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We are going to turn in our Bibles to 1 Peter, and we're going to start reading from chapter 2. Alright, 1 Peter, chapter 2, and verse 9. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Beloved, I urge you as sojourners, exiles, to abstain from the passions of the flesh, flesh which war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak evil against you, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. Be subject, for the Lord's sake, to every human institution, whether it is to be the emperor as supreme or to governors as sent by him to punish those doing good and to praise those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. Honor everyone, love the brotherhood, fear God, and honor the Emperor. Lord, we thank you for your word. Thank you, how we thank you that it is alive and active, powerful, transformational. Lord, when we hear your word and we respond by faith, your word takes over and it cuts deep into our hearts. It changes us, Lord. And we thank you that, yes, it says in your in your word that your the living word is living and active, cutting between the bone and marrow, the soul and the spirit, revealing the intentions of our heart, and revealing your intentions and your will and your way for our lives. And we thank you, Lord, that as we look at these scriptures tonight again, that we can uh glean something powerful for our lives, and how submission and being subjected to you is awesome. And we give you all the praise in Jesus' name. Amen. Talked about on Sunday how we were subjected to the things of this world. We were born in sin. The Bible says, David says, that in iniquity my mother bore me, and we were born into sin, and we were subjected to sin. Eventually, we know that every child has a rebellious streak, and for most of us, we've experienced children that their first words were no, right? And um, so we were subjected to sin, we were subjected to hostility, the Bible says, and enmity against God, and we were subject to be children of disobedience and children of wrath. That was our destiny outside of the life of Christ. What a life that was. Until we found that Jesus came, submitted himself to be a human, born of a woman, as the Holy Spirit hovered over Mary and said, You will give birth to the one that will save the world from sin. And since Jesus Christ came into the world, now we have this new submission, this new subjection to the will and the way of God because of his doing, because of Christ that has made us alive in him. Amen. And now we have a choice to be submitted to this wonderful, sovereign, holy, righteous, just God. And we put our life and our times in his hands because he is all in all and we can trust him. And I think when we doubt God, in the areas that we doubt God, in the areas that we don't trust him, there's a sense of rebellion against God. Isn't that true? And we can turn it around. Whenever we rebel against God, there's a there's a distrust when it comes to his character or his nature. And uh we do that a lot as human beings. We want to resort back to when we were subjected to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life. We were subjected to our mind, our will and our emotions being governed by satanic forces and elements. And whenever we distrust the character and nature of God in our hearts and lives, we become a little bit rebellious, and the devil picks up on that and says, Hey, I got a little bit of an in with this guy, and I'm gonna drive it home, right? So for us as believers tonight, what does it mean that we would be in submission to the Lord? We submit to the Lord, we're in submission to the Lord. What does it mean to you that we are in submission to the Lord? Like I said on Sunday with my brother always holding me down and saying, Uncle, you know, aren't you glad that God doesn't operate like that? Hold us down and say, Boy, say uncle. Uncle, Lord, uncle. No, that's not the way he uh that's not the way he operates. He operates with with love. So to you in your life, what does it mean now that you've been taken out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his light? You've been subjected to the will and the way of Satan through the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, the pride of life, your mind, will, and emotions were governed towards that way. You didn't have a choice. You were you were you were governed in sin, born in sin, but yet sinners. So now we submit ourselves to the Lord. Amen. Who else are we gonna trust? Donald Trump? Joe Biden? No, Lori? You're you're not you're not trusting Donald Trump? Yes, yes, yes, yes. Another word of wisdom from Laurie. Amen. Good, good stuff. Hey, let's turn over to Colossians chapter 3, and I love this uh this portion of Scripture. We were seated in the muck and mire of our sin and our own selfish devices and intentions, and we were stuck in the quicksand of our sin, shame, guilt, and bound to death. And then Jesus came. Amen. Colossians chapter 3, verse 1. If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. If you've been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds or your heart or your command center on things that are above, not on things that are on the earth. Now, this verse doesn't mean that we're supposed to be so heavenly minded that we're no earthly good. It means that our mindset is now not based on the uh the world's uh philosophy or opinions or speculations. Our mindset is set on what Christ has accomplished in heavenly places for us and that has won the victory. Amen. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. You have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. Now, doesn't that give you a lot of sense of protection and provision? Amen? That you're secure, you're stable, your life is hidden with Christ in God. Okay, so therefore, put to death what is earthly in you sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these, the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked. Amen. You must put them away. I like that. When you were living in them, but now you must put them all away. Anger, wrath, malice, slander, obscene talk from your mouth, do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices, and put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, scythian, slave, free, but Christ is all and in all. Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, patience. Ah, that's not fun. Come on. Compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another, and if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other, as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all these, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. Be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. Whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God, the Father, through him. Amen. What a great portion of Scripture this is. Since we've been set free from the kingdom of darkness and clothed in the righteousness of God, brought into the kingdom of his light, now we got to shine. Amen. Now we got to shine. So Christ has changed our wardrobe. So now we got to go to the closet of our heart and throw out all the old stuff. Amen. How many of you have old clothing that you just need to get rid of? It's taking up space and everything, man. Get rid of that stuff. Amen. All that raggedy old stained stuff that is of our old nature. Get it gone and wear the robes of righteousness and the clothing of the character and nature of God, because we are his and he lives within us. Amen. Oh, what a beautiful portion of scripture that he has clothed us. But we have to put it on. This verse that says, above all these, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. This word uh bond binds. Or in other portion of scripture, it says uh the bonds of unity. It's speaking about how the ligaments and the tendons hold everything together. That Ephesians tells us that we are ligamente together. Amen. Aren't you glad that as of right now, your ligaments and tendons are hooked up pretty good? You're walking. Aren't you glad for that? Amen. And this is what God has done to us. We are ligamented together with Christ. And that means that we are ligamented together with each of us as children of God. Amen. And this is a beautiful, beautiful thing, man. Ligamented together. Our tendons are working together. So, biblical submission starts with arranging one's life under the will and direction of God. We surrender to God's choices and defer to his will and his way. And how do we know his will and his way? Sandy, you said it. It's the word of God. Amen. It's the word of God. Do you trust the Lord tonight? Do you trust the Lord over the speculation and opinions and arguments of men? Amen. Let's turn over to Ephesians chapter 4. This will help us in our submission to each other, but also in our submission to the government and institutions. Ephesians chapter 4. And verse 25. It says, Therefore, having put away falsehood, and there's that concept again of getting rid of stuff. Amen? Putting away falsehood. We have that ability to put it away, to put it to death, to put it aside. Let each of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger. The Bible says in other places, it says, The anger of man does not fulfill the righteousness of God. Amen. Give no opportunity to the devil. Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. Man, if we were submitted to Christ in such a way that everything that we say is such that builds up, that are words that are aptly spoken for for the occasion, and it gives grace to those that hear. Wouldn't that be something for our church? Amen. Every time we open our mouth, it's filled with grace, it's filled with the Holy Spirit speaking through us and um brings grace to those that hear. Let no corrupting talk, not just corrupt talk, but corrupting talk. You become negative, don't you? Man, walk into a FedEx hub and and uh you'll find out, probably UPS as well. The negativity and the the complaining and the fretting and the the slandering and everything, it just grinds on you. And uh this is what we have to overcome in the world, is that we need to we need to uh step the salt of the earth and uh give people grace and be the light of the world and the salt of the earth. Amen. Because it says here, do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God. When we submit to the Lord and his care for our lives, we can uh we can speak the wonder of his will and his way into our hearts and into our lives, but also into others, and not grieve the Holy Spirit of God. And I was thinking, man, how how many times, even in even in my mind or the words that I speak, do I grieve the Holy Spirit because I am not speaking the mindset of God? Amen. I'm not speaking the words of God, and I'm and I'm speaking, uh I'm speaking doubt or I'm speaking uh fear, amen. The Bible says that uh life and death are in the power of our words, and it's very, very significant. How many of you, as you live this Christian life, you could be saying something that you have no feeling or emotion for whatsoever, but you're speaking it out in faith, amen? And when you do that, when you speak words of faith, declare the things of God, all of a sudden our emotions start to come along, and it arouses our emotions to to serve the Lord. See, the world says, I gotta feel it, and if I feel it, I'm gonna do it. For the believer, if I believe it and I speak it, then my life lines up with the with the direction and the will of God. Amen. So this word uh submit means to arrange under. Amen? Arrange under. Speaks of carrying a load. It emphasizes humility, service, orderly, Christ-centered relationships rather than the disordered, broken, and chaotic relationships we see in the world without Christ. In the Bible, submission is the voluntary act of yielding one's will, one's rights, one's desires, one's wishes to the authority and rule of God. Have you done that tonight? We need to do it every day, don't we? As we yield to Him. And we give our submission to the Lord. Submission to God is a just, rational response when we recognize in humble gratitude his supreme authority over all things, all institutions, all powers, all principalities, all authorities. And we can rest in him. 1 Peter chapter 3 and verse 2. 1 Peter chapter 3, verse 22. And it says this. Verse 8 of chapter 3 says, Finally, all of you have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil, or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you are called, that you may obtain a blessing. Whoever desires to see life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit, let him turn away from evil and do good, let him seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayers. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil. So as we uh come to a close tonight, in what areas of your life do you find that you're not yielding to the Lord? You're not submitting. There's there's little nooks and crannies in our heart, darkened areas where uh we'd rather not let the light of light of the look uh light of the word of God shine because we like those places. Amen? We have a tendency to love sin, don't we? We have a tendency to uh wander, and we have a tendency to take our eyes off of the authority and the rule and the power of God in our lives, and we have a tendency to look to things other than the Lord to rule us and reign over us. See, um man, the Israelites had to learn a lesson when they left Egypt, didn't they? They had to learn how to be free. And that is a lesson that we all have to learn. We are no longer bound by our sinful nature, we are bound by the nature of God that lives within us, the very Holy Spirit. Amen? And we need to learn to live as free men. The Bible says in Peter, live as free people. See, before we didn't have the freedom to do what we really wanted to do. Paul uh said that, right? The things that I want to do, I don't do. And the things I want to do, do, okay? I have a I have a problem doing. Um so we are we are free people now. Christ has set us free. It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. So what does this freedom in Christ mean to you? And what is it, what what does it give you? What power and authority does it give you to uh proclaim that you are free in Christ. You are free in Christ. This freedom that uh Christ talks about, Paul talks about, is the freedom to do now what we are ought to do rather than what our sinful nature wants us to do. Amen. We're not obligated to pay the debt of sin. That debt has been paid. It is paid, it is finished, right? It's stamped on our heart that we have been forgiven, we've been, we've been forgiven of our sin, and we've been cleansed from the power of sin in our hearts and in our lives. And now we have to stamp it. It is finished. I'm no oblig I'm not obligated to pay that debt any longer. I'm obligated to live my life to the glory of God and to be free to do what God wants us to do and the freedom to do what we ought to do. When somebody speaks against me and uh humiliates me or embarrasses me, I no longer feel like I have the Freedom to strangle them and beat them to a pulp. I have the freedom now to say, God bless you. May the love of Jesus be upon you. Amen? And then give Tony and Vinny a call from Brooklyn to go speak to them. No. We have the freedom to do what we ought to do. We're free not to sin any longer. We are free. Amen? Free. There's a freedom that we must bask in and revel in, this freedom that Christ has set us free. We're not obligated to sin any longer. We do not have to sin any longer. We are free. Will we fall? Will we sin? Yes. And what do we do when that happens? Repent, we confess our sin. We're faithful and just to forgive us of our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. He's faithful and he's just. Amen? And uh the Bible says, submit to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Lots of times uh when that verse is spoken, it's spoken like this: resist the devil and he will flee from you. Not cool. You cannot resist the devil. Amen. We resist the devil when we submit to God's authority and power over our lives. We put ourselves under the umbrella of God of God and rule in our lives, and we are protected, we are provided for, and we have the power of God to say, devil, be gone in Jesus' name. Amen. And this is the wonder of being submitted to the Lord. Maybe tonight there's some things in your heart that you got to give over to the Lord. You got to say, Lord, I've been holding on to this thing. I've been holding on to this mindset, and I need to put it under the umbrella of your authority, your rule, your way, your will, so that I have freedom in this situation. Amen? Freedom. Freedom. Freedom. Spout for a word of prayer. Lord, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the fact that we don't have to any longer submit to our fleshly desires, to the worldly impulses of the love of the love of the flesh, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life. We no longer are bound by that authority or that rule. We are not bound by Satan or his demons. The Bible has spoken to us tonight that you have subjected all these powers under Christ. And God, we are our lives are hidden with Christ in God, protected, provided for with this wonderful freedom of the Holy Spirit to live our lives in holiness and power and authority, not based on who and what we are in our religious life. It's based on the wonderful work of Jesus Christ that has his blood has been shed and has cleansed us from every sin. Now we are righteous children of God that run into the very presence of God. We've gained access into the very presence of a holy God. And every time we worship you, Lord, we are stunned with wonder of the acceptance that you give us in this beautiful, beautiful relationship of being sons and daughters of God. Lord, we we relish it, we revel in it, we cherish it tonight. And Lord, we don't want anything that comes to come between you and our soul, our mind, our will and emotion totally surrendered and submitted to you, always understanding this wonderful aspect that you will lead us and you will guide us. In every decision that we make, we know that when you lead us and you guide us, you equip us by your grace to live out your will and your way. And I pray, Lord, tonight that the will and way of God will be established in our heart. And we will say, I will no longer have a mindset that defers to my old nature or the flesh. My mindset will be set on things that are above, the things that Christ has accomplished for me, the things that uh is accomplished in the heavenly realms in authority and power. So, Lord, we're so grateful today that you said and you sent us out. Go and make disciples. All authority has been given to me, and now I send you. And God, we we will leave this place tonight, understanding that our lives are completely under the authority and power of God. And the devil has no free cess, or no authority and power over our lives. We are free, God. And Lord, we're so grateful that when you walk the earth, you set the captive free. You cast out demons, and every demon that came upon you proclaimed you as the Son of God, the Messiah, God Almighty. And we thank you, Lord, that now you bring torment still through the works of the enemy. And you said in your word that the gates of hell shall not prevail against your church. God, we are your church. And we're thankful that the gates of hell shall not prevail against us. And we know, Lord, from the word of God, that the gates of hell speak of the strategies, the tactics, the plans, and the wishes and the whims of demonic power will not have any effect over our heart and life, because we are the church. And we thank you, Lord, for the power that you have given us through the power of the Holy Spirit, regenerating us, God, the renewal of the Holy Spirit that stirs us, God, to draw closer to you, to be ever mindful of your will and your way in our hearts and in our lives. And today, God, we we ask for your forgiveness for not totally committing our mind, our command center to the authority and the rule of Jesus Christ in our heart and in our life. But now tonight we commit ourselves once again to fall under the umbrella of your authority and your power and your will and your way for our lives. And we say, Lord, wherever you want us to go, we will go. Whatever you want us to say, we will say. And whatever you want us to become, we know that the Holy Spirit can transform us. Amen. Transform us to be whatever we need to be based on who you desire us to be, Lord. And we give you praise and we give you adoration. Wonderful name of Jesus, we love you, Lord. We proclaim your name. We proclaim the testimony of the grace of God in our hearts and lives that will ever, ever lead us, will never, ever, never, ever leave us, but will always lead us and guide us. You'll not forsake us. We are no longer orphans, we are your children. We are no longer slaves, we are now sons and daughters of God, and we revelate it tonight, oh God. We give you praise. So, Lord, we come to you and we submit to you in a new and fresh way. We put ourselves under your authority and your power for our lives. And as Sandy has said, Lord, let us not just be hearers of the word, but let us be doers. As Kathy has said, let us not delay our obedience to you, Lord, but obey you in all things right now, because we know that obedience brings this intimacy of knowing you in a greater way. And we give you thanks in Jesus' wonderful name. Amen and amen. We submit to you, Lord. Amen. And if anybody doesn't submit, we'll hold you down and make you say, Uncle. Amen. In Jesus' name. Oh man. There's always that. So grateful that when you think about how Christ drew salvation, a plan for your life. There was no coercion, there was no manipulation, there was no forcing. Amen. His quiet, gentle whisper of his love drew salvation's plan. Mostly we had our fist raised against God. But God took our fist, kind of crushed it, and gave us a big hug and said, I love you. Amen. That's the wonder of God's grace tonight. Submit yourself to the Lord. Resist the enemy's temptation over your life. Draw near to God, and He will draw near to us. Amen? Amen.