Sermon Brief
Date Written: September 21, 2007
Date Preached: September 23, 2007
Where Preached: OZHBC (PM)
Sermon Details:
Sermon Series: A Study in 1 Peter
Sermon Title: Living Out Our Faith Thru Citizenship!
Sermon Text: 1 Peter 2:13-17
13 Therefore submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake, whether to the king as supreme, 14 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. 15 For this is the will of God, that by doing good you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men— 16 as free, yet not using liberty as a cloak for vice, but as bondservants of God. 17 Honor all people. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king.
Introduction:
Over the past several weeks in our study here in 1 Peter I have stressed the importance of living our faith out loud in the world around us… tonight I want us to look at living out loud our faith… through our being good citizens!
What is a Christian? In a letter that dates back to the second century A.D., an anonymous writer describes these certain strange people who are in the world but not of the world. This writer describes Christians like this…
“Christians are not differentiated from other people by country, language, or customs; you see, they do not live in cities of their own, or speak some strange dialect. . . They live in both Greek and foreign cities, wherever chance has put them. They follow local customs in clothing, food, and other aspects of life. But at the same time, they demonstrate to us the unusual form of their own citizenship.
“They live in their own native lands, but as aliens. . . Every foreign country is to them as their native country, and every native land as a foreign country.
“They marry and have children just like everyone else, but they do not kill unwanted babies. They offer a shared table, but not a shared bed. They are passing their days on earth, but are citizens of heaven. They obey the appointed laws and go beyond the laws in their own lives.
“They love everyone, but are persecuted by all. They are put to death and gain life. They are poor and yet make many rich.
They are dishonored and yet gain glory through dishonor. Their names are blackened and yet they are cleared. They are mocked and bless in return. They are treated outrageously and behave respectfully to others.
“When they do good, they are punished as evildoers; when punished, they rejoice as if being given new life. They are attacked by Jews as aliens and are persecuted by Greeks; yet those who hate them cannot give any reason for their hostility.”
from bible.org
Beginning in v.13 Peter begins a charge to the believers of his day to be the best citizens possible, and this is something that we need to carry on today, we need to be the best possible citizen… for it will bring glory and honor to the One we serve… Jesus Christ!
1. (v.13)
13 Therefore submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake, whether to the king as supreme…
Here we find Peter being rather forceful in his instruction to the believers of Rome and to all believers who read this letter. He instructs them to voluntarily submit to the governing authorities. Peter does NOT make submission a matter of personal conviction or choice, but it is a matter of fact… as a believer we are to submit to the governing authorities.
Peter teaches that it is our OBLIGATION to submit to every ordinance of man: now when we look at that particular phrase it suggests submission by the believer extends far beyond the civil authorities…
But here Peter is instructing believers that this instruction or command extends to all kinds of rules that Christians encounter, this includes rules at work and the instruction of the household…
Now I want us to understand what Peter is NOT saying here… Peter is NOT telling the believers to agree with all the rules and laws of man and agree with all the authorities, but that we are to submit to them!
We are free to disagree and show our disagreement, but we are to do so in a ‘submissive’ manner! If we believe something to be wrong, we can civilly and honorably disagree and work for change, but we are called to be submissive in our approach!
2. (v.14)
14 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…
Here in v.14 we find Peter speaking about governors, now we must understand that this term means something entirely different from what we know it today. A governor today is elected by the people in a free vote, but a governor in Peter’s day was any person placed in authority by the supreme ruler of the land… sometimes this is translated as king with a small ‘k’… ruler over a small parcel of the kingdom.
We see this prevalent in Jesus’ day when “King” Herod ‘ruled’ in Jerusalem, he was an appointed king by Rome and Pilot was the ‘Roman governor’ set in place to make sure things were kept in an orderly manner. The governor ruled in accordance to the supreme ruler of the Kingdom, he ruled at his bidding and mercy, always seeking to please the supreme ruler!
3. (v.15)
15 For this is the will of God, that by doing good you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men—
In v.15 let’s focus on the phrase, “the will of God”… Here we find Peter relaying by what authority his teaching had come from… it was a command of God. God Himself was instructing His believers to be civilly responsible and obedient.
In other words, the Sovereign Ruler of the universe… ruler over all that has ever been created had given this to Peter for him to pass on to His followers. He does this to silence those who criticize and ridicule our belief and Him. Look at that phrase that he uses later in this verse… “put to silence”
In other words what Peter is teaching and what God is demanding from His followers is that our actions should always make our accusers speechless… our civil obedience and submission to authorities act like a muzzle over the mouth of an angry dog… lots of bark, but no danger of bites!
Today, we find this to be true, as the better we are as citizens and the more we submit t this command of God, that there are going to be those who seek to destroy us and ridicule our faith. But the more civilly obedient we are and the more we submit to the civil and other authorities around us… the less these accusations can hurt us… they become simply noise in the background…
4. (v.16)
16 as free, yet not using liberty as a cloak for vice, but as bondservants of God.
Once again I want to focus in on a particular phrase, in this verse I want us to look at the phrase, “not using liberty”… here Peter is speaking of the teaching that Paul was teaching that we are free in Christ and no longer bound to any certain set of regulations…
But Peter refines the teaching here as he shares that our freedom in Christ is NOT something to flaunt, but it is to be used wisely. Yes we are free, but in this world it is NOT about OUR desires and freedom, but it is about lifting up and glorifying the name of Christ Jesus!
So Peter teaches that we cannot use our liberty in Christ to be a cloak for any vice… why? Because those vices are going to bring shame on the name of Christ! Now this word ‘vice’ can be understood either as an excuse made up before the fact… or in other words an excuse for our sin… OR it can be a stated reason after the fact… in other words trying to cover our tracks after we have already sinned.
The context in this verse seems to support the latter, and isn’t that what we always fall back on… we can do things and couch it in the fact that we are free in Christ that we are not bound to tradition or regulation… but that does NOT give us right to violate Christian principles and degrade the name of Christ all in the name of Christian liberty!
Peter goes even further here to drive home his point about our taking care in how we live out our freedom in Christ! The living of our lives in this world are subject to our nature in Christ.
Paul begins most, if not all, of his letters revealing that he is a slave of Christ… a bondservant of Jesus! Here Peter drives home that teaching as well. Our nature in Christ is not that of ruler of our own lives, but as slaves and bondservants out to please our master… who is Christ Jesus!
Our lives are NOT our own after we are saved, we have been bought with a price and we now belong to God! We are his bondservants… we are now enslaved to Christ! And because of this we are to seek to please Him in all our actions and life choices.
Now I don’t want you to get all upset about being a Christian means that you are enslaved to Christ… it is NOT what you think! You see as humans we have 2 choices, we can be enslaved by sin and the evil nature of this world, which is where our hearts desire and long to be… OR we can be enslaved in Christ where we are elevated to the status of heir to the kingdom of Heaven!
Either way, we are subject to a master… it simply is a question of WHO is your master… is it the world or is it Christ Jesus, the One who died on the cross of Calvary for your sin and opened up the opportunity for you to know God on a personal basis…which is it?
5. (v.17)
17 Honor all people. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king.
Finally here Peter teaches that we need to have a healthy fear of God.
Years ago, teams visiting Tiger Stadium to play LSU were put into a dressing room with one small swinging door for an exit.
After pregame warm-ups and the visiting team had went back into their dressing room, a surprise would be prepared for this unsuspecting team who had the nerve to come in here and THINK they could beat these Tigers…
Outside the visiting dressing room’s door they would place Mike the Tiger… and when the 1st player would come out of the dressing room, the swinging door would hit Mike the Tiger’s cage and cause him to roar and prowl around in his cage!
The cage was just far enough away to not be dangerous, but close enough that it unnerved many a player right before game time… now that is putting FEAR into your opponent!
But that is NOT the kind of fear that Peter is speaking about when he says that we should fear God. God loves us and is NOT out to kill us… that is Satan… Peter relates later in his letters that Satan is like Mike the Tiger… a roaring lion pacing back and forth seeking to devour anyone who comes across his path, but that is NOT who God is!
Our ‘fear’ of God is not a ‘be afraid’ kind of fear, but it is a healthy reverence and awe of the Creator of the Universe, of the One who is holy and just, and who shall one day judge us!
But what Peter was driving at in this verse is that we are to base ALL our relationships with other people…even those people we just don’t get along with… even those people that hate us… even those people we simply don’t like at all…
We are to base all of our relationships with other people on our healthy reverence and awe of God. All people are created in the image of God… and there is NOT one person placed in a position of power that God has not allowed it to happen… therefore we must respect them and submit to them even if we disagree with them.
For some of us it is when one certain party is in power or has the Presidency… for others it is not that party but the other party that we cannot stand. For some of us it is that person we know and do not respect because of their actions and misleading statements… regardless of who it is, we are called to submit to these authorities…
Remember submission doesn’t always mean that we agree, and disagreement and a desire for things to change does not violate your requirement to submit to the authority placed over you! So you cannot use either end for an excuse to NOT do what God has called you to do!
But overall the teaching that Peter is revealing here is an overall respect and love for our fellow man. We should reveal the love of God through our actions and our mannerisms and the way we live our lives!
In this way we reveal the love of God for the world and OUR love of God is revealed TO the world! And as Peter said in v. 15 it will put to silence the ignorance of foolish men!
CONCLUSION:
Peter calls us to be GOOD CITIZENS and to submit to the earthly authorities placed above us, because they would not be in power unless God allowed it and our submission to these authorities reveals to the world our faith in Christ and our love of God and ultimately God’s love for humanity! Are you a good citizen today? Does your life reflect a healthy and reverent AWE of God? Are you willing to submit to authority as to God?
As Bro Jerry comes to lead us… I call on you to come and let God cleanse you of any sin in your life and allow Him to guide and counsel you in becoming the CITIZEN He wants you to be!
