August 4, 2024 | Grace in God’s Eyes

Transcript:

This morning. We're going to continue in first Peter chapter two as we do. Children, if you're headed out the door to Children's Church, you're welcome to go that direction. If you want to stay in here with us. We are glad to have you here as well.

This morning, I think one of the hardest things about this text for us is that it starts in a very difficult place. Not the very first words, but the first idea is that you come in contact with here will be about mistreatment, about injustice.

And we could all name probably a very long list of times when we have felt mistreatment from others, and we could all name a fairly long list of times when we have mistreated others.

And so that's why we sang that last song right before we start. Because as God may bring back to your mind as I speak about this text, he may bring back to your mind some moments of very unpleasant mistreatment.

And we have to know, when we look at that, if we're going to be able to look at that mistreatment and address it in a way that honors God and deal with it in our own souls, we have to know there will be a day. When all that is done away with, there will be a day when every tears is wiped away.

That day is not today.

But it will come. So as we start into this text, don't let in fact really never let the music we sing be separated from what we're going to talk about in God's Word, because it's all part of the same thing of looking to our God and worshiping him. But especially today. That song is really the necessary introduction for the sermon.

So I'm going to go ahead and read, beginning in verse 18. Peter says, servants, 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. And then Peter draws your attention to the same things that Ken did as we did communion.

He says, Think of Christ on the cross. 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. Father, this is your perfect word. Use it to teach us today and fill us with hope for the day. When you make all things new and wipe away every tear.

In your name we pray. As Peter's going through this section back all the way really to verses nine through 12, there's a couple themes that we're going to return to over and over, because this is how Peter is thinking as he works through how do I talk to people and their relationship to government, to masters, husbands and wives is coming up and just in their relationship with each other in chapter three.

And so he urges his readers three themes that I'll say over and over they are made. We are made as God's people to proclaim God's glory. That's our purpose. The end of verse ten, he called us so that we would proclaim the excellencies of the one who called us out of darkness into his marvelous light. But as we proclaim his glory, it's not just us proclaiming his glory and then figuring out how to live on our own.

We're guarding our souls as we look to God, who is worthy of all of that praise. And as we then are guarding our souls by worshiping God. Verse 12, we are acting with honor before people around us, and they will see the way that we live.

And that will result. It says in God being glorified when he returns. So those are his big categories throughout this section. Proclaim God's glory. Guard your souls. Act with honor before others so that they see it, and they glorify God. And he points to a few specific situations, but we can take those into every area of our lives more immediately.

The last verse we looked at last time, verse 17, had four statements as you deal with authority, relationships especially, but really all relationships. These statements can guide the way that you act. They can give you questions to ask, he says. Honor everyone. Do you act in a way that shows honor to the people you interact with? He says.

Love the brotherhood. Love those people of God that you come in contact with, he says, fear God. And then specifically talking about governments. Honor the emperor, show honor to those authority relationships. Now, with all of that background, three big themes, four statements that he just said, and we know this, that even though as you look maybe at your English Bible, depending on how yours is laid out, you might see a paragraph and a new section here.

And there is a new section. But it's not like Peter forgot verse 17 when he moved to verse 18. So having just said, honor everyone, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the Emperor. He turns to servants and says, servants, be subject to your masters with all respect. So who is this command to literally servants? It's not. There's there's a biblical word that's used for slave.

This is not the word that's used for slave. Although they can be used interchangeably. Sometimes he points to servants, and probably for some of you, that instantly raises some questions. Say, wait, servants, masters. We don't do that. We don't call it that. What does that mean for? For us. And then maybe it even raises some other questions. If it doesn't raise these questions for you, if you spend a little bit of time online, you'll find these questions well, does the Bible endorse slavery?

Is that what he's doing? Is he saying we ought to have servant and master relationships? So I want to say a word about that. First of all, ancient slavery in Peter's time sometimes looked like what we might think of as slavery, but not always. It could involve a very abusive, demeaning relationship. It didn't always involve that. You say, well, how do you know that?

Well, for one thing, in First Timothy chapter one, there's a list of there's a list of sins that Timothy is condemning and included in that is enslavers. It's someone who would capture someone else and put them in slavery that's included in there. You could go back to the Old Testament. And sometimes when people talk about this, they don't talk about some of these other verses in the Old Testament, someone who captured someone and put them into slavery in Exodus 21, that was an offense that was punishable by death.

Also, if you held a slave who someone else captured that was punishable by death as well. Scripture does not look at what we think of as slavery and say, yeah, that's good. It condemns it throughout. But in Peter's time, most commonly when you use this word servant, you were talking about something that was a voluntary form of service that wasn't based on race or class.

It really was very similar to what we would think of as an employer employee relationship, except we have a lot more freedom to say, I'm going to quit this job and go somewhere else. And they didn't have that same mobility. That's not surprising. We also have that freedom with where we live, and they usually stayed in the same place in the ancient world.

They didn't change much about their lives. The same way we can. So I say that to set this stage when he says servants looking at masters, there's a lot of questions that it could raise. The most immediate context was something that's foreign to us servants and masters, and we say we don't really talk that way, but a very similar context that we can understand from our experience would be a workplace context.

So speaking into that, Peter looks at these servants and says, servants, be subject to your masters with all respect.

I'd also say here, notice he's talking to the servants. He's not talking to the masters. That doesn't mean Peter has nothing to say to them. It just means he doesn't say it here. If you were to go other places in the New Testament, you can find places where masters are addressed. So just because Peter doesn't say something to the masters here doesn't mean that scripture says, well, masters can do no wrong, and that's absolutely not true.

One example would be in Paul in Ephesians says, Masters don't even threaten violence towards your servants or in Philemon. Paul looks at a master and says, treat your servant like a brother because he's in Christ. We probably don't realize how earth shattering that statement would be.

But with all of that is background, with all of that to try and say, all right, why should I care? Because I'm not a servant and I'm not a master.

He looks at them and says, be subject. Now, last week we talked about being subject. It doesn't mean unquestioned obedience. We saw it in verse 13, be subject for the Lord's sake. There's a posture that says, I want to follow this person's instructions. I want to follow this person's leadership or commands. That's submission. It's not ultimate, unquestioning obedience because the text limits it.

Well, what limits it in this section? First of all, he says, servants be subject to your masters. He doesn't say, be subject to every master, just like you don't have to. If you have a job where you're working and you have a boss, you don't have to be subject to every boss in the world. You need to pay attention to your boss.

So there's a first limit there. The second limit might not seem like a limit when he says, be subject to your masters. With all respect. And this is interesting because the word respect here is actually the word for fear.

But you have two different ways to interpret that. He could be saying, be subject to your masters because you're afraid of your masters. Be subject to them with fear towards them or it's not directly stated. He could be saying, be subject to your masters with all fear for God. I'm going to give you three reasons why I think he's saying the second one.

Number one, the word order here literally says be subject with all fear to your masters. It doesn't literally say be subject to your masters with fear. Now, in Greek you can say that and mean that you're supposed to fear your masters, but it doesn't have to mean that. And there was a clearer way for him to say it.

So instead he says, be subject, be submissive with all fear. Well then the last place he talked about fear was where verse 17, Fear God. Not only that, if you were to look throughout the rest of Peter, you're going to find the word fear directed towards God repeatedly and not directed towards humans unless it's here. In fact, if you I want you to look over at chapter three, verse 14.

Peter says, I'll start in 13. Who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, of the people who would make you suffer for righteousness sake, nor be troubled. So I would find it very strange if Peter in chapter three said, be subject to your masters when they make you suffer for doing good, be subject to them and be afraid of them.

And then a chapter later he says, those who make you suffer for doing good have no fear of them. So here, the limit here is not be afraid of what man can do to you. He says, be subject to your masters with all fear of God. It's the same pattern as what he said in verse 13 be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution.

So there is a limit here. It's not unquestioning obedience. It's be subject to your masters in the way that you can do that. While still having an ultimate allegiance, an ultimate worship, an ultimate or an ultimate fear of God.

But notice what doesn't limit your submission to your masters. According to this text, he says, be subject not only to the good and gentle, but also to the unjust. That word unjust is strong. We could say perverse. To the twisted. To the morally bankrupt master. In other words, the character of the master does not limit the submission of the servant.

That's hard for us to hear. We really can think, here's this boss or leader in whatever context. And I think they're a great person. So I want to follow their leadership. He doesn't tell you that. He says, be subject to even the perverse and twisted master. Wait a minute, Peter. Does that mean we do whatever he says? Hold on to that question.

We'll get there in just a second. No is the answer. Does that mean I have to stay in that job? Can I say my boss is perverse and twisted? So I'm going to find a new job. Absolutely. The New Testament says that Paul looks at slaves and uses the word slave there and says, if you can find your get your freedom, do it.

If you can say, I'm serving a boss who is a perverse and twisted boss, but I can quit that job and go somewhere else. Not a problem. He doesn't tell you not to do that. When he tells you is the attitude you have to have while you work under that master.

So then Peter brackets, maybe you noticed it was in twice the beginning of verse 19 and the end of verse 20. You have a very similar statement, for this is a gracious thing or the end of 20. This is a gracious thing in the sight of God.

He knows what he's talking about is hard. He knows if you're going to take this kind of relationship to an authority, you need help.

And he starts and says, This is God's grace for you. Literally. You could say, servants be subject to your masters for this. There's grace.

And he puts it at the beginning and the end of two verses. It's not like his readers forgot. He knew he had to emphasize it, that there is grace for this. And I'd say, take that a little bit broader. When God asks you to do something that you say, this is just hard. For this there is grace. When God asks you to forgive the person who's wronged you, which would be very close to what he's talking about here.

For this, there is God's help. There is grace. Now, as Peter talks about grace, and even here there's two pieces of grace that he talks about. We see it in the contrast in verse 20. For what credit is it if when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? What credit, what reward do you have? You might remember Luke chapter six.

Jesus says, love your enemies, but he says, if you love your friends, what reward do you have for that? Everybody does that. Then he points to loving your enemies and says, this gives you grace in the sight of God. So grace can mean future reward. And that's implied here.

But I want you to take this statement. You could chew on this statement for a little while. I'm still chewing on it. You cannot separate God's divine help now from his future favor and reward. God gives both of those pieces of grace together. So if you sit here as you go through hard things and you think, I know there's going to be a day when sin is defeated, and when God rewards.

But I feel despair and hopelessness and there's just nothing happening to help me now. You're only looking to one half of God's grace.

God gives help now, and you can't separate that from future reward in favor. And sometimes we do it the other way and we say he's helping now, but I'm not really sure what's going to happen in the future. No. Peter drives them to say, you've got to proclaim God's glory. You've got to guard your soul. You've got to act with honor.

When masters treat you terribly, that's really hard to do. So what do you need, grace? What kind of grace? The grace that says right now I face this difficulty and I don't want to forgive them. And I want to be angry, and I want to be bitter. Yes. That grace that says I don't have to be, but also the grace that says God's reward is coming.

This is a gracious thing in God's eyes.

So what is it? Let's look more specifically, we've got an idea, but let's dive to the one statement, the direct statement at the end of verse 19. What is full of grace? For what does God give grace when mindful of God one endure sorrows while suffering unjustly. So first there's the circumstance. You're suffering unjustly. And if we could maybe raise our hands and ask Peter questions, I wish we could.

When we go through Scripture. Do you ever wish that you think like. I'd like to clarify a point, Peter, that'd be helpful. I feel like that right here. I want to go. Peter, what kind of situations are you talking about? Because there's a lot of different ones where you could suffer unjustly. Do you mean all of them? Do you mean certain scenarios?

Well, he starts to talk about them, so he does give us some help here. He says, what credit is it if when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? Now I want to pause. Peter is not endorsing that. Bosses go beat their employees who do wrong, but he is saying that happened in the ancient world. He's just saying that's true.

It did happen. And he points out, in one sense that's not really suffering unjustly. Just like if you go into a job and you treat your coworkers with disrespect and contempt and all kinds of bad ways, and then you deal with consequences from that, you go, well, you're kind of getting what you deserved. He's not pointing to those situations.

He would have things to say about those two, but that's not where he's pointing. Instead, he says, think about a different situation where you are suffering for doing good. I don't have to tell you news stories that you could think of where people in their workplace have suffered specifically for doing good, or even the grammar here is flexible enough to just say you are doing good and you suffer.

It might be directly related. For example, you say, I am not going to do this unethical practice that you tell me to do, and then you don't get the good shifts and you don't get the raise and you don't get the promotion, and and you get slandered at work and you get made fun of and you get so you're mistreated for doing good directly.

It could include that. It could also include simply, I'm doing good and I'm doing my job well. And maybe because they know I'm a Christian, because they know I don't do the same things on the weekends that they do, I face ridicule or mockery or some of the same things. And it's not directly because I didn't do something bad or I did something good, but it's I'm doing good and I'm suffering.

Peter points these servants to say, you sometimes will suffer unjustly.

I'm going to return the question. I said, I return to you just a minute ago, Peter. Are we supposed to just do whatever these perverse, twisted masters tell us to do? No, because in verse 20 Peter says, you are to do good. When you do good and suffer for it. In other words, just like we saw in the other section, masters, bosses, every authority outside of God does not get to define good and evil.

Our world tries to oh, all over the place, but no authority other than God gets to define good and evil. Parents, you don't define good and evil for your kids. God defines good and evil.

So here we are supposed to do good servants, and I'm moving in and out of saying, here's what he says to servants and applying it into our lives. Right? But servants are supposed to do good. Whether or not a twisted master appreciates that.

Servants do good.

It's interesting. And we could go down a whole different historical rabbit trail on this that we won't. But Peter is sowing seeds that will undo the institution of slavery throughout this. One of those is to say, masters don't get to define what good is, and you do good anyway, even if you'll suffer from your master just to give you one one historical nugget.

As an example, Aristotle, who you might have heard of Aristotle said, no injustice can be done to a slave. That's stark. Peter says, you do good, and you may be suffering unjustly as a servant.

He's contradicting what many in the ancient world would have thought. But he doesn't do it in a way that says, go overthrow your masters and destroy them. He does it in a way that says, submit to your heavenly master so that you're acting with honor, and they will see your good works and glorify your father which is in heaven.

So the circumstances, your suffering unjustly. The mindset is you are mindful of God. In other words, he doesn't say just be stoic and endure because you have to, he says, remembering God, do this. Know that God gives grace for this exact situation. Know that God is pleased and promises rewards. When you are subject to your masters. Know that God's mercy protects your soul.

And like he says in verse 23, know that God is the one who judges justly.

So there's the circumstance. You're suffering unjustly. We've all experienced that. Sometimes there's your mindset. You're supposed to have be mindful of God, not merely the suffering, not merely the circumstance, not merely I've got to be tough. The mindset. And there's the experience. One endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. I want you to notice he he could have just said.

When one is mindful of God and suffers unjustly, but he doesn't. He says when one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly, he separate the two. Because we know there's a difference between sometimes people treat you wrongly, and that hurts that suffering unjustly. But when that happens, how much of an emotional battle do you go through? How much suffering and just sorrows and anguish do you go through?

When someone has mistreated you, are treated you unjustly?

That's what he's pointing at. He's saying when you're treated unjustly and you're tempted to respond with anger or impatience or bitterness, you have despair. We can go down a long list, all of that emotional suffering that we feel, he says. God's grace is there for you to endure all of those sorrows, even when you're treated unjustly.

This is hard. Especially when we broaden it out a little and say, okay, I'm not a servant or a master. We say, no, these things matter for me. Then we say, when someone treats me wrongly, that doesn't change God's moral rules in his universe. If you interact with kids very often, if you interact with adults to if you interact with kids very often, how many times do you hear you were doing wrong?

And the other one says, but they did. But they treated me like this. One of the points in this text is that Peter is saying, look, when your master mistreat you, that doesn't change God's definition of good and evil. Mistreatment doesn't change what proclaims God's glory. Mistreatment doesn't change what guards your soul.

That's all really hard ideas, because we've all been mistreated over and over and over. So I kind of. Here's where I hope you are at this point. Here's where my soul is working through that. God, how on earth can I do that? Sounds like a great plan. How is that possible?

How is it possible that I can take when people treat me, not only treat me badly, but I could and they treat me badly? It's unjust. And Peter's statement, if I could paraphrase, is God's current help and his future pleasure is there for this grace, for those who endure sorrows while suffering injustice, especially from those in a position of authority or power over them.

For this there is grace. Peter. Great. The word grace, sure. But you've got to give me something more than just the word grace. He does. He says, Look to Jesus. 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. So when he was treated wrongly, when he suffered unjustly.

What does Peter tell you about Jesus? He committed no sin.

If you were treated with injustice just to give a couple sins, that might be tempting, bitterness. How dare they? Hatred. I wish they'd get what was coming to them. Revenge. Lying to try and get allies on your side. Perhaps. Maybe the sin of despair. We don't always think of despair as a sin. But if you say there is no hope in God, I've got no hope.

That's unbelief. Because God says otherwise. Despair, envy.

Anger. We could go down a list if you walked me into a sham trial in front of pilot and Roman authorities, and I had done no wrong and said, we're going to crucify you, because the crowds demanded, I would not only be tempted, I would fall towards every one of those sins. Jesus committed no sin. Neither was deceit found in his mouth.

He was reviled but did not respond in kind. He was mocked, but he didn't mock back. Is so hard for us because when somebody speaks sharp words to you, don't you want to just respond back with sharp words? I do. I was preparing this and I thought back of the last week, and I was convicted and a little ashamed to think of how many times I did respond with sharp words.

Right back when Jesus was reviled, he did not respond in kind. He suffered the physical pain and the emotional torment, but he endured. It says here, when he suffered, he did not threaten. If you got one statement, how, Peter, how can I do that? Great. Jesus did it. He's God, he can do a lot of stuff that I can't do.

But why did Peter say he could do it? The end of verse 23. But he continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. Jesus did not. Hear this carefully. Jesus did not say, father, forgive them, for they don't know what they're doing. While they were crucifying him, he did not do that just so they could continue skating on through life and never be punished for their sins.

Here's why Jesus could say that. Because Jesus knew that if those unbelievers who were crucifying him never came to faith in him, then they would pay for every ounce of their sins forever. He entrusted his soul to him who judges justly. And if they did come to faith in Christ, then Jesus knew he would have borne all of the punishment for that sin.

How do you take when someone has treated you wrongly and not respond with threats and not respond with reviling? This is the truth. Every sin that is ever committed will be punished fully.

Either. On the person who committed it in hell forever or on Jesus Christ on the cross.

I'm going to tell you, without that truth.

You might be able to forgive some small things. You might be able to forgive some big things, but there will be a place where you're forgiveness stops without that truth.

And if you think. But they've done such wrong to me, I don't want it just to be on Jesus. I want them to be punished for it.

You need to take a careful look at your soul and what you've been forgiven.

It's hard when we're treated unjustly. How do we respond like this? Not by saying, well, I guess justice doesn't matter, but by saying God does not need my help to bring his justice, he will.

That's one main statement. But if we continue into verse 24, he himself bore our sins in his body on the tree. How do we do it? We remember God's perfect justice and his wrath as a judge. We also say Jesus suffered injustice from me. He took my sin. There's a great quote by R.C. Sproul. He said, when I think I'm unfairly hated, I try to remember that I'm unfairly loved.

How do you not revile back? How do you not mock back? How do you not attack back? How do you do that? You look to Jesus, you look to his example, and you live the way he lived.

You remember he has unfairly loved us so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. And then third thing, you remember the wrath of the judge. You remember Jesus suffered injustice for me. And you remember Jesus is the shepherd and overseer of your souls. That's verse 25. You were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls, to the one who cares for your soul, and to the one who has ultimate authority over your soul.

Does that make it easy? No, I don't think the road to Calvary was easy. I don't think Jesus saying father forgive them was easy. But it does make it possible for this there is grace. Now, as I said, the most immediate context for this text is servants and masters, and we go, that seems foreign. I don't know how all that works.

We know a little more about situations where there's work and employers, employees.

But I want to draw our attention a little bit further than that because Peter doesn't stop with work. He takes you to what Jesus did and his response.

So there are things we should wrestle with, like, how do we engage with culture when our culture mocks Jesus?

Maybe you've seen that recently.

I know you've seen it recently in a million ways.

I want to take this big theme, though, and just say a couple things about Christians engaging with culture.

We don't have to wonder how Jesus would respond if people mocked him. We know exactly how he responded when people mocked him.

He didn't mock back. To be really specific, I have not seen from anyone in this room, but I have seen some Christians responding to Olympic opening ceremonies in ways that mocked in return. Jesus would not do that.

In fact, I think we could say in his first coming Jesus's posture is, father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. Does that mean we're not grieve? No, absolutely. We can be grieved. But our culture is so quick to instant outrage and mockery. Like that's what we're wired for in our culture now is just if you want something to happen, be offended, be outraged, and cancel the people who said it.

That's what we see all over the place.

Even if anger is appropriate. James one still applies. Be swift to hear, so to speak, slow to wrath.

In Jesus first coming, he came with mercy and grace and forgiveness. Then he made you ambassadors of reconciliation. But remember, he's coming back. Then he brings a sword of justice and judgment and wrath. What I want to encourage us to think about when we engage with these big cultural questions, when we engage with authorities over us, when we engage with governments, we are called to be more like Jesus in his first coming, then Jesus in his second coming.

Sometimes were so quick to be angry. We're almost more ambassadors of wrath than ambassadors of reconciliation.

Now that's one side that might make you feel a little uncomfortable. Here's the other side that might make you feel uncomfortable on the other side.

We're not called to avoid conflict.

Without knowing hearts of people, I can say someone who would choose to mock Christ and his disciples if that is their desire. They face wrath forever. Apart from Jesus.

We're not called to shy away from saying that. But we are called to bring mercy and forgiveness and reconciliation, not wrath.

We all have to work through how that looks for our lives. Whether that means you go say, I'm not watching any Olympics or I do, and there's all kinds of questions around that, whether that means my boss says this, does that mean I just storm out and quit, or do I submit and try to follow leadership? You have to wrestle through the details and we need one another to do that.

But we know God calls us to trust his justice, endure sorrows even when we suffer unjustly, even when we are mocked.

And to do so knowing for this there is grace. God gives you his help.

Let's take a moment and let's pray. Let's ask God to help us apply these truths to our lives.