The Worst Sermon Title Ever - (The Submissive Church) - 1 Peter 5:5a Series

1 Peter 5:5 Young men, in the same way be submissive to those who are older. All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." 6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. 7 Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

Introduction

One of the things you hope for when thinking up a title for a sermon is something that will catch people’s eye, so that if they are looking through a list and see it and say, “Wow, I want to listen to that sermon.” The other main purpose of a title is something that clearly and accurately reflects the main point of the sermon. There is no way I could do both of those for today’s sermon, because the title that accurately reflects the topic is, “The Submissive Church.” That tells you what it is about, but as far as arousing interest - if we ever get a sermon that gets zero hits online, this might be the one. I have never in my life had anyone ask me to preach on the subject of the submissive church. I have never seen a book on it. And I am not anticipating anyone will put this one on their Darrell Ferguson’s greatest hits list. I have met some people who are obsessed with the study of the end times. I know some who have Calvinism as a hobby horse. I know some who only want to talk about apologetics. I do not know anyone who specializes in the area of submissiveness to authority. Our culture hates the concept of submissiveness to authority, and that attitude has affected the Church.

Have you ever heard that saying, “Six billion people can’t be wrong?” Yes, they can.

Romans 3:4 Let God be true and every man a liar.

If every single person in the world says one thing, and God says the opposite, God is right. And God tells us in His Word that submissiveness to God-ordained authority is good and beneficial to us and pleasing to Him. And so He has designed this world to be run by intermediate, human authorities. And that system of having human authorities who are sinful and many times foolish, and then calling His people to submit to their authority – that is a good system. That system is better than the alternative, which is each person deciding on his own what he or she thinks is best. That is the system we naturally prefer. But God’s system is so much better, there is a whole book in the Bible designed, in large measure, to show us how much better His system is. It is the book of Judges. In that book, the nation of Israel alternates between the two systems. First everyone does what is right in his own eyes, that leads to disaster, then God rescues them from that disaster through His system using a fallible, sinful, human authority. And just to drive the point home, God chooses especially fallible leaders. During that time there are some terrible leaders (like Samson). And yet, the situation is far better when those leaders are in power than when everyone is just doing what is right in their own eyes. Even under King Saul the people were much, much better off than when they all did what they thought was best.

This is not the first time Peter has brought up the topic of submission.

1 Peter 2:13 Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every authority instituted among men

We are to submit to authorities – even secular authorities. Why? For the Lord’s sake. It is not a complicated principle. It is very simple – it is God’s authority delegated to people. If you are leaving for a little bit, and you point to your oldest child and say to the rest of your kids, “He’s in charge until I get back – I want you to do what he says.” – if they refuse to listen to him while you are gone, they are disobeying you. If you tell your kids, “Listen to the Sunday school teacher and do what she says,” and you find out they were rebellious and disobedient, you discipline them the same way as if they disobeyed you, because they did disobey you. God places us under fellow sinners as our authorities, and then tells us to obey them, and the test of how much we trust God is in whether we will gladly, joyfully submit to them knowing it is His will.

Romans 13:1 ...the authorities that exist have been instituted by God. 2 Therefore he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. ... 4 [the one in authority] is God's servant for your good.