This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Hi, this is Pastor Tom and I want to welcome you back to our fourth day of
looking through the second chapter of 1 Peter. We're going to focus on verses 13
to 17 today. We've been talking about how we are different because of Jesus
Christ.

We're different people. We have a different identity. We are different in our
character.

We are different in the kind of way that we look at life and live our lives
every day of our lives. And here, in these verses, we're going to begin to talk
about the fact that we are different in our relationships. We're to live a cut
above in the world below.

And in the world below, the standard is selfish relationships. Relationships are
about what I get. I want to get things out of my relationships.

I might give some back, but when I give, it's usually to get. But the cut above
that God wants us to live is what he calls submissive relationships. And that's
the kind of relationship that is about what I give.

As we walk through the next several verses, we're going to see he talks about
our relationships with unbelievers, with government, slaves with masters, wives
and husbands, husbands and wives, and he sums it all up in the middle of chapter
3. It's all about relationships. The Bible teaches again and again that you can
have relationships that work.

Not that are perfect, but that work. Not that simply endure or survive, though,
but relationships that add a strong note of peace and satisfaction and joy to
your life. And 1 Peter 2 begins to talk about some of these relationships.

But as he begins to talk about relationships, Peter starts by talking about the
kind of relationships that often add anything but joy in our lives. He talks
about some of the most difficult relationships that we have, the most difficult
places to be unselfish in relationships. This is a section of scripture for
those who feel angry at their government, disappointed in their spouse,
frustrated with their boss, about ready to give up on another Christian.

And in even the most difficult of relationships, Peter uses this word that's
used throughout the New Testament for our relationships. He uses the word
submission. Now, we don't understand that word at first because it's often used
in our day to mean being forced to do something that somebody else wants you to
do.

But as it's used in the Bible, the meaning is almost the exact opposite. It
means the willing choice to be unselfish. It's choosing to do what others need.

It's not being forced to do what somebody else wants. It's choosing to do what
others need. It's living like Jesus.

That's what Jesus did. He submitted himself to us by coming to this earth, being
born as a baby, living as a man, giving his life on a cross. He chose to do what
we needed, and God says that's what we're to do.

So listen to verses 13 to 17. As he talks about the relationship that we have
with our government, and as he even talks about the relationships that slaves
have with masters, and how even there we are to choose to be unselfish, 13 to
17, "Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every authority instituted among
men, whether to the king as to the supreme authority or to governors who are
sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right, for
it is God's will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of
foolish men. Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for
evil.

Live as servants of God. Show proper respect to everyone. Love the brotherhood
of believers, fear God, honor the king.

" These verses, as he begins to talk about government, these verses talk about
how to be unselfish even when you're not in control of the relationship. That's
the hardest time to be unselfish. If I've got a little bit of control, like in a
family, I can have a little bit of control.

It can be easier to be unselfish because maybe I can control them to be
unselfish towards me. We think if I'm in control, I can be unselfish, but Peter
teaches us how to be unselfish even when we're not in control. And one of the
most important decisions you and I make every day of our lives is found The
choice to tell our hearts, to teach our hearts, to depend with our hearts on God
in order to be unselfish, in order to be submissive.

You look at this and you think, well, what's the practical side of it? How do
you do this? How do you express the Christian attitude of unselfishness in all
of our relationships?

Peter says, well, okay, let's start with the difficult ones. Let's start with
two of the most difficult relationships. Let's talk about, first of all, the
government.

Submit to the government. And he says, here's the motive. Here's why you do it.

Did you notice the words? For the Lord's sake. Do it for the Lord's sake.

You don't do it for your sake. You don't do it for the government's sake. You do
it for the Lord's sake.

If you do it for you or for the government, you're going to find it very hard to
live with an unselfish heart because your heart's going to always be drawn into
what you want if you're doing it for you or what the government has or hasn't
done if you're doing it for the government. Now, what does he mean here? How do
I submit to the government for the Lord's sake?

Because I realize that everything that I do is an example of who I am in Jesus
Christ. So he says here, if you'll do this, it will silence the ignorance of
foolish men. When you are angry with the government, when you have a selfish
attitude toward the government, people pick up on that.

And foolish people think that Christianity is all about fighting what's wrong
with the government. They don't get it. They minimize your faith.

They shrink it down to something they can ignore. But when you show unselfish
love, even to your enemies, now the government may or may not be your enemy, but
let's take it to the very worst because the government certainly was the enemy
of Christians in this day. The government was beginning to persecute Christians
in this day, the day that 1 Peter was written.

So when you show unselfish love to even your enemies, it becomes impossible to
ignore. It plants a seed of faith in people's lives that are around you. Now
Peter even tells us some very practical things to do here.

There was a word "unselfish" in our attitude toward the government. He says you
show proper respect. The Bible says all people deserve your respect.

Not because they've earned it, but because they're a creation of God. Some
people absolutely have not earned it. They've done everything in their life to
not earn your respect.

So you don't respect because they've earned it. This is an entirely new way of
thinking. People don't deserve your respect.

People are given your respect because God commands me to give it. God is a
respecter of all people. God loves everyone.

He's calling everyone into faith. So you respect everyone. That's one of the
simple ways we do this.

And then he says another simple way is you honor the king. You honor your
leader, whether the leader is a king or a president or whatever the king is
called or the leader is called in your country. Now that doesn't mean you have
to agree with your leader about everything, but you can honor even when you
disagree.

It's a favorite sport these days to dishonor our leaders, and there's all kinds
of reasons that we do it. But as followers of Christ, the Bible says, no, honor
your leaders. You can disagree, but still honor them.

Now after looking at government, Peter looks at an even more difficult
relationship. He talks about slaves and masters. In verses 18 to 20, "Slaves,
submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are
good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh.

For it is commendable if a man bears up under the pain of unjust suffering
because he is conscious of God. But how is it to your credit if you receive a
beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you
endure it, this is commendable before God.

" Now as Peter writes about this in his day, he's writing to a culture that was
filled with slaves. There were 60 million slaves in the Roman Empire. They were
possessions, but they did all of the work.

The doctors, the teachers, the musicians, the secretaries, all the work was done
by slaves in the Roman Empire. They ran the country, but they had no real
freedom. And depending on their master, they may have often been treated
harshly.

As the Bible talks about the relationship of slaves and masters here, it's not
condoning slavery. It's telling people how to deal with the reality that they're
facing. And other places in scripture talks about being free if you can be free.

So he's not condoning slavery here. He's saying, "Here's the kind of
relationship you need to have even if you're in this situation. " He says,
"Submit even if they're harsh.

" Submit, remember, means to be unselfish in your relationship with them.
Continue to pray for them. Continue to love them.

Ask that God would bring them to faith even if they are harsh. We're to be
unselfish even towards our enemies. We're to love even our enemies and pray for
them.

And Peter says the motive here is it's commendable before God. God will commend
it in the end. God will reward it in the end.

Those who suffer, who have suffered and who suffer today under slavery, and who
still continue to love and pray for their masters, God will commend that in the
end. The harsh master, the way Satan wants to use that is to steal a heart of
love from God and replace it with a heart of hate. Only God has the power to
keep love in the heart of even a slave.

But when that happens, God's going to reward that love for all of eternity. When
I get to heaven, when you get to heaven, we're going to see some people being
rewarded for being treated harshly in ways that are above and beyond our
imagination. I've never had to face this in my life.

But there are people who have, and they've continued to love God and pray for
even those who are torturing them. Those people's reward in heaven is going to
be beyond description. And maybe just a few of them, because they loved even
their enemies, their reward will be that that harsh master saw a kind of faith
in them that caused them to come to Christ, caused their life to change, and
that person who was torturing them on this earth and came to Christ will be
standing with them for all eternity in heaven because they loved in even the
most difficult circumstance.

That's the reality of love in the real world. People don't do what we want. They
don't act like we want.

But in any circumstance, I can continue to choose to show unselfish love because
Jesus has shown his unselfish love to me. Let's ask for God's strength because
we can't do this without his strength. And so, Father, we come to you and we
pray that when you call on us to love in difficult circumstances, maybe it's
with somebody even in our family who's being harsh towards us, maybe it's
something at work, maybe something at school, or maybe for some of us, there's a
situation of persecution, God, when you call on us to love our enemies in those
circumstances, we need you, Jesus, to give us the strength to do that.

We cannot do it without you. You loved your enemies. You prayed for those and
forgave those who were crucifying you on the cross.

God, if we're going to have that kind of spirit, that kind of unselfish love, we
need the power of Christ in us like never before. So we ask for it right now. We
ask for it right now in Jesus' name.

Amen. Tomorrow, we're going to follow up on this by looking at Jesus, the only
one who can give us the power to live truly unselfish lives.