The World's Hardest Activity - Part A

Therefore, submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for what?

What does it say? For the Lord's sake. In other words, you do it to honor God. God is honored when His earthly representatives are seen as stabilizers in their society. And isn't this the highest reason to do it? Isn't this the greatest motivation to do it? Because God said to do it.

Right? Jesus said, If you love me, you will keep my commandments, which means if you constantly break his commandments, it must mean you don't love him. One of the poster characteristics of the teen years is rebellion, but it's actually a poster characteristic of the human race. Today on Connect with Skip Heintze, Skip shares how you can experience complete freedom by living in submission to Christ. But first, we want to tell you about a special resource that will help you break free from anxiety and experience the peace Jesus offers. Christians can be ambushed by surprise struggles. You know how that feels. Listen to Skip Heintze. Anxiety is the problem.

It's a problem all human beings at some point have to deal with. Understanding and overcoming anxiety is possible, and we want to help you move from feeling paralyzed by anxiety to finding lasting peace with three powerful resources. Overcoming an Anxious Mind, a new booklet by Skip Heintze, his teaching, Worship in the Uncertainty on CD. Plus, The War is Over, Worship CD. The light has come. The cure for worry is to redirect your energy and replace your anxiety. This resource bundle is our thanks for your gift of $35 or more today to help connect more people to the Prince of Peace.

Visit connectwithskip.com slash offer to give online securely or call 800-922-1888. Now we're on First Peter Chapter two as we get into the message with Skip Heintze. When Peter wrote this letter, he was about one, maybe even two years away from what's called the Great Persecution in Rome. Happened in 64 A.D.

Here's what happened. A fire broke out in Rome. Most all of the Roman citizens, and it destroyed a great portion of the city. Most of the Roman citizens believed, and many historians to this day believe, the fire was started by Caesar Nero. It was so controversial and so widely believed that their own Caesar started the fire that Caesar Nero needed a scapegoat, and guess who he chose? The Christian population of the city of Rome. He accused them of Arseny, and he started persecuting them en masse.

Here's just one story. About halfway through his reign, Caesar Nero started fancying himself as a race car driver. Except they didn't have race cars. They had chariots, a chariot racer. He just thought it was the coolest thing to race chariots. He had a track built for himself in Rome so that he could race chariots during the day. And he started getting into it so much he wanted to do it not just during the day, but also at night. The only problem is nobody invented electricity yet. So his sixth solution was to have his soldiers round up during the daytime Christians and bring them to his palace. And while they were still alive, cover them in tar and pitch.

Tie them to poles so that at sunset he could light those torches around his track so that he could spin his little race car at night while Christians were burning after he accused them of setting fire to Rome. Can you see by this the obvious problem that the early Christians had and even we have today that the world is filled with Caesar Neiros and Adolf Hitler's and Bashar al-Assad's? Which makes us ask this question. Is there ever a time when a Christian can or should defy and not obey and not submit to the government? Is there?

Yes, there is. But here is the rule. The general rule is submit until submitting to earthly authority makes you not submit to heavenly authority. You obey until your obedience makes you disobey God. At that point, a whole other set of rules comes into play.

And there are many examples to show you. Example number one is back in the Old Testament when Pharaoh of Egypt commanded the Hebrew midwives to kill all the boys that were born among the Hebrews. It was a law that was passed.

Kill the baby boys. They refused to do it. Exodus chapter one tells us, but the midwives feared God and did not do as the king commanded.

Flat disobedience. Later on, there was a guy named Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, who when the captives came in, Daniel and his buddies made them eat a certain diet that was against kosher Old Testament law, the delicacies of the king's table. They refused to do it. Daniel chapter one tells us, but Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with a portion of the king's delicacies. I'm not going to obey you because it would mean I would have to disobey the covenant of my God. Another example is later on when Nebuchadnezzar built a huge image of himself, a golden image, and commanded everybody to bow down and worship that image. And there were three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who said, we're not going to do it. Their reply in Daniel chapter three, we will not serve your gods, nor will we worship the golden image. Another example, also in the book of Daniel, King Darius, the prevailing king of the time, the Median king, Medo-Persian king, made a law that for one month, 30 solid days, nobody could pray to any other deity except to himself. You want to pray? You pray to me. I am your new God. What did Daniel do?

Did he say, okay, I'm going to submit to that? No, the Bible says in Daniel six, he opened his windows toward Jerusalem, knelt down on the ground, and three times that day, he prayed and gave thanks before his God. Another example is in the New Testament, when the Jewish Sanhedrin passed a religious law that the name of Jesus Christ could not be preached any longer. You can't say that name. You can't preach that name. You are forbidden to preach the gospel. What did Peter and John do?

Did they fold over and roll over? No, they refused to obey it. Standing before the government authorities, they said, we must obey God rather than man.

That's the principle. Obey man until obeying man makes you disobey God, and then you must obey God rather than man. You can look into modern history. The Nazi regime under Adolf Hitler passed all sorts of crazy laws. It was law. Many Christians defied it, including one pastor named Dietrich Bonhoeffer. And that isn't just a matter of history. I think it's going to confront us.

In fact, I think it already does as our government passes its own laws, abortion laws, same sex marriage laws. And we're going to be confronted. Am I going to obey God or am I going to do what they say? But back to our text, verse 14.

Notice what it says. That these governors, this police force even, are sent by him, the king, for the punishment of what? Evil doers.

For the punishment of evil doers. You see, you never need to fear the police unless you're breaking the law. If you are breaking the law, then you should be afraid. You know, it's funny, because of my earlier altercations with the law, even to this day, it's just conditioned response. Whenever I see a police officer, I just sort of Skip a beat, white-knuckle the steering wheel, and immediately my eyes instinctively look down at the speedometer to see how fast I'm going. If I look down at the speedometer and it says 75 miles an hour as I pass that police officer, I go, oh no, Lord, please help me. But if I look down and it says 45 miles an hour in a 45, I go, Lord, I just bless you and I thank you for those police officers.

Bless their day. It's sent for the punishment of evil doers. So that's the principle and the particulars of submission. Well, there's a purpose for submission.

That's the third. There's a purpose for submission. And you'll notice what it is in verse 13. Therefore, submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for what?

What does it say? For the Lord's sake. In other words, you do it to honor God. God is honored when His earthly representatives are seen as stabilizers in their society. And isn't this the highest reason to do it? Isn't this the greatest motivation to do it? Because God said to do it.

Right? Jesus said, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. Which means if you constantly break His commandments, it must mean you don't love Him.

The highest motivation is because it honors Him. You know what it's like, parents. You love it when your children obey. When you give them a direction and they go, yes, Daddy. Sure, Mommy.

You love that. Okay, but have you ever had a child not do that? Okay, come on.

All of you have had. And so what do you say if your child ever comes to you and you give them a directive and they don't want to do it? And they say, why should I have to do that? And you say, because I said so.

Right? That should be enough. What I just said to you as your parent should be enough for you to obey. Well, it's no different with God. Well, God, why should I obey my authorities?

Because I said so. Because if you love me, you'll keep my commandments. Now, Peter augments that thought in verse 15. Notice, for this is the will of God. There are very few places in the New Testament where something is called the will of God.

And he spells it out. This is God's will. So when people come to you and they go, I'm just struggling with knowing God's will.

What is God's will for my life? Go the speed limit. Let's start there.

Quit texting while you're driving. Let's go there. It is the will of God, he says, that by doing good you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men as free and not using liberty as a cloak for vice, but as bondservants of God. Central issue is simply this. A good Christian should be a good citizen. And a good Christian who is a good citizen, because he or she wants to honor God, has a clear conscience. It's great to have a clear conscience. One man wrote a very honest letter to the Internal Revenue Service, the IRS, that stated, Dear Sirs, I cannot sleep.

Last year when I filed my income tax return, I deliberately misrepresented my income. Now I can't sleep. Enclosed is a check for $150.

If I still can't sleep, I'll send the rest. Okay, we have a problem with that one, don't we? He's not really being honest.

He's not really being highly motivated. He's just buying off his own ill conscience. It was an honest letter, but listen to another letter, Paul's letter to the Romans. Obey the government, for God is the one who put it there. All governments have been placed in power by God. So those who refuse to obey the laws of the land are refusing to obey God. God's the ultimate authority.

And if God is the ultimate authority, He has the right to say to you and I, obey the intermediate authorities, right? After this last service, somebody came up to me and said, Boy, that's a hard message for you to tell us to like our government. I said, I never said to like your government. I said to honor your government, to obey your government, to submit to your government. You have the right to voice dissent and to not enjoy certain things.

But this is a different issue. The highest reason, the purpose then is to honor God. That's the upward purpose.

There's an outward purpose. Notice verse 15. He says, To silence, by doing good, you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men.

People are always looking at you and I to find the dirt on us. The reason why they shouldn't trust in the God we say we believe in. So one of the best witnesses is to be a good citizen, because the way people will often view God is by looking at God's representatives. So you say, I'm a Christian.

Oh, really? What are those five traffic tickets doing in your front seat? How come you're going to court again over that issue? One of the greatest, if not the greatest apologetic for the gospel of Jesus Christ is a good life. A righteous life. Because what is the central message of the gospel? Redemption. We talk about how God can take any life and redeem a life. So you know what the best apologetic is? A redeemed life.

Verse 16 says something that just I never saw it before. As free, but not using your liberty as a cloak for vice. Now wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. He just said submit to higher authorities. And in this case, there was tyrannical governments submit. But then he says, you're free. You have liberty.

That doesn't sort of make sense, does it? Because most people think of freedom and submission as opposites. If you submit, you're giving up your freedom. Actually, you're gaining a greater freedom. William Barclay said, Christian freedom does not mean being free to do as you like. It means being free to do as you ought.

I'll give you a little example here. Let's say there's a young girl who shows promising athletic ability in ice skating. Her parents cough up the big bucks and they get her a world-class coach. And the coach says to the young lady, I will coach you under one condition. I own you.

I own your time for the next several years. You will work out when I tell you to work out. You will keep the regiment and discipline of exercise that I set out for you, no exceptions. If you agree to that, I'll coach you. And so she does.

So hours and days and weeks and months are eaten up and spent on practicing. And pretty soon, all of her free time disappears. She's lost her freedom to do what she wanted. Her friends start complaining. We never see her anymore. She's always working out. Even her parents are a little bit miffed at this new schedule.

But years later, the day comes when she competes in the Olympics. Was all that work worth it? Was that loss of liberty and personal freedom worth it?

She would say, it sure is. Oh, but sweetheart, you lost your freedoms. But I gained other freedoms that I didn't have before. I now have the freedom to represent my country before the world athletes.

I now compete at a different level that I've never competed before. And because of that notoriety, that will probably even bring later on financial freedom. So in restricting certain freedoms, you gain others. So the purpose of submission, it honors God and it gives a good witness. You have the freedom to live your life in the open before men and let it be on display and let them look at you because you've got nothing to be ashamed of.

Whatever accusation won't stick. Leads us to the fourth and final slice of this, and that is the practice of submission. And I take you to verse 17 where we close. It's a summary statement, this verse.

It's a summation. It really is a doctrine, a theology of submission. Four short statements that show submission in four areas. Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king.

Take the first one. Honor all people. Every single human being deserves a certain amount of respect.

Whether they hate you or they hate your God or they practice a certain lifestyle that you disagree with, they are still made in the image of God and you are to honor all people. When Peter wrote this in the first century, he wrote it against the backdrop where slaves were not even considered human beings. They weren't considered persons. They weren't considered people.

They had no rights, and women had hardly any rights at all. But the Christian church, he would say, is not to discriminate. Don't misunderstand what I'm saying. I'm not saying that we are to mindlessly tolerate any behavior that is aberrant and unscriptural and sinful.

Not at all. But every single person deserves to be honored, made in the image of God. Second, he says, love the brotherhood. Who's the brotherhood?

We're it. It's believers loving each other. Jesus said, by this shall all men know that you are my disciples by the love you have one for another. It's an interesting statement.

We all know it, but I don't think we know what it means. Really Jesus gives the world outside permission to judge us, to look at our lives, to see if the gospel of love that we preach really works among us. He didn't say that they will know that you're my disciples by the fact that you love them. They'll know you're my disciples by the fact that you love each other. And maybe about now you're thinking, how is loving each other going to make an impact on them? And how is loving one another going to silence them as they accuse us? Easy.

Here's how. When I was a little kid, and I have good parents, they stayed together, but we had some difficult times in our family. Whenever we had some real difficult seasons, whenever I was around families that were stable and filled with love and grace and acceptance, I was invited over for dinner. I just wanted to live there. I didn't want to go home. I thought in my head, I want to be a part of this family.

That's how it works. You want to have a family of love so compelling here that when people visit, they go, I want to be in that family. Love the brotherhood. Fear God is the third. Fear doesn't mean a crouching fear.

It's not like the Cowardly Lion and the Wizard of Oz kind of fear. This is a reverential respect and awe of God that culminates in submissive obedience to the will of God. And because we submit to Him and His will and part of His will is to obey intermediate authority, we do it because He said to do it.

That's fearing God. And then number four, and we close, honor the King. So He ends full circle from where He begins. He says, submit to human authority, even the King.

And then He says at the end, honor the King. However, this is different. In verse 13, He was dealing with the action. In this verse, He's dealing with the attitude.

It's very different. You can do something and have a rotten attitude. You can be like the little kid whose dad said, sit down. And the little kid sat down, but with a sneer on his face.

And he said, I may be sitting down on the outside, but I'm still standing up on the inside. That's not honor. So obedience, but it's not honor. It's the right action, but it's the wrong attitude. Honor the King. Yeah, but the King's Nero, Caesar Nero, honor the King.

Let me just place it in our lap. Be careful how you talk about your governing authorities. Be careful of sending those back of the hand things that do not compliment, but rather deprecate political figures you disagree with. You can disagree with them.

You can not like them. But whether it's your president or your governor or the police force, they are to be prayed for and they are to be honored because they are in a place, according to the Bible, if I'm reading it right, that God allowed them to be in. So I honor them.

So let me close with this. Let's make beautiful music together. How are we going to get along and perform all of this and do all of this when we have so many differences in personalities and ideas?

By making our ideas and our biases subservient to the conductor, our Lord, we submit to His Lordship and in submitting to His Lordship, we march together in lockstep in unity. I don't feel like it. Don't have to feel like it. Just do it and you'll discover as you just do it, eventually the emotions will catch up with your obedience. You'll find yourself honoring.

Here's the start. Go home this afternoon, make a prayer list, president, vice president of the United States, your governor, your mayor, police officers, especially the ones that gave you maybe a ticket lately and just start praying for them. You'll find that hate cannot well up in the heart that prays a prayer of honor to a loving God. That concludes Skip Heisek's message from the series Rock Solid. Now, here's Skip to tell you about how you can keep encouraging messages like this coming your way as you help connect others to God's truth.

For all the wisdom that the Bible does contain, it's worthless if you don't apply it to your life. Our desire is that every single listener like you wouldn't just hear God's word, but be transformed by it. And you can help make that possible by giving today to keep this program going strong. Here's how you can do that now. You can give online at connectwithskip.com slash donate.

That's connectwithskip.com slash donate or call 800-922-1888, 800-922-1888. Thank you. Come back tomorrow as Skip Heisek shares how you can experience more joy and satisfaction at your job by living out your faith in the workplace. Harvard did a study that when people get hired, you know what 85% of the time they get hired for? Their attitude, not their smarts. Only 15% of the time people get hired because they're really smart and they know facts and figures 85% of the time it's attitude. And for believers, it ought to be the attitude of gratitude. Connect with Skip Heisek is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.