1 Peter - 2022

If you have bibles, then turn to 1 Peter, chapter 2. The The reading is going to come up on the screen. It's 1 Peter chapter 2. We're going to begin at verse 4.

Or go through to 17, and then Tom will come and teach us from that passage. As you come to him, the living stone rejected by humans, but chosen by god and precious to him, You also like living stones are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For in Scripture, it says, See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the 1 who trusts in him will never be put to shame. Now, to you who believe this stone is precious, but to those who do not believe, The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. And a stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall.

They stumble because they disobeyed the message, which is also what they were destined for. But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God. Once you had not received mercy, But now you have received mercy. Dear friends, I urge you as foreigners and exiles to abstain from sinful desires which wage war against your soul.

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. Submit yourselves for the lord's sake to every human authority whether to the employers, 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 people. Live as free people. But do not use your freedom as a cover up for evil.

Live as God slaves, show proper respect to everyone love the family of believers. Fear God honor the emperor, Tom. Good morning. Thank you Phil for reading that to us and welcome. My name is Tom.

I'm on the staff team here and it's really lovely to see you all morning, and welcome to those who are still joining us from from home. And it's nice to have friends visiting from other churches this morning as well. And so welcome to you. We have been working our way through this series in 1 Peter, and we've arrived at this this chapter chapter 2. We we well, we started it a couple of weeks ago really, and we're gonna be focusing on these verses in 11 to 17.

Just to say again about the church lunch just to underline that after the service, it would be great if you were available to come along and you could come along to join us. It can be hard in a church of this sort of size to to feel like you're really getting to know people. As you come week after week, you see sometimes familiar faces, sometimes new faces, and it can just be difficult. But, the church lunch gives us an opportunity to sit down together for a few hours over a meal in tables of about 8 to 12 and that it's a really good way to just take relationships up a gear from what we might normally experience on Sunday morning. So that's directly after this service at the hub.

You can park around the hub. It's derestricted on a Sunday. So if you are free and available, then do come along. Let's bow our heads as we come to the word of God. Let's let's pray together.

Father, as we sang just now in our kids' song, we thank you that we come to you through the Lord Jesus Christ. Who is that wonderful mixture of both strength and kindness. What a rare combination in the world today to find someone who is so amazingly strong and yet uses his strength to be kind all the time. We thank you, Lord, that we can come to you and no matter what week we've had and no matter how we're feeling, whether we're feeling weighed down by our sin, disappointed by our lack of progress, confused, anxious, burdened with Our own health concerns are with the concerns of other people, weighed down by what we see in the news. We thank you.

We come to a Savior. Who is strong and kind, 1 who loves to take our burdens and is able to take our burdens, 1 who loves to forgive us in and is able to take us in both kindness and strength. Thank you for our Savior. And we pray that as we open up your word now, think about this Part of 1 peter 2 that you would speak to us, help us not just to understand, help us not just to look in the mirror, and then walk away forgetting what we've seen, forgetting what we look like that help us to buy your grace obey. The things that are here for us to be encouraged by the things that are here for our encouragement, and we ask all of this in Jesus's name.

Ah, man. Oh, man. Well, some years ago, if you've been at the church for a while, you you you may know, we had a we had a football team. We had an 11 aside football team and we were in the Sur we were in the Sur Christian League. This is 1 photo that I I dug out from the archives.

I'm I'm not there on this particular occasion. I must have been washing my hair or something like that in the morning and but this is this is how the team used to look. If you know Chris Tilley, 1 of our elders, This is how sort of he used to used to be and I thought I would just zoom in on that because he's not here. He's on the youth weekend and so I thought I would get away with it. But this was this was our team in the in the sorry Christian League and, you know, but it was it was an interesting time.

We, you know, we got together as a church and we played in this league. And most of the other churches in the league had a similar idea. It was about good fun, It was about exercising together and it was about inviting your friends or those you knew and to to try to use it as a as a gospel, a gospel opportunity. But over time, if you didn't keep an eye on it, the ratios could begin to change. And in at least 1 case in our league, the church had set the team up originally, but at some point all the Christians had given up and gone home.

And so although they were still wearing the church colors and had the church logo on their church, the current players had nothing to do with Church with the Ministry. Which in theory could be fine. Unless, you know, you were turning up there every Saturday saying the pre match prayer and then proceeding to kick each other to death, you know, all across the field for 90 minutes and systematically abuse the ref. You know, throughout throughout the game. You know, that wouldn't be ideal for for for a number of reasons, not least because it was being done in the name of the church.

Mainly, that's the problem, isn't it? When you're when you're playing for the church team, when you're representing the church, you want to act in such a way that commends not just the church you belong to but the gospel that you that you believe. You know, if you've got new life church running around bringing death on the pitch. It doesn't say much either for the new life or the church that gives it. Right?

Sounds obvious, doesn't it? Yeah. We all kind of know that. If you're wearing the colors, you represent the team sort of sort of obvious. And look, even if you hate football, what we've been seeing here is Peter wants us to know that every Christian represents represents the team.

We have been selected by free grace. It's not because we excelled in any trials. It's not because we look better than other people. We have been chosen to belong to the team by free grace, but we are in a team and staying in the dressing room is not an option. That's what he's saying here.

Staying in the dressing room is not an option. We are selected to belong to this team, but then to go out onto the pitch of this world and to represent Christ. We saw that in verse 9. You are a chosen people. That you may declare.

The praises of him who called you out of darkness and into his wonderful light. Christians, he says, are a team They are a chosen people who must go out onto the pitch of this world and speak of the excellencies of the God who called them. Represent him in the world commend him in all his beauty with both their life and their words. So if Christians are to go out onto the pitch, how then should they play? That's what he's dealing with in 11 to 17.

How then should they play? 2 headings Firstly, he says, and we're gonna have to go through this again, I'm afraid, that they should live a good life for the Lord's glory, that they should live a good life for the Lord's glory. He puts it exactly that way in verse 12, if you have a look. Live such good lives among the pagans non Christian neighbors, those who they live with. Though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.

Or as more literal translations have it, on the day of visitation. Gloryify God on the day of visitation. Now, what is that? What is the day of visitation? The day when these people are gonna glorify the Lord?

Well, it's not a hundred percent clear, from this particular passage. And some people would take that to mean judgment day, that when Christ comes again on judgment day, there'll be sense in which even those People, everyone glorifies the Lord and recognizes the Lord and knows who he is. But I I would take it to be the day of conversion. That the day of visitation is the day when God visits somebody changes their heart and makes them appraiser rather than a blasphemer. He visits them in salvation.

And the bible uses the salvation language in that way. So if you have a look at Luke 1, verse 67 to 68, this is from Zechariah's song. He is filled with the Holy Spirit and he prophesied saying, blessed be the Lord God of Israel for he has visited and redeemed his people. So the question is, what happens when God visits people? In this case, While it means redemption.

It means salvation is a day of a day of grace. Live a good life Peter says, so that people will hear your testimony. See your life and praise the God whom you know. He'll visit them. But what does that life look like?

Well, have a look at verse 11. Dear friends, I urge you as foreigners and exiles. You've seen that language right at the beginning. Chapter 1 verse 1. Foreigners and exiles, 2 ab stain from sinful desires which wage war against your soul.

I'm sure you would have seen in the news those pictures of of Putin, sat at his big meeting table. You know, in Macron, French president, 1 end. He's at the other end, and there's about 3, 4, 5 meters perhaps between him and the French president. And he just looks increasingly isolated in all of these images, doesn't he? And it's interesting because actually, the word abstain here means exactly that.

It means put distance between isolate yourself from. Stand away from. Get back from. Sin, he says, is waging war against your new nature. Get away from it, abstain from it, put distance between you and those old sinful desires wage war against your new life.

Take care of yourself, he's saying, and take care of your witness by standing back from sin. And by the way, when Peter wrote this, it's worth noting that Nero Empreneiro was on the throne. And what is he famous for? Well, general nastiness and also the persecution of of Christians. And yet Peter says here, your biggest threat is not nero And it's not the shadow of nuclear war.

It's sin. It's the sin which wages war against us and can ruin the soul. He says later on, your enemy, the devil prowls around looking for someone to devour, looking for someone to destroy. And how might he do that, well, through sinful desires, through appealing to the old nature. He wants to wreck the soul of the new life that Christ has given us.

And so from 1 angle, We know that we are a hundred percent on the winning side as Christians. Yeah. Christ has conquered Satan and sin at the cross. In his death and in his resurrection, he's won the day for us. We're on the winning side.

Victory is short. But if language means anything at all, then there is a fight on here. That's what he's saying. And by God's grace, we must abstain from those things which would make shipwreck of our faith. Break our soul.

And remember the purpose of all of this, verse 12, that they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. And so what he's saying is that every Christian is wearing the team colors. They're representing Christ on the field of this world. How then should they live? They should stand away from sin.

But then verse 10, the positive side, they should also live such good lives. I was up at the University campus this week with a with a few of the students in our student group, and I was having a session with a with a with a Muslim up there, and it it was faith it was faith day up at the university, and so they have this faith fair where all the societies, religious societies came and we're trying to engage students. And I had a chat with a a Muslim, and he raised a question that many of us will have heard before about the Christian faith. And to many Muslims, they just cannot see how the free grace of God in Christ would produce a life of obedience. They think that if that is true, then we can just we would just do whatever we wanted.

You know, there'd be no reason to obey. We could just go back to the old life because we're saved by grace. It's all by grace. So that's not gonna change anyone, is it? And yet, that is just so far from biblical reality.

The grace of God is so wonderful. That it cannot help but change the heart and produce a first to give glory to the 1 who chose us, to live a good life. For his sake. Titus 2 verse 14 puts it exactly like that. Jesus Christ gave himself to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own eager to do what is good, eager to display the love of Christ who saved us.

Now in a minute, we're going to look at 1 practical way in which we do that. And what does he mean by live such a good life? He's gonna give us an illustration in a moment. But notice, first of all, when we are to live this good life. See what he says?

Live such good lives among the pagans, that Though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds. You see what he's saying. He's saying, not only live this life when the sun is shining and when everybody loves you, he says live this life when false accusations come in. When people falsely accuse you, which they do. Right?

They do, falsely accuse Christians of standing for things or being a type of people that they're not, false accusations. How do you respond when the accusations come in? He says, intensify your good deeds, intensify your good life when the false accusations come. Now hold on. That has got to be a spiritual power, hasn't it?

Because I know what I wanna do when I'm falsely accused by someone, I wanna take revenge, I wanna be mean spirited. I wanna repay evil for evil, falsehood for falsehood. The idea that in the face of that, I would intensify my goodness towards them is not something that I have. Within me. And yet, God says let them see even as they accuse you.

A good life, a good life, a testimony of Christ, and a life of good works for which we are saved. Let them see it even as the accusations come. And by God's grace, he will visit some of those accusers with salvation. I remember when I was first converted, I was converted in 2009 here at the church, through the work of the church, and I remember both both hearing the gospel clearly explained to me, but also seeing the gospel lived out in people like Rob, you know, Rob, 1 of the missionaries that we support in Dagonum, at Beck Tree Church. And I do remember quite a lot about how he dealt with me in those early days, you know, with patience, with kindness, with respect, repaying my sarcastic questioning, for love, a man of integrity, a man of kindness.

When people see that, Both the excellencies that you say and the life that goes with it. God is pleased to visit people with salvation. To awaken them and to lead them to praise God. That's what he's saying, that there ought to be this combination of gospel and life, standing back from sin, pursuing the life that pleases God, That's what it means to represent him on the pitch of this world. And we hope and we pray that as we do, God will visit people with salvation.

So that's the first thing. Live a good life for the Lord's glory. Secondly, he says, live a good liver free life for the Lord's sake. Live a free life for the Lord's sake. And here I think is the big surprise in this passage.

Okay? So live us live such a good life, he says, that though they falsely accuse you, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. Live a good life. What does he mean by that? What does he actually have in mind for this good life?

How's he gonna describe it verse 13 to 17? Submission to our authorities. That's weird, isn't it? Okay? Shine in the world.

Stay back from sin, witness to Christ, live a good life. What do you mean, Peter? Submit to your authorities. That's how you do That's how you represent Christ. Submit to your authorities.

Verse 13, submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every human authority. Whether to the emperor as to the supreme authority or to governors who are sent by him. And then verse 17 at the end show proper respect to everyone. Love the family of believers. Fear God, honor the emperor.

Now next week, we're gonna deal more with kind of boss employee, teacher, pupil, kind of relationship, those authority structures in our lives. But this is mostly about the governing authorities. See how he describes them, the emperor governors. And that word governor is actually the word used a pilot as well. So that's the sort of person has in mind, the sort of ruling governors.

And Peter is saying, look, you Christians in verse 16 are free people. You're free. What does your passport say, Christian? It says you're a citizen of heaven. Who is the son of God Christian?

Is it Caesar? No, it's Jesus. That's what you declare. Jesus is the son of God. Are people gonna speak badly of those beliefs?

They are. But should you be known as a disrespectful lawless group? You shouldn't. You should Use your freedom to submit. Why for the Lord's sake?

And that phrase for the Lord's sake changes everything. Because what he's saying there is that the reason we submit to authorities is not just because we must or because we're afraid not to, we submit to our authorities because we love God. Because we love God. We submit to them. It's for the Lord's sake.

I don't know about you, but I think it's easy to think that these 2 things aren't related. Right? How we relate to God and how we relate to our authorities. It's easy to think that they're not related. Following Christ is about being kind and evangelizing, and not gossiping, and coming to church That's what it means to follow Christ.

That's what he's interested in. But streaming stuff online illegally Driving too fast when I know I shouldn't. That's nothing to do with him. That's a whole different sphere that he's not interested in. Yeah?

God is interested in this side of my life. How I relate to him, not gossiping, evangelizing. Worshiping. Company chair. He doesn't really care how I relate to my authorities.

These are 2 different spheres, 1 in which he's interested, 1 in which he's not. God cares about this side of my life, but not how I relate to authorities. Let me give you an illustration which is quite self condemning, but I think makes the point We've had a we've had a we've had a break light on our car out for months, you know, for months now. It must be 2 months. And even though when I get into the car, every good morning or afternoon, and I turn the ignition on.

There's a warning that flashes up at me. Tom, it's not specific, but it's Tom, you must change your brake light. You've got a brake light out. You need to change it. Okay?

And even though alongside those warnings, I've actually had members of this congregation, text me to tell me that my brake light is out and I ought to get it changed. I've done nothing about it until this week when I was preparing this. And I thought, I can't give this illustration and and not have done it. So you can see my motives are all healthy and and pure. So I've had all of these warnings and, you know, I looked I looked it up just to make sure.

It is illegal to drive with with a brake light out. It is actually illegal to do that. Now, I can If you want me to try and justify myself, I can. You know, I can say that's a very small thing, isn't it? And the police, if they were to stop me, it's likely that they'd be very lenient you know, but but, you know, the the the the bigger question.

Right? The bigger question with this is this, every day, I get the reminder you're breaking the law. Okay? You're breaking the law if you carry on with your journey. And don't do anything, why?

Because basically, it's nothing to do with my Christian life. Right? A sort of what I think. It's not really related to my Christian life. Jesus is the word of God.

You know, live for him, fight sin, live a good life, Change your brake lights. No. You know? Because they're 2 different things. Right?

The 1 is not related. I can do this 1, but this 1 is unrelated. How I treat my authorities. Peter says the opposite. He says, 1 of the main ways that I express my love for God is by submitting to my authorities.

And not just the ones that I would like to be there, but the ones that actually are there. Those are 2 different things, aren't they? I want to submit to the authorities I would like to be there. Stupid rule anyway, isn't it about the break night? Stupid law.

I'm not submitting to that. That's not the law that I would have I'm gonna submit to the law that I would like to be there, not the 1 that is actually there. At the prayer meeting on Wednesday, and actually a reliable man on Monday, we looked at these words in Daniel 2. I haven't put them up at thing, but this is Daniel 2 verse 21. He says, the Lord changes times and seasons.

He deposes kings, and raises up others. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning. There's a proverb which says that the king's heart is like water in the hands of the Lord, and he turns it wherever he wishes. There is no authority except the ones that God has put there. Right?

There is no authority except the ones that God has put there. And Peter says for the Lord's sake, because you love him, because you're free, because your hope is in another world. We should submit. Now, we'll apply that a little bit more. We're gonna swing swing round and apply that a bit more in a moment.

But let's just deal or have a go at dealing with the big question that lots of us have when we think about submission to authorities. And that is something like where are the limits? Where's the boundary with this instruction? There must be a boundary. Where where's the limits?

K? And it's a good question. Because it clarifies what we are saying. That's often the thing about questions, isn't it? It's good to ask a boundary question so you know what we are in fact saying, where is the boundary line?

The danger with that question though is that in asking it, we may avoid taking the command to heart ourselves. It's a little bit like viewing a house. K? You turn up to view a house, and you pull up in your car, you park up, you see the agent is waiting for you outside the house, the agent comes up to greet you, shake your hand, I'm going to show you around the house, and your first question is, can you show me where the boundary line is? Can you show me the boundary fence?

Where's the boundary to this house? The agent looks puzzled. And he says, I can. But Do you wanna see the do you wanna see the house first? Do you wanna imagine what it would be like to live within this house?

Do you wanna see the rooms? See how it was built, see if it's to your taste. No. Show me the boundary. I wanna see the boundary first.

It would be a strange way around, wouldn't it? Before we look at the boundary, we should live inside the command. That's the point. Before we argue about where the line is, we should inhabit the house. See, it's striking, isn't it?

That in acts 5 29. Peter says to the authorities, and this is the same Peter who wrote the letter. He wrote, he said, we must obey God rather than human beings. When he was being forbidden to preach the gospel, he said, we must obey God rather than human beings. In other words, he knew there was a limit.

But where do you find it in this passage? Where's the exception clause? We should live inside the command. You see, the truth is I could sit down and argue with you about where the limit is, on this, when we should not obey how far is too far, when the restrictions, when the command stops. But if I'm arguing about it, whilst also driving an illegal car and downloading stuff illegally that doesn't belong to me, then what am I doing?

I'm proving to you that I don't care about the command at all. Because if I did, I'd put my own house in order before I started arguing about where the boundaries. And so that can be the danger with this sort of question. But still, it is a good question. How do we make sense of verses like acts 5, which I just quoted?

Well, let's look at let's look at mark 12, verse 17. You'll know these famous words at the end of a a confrontation Jesus had with some of the ruling authorities. He says on a question of taxes, Give back to Caesar, what is Caesar, and to God, what is God's. Now, what is he saying? Well, he's telling us there that in life, there are certain things which belong to Caesar, and there are certain things which belong to God.

Now there's a sense in which everything belongs to God because he's the only true sovereign in the world, but in this world, there are certain things that belong to Caesar, taxes, and there are certain things that belong to God, exclusive worship as the 1 true living God. And what happens is when Caesar starts demanding things that belong to God, like worship, or when Caesar starts forbidding things that God has commanded, like evangelism, then he stepped out of line. And in that moment, Acts 5 29 comes in, we must obey God rather than human beings. Peter says, honor the emperor, but fear God. Honor the emperor, but fear God.

Well, how about this story from Exodus 1? You remember the story of the Hebrew midwives? Remember that when pharaoh, the ruling authority, the king of the day commanded these midwives that if Hebrew women gave birth to a boy, they should abort it post birth. Yeah. It should just kill it.

Be done with it. Doesn't want these Hebrew people growing anymore. That was a command that they received. It's not the same as don't talk about Yairway publicly, but it is a command that they are given. And here's what here's what happens.

When you are helping the Hebrew women during childbirth on the delivery stall, if you see that the baby is a boy, kill him, But if it is a girl, let her live, the midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do. They let the boys live. Now why did they do that? Well, there's a clue here in 1 Peter. You notice what he says about the authorities, that they have been established by God to do what?

What does he say in the passage? To punish evil and to praise what is good. But sometimes, like in the book of Exodus, The opposite has become true. The system has completely flipped on its head. And here we have a situation where good honest people are terrified to do the right thing.

Good honest people are terrified to do the right thing. Just think about that. Because what is good is no longer being praised, it's being terrorized. And what is evil is being commanded to flourish. And in that case, when a system has so upended, there will be times when it is right to disobey for the Lord's sake.

Does that mean the disobedience can take on a kind of violent criminal damage sort of element to it? No. No. Because Christians know the gospel. And the gospel even affects how we disobey.

Not with violence, not by putting a brick through Faro's window. You notice they don't do that. But there will be times when it's right to do that. Now, as to when that time comes, when we make that decision, these are not easy questions. These are not easy questions.

And you know that Christians are brothers and sisters in places like Russia and Belarus and other countries that we've never even heard of you know, these these people are facing exactly these questions, and it's not it's not easy. It's not easy. And we do need to pray for them. Now, if you wanna hear more about this side of things, you can listen to a podcast that we did on Romans 13, where we explored all of these issues a bit more. But I wanna swing back now and apply this point because because although it might be surprising what Peter says here, There is something there is something very radical about this in the age in which we live.

This is not about just being a holier than thou, self righteous, look at how I'm keeping my laws and judging you all around me. It is much, much bigger than that, It's about hope and it's about freedom. You see, if I fiddle my taxes every year, I still have to do a paper tax return. If I fiddle my taxes every year, lie about my expenses just again a few extra quid every year. What am I what am I actually saying to the world when I do that?

I'm saying that my hope is all here. It's just all here. I need more money. HMRC makes stupid laws I do this, I can get a few more quid, buy a few more things. I can be a bit safer.

I'll be better off here and now When I don't submit to my authorities, I'm showing my hope is in this world. And what is that kind of life? That's slavery, isn't it? That's not freedom. That's not I'm not free from the trappings of this world to submit to my authorities.

I'm slave, and it says nothing good about Christ. But if I submit for the Lord's sake, because I'm a free person because my hope is being stored up for me in heaven. Well, that says something. When you think about this in our culture. You see, we live at a time, live in a time at the moment, where in order to be an authentic person, you have to break away from authority.

You must you must, in order to be authentic, be untethered from any authority around you. Must not do what any structure says, what any person says, what any mom says, what any dad says, you are tethered only to yourself, only to your own authority. That's the only 1 that you've gotta submit to. But a Christian is free from that. They don't have to rebel in order to be authentic people because Christ has made them authentic people They don't have to lie on their tax return because their hope is here.

They can freely submit because their hope is stored up for them in heaven. This is this is this is dynamite, isn't it? This is a dynamite testimony to have a quiet confidence that I'm free in Christ. My hope is coming for me. I can submit to my authorities.

And so you see it's those 2 things, isn't it? Working together. All of these commands are about our own well-being, but they're also about our witness to the world. Verse 16 again, live as free people. I think in some ways, that's the key verse.

Live as free people. If there's 1 thing that Peter has been saying in this letter, is that those who belong to Christ are free. They are altogether free and they are new. Free from the sins which used to enslave them, free to worship God. Their hope is stored up with him.

They have a new birth, a new hope, they are new people altogether free, altogether new. How should we use that freedom? To stand away from sin to live a good life and to submit to our authorities. Why? Verse 12, so that they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.

That's what we want, isn't it? We're wearing the colours of the church, representing Christ in the world, how do we want to live, abstain from sinful desires, live such a good life. Submit to your authorities and pray that the Holy Spirit would visit people with salvation, as they see and they hear our testimony. Let's pray together and just give you a moment to to take some of those things. And wherever the Lord spoke to you, spoke to you about a particular issue in your life, encouraged you with a particular truth.

Just return that to him in in prayer and then in a moment we're gonna take the lord's supper together. Father, we thank you so much that as your people, we really are free, that through the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus. You have set us free from slavery. Those chains have been broken. You have set us free from a kind of hopeless existence in this life.

That we have been born again into a living hope that you Jesus are our 1 and only sovereign, our true king. And our hope is with you. And we thank you that with that freedom, we don't have to be bolsky, rebellious, violent sort of people, but that you you ask us in light of that freedom to submit for your sake to our authorities. We pray that you'd forgive us for the lots of little ways in which we do rebel against our authorities when we don't submit to them. When we submit only to ourselves and the things that we think and the ways that we think things should be done.

Forgive us not only for what that does to us, but for what it says to the world around us. We pray lord that you would help us to abstain to put distance between ourselves and the sinful desires which wage war against our souls. We pray that even when false accusations come, you would help us to live a good life and we pray father please that there might be people because of our words and our witness who'd come to bow the knee to Christ and praise his name because you have visited them with grace. We thank you father for the lord's table, which we're about to take now. We thank you for these elements, this bread, and this juice, which remind us of what Christ has done for us to set us free to give us a living hope.

We thank you for an opportunity to take it together and to remember that we are living stones being built together. And so we pray that you'd help us to take it with a with a grateful heart in Jesus' name. Our men.