We are, once again, the book of 1 Peter, chapter two. Last week we looked at verses 13 through 17. Today we will consider verses 18 through 20, but I would like to read beginning in 13 just as a refresher. Kind of get a running start as to where we need to be today as to this is this is a related text. So 1st Peter chapter 2 will begin reading in verse 13 and we'll read through verse 21. Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether to a king as one in authority, or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evil doers and the praise of those who do right. For such is the will of God that by doing right, you may silence the ignorance of foolish men. Verse 16, act as free men. Do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bond slaves of God. Honor all people love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king. Verse 18. Slaves, be submissive to your masters with all respect, not only for those who are good and gentle, but also for those who are unreasonable. For this finds grace. If for the sake of conscience toward God, a person bears up under sorrows when suffering unjustly. For what credit is there if when you sin, you are harshly treated, you endure it with patience, but when you do what is right and suffer for it, you patiently endure it, this finds favor with God. for you have been called for this purpose since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in his footsteps. Heavenly Father, we pray that you would bless our time together in your word. We pray, Lord, that we would truly, in the preaching of the word, hear the word. God, we pray for the sanctification of the saints. We pray for the salvation of sinners. Lord, hide the preacher behind the cross. We pray this in Christ's name, amen. We began last week to discuss this topic of submission, submitting as we began last week, submitting to governing authorities So I want to just recap because there are things as we speak about submission there are things that apply that will be carrying forward Submission to the Lord is first So that's the first thing to note we submit to the Lord and then submission to the Lord calls us to submit to All people are in a place of submission, even if it is one to whom you submit, that person to whom you submit is also in a place of submission. We all ultimately are to submit to the Lord, and then we submit in those various places. And not only is every person in a place of submission, most of us find ourselves in multiple places of submission. Submitting to governing authorities, as we spoke of last week, which is addressed in verses 13 through 17, We also noted that this submission has limitations. There are limitations to submitting when we cannot obey God and submit to the command or the rule of men. Oh, there is a limitation and we must obey God rather than men. We must remember that Christians, we are to submit when we can obey God and obey men. when we cannot, we find the limitation, we bump up against that limitation, and we must obey God rather than men. And as I have continued to study and preparing for this week, and looking back at what we said last week, I wanted to point out something else for us in this submission, and it applies to governing authorities, but it also applies in every other sphere of submission. And this is the new point. Biblical submission, which is submitting for the Lord's sake, submitting as to the Lord, submitting to the Lord first. Biblical submission does not allow Christians to blindly submit. Biblical submission does not allow for blind, thoughtless, mindless submission. Christians, we must submit, but we must submit as thinking people. Because we must always be looking when we must submit and when we bump up against that limitation. Do you see there? How do we see the limitations? How do we see when we must obey God rather than men unless we are thinking people, unless we engage our minds even as we submit? So this submission is not just a giving over into anything whatsoever. We must be thinking people. And I think we can see that in what we looked at last week with submitting to governmental authorities. I think we'll see it again this week as we consider verses 18 and following. It strikes me that verse 16, Act as free men. We are to behave as those who are free. And we talked about last week that odd relationship between behaving as free and submitting. But just to make matters worse, Peter says slaves. Oh, wait a minute. I thought we were talking about free men. I thought we were talking about freedom and people who have liberty. Yes. So slaves, and today we really butt up against this, this contrast between freedom and slavery. And we, again, have to engage our minds. There are things that we need to say about this slavery as we speak of slavery. And we already read some texts of scripture that speak to slavery. I would just Daniel was in a place of subjection that landed him in the lion's den and and so we see those examples of subjection the Old Testament, and then as Gus read to us from Romans 6, we see that the Apostle Paul comes along and uses this picture of slavery to say, now Christians, this is how you need to think about your relationship with righteousness, your relationship with Christ, this is how you need to think, and he uses the picture of slavery. Boy, do you have a reaction to that? Do you just wanna say, I hate slavery, I don't like Well, we need to talk about slavery a little bit this morning before we dig into this text. First of all, I would say that the slavery that is spoken of throughout scripture, first, slavery is a fact of this world. Slavery is a thing. And it's not a new thing, and it's not a thing that is unique to the United States of America, though we have had our embarrassing history of slavery. There are other countries, other nations, other places that have had embarrassing involvement in slavery. And it's also true to say that every people group have at some point in their history been enslaved in one way or another. It's a general term. And as we speak of slavery, we must recognize that all slavery is not the same. There are differences in slavery. When we look here and we see in first Peter, this bond slave term, or it might be translated in your Bible household slave. We see something here of slavery in the Roman Empire, and we must understand it to be very different from what we know of slavery in America. To be a slave in this time, in Peter's time, was very different. people that they might have become slaves through war and conquering a nation they might have become slaves through poverty and debt there are many ways that they could become slaves but there might have been someone who was a physician or a well-educated lawyer or someone who had a great education and then they were their country was taken over and they became a slave and now they are working in a household as a slave. These are not ignorant people. Some of them may have been, but these are not as a whole ignorant people. These are not people who are of lesser birth. These slaves in this day could own property. They could own property. Some slaves owned property and some slaves had slaves. Some slaves had slaves. This is what I'm saying. This is a different time for slavery than we might think of in our country's history, but it's still slavery. Now, not so long ago, I came across a clip of a television interview about what the Bible has to say about certain things. And this interview was between two comedians. And if you really want to know what the Bible says, And now that they were speaking and the topic of slavery came up and one of them said, well, you know, the Bible and they were not fans. You know, the Bible endorses slavery. Never says slavery is wrong. The Bible just speaks about slavery like it's a good thing. Well, that's something that I thought we might take a moment with this. Maybe you have that same thought. Maybe you're like, yeah, we read some things today that talked about slavery. And I don't remember, as we read from Romans 6, Paul saying, now we all know slavery is wrong. It's not there. So are we to understand that the Bible endorses slavery? Very quickly, I would like for you to turn in your Bible to the book of 1 Timothy. the book of First Timothy. That's not very far away from where we are, but we're going to see in First Timothy Paul the Apostle writing here to Timothy. The young younger man whom Paul is training in ministry is teaching him and First Timothy chapter one. We read some important things here. And it's addressing the law. But slavery will be mentioned and we'll see that this text is about the law and the proper use of the law. First Timothy 1, 8 through 10. But we know that the law is good if a man uses it lawfully. Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane. speaking about the law and proper use of the law. Now, what I will call us to notice as we read through this is Paul is going to work through the second table of the law, the second table of the Decalogue, the second half of the Ten Commandments. So as we work through what he says here and who the law is gonna work through the 10 commandments. He says, for murderers of father and murderers of mothers. And we see in that the fifth commandment, honor father and mother. He says for manslayers, and we see in that the sixth commandment, thou shalt not kill. Verse 10, for whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, and we see there the seventh commandment, thou shalt not commit adultery. And then we have this word for men stealers. Now that's King James. Maybe your Bible says kidnappers. Men stealers is more literal here. And of course, men stealers fall perjured persons, ninth commandment, don't bear false witness. And if there'd be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine. So he works through this. But what I want us to point out here is as Paul works through the 10 commandments, the second table of the commandments here, he mentions men stealers. And when we look at this, this is where slavery would fall under. Slavery would fall under, especially as we've seen it in our history. stealing of a man away from his home and country, and taking him and treating him as a possession. And here, this is mentioned, so the Bible doesn't speak to slavery. Yes, the Bible does speak to slavery. And clearly, slavery is a sin that violates the 8th commandment at least. Now I want to go to Genesis 1. It's way back at the beginning. Genesis 1. as God has created all things. And we come to God's creation of man. Genesis chapter one and verse 26. We see we read these words. And God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness and let him let them have dominion over the fish of the sea. I'm going to go back and read that slow. Verse 26, and God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness, and let them, that is the men, have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the fowl of the air, over the cattle, over all the earth, over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. Verse 27, so God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created Verse 28, and God blessed them and God said to them, be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the fowl of the air and over every other living thing that moves upon the earth. God made man and gave man dominion over all other things on the earth. We as human race, we as mankind have dominion by God's giving us dominion and then we are to take dominion over all these things. And what I want us to see here from Genesis one is that we are not to have dominion over other men. We have dominion over all the rest of creation, but not over other men. So not only does it violate the 8th commandment, not only did Paul mention it in his list of sinful behaviors, but we also see in creation that men are to have dominion over, and you know, the list of things goes on. The birds of the sea, the fowl of the air, every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. but not over other men. If there's been any question in our minds, let it be settled now. Slavery is not okay with God. Slavery is wrong. Slavery is a sinful thing. Owning another person. Now, as we've talked about, And what we see in Israel is that every person who was a slave was released every seven years. They would be released from that. So this same term that we use, slavery, became a thing for paying off debt. Have any of you ever said, I'm a slave to my job? Let me remind you, you can quit. You can quit. You just say, I'm a slave to my job. I don't want to be a slave and I just quit. But what do we do? We get up and we go to work because yes, I feel like a slave to my job, but I know I need that. I need that job. It is serving me. Sometimes it doesn't feel like as much as I'm serving the job, but it's serving me as I serve. And I need that job. And some people, use slavery in that very way. I have a need, a financial need, I have some need, how am I gonna care for myself? If I put myself under the slavery of this good master, I will have a place to sleep, I will have food to eat, I will be taken care of. What a good thing for me. And people would volunteer to do that. And then often when they were to be released, because there was a path, to earning your freedom when they were to be released. Sometimes they would say, I don't wanna be released. I wanna stay. And there was a process to go through that to say, hey, you're a different kind of slave now. It's a different kind of thing. So owning another man as cattle is owned. That's wrong. But the scripture, though not endorsing that kind of sinful slavery, the scripture speaks to us as to how we are to live in this world, how we are to behave in this world. So we have instructions knowing, well, sometimes Christians are going to find themselves slaves. Here's how you behave. I would also remind us, as we read from Romans 6 earlier, that text does not leave us with any way to think about ourselves except as slaves. We are either slaves truth from scripture. Verse 16, and by the way, we'll go back to first Peter, verse 16 and first Peter act as free men at this Freeman. Here's the paradoxical truth. You can't know freedom until you know what it is to be a slave to righteousness and a slave to God. You will know true freedom, be a slave to God. All these people looking for it and even declaring how free they are. They're not free, they're slaves to sin. The only true freedom is when we are bond slaves to God. It's a paradox, but it's true and it is true from scripture. Okay, now I wanna get into the text now that we're out of time. You know, I'm preaching with a lot less notes than I usually have, and that's the danger, is that I might talk too much like that. So, verse 18. Slaves, servants. This is how we recognize ourselves. Slaves, bond slaves, servants. And this is not speaking in this text about being slaves to righteousness. In this text, it's speaking about The real world, this is where we're living, and we need to see. Now, just by a show of hands, how many people are slaves? How many are owned by another man? No, of course not. Not now, not in this time. It's frowned upon, although it's not abolished around the world. It's not even done away with. When we look at human trafficking, what is that but slavery? It's illegal in our country. It's something that we talk about as we should, as a sinful, bad thing, but it still exists. But I want to make the point that that's not the everyday world that we live in, but we do have application from this text to our own lives. Because as I mentioned, every one of us has a place of submission. And I think the easiest application to see where we are to be submissive and to be subjected to another person is in our employment. In the employee-employer relationship, that's the easiest thing. Now, we have a lot of freedoms that maybe some of the slaves of Peter's day didn't have, but that's the easiest place for us to make application. And I think we should, it is right to make this application in our work lives in that way. Servants. Be submissive to your masters. That just, man, that breaks on us, doesn't it? But that's the command. Now, the command, be submissive, as I mentioned, it's not just be submissive, period. There are now some qualifiers, and some of these qualifiers, we're not gonna like. Some of these qualifiers are gonna really just rub us the wrong way. Be submissive to your masters. Well, I'll tell you what I'll do. Let me share with you a short story about the little boy who didn't want to submit to his mom and daddy. And they said, sit down right there. You sit. And he wouldn't sit. And he was told, sit down. And then his dad went over, and he made him to sit. Because you can do that when they're small enough. Made him to sit. And the little boy, now sitting, said, I'm standing up on the inside. though he was outwardly seated as he was told to be, he was not submissive at our first qualifier with all respect. Submissive with all respect. Some of us want to say, well, I'll submit, but this is what it's going to look like. On the inside, I'm going to have some different ideas. On the inside, I'm going to be saying some stuff that's not coming out of my mouth necessarily. to submit not just outwardly, but to submit with all respect. To submit with all respect. Maybe in our application, an employer-employee, maybe you've had an employer that you could say, I work for some good people. I work for some really good people that I can submit to with all respect. What a great thing that is to submit to those who are good and to those who are gentle and to those who are righteous even. Maybe that's easier for us, but let's look at the next qualifier. Submit to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and gentle, but also to those who are, New American Standard, unreasonable. English Standard, unjust. King James, froward. Does that help anybody? I didn't think so. Greek. I had to look at it again. Scolios. Scolios. Does that sound familiar? That word, does that sound familiar? Scoliosis is a diagnosis of a crookedness in the spine. And this is the word that is related. Submit not only to those masters that are good and gentle, but to those that are crooked. boss that I work for. Can I tell you something, Christian? Be thankful that you have the freedom to go find another job, but if you're going to stay there, submit to your master with all respect, even when they are unreasonable, unjust, even when they're crooked. Sometimes you might have to say, no, I've got to resign. I've got to quit. And thank God that you can do that, that we have that freedom to do that. But if you're going to stay there, this is what we are to do. And this is verse 19, this finds favor, this finds grace. And some of us, some of us, even when we are caught in a wrongdoing. Even when we are caught in the wrong, we have a hard time submitting even in that. But Peter takes us here through this thought process. When you bear up under unjust treatment, what credit is there if you were at fault? What credit is there if you sin and you are treated harshly? When you sin and you're treated harshly, you should submit because you're just getting what you asked for. You're getting what you deserve. You're getting the right thing. Here's where the grace is found when you do what's right and you're still treated harshly. Now, just, you know, confession time. I have a hard time with that. I have a hard time when I've done what's right and I'm treated harshly, keeping my attitude right. When I've done what's right and I'm treated harshly, I then want to rebel, at least in my mind, if not outwardly. But this kind of submission to unjust, unrighteous, crooked masters is what is called for. And this finds grace. And then I just wanna touch for a moment on verse 21. For you have been called for this purpose. You've been called for this purpose. Calling, that's a word that we use. And sometimes we mean different things by it. Wednesday night we're gonna be talking about calling. And a certain kind of calling that God gives calling sinners to repent. But Christians, how often are we looking for the calling of God on our lives? What is God calling me to do? And there are sometimes we don't have to think very hard about it, right? I just said to someone this week, there's some things you don't need to pray about. and if you're in a store and you're tempted to shoplift, do you need to pray about that? No, you just obey. We don't pray and ask God to, what are we gonna ask? God, would you change what you said? Would you show me how I might find a loophole in what you said? Why would you pray about it? Just do what God said. And sometimes with calling, we don't have to pray that God would show us our calling. Did you stand at an altar next to a woman and say, I do? For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer. God called you to be a husband. You don't have to pray about it, that's the deal. God called you to be a husband. Did you stand at an altar next to a man and say some of those same or similar words? God called you to be a wife. Has God blessed you to have to be mama and dad. God called you to be a parent. There's some callings that are evident to us. Now we go to the scripture and we say, now I've got this calling. Well, we've talked about this before. God's given me these children. How am I supposed to do this? You go to scripture and you figure out how to fulfill that calling. But you've got the calling. And there are other things that we see here. Verse 21, for this you have been called. Christians, you are called to submit in these areas where God commands submission. This is your calling. I don't make it easy, but it's what you're called to. You've been called for this purpose. And then I started to just say these two words, because Christ, I mean, that's what, you've been called for this purpose because Christ. You think about, Christian person since Christ. Why do you do that? Because Christ. Because Christ commanded, because Christ did, because Christ was our example, because Christ died for me. This should be the motivation for everything that we do. There's some things we don't do. Why don't you do that? Because Christ. Why would you submit to governing authorities when it is, in our day, if we're just being honest, it's almost popular to be an anarchist. Well, because Christ. Because Christ has commanded. And here we see because Christ is our example. I think this is a good test for everything that we do. Find yourself in the middle of some activity and ask, why am I doing this? And if the answer is because Christ, do it well. Do it well. And if you can't answer because Christ, go do something else. say I'm doing this since Christ lived and died on my behalf since Christ is my Lord and my Savior and my King I'm doing this because Christ is my example this is a test for everything that we do Christian some of those things we we love and we we We say, man, I'm serving Christ in this way. And it just, it fulfills us. And it gives us all those warm, fuzzy feelings that we love. But sometimes those things are slaves, submit to your masters, the good ones and the bad ones and do it with respect. And we must say, because he is my example, because he is commanded, because of Christ. Because of Christ, I can, and because of Christ, I must. This is the calling for every believer, for everyone who is a slave of righteousness, for everyone who knows what it is to behave as free men. If you don't know what it is to be in Christ, what it is to be a bond slave of the Lord Jesus, if you don't know that, then you are still in bondage to sin. The command of scripture for you is to repent of your sin, to turn from it and to believe in Jesus Christ for salvation. Then and only then can you know what it is to be free and at the same time, what it is to be a slave to righteousness and to submit to every governing authority and to submit to those who are our masters. This is the true grace of God. Stay firm in it. Father, we pray that you would apply these things to our hearts. God, we pray that as your people, we would be testimonies of your grace, that our behavior before the world would be a witness to Jesus Christ. God, we pray for your help. for your strength. We pray for forgiveness where we have not obeyed this command. Maybe because we didn't know it was here, but really because our hearts rebelled. So we pray for forgiveness of that sin. We pray for conviction and for strength to obey you. as we submit in these spheres of life. In Christ's name we ask. Amen.