Authority and Family in God's Plan

How about Denise? Can you report about her? She comes to check on Saturday. She's in a lot of pain, but she's home. The doctor said she's been out for six to eight weeks, so we'll see if that works. Her dad got home the day before. She's been very, very well. So Denise had surgery on her back. Her dad had the surgery the same day, so she's home now in a lot of pain. It'll be six to eight weeks in recovery. Wayne Rathbun had aneurysm, some kind of aneurysm surgery and got a report that he's doing well. He's supposed to be coming home today. I haven't heard anything from Darlene Mirandy. Has anybody heard anything from her? She had... Yes? Darlene and I communicated Saturday. She worked so closely with a computer validation. She's been home that evening. It's clear that she's doing pretty well. She just doubts that we pray that they find any more cancer anywhere else or if someone's taking therapy at the biopsy. We don't know about that right now. But other than pain and not being able to sleep, she's been going to the computer. So Darlene Mirandy had a lumpectomy. We appreciate your praying for these people. I know that it's a certainty that God responds to the prayers that we have. Our Sunday School small group material has been focusing on the Ten Commandments. So I want you to turn to Deuteronomy chapter 5 if you would. There's a pattern to these commandments, a pattern that follows and I think the pattern helps us to understand exactly what God intends to do through these. He starts by saying, you're to have no other gods other than me. He wants us to recognize, everyone, that he is the supreme authority for all that's done in the world. He is the boss. He's the owner. He's the ruler. He's the controller. God wants us to recognize his supreme authority over everything in the universe. And that word authority is a key ingredient. I am in charge. Now, since I am in charge, I don't want you to take anything else and let that control your life but me. I don't want you to take any of the material things in this world and form them into some kind of object that you would say represents me. Because I'm not material. I am a spiritual being. So recognize that our relationship is this spiritual relationship. Nothing else can represent me but me. And then he said, I want you to be sure that you never do anything that insults me or degrades me. Hold me in the highest honor. Those three commands are required of everyone who becomes a follower of God. The fourth commandment was important to God as it was to the people of Israel. I want you to never forget those three things. Now, here's how I want you to do it. Take one day out of the week, and in that week I want you to do nothing but think about who I am, the authority and power I have, the relationship you have with me, the care that I give to you, the protection I provide for you. I want you to remember what I've done to help you. Think back about the Exodus, how I brought you out of Egypt as slaves and gave you a new identity. That Sabbath day was a critical thing for them. In the New Testament we're not required a Sabbath day, but every day is to be a day in which we remember who God is. I think for the beginning in the morning for me it's the best time to sit down and recognize God's supreme authority over me and all the world, to recognize that He is holy, righteous, far, far above me, to recognize that I have in my life brought shame to Him in some times, and ask for forgiveness, and vow in my life to live in a way that reflects His glory and honor to everyone around me. That begins my day. I read the Bible to listen to the words that He has to give to me. That's what this is really all about. But then it changes. Some people look at this as if it's kind of a division. First it's talking about all we should do for God, and then it's talking about our relationships. But there's a very powerful connection, I think, between what happens after that and what I want to focus on today. Verse 16 of chapter 5 of Deuteronomy. Honor your father and your mother as the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live long and that it may go well with you in the land the Lord your God is giving you. Honor your father and your mother as the Lord your God has commanded you. Now, He just finished telling us that He's in charge of everything. The whole world is His to rule. And now His first command to the people is to honor their parents. So if God is in charge of everything that there is in the world, He comes to say to His people, you look at your parents and you give them the honor and respect that I've asked you to give to me too. So you look at your parents as figures of authority. What this command is really about is about the authority of God to tell us in this world who the authorities for our lives really are. Now, what was happening here was unique in the history of the world. The people of Israel had been slaves in Egypt for eight to ten generations. No Bibles, no preachers, no prophets, no one to tell them who God was or how to shape their lives day by day. They had been surrounded by people who worshipped all kinds of different gods, worshipped idols, worshipped different kinds of gods around them. They didn't have a direction from God. They cried out because they remembered Abraham's relationship with God and they wanted his help. So God came to help them. Now, He's gathered them at the foot of the mountain where He's giving these commandments. And He begins by saying, remember my authority over you. Now, how is He going to get this authority into the people of Israel? This is the key ingredient. The people around you will learn who I am from you. I've told you what I want you to do. As parents, I want you to honor me. As parents, I want you to respect me. As parents, I want you to yield to my authority for your life. That is the relationship you are to have with me. Now, what I ask of your children, look at your parents, listen to them, honor and respect them. What God knew was that what was in the life of these parents would be passed on to the lives of the children. You know how this works. Children are born into your family. As soon as they're able to begin to speak, they speak your language. If you grew up in the south, you'd say y'all. If you grew up in the north, your kids would say you guys. My son has a child. His wife is Brazilian, speaks Portuguese. And sometimes that child, two years old, will say Portuguese words and sometimes English words. I can promise you not a one of my children, when we raised them, ever came out with a Portuguese word. The power and influence of a person over children is astonishing. Sometimes as we adults get older, we realize more and more how much our lives have been shaped by our own parents, the values that we have, the way we act, the things that we do. What God knew was if he was going to make this great, powerful, holy nation, he needed parents in the home to live by the first four commandments that he gave. If you will do that, then your parent, your children, will look up to you and honor you and respect you. Now what he was trying to do was build a society or a culture or a world where there is order and structure. When you have people who have been locked up or people under the control of someone and never been able to make decisions on their own, sometimes when they get the freedom to make those decisions, they don't know the boundaries. They make the stupidest choices in the world. You've seen it perhaps from families that tightly control their kids, didn't let them do anything, they watched them all the time. Then the kid gets grown up, moves off somewhere, gets a job or goes to school and does everything in the world that they shouldn't have done. They don't have the boundaries, the limits in their own mind and heart to know how to do the right things. God didn't want the people to force their children to do these things. He wanted them to choose to honor and respect their parents, to give the parents authority over them. That's right. For the children to give the parents the authority over them. The parents give God the authority over them and now the children give the parents authority over the children. This is building a society and a culture in which there is order and in which there is structure. They had no churches this time. They had no prophets at this time. They had no government at this time. All they had was Moses as their leader. No, that's not right. That's not right. Moses talked to God and told the people what God wanted them to do. Moses was simply a communicator. If they had a problem, there was a tent of meeting that Moses would go to and he would say, God, this is our problem. What should I tell the people? God would come and talk to him. He would come out and say, this is what God says you should do. God did not want them to look to Moses as their leader. He wanted them to look to him as the final authority for everything that they did. But at this time, there were no political structures and there was no religious structure set up. So everything depended on the family to bring the authority of God into that home by the lives of the parents who lived with the authority of God on them and the authority of God over their children. He made a promise to them that if you would do these things, if you would live the way you ought to live, that you will live long in this land and things will go well with you. Live long a life, a good life, and a life that is well with you. What God was trying to do was to build a culture and a structure that allowed him to do his work, that allowed him to work through the people to fulfill all the promises of his covenant so he could guide the nation, so he could provide their needs, so he could give them protection from their enemies and provide a way that they might be able to be a great influence in all of the world. This can only happen if God is in charge and in control. But this was simply the beginning of what God was trying to do. If you look through the story of Deuteronomy, you will find that later on, Moses is explaining what all of these things ought to be and each of the ten commandments, as the book of Deuteronomy unfolds, there is a section about the first commandment, details about how do you let the Lord your God rule and control your life. Each of those ten commandments is spelled out in the book of Deuteronomy with more details as to how it's to be lived out. In chapter 17, beginning with verse 1, through chapter 18 and ending with verse 22, Moses describes how this fifth commandment is to be lived out. But he doesn't talk about the family. Instead, he talks about the authority of human agencies in the nation of Israel. For example, the king, he talks about the law courts and the kings and how God is to be working through all of them to shape the lives of his people. So he's talking then about the religious life and how the priest and the Levites are to work to provide a communication between people and God. He starts with the family unit and then he expands it as time goes on to the community relationship, what we would call government, and to the spiritual relationship, which we would call the church. It begins, though, with the family and then spreads from one to the other. We even see, as the Bible unfolds this story, the power that God places on authority in our community and in our lives. Not only is God to have authority over us and parents have authority over children, we're to live in a culture where authority is recognized, appreciated, and obeyed. There's a story in 1 Samuel about David. Saul was chosen to be a king. God didn't want a king, but they kept saying they wanted one, so he chose one and said, OK, I'm going to pick this man as a king. He will be your ruler. He will be the person I talk to. He will do the things I want him to do to provide the nation the protection and care that a king should. But Saul violated, rebelled against God's authority. And God said to David, I'm going to push him out of the way and you're going to be the new king. But it didn't happen right away. Instead, Saul, as he realized David was going to be the new king and he was on the way out, he did what a lot of people in political structures do. He decided to kill his enemy, destroy him. Negative campaigning, that kind of stuff. If I get rid of him, then I'll still be the chosen guy. So he began to try to kill David, chased him everywhere. David had some men loyal to him. And one day he was hiding in a cave and King Saul came. David was inside the cave in the dark. This was his chance. He could kill the king. He could take over the king's spot. He could then rule the land as God said he was going to do. David got close enough that Saul went into the cave to go to the bathroom and he got the corner of his robe and he cut the end off of it. Saul left and David came out holding this before him and announced to Saul that he'd seen him. David's soldiers complained because David didn't kill Saul. But he was so determined to believe that obedience to God, under God's authority, he should look to Saul as the chosen person of God. If God wants to get rid of Saul, it's his business, not mine. How can I, David said, destroy the chosen leader that God has given us? Such a high view of political structure David had. But that's not really the whole story. God places great emphasis for the followers, his followers, on this very same thing. Paul, writing in chapter 13 of Romans, says, Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities for there is no authority except that which God has established. Get that. There is no authority other than what God has established. Bosses where you work, government leaders, parents, God, all authority is given by the hand of God. So that every person in a position of authority has received that from God. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted. Those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right but for those who do wrong. Do what you want to be free from fear. Do you want to be free from the fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. For he is God's servant to do you good. Now the word that is used here for servant is the very word that we use in our churches for church leaders, deacons. The leader of the country is a deacon to God. But if you do wrong, be afraid for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience. He says not only because it is just against the law but you as a follower of me should recognize the authority that governing officials have and if you decide you are going to do something contrary to rebel against them, your conscience should bother you. God has a very high idea of authority. Every authority in the world is given by me. Now when we look at some of our leaders, political leaders, and we see the mistakes that they make and the character that they have, we think we have the right to rebel against them or say negative and nasty things about them. But God says that is not our business. We look at this story and we see that the emperor he is talking about this time was a very vile guy. He was not only wicked, not only a pagan. His participation in homosexual behavior was evident to everyone. And this is what he said about him. What God is saying is like you would say to your neighbor. My kids come over to your house and they don't act the way you want them to. I don't want you to spank them. You tell me and I will take care of it. That is what God said. Nobody is going to get away with anything. If you think your leader of your nation is wicked and evil, I will take care of that. He serves me. Get that. He serves me. Putin serves God. And he is under the judgment of God. And all of the political leaders elected. It doesn't mean that God elects or chooses all of them. But when they are in that place, they are accountable to him for what they do. God wants us to acknowledge authority. There is something about our human nature that resists authority. I don't want anybody to tell me what to do. I want to be able to get up when I want to. I want to be able to eat when I want to. My wife is gone. I don't have to pay attention to her authority. I want that. I like that. And when it comes to submitting our lives to God, the same kind of rebellious instincts inside of us. God wants to get rid of that. He wants us to learn that he cares for us, he loves us, and following his instructions is the only way to life. If you do what I tell you, you will have life that is good. A long and good life is his promise. Submission to authority is a key ingredient of the kingdom of God and it's a key ingredient of our lives. But it's not just submission to God himself. It's submission to the authorities that he places in our lives. The teachers that are around us. The law enforcement people that are around us. Government officials that are around us. All of those peoples are in their places because God has put them there. Teach your children to submit to you. You submit to God and teach them to submit to me and submit to these people I've placed in your authority. Wouldn't it be a wonderful world if everybody in the world obeyed the law? You wouldn't have a job, you know. That'd be nice. It'd be a great thing. But it's the failure to submit to authority that creates such chaos in our world. You can read all the bad stories on the internet or the newspaper and at the bottom of every single one of them someone has said to God, No, I'll not do what you tell me. They've said to the law, No, I won't do what you tell me. They've said to their boss, No, I won't do what you tell me and you can't make me and I'll kill you if you try. All that's gone, you see. God's plan is that we live under authority. It starts with a home because in Israel there is yet no king, no political leader. It's also true of the church. There was no church for them. There was no temple for them. There was nothing of the structure that's going to come. And in this passage and later on in Deuteronomy where he describes what's going to happen, he not only talks about the king in the role he's going to talk about the Levites and the priests and how they're going to be the medium by which God allows the people to communicate with Him and them. They're to be able to tell God's instructions about the law. They're the people to help them know how to make sacrifices so their sins can be forgiven. They look at the animal they've brought to tell if it's really the right kind of animal that they can offer as a sacrifice. All the priests are positions of authority to help them be able to communicate with God. Listen to the priest and the teacher. That was his instruction. Now God has not left us without this direction. In the New Testament he describes the church not in the same way that he did in the Old Testament with the priest and the temple, but the new element is we have received the Holy Spirit within our hearts. Each of us has received Christ and when we receive Christ's Spirit Christ's Spirit lives within us to guide us and provide for us and protect us and make our life powerful and useful to others. Paul described what the church was like. He was describing the life of the church and how we're brought together as followers of his to be a part of a community of faith. He called it the body of Christ. A place in which we experience Christ firsthand in our own lives. We know that we're a part of something bigger. Christ is the head of the church but the people in the church who have positions of leadership are given those by God. A pastor receives a gift from God to be able to preach and to teach. Teachers receive a gift from God to be able to teach. Those who have other gifts from God have those as a result of God's gracious gift and we're to honor and respect each person as a part of this family of believers. In 1 Corinthians, Paul is talking about this describing how he wants to shape the church. He says, Now you are the body of Christ and each one of you is part of it in the church of God and in the church of God and in the church of God has appointed first of all apostles second prophets, third teachers then workers of miracles then others who have gifts of healing and who are able to help others. Those with the gifts of administration those speaking in different kinds of tongues are all apostles, are all prophets, are all teachers. There are some people who have different roles that we have and we are to respect those roles and see that they are gifts indeed from God. What God is saying is you are under authority. We want to be able to come to the church and have everything our way. We want to be able to do the things we want to do the things that please us. But the church is a structure of God. Christ is head of the church. We can come to business meeting and make a decision but if we haven't consulted Christ and done that in obedience to him we've rebelled against his authority. Christ is head of the body. Each of us have a member as a member have a part in this body but it's connected to the one leader. As the pastor I'm not leader of this church I'm not the head of this church. Christ is. I am a member like you are. I have a particular function to give here. I have to look at God and say he is in charge of my life. I have to look at you and say God is in charge of your life. And I have to listen to you to what God has said to you and you should listen to me to search for what God has said to you through me. We are to respect the authority of God in each other so that when a fellow believer talks to us about what God has said or done in them we should listen very carefully. For the head should be honored and when he speaks to the members it should be respected and honored. And the church that lives under the authority of God can be assured of a good, long, well, spiritual life. This is God's promise. This commandment given, the fifth commandment was indeed about the home but it was much broader than that. It was about how God intends to work in the world. His intention is I am in charge. I'm the authority. Now I'm going to give some of my authority to you. But if you are an authority you're still under me. But everyone who's around you should look to you and the authority that I've placed in you. The hand of God on us is a powerful, overwhelming, and humbling thing. No one can live in the Christian community without humility and servanthood. It is required. God has given the family a key role in all of this. I want you to represent the reflection of who I am. Remember those first four commandments. You keep them. You recognize my authority. You live under it. You do the things that I tell you to do. You never bring shame to me. And you have a regular attitude in your life of dependence on me every day. And when you do that the people around you will begin to find in themselves an authority in you. A spiritual authority in you. And it will begin to shape their lives so that I can give to them what I've given to you. I'll place you in a world where there is authority. It belongs to me. Honor and respect it. Do you come to time both with your parents or with your friends or with the government in which you can't do what the authorities on earth tell you? Of course you might. Paul gives us an example. The Bible gives us an example. Peter was called before the courts and he was told that he should quit preaching about Jesus. Now he'd received a personal command from Christ to go and make disciples all around the world. And he was faced with this dilemma. Here is a government authority, a spiritual authority telling me I should not preach about Jesus. Here is Jesus saying, preach about me. He thought that over, reflected on it. He said to them, you guys have to do whatever you think is right. I have to choose between obedience to men who tell me not to do what God tells me or obedience to God and doing what He tells me. As for me, I must choose obedience to God. Here is our key. We are never to give anyone an authority, the power or ability to tell us to do something God said we shouldn't do or to not do something God tells us to do. Other than that, all authority in heaven and on earth, we are to obey. It is God's plan for His world. What God asks is only one reason. I am the Lord. I made heaven and earth and I am in charge. And I expect you to do what I tell you. And if you will, you will have a long and a good life. My promise to you. Would you bow your heads please for a moment. You see, all of this begins with one simple thing. That is the absolute recognition of the authority of God over your life. Over the choices you make. Over the language you use. Over the lifestyle that you live. God's authority over that. He doesn't want you to come and be baptized and live the way you've always lived. He wants you to come before Him and say, God, I give my life to you. I want it to reflect in the choices that I make. I want it to reflect in the lifestyle that I live. I want it to reflect in the character that I have hidden inside of me. You own me. That's what He wants. Everything else in the story will fall in place once that peace is established. It doesn't matter to me if you've been baptized or if you've joined a church. That's really not that significant. What's really significant is if your life is surrendered to the authority of God. Can you honestly say that you read the Bible and try to do what it says you should do? Can you honestly say that you ask God to guide your choices in your lifestyle? Are you resistant and rebellious against God? Then it doesn't matter how many times you've been baptized or how many times you've joined a church. You're at odds with God. This is what He wants. The most fundamental thing of all. Give yourself to me. You can do that very simply by saying, God, I've made a lot of choices in my life. I know we're not the ones you wanted me to make. I admit that to you. The beginning of this moment is best I know how. I give you authority over everything in my life. And when you've done that, He wants you to publicly, openly stand and say, I've given my life to Jesus Christ. We do this through baptism. You come and stand in that pool and you say to the people, I've given my life to Christ. We bury you in the water to show your old life has passed and raise you to show that a new life has started. But it does no good unless you've surrendered to His authority. So what is God saying to you? What is He talking to you about? Those thoughts in your mind are His words to you. They have authority. Yield to them. There's some commitments you need to make to Christ. I'm going to be here and Carl's going to be here and Debbie's going to be here. Come and share that with us. Have us pray with you. We can do that. So as your music plays and the Lord speaks to you, you do what God wants you to do. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ I trust that in the moment of silence, you've heard God speak to you in some way. That's a voice of authority. And I hope you've said to Him, Okay, I recognize this and I'll do what you want. Is that something you need to share with us? Okay. Would you stand please for a moment of prayer. This evening in our business meeting, we're going to be talking about our construction project and make some decisions I hope that will lead us to the very next step that we need to take. You'll hear some reports from how things are doing in our various parts of our church life that we can celebrate and look for direction of God's leadership to us. The meeting's at 6 o'clock this evening. All our members are invited to participate. Let's pray. We thank you for your willingness to speak to us, to put thoughts in our minds. We're thankful that you've made a world where structure and order is possible. Where we can find in our world people in positions of authority you've placed there to help us. Help us to be submissive to those people you've given us as the figures of authority. Help us to be respectful most of all for you. That every thought you put in our mind, we would recognize it's from you. We ask, Father, that you would make us a people living under your authority. To your honor and to your glory. Amen.