if Christians are evangelizing to their friends and they are spreading the gospel and people understand that abiding will lead to them having self-control, You're going to have far fewer pregnant girls going to the abortion clinic. Where should you pour your energy? Being on the news or being in people's lives? And I think the answer in this case would be being in people's lives.

Scripture is clear, for instance, on the issue of abortion and what is biblical and what is not. And abortion was practiced in New Testament times. We know that that to be the case. We find zero record in scripture of the apostles putting time into protesting and stopping abortions.

Were they against it? Yes. Did they put time and effort into the political and social action side of it? No. Gospel. That's where they put the effort. What you're talking about right there transcends into a number of ministries that are founded and based and function on any given purpose. It affects your support, it affects your activity and involvement. Where should I be putting my effort? It's possible, it's possible to have someone pump lots and lots of time into getting this law changed, to reduce the abortion rate, and have all those kinds of things.

In the end, what has been accomplished spiritually, not much. This makes me think, we have a friend back in Nevada who was of one political persuasion and he was driving through the desert in his job with another man who was of the opposite political persuasion. And over the years that they did this, he finally convinced this guy that he was wrong and so he switched to our friend's political party. And after that happened, he thought, what have I done? I've spent all these years talking to him about politics, and I haven't talked to him about the Lord. I changed his political views, but I didn't change him spiritually. What does it mean?

There's a street talk out there too where people say, well, through history, Christianity has been responsible for wars and all kinds of things. And I wonder if that view stems from kind of a misplaced emphasis. That's certainly the case. Certainly, certainly. In the interest of time, since I kept you ten minutes late last time, we'll try to keep you only two minutes late this time. So we'll move forward, but I definitely couldn't reiterate everything that was said more. That's fantastic. How much more powerful to move into life. All right.

So, we're moving on to the will of God, or actually on to 1 Peter 2, 15-17. For such is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men. Act as free men and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bond slaves of God. Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the King. We're going to move on to this. I'm sure we've seen this at some point or another. I hope you have.

Because boy, this to me, when I hit college, was a definition of freedom. Understanding God's will is like Oh my gosh, God's not up there with a lightning bolt or a heavy rock waiting to drop it on me for violating His will. So this to me is pretty powerful stuff and I thought we'd talk about it a little bit because I think it's so valuable and because this does talk about the will of God and find out where we'll put this passage in there. So in the outer ring, we've got God's sovereign will is fixed and irreversible and includes your position in Him.

Now, this is just my thing. I like to almost envision it as like a playpen, because I have a baby now. So, playpens. That's how I'm thinking. But, imagine the blue circles raised up. You're in there, and you can't climb out. This is where your position is fixed. This is where your salvation is.

Why do we teach eternal security here at Holly Hills? Why do we teach it? Because that's where our will is, right? Because God did it. Are we going to goof up God's will? It's unlikely. Highly, highly, highly, highly unlikely. Right into impossible, if you like.

So our second ring is God's moral will, and it's revealed in Scripture, and it's intended to be lived by the life of Christ. And the final is God's individual will, and this is the one that everyone kind of hems and haws and frets about, right? It consists mostly of learning to make wise decisions with godly wisdom rather than worldly wisdom. So where would you put, you know, it says this is God's will, such is God's will, our submission to authorities. Where would that be? Which circle? Blue, green, or yellow? Where do you think? Where does this fit? Where do you think this fits on the whole diagram?

Submission to authorities. Trick question. How is it a trick question? Because it's clear that it's part of all three. Absolutely. I think that's a good answer. I personally lean towards green. I think you could say that it is part of God's individual will for your life to submit to the government. No question.

And it's absolutely a part of God's sovereign will, as we've discussed. But I think, technically speaking, it fits into God's moral will as something that we as Christians can absolutely violate. It's not going to springboard us over the blue circle and out of God's sovereign will at all. But at the same time, it's something that is universally expected of all believers. in the parameters that we've talked about. So I would say that as much as it absolutely, you could take the black lines off that. I'm feeling like it's a green circle thing. Does anybody have anything to add?

It's really fine to disagree with me on this. I won't get mad. All right, cool. We'll move on. All right, so the verb here is to be. And it's in the present tense and the indicative mood. So it's a simple statement of fact. It's not a theory or a guess. Peter's not going, I think God would like this. He's telling us very clearly.

What is God's will? Well, this is God's will. What's in that green circle? Well, this is in that green circle. This is in the circles. We know for a fact this is God's will. You want to please God? You want to do God's will? Submit to the government. Submit to authorities. Underattach yourself and hold up these authorities. I think it's kind of what this is getting at.

It's not a theory or a guess. It's a bare fact that God wants us to do right for a specific reason. This awakens us to a key point of the will of God, something deeply apparent about his holy character. And it was shown in verses 12 through 14 of this chapter that we are to be pure in our conduct for the sake of others. that we do not cause others to stumble. Now it is being clearly stated that we are to obey civil governance and authorities for this same reason. We talked about speeding and having a fish or this or that and different ways that we can mar our testimony.

The amazing thing is that God's incredible passion, passionate will for the salvation of the lost, The parables of Christ so clearly display that God has a passionate heart for lost men and women who need to trust him. I realize that they're all given in the Jewish context, but the passionate heart of God, I think, is transcendent to the fact that he does long for the lost. Not only, although in that case specifically the lost sheep of Israel. He has also longed for the lost Gentiles. This is clearly displayed in Peter's writing.

It is more important why we are to do what we are to do. This is a primary motivating factor to our lives because it is something that God values very much. We're often so bashful to even talk about it. Well, this is the easiest thing that we should be doing to live out our faith.

If you think about it, I don't know, maybe you're different, maybe you have the gift, and a lot of people do, but man, I get nervous to talk about people to the Lord, talk with people about the Lord, especially at work. It's like, ooh, one foul word and you're kind of fired. But is that to be what I'm fearing in life? It's interesting. I'll leave it there.

Start talking about foolish men. In our culture, if you call someone a fool, you might even just be using it as an arbitrary insult. Foolish driver, that fool, this, that. Foolish is this insulting, almost possibly cruel thing to say. And that's not, I think, what Peter's trying to do. I don't think Peter's drawing us and them lines. Like, it's us, wonderful, sterling, beautiful, perfect Christians, and all the foolish men. I don't think he's trying to draw these lines of how great are we, how foolish are they, how stupid, how dumb, how this or that. I don't think he's... He's not trying to make that distinction.

His evangelical heart would never allow it. Peter's heart wouldn't allow us to just look down on... I mean, what separates us from non-believers? Isn't it just Christ? Isn't it just that we've believed? Not by works? Are we that much better than the non-Christian?

No. The issue is ignorance. Do they know or not? And so, if they speak out of ignorance, they need to be silenced. And so there's education as part of the package there. Absolutely. Getting into the Greek for this is ephron, the spreneo word that we covered so much in Philippians, this mindset, this idea of mindset, or in this case sense. It's the negative prefix a, like we talk about a millennium, no millennium, a, whatever, as it goes on and on.

This is no sense or reason. No mindset. Imagine someone that really truly has no sense. Say a monumentally low IQ. Do you fault them for that? No, you just help them. Help them see. Some people just don't have it when you talk to common sense. Common sense really isn't common, sadly. But some are more puzzling than that. Perfectly intelligent, but still no sense.

Exactly. And that's what needs to be shorted out. We don't need to make fun of them because they don't have sense. We don't need to stand on a high horse or on a pedestal and feel like we're better because we've been given sense by the Lord or However you want to work that out. The point is that we're not to be judging other people for this. I mean, really, aren't we just beggars telling other beggars where we found bread, where there's life, where there's forgiveness, where there's peace and hope? Isn't that where we're really at?

So it's so hard for me, as a somewhat angry person in life, sometimes, to read these passages and not say, oh those fools, those foolish men, you know? And not read it as this kind of slam on all the people who don't believe. You know, and talk about, oh, foolish men. Once again, I don't know about you. I got faces that come to mind. Yeah, that's foolish men. That's foolish people. They won't see it. They'll never see it because they're foolish. And that's not at all what it's getting at. Anyone have anything to add to that? Just your statement there, they'll never see it. I am so inclined to go there.

Oh, they're never going to be believers. They're never going to hear the gospel. That's God's job. Why would I have been convinced unless he's worked in my life? Absolutely. So the same for them. Those who I think are impossible to reach. God can reach them. Amen. Amen. OK, flying ahead in the movie. Oh, the word for silence is the same as the word to muzzle.

So our actions should our actions should be so good and so far above reproach that they should feel foolish for saying that. Like, you know, you see, you know, a supermodel or something on TV, and your wife said, oh yeah, she's too skinny, you go, yeah, she's too skinny. You know what I mean? Say, oh, that person, oh, she's so ugly, da-da-da-da-da, you hear, and you can just tell there's maybe jealousy in there, or just, you know, hopefully rejection of all the awful stuff that the culture does put forth. But the reality is, is that you can tell how foolish those words sound as they leave your mouth. You know what I mean?

As you say something that's very obviously untrue, you can tell, like, oh, can I have that back? That's what our actions should be to non-believers, as they slander us and say, oh, those Christians are doing this, this, and that. They should have the words almost come back on them immediately and say, oh, but that guy that I know who's a believer, that woman, not falling back on her. So anyway, flying ahead, it says, what will you do for freedom?

I don't know if you saw Braveheart or not. To me, I always, I can't read these verses without thinking of it. He says to the army, who's just terrified, these little peasants who are under-educated, under-equipped, under-trained, and they're going up against the whole northern army of England, and they're there with the archers and the heavy horse and everything. They're completely unprepared.

And he looks at them and he says, you know what? You're free. What are you going to do with your freedom? What are you going to do with the freedom that you have right now? I think that's, as we were talking about, what can I get away with? What are you going to do with your freedom? You're free in Christ. This government's not going to have anything to do with the judgment of your eternal destiny. Absolutely not. You're held to a higher standard. Absolutely.

But what are we going to do with our freedom? Are we going to voluntarily submit or are we going to just see how much we can get away with? Pretty plain. Just because I have the freedom to walk down the halls of the library singing at the top of my lungs doesn't mean that I ought to because you can't sing in the library. All right, we'll move forward.

The next, if you look at the bottom paragraph, the text is clear that we're to behave as bond slaves to God. Peter was intensely caught up with Jewish culture and undoubtedly this brought to mind the image of a man getting his ears pierced, just like it would for us, right?

Just kidding. Deuteronomy 15, 16, 17 says, but if your servant says to you, I do not want to leave you because he loves you and your family and is well off with you, take an all That should be an all, not and all. Take an all and push it through his earlobe into the door and he will become your servant for life. Do not do the same for your maid servant.

So I think we have a picture of an all because I wasn't totally sure what one was. There it is. That's a bone all and I can't tell you that that's the one that they were actually using at the time. probably closer than the nice little jewelry awls that you see now that are so nice and clean and sparky.

So, you know, it's odd to think that you're becoming someone's servant for life, you're offering them this favor, and yet you've got to have a bone awl shoved through your ear. It just doesn't seem fair. But, you know, it shows that it comes with sacrifice. It comes with pain to become bound to someone forever, voluntarily bound to God. This kind of brings in this voluntary thing, again and again and again. Voluntary, voluntary, voluntary.

Okay, the last, the four imperatives, the wrap-up. Everyone's always saying, give it to me straight. What is it? Just boil it down. Give me a summary statement. If you've ever taken like a speech communications class, which obviously I haven't, because I can't keep it under an hour and a half. But if you do, they talk about, again and again, tell them, tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them and then tell them what you told them. Give them a summary statement.

Give them something clean and neat. And I think that's what Peter does right here. He just gives it to us straight. These are four imperatives, just boom, boom, boom. Do it, do it, do it. Honour all people, love the brotherhood, and fear God. The two things that I really want to bring out are one, that honour here is often translated honour, but it also has the idea of affixing value to something, or evaluating something, giving something a value, and then treating it, honouring it with that assessment. So what is the price of the people, the non-believers that you meet? What is the price of a person? How do we evaluate them? Success in life? Paycheck? What do we do?

Why do we affix value? How did Christ affix value? Pretty valuable, what he did for them? Come down to earth, as we're going to look at tonight, and the complete humiliation? Die a criminal's death for them? God of the universe, pretty valuable? Yeah, honor people like that. That's the value. We're supposed to affix the value that God gave them to them and treat them like that. And I guarantee you, most people you meet have never been treated with that value and can't even understand it. Yeah. Loving the brotherhood. This is agape love. It's God's love as its sole source.

Our human love is not enough. Our catty, conditional, grudge-holding love that our flesh can provide. But God's complete, full, and life-giving love Fear God is often interpreted as reverential awe or respect, which is good because 1 John tells us that perfect love casts out all fear. The trouble with that translation is I think it kind of dumbs it down a little bit, or maybe just something's lost in the words that we use.

Have you ever stood next to or seen, even on IMAX, a big blue whale? It's just that huge, huge creature. It doesn't eat meat, so it's not going to try to eat you. And it doesn't have any malice towards you. It's not scared that you're going to kill it because you're like this big. But there's fear in it.

You're next to something that's huge. All right, we're going to wrap up. We're going to wrap up. Honor the King. That's on the last page. Go and read that on your own. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this time together. Please bless our service, Christmas and Christmas Eve. In Jesus' name, amen.