Serving and Suffering like Jesus

Introduction

‌Let’s pray.

Read 1 Peter 2:18-25

Last week, we looked at 1 Peter 2:13-17

We saw that God ordained civil government for the good of everyone--believers and unbelievers alike. All authorities that exist have been instituted by him, and he says that because of this it is his good pleasure for us to be subject to them. As part of this, we also examined the fact that a government that no longer serves the good of its people at all is no longer a government.

We also saw that submitting to the civil authorities is part of our witness to the world around us. Peter told us previously that the unbelievers would see the good deeds we do and speak against us. But then he revisited that thought and said that this particular good deed we are called to as Christians--living in right relationship to our government--would silence the unbelievers in this life.

Finally, we looked at Christian Liberty. Peter tells us to live as people who are free. We saw that this isn’t freedom to do whatever I have a desire and an ability to do, but that in its simplest form it’s freedom to live for God; it’s freedom to love God and my neighbor. When the government tries to compel me to sin, then I walk in the paths of righteousness before the Lord instead of sinning, and rejoice when my God counts me worthy of suffering for Christ’s sake.

Today, we will see that how you submit to those in authority over you, even through suffering, is a reflection of who you are in Jesus and of what he has done for you.

Today, we will consider our text under three main points:

Servants (18)

Suffering servants (19-20)

The Suffering Servant (21-25)

1. Servants (1 Pet 2:18)

1 Peter 2:18 ESV

Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust.

This is a verse that should resonate with all of us. We learned that we are citizens of God’s kingdom; exiles and sojourners in this life among the unbelievers. Last week, Peter said, “Christian, because God is your Lord in Heaven, be subject to the governing authorities here on earth.” This week, he says, “Christian servants, because God is your Lord in heaven, be subject to your masters.”

Let’s get the prickly bit out of the way up front. The word in the Greek here that’s been rendered in a lot of our translations as “servants” is a word that means slave. Specifically, it refers to form of house-slave that was really composed of a class of professionals who were attached to a particular household. Think tutors, bakers, doctors, and the like, but they belonged to a specific house and didn’t really have the ability to move outside it.

I think the New Testament’s attitude toward slavery can be summed up in two points:

It doesn’t call for the abolition of slavery as practiced in the Roman Empire, but it doesn’t establish it as one of God’s ordinances like government, or the church, or family. There is no Romans 13 passage about slavery like there is for government. There is no great commission for slavery like there is for the church.

It does say that Christian masters and Christian slaves are to treat one another as befitting Christians. Ephesians, Colossians, 1 Timothy, Titus, and our passage this morning all repeat this same message. Philemon is also an edifying read.

As brief aside about slavery as practiced in the United States, I would bring to your attention Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” Most of us haven’t read this book, but it was the second best-selling book of the 19th century. It had such an impact on how people understood slavery in America that there’s a story that when Abraham Lincoln met Stowe, he reportedly said “So this is the little lady who started this big war.”

Why do I bring this book up? Well, Tom is a Christian, and he determines to live in submission to those in authority over him and to let God make all things right. He lives a life that he sees as a faithful life, and suffers greatly because of the injustices done to him by wicked masters. He’s beaten to death in the end; and do you know what his last words are? “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?”

The book showed that there was so much evil in slavery in America that it was incompatible with Christianity.

I move on from this point without further comment, because again, discussing the ethics of any form of slavery or indentured service is not the point of our text this morning.

Christians, be subject to your masters.

That’s the command. It is your duty as a Christian. But let’s not let these words—command, duty, master, servant—cloud our vision or judgment. We are being called to be like Jesus, and it may not be easy to be like Jesus, but it is a gracious thing, and God gives us the strength. Peter is telling us here what love for God and our neighbor looks like where the rubber meets the road in our relationships with those in direct authority over us. If it rubs us the wrong way, we need to examine ourselves and be renewed in our knowledge so that we see this for what it is.

How is this admonition to servants useful to us, though? Well, Peter uses the relationship between master and servants here as a template for superior/subordinate relationships in general. Do you have a boss? This passage is for you. Are you a Marine under the authority of a senior Marine? This passage is for you.

Now, up front, if you have a bad boss, go work somewhere else or find another one. Christian aren’t gluttons for punishment. We don’t go looking for suffering. As long as you’re working for someone or under someone’s authority, though, this is how we are to be.

We are to be subject to—we are to be under the authority of—those placed over us. Peter just told us we are to live as people who are free, and now here he’s still telling us how to truly exercise our Christian liberty.

And this relationship, for Christians, is to be characterized by respect. To respect someone is to honor them. This should ring bells because last week in verse 17 Peter told us to honor everyone. Honor isn’t just a mental or a physical thing; it’s both. I salute senior officers and render them the greeting of the day. I am honoring them by rendering them appropriate customs and courtesies. It’s a physical action. But I am also to honor them in my heart—it’s an inward disposition.

Philippians 2:3 ESV

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.

We are to work for and obey our masters, we are to honor and respect them, to count them as more significant than ourselves, and we are to do this without distinction. He doesn’t say that this should be our approach only for the good and gentle masters we work for.

We are to honor and respect the people we work for, even when they don’t deserve it. In this case, “unjust” masters. Unjust doesn’t necessarily mean harsh; it means someone who doesn’t do the right thing. The Greek word is literally rendered “crooked”.

God’s word really is like a two-edged sword. It cuts straight to the point. We don’t get a pass on treating our bosses like we as Christians are called to do just because they’re bad bosses.

Colossians 3:23–24 ESV

Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.

When we serve our masters, we are really serving the Lord Jesus Christ, and he tells us to continue in hope, in the sure knowledge that the fullness of our salvation is coming.

No matter our condition or walk of life, we can live for God and be witnesses to him in our spheres of influence. Whether you are the Vice-President of the United States or whether you are the guy who comes into the building after hours to mop the floors and take the trash out, how you work for and treat those in authority over you is a testament to the goodness of our Savior.

In all likelihood, all of this is going to lead to suffering, which brings us to our second point.

2. Suffering Servants (1 Pet 2:19-20)

1 Peter 2:19–20 ESV

For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God.

Christian, we are exiles and sojourners, citizens of God’s heavenly kingdom, living among the unbelieving citizens of this world. Peter has repeatedly told us that we are new creatures in Christ, that because of this we are to be like Him, and that because of this we can expect to suffer.

It’s interesting that in the previous two weeks he says that when we do good works as Christians that the UNBELIEVERS see the works and God is glorified.

The unbeliever sees your works. Here, in this passage, Peter says that it is GOD who sees your suffering, and that how you endure suffering when you suffer for his sake is a gracious thing in his sight.

Just suffering is no gain

Of course, how we handle suffering always matters. Whether it’s our fault or not, God always sees and we are always to live as for the Lord.

But if you do poorly in your job and you patiently endure your negative counseling and the suffering that causes, God isn’t going to look on your suffering and say, “I see you suffering unjustly; well-done, my good and faithful servant.” No! You’re experiencing just suffering! In other words, you’re getting exactly what’s coming to you. All is as it should be, including your patient endurance of it.

Unjust suffering is gain

But if you walk righteously before the Lord; if you are living with him in mind, and doing good, and you suffer because of this… This is a gracious thing in the sight of God.

Perhaps you’re like Lot, who was tormented in his soul at the wickedness of those around him in Sodom. You suffer because the sin and wickedness around you grieves you and you carry a burden for those who suffer under it.

I worked worked a guy who suffered daily because of the sins that dominated his life. And he clung to them fiercely. He loved them when he talked about them, and hated them when he looked at their fruit. I suffered watching him suffer, and sometimes I suffered as a direct result of these sins too. This isn’t an example of terrible suffering personal suffering on my part, but it doesn’t have to be great suffering for our text to apply here.

Perhaps, in keeping with our text’s theme of submitting to those in authority over us, whether they are good and gentle or whether they are crooked, you too suffer because of their sin. Or perhaps you suffer because because you cannot follow them into sin.

The Lord sees everything, and the Lord says it is gracious when you endure suffering for his sake. Everything is in his hand, including you, and Jesus your savior is the great shepherd of the sheep who will never let you be lost.

It’s hard not to think of the people who directly cause unjust suffering, and especially cause our unjust suffering directly, as our enemies. But even then,

Luke 6:35 ESV

But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.

We are to love those who cause us to suffer for Jesus’s sake. This means we are to do good even to our unjust and crooked masters, and expect nothing from them in return. The Lord sees and rewards!

Something else this passage in Luke teaches us is that our graciousness toward the ungrateful and the evil is a reflection of God’s kindness to them. He loved us and died for us while we were still his enemies.

Isn’t that simply marvelous! It’s his longsuffering and his mercy and his kindness that we display when we are not overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good!

When we suffer FOR Christ, we are becoming more LIKE Christ, who we are going to consider in our final point this morning.

3. The Suffering Servant (1 Pet 2:21-25)

1 Peter 2:21–25 ESV

For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

What does how I relate to my supervisor or boss or anyone in authority over me have to do with Jesus? And what does how I suffer have to do with Jesus? Turns out, it’s a lot.

Verse 21 begins with the language of calling. God has called you, Christian, to to be like your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. If the Christian life is one of growing up into the image of Christ, you have been called to mirror him by continuing in obedience to him and continuing to trust him, even when it leads to suffering. And you are called to continue to trust and obey even through suffering.

Jesus, in his time on earth, was the suffering servant. He is the archetype, the original, the model after which we are all being patterned. He suffered for us, leaving us an example, that we might follow in his steps.

Jesus continued in obedience to his father, even when it meant he suffered for it.

Jesus is the perfect example; the spotless lamb of God has neither sin nor blemish. He sweat drops of blood in the garden at the thought of the suffering he was about to endure on the cross, and he still said to his Father, “Your will be done.”

And he never deceived anyone. If there was ever a time for a “white” lie, it was when he was before Pontius Pilate. If he never deceived anyone during his time here on earth, how much less will he lie to us, his people, now? He’s utterly trustworthy.

Jesus continued to trust in his Father despite his suffering.

When Jesus suffered, he didn’t threaten his oppressors, or the ones who caused his suffering.

Isaiah 53:7 ESV

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.

Can you imagine that? The Creator of the world, who will one day judge everyone. He suffered unjustly at the hands of his creatures as one of them, for us, and he didn’t threaten them.

He trusted his Father, knowing that his Father judges justly, and will make all things right in his good time.

And as part of this, this next bit should take our breath away.

How do we know that God will right every wrong, dry every tear, that there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain?

Because in God’s justice, as part of his making all things right, he has already judged Jesus for our sins, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness! He has already given us new life in Christ. What wondrous love is this! That Jesus Christ, the only son of God, should suffer and die for me, that I might have life! He has already begun making things right by the suffering of his son. He will finish what he has started.

He sees all things. He knows your suffering. Jesus, our great High Priest, is able to sympathize with our weaknesses. He knows what it is to suffer intimately, because he suffered for his people.

Peter concludes our passage this morning by referencing

Isaiah 53:6 ESV

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

While we were straying, Jesus through his suffering made us his sheep and is now our faithful shepherd who sits at the right hand of God the Father in heaven.

Brothers and sisters, suffering is not a bug of the Christian life: it is a feature, that we may follow in Jesus’s footsteps. By following him and trusting in him even as we suffer, we display Jesus to the watching world, as lights in the darkness.

And more importantly to our text, we display Jesus being formed in us in us to our heavenly Father.

Again-- Jesus, our savior, SEES. Remember Stephen, the first martyr after Jesus rose from the dead? Remember what he saw? Jesus, who sits at the right hand of God the Father, STOOD. He rose to his feet. He knows your suffering.

When this is the Lord who says to be under the authority of those placed over us, it really puts that command in perspective, doesn’t it? He made us his so that we might live for him.

When this is the Lord who says to patiently endure suffering for his sake, and promises that he will make all things right, isn’t he a God worthy of our trust?

Isn’t he a God worthy of YOUR trust?

Conclusion

So we are to live in right relationship with those over us in authority. “Christian servants, because God is your Lord in heaven, be subject to your masters.”

When we are counted worthy to suffer for Christ’s sake, and when we endure this suffering for Christ’s sake, it shows forth God’s grace in our lives, yes, to the watching world, but also to our God whose grace it is.

And that’s the whole point, isn’t it? It’s all about Jesus and what he has done for us. He trusted, and obeyed, through suffering, and saved us. Now he calls us to obey those over us; to trust and follow him through suffering, and he, the great shepherd, will bring us home, and make all things right.