Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ. He says, for such is the will of God. Do you know rarely do you ever find that in Scripture?
Almost never. People are always asking, I just want to know what the will of God is. I wish I knew what the will of God is. I wish I know what the will of God is in my life. It would be so important to know what the will of God is in my life. Well, here's a phrase where you actually have the will of God. It's the will of God that you submit to your government. There you go.
You like that? Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana. Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's Word meets our world. Life isn't fair. Life is consistently, blatantly, and unapologetically unfair.
If you're waiting for your life to show a tremendous amount of fairness in the way that you're treated, you're going to have a very long wait. Life isn't fair in our parish. It's not fair in our state. It's not fair in our country. It's not fair in the workplace.
And it's not fair in your home. The question is something else, though. The only decision that you can make when it comes to the fairness of life is how are you going to respond? You'll be faced with a choice.
You are every day concerning the unfairness of life. You have the choice of responding the way you want to. And you have a choice of responding the way the Lord wants you to. You have the choice between a natural response and a spiritual response.
Almost always you'll choose the natural. I could imagine of no text that I've dealt with in the last couple of years that you'll be more unhappy with in this one. If you choose the natural response, you may get even, but you won't get peace. You may feel better in the short term, but you'll have no lasting satisfaction.
You may assert yourself, but you will never bring glory to God. You see, the natural response to the unfairness of life sort of falls into three categories. The first one is the aggressive pattern. We blame others. The goal in that pattern is to get even, to stand up for number one, to assert yourself in any way that you can.
It usually goes from simple sort of anger to out and outrage because of life being unfair. Reminds me of a story that I used many years ago where a man was bitten by a dog and he feared that the dog was rabid. And he went to his doctor and the doctor said to him, I've given you the test. And yes, he said, I hate to say this, he said, but you have rabies. And he said, but we can't treat it. And just when he started to say, but we can't treat it, the man took out a piece of paper and just started writing as fast as he possibly could. And the doctor said, look, I want to tell you, this is not fatal. I don't know if you're writing a will or what, but it's not fatal. We can treat this.
He said, no, I'm not writing a will. I'm writing a list of the people I want to bite. When life's unfair, we want to be aggressive. We want to blame people. Romans 12, 19, vengeance is mine, says the Lord, not yours.
I will repay. Then there's the passive pattern. The passive pattern is we feel sorry for ourselves when life is unfair. We have pity parties. We invented a term in America, the victimization. We've been victimized again. Pull the shades, withdraw a lifetime of feeling sorry for ourselves. Our aggression is almost always then passive. We gossip and demean people and complain and whine. Rather than confront.
The third pattern is what I would call the holding pattern. We just try to deny our feelings. We try not to think about it at all. We repress them as much as we can, but that takes a huge toll in our lives. See, that's the natural way we respond because of how unfair life is.
But there is an alternative, and you may not like it. Open your Bibles to 1 Peter chapter 2. 1 Peter chapter 2. We're dealing with Peter from a particular perspective here in this epistle. We're dealing with the idea of hope.
What does hope do? And the last time we finished up in verses 11 and 12, but they sort of set the context here. In verse 11, Peter says, Beloved, that's us, I urge you as aliens and strangers. In other words, our citizenship is not of this world. Jesus' kingdom is not of this world. That's what he told Pilate. He said, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lust that wage war against the soul. Don't take the natural approach here. I urge you, he says, keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, that they may because of your good deeds as they observe them glorify God in the day of visitation. That's sort of the idea. He said, look, don't serve your natural instincts here. Don't do that. Now, you have to understand there are lies were blatantly unfair.
Unbelievably, from our point of view, unfair. The context is that they are being ruled by an insane demagogue. His name is Nero. He is going to feed them to wild animals in the Coliseum because they are believers in Jesus Christ. Nero was the one, by the way, that they said that the ancient writer said it was oil, but it's more likely like a tar or pitch. But he rounded up a whole bunch of Christians and he doused them in oil or tar and pitch. And then he had a huge party and he lit them for the light of his party. That's how the government treated them. That's Nero. That's what he's like.
They were betrayed by their family and friends, ostracized. And then. He says in verse 13. Submit yourselves.
What audacity. How could he say that? Submit yourselves. To that. To that kind of treatment, to a government that's that terrible.
Yes, that's what he said. Submit yourselves. There's something wrong with that.
It's against my instincts. We want to fight. By the way, remember, that government was in place when Jesus came. And so what did the Jewish they were being, again, unfairly treated by the Romans.
So what was the culture of Israel? Come on, Messiah, lead us in a revolution. Come on. Kick their butts. Get them out of here.
Fight. Jesus said, no. No.
I'm coming back later. Well. He then says, submit yourselves for the Lord's sake. Now I know why I do it. My Lord's told me to. Not for my sake. For his sake.
Submit yourself for the Lord's sake, he says. And then something really interesting to every human institution. Every human institution.
It's worse than you think. I was really fascinated because the word institution just didn't seem right to me. I understand why the translators use it, but it's the word katizo.
Of all the times katizo is ever used in the New Testament. It's only translated institution here. Nowhere else. It's always translated creature or creation. Now, that's a broad scale. Submit yourselves to every creature or in creation. That's astounding that you could say something like that. What does he mean by that? Well, one thing I want to understand. There's something he doesn't mean here.
He's going to be talking about human government. He's not talking about at the sense of the expense of my relationship with God. You remember that Peter and John were told that they were arrested and then they were told, now we will let you go, but there will be no more preaching of this gospel.
And they said, we're sorry, we're going to have to preach it. You see, if the government says to me, you can't assemble together with other believers in worship. I'm sorry, then do what you need to do with me. But we're going to assemble.
If the government says you can't own a Bible, I'm sorry, I'm going to own a Bible and read the word of God. And you can do with me as you please. You see, he's not talking about that aspect, but notice what he says. He says the command here is to submit. It's an imperative mood.
There's no wiggle room here. He says, submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every human institution, rather to a king as the one in authority. Well, the king is the emperor here. And as I said, he's insane.
He's insane and he's killing them. He said you submit to him. And then he says, or to governors as sent by him.
And he says, for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right. Now he gives us the ideal human government, an institution that God supports. You need to have human government because, well, I don't want to offend you, but all of us are sinners. And so you need human government. We need a human government in some way.
Now, Peters has no illusion here. He said, you know what? Some human governments are better than others. Some of them are blatantly unfair, like Nero. He said, but that doesn't change anything.
It doesn't matter how the government is. Verse 14. He gives a reason. He says, for such as the will of God. Do you know rarely do you ever find that in scripture?
Almost never. People are always asking, I just want to know what the will of God is. I wish I knew what the will of God is. I wish I know what the will of God is in my life. It'd be so important to know what the will of God is in my life. Well, here's a phrase we actually have the will of God. It's the will of God that you submit to your government. There you go.
You like that? You wanted to know the will of God. You see how unnatural we don't want to respond this way at all. For such as the will of God, that by doing right, you may silence.
Muzzle is the literal word, the ignorance of foolish men. You see, they were being criticized. Do you know why? They said they follow a different emperor. They serve a different king. You see, these are people who are going to plot against the emperor of Rome.
These people, see, all the things he says, don't let them have that. Don't let them criticize you that way. You submit to the governors in the provinces. You submit to the emperor of Rome, no matter how unfair he is.
That idea of submitting is hupotasso. It means to place yourself under. It's the way that we're to relate to everybody as Christians.
Paul spends a lot of time in Ephesians talking about that. He says to place yourself under becomes a military term to fall into rank to someone to authority. That's what it became.
Hupotasso became the military term. Could you imagine that somebody is a lieutenant colonel? You walk up to a private and you ask him to do something.
He goes, I don't really want to. I don't think that's fair. Is that the way the military works?
No, it's a military term. He said, you submit yourself. And you have to submit yourself, he says in this context. For such is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men. He said, as free men. He said, do not use your freedom as a covering for evil. He says, but use it as bond slaves of God.
What a paradox. He says, you know what Christ has done? He has set me free. And you know what? Now that I'm free, what I am, I'm a slave of God.
It's the word doulas. He said, I'm now a slave of God. Christ has set me free and now I'm his slave. I will do whatever he asks. And he said, well, he's asked it here. He said, as under the Lord.
And then he goes into a whole series sort of like pat, pat, pat, pat, real short phrases. Every one of them a command. Let me summarize these. He said, honor all people. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king.
They're all present tenses. Keep on, he says, honoring all people. Keep on loving the brotherhood. Keep on fearing God.
Keep on honoring the king. Honor all people, even when life's not fair. Fear God. Don't fear. Don't fear the unfair, unsaved culture. Fear God. God is the one who has given you this commandment. And then he says, love the brotherhood. We need to support each other. Honor the king, not because he deserves it, but because your king told you to.
That's what he is speaking of. You see, what we keep saying is, yeah, but the government's unfair. I want to fight. I want to complain. I want to sow discord.
Or I want to hide out. Wow. He said, you think that's unfair? Let me show you how unfair you might think this goes. Let's move from the unfairness of human government to the unfairness of people owning other people.
Now that's really unfair. He says, servants. Oikatai. Now please understand, when you see that, it can be translated slaves, but it's not doulos. It's oikatai, servants. In the Roman world at this time, there may have been as many as 60 million servants or slaves.
60 million. But they're not what you and I think. It's not hard labor. Some did hard labor, but not all. In fact, almost all of your teachers, all of your doctors, almost everyone who did everything were servants or slaves. They were some of the highest educated people.
The Romans didn't want to do anything. They said, look, we've conquered everybody. We'll make all of you servants and slaves and you'll do everything for us.
Of course, that was the beginning of their downfall. But the point of it is, he says, servants, be submissive to your masters with all respect. He says, not only to those who are good and gentle, but to those who are unreasonable, unfair. Even the ones who are unfair.
Well, some of this was really unfair. In a lot of cases, by the way, if you were a servant or a slave in Rome and you fell in love with another servant or slave you weren't allowed to marry. You had to cohabitate. And if you cohabitated and had children, the children belonged to the master. In fact, under Roman law, by the way, when you were a servant or a slave, the only law that applied to you was the law of the master. In other words, a master could do anything to you they wanted to do without any reprisal from Rome. They could do anything. Isn't that unfair?
Well, that's about as unfair. Why would he say that? Why would he say be submissive to them?
Fight. Well, notice verse 19 now. He says, for this finds favor.
With who? God. I don't get that. Why does that find favor with God? He said, for this finds favor. If for the sake of conscience toward God, a person bears up under sorrows when suffering unjustly. He knows the suffering is unjust. He said, somehow this finds favor with God. Wow. He says, for what credit is there when you sin and you're harshly treated, you endure it with patience. But if you do, he says, what is right and suffer for it, he says, you patiently endure it.
It finds favor with God. That's astounding to us. How can that possibly be? It's interesting in that we don't face slavery, but we face unfair workplace situations all the time. You see, all of us, except the guys on this staff, have bosses that are unfair. You see how this runs against the grain for you? This just runs against the grain. This doesn't make any sense.
Not to us at all. He says something there in 20, though. He said, if you do what is right and suffer for it and patiently endure it, this finds favor with God. Now, when you go to Hebrews chapter 10 and 11 and 12, these are the great chapters on faith. And you know what the writer of Hebrews says? What's the great test of faith? What will it endure? What will faith endure? That's what chapter 10 brings up.
That's what chapter 11 as a whole is to people. And in chapter 12, he says that we are to fix our eyes. He said, as we live the Christian life, run this race before us, fix our eyes on Jesus. And then it says, what did Jesus do?
He endured what? The cross. What's interesting about this, by the way, is that this methodology, as anti-instinctive as it is for you, won the world for Jesus Christ. It won the Roman world. It's astounding how this works.
Who do you think might know that? God. I think so many of us as Christians, when it comes to the unfairness of life, basically don't buy, don't buy, but basically the philosophy of Scripture is we buy the philosophy of Islam. Fight. Just fight them. Christ says, no, endure it.
Submit. Verse 21, for you have been called for this purpose since. And he says, now, if you want to know what unfairness is, because you say, who should suffer when it's unfair? You should.
Why? He did. He says, for you have been called for this purpose since Christ also suffered for you. Has anything ever been more unfair in the history of this world than to take a sinless, perfect human being, nail him to the cross, and then pour all of the wrath of God on him for the sins of everybody?
Nothing is that unfair. But aren't you glad he submitted? Aren't you glad he endured? You see, what happened out of that? And millions of us have our sins forgiven in a relationship with God because Christ did that. Since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in his steps.
Can it be clearer than that? Didn't seem so unfair. They belittled him and they came and they arrested him. And then they grabbed him and they had those illegal trials and they spit on him and they slapped him and they punched him. Then they mocked him and they took him and they scourged him with a Roman cat o'nine tails and tore his flesh off of him. And then they marched him up and they nailed him to a cross and then they hung him there.
How unfair could that be? He says, yeah, follow my example. Wow. He said, who committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in his mouth. And while being reviled, he did not revile in return. Notice, no fighting. He did not revile in return while suffering.
He uttered no threats. And here's hope. He kept entrusting himself to him who judges righteously. There is the real reason. Why would I submit when life's unfair? I entrust myself to him who judges righteously. That's why. Because Hebrews 12 says that he endured the cross for the joy set before him.
What did he do? He entrusted the father and said, you know what? This is all going to work out to the glory of God. There are going to be millions of people saved because of the submission of mine and the unfairness of life.
You see, whenever we submit in that way, that's what we're saying. I entrust God. God doesn't miss anything. He is righteous as a judge. He doesn't let anything slide forever. But I have to entrust myself to him that he will judge at the appropriate time, not the time that I think so.
And not in the way that I think would be best. I have to entrust myself to him who judges righteously. You've been listening to Pastor Bill Gebhardt on the Radio Ministry of Fellowship in the Word. If you ever miss one of our broadcasts or maybe you would just like to listen to the message one more time, remember that you can go to a great website called OnePlace.com. That's OnePlace.com, and you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online.
At that website, you will find not only today's broadcast but also many of our previous audio programs as well. At Fellowship in the Word, we are thankful for those who financially support our ministry and make this broadcast possible. We ask all of our listeners to prayerfully consider how you might help this radio ministry continue its broadcast on this radio station by supporting us monthly or with just a one-time gift. Support for our ministry can be sent to Fellowship in the Word 4600 Clearview Parkway, Metairie, Louisiana 7006. If you would be interested in hearing today's message in its original format, that is as a sermon that Pastor Bill delivered during a Sunday morning service at Fellowship Bible Church, then you should visit our website, fbcnola.org. That's F-B-C-N-O-L-A dot O-R-G. At our website, you will find hundreds of Pastor Bill's sermons. You can browse through our sermon archives to find the sermon series you are looking for, or you can search by title. Once you find the message you are looking for, you can listen online, or if you prefer, you can download the sermon and listen at your own convenience. And remember, you can do all of this absolutely free of charge. Once again, our website is fbcnola.org. For Pastor Bill Gebhardt, I'm Jason Gebhardt, thanking you for listening to Fellowship in the Word.
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