Servants of God

Peter chapter 2, I'll start 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. For this is the will of God that by doing good, you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.

Honor everyone, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the emperor. You may be seated. If you were here last week, if I could redo the title, I would have called last week part one and I'd call this week part two. So last week we looked at these verses, and I don't think we got as deep as we needed to be and understand them the way we ought to. And so last week we talked about being subject to every human institution, and we talked in particular about applying that to our experience in the United States of America, which, interestingly enough, is one of the most unique experiences anybody's ever had in the history of the world.

So we, and interestingly enough, we have a sense of that ourselves, that we think we're pretty special sometimes, too, being in the United States. So we need to watch that. But what I want to do is I want to go back and look at this again from a more general perspective of what it means to be subject, for the Lord's sake, to every human institution. and I want to give you some warnings about, in particular, what it means to not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil.

And I think that there's a reason why Peter would need to insert that statement in this context and it's because we can run away with our freedoms and sometimes we can do things that outwardly might seem like the right thing to do or could even be called the right thing, but inwardly we're actually evil and calculating. The context of 1 Peter, remember, is that we are exiles in a strange land. We are going to suffer as the result of the Gentiles around us, Gentiles being non-believers in this case, persecuting Christians, speaking evil of us, possibly even assaulting us physically and putting Christians through some kind of torture even or to even the point of death.

And Peter is warning the people that are in this region and thus us as well as believers how we are to act because of this. Because there's a lot of ways we might think to act. In the book of Proverbs or maybe it's Ecclesiastes or maybe both, it says the attitude of the person who thinks there's nothing more to live for is well let's eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die. and Christians could fall prey to that same kind of methodology or ideology in their mind that well hey if things are going to get bad I might as well enjoy myself while I can and do the types of things that everyone around me is doing that's why later in chapter 4 Peter will warn us that the time for doing what the Gentiles like to do has passed don't participate in all the things they do and there's a list of things Gentiles do so what Peter does remember the context in verse 15 of chapter 1 he says since he who has called you is holy you also be holy in all your conduct and we talked about that weeks ago that this is really the context of the rest of the book this is Peter telling us the implementation of the command be holy so you're told to be holy and if he stopped right there it technically would have been a pretty good command But Peter, and by the love of God through the Holy Spirit, gives us some specific examples of how to be holy.

And one of the ways that we learn to be holy, and one of the important things that God gives us in the Scripture, is a hierarchy of authority and submission. And so what I want you to notice first is when Peter says, be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution, he first lists governmental authorities. He says the emperor, which or could be the king.

It says or the governors is sent by him to punish those who do evil and praise those who do good. And a lot of people stop right there at the end of this paragraph and think, OK, well, that's what Peter means by being subject. But then look at verse 18. Peter says servants be subject to your masters with all respect. And then and then he goes on and we'll talk about that.

Hopefully next week we'll get into that section. But so there's more to this authority and subjection than just humans to their governmental authorities. If you're a servant in this time, if you're a slave of someone, which that's a bad word in the United States. But at the time, a slave had a specific meaning that you could hash out and understand that wasn't the same as what we think of as slavery.

But in our case, you could think of yourself as an employee. Most of the people in here have an earthly boss if they have some kind of job. And if you're like Jason and Lindsay who own their own business, literally everyone's their boss. You're told, own your own business, be your own boss. It's actually not that way. It's literally all your customers are your boss.

So welcome to small business ownership. But the point is that you are to be subject to your earthly authorities. And that includes that there's going to be somebody in your life, a boss at work. There's going to be a manager. There's a pretty pagan movie that I saw before I was a Christian where the guy talked about having ten bosses or eight bosses or whatever.

And a lot of us know that experience in the corporate world where it like literally everyone that walks into my office is my boss that day And if I don do what they say I going to be in trouble And if you want to see the movie you have to watch a clear view or one of those things because it not a good one But then in verse 1 of chapter 3, Peter says, likewise... So Peter's relating the command in verse 1 of chapter 3 to the previous concept. He says, likewise, wives, and he says, be subject to your own husbands.

So it's the same command. Be subject to every human institution. This is a specific example of somebody who as a Christian is being told to be subject to an earthly or human institution. And he says to be subject to your own husbands. And we'll talk about that one eventually. And then even in verse 7, husbands are given some ways that they are to serve their wives.

And he doesn't use the language be subject to because there's a relationship there that we'll need to understand. But husbands have a responsibility to their wives. Again, even in the midst of persecution, even if you're the only Christians in the middle of a whole big world of people who are doing all sorts of really bad things, the way that you as a wife and you as a husband act within your home is super duper important. and chances are it's going to be entirely distinct from how everyone around you thinks you should live and it's going to be totally different from what the culture tells you how to live and it's going to actually defy what people tell you is right.

One thing the world does really well is have a form of godliness while denying its power. The world rarely puts up a screen and says, hey, do all these really bad things. it'll ruin your life, it'll make you depressed, it'll make you sad, it'll cause you to want to do suicide. The world rarely presents itself that way. What the world usually does is it not only promises good rewards and good things for the evil it promotes, but it tries to convince you to do it because it's the right thing.

The world, which is run by Satan, the world knows how to appeal to our base nature, and we want to feel like we're doing the right thing. Even evil people want to feel that way. And the world is good at telling us, hey, do this. This is a good thing. This is how you love your neighbor. And then even in verse 8 of chapter 3, Peter's going to say to have unity of mind and sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart and a humble mind, which is not the same as being subject to someone in the same sense of authority and a hierarchy.

But it's the idea that you've given up your rights for others. I had this experience yesterday I don't like to tell a lot of stories but it was Friday, I was in a meeting with two men they don't go to this church who needed reconciliation and what I saw it's sad the way it ended but there was one man who completely would not repent and he was in grave error but the other man exhibited all these traits and it was really beautiful to watch in fact, and it was the guy who was right about some of the charges against the other who was the one that had the humble mind and the brotherly love and actually was the only one that admitted any wrongdoing in the situation and and asked forgiveness but so what i want to submit to you here is that peter is not going to tell us to be subject for the lord's sake to every human institution and then list a number of institutions such as marriage servants to their masters and people to their governments and not have some similarities between them. So what I'm trying to say is that when you think about your submission to governmental authorities, you should have some concept in your mind that it's not going to look totally different from what you think the submission in these other areas would be. and so this is my warning to you because last week one of the things we talked about was that there are times to we'll say defy a government and I think, I don't know how it works exactly but maybe we're defying the government now because most of us don't have a mask on and none of you are six feet away from anyone else so I don't know exactly if somebody would say we're in rebellion or not for that But we think that this is actually a time to just worship the Lord and to use common sense and to do what we're doing.

But the point is this, that you should not be defying your government out of a spirit of rebellion. You should not be defying your government simply because you can. You should have well thought out reasons why you may or may not be defying your government. Now the argument that I made last week was you're not really defying a government because there's actually no law that was legally made according to our Constitution that we have to do anything.

So we're just not obeying people that don't have jurisdiction. But that's going to change eventually. There's going to be a law made that you're not going to want to follow. There's laws you probably don't follow right now. I've drove places without a seatbelt for a little while. I mean, you know, little things we do all the time.

And so what I want you to consider is if you're a parent and you have children who are supposed to be subject to you, which Peter doesn't address that specifically, but it's the same concept. The fifth commandment, honor your father and your mother. If you read the Baptist catechism, it says what is commanded, what is required in the fifth commandment.

It talks about being subject to every authority that God has given you in your life, whatever it happens to be. It means if you're a wife, you're subject to your husband. If you're a slave, to your master and to our governing authorities. And so if you're a parent and you tell your child to do something, you expect your child to do it, even if you can't point to a scriptural command that says they have to do that exact thing.

And so it will be with governments at times. There will be times governments tell you to do something or will say even ask you to do something. But what I mean is when they make a legal command of you that they can say oh well this is definitely the most perfect thing to do This is the right thing to do And sometimes it may not be It may not be sin, but it may not be right.

There's there's there's areas where it's not necessarily a wrong thing. Sinfully, but you don't want to do it. We have to have an attitude of submission to our authorities. and one of the reasons is because of what Paul says in Romans 13. So turn to Romans 13. So my concern is that we have a rebellious spirit, that we're stiff-necked people, and I've seen this happen.

I'm not saying I've seen it with anyone in this room, but I've seen it happen where there's people that just want to be, not antichrist, anarchist. Maybe a similar concept. There's people that are just anarchists. They just hate the government. They hate authority. And I remember when Governor DeWine first shut down Ohio back in March and April.

Everybody here is from Ohio, I assume. And there were these rallies at the State House where it was like open Ohio rallies. And I would go to these rallies. And there were people there that were really fired up. and I talked to them a little bit, some of them, and what I found out is these people literally just hated any authority. So they were happy to stand there with these signs making fun of DeWine and sexual suggestions about Amy Acton and all these horrible things that these wicked people were doing, and they appeared to be on the side of some of the righteous people that just wanted some things changed in Ohio.

And I had to separate myself from a number of people when I found out why they were there. and we don't want to let a rebellious spirit be in our heart. And one thing that should help you with that is when Peter, when Paul says to the Romans in verse 1, chapter 13, he says, let every person be subject to the governing authorities. Same concept as Peter.

Paul says, for there is no authority except from God and those that exist have been instituted by God. If you believe that God is sovereign, if you believe that God has foreordained all things which we would have read weeks ago in our own confession in this church if you believe that God's the one who's meticulously in control of every detail of your life he's the one that puts the borders around nations he's the one that appoints the kings he's the one that raised up Pharaoh for his own purposes if you believe that and that same God that is in charge of who gets to be president of who gets to be governor, of who gets to be city councilman of who's the police officer on the street that comes to talk to you, if you believe those things, then you also need to follow the command that says to obey the authorities and to submit to them. That's going to look a little different sometimes.

But we should have an attitude that says, I'm submitting to God. And we're going to see later in the chapter that it was Jesus Christ's example, of course, of submitting to Pontius Pilate, even though Pontius Pilate had no earthly right to punish Jesus Christ certainly no right whatsoever to punish the Son of God and yet Jesus willingly entrusted his soul to a faithful creator while he did good Jesus went willingly and submitted to the penalty that the Roman authorities were going to put upon him so your attitude needs to be one of submission It's an intentional putting yourself underneath someone else and understanding your role in society. One of the reasons why we do this is that, believe it or not, even in some of the worst societies we have ever seen, most rulers are a terror to evil and they're a help to good.

That no matter how bad things are, in most societies, I realize we could probably come up with some examples, things could be worse. I mean, the mere fact that we're sitting here right now, and I don't have any fear that someone's about to charge in and arrest us. I don't have any fear that even bad people are going to come and do bad things. Things could always be worse.

Now, are there segments of society where things almost couldn't get worse? I mean, if you're an unborn baby in the United States today, things can't get much worse than they are now. I'm not saying everything's perfect or the same for everybody, But what I'm saying is your situation could be worse. Our government could be worse. I mean, believe it or not, like, you know, remember four years ago, what was this?

What did we say? We said, well, anyone but Hillary, you know. Like, that's why we elected Trump, basically, you know. Even people that didn't like him said, anybody but Hillary. And now here we are four years later, and it's like, oh, now we don't want Biden, right? You know, so it always can get worse, and it will get worse.

And so we always want to obey the authorities because as bad as they might be and as bad of rules as they make, they're probably still helping stave off some evil simply because of their existence. Complete anarchy would be worse than even one bad tyrant sometimes. Now, that's arguable. I'm not going to give you examples and tell you it's 100%. But the Bible tells us to submit to the authorities for the Lord's sake.

Now, even if the authorities are bad, we are to submit to them. Peter will reiterate that to us when he talks to wives in chapter 3. And he tells wives to even submit to unsaved husbands who don't obey the word. Servants will be subject to their masters. And he says in verse 19, it's a gracious thing when you endure sorrow while suffering unjustly. It's actually a grace from God when you suffer unjustly.

It actually a chance to identify with our Lord Jesus Christ Something none of us can do unless he by his grace even grants us the ability to And so we grateful for these difficulties we face yet at the same time and we talked about this last week so if you weren't here, we could talk about it more, there is times that we need to stand up and fight for the innocent. And there's times that there are unjust laws, and there are unjust tyrants, we'll just call them, because that's really what a person is, who uses laws unjustly. And there are times that we have to stand up for people and we have to love our neighbor in a way that maybe isn't exactly what we think we're being told by the government.

But we should be trying to do this. Because by doing good, verse 15, we put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. so when Gentiles come and speak evil of you one of the things that you have in your toolbox we'll say to argue against them I'm not saying you have to say it it will be the life you led where people know that was a person I could trust that was a person who I trusted with my children that was a person who I knew wasn't stealing from me that guy was a good employee for me So when something happens to you because you're a Christian, there will be people who know, and they will know that you didn't do anything wrong. Now, if your attitude is constant rebellion, if you're constantly one of those people that's kicking against the authorities in your life, there will be people that know why you just got arrested.

I remember when I was a kid, I was told repeatedly, you're going to be arrested one day. one day you're going to mouth off to somebody that actually has the power to just stop you and it happened I have like a three inch scar or whatever on my skull from it so it happens to people but if you have a life where you lead a quiet and peaceful life you pray for your authorities you pray for the people that are in charge of you you're respectful to your boss even when your boss isn't a good person you're respectful to your husband even when he fails to be everything that God would call him to be. You model that type of behavior for your children so hopefully they actually obey you in your house. There's nothing worse than a rebellious child and then sitting there and realizing well he's just acting just like I do.

I should see more head nods right now. You guys are some pretty good kids out here I guess. Spurgeon says this. this is the final thing on you guys needing to submit. I just don't want a rebellious spirit in you. Spurgeon said, That which will not bend shall break. That which cannot be mended must be thrown away.

So that which will not bend shall break. I'm not talking about compromising. I'm not talking about giving up Christian morals. I'm not talking about being a coward. I'm talking about trying to be able to discern what is the will of the Lord. Romans tells us not to be conformed to this world, but by testing, discern what is the will of the Lord.

And that's what we want to do, is we want to try different things and talk to people, ask questions. Make sure that you don't have something in your heart that is actually rebellion. Rather, make it cheerful submission to the authorities God has instituted because you believe in the sovereign God. 1 Peter 2.16 now Peter says, live as people who are free not using your freedom as a cover up for evil but living as servants of God there's a couple aspects to this that I want you to think about one of them is this, you live as someone who's free meaning you're free from the penalty and the restrictions of God's law I want you to well if you don't have one but I'm going to read from the confession because they say it better than I can most of the time anyway true believers chapter 19 paragraph 6 are not under the law as a covenant of works to be justified or condemned by it Yet it is very useful to them, as to others, as a rule of life that informs them of the will of God and their duty.

In chapter 21 about Christian liberty, we're told in verse chapter 2, God alone is the Lord of the conscience. and he has left it free from human doctrines and commandments that are in any way contrary to his word or not contained in it. So believing such doctrines or obeying such commands out of conscience is betrayal of true liberty of conscience. It requires an implicit faith or an absolute and blind obedience and destroys the liberty of conscience and reason as well.

So what this is saying is that if you try to obey man-made laws because you're saying these are really what God would have me do it actually destroys your conscience in a sense and it's unreasonable and in effect would lead to more reasonability but the Bible also tells us although you are free from the penalty of disobeying God's law and you're free from the ceremonial aspects of God's law and we don't consider the civic moral code of God's law to be applicable to us today in the way it was to ancient Israel, we still can harm others by following every path into our own freedom that we think we can follow into. Because of other people's weaknesses or consciences. And so when Peter tells us, live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, I think, first of all, we want to make sure we're not really sitting in our heart by being like rebels, for example, being free.

Or, you know, you might be free to, I don't know, you're free to watch a movie. And maybe some of you like watching movies. But while you're watching the movie, are you sinning? Are you watching movies that have scantily clad people in it and that you yourself aren't capable of placing your eyes on without sinning? Are you watching television programs or shows?

How old I am, nobody calls it a television program anymore. Are you watching TV shows or whatever people call them now? I don't know. that use blasphemy or foul language. And now while maybe somebody could argue that watching somebody else do it is acceptable, are you doing it in your heart though when you hear it? Garbage in, garbage out. So what you're putting into your eyes and ears, that's what's eventually going to start filtering through.

You feed yourself with the Word of God all the time and you won't let corrupt communication come out of your mouth. but the second part of that live as servants of God so back to Romans in the same context of Romans 13 which is in the context of Romans 12 so a quick summary of Romans for you Romans 1-8 says this is how you got saved you were too wicked to do anything on your own except utterly evil things whether you're Jew or Gentile that's the case whether you think you've heard the law or not it's the case God came in, He sent His Son to die for you you're so hopelessly wicked you couldn't even believe in Him if He didn't regenerate you in the first place and elect you before you were even born and did all your wicked things and so since God saved you, your first inclination is going to be well now that I'm saved I can do whatever I want and so God says no you can't do that, you're a slave to whatever you obey so don't obey sin obey God and then He says you're still going to sin a bunch, don't feel terrible terrible about it like you're not going to heaven feel bad but you still get to go to heaven because Jesus Christ is that great and guess what he's still going to save people from Israel and Paul's an example of one of them and he still loves those guys and then you get to Romans 12 and Paul says do not be conformed to this world offer your body as a living sacrifice and everybody thinks somehow that Romans 13 is like it's like a new chapter and it is a new chapter but it's not a new chapter according to the way Paul wrote the Bible Romans 13 where it tells you to be subject to the governing authorities is simply an extension of how to not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that by testing you will understand what the will of God is. So then you get through Romans 12, which is this amazing list of commands, which none of us probably practically know well enough to even say we practice them on a regular basis. There must be 40 commands in there, maybe 50.

It's huge. And they're beautiful commands. They're ways to live a great life. But getting to Romans 13, God tells us how to obey authorities, In Romans 13, the most abused text in the United States for the past nine months is also one of the ones that has half the chapter as the most neglected text because all people talk about is the part about obeying authorities.

But then you get to verse 8, and Paul says, Owe no one anything except to love each other. He says, For the one who loves is fulfilled the law. And then he says, Basically, love does no wrong to a neighbor. Verse 10. He lists part of the Ten Commandments. and so here you are in Romans 13 and everybody thinks it's about whether we should obey the governor or whether we should have a revolutionary war and people want to argue about whether and in the end it's like none of us even half love each other in the same room half the time that we're in and we're so concerned about whether the guy in California is actually listening to the governor over there or whatever I mean it's insane where our focus comes sometimes I'm not saying these aren't important things but I'm saying some of us need to focus a little more on whether we're obeying God's commands than whether we think everybody else is meticulously obeying them as we would if we lived in their situation.

You understand what I'm saying? It was a good amen time from somebody, but I'm not supposed to have to ask for it. Thank you. All right. But Paul and Peter, they're so similar I mixed them up anyway, but Paul in Romans 13, he's warning them, Jesus is coming. He's coming back.

Don't live in orgies, drunkenness, sexual immorality, sensuality. He says, not in quarreling and jealousy. And he says, put on the Lord Jesus Christ. Make no provision for the flesh to gratify his desires. And then he says, one of the things that's one of the hardest things for us to understand, it's one of the hardest things for people to accept. And it seems like it should be easy.

He says, as for one who is weak in faith, welcome him. But not to quarrel over opinions. Evidently, Paul didn't know about Facebook. because it's basically designed to cause people to fight. I'm not saying you can't have these arguments and debates and stuff. But listen, he says, one person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables.

Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains. So the idea is this. You've got these guides who thought that when they read the Bible, They thought the Bible said hey don eat pork and don wear a mixed fabric thread There were people that were really sensitive to what they were reading and they didn quite know about the freedom we had from ceremonial laws in Christ The stuff I read about, the law of your conscience that you have to help you to make decisions and to obey God, to worry about the big things, not necessarily the tithing of mint and cumin and stuff, right?

And so there were people there who were like, hey, we're allowed to eat pork. And they're just sitting there stuffing their face. Like, what is it, barbacoa and carnitas, right? More carnitas, more, more, more. And they're just going crazy. And these other guys are just aghast.

I mean, remember Peter? Peter, after living with Jesus all those years, hearing Jesus say, I've made all foods clean. That was in Mark, right? Peter's the one that says, I've never eaten an unclean thing. He's talking to God himself when God says, take and eat. Peter was more holy than God.

That was sarcasm. Just, you know, in case you're listening to the recording, I don't mean that. But the point is this, that there were people who realized they had this freedom. And there were other people that weren't quite understanding that. And maybe because their conscience wouldn't allow them to eat pork, they weren't convinced in their spirit that that was okay. so they didn't eat it.

And the other people were almost despising them because, well, they made them feel bad about it maybe. But you don't violate your conscience. So the first rule of having a conscience is you don't violate your conscience. You don't violate your conscience even if your conscience is wrong. And the reason is that you can sear your own conscience. And you can make your conscience something that you choose to start ignoring.

This is why in Romans 13 it tells you you obey the authorities for conscience sake. You don't want to start rebelling against authorities and violating your own conscience even. But you have a conscience and your conscience may be different from somebody else's. So the weaker person thinks he has more restrictions in this context here. And the stronger person knows that he has less restrictions than the other person.

And so what happens is they start to despise each other. So they're both horribly wicked sinners that had no hope apart from Jesus Christ, who decided to love them and came and died for them. Considers each one of them his beloved. He exalts over them with joy and singing. He's going to take them to heaven. God wouldn't spare a city if it had ten righteous men.

Well, if God didn't spare his own son, will he not much more freely give us all things, right? But then you have these two people who over a thing like food, all of a sudden the union that they have in Christ, the brotherly love, the tenderheartedness, the sympathy that we're told to have for one another in Christ is out the window because, hey, I'm not going to sit down and not eat pork. And so I just use this nice example.

It seems biblical. And what if I said, I'm not going to wear a mask. because you know I think there's people in Christianity who may have some very good convictions about the mask thing and there's a reason that they don't wear it and it's not because they don't love their neighbor they don't think it has the effect it supposedly has and I respect that if that's your opinion but if you walk into another person's establishment and they say you're to wear a mask guess what that's a human institution on their private property that you actually technically are supposed to obey and you need to suffer the consequences if you don't which might mean hey you can't shop at kroger or you might just toss a mask on out of love for your neighbor you may have the conversation i i would encourage you to have the conversation with somebody people are going to learn a lot more about your faith and maybe about whatever you know about covid if you talk to them rather than just walk around without your mask and let them know you don't need one. And it could come from a spirit of rebellion.

It could come from a desire for quarreling. Now if you're on public property and it's the government and you want to not wear a mask because you're challenging something that's a whole different story. If you went to a lot of churches in Ohio today, you know we have an evening service. You could go somewhere else in the morning. Some of those churches would want you to wear a mask and I think it would be pretty crummy to walk out because they asked you to wear one.

You might want You might not want to stay at one. I understand that. We don't have them here. Like, I get it. Like, I'm not wearing them. But I think we need to look at our hearts.

Are our hearts really inclined toward love for our brothers and sisters in such a way where you're willing to give up a freedom that Christ even bought for you because of love for them, either because it violates their conscience or because of their personal weakness? And I think that we need to be servants of one another, not using our freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. Don't use your freedom as a cover up for evil but live as servants of God.

So love other people first. Love is the fulfilling of the law. If you love people, you're going to do a few things. You won't steal from them. You won't lie to them. You won't murder them.

You won use them sexually or covet after their wives You won even want their stuff that not yours You encourage Sabbath worship to people that you love You would encourage them not to be idolaters. They'll tell you what, you don't love a Roman Catholic if you partner with them side by side against abortion. You love a Roman Catholic by evangelizing them so they don't go to the same hell that the abortionist is going to.

You point out to them their idolatry. because Jesus is more important, and their eternity is more important. And so when we love people, we actually fulfill the law, which is, I just listed most of the Ten Commandments, if you didn't notice. It's just, here's how to live. There's positive requirements, there's negative requirements of these commandments, there's things you don't do, and there's things you do do.

Negative commandments, and positive requirements of each. There's things that you ought to do. If somebody thinks that by wearing a mask, they're loving their neighbor, they're loving the person in their house, they're loving their older person that they think is more at risk, then we should respect that. We should love people that believe that. And even just have the conversation.

Ask people, why are you wearing a mask? That's one of the biggest problems right now is that we just don't ask. You see someone with a mask and somebody yells out, Sheep! Who knows why? You know what I mean? Get one with a message on it like, I don't like masks.

I don't care. Do what you need to do. But talk to people. We're losing the ability to have relationships because everything's online. And because with some of the masks and lockdowns, we don't talk as much. We don't interact as much with people even.

And you go to the store and you have your headphones. I'm guilty of it. I go to the store and I listen to sermons. I justify it like, oh, I'm listening to a sermon. But like, I'm not interacting with my neighbors. Maybe like I could be.

So we need to love people. Oh, that was the second thing. If somebody might wear a mask because they are not wear a mask because they're actually taking a stand against something that they feel very strongly about. They may be absolutely certain that they're not carrying something that that a mask is going to help others with. and they think that by not wearing a mask they're actually making a statement to encourage other people who they think are being led astray.

They might also just love rebellion. There was a guy in the Toledo area, Sandusky. A guy in Sandusky, Aaron sent me his mugshot on an article the other day. This guy in Sandusky went to Walmart. Again, Walmart, private property, chooses to enforce masks. That's up to Walmart.

Walmart can make you wear shoes and a shirt why not a mask right? think about it the guy goes to Walmart they tell him hey you need to put a mask on he pulls brass knuckles out he ends up arrested for carrying a concealed weapon that guy's not suffering for righteousness sake in jail he's not even suffering in jail for the mask so have the attitude that Peter wants us to have which can be summed up with honor everyone love the brotherhood fear God and honor the emperor. Peter wants us to have honor for everyone. Every single person you meet, the most vile sinner that's still alive that you run into, the most wicked enemy of yours that actually wants to do harm to your family is still a human being that potentially is going to become your adopted brother or sister in Christ at any moment.

And I'm guilty of spending more time in anger or bitterness with someone than I am in prayer for their soul. and if I'm the only one, let me know, and somebody can help me with that one. But I'm guilty of that. Every single person is a person that God made and put in your path for some reason. And you don't know how helping that person out might be what helps somebody else.

Maybe it comes around and even helps your family or whatever. I don't know. You do it because it's right. You honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. You should particularly love the household of God. look at Galatians 6 I think it's verse 12 we should do good and in particular to other Christians people should recognize us by our love for one another I get it if you're a Baptist and you've got a Presbyterian friend you might have some arguments about some things I think we need to find a way to make sure we're expressing our love and reminding ourselves that I have more in common with another Christian that disagrees with me on literally anything than anybody who's not a Christian.

Sometimes we're a little bit too entrenched in some of these worldly endeavors. He says, fear God and then honor the emperor, honor the king. Fear God is the... I mean, that's salvation. That's looking at God, fearing His power, His might, trembling at His word. we've turned fear into just oh like just uh love him reverently like there's truth there but god is to be feared he's incomprehensibly like indescribably like amazing and he should be feared and in comparison to our fear for god there should be fear of nothing else as Jason prayed We shouldn fear man Every time you sin there some part of you on some level that just not fearing God enough So fear God.

And he says honor the emperor. He reminds us. He reminds us. But, of course, I guess it is different because the Roman people had a good emperor, right, in the Roman Empire. And we have a bad one, right? let's not forget that this was an extremely wicked government that Peter Peter's writing this and they're about to tear down Jerusalem and it wasn't because we need to fulfill Jesus' prophecy it was like no, we just want to go do bad things these are people that were molesting children they were having their debaucherous little parties where they just sit and eat and drink until they could puke so then they could do more orgy stuff and then eat and drink.

It was like rinse-repeat kind of thing. This was a horrible environment that these people were a part of. And Peter says, honor the emperor. There is a level where we're to simply understand that in God's economy, that emperor was put there for our good. And in some cases, like Paul used the emperor, Paul appealed to be able to get his case heard. And what happened to Paul?

Paul's eventually executed, right? Paul's story is not a happy ending. If you were writing the Christian happy ending where the guy gets saved and his wife comes back and all those neat things that we like movies about and stuff like that that's not Paul's story. Paul's happy ending is that today you get to read his words. You get to read his testimony before oh, I forget the guy's name now there was Felix and Agrippa you get to read the testimony that Paul gave to these people and what did Paul get out of it?

I think he was beheaded is what church history tells us so you don't know how God's going to use the things in your life either your honoring of the emperor may give you an ear of somebody who normally wouldn't hear the gospel it may just be a thing that happens where you don't even see the result of it but Peter is not alone in encouraging us to suffer graciously to recognize that everything is ordained by, I don't know how you can be a non-Calvinist and suffer the only way I can suffer is because I know it's actually not permitted by God, it's appointed by God it's why I can count it all joy when I meet diverse trials is because I know that it's actually God who granted them to me so that I might get to know Him better. Finally, pray for those in authority. That's a different topic, but it's related to authorities.

One final note. It's a little bit off topic, but in my research of all this, trying to understand it, wrap my mind around it, I kept coming back to the Nuremberg defense, which when I say that maybe some of you know what that is. It's this idea that people have that if you're just doing what you're told, you're innocent of wrongdoing. When Peter tells us to obey the governing authorities and submit to our earthly masters, and when he tells wives to submit to husbands and all the different things that we see in the Bible, when Paul tells children, obey your parents, he says, in the Lord, you are never authorized to sin.

God is the ultimate authority. And when he tells you to obey an earthly authority, it is never okay for you to do something evil because you were just doing your job. And these guys that were guilty of all these war crimes, the Nazi guys, they tried this defense. I mean, most of the head honchos of the Nazi stuff committed suicide when they were about to get caught.

And the people that worked for them pretty much just said, hey, we were just doing what we were told. We didn't really know the whole deal. They had excuse after excuse, but it all came back to, I was just submitting to my authority. and even earthly councils see that as garbage so how much more is God going to disagree with you so don't ever do evil in the name of oh I'm obeying my earthly authority like God said you have to be able to think things through enough to know for example when to defy an earthly authority that is wrong telling you to do something unlawful Father in heaven thank you for your word which is always pure and always true and even though we are changing your word is unchanging and so i pray that the preached word would settle into the hearts of the people and that your holy spirit would do with it what he wishes and then each one of us might find encouragement and refreshment that we might find repentance from our own sin even if it's only in our hearts and that we may get to know your son better and come to love him more.

In Christ's name I pray. Amen.