Submit for the Lord's Sake First B Jackson 2024-06-30 Automatically transcribed. Where this and the recording disagree, the recording is the record. ---- Alright. Mexican. Alright. Good morning, everybody. Welcome. It is about that time. And would you stand with me? I would love to sing together. And here's here's a scripture to lead us into worship together. And it's an invitation, and it's from the book of Revelation. And it says this, let anyone who is thirsty come on in. Let anyone who desires drink freely from the water of life. Would you join us in singing God so love? Come all you weary. Come all you thirsty. Come all you weary. Come all you thirsty. Come to the will and never is dry. Is well I'm walking in freedom God so loved God so loved the world. Doc's out and praise God for all of us praise Let's sing that again. Praise God. Praise Praise God. From whom all blessings flow praise him praise him for the wonders of his love for God so loved the world soul love God's soul love an invitation to bring all bring all your failures bring your addictions Amen. You can have a seat here for a moment, and Nick is gonna share a couple announcements. Hey. Good morning. Welcome, everybody. So lovely to have you all here today. First and foremost, the First Baptist Church, you may not know, but Vacation Bible School was this previous previous week. Week. I just want to thank everybody who participated. If you participated at all in Vacation Bible School, would you stand up right now? I'll give you a round of applause. Yeah. Great. Great job. I tell you what, it was so amazing to be here. We had so many volunteers. And as you know, everything goes smooth when you have a lot of people. And the child to student ratio so the child to leader ratio was so wonderful that the kids were calm and having a great time, and everybody got attention and heard about Jesus. Thank you so much for that. The first BBQ, you probably remember last week, we had a barbecue out here on the lawn. We have another one coming up July 14, so come participate with that. It's a great way to invite friends to the church and have them just hang out between services. And bring your sunglasses. It was pretty bright, wasn't it? We also have our church camp out coming out. There's two of them, July nineteenth through twenty first and August twenty three through twenty fifth down at Palisades Lake. It's a super great time. Bring your own camping gear and your food, and it's a great time to fellowship. Also, a great time to invite people. Please, if you have questions, ask Brian McCooey. That information is on the church website. We do need sound booth volunteers to make my voice sound so lovely and lush. It's not as hard as it looks. If you'd be interested, please talk to Blake or myself, and we'd love to have you. We don't just put you up there without training. You'll have all the help you need. Compass Women's Care is having their annual fundraiser July 9, but you have to reply by July 1. If you need this information, it was in your weekly email. If you need your weekly email, you can sign up by going to the website. But this is our Crisis Pregnancy Center, but they also do so many other things, ultrasounds. They do classes for people who are becoming parents. I mean, do so much. So please support them. Please show up, but you have to let them know tomorrow? I think it's by tomorrow. So you can also pull up this slide online and use your that QR code to register for that as well. Sunday school will only for grades three through fifth, will not be meeting during the summer. Only that little section of our Sunday school, but every k through second does, preschool does. And then our next slide, I think, is for high school and middle school still will meet all summer long. They're down in the library, and we'll send them off after the song service. They can go downstairs. And they do a great job there, so send your teens down there. And I believe that's it. Why don't you all stand up and welcome your neighbor, and thanks for being here. I love the lyrics to that song, but just the first line of each verse, a love that will not let me go, a light that followeth all my way. Like in John eight twelve when Jesus says, I'm the light of the world. If you follow me, you don't have to walk in the darkness anymore because you have the light that leads to eternal life. Joy that seek us through pain. Is there suffering? Yes, there is. But does God offer us joy? Church? He does. A deep down, gut level joy. He does. Cross that lift us up our head. We can look to the cross and that's where we find our hope. That's where we find our salvation. That's where we find our joy. I wanna keep singing with you. Okay? All my days, I've been held in your hands. From the moment that I wake up until I lay my head, I will sing the goodness of God. Let's sing of his faithfulness in our lives. All my life you have been faithful. All my life you have been so with my life laid down surrendered now give you everything your goodness is running after running after me Your goodness is running after running after me all my life. All my life you have been faithful. Here is a good word from first Peter one. It's praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In his great mercy, he doesn't give us what we do deserve, mercy. He's given us new birth into living hope. Just let your minds rest on living hope for a moment here. That's what is that's that's what God is giving us through Christ. Because Christ is living, we have a living hope, what is sure and certain, through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead and into an inheritance future, into an inheritance that can never perish or spoil or fade. Is that good news or what? Things here, they perish, they spoil, they fade. Inheritance in heaven, never perish, never spoil, never fade, kept in heaven for us. How do we get there? Through faith, our living hope in Christ. Cows that lay between us. How hot a mountain I could not climb. In desperation, bear my shame the cross is spoken I am forgiven the king of kings calls me his own beautiful savior I'm yours forever Jesus Christ you have There's salvation in your name, Jesus Christ, my living hold. And then came the morning You can have a seat for a moment. This is the worship through giving part of the service, and I'll invite the ushers to to come forward, and we're gonna sing, act justly, love, mercy, walk humbly. It comes right from Micah six eight, and it says this, what does God require from us? Have you ever asked yourself that question, God, what would you like from me? Well, hear from Micah six eight, Church, act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God. Before we sing, would you pray with me? I just like to give thanks here for a moment. God almighty, we are grateful. Thank you. This is who you are. You are perfectly just. You are rich in mercy, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. In humility, you emptied yourself, and you came not to be served, but to serve others and then give your life as a ransom for many. Thank you, God, for your justness, your mercy, for your humility, for your great love for us. God, with this in mind, with this in mind, may it spur us on to do the same, to act justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly in your strength, in the spirit, using the gifts that you've given. God, thank you for this church. Thank you for each gift given here. Not just in these plates. God, gifts that we're we're using each and every single day. The gift of compassion and mercy and administration. There's just so many and you've wired us to use these gifts to build your kingdom, to love you, to love your people. God, would you bless what goes in these plates and otherwise, and advance your kingdom? In Jesus' name, amen. Yes. Tim, I invite you up? Also, thank you Blake, children's church. So k through second grade and also middle school, high school, you're invited to to go to. Yep. And and can I pray too before you God, thank you for your word? Thank you that it does not return void. Lord, would would it fill our hearts? Would it fill our minds this morning? But not just to fill us, but to fill us to overflowing. That what we hear today, would be challenged by it. We would be convicted by it. But also Lord, it would move us to action. Lord, that we would do the greatest commands that you've asked us to, to love you with our heart, soul, mind, and strength, to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. In Jesus' name, amen. I'm reading from first Peter chapter two verses 11 through 20. Beloved, I urge you as foreigners and strangers to abstain from fleshly lust 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, because of your good deeds as they observe them, glorify God on the day of visitation. Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every human institution, 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 silence the ignorance of foolish people. Act as free people. Do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bondservants of God. Honor all people. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king. Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and gentle, but to those who are harsh. For this finds favor, if for the sake of conscience towards God, a person endures grief when suffering unjustly. For what credit is there if when you sin and are harshly treated, you endure it with patience? But when you do what is right and suffer for it, you patiently endure it. This finds favor with God. Thank you, Tim. Good morning. Good So who here will admit that they like just a little bit of mild rebellion? A little bit of sticking it to the man just for fun. Nothing destructive, but you know, just like a little bit of like, you know, I'm going get mine. Since they just went downstairs, I'll tell you who loves it. My children. If you know my family well, you know that my kids have pretty severe food allergies, eggs and most nuts. So not like indigestion, we're talking like EpiPens and we're going to the hospital. So public service announcement, if you ever need an EpiPen or some Benadryl, come find Natalie or I, we'll hook you up. But my kids are generally pretty good about managing the food that they eat because, well, we've put rules around them, and they've also experienced what happens when it goes wrong. So they generally do a pretty good job with that. But one time, when the kids were about three and four years old, they're playing upstairs, and we'd recently had guests, and so the upstairs guest area with kitchenette or whatever, it was stocked with, well, with this. Who knows what this is? Have you ever drank it by itself? It's terrible. So we have that moment, you know, and you parents will know this, where the kids are playing upstairs and it gets a little too quiet, and you're like, we need to go check. And so we go upstairs and the kids are just partying. You know, they've they've busted into this mini fridge, and they're like drinking creamer and like some cheap cranberry juice or something, and they're just having the best time. And they weren't having a great time because the creamer was any good to drink or because the cranberry juice was. In fact, they had a terrible stomachache, and they'd spilled some of the cranberry juice on Natalie's brand new white carpets. But and it could have gone much worse. It ended it ended up being fine. But the reason why they enjoyed it was because they weren't supposed to be doing it. Now, I've been picking on my kids, but just to level the playing field here, we all think it's cool too. And I can show you. Because look at what the most iconic movies are like. They are usually about a rebel sticking out on their own and going for it alone. You think about all the classics. You think about Cool Hand Luke. You think about James Dean and Rebel Without a Cause. How cool these guys seem. Or you think about Braveheart or the outlaw Josie Wales. You think about Moana. The classics. But today, we're gonna look and we're gonna see what the Bible has to say about submission and about rebellion. So out of what Tim just read, here's gonna be our key verse for today. 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. Now for context, when I get the opportunity to teach, I'm usually going to bring you guys things that are weighing heavy on my heart. These are things that I am personally working on in my own walk with Jesus. And in truth, these sorts of exhortation passages, these are the hardest ones. Because I feel like a little bit of a fraud whenever I bring you something that I myself am still working on. It's something I'm falling short on. But I'm always gonna try to be honest with you guys about it. So I'm not saying here's something that I've mastered and you need to get on board. I'm saying here's something we can all work on together. So with that in mind, here's our thesis statement for today. For the sake of the kingdom of God, we who are truly in Christ should be in humble submission to those put in authority by God with very little concern for pragmatism or our own well-being. The outline then, three point outline that follows directly from our key verse. Oh, no. I've lost it. Well, three point outline, it's going to be really straightforward and straight from the verse, is who submits? Ourselves. Second point, whom do we submit to? We submit to every human institution. And third, why? We do it for the Lord's sake. So point one, who submits? Ourselves. This is simple. We do not, we cannot submit for others. This is so key to remember, not just as we talk about it today, but as we go out into the world and walk out our faith. Because this is something that we can call each other into, but at the end of the day, it's for each and every heart in here to work on. Just as I can't make you do what the text says in any other application, it's a heart issue. I cannot force you to truly submit. We here at church, we can teach you. We can lead you in worship. We can encourage you to join the Bible studies that are taking place here. Men's group isn't meeting this week, by the way, July 4. But we can also encourage you to join a small group because I'll tell you, the most maturation I've ever seen in my life and in the life of Christians around me tends to happen when we are consistently inviting other mature Christians into our life and we're giving them license to speak into what we're doing. Often that's encouragement and sometimes it's rebuke. And it's hard. But man, there is growth in there and it is worth it. But it is not up to your community group to change your heart. It's up to you and the Lord. Because you have to decide if this whole Jesus thing is really what the book says it is. Because we can't do it for you. If Jesus is who he says he is, then the only logical conclusion is to submit not only in this, but in every aspect of your life to him. And if he's not who he said he is, then all this church stuff that we're doing, as I hopefully showed at Easter, is a waste of time. But in either case, nominal or surface level just attendance at church or commitment is not the logical conclusion. No. Our hope is in the resurrection. And that's our first point, that you have to do the work yourself with the Holy Spirit. You have to make that choice, and God will do the work on your heart if you will but submit and take that first step in faith. So our second point then, uh-oh, Blake. There we go. Is whom do we submit to? We submit to every human institution. This is straight from the text. I did the work for you since I'm teaching, and I went and looked up the word that we have here as every. I looked it up in the Greek and the blue blue letter Bible, which is a great resource if you've never used it. And you know what that word every actually means? It means every. It means all, whosoever, every man of. You get the idea. And it's similar. You go down the line, you look at human, you look at institution, you look at king, you look at authority. Unfortunately for us both, Peter didn't leave us any wiggle room here. Now one clarification. He is talking about governing authorities. So, like, the girl Girl Scouts of America can't just, like, kick in my door with their green sash and, like, tell me what to do or something. We're talking about people that are actually put in ruling authorities. But, like I said, the problem is, as Christians, we should submit to them. The imperative is locked tight. And Romans thirteen one through two, Paul is basically saying the same thing. He says, every person is to be subject to the governing authorities for there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. Whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God, and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves. And in case you think that this only means governing authorities when they're in line with God, Peter, he's writing this letter, he's writing and Paul, he's writing that one, they're talking specifically about Nero. And if you need a refresher on Nero, Nero was insane. He rose to power when Claudius, his stepfather and great uncle, was poisoned by Nero's mom. That's Claudius's wife and cousin. Name was Agrippina. This is not a legal or a peaceful transition of institutional power. Nero then had his own mother, that woman Agrippina, murdered. And then later, the year before this letter was written, he had his own wife put to death. He would later have his favorite male sexual companion castrated, dressed up like the wife that he had murdered, and then he married him. This is not a sane or moral person. This is not a godly man. In sixty four AD, right after this letter was written, Nero famously played the fiddle while Rome burned. He was excited to be able to redecorate Rome in a more artistic and Greek style. He decided to blame the Christians for starting the fire and actually accidentally started the official Roman policy of differentiation between the religion of the Jews and of the Christians. He also unofficially started the policy of persecution of the Christians. He was thought by many in the early church to be the antichrist. So we're not talking about a good dude here. When Peter is writing this and when the early church is reading this, they knew that what Peter really meant when he said every human institution was every human institution. The point here is that God allows us to be governed in the world by people that are not of him, but he has put them there. An important caveat though, is that though we are to submit to them, we are to never fear them in the same way that we fear the Lord. Matthew ten twenty eight is really helpful with this. And I really like Eugene Peterson's paraphrase on the message, which is why I included here. Save your fear for God who holds your entire life, body and soul in his hands. We don't fear those that can only kill the body. Human authorities can only kill the body. But God holds our entire life, body and soul in his hands. Okay. So we submit to every human institution, but we do not fear them in the same way that we fear God. We have a special reverential fear that is only for the creator God. Now we also need to discuss what the exceptions to what Peter is talking about. And we need to draw this from context. This is from scripture. This is not from human experience or human wisdom. Here are some examples in the Bible of when godly men and women disobeyed a human authority. Now I'm not going go through each one of them. What you need to know is whether New Testament or old, these are faithful individuals, and they are not making these choices out of personal convenience or out of seeking comfort. What they are doing is they are doing these out of deep convictions in the Lord. So whenever God's law is directly contradicted by a human authority, not only do you get to, but you have to rebel. But you do so acknowledging that there very well may be consequences. So clearly, if the government or a human institution is calling you to violate the explicit law of God or even worship the government, you have to disobey. And first Peter three and Philippians one are really helpful in this. For it is better if God should will it that you should suffer for doing what is right rather than doing what is wrong. Philippians one twenty nine says, for it has been granted to you on for it has been granted for Christ's sake not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him. Suffering for doing right can be in God's will. And that's not a popular teaching in today's era of prosperity theology. But it's all over the text. Now I want to be very clear. Suffering is not the goal. Faithfulness is the goal. Suffering or prosperity can be an outcome, but they are up to God. And first Peter here is very clear that suffering, while doing good, can be in God's will. So let's lay out some practical and specific scenarios as a result of this. The first is, if anyone in authority tells you to worship or not to gather to worship, they tell you not to pray, not to read your Bible, not to share your faith, you humbly and clearly in conviction tell them that you cannot comply and be willing to deal with the consequences of it. Second scenario, if the government that presides over you, if they spend their tax money on false idols, if they spend money collected from you on heathen temples, on human trafficking, unjust wars, sexual immorality, you still need to pay those taxes. Where am I getting that? That's from Mark 12, where Jesus famously says to the crowd gathered around him that we are to render unto Caesar the things that belong to Caesar. The things that I just read, building heathen temples, sexual immorality, human trafficking. Those are things that the Roman government was doing when Jesus said to give to Caesar the coin that bears the very image of Caesar. But he goes on in that same teaching, and he says, and you give to God the very thing that bears the image of God. And what's that? That's each and every one of us. So if the government is committing blatant immorality or just making bad decisions, not pursuing wisdom, or they're violating your conscience, you might still have to submit to them. Or in your conscience, you can choose to flee physically and legally. You might need to renounce your citizenship and deal with the consequences of that. But the biblical answer is never armed insurrection or violence. It is Christ centered humility and conviction in whatever you do. So in summary, if we're gonna disobey, we do so only in accordance with God's word while being prepared to suffer consequences and realizing that it might be in God's will for us to suffer for it. I think that serves as a good transition to our third point. Now don't get excited that I went through the first two so quickly because the third one is a bit longer. Because this is the most critical part. This is the why. As with most things with application text, it's the why that really matters. Because we don't submit so that it will go well with us or with our family or our grandchildren or even with our nation. We submit for the Lord. I'm gonna say that again because it is maybe the the key point here. We do not submit to governing authorities so that it will go well with us or anyone around us. We submit to governing authorities for the sake of the Lord because it's a witness of his faithfulness. And we have to remember all the time in every season, as I've taught before, that the world is fundamentally not about us. That is true both individually and collectively. Individually, and that it's not about Brad. It's not about Carl. It's not about any one of you. It's also not about us gathered together as saints in the church. We ultimately exist for the glory of God, and we have to remember that in everything we do. And I'm guilty of getting this wrong sometimes, where I only obey if the side benefits accrue to me. So that's true with Sabbath, with time in the Bible, with prayer, with financial generosity. All of these things are things that God says it will go well with us if we do those things. But what I have to wrestle with in my heart is why am I doing those things? How do I get my heart to take the spiritual disciplines from a have to or from a wisdom and turn it into a get to? I do that as a response to the love that God has shown me. I get there by looking at the cross and at the empty tomb. Because this is the same fundamental problem that we had in the Garden Of Eden. We only obey when it seems advantageous to us. Adam and Eve sinned in that they could not obey that one simple command from God. Do not eat of this tree. Because they didn't see the wisdom in it. God didn't explain himself to them in that. And so this is the lack of total trust that Satan as tempter took advantage of in the garden. This is the foundation of sin. Anytime that we don't trust God, that is sin. This is also effectively what we as a church have been looking at together in Romans seven and first being the Bible. We struggle to obey unless we see it as being practical in our own interests. Because whenever my perceived short term interests run contrary to the stated commands of God, I struggle in my flesh to obey. In the spirit, we want to do what is right, but in our flesh, we not only have contrary desires, we actually enjoy the rebellion. Romans fourteen twenty three is really clear on this. This is a great memory verse. Whatever is not from faith is sin. Whenever we are not trusting in God, that is sin. And right there, we have to kick out every argument from pragmatism or practical experience. Because God works differently from us, as he says in Isaiah fifty five nine, and we should be glad for it. Because if I had to game plan the kingdom of God, I would make myself rich and famous and smart and just charmingly handsome, Just humble enough that every time they put a microphone in my face, I would say something to the tune of praise God. And yet how God chooses to glorify himself is not through kings. How he established the kingdom of God and continues to grow it is by his own son setting aside his glory to die on a cross, a death of shame for which he did not deserve. First Peter two twenty three is really helpful here. This is another good memory verse. While being abusively insulted, he did not insult in return. While suffering, he made no threats, but he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. That's the attitude of our savior, and that is to be ours. If the death on the cross of the eternal son of God as a peasant is the establishment of the kingdom of God, then and only then does submission to authorities, good or evil, makes sense as a way to glorify God. Jesus submitted himself to seriously illegitimate governments and multiple illegal trials when he had never done anything wrong. No time in his life had Jesus sinned. And yet when he was subject to those atrocities of justice, he didn't even open his mouth. Can we do the same? Can we allow ourselves to be trampled on for the sake of the glory of God? And yet I struggle to follow the speed limit or to wear my seat belt or to think well of politicians and pray for the politicians that I agree with or don't agree with or that I think are corrupt. This is really hard. Here's another way to think of all this. When we chase the same things as the world, we forfeit our witness. When we chase money or success or fame or comfort or status, then no wonder the world doesn't care what we have to say. We're doing the same thing as they are. And it's the same thing with politics. When we chase control, when we chase political power, we are the same as the world. Instead, the historical record has been very clear that when the church is oppressed, when it truly costs something to be a follower of Jesus, when we actually take up our crosses and follow him, then and only then does the world take notice of that our hope is in something totally different. You can think about the parable of the found treasure in Mark thirteen forty four through 46. Jesus is telling a story about a man who finds a great treasure on a land, and he sells everything he has to buy that land, and he does so with joy. Jesus is saying that's true of the kingdom of God. That we don't hold back 1%, and that we don't do it groaningly, but we do so in joy. So maybe for you that's giving up your influence. Maybe that's giving up your wealth, your status, your comfort, your control, whatever it might be. Your identity in anything other than Christ, it needs to go. And this is something, like I said, I'm working on too every day because I have to remind myself of the truth. And I'm just trying to show you that the text says we give up everything for the kingdom of God, and we do so gladly. Conversely, you can look at any of the classic application texts that we tend to talk about in church. This is Galatians five twenty two, Romans 12, Philippians two, James four, first Peter two as we're looking at today. You know what it never says? It never says stick up for yourself, your tribe, or your family for this is what the Lord desires. This is not in the Bible. It's not. But the opposite is everywhere. So let's get really practical for a minute. Let's get down on street level for this. Because if you find yourself consistently getting wound up about politics to the point that it is hurting your Christian witness, where you have forfeited your ability to tell the other side about Jesus, then stop. Take a time out. Make some apologies and seek reconciliation. Get off social media. Stop watching and reading the news. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, that if you spend more time with Fox News or CNN or Facebook or Twitter than you do with your Bible, you are setting yourself up for anxiety and anger and failure. And we have to ship shift our perspective to the eternal one. Because we should support policies that are in line with what God has commanded. We should advocate in our country for justice, for mercy, for life. We do not partner with evil. If you think a platform or a person is evil, don't vote for it. Don't support it. If you think they're both evil, then abstain or do something else. But we cannot allow our support for those right policies to be at a volume and a pitch where it drowns out our gospel message. Because we have this weird thing in American Christianity where we equivocate consumption of information with being a good Christian. It's hurting us and it's hurting the world. Because no one needs your vote. No one needs your political dollars. No one needs your voice, not nearly as much as they need your Christ. That's the hope that you have to offer to the world. So while the Bible never says that we are to participate in politics, there are a bunch of places that explicitly show that we are supposed to evangelize, we're supposed to give generously, we're supposed to love our enemies, We're supposed to be persecuted for the church. We're supposed to be at peace with all men. We're supposed to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters in Christ. We're supposed to chop off our hand or pluck out our eye in order to better pursue righteousness. And I know that is probably offensive. And I know that it's weird, but it's biblical because the Bible is offensive to our flesh. It says that we are sinners totally without merit or redemptive qualities. That our good deeds without Christ are like filthy rags. And yet the eternal son of God, the right king of all creation, he chose to lay down his life for your sins and for mine. And as I look through the scripture, Jesus never once made a recorded comment about politics except what I talked earlier, to pay taxes to Caesar. He did though chastise those that had made a political bargain with a ruling party. It's real simple. That's Jesus on politics. Pay your taxes, don't make political alliances. Jesus also reserved his harshest comments, not for tax collectors, not for prostitutes, not for heretics, not for the invading enemy soldiers of Rome that were occupying God's land. No. He chose his hardest words for the Pharisees, for the people that misused and misapplied God's word to justify their actions and their desires. And he also went really hard after the Sadducees that sold short the kingdom of God and made pragmatic political alliances. So we can stop posting on Facebook about politics. We can take off our bumper stickers and our t shirts because our wrath against Joe Biden or against Donald Trump or any other elected official is not helpful. At best, it's humorously impotent, and at worst, it is harmful for the kingdom. God is sovereign. You, me, our great nation, we are not. We have to get our priorities right. What if here's a thought. What if the church were so committed to our savior that we actually lived in light of the fact that there is an eternity at stake for everyone around us, Christ follower or not. Think of how that contrasts with the manufactured lie that every four years of a political cycle is basically life life and death. Isn't it countercultural to realize that each of us will outlive our nation in eternity? Here's a great quote from C. S. Lewis in his book, The Weight of Glory. I'll leave it up there, but the high part I wanna highlight is all day long, we are in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. No. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations, these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. That's crazy. You are going to outlive civilization. So is everyone around you, the person that makes your coffee, the person that cuts you off in traffic, our president, whoever they might be, they are going to live an eternity. Now that said, if you feel called participate in our local government and can do so without ruining your Christian witness, please do so. Run for school board. Run for county commissioner. Sit on the library board. These are good things. But if you're not capable of doing it in a way that glorifies God, that puts the kingdom of God first and makes it clear that you live for something else, you have some soul work to do first. So I'm not saying don't get involved. I'm saying and this text is saying, don't be involved with politics if you can't do it in a way that is actually Lord honoring. That is in submission to the authorities that God has put in place. And it can't be a power grab. It has to be for God. So we do so with the kingdom of God in mind first. We serve. The irony, of course, is that if we rebel and therefore disobey this written word of God, we put ourselves in the same spot that those who oppose the gospel are in, which is pride. And I recognize this is the end of June, and to many Americans, this is pride month. It is no different to ignore God's word on submission than it is about sexual morality. We should never have pride about sin of any kind. And celebrating sin is the same for Gay Pride Month as it is for Let's Go Brandon. The common thread there is that it feels good to be self justified, to think highly of ourselves and to think less of others, to throw rocks at sinners. And don't be deceived. The religion of new humanism and the religion of just white knuckled, patriotic conservatism, they are both religions apart from Christ. They both throw rocks at what they perceive as sinners that are contrary to their artificial and man made orthodoxy. Because we, as Christians, have to be different. Have we forgotten what we were saved from? That each and every one of us here, no matter how good or moral your life appears, that we were dead in our sins and trespasses apart from Christ. The power of the cross and the empty grave. That is what defines us. Because we were all enemies of God, but he showed his true love in dying for us while we were still sinners. That's Romans five eight. That's true for the leader of the pride parade. That's true for the leader of the storming of the capital. It's true for you, and it's true for me. All of us were enemies of God. The other side of politics, and hear me church, is not our enemy. Our true enemy is not of flesh and blood. Our true enemy is Satan. So the unbelievers, whether they are conservative or liberal, whether they are gay or straight, American or Iranian, they are not our actual enemy. They are prisoners of war of the actual enemy. Our true enemy, he loves the conflict. He loves that we are busy fighting with each other instead of laying our lives down to rescue one another. To drive that home, let's do a thought experiment. Imagine for a second, how do you think about an abused child soldier in Central Africa, in The Middle East, in Burma, kidnapped from their home, forced to watch as their parents are executed, abused, beaten, starved, brainwashed. And they get an AK 47 thrust into their hands, and they're supposed to shoot at a supposed enemy. Meanwhile, the realest threat to them stands behind them, pressing them on and telling them lies. Imagine that. How do you feel about those enslaved children? You don't hate them. You have mercy for them. You have sympathy for them. We work towards rescuing them from the lies that enslave them. We can think the same for those that don't know Christ. We pray for them. We love them. We talk with them without malice. We tell them about the precious grace that we have received, that I was a sinner, lost and confused and alone. But God rescued me And that you struggle still. But here's the big deal. While you once fought in a war that you could not win in that struggle against the flesh, you now fight in a war that you cannot lose. You once fought and you could not win, and you now fight and you cannot lose. And here's a helpful paradigm for me on this. We think eternal and we be faithful in the immediate. So much of what gets us worked up is second order effects in Christianity. So much of where we lose our Christian witness is worrying about, well, if we allow x to happen, then y happens next. But those causalities aren't guaranteed. And time and time again in the Bible, those second order effects, those belong to God. So instead of saying, well, if we don't do this, then that will happen. We can trust in the very same God that sustained Israel not through conquering, but through slavery. That grew the church not through persecute or not through control, but through persecution. Depicts the youngest brother and not the oldest. And saved all the world, not through a king or through a military campaign or through political might, but through an uneducated servant in occupied Palestine. Do we actually think that we believe in the sovereignty of God? Do we really believe that Romans eight twenty eight is true, that God is working all things together for our good? Or do we think that we would be better at God than him? That is the core of faith versus sin. To trust his heart when we cannot see his hand because of what he has already done for us. He's proven his love for us. Do we think that we're wiser than God, that we should supersede his sovereignty, that we know better? Would you have been tempted to kill king Saul in that cave in Ein Gedi when David had the chance to? I would have. I could have justified it a million different ways that that one sin would have been vastly outweighed by the good it would have done for God's kingdom in releasing them from a bad king and bad leader. But we never justify sin, and David knew better. If you were Stephen, would you have allowed yourself to be stoned? If you were Paul, would you have allowed yourself to be subjected to multiple illegitimate trials? Jesus healed the hacked off ear of Malchus' servant in the Garden Of Gethsemane as he was on his way to the cross. He was going to the cross to die for the sins of that very man that was persecuting him and taking him to the cross, and he healed his ear in kindness and love. Can we can we do the same thing, church? Because I feel the same way as you. When I read the news about how corrupt our political class has gotten, how much bad news there is in the world, and it's designed to fire you up. It's designed to tick you off, keep you engaged so that they can monetize you. But it gets to me. It makes me want to do something about it even when I can't. And when I can't, I lash out verbally in anger or I just bottle it up inside. But that isn't our call. Our call is to help what we can actually help and to pray to the all powerful God, to put our sails into his wind, to change our our hearts. So a good paradigm here is to pretend just for a second that you are one of our brothers or sisters in a persecuted nation in China, in India, in Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia. These are the fastest growing churches in the world, and they are subject to the harshest persecution. But they're not overthrowing their governments. No. They're doing something far more powerful, far more effective, and far more important. They are doing the work of the kingdom of God. They are saving souls with the spirit. And they are too busy working on something that actually matters to worry about overthrowing a government. So what do we do about all this? We have concrete commands in scripture that are not conditional. There's a lifetime of work to be done in these two lines. This is how Jesus summarized all of the law and the prophets. Love the Lord your God with all of your heart and your soul and your mind and your strength. And the second is like it. Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these. Everything we do is subject to these two. And we need to be experts, each of us in our own sin. Because that reminds us of the grace that we've received. Because we can always reassure ourselves as I quoted all the time. Romans eight one, there is now there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. If you are in Christ, there is no condemnation. I'll invite the band back up and we'll close with this because our lives having been rescued from sin and death, not our own. They don't belong to us anymore. That is a huge call and an amazing blessing. We can live accordingly. Because just like with my children, God has so much better available for us than dairy creamer and cheap cranberry juice. He has the good wine. He offers us an eternal life and also a life now filled with joy and purpose regardless of circumstances. We have to remember that Jesus never sought power. He never sought fame or wealth. And he certainly never called us to. Neither did his disciples. We're to be in glad submission to those who God put in place for them. So if what I've talked about today isn't your struggle, then by definition it's somewhere else. Bring in community. Talk to the people that know you. Ask them to help you grow in Christ. What is that 1% that you're holding back? What is that one thing that you did that you would never tell anybody? Because Jesus Christ died for that too. You have to know that we cannot out sin the cross. There is no power greater than the empty grave. The greatest news of all time is the gospel. But you have to know the bad news that we were irredeemable without it. Nothing, and I mean nothing, is more powerful than God's love. So if this church is gonna do more than just survive for one more century, if it's going to thrive and rise to the calling of our savior, we're gonna need revival. Church, I pray for revival all the time, and you should too. But you need to remember revival doesn't start in our nation. It doesn't start in our state or in our or in our little town. It doesn't even start in the church. It starts right here in each of our hearts. John three, Jesus told Nicodemus that he needed to be reborn. Each of us can be reborn. So we're gonna sing one more song together to worship. But if you feel convicted in this, don't go through the motions of of singing singing a song to a God that you feel far from. Stay in your seat, hit your knees, pray to God, tell him what you've done, and then talk to somebody else about it. Whether that's one of us with the church or another Christian, talk to them. Because people of first B and Jackson, we need to take this, and then we need to go out into the real world, and we need to show them the hope that we have. I love you, church. Have a great week of worship. Thank you. God, as we go from here, let that be our prayer, our song yet, not us, but you in us. What the world really needs is to see you, Jesus. So would you do that in and through us in Jesus' name. Amen.