Sermon Tone Analysis

Announcements:

Sign on the front of the building

Building out back - Mostly finished

Prayer Requests:

Braden Barlow - Injury

Becky -

Praise Reports:

Kayleigh’s little one - doing much better

So much of our church - healed from COVID in the last two weeks.

Sermon:

Good morning.

I missed gathering together last week.

I struggle, without THIS gathering.

I worship in my own time, I pray on my own, I study the word of God on my own… but there is so much benefit to gathering together.

Today we are finally able to get back into the word together.

We are continuing our study of 1 Peter, and our series I titled “Living as Exiles” that title is pulling right from the text in 1 Peter 1:1

This is not an exhaustive study, we won’t cover everything that there is to cover.

Today’s message is a little bit of a difficult one - it has the potential for us to become a contentious one.

Part of the problem is how deeply we are tied to other aspects of our identity - we are going to talk about that a little bit today.

Before we get into the word, Lets pray.

God help us to understand.

Help us to make application.

The scripture that we are studying today is

This is a passage is one of many that includes instructions for how we are to live and behave as believers, and what it means to be a christian.

First - we have to agree that this is scripture, and I know to say that seems a little silly, since we are reading out of the bible, but we should all understand what that means.

As Christians, we confess, it is our testimony, that the bible and its contents are the written word of God.

To understand this passage correctly, I think it is helpful to rearrange it a little bit.

First, back up a couple of verses.

Peter is talking to believers, and reminds us that we are strangers and exiles.

That idea is important for this passage, because it creates an identity that requires the message to be written.

Peter says - I urge you as strangers and exiles.

Over the past couple of months, refugees and exiles have moved across the world.

Between natural disasters and war, people are migrating as refugees.

People are ending up in countries that are not their own.

They are finding themselves in this interesting conflict of who they are, in that they BELONG in one place, and yet are forced to be in another.

Who is in charge of them now?

Is it the government that they just left?

Or the country that they are in now?

Do they have what we might call diplomatic immunity?

Its really a combination of all of those things, right?

And that is kind of the situation that Peter describes for us.

And this isn’t the only reference to that idea in scripture.

So as we establish ourselves as not from here.

And that is one of the hardest things for us, because we are American’s!

In October 2016, God dealt with me on that issue.

And it has been a struggle.

These were some of the scriptures that He used to change my heart during that time.

We were serving as youth pastors.

I was excited about the election.

Donald trump was running for president.

And I was passionate about it.

And I was corrected.

As I read the bible to prepare for a sermon about God being Sovereign - I was corrected.

Because yes, I am a citizen of the USA, but that comes only second to my identity in Christ.

If it does not come second, then I do not have an identity in Christ.

We are exiles here - and that identity, requires this passage to be written.

I said I wanted to rearrange this passage a little bit.. so lets jump to the middle of vs 13.

The middle of that verse says “because of the Lord”

Then we see in beginning of 1 Peter 2:16 that we are Free people,

it is from there, with our understanding that we are exiles, that we get our why - for everything else.

I am an exile!

I serve only My King.

Jesus.

Lord, Savior, Messiah.

I am free.

I have Freedom.

I have more freedom than any american - I have Jesus freedom.

Peter says - Perfect, now with all that in mind… let me tell you what you have to do.

And he gives us some instructions.

He says that we are to submit, We are to do good, that we are to love, and we are to honor.

Submit to every human authority.

And there is another point of struggle.

Because we live in America, the government here changes pretty often.

And sometimes, we don’t like it very much.

We wanted the Baboon party to be president, and instead it was the giraffes this time.

And our government is capable of true evil.

We have commited some of the most horrifying things.

We have allowed slavery, we murdered native people, we have gone to war without just cause, in modern times we use technology to murder innocent families, we allow abortion to continue.

Our government has the capacity to commit some of the most evil acts known to man.

And yet, we are called to submit to these, and every authority.

The rational person in me - would suggest, hey - I’m exempt from this, because my government is evil, and the government that is suggested here is a good one.

And yet, history would tell us otherwise.

Peter wrote this letter instructing us to submit to the emperor, during the reign of Nero.

Non-Christian historian Tacitus describes Nero extensively torturing and executing Christians after the fire of 64.[6] Suetonius also mentions Nero punishing Christians, though he does so because they are "given to a new and mischievous superstition" and does not connect it with the fire.[137]

Christian writer Tertullian (c.

155–230) was the first to call Nero the first persecutor of Christians.

He wrote, "Examine your records.

There you will find that Nero was the first that persecuted this doctrine."[138]

Lactantius (c.

240–320) also said that Nero "first persecuted the servants of God".[139] as does Sulpicius Severus.

I could suggest hey, I don’t have to submit because my government is evil - which they are.. but that does not excuse me.

It seems, from my study of the word, that the only exemption that we could possibly have for submitting to authority is if it expressly instructs us to go against the word of God.

Otherwise, we are called to submit.

We must love our God, we must worship Him alone.

This instruction is echoed in Romans 13:1-3

The rest of this chapter in 1st Peter, really establishes the proper order of things in our lives.

We are slaves of Christ, free from everything else.

As slaves, Christ sends us into the world to submit, and to do good things.

Peter sets us up to be submissive to government, to be submissive in our roll in the economy - he goes as far as to to say slaves - be servants to your masters, and in the family unit.

Be submissive, submit.