09-13-09 Honor All Men

1PE 2:13-17 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 bondslaves of God. Honor all men; love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king.

Before we drop back into our study of 1^st Peter

I want to take just a few minutes

to once again place this study into it’s proper context -

not so much the context of the letter itself,

but rather into the context of the basics of our life with the King.

I want to do this

because I know how easily we can forget the basics

whenever we get near passages like this one

in which the author is talking with us about our practical daily living.

So let me state this as simply as I know how.

There are only two possible options available to each of us

when it comes to our relationship with our Creator.

The first one is the one handed to us at birth,

the one etched into the human spirit from the very beginning,

the one upon which all man-made religious systems are built,

and the one that formed the foundation for the Old Covenant between God and Israel.

And it is simply this -

if we obey God and do what He says He will bless us and be good to us,

and if we disobey Him He will condemn us.

It is an agreement with God

based upon our performance for God

as measured by the revealed moral law of God.

It’s not complicated,

it’s not confusing,

it’s not unfair,

it’s just not possible.

It is not possible for any human being

to find peace with God

on the basis of such an arrangement.

In the end, if we are honest,

we know that we always fall short.

Our religious systems

frequently complicate this performance-based dance with God

by telling us that there are certain good things we can do

to help appease the bad things we’ve done -

religious exercises,

or acts of penance,

or good deeds for others,

or career choices that identify us as totally devoted to our God,

but in the end the bottom line doesn’t change -

our performance determines our standing with God.

And under this first option

there is no such thing

as true and certain peace with God

because the only performance

that will truly qualify any person

to stand with confidence before God

is absolute perfection.

And then there is the second option,

the option we just never quite seem to get because it defies all human logic,

the option in which God completely and eternally removes our moral debt against Him

and then places His Spirit within us

and lives out His life through us one day at a time.

And all He asks from us is our willingness to believe He’s telling us the truth

when He tells us that He has paid our debt for us through the death of Christ in our place.

ROM 3:24, 28 being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus;

... For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law.

Those are the only two options on the table -

either we stand condemned before God on the basis of our performance,

or we stand immersed in His love, forever righteous in spirit on the basis of our faith in Christ.

Now I know that’s real basic stuff,

but I mention it again now

because whenever our Lord talks with us about our performance,

as He does in the section of 1^st Peter we’re studying,

we run the risk of hearing the voice of the enemy

telling us that Paul got it wrong when he told us that ROM 5:1 Therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ...

and that when it comes right down to it

nothing really has changed through Christ

and the bottom line in our walk with the King

is still our performance as measured by the moral law of God.

There is a reason why every New Testament Epistle,

including the one we are studying right now,

begins with the clear statement that it is written specifically and exclusively to Christians.

Every one of them assumes

that those who read

have already found peace with God through faith in Christ.

Without that

we simply cannot ever hear correctly what’s being said.

It is the only mental lense

through which we can then see correctly

everything else that’s being said.

Our God wants us free.

I do love the way Paul said it in Acts 13.

ACT 13:38-39 "Therefore let it be known to you, brethren, that through Him forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and through Him everyone who believes is freed from all things, from which you could not be freed through the Law of Moses.

And everything He says to us,

when we understand it correctly,

will result in greater freedom in our lives.

That is why He says what He says to us.

In fact, we’ve already seen the way in which Peter actually commanded us to be free.

1PE 2:16 Act as free men...!

Interesting slight-of-hand Satan uses on the human race, isn’t it.

He tells us that submission to God brings bondage,

and restrictions,

and imprisonment of the soul.

And the truth is

it is the only thing that can set us free.

Well, the Apostle Peter wrote this section of his first letter

in an attempt to introduce the people of God

to a very different way

of viewing all of the most significant relationships in our lives -

our relationship with governmental structures,

our relationship with our employers,

our relationship our fellow Christians,

and our relationship with our marriage partner.

And as we’ve seen so far,

he did so in part to equip us for effective living

during those times when we are under attack,

when we are distressed by various trials.

But he also did it

in order to reveal to us the keys to true freedom.

And having commanded us to act as those who are truly free,

he then explains to us where that freedom comes from

and how it can be a part of our lives.

And last week we looked at the first major ingredient in that freedom,

one that we would never have come up with on our own,

the freedom our God brings into our lives

when we trust His commitment to us

to work for our good through the authority structures He has placed over us.

Now, as we move ahead in this chapter

we’re going to see that Peter isn’t done with this theme,

but the specific authority structure he starts with

is the one we most frequently doubt - what he calls every human institution,

referring to the governmental structure over us.

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.

And before we move on

I want to point out that it is this particular area of submissive trust

that he ties directly to our being able to silence the ignorance of foolish men.

I may wander around a little bit here

trying to get us where I want us to go,

but I need to try to do this.

You see, there is a certain lie used by Satan against the Christian,

a lie that plays perfectly into our natural human hatred of submission,

a lie that, once we believe it,

can do more damage to the true message of Christ

than any other lie we could buy into.

We’ve talked frequently in the past

about the way in which each of us enter this world

with a spirit in defiant rebellion against God,

a spirit that honestly believes we have both the right and the ability to be our own god,

to run our own life,

to set our own course.

We honestly believe it is some great and glorious thing

to stand on stage and proclaim to the world, “I DID IT MY WAY!”

As parents we welcome our new-born child into our hearts and lives with unbounded joy,

only to discover within days of their birth

that this tiny bundle of life

honestly believes that we, and in fact all other human beings

exist primarily to meet their needs and do their bidding.

The only thing fully developed at the time of birth is the human will.

And it’s no wonder that, from the very beginning, we run into conflicts with anyone

who attempts to exercise authority over us

or force us into submission.

OK, then if we respond to the Spirit of God,

and allow Him to show us both ourselves and our desperate need for our Creator,

at some point we come to Christ,

accept His offer of grace and forgiveness,

and choose to submit to His rightful authority over our life.

But then here is where the lie comes in.

If we are not careful,

Satan will come along and tell us

that now, because we have Christ within us,

we have both the right and the ability

to become our own absolute authority.

Now all of our direction and leadership

will come directly and exclusively from God Himself.

In other words, our submission to God

has now freed us forever

from the need to submit to any human authority.

Whatever God tells us directly is the absolute authority in our life

and if it conflicts with the voice of any human authority

we have divine authority to reject the human authority.

And there are more than enough people within the religious world

who have bought into this lie

so that all too often the image of the Christian in the mind of the non-Christian

is a person who has set themselves up

as their own ultimate authority,

listening to and following only “the voice of God” in their life,

standing in judgement over anyone who disagrees with them.

A number of years ago

we had an attorney in our fellowship

who was doing some volunteer work for a Christian legal defense organization.

She called me to ask my advice

because she had become involved in the legal defense

of a man who was on trial for murdering an abortion doctor.

He was absolutely defiant in his defense,

believing that God had given him the right and the authority to do what he’d done.

That, of course, is an extreme example of the lie,

but Peter wants us aware that our flesh will make us all vulnerable to it at certain points in our lives,

and even more

that there are many within the non-Christian world

who will assume that being Christian

means that we claim for ourselves

a divine right to defy any authority

that we believe conflicts with the voice of God within us.

And to defeat this lie

Peter powerfully reveals to us two vital truths

that have the power to defeat the poison of this lie in our lives.

The first truth

is that we cannot correctly know the voice of God in our lives

apart from the human authorities He has placed over us.

God has committed Himself to working through those authorities,

using them as His tools through which He communicates His will to us

and to defy them

is to defy the leadership of God Himself.

And the second truth Peter wants us to understand

is closely tied to the first.

He wants us to know that

true freedom comes not through autonomy

but rather through submission.

True freedom is not the absence of authority in our lives,

it is absolute security that comes from trusting and submitting to authority.

And when we bring these two principles into our daily lives,

allowing them to govern both our attitudes and our actions toward the authorities over us,

it has the power to silence the ignorance of foolish men as few things can do.

And just as a personal observation,

I will tell you that there are few things that personally offend me more deeply

than coming in contact with a Christian

who is armed with a pack of Bible verses

and views himself as the rightful judge of the world.

I know why they do it, of course -

there simply is no better place to hide our own failures or weaknesses or fears

than behind a strong Biblical attack on the sins and failures of others.

As long as I’m skillfully pointing out where you got it wrong or did it wrong

no one will be looking at me.

But it’s not our ability to preach the truth that will display the living reality of our God to our world,

it is our ability to love.

Any arrogant fool can spout truth,

but only the Spirit of God can give us the ability to love.

Does that sound harsh?

Maybe Paul’s words would serve me better.

1CO 13:1-2 If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.

Unfortunately we have demoted his words to poetry,

believing he was simply writing pleasant platitudes about love

so that preachers would have something to read at wedding ceremonies.

He was not.

He was simply doing what he was always doing -

telling us the truth.

I’m certainly not suggesting that we should ever compromise the truth in our own personal lives,

but it is not the presentation of truth,

but rather the living reality of compassion, and kindness, and gentleness, and forgiveness

that will draw the world to our King.

Which brings me back to 1^st Peter

and to the two remarkable lines

that he includes immediately following his call to us

to submit to the governmental authority structures God has placed over us.

The first of those two lines we looked at in some detail.

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

And let me just repeat what we saw there -

Peter commands us to live before the world in a way that clearly proclaims our freedom in Christ.

It is crucial to our effectiveness

in our clear proclamation of the truth about our God.

And if you want to know the degree to which Satan has succeeded

in his efforts to replace the life of Christ within us with religious systems,

just take that commandment - act as free men -

and set it next to the lives of the Christians you know.

Do their lives proclaim freedom,

or do they proclaim rules and restriction and confinement and bondage?

Of course Peter immediately qualifies his commandment to freedom

telling us to not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bondslaves of God,

but his message is clear -

there is no greater freedom in life

than the freedom that is found in the center of God’s love.

But then Peter gives us one additional sentence,

and with it he outlines the most remarkable approach to healthy human relationships.

He says, Honor all men; love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king.

And the first one on that list

is the one that fascinates me most of all.

Honor all men.

That word honor means literally

to recognize their great value.

And it is this one that Peter offers us first.

And please let me remind you

that Peter’s purpose for writing

is to offer us real choices we can make

that will make a profound difference in the lives we live.

He knows that prior to our union with Christ

all of our human relationships

were driven by our desperate need to use other people

to make us feel better about ourselves.

We compare ourselves with them,

or seek some sort of power or control over them,

or try to get some words of affirmation or validation from them

so that we can then feel better about ourselves.

Because we do not know who we are or why we have value apart from Christ,

we frantically attempt to use the people around us

to make us feel better about ourselves.

But once we see ourselves in the eyes of our God,

and hear Him telling us that we are His chosen race and a royal priesthood and a holy nation and a people for His own possession,

once we discover that He knows us and loves us perfectly and forever,

we no longer need to use the people around us for our own ends.

And on this basis

Peter then tells us

that if we bring an attitude of respect and honor to every person we meet

it will have a dramatic positive impact on our life.

But the critical thing here

is in that word ALL.

When we begin to see the true eternal value in each person we meet -

the clerk in the check-out line,

and the middle-aged, overworked neighbor with too many kids and too little money,

and the scruffy looking teenager loitering outside of McDonalds,

and the tech support person who kept us on hold for 20 minutes -

when we begin to see them

not as someone to use so that I feel better

but rather as someone who desperately needs my affirmation of their worth in the eyes of their God,

it profoundly changes the way we fit in our world.

Honor all men,

not because they’ve done something that we think is worthy of honor,

but because they bear the image of their Creator

and urgently need someone to tell them the truth about their value in His eyes.

Well, we’re not quite done with this, but we’ll pick it up here next week.