Embracing Submission As a Way of Life: Christians to Goverment - 1 Peter 2:13-17

1:58It's even relatively easy to obey a government that remains neutral to your cause, right? It's even relatively easy to obey a government that simply leaves you alone. But it's a very different matter when the government turns against you and becomes hostile to your way of life. What are you to do then? What does the Bible have to say when this happens? What is the Christian responsibility to government in such times? You know, in the past, America, the church in America, has not really had to wrestle with this issue like it is beginning to have to wrestle with it now. Our government is becoming less favorable to Christian ideals and even becoming hostile to some of them. Just look at the current news. And it seems like this anti-Christian sentiment. Seems to be growing.

3:03And I want to insert a little parenthetical thought here. I do not think Christians in the United States are being persecuted. I don't believe that's the word yet. Persecuted implies much stronger governmental decrees and hostility that results in loss of property, a loss of life. There are Christians around the world who are truly being persecuted. I don't think that's what we're dealing with here in America, at least not now. I think we are dealing with more of a loss of freedom, perhaps a loss of privilege, maybe certain rights. Some it's going to be hard to run Christian businesses, but these are all dealing with loss of privilege, not out persecution. Not yet, anyway. Well, what does the Bible have to say? What is the Christian responsibility to government? Well, Peter addresses this question. It was certainly being asked by Peter's original audience. How do we relate to a government with a Nero in charge? That's the question being asked. And Peter's. Answer is straightforward. Submission. Submission. The Christian is going to have to embrace submission as a way of life.

4:44And especially as it relates to citizens, Christian citizens before their government. And that's what this passage is about. The path for the believer is one of submitting to the governmental authorities, not rebelling against, not instituting insurrection against or overthrow submission. Now, the word submit yourselves is an imperative. It's an imperative command, a present or an arrowist, passive, second-person imperative. Bring yourself under submission to your government. In other words, there's going to be some thing that you're going to have to work at bringing yourself under submission here. Bring yourself into submission. Now, the word submit is a compound verb from the words hypo, which means under, and tasso, meaning to order or to place. So put together, it's to arrange under. To submit is to arrange yourself underneath someone else.

6:00It's like a military formation under the commanding officer to arrange your life, actions, and pattern under your commanding officer. In fact, I think one of the best illustrations that I can think of about submission is the fighting Texas Aggie Band. I mean, even if we have a losing season, it's worth it all to go out and just watch this band march. I think they are the largest military marching band in the world. There are over 400 men and women from the school's Corps of Cadets. This band eats together. They sleep in the same dormitories. They practice, I think, 40 hours a week, some huge number.

6:56And they all are under the direction of a bandmaster. And that is the conductor. And watching this Texas Aggie band is very impressive. Watching this whole group under strict arrangement of the bandmaster. That is what submission is like. And as believers, you and I are sojourners, aliens, and strangers, as Peter has said. And yet we. Marched to the drumbeat and direction of our commanding officer. And he has a specific formation, if you will, that he wants for us to have in the land.

7:44And so to submit yourself is to arrange the attitudes, the actions, and the affairs of your life under the leadership of someone else. And in verse 11 and 12, Peter is talking about the good deeds, the beautiful behavior. The excellent behavior really translates into a life of submission. There's nothing more beautiful than a life that has taken the responsibilities that God has placed upon it and obeys and marches with a full heart and full mind. That is the beautiful and excellent behavior that is specifically going to be the catalyst in which the unbelieving world will glorify God in the day of his favorable visitation. As he mentions in verse 12. But the ultimate conductor is the Lord Jesus. Notice in verse 13, submit yourselves. For the Lord's sake, you are going to submit to the governing authorities for his sake. You represent him.

9:14And you know what? For his sake, this was his example to us. You remember in Luke chapter 2, Christ as a boy? In verse 51, he went down with them, and they came to Nazareth, speaking of his parents, and he continued in subjection to them. And his mother treasured all these things in her heart. As a boy, Jesus lived under subjection, though king and creator, he lived in subjection. What an example. But then, even as the exalted king, our Lord still subjects himself to the will of the Father. In 1 Corinthians 15, 26, Paul declares that the last enemy that will be abolished is death. And then in verse 28, he says, When all things are subjected to him, speaking of Christ, then the Son himself also will be subjected to the one who subjected all things to him, so that God may be all in all. So even in his exalted state, our Lord will still subject himself. To the will of the Father. It's His pattern. We are to be conformed into His image. So, subjection to the authorities that God has placed in your life is going to be characteristic of anyone who follows Him.

10:49But Christ is the Lord, and Christ is ultimately the one we obey. And Christ expects us to obey those over us. And this section of Scripture, He's going to talk about the areas of our civil life. He's going to talk about our industrial life, the workplace. He's going to talk about our family life, our place in the home, and church life. All of this, we are expected to submit to the authorities that God has placed in our lives. So, this principle is going to be applied to slaves, it's going to be applied to wives, it's going to be applied to husbands, it's going to be applied to all believers in the following paragraphs. But this morning, we're going to look at this principle specifically as it applies to our submission to the governing authorities. And I want us to understand Peter's instruction and exhortation here so that you and I will be the kind of citizens that God wants us to be.

11:55So, the command, very straightforward. Submit yourselves. Submit yourselves. Now look back. First of all, you need to submit yourself to every human institution. Look at verse 13. Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every human institution. Every literally, it's every creation. It's a strange word. Every foundation, every creation, every human creation. And certainly the context here, he's talking about the governing institutions. He's going to go on to talk about the king who is in authority or the governors sent by him. But God has created, the word could be foundations, creation, foundations of human society. God has created the foundations of work and family and government. And so it's not that humans created these, but this is the sphere or the realm in which we are to function. A human realm.

13:03Peter reminds his readers here that the rulers are merely creatures. But there are two parts to this command. Look at this. First, submit yourself for the Lord's sake to every human institution, every governing institution, to the king as the one in supreme authority. So the first man, make sure you're going to. Submit to the king. And I think the one who is in supreme authority, this is more the office of in view, submit to the king because of his office, the one is supreme in authority, respect his office.

13:47And keep in mind, Peter wrote this epistle in the last few years of Emperor Nero's horrific reign. And Peter himself is going to die under the reign of Nero. I mean, Nero tarred and burned Christians to light his gardens. Now, can you imagine getting this command? Submit yourself for the Lord's sake to him? I think the Lord put Peter in this situation and put this early church here in this situation so that we would have a very clear example.

14:33We can safely conclude that God wants his people to be good citizens even in the most extreme circumstances. So submit yourself to the king as the one in supreme authority. But the second part of this command, or governors sent by him. You see, most of Peter's audience didn't have a personal connection with Nero. Deal directly with him, right? We understand this. There were procurators, they were the heads of the imperial provinces, there were proconsuls that were head of the senatorial provinces. But the form of government really isn't at issue here. Perhaps a modern equivalent in this country would be the laws of our local, state, and federal governments. The governments that carry out the laws of the land or are raised up for that purpose, who are representative of the king.

15:34But the idea is pretty simple. Whether it's the ultimate ruler or the representatives of the supreme governing entity, Christians are to bring themselves into submission to their rule. Look back. He says why these governors are sent. They are sent for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right. Two normal purposes of government. They are sent to punish evildoers. And the idea there is more specifically criminals of state. Civil order. One of the chief purposes of government is to maintain civil order. And even a pagan government under Nero seems to be better than anarchy.

16:24And Peter's exhortation is for the church to be good citizens. He doesn't want them. Rebelling. He doesn't want them known as lawbreakers so that the judicial hammer is coming down upon them, not because they're Christians, but because they're lawbreakers. Now, Peter recognizes that trouble with the state may be inevitable. But if it be so, then let it be because you are a Christian, not because you are a criminal of state. In fact, he's going to go on in 1 Peter 3:17, he says, For it's better if God will it so that you suffer for doing what is right rather than for doing what is wrong. If you're going to suffer, make sure you suffer for the cause of Christ, not because you're a lawbreaker in society and a threat to the civil order. If everybody did what you did, you'd have a breakdown of society. See, don't let that be you.

17:26The governors, the state, are sent to punish evildoers, but they're also sent to praise, or that is to reward those who do right, who will obey the law. Now, generally speaking, under normal circumstances, the governments reward good citizenship with fair and favorable treatments. I remember when we were down in Mexico City, we were told, don't call the police if you get in trouble. They won't be on your side. It's kind of, well, If I'm in trouble and I can't call the police, it's a very helpless situation.

18:08Listen, the benefits of a civil society are not to be taken for granted. However, it is important to note that submission does not equal approval of what the government is doing or participation in all that the government is doing. You couldn't have picked a more horrifying government to say you go and submit to than Nero's Rome. Submit yourself to every human institution, even the no bueno ones. For such is the will of God. Look there, verse, 15? For such is the will of God, that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men. Now, see, Peter didn't have to say any more than that. He could have just said, For such is the will of God. That's enough, that's sufficient for you and I to obey the governing authorities. God says it, that's what he wants, we should obey it. But he goes on, he doesn't stop there, he gives us a reason and explains why God wants us to be active in doing right as citizens. Look back. He wants us to silence. The ignorance of foolish men. To silence. You know what the word for silence means to muzzle. You know, like a dog that's vicious and barking and threatening. You have to put a muzzle on him or he's going to bite somebody. Well, and that's the idea here: to silence someone, is to restrain or to muzzle, to make them speechless.

19:56And so, by doing right, by the beautiful deeds of Christ's followers, God intends to render a person incapable of speaking against them. It's interesting, it's a present infinitive, meaning to silence is to be a pattern of continued silence. Be silencing those who are calling you evildoers or criminals by your constant and consistent good and beautiful deeds. It'll silence them. This is the will of God. He wants to use you in your community, not to be at odds, even though they are at odds with God. That is your mission field, not your enemy. And by doing good, you become that instrument through which God makes Himself known and silence. Silence is, look back, the ignorance of foolish men. The word for ignorance simply refers to those without knowledge. Agnostic is where we get the word. Agnostic, those without knowledge. But here it's more than just a lack of knowledge, it implies a willful and hostile rejection of the truth.

21:26This is not an innocent ignorance. Oh, I don't know the facts, never heard the facts. It is a foolish ignorance. He looks back, he says, a foolish men. In other words, it is a willful suppression of truth that Peter is referring to as foolish, senseless. You shouldn't suppress this truth. You remember Jesus on the cross? Father, forgive them in Luke 23, 34, for they do not know. They're ignorant. They do not know what they are doing. Forgive them. You see, God's mercy upon what many of us might be tempted to see as our enemies.

22:17God's mercy is upon them as a mission field. You see, there were those in Roman society that wanted to find fault with Christians. That was the whole grid through which they interpreted Christianity. They were committed to filter everything through this fault-finding grid. And that was Peter's time. In many ways, that's our times to some degree. But constantly doing right acts as a constant muzzling, a constant muzzling of those who oppose Christianity, or will charge us with hate, will charge us with rebellion, or will charge us with hypocrisy, you name it. You are to so exemplify Christ in your life that it would silence them because of your good deeds testify to the very opposite of what they're accusing you of. That's the civic duty of a Christian. Doing right, looks back, look at verse 12, just in the very verse right before this, so that they may, because of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation. It is your beautiful deeds that God is going to use to silence the bites and the barks of those who hate him. So this goes beyond just civil duty of submission.

23:58But Christians are to be. Known for their beautiful deeds. It goes beyond just mere conforming to the minimal standards of the law, but to go beyond and to constantly be active in beautiful deeds before the people that we live in, whose society we live in. Our deeds are to be beautiful. It doesn't say how simple or how grand they need to be, but they need to be beautiful. So, what seems to start out as an inactive, compliant pacifism ends up as a command to active involvement and service to society. We are to be active in beautiful deeds for the benefit of the society in which we are aliens and strangers in.

24:54It's the command: submit yourselves to every human institution, for such is the will of God. But submit yourself as free men. Freemen, look back, verse 16. Act as freemen. Free. You know what that means? Lots of different freedoms. But certainly here, not under compulsion. The government is not your master. The government is not your God. We as Christians are not slaves to our government or anything else. If you are truly in Christ, You are not slaves to anything or anyone or to any government.

25:38You have been set free. John 8, 34 says, Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever. The Son does remain forever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. You see, we are to submit ourselves to the government for the Lord's sake, not because we are slaves to the government. Though we are free, and he goes on, though we are free, we must examine ourselves and make sure that we do not misuse our freedom. Act as freedom. Peter goes on to give us the wrong use of freedom and the right use of freedom. Look back. The wrong use of freedom. Do not use your freedom as a covering for evil. Do not use your freedom as a veil or a cloak that covers up evil. Don't go through and say, well, I am free. I have no king but King Jesus. Therefore, I am not going to obey you at all.

26:44That could very well be a stalk answer that covers up your sin and gives you the license to do what you want to do. Some truth in that statement. We are free. We are free in Christ. We are free to do as we please. But be careful. That could very easily become a cloak that veils your sin and allows you to do the things which your flesh wants to do, or specifically disobey the authorities. You see, Galatians 5:13 says, You were called to freedom, brethren, only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh.

27:36Be careful. It's a wrong use. You can use it for a covering of evil. Now, what specific evil does Peter have in mind here? The word for evil that he uses can refer to all kinds of wickedness, all kinds of vice, all kinds of depravity, and all kinds of sin. So, what does Peter specifically have in mind here? I mean, the early Christians were accused of rebellion against the state. They were accused of burning Rome. They were accused of denying the Roman deities. They were accused of immorality. They were accused of messing up social progress. They were accused of leading slaves into insurrection. All this they were accused of. But in the immediate context, it seems evident. That Peter has the evil of insubordination to government in view. This is what they are being accused of as evildoers, criminals of state. This is what Nero called them. This is the threat that's being raised. They are accused of insubordination, rebellion, insurrection.

28:52So I think what he is dealing with here is that evil of insubordination. Do not use the fact that your citizenship is in heaven to excuse you from obeying the government you are under. Be a good citizen, even though you're an alien. Be a good citizen, even though you're a stranger. Be a good citizen. And what does a good citizen do? Obeys the laws of the land. So make sure you don't get caught up and use your freedom in the wrong way. But he goes on to say the right use of freedom. Look in verse 16. Act as freemen. Do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bondslaves of God. And the word he uses here is doulas. And a doulas is a slave, a person who is legally owned by somebody else and whose livelihood and purpose in life was solely determined by their master. Be a slave. And often it referred to the most demanding. Form of servitude, a galley slave, a guy rowing down deep in the bottom of the ship. You are to be a slave. Use your freedom to be a slave. I mean, you look at this. I mean, Peter's words seem profoundly contradictory, don't they? Right? How can one be free and yet a slave? How can we use these two terms in the same sentence?

30:29The Bible often does this to us. His kingdom is totally different, isn't it? I mean, how can one be free and yet be a slave to God? Welcome to the idea of Christian liberty. This is what the Bible has in mind with Christian liberty and Christian freedom. You see, there were different notions of freedom in Peter's day, and there's different notions in our day. For the Jewish zealot of Peter's day, they sought political freedom from Rome. So for them, freedom was political control. I want the freedom to politically control my own destiny. But then there was the Stoic of Peter's day, and freedom for them was detachment from the pleasures and pains of life. They wanted emotional control. So freedom for them was an emotion, an emotional control. Control.

31:33And then there is the antinomian of Peter's day who sought freedom from social rules and social customs and moral rules. For them, freedom was immoral license. But biblical freedom is totally different. It's not political control. It's not emotional control. It's not immoral license. Biblical freedom is the right to serve God as he ought to be served. That is freedom. It is the freedom to do what is right, a freedom to be a slave to what is right and doing what is right before God and before man.

32:21We're going on a vacation here. One of my favorite places to go is up in Glorieta, though we're not going there now. And one of the things I like to go to these Baptist encampments is so I can turn my kids loose and just say, you go do whatever you want. You're free. And I always give them this little caveat. You're free. Go do whatever you want. Just don't sin. And then I also throw in there, and don't do anything stupid. You know, don't go jump off a 20-foot cliff into six inches of water.

32:53Don't cram a bunch of popcorn kernels down your ears. Like, it's expensive. Believe me, I know. I mean, but the idea, this is very much what God gave the command to Adam and Eve. You are free. Go do whatever you want. Just don't eat from this tree. You're free. You see, in Galatians 5:1, Paul says, it was for freedom that Christ set us free. Therefore, keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery. It is sin that enslaves. Obeying God is not slavery. It is freedom. The freedom to do what is right.

33:45A slave of righteousness. In fact, total freedom is the inability to do nothing but God's will. That's total freedom because his will is good. It is perfect. It is holy. It is right. It is freeing. It is liberty. Not to be bound by sin. So submission to human rulers does not at all contradict our freedom in Christ. Act as free men and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bondslaves of God. You see, the basis of Christian submission to the governing authorities is not because we are inferior to the ruling elite of our day. Or to any other person, it is because we are slaves to God, and He has a purpose for our government being here, and He has a purpose for our obedience to our government. And so, as citizens, we are to submit to the menial tasks that our government puts upon us. I'm renewing a license, and I have to go get fingerprinted. This is brand new. What a cumbersome mess. What a time-consuming, menial task. But this is a very important concept in this section of Scripture because many people think that by doing menial tasks for others, you are somehow inferior to them. No, you are freemen, you are free in Christ.

35:19But the beautiful deeds is when somebody will take and obey the authorities with their whole heart as given by Jesus Christ, as a testimony to His goodness and His mercy. So far, Peter's command to submit yourself to government has been straightforward, it has been comprehensive, and it is without restrictions. However, that is about to change in verse 17. You are to obey. You are to submit yourselves to. To every human institution, for such is the will of God. You are to submit yourself as free men, but you are to submit yourself while obeying these commands. You know, there are five imperative commands in these verses between 13 and 17. The first one is submit yourselves. The other four are right here in verse 17. You must submit yourself to the governing authorities while obeying these other four imperative commands. And we're going to look at each one of them. First one, honor all people.

36:40Another imperative command. You are to honor. It is a command, it is an imperative command that you honor all people. You see, every human being bears the image of his or her creator. And this is a basic human dignity that all people possess. So, how does this honor translate into conduct? I think Titus 3:1 and 2 give us the answers. As Paul is telling Titus to be subject to rulers, remind them, what does this look like? Be obedient, be ready for every good deed. What does this good deed look like? In verse 2, to malign no one, to be peaceable, to be gentle, and showing every consideration for all men.

37:29He says, All men, because of the basic human dignity that they possess, deserve for Christians not to malign them, to be peaceable, to be gentle towards them, and to show every kind of consideration for them. So, when a government compels its citizens to dishonor the dignity of a human being, the Christian cannot participate. You cannot both dishonor a person at the same time submitting to the governing authority. Or let me just say this: you are to submit while honoring all people. You see, God simply does not want Christians to dishonor another human being. Let's suppose we got a stray dog-cat problem in my area, which we do. And let's suppose I, as an employer, decided I wanted to get rid of these unwanted animals. And so, what I did is I made a policy within my community that all employers had to provide the means to exterminate stray dogs and stray cats, whether it's providing a gun, poison, whatever it takes. I'm going to provide this so that we can get rid of. Of unwanted animals. I would probably make the news, wouldn't I? Pretty quick, right? I mean, it'd be nice to be able to encourage, maybe use the money, use something to build an animal shelter, right? Or to do something.

39:19That doesn't translate to killing them, right? Well, that's the very issue going on right now with this abortion mandate and the new health care laws. How can a Christian honor life by providing the means to destroy it? And the answer is: cannot. Honor all people. This respect for human life is for all life. All people, all people groups, including the unborn, and a wise government should do this. A wise government begins here. You cannot do something. You cannot be obedient to what Peter wants for the church by following laws that dishonor the dignity of human life.

40:18And that is what he's saying. You are to submit yourself while honoring all people. You may pay. Some fines. You may suffer some penalties. You are not to overthrow the government, but you cannot participate in something that is dishonoring to human life. God is the creator of life. The government is not. And our society needs to understand that. And we are the witnesses to this truth. And so we may suffer penalties in the process of communicating that. But he goes on: there's another command: love the brotherhood. That is, love the household of faith. Fervently love them. That's what verse 122, fervent love.

41:19And that translates into doing good, that acts of self-sacrifice. Galatians 6:10, Paul says this: So then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, and especially to those who are of the household of faith. And why does he say, especially to those who are of the household of faith? Because I can tell you, you can show love to a much greater degree to those who are of your own household. Right after this class, after this sermon, we're packing up. We're heading to the east coast. I'm taking my kids, maybe even to Dollywood.

41:56Now, we're probably going to be walking around Dollywood, and I'll see a Some kids who will not be my own kids. What is an expression of fervent love to one of these little kids that's a complete stranger? Hi. How are you doing? Here, you go first. That's about the extent of it, right? But with my children, I can take love and show and demonstrate love to a much higher level, right? The same is true with the familiarity and the bond of Christian love and the Christian family. We can show love to a much greater degree to those who are members of the faith than we can to those who are outside the family.

42:42And so, a Christian is not to obey a law when it causes a Christian to be less than loving to fellow believers. In other words, there's an imperative command here that I have to obey. There's five imperative commands, and I'm trying to obey all of them. And one of them is honor all people. The next one is love the brotherhood. So, whatever I am to do in this society, the government does not have the authority to come in and to tell me to do something to one of my brothers or sisters in Christ that would be less than a full expression of fervent love. See, God says you are to love one another. The government doesn't have the authority to come and say, you don't.

43:30So we submit while honoring all people, while loving the household of faith. And number three, there, by fearing God. Fear God. Another imperative command: let your active life be one of fearing God. To fear God is to humbly recognize who He is, to treat Him as a person of great importance, a weighty subject. To fear God is to respect His authority, to respect His will. To fear God is to be avoiding all thoughts, words, and deeds that He hates, and to joyfully embrace His will. And if you can't joyfully embrace it, reverently embrace it until your emotions can get on board.

44:19So when God commands His people to obey the governing authorities, He is not placing Himself under governmental control. He is not giving the government a trump guard that they can overrule the clear teaching of Scripture. Remember Peter's example, he dealt with this himself. Remember in Acts 1, Jesus said, You will be my witnesses. Stay here in Jerusalem. You will be my witnesses. In Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth, and not too long later in Acts chapter 4, the Jewish authorities summoned Peter and said, We command you not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered and said, Whether it is right in the sight of God to give heed to you rather than to God, you be the judge. Next chapter, rather comical. Call them back in. We gave you strict orders not to continue teaching in his names, and yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and intend to bring this man's blood on us. But Peter and the apostles answered, We must obey God rather than men. We told it to you the first time around. You didn't quite connect the dots. Now we're going to speak it to you in plain, probably Hebrew. Could have been Greek. And he said, We must obey God.

45:39And you know what? This cost them a flogging. They were submitted to the penalty of their position. And this cost them a flogging, to which they submitted themselves. So anytime the government commands you to disobey God, they are not to be obeyed. But they still are to be submitted to. You may take in penalties. Oh, you can flee. That's an option. You can stay and receive the penalty, but you can't overthrow the government or lead to rebellion. And there's a fourth one: honor the king. Honor the king. God wants his people to honor the kings of the earth. And I think right here he's speaking more. About the person, Nero himself. Honor. Give him the same respect that you would any other person. Look at that. Honor all men, honor the king. Same command. Honor them for the dignity that the image of their creator demands. Even as fallen and horribly deranged as Nero was, he still bore the image of his creator. And because of that, honor him.

47:03So, the particulars of my path of submission to my government involve honoring all people, that I cannot violate. I am to love the brotherhood, the family of God, that I cannot violate. I am to fear God and obey Him, that can't change. I am to honor the King, and in this context, I am to submit. And whatever course that takes me down, I trust myself to God's hands. You see, for the believer, the matters of church and state are first and foremost a matter of faith. Do you believe that God is sovereign over all the nation? Do you believe, Proverbs 21:1, the king's heart is like channels of water in the hands of the Lord, and he turns. It wherever he wishes. Nebuchadnezzar learned this lesson. In Daniel 4:25, the word comes to him: seven periods of time will pass over you until you recognize that the Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind and bestows it on whomever he wishes. And by the time those years had passed, and after Nebuchadnezzar had gone out and eaten grass like a cow, he learned the lesson. And he said, This: Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and exalt and honor the king of heaven, for all his works are true and his ways are just, and he is able to humble those who walk in pride.

48:45You see, submission to the authorities that God has placed in your life is ultimately an expression of your faith in God. Can God use even our government to accomplish what he wants? And my submission, can he accomplish what he wants to through his church and through his people by obeying the submitting to the authorities? And whatever course that takes, can he be trusted? Well, our submission, sometimes even to the penalty, may be the very question. Course that God wants us to take. Just this last week, the news about a woman in Sudan, the government authorities have come and said, you must recant your faith in Christ. She says no. So now, all of a sudden, this obscure girl from the Sudan is on the news everywhere as a public testimony to the goodness of her Lord and her trust and faith in Him. Even the liberal networks are picking it up. You see, God may have a purpose, even as we stand trial for not obeying the rules of our civil government. Government is not here to serve our interests. We are here to be a witness to our great God. And sometimes that's going to involve suffering the penalty for doing right. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I know these matters are weighty and heavy, Father, and yet you give us light.

50:46And Father, I pray, Father, by your grace and by your mercy, that you will help us to be citizens after your own heart, who will truly understand the tension and submission. The principles that you have given us that are unalterable, lines that we cannot cross. Father, I pray for this body and pray for your church in America. Father, I pray for you to direct our path. God, that we would learn to trust more and more in you and your sovereign control over the nations. Father, and help us to be faithful, faithful to the very end for the name and glory of your Son. Amen.