Living as Servants of God (1 Pet. 2:13-17)

This sermon was preached on 4/8/2011

It is common for people to want to be free from all kinds of chains. In a sense, history can be summarised as repeated attempts for freedom from oppression, whether it be oppression connected to economic deprivation or social manipulation or national enslavement. To such people, Peter’s instruction in verse 16 will sound odd: ‘Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.’

Christian freedom

Peter’s description of Christians is that they are free, which leads us to ask, ‘From what are they free?’ We need to ask this question because its answer will enable us to use our freedom correctly. They are free from several causes of slavery.

First, Christians have been set free from the penalty of sin. Every person is a sinner, and each of their sins has consequences. There is a day coming when every person who has not trusted in Jesus will stand at God’s judgement seat and receive the penalty that they deserve, which will be condemnation by the Judge who will pronounce the sentence of eternal punishment. Yet there is also a sense in which everyone is condemned already because each knows that they have broken God’s law. A thief who has been caught does not have to wait until he appears in court before finding out what will happen to him.

The way for escaping this condemnation, of becoming free from it, is by believing in Jesus, who has already paid the penalty for those who will trust in him. There on the cross he bore the punishment due to his people and made full payment for their sins. They enter into the state of pardon when they believe in Jesus.

Second, Christians have been set free from the power of sin. We can imagine a thief who has been pardoned but who then resumes his practice of stealing. The pardon in itself was not sufficient to change his way of behaviour. Those who trust in Jesus have not only been pardoned, they also are given power to live a different kind of life. This power is from the indwelling Holy Spirit, who enables them to deal with remaining sin in their hearts. Sometimes they can sense the power of indwelling sin and it makes them afraid. Yet they have to remember that they are no longer in bondage to the power of sin. They have been set free from it and are therefore able to live according to God’s revealed will.

Third, Christians are free from the opinions and notions of other humans regarding faith in God. A Christian cannot be compelled to believe something about his faith that is not found in the Bible.

Yet they have not been set free from all ownership. Although they are no longer the servants of sin, they have become the servants of God. In what ways do we belong to God? Obviously we belong to him by creation – he is the one who has made each of us with our individual personalities. We belong to him by election, because in the mystery of his purpose he chose each of his people. And we belong to him by redemption – Jesus purchased us when he paid the penalty of our sins on the cross. Then we belong to him by regeneration because he came to us when we were dead in our sins and made us alive. Finally we belong to him by consecration, as Paul exhorts at the beginning of Romans 12.

Paul says in Romans 6:12-14: ‘Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.’ It is now the responsibility of Christians to recognise that they must serve God in every situation.

Christians and human governments

One of these situations is how we should react to human governments. Peter mentions that we should submit to them for the Lord’s sake. The reference is to Jesus, which means that submission to human governments is part of one’s discipleship. Jesus instructed that those who follow him should render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s’ (Matt. 22:21). Further, they are to submit to them because, in doing so, they are imitating the example of the Lord who submitted to various authorities when their requirements did not cause him to disobey God.

Peter makes it clear that a God-glorifying response to human governments is an important aspect of Christian witness because ‘by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people.’ The apostle has in mind accusations that may be made against the church. In his day, they were accused of being anti-social because they did not take part in religious activities, of cannibalism because they had a meeting where they ate the body and blood of their leader, of affecting the economic prosperity of a region because they did not purchase items connected to false religions. How were they to answer such charges? Peter’s response is that they should obey the authorities whenever they could. They had to prove by their way of life that they were good citizens.

Peter highlights a possible danger – they are not to use their freedom as a cover-up for evil. His words are a reminder to Christians that they are still sinners and capable of sinful actions, indeed capable of using their divinely-given blessings as avenues to sin. The best known way of doing this is what is called antinomianism, which is connected to those who assume that they are not under the law and have therefore engaged in all kinds of sinful practices. Another way of using freedom as a cover-up for evil is to engage in hypocrisy, of living a life of pretence in which we give the impression that we are not in bondage to our sins.

John Brown, in his commentary on 1 Peter, points out that the service of God is reasonable, pleasant, honourable and advantageous. It is reasonable because he made us to serve him – the reason why we have all our abilities is that God gave them to us so that we would serve him. It is pleasant because, as Jesus said, the yoke is easy and the burden is light., and those who bow to him discover that this is indeed so (Brown admits it is impossible to tell a person who has not tried it that this is the case). It is honourable because it is a position of great dignity, far higher than the service of an earthly ruler. It is advantageous because God has promised to give a great reward to those who serve him.

Living as servants of God

The way to live the life of liberty is summarised by Peter in verse 17: ‘Honour everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the emperor.’ We may find the list a bit unusual because it seems to indicate progression of respect, yet does not mention God as the climax. It is better to see Peter using a literary technique which puts the two most important aspects within the two less important aspects. In this way, we can see that Peter puts one’s attitude to unbelievers and the emperor as less important as one’s attitude to fellow-believers and to God (when we say that the unbelievers and rulers are less important, we don’t mean that they are unimportant). Seeing the four commands as two groups of two is helped when we notice that Peter uses the same word to describe how Christians should react to unbelievers and to the rulers.

We honour all people when we treat them as individuals who are made in the image of God, to respect the contributions that they make through their creaturely endowments to the life of society. In this simple requirement, we see the sinfulness of any action or word that demeans any person. A Christian should never insult another human being. This requirement is basically a summary statement of the second table of the moral law, that we are to love our neighbours as ourselves. And from it we can deduce that the Christian should, above all people, see the value of each human being.

We are to love the brotherhood, that is, all those in the family of God. We love them because we have the same Father, the same Saviour, the same indwelling Spirit, the same interests, and the same destiny. How do we show love to them? By praying for them, by speaking well of them, by helping them in whatever way we can, whether in a spiritual or in a practical manner.

We fear God because of his greatness – everything about him is far above what we can possibly be. His power, his knowledge and his wisdom are infinite. We fear him because he is righteous, determined to punish justly all who disobey him. In a sense, we fear him most of all because he is gracious and we do not want to lose what his grace has for us by any sinful action on our part. We show that we fear him by thinking about him, by admiring him, by loving him, and by obeying him.

We honour the ruler when we obey his laws, as long as his laws do not require us to disobey God. The ruler is to be honoured because he is a representative of God, and we show our respect by also praying for them. This means that Christians should be the best subjects in a kingdom