Living with Hope Under Leaders

Outline

4 ways to find hope in Christ in an unbelieving world with imperfect leaders

I. Forsake Carnal Desires that Threaten Your Ability to Live Out Your New Identity (v. 11)

1 Peter 2:11 - Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul.

1 Peter 1:1 - Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who reside as aliens, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, who are chosen.

1 John 2:15-17 - Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.

Galatians 5:19-21- Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul

II. Keep Your Behavior Excellent Among Non-Christians (v.12)

1 Peter 2:12 - Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation.

A. Even when they slander you as evildoers

B. Let them see you doing good

Matthew 5:16 - Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.

C. So that they glorify God when his day of judgment comes

III. Submit Even to Non-Christian Human Authorities (v.13)

1 Peter 2:13-15 - Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority, or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right. For such is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men.

A. Because they are sent by God (v.14)

B. By being a doer of good and not evil (v.14, 15)

C. So that you are praised and not punished (v. 14)

D. Because God wants you to silence the slander against Christians (v. 15)

IV. Live Like a Free Person (v.16)

1 Peter 2:16-17 - Act as free men, and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bondslaves of God. Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king.

A. Don’t use your rights to justify doing evil

Galatians 5:13 - For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.

B. Live like a bondslave to God

1. Honoring all people

2. Loving the brotherhood

3. Fearing God

4. Honoring the king

Can you think of a time in your life when you did not fit in?

You were set apart from everyone else, and everyone knew it and could see it.

For those of you who have traveled to other countries. It’s easy to be spotted as a foreigner or stranger. When one of our missionaries, Isaac Madison, and I traveled to Japan, it was obvious that I was a foreigner by my height, my dress, my skin complexion, appearance…also by the fact that when we boarded the subway during rush hour with our luggage, and I attempted to lift my bag to put it away on a rack and was immediately pressed in my so many people I was left stuck in the middle holding a luggage in the air over the heads of everyone!

You do not even have to leave your country to be seen as an outsider and for people to know you are not from around here. You notice you talk differently, there are different local customs and mannerisms.

One of the ways that the identity of a Christian is described is as a “Stranger” or an “Alien” in this world.

What actions, words, or responses will really make a Christian stand out and show that they are strangers? What do they do and how do they respond that shows that this world is not their home…In 1 Peter, God does not focus on what we might expect first…

• It’s not how they dress!
• It’s not the food that they eat!

In a Letter to Diognetus we read about the early Christians in the Roman Empire:

“Christians are not distinguished from other men by country, language, nor by the customs which they observe. They do not inhabit cities of their own, use a particular way of speaking, nor lead a life marked out by any curiosity…

Instead, they inhabit both Greek and barbarian cities, however things have fallen to each of them. And it is while following the customs of the natives in clothing, food, and the rest of ordinary life that they display to us their wonderful and admittedly striking way of life.” Letter to Diognetus, Chapter 5

Notice it is in the everyday ordinary way of life that Christians display a wonderful and striking way of life… and of one of the first areas everyday areas of life that God wants us to consider for how to live with Christian hope is…

How we live under leadership, and especially imperfect leadership.

Today we are going to be looking at 1 Peter 2:11-17. That is page 181 in the back section of the New Testament in the bible under the chair in front of you.

This year our church’s theme is Hope for Everyday Life

Today we will grow in Living with Hope Under Leaders. Follow along as I begin in verse 11. This is the Word of the Lord.

1 Peter 2:11–17 (NASB95)

¹¹ Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul. ¹² Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation. ¹³ Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority, ¹⁴ or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right. ¹⁵ For such is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men. ¹⁶ Act as free men, and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bondslaves of God. ¹⁷ Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king.

This morning let’s consider Four ways to find hope in Christ in an unbelieving world with imperfect leaders.

Living under imperfect leadership and being surrounded by people who do not believe what you believe as a Christian, has a way of revealing desires in our hearts that may not be honoring to the Lord.

When a local, state, or national leader makes decisions that are detrimental to your business or place of work, inconvenient for your family, contrary to your values as a Christian, or dangerous for your children and wellbeing.

There are all sorts of carnal fleshly desires that are natural for us to respond.

Remember Pastor Viars mentioned some carnal examples earlier in Ch. 2:

1 Peter 2:1 - Therefore, putting aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander

God knows we can be tempted to respond by hatred, slandering, gossiping, complaining, and seeking to get even. In other words, to respond to evil with evil in return…

So, Peter emphasizes again for us as believers…the principle of putting off and commands us to…

I. Forsake carnal desires that threaten your ability to live out your new identity. (v.11)

Peter explains beginning in 2:11 all the way to 4:19 how the chosen and holy people of God are to live in the world, especially with suffering in view. To summarize, God’s people live righteously like Christ and do good works instead of evil, even amidst suffering (4:19).

God wants us to consider two different descriptions about our identity as believers that impact how we live out our new identity in Christ. These two aspects are often a point of tension in our lives.

v.11 - Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul.

First is a reminder of our status with God and our view toward one another as Christians. “Beloved.”

The second describes our status in the world, “Aliens and Strangers.”

Beloved reminds us that we are loved by God and the church family, even when we might be hated and rejected by the world.

Last week, Pastor Nitzschke focused our attention on some of the ways that we know that we have been loved by God in Christ.

• § Choice and precious in the sight of God (2:4)

• § A spiritual house (2:5)

• § A chosen race (2:9)

• § A royal priesthood (2:9)

• § A holy nation (2:9)

• § A people for God’s own possession (2:9)

• § You are the people of God (2:10)

• § You have received mercy (2:10)

We can talk about love for one another because we first were loved by God.

Peter sees his brothers and sisters in Christ as beloved. This is in contrast to their experience in pagan society, where they live as "aliens" and "strangers" not esteemed and "rejected by men" like our Savior.

• Which is even more reason to love the community of believers as we are commanded to do in (2:17)

While we are beloved of God and our ultimate citizenship is in heaven, we are “aliens and strangers.”

Alien and stranger are terms associated with the history of Israel and their time in exile for God’s people. Remember how the book began reminding us, the Christians were scattered and being treated poorly.

1 Peter 1:1 Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who reside as aliens, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, who are chosen

Many of the early churches cropped up in the city centers where Jewish Christians had been scattered and were living as strangers and aliens.

• Both Jews and Romans persecuted the Christians in Rome, where Peter is writing, and even external persecution came from emperors like Nero (54 to 68 AD) which would cause Christians to scatter.

• § The word “chosen” and “alien and a stranger” is an interesting combination and tension.

• § It reminds each and every one of us that our very presence on earth is not our “home.”

• “This world is not my home

I'm just a-passing through

My treasures are laid up

Somewhere beyond the blue”

It was not clothing, or language, or diet that set the Christians apart as aliens and strangers…Instead it was their avoidance of fleshly lusts and forsaking the natural anti-god values and responses of their culture that they refused to participate in…

Here is how one early Christian described believers as living as aliens and strangers.

“They live in their own countries, but they do so as those who are just passing through. As citizens they participate in everything with others, yet they endure everything as if they were foreigners. Every foreign land is like their homeland to them, and every land of their birth is like a land of strangers.

They marry, like everyone else, and they have children, but they do not destroy their offspring. They share a common table, but not a common bed.

They exist in the flesh, but they do not live by the flesh. They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven. They obey the prescribed laws, all the while surpassing the laws by their lives.” Letter to Diognetus, Chapter 5

Notice how they viewed their identity and citizenship impacted how they lived out their identity. “They exist in the flesh, but do not live by the flesh.” It is these carnal desires that God commands Christians to forsake and abstain from that threaten your ability to live out your new identity. We are to do this all the while obeying laws and even surpassing the laws in righteousness as good citizens.

The apostle John describes forsaking carnal desires of the antigod values of the society in this way.

1 John 2:15–17 Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.

God strongly encourages, he urges us to abstain from carnal desires.

What are these fleshly lusts? The apostle Peter earlier provided examples such as malice, deceit, envy, hypocrisy, and slander…but the apostle Paul describes a list of examples…

Galatians 5:19–21 Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Why should we avoid them?

• God says because those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God,

• Peter describes them as waging war against the soul.

It’s a battle against your soul…its contrary to your identity in Christ.

“Why should Christians abstain from such things? Because these actions mount a full military campaign against our spiritual vitality and growth. Consistently satisfying our desires in a manner contrary to the Word of God or consistently giving in to sinful desires will ultimately tear down the believer.” David Walls and Max Anders, I & II Peter, I, II & III John, Jude, vol. 11, Holman New Testament Commentary (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1999), 32.

If you live for the lusts of the flesh you will suffer the consequences spiritually.

If you are continuing to entangle yourself in the lusts of this world, you are no longer living faithfully as an alien in this world.

So, if our hope and identity is in Christ, Beloved, first we must avoid this way of carnal desires, but then there is a way we should live every day that shows our hope is in Christ, you must…

II. Keep your behavior excellent among non-Christians (v.12)

v. 12 - Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation.

• We are to keep our daily conduct excellent even among non-Christians (Gentiles)

• Are your everyday actions, responses, and speech of such a positive moral quality that it would be praiseworthy and valued favorably most importantly by God and even the non-Christians around you?

• § Are you excellent in your speech for how you speak to the leaders God has placed in your life.

• · For those of you who contacted your legislators for SB-350, would you say your speech and conduct was characterized by excellence if I was blind carbon copied on that communication.

• § Excellence in how you speak and respond to law enforcement that God has placed in your life.

• § Excellence as students for the work that you submit to your teachers, professors, and administrators and how you honor and speak about them among your unbelieving friends when leadership is not there.

• o Your behavior reflects who you are, saved by Christ, to be a doer of good and not an evildoer.

Then notice the purpose, God wants us to expect suffering and mistreatment…that is why this response of keeping our daily conduct excellent is so very important.

It’s in the crucible of being insulted and maligned … we show excellent behavior.

Even when they slander you as evildoers.

• Christians were often falsely slandered and labeled doers of evil.
  • For example, because they did not embrace the anti-god values of the Roman Empire and protected children and held the marriage covenant in honor they were labeled as “haters of humanity.”
    • Even when it was Christians who did not expose children to death
    • Even when it was Christians who protected marriage covenants and honored covenant love between a man and woman to protect the women in the society from being taken advantage of

• • Because Christians kept their conduct excellent, and they loved one another like a family calling one another brothers and sisters, Christians were slandered as incestuous by the brutal violent culture of Rome.
  • Because Christians obeyed the commands to remember the Lord table and spoke often of Jesus’s body and blood as a sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins they were slandered and falsely accused as cannibals.
  • Because Christians worshipped the only true God, and did not worship Roman man-made idols, they were slandered as atheists for not believing in the idols of Rome that everyone else could touch and see.
  • Because they did not worship the emperor or participate in the main idol festivities and holidays that were filled with sexual immorality that they were slandered for being subversive to the state and against the wellbeing of society.

• As a result of false accusations and slander, many believed and assumed that Christians were evildoers.

“In the first century, the label evildoers (kakopoiōn) brought to mind many of the specific accusations pagans made against Christians—that they rebelled against the Roman government, practiced cannibalism, engaged in incest, engaged in subversive activities that threatened the Empire’s economic and social progress, opposed slavery, and practiced atheism by not worshiping Caesar or the Roman gods.” John F. MacArthur Jr., 1 Peter, MacArthur New Testament Commentary (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2004), 140.

Faith Church family, are we prepared to be maligned and respond with excellent conduct even when falsely labeled as the evildoers?

• For example, for exhorting children to honor and obey their parents in matters that are not sinful, you might be slandered by your children, their friends, and other parents for emotional abuse. Evil doer for keeping your conduct excellent.
• By holding out the gospel and God’s ways for youth for how God wants us to conduct our lives with holiness and honor in the area of our sexuality with others, you might be falsely slandered as harming the youth and abusing children. Evildoer for doing God’s word.
• For trying to protect parents and children from the horror of murder through abortion you might falsely be labeled to be hurting women. Evildoer for keeping your conduct excellent.
• For encouraging and taking your children to church with you every Sunday when they may not feel like it, you might be falsely accused of “spiritual abuse” when they are older

Do you see why your hope must be in Christ?

How you must be entrusting your care to God each day?

How is your identity tied to being precious in the sight of God and not the world?

If your inheritance is not in heaven and guarded by God, it’s going to impossible to live this way in a culture that is anti-god?

So, what is the proof that your everyday conduct is excellent and anchored in your hope in Christ?

Let them see you doing good.

God wants unbelievers to see your good deeds. This will be tested not just in the church house, but with your unbelieving family when they make a cutting comment at a meal or in front of your spouse and children, your workplace when your boss lays into you or when an employee just continues to gripe and gossip about you, when you owe more taxes than you planned, at the school-house when another student publicly mocks you, on the sports field when other teams or parents mock you, or when medical insurance is more than you were hoping for…in these everyday interactions doing good.

You must live in such a way that even when others are being critical of you, they might see and be convinced by your actions that something is different from the false slanders and opinions heard about Christians.

Justin Martyr (c.100-c.165), who himself was martyred, was brought to Christ by watching the way that believers died in the arena.

He says how he “heard the Christians misrepresented and watched them stand fearless in the face of death and every other thing that was considered fearful, I realized the impossibility of their living in sinful pleasure.”

Referring to how the early Christians responded to such slander and evil…

“They are dishonored, yet made glorious in their very dishonor; slandered, yet vindicated. They repay calumny with blessings, and abuse with courtesy. For the good they do, they suffer stripes as evildoers; and under the strokes they rejoice like men given new life. Jews assail them as heretics, and Greeks harass them with persecutions; and yet of all their ill-wishers there is not one who can produce good grounds for his hostility” Letter to Diognetus 5.11-17, trans. Staniforth, Early Christian Writings, 145.

Put simply, this is the way that our Lord and Savior commands us to respond to

Matthew 5:16 “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.

Peter makes a similar point for the goal and purpose for our response.

So that they glorify God when his day of judgment comes.

Our purpose for our existence is ultimately to bring glory to God. Our everyday conduct must be excellent so that God is glorified. Meaning we want the attention brought to God and not to us. That’s why we do it. We want them to glorify God and be prepared for God’s final judgement.

If we are struggling pointing people to the glory of God by our conduct, we have to question how much we have been conformed and shaped by anti-god values.

“We fit into the world so well that our lives don't point beyond the world. We are no longer aliens and strangers, but simply conforming citizens of the God-ignoring world.” - John Piper

What area in of our lives can be tested so that I can become more like Christ and grow in glorifying God showing my hope everyday is in Christ

…Thankfully Peter narrows in on one specific area and unpacks what excellent conduct looks like for the Christian.

II. Submit even to non-Christian human authorities (v.13)

v. 13-15 - Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority, or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right. For such is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men.

We are going to see submission apply to Christians in various authority relationships slaves, wives (2:20; 3:6), but Peter first addresses governing authorities.

• Submission means you are voluntarily placing yourself under the authority God has placed over you, and it is a choice to obey the orders and directives of someone else.

• We cannot sin in our submission, but we still must submit to sinners because all authorities, except for God are sinful, and are imperfect and will fail in one way or another.

Consider the importance of a soldier submitting to the formation that the commander dictates.

Part of following our God’s commands, the King over Heaven and Earth’s, is submitting to every human authority that he appoints. We all must submit to the authorities that God has formed for our good.

Romans 13:1–4 - Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves. 3 For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same; 4 for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil.

Notice the reason that God gives for this submission.

• The reason is not because God thinks human kings like Nero are righteous men and great guys and model leaders.

• Submission to those in the civic realm is for the Lord’s sake!

In other words, your submission to the authorities that are over you point to your submission to the Sovereignty of God, he alone has all authority and no human authority is ever given such authority.

Because we believe God has ultimate power, authority, control, and wisdom we submit understanding they are merely creatures in the hands of our Creator God…

Because they are sent by God (v.14)

The motivation that God gives for our submission is not because it’s easy. It’s usually easy to submit to leaders when they do things you like. We must remember this especially when they do things we do not like or prefer.

You might say well it is becoming more and more difficult to submit to my government. Certainly, the Roman Empire in which Peter and Paul lived was far from righteous. Emperor Nero was viewed as selfish debauched tyrant who was hated so much by even many Romans that the Roman Senate declared him a public enemy.

We might be tempted to say but that’s like the Emperor…what about the local leaders…the local authorities that may affect our lives more personally…Well we have examples of letters for how even the local governors treated the Christians in the first century in one of the areas that Peter is writing to in the years that follow.

Pliny (Governor of Bithynia) to Emperor Trajan – “Meanwhile, in the case of those who were denounced to me as Christians, I have observed the following procedure: I interrogated these as to whether they were Christians; those who confessed I interrogated a second and a third time, threatening them with punishment; those who persisted I ordered executed. For I had no doubt that, whatever the nature of their creed, stubbornness and inflexible obstinacy surely deserve to be punished. There were others possessed of the same folly; but because they were Roman citizens, I signed an order for them to be transferred to Rome.” (Epistulae X.96)

How can you live with hope when leaders fail to fulfill their duties and responsibilities?

• Change the way you think when the leadership fails.

You and I can be tempted to think I wouldn’t sin or respond sinfully if this leader were perfectly loving, perfectly wise, perfectly competent, perfectly helpful…

• If this leader just did _______________, then I would be struggling so much in my heart to follow them and honor them.

We have a perfectly wise, loving, righteous, powerful God and we struggle to submit to him and his commands everyday. So, when you are struggling with a leader first look to your heart, thinking, goals instead of focusing on the leader.

Some questions that you can ask yourself:

• What biblical standard are you using to prove the authority wrong?

• Is the authority really asking you to do something sinful, or just something you don’t like or want to do?

• Since no authority is perfect, why is this authority’s actions more distressing than others?

Next, remember God is in control even over this leader so there is a purpose for you to become more like Christ.

Proverbs 21:1 The king’s heart is like channels of water in the hand of the Lord; He turns it wherever He wishes.

For the Christian you have the promise it will not be too much for you to handle in a way that glorifies God and God is faithful to help you to bear up under it.

Then can I encourage you to remember the example of Christ and his choice and voluntary submission to wicked and evil authorities. How Jesus reminded us of this point when he told Pilate.

John 19:11 - Jesus answered, “You would have no authority over Me, unless it had been given you from above”

Can I encourage you to consider it this way.

“You look a king or a governor in the eye and say, "I submit to you, I honor you—but not for your sake. I honor you for God's sake. I honor you because God owns you and rules over you and has sovereignly raised you up for a limited season and given you the leadership that you have. For his sake and for his glory and because of his rightful authority over you, I honor you." – John Piper

So, consider the way you are thinking about them.

Also, consider how your desires might need to change?

• Is your greatest desire to be right?

• Do you really want this leader to recognize, praise, and listen to you?

• Is your desire comfort, you want to be safe and eased from any suffering, challenges, and work that requires you to trust and depend on God to care for you?

We like to say we believe the importance of submissive then we can tend to live in rebellion practically toward the authorities in our lives. That’s why Peter clarifies submission is show by being a doer of good and not evil.

By being a doer of good and not evil (v.14, 15)

The behavior we demonstrate will tell a story to those in our family, our church, our community.

How can you do this what does being a doer of good like:

• Thank God for everything including the imperfect leaders that God has placed over you (Eph 5:20).
• Entrust your care to God not ultimately the human authority (trusting God cares the most about your welfare and understands how difficult submission)
• Be an example of a godly response (John 13:35)
• Honor and respect them in your speech, speak well of the direction that they are taking (Again if they are clearly asking us to sin, we obey God instead of men, but many times we respond sinfully in our speech to preferences and just leadership that is different than our expectations or desires.
• Concentrate on your personality responsibility and doing that with excellence.
• Focus on how you can develop specific Christ-like qualities through submitting to the leader (Rom 8:28-29).
• Plan ahead to return good toward them when you know their common failures and weaknesses (Rom 12:21).
  • Example of Pastor Viars and Pastor Aucoin
• Support the direction of the leader. Do not seek to undermine, drag your heels, and cause division, put yourself in the leader’s shoes and consider if you came to the same decision, how would you desire for others to act and respond?

1. So that you are praised and not punished (v. 14)

1. Because God wants you to silence the slander against Christians (v. 15)

• The behavior we demonstrate will tell a story to those in our community.

• “Our obedience serves God’s purpose. By our civil obedience we silence the ignorant talk of foolish men.” Edmund Clowney, The Message of 1 Peter, 110.

• What are some possible applications when it comes to politics?

• You should engage in your civic duty and responsibilities such as voting with excellence.

• You should not endorse sinful behavior because it is promoted by the government, even while recognizing that no governing authority is without sin.

• I should not be involved in the unnecessary mocking of the leaders I do not agree with.

• I should be sure that in my response to imperfect government that my behavior is such that would point others to glorify God and especially helping other’s think about God’s sovereignty and control even over authorities.

IV. Live like a free person (v.16)

16 Act as free men, and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bondslaves of God. 17 Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king.

We continue to see some examples of “keeping conduct excellent” further explained.

• Good deeds

• Submission

• Honoring all people

• Loving Christians…fearing God…honoring the king.

John Calvin describes the Christian life “is a free servitude, and a serving freedom.” – John Calvin

• What does it mean that we are free men?

• o We are freed from sin’s condemnation

Romans 8:1–2 Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.

• The curse of the Law’s penalty

Galatians 3:13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us—for it is written, “CURSED IS EVERYONE WHO HANGS ON A TREE”—

• The bondage of Satan

• Hebrews 2:14-15 Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.”

So as a Christian, if your citizenship is heaven, you have the freedom and right to live for God in holiness and honor, proclaiming his excellencies.

Don’t use your rights to justify doing evil.

In other words, the freedom you have in Christ frees you to submit righteously to authorities and respond honorably to even non-Christians.

You have not been saved to mistreat others.

Galatians 5:13 For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.

Live like a bondslave to God.

• Act as free men and use your freedom as a bondslave.

• This means we are to live in our freedom to submit for the purposes God commands us.

“Christian freedom is always conditioned by Christian responsibility. Christian freedom does not mean being free to do only as we like; it means being free to do as we ought.” David Walls and Max Anders, I & II Peter, I, II & III John, Jude, vol. 11, Holman New Testament Commentary (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1999), 34.

• o How do we do this?

1. Honoring all people

1. Loving the brotherhood

1. Fearing God

1. Honoring the king