1 Peter 2:11–20 calls believers to live as faithful servants of God in a fallen world. Though governments are flawed, Christians are to honor authority for the Lord’s sake, just as Christ submitted and suffered unjustly to save us. Like Joseph in Egypt, we are called to glorify God through humble service and good works, that others may see and believe. Live not for self, but as living stones in God’s spiritual house.
Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org
Transcript
Grace, mercy, and peace be on to you from God our Father, and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Amen.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, four weeks from the resurrection of our Lord, the joy that is set before the disciples is finally beginning to sink in.
This is the same joy that our Lord had promised them on Monday, Thursday, the night when he was to be betrayed.
And yet, fear had prevented them from receiving all that they were entitled to.
Jesus had asked them, are you inquiring among yourselves about what I said?
A little while and you will not see me.
And again, a little while and you will see me.
Most assuredly, I say to you that you will weep and lament, that the world will rejoice and you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will return to joy.
Jesus is speaking of his three days in the tomb and then also the period following the resurrection as he looked forward to his ascension, to returning to his father in heaven.
The disciples are uncertain.
They are afraid to ask Jesus what he meant.
But why?
Why would they be afraid?
Well, he’s right there with them.
He’s taught them for three years and yet they discuss it among themselves.
And they don’t want to ask him because they are afraid of what he’s going to say.
He’s already told them that the son of man must go to Jerusalem to be betrayed, to be handed over to the chief brace, and to be crucified.
And each time they respond, never.
No, it can’t be this way, Lord.
We don’t want it this way.
They don’t want their Lord to depart either to the grave, or to his father in heaven, or to go anywhere but to be with them.
And this reflects man’s inability to grasp the ways of God.
It’s a weakness that so often leads us into sin.
It’s a failure to trust God in all his ways, in the things he does for us.
We are not so unlike the disciples.
In fact, we are not so unlike the Israelites of old.
When they come to the prophet Samuel, and they demand from him a king.
The prophet knew that this was a terrible idea.
And so he went to God and asked God for his advice.
And the Lord said to Samuel, heed the voice of the people in this, in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, they have rejected me.
That I should not reign over them, according to all the works that they have done since the day I brought them out of Egypt, even to this day with which they have forsaken me and served other gods.
God warned them exactly what a king would do.
He said that the king would send their sons off to die in his wars.
That a king would force them to pay taxes, that a king would make them work for him in his fields.
He would take their daughters as his servants.
He would demand the rest of their fields, vineyards, and olive groves, that he could then dole them out as favors to his friends.
He would make them his servants.
God warned them, you will cry out in that day because of your king, whom you have chosen, and the Lord will not hear you.
How did the people respond?
The people refused to obey.
The people said, no, but we will have a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us, and that our king may go before us and fight our battles.
They wanted someone else to fight their battles.
They refused to obey God.
They did not want to be accountable to God’s judgment.
They did not want to obey his law.
They wanted human judges to look over them, because they thought they could control the humans.
That’s working out so well for us today.
They wanted a human king to fight their battles.
They did not want to live as free people.
They chose a life of servitude.
Do not deceive yourselves.
You and I are no more free today than these people were.
The kings of this earth, the prime ministers of this world, whether you call yourself a czar or even a president, all of them do what God warned that they would do, and they do even more than that, as we’re learning.
Yet, we continue to ask them to fight our battles, even in those areas of life over which they have absolutely no authority.
Peter told the church, the subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be an emperor as supreme or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good.
Here in this passage, we hear echoes of Romans 13, knowing that the government has the right to bear the sword in order to protect their people, to protect the state from those that harm its citizens.
The state has the duty to reward the righteous.
These are the battles that it’s authorized to be fighting.
When a king or a president or a ruler of this earth does these things, when they govern justly, all goes well for the nation.
Yet, there’s absolutely no government on this earth, and there’s no government or style of government that man has ever come up with, that has not been corrupted.
Every government desires to obtain more power for itself.
It’s the nature of power.
The citizens often want their kings even to exercise more power over them, but usually, it comes at the expense of their neighbors.
We want other people to fight our battles.
We want the rich to pay their fair share.
Usually we mean we want the rich to pay all of it.
We want our neighbor to pay off the balance of the student loan that we signed off on.
Or maybe it was your parents, but someone in your house signed for it.
We want the neighbor to pay for it.
The billionaires who own our sports ball teams, they want the taxpayers to fund the new field so that the millionaires they paid to play their sports ball game have some place to run.
This doesn’t make sense.
And heaven forbid you allow your grass on your lawn to grow too tall or not to grow at all, and you’ll get a visit from your lovely homeowners association.
We could go on and on and on and on.
There’s so much injustice in the world today.
And a lot of it stems from wanting other people to fight our battles.
Except the one battle that we need another to fight.
The battle that mattered the most.
The disciples did not want Christ to die.
They did not want Christ to be handed over to the chief priest.
They did not want him crucified by the Romans.
And they certainly did not want to see his lifeless body laid into a tomb.
They had all spoken such bold words.
They had promised to go to jail.
They promised to die with their Lord before they left such a thing happen.
Yet we all know how that turned out.
The shepherd was struck.
They fled.
Yet he is risen.
He is risen victorious over sin, death, and hell, for the King of Kings fought the most important battle of our lives, even as we esteemed him not.
He fought not with the power of his almighty right arm.
He fought not at the head of his angel armies.
Instead, he fought by walking the road to the cross.
He fought by pouring out his precious blood with his innocent suffering and death.
You were ransomed from sin, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.
And now you are living stones, being built as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Christ Jesus.
Your King won this battle against sin, and he has now called you into his glorious kingdom through the preaching of his word.
He has shaped you as a living stone in this spiritual house of God.
He has created you not for sin, he has created you for service to God and to your neighbor.
He has created you to fight.
Yes, he has created you to fight on behalf of your neighbor that he may hear the Gospel.
And thus, Peter writes, be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme or to governors as sent by him.
The same God who warned us what a king would do now commands fealty to these very same men.
Peter was inspired to write this not because of his great love for the emperor, not because he thought Roman policies were the be all and the end all, he did not.
The emperor, the notorious Nero, found delight in torturing Christians to death.
Peter subjected himself with joy to this tyrant, because in doing so, he did it for the sake of the Lord.
For this is the will of God, that by doing good, you put the silence, the ignorance of foolish people.
Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover up for evil, but living as servants of God.
Honor everyone.
Love the brotherhood.
Fear God.
Honor the emperor.
Christ set you free, truly free, not so that you would go on sinning, not so that you would go on cursing those in authority, not so that you could post dank memes on the internet, making fun of everybody.
No, he set you free, that you would live the redeemed life, that you would honor everyone.
But those who are easy to honor and to love, hopefully like your mothers, and also those who are not so easy to honor and to love, you do so that they may see your good deeds and glorify God.
The greatest Old Testament example of this, in my opinion, is that of Joseph, a man sold into slavery in Egypt, falsely accused of crimes, unjustly imprisoned, yet eventually raised up to be the second most powerful man in the nation.
When he made himself known to his brothers who’d wanted him dead, he revealed, so now it was not you who sent me here, but God.
And he has made me a father to Pharaoh, and Lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt.
When Joseph’s wicked brothers had intended to sell him into slavery for evil, God used this evil act for good.
Joseph was God’s missionary to Egypt.
He eventually became Pharaoh’s spiritual father, bringing him to saving faith, along with the entire household that he had.
He used the wickedness for God’s glory.
Joseph’s success began with being a good, faithful, loyal worker, even though he was a slave, even though he worked for tyrants, even though he worked for pagans, even when he was mistreated and abused.
He worked hard, not for their sake, but for God’s sake, to glorify God.
And when given the opportunity, because of his hard work, he preached the Gospel.
The Greater Joseph, Jesus Christ, came as a good, faithful, loyal son of God, obedient to the will of his father, mindful of his father, enduring sorrows while suffering unjustly.
Obedient, so that today, as his Holy Spirit continues to carry the Word of the Gospel forth on the lips of good, faithful, and loyal sons and daughters of the King, many people might be called to faith.
Many living stones might be laid upon the chief cornerstone of the church.
For this is the estate of the Holy Christian Church.
Anywhere that saints are gathered in his name, anywhere that these saints gather to hear the Gospel preach in its purity and to celebrate the sacraments as Jesus instituted them, there is this temple of living stones, the church that exists to call sinners to repentance, to forgive their sins, to preach the Gospel, to anoint people with the Holy Spirit in the waters of Holy Baptism, and to feed them the body and blood of their Savior at his table for their salvation, to proclaim the glory of the Lord by the salvation of the lost.
Church in this world exists within the estate of the government.
Even so, it’s like Joseph so that her example, so that her proclamation of the Gospel might be a blessing to all who hear.
That it might call forth those dead and sins unto life in Christ Jesus, turning sorrow into joy, for he is risen.
He is risen in me.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
