Saved from bondage to submit to earthy authority

Announcements

God’s call

Call to worship:

O you simple ones, understand prudence, and you fools, be of an understanding heart. Listen, for I will speak of excellent things, and from the opening of my lips will come right things; receive my instruction, and not silver, and knowledge rather than choice gold; for wisdom is better than rubies, and all the things one may desire cannot be compared with her. (Proverbs 8:5-6,10–11)

Blessing:

Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. (Galatians 1:3–5)

The congregation responds

Prayer: Forgiveness of sins

Lord God of justice and grace, you are of purer eyes than to look upon sin, but you have also promised mercy through Jesus Christ to all who repent and believe in Him.

We confess that we have all sinned and fallen short of your glory. We have neglected and misused your holy worship. We have dealt unjustly and unkindly with our neighbours. We have not sought first your kingdom and righteousness. You have revealed your wonderful love to us in Christ and have offered us pardon and salvation in him; but we have turned away. We have run into temptation, and the sin we should have hated, we have committed.

Have mercy on us, merciful Father. In your Son is our salvation, in your promise is our hope. Take us for your children and give us the Spirit of your Son, and in the end receive us into glory, through Jesus Christ, our only Saviour, Amen.

God’s mercy

Assurance of forgiveness:

[Christ] is able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them. (Hebrews 7:25)

The congregation responds

Hymn 389:

“I hear your welcome voice”

Prayer:

Adoration and thanksgiving

Gracious Father, we praise You for your love without beginning in which You chose us in Christ from before the creation of the world. We thank You for your love without measure so that You entered into covenant for our redemption. We thank You for your love without failure which at just the right time appeared in the person of your Son, Jesus to accomplish our salvation. We thank You for your love unchanging even though we wander; for your love without end, from which none can separate us. We thank You for your love which is faithful forever, even though we are unfaithful.

Merciful Father, we praise You for keeping us to this day, and for the full assurance that You will never let us go. Thank You that when we wander away from your presence, You leave the 99 safe in the fold in order to seek and to save that which was lost. We worship You that you restore our souls, and having brought us to yourself, You will surely keep us from total destruction and one day present us faultless in your presence with exceeding joy.

We bless You with all our being, we praise your holy name. You alone are the one who keeps our feet from stumbling, who has established us firm and solid on the rock of Jesus.

Receive our praise; in Jesus Name. Amen.

Hymn 25:

“Great is your faithfulness”

Offering and Dedication of offering

Prayer:

Intercession

God’s Word

Bible Readings:

Psalm 45; 1 Peter 2:13-17

The Congregation responds

Hymn 568:

“Lord, speak to me that I may speak” (Tune 535)

Prayer:

Your Word, as Luther said, is “the cradle of the Christ,” not a manual for self-reform. It shows us that wisdom is a Person to trust, not a set of formulas to perfect. It reveals the depth of our need, so we might boast in the riches of your provision for us in Jesus. Reset our spiritual GPS to be focussed on Jesus Christ and the truth and riches of the gospel. In Jesus’ merciful and mighty name. Amen.

Sermon:

“Free servants of God submitting to earthly authority”

Introduction

Only last week Andrew Thorburn was forced to resign as chief executive officer of the Essendon Football Club, as ABC news recorded it, “for chairing a church that has broadcast views opposing same sex relationships and abortion.” The same ABC article also declares,

“There are warnings of a Marxist plot to cancel religion and overturn Western civilisation.”

The issue revolves around same-sex relationships and abortion. The Victorian Premier called Thorburn’s views appalling and disgusting.

The ABC article actually exposes the incompatibility between worldly standards and Biblical standards. It writes:

"People of faith have many interpretations of biblical teachings. It has been said the Bible is not one book but a library — complex and contradictory. It is also possible for people to hold orthodox Christian views and yet speak those values in a way that is respectful and not harmful to others. That is another Christian virtue: humility.”

The question always remains: who defines the terms? What is humility, justice, judgment. When are things disgusting and appalling and why?

Some time ago an officer in the State of Kentucky in the USA was instructed to issue marriage certificates to same sex-couples. She rules and said:

"I promised to love Him [God] with all my heart, mind and soul because I wanted to make heaven my home.”

The Christians to whom Peter wrote became citizens of a new kingdom. Their highest allegiance was to God and not to the Caesar. He presented himself as god and his subjects worshipped him as god because they saw him as the one who gave them life and kept them safe them. These last words have echoed in our world in the last few years during lock-downs.

But Christians under the Caesar did not bow to him. Therefore caesar-worshippers looked at Christians are citizens who turned against the gods of old whom they thought had made Rome strong. Therefore Christians were easily held responsible for the disasters which were slowly overtaking the Roman world.

Westminster Confession of Faith

How do Christians live in the world hostile to the Gospel and Kingdom of Jesus Christ? Our Confession helps us.

God, the supreme Lord and King of all the world, has ordained civil authorities, to be, under Him, over the people, for his own glory, and the public good. And, for this purpose, has armed them with the power of the sword, for the defence and encouragement of them who are good, and for the punishment of evildoers. It is the duty of civil magistrates to protect the person and good name of all their people.

Submission with the purpose of doing good

Peter writes:

Is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men. (verse 15)

We get our directions for living and conducting our lives in a pagan culture from the Bible where the will of God is revealed. Remember, we are aliens and strangers in this world; our citizenship is in heaven (Phil 2:20). We obey the terms of God’s covenant which instructs us how to live in this world. God defines what is right and what is wrong through his inspired and authoritative Book, the Bible. The Bible is our supreme authority for daily living.

But Christians are not called to be engaged in a sort of Christian jihad: we are not persecuting others because they don’t believe as we believe; we don’t behead those who pass rules and laws which do not reflect our understanding of the Bible. It would certainly be nice if all laws were Christian laws; but this is unfortunately not the case.

God’s purpose for his for us as his church - just like it was for the people of Israel and as it applied to the readers of Peter’s letter: we live joyfully, in sacrificial service, humility, without fear, ready to do good to others, believing that God will vilify his church when opponents of the kingdom of God will finally be silenced. Remember what the verse says:

"By doing good you may silence the ignorance of foolish men."

Foolish people, as we heard it this morning from the Proverbs reading, are not those who are intellectually backwards, but those who do refuse to believe in God. Unbelievers do no know the God of the Scriptures to impact their worldview. Worldly philosophies form their ideas, and they judge Christians accordingly.

Christians, in the time of Peter, were distrusted; in part because of their so-called “secret” meetings. Non-Christians misunderstood the nature of Christian worship. Words like "love feast" and talk of "eating Christ's flesh" understandably could sound suspicious to the pagans, and Christians were suspected of cannibalism becasue they “eat the body of Christ and drink his blood”! Every second person was a brother and a sister! Many stories even today are spread against Christ, Christians and the church. Many of them are sadly true, because Christians don’t live holy lives.

In a discussion of Facebook a non-believer writes:

If you choose to fashion your belief system around a collection of bronze-age goat-herder fairy tales, edited, redacted and thoroughly bastardised in the Middle Ages, now used to suck money out of the poor and ignorant by Calvinist televangelists, fine. But don't expect the rest of us who live here in the 21st century age of Science and Reason to be bound by your ghastly primitive prejudices and predilections.

Unfortunately what Christians sometimes say they believe and what Christians live out, don’t always add up. That is a sin in the eyes of God. Unholiness brings dishonour to the Name of Christ.

When Christians can’t love one another, when Christians drag one another before the civil authorities. It brings dishonour to the Name of God when Christians lie and swear and are given to alcohol, and cheat like the rest of the world. In short, when Christians feel at home in the world and start loving the world, and when they forget that they have heavenly citizenship, the world rightfully judge the church.

A.W. Tozer once wrote:

“Worship is no longer worship when it reflects the culture around us more that the Christ within us.” This is true about all aspect of Christian life and witness.

But if by our lives and example we truly live out what we believe, the uninformed world will be informed and their ignorance may be contradicted.

Let us take an example: The general picture the world has about a disciplining parent is one who walks around with a long stick, beating his children into submission. But discipline is far more than the rod. Upbringing under God for his glory is what counts. Some unbelievers already see the difference as they enrol their children at Christian schools. Of course, if we fail in doing what God says and we follow worldly standards in raising our children, we have nothing to silence unbelievers with. We failed and brought dishonour to the name of God.

In everything we do, we get our direction and the strength, as well as our guidance to live, it from God.

Submission to authority as bond slaves of Christ

Act as free men, and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bondslaves of God (verse 16).

We belong to God and not to governments or human institutions. We are slaves of God and not man. We submit to human institutions not as slaves to those institutions, but as God's free people. We submit in freedom for his sake. Not in bondage for the rulers’ sake.

Our society is full of examples of people who are not free, although they boast in their freedom. However, immorality and ungodliness leads to slavery and bondage - just ask the alcoholic and the drug addict; just ask the parent who was negligent in the upbringing of his child, and now spend endless nights crying themselves to sleep.

We are aliens in this world. We have passed from death to life. But in the in-between, God wants us back in this world - not as we once were - but as free people, as aliens who live by other values and other standards and goals and priorities. We do submit; we are not Christian jihadists. We submit freely, not shrinking before human authorities, but gladly obeying our one true King - God.

Because we belong to God, the nature of freedom and joy and fearlessness and radical uniqueness from this world is founded in Him - which in one sense is slavery (because his authority over us is absolute) but in another sense is glorious freedom (because He changed our hearts so that we love doing what He commands us to do). As Martin Luther said in his wonderful little treatise called "The Freedom of a Christian”:

A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.

The key to that paradox is God. Freed by God from slavery to all human institutions; and sent by God freely and submissively into those institutions - for his sake!

Submission in order to honour

Honour all men; love the brotherhood, fear God, honour the king.

Maybe there is a progression here.

First comes our absolute allegiance to God. Next comes our affectionate love for other believers. Then comes our honour to the king and other unbelievers. The king is not God. Only God is God.

Respect and honour

All respect and honour to all forms of authority begins with God: He is holy, He is our God. Then parents under God respect God by respecting their parents. Parents need to set the example of respect and honour before their children in the way the honour and respect God. Once children pick this up, they will be able to honour God, respect their parents and honour all other forms of authority flowing from it: this implies that they will see other as created beings of God, including teachers, the police, governments who over us for our own good. Children who grow up in this understanding that all authority begins with God who loves sinners to the point that He gave his Son to pay to forgive them, will ultimately understand that when earthly authority demands of them to love institutions and people more than Him, they will know to make the right choice: they will obey God more than people.

Aliens

The Christian is often excluded from friendship circles. They are not invited to parties anymore, or they are not included in deals. They sometimes become lonely; they become the outcast, the weird, the dumb, the stupid. They resist temptations to immoral activities, and they stand up for the sanctity of marriage as God intended it to be. They speak up against abortion and one-night stands or any alternate definition of marriage. They are labelled as unloving, bigots and downright evil people. However, that’s when we know that evil has become good, and good has become evil. “Woe to you when men speak well of you”, our Lord said.

Christians do not fit in the world

Our Lord said:

If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. (John 15:19, ESV)

Our chapter takes us to Psalm 34 to teach us how we should react to the hostilities of this world and even those who proclaim to be Christian, who is not.

Whoever of you loves life and desires to see many good days, keep your tongue from evil and your lips from telling lies. Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it. (Psalm 34:12–14, NIV)

Who said these words? David. When? Although Samuel anointed David as king, he was nevertheless forced to become a refugee before Saul. David, the elect of God, was forced to suffer on the earth as an exile. Twice during those refugee years, David had the opportunity to take Saul’s life.

God knows our struggle and our loneliness when we are rejected. His eyes are upon the righteous, and his ears listen to our prayers. He will vindicate those who belong to Him.

The enemy of the Cross might want to know why we act differently, and they might have contempt for us as we seem to be without backbone to not stand our ground when others love to tread us underfoot. When that happens, we regroup, fix our eyes upon Christ, reaffirm our submission to Him, and we set Him apart in our hearts as our Lord.

The congregation responds

Prayer:

Thanksgiving

Hymn 292:

“Your hand, O God, has guided” (verse 1, 3, 5)

God’s recommissions the congregation

Benediction:

To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne. (Revelation 3:21, NKJV)

The congregation responds

Hymn 636:

“Now unto Him who is able to keep”