1 Peter series – “Holding onto Hope in a Hostile World”

1 Peter 2:13-17

¹³ For the Lord’s sake, submit to all human authority—whether the king as head of state, ¹⁴ or the officials he has appointed. For the king has sent them to punish those who do wrong and to honor those who do right. ¹⁵ It is God’s will that your honorable lives should silence those ignorant people who make foolish accusations against you. ¹⁶ For you are free, yet you are God’s slaves, so don’t use your freedom as an excuse to do evil. ¹⁷ Respect everyone, and love the family of believers. Fear God, and respect the king.

• Show Respect

Vs 17 tells us to respect others, and it comes on the heels of Peter’s Instruction to live sanctified lives and not sinful ones, to live in freedom and not fornication. There is a direct correlation to respect and living right. You will never respect others if you don’t first respect yourself. If we are living in sin with no regard or respect for self how do we expect to respect others? The word respect here means to give honor, to hold others in high regard. In the Old Testament it literally means a “heavy weight” meaning that we assign the greatest possible weight to a person in terms of respect. To respect someone means to consider them to be weighty, where to dishonor means to treat them as if they were light or insignificant. Do you prize people. So many of us prize possessions over people, but there are only 2 things that are eternal, God’s Word and people. To honor is to treat with distinction; to dishonor is to treat someone like dirt. How are you treating the people God has put in your life? So many of us only hold heavy those who we think can help us. We esteem those with power, possessions and position but do we value the homeless and the helpless, do we show worth to widows and orphans? Peoples worth is based on the Word of God not on the worlds values. We’re called to be courteous and kind to all people and to considering them weighty because they have been made in the image of God. Everyone matters to God and therefore they should matter to us. If we are going to have the same values as God then we have to start valuing what He values. God calls people precious, He sent His Son to die for them and when we see start seeing people as precious we too will honor and serve them with our lives. When it comes to the family of God we are not just to respect but to respond with love. The word for love here is agapao, which is unconditional. Our love for God’s children is not based on our feelings it’s based on obedience to the Father. Our love is not based on whether it is received or returned. What conditions are you putting on other Christians? Not only should we love our fellow family members in the faith but we should fear God, which means to revere. Some of us have become so familiar with God that we no longer have a healthy fear of Him. Instead of reverence and an awe of the Almighty we take God for granted. Are you responding with reverence? Again Peter calls us to honor the king, which is incredible when you think about the kind of man Nero was. It’s as if Peter had to preach this twice because he knew there would be some pushback. In a similar way, we are called to esteem the office of the president, even if we don’t like the particular person in the office. Ultimately it all comes down to whether we have submitted and surrendered to God as our highest authority. God’s name is used four times in five verses because it’s not about you or your boss or your teacher or your mayor or your governor or the Supreme Court or the President it’s all about the Almighty. At its core, submission is a spiritual issue and until we have surrendered to the Savior we will struggle.