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Starts with Conrad's welcome. Ends as Conrad invites the congregation to pray. Words that could not be made out are marked [unclear].
Well, welcome once again to Living Oaks Church.
I'm so glad that we're all able to gather here this morning. My name is Conrad. I'm one of the pastors here. And I assure you, I did not know that was just about to happen. So that was a surprise to me, but a blessing. And I just want to articulate and reiterate that it is a joy. It is a privilege to be connected to this church. It is a joy and a privilege to serve the body of Christ alongside Pastor Zack, Pastor Ethan, and of course, Pastor Austin as well.
I'm hoping that we get to celebrate some good news in the weeks to come. for the joyful things that are coming on in their family during this time. But once again, it is a joy and a privilege to be here. And I also want to share, as we just kind of talked about pastors and celebrating that moment, it was also a joy and a blessing to be here with Pastor Doug last weekend. If you guys were here last weekend, yeah, we could celebrate that.
Absolutely. Thank you. Pastor Doug Posey is the founding pastor of Living Oaks Church. He preached last weekend, and he's still involved with us. He's still here. He still lives around us. And as well, we support him as one of our missions partners. He is a part of a great network called Global Training Network, and he goes and he pastors and disciples and mentors pastors around the world. the world and it is a blessing for us to be able to support him and we are blessed that he was able to share the stage last weekend and for what he does in and out of course if you want to learn more about our missions partners you can go on our website we have a great missions team as well with exciting updates monthly and in the seasons to come but once again welcome to living oaks we want to esteem god's word very highly
and go through scripture together. If you've been with us, we have been going through a series in 1 Peter, and today we find ourselves in 1 Peter chapter 2, verse 13 through 17, a few short verses this morning. And, you know, I think sometimes even a few short verses can be a little spicy at times, depending on our cultural context. So, As Paul mentioned, I'm supposed to do these things joyfully, so I have the joy to tell all of us to submit to the government.
So I hope that you guys will bear with me here this morning. I look forward to doing this together. As you're flipping to 1 Peter 2, I want us to think about how many laws, how many rules, how many regulations did you have to follow this morning to get to the seat that you're sitting in this very moment? How many rules, how many laws did you have to follow to get to where you're seated right now? It's probably so many that we can't even count them all up.
We think of the big ones, right? You know, speed limits, stoplights and such and such. But there are so many other little nuances to our day-to-day existence living here in California, living here in Ventura or LA County, living here in the United States of America. There are so many things that we do that are just so ingrained in us that we almost don't even think about them anymore. However, there are some laws that are on the books and have been on the books for a while that maybe either shouldn't be on there or I just want to point your attention to.
Like an ordinance in the state of Washington that was put into place in 1969, I believe it's Ordinance 69-01, which says it is prohibited to kill a Sasquatch in that county. Now, I don't know about you, but I think the Sasquatch is still up for debate, right? I don't think we've actually determined that this thing actually exists. However, if you kill one in this county in Washington, you could be significantly fined or jailed.
Amended in 1984, it's only punishable up to $1,000 and maybe one year of jail time. So, if you find one of those mythical beasts, keep it on the down low, okay. Next, there's several other ordinances and rules and regulations that we have, not just in our nation, but around the world. Show of hands, who ever has ever owned a guinea pig? One of those giant, oversized, cuddly rodents? Okay, a good amount of us.
Well, how many did you have? Did you have one? One. Two? More than one? Well, I hope you had more than one, because if you were in Switzerland, you could be fined 22,000 US dollars if you only had one, because the Swiss government knows that they are social creatures, and they need to be paired in twos or more. So if you have one of those rodents, just keep in mind their well-being, and keep them not isolated from one another, but in twos or more.
There's so many different weird laws out there, at least strange to us. You can't chew gum in Singapore, right? You can't fly a kite more than 10 feet in the air in Walnut, California.
It's not true. Check it out. I looked it up this morning. So Walnut, California, that's the height of a basketball hoop. which really just defeats the purpose of kite flying altogether. You know, there are other laws out there as well, like in Gainesville, Georgia, you can only eat fried chicken with your hands. No utensils allowed. Necessary? Yes. Allowed? No. And finally, the most unique law of all is in California, you must come to a complete stop at a stop sign.
Anything else is called the California roll, and if you do it on your way to church, you are just a holy roller. [unclear], so there's a lot of strange laws out there, but we need to abide by them, right? Because they're structured and ordered in the society that we live. It helps keep everybody on track. Yeah, there's some outliers, there's some weird ones like fried chicken in Georgia. However, by and large, we wanna follow these things and submit to them.
Oftentimes, we don't even need to think about them. However, today we're gonna be talking essentially at the beginning of a little mini series in the book of 1 Peter. on ordered relationships, on institutions and things that we are to follow. Next week, we're going to talk about the workplace relationships between the boss and the worker. In a couple of weeks, we'll talk about family and household codes and how that's to be arranged.
But today, we're talking about our relationship, yes, to the government. And that's why I've titled this message, The Christian Citizen. And our goal is to understand what God's Word says that we are to do, what is our responsibility to do. as Christian citizens, not just living in Ventura or California or in the United States, but just globally as well. So before we get into our text, let's pray once more and then we'll dive in.
So Heavenly Father, thank you for this morning. Thank you for the opportunity to come together in this space to worship you in spirit and truth, to seeing that the battle belongs to you, to seeing that we are who you say we are. Lord, we anchor ourselves today and found ourselves on that truth. You are our firm foundation. So Lord, as we open up this text this morning, I pray that you'd give us open ears, that you would meet us with grace, but also truth, and that we would be able to orient our lives as citizens here, but citizens of heaven as well.
So Lord, go before our time this morning. We thank you and praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. Before we dive into our passage in 1 Peter 2, we should probably start at the beginning, right? Because some of us are like, why is a government even necessary? And so we go way, way back to the beginning, Genesis chapter 1. If you love to flip in your Bibles, go to Genesis 9 for just a second. But Genesis 1 is where it all begins.
God created them male and female in his image. And he said, be fruitful and multiply. This is a mandate, something that we are to do, how we are to live. There was one law, one rule, one restriction. What was that rule? Don't eat from that one tree. That one tree right there, just don't eat. I don't know about you guys, but I have three sons who, you know, I'm trying to teach obedience and they do such unique things.
My oldest son, if I tell him not to do something, if I say, don't touch this podium with your hands, he'll walk over to it and he'll kick it. He'll find the loophole, right? The little lawyer in his mind that he is. He will find a way to break that rule some way, shape, or form. My other two sons will just look at you dead in the eyes and just go, really? All right. Adam and Eve, I can imagine them looking at God almost and just saying, okay, let's, let's,
Test this boundary. And they broke that. They broke that law. And not only that, it introduced sin and death and shame and brokenness and decay into our world. Genesis chapter 9. Well, before chapter 9, he sends a global flood. A flood which cleanses and purifies the earth. And then he gives this creation mandate once more. Genesis 9:1. It will be up on the screen. It says, And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them,
Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. Okay, that sounds familiar. Check. God is consistent. Check. Genesis 1, Genesis 9. But then in 9:5 through 9:7, he kind of starts to institute a governmental type of structure. Let's read it. It says, and for your lifeblood, I will require a reckoning. From every beast, I will require it. And from man, from his fellow man, I will require a reckoning for the
life of man whoever sheds the blood of man by man shall his blood be shed for god made man in his own image and then verse 7 once again he says and you be fruitful and multiply increase increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it god has now delegated responsibility and consequences to mete it out among fellow man if there's a murder who executes the justice is it god This man, under the authority of God.
This establishes an authoritative structure into the fabric of life. Now, does that text give us everything about government? Absolutely not. The text is perfect, but it doesn't talk about the whole. But it does show us that government can be ordered and we can order ourselves under the jurisdiction of other people. So there's consequences now everywhere. and authority being delegated and given. Practically speaking for us, we need governments to tell us how to live, right?
We need governments to tell us what unit of measurement we use. Do we use the metric system like everybody else? Or do we use the imperial system? The imperial system, I think, right? Feet, is that what that is? Got it. We need the government to tell us how fast to drive. 15, typically, in alleyways. 65, typically on freeways. We need the government to tell us what light color to stop at, to slow at, and to go at, right?
We need governments to tell us how to operate so that we can function well together. Now here's my thesis as we go into 1 Peter. Here is the overarching concept. And as I was writing this message, as I was thinking about it throughout this week, I started with a completely different trajectory in mind. And then I had to turn it and look at what the text is actually saying and focus the responsibility really upon myself and upon ourselves as citizens.
Here's my thesis. The gospel is exemplified not in governmental leaders, but in the conduct of the Christian citizen. Let me say that again. The gospel is exemplified, is emphasized not in the governmental leaders. Of course it is. But really, our focus and responsibility is upon the conduct of the Christian citizen, upon how we live, upon how I live, upon how you live. We're going to break this down, and really we're going to be asking ourselves the question, what is the conduct of the obedient Christian citizen then?
We'll find out right now. Let's look at verse 13, 14, and 15. It says this, Be subject for the Lord's sake. To every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme or to the governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. For this is the will of God that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. So as I mentioned that little thesis a second ago, the first question is, well, what is the conduct of the obedient Christian citizen?
And the first thing, it's super broad, and we're going to unpack it just a little bit. The first thing is just to live well. Live well. What is a Christian citizen supposed to do? Just live well. It talks about in verse 15, it says, so that by doing good, you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Doing good is living well. We'll get to that in just a moment. The first line is be subject to.
every human institution. Now, we're going to really focus on the government because it really seems to emphasize that, but the church is an institution, right? The DMV is an institution, and I suppose you could even make the case that the drive-through line at Chick-fil-A is an institution, right? You follow that line, you go through it, there's an ordered process. Chick-fil-A is an establishment, it is an
There are things to follow and rules to abide by under their authority. However, the by and large bulk of this is talking about government. The emperor supreme, what governors put there to punish or to praise. So that's what we're going to be talking about here this morning. And before we do so, I want to talk about the word be subject. Be subject. It's a trigger word. It's something that we all can fear at times, but be subject essentially takes the form of submission, submit.
When we think about government, we think of the word obey, obeying laws. The concept is to order under or to arrange underneath something else. Now that that's out there, I also want to highlight one other thing that's not in our English Standard Version translation. It's the word you. It's a plural word. It's a pronoun, second person, plural pronoun. You all be subject. So to get to our point, to get to our application, we must consider who Peter's writing to.
Who's the y'all here? To go back to the beginning, 1 Peter 1:1 says this. This is the y'all he's writing to. Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who are elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. So Peter is writing to exiles. Not necessarily governmental exiles, but at the very least, certainly spiritual exiles who are in and among citizens on earth.
All of those places, Cappadocia, Pontus, Galatia, Asia, and Bithynia, all of those places fell within the realm of Rome. So the Roman government was essentially over all of the people that Peter was writing to at this time. So when he's saying be subject, you all be subject, he's saying to Rome. You're exiles, maybe not necessarily from a certain government, but you are exiles because this world is not necessarily your home.
In Philippians chapter 3, Paul writes, but our citizenship is in heaven. And from it we await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. Peter is writing to human beings, not in their heavenly citizenship, but in their earthly citizenship. This world is ultimately not our home. And while this world is not ultimately our home, I have a passport that says United States of America.
I have a driver's license that says State of California. We live in this tension. Between heavenly citizenship and the place, the county, the city, the region, the state, the nation that we live today. And as such, we are to submit ourselves to the rules, to the regulations, to the laws of where we live. Now before we get a little bit into that, I want to propose a definition or a mission statement for what a government is supposed to do.
Now, I hesitate even putting this up because it is not the end-all be-all. I could sit longer and really think about it and nuance it a million times more clear than what I've got on here. However, I think it just gives us a framework. So don't take this as gospel because it's certainly not. But it's my attempt at saying, hey, what is the government supposed to do? Here's what I got. Governmental structures are given to manage a collection of image bearers
By creating an environment where good actions are encouraged and bad actions are discouraged. Straight from our text, a couple of things. One, they're given. It's given by God. Romans 13:1 says the authorities given to us in place are given to us by God. Chew on that one for a moment. After that, collection of image bearers. We've already talked about people. We've talked about whose image and likeness we are made in.
And then further, in 1 Peter chapter 2, what we just read, the two actions were to punish the evil and to praise the good. So that's just my real cursory blanket general stab at what a government is maybe supposed to do. Now, do governments fall short of that standard? Yes, they do a lot. As my relatives in Wisconsin say, you betcha. Yeah, like the governments often fall short of this, and we're going to kind of unpack just a little bit about that.
But that's what I would say is the mission of the government is that our responsibility to necessarily control how the government does all that and functions perfectly. Not necessarily. We have our part to play, but our responsibility is our conduct as Christian citizens. So a couple of things here. One, the two reasons, according to 1 Peter 2:14, that a government's supposed to be there is to punish the evil, punish the bad, and to praise the good.
This is important for us. And once again, can there be governments which punish the good and praise the evil? Absolutely. We've seen that over time in history. We see that today presently as well. However... This text is not trying to necessarily speak towards those, but it is affirming, generally speaking, the goal of a government is to praise the good, to elevate that good, and to put down the evil, to punish the evil.
So that is the general thing. And spectrum and scales of good governments, corrupt governments, tyrannical governments, throughout history, throughout time, remains. But by and large, this is the goal. So a couple of things that I want to talk about. This is not a prescription, this text. I entered into it thinking, ooh, this is a prescription for us to tell the government how to operate. This is our opportunity to say, yeah, government, you're falling short in all these categories.
I thought when I was going to approach this text, ooh, yes, we're going to be justified in how we feel at times. This text speaks nothing of that. This speech, remember, it talks about you all. It's not talking about government leaders. It's talking about Christian citizens. So how are we to live in spite of whatever our government is doing? How are we to live in spite of all of the moral failings and the flaws?
Well, we're to live well. We're to be good. Because by doing good... The gospel is emphasized. Now, I was reminded of that this week by a theologian, right? Outside of the Bible, if those words were put on any other page, it would just be good wisdom, right? Hey, order yourselves in rows. Get in line. Be subject and just go along with society. But he reminded me that the gospel is really at stake here.
The gospel is the thing that's at play. We're not just to submit or obey for obedience sake. We're to submit for the Lord's sake. Look at 1 Peter 2:13 that we just read. Be subject for the Lord's sake. Kind of pricks my heart a little bit. It's not about the government and the government only. It's about submitting to God. The government for the Lord's sake, so that when we do it by our own good conduct, the gospel may be emphasized.
Two things, and I'm not a lawyer, but I've looked it up, and here we go. So I'm going to make myself dangerous and correct me if I'm wrong. Two things in criminal law philosophy. One is malum in se, and the other is malum prohibitum. Malum in se means wrong in itself. It's just bad. Right? What do we think? Murder, arson, destruction, the raping, the pillaging. This is just bad in itself. Malum in se.
After that, you have malum prohibitum. And that's just wrong because it's prohibited. Wrong because there's a law in place. Speed limit could be that. Taxes could be that. Civil codes, ways of conducting ourselves, driver's licenses, fishing and hunting licenses, or operating without those could fall under malum prohibitum. I think maybe that's more emphasized here in our text, right? Obviously, I hope as Christians we kind of say, yeah, murder is not so good.
That's Genesis 9, verse 5 and 6. You know, burning somebody's house down, yeah, we don't want to do that. That's common law stuff. But I wonder if malum prohibitum was what was on Jesus' mind, or actually the Pharisee or the Herodians' mind when they came up to Jesus and said, hey, is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar? And Jesus looks at him and looks at a coin and says, well, who's image on this? And who's likeness?
And then he says, render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's. I can almost see him saying right after that, live well. Live well. We want to live above the bare minimum basic standards. We want to live well. You know, John Piper punched me in the face and he said this quote. He didn't actually. He did it emotionally. He said, keeping the speed limit is Christian worship.
Ouch. Yeah, I just prefer to sing. Keeping the speed limit is Christian worship. I was like, got to wrestle with that one. I fall short in my Christian worship. I think more often than I would care to admit. For us, you know, we want to live well in a society that gives us rules, gives us structures, whether or not we agree with them. In fact, probably more so when we disagree with them. I'm not, please, no, I'm not talking about things that are morally wrong.
If, you know, abortion is legislated, I'm not saying we go along with that. I'm not saying that in the slightest. There are things that we can disagree with. There are things that actually are morally reprehensible to Christians. However, more often than not, I think those things are just a matter of our perspective and our preference. And, man, keeping the speed limit is a form of Christian worship.
John Piper said, Those words will stick with me for a long time. Well, we're not done. We have a few things to get to as well, but living well is an important part of Christian as we engage with governments. As we go on, we're going to see in verse 16 the next thing that Christians are supposed to conduct ourselves in. It's one short verse. It says, live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil,
But living as servants of God. Live as people who are free. Which reminds me, where does freedom come from? And what is actual freedom? Freedom is essentially the ability to choose, right? To choose for ourselves how do we want to respond in a certain situation? How do we want to act under certain circumstances? Freedom is something that we want to walk in at all times. How are we to conduct ourselves?
We live well, but we also live as free. Biblical freedom is the ability to choose to live according to God's will and God's way. That is true biblical Christian freedom. Which reminds me of this question. Is it the people who are free, not the government that creates freedom? free people. I think oftentimes we can think, oh, yeah, those people are free. These people aren't free. This text is telling us live as people who are free, not as a government who makes free people.
The people in Rome were not entirely enjoying all the freedoms that we experience today. Yet Peter says, live as people who are free. Free to respond according to how God would have them respond. Free to make decisions and choices even though they were restricted in so many different ways. Live as people who are free. And as a reminder, true freedom is living in accordance with God's design for your life and pursuing how God has called you to live.
A note on the context, both the historical and contextual. When Peter wrote this, again, he was in Rome and Nero is understood to be the emperor during that time. AD 54 to AD 68, Emperor Nero was on the throne. And history looks back at Nero as not such a great guy, right? He doesn't go down in history as the most benevolent of people. In fact, he put on many games and many of those were gladiatorial games.
He He taxed the rich very significantly. He built a lot of things. There's a lot of legends about the great fire that happened in Rome. But one thing is to be understood from that fire is he blamed Christians and he executed them for it. He wanted a scapegoat. So who did he go after? The low-hanging fruit. This outsized, ostracized group that was already on the fringes, who couldn't really defend themselves, who...
who were serving Jesus Christ, this person that they didn't fully understand. And so he went after them. And what happened? Well, they were tortured, they were killed, they fought, they died. Peter himself, who wrote this, ended up being crucified by this emperor. And yet, Peter lived as a free man. Not necessarily under a free government, but as a free man. Live as free people, not as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God, which brings this paradox around.
What are we free to do as citizens? Free to submit. Kind of sounds paradoxical, doesn't it? Because oftentimes our version of freedom is like, I'm freedom to choose. I have the freedom to be autonomous. I can be free to do whatever it is I want. And God's word says, no, actually, you're free to come under something else. And I think that's exemplified in the person of Jesus Christ. If you think about the Trinity for just a moment, theologically speaking, Jesus came to this earth, was the most free person who ever lived, who ever walked this earth,
And yet he submitted. He was under a government and he submitted to that. He was under the will of his heavenly father first and foremost and ultimately, and he what? Submitted to that. Not my will be done, but thy will. But your will be done. This is a reminder to us that What we're doing as Christian citizens is a model of what Jesus already did. He was free. He came under. He submitted. And yet at the same time, Jesus also says, right, living as servants, it is more blessed to serve than to be served.
And Jesus gave his life as a ransom for many. It's a reminder for us that we live in a free country, but as free people already. This message can apply to those who are in tyrannical governments across the world, across the Middle East. This can apply to any person anywhere because Peter is saying it under very less than ideal circumstances. We take this in the United States of America that we call it free.
And we can apply it here. And how are we going to apply it here? I'm going to make a general application because I think, what, three weeks? T-minus three weeks, there's an election coming up? November 3rd? November 3rd, it's the election. I want to take this moment to remind you that Peter had no say in his government. Paul had no say in his government. Jesus had no say in his government. It is certainly a privilege that we do.
I think two things when we approach the voting polls or our mail-in ballots or whatever we do. Two points of application from verse 16 alone. Can you put verse 16 back up? I want to read it one more time. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. First, we live as people who are free. We exercise our freedom, our spiritual freedom, to choose God's will and God's way.
And then two, living as servants of God. Which means anytime we approach the polls, anytime we cast a ballot, anytime we vote for a proposition or a person, we vote our values. What values? Our biblical values. Right? Our government wants one thing or another, and sometimes it's pick between these two. And sometimes they're polar opposites. Sometimes they're a little closer. And I'm not going to tell you all how to vote right here, right now.
It's beyond the scope of this message. But the idea is for us as heavenly citizens to prayerfully wrestle, discern, bring Jesus in, and cast our ballot in freedom. We get to do it as freedom, but we also get to do it as servants. So what does this do? It shifts our responsibilities. Me personally, I look sometimes at elections or as things that come out and I get grumbly and here's why I get grumbly Because I take responsibility for something.
I shouldn't take responsibility for It's not our responsibility ultimately Who's in office? It's not our responsibility ultimately? Track with me. It's not our responsibility ultimately to see which proposition passes and or fails. It's our responsibility to live well, to live free, and to serve, live as servants of God. We cast our vote, we do everything in our power and in our own responsibility, and we trust God with the results.
If If we take full responsibility for everybody who enters into office, even if we engage with our own responsibility and our own effort, then we're just going to be frustrated and we're going to grumble because those things are oftentimes outside of our control. Emperor Nero was outside of Peter's control. The things that he did, the gladiatorial games, all of the corruption, all of the The promiscuous behavior outside of Peter's control, but what could Peter control himself?
And he said, live as those who are free. Again, hear me. I'm saying that we have a responsibility. We want to execute our own free will to live as servants of God. However, if something doesn't go according to our way, we can still look at ourselves in the mirror, but you all... And live responsibly, live according to God's way. There's so much nuance in here, and I hope I'm coming across clearly that really what we need to be doing, instead of putting all the onus, all the emphasis on the judicial branch, the executive branch, the legislative branch, we need to actually bear more responsibility upon ourselves for our own conduct.
And how we live our lives. Again, I could talk about this. We could talk about this for days more. But we got a little bit more to get to. So we're going to wrap up here with verse 17. And after Peter says all of these things, all of these really hard, complex things for the government, he comes in with like a one, two, three, four punch. You know, it's not a one-two punch. It's just a staccato of things and relationships for us to consider.
Are you ready? Here we go. Honor everyone. [unclear] Love the brotherhood.
Fear God. Okay. And then comes into a conclusion. Honor the emperor. Yikes. You know, there is a lot going on right here. Here's how we're just going to conclude. How do we conduct ourselves as Christian citizens? One, live well. We want to have our good conduct. We want to live above the bare moral standard. Two, live free. We make choices. We take responsibility. And finally, we live respectfully.
I'm just blanketing all of those four relationships with respectfully. Here we go. Honor everyone. That's a hard one. Honor is not necessarily agreement. Honor is not necessarily affirming something. Honor is not necessarily saying, yeah, do whatever you want. But honor is looking at people as image bearers, as we've talked about, with respect, dignity, and worth. Honor everyone. Does anyone fall short here?
I fall short. So maybe 10 second pause. Is there someone in your life that you encounter today or this week that you might need to just ascribe a little bit more honor to? Agree, maybe, maybe not. Affirm, maybe, maybe not. But honor, respect, ascribe value and worth. Chew on that for a moment. Next is love the brotherhood. I love this one. I got three boys. I got brothers. I have a brother. We're 14 months apart.
My sons are 19 months apart and about two years and change. So between the three of them... It's too tight to do the math on. But it's just, they're really close together, which is a blessing. And I love raising boys as brothers. And we do this thing when we're out and I'm watching them and we go out and do stuff and we put our hands in. We all put our hands in. Every hand's a little smaller. We like putting our hands in.
And you count to three. One, two, three. And we do Woz Boys. That's what we say. We do Woz Boys. And it's a uniting thing. And my youngest son, Griffin, who's now starting to articulate a little bit more, he doesn't know what he's doing, but he gets so excited. And he says, voice, voice. Like, that's the last thing he says. He wants to do it. And he'll initiate it, too. There's a uniting thing to it.
With all of our hands on top of one another, Woz voice. Love the brotherhood. We are a family of believers. We are called to love one another. We are a family of believers. So let us not just honor one another, but self-sacrificially give of ourselves to one another as well. Next is fear God. There's a great quote by A.W. Tozer, I just want to read it. It says this, The greatness of God rouses fear within us, but his goodness encourages us not to be afraid of him.
To fear and to not be afraid, that is the paradox of faith. That's a complex thing to talk about in 30 seconds. But really, what are we talking about here? The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, and the fear of man brings a snare. We are to fear God. He's the only one on this little list that we are to fear, this reverential respect. And who would the people have feared the most in ancient times?
The emperor. At least I can assume that. Especially an emperor Nero type figure. And so it says honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. No. Honor the emperor. Comes back around. And the person. The most tyrannical person. The person who had the say of life and death. In his thumb or hand. Or wave of his arm. We are not to fear him. We are to fear God. and honor the emperor. Convicting stuff, and there's so many threads that I know I've just thrown out there, and I'm not tying a bow up on all of them.
And that, to me, is frustrating. Like, I want to tie up all the bows. I want to explain away all the nuances. I want to say this but not this, and that but not this. But our text here, I just want to summarize it. It's really not about the government. It's about the gospel. And anytime we come to a passage about the government, it's so easy for us to get sidetracked and be like, yeah, how's our government doing?
But really, it's not about that. It's about our response and how we exemplify and emphasize the gospel with our own life and with our own conduct. And with that, I submit to you all, I fall very short. I am a sinner and I I can worship more on the freeway. I'm a sinner, and I can orient my mind around the things that I can control, and the way that I vote, and the things that I do, and take full responsibility for that, rather than casting blame on somebody on a very far side of the country, or up in Northern California, or what have you.
I'm not saying that there are people who do right and There are people who do wrong. Certainly that is objectively true. However, I think more often than not, I need to look at myself in the mirror and maybe collectively we look at ourselves in the mirror and say, what can I control? What can't I control? And what is my responsibility right here, right now? To do good, to emphasize the gospel so that my neighbors, my coworkers, my family,
can see the gospel at play in my life. To conclude, did Jesus live well under the structure of his government? Absolutely. Did Jesus live free? We already talked about it. He was the most free person who ever existed. And did Jesus live respectfully? Certainly. I'll end here. It just popped into my head. Did Jesus call his ruler a fox? Yes. I'm not saying that's an application right now. Certainly there's, again, another thing to wrestle with.
He called Herod, I believe, that old fox. So again, there's so much nuance here, but at the same time, we are to live well, live free, live respectfully, and to control our lives and conducts. It's not a government issue. It's a gospel issue. Anyways, I hope that this message just paints a picture in this election season of what we are to control, how we are to live. how we're to articulate our faith and belief.
And if somebody ever comes to you and says, hey, how are you supposed to live as a Christian citizen? I think that sentence really typifies it. Live well, live free, live respectfully. How are you going to vote? Well, I'm praying about this matter, but I want my conduct to emphasize the gospel. Amen? All right, let's pray.