You think you have rights? Ha! They couldn't touch the rights that he had.
And he asked for none of them. That's how we're to live as servants in the world. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.
I'm your host, Phil Johnson. It seems there are more and more restrictions on what you can and cannot say about your faith in today's culture. Not just in public schools and government settings, but even within private companies. If evangelism isn't outright prohibited, it is often at least frowned upon. So how do you go about telling others about Christ when that may cost you your job? Well, John MacArthur helps answer that today, continuing his study, singing the Lord's song in a strange land.
So follow along now as John MacArthur begins today's lesson. First Peter chapter 2, starting in verse 18. Servants, be submissive to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and gentle, but also to those who are unreasonable. Now here Peter moves from governmental authority, national authority, federal authority, state authority, police, to the social order in which we work, the labor environment. And he is saying it is very important how you conduct yourself there as well if you're going to silence the critics and lead people to Christ and if you're going to avoid discrediting Christianity. The mandate for submission is simply this, be submissive to your masters.
If you're working for someone, submit to him. Jesus, Paul, and Peter and John could have led the greatest, the greatest insurrection the world ever knew in terms of employee strikes. All they would have had to say was, now that you're a Christian, you're equal with everybody else. In fact, you're superior to everybody else because you're a child of God.
Now take your rights and there would have been a rebellion across the Christian community that would have been unbelievable and it also would have been devastating to the Christian's testimony. It is of little consequence to us what happens in this world. It is of little consequence whether you are a manager or a vice president. It is of little consequence whether you get another 50 cents raise or not. If it means that in the process of protesting your condition, you lose your testimony.
Then it becomes of major consequence. Now I'm not saying that you shouldn't do everything that is provided within the employee proper channels to gain whatever would be fair. What I am saying is you never violate the standards.
You never go outside of those things. You never disobey your employer. You submit and it says it, be submissive to your masters with all fear and the fear is to God who puts you there and you should fear ever to discredit him.
It doesn't matter whether your master is good and gentle or whether he is utterly unreasonable. The apostle Paul said that the believer is to be obedient to his master. He is to be obedient to him with the right kind of behavior that is doing exactly what he says. He says that you are to do it with fear and trembling because you hold God in awe who will punish your disobedience. He says you are to do it with singleness of heart.
What does that mean? Loyalty. You are to be a loyal employee, conscientious. He says in Ephesians 6 you are to do it as unto Christ. You are to do it with the right motive. He says you are to do it not with eye service as men pleasers. In other words, not doing it just when the manager is looking and seeing you work but doing it all the time knowing God always sees you. And then he says in Ephesians 6 you are to do it with a ready mind. What does that mean?
Anxious, willing, eager. You are there early. You are so anxious to get to work. You see, let me give it to you, bottom line. Not one person in this place has a secular job.
You understand that? You do not have a secular job. All you have is a mission field.
That's all you that's all you have. You don't have a secular job. You have a spiritual calling and your calling is to reach the people where God has placed you and you never do anything to demonstrate anger, hostility, dissatisfaction, discontent, pride, ego, selfishness. We all offer, every day, spiritual sacrifices to God in our work and we are called to evangelize. And so we must submit and show that we are dutiful and faithful and loyal and obedient and conscientious and anxious and willing and that we serve our employer as if we were serving Christ.
And you know what happens? As a result, your testimony overwhelms them. You silence the critics.
They have no way to discredit Christianity and you'll bring some of the critics to Christ. Now let's go to the second point. The mandate to the motive.
Verse 19. So simple. For this finds favor. That's it. That's the motive.
Why should we do that? For this finds favor. Literally the Greek says this is a grace. This is a grace.
What does that mean? An act which is intrinsically attractive to God. This finds favor with God. This pleases God. Look at the end of verse 20.
Again, the same phrase. This finds favor with God. This is a grace.
The idea is that when you work like that, it is admirable. It is worthy of gratitude. It is worthy of thanks. To whom? To God. To God.
It is an act which makes, can you believe this? God grateful. It makes God grateful.
And what is it that makes him grateful? Verse 19. If for the sake of consciousness of God.
This is a better way to translate that. If for the sake of consciousness of God, a man bears up or endures under sorrows when suffering unjustly. Now here's a guy in the workplace and he is, he's a slave. And in the Roman world he might be getting whipped unjustly. He might be getting deprived of his food unjustly. He might be working long hours beyond what is reasonable unjustly. He might be punished in a number of ways unjustly. But if for the sake of his consciousness of God, he endures all of those sorrows, God is thankful. Did you get that? What pleases God?
When you protest, when you strike, when you picket, when you walk out, no. What pleases God? What finds favor with Him? Is when you bear up under the sorrows that come when you suffer unjustly. That pleases God. You notice if for the sake of consciousness of God, the use of sinatosis here in the construction with the genitive makes it better to say consciousness of God. That's what it means because you're aware of God's presence, because you're aware God is watching, because you're aware God is there.
It is used in a similar construction for you Bible students in Hebrews 10 2. But your action is prompted by a conscious sense of God's presence. You know He's there.
You know He's watching. And so you endure. The word sorrow implies pain. You are suffering unjustly, but you never falter in your witness. You accept it. You accept it in humility, in patience, trusting God, confident of His total control. You accept it. That pleases God. God wants to see that.
He is pleased to see that. Now painful unjust beatings were being endured no doubt by some of the people reading this epistle or hearing it read. They were being beaten as slaves by those who were taking advantage of them.
And this is very practical and it was far worse than anything you have ever known. They owned these slaves. There was no such thing as freedom. They couldn't change jobs. They had no labor union. There was no recourse. There were no employee counselors. There was no one to go to. There was no better business bureau.
There were no civil lawsuits open to them against employers. And so they had to take it. But they did. Peter says you did right if you did. Because you kept the testimony of the power of salvation to give a man an unquenchable peace and faith in God no matter what happens. You see, what they have to see is that you're unflappable, that you're immovable, that your faith is strong and your courage is great. And no matter what happens in that environment, you stand in the peace of God totally trusting Him.
In a quiet spirit, with a patient heart, loyal, dutiful, faithful, diligent, willing, anxious to be the best employee you can be. Then Peter expands the thought with a negative and positive statement in verse 20. He says, for what credit is there if when you sin and are harshly treated you endure it with patience? Well, there's no credit.
I mean, that's the implied answer. What credit is there if when you sin and are harshly treated you endure it with patience? You deserve it. You ought to endure it with patience. There's no particular virtue in that. If you sin and you're being punished because of something you did, then there's no virtue in taking it patiently. But, on the other hand, if when you do what is right and suffer for it, you patiently endure it, here's the statement again. This is a grace to God. This finds favor with God. God isn't particularly pleased when you're patient and you deserve the pain. God is very pleased when you're patient and you don't deserve it.
Some of you have employment situations that are not fair. Some of you are enduring suffering. The Greek here literally says you are harshly treated. And it uses a verb, kolaphidzane, which means to punch with the fist. It sometimes means to cuff, to slap, or to fist around. Not just once, but to beat roughly, so used in Mark 14, 65.
Beating of slaves was common. And he says if you're being fisted, slapped, cuffed, battered, beaten up roughly, and you deserve it, then your patience is no virtue. But if you don't, your patience pleases God.
So, the reason, the motive for endurance, what's the motive for us? It pleases God to see us accept the earthly difficulty with complete faith in Him. That is a testimony beyond all testimonies.
You want to have a testimony at work? That's how. And he is speaking of very severe treatment, as we shall see in a moment.
Very severe treatment. This thought, by the way, is repeatedly in Peter's mind. Look at chapter 3, verse 14. But even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness, you are blessed.
Do not fear their intimidation and do not be troubled. If they beat you up and you're doing what is right and noble and excellent, you're blessed. Look at chapter 4, verse 14. If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed. You are blessed. Verse 16, if you suffer as a Christian, don't be ashamed, but in that name let Him glorify God. You're blessed.
Why? Because it pleases God. And when God is pleased, what does He do? He blesses. Now, if you want to short-circuit the blessing, then retaliate, threaten, react, stop being submissive to your employer, and you'll cut off the blessing of God. Or you may get what you want in the natural, but you will forfeit what God would give you in the supernatural. This isn't new.
This isn't new at all. Where did Peter learn this? Well, how about Matthew 5-11? Blessed are you when men cast insults at you and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely on account of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is?
What's the word? Great. Great.
Can you have a heavenly view, or do you have to have it all now? You say, I want that promotion. I want that wage. I want what I want.
I want my employee rights. You want it now, or you want it forever? No, Jesus laid it out as marvelously and simply as He could. Great will your reward be in heaven? God does not forget.
He does not forget. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 4, to this present hour, we are both hungry and thirsty. We are poorly clothed. We are roughly treated.
We are homeless, and we toil, working with our own hands. When we are reviled, we bless. When we are persecuted, we endure. When we are slandered, we try to conciliate.
Wow, amazing. That's the way to live. You say, why do you live like that? Paul, why don't you demand your rights? Why don't you say, you can't do that to me.
I don't want to demand my rights. I want to show how I trust God. I want to show that there's nothing that people can do to me to make me break my trust in God. I want to show that there's nothing people can do to me to make me lose my peace and my joy and my confidence and my hope in God.
And when people see that I live that transcendent life, then Christianity becomes believable. And then an amazing statement comes in verse 21, absolutely amazing. Verse 21, for you have been called for this purpose.
Whoa. You have been called for this purpose? What does He mean called? Salvation call. Salvation call is exactly what He means. Go back to verse 9, Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. That's salvation. So, when you were saved, you were saved to this purpose. What do you mean?
What are you talking about? Well, you've been called, by the way, use the same term in chapter 5 verse 10. It says, God who called you to His eternal glory. So, Peter uses it in the reference of salvation. He is saying, when you were saved, you were saved for this purpose. What purpose?
Here it is. To patiently endure suffering you do not deserve. That's right. You were called to that. You were called to that.
You say, how come? Because as soon as you became a Christian, you became the enemy of the world. And so you will, as you live out your Christian life, be unjustly and unfairly attacked.
You live out your Christian life in your environment, the system will resent you and come against you. But, they will look to you as the model employee, so they're trapped. You should be better than anybody else.
And in the process, some critics will be silenced and some critics will be saved. That's what you've been called to. That's what you've been called to.
This isn't anything that surprised you. When I was in college as a student studying, and I was an athlete in college involved in all the athletics in my college, and I wanted a summer job one summer, so I applied to the YMCA of Glendale to run one of their youth programs in an elementary school playground, and I passed all of the athletic skill tests without any kind of a problem, and they brought me into a board of six people in the Glendale City Hall and sat me down for the psychological evaluation. They asked me, what is the most important value in your life? I said, my personal relationship to Jesus Christ. And everybody just sort of gasped, and they asked me some question along the line, is this something you feel you have to propagate? My response was, I live to propagate this. I don't have any other purpose than to propagate this. Needless to say, I flunked the psychological evaluation. The last thing they wanted was somebody evangelizing the kids. And we're talking, folks, about 1960s.
It isn't really any different now, maybe worse. But when you're out there, and I'm sure if I were to leave the ministry and try to get a job anyplace and tell them what I really believe, I would be unemployed permanently because I would pose such a threat that I would have to work for a Christian company, and I'd probably drive them nuts trying to straighten out their theology. You see, you were saved to this end.
You were saved to this purpose. And what happens if Christians rebel? What happens if Christians retaliate?
What happens if they fight and strike and demand their rights? You know what that says to the lost world? Hey, we care about this life. We live for this life, and we resent you. And you're not treating us right. And we're going to fight you. And it would also say, hey, God hasn't done anything to get us this deal, so we're going after it ourselves. We wouldn't be any different than them, would we? I hate to see hostile, angry Christians trying to get their square inch in this society.
Who cares? You were called to this to suffer undeservedly and to endure it with patience. 2 Timothy 3.12 says, all that live godly in this present age shall suffer persecution. It goes with the territory. That's how it is.
And you don't want to cave into it. The motive? It pleases God. It pleases God, who will bless you. Thirdly, the model.
Who's the model? Since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps, who committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in His mouth. And while being reviled, He didn't revile in return. While suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously. What did Christ do? He was reviled. He was persecuted. He was slandered. He suffered. What did He do? Did He retaliate?
Not at all. He answered not a word at His trial. In meekness and humility, He committed Himself to God. And so Peter says, Christ suffered for you, not only redemptively, but in an exemplary way. Not only did He suffer to redeem, but He suffered to set the model for how you're to live. Beyond the redemptive work of the cross is the pattern of the suffering of Christ. The word example, hupa gramas, it means a copy. It's the model for the letters that the children write, the pattern. He set the pattern for you to follow in His steps.
The word steps is footprint. He left a line of footprints, a line of tracks in the dirt for you to walk in, same way. When He was reviled, He didn't revile back. When He was slandered, He didn't slander back. When He suffered, He uttered no threats.
He just committed Himself to God. You think you have rights? Hah!
They couldn't touch the rights that He had, and He asked for none of them. That's how we're to live, as servants in the world. Let's pray. Thank you, Father, for this time, for the testimony of Christ, who brings everything into such bold relief, how we love Him, how we honor His name, and help us, O God, to follow His pattern. May we give testimony to His power, and that we live on a different plane. Little in this world concerns us at all, and we trust ourselves to you and wait for your eternal blessing. Make us submissive, motivated because it pleases you, and following the footprints of Jesus Christ.
Amen. You're listening to Grace to You with John MacArthur, Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary. His current study on how to have a Christian testimony in a hostile world is titled, Singing the Lord's Song in a Strange Land. As we're seeing, the Bible has clear things to say about how a Christian should interact with his or her boss on the job. But there are other workplace issues that raise questions, including a question that came in on our Q&A phone line. John, we'll play that question for you now, and then you can respond.
My name is Hyacinth, and I really need to get an answer from you. I am a Christian, and I do believe in doing to others what I would want them to do for me or to me. I wouldn't want them harming me, so I wouldn't harm anyone. And the work I do, I have very angry people coming in to see me. They actually blame me as if I made them angry or I did something to them. It's very painful.
And could you advise me how to deal with a person like that? Thank you. Well, Hyacinth, thank you for that question. I can almost imagine your workplace. You're behind a counter somewhere where people are coming in irritated long before they ever arrive at you.
You're a dear, sweet Christian lady just wanting to do your job, but you're in the position of having to be some kind of spiritual leader that can reach behind the people's superficial concern and work on their heart. Look, I think this is the nature of the world in which we live. If you were to ask me what is the dominant attitude that I see in the culture of today, it could all be summed up in one word, anger. This is a really angry culture. Everybody is angry.
You see it everywhere, just absolutely everywhere. Parents are angry, kids are angry, people in the workplace are angry, politicians are angry, people are angry with politicians. There is an unleashing of anger in our culture, and it basically comes because there has been the constant promotion of self-esteem. The damage done by the lie of self-esteem that you're the most important person in the world has created people who, when they don't get what they want, they're just angry.
You know, I grew up in a family, and I was told things like this. Others are more significant than you. Think not on your own things, but on the things of others. Consider others better than yourselves. That's what builds patience, kindness, compassion. I would go at the issue of anger, and in a kind and gracious way, if the opportunity presents it, I would just mention that this is anger, and anger is a destructive thing. You don't want to give yourself into anger. And then, kindly, I would say, I'm here to help you, but I can't help you if we can't get past your anger. Be straightforward.
That's right. Thank you, John. And friend, if you, like Heisen, have a Bible-related question for John MacArthur, perhaps a question related to church leadership or how to study Scripture or how to pray, give our Q&A line a call at 661-295-6288. And to let us know how God is using grace to you in your life, send us a note today. You can email us at letters at gty.org, or use regular mail, and you can write to Grace to You, Box 4000, Panorama City, California, 91412. And again, to ask John a question, call 661-295-6288. You can leave a message, and then stay tuned to hear if John answers your question on the air.
That Q&A line number one more time, 661-295-6288. And to help you dig deep into the New Testament and understand it better than ever, I would encourage you to get the MacArthur New Testament commentary. It's a 33-volume work, the product of more than four decades of preaching and teaching, and it gives you verse-by-verse explanations of the entire New Testament. You can order the whole set at once and get a discount on each volume, or you can order individual commentaries to meet your study needs. To order the MacArthur New Testament commentary, call 800-55-GRACE or visit gty.org. Now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson. Watch Grace to You television this Sunday on DirecTV channel 378, and then be back tomorrow as John looks at preserving your Christian testimony in your home, even if your spouse is hostile to your faith. It's another half hour of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time, on Grace to You.
