Good morning. Today's scripture reading is from the book of 1 Peter chapter 2 verses 13 through 25 and maybe found on page 1,201 in the Bible underneath the sheet in front of you. 1 Peter 2 13 through 25. Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every authority instituted among men, whether to the king as a supreme authority or to governors who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right. For it is God's will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men. Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover up for evil. Live as servants of God. Show proper respect to everyone, love the brotherhood of believers, fear God, honor the king. Slaves submit yourselves to your master's with all respect, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh. For it is commendable if a man bears up under the pain of unjust suffering because he is conscious of God. But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. To this you were called because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his steps. He committed no sin and no deceit was found in his mouth. When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate. When he suffered he made no threats. Instead he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree so that we might die to sins and live righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. For you were like sheep going astray, but now you have returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls. This is the word of the Lord. Good morning everyone. Hi my name is Seth Hammond and I am your assistant pastor here at UPC. And I will be continuing the series Fighting for Joy. The past few weeks Mike has been talking about the book of First Peter and just to give you a brief background. Peter who is the author of this letter is writing to Christians who are undergoing great tragedy. They are undergoing suffering and persecution. In fact there is an emperor by the name of Nero and he is a horrible emperor who just loves to kill Christians. And so Peter is encouraging this Christian church to stay strong in the Lord, to fight for joy. This does not mean to physically fight, but it means to thrive after Jesus, to strive for him, to seek him with all that you have. And that is what Peter is doing here. He is encouraging the church. So this morning I am going to be continuing on this series by looking at the passage in First Peter chapter 2, beginning with verse 13. And the topic is that of submission. And let me just tell you that by the look on all your faces I can tell that you are extremely excited to hear about submission. I mean who wouldn't want to talk about submitting to our authorities? No, in all seriousness it is a very important topic and I am glad I am able to preach on it because it is something that we deal with on a daily basis. So before I begin let me pray. Lord Jesus may the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable and be pleasing to your sight. In Jesus name amen. Now as we look at this text, I am going to be addressing five questions. The first question is what is submission? The second question, who do we submit to? Question number three, why is it difficult for us to submit to authority? The fourth question, when is it okay for us to go against authority? And finally I am going to be looking at how do we submit to ungodly authority? So let's jump right in. The Greek word for submission literally means to subject oneself to obey or to yield to one's power or advice. In fact when the apostle Paul uses the word in the book of Colossians it refers to a military term that literally means to draw yourself up in battle under a commanding officer. Now this does not mean that we can't disagree with our authorities. But what it does mean is that we are to yield to our authorities that God has placed over us. And Peter in this book is reminding the Christians to make sure they always yield to those who are above them. So that is what submission is, to subject oneself to obey and to yield to one's power or advice. This leads to my next question, who do we submit to? Look with me in your Bibles to verse 13. Peter says, submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every authority instituted among men. Whether to the king as the supreme authority or to governors who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right. Now God tells us here that we are to submit to every authority instituted among men. Now what does this mean for you today? This means that if you're a student you are to submit to your teachers. If you're a child you are to submit to your parents. If you are a U.S. citizen you are to submit to your governors and your officials elected officials. If you're an athlete you're to submit to your coach. And if you're a member here at UPC you are to submit to the elders of this church. And I would like to just briefly discuss this point to you. If you are a member here at UPC what you have done is you've vowed to the church that you would be willing to submit to the authority of the elders. In fact we had you come up here we asked you several questions. And the last question we asked you is this. We asked you do you submit yourself to the government and discipline of the church and promise to study and its purity and peace. Now when you answer I do what you're affirming is you're affirming the leadership that God has chosen for this church. And you're even saying that you are willing to submit to that authority. And let me just tell you that we really have some incredible elders here. We've been blessed. In fact Friday night and all day yesterday I had the privilege to sit with our session. And let me just say that they love this church and they love you. And Friday night they were praying together for you and for this church. And all day Saturday we were talking about the vision of the church and where we see the future going. Where we hope the Lord is leading us. It was a powerful time. But along that note I want you to know that our elders really care about you. And so please if you're going through something let us know. We're here to love you and to shepherd you. That's what elders are called to do. So please let us know so we can be praying for you and helping you. Now leadership is often put in place to save us from lots of sin and lots of pain. And so that's why God has instituted elders in this church to shepherd over you and to help you through times of struggle and even through times of sin. So I just wanted to plug that in for you so that you know that UPC is a comfortable place. All of us in this room have to submit to someone or something. I'm thinking about my own life. I have to submit to Mike Osborne. He's my boss. I have to submit to my parents to government officials. The list goes on and on. We all have to submit to someone or something. Let me just ask you who is it and what is it that you have to submit to on a daily basis. Just think about that for a moment. Here goes on to give us specific examples on who we are to submit to. In fact he says we are to submit to the king and to the governors. Now I know many of you in here. And I know many of you do not support our current president. You don't really like him. I also know that there are people in this room that do like him. I know that there are people in this room that don't like Charlie Christ or governor. In fact they'd rather somebody else fill a shoes. But some of you really appreciate his policies and his leadership. No matter what your political preference is and who you support in politics, God has put our leaders into place and he calls us to honor them. In fact Paul addresses this very point in Romans chapter 13, verse 1 and 2. And this is what he says. He says everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted. And those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. Now we are university Presbyterian church and many of you here are Presbyterian. And let me just say if you're not Presbyterian, if you're visiting for the first time, and if you have no clue what Presbyterianism is, it's totally cool. It's fine. We're so happy you're here and we are just glad that you have come to worship with us this morning. But as a member of UPC, you affirm Presbyterian faith and one of the major truths of Presbyterianism is God's sovereignty. And what I mean by God's sovereignty is that he is in complete control. And if you really think about it, if you believe in that, it gives you a lot of peace. You're able to rest at night because you know it's not up to you. It's up to him because he is the overseer of our souls as I mentioned in this text. But if you really believe in the sovereignty of God, then you'll know he isn't control of any authority that he's put into place. He is in complete control of that situation. So we must be relieved over that. Peter not only talks about submitting to our kings or presidents or governors, but he also goes into this issue of slavery. And I know I'm sure many of you, as you looked at verse 18, you were wondering what in the world is this main? Well, let me briefly address this. In verse 18, Peter says, slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh. Now, the word slave in this text literally means house servant. In fact, if you look at the English standard version or the new American standard version, the translations, they say the word servant instead of slave. Let me give you a brief background of this. In earlier Roman history, slaves had been acquired through war or through kidnapping from foreign lands. But by this time, when the letter was written, most slaves had been simply born into slave households. You see, the economy depended upon the ancient world, depended upon slavery for the performance of many necessary functions. But let me tell you that the first century slaves were generally well treated. They were generally respected by their masters. They were skilled laborers, they were musicians, doctors, even overseers. They even got paid for their work. Many of them did. And as a result, they were able to buy and purchase their freedom. But the New Testament requires slave masters to treat their slaves with respect. I wanted to give you that information on slaves because really, they were considered as house servants who were called to submit to their rulers. But no matter what, as you can see from this text, there are many different people and things that we are called to submit to. I'd like to go into my third question. Why is it difficult for us to submit to authority? Why is it difficult? I'll tell you. The first reason is our pride. Let's face it, we don't like authority. We all have this thing in us called sin. And anytime there's rules placed against us, we want to go against it. It's just in us to go against it. This is our pride. Think about it. Employees constantly think that they could do a better job than their boss. I even hear students say, I could do better than my teacher. I remember being a student and after the end of every semester, I would always write those student evaluation forms. And it would always be bad. I would criticize the professor saying he was terrible. And I would say I could have done so much better than him. But we're fairly critical people and it's because of our pride. I even know some of you here are passenger seat drivers. And what I mean by that is obviously when the driver is in control, he has the authority. He has the authority when he's driving. But if you're a passenger seat driver, you disagree and you say, turn here or pass this car. Go a little faster. Who here just had a curiosity is a passenger seat driver. I'd like to see that. Now, there's some of you I can tell that are not raising your hand. That are because I've written in the car with you. So, you need to admit that. I also think of the armchair quarterbacks. You know who you are. You watch football games or sports games. And you're always criticizing the coach. And you're yelling at the screen. And for some reason you think he can hear you, but obviously you can't. But you're yelling saying, oh my goodness, and you're criticizing the coach. Thinking you should have been the coach. And you should have made a better call. Voters often think their politicians are idiots. And that they can do a better job. Yet they never run for office or get involved. You know what? Some of you might even be thinking, man, this guy's set this terrible. I can do so much better than him right now. He needs to get off the stage. You might be thinking it, I don't know. But no matter what, I think our pride makes it difficult to submit to authority. The second reason why submitting to authority can be difficult is because our culture appraises rebellion. There's a pastor by the name of Mark Driscoll. He's a pastor at Mars Hill Church in Seattle, Washington. And he claims that there is an American myth that Americans are born out of rebellion. This is what he says. He says, we are people who are born out of rebellion. And if you don't believe me, just ask the British. Now he also goes on to say, many Americans rebel just to do it, or they think it's the cool thing to do. You know, I think of movies where the bad guy is praised. Think about Batman, the last Batman that came out. You don't talk about Batman. You talk about Joker. Everybody talks about Joker. He was the bad man. He was praised for his rebellion. I often think of our teenagers and our college students, those of you who are under 21, our culture is telling you it's okay to drink under age. And they say if you're not going to a party and you don't have a cup of beer in your hand, then you're a loser. That's what our culture is telling you. The culture is also saying that it's okay to have premarital sex. And for those of us who are married, the culture is praising rebellion by committing affairs on your spouse. In fact, just this week, I was listening to a radio station, no doubt, it was a rock and roll station, I'll be honest. I was listening to it, and the DJ said, you know, I have a friend who, his girlfriend, just cheated on him. They've only been dating three weeks. And the DJ asked the question, he said, what do you think he should do? Should he take her back? Well, you hear all these comments from Collar's calling in, and one woman called in, and this is what I specifically remember. She said, I think he should take her back. Everybody cheats. She said, my boyfriend cheated on me, I've cheated on boyfriends before. In fact, I'm someone's current mistress. You know, this goes on in the church, but it also goes on outside. And this is what the reality of our society and of our world, our culture praises rebellion. But you know what, these are not God's standards. The world may promote it, but God doesn't. And God tells us to obey the laws of the land. So if you're under 21, don't drink. God tells us not to have premarital sex, so don't do it. God also says to be a covenant marriage with your spouse, a remain faithful, remain faithful to your spouse. The third reason why it's difficult for us to submit is we disagree with our authorities. Just the other day, I was talking to a member here at the church, and they informed me that they have a three-and-a-half-year-old grandson who loves to dress up as Superman. So this grandson is running around wildly, going crazy. And we'll call the grandson, John. The grandmother said, okay, John, you're getting out of control. In fact, you need to go over there and you need to take a time out for 10 minutes. Well, do you know what John's response was? He said, Grandma, I'm Superman. I don't have to listen to you. I'm in complete control. Well, as you can imagine, the grandmother was trying to maintain composure. And after maintaining assertive composure, the grandmother became the kryptonite to her Superboy grandson and told him he must follow the rules because she is the authority. But you know, just like this little boy disagreed with his grandmother, so it is difficult for us at times when we disagree with our authority. And you know, many of us have seen authority abused, so as a result, we rebel against it. We also might disagree with our leaders' beliefs. For example, you may or may not disagree with the current health care system. You may disagree with those who are in elected office who view pro choice or who support pro choice. You may disagree with that. So all three of these reasons make it difficult for us to submit our pride, our culture praises rebellion, and we disagree with our authorities. This leads to my next question. When is it okay to go against authority? I know many of you are probably asking that right now. The only reason I can give you, the only answer I can give you is this. It's okay for us to go against authority if we are commanded by our authorities to sin. So for instance, if your boss is telling you to be dishonest just to climb the company ladder to make that sell, then you are obligated to say no. I find it so interesting that tomorrow is Martin Luther King Day, and think about it. He was a man who stood up in the face of injustice. Here it is, many leaders of our country at the time thought segregation was a cool thing, and they thought blacks and whites should be separated. But Martin Luther King, he stood up, and he said no, I'm not putting up with this, but he did it for selfless reasons and not for selfish reasons. We also see examples and scripture of people going against government and leaders, and God approves this. For instance, if you look in Exodus 1, King Pharaoh orders all of the Hebrew midwives to kill the newborn male babies two years younger. In Exodus 117 it says, the midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do, they let the boys live. So when our authority commands us to sin, we must not obey it. But what about the situations where our authority is, frankly, unethical. What about the situations where they're ungodly, but they don't command you to sin, then what do you do? And this leads to my last question. How do we submit to ungodly authority? Now I remind you that Peter is writing to a church who is undergoing a great amount of suffering. In fact, the emperor Nero was 17 years old when he became emperor. This dude was nuts. He was crazy. And what he did was he killed his stepbrother, botanicus. He killed his mother, and he killed his first wife. In fact, he was even accused later of setting the city of Rome on fire. Why did he do that? He wanted to destroy it so that he could rebuild it in his own image. He wanted to be all about him. But you know what he did? When rumors started spreading that he was the one that set Rome on fire. He needed to accuse somebody else, so he pointed the fingers to the Christians. And he said they are the ones that started the fire. And as a result, great persecution occurred. Thousands of Christians were killed. In fact, there's even statements of him burning Christians and using them as torches in his courtyard. The man was insane. So Peter is writing to people who are extremely vulnerable and they're depressed because they've lost loved ones. And Peter is encouraging them to fight for joy in Christ and to maintain integrity through this. Now, there are Christians who are overseas who are dying for their faith. We call that the persecuted church. And I would encourage all of us in this room to be praying for the persecuted church because there are thousands of people who die every year for their faith overseas. This stuff is happening in the world today. But obviously in America, we are not being killed for our faith. So you may be wondering, how does this relate to me? Well, there are many of you in this church today who have or are experiencing non-physical oppression in the form of either verbal abuse or unethical rules and dishonest practices in your workplace. Often you cannot voice your opinion because you fear of losing your job and your source of income. And in these economic times, it's a tough thing. So you feel stuck in many ways. In fact, I know you're out there, some of you. I talked to a member a month ago. He was telling me that he really has a difficult time going into his job because he knows his manager is currently having an affair on someone. He also knows that his manager is very dishonest and he does things against the word of God. And he just tells me, Seth, it's tough to submit to somebody that I don't respect. You know, I also think of some of you here who have unbelieving husbands or unbelieving parents who criticize you for your faith. So what are you supposed to do with this kind of authority? He gives us two answers from this text. The first answer he says, we submit to ungodly authority by remembering God's sovereignty. Remembering God's sovereignty. You know, as I mentioned before, God is in control. He will never leave you. He will never forsake you. And even though you don't feel like he's there, I'm telling you he is. He is there. And one thing that I would like for you to take note of is this, whatever situation you're in right now, it is temporary. Life is so short. It really is. And you know what, we have eternal life waiting for us. Glory is waiting for us. And the last time I checked, eternity is a long time. So that should give us a lot of excitement and encouragement, especially those of you who are going through tough times. God is telling us here not to act hastily and not to act harshly against ungodly authority, but you know what, instead of acting harshly with them, we need to love them, forgive them, show them mercy and grace and pray for them. In verse 23, Jesus was insulted by the government authorities, but he did not retaliate. He made no threats and entrusted himself to him who judges justly. Even in the face of criticism of people spitting at him, of cursing at him, he didn't retaliate. He loved him. And that's what God calls us to do. But we're only able to do that by remembering that he's in control. You know, if you work for a boss who's unethical, if you have an unbelieving husband who doesn't support your faith or even if you have a coach who gets in your face and cusses at you, don't retaliate. Instead, love them. You know why? Because in the end, either their sins will be covered by the blood of Jesus Christ, or it will be repaid justly by God at the final judgment. It's not up to you to fight back. It's not up to us to fight back when we are wrong by our authorities. It's our obligation to love them, to forgive them and to show them grace. The second way we are able to submit to ungodly authority is by following Christ example. The beautiful truth about the Bible is Jesus Christ. He's why we're here today. He's what gets us up in the morning. He's who has changed our lives. And as your pastor, I must repent that there's days where I might read, but I don't really think about Jesus. And I repent over that. I should be thinking about Jesus all the time. I should be filled with joy over him. Why? Because of what he did on the cross. Because of what he's doing for you right now. I don't need to get so consumed with the worries of this world that I don't even think about Jesus. If you think about the word Christian means little Christ's. And so we're to follow his example of what he did. He did not retaliate. Jesus Christ is Lord. He is king. And he is the perfect example for us to live by. So even in the face of injustice, of suffering or being criticized by your governing authorities or leadership or by his governing authorities or leadership, Jesus still showed love and grace. Remember that. If you're struggling today, I challenge you and encourage you to submit to Jesus Christ as your Lord. You know what? Even if you're doing well, if you're in a good season in life and things are going great, submit to Christ, it doesn't matter what situation you're in, submit to him. He is Lord overall and he is our perfect example. When you begin to submit your life to Christ on a daily basis, it really does become easier to submit to ungodly authority. Because you know who's ultimately in control and you know that this life is temporary. And one day, you'll be in heaven with him. So I encourage you and challenge you to press on and fight for joy in Christ Jesus. Let's pray. Or Jesus, it can be a difficult thing when we have to deal with bosses who we just don't like. We're frankly unethical. It can be a difficult thing when our pride gets in the way and we think we can do a better job than the current leadership. But God, I pray that we will humbly submit to our governing authorities and submit most importantly to you and to your law because you're the one who's in complete control. Lord, I pray that you'll help my brothers and sisters here to be encouraged this week to fight for joy in the Lord. I pray, Lord, that you'll continue to work in their hearts and in their lives that they may press on to win the prize which you have called them heavenward. One day, we're going to be with you and it's going to be a glorious day. Man, I can't wait. It's going to be awesome. But until then, I pray that you'll help us to persevere in Jesus' name. Amen.