Submission to authority - Part 2

Today is entitled, Submission to Authority Part 2. Let's start with verse 9 and read down through 17. So we'll start with verse 9, 1 Peter chapter 2. The church chosen a generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, his own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Who once were not a people, but are now the people of God, who have not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.

11. I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims to abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul, having your conduct honorable among the Gentiles. When they speak against you as evildoers, they may, by your good works which they observe, glorify God on the day of dissipation. Therefore, submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, whether to the king as supreme, or to governors as to those who are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men, as free, yet not using liberty as a cloak for vice, but as bondservants of God. Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, and honor the King.

So we're going to look at 15 and 17. Roger did a great job setting the stage for us last week, and this is a continuation of the submission to authority that we had before us. So what I want to do is to start with a combined verses 15 and 16, which is thought that kind of is a continuous thought. For this is the will of God, that by doing good, you may put to silence statements of foolish men, as free, yet not using liberty as a compromise, but as bondservants of God. So those two verses kind of connect very importantly one to the other. Now I've got a lot of questions for you this morning. So we're going to expect active participation. So no silence. this morning. We need everybody involved.

Before we interpret these verses, in general, what's the will of God for all of us? What's the will of God for all of us? Everybody's looking for the will of God in their life. It's very simple scripturally. What's the will of God is two verbs. being transformed and being conformed. So let's look at those two verses that I've selected to look at here this morning.

2 Corinthians 3.18 we speak this verse a lot here at Holly Hill.

But we all with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image. from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord. Isn't that wonderful? That we are constantly and eventually being transformed as we reflect the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. Notice, by the Spirit of the Lord. This isn't a passive process. We live by faith and the Spirit ultimately transforms us into the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the second verb is conform.

Romans 8.29, 8.29, we know this well. We know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose.

For whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Again, the bottom line here is in Calvinism versus Arminianism. The issue here is being conformed to the image of his son. So the great will of God for all of us isn't buying a black Chevy versus a white Ford.

It's ultimately being transformed and conformed. And that's really the bottom line for all of us each and every day, 24-7, until we're with Him. Now, and it's only by such acceptance that this verse makes sense. For this is the will of God, okay? The will of God has to be set on a foundation of being transformed and conformed.

And if we separate that basic truth of who we are as believers, we're missing this first. Because you could put this first in an atmosphere of law, bondage, and self-effort. And if that's where you're at, you're in trouble. And we're going to come back to that. What does this or such in the first phrase represent? For such is the will of God in some versions, for this is the will of God. What is this or such represented? Well, it's verse 13, submit, right? So let's look back at 13.

Therefore, submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, whether to the king as supreme, da-da-da-da, or to governors, et cetera. Now, by the way, my comment here, and Roger covered this beautifully last week, we submit for the Lord's sake.

We're not submitting to the institution, to the government, to the city manager, where we submit to the police department, the fire department. The point is we have people who oversee our day-to-day activities. It relates to the earthly existence. But our submission is not to the institution. The submission is for God's sake, that he would be glorified. Important, right? We may not agree with our government. We may not have voted for our president. We may not have voted for our representatives or our senators.

But in fact it's the structure that the Lord has given us in this earthly existence. Remember, where is our citizenship? It's in heaven. This is just our business address. But in our business address we have the rules and regulations of the land that was set forth in Genesis because of the sinful nature of mankind. So again, our submission is not a sense of duty, it's ultimately the glory of God. You've got to start there and end there in terms of the powers that be in this earth. Alright, describe doing good. Question to the class. What's doing good? Nobody can tell me what doing good is. Can we describe good? How would you describe good? Considering other people's needs and stepping in and helping. Okay, kind of the ABC's, Christ, others, self, in that order?

Reasonable. Can a non-believer do that? Sure, they can look at that and make that work. Doing good. Other descriptions of doing good. We all have a sense of what doing good is, don't we? We can recognize a good deed, an act of kindness, generosity, really reflects our human day-to-day existence, but we can be fooled because there are plenty of very self-righteous unsaved people who do good. So let's be careful and define good. Let's look at some scriptural support.

I love the book of 3rd John, and here it says, Beloved, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good. He who does good is of God, but he who does evil is not seen God. Remember, the epistles of John are black and white. And by the way, in 1 John 1, it says if you sin, you're not of the Lord, basically.

I mean, I'm paraphrasing. So how do we reconcile and put that into perspective? Well, we put it into perspective is that in the first nature of the atom nature, we can do nothing but sin. So I like this because it's doing good is of God. I mean, it's not so easy to define.

Is that Jeremy? I understand it's Jeremy's birthday. Is this correct? Should we sing happy birthday to Jeremy? Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Jeremy, happy birthday to you. That was a gift, right? Put that down for eternity. Happy birthday, brother.

River does get around, doesn't it? Alright, notice in verse 16 that this is done as free. Very important, I think. Verse 16, which is time to 15. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men. We're going to come back to that. As free. As free. Now interesting as free.

Christ said, therefore if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. What does being free indeed mean? Remember the Gospel of John is there for the church. The first three Gospels are there mostly for the Jew. But in fact the Gospel of John is for us. So Christ said he is going to make us free. If we're free, we're free indeed. What does it mean to be free indeed? Keep in mind, in context, we're interpreting this doing good as being free.

Nobody's... Walking in the spirit? Walking in the spirit. Okay, we're going to come back to that, Jill. That's in the right direction. I look at freedom, it's the freedom we have to live a life separated from the power of sin. The unsaved is not free. he or she only lives in the first nature. We have the ability by faith to walk by faith and trump the power of sinner life. Remember there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. So as free men being free indeed is the idea by faith we walk in the new man by the power of the spirit to do good. So defining good, we could talk day in and day out what's doing good and what's not doing good.

I don't want to go there. And we're going to come to this right now. My point here is that isn't this identification for me to live as Christ and die as Gabe? The process of transformation and ultimately confirmation of who we are in Christ Jesus. Now, how do we know good when we see it? We just kind of tried to touch on that a little bit. Well, what you've already covered, good is going to be of God for a start. I mean, that's kind of a key point. Good for the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ can only be of God.

If people are looking for a list, Roger, what's on the list? Have you got that list worked out for you? The source. What is the source? Anybody can do good. If what the world considers good. All right. My question to you is can we be tricked here? Yes. Absolutely. Good is subjective really. Good is subjective from earthly terms. But what does God view as good? The will of God is to do good.

I'm sorry. That which reflects his character. OK. His character. But again we can be fooled and tricked here. But I mean. I'm not going to go there because this is on tape and it's going to go globally because I experienced anemia this week listening to Roger's lesson from last week.

You know there are certain sects where in fact if you think about this every religion in the world other than Bible based Christianity is a religion of works We talked a lot about this with our tour guide in India. Obama said it's a religion of doing good. People will say that we're doing good. By Islam, by Judaism, by Hinduism, by Buddhism, by Sikhism. I actually went to a Sikh temple in New Delhi. Everything is based on knowledge. The knowledge that we gain is their religion.

And even though our believer, I mean our tour guide was not a believer, clearly not a believer. He's an agnostic. He grew up as a Hindu. But ultimately he's kind of left that religion behind. And he, I think, correctly identified all these various religions of the world as systems.

They're really not necessarily mostly about God. They're systems in view of how you reach God. And they differ one from the other. But they're all based on works of Christianity. What's Christianity based on? Faith is the vehicle, but grace is the foundation. Remember, faith is the vehicle, grace is the foundation of our belief.

And how do you explain grace to people? I think we have trouble explaining it to one another, much less to people outside the body of Christ. can we be tricked for absolutely and how do we know good when we see it where we have a sense of good. But we're not the final judge of good are we? The Lord himself is the judge of good and by the way if we do things that are not good which I think we often do because we all carry an old nature. Ultimately those things are like wood hay and stubble they burn they're not going to be accounted against this because there's no condemnation that is there in Christ Jesus.

Jeremy. And I may be jumping the gun here but when you talk about So we're still in verse 15, right? We are 15 and 16 combined. Yeah. He says that by doing good, you should put the silence. You are jumping ahead, but go ahead. You're trying to define what good is. And it seems to me that the good here is before other men.

It's other people look at what we're doing and say, oh, they're acting in a right. So it's not yet. So in a sense, it's a very earthly. It's a very earthly measurement that when people see us, they see that we're doing good. So there is some subjectivity to it, and obviously the scripture teaches if we're walking in Christ, we're going to be reflecting his character, we're going to be doing good. But I think it's helpful, at least to me, to point out that this is before other men. We're going to come back to that, but you're absolutely correct.

I mean, the good is being perceived. And that good could be perceived as being good from an unbeliever or a believer. We're tricked here in terms of ultimately being assumed to be in the will of God. It's interesting, in our day and age now, our good, Christian good, is being perceived as evil. And that's in us folks, actually. And we will come back to that. So what we, what the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ views as good, God's standard can be viewed by many men today as being, that's, you know, you're biased, you're evil, you're whatever.

The good that we are talking about is more contextual. We just need to go further to understand what that good is. We are. The reason I started more broadly is because I wanted to get importantly across the Christian principles of basically the will of God, the broader will of God is being transformed and conformed. And when that's the foundation by which we walk by faith, then the good that we reflect is, by faith, bringing glory to God. So the bigger picture needs to be set first. And then in context, as Jeremy has really relayed, is really what the world perceives in terms of our acts.

Not necessarily giving glory to God, but ultimately good from the human perspective. Go ahead. And then another question I had is, since we are not to judge others' motives of their heart, How do we go about being that good? Like recognizing if someone does something good, and we're saying that good is motive-driven, but we're not to judge other one's motive.

That's correct. We perceive it for what it's worth. And by the way, that's your homework for next week to come back and report that. No, it's a good question. What I'm saying is how do we know good when we see it? Well, we perceive it as good. But we can be tricked in terms of its source. That's my only point. Gerald.

And she mentioned motivation, and you talk about the will of God. That's our motivation, right? To be walking in the will of God. The goal is not that we may put to silence the foolishness of people, or the ignorance of foolish people. Our goal is to walk in the will of God, and out of that, our good works are going to put them to silence. That's a huge, huge distinction, I think.

To carry that theme a little bit further, we're going to come back to the second part of this first. It really relates to why we should be doing good. How do we know good when we do it? We have God's word. That's certainly the beginning point. In Philippians 4, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, so on, that is how we can discern.

And it's not what we do, although good is a result of that, it's not what we do, it's who we are. And when we know who we are, then what we do is evidence of who we are. Let me say that again. It's not what we do, it's who we are. And once we know who we are, then what we do is evidence of who we are. And that's good. Those are good deeds, good works, perceived as good by the world around us. Jeremy?

Yeah, that's kind of what I was getting at earlier. I don't think this is supported by the passage, but the idea of freedom is that in Christ, we don't have to constantly be worried about whether, I mean, we've lived that way before. It's so frustrating. Is what I'm doing good or right? I mean, we can measure everything, but we can get so caught up in asking the question, is this good, when our central focus is Christ.

We're not worried about it. the enactment, and by the way before he came in we talked about what freedom as free, it says in verse 16, begins verse 16, is that freedom we experience at the cross because our old man has been crucified, we are risen in newness of life and that freedom is to live a life outside the power of sin.

That doesn't mean we're there. It just means that the freedom that Christ promised, you shall be free indeed, is that freedom to live a life by faith that's free of the power of sin in our life. And free from the law. And free from the law and everything that's connected. Remember, the law was given to convict, not to be fulfilled.

Alright, let's continue because we're going to get back into context here in a second. I looked at these two verses as really a tremendous example to really come back to basics. as to why we gather here in fellowship around the Lord Jesus Christ. The will of God is to be transformed and conformed. And then beyond that, then we have more specific examples of what we're called to. And what's the purpose of doing good?

In this verse, and we're coming back to this very important point now, that you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men. Literally, to close the mouth with a muzzle, is what this literal Greek interpretation is. putting a muzzle on the world system in terms of their ignorance and their foolishness. What does this imply about foolish men? That they are not good? They may not be good? Well, we know that their works may be evil, perceived as evil, or their works could be perceived as good, but they're clearly... What does foolishness mean?

Remember, Christ to the Jew is a stumbling block, and to the Greek, what? Foolishness. By the way, and I think I shared this two weeks ago, I have much more to share with Jews than I do with Gentiles in the academic space. Because you looked as a fool, To be scientifically driven and be a believer is just like this foolishness. There's often no conversation there. But with a Jew who's got a foundation of tradition in the nation of Israel, at least, and how seriously they take that is less clear.

There's often an opportunity. So what's foolishness? Rejecting wisdom. Rejecting wisdom, okay. And you said ignorance. And the ignorance is really what's brought about here. The point that I make about the foolishness is that they're unwilling to see the truth. They're just inadequately informed.

And are they more willing than to criticize us when we fall short? If they think we're just out in the field someplace and we're often not really building on this foundation of knowledge and earthly wisdom, then ultimately we're in a position to be criticized for everything we do. and also when we fall short for sure if we do something in anger or whatever and all of a sudden well I thought you were a Christian well we're going to come to that mark we shouldn't do any of those things that shouldn't be part of our world and their ignorance is basically lacking spiritual knowledge their ignorance may not be in worldly things in fact they think we're foolish because they have earthly knowledge that maybe puts to shame anything that's biblically based or faith based.

By the way, it always comes back to this. Was Christ resurrected from the dead? And if you don't believe that Christ was crucified or resurrected from the dead, our faith is vain. It's worthless. So that's really what Christianity is all about. Do we believe in the resurrection and everything it stands for? And that's simple. And the world system, by the way, that's foolishness to the world. They don't think the historical evidence is good enough. They don't believe that anyone could actually be risen from the dead. So we're fools. So spiritual ignorance really relates to what we're talking about.

Morgan? So what if there's an instance of a believer who believes in the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ? and sees our ways, or sees a believer that's in the truth as foolish. So it's not necessarily the world, but can't believers be foolish in the sense of you know, like what Ms. Margaret was saying, like if we sin in our anger or whatever, then another believer comes to us and is like, just blames us for everything, but then yet they're still a believer. Sure, we see that with people, especially if they're under the law, because they think, boy, they're following the law. you know, doing all those right things, you would never do that. And some believers also don't believe that we still have ascended.

Well, this is a great dialogue and you must be looking ahead in the handout because that's exactly the next point. This is incredibly important. And I think I shared a couple of weeks ago this Jewish friend from NYU who basically came to me because a believer, someone who claimed at least that he was a man of faith, I don't know whether he was saved or not, but anyway, he claimed to be a man of faith. He had in fact not only misled but actually did harm by taking an animal that was shared in collaborative research and published the animal independent of acknowledging the person who gave him the animal. That's wrong. And he came to me and said, Bob, I know you're a man of faith. And by the way, I'm humbled by it. Praise the Lord. Give it to the Lord. Ultimately, he wanted me to explain this to him.

How someone who claimed to be a believer could in fact do earthly harm like this and not allow him to be trusted in terms of an academic affiliation. Anyway, do the unsaved understand our two natures? By the way, does the church understand two natures? I think that's the dialogue you two are having.

What a great opportunity to share the Lord Jesus Christ. When someone comes to you, either because you've done harm, or someone you know, your family member or friend has done harm to someone else. What a great opportunity to describe the Lord Jesus Christ and what he accomplished in terms of a relationship to God, number one, and number two, we still have a sin nature and we fall short. What a tremendous opportunity that is. Yeah, Jeremy. I mean, this is grace in action, right?

Whether it's a believer or an unbeliever, so many times we think that it's just about logic, right? If we can just convince people of the truth, we're fine. But I think what this verse speaks to is what a lot of these modern science studies says is that people aren't convinced by arguments, ultimately. I mean, whatever side of the spectrum you're on, Once you have a belief, once you have a worldview, almost nothing can change. It's not about logic or reasoning. Or facts. Or facts.

Both Christians and unbelievers falter on this, but what this says is, I think we can take this in that context and say it's not so much the words you say, but if you want to put the silence to ignorance of evil people, That's going to happen as we walk in the will of God. That's the message here. And when you think about discipleship, when you think about evangelism, I mean so often we think in terms of it's about the right sequence of words, or it's the right sequence of logic. Well, those are important, but what's ultimately going to put to silence is Christ living in us.

Amen. It changes the way you interact, I think, with everybody. Once you understand, Roger, we're going to see that carried into the. husband and wife relationship in the first verses of chapter 3. What's a wife who has an unbelieving husband? What's she to do? Is she to read him chapter and verse every day? You want to go there now?

I'm just saying, what we're seeing now is the beginning of that logic. None of the women are showing up on that day, right? Actually, we probably need to learn more about that than they do. You know, not using liberty as a cloak for vice. I mean, how would our liberty or freedom be a covering or veil for vice or maliciousness? And let me just point out here that this vice and evil and maliciousness is really the best Greek term is not subtle stuff. This isn't a little bit of self-righteousness that shows up in terms of falling short of the glory of God. This is in fact intended evil, the intent to do harm or to injure someone. Now, we're warned here, not using our liberty as a cloak for vice. What are we talking about here? Cover-ups.

Well, I think it's talking about freedom. So I think it's saying, you know, just because you have this freedom, don't interpret this as a freedom or a license to do whatever you want. Because the freedom is being in Christ. and what Christ has done for us. And by having that faith in him and him living through us, that's the liberty and the freedom from sin. It doesn't mean we won't sin.

And Jim, covering up could be just one aspect of the implementation of this. Other thoughts? I mean, this speaks to one of the big Criticisms, people are, well if you teach grace so much then people can do whatever they want. It's like there's either, it's like it's a dichotomy. You either have law or you have licentiousness. You have people doing whatever they want.

Well, neither are where we are to live. And Peter is specifically addressing, and Paul does too, but Peter is specifically addressing, no it doesn't mean you get to do whatever you want. And you know, Paul addresses this twice in Galatians 5, and I've listed those verses for you. Galatians 5, 1. Stand fast.

Therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage. So this bondage is really what we're talking about, being bond servants here. Secondly, Galatians 5.13, for you brethren have been called to liberty, only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, exactly what you were referring to, but through love serve one another. versus bond servants of God. That's the alternative to using this liberty to really bring satisfaction to self or as you said a cover up or any other implementation of the sinful nature. Remember in context Jeremy back to your point a few minutes ago, by context this is a reference to men who brought charges against Christians. accusing them of being hostile to the government, or insubordinate, or even guilty of crime.

So in context, this is really what these two verses are representative of. This paraphrase just ends those two verses in saying, live as those who are free to do only God's will at all times. Amen. That's a beautiful paraphrase. And what's God's will? looking in that mirror being transformed and through all our circumstances being conformed to his image.

Are you failing? That's great. Whenever one of his sons would call him and need counseling, he'd say, I'm glad things are going poorly for you right now. Welcome to the growth path. We all grow by grace and it's slow. Paul near the end of his life said, I'm the chief among sinners. This is something we never quite get down pat, but yet we're called to. is not calling to good works, it's calling to a nature that is not of ourselves but of him. Yes, Jim.

The problem with freedom is we have the freedom to choose between doing good and doing evil, you know, sinning. We can choose to do that. You know, I look at it This came up about seven or eight years ago here in terms of whether we choose to do good or choose to do bad. Whenever I'm in a position of choosing, I find myself in the old nature because I'm more concerned about the consequences of what I'm going to do.

I think that the life of Christ lived by faith is one that's above those choices. Now I'm not meaning to say we don't make choices. From a human perspective and an intellectual perspective, we make choices every day. But when we walk by faith, I think sometimes the choices are less evident. That walk in itself is sufficient not to have us make choices for good or bad. Yes, we can be tempted to sin. I mean, James deals with that very, very convincingly.

Unlike Christ, by the way, I know some believers who were in a church that I was in before, teaching the Word of God, thinking Christ could have sinned. That's not my Savior. Christ was fully God, fully man, and he didn't have a choice to sin. So I think, you know, Paul said in 1 Corinthians 11, I believe, he said, Be ye followers of me, even as I am of Christ.

That doesn't mean walking in his footsteps. It means in the Christ nature, we live an opportunity to be free from sin. And I think that's what the freedom indeed means. So I'm okay with your choices. I like to think of it as a life. The life is the life of Christ or the life is that of Adam.

I think when we live by faith that life of Christ shows up more consistently. Also, I would say this is a lifelong process. We become believers and all of a sudden we're doing all the right things or making all the right choices because it is a long process. to become so focused on Christ over and over and over every day. And sure, we fall short constantly, but I think the more we spend time with the Lord as our faith grows and as we are being conformed and conformed and conformed over years, what we did when we were maybe 35 as believers, and what we do at 65 as believers, A lot of those choices are not even on the radar anymore. I just think over a long period of time, you grow. And I think that's what growth is.

Some have said, as we grow in the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the darkness gets more revealed by the light that we walk in. Isn't that true? You think you know yourself pretty well in terms of that down, deep, sinful nature, and then something new shows up because the light is getting brighter by God's grace as we grow in that grace.

Tom? You just touched on it, you don't need to continue. Any other thoughts here? Alright, good. Now that we've conquered verses 15 and 16. Verse 17 says, now this is a lot of bullet points, isn't it? Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king. Hates a bad term, but looks pretty legal here. Let's look at this with the eyes of grace being ultimately implemented here. Honor all people. By the way, the term honor means to estimate or fix the value.

It doesn't mean kind of The way we would simply interpret it is, I'm honoring Jeremy today because of his birthday. Well, we're honoring Jeremy anyway. We're loving Jeremy because he's part of the brotherhood, right? That's the second thing we're going to deal with. But honoring means that we're identifying it's Jeremy's birthday. We sang happy birthday to him. So we're estimating or putting value to the fact that today's his birthday. You with me on this?

It's not necessarily respecting or being honorific to someone's position. I mean we honor all, by the way it says all people. I mean these people are laying in the streets and eating garbage, you know, in India that we just were exposed to. We honor them. And what's the basis of that?

By the way, the tense is aris activa imperative, which means you should do this. And it means in every case you do this. It's not, oh by the way, I pick and choose who I'm going to honor. It's every case. And how do we do this? We see everyone as God's creation.

Doesn't this go back to also to valuing life? You know, when we travel to these countries, we see how the value of human life is not what our value is. I am telling you, it is not. They do not have the value of human life. Is that their circumstances? No, it's their faith. It's not valuing human life. We are told it's their system, if you want to use that. But we are taught in Christianity and all through biblical truth to honor life. And that doesn't just mean the unborn. It means life. And so when you go to these countries and you see how people do not value life, because they have so many people that it's okay if some of them are run over or hit or they leave them in the street or whatever. There's no value of life.

We saw a dead person being carried in a raft by maybe 20, 30 men to the river to be cremated. But we also saw a dead person wrapped in stuff just lying on the street when we got there. People are just walking over this dead body in the street right on the sidewalk.

Nobody, I mean, you know, it's just a different It is a different kind of thought process. And we value life. And I think that's what that means. We see each and every person as a creation of God. And that again, I'm being very tangential here, so forgive me. That's why abortion is just so hideous. To think that human life is actually being destroyed once it's conceived. I was just saying, kind of an additional factor to remember is it helps me sometimes when a person maybe is you have a difficulty with a person, you think, it helped me to realize that Christ died for that person. He gave his life for that person. I think, wow, if Christ has honored that life and that person, who am I to do differently? Absolutely. Jeremy? Well, just to confirm what they've said.

We like to think in our modern world with social media, it's easier for us to just treat people as an avatar on the screen. But it's always been. cultures that don't have social media. It's always easy to marginalize and treat people as hindrances or obstacles or whatever. It's always happened.

But more than anybody else, even atheists, what is their chief guide in life is generally doing to others what you'd have them doing to you. Okay, that's fine, but they don't have I've never heard them explain why they should do that, other than, I don't want them to hit me, so I'm not going to hit them. OK, that's fine.

As Christians, we have this principle that, as Roger said, Christ died for them. They're all created in the image of God. And so when I look at people, it's that idea that Christ said, if you do unto the least of these, you're doing unto me. And if we have that idea, how much easier it is for us to be more humble and treat people with dignity and value. Remember again, the definition of to honor is ultimately to estimate a person in his or her situation and put value to that. The value is we honor everyone because they are created of God, but their circumstances may be very different. Honoring them is understanding who they are. in where they exist and their circumstances. I think honoring just says God has called us to say every human is worthwhile because he died for all of them.

Right? And when you think about what James talks about partiality, how much easier it is for everybody to honor the rich man. Yeah. But Christ, James tells us in Christ, we're all equal. So whether you're rich, whether you barely have enough clothes, everyone is the same.

Well that is going to transition into the verses over the next few weeks that are going to follow in terms of when we are falsely accused for righteous things and ultimately we honor someone despite that. Notice this isn't love. I didn't drill down on a word study here in terms of preparation for today.

Does the Lord call us to love all people? Perhaps in a few cases, but that love for others is really that Christ love that exists within us. It's often said, and there's one brother below who hates this when I say this, but I'll say it anyway. We don't have to like everyone. We just have to love them. And that's really of a different nature.

But in general, we're called the love the brotherhood. and honor all people. The brotherhood being fellow believers? Correct. In context that is what the brotherhood and her brotherhood relate. So love the brotherhood. Love is a copy of, we use it a lot, but remember love not the world and all the things of the world is a copy of love too. So the believer could be called to a situation where on love unequivocal You know, non-conditional love is for the whirlwind system. Yeah, Tom. Pardon me if this point has been covered already, but when it says, love the brotherhood does not restrict it by sex. We are all one. Yeah. Right. This is, this does not love the man. Anyway, good, good job. Tom, we need to make sure that's. Notice honor has already been assumed.

I think honoring all people includes the brethren, or the brotherhood, or the sisterhood, if you will. So we're already honoring them, but now we love them. And love here is present active imperative. Remember honoring was aorist tense, which means every case rendered that response. But here it's unequivocally and habitually. So this love for the brethren is, in a sense, you could say that honoring our people is a bit conditional in terms of fixing values to where they're at. It's not conditional in terms of honoring them, it's conditional in terms of putting it into perspective.

Whereas here, this is a continual habitual love for one another. We love one another because we have the nature capable of that type of love. This ain't the flesh. Again, simplistic and maybe a little unfair, we don't have to like everyone, we just have to love them. And that's of a different nature.

That's not getting Adam into a position of forcing love because the Bible says we have to love the brethren. We love them because we are in Christ and ultimately new creatures based on our belief. Fear God. Is reverence sufficient here? This fear in God, do we walk trembling and afraid? Maybe some people have said we do need to walk a bit in that manner, being fearful of God. Are we fearing God? Of course that can be interpreted as reverence also, scripturally. It seems most comfortable here. And I just bring one verse to bear here.

Romans 8.15.

For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the spirit of adoption by whom we cry, Abba, Father. In other words, Daddy, right? Our relationship to the Lord is not one of fear and bondage. It's one of a relationship that is in the same bloodline now. We're adopted children of the Lord.

So is reverence enough here do you think Margaret? Well you know I'm thinking about friends that I have who are under a more legal system and they do go through life with a fear. of being judged. They're believers. But they constantly are in a stressful... God is a God of judgment. God's a judge?

But we've already been judged. We're already as heirs. Now, we are. We've already received these blessings. And yes, things are going to be burned wood, hay stubble that we didn't do within our faith. But we're not going to be judged in any way like that. Our judgment took place 2,000 years ago, right? Yes, on the cross. And remember, it was just not our sins forgiven, but our sin nature was forgiven. That's why there's no condemnation.

Nature was judged. Yes, the old nature was judged. Excellent. Tom, you could embellish this song, please. In this case, being not out there to condemn anymore. If you're in Christ, it is what it is. You covered those points adequately. I just jumped in. So. So is anyone.

I mean, I think fearing God is a very, very. kind of appropriate stance if you're an unbeliever and the future is hell, right? I would be afraid of facing that judgment too. Some people have said for the unbeliever to go to hell is God's mercy because being in his presence is unrighteous. is a position that one would, I mean, I think that's a human interpretation. I never think of going to hell as merciful, but in fact some people have viewed it that way. But nevertheless, fearing God is not for the believer in the sense where we walk afraid. We walk afraid of our works.

If that's where you're at, there's a lot of ground for growth. There's growth ground for all of us. I mean, the more you, again, grow by grace, the more you realize you need to grow more, right? Margaret. Where is the definition of reverence or what are you saying is reverence? Well if you turn to Thayer, Thayer gives you two definitions basically.

I'm being overly simplistic. One is being afraid of, being fearful as we would interpret it simplistically. The second is an atmosphere of reverence, honoring God for who he is. And I think that's comfortable for me here looking at, I used Romans 8, 15 just as an example. For you did not receive the spirit of Bobby to get into fear, but you received it. It's a whole different life, a whole different platform that we walk on.

I think her question was the word fear. If you look at the English word fear is what Bob is saying, that turns out to be a reverential fear in the sense that the Greek is really more focused on reverence. I think that's what your question was. Honor the king, again honor means to estimate or fix the value of the king.

We have a president of the United States, not a prime minister. We don't have a king or a queen or a court. Here, however, its present act of imperative implies again habitually and continually honoring the king. You may not like the White House right now, you may like the White House, but the point is it doesn't make any difference who's there.

And remember, that allegiance relates to bringing glory to God. It's not the institution or the person. It just means we understand the role somebody's playing in office and ultimately we honor that and fix value to it for what it's worth. Again, to God be the glory.

Honor is not the same as respect. I thought we'd kind of end with a bit of discussion here. How does honor and respect differ? Morgan, is that a hand that's kind of an ambivalent one? Well, I've heard that respect is reference. So the difference between honor and reference, I don't understand the difference. reverence, respect is reverence.

That's what I've heard in the past, I don't know, like biblically speaking. Okay, other thoughts on this? Okay, honor again affixes value to a person or a position that ultimately needs to be reflected on the person and their position. And respect is really something we engender in terms of an opinion of someone that really demands our, I mean you hate to use a term to define the tabrista. In other words, it's someone who in fact or something that happens that ultimately we honor. I mean we honor in a good sense.

We can honor the king but ultimately not respect the king for decisions he might make, right? We can honor a representative and honor her position as a representative but not agree or respect a decision they've made. Let's just say in terms of voting against anti-abortion law or something. That honor would be also honoring the office of the person, not necessarily that person.

And also we can honor them by praying for them. Very good. were commanded to pray for our government and our officers for sure. So I think it's important to realize we can honor someone without respecting their opinions or decisions they've made. And we can respect someone but ultimately they need to be honored because we need to honor all people or fix value to each and every individual because they are created by God and ultimately crucified by God, and ultimately we pray that their response would by faith come to that realization.

Great participation today, group. We had lots of questions for you, and we did well getting through it. So, Jim, could you close us in prayer, please? Sure. Father, we thank you for the insight you've given us this morning. This is good stuff. We ask that you Can you continue to strengthen us in our minds and in our service to you to guide us, to teach us, continue to teach us your way and help us to understand who the old man is and how he operates and to reject him. I pray this in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Thank you.