1. First, their identity. As you would expect he returns to his Jewish roots to find an example. Israel was declared by God to be a kingdom of priests, a peculiar people, His own possession, a light to the Gentiles, a holy people all throughout the Old Testament. He is not talking about our doctrine of the priesthood of all believers but the role of the Church as a body. We are here to serve and fulfill the purposes of God – not our own purposes. As Paul says in Corinthians, “You are not your own but you are bought with a price.” Our purpose is not self-fulfillment but obedience. Oswald Chambers:

“The first thing that happens after we recognize our election by God in Christ Jesus is the destruction of our preconceived ideas, our narrow-minded thinking, and all of our other patriotisms— we are turned solely into servants of God’s own purpose. The entire human race was created to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. Sin has diverted the human race onto another course, but it has not altered God’s purpose to the slightest degree.”

We are here to declare the praises of God – not declare our own messages. We are to be living testimony to the love of God for the world. We are to intercede for the world in the same way the priests performed intercession for the people. He did not say we are a kingdom of prophets to chastise the world or a kingdom of kings to rule the world. We are a kingdom of priests to come before God in service for the world. Does that create tension between our desire to be prophetic or our desire to rule? They are not only a new people, a new tribe, a new creation and a kingdom of priests but they are “aliens and strangers, sojourners in this world. This does not mean we are wanderers in the wilderness or gypsies. Abraham and Jacob were sojourners but not drifters. The people of Israel were sojourners in Egypt. They were people without their own land but living on a promise.

As Peter said earlier “they were not serving themselves but you” or the author of Hebrews said, “none of them received what had been promised.” Paul says in Philippians that our citizenship is in heaven. Christ says his kingdom is not of this world. Yet, we find ourselves time and again wanting to be residents and citizens of this world and to enjoy all the privileges of citizenship and belonging to this world. Like the children of Israel, we want the things of the nations around us. We want to belong and to be respected – even feared a bit – for who we are. We want to rule and to have power. We want to settle in and find a place in this world – to be at the table and be considered a player. We want to make room for other gods and other ways of doing things instead of seeing ourselves as a possession. We want God as a friend and an ally but not as someone who can do with us whatever he pleases. We want God as a benevolent President with our best interests in mind – not as King. This is totally different from the way Peter understands their relationship with God. They had not yet acquired legitimacy or power or property. They were still marginal and unimportant. They were not yet struggling with the temptations of power – but would be in a few hundred years.

I heard someone this week say we live in the tension between “this world is not my home. I’m just passing through…and for God so loved the world.” It’s not either/or, is it?

2. Their purpose. They were to “live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.”

The purpose of good deeds is not to fix the world but to lead an unbelieving and broken world to glorify God. It is a witness to those who actually persecute the Church. “When the wicked stand before the Lord as their judge, they will not only acknowledge their sin and His sovereignty, they will praise God for the good things we have done – the very things they once persecuted and falsely accused us of.” Bob Deffinbaugh.

It is not to curry favor with the world or for the world to see us as good people. If our good lives do not point to God then we have missed the point. This does not mean everything good we do has to include a tract or a min-sermon. It does mean we stay focused on the purpose of our good lives – to enable even unbelievers to eventually praise God. How do we change the minds of those who are foolish and ignorant? By doing good.

It’s quite different from today’s identity politics. How do marginalized and sometimes misused and persecuted special interest groups change the minds of people? They hire lobbyists and media consultants. They post on change.org. They go on the offensive and demand their being accepted for who they are – not asking for inclusion in the general population. “The demand is not for inclusion within the fold of “universal humankind” on the basis of shared human attributes; nor is it for respect “in spite of” one’s differences. Rather, what is demanded is respect for oneself asdifferent.” That could have been the strategy of the early Church but it wasn’t.

Again, it’s a tension. We are told to pray in secret but to live good lives in public. We are not to look for public approval and acceptance but to think of our lives as signs that point to God. In fact, those same good lives may lead to persecution instead of publicity.

3. “Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every authority instituted among men: whether to the king, as the supreme authority, or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right.”

No tension here! I cannot think of an issue that has received more attention than this one…and it has been answered in so many different ways. On the one extreme is the solution of the German Church. The church and the state were the same. They served each other’s purposes. On the other end of the spectrum is the church against the demands of the state with the state being the natural predator of the church.

I don’t think Peter is arguing for either of these extremes here. In fact, we have a good example in his own life of what he is proposing. Turn to Acts 5:17-42. An angel of the Lord commands them to “tell the people the full message of this new life.” They are arrested for disobeying the orders of the Sanhedrin to be silent about Jesus and they reply, “We must obey God rather than men.”   When are we free to do that?

While it is complicated and, again, there are many, many good answers to that question, it seems we are free to do that in extreme cases – not whenever we disagree with the judgments of our authorities.

First, there should be a command with as much authority as an angel telling us to do something that will lead to punishment. It is not a preference or a feeling or an emotional response. It is a directive from God to obey.

Second, it is when government orders us to do evil. This does not mean we disobey every directive of government that permits evil or leads to an unintended evil – there are many of those – but when we are ordered to do something overtly against the will of God. This was the tension faced by D. Bonhoeffer.

“The church must continually ask the state whether its actions can be justified as legitimate action of the state…as action which leads to law and order, and not to lawlessness and disorder. If the state is creating excessive law and order then the state develops its power to such an extent that it deprives Christian preaching and Christian faith…of their rights. The church must reject this encroachment of the order of the state…The state which endangers the Christian proclamation negates itself.”

“The fearful danger of the present time is that above the cry for authority, be it of a Leader or of an office, we forget that man stands alone before the ultimate authority and that anyone who lays violent hands on man here is infringing eternal laws and taking upon himself superhuman authority which will eventually crush him.”

Finally, it is done as far as possible with “proper respect and honor” for authority. We don’t “go negative” against authority. We speak as Paul did to Agrippa – hoping to persuade him and honoring his position as an agent of God.

4. We are to live as servants of God, show proper respect to everyone, live as free men, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the King. Easy, right?

These short commands, like those of Jesus to love God and love your neighbor, do not come with reams of commentary and rules about each and every situation. There is no case law or even the equivalent of a book of Leviticus to guide us. Imagine a Constitution or any other founding document being so brief and being left with so little explanation. It must have been just as contrary for them as it is for us – just as difficult and filled with “but what if’s” and counter to their inclinations and everything they had known.

There must have been an assumption on the part of Peter that there was an ability on the part of the Church to live this way without commentary or with very little. It must have been true about the power of the Holy Spirit to lead people into truth, to explain complicated things to them, to give them the power to love God and the brotherhood in such difficult circumstances. Peter must have believed the Christian life was impossible otherwise. He must have known it is a supernatural life – not just a better life. The Holy Spirit is not simply another vote added to common sense. It is the only way to live a life with so few rules and detailed explanations. It is maddening and frustrating, isn’t it? But it is why St. Augustine could say, “Love God and do as you please.” However, reading the full context is helpful – especially as we are starting this Sunday with an emphasis on discipleship. “Love God and do whatever you please: for the soul trained in love to God will do nothing to offend the One who is Beloved.”

“The soul trained in love” is what we call discipleship, isn’t it? It is not just an emotion or a declaration of independence from authority but training in love to God.

There are no easy answers, are there? The Christian life is one with few rules and dependent on the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit. It is not about finding our purpose or discovering our passion. It is about daily obedience to the One who calls us his own possession. Let me close with a hymn by Isaac Watts, I Sing The Almighty Power of God:

I sing the almighty power of God, That made the mountains rise, That spread the flowing seas abroad, And built the lofty skies.
I sing the wisdom that ordained, The sun to rule the day; The moon shines full at His command, And all the stars obey.
I sing the goodness of the Lord, That filled the earth with food; He formed the creatures with His Word, And then pronounced them good.
Lord! how Thy wonders are displayed, Where’er I turn mine eye! If I survey the ground I tread, Or gaze upon the sky!
There’s not a plant or flower below, But makes Thy glories known; And clouds arise and tempests blow, By order from Thy throne.
Creatures that borrow life from Thee, Are subject to Thy care; There’s not a place where we can flee, But God is present there.