Well, brothers and sisters, we are again in 1 Peter 2. 1 Peter 2, and we are in, again, verses 13 through 16 as we're spending a few weeks zeroing in on this text and what we need to learn from it. Let us hear it again today. Submit yourselves to every human authority for the Lord's sake, whether it be to the king as supreme or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and to praise those who do right. For it is the will of God that by doing right, you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men. As free people, do not use your liberty as a covering for evil, but live as servants of God. Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever. In the 1941 State of the Union Address, Franklin Delano Roosevelt proposed four fundamental freedoms that people, in his words, everywhere in the world ought to enjoy. Norman Rockwell later immortalized these freedoms in a series of paintings that have been reproduced in posters and all sorts of trinkets over the years. And they are these, freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, freedom from fear. Peter speaks in verse 16 of freedom. Freedom that belongs not to everyone everywhere, but freedom that belongs only to the Christian. The questions come, how then do we observe that freedom? What is the end of that freedom? How will we use that freedom? These are the same questions that come tagging along with any and all kinds of freedoms that we have. Right now we find our nation sinking further into slavery because it fails to uphold human responsibility with freedom. In other words, freedom doesn't mean that you can do whatever you want. Freedom means you are free to do what's right. In the case of the Christian freedom that Peter emphasizes today, it means that the Christian is not free to do whatever he wishes in the face of the state. It means that we have the freedom to serve Christ at any cost, no matter what the earthly temporal rewards or punishments be. We belong to him, to Christ. And in Christ, we have the freedom to obey human authorities placed there for our own good, whether they operate that way or understand that or not. Again, submit yourselves to every human authority for the Lord's sake. Why are we submissive? Why do we obey human authorities? For the Lord's sake. What does it mean to do something for someone's sake? Think of how we would use this type of language in daily life. Say we're walking into a class reunion, my wife and I, and I turn to Emily and say, please, honey, my love, my darling, if anyone mentions the jeans incident, please just go with it and don't ask a lot of questions for my sake. I mean that for the purposes I desire, I want you to not encourage those who want to tease me, even though I never tease anyone. They always seem to want to give me a hard time. No, I have a purpose. I have an end. For my sake, don't follow through with this. Brothers and sisters, God has a purpose in ordering human society. He has a purpose in establishing authority structures. He has a purpose in our obedience to those authority structures. That is the first part of this idea of for the Lord's sake. However, there is another part to this, not just the end that he desires in our obedience to those authority structures. The second part is that if we are ultimately about the Lord's will, then there will be times that we cannot obey the human authorities above us. because they get things so wrong that we must stand up against them. But notice that Peter's understanding of the Christian's general posture is one of submission, is one of obedience, is one of, as Jesus said in Mark 12, rendering to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that our gods, how quick we are to presume that because we render things to God, we don't have to render anything to Caesar, or we shouldn't have to. Where are we to be submissive? In every human institution, in those things that are created for the ordering of life and society. And those three things are the same today, as they were even in seedling form in our first parents, Adam and Eve, and that is the family, the church, and the state. In the family, the home economy, which ultimately is the economy, it extrapolates out in our contemporary society into industry, into servants would be employees, et cetera, et cetera. And we see these We see this for the Lord's sake present in each of these institutions. In the various relationships that surround the family, the home economy. Ephesians 6.1, we read, children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Children, you need to obey your parents. Unless your parents are directly asking you to do something, commanding you to do something, ordering you to do something, that is disobedient to God, directly, clearly, blatantly disobedient to God, then you should obey your parents. That's what obeying our parents in the Lord means, is that we obey our parents. They are our authority structure, kids. And yet we owe ultimate obedience and allegiance to the one who is over even them. Ephesians 5.22, wives, Be submissive to your own husbands as unto the Lord. This is a verse that gets a lot of negative press these days. Submission of wives to husbands is not en vogue, we might say. And yet God's word stands. And ladies, I would encourage you that when your husband is doing something dumb, it's not the best decision. This doesn't mean that you don't voice anything. It doesn't mean that you don't have an opinion. It means that ultimately, if you two cannot be in agreement, ultimately the decision is his. And know that he will stand before the Lord and give an account for how he has led you as your husband. Men, let's remember that. Ephesians six, five through nine, servants obey those who are your masters, according to the flesh with fear and trembling and sincerity of your heart as to Christ, not serving when eyes are on you, but as pleasing men as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart with goodwill, doing service as the Lord and not to men, knowing that whatever good thing any man does, he will receive the same from the Lord, whether he is enslaved or free and masters do the same things for them, no longer threatening, knowing that your master also is in heaven and there is no partiality with him. Here we have servants and masters, employees and bosses being reminded you are both to honor Christ in what you do because Christ is over all of you and you will give an account to him. Now, let me pause and say that these verses are not justification for the shadow slavery that was in our nation. I'm just going to go ahead and say it plainly so that we all understand. There is not justification for the treatment of other people based solely on the amount of melanin in their skin. As animals, the way we did, there is no justification for that. And there are some who will say, oh, you've bought into the fascist, you know, liberal, whatever agenda, whatever. I don't care what your opinion is of me. The fact of the matter is, there's no biblical justification for what went on. The slavery that we see in scripture is not that kind of slavery. There were economic reasons that people would enter into slavery, they get too deep In debt, they couldn't declare bankruptcy, they didn't have that luxury that we have in our nation today, and they would be forced into labor to pay it off. And brothers and sisters, let us be quick to repent of our treatment of others as if they are subordinate to us naturally because they don't look like us. We should never be guilty of that sin. So the family, the home economy, secondly, Another authority structure we have that God has ordained for us is the church. Hebrews 13 says this very directly. Obey your leaders and submit to them for they watch over your souls as those who must give an account. Let them do this with joy and not complaining for that would not be profitable to you. Never make your pastor and elders feel like ministering to you in the church is like that long road trip that has stretched too long and the AC has gone out in the car and we're fresh out of water and we still need to drive through Death Valley. Let us enjoy our life together in the church. I'm grateful to serve with elders who aren't afraid to make tough decisions and unpopular decisions. And we We know at times when we make decisions that it won't be the popular decision among some of our flock. And when the flock starts to talk about it and make their opinion known, as your pastor, I can say with joy and with love in my heart, then you ought to be glad that you are not the one who will stand and give an account for this flock the way we will on that last great day. Scripture says that if you desire to be an overseer, to be a bishop, to be an elder, you desire a good thing, and that is very true, but you also desire a very serious thing, and it is something which we will stand before the Lord and give an account for our leadership someday in a way that you will not as a member of the flock. And so you can also take great joy that your elders love you and care about you and desire your ultimate good. Well, what's that third great institution that we have in our life? It is the family, it is the church, and it is the state. The state. And this is a great point of great debate amongst many people, particularly in the era in which we live. And there's a very striking section of verses in Ezra chapter four that really stick out to me. Now, when the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin. heard that the descendants of the captivity built the temple under the Lord God of Israel, they came to Zerubbabel and to the chiefs of the father's households and said to them, let us build with you, for like you, we seek your God and have been sacrificing to him since the days of Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, who brought us here. But Zerubbabel and Joshua and the rest of the chiefs of the father's households of Israel said to them, this is not for you. It is for us to build the temple of our God. So we ourselves together will build unto the Lord God of Israel. Listen, as Cyrus, the King of Persia has recommended. No. Made possible. No. Strongly encouraged. No. Cyrus, the king of Persia has commanded us. What don't they realize that the king has no say whatsoever over anything in the church. Well, clearly Cyrus is the one who got appointed to return his people to the land. And he even used his earthly authority. to command God's people to build again the house of the Lord. And they didn't gripe about it. They went with it. The state is there for our good. And brothers and sisters, there are times, even in our own day, when Christians are so wrongheaded about something, we are so fickle and autonomous in how we think. There are times we need the state to give us a dose of wisdom to live by. Here, God's people followed through with the king's command because they knew ultimately it was following through on God's command that he should have a house built for himself. family, the church, the state. We owe obedience in each of those spheres and each of those institutions and yet our ultimate allegiance lies with the Lord and what he commands us to do. His commands are ultimate to us. There are some in our day and age though that see authority structures as merely a result of sin and so they start to think well If we're all sanctified enough, then we can usher in this utopia where, uh, everyone is the boss and everyone is the servant and everyone is exactly identically the same. And, uh, isn't it in that great theological treatise, uh, the incredibles that we learned that when everyone is special, no one is. And here we find in scripture that authority is a God-given gift that is separate from our fall into sin. We find this in the structure that is present in the order of the sinless angels. 1 Thessalonians 4.16, for the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with a trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise. first. This is a scripture I was reading on Monday as I realized I was sitting next to my grandfather and realized that he had gone to be with the Lord. The archangel. That order and structure among these sinless beings who perfectly obey God. Remember, that's part of our understanding of as we pray that things would be on earth as they are in heaven, as we understand the angels Don't tell God just a minute when I'm through with this, I'd rather do that. When God commands them to do something, they do it. These are sinless, perfectly obedient creatures, and yet they have structure and order authority within their ranks. Jude nine, yet Michael, the archangel, when contending with the devil in a dispute about the body of Moses, did not dare to pronounce upon him a railing judgment, but he said, the Lord rebuke you. Again, we even know the name of one of the archangels, which is Michael. Uh, there is order in the redeemed in heaven, Luke 19. He said to him, well done, good servant, because you have been faithful and very little take authority over 10 cities. If you feel like you don't have a lot on this earth, take joy in the fact that you might be given 10 cities in the age to come. A couple of verses later, he said, uh, it says, he said in like manner to him, you take authority over five cities. Pardon me. 1 Corinthians 6, 3, Do you not know that we shall judge angels? How much more of the things that pertain to this life? So we see even in the life to come that there is authority and there is structure. And there will be those who have certain amounts of authority in that place. We even see authority and structure in the economic trinity. That's how the. The co-equal, co-eternal triune God interrelates for the sake of redemption. 1 Corinthians 11.3, But I would have you know that the head of the woman is the man, the head of every man is Christ, and the head of Christ is God. Or 1 Corinthians 15.28, When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subject to him who put all things under him, that God may be all in all. We see the Son for the sake of redemption, serving the purposes of redemption through obedience to the Father. Again, co-equal, co-eternal, triune God, as we see our God at work, our triune God at work in redemption. So these authority structures are good. They are separate from our sinfulness as human beings, and we ought to submit and obey them. even to the king, the king as supreme, as Peter said here. This is obviously in the day and age and context of Caesar. All of the lands that were named at the beginning of this letter are under the rulership of Caesar, who didn't like the name king. And yet sometimes the Greeks would refer to him that way. King as supreme. whoever is in that position of ultimate authority in the land. John Calvin says in his comments on this now, the meaning is that obedience is due to all who rule because they have been raised to that honor, not by chance, but by God's providence. So the king or to governors, those who make sure that the law is being obeyed, they punish wrongdoers, they reward those who are doing right. Now, as we read this, sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and to praise those who do right, we have to understand that that the reality is man's laws will fluctuate in relationship to the laws of God. And we as Christians must be wise and discerning as it is upon us to uphold God's laws as above man's laws. But just because we do that does not mean that we then constantly dismiss man's laws unless In man's laws, we are being asked to sin in some blatant way that in no way fits with the faith, then we must obey God. The first right that we read here, praise to those who do right, for it is the will of God that by doing right, we have to understand that there's a little nuance here in each of those instances. We have to understand that as the king sends out governors, to punish wrongdoers and reward right doers, that that is going to be according to the king's discernment. So if the king has established laws that are not honoring to God, those who seek to honor God will be punished as evil doers. Those who might be willing to dishonor God will be rewarded as doing right. But then when Peter says, For it is the will of God that by doing right, you may put to silence, et cetera, et cetera. He's talking about doing right according to God, that that is the right that we must always do, that we must always follow after God's will. For it is the will of God that by doing right, you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men. And this is where Peter makes a very interesting connection between here and Likewise, you wives, be submissive to your own husbands, so that if any do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, as they see the purity and reverence of your lives. In the home and in the state, We see that there is a submission, there is an obedience that is pure and that is reverent, but that sometimes when need be will stand against that authority because it must honor the greater authority of Christ. There, there is something about that, that can win the hearts of the unbelieving of the agnostic as it's put here in chapter two. their hearts are one because of the obedience of God's people ultimately to God's law. Now we said that man's laws will fluctuate in relationship to God's law. And we see sometimes man being very silly, we might say, that's probably the kindest theological term we can use. Silly in one law versus another. inconsistency between two similar laws and the application of that law in two different contexts. But that does not mean that because of man's inconsistency or silliness, that we then have a right to obey, that we have a right to disobey just laws that are God honoring, even if the king doesn't know that they honor God. we must be constantly weighing and discerning and honoring God in our obedience to the state. Because it is very true that the state does not have authority over the church as an institution itself. But see, the sticky wicket comes when we understand that the state does have authority over its citizenry. And scripture speaks clearly of the state operating parentally over those who are under its charge. God has given the state a responsibility over the citizens of their land. And how do we act and respond to that? How do we treat the state in that relationship in which we are to be obedient? Men, Reformed, Covenanter men, we have seen that Peter shows in two instances how in the state and how in the home, the one who is to submit, the one who is to obey, can win the hearts of the other through the purity and reverence of their life. Men, what if your wife interacted with your humanly flawed leadership, and yes, you provide it regularly, the way you interact with the states. You know your opinion of a nagging wife. Are you a nagging citizen? Or for the Lord's sake, Do you live your life understanding that at times you'll need to obey the Lord more than men? But most of the time, you can go about your business in a quiet way, joyfully serving the Lord, even if persecution comes. Sometimes to do good, you will need to be doing what appears evil in the sight of your household, your government, or God forbid, even your church. Sometimes you will be tempted to do wrong, but you will look like you are doing right by your household, your government, or God forbid, your church. What is the difference here? The difference stands in our freedom. We are free in the practice of our religion from the dictates of government. We are also free from the need to practice evil. We are free to live in righteousness through the sacrifice of Christ and the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. But Peter here is speaking to a sometimes strange cocktail that comes when we operate in the rights of our freedom in ways that ultimately serve the purposes of evil and are not honoring to God. What is the standard of this wickedness? What is it this how we use our liberty as a covering for evil and not living as the servants of God? Well, the standard of what is evil is ultimately the moral law of God, of course, commands one through 10. Wayne Grudem says in his comments on this section, because his readers might think such extensive submission to authority would be oppressively restrictive, Peter explains that true freedom is consistent with obedience to God's will. He assures them that they are able to live as free men. The kind of freedom meant is not specified, but certainly the great freedoms of the Christian life are, and he names three, the first being freedom from the impossible obligation to earn merit before God by perfect obedience. Acts 13.39, and by him, everyone who believes is justified from everything from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses. Romans 6.23, that most of us probably know very well, for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. through Jesus Christ our Lord. This is a freedom that we have in Christ, knowing that we cannot possibly obey perfectly the law of God. And so we're free from that impossible obligation. Freedom from guilt. Galatians 3.13, Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law by being made a curse for us. It is written, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree, or going back in the language, who hangs on tree, Revelation 1.5, and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth, to him who loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood. And we're free from the ruling power of sin. Romans 6, 6 and 7, knowing this, that our old man has been crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed and we should no longer be slaves to sin. the one who has died is free from sin. See, it's been a transference of that sermon. We were servants of sin. Now we are servants of God. That is how we ought to live. We have been set free not to do whatever we want in the sinful sense, but to Do what is right in the sight of God, to live as servants of God. As free people, do not use your liberty as a covering for evil, but live as servants of God. Therefore, in your freedom, serve God, not sin. Do not use your liberty as a covering A cover-up, a pretext for sin, a calypso as the apocalypse is the revealing. The apocalypse is the covering. Okay. This little verse portion exposes our natural inclination. to distort all manner of fact into fiction to uphold our personal pleasure and comfort. Nothing confronts this reality more in the believer than one's perspective and consequent interaction with the government. While this is true in all nations, I can only speak to the American experience. We have all sorts of reasons for not paying taxes. Taxation is theft. If I read that one more time on the internet, I would be tempted to ungodliness. Taxation is theft. And we gripe about it while we drive on paved roads. And if we get into an accident we call the police and the ambulance to come and to help us all while griping about how the government is stealing from us while we joyfully use the things that are paid for with that money. We have all sorts of reasons for not following speed limits. Let's move on. Not obeying wise laws or wise decrees of the king or the governors. In the present pandemic, some have been especially nagging, if I might refer back to that, about the government not telling the church how to worship. Can I hit pause for a second and point out that the government has yet to tell the church how to worship? At what point have they prescribed or banned a liturgy? Assigned or edited a scripture? Defined or dumped the gospel? No, they have merely for the sake of safety, which is a sixth commandment issue. They have limited the number of individuals who can gather publicly. They have limited the activities of their citizens. I've said before, not in this context, but I'll say it here, and I will say it again. The government has not done what they have done against the church. They have done it for the people that they are responsible for before God. Now, for those of you who might be conspiracy theorists, I can't help you. If you see this, only as a matter of control and making people into sheeple, et cetera, et cetera, then nothing will ever satisfy you. However, if you step back and see the actual safety of men and women, boys and girls that is at stake here, you will see that the government is seeking to do right. And whether they understand it or not, they're doing it according to God's word. And even though they are misstepping at times, they are fulfilling their God-given responsibility to protect the people that are under them. Now, we said earlier before, and I'm sure in your homes, you shouted amen. I couldn't hear you through the video, but I'm sure you said amen to the fact that God's law is the ultimate standard of right and wrong, good and evil. And that is the law to which we are ultimately loyal as Christians. And in the larger catechism it asks, which is the sixth commandment? The sixth commandment is, thou shalt not kill. And then in typical Westminster divine fashion, they look at the positives and they look at the negatives. They look at the pros and they look at the cons. They look at what does this commandment require that we proactively do? And what does this command require that we proactively not do? And while not all of this absolutely applies, it may have been a while, since you've reviewed this, so I will read the totality of questions 135 and 136. What are the duties required in the sixth commandment? The duties required in the sixth commandment are all careful studies and lawful endeavors to preserve the life of ourselves and others by resisting all thoughts and purposes, subduing all passions, and avoiding all occasions, temptations, and practices which tend to the unjust taking away the life of any, by just defense thereof against violence, patient bearing of the hand of God, quietness of mind, cheerfulness of spirit, a sober use of meat, drink, physic, medicine, sleep, labor, and recreation, by charitable thoughts, love, compassion, meekness, gentleness, kindness, peaceable, mild, and courteous speeches and behavior, forbearance, readiness to be reconciled, patient bearing and forgiving of injuries, and requiting good for evil. Comforting and succoring the distressed, that's succoring, not suckering, okay, so those who are in distress, we meet their needs, we tend to them, we feed them, we care for them, and protecting and defending the innocent. What sins are forbidden in the Sixth Commandment? The sins forbidden in the Sixth Commandment are all taking away the life of ourselves or of others except in case of public justice, lawful war, or necessary defense, the neglecting or withdrawing the lawful and necessary means of preservation of life, sinful anger, hatred, envy, desire of revenge, all excessive passions, distracting cares, immoderate use of meat, drink, labor, and recreations, provoking words, oppression, quarreling, striking, wounding, and whatsoever else tends to the destruction of the life of any. So you can see that there is a lot that is unpacked out of thou shalt not kill. And this sixth commandment is what is at the heart of the issue in our society right now. That there are steps that have been taken by the government to preserve life. They have not told us we are unable to worship. They have, in fact, they have encouraged and given leniency and not totally shutting down church buildings, but allowing those to be on site to live stream worship so that people can worship more effectively in their homes. Now, some of you are listening to me and you're saying, Pastor Joel, you are stretching it. You are taking this too far. But let me ask you this. Have you thanked the Lord for the opportunity to continue worshiping him week by week as we patiently bear the hand of God in our land. We are in a moment that requires a strong commitment to the sixth commandment. That requires that we not do anything that needlessly ends life. And you can go to Google and you can look for the news stories of those preachers who stood in the pulpits. and said, we're Christians, we're going to worship God publicly, and we're going to continue to do so. And God's going to protect us. This virus won't get us. And they are now dead. Not because the government assassinated them, because they were rebelling against the government, but because they got sick and died from the virus, the very virus that the government was seeking to protect us from. Brothers and sisters, it does us no good to just constantly cry, Covenanter. and not seek to be nuanced and wise in how we interact with our society and our culture and the things going on around us revolving around the civil government. We are called by God to obey the government, not as the church as an institution obeying the government, but as citizens of the nation that the government is called to oversee and has been given charge to the glory of God. They may not see it as that, they may not understand it as that, but they will stand and give an account to God someday for how they handle their responsibilities to us. We will stand and we will give an account someday to our obedience to God's word that tells us to obey the authorities that have been placed over us. How have we done at that? Have we taken joy that we can continue to worship week by week? Have we thanked God for that? Or have we allowed our worship to be hindered because we simply want to gripe and complain about what the government has commanded? Now, I say this in hopes that soon we will all be together again. And when we do, you all can tell me if you want just how wrong I am about this, but I'll remind you that God himself has commanded by His Holy Spirit, through the Apostle Peter, that we are to live in lawful submission to the government authorities that are placed above us. And this was not said when it was a perfectly covenanted government. This was said when there was a man on the throne who saw himself as God, who would kill you if you said Jesus is Lord, because that meant you didn't believe that he was Lord. the command still came. The command still came to submit yourselves to every human authority for the Lord's sake. Might it be that we cry Covenanter and would foolishly wander off into sickness and death that is not needed or required and God has given us a sinful not acknowledging Christ government to give us wisdom to keep ourselves apart for a season so that we might live longer to praise our God together. Even the psalmist asked, Lord, how can the dead praise you? So keep us alive. Brothers and sisters, let us use wisdom and how we speak and how we interact with the matters of our day. and let us thank God that we have been able to continue to worship him and let us look forward with great anticipation when we will not be separated by the glass and sand of a computer and we will be able to see one another again, bump elbows, who knows, maybe even shake hands and hug as we see one another again and we lift up our voices and praise to our God as the church, subservient ultimately to him. Pray with me. Father, thank you for your word. It cuts us deep. You know my heart and how I have been cut by these words, how I am tempted to be autonomous and to rebel. and to call foolish the agencies that you have put over me for my good. Father, I pray that you would work wisdom in the hearts of your people that we might all together live these pure and reverent lives, even in the midst of a foolish government ruling over us. understanding that you still work through that agency for the good of your church, even if that good is simply keeping us alive to worship together on another day. Father, help us to discern these things, to be wise in these things, and to be allegiant ultimately to our King and Savior, Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. In church, let us pray together. Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. Amen.