1 Peter 2:18-25 | Gracious Endurance

I sadly do not have the opportunity to say what I'm about to say as often as I wish I could.

But some wonderfully exciting news to share with you this morning.

We have just sung about the depth of our Father's love, and how in that love he draws many sons to glory.

Yesterday, I was informed this morning that yesterday, through the ministry of the Chinese Bible study, a man came to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Another son has been drawn home to glory.

Amen.

Praise the Lord for that.

And exciting things that I wish we had the opportunity to share that more often.

And who knows what the Lord will do as we continue sharing about the Lord Jesus Christ.

Well, please take your Bible with me this morning to the book of 1 Peter.

1 Peter chapter 2.

1 Peter 2 · chapter mention

So we've been working our way slowly through this New Testament epistle.

We've come to the end of the second chapter.

The end of the second chapter.

I'd like to look with you this morning at verse 18 through the end of chapter two.

Again that is first Peter chapter two, beginning in verse eighteen.

The Word of God says to us, Slaves be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the unjust.

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.

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 turned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls.

Our Lord Jesus, we come and we bow before you as your people gathered this morning.

You tell us that you dwell in us, and therefore as a gathered church, you are present here with us this morning.

We give you thanks that you are our shepherd, that you are our elder, the one who oversees our very souls.

What a privilege it is to have you as our shepherd.

So we ask that you would oversee and superintend for each one of us what we need to hear this morning, what we need to be impacted by and to take away from your word.

Because it's in your name that we pray.

Amen.

A couple of weeks ago, I led us through this chapter in verses eleven through seventeen.

In that section of Scripture, we learned that Peter follows a pattern that was common in the first century, a pattern of household codes.

So there's a list of qualifications, of examples, of illustrations as to how people ought to live.

They're called household codes because the ancient Roman perspective was that the household was an illustration of the empire.

So, if you were a proper citizen, you would act and live and speak in a certain way in your home.

And if you did that in your home, then you would also do that elsewhere in the rest of the empire.

So if you were a terrible person in your home, then you would undermine the empire.

If you are a righteous person in your home, you would build up the empire.

And many ancient writers included lists similar to what Peter has here.

Lists directed towards certain groups of people, certain actions that are directed towards those in authority.

And he even speaks here to those within a household.

Peter picks up the common pattern of the time to show us, God's people, how we ought to live and act and speak within God's house.

That's not the church building, but as members of his household.

Slavery was common in Peter's time, so he wrote to Christian slaves.

He also wrote a little bit later to wives and to husbands, and then to everyone within the church, because he wants all of God's people to see how our Father expects us to live and to think and to act as part of his family.

Now, before we get too far into this passage this morning, I want to take a few moments to address a perceived difficulty.

That is the issue of slaves.

A common approach to this passage argues from the absence of slavery today.

So, since we don't have slavery, it is argued that the best approach is to take this as applying to employees, to laborers in the labor market.

Now that is not necessarily wrong, but I would caution us to be careful in jumping to that conclusion.

I say that because we need to first recognize that slavery does exist today.

There are many throughout our world who are held against their will and forced or coerced to do what they would not freely choose to do.

In fact, many of our brothers and sisters in Christ are in slavery, in some kind of slavery today.

So let's not ignore the plight or the situations in life of others because we simply can't see it in our own communities.

But we also need to recognize that slavery in the first century Roman Empire was different, radically different than the plight of ordinary workers in the labor market today.

It was also different from that of slaves in the Americas in recent history.

First, Roman slavery was not based on race.

All the slaves in the Roman Empire did not speak a similar language, nor were they necessarily similar in appearance.

Slavery in American history has its basis in kidnapping, which God detests.

Now, while that could happen in the ancient Roman Empire, it was more common for someone to become a slave through war, or perhaps by being born into slavery, or even, as it was quite common, by selling oneself into slavery, perhaps as a means to pay off debts, or perhaps because they were too poor to provide for themselves.

Contrary to most slavery in recent history, it was not unusual for slaves in the New Testament times to be wealthy and even highly educated and quite responsible.

For example, we have evidence that slaves were doctors, they were teachers, they were shipwrights, and they could even serve as city treasurers.

In many ways, the life of a slave in the Roman Empire was better than the life of an American slave.

Many Roman slaves were able to work and to save to purchase their freedom.

Now that's not to say that slavery in the ancient Greek and Roman empires was an easy life, or that it was in any way good.

Their lives were often difficult.

We have records of the philosopher Aristotle saying that it was impossible to mistreat a slave because slaves were property.

Legally, slaves were not persons.

A master could sell them at any time, separating them from their family.

In fact, it was said that slaves were living possessions and they were property with a soul.

As a result, a slave owner could kill a slave with little or no repercussion.

But Peter doesn't say anything about that.

He doesn't comment on whether that's right or wrong, whether that's good or bad.

He doesn't comment about what God thinks of that.

He simply acknowledges that there were Christians whose lives were lived out in slavery.

Now some scholars actually believe that Peter is giving those Christian slaves a place of special honor.

First by merely recognizing them, and secondly by addressing them first.

That very well could be.

But the particular slaves that he addressed here are household slaves.

They cared for their master's home and family and property.

And so they fit within Peter's household codes.

While still slaves, they cared for their master's home and family and property.

And as such, they had the best special privilege of being part of God's household.

That's what Peter wants to highlight.

He's saying that yes, you exist as slaves in this world, but understand you possess a special privilege as being part of God's house.

So he says in verse 18, Household slaves be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the unjust.

At first blush, that sounds terrible to our ears.

To our modern ears, especially.

We are used to the freedom that we have to determine our own way.

And so we naturally begin to resist what Scripture says when it mentions anything about submission.

As one author has written, we treasure our independence, we criticize our authorities, and we honor our rebels.

We don't like to submit to leaders unless we think they are worthy.

Isn't that true?

But God is pretty clear in this passage, isn't he?

Slaves, he says, are to submit, to yield to, to line up under their masters.

Now, lest we get too worked up over that truth, we need to take a step back and remember that all Christians, in all times, in all places, in all circumstances, are called to submit.

It doesn't matter if we are slaves or not.

This is a common word that God used to command all of us to line up under God's sovereignly established structures in the world.

Now the word submit often is used to say that some people are inferior while others are superior.

But that's inappropriate.

The word says nothing about that.

The word submit or submission simply points to the presence of an order, of a structure that includes some kind of authority within that structure.

Here, Peter uses the word despot for master, a word referring to someone who possesses complete and absolute authority.

Submit to your despot with all respect, whether they are good and gentle or unjust.

Now, we need to make sure we mention here that Paul in 1 Corinthians chapter 7, verse 21, said that slaves should gain their freedom if they were given the opportunity.

1 Corinthians 7:21

And Peter would agree.

He would absolutely agree.

If a slave could honorably gain his freedom, he should absolutely do so.

But until they were free, they were called to submit to their masters.

Now it's one thing to submit to a despot that is kind and gracious and gentle.

But it could be terrible if a despot was cruel.

Unjust here is the word from which our English word scoliosis is derived.

It refers to being bent, to being crooked instead of straight.

So this is this is a kind of despot who could be unscrupulous or dishonest, treating people with anything but kindness and grace.

Submit, yield to that master, God says.

Why?

Why?

Why would why would God expect that kind of submission from slaves who had come to Christ?

Why would God expect that of any of his people?

For this is a gracious thing.

When mindful of God one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly.

Philippians chapter one, verse twenty-nine is a parallel to this.

There it says, Paul writes to the Philippian church, for it has been graciously given to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him, but suffer for his sake.

In the same way that salvation is a gracious gift from God, suffering for Jesus' sake is also a gracious gift.

Similarly, enduring sorrowful, painful, frustrating things under the crookedness or injustice of a despot is a way of serving Jesus by His grace.

That's not the way we normally think, is it?

Because we we have grown to fight and kick and scream under injustice.

And that's righteous.

That is a righteous thing because all throughout the Old Testament God shouts to his people.

It's as if he's texting in all capital letters.

He's shouting, screaming to his people, uphold justice because I'm a God of justice.

And so when we are in a position of injustice or crookedness, we do react to that and we should.

That's the character of God.

Because it shouts that something is wrong with our world.

What we don't realize is that suffering unjustly can be because Jesus is being gracious to us.

Why is it gracious?

Because suffering in that way gives us an opportunity to be like Jesus.

Never, never do we more clearly display Christ than in the crucible of sorrow and suffering wrongly.

Here then is where this passage begins to hit us today.

We are called here to honor our God in the position in which he has sovereignly placed us.

Now, by position, I mean whatever providentially assigned lot in life we have.

Peter will continue on to say this same thing towards wives and husbands and then to all of the church.

By application, then, this fits to each and every one of us, no matter our situation.

Are you a middle schooler frustrated with your parents?

Seek to honor God in that place.

Are you a high schooler struggling with the demands and expectations of teachers and coaches and employers along with your parents?

Seek to honor God in that place.

Are you a college student or about to enter college, struggling with the weight of assignments and work and school and trying to pay for all of that?

Seek to honor God in that.

Are you an adult out of college but unmarried and seeking employment or just beginning your career but not yet married?

Seek to honor God in that.

Are you married without children?

Seek to honor God with that.

Are you married with children?

Seek to honor God with that.

Are you grandparents?

Are you retired?

Are you nearing the end of your days?

Seek to honor God in your place in life, where God has you providentially.

Because when we seek to honor God, we see our place in life as an act of grace from our Father.

He has given and placed us where we are by His sovereign hand for our good.

So honoring God means not complaining, not fighting against God, but working and serving and learning and growing with all of our might to honor Him.

We do that first by submitting to God's structure.

I apologize, my remote isn't working this morning, so I can't show it that to you on the screen.

We do that first by submitting to God's structure.

Submission involves the idea of structure.

A kind of structure exists, and we have a place within that structure.

There are some within that structure that have more authority.

There are some that have less authority.

But the structure that Peter has in mind here is God's structure.

As the most high God, he is the ultimate ruler.

He is the greatest authority that exists.

And as creator and ruler of his creation, he determines the structures, the orders that exist within his creation.

One of the first structures referred to in Scripture is the dominion of mankind over creation.

Specifically illustrated by God giving Adam dominion over the animals.

And he gave him the right to name the animals.

But there are human structures too.

Peter calls those back in verse 13 human institutions.

Within those human institutions are other structures.

There are emperors, there are kings, there are presidents, there are governors.

And those within society, there are structures within society empowered to execute laws.

Peter calls on all of us to submit to those structures as long as they do not contradict God's word, because God has set them in place.

We then submit to God as our ultimate ruler by submitting to the structures there are in our world.

There may even be structures within societies.

Slavery is one of those.

Marriage is another.

Employer employee structures is another.

God institutes some of those structures by his own command, such as marriage.

Others are allowed to exist within his sovereign rule, but not necessarily condoned or approved by him.

So God can allow and rule over a sinful structure without being guilty of its evil.

He can rule over a sinful society without being the cause of its sin.

You know, we are often double-minded in this.

On the one hand, we feel and we say, you know, slavery is evil.

Abortion is just evil.

And we feel that strongly, and so we we say that God should not allow that to exist and it's evil.

God never should have let it occur.

And yet, if God actually did such things, we would then cry out that he is a dictator who doesn't allow free decisions of his creatures.

But what we do know is that God is absolutely sovereign.

He is the King of heaven and earth.

He is the Most high God, he is the ruler of the universe.

And we know that he is sinless, and we are not.

We know that he is guiding history to a predetermined end that will set all wrongs right.

Everything bad will not come untrue, but it will be made right in God's justice and grace.

And until then, we are to trust the unseen hand of our Father in whatever structure he has placed us.

If you're taking notes, that's the second point in your notes.

God calls us to look for, to see his sovereign hand at work.

I'm convinced that one of the many reasons God's people struggle so greatly with difficult circumstances is because they don't see those circumstances as coming from the hand of God.

They can't process that God would allow, much less send difficulty into our lives.

We wrongly believe that God would never place us in terrible positions.

I think Joseph would argue with that.

But hand in hand with submitting to God's structures is the implication that we need to rest in His sovereignty.

Too often we we chafe under structure, don't we?

We resist it and we do not like it.

We ask, why?

Where's God in this?

It's not that the questions are wrong or sinful.

What makes them wrong or sinful is if they are asked in an accusatory way, as if we are accusing God of injustice.

What makes them wrong is if they're asked in a faithless way or in a sense that doubts the sovereign direction and power of your God.

We need to see the sovereign hand of God.

Let me show you what that looks like back in Hebrews chapter 11.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

Back in Hebrews chapter 11, seeing the sovereign hand of God is to have the faith of Abraham.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

It's to have the faith of Abraham.

In chapter 11 of Hebrews, I'm sorry, chapter, yeah, chapter 11 of Hebrews, beginning in verse 17.

It says, by faith Abraham, when he was tested, there's a hardship, a difficult situation coming upon him from God, specifically offering up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said, Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.

He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead.

Seeing God's sovereign hand in your life means to have the faith of Abraham.

That even when you're about to take the life of your son, you believe that God can raise him from the dead.

You've never seen it before, you've never heard of it before, but you believe that God can do that.

Not only is seeing God's hand to having the faith of Abraham, it's to have the trust of Moses.

Look down at verse 24.

By faith, Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.

He considered the reproach of Christ greater than the wealth of the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.

By faith he left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible, have the trust of Moses in the sovereign power and direction of your God.

Not only that, seeing God's sovereign hand is to have the confidence in God's sovereignty that God praises later on, beginning in verse thirty two.

What more shall I say?

For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah and David and Samuel and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, they enforced justice, they obtained promises, they stopped the mouths of lions, they quenched the power of fire, they escaped the edge of the sword, they were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, they put foreign armies to flight, women received back their dead by resurrection, all wonderful things of trusting our God, but then he goes on, some were tortured, refusing to accept release so that they might rise again to a better life.

Others suffered mocking and flogging, even chains and imprisonment.

They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword, they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated, of whom the world was not worthy, wandering about in deserts and mountains and in dens and caves of the earth.

Those believers had confidence in God's structure.

Seeing God's sovereign hand says, I may not understand and be able to explain everything that's happening, but I can have the faith that Abraham had.

I can trust in God the way Moses did.

And I can walk with him through whatever he brings my way, like these other unnamed people.

See, there is strength and power to submit when you see the hand of God.

When you can't see the hand of God, all you can do is resist and chafe.

But when you see this as from God's hand, there is power and strength to submit.

That's why Charles Spurgeon once said, The worldling blesses God when he gives him plenty.

But the Christian blesses God when he smites him.

Because he believes him to be too wise to err and too good to be unkind.

He trusts him where he cannot trace him.

He looks up to him in the darkest hour and believes that all is well.

It is well with my soul, and he wrote that after he had lost his entire family.

For to this you have been called.

To what?

What does this refer to?

To this you have been called in verse 21.

Specifically, to doing good, even if it involves unjust suffering as a result.

It makes sense, right, that we would suffer the consequences of our sin.

We try to tell our young son that when he chooses to disobey, he is choosing to go on the naughty mat.

Basically, our version of timeout.

Right?

Trying to help him understand that sin has its consequences, and you can choose to obey or you can choose to disobey.

We understand when we have and face the consequences for our sin.

That makes sense.

We can't complain about that, but neither should we complain when we suffer for good, whether that is from a despot or a despicable boss, whether that's from an insufferable parent or a teacher.

There's nothing wrong in getting out from underneath those kinds of crooked authorities if it's ethically possible.

If it's not, Peter says we need to understand that our submission to the structures put in place under his sovereign hand is part of our calling.

It is so much of our calling that the Son of God Himself set the example for us.

That's where we see, thirdly, that we are to trace the life of our shepherd.

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.

Example here refers to traceable plates by which children would learn to write.

So there would be a plate of some kind made, and the letters of the alphabet would be cut or carved out of those plates so that children could trace those shapes and learn the letters.

Jesus is our plate.

And we trace his life.

We seek to live the way he lived.

But then we have to ask, how did he live?

He lived by submitting himself to the structures that God the Father put in place, whether it was his human parents or the governments of the time.

And he suffered in that submission, didn't he?

Unlike us, he did so without sin.

We will not be sinless, but it should be our aim to endure suffering without sin.

Jesus did not return reviling for reviling.

He did not threaten to overthrow the government, but instead to submit to the structures by seeing the sovereignty of God in all things.

So much did he submit that he died.

He suffered so that sin would be killed in us and that we would live in a way that pleases God.

Even more, his wounds that killed him heal us.

It's not necessarily speaking about physical healing.

The healing is what takes place when we turn to the shepherd and overseer of our souls.

When we turn to the one who is our example, he begins to heal us.

He heals us eternally by forgiving our sin.

He heals us so that we might begin to live like him in a world that hates him and hates us.

And ultimately, he will heal all that we suffer from crookedness and injustice.

Rather than putting our authorities in a place where they force their authority on us, we should be willing to yield to them out of respect to God and to show Christ to them.

And it doesn't just say to the good and honorable authorities, but to those who treat you unjustly as well.

That pleases God.

It doesn't please him that we suffer.

He isn't some sadomasochist getting pleasure out of our pain.

No, he's he's pleased that we are tracing the life of Jesus.

And by doing so, the more we trace his life, the more we become like Jesus.

When we wish for escape from a particular authority or a powerful presence in our lives, we must first ask, how can I imitate Jesus in this?

You know, I can I can remember many, many times when I was, I don't know, four, five, six, seven, eight years old, being up in my second-story bedroom in southwestern North Dakota crying, angry with God because of what my parents told me to do.

Not wanting to do what they told me to do.

Asking God, why did you give me these parents who asked me to do this?

Somebody after the first service told me that they felt the exact same way and then they ran away.

I didn't run away, but I I thought about it.

Instead, I should have asked, how can I imitate Jesus in this?

I've I've worked with employers, with bosses that I've asked, God, why would why do you give me this boss?

Why this guy?

Instead, I I should have asked, how can I imitate Jesus in this difficulty?

The second question we need to ask is where can I see and rest in the sovereign hand of God in my situation?

Because whether you recognize it or not, he is sovereign and he has providentially put you in that place.

So we must ask, how can I see his hand in this situation?

And how can I see it in such a way as to lay down, to rest, to rely completely on the sovereign hand of my God?

Because that is what characterizes those who have turned to the shepherd and overseer of their souls.

Some might say, Buck up, suck it up and do it.

Well, there's some benefit perhaps to that, but God says, you know what?

I would rather that you think about Jesus.

I would rather that you think about my son and what he went through and what he did as your example, and that you trace his life.

Because as you begin to trace his life in your life, in your difficulties, in your circumstances, you will begin to find that not only is your life changed, not only is your mentality changed, but you will become encouraged to endure by his grace.

I think that's why the writer to the Hebrews encouraged his readers by saying to them in Hebrews chapter 10, beginning in verse 36, You have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised.

Hebrews 10 · chapter mention

For, and he quotes here, yet a little while, and the coming one will come, and he will not delay.

But my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.

But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but but but those who have faith and persevere in their souls.

Let's pray together.

Our Lord Jesus, we have need of endurance.

Some of us have a desperate need for endurance.

Can I begin to imagine all of the different circumstances and situations that are present among us today?

Some I'm sure are struggling because they have a terrible relationship with their employer.

Some might be struggling because their relationship with their parents just feels domineering.

But some of them some may be fighting with roommates.

There may be some even who feel as though they're slaves.

Oh Lord God, make us like Jesus.

Give us your spirit, and through your spirit cause us to trace the life of our Savior.

We have need of endurance.

We have need of seeing your gracious work in our lives.

We know and we trust that you hold us securely.

So remind us that you hold on to us and that you will bring us home to glory.

So that we can even pray.

Even so come, Lord Jesus.

Amen.