Dealing with an Authority Problem

Dearly beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, we saw last Sunday that two particular sins of false teachers especially stink in the nostrils of God. He is absolutely and definitely going to punish those who follow flesh in the lust of defilement and those who despise authority. Well, Peter doesn't just mention those two categories and then drop them. Instead, he expands on them in reverse order. Look at the passage: The part of it before us, through v. 13a, is clearly denouncing those who despise authority, while the next part, through v. 16, describes those who follow flesh in the lust of defilement. Well, it doesn't take a Ph.D. in sociology to know that our culture, too, has a problem with authority — a problem that most of us share, in one way or another. Remember, the point of these sermons is not primarily to warn you against bad people out there in the world, outside the walls of our church, but primarily to warn you against bad people in here, and specifically against the evil within your own heart. So let's let the word of God dissect our hearts, exposing for us the characteristics of people with an authority problem and warning us about the God who will not tolerate rebellion. Ultimately, we will see that the text encourages us to embrace the authority of Christ, and thus of His human and institutional representatives. Otherwise we too will receive injustice as the wage of our injustice.