Tracing Christ (Part A)

Peter understood what it means to be an employer, but as a servant of Jesus Christ for three and a half years, he also understood what it meant to be a servant. When Jesus said, Peter, I need you to go to market and get this, I need you to go get that, he's gone and went to do it. So he knew both sides. Not that he had to, because he has the strength of God's commandment on his side, but he happens to know what he's talking about by experience.

Peter's also, to disregard Peter's command, would hand the enemy the victor. If you have your Bibles, please turn to chapter 2 of 1 Peter, verses 18 through 25. Beginning at verse 18. Servants, be submissive to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the harsh. For this is commendable if, because of conscience toward God, one endures grief, suffering wrongfully. For what credit is it if, when you are beaten for your faults, you take it patiently? But when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God. But to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow his steps, who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth, who when he was reviled did not revile in return. When he suffered, he did not threaten, but committed himself to him who judges righteously, who himself bore our sins in his own body on a tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness, by whose stripes you were healed. For you were like sheep, going astray, but have now returned to the shepherd and overseer of your soul. Tracing Christ, that's this morning's title for the consideration I have.

Tracing Christ. And he, our Lord, has given us an example of how to face hardship, especially when it is unfairly, unfairly faced by us. The reason why we are to face it this way, there are quite a few of them. The biggest one being we're commanded to live like Christ, to face things as he faced them as best we can in his spirit. I was going to entitle this session, Things I Don't Like.

And I was very serious about that. Because reading this chapter, I don't like what I'm told to do sometimes. It's very nice if I'm just in a spiritual mood, feeling pretty good about my relationship with Christ. It's another thing, though, when I'm faced with people who I want to punch in the nose.

That's when it counts, though. And I hope, like many of you, if not all of you, we try to fashion our lives after Christ all the time. Always mindful of what is right and what is wrong on matters such as this. So looking at verse 18, let's get right to it. Servants, be submissive to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also the harsh. At the time this letter was written, a third of the population within the Roman Empire, just the Roman Empire, it was outside the Roman Empire, there were slaves also. But a third of the population were slaves, household slaves, many of them. In fact, in the church, in the early church, household slaves made up, eventually, a great number of the attendees in the congregation. And so when he talks here about them being beaten, he means that slaves were to be beaten by their owners and the state, the government was totally behind the slave masters.

They could kill a slave and nobody would even care. And so he's writing to his congregation, this extended congregation, that is going through persecution as Christians, slave and free alike. But then he zeroes in a little bit down to even the servants, because if the servants are to receive this commandment, so are the free Christians. And Paul wrote this to the Corinthians.

It's very eye-opening. It's true to this day. For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise, according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise. And God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things that are mighty. He's talking also about the slaves in the church, the people who are not the upper crust of society, the common people, the blue collar workers, the middle class, the white collar workers. He continues, Paul does, and the base things of the world, not of God, of the world, and the things which are despised, God has chosen, and the things which are not to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in his presence. I did not want to leave out that last word of Paul, that no flesh shall glory in his presence. No one holds a boast against God. Oh yeah, you owe me because I've been a good boy. I get to heaven because of all the nice things I've done.

Or compared to so-and-so, look how good I am. That won't fly with God at all. In fact, it will condemn anyone foolish enough to have that position. Peter himself, we shift a little bit now from the slave-master relationship to the employer-employee relationship today. Peter was once an employer as a fisherman. He was in business with John and James and their father, and they had slaves, or servants I should say, they had servants. But Peter understood what it means to be an employer, but as a servant of Jesus Christ for three and a half years, he also understood what it meant to be a servant. When Jesus said, Peter, I need you to go to market and get this, I need you to go get that, he's gone and went to do it. So he knew both sides. Not that he had to, because he has the strength of God's commandment on his side, but he happens to know what he's talking about by experience also. To disregard Peter's command would hand the enemy the victory. Let's read that first clause again.

Well, actually the first, verse 18. Servants, be submissive to your masters with all fear. Well, what if they weren't submissive? What would happen then?

Well, as I mentioned, they would hand the enemy the victory. Christians, they preach love and obedience, but they're the worst servants I have. How would that fly as a testimony in those days with servants?

Well, what about today? Christians in the workplace, they preach submission and love and obedience, and they're the worst workers I have on staff. They're lazy, they argue, they fuss, they're rebels, they try to sway people against the company. What kind of testimony would that be?

So it makes perfect sense. He says, submit. You're not there to bring trouble upon yourself. We are not entitled as Christians to special treatment. This is especially so, speaking from pastoral experience, of Christian business owners having to deal with Christian employees who think because they're brothers in Christ that somehow they are exempt or entitled to special treatments, and they can become a big problem. Thank you, Lord, this is not always the case, but once is too much.

May it not be us because God is not on our side. If the slaves were told to submit to their masters, then Christian employees are not to be usurping authority in the workplace. He says not only to the good and gentle, but also the harsh. In other words, we are to submit not only when we feel like it, which is very easy to do.

It's easy to love your pastor what he's doing, what you like him to do. It's easy to love your employer, or like at least, when things are going well, when you've gotten the bonus that you feel you've deserved, but what about when you are passed by, when someone else is promoted over you, someone who doesn't deserve it. I worked in an industry with a particular company. Their practice was to make foremen out of the worst workers in the gang.

This was their strategy. That lazy worker would not want to go back to being a worker again. He'd rather just point his finger to other people, what they had to do. They burned out a lot of good men that way, but that was their thinking.

And so not only to the gentle, in other words, by using that analogy, you can find yourself working for someone who is very nasty. We have to keep a good testimony no matter what. When the pressure comes, we are supposed to uphold the testimony. That's what makes it a testimony. It's not a testimony.

If everything is always smooth and wonderful, then so are you. It becomes a testimony that cuts into the hearts of those watching, paying attention, and participating when we do it under fire. And so we follow examples of such men in scripture as Joseph and Daniel, and believe it or not, David, King David, what he put up with from Saul.

Twice he could have killed him, and he did not do it. He suffered, and eventually he became king. So we are not to be known as rebels. We are to be obedient. Not because, not because we, you know, we are obedient because we are saved. That's why we are obedient and pursue obedience. We're not saved because of it, but because we are saved, we pursue it. 1 John 2, verse 5, But whoever keeps his word, truly the love of God is perfected in him.

By this we know that we are in him. All of us should be maturing as Christians. I don't want to be, you know, when you're a young Christian, you may be a little silly, a little sloppy with your behavior as a Christian. I don't want to stay that way. I want to mature. I want to show some progress. I want to look back at my Christian life and say, I don't struggle so much in that area anymore. Or I've gotten more victories in that area now than before. Or God has given me a second chance at something, and I don't want to mess this one up.

And I want to recognize when I have a second chance, even if someone else gives it to me. Always seeking perfection to be more mature, to be that one that others say, I admire that Christian. That the younger Christians would say, I want to be like you when I'm at your age or at your stage in the walk.

That's what all of us should be going after. Verse 19, for this is commendable, if because of conscience toward God, one endures grief, suffering wrongfully. It's not commendable, God says, if you don't take your hits.

Now commendable there, for this is commendable. That word is charis in the Greek, grace. Grace has within it so many things. But the biggest thing it has within grace is that it is mindful of God's presence. That's what makes it grace. That's what makes it spiritual. See, the world has its definitions of grace, and they're good, and they're decent.

But ours is supposed to be notches above theirs. Our behavior is based on the one whom we love, who saved us. We are mindful of this. Everyone is tested as a Christian, and as not a Christian, but let's keep it tight to Christianity, because this is who Peter is writing to Christians. Everyone is tested, especially when suffering injustice, to be wrongfully treated, accused of something that you did not do. It's not easy to endure abuses, and abuses are those things that pile up on us, gang up on us. They can be administered by one person or a group of people, and I hope there are none of you here that are abusive. It is cowardly to be abusive to family members, because they can't opt out. They can't get rid of you.

Well, they do sometimes. It's a crime, but may it not come to that? Are we moved by what God wants? Is God to us Jesus Christ?

Is He personal? Not a machine, but a person with feelings, care, one whom we love and we adore. Adore just heightens love, does it not? It throws my feelings into it in a very special way.

I want to be interested in what He's interested in. This creates a principle within our core, who we are. We become people of principle. We have beliefs, and we believe that we're going to uphold these beliefs no matter what.

It's what a martyr is. I'm not backing away from what I believe, because you don't like it, because you're going to hurt me. I'm going to stick by what I believe. When we suffer for our principle, I have found the first time's not as difficult, it could be difficult, but not as difficult as the second time. The second time, it's harder to stand for my belief, for my principle, subsequent challenges.

Here's how it works. You stand for your principle. You do a good thing, you do the right thing, and folks turn on you.

People that you thought were with you, turn on you. The second time, you're at a fork in the road. It's a crisis. Which way are you going to go? You're going to say, I'm not going through this again. I don't need the drama, don't need the headache. I'm just going to look the other way. I'm just going to not be part of this. Or, will you say, no, I'm not backing down again. I don't care what they do this time, the next time, five times after.

This is right. Paul, that's what made him so gallant as a martyr, facing things over and over again. How many stonings does a man have to receive?

Well, as many as they come. He suffered without abandonment. He did not abandon his principles. To take one beating is good, but to take them all, that is grand.

That's the guy I want to be. Because I've watched so many people cave. We say this about politicians, do we not? They caved in. They gave in to the wrong side. They succumbed to the pressure, because they're unprincipled.

They did not do what was right, they did what was convenient. And so when he says, this is grace, that you be obedient to Christ, you're mindful of him, you don't become a rebel. He's going to intensify what he is saying to them. He himself, having experienced what they are experiencing, and knows that it's going to get worse for him. Verse 20, For what credit is it if, when you are beaten for your faults, you take it patiently? But when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God. Well, this suffering and this enduring grief and being wrongfully treated, he's keeping it in front of them. He says honor is reserved for innocent sufferers, not guilty sufferers.

That's hard to say sufferers. The punishment, punishment for something that you did not do wrong, God says I will reward you for that. You see, the world has advantage in this sense. They offer our flesh, everything our flesh wants.

To be accepted, to be liked, to be free from mocking and abuse. Christianity throws us into an arena where those things aren't coming our way, and the spirit better get the upper hand or the flesh will give in. Behold, I send you out as sheep among wolves.

But he's going to be with us through that experience. So again, we remember he's writing to slaves. And when he says when you are beaten, well, we're not in this country as a rule, we're not beaten for our performance physically, but we can be beaten in other ways even when we do write. And in these days that he's writing, some of the slaves had it pretty bad. Some of them did have harsh masters, otherwise he wouldn't say this. And this was all over the empire. It wasn't just his audience.

Wherever Peter found himself, this was the culture. This is what was going on. And so he could not get them out of it. There's nothing he could say or do that would emancipate the slaves, or stop them or create laws that would be in their favor.

So he doesn't even try. What he does do is encourage them to be blameless in the face of these things. Sometimes we feel as though we must take some action. Any action, even if it's not going to work, we just have to do something. That could create larger problems even in the way we perceive things, for instance, the scripture.

We could look at the saints in the scripture and begin to question their decisions to suffer. For instance, back to David. How many of you would have done Saul in for daring to come and kill me for nothing, for messing up my life? I've got to live in caves. I've got to stay on the run because of you.

But I just end it right now for you. Well, he could not because he linked Saul's existence as king to the throne of God. God put him on the throne. God can take him off. That's the kind of approach I want.

If you're going to have that approach, you better stick by your principle because they're going to be those that are going to try to move you off of it with reason. Think it through, buddy. It's full dependency on God to make it through these things. But when you do good and suffer, he says here in verse 22, Peter uses the Greek word for suffering, where we get our English word pathos from, 15 times in his two letters. He really uses that word a lot, more than anybody else.

And you get the idea that he understands what's happening. I want to now reference one of my favorites, which would pretty much be all the great characters of the Bible, but in particular at this moment, it's Jeremiah. What a man their prophet was. He didn't see what was coming his way. He thought because he was a priest and loved Yahweh that all the other priests of Yahweh would feel the same way.

They did not. Jeremiah 11, 19, talking about suffering as a servant. We're going to get to the tracing Christ in a little bit. But I was like a docile lamb brought to the slaughter, and I did not know that they had devised schemes against me, saying, let us destroy the tree with its fruit, and let us cut him off from the land of the living, that his name may be remembered no more. The prophet was totally naive, unsuspecting that there were those in Israel that wanted to kill him. He was like a lamb going to the slaughter. The lamb doesn't know, are they going to kill you? No, they're not. They do this all the time. We're just following into the ghost.

Go in there. It's fine. So he paints this picture that it's him, again thinking that since he loved God and hated idols, that those others who claimed Yahweh would share his zeal, in his priestly village even, in his own family of priests, blood brothers. He was very wrong. They hated his loyalty to God. They hated that he stood by what he believed, what was in the Scripture, what he was called to be just like them. They hated him for it. His loyalty to God was a rebuke on their treachery. And so they said, let us cut him off from the land of the living. Let's chop down this fruit tree.

No matter the fruit is on it, we hate it so much, we'd rather kill it than have it. And so we find these lessons throughout our Bible. They are there to cause us to pause and think about things and connect our life to them or the lives of those around us to it. And these things contribute to our sobriety, that we become mature followers of Christ.

This is commendable. He says again at the bottom of verse 20, the same Greek word for grace. He says this is grace. This is what it looks like to be a believer, mindful of Jesus Christ. And grace shows up in each chapter of Peter's letters.

Those little details to me are profound. It's the Holy Spirit saying, I did it on purpose of speaking to you. Not to scold you, though if the shoe fits you have to wear it so that you won't have to wear it a second time. That shoe.

There are better shoes to wear than the shoes of being scolded. We're so glad you tuned in today to study the book of 1 Peter on Cross Reference Radio. Cross Reference Radio is the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel in Mechanicsville, Virginia. And we're blessed to bring you God's word with each broadcast. If you'd like more information about this program or want to listen to additional teachings from Pastor Rick, please visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com. We also encourage you to subscribe to our podcast so you'll never have to miss a program. Just search for Cross Reference Radio in iTunes, Google Play Music, or your favorite podcast app. We hope you'll tune in again next time to join us as we continue our study through the Scriptures, right here on Cross Reference Radio.