1 Peter chapter 2, beginning at verse 13. Hear the Word of the Lord. Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, whether it be to the king as supreme, or unto governors as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well. For so is the will of God, that with well-doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men, as free, and not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness, but as the servants of God. Honor all men, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the King. Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the forward. For this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully. For what glory is it if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? But if, when ye do well and suffer for it, ye take it patiently? This is acceptable with God. For even hereunto were ye called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps. Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth. who, when he was reviled, reviled not again. When he suffered, he threatened not, but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously, who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness, by whose stripes ye were healed. For ye were a sheep going astray, but are now returned unto the shepherd and bishop of your souls. Amen. As most of you likely will know, yesterday was a significant day in the United States of America. There was a presidential election, a deeply divisive presidential election, an election that seemingly has everyone apprehensive, everyone fearful even for the future, for the unity of our nation. And so today it seems that everyone is thinking about the government, thinking about the civil magistrate. Certainly that's true of Americans. If you're a citizen of a different nation, then perhaps all the upheaval here has made you think about the civil magistrate in your home country, whether for good or for ill, your own political situation in which your family finds themselves back in your own country. But underneath all of these thoughts, underneath all of these concerns, all of these anxieties, there lies a pressing question. How is the church to deal with a government if that government is hostile to it? And even more so, how are Christians to live and to witness within a society that seems increasingly hostile, increasingly in error? All of these questions, questions about how we today in the 21st century, how we are to live faithful lives, These questions are answered in a letter that the apostle Peter wrote about 2,000 years ago. This letter that Peter wrote is what we know as the scriptural book of 1 Peter. As Peter indicates in the first verses of the book, he's writing this letter to Christians who really are scattered throughout the Roman Empire Christians who, as Peter writes back in verse 6 of chapter 1, Christians who have been buffeted by various trials. Peter is writing to the persecuted church, to the church as she faces the opposition of the Roman Empire. And that opposition that the church was facing would have been very often a fierce opposition. In these early days of the church, the Roman Empire was no great friend to the church. A great deal of the problem centered really on Caesar, the emperor of the Roman Empire. Within the Roman Empire, Caesar was considered to be a god. He was worshipped. He had temples built in his honor. People bowed down to him. Caesar was a god, or as it often was expressed by the Romans at the time, Caesar was lord. Well, as you can imagine, that caused more than a little bit of friction for the Christian church because the Christian church realized that Caesar wasn't Lord. Jesus was Lord. And Christians, therefore, wouldn't worship anyone but Him. They wouldn't worship Caesar. Caesar, of course, was incensed by this, various Caesars one after another, and so savage persecution at times would break out against the church. Untold, brutal persecutions were visited on Christians because they refused to bow to or to worship Caesar. The Christians to whom Peter is writing in this letter, they don't live under a benevolent government. The government would be better and worse at times after this period, but these ones to whom Peter is writing, as he makes very clear at the start of his letter, they don't live under a benevolent government. They live under a government that hates them, a government that will savage them if they don't turn from Jesus. And these Christians live in the midst of a society that feels precisely the same way. If you want to talk about a group of Christians who are living in a hostile culture under a hostile government, these are them. These are Christians who, because of Jesus, are enemies of the state, enemies of the culture. Peter is writing here to Christians who are in the sort of situation that some today fear lies in the future for Christians in the West. And so what he has to say here is deeply instructive. as well as immensely challenging for us. As we find in our passage this morning, Christians must render a secondary submission to government, adorning the gospel with their good works and their suffering. Now, the first thing that Peter makes starkly plain in our passage is that Christians must render a secondary submission to government. You look with me back at verses 13 through 17. Beginning at verse 13, we read this, Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, whether it be to the king as supreme or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well. For this is the will of God, that with well-doing you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men, as free and not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness, but as the servants of God. Honor all men, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the King." In verses 13 and 14, Peter states the matter very simply. Christians are to submit themselves to what Peter calls every ordinance of man. Peter then goes on to clarify what he means. He says that he has in view kings and governors. In other words, Peter is talking about the state. He's talking about the government. Christians are to submit themselves to the government. That, Peter says at the start of verse 15, is the will of God. God's will is for His people to submit to the state. Now here Peter is alluding to something that the Apostle Paul states perhaps even more clearly in Romans chapter 13. As Paul states there, all authority that exists comes from Christ. As Jesus himself told the disciples before he ascended into heaven, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to him. He controls the rising and the falling of nations. He controls the course of society. He controls the outcome of elections. There's not a sparrow who falls to the ground. There's not a governmental structure that is reared over a people that lies outside of the sovereign, sweeping, minute control of the risen Lord Jesus. And so Christians are to submit to the authority that Christ has placed over them. Christians are to render that submission to the authority of the state because they know that that authority ultimately belongs to Jesus. And that those who exercise that authority exercise it only because Jesus has put it into their hands. Or as Peter states it in our passage, it's God's will for His people to submit to the government. But this submission, Peter makes very clear, is to be only a secondary submission. You look again at verse 13. Verse 13, Peter writes, Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake. You know, that's what we've just been saying. Christians are to submit to the state because in submitting to the state, they're submitting to Christ. The Christ who has given power and authority to the state in the first place. But if Christians are to submit themselves to the state because they ultimately are submitting themselves to Christ, that means that if the state compels them to do something that's contrary to Christ, contrary to the Scriptures, Christians are to resist. The matter is stated very succinctly in Acts chapter 5 at verse 29. There the disciples are commanded by the Sanhedrin not to preach the gospel. So you have Jesus commanding his people to proclaim the gospel to all men, and you have the government, so to speak, in a sense, telling them to be silent. As Peter says in Acts 5 29, we ought to obey God rather than man. Christians are to submit to the state. But if the state begins to work against or to work contrary to the Scriptures, Christians are to obey the Scriptures, not the state. Yes, Christians submit to the government, but that submission is a secondary submission. Ultimately, their allegiance, their submission is to Jesus. And so when obedience to the state starts to involve disobedience to Christ, Christians are to be disobedient to the state. Peter returns to balance things out down in verse 17. He calls on Christians first to honor, to treat with respect all people. Then he calls for love specifically to the church, to one's brothers and sisters in Christ. Then Peter writes, fear God, honor the King. The King is to be honored. Christians are to submit to Him, to obey Him, but they fear God. He's the one before whom they ultimately bow. He's the one to whom they owe their allegiance. Christians honor the king, but that honor, that obedience, it flows out of a fear of the living God. And so if obedience to the king, to the state, and obedience to God are pitted against each other, It's obvious what the Christian is to do. He fears God and he obeys Him rather than men. Christians are to render a secondary submission to the government. Now, that's a principle that's very clear in the Scriptures. It's one that for the longest time has caused no great angst for many Christians here in our own country. Increasingly, that's changing. But while certain things about our government might have changed or might change in the future, the Scriptures don't change. Brothers and sisters, as Christians, we are to render a secondary submission to the government. On the one hand, that means that we obey the government, that we do so joyfully. When the government enacts some policy that we don't like, we don't grumble. And when a leader who we don't like wins an election, it doesn't mean that we grumble or speak ill of him or her. As Christians, we are to obey the government. Those who hold authority over us hold that authority because it's been given to them by Jesus. And so we, as those who belong to Jesus, are to submit to that authority. That means we can't disparage elected officials whom we don't like. We can't disparage institutions of government that we don't like. We can disagree with certain policies. We can advocate for certain changes. But we don't slander those, don't disrespect those whom Jesus has put into place. That doesn't mean that every leader that we have, every government that we have, is going to be a good leader. That never has been the case. But what it does mean is that our leaders, good or bad, hold their authority by Jesus' delegation, and so therefore we submit to them, the good ones and the bad ones. But that submission, of course, is always to be a secondary submission. If the government calls on us as individuals or calls on us as the church to do things that God forbids or to condone things that God forbids, if they call on us to refrain from doing things that God commands us to do, If the government commands us to stop calling evil evil and good good, if the government calls on us to stop living out the confession of our faith, then we must resist. Our submission to the government is sincere, it's deep, but it's secondary. And so there does come a point at which it stops. Now, obviously, I'm not talking about some sort of armed revolt. Simply a quiet, peaceful refusal to lay down the gospel or to deny its truth. An unrelenting insistence that the gospel be preached, that Jesus be proclaimed as the only name under heaven that saves, that men and women be urged to turn from their sins and to turn to the righteousness that is in Christ. God only knows what will come, but regardless of what comes in this country and other countries in future generations, God's people are called upon to recognize that our submission to the government is sincere and also secondary. And we are to seek after steadfastness to that principle. We are to seek after a submission to the government that's flowing out of a fear of the Lord who reigns in all things. Christians must render a secondary submission to the government. But there's more for us here. Embedded in the verses that we have before us, we see that Christians must render a secondary submission to the government, adorning the gospel with their good works. Look again at verses 15 and 16. Beginning in verse 15, Peter writes, with well-doing you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men, as free, and not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness, but as the servants of God." Now here, Peter's in the midst of exhorting Christians to render a secondary submission to the government, and he tells them that if they do that, their submission, their conduct, will be a testimony to others. It will magnify the beauty of the gospel. In these early days of the church, one of the smears frequently heaped upon the church was that Christians were lawless. They were anarchists. Their refusal to bow to Caesar, their refusal to confess Him as Lord, showed, so the thought went, that they were subversives, that they were enemies of the state. And the Christians' opposition to all the false gods of the day showed that what they really wanted to do was to tear Roman society apart from the inside. It was an allegation against them. In Acts 17, verse 6, the residents of Thessalonica expressed it by saying that the church were the ones who wanted to turn the whole world upside down, who were turning it upside down. The enemies of the church were telling everyone that Christians were trouble. They were causing trouble and seeking to cause more trouble with their lawlessness. And Peter's point here is that when Christians render secondary submission to the government, they show that lie to be a lie. When Christians do good, when they're obedient citizens, when they contribute to society, when they're good neighbors, they're good employees, when they lead the sort of submissive lives that Peter is describing here, they silence the lies that their enemies are spreading about them. They show that the gospel is not about anarchy. The gospel is not about political upheaval. It's about peace. It's about submission. It's about a kingdom that's not of this world. The gospel isn't about causing trouble. It's about preaching the name of Jesus. By living lives of secondary submission, the Christians will adorn the gospel with their good works. They will shut the mouths of their enemies. Now what Peter writes here, it's a challenge and a promise both to us this morning. You know the lies, the ignorance, to use Peter's words, that's aired against the church today. People say that there are certain political groups, political leaders whom we just don't like, and so the church will oppose anything that certain leaders propose. People say that the church doesn't like anyone who's different than they are, that the church is filled with hatred and bigotry and all these things. How is the church to counter these lies? not by going on an equally offensive political offensive, but simply by living lives of secondary submission. Obeying the government, loving our fellow man, living lives of humility, lives of love, living lives marked at every point by the fear of God. And those lives, lives of obedience, will silence the lies. You know, people think that the only way to silence lies is to shout back against them. Sometimes, a response to lies is necessary. But Peter tells us here that in this situation, lies are best silenced by lives of quiet, humble, God-fearing submission. That won't silence all the lies. There are those in this world who hate Jesus, who hate His gospel, who therefore hate His people. And no matter how you live, no matter what you do, those people will only hate Christ more and more. They are implacable. But Peter here tells us that by living obedient, humble lives, some lies will be silenced. And we have to believe that. Even when it seems not to be working, we have to believe that. We have to keep loving those who are different from us, loving both in word and in deed, loving precisely those groups whom this world says that we hate. We have to keep being obedient to the government, joyfully obeying the government as ruling with the power that Christ has given to it. If the world says that we are divisive, we have to seek for unity. If the world says that we are cruel and cold, we have to show ourselves to be loving. And for no other reason than that, here, God tells us to do so. He delights in the obedience of His people. And for some, God will use that obedience to begin a gospel work in their hearts. Certainly all you realize is that the world is watching the church. The world is watching how the church lives, the witness that it bears. As you enter into the ministry, the world will be watching you with particular closeness. The people under your care will be watching you. your stance toward the powers that are placed over us, your community will be watching you, watching to see whether there is this secondary submission, a submission that's genuine and yet also secondary as well. We must live lives of humility and submission, and those who see it will be affected by it. Not everybody, but some. And for some, lies will stop. Perhaps even hearts will be made tender. It can be hard. It can be hard to render obedience to a government or to live in a society that seems hostile to you. It can seem hard to show love to people, love to groups of people who so openly slander you, mock you, mock the righteousness of God. It's not easy. But Jesus calls on His people to do it. And in His time, in the hearts of His people, Jesus will use that testimony of humility and submission to bear a wonderful fruit. Christians must render a secondary submission to the government, adorning the gospel with their good works. Now, Peter doesn't stop there. We might wish that he had, but he doesn't. As we press through the passage, we find that Christians must render a secondary submission to government, adorning the gospel with their good works and with their suffering. Look with me at verses 18 through 25. Let's read those verses for us again. Beginning in verse 18, we read this, Servants, be subject to your masters with fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the forward. For this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully. For what glory is it if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? But if, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God. For even hereunto were ye called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps. who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth. When he was reviled, reviled not again. When he suffered, he threatened not, but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously, who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness, by whose stripes ye were healed. For ye were a sheep gone astray, but are now returned unto the shepherd and bishop of your souls. Now, it might seem like Peter here has kind of moved on to discuss something different, something new. Previously, he'd been talking about the relationship between individual Christians and the state, and now he's discussing slaves and their masters. It can appear that Peter has moved on to address something slightly different. But he hasn't really. In discussing the relationship between an individual and the state, and then discussing the relationship between slaves and their masters, Peter is discussing two different aspects of how Christians are to conduct themselves in relation to those who have authority over them, whether that be, in this case, a state or a slave master. Of course, it bears remembering that the sort of slavery that Peter has in view here is very different from slavery as we have seen it in the history of our own nation or as we conceive of it today. But that stipulation aside, the important thing to note here is that Peter is still dealing with how a Christian interacts with those who are in authority over him. More specifically, Peter here is dealing with how Christians are to behave when they're abused, when they're mistreated, when they are harmed by those who have authority over them. Peter speaks specifically of slaves and masters, but the same principle applies to citizens and their government. The same principle applies to however Christians respond to the abuse, the neglect of those who have authority over them. Peter moves seamlessly from one topic to the other here in his letter because ultimately the same issue is involved. Now, there's a great deal in what Peter writes in these verses, but the main thing we need to notice this morning is that Peter calls for Christians to render submission to those in authority over them, regardless of whether those authorities are kind or harsh, whether they treat the Christian in question well or horribly. The determining factor in how a Christian interacts with those in authority over him isn't the authority figure's kindness. but rather the Christian's fear for the God who has given that authority in question. The Christian doesn't obey because he likes the authority figure. He obeys because he fears God. Sometimes, as Peter discusses in verse 20, that means that Christians suffer for doing good. They suffer for being upright. And that, Peter writes in verse 20, is commendable before God. It wins the approval, it wins the approbation of the living God. In fact, and this is the part that we don't really like to hear, Christians have been called precisely to this suffering. That's what Peter writes in verse 21. Christians were called to this suffering. They were called to suffer unjustly. Suffering in the Christian life isn't something that God simply gets His people through. It's not a bump in the road that God overcomes. No, suffering is part of what God has for His people. Suffering isn't something that interferes with the Christian's calling. It's part of His calling. Why is that? Well, as Peter says, it's because Jesus suffered. If there ever was one who suffered unjustly, it was Jesus. If there ever was one who was mistreated, abused, it was Jesus. And Peter tells us in verse 21 that in that suffering, Jesus leaves for us an example. And the word that Peter uses there is incredibly poignant. When we think of an example, we tend to think of something that provides a possible alternative. It's an illustration of a general truth that could also come to expression in other ways. That's not the word that Peter uses here. It's not what that word means. The word that Peter uses here refers to a template that schoolchildren used when they were learning to write. The template would be laid on a flat surface. The students would take their pencils, so to speak. Those weren't using pencils. and trace over the letters on the template, precisely exactly the same as the template, tracing them exactly as they appeared. That's what the sufferings of Jesus are for His people. They're the template that our lives are to trace out in precise, studied detail. Certainly, our sufferings are very different from Jesus' sufferings in many ways. His suffering atoned for our sin. Ours doesn't, for starters. There are many differences. But there also are similarities. Suffering unjustly and not hating back those who hurl their hatred at you. The sufferings of God's people are to mirror those of Jesus in their injustice. They are to be traced upon the template of the Messiah's suffering. That's daunting. It's terrifying. But look what Peter writes down in verse 24. There, Peter begins by referring to Jesus dying on the tree, dying on the cross for the sins of His people. When you hear that, you think you know what's coming next. Jesus died for your sins so you can know that you're forgiven even in the midst of your suffering. That's what you are kind of conditioned to hear. But that's not what Peter writes. In verse 24, Peter says that Jesus suffered for the sin of His people so that they could live for righteousness, so that they could be faithful, so that they could be upright, so that they could stand firm for righteousness even when that righteousness brings the blows and the hatred of this world. Jesus died so that His people, by the gracious power of the Spirit whom Jesus outpours, could live lives of faithful obedience. There's purpose in the suffering of God's people, and there is power. There's power from the risen Christ to endure the suffering and to realize those purposes. The suffering of God's people doesn't threaten God's purposes. They're part of His purpose, refining His people so that they learn obedience and they come to look like Jesus. Christians must render a secondary submission to government, adorning the gospel with their good works and with their suffering. Now that's what Christians today need to lodge in our consciences. In the coming years, the coming decades, the coming generations, no one knows. It seems quite likely that being a Christian in the West, professing Christ, seeking to live by biblical standards, that it will bring hardship of some kind. No one knows exactly what that will be, of course, but it certainly does seem that belonging to Jesus will bring some sort of hardship, some sort of difficulty in the years and the decades ahead. And what God's people need to know, what they need to have sunk down so deep that it can't be shaken, is the certain knowledge that God is using that suffering, and that it's part of His will for them. The great lie that Satan whispers to God's people when they suffer, the lie that he uses to make suffering unbearable, is the lie that that suffering will destroy them. That suffering will rob God's people of joy. It will reduce them to caricatures of agony. Satan delights to lie to God's people and tell them that suffering lies outside of God's benevolence to His people and it will destroy them if they don't avert it. But that lie is a lie. Suffering is part of God's purpose for His people and it won't disfigure them. It will make them like Jesus. That's the purpose that God intends in it. Now, that doesn't make suffering appealing, doesn't make it easy, but it does fill it with hope. If you're a Christian, suffering will not overcome you. Suffering is something God is using to overcome the world. It's something He's using to overcome the sin that resides in our hearts. Through suffering, we become less and less attached to this world. We see our sin better. We see the things that are passing away, and we see what things endure. We see what things can be shaken and which things cannot. Suffering is something that God uses to shape His people to perfect them for glory. Now, if the coming years do, in fact, bring hardship, if the coming decades do, in fact, bring hardship for Christians, We can know that through that suffering, Jesus is perfecting His church, He's perfecting His people. It's a refining that He Himself knows and that He employs for the perfecting of His people. Therefore, as those who belong to Him, we have no need to fear it. Christians must render a secondary submission to government, adorning the gospel with their good works and with their suffering. Now, no one knows the precise details of what lies ahead for the church here in our own country. In other countries around the world, no one knows what lies ahead for individual believers. We know that ultimately there lies victory for the church, eternal glory for Christians, but we don't know exactly what will intervene between now and then. Given the questions that so many have about our society, about what lies ahead, what are Christians to do? What do we do when the state, the culture are so aggressively hostile to the truth? What do we do? Well, Peter tells us. We submit to the government. We never disobey God. But so long as obedience to the state doesn't involve us in sin against God, we obey the state. And that obedience, by the blessing of the Spirit, it will have glorious effects. It will silence some of our enemies. It will precipitate suffering that God will use to refine us, to perfect us. None of it's easy. But obedience to the living God in a world of death seldom is easy. The comfort we have is not that our course will be easy. but that the God who loves us is in control of it. Christians must render a secondary submission to government, adorning the gospel with their good works and with their suffering. In the days, the years, the decades to come in this country and in countries around the world, may we all adorn the gospel with both. In all of it, giving praise to the Jesus who suffered for us in order that we might live for Him and in Him. Amen. Let's pray. Our great God and Father in heaven, we do rejoice this morning in the risen Lord Jesus. We rejoice, O Lord, that all authority in heaven and on earth has been given unto Him and that He is using it for the good and the upbuilding of His church. Lord, we give Thee thanks that Thou hast set Thy love upon Thy people and that Thou hast given us such wonderful assurances as Thou has given to us in Thy Word. Lord, we confess that we are men and women of limited knowledge, that we don't know what lies ahead in this country or what lies ahead in other countries around the world. But we ask, O Lord, that even in our uncertainty, that Thou wouldst be growing Thy people in faith. We pray, Lord, that Thou wouldst be with us in our current day and in the years ahead as students go out from here to minister throughout the country and around the world. Help us, O Lord, always to be a people whose eyes and whose hearts are in a better country. and who with all of our words and all of our actions, with our submissiveness and our good works, may we be men and women who point others to that great and glorious kingdom of the risen Lord Jesus. And we ask, O Lord, that Thou wouldst do all these things, and that Thou wouldst do them in such a way that each of us and all men decrease, and the blessed Lord Jesus increases. Do what we pray, for we ask it in His name. Amen.