Fear God, Honor The King

Our sermon text this morning is 1 Peter 2, verses 13 to 17. But before I read that, I want to talk to you just a little bit. Many of you know and have recognized that we live in a time right now that none of us have seen in our lives before, probably that we will not see again. We've been locked up in our homes for the most part, away from work, away from one another for over two months now. Our national unemployment numbers are over 40 million people. are out of work right now numbers haven't been that high since the great depression and a number of those people who are unemployed have found that it's more lucrative to stay home instead of to go back to work meaning they get paid more to not work than they do to work that's unprecedented that's that's never been done before and it's unbiblical okay and now we're also experiencing nationwide protests rioting looting This is even going on in downtown Indianapolis, even as of last night. And so the question that comes to us as Christians is, what in the world are we supposed to think about this? I know all of us have opinions. All of us have thoughts. We all have ideas about how we're supposed to respond, where all of this stuff comes from, what we're supposed to do. I know there's all this stuff swirling around in our heads. But we would do well to be like our children who say, Daddy, what's going on and what does it mean? How should we process this? What should we think?

What should we say? As a nation right now, we're like a ship without a rudder. And not only without a rudder, but without a map. We're a ship afloat in a sea with no ability to control ourselves and no idea where we are or where we're going. Now, if you were on that ship, you'd go, oh, no. Woe is me. What's going to happen? The ship's going to be dashed on the rocks. It's going to be broken to pieces. And so my goal this morning is to give you a firm grip on the voyage that we're on. and how we should want the rudder to be controlled. Now you realize if you were on a ship, your desire for the ship to not be crushed on the rocks would not alone by itself keep the ship from being crushed on the rocks. You realize that. But it would be your strong desire, as it was with the disciples when the storm blew up and Jesus was sleeping down in the belly of the ship. They were afraid they were going to die, and their strong desire was,

Lord, make this stop. We're going to die. Help us. What's going on? And Jesus comes up and he rebukes the storm and they go, who is this man and what's he able to do? Even the wind and the waves obey him. And what they had was an amazement at something they didn't know, which was the sovereignty and the power and the will of God in that situation. Jesus was able to stand up and to say enough. And there was enough. And so our goal, what we need. is for the Lord to stand up and say enough. Because if he doesn't say enough, we're going to face the consequences of it. And so on the one hand, we need to be preparing and praying to that end, and we also need to be preparing for the road that lies ahead. And there's tension between that, and what I hope is that I'm able to clear some of that up for you this morning as we study the word. Our passage this morning, 1 Peter 2, is a passage that's been discussed a lot lately in light of the coronavirus.

Now, it may seem to you like coronavirus is nothing. You haven't heard about it in 24 hours because there's nationwide riots and curfews and protests and all this stuff. And what happened to the coronavirus? Well, we have multiple things going on. It's a complex set of events that we're dealing with right now. And yet this passage has been brought up a lot lately with regard to the coronavirus. In my circles as a pastor, as a churchman, Those discussions that I've seen been a part of, if you could call them discussions, oftentimes they deteriorate into name-calling and ad hominem attacks and complaining and griping and grumbling, frustration, anger, anxiety, fear. Those conversations have centered on the government's role in the church's affairs. Is it permissible, is it appropriate for the church to be spoken to and directed by the civil government? Do they have the authority to do it?

My purpose this morning is to set aside the issue of the coronavirus and whether the government has the right to tell the church you can meet or you can't meet or you can meet under these circumstances. That's not the point of our discussion this morning. Rather, the point is to focus on God's purpose for creating governments. And the reason I want to talk about that is that some of us would prefer a government that is so small, so weak, that it's almost that it's non-existent. And there is a real danger we need to see biblically to doing what's right in our own eyes and having no one rule over us. This is the story time and again of the book of Judges. In those days, there was no king, which is to say there was no governor, there was no ruler, there was no authority. And everyone did what was right in their own eyes. And the refrain of the book of Judges is that things went from good to bad. And they went from good to bad when there was...

A king that died, or a judge in that book that died. And so if we wanted to know in a sentence what the book of Judges teaches us, it teaches us that it's good to have people rule over us, that that's a kindness that God's given to us. And I realize saying that that some of you are like, well, but, but, but, and I'm going to get to your but, but, but. But before we get to your frustrations, to your... fears, to your concerns, which I know you have. We all do. We need to look and see what has God said about governments. Is this something that's just completely unbiblical, extra biblical? It's something that men have made up, and it's really just a dogfight to see who's going to come out on top. My contention is that's not at all the case. Actually, the governments that we have that rule over us have been given to us by God, and they've been given to us to do very particular things. And so that's the purpose of our discussion this morning.

As I said, our text is 1 Peter 2, verses 13 to 17. Listen now to the reading of God's word. This is the word of the Lord, and it is eternally true. Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority or to governors as sent by him, for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right. For such is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men. Act as free men and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bond slaves of God. Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

There's a couple of things going on in this passage that I want to draw particular attention to this morning. And the first is Peter's instruction to the Christians. And in a word, we can just say, it's submit. Submission. He tells them, you're to submit. Now, I told you we weren't going to talk about this a long bunch, but I do want to address it, at least in passing. And what I want you to know is that this admonition or this instruction to Christians to submit to their governing authorities was something that was necessary even before Peter's time. And you might think, well, what do you mean it was necessary before Peter's time? And what I want you to know is that before Jesus Christ came to this earth, the Jews didn't like to be told what to do. They really, really didn't like to be told what to do. Just think for a second of their interactions with the Roman...

the Romans who occupied their land at that time, did they like having the Romans tell them what to do? And the answer was, uh-uh, uh-uh, no, no, no, no, no. And this has always been a problem with God's people. Now, is it exclusive to God's people? No, it's not exclusive to God's people, but I think that it might actually be a bigger problem for Christians than it is for other people. I think that we have this distinction in our minds between spiritual and physical. And that God is our spiritual head. He is our spiritual leader. He commands us in spiritual things. But when it comes to physical things, since we have God as our head over here, we don't really have anything else going on over there. Who can tell us what to do? Well, actually, lots of people tell us what to do, and they should. Who tells us what to do?

Well, parents tell their children what to do. Kids like it? Nope. Husbands tell their wives what to do. You like it? Nope. About your boss, you like when he tells you what to do? No, right now, get it done. You didn't do it right, do it again. No, he didn't say it the right way. You like it? No, we don't like it. Church officers, elders come to you, small group leader comes to you and says, hey, about that thing you're doing, are you being pure? Who is it, your business to ask me that? Yeah. By what authority? Who are you? Are you repenting? Why would you ask me such a question? Well, because it's my job. That's none of your business. Well, actually it is. These are the kind of questions we don't like from our pastors and from our elders and from those who love us in the church. And also, and most clearly from our text, civil magistrates. They're supposed to rule over us. They're supposed to tell us what to do. And I think many of us live or have this dream that we would never have to be told what to do.

That actually, if everything was as it should be, there wouldn't be any need to submit to anyone else. Because there would just be this big, resounding, unified opinion and practice about everything. Now, if you've ever lived with anybody for more than a week, you know that this is just utter nonsense. It's not possible. And it's not only not possible because of sin, it's just not possible. God didn't create a world and say, okay, Adam and Eve, we're the same. We walk, we all hang out in the garden together. We're buds and we're pals. Let's all just enjoy the way things go. No, even in the garden, there was order, there was hierarchy, there was structure. God was the head. Adam and Eve were not like God. If Adam and Eve were like God, if God had told Adam and Eve, you're just like me in every way, then Satan's ploy toward Eve would have been obviously wrong. Eve would have said, we're already like God.

But Satan comes to them and says, there's a structure here in the garden. No sin, no fall. There's a structure here in the garden. And you can subvert that structure if you eat of this fruit. And so even in the garden, even before sin, there was hierarchy, there was structure, there was authority, and there was submission. And so submission to authority is not a result of the fall. It's not a product of it. It's not something that we should chafe against. as though it didn't exist in the beginning and it won't exist in the future, you do understand there will be authority in heaven. And you won't be at the top of the food chain. Not any of you. Not me. So we need to just settle into this idea that we will always, by God's appointment and by his mercy, we will always have people over us telling us what to do. You'll never escape it. Not even in glory will you escape.

being told what to do. Your heart and your will will be changed in such a way that you will delight in it like you don't now, but you will not escape it. And yet Christians are the ones that need to be told, even in Peter's time and before, religious people, God's people most specifically, whether it's in the Old Testament and the Jews, or whether it's the New Testament right now with Peter, or whether it's you and me today. Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake. to every human institution. And you think, well, it's a human institution. Why do I have to do that? And I say, well, for the Lord's sake, because those human institutions were created by God. You remember that when Pilate was questioning Jesus, what does Jesus say to him? You know, Pilate says, I have authority to condemn you or I have authority to kill you. And Jesus says to him, you'd have no authority to do that except that it was granted to you by my father. That human institution, you realize.

And so this pipe dream that we have of a world in which there's no authority and therefore no need of submission needs to die. Authority and therefore submission in our lives, in every aspect of our life, is a good thing. Jesus Christ, God the Father, the Holy Spirit, as the head of that system, working out their will in our lives in every area. There's no place in your life where you get to do what you want without there being any consequence, where God has not... able to see and judge and hold you to account. There's just no place like that. And it's good that there's no place like that because when we're left to our own devices, things go from bad to worse real quick. It's a good thing that there's no place like that. So why are we to submit to every human institution, all those institutions that God has created? Well, for the Lord's sake. That's what our passage tells us. Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every human institution. Why? Because we're his representatives.

And our behavior reflects on our Lord. You represent him in the things that you do. You represent him in the things that you say. How do you represent him? What would people think of your God if you were the representative that they had to interact with? What would they believe to be true about your God? That he chafes at being told what to do? That that's what he produces in his children, that the rebellion that resides in our heart is pleasing to him? Oh, Christians are those rebellious people who never do anything that they're told to do. Look at their children. I mean, honestly, look at their children. What testimony do we give to the watching world about our God when you look at how generally Christian children behave? Apparently, disorder and chaos and disrespect is par for the course. How about Christian marriage? What testimony do we give?

What do we communicate? How different are our marriages from the marriages of the world? How different is our pursuit of purity and holiness? Our resistance to fornication and adultery? What is our testimony? For the Lord's sake, what is our testimony? And what about the civil government? Those who rule over us. Those worldly, physical, godless people concerned about the affairs of this life. That's their whole job. What is our testimony with regard to them? Do we submit to them? Are we good citizens? Or do we chafe at ever being told what to do? And I want it to be clear to you that when we grumble and complain about being ruled over, we're only grumbling and complaining at the one that stands in the place of God. He's the one who's given us these people, this government.

And to our minds, we go, how in the world, how do I make sense of the fact that God's given such wicked, such unjust, such boastful, proud, arrogant, malicious murderers to rule over us? How do I accept that as coming from the hand of God? And I say, do you believe God set up those institutions? Do you believe it? And you want to say, well, yes, but. And I say, okay, stop it, yes, and just put a period. Yes. And I want to come and pick that up in a minute about how to process the but. Because it is a fair question and I wouldn't be helping you or doing justice to you if I didn't speak to that issue. But first, you say yes. And you shut your mouth. Yes. Because to say more is to take away with one hand what you've just given with the first. And so God's prerogative is that we, as Christians, will be ruled over by men, even secular men. And our question shouldn't be,

Why in the world is that the case? And our statement shouldn't be, well, that's stupid. I don't want to listen to them. Instead, we should ask, what is their job? Why did God appoint these people? Why do we have governments? What's the point in that? Our text tells us. There are two primary responsibilities that God delegates to civil government. The first and the most significant is that they would punish evil. That they would punish evil. That's the primary. It's mission critical of the government. Their job is to say no to wickedness, to sin, some sins. Actually, it's not their job to say no to every sin. Some sins are supposed to be addressed by the church. But the sins that are also criminal ought to be addressed by the government. Why? Because they've been given the sword.

which is the first thing we need to learn about how they punish wickedness. It's that they are supposed to. In Romans 13, 4, Paul says, if you do what is evil, be afraid, for it, the civil magistrate, does not bear the sword for nothing. Now, what are swords for? Swords are for fighting. What's the most dangerous thing you could do with a sword? You kill somebody with it, right? Swords aren't for spankings. Swords aren't for jails and locking people. They're not keys to lock people in prison. Swords are for killing. It's a weapon. And so God has weaponized the government to punish evil. And so he says, if you do what is evil in Romans 13, 4, be afraid for it does not bear the sword for nothing. For it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil. And so you see the first job of a government.

Whether it's godly or whether it's secular or Christian or anything else, that institution, however men have organized themselves, their first job is to punish evil. And the way they do that is with a sword. That's the way they do it. Now, this is not something that we do on our own. You hear of vigilante justice. Somebody gets mad, something happens to a loved one of theirs, and they set out and they say, I'm going to fix it, I'm going to make it right. that's not okay with me and nobody else is going to fix this problem, so I'm going to fix it. I'm going to go find the person who did the wrong and I'm going to punish them. That is not their job because they've not been given the sword by the Lord to punish wrongdoing. It's also not something that a group of people can do. We can all get together and decide that somebody's done something wrong and we'll all just go beat them up. That's not any better. In fact, it's worse. The sword has been given to the magistrate.

As a minister of God to avenge evil. Now, it's interesting to note the words that are used here. Ordained and minister. Ordained doesn't show up exactly in these passages. But their job, a government's job is to say what is right and say what is wrong. They have been ordained to that work by God. It's their job. They're ministers. I don't think we think of... Our government's authorities as being set apart as a minister, not a church minister, not a preacher, not a pastor, not a reverend, but a different type of minister. Someone who is given a particular job. If you were to go into British government, they have ministers of defense and ministers of...

The homeland and ministers of health and ministers. They have all these people who are called ministers. That's their job. Their job is to give themselves to this particular work. And here we see that the government generally is called a minister of God. There is a sword. A literal physical sword to execute justice. And it is given to the civil government. The church is given a sword. The Bible. The word of God. To teach the people and to proclaim his truth to them. And so the civil government's first job is to punish wickedness with a sword. That is the purpose. That is the first thing that they're supposed to do. Second, in their punishing of wickedness, what is the purpose of them punishing wickedness? One, it's their job, right? You start with duty and you say, well, what's this thing for? And you go, well, what was it created for? And you say, oh, well, it's a hammer. It was created for pounding in nails. Okay, great. What's the second purpose? Well, it warns other people.

When you see justice being executed, when you see the sword being exercised, it's meant to warn other people. What's it supposed to teach you? Real simple, real basic. If I do what they did, that is going to happen to me. We live in a day where all kinds of punishment, any sort of reasonable, thought-out discipline is all hidden. It's all hidden. You know that executions... used to be a public matter. All the people used to gather and the execution was held and out in public and everyone was told when it was, where it was, and they all came to it. And sometimes they were required by the government to come and watch, to watch a man be shot, to watch a man be beaten, to watch a man be hung. Why in the world would you call the citizenry to come watch an execution except to teach them? And you'd find that But watching someone be killed is a very powerful teaching tool. And it's also worth noting that if you were given the option to go watch it, none of you would choose to do it. You say, I wouldn't choose to do it. I wouldn't choose to do it. But if you look at our entertainment today, and you look at the sort of things that we consume, we love watching people die. We love it. It's all of our entertainment. So much of what's going on, as an aside here that we'll pick up a little bit later,

of this man in Minneapolis' murder, is we all love, we all hate it. Do we love it, or do we hate watching it? We all say, I hate watching it. And then my question to you is, then why did you watch it? Why did you watch it if you hate it? What did you learn from watching it? What was the fruit of it for you? Were you warned against anything? A man lost his life. Were you warned? No, you were enraged. You were not warned. And my contention is, The majority, the vast majority of those of you who've watched it, and for what it's worth, I haven't. And I won't. Those of you who watched it, watched it as entertainment. You watched a man lose his life, created in the image of God. And were you warned against it? You can't be warned against it because you don't even know what he did. You don't know the circumstances. You watched it. And it was given to you as entertainment to watch. If you're to look on such things.

It is for your instruction, and it is for your warning, so that you would not do whatever it is that's being meted out, that justice that's being meted out to someone when they lose their life. It ought to be just, and you ought to learn from it. And that's not what happened when you watched that video. Now, you might live in a place where you think that it would be nice not to ever have to watch somebody die. But the truth is that negative examples, warnings, are very helpful to us in restraining our own sinful desires. You understand in your own house when there are children running around and one of the children gets disciplined for something, all the other kids take note and they go, oh, better not do that. There's consequences for doing that. That is a blessing. And not only is it a blessing to the one who's getting disciplined, it's a blessing to those who watch. It's a protection. That's the government's job. Their job is to...

warn you not what to do, to protect you by showing you the consequence. Proverbs 29.4 says, the king gives stability to the land by justice. Now, how would the people, how would the land know about this? How would stability come to the land if they didn't know what the king was doing to execute justice? They knew what he was doing to execute justice, and stability was the result. Now, we have anything in our society right now besides stability. The king gives stability to the land by justice. But a man who takes bribes overthrows it. The third purpose that I want to mention this morning about the government's responsibility to punish wickedness is that it's supposed to avenge evil. It is right for the government to do so.

I think when we read passages like Romans 12, 19, it says, Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God. For it is written, Vengeance is mine and I will repay, says the Lord. There's a helpful, we internalize that verse and we say it's very personal. I'm not personally supposed to do this. But somehow at the judgment in some other place, in some other fashion, God's going to exercise judgment. He's going to bring all of the wrongs and hold them to account. And what I want to say to you is one of the primary ways he does that is through the civil government avenging wrong. It's not just at the final judgment, though it will be there as well, finally and completely. He actually created the government that rules over us to avenge wrong. They are his minister. They are his instrument. They are his hands to punish wickedness.

Now the question that should be welling up in you and almost coming out of your eyes because you haven't said it out of your mouth yet is, well, what do we do when they don't do what they should do? You say that they're supposed to use the sword. They're supposed to warn other people. They're supposed to protect the innocent. They're supposed to avenge wrongs. What happens when they don't do any of that stuff? Then what? Then what am I supposed to do when they fail on every account in my judgment? Then what am I supposed to do? I know what your heart wants to do. Your heart wants to say, see you government.

You failed. You don't know what you're doing. I'm out of here. But that's wrong. In most situations, that's wrong. I won't say it's always wrong. There does come a point where that may be, that is appropriate. That's necessary. But it's not the first or the second or third option. God's command and design for government is still intact even when the people in those positions abuse their authority and they obscure justice. The institution still remains. Think of it this way. What does the Bible say about divorce and remarriage? If you get divorced, are you allowed to remarry? Well, the answer to that question is, if you're a student of Scripture, is, well, it depends. What's it depend on? Well, it depends on the circumstances of your divorce. And you say, you mean there are people who get married and then divorced, and the Bible says they can't ever get remarried again? And I say, that's right.

That's actually right. That is what the scripture says. And you say, well, but what about, what about, and you think of these situations and I go, well, before we get into the particulars that you've got in your own mind, you tell me, why would there ever be an instance where someone is not allowed to get remarried if they're divorced? And I'll tell you, it's because of this. When they got married the first time, they made vows and they committed themselves knowingly or unknowingly. to the constraints and to the requirements of the institution of marriage that was made by God. And when they fail to meet those requirements and to be faithful to those vows, they have not destroyed the institution of marriage. They've corrupted it with their corruption, but they've not destroyed the institution. The institution of marriage still stands. And that is why they're not allowed to get remarried. Because they had a former covenant, a former contract that they broke.

And they don't get to act like, that never happened, I'll just carry on and go get married again. No, there are still obligations that you have to God. That even if you sin in marriage, and even if your sin culminates in divorce, that you are still obligated to the Lord and to that marriage in such a way that you cannot get remarried without sinning. Why? Because the institution and the people that operate within it are two separate things. And if we were to apply our logic for the government to our understanding of marriage, it would be chaos. It would be absolute chaos. Because there would be no rules and no honor for the institution that God made. We'd say marriage is what you want it to be. Whoever wants to get married can get married. Divorced people can get remarried no matter the circumstances of their divorce, sure.

Two men can get married, no matter who they are. Children can get married. More than two people can get married. People can marry non-humans. What boundary is there? What ledge is there to stand on on that slippery slope where you can say, no, this far and no further. There isn't one. It just takes time to slide down the slope to the bottom, down to the pit. And so the institution of marriage stands because God made it. And when he made it, he defined it. One woman, one man for all of life to produce children, to help each other against sin, to have a companion in this world. That is the institution of marriage. And there's more that could be said about it. And if people are unfaithful to those requirements and those standards and they go, I ain't going to do that, then they are unfaithful.

But the institution of marriage has not done anything wrong. God didn't do something wrong when he made marriage just because people failed to fulfill their obligation to it. And the same is true of the civil government. We have this institution handed to us as part of this creation from the hands of God. And their job is to punish wickedness. And whenever they don't punish wickedness, it should be a grief to us. It should be a frustration to us, but never should we throw this institution out because of the people within it who've corrupted it. Because to throw away the institution is to throw away the one who made it, which is the Lord God. Now you might wonder, and this is a bit far afield for what I want to talk about this morning, why would God create an institution that's so prone to abuse and to failure?

And I'd say, you know, the particular answers to that question are hidden from us. You ever been married and go, why? I didn't know it was like this. I didn't know that we were going to face this trial, this burden, this difficulty. If I had known the amount of grief and the amount of pain or the amount of sorrow that I was going to face or inflict, I wouldn't have done it. Why did God allow? this to come to pass, you oftentimes in this life, you will not find the answer to that question in detail. You'll find that answer by faith that God is working out his will that you don't know tomorrow or five years from now and 10 years from now. You don't know the fruit of what's going on right now, the pain, the difficulty that you're enduring. But you do trust as a Christian that by faith, God is at work in this situation.

And that he will accomplish his will in that situation even if you have no hope about it right now. And even no desire for it. And the same is true of our government. There are many ways in which they fail. There are many ways when I say failure is not the correct word. It's not strong enough. It doesn't get at the immensity of the abuse. And the comfort that I have is not that I can vote them out of office. It's actually not the comfort that I have. The comfort that I have is that one day they will face a holy God and they will give an account for the way that they rule. And when I look at the way that they rule and the way that they govern and the way that they fail and the same way that I look at my own failures, I say, woe is me and woe are you because you're going to stand before a holy God one day and all of the things that you tweeted and all the things that you wrote and all the things that you promoted are going to be laid bare before.

A God who dwells in unapproachable light. Where there's no shadow. Where there's no wrinkle. And there's no blemish. Everything you've done as a ruler. And all the people you were responsible for. You will give an account for. And that is a terrifying thing. The warning that is given to the watchman in Ezekiel. That if he looks out. And he sees danger. And he doesn't sound the alarm. Then all of the blood of the people is on his head. Is true also for civil magistrates. When they see justice. and wickedness, and they prefer wickedness, they will stand and give an account for all of the results of that wickedness that they promoted. And so our obligation as Christians, and this is very difficult for us, and it's absolutely necessary, is that we would honor God through our submission to those he's placed over us up to the point at which they require, proactively require us to disobey God. We give them honor.

and we give them obedience. And you might not like it. I mean, I say might, and I really shouldn't say might. You'll hate it, and you must offer it. And not only must you offer it, you must offer it cheerfully as a representative of Jesus Christ. No matter how much they corrupt it, no matter how unfaithful they are, you have an obligation to the God who made that institution to give glory to him by your behavior. And so punishing evildoers is the first thing the government's supposed to do, and it's an immense task, and it comes with a lot of difficulty and a lot of conflict. No matter what you do, there will be a price to pay. Now, what else is the government supposed to do? That's the first part of their job, and it's most of their job, honestly. There's lots of other things the government does that aren't delegated to them by the Scripture, but they are supposed to punish evil. They're supposed to protect their people.

Our passage also tells us that they're to praise those who do right. Now, have any of you ever gotten a letter or a gold star from the government for doing what is right? You get an A-plus for obedience from the government. Of course, you've not gotten that because that's not the point. That's not what's being communicated here when you say, praise for doing what's right. It doesn't mean they're going to send you a letter saying, you are a model citizen. You have perfect attendance. We're going to put a little gold star next to your account. So what does it mean that they would praise those who do right? Well, it means a few things. It means, first, that they would not write laws against you. They don't write laws against you. Galatians 5, in the fruit of the Spirit, says, Against such things there is no law, nor should there be. So how else do they praise what's right? Well, God's purpose and the praise that doing right produces is that the ignorant men would be shut up. You see, we live in a society with people who aren't believers.

Right? We live in homes we go to work with. People who aren't believers. And so we look at the physical realities that are going on between people and their responsibilities at work and whatnot. And they're grumbling and they're complaining and how they process what's going on in society or in the workplace or whatever. And lots of people have lots of things to say. And none of us are in any shortage of rebellion. And so part of what our responsibility to do as Christians is that the government would recognize and see that what we do is right. And it would be a testimony against those who run their mouth foolishly. The ignorance of foolish men, as our passage talks about it. For such is the will of God that by doing right, you may silence the ignorance of foolish men. This is the praise that God receives when you do right. He's glorified when you...

Do what he says. An example would be when Jesus stood before Pilate. Was there any praise offered when Jesus stood before Pilate? My contention is there was. Pilate did many wicked things, but he said this, I find no guilt in this man. See to that yourselves. Now you think, well, if there was praise being offered up, an acknowledgement of righteousness, an acknowledgement of obedience, an acknowledgement of innocence, how do you call that praise? And I say, you look to the response to determine whether it was praise or not. And simply because the people cried out all the more, crucify, crucify, doesn't mean that Jesus was guilty. It means that they were wicked. And so the Jews' rebellion at Jesus' trial doesn't negate the praise that was declared when Pilate said, I find no guilt in this man. And again, just a few verses later in this book, in 1 Peter 3, verse 16, Peter instructs us to keep a good conscience.

So that the thing in which we are slandered, and you think, why would I be slandered? He says, keep a good conscience. So the thing in which you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior, those who hate the good things you do, in Christ will be put to shame. That they'll run their mouths, that they'll talk, that they'll slander, that they'll gossip, that they'll lie, that they'll do all the rest. They might even kill you. But in whatever it is they do, there will be praise for your obedience, and they will be put to shame. That's the praise. that the government is to acknowledge or to see or to recognize. I find no guilt in this man. We are to act as free men, not using our freedom as a covering for evil, not saying that because I have God as my head, Jesus Christ as my Lord, I'm free to do whatever I want. I don't have to listen to you. No, no, no, no. As free men, as those who are not under compulsion, as those who are not playing the game, as free men, don't use your freedom as a covering for evil.

But use it as a bond slave for God. Because you're free, because your sins have been forgiven, because God's been merciful to you, use that standing as a testimony and represent Jesus Christ well. Obey those who rule over you. We're free because Jesus died to save us from our sins. And Peter warns us that this freedom is not supposed to lead us back to sin. That because we're Christians, somehow the goalposts have been moved and we don't have to do what everyone else does because we're Christians. Now, The last verse. Four directives. Very short. No explanations. The first two go together. The second two go together. Let's work through them. Honor all people. You remember my prayer of confession. I've been thinking about this. And I think, you know, how incessant is our partiality, our preference, our judgment of other people? It never stops. Never stops. And so Peter, in saying honor all people, is...

clearing away the distinctions that grow up overnight in our minds. He wipes them all away and says, honor all people. Different race, different age, different socioeconomics, different religions. Wipe it away. Honor all people. Why? Because they're made in the image of God. And you're no better than them. You haven't got a leg up on them. You're not more valuable than them. If we were to assign value to people who live, then Jesus never would have died. And yet he did. So honoring all people requires that we not show any partiality. Now, can you imagine a day where crimes were judged on the merits of the case and not the tone of the skin? It's what everybody wants right now. And all of the news that you're reading, I'll just tell you, all of the news you're reading about the riots and stuff that are going on are inciting your frustration with other races. Okay? Think of it this way. In Indianapolis, A couple of people got shot last night. If you actually read the reports, there's no clear connection at this point between the riots and them getting shot. After all, they were down on East Washington Street, which happens to be a pretty rough area of town. Maybe they were connected to the protests. Maybe they weren't. There was a lot of vandalism, lots of buildings broken, buildings set on fire, dumpsters rolled out in the street, set on fire, cars torn up. There's all kinds of stuff. This is happening right downtown Indianapolis.

One of the families in our church decided in the middle of the night to leave their house because all of this trouble was happening less than a mile from their house. This is downtown Indianapolis. The police saying, you know, about 1130 last night, 1030 last night, don't travel to downtown Indianapolis. It's not safe. Now, what are you supposed to conclude about that? We're all down there because of Mr. Floyd's death. What are you supposed to conclude? Well, I'll tell you, if you don't think about it, what you're concluding is there's a bunch of black people down there causing all kinds of trouble at night. Because that's what you're supposed to conclude without being told that. Now, think for a minute with me. How many people were downtown Indianapolis over the weekend? Do you know how many people were there yesterday, during the day? Thousands and thousands of people. Thousands and thousands of people. Now, were all of those people down there, who were mostly black, the rabble-rousers? They weren't.

Actually, if you read the news, many of them are saying, this is not what we want. This is not what we're here for. This is not what we came out to do. They can go down and they can protest and they can be peaceful and they should. But they're getting a reputation. You have to be careful in your mind not to miss the point that they weren't the ones causing all the problems. The vast, vast, vast majority of them didn't do anything wrong and had a right to be there. And yet some people came out last night. And wanted to pour gas on a difficult situation and light it on fire. Think for a minute. If thousands of people had decided to riot and to do things, can you imagine what the response would have been in our city? We would be under a state of emergency right now. We would not be able to travel out of the city. The state National Guard would be down there. There would be all kinds of stuff going on that's not going on. Because the vast majority of what's going on down there is not.

and is appropriate and is permissible. It's peaceful. But if you're not careful, what you're going to come away with is thinking that black people are the ones causing all the problems right now. And I'm not convinced that they are. Can I just say, most black people aren't any more racist than the white people. They're not down there because they hate white people. I don't think. So do you honor them or do you not honor them because they're a different color? It's a question you have to wrestle through in your heart and your mind. Am I saying you should go down there? Am I saying that you should approve of what's going on down there? I'm not saying any of that. What I'm saying is you're to honor people and to not show partiality and not allow these divisions in your mind to raise up and go, that's not right. They shouldn't do that. In the midst of honoring all people, Peter also tells us to love the brotherhood. Galatians 6.10 says, so then while we have opportunity, let us do good to all people and especially to those who are of the household of faith. There's a distinction that scripture makes between loving everybody,

without partiality and remembering and holding dear to us other Christians. And so our affections and our sympathies and our energy and our resources ought to be aimed particularly at our brothers in Christ. We ought to love the brotherhood. We ought not to despise them or despise the church. And then he says, fear God. That's the third thing. Fear God. Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God. Romans 13.3, Paul says something very similar, a little more. He says, The fear of the Lord, the fear of God that Peter commands here, is the foundation of our honor and our submission to all the institutions that he creates. And we might say, well, I do fear God. And I'd say John's words about love apply also to fear. 1 John 4.20 says, He is a liar. For the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he had seen. Let me change words just a little bit to make my point. If someone says, I fear God but hates the government, he is a liar. For the one who does not love or honor his government whom he has seen cannot fear God whom he has not seen. The way we work out or the way we demonstrate our fear of God.

is through the honor and the submission and the fear that we have for those that he puts over us in the Lord. And that's why the last thing says, honor the king. We're to honor the king. Our honor of the king is how we demonstrate our fear of God. Do we want to have no fear of authority? Do we want to say that I fear God, but I will not honor the king because of his corruption? That division that we make in our minds does not exist in the scripture. And so Peter ends by saying, honor the king. And I believe he mentions this because of our natural aversion to it. We have a very strong aversion to being told what to do, to having any sort of ruler over us that's to tell us what to do. And we say, okay, well, fine, I'll submit as long as they don't make a mistake and they do what's right. And I say, where did you come up with that? Maybe you say, well, in an extreme case. And I'd say, okay, let me grant it. In an extreme case, is this an extreme case? It's not an extreme case. Some of you might be going, well, I think it is. And I say, well.

you value your opinion too much and you don't fear God the way you should. And I say that to you because that's what I have to hear myself. I've got all kinds of reasons and all kinds of plans and schemes about how to get what I want. You know, I was looking at this order from our mayor as an example about having to wear masks. He says we can have worship, but we have to wear masks inside. And I'm reading the order and I'm talking with lawyers and I'm saying, so, you know, to get their advice or legal counsel and say, how do you interpret this? And it says, well, you have to wear the mask at all times. And I go, well, am I supposed to wear a mask while I preach? I'm going to be more than 12 feet away from everybody. I don't know. I say, well, do I have to wear the mask over my nose and mouth? Can I wear it on my arm? Can I wear it on my forehead? And the lawyer just laughed at me. And he just goes, that's not what's being said here.

You're just not willing. You're just trying to find a way around doing what it says to do. Why? Because I don't want to. I really, really, really don't want to. Some of you may want to, and I am very happy for you to do it. The struggle for me is for me to be happy for me to do it. Honor the king. Those who rule over you fear God. And so I wrestle back and forth. Am I fearing God? Am I honoring the king? If I really just don't want to do something, I'm not being told to sin. by wearing a mask, but I really, really, really don't want to. So what am I going to do? Am I going to stay home from worship? I'm not. Some of you might. So recognize that. What are our three-year-olds supposed to do who are supposed to wear masks? How are they supposed to honor their king? How are we supposed to teach them to do what's right and submit to every institution? It's gnarly. It's hard. It's not easy and cut and dried. You know what a three-year-old's going to do with a face mask if you give it to them?

They're going to turn into a slingshot. They're going to blow their nose in it. They're going to trade with their friends like playing cards. This is our life, isn't it? And so fearing God and honoring the king are hard things to do. Because it's just not black and white. We do this and we do that, and there's zero tolerance. It's a muddle. It's very difficult. But what you can know is what's going on in your heart. Do you honor the king when you don't want to? You say, we don't have a king. I say, I know we don't have a king. Do you honor God? Do you fear God?

Do you demonstrate your fear of God by fearing and obeying those that he places over you? When you don't want to, these are the questions that we need to answer, that our hearts need to answer. Our desires and our commitments need to be settled, even if our actions are being brought along. I very much want to meet in person in worship. I very much want there to be peace in our city and in our land. I very much want... our governments to rule over us in the fear of God because they'll stand before God. I mean, it's for my benefit, but it's also for theirs. I want black people and white people to get along and to love each other. But I also am convinced that the only way that happens in the end is through the spread of the gospel. Because in the gospel is the only place where the dividing walls between us are torn down and there's no longer Jews or Greeks. There's no longer black and white.

For we're all in Christ. And so this is our work and this is our calling as God's people. You can grumble and you can complain and you cannot like masks and you cannot like this or that and you can think what you want about the protests and you can think what you want about the police and you can think what you want about all that sort of stuff. You can have those opinions as you do. But bring them under the submission to Jesus Christ. And don't hold your opinions so dearly to you that they lead you away. From the Lord who purchased your salvation with his blood. Let's pray.