Matt Kruse NBC – AM Service 2-18-18

Honorable Conduct of Heavenly Citizens 1 Peter 2:13-17 Series: True Grace ~ 1 Peter

Introduction: Take your Bibles and find your way to 1 Peter 2, 1 Peter chapter 2.

During the last presidential election there was quite the sharp disagreement over immigration, and especially over the issue of undocumented or outright illegal aliens. One of the situations most often referenced in that debate was the killing of Kate Steinle in San Francisco. She was walking with her father and friend along Pier 14 when Jose Zarate shot her in the back. Two hours later Kate tragically died because of her injuries. This shooting and Kate’s death sparked political outrage by the advocates of immigration reform and stricter enforcement of immigration laws already in place. In fact, the murder was so egregious that even those politicians who would normally defend policies like “Sanctuary Cities” were loudly denouncing the management of this illegal immigrant.

I bring this up not so that we can get down into the weeds on immigration issues, but as an example of how conduct affects argument. So, if you would find yourself to be a proponent of loosening our immigration laws or enforcement, then the conduct of this immigrant in San Francisco in 2015 widely affects your ability to influence others of your sincerely held beliefs. Now the analogy is not perfect, so do not apply it completely, but this is similar to how our conduct as Christians relates to our witness. The compelling argument of Gospel truth out of our mouth is directly linked with our way of life. As has been said, your life before the unbelieving world is the only Bible some people will read. One poem says it this way: You’re writing a “gospel,” a chapter a day, By the deeds that you do, by the words that you say; Men read what you write, whether faithless or true, Say, what is the “gospel” according to you? (http://www.preceptaustin.org/1peter_verse_by_verse_213-25)

And the great Scottish preacher, Alexander Maclaren, once wrote: “The world takes its notions of God most of all from the people who say that they belong to God’s family. They read us a great deal more than they read the Bible. In fact, they see us, they only hear about Jesus Christ.”

This is Peter’s point in the verses before us this morning. Our conduct conveys a message about our core message – the Gospel. And so, he instructs here in verses 13-17 on how we should conduct ourselves in this world among those who do not know Christ. His Gospel exposition is matched with Gospel exhortation. As people who have been shown the great mercy of the new birth by grace through faith in Christ, we are now to live in these ways in the world. Let’s read 1 Peter 1:13-17.

We established last week that our new identity in Christ grants us great privilege that comes with great responsibility. Because we have been shown great mercy and have been brought from darkness to light, and because we are now a holy nation, a royal priesthood, a chosen race, and God’s prized possession, we are to conduct ourselves in a different way than before. This great spiritual and eternal change in our status necessarily now affects our daily lives in this world. We are to abstain from the flesh and conduct our lives among unbelievers in an honorable way. And that honorable lifestyle of verse 12 is now detailed out in verses 13-17. This is how heavenly citizens should now live in the world.

You probably noticed, but these verses are packed with imperatives – with Gospel commands. There are 6 total in the English translation – Submit to every human institution in verse 13; Live as people who are free in verse 16; honor everyone, love the brotherhood, fear God, and honor the emperor – all in verse 17. This is the conduct of those who are heavenly citizens trying to navigate their way through a foreign land. This is how we must walk each day so as to amplify our Gospel witness rather than detract from it. And all of these commands are putting us in our place in relationship to others. So, as it relates to governmental authority – submit. As it relates to all people – honor them. As it relates to the Church – love them. As it relates to God – fear Him. As it relates to the chief government official – honor him.

And these are exactly the opposite of what we would do if we were walking according to our fleshly passions. These are the impulses of our sinful inner man that we were told in verse 11 to stiff arm. If we were walking through life in obedience to those passions of the flesh then we would be led to disregard governmental authority. We would be led to use our freedom in Christ as license for our own sinfulness. We would be led to honor ourselves over everyone else, to despise and use the brotherhood, to live with a high view of self and a low view of God, and to despise the head of government as the chief symbol of everything we hate about government. That is what life would look like according to the flesh. But what does life look like according to the Gospel? Or another way to ask that is – what does life look like for a heavenly citizen who is sojourning through this life in anticipation of the real Kingdom which is to come in eternity? Well, Peter says that heavenly citizens submit to earthly authority, and they honor everyone and they maintain supreme loyalty.

I. Heavenly Citizens Submit to Earthly Authority – vs. 13-16 a. We see this first Gospel command in verse 13 – be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. All of verses 13-16 are governed by this command to submit ourselves to earthly authority. They are all explaining what this looks like and how and why this is to be done. And this explanation is necessary because one could easily take the Gospel truth of our new privilege found in Christ’s mercy, and make the case that we now no longer have to obey human authority structures because we only have to obey Christ. Our new identity could be the platform for all kinds of strange activities in the world – but Peter clarifies that immediately by calling us to submit to earthly authorities. b. This word for “be subject” will dominate the next whole section of Peter’s letter. He calls everyone to submit to government here in verse 13, and then in verse 18 he will use the same word to call slaves to be subject to their masters, and then in chapter 3 he will call wives to walk in submission to their husbands. This is what it looks like to be new people in Christ – we are freed from our sinful pride-filled self-focus, and we can now fill our God-given role in this world. That is the idea of submission by the way. It is to willingly place yourself under someone’s authority for the sake of order. It is living in compliance and obedience to someone that God has put in a rank of authority over you. This is not a value statement relating to you or to that person of authority, but rather this is putting ourselves under the God-given structure of authority for the sake of order in this world. This submission is then directed in the text by descriptions relating to our True King. That is the issue here – we are to submit to our temporal, here and now, earthly king (or president as it may be in our land), but this submission is done first of all for the sake of the True King – the Lord God of Heaven. c. For the sake of the True King – 13-14 i. So, in verse 13 there is this immediate aid to our understanding of what it means to submit to every human institution. We are to do this for the Lord’s sake. Our submission to human authority on earth is actually an expression of our submission to our True King – the King of kings. In other words, our submission tomorrow to earthly authorities is an expression of our ongoing and eternal submission to our Lord. This is His plan and His way. He has put these earthly authorities in our life and he now calls us to function under their authority. These earthly authorities are specifically government authorities in verses 13-14. So, we are to place ourselves under the ruling authority of the Emperor and of any local governors that he sends to carry out his authority in a local area. Our system of government is obviously different than Rome’s was in the first century, but the principle is obvious. God has placed over you in government those whom He has chosen for this time. Therefore, in submission to your Lord who showed you great mercy, you should submit to human authority. ii. It is also for the Lord’s sake in the sense that human government fits with his plan. So, he established it and this is how he governs mankind. But it also is for the Lord’s sake in that submission to secular human authorities is according to God’s plan. God does not intend for His plan in this world to advance through the overthrow of governments or the advancement of some political agenda. Those will come and go as mankind ebbs and flows on this planet until the end of days when the ruler of all nations will come and call them all to account. But until that day, we as heavenly citizens are not here to bring the Kingdom of God to earth in some sort of political way. The Church has not replaced Israel and we are not to create a Christian nation which somehow is to establish God’s kingdom reign on this earth. That is what the Roman Catholic Church tried to do through the Crusades – they tried through force to take back God’s land and restore God’s Kingdom to God’s people in God’s place of promise. It was all a terribly misguided abuse of power with the thin veil of Scriptural warrant. And to this day Christians are hampered in their efforts to evangelize the lost, particularly in the Middle East, because of the ongoing effects of the Medieval Crusades. God has not commissioned the Church to go to war for Him so as to build his kingdom on Earth in this age through political power. Rather, God’s plan for the Church revolves around the message of the Gospel of grace which penetrates the deepest parts of the kingdom of darkness in this world and rescues men and women and makes them trophies of that grace. God is building a Kingdom by adding citizens through the work of ambassadors in this present age, so that in the age to come the Millennial Kingdom and eventually the Heavenly Kingdom will be filled with true worshipers of the one True King. So, we are to submit for the time being to human government as an expression of our trust in God’s great plan. iii. It is also for his sake in that it follows his example of submission. The High King of Heaven assumed the lowly existence of mankind and took on flesh. He lived the life of a servant and he was condemned to die in a mockery of human justice and a sham of human governing. But this was no mistake. His submission to the worst governing blunder ever in the course of human history was not a mistake. Rather, our Lord Jesus was in complete submission to the will of His Father to carry out the foreordained plan of redemption. Do you remember that Pilate warned Jesus that he had authority over him to release him or to kill him in John 19, and Jesus replied – “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above.” Jesus found himself in the greatest miscarriage of justice ever known to mankind – the sentencing to death of the pure and sinless Son of God all for political expediency – and yet Jesus submitted to Pilate’s authority. He could have called legions of angels to his aid, but he willingly drank the cup of God’s will for him. Our submission to human authority is for the sake of the true King in that it follows His example. iv. It is also for the Lord’s sake in that there will be times in which we will disobey human authority so that we can obey the True King. The principle of submission is clear – this should be our normal way – even when it is inconvenient or against how we would do it. Even when government is not functioning in its God-ordained purpose of punishing evil and praising good. Even when it has become a powerhouse of calling good evil and evil good – even then we are to submit to human authority where it does not lead us to disobey our greater authority – God himself. So, we have a few instances scattered throughout Scripture of civil disobedience for the sake of obeying God instead. The Hebrew midwives in Egypt refused to kill the baby boys in Exodus 1 and therefore they defied the edict of Pharaoh because they feared God more than Pharaoh. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego in Daniel 3 refused to bow down in worship of the golden image because they would only worship the one true God. And then Daniel himself in chapter 6 defies the edict to not pray to any other God but the King for 30 days by continuing to pray 3 times a day as he had done before. And then in Acts 4 Peter himself, along with the apostle John tell the Sanhedrin that they are not going to stop preaching about the resurrected Christ in the Temple even if it costs them their lives because they must obey God rather than men. But those are the exceptions to the rule. There are certainly situations happening in today’s world where human governments are trying to dictate behavior that either denies Christians the right to obey the Lord or tries to invoke their disobedience to God. So, in North Korea they cannot have the Bible, and yet many have smuggled portions of the Word into that land. God is honored in this because they fear God more than human dictators. And in China they have dictated the church’s gathering by ruling that Christians can only gather in state approved churches. And yet, in defiance of the government, Christians in China have gathered for decades in unregistered house churches. In our own land, Christian bakers in Oregon and Colorado have been told that they cannot refuse their services in celebration of a homosexual wedding – that they must make a cake for those weddings because they cannot discriminate against a person based on their sinful sexual choices. And yet, those bakers have refused to obey man rather than God and they have lost their business in the case in Oregon, and have fought it all the way to the Supreme Court in the case in CO. God is honored by their refusal to be strong-armed into governmental compliance which dishonors God by honoring sin. So, there may come a time when this happens to you, but that will be the exception. The majority of your life will be made up of submission to human authority for the Lord’s sake. d. In Submission to the True King – 15 i. This submission is also to the True King. It is for the True King and it is to the True King. There is not much distinction between the two points here, but notice in verse 15 that the will of God is spelled out for us. I love when Scripture does this. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. The will of God is referring to the submission of verse 13. God, as your true King, is telling you that this is how he wants you to act in relationship to your earthly king, or emperor, or president, or governor or sheriff, or whatever the case may be. He wills for you to place yourself under their authority as one who keeps the laws of the land. This was so that those who would scoff ignorantly about Christians will be put to silence. ii. This was especially necessary in the First Century. Christians were a much maligned and little understood sect in the Roman Empire. Their practices were strange to the secular culture of Rome which was driven by fleshly lusts. So, when Christians gathered for their love feasts – which was simply their observance of a meal together and the celebration of the Lord’s Table – they were accused by outsiders as those who practice incest and cannibalism. These are ignorant assumptions of people who have no knowledge – of fools. And this text says that we are to be people who put to rest those foolish and ignorant accusations through our robustly submissive life. We are to be the most law-abiding and respectful citizens any country has ever known, and in so doing, we will silence the scoffers. This gives us ultimate reason to submit to temporal and human authorities. God’s sovereign will is working through our obedience to put to silence the ignorant accusations and slanders of foolish people. By our obedience we accomplish the will of God in this. e. As Slaves of the True King – 16 i. And this is all rooted in the core concept of our relationship to the true king as his slaves. That is the thought of verse 16. Our submission to human authority is to be done as slaves of the true king. We are slaves to human authority, but we are enslaved by God’s grace to Him. Having been rescued from our sinful darkness by His great mercy, we are free from our selfish enslavement to sin. So, verse 16 says “Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants (slaves) of God.” In other words, we are free because we have been rescued from our sin by great mercy, but this does not now give us license to live in evil ways. Grace is never a steroid to sinfulness, or an excuse for evil or a license for loose living because it will all be forgiven anyways. No, grace is the sure foundation of a life of slavish obedience to the God who rescued us. How can it be anything else? And so Peter says – as an expression of your freedom in Christ, submit to human authority out of obedience to the will of God. ii. In Peter’s second letter he is going to frankly discuss false teachers who tell us that because we have freedom in Christ we have freedom from constraints on our flesh. Because we are no longer under the Mosaic Law we now have the freedom to walk in unrestrained ways. And this is wildly appealing to the flesh. But Peter quickly corrects that in 2 Peter 2:19. He tells us that whatever dominates a person – that is that person’s master. So, if you are dominated by the fleshly passions, you’re not free at all, but you are enslaved to sin. Only in being dominated by God will we find any true freedom as His slaves. iii. So, if we live as slaves to God this will necessarily put us in a position of service to others. That is the idea here of these verses. Our freedom in Christ produces in us a submission to Christ which looks like a submission to all human authority which God has placed over us. Because you are a citizen of a Heavenly Kingdom, you can be a submissive and respectful citizen of an earthly kingdom. This is how we are to live as sojourners. II. Heavenly Citizens Honor Everyone – vs. 17 a. But then in verse 17 we are given 4 staccato commands which complement this idea of submission to every human authority. So verse 17 says, Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the Emperor. These four commands form a chiasm where the 1st and the 4th commands relate to one another and the 2nd and the 3rd relate to one another. The 1st and the 4th are defining our responsibility toward those outside of this relationship between God and His people, and the 2nd and 3rd commands are defining our responsibility inside of this relationship with God and His people. b. So the first and the fourth use the same verb to define this relationship with outsiders – honor. We are to honor everyone, and we are to honor the emperor. These are the bookends on these 4 commands and they are the exact same verb but with different spheres. So it starts with the broad mass of all people and it pinnacles up to the single greatest human position of authority. Honor everyone and honor the emperor. This command to honor means to estimate someone as valuable and therefore as worthy of reverence. This requires an awareness of those around you, and it requires a humility which can only be produced by grace. As slaves of God we see must see others more highly than we see ourselves. We must view ourselves as servants who are below everyone else. c. The Christian Gospel does not place us above everyone else as though we have finally arrived and all these poor losers out there just haven’t come to the truth yet. The grace of God doesn’t make us gruff travelers through a foreign land who are just looking to use and abuse anyone and everyone to get on to our next destination. No, the great love and mercy of God transforms us into humble servants who are looking to honor all people in every situation. d. So, would you be able to witness to the checkout lady at the store after you went through the line? What if you had to wait longer than usual? How about the gas station attendant who took 3 minutes to figure out how to get your bank card to work? Or how about the waiter or the waitress who was having a bad night and kept forgetting to wait on your table? Or how about the single mom in Wal-Mart with the loud and out of control kids? Or the homeless guy begging for a few bucks on the street corner? Are all of those people worthy of your respect? Did your words to them or about them or your actions toward them communicate honor for them? Would you have been able to hand them a Gospel tract and let them know that there is hope in a hopeless world? Honor everyone. e. We are also to honor the emperor. And this was really saying something for Peter’s people here. The emperor of the day was one of the worst – the great Nero himself. It is hard to imagine a politician who deserved less respect than Nero. And I know – you are thinking we have some today who could give Nero a run for his money in that category – but in reality, most of our politicians don’t come close to Nero’s level of sheer evil. And yet God says here – honor the emperor. Don’t worship the emperor – which is what was required by law. And don’t fear the emperor – which is what would have been natural for those who refused to worship him. But in spite of what he might do in response to your following of Christ – you are still to honor him. He holds his position under the sovereign arm of the Almighty God. His days in office are numbered by God. His heart is like a river which God turns whichever way he chooses. He may be the worst of human authority figures ever to walk the planet, but he is still to be honored and given respect by those who have been transformed by saving grace. f. So, when you disagree with our government how do you speak to them or about them? This is honestly why I quit listening to talk radio and stopped watching the 24 hour news feed. We’ve lost the ability in our society to be respectful in our disagreements. We dishonor and shame and brow beat and verbally assault to get people to stop saying or doing what we don’t like. And we as Christians ought to be different. We ought to be noticeably different in our world. You can have an opinion – in fact you should have a worldview which helps you think through government policies like gun control and responding to mass shootings. But you do not need to dishonor politicians who disagree with you. Even if they dishonor you – your gospel rooted command is to honor everyone, and honor the emperor. III. Heavenly Citizens Maintain Supreme Loyalty – vs. 17 a. And lastly, we see that heavenly citizens maintain supreme loyalty. This the inner two commands of the 4. We are to be a people who love the brotherhood and who fear God. These commands form the essence of our responsibility to God and to God’s people. As the inner part of this chiasm these two commands inform one another and build into each other. So, our fear of God grows as we obey this command to love God’s people. And our love for God’s people will only increase as we grow in our reverential awe at this God of great mercy. If you want to grow in the one then you will necessarily grow in the other. b. And this is the supreme loyalty of the heavenly citizen. Peter has defined our main responsibility to those outside of this relationship, and that is to honor everyone. But now he circles the wagons and calls us to our primary loyalty. Love the brotherhood and fear God. Peter is the only NT author to use this word “brotherhood.” He uses it here and then in 5:9, and he uses it as a descriptive synonym for the church. It’s a term which communicates the close knit relationship of those who have been united by a common calling and a new relationship. They were not brothers and sisters before, but they are now because of the great mercy of God. And even if this is the only tie uniting them, it is the strongest tie possible. And the responsibility we each have toward one another within the relationship is to love one another. Not just to have warm fuzzy feelings about each other, but to sacrificially commit ourselves to each other. To put each other first and to give ourselves to serving one another in love. This is to comfort one another; to mourn with one another; to rejoice with one another; to encourage one another; to exhort one another; to confront and rebuke one another when necessary; to teach one another; to be at peace with one another. This is loving one another. c. And this is furthered by our fear of the Lord. To fear the Lord means to have a right view of ourselves and a right and growing view of the glory and greatness of God. An increasing fear of God will produce in us a lessening of our own estimation of greatness and an explosion of our understanding of the greatness of God. To fear the Lord means that I will obey Him even when it is hardest or will cost the most because in my heart I treasure Him more than myself or anyone else. To fear the Lord means that I will trust God even when He leads me into the valley of the shadow of death and entrusts me with the hardest of circumstances that I would have never chosen for myself. To fear the Lord means that I will view all of life in relationship to Him and I will seek to live every moment with an eternal perspective so that even doing the dishes and taking out the trash is done to His glory and by His strengthening grace. This is the fear of the Lord. d. And so this fear of the Lord and this loving of the brotherhood form the nucleus of our responsibility within this new relationship with God and His people. And this is the primary loyalty of the heavenly citizen. The heavenly citizen does not put his loyalty to the earthly kingdom above his loyalty to the heavenly one. He does not vest hope for the future in human authority or human government. No, a heavenly citizen vests full hope in future grace – the future grace of the King of Kings overthrowing all human government and establishing His own Kingdom on Earth. Hope in a God of mercy who will establish a Heavenly city – the New Jerusalem – which will descend from Heaven and will rest on the New Earth for all of eternity and God will dwell with redeemed mankind and mankind will dwell with God. This is the true hope of the heavenly citizen, and his supreme loyalty in this life lies with God and God’s people. e. These two commands form the core of our passage this morning. If we are walking daily in a fear of God and in love for God’s people then we will honor everyone and we will honor the emperor and we will submit ourselves to the human authority God has placed in our lives. Those lesser commands flow out of this central command – fear God and love the brotherhood. Conclusion: As we close, consider Christ. If ever there was a man who ever deserved to know freedom from these commands it was Jesus. He was the King of Kings in human flesh. All authority was given to him in heaven and on earth – and yet he placed himself under the authority of his parents as a boy, and under the authority of human government as a man. If ever there was a man who deserved to have everyone else honor Him, to be raised above every man and lifted up in the eyes of every man – it was Jesus. If ever there was a man who deserved to be loved and to be feared it was Jesus. And yet, Jesus is the preeminent example to us of obedience to all of these commands. He was guided every moment by a loving reverence for His Father in Heaven, therefore He feared God. He was guided every step of the way by his great love for the Church which led him all the way to death on a cross. And because He feared God and loved the people God had sent him to save, He honored everyone and he submitted to human authority, and even in the most heinous of governmental blunders he placed himself under the human governor who command his execution. Beloved – Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. If you know His saving grace then follow His perfect way. Let’s pray.