God s View of His Kingdom Matt Cassidy #3 Authority I 10/4/ Samuel 15

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1 God s View of His Kingdom Matt Cassidy #3 Authority I 10/4/ Samuel 15 Well, I have a great word for you today. It is not an easy word but it is a good one. As a matter of fact, many scholars would say that this is the very meaning and purpose of life what we are going to talk about this morning. When you study the Bible the way God has revealed himself and the specifics of life to us, there are very few subjects, maybe two or possibly three that actually find themselves in every major book of the Bible and certainly in every epoch. The topic today is not just that important but it is actually what many scholars have written about as the very meaning and purpose and answer to the question: Why is there something instead of nothing? Why would God have built a planet that is inhabitable by human beings who have emotions and intellect and are free moral agents? Why the freedom? Why so much latitude and choice and consequences of those choices? So you can find books that address that subject and they talk about today s topic. It is such a big topic to discuss that we will spend two weeks on it. I would rather spend an hour and then have an question and answer session and then have another hour of teaching. We just don t have that time available to us. But I will tell you the answer in many respects is the hint to the answer to the question about why is there something instead of nothing? Why are we here? Why do the invisible realties look upon us and gawk with anticipation? It is in the answer to the prayer Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Will you? Is it Thy kingdom come really? Thy will be done? What is His will? What is God s will? His will is this that we express obedience, we show obedience, by submitting to authority, even when we don t want to. God has set up the created world, the invisible and visible world in this cosmic structure so that authority (Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done) trickles down, so that every authority is an expression of God s authority. Every choice of consequence is answering the question Will you submit to that authority? Will you let Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven? If there is a kingdom, there is a king. If there is a king, He must rule His domain. The way God has chosen to rule His domain is to see if you and I will submit to authority when we don t want to. How do you respond to No? Or, how do you respond to Go? I ll give you an example. I will refer to the New Testament and you might have read this if you are following our read-through-the-bible program, The Voyage. It is in Luke 7. A centurion, a Roman soldier who is outside Israel, he does not belong to Israel, has a dying servant whom he is quite fond of. This centurion sends one of his servants to Jesus to appeal to Jesus to Authority I Page 1 of 13

2 come and heal this servant. Jesus is actually appealing to that request and He is making his way to the centurion s home when someone else interrupts and says The centurion does not think he is worthy of You visiting him. Then the centurion says this: I am a man under authority and men are under me. When I say go, they go. When I say come, they come. When I say Do this, they do that. So, you just say the word, Jesus. You don t have to go anywhere. Location is not an issue for You. You just say the word and this illness will pass. Jesus does say the word. But Jesus say this about the centurion. Nowhere in Israel have I seen a man with this kind of faith. The centurion got it. He understood it. He saw that the whole structure of the created universe is in layers of authority. He knew how to work the authority. You just say go and people go. If there is a king, we need to respond appropriate to him. It is hard to find modern movies where people respect authority and they take No for an answer and they respond in a positive way. I found a movie that is kind of old. I warn you ahead of time because you didn t sign on for this when you came to church today. Your eyes will be violated in some respects. I am telling you ahead of time, brace yourself. These will be men wearing tights. It is the story of Robin Hood made way back when. The part I want to show you today is a short little clip of what happens when King Richard who has concealed himself, now reveals himself and how people respond most appropriately when they are in the presence of a king. Video Clip Robin Hood Robin Hood: What is it? What has happened? 2 nd Man: King Richard is in England, in Sherwood. Prince John sent Dicken to Kent Row Tavern last night to kill the king. Robin Hood: We will take 50 men at once and go to the Kent Row Tavern. 2 nd Man: I headed Dicken off. He ain t going to murder no one no more. Robin Hood: But the king, where is he? 2 nd Man: I don t know, master. Robin Hood: Men, Richard must be found. He must be found and brought here for safety. Little John, take a party and scour the countryside. Friar Tuck, into the town. Will, search every inn and cottage. Don t rest, any of you, day or night until he is found. Understand? King Richard: You don t need to search for Richard, Robin. He is in good hands the best in England. Robin Hood: What do you mean? Where is he? King Richard: Here [and he takes off his cloak and hood, revealing his royal crest on his armor]. [All of the men bend their knee and bow their heads in respect] Authority I Page 2 of 13

3 Robin Hood: Sire. Matt Resumes You get the idea. Richard has returned with his knights from the Crusades and his subjects all bow down. They all get lower than the king s head and it is appropriately so. Obedience to God is: God s will be done Submission to authority when you don t want to. When we say Thy will be done; this is His will that we submit to authority when we don t want to. Let s unpack that. When we talk about authority, 1 Peter 2:13 reads: Submit yourselves for the Lord s sake [It is not about what or how it is expressed. It is who.] Submit yourselves for the Lord s sake to every authority instituted among men; whether to the king Who has supreme authority or whomever it might be. Every authority is brought here by God as a test of our moral will as to whether or not we will submit to that. We don t even like the word obey up there, do we? Obedience is this to submit to authority. We don t like the word submit either. This passage is saying this and there are many other passages, but we just don t have time to look at them, that whether God appointed these or permitted these authorities, that is not the issue of debate. The question is: how we respond to that. Especially, I want to talk about the second part Submission to authority when you don t want to. A number of years ago, when our kids were little bitty, we had some friends over. Their kids were playing with ours on the swing set. It was dusk and I said, Okay, kids, it is time to come in and take a bath. They were on the swing set and our children just leapt off the swings, hit the ground running, and then ran into the house and got in the bathtub. The person who was with me said, Wow. You have great kids. They just respond to whatever you say. That is obedience. I said, I do have great kids but that is not obedience. They like bathing more than they like swinging. So they were just trading up. Obedience is not really expressed when you are doing what you would do anyway. Obedience to God is this it is submission to authority when you don t want to. This is repugnant in our Adamic nature, our bent nature, our fallen nature. That is one of the themes I want you to see today, that it is our Authority I Page 3 of 13

4 sinful ways that will never be overcome until we are granted the gift of death, that we will always resist authority. Original Temptation Genesis 3:1 If you look at the original temptation, the serpent, who is craftier than any other creature, his blueprint for rebellion is Has God really said? He changes the rules. Are those really the rules? Then after Adam and Eve get caught, their first response is to blame rebellion on someone else. It was the woman You gave me It was the serpent that You created That is the two-fold rebellion in all of us. It is a template for us today. Is that really the rules? How close to the edge can I get without going over? If I go over, how far can I go over without consequences? If I do go over, it is probably someone else s fault for making me go over. Obedience in the kingdom Thy will be done means this. It is submission to authority when you and I don t want to. Samuel 1 Samuel 15 It is never more picturesque - and that is why we are spending two weeks on this or more grand or vivid than during the United Kingdom Period because there is a king during the Kingdom Period. So there is no real question about who is in charge or how it should work. If you will turn to 1 Samuel 15, I will show you a rather graphic expression of this and how it is displayed for us so that we can see that obedience is responding to authority, even when we don t want to. The king at this time is King Saul. He only has one person that he has to submit to. He is the king but he is still under authority, to a prophet and priest named Samuel. In 1 Samuel 15:1, this is what Samuel, the priest speaking for God, tells the king. 1 Samuel 15:1 Then Samuel said to Saul, The Lord sent me to anoint you as king over His people, over Israel; now therefore, listen to the words of the Lord... :3 Now go and strike Amalek and utterly destroy all that he has [[and let me clarify this]] and do not spare him; but put to death both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey. That is pretty clear. I think everything that is living must die. If it has a heart, it needs to stop everything. Now I don t want to go into a just war theory, or whether this is an ethical pronouncement from God. There are answers for that but not today. The theme today is What is Thy will be done look like. It looks like when we submit to authority, even when we don t want to. Here is how the story continues in verse 7-9 Authority I Page 4 of 13

5 1 Samuel 15:7-9 Then Saul attacked the Amalekites all the way from Havilah to Shur, to the east of Egypt. He took Agag kin gof the Amalekites alive, and all his people he totally destroyed with the sword. [But here is the part they did not want to do.] But Saul and the army spared Agag and the best of the sheep and cattle, the fat calves and lambs everything that was good. These they were unwilling to destroy completely, but everything else that was despised and weak they totally destroyed. So, the little sheep dying of malnutrition, we will put that one down. But the fat goats and the fat sheep and the big cows, we are going to use those for sacrificing. We will use them for religious reasons because after the ceremony, there are leftovers, if you know what I mean. We will keep the good stuff for us. Saul is going to respond by: Changing the definition of what it means to fully obey and then he will blame someone else. 1 Samuel 15:13 When Samuel reached him, Saul said, The Lord bless you! I have carried out the Lord s instructions. How so? :14 But Samuel said, What then is this bleating of sheep in my ears? What is this lowing of cattle that I hear? I m sorry, Saul, but I can t hear you because of the deafening noise of these fat cows on the left side and these bleating sheep on my right side. Did you say something about obeying? Obedience is submission to authority, even when you don t want to. Here is Saul s reasoning. :15 Saul answered, The soldiers brought them from the Amalekites; they spared the beset of the sheep and cattle to sacrifice to the Lord your God, but we totally destroyed the rest. No, that is not obedience. :16 Stop! Samuel said to Saul. Let me tell you what the Lord said to me last night. Tell me, Saul replied. :17 Samuel said, Although you were once small in your own eyes, did you not become the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king over Israel. And He sent you on a mission, saying, Go and completely destroy those wicked people, the Amalekites, make war on them until you have wiped them out. Why did you not obey the Lord? Why did you pounce on the plunder and do evil in the eyes of the Lord? Authority I Page 5 of 13

6 :20 But I did obey the Lord, Saul said. I completely destroyed the Amalekites and brought back Agag their king. It is a contradiction. Obedience to God is submission to the authorities and all the authority in the created world is put there by Him. We do Thy will when we submit to the authority, whether we want to or not. When we talk about God s view of His kingdom, we have to talk about God s view of authority. It is why you and I exist. We display to the angels and demons that we believe that God has a right to rule all of His creation. That is why there is this haphazard, random rule about not eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Why? To show every other created thing that you submit to authority that s why. It could have been anything. It could have been Don t skip rocks across the lake. -- How do you respond to No? Kingdom value: Obedience is greater than religion Here are some kingdom values for you. The values of the kingdom are this: obedience is greater than religion. Look at 1 Samuel 15:22. 1 Samuel 15:22 But Samuel replied: Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices (religion) They kept the fat cows and the fat sheep for religious purposes. as much as in obeying the voice of the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams Look, it is great that you come here to worship on Sunday and have a tear in your eye and you have your hands up. That is fine. But is that better than submitting to the authorities in your living room all week long? Or rebelling against authorities in your living room all week long according to God s values. The generous gifts that you give to this church, that is great. Is that more important than submitting to the authority of the government and running the company according to the laws and paying your taxes to the governing authority over you? Don t bring your checkbook here until you have brought your checkbook to the government. Working in the nursery is a good thing but it would be better if you did not give your boss a hard time all week long. To obey is better than sacrifice. To submit to the authority above you is better than religion, religious expression. He says it clearly in verse 22. Authority I Page 6 of 13

7 Kingdom value: Rebellion is idolatry The other kingdom value is this: rebellion is idolatry. When you rebel against the authority that God put over you and every one of us is under authority and every one of us kind of has authority over someone else. Let me stop here and say that when we talk about authority let me make this crystal clear it is the use and abuse of authority that we have and it is the submission or the rebellion of the authority over us. So it is a two-way street. When we have authority, God is watching and all the created world is watching, how do we use or abuse the authority we have? How do we submit or rebel against authority? We see that in the life of Christ and throughout the Bible. This is in every book of the Bible that you will find some expression of abuse or use, or rebellion versus submission. 1 Samuel 15:23 For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance (insubordination) like the evil of idolatry. Divination is witchcraft and we know God hates witchcraft. Rebellion = Witchcraft. Insubordination or arrogance = worship of something other than God. Usually, what are we worshipping? Ourselves, our freedom. I will do what I want to do, when I want to do it. The authority says you need to stop that. I don t hear that. Did He really say Bob Dylan wrote about it you are going to serve the devil or you are going to serve the Lord. You are going to serve someone. This is cosmic in nature. If you don t serve the authority over you, or you abuse the authority that you have, you are serving the devil. Don t you not like today s topic? I mean, even the vocabulary we are using: obedience and rebellion, it is the bent part we inherited with Adam, the sin nature that is throughout us. The theme of existence is that there is a kingdom and there is a king and the king built His kingdom on authority, levels and levels of authority. When He says Go, people go; when He says Come, people come. When He says Do this, it gets done. People use their authority to humble themselves and serve others; or they abuse their authority so that other people will serve them. They rebel against authority to do whatever they want; or they submit to authority. Here is how grand it is. The Great Commission, the last verses in Matthew 28, Jesus says this. Matthew 28: All authority has been granted to Me in heaven and on earth. Authority I Page 7 of 13

8 How did He get that authority? By submitting to the Father. Then using the authority that He did have, to serve mankind. He did not abuse His authority; He submitted Himself and humbled himself to be even a servant and slave unto death. That is how He used His authority; that is how He submitted to authority. All authority has been granted to Me in heaven and on earth. Therefore go And Jesus gives the commandment. He first establishes himself as the authority, as the king, as the one to give orders out. Let me briefly show you how this can apply in our lives and we will talk about the broadest expressions. Then we will become more narrow as we get into the details. These are institutions from God that have been applied by God himself for us to submit to. 1. Government The first one is the government itself. Turn in your Bibles to Romans. I am not going to use these verses up on the screen because I want you to see them in your own Bibles. I would love it if you would highlight or underline this verse or make note of it, because you are not going to believe it when you see it. In Romans 13, which is in the application section, now that you know all this doctrine that we have been through, now we are going to start applying it. Applying it is submission to authority. As it a applies to the Roman government is out and about persecuting the church, the Bride of Christ. So, we don t need to fantasize about if it was a good government. No, this is a bad government for the church and for the people. Paul is writing this letter from a Roman prison. He says this in verse 1. Romans 13:1 Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. When you submit to the government, you submit to God. When you rebel against the government, you rebel against God. There are consequences for our actions, our acts of volition, and not just displaying to all created beings about whether we are part of the kingdom or not, or submissive to that kingdom. Romans 13:2 Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. If you live a rebellious life, there will be bills to pay. There are consequences for our choices, in this life and the next. Obedience is submission to the authority that God has placed over us, whether we want to or not. Authority I Page 8 of 13

9 I know what you are thinking. Look, it is not like they have to pay taxes to a government that is going to be using that money to fuel their military machine that will come around and persecute the church and have my family arrested and probably extinguished. Right? I can obey the laws but to pay taxes? To pay for the soldier who kicks my door down? He wouldn t have us do that. --- That is true as long as you don t read verse 7. That is why we stay away from this whole chapter a lot of times. Romans 13:7 Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor. Positions of authority require respect. Do you see that place holders of authority require us to give honor and respect regardless of the person there. If there is something in you that causes you to fear about the hope of our current civilization, I would say we are too slippery steps away from anarchy not because of the economic circumstances or anything else but because of the way that you and I express ourselves toward the governing authorities over us. Our humor is a violation of God s values when we mock a president or a policeman. Every position requires us to give them respect and honor. If you disagree with their policies that is another thing and you can express it in a certain way. But the office is to be held high. So whether it is late night comedians standing up and mocking these people or their position; or it is you and I in the hallways of the church, it is not well in the heart of God when we do this. All authority is instituted by God. It is why you and I are free moral agents. 2. Church A smaller umbrella to be underneath is the church. Turn to Hebrews 13. It is a verse I appeal to that maybe a lot of you are not familiar with. There are certainly a number of verses in Peter s epistles about the use of authority and the abuse of authority. Hebrews 13:17 Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. When you have authority, you will give account for it. In Peter s instructions in his epistle to the elders and leaders of the church, it reads: 1 Peter 5:2 Shepherd the flock among you gently. Do not lord it over them. Don t use your authority to bully the sheep. Serve the sheep with authority. That is what authority is granted for. The rest of the verse is the consequence for submission. 1 Peter 5: Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be no advantage to you. Authority I Page 9 of 13

10 God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. God opposes the rebels and He gives grace to the submissive. 3. Family Another expression of authority that God has instituted is the family itself. Turn to Ephesians 5 and 6. After the doctrine is declared, it is loaded heavily. Now that you understand the sovereignty of God, His power, His majesty, and His strength, let s apply it to the real world. a. The use or abuse of authority is given to husbands. It is not what is being asked; it is who. The question is about who you are submitting to and how you are using authority. Ephesians 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her. How is authority appropriately used? To love and to serve that s how. The guy in charge of the household is the husband, according to the Bible. The Bible says to use that power and authority to serve your wife and to care for your children. b. Wives, what are you supposed to do? Look at verse 22. Look for the who. Ephesians 5:22 Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. When you submit to your husband, you submit to the Lord. When you submit to the Lord, you submit to your husband. You rebel against your husband, you are rebelling against the Lord himself. Let s not talk about the how s and the where s and all those details. I am trying to show you that authority is the structure of all the created universe. When we submit to those in authority over us, we are submitting to God himself. c. Children look at Ephesians 6 now. Look at the consequences again. Ephesians 6:1-3 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother which is the first commandment with a promise that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth. The consequence for being a submissive child to your parents, whether they are good or bad, they are instituted by God is a long, great life. It is not what you are doing, it is who. 4. Work Authority I Page 10 of 13

11 The next one is not necessarily an institution from God but it is just things that happen on this planet and it is work. Slavery back in Rome in those days was not too dissimilar from the way you and I live right now. So, the slaves had rights and so it is easy to translate slavery and having an owner and being a slave with work itself. Look at the who. Ephesians 6:5-8 Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. When you submit to your boss, it is like submitting to Christ. Rebelling against your boss is rebelling against Christ. :6 Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but like slaves of Christ, That is who owns you. doing the will of God from your heart. Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men, because you know that the Lord will reward everyone for whatever good he does, whether he is slave or free. It is not what; it is who. You are rewarded for your submission. He blesses the humble. He is opposed to the proud. How should you be a boss? That is a great question. How do you use authority or avoid misuse of authority? Ephesians 6:9 And masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him. Do you think God cares about whether you are the boss or the employee? There is no favoritism there. Here is the way He watches us. Here is the way the angels and demons glance down at us. Will we submit to the authority that God has placed over us? How do we hear No? Do we obey God in submission to authority when we don t want to? What about exceptions? In your notes there, it says What about exceptions? Let me just say simply because we don t have much time for this --- Exceptions are exceptional. We could talk about them some other time and I would be happy to answer some of those questions. Authority I Page 11 of 13

12 How to Object How do you object to something that is going on at work or at the house or in the church or in the government? I would first put forward: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. If you have a little sister, you have some kind of authority. How would you want someone to approach you? How would you want someone to address you? In summary, it is this. I want you to see this. I want you to have a homework assignment to see that the world around us is a contest of submission. When I took Latin in high school, one of the assignments was to turn in ten words that were Latin words that we just knew, that we saw throughout the day for the week. It was fascinating because we did not realize how pervasive that language which is no longer used, is used. It was like Latin itself was omnipresent. That is kind of a nerd joke. Omnipresent is ; it didn t work first hour at all. Well, my Latin teacher would have roared. The point is this and there is a point. Rebellion is such a part of our existence that we can t sell cameras or hamburgers or anything without an appeal to rebellion. We name cameras Rebel. We won t watch a movie without a maverick starring in it. We want our hamburgers my way. I would love for you to look for 2 things every week for the next month where rebellion is the attraction to the movie, the meal, the item. You will find out that they are still tugging on those strings that say, Has God said? You don t want to be with those other guys who just do what they are told, do you? -- I think I do. If I were a foreigner from another planet and I were just insightful and wise, and I look at the lives of men and women that were 50, 60 and 70, here is the conclusion that I would come to. I would say that when people hit those last thirty years, they are living out the consequences of the choices they have made in the context of authority -- the use or abuse of authority and their submission or rebellion against authority. When you get to , you have a banquet of cause-effect. You have a spread of consequences. You can see men and women who are embittered and angry and rebellious because they have chosen to do that for most of their lives. You see other people who are getting calls from people where they were terminated from some organization because they ran out of money or something; they circle back around and say Hey, I heard you are looking for a job. The way you left this company was so exemplary, we have room now and we Authority I Page 12 of 13

13 would love to have you back. God honors and rewards those people who live Thy will be done in the real world in real time with real authority. The abuse of authority there are consequences. Submission to other people when you are in authority is rewarded. Philippians 2:9 For this reason also, God the Father highly exalted Christ, and bestowed on him the name which is above every name. Why did He do that? Because Jesus the Christ humbled himself and put himself under the authority of the Father to serve mankind and did not regard His divinity as something to be grasped. He did not abuse that authority but submitted that. God granted Him and bestowed upon Him the name which is above every name. Listen to how He would be rewarded. Every knee would bow Thy kingdom come and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord and king, to the glory of God the Father. It is everywhere. It is in our souls. In God s view of the kingdom in authority, obedience looks like this it is submission to the authority above you when you don t want to. Let s pray. Wait a minute. Do you realize what you just did? Do you hear what other people did? I said, Let s pray. And what did you do? What did we all do? We all bowed our heads. We do that around here because we are addressing a King. That is why we bow our heads when we pray. That is why. Why else would you do that? What other thing could I say to you to get an auditorium full of people to put their heads down? I say, let s pray. And everybody addresses the King appropriately. Dear heavenly Father, You have set up the world and you have put us in a spotlight that we could display to all of creation whether it is a tulip or an angel that when you say go, we will go. When you say come, we are running. When you say to do something, we will do it. Christ, you are our King. We bow our heads because you are our king. God, I pray that we would not do this in practice like on Sunday for an hour in a religious context but in real time and real life, in our living rooms, in our workplaces, in this church as we submit to the government, as we serve when we lead. For thine is the kingdom and thine is the power and thine is the glory. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen. Authority I Page 13 of 13