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Pastor Skip Heitzig guides us through First and Second Peter in the series Rock Solid.
Let's turn in our Bibles to one Peter, chapter 2. We continue a
series we started called Rock Solid based upon Peter's writing
in First Peter, chapter, well, 1, all the---the whole book, but we're in chapter 2
this morning; First Peter, chapter 2. I was first pulled
over by a police officer when I was fifteen years
old. I'll never forget it. Being fifteen, I did not
have a driver's license. I was on the freeways in
Southern California, and what's most interesting is he pulled me
over for something he called "impeding traffic."
And he said, "You were going 55 miles an hour,
but the flow of traffic is much faster, and it's
actually illegal to go slower than the flow of traffic,"
only in California, I might add. So he asked me
if I had a driver's license, and I being unredeemed
said, "No. Yes, I do have one, it's just not
with me at the time, but I have a driver's
license." So I lied through my teeth. And this began
a very uneasy relationship with law enforcement in my life.
As time went on and I was riding motorcycles where I lived, and I had
right down the street from me Officer Lattis. He was
a member of the CHP, California Highway Patrol. He had
a brother named Officer Lattis who was also a member
of the California Highway Patrol. And so between the Lattis
brothers and the Heitzig boys it was like a match
made in hell. [laughter] They did not like motorcyclists, and
we were not that fond of law enforcement, and it
was very difficult. We'd get pulled over all the time.
And we felt like we were being harassed and hassled
by "the man," which leads me to open up with a question: of all
the doctrines in the Bible which is the hardest one? I know it's a sort of a loaded
and even a trick question, because if by that question
I mean which is the hardest doctrine in the Bible
to understand, you might say, "The doctrine of the Trinity
ranks pretty high up there for me. It's hard to
understand that one." If you were to say, "The doctrine
of submission," which is what I'm talking about today, "that
would be the hardest one to do and obey."
The doctrine of submission is the doctrine that Peter addresses
in these verses that we have before us. You see,
nobody likes to be told what to do, nobody. Nobody
likes it when their personal right to choose and self-determine
their future is taken away or hindered. In fact, I
would even say American culture is sort of based upon
the idea that we have freedom from the restrictive laws
of a tyrannical government. That's how we began as a
country. But the difficulty in submitting is not just in
an American proclivity, it's human tendency. It's human nature.
Most of you remember the name or know the name
James Dobson. Dr. James Dobson has written several great books
on families and marriage over the years. And if you
remember some of those books, if you're familiar, he speaks
about two kinds of kids in a family. Remember the
categories? There's the compliant child and the defiant child. And
he speaks about those in his writings, and Jim Dobson
says that there are twice as many defiant children as compliant ones,
and that they learn rebellion to their parents at a
very young age. While I do not
disagree with Dr. Dobson; I think what he said is
true, I just want to add, it's not limited to
children. Resisting authority and finding it difficult to submit is
as human as is blinking. The prophet Isaiah in chapter 53
said, "We are all like sheep who have wandered off
and gotten lost. We've all done our own thing, and
we have gone our own way." It's human nature. However, without
submission there is no safety, there is no security, there
is no protection, and I would add, there is no
music. Let me explain. At a meeting
of the American Psychological Association one of its members Jack
Lipton from Union College stood up and he described with
his colleagues how members of a symphony orchestra perceived one
another. He said, "The percussionists," these would be the drummers,
"are seen as insensitive, unintelligent, hard-of-hearing, and yet fun-loving. String
players were seen as arrogant, stuffy, and unathletic. But the
orchestra members overwhelmingly chose the word "loud" as the primary
adjective to describe brass players." "Whereas woodwind players seemed
to be held in the highest esteem and were described
as quiet and meticulous, though a bit egotistical." Now here's
a question: When you have a group of people with
such different personalities and perceptions, how on earth are they going to
make music? What's the answer? Submission. When they subordinate their
feelings and their biases to the leadership of one conductor,
there's beautiful harmony, there's beautiful music because of submission.
There is a theme that Peter has been working with
in chapter 2, and I just want to bring you
back up to speed since it's been a few weeks
since we've been there. What Peter is addressing is how
you and I as Christians are observed by the outside
world, the kind of accusations they make against us. And
Peter says when you live with the close eye of
scrutiny upon you, there's certain ground rules you need to
play by. Go back to verse 12 of chapter 2 and you'll
see what I mean. He says, "Having
your conduct honorable among the Gentiles," a euphemism he uses
for unbelievers, "that when they speak against you as evildoers,
they may by your good works which they observe, glorify
God in the day of visitation." In other words, by
an inward purity of life that is demonstrated by an
outward quality of life, you will put them to silence.
Any accusation they make against you won't stick. And then
he gives examples beginning in verse 13 of how to
do that, how to do that societally, how to do
that socially, how to do that familially within the family
unit. So you will notice, even though
I'm skipping a little bit ahead: number one, you submit to government; that's verse 13.
Number two, you submit to your employer; that's essentially verse 18 and following. And within the family, wives
submit to their husbands; that's chapter 3 beginning in verse 1.
So let's go to our text. Verse 13 says, "Therefore,"
playing off the previous verse as the unbelieving world is
looking at you, you are to conduct yourselves honorably.
"Therefore submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake,
whether to the king as supreme, or to governors, as
to those who are sent by him for the punishment
of evildoers and for the praise of those who do
good. For this is the will of God, that by
doing good you may put to silence the ignorance of
foolish men---as free, yet not using liberty as a cloak
for vice, but as bondservants of God. Honor all people.
Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king."
In those verses there are four principles that we want to
look at, four principles. First of all, the principle of
submission. Second, the particulars of submission; who are we to
submit to when it says that we are to submit.
Third, the purpose of submission; why are we to do
it. Do we do it just to keep order in a
culture or is there a higher good? And then, finally,
the practice of submission. All of that is inclusive within
this text. Look at a phrase where we begin in
verse 13. "Therefore submit," there's the principle, "submit yourselves to every ordinance of man." The word submit
is the Greek word hupotassó, which means to arrange in orderly fashion a group
of soldiers under the ranking of commanding officers. It has
a military term with a military use; however, it is used here and elsewhere in
a nonmilitary sense. It speaks of voluntarily cooperation or even
helping somebody carry a load. In other words, believers, you
and I, are never to be known as subversive troublemakers,
but as model citizens. Now before you
get all itchy and riled up about being a model
citizen and thinking of ways that it's sort of impossible
to be a model citizen in the culture and governmental
structure that we find ourselves here, let me just remind
you about the New Testament and the kind of culture
that that was birthed in. When Jesus came and when
Paul wrote, the New Testament culture it was politically corrupt.
It was filled with tyrants, filled with despots. When Peter
wrote these words, there was not a democracy in Rome.
People didn't get to vote. There was
no free speech. It was an autocracy. The king, Caesar,
made the rules and everybody had to abide by them.
Here's a sampling: in Rome there was Caesar. At this
time it was Caesar Nero. I'll get to him. The
Caesars were deified by the people, considered god, to be worshiped
as god. So that once a year it was required
of a Roman citizen to stand before an altar, offer
a pinch of incense, and say, "Caesar is lord," at
which point they would be given a little certificate called
the libellus, which certified that they had worshiped their emperor. And
now they were free to worship any god they wanted
to worship, but you had to do that first. Well, that posed
a great problem with early Christians, because when they were
dragged before the altars, they didn't say, "Caesar is Lord,"
they said, "Caesar is not lord, Jesus Christ is Lord." And
they were persecuted because of it. Those Jews who had
been living in Judea remembered guys like Herod the Great
who had all the babies in Bethlehem, the males under
two years old killed to get at Jesus Christ.
Then there was slavery in the Roman Empire, and it
was in epidemic proportions. One writer says that there were
three slaves for every one free person in Rome. It's believed
that over half of the population of the ancient Roman
Empire were all slaves. And then, then there were taxes.
And you think it's bad now, the kind of taxation
that we have discussed with you that was present in
the Roman Empire was absolutely oppressive. It crushed the people
and the taxation was simply a form of cruel injustice. Into
that world Jesus Christ came as the Messiah, but not
as people expected. They thought when the Messiah
comes he's going to deliver everyone from that oppression; he's
going to deliver everyone from Rome and the yoke of
Rome upon them. But he didn't do that. In fact,
Jesus never picketed. He never told his followers to make a
protracted march on Rome or Jerusalem and protest cruel government.
He never started an insurrection. He never tried to win
any culture war at all. In fact, it so surprised
people that on one occasion they tried to trap him.
And there were two groups of people who did it. Both of them
hated each other. There were the Pharisees
who hated Rome, hated Rome and government, hated paying taxes
to Caesar. And there were the Herodians who thought it
was okay to follow Rome, and especially Herod in Judea,
and to pay all those taxes. So these two groups
hated each other and they were both present on one
occasion and they tried to corner Jesus. And they said,
"Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?"
Thinking, "Whatever way he answers, we got him. If he
says yes, half will hate him. If he says no,
another half will hate him." So Jesus took out a coin and
he said, "Whose mug is on this?" or "Whose face is on this?" They said, "It's
Caesar's face." He says, "Then give to Caesar what belongs
to Caesar, and give to God what belongs to God."
In other words, "Well, if his face is on it, you
better give it to him. It's his. He owns it.
So you pay those taxes exorbitant as they are, but
you make sure you give to God what belongs to
God." Well, it was an amazing statement, but not everybody
agreed with that statement. There was a
whole other group of Jews called Zealots. They were Jewish
nationalists. They refused to pay taxes. They staged terrorist attacks
to kill their oppressors. And they did all of that,
get this, they did all of that "based on Scripture."
"We have the right to disagree with the government and
protest and disobey them based upon the Scripture." What was their
Scripture? Deuteronomy 17, that says, "You shall not set a
foreigner over you who is not your brother."
So, because there's a Caesar in Rome and because there's a Pontius Pilate
in Judea and a Herod, "We didn't put them there.
We must be sworn to overthrow the government." So what
is a Christian to do in the midst of that?
In an ungodly government, what is a Christian to do?
Peter in the midst of that world says, "Submit yourselves
to every ordinance of man." That's the principle. But then
there are the particulars of submission. Let me spell it out for you. Verse 13 says; "Whether to the king
as supreme," notice that. Who was the
king back then? Caesar was the king, and in this
case Caesar Nero was the king. Then it says in
verse 14, notice, "Or to governors, as to those who are
sent by him [by the king] for the punishment of evildoers,
for the praise of those who do good." Now, Rome
had twenty-eight imperial districts, and those imperial districts were all
governed by governors or procurators. Pontius Pilate was a procurator
or a governor. And so Rome gave to them part
of the Roman army, legions of soldiers who would keep
the peace. They were law enforcement officers for the government
to use on behalf of Caesar. So here's the principle:
"Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man," whether it's to the king,
Caesar Nero, or to all of those twenty-eight provincial governors, submit
to them. Now let me tell you a little background.
When Peter wrote this letter, he was about one, maybe
even two years away from what's called the Great Persecution
in Rome. It happened in 64 A.D. Here's what happened:
a fire broke out in Rome. Most all of the
Roman citizens---and it destroyed a great portion of the city.
Most of the Roman citizens believed and many historians to this day believe
the fire was started by Caesar Nero.
It was so controversial and so widely believed that their
own Caesar started the fire that Caesar Nero needed a
scapegoat. And guess who he chose? The Christian population of
the city of Rome; he accused them of arson and he
started persecuting them in mass. Here's just one story. About
halfway through his reign Caesar Nero started fancying himself as
a race car driver, except they didn't have race cars, they had chariots,
a chariot racer. He just thought it was the coolest
thing to race chariots. He had a track built for
himself in Rome so that he could race chariots during
the day. And he started getting into
it so much, he wanted to do it not just
during the day, but also at night. The only problem
is nobody invented electricity yet. So, his sick solution was
to have his soldiers round up during the daytime Christians
and bring them to his palace. And while they were
still alive cover them in tar and pitch, tie them
to poles, so that at sunset he could light those
torches around his track, so that he could spin his
little race car at night while Christians were burning after
he accused them of setting fire to Rome. Can
you see by this the obvious problem that the early
Christians had, and even we have today, that the world
is filled with Caesar Neros and Adolf Hitlers and Bashar al-Assads,
which makes us ask this question: Is there ever a
time when a Christian can or should defy and not obey
and not submit to the government? Is there? Yes, there
is. But here is the rule. The general rule is: submit until submitting
to earthly authority makes you not submit to heavenly authority.
You obey until your obedience makes you disobey God. At
that point a whole other set of rules comes into
play. And there are many examples to
show you. Example number one is back in the Old
Testament when Pharaoh of Egypt commanded the Hebrew midwives to
kill all the boys that were born among the Hebrews. It
was a law that was passed: "Kill the baby boys."
They refused to do it. Exodus, chapter 1, tells us,
"But the midwives feared God and did not do as
the king commanded," flat disobedience. Later on there was a
guy named Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon who when the captives
came in, Daniel and his buddies, made them eat a
certain diet that was against kosher Old Testament law, the delicacies of the kings table.
They refused to do it. Daniel, chapter 1 tells us, "But Daniel purposed
in his heart that he would not defile himself with the
portion of the king's delicacies." "I'm not going to obey
you because it would mean that I would have to
disobey the covenant of my God." Another example is later
on when Nebuchadnezzar built a huge image of himself, a
golden image, and commanded everybody to bow down and worship
that image. And there were three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego,
who said, "We're not going to do it." Their reply in
Daniel, chapter 3, "We will not serve your gods, nor
will we worship the golden image." Another
example, also in the book of Daniel: King Darius, the
prevailing king at the time, the Medo-Persian king made a law that for one month,
thirty solid days, nobody could pray to any other deity
except to himself. "You want to pray, you pray to
me. I am your new god." What did Daniel do? Did he say, "Okay.
I'm gonna submit to that." No. The Bible says in Daniel 6,
"He opened his windows toward Jerusalem, knelt down on the
ground, and three times that day he prayed and gave
thanks before his God." Another example is
in the New Testament when the Jewish Sanhedrin passed a
religious law that the name of Jesus Christ could not
be preached any longer: "You can't say that name. You
can't preach that name. You are forbidden to preach the
gospel." What did Peter and John do? Did they fold
over and roll over? No. They refused to obey it.
Standing before the government authorities they said, "We must obey
God rather than man." That's the principle: obey man until obeying man makes you disobey God.
And then you must obey God rather than man.
You can look into modern history. The Nazi regime under Adolf Hitler passed
all sorts of crazy laws. It was law. Many Christians defied it,
including one pastor named Dietrich Bonhoeffer. And that isn't just
a matter of history. I think it's going to confront
us. In fact, I think it already does as our
government passes its own laws, abortion laws, same-sex marriage laws.
And we're going to be confronted: "Am I going to obey
God or am I going to do what they say?"
But back to our text. Verse 14,
notice what it says, that these governors, this police force
even "are sent by him [the king] for the punishment of"---what?---"evildoers." "For the punishment
of evildoers." You see, you never need to fear the
police unless you're breaking the law. If you are breaking
the law, then you should be afraid. You know, it's
funny, because of my earlier altercations with the law, even
to this day, it's just conditioned response whenever I see
a police officer I just sort of gasp, skip a
beat, white knuckle the steering wheel. And
immediately my eyes instinctively look down at the speedometer to
see how fast I'm going. If I look down at
the speedometer and it says 75 miles an hour as
I pass that police officer, I go, "Oh, no! Lord,
please help me." [laughter] But if I look down and it says 45
miles an hour in a 45, I go, "Lord, I
just bless you and I thank you for those police
officers. Bless their day." It's sent for the punishment of evildoers.
So that's the principle and the particulars of submission. Well,
there's a purpose for submission. That's the third, there's a
purpose for submission. And you'll notice what it
is in verse 13. "Therefore submit yourselves to every ordinance
of man for"---what? What does it say? "For the Lord's
sake." In other words, you do it to honor God.
God is honored when his earthly representatives are seen as stabilizers
in their society. And isn't this the highest reason to
do it? Isn't this the greatest motivation to do it,
because God said to do it, right? Jesus said, "If
you love me, you will keep my commandments," which means
if you constantly break his commandments, it must mean you
don't love him. The highest motivation is
because it honors him. You know what it's like, parents. You love it when your
children obey, when you give them a direction and they
go, "Yes, Daddy." "Sure, Mommy," you love that. Okay, but
have you ever had a child not do that? Okay,
come on, all of you have. And so what do you
say if your child ever comes to you and you give him a directive
and they don't want to do it, and they say,
"Why should I have to do that?" And you say,
"Because I said so." Right? That should be enough. "What
I just said to you as your parent should be enough for you to obey." Well,
it's no different with God. "Well, God, why should I obey my authorities?" "Because I
said so. Because if you love me, you'll keep my
commandments." Now, Peter augments that thought in verse 15, notice,
"For this is the will of God." There are very
few places in the New Testament where something is called
"the will of God," and he spells it out, this
is God's will. So when people come to you and they go, "Well,
I'm just struggling with knowing God's will. What is God's will for my life?" Go
the speed limit, let's start there. [laughter] Quit texting while
you're driving, let's go there. "It is
the will of God," he says, "that by doing good
you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men---as free, and not using liberty
as a cloak for vice, but as bondservants of God." The
central issue is simply this: a good Christian should be
a good citizen. And a good Christian who is a
good citizen because he or she wants to honor God
has a clear conscience. It's great to have a clear
conscience. One man wrote a very honest letter to the
Internal Revenue Service, the IRS, that stated: "Dear Sirs: I
cannot sleep. Last year when I filed my income tax
return, I deliberately misrepresented my income." "Now
I can't sleep. Enclosed is a check for $150. If
I still can't sleep, I'll send the rest." [laughter] Okay, we
have a problem with that one, don't we? He's not
really being honest, he's not really being highly motivated, he's just
buying off his own ill conscience. It was an honest
letter, but listen to another letter, Paul's letter to the
Romans. "Obey the government, for God is the one who
put it there. All governments have been placed in power
by God. So those who refuse to obey the laws
of the land are refusing to obey God." God's
the ultimate authority. And if God is the ultimate authority, he has
the right to say to you and I, "Obey the
intermediate authorities," right? After this last service somebody came up to me and said, "Boy, that's
a hard message for you to tell us to like
our government." I said, "I never said to like your
government. I said to honor your government, to obey your
government, to submit to your government." You have the right
to voice dissent and to not enjoy certain things, but
this is a different issue. The highest reason, the purpose
then is to honor God. That's the upward purpose.
There's an outward purpose. Notice verse 15, he says to
silence, "By doing good you may put to silence the
ignorance of foolish men." People are always looking at you
and I to find the dirt on us, the reason
why they shouldn't trust in the God we say we
believe in. So one of the best witnesses is to
be a good citizen, because the way people will often view
God is by looking at God's representatives. So you say, "I'm a Christian."
"Oh, really? What are those five traffic tickets doing in
your front seat?" "How come you're going to court again
over that issue?" One of the greatest,
if not the greatest apologetic for the gospel of Jesus
Christ is a good life, a righteous life. Because what
is the central message of the gospel? Redemption. We talk
about how God can take any life and redeem a
life. So you know what the best apologetic is? A redeemed
life. Verse 16 says something that just---I never saw it before:
"As free, but not using your liberty as a cloak
for vice." Now, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. He just
said submit to higher authorities, and in this case there was
tyrannical governments, submit. But then he says
you're free, you have liberty. That doesn't sort of make
sense, does it? Because most people think of freedom and
submission as opposites; if you submit, you're giving up your
freedom. Now, actually, you're gaining a greater freedom. William Barclay
said, "Christian freedom does not mean being free to do as
you like, it means being free to do as you ought." I'll give you
a little example here. Let's say there's a young girl
who shows promising athletic ability in ice skating. He parents
cough up the big bucks and they get her a
world-class coach. And the coach says to
the young lady, "I will coach you under one condition---I own you.
I own your time for the next several years. You
will work out when I tell you to workout. You
will keep the regiment and discipline of exercise that I
set out for you, no exceptions. If you agree to
that, I'll coach you." And so she does. So hours
and days and weeks and months are eaten up and spent
on practicing, and pretty soon all of her free time
disappears. She's lost her freedom to do what she wanted.
Her friends start complaining, "We never see her anymore. She's
always working out." Even her parents are
a little bit miffed at this new schedule. But years
later the day comes when she competes in the Olympics.
Was all that work worth it? Was that loss of
liberty and personal freedom worth it? She would said, "It
sure is." "Oh, but, sweetheart, you lost your freedoms." "But
I gained other freedoms that I didn't have before. I
now have the freedom to represent my country before the
world athletes. I now compete at a different level that I've
never competed before. And because of that notoriety that will
probably even bring later on financial freedom."
So in restricting certain freedoms, you gain others. So the
purpose of submission: it honors God and it gives a
good witness. You have the freedom to live your life in
the open before men, and let it be on display, and
let them look at you because you've got nothing to
be ashamed of; whatever accusation won't stick. Leads us to the fourth and final slice of this; and that
is, the practice of submission and I take you to verse 17 where we close. It's a summary statement
this verse. It's a summation. It really is a doctrine, a
theology of submission. Four short statements that
show submission in four areas: "Honor all people. Love the
brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king." Take the first one: "Honor
all people." Every single human being deserves a certain amount
of respect. Whether they hate you or they hate your God or
they practice a certain lifestyle that you degree with, they're
still made in the image of God and you are to honor all
people. When Peter wrote this in the first century, he wrote it
against the backdrop where slaves were not even considered human
beings. They weren't considered persons. They weren't considered people.
They had no rights, and women had hardly any rights
at all. But the Christian church, he would say, is
not to discriminate. Now don't misunderstand what I am saying.
I'm not saying that we are to mindlessly tolerate any
behavior that is aberrant and unscriptural and sinful, not at
all. But every single person deserves to be honored, made
in the image of God. Second, he says, "Love the
brotherhood." Who's the brotherhood? We're it. It's believers loving each
other. Jesus said, "By this shall all men know that
you are my disciples, by the love you have one
for another." It's an interesting statement. We
all know it, but I don't think we know what
it means. Essentially Jesus gives the world outside permission to
judge us, to look at our lives, to see if
the gospel of love that we preach really works among
us. He didn't say that, "They will know that you're
my disciples by the fact that you love them"; "They'll
know you're my disciples by the fact that you love
each other." And maybe about now you're thinking, "Um, how is
loving each other going to make an impact on them?
And how is loving one another going to silence them
as they accuse us?" Easy, here's how. When I was
a little kid and I had good parents. They stayed
together, but we had some difficult times in our family.
Whenever we had some real difficult seasons, whenever I was
around families that were stable and filled with love and
grace and acceptance, I was invited over for dinner, I
just wanted to live there. I didn't want to go home.
I thought in my head, "I want to be a
part of this family." That's how it works. You want
to have a family of love so compelling here that
when people visit they go, "I want to be in that family." "Love
the brotherhood." "Fear God," is the third.
Fear doesn't mean a crouching fear. It's not---it's not like
the Cowardly-Lion-in-the-Wizard-of-Oz kind of fear. This is a reverential respect
and awe of God that culminates in submissive obedience to
the will of God. And because we submit to him
and his will and part of his will is to
obey intermediate authority, we do it because he said to do it; that's
fearing God. And then number four, and we close, "Honor the king."
So, he ends full circle from where he begins. He
says, "Submit to human authority, even the king," and then
he says at the end, "Honor the king."
However, this is different. In verse 13 he was dealing
with the action; in this verse he's dealing with the
attitude and it's very different. You can do something and
have a rotten attitude. You can be like the little
kid whose dad said, "Sit down." Finally the little kid
sat down, but with a sneer on his face. And
he said, "I may be sitting down on the outside,
but I'm still standing up on the inside." That's not honor.
It's obedience, but it's not honor. It's the right action, but it's the
wrong attitude. "Honor the king." "Yeah, but the king is
Nero, Caesar Nero." "Honor the king." Let me just place it
in our lap: be careful how you talk about your
governing authorities. Be careful of sending those back-of-the-hand things that
do not compliment but rather deprecate political figures you disagree
with. You can degree with them, you cannot like them, but whether it's your
president or your governor or the police force, they are
to be prayed for and they are to be honored. Because they are in
a place, according to the Bible, if I'm reading it
right, that God allowed them to be in. So I
honor them. So, let me close with this:
let's make beautiful music together. How are we going to
get along and perform all of this and do all
of this when we have so many differences and personalities
and ideas? By making our ideas and our biases subservient
to the conductor, our Lord. We submit to his Lordship, and
in submitting to his Lordship we march together in lockstep
in unity. "I don't feel like it." Don't have to
feel like it, just do it. And you'll discover as
you just do it, eventually the emotions will catch up
with your obedience. You'll find yourself honoring.
Here's a start. Go home this afternoon, make a prayer list:
president, vice president of United States; your governor; your mayor;
police officers, especially the ones that gave you maybe a ticket lately, and just start praying for them. You'll
find that hate cannot well up in the heart that prays a prayer
of honor to a loving God. Father
in heaven, we thank you that Peter's words are really
just so simple and so easy to understand, but so
practical. And yet I imagine that when the first recipients
of this letter read it, it was difficult to read,
because they were in an oppressive situation feeling alienated already
because of the world and the governmental structure they were
in. And then Peter comes along and says, "Now obey
them and honor them and submit to them." "And
by doing that you show that you honor God and that you provide a
good savory witness to those who are watching." Lord, that
is our highest purpose, and that is what we are
called to. And we admit it's not easy, but it's
what we're called to, and it's made a little bit
easier by knowing that in doing so we please you, in Jesus' name, amen.
For more resources from Calvary Albuquerque and Skip Heitzig visit calvaryabq.org.