We Are Under Authority
Who Are We? • Sermon • Submitted
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· 9 viewsGod expects us to submit to rightful authority, following Christ's example.
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Reading: 1 Peter 2:11-17
11 Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.
12 Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.
13 Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme,
14 or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good.
15 For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people.
16 Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.
17 Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.
Pray
Believers in Christ Should Submit to All Divinely-Appointed Authority
Believers in Christ Should Submit to All Divinely-Appointed Authority
11 Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.
12 Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.
13 Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme,
14 or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good.
15 For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people.
Note the use of “sojourners” and “exiles” to describe us - we are not at home but are merely travelers while on this mortal plane. That must affect how we behave.
ILL - visiting someone else’s home
We belong to heaven, so we are to live like citizens of heaven:
We Submit to Authority by Acting Righteously
We Submit to Authority by Acting Righteously
Two times in this passage we are told to act in righteousness, or to do “good works”
12 Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.
Our good works are a means of submitting to the authority we live under, both human and divine
Those good works are the means by which we bring God glory - notice also that they glorify God as a result of seeing our good works, and that glory comes on the day of visitation (the return of Christ), not necessarily today
15 For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people.
Jesus told us that we would not always be popular, be well-liked, or even have the benefit of a positive image.
18 “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.
19 If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
20 Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.
Yet the works that he did serve to bring evildoers to judgement - if you keep reading in John 15 you’ll find these words:
22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin.
The same is true of us - we live according to God’s standards in spite of their hatred and lies, and they will know the error of their ways. If they repent, wonderful! They will have live in the same Christ who saved us from our sins! If not, their rejection of us shows that they are really rejecting the God who sent us, and judgment will be their fate.
That’s why we’re called to submit - because our faithfulness condemns the ungodly because it is one of God’s means of calling them to repentance.
Related to that idea, Peter continues in verse 16:
16 Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.
We Submit to Authority by Serving Freely
We Submit to Authority by Serving Freely
Jesus tells us:
36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
Jesus has set us free from our bondage to sin by redeeming us through his sacrifice, and we are truly, fully, completely, eternally free!
But we are not to use freedom as an excuse to do whatever we want.
But we are not to use freedom as an excuse to do whatever we want.6bounds where there is sin because Christ has made justification possible for all who repent. Then he says in 6:1-2:
1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?
2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?
17 Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.
We Submit to Authority by Loving Unconditionally
We Submit to Authority by Loving Unconditionally
That love takes different forms based on the nature of each relationship. Look at verse 17 again:
17 Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.
General love - we love all by honoring them. That idea of honor comes from the concept of making something weighty. Even today we speak of “giving weight” to an argument or a “heavy” concept. This honor is in the “past tense,” as if to say that we’ve already decided to honor no matter what future choices or events may happen.
3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.
Love within the body of Christ - we love the brothers the way God loves us
22 Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart,
Love for God - we love God by putting him in his rightful place
12 “And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul,
13 and to keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord, which I am commanding you today for your good?
Love for those in charge - Just as we honor all, we specifically honor those who have been given authority. Note here that the tense is not past, but present - as if to say that we continue in honoring authority.
17 Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching.