Published: September 21, 2025 | Speaker: Mark Freitag | Series: 1 Peter - Part 18 | Scripture: 1 Peter 2:16-17
Transcript
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We're in 1 Peter chapter 2 once again this morning. this morning. Our focus will be on verses 16 and 17, but again I'm going to read uh starting
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at verse 11 down through 17. Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts
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which wage war against the soul. Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may
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on account of your good deeds as they observe them glorify God in the day of visitation. Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether to a
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king as 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
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may silence the ignorance of foolish men. Submit as free men and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use
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it as bondslaves of God. Honor all men, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king. Let us pray.
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Our father, we do again ask that by your holy spirit you would speak. you would speak to each one of us that you might put the word as we just sang deep within
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our hearts that we might not only see our our duty but the joy of obedience to our God and that by doing
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these things you would truly build your church and your church would be doing these things to which Peter exhorts us that By seeing our excellent deeds,
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others who do not yet know you might by seeing these things come to give glory to your name. We ask in Christ's name.
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I will admit to some struggle to outline and kind of parse the sections of First Peter chapter 2 here. Um, in one
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verse that we look at today, Peter forgot to put in a verb. And so that's that's kind of hard. In another verse, he uses the tense in
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three cases, but doesn't use that same tense in the fourth case. And it's like, well, what did he intend? And even uh
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all of the scholars and commentaries I look at, um none of them agreed. Um as someone has said, you you read from six
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scholars and you'll get seven opinions or something like that. We have, I think, Peter generalizing here, laying
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the groundwork for what is to come in verses 18 and on into chapter 3. And that's how I've taken this. And
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again, I know that other people divide these sections differently and look at the submission to the human institutions or the government as the point of 13 and
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15. But I I see things more general and that's how I am approaching this sermon uh this morning. Again,
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um there's a great paradox I see here in the phrase in verse 16, submit as free men,
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free slaves is a oxymoron. Um and Peter says, "Submit yourselves as free people."
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free people." And I think it tells us that Peter has two concerns. two concerns. He is concerned about our outward actions. We we see that in 11:12 uh 13
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that that we're to have that beautiful life. We are to live in a manner that is excellent behavior before those outside
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the church. the church. But he also is concerned by our inner motivation to do that. Act as free men is how it's translated
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in the New American Standard. It's in italics, which means they had to supply that word. Some of your translations will again in italics say live as free
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The question is what does Peter want us to do and what does he want us to think? In verse 14 of chapter 2, we we see that uh the will of God is that you silence
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um the um the ignorance of foolish men by doing good. They're they're foolish because they don't fear God and and they don't walk
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in his ways. And our job again is to live that beautiful life. But in verse 16, he's now looking at our
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motivation, our inner virtues, when he says, "Whether you are submitting to the government and its institutions and authorities,
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and authorities, or you're submitting, as we'll see in verses 18 and following, your master, your boss, your boss, examine what motivates your submission.
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You cannot say I am free in Christ therefore I submit to no humans.
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But there's again there's no verse or verb in verse 16. It just starts as free men. The question is what does he mean by that? What is his
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emphasis? And I again believe that we go back up to verse 13 in our submission. Submit as free men.
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free men. Remember that to submit means to arrange one's life under the authority or the guidance of another.
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There is still freedom in submission. There's freedom in those relationships because we decide how to follow the leader or our master.
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we were ransomed by Christ's blood, and we no longer live, as he says in chapter 1, the feudal way of life you inherited from your forefathers.
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There is true freedom. And yet he says, "Submit as free men." Submit as free men. a a true paradox uh docs. How do we live or
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act or submit as free people? Well, he says, "Do not use your freedom as a covering
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for evil." for evil." And that covering, some people call it a
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We do not hide behind a veil a veil to do despicable things. This is not why we were given this freedom. Freedom is never a license for
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self-indulgence or dishonorable, or dishonorable, cowardly, selfish or mean-spirited acts by Christians.
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Karen Jobes in her commentary writes, quote, "Freedom in Greco Roman thought had to do with virtuous inner qualities, not the ability to do whatever one
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wants." See, that's the inner motivation, the inner virtues, the inner life I think that Peter calls our attention to.
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In the things that I read from the uh it's the National Museum of AfricanAmerican Studies, they claimed that most of the slaves in the United States who were
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freed by the Emancipation Proclamation had one thing in common. They all thought sought autonomy.
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They gathered their families together when they could find them. And some actually um were proud of the fact that they could go anywhere they wanted to
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and become anything they wanted to be. And that may be true uh in their essay on the voices of freed slaves,
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but not all of them. I have read and I could not find the article from some years ago but many of the freed slaves had no idea to how to
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deal with freedom. They didn't know how to live and many went back and became subservient to their old masters again because they
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didn't know how to live as free men and
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freedom. And some want to follow their own ideas and desires. Again, we we want to be able to go anywhere we want and do anything we want to do. And many Christians will cling to 1 Corinthians
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chapter 6 verse 12A which says all things are lawful for me. But forget that Paul goes on to say but
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not all things are profitable. To some this liberation means freedom to do anything they like. And as Paul goes on in that same verse
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to say, they become enslaved by their freedoms. They become enslaved by their sins and their appetites.
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And it has been my observation over the years that some people who come out of very strict homes or overly protective environments when they're growing up become
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when they are out of that environment totally wild and immoral. Now that they are responsible for putting up their the restraints on
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their life, they cannot do it. They were never taught how to be free, how to be free in Christ, how to live a life of freedom, much left to be submissive
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as free men. Paul says, "You are to use your freedom as bondslaves of God." We are free.
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And sometimes we forget that we are free from the condemnation of sin. We're free from the law as our master. We're free from death as the end of
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life. But Peter, I think, says, "But that is no excuse for not being submissive in serving others and obeying God."
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To use a baseball reference, the best sport. We're not unrestricted free agents. Or to use another baseball,
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we are DFAD. We are designated for assignment
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because your freedom is only rightly exercised under God's control.
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Again, in 1 Corinthians 6 and and 7, we we hear the words uh of Paul, you have been bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body. He says in chapter 6 and in chapter 7, you were
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bought with a price. Do not become slaves of men. But true living, true liberty means living by
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doing what is right. And again, as Peter says, ultimately by living this way, we show the world that God is the highest authority,
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not the king or the magistrates or the government, but liberty is not anarchy. And it's not extreme rejection of all
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human institutions. And so we submit as we bring ourselves under those authorities knowing knowing that their authority as we learned in
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Romans is from God and God alone. And so I think Peter gives us uh what I call the the context of the Christian
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life. How what are the areas in which we live? What are the what were the relationships that we face? In verse 17,
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honor all men or respect, show respect for all men or show respect for everyone. Love the brotherhood, fear God, honor
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the king. the king. And what is the significance of these
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one that some believe that the first command again because it's in a different verb tense, honor all men is the is the heading. It summarizes the other three.
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But I have a little problem with that because if honoring all men or respecting all men is the heading for the next three, then what we do in the third one, fearing God, kind of putting
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God in line with everybody else. That's not a satisfying idea to me. Some look at the first and the fourth
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one, honor all men and honor the king, and they see u one of the things that we discussed in Sunday school, kayazm,
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making an x. If the first one is honor the king, then the last one uh honor all men, the last one is honor the king. And
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the other two form the inside relationship as if submitting to the outside relationships, everyone and the king and then submitting to the
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inside relationships, inside relationships, the brotherhood, brothers and sisters in Christ and God. But again, that's not quite how I take
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it. And then if we look at love the brotherhood, does it stand alone in Peter as we limit our love only to fellow
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believers, forgetting that Jesus said in Matthew 5, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. So what I see here is that yes, the
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verbs are important, but the statements are comprehensive in laying out all the possible context,
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the interactions that we will have as we live out our lives day by day. We see in here honoring everyone. Our
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social contacts, social contacts, both casual and the more intimate, our church friendships, loving the
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brotherhood, fellowship opportunities to be with our brothers and sisters in Christ. our spiritual lives when we worship God as a body of believers and celebrate the
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Lord's supper together, but also as we privately read and study the word and pray. And lastly, our political lives
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that we are a polless, we are a people set apart. set apart. And I'm working my way through because it's beyond
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it's beyond what I normally think about and how I think a book called Resident Aliens by William Willon. And I believe that he defines this idea of our political lives
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not as social activism. And I again and some of you I know have been shaken by the events of last week
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and now the all the things that have come out of that. But they define our political lives this way. Quote, "The church's only concern
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is how to be in the world in what form for what purpose." And I think that's where Peter is getting at here. He's trying to get us
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how are we to be in the world? How are we to show our light shining? How are we to
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present to the world these good deeds and excellent behavior? In what form should they come and for what purpose?
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And the verses that follow, as I say, are the immediate context for these things. the general mindset, the emphasis that we ought to have in the virtues of being a bondslave of Christ will be needed. They'll be needed for
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servants. They'll be needed if you are a master. They'll be needed if if you're a wife and you'll be needed as you are a
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husband. And we will see the these words again. The words submit and quote to live with in these following verses are very much connected
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with these imperatives. I think in verse
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as I look at these I see two and not quite the cayazm that others do but I see two social groups in tension and two authorities intension.
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I came across a quote by looking up another quote from and I'm not I'm not a Henry David Thorough uh scholar or that much into him. I think I
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had a reading assignment to read Walden when I was in high school. I lived in Massachusetts for a while and I never visited the pond. So, um, and I have no
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idea why there's a cabin, the Rose Cabin on the Ferman campus, but I came across this quote. I understand he wrote two books. One was
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Walden, one was called Civil Disobedience. And in it, he asked this question. How shall we live our lives in a society that makes being human more and more
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difficult? And I don't know where he comes from and where he goes with that, but Peter says, "Honor everyone." Now, honor is different from submission. Submission is
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placing yourself under their guidance and authority. and authority. Honor is is different. We treat people with dignity. with dignity. We treat them with respect
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because all humans, as Genesis 1 tells us, were created in the image of God. God created man in his own image. In the
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image of God, he created him. Male and female created he him.
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money, dignity do not accord any individual more honor than others. We get this celebrity thing heard on the
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radio. It was the somebody blogger or whatever you call those things.
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She I have no idea if Taylor Swift even knows, but this woman claimed that she was her best friend. People make idols of other people. That's not what Peter is saying here.
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Honor everyone. Treat them with respect because they're in the image of God. And we've lost that in society. We've lost that.
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But Jesus But Jesus dignified our humanity, did he not? He took on flesh and blood.
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We ought to have a humility in our service of others because they are made in the image of God. Honor everyone.
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Honor everyone. But Peter says, and it's I don't know why it doesn't come across in these translations, but the way the verb reads in these next three is keep on. Keep on
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loving the brotherhood. It means habitually and continuously love the brotherhood. Love those who are one with us.
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We honor everyone, but we love the brotherhood. There there's a difference. We're we respect every person but but there's
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a unique bond is there not among believers that that unbelievers cannot understand. The the world doesn't un know brotherhood.
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know brotherhood. It's family. It's family. We sing that blessed be the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love. We have we have a union unlike any other
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union of people and we see in this context and that's why I read from 11 on down we are in a
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battle each one of us we are there are things that are attacking us from our own backgrounds our own lives the things that we face and we need people to be
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around us who understand what it's like to go through those things.
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and perhaps one of the greatest places in 1 Corinthians 12. And if one member suffers, all members suffer with it. If one member is honored, all members rejoice with it. Or go to Romans 12.
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Rejoice with those who rejoice. Weep with those who weep. These are intention. And yet Peter says, "You will live in a
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society and you will live in a body of believers. Honor everyone, but keep on loving the brethren."
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There are two authorities that I see here again. here again. allegiance to God, fear God, or again, keep on fearing God, but keep on honoring the king.
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And Peter's words would have immediately respond, had a response in his readers. They would think, it says literally in the Greek, the king, but they would think of the emperor.
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respect for those God has placed in The quote I was looking up and it's misqued and misigned to many, but
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Theorough wrote in Walden, quote, "The mass of men lead lives of quiet
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desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.
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I believe that phrase could describe a good portion of my life. What does God want from me? How do I live in this world?
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Keep fearing God. In chapter one, Peter has said, "Conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay upon the earth."
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You've heard Chuck preach on it. There are many who who write, "Fear God. We have reverence for God." Pooh. That's
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not the idea here. There is a godly dread and terror of God that we ought to respect. He is the God of the universe.
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He is our creator. He is our king. Paul wrote to to Timothy and he says, "God dwells in unapproachable light.
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Do we not fear him? Do we not have that?" Yes, it is a reverence. It is a respect, but it's much deeper than that.
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One of the commentators, Gapelt, I I'm forgotten his first name, he writes that fear belongs only to God because God alone determines existence and
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But we don't live lives of desperation. We don't even live lives of resignation. You have been born again, Peter has already said, to a new and living hope.
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We don't live in desperation. We live in freedom as bonds slaves of Christ. And we fear God alone. We honor the
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king. We show him proper respect. We honor him because of the office that he represents. But you are not to fear
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him. Your freedom, your freedom to submit as free people free people is in the Lord. And only God is to be feared as
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sovereign Lord of all. Submit as free men. And do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bonds
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slaves of God. Let us pray. Our
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Peter. As hard as we may have a time of trying to align them, perhaps outline them, but he speaks not only to our actions,
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what we ought to do, but the motivation of our heart. Where are our loyalties? What are our attitudes toward the
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freedom that we have, the true freedom in Christ? in Christ? And Father, we rejoice knowing again the words that Jesus spoke to his disciples
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about the truth, the truth of your word. You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free. You shall be free indeed. Father, help
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us to live as these free people, knowing that we submit for your glory, for your honor. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.
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Would you please rise for the
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To him who loves us and released us from our sins by his blood. And he has made us to be a kingdom priest to his God and