Free To Submit

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"Slaves, in reverent fear of God submit yourselves to your masters, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh"

1 Peter 2:18

Main Readings: 1 Samuel 24 & Luke 6:17-49

Supporting Readings: Psalm 62 & 1 Peter 2

At surface level the verses we’ve got before us this morning couldtrouble our minds.

That’s mainly because Peter’s focus here is slaves. And yet, nowhere does he denounce slavery. And nowhere does he rebuke slave masters.

To put that into perspective, one of the key players in changing attitudes to slavery in this very country was a Christian.

And he used the bible to shape the arguments that turned the tide. His name was William Wilberforce.

It was by his Christian courage on this issue, that this country abolished slavery right down to the present day. And he managed to accomplish that abolishion by a bill passed in the House of Lords in 1807!

So, does Peter affirm what William Wilberforce campaigned to abolish? No.

Peter’s view on slavery was no different to that of the Apostle Paul’s, when he counselled slaves to take hold of their freedom if they legitimately could. And also, not to subject themselves to slavery in the first place.

William Wilberforce followed Peter and Paul’s tack on slavery and campaigned against something we all know is contrary to God’s design for humanity and contrary to the very heart of the gospel of Jesus Christ - which is a story of emancipation. Of being set free from the bondage of sin and death.

So, we also abominate slavery and are very glad that William Wilberforce did what he did, and that we can live in a land where slavery is not legal.

But, also like Paul, Peter is determined to speak to believers in allspheres of normal life. And one normal sphere of life in Peter’s daywas the slave-master relationship. Even if that isn’t a normal sphere of life in our day.

There is more than one Greek word for ‘slave’ in the New Testament, and the one used here denotes a person who is a live-in household servant.

The NIV has gone for the word ‘slave’ and that’s right.

This person did not have the rights of a family member. They were considered part of the household property. Nor were they paid for their work. Nor were they able to escape or change their circumstances.

In every sense, as we understand it, they were a slave of their master and the household they served.

Not the same as a bond-slave who would have been more obviously a slave, but a slave, nonetheless.

It’s important to know this because it influences the way we understand what Peter is saying in the passage.

Especially because, the banner that flies over this whole unit in Peter’s letter is the phrase we encountered last time in verse 13: ‘submityourselves to every human authority for the Lord’s sake’.

And here we see in verse 18 that Peter includes Christian slaves in that exhortation.

That’s significant because last time we saw the citizen-government relationship playing out. Where citizens do have rights. And where justice is exercised.

But here all rights have been stripped away, so that, we’re looking at a different category of situation. And Peter’s exhortation to thisChristian is still the same as last time. ‘Submit for the Lord’s sake!’

Now you might think to yourself, since all slavery in our country - now- has been abolished, then what can these verses have to do with us?

Well, I don’t think we can simply say the relationship between the slave and the master is identical to the relationship between the employee and the employer. That would be to flatten who Peter is speaking to.

However, what I think we can say is, if what Peter is about to say to the slave applies to someone with as little freedom as a slave, then it certainly applies to Christians when they find themselves treated in a similar way to that which Peter is about to address.

So, as we move through the passage, I think you will be able to relateto the circumstances Peter is referring to, albeit not in a slave-master setting.

And you should think to yourself: ‘If Peter is calling on someone as restricted and unfree as the slave to behave in a certain way here, then he would certainly expect that of me who is that much freer than the slave’.

The cost to the restricted slave to do what Peter is calling for, is inevitably going to be greater than for any of us who are not slaves.

Not to mention the fact that when Peter gets into chapter 3, verses 14 and 15, he’ll exhort in very similar terms to these, anyway.

And there he clearly has all believers in view.

So, the extension I want us to make to ourselves this morning is valid, and we can make it with confidence.

We all understand what it feels like to be under pressure. Like when you’re backed into a corner and you’re looking for a way out, but there just isn’t one.

When all the scrutiny, or responsibility, or liability is resting on yourshoulders, and yours alone.

It feels like the weight of the world. And we all know that feeling at one time or another.

Maybe even now.

For us, our life has value and that serves to ease some of that weightiness. But for the slave, they were worth only what someone could get out of them.

If they proved worthless in their role, then that is what they were – worthless.

And so, I want to frame the flow of Peter’s exhortation for us this morning, in terms of pressure because that’s relatable for us.

We know how it feels. And we should assume that if we would feel it, then the slave would feel it more.

We saw in verse 18 that Peter’s instruction to the Christian slave is ‘submit yourselves to your masters’.

That submission will look like a particular application of faith I’m going to argue, when faced with the pressure of what Peter is calling for under those very challenging circumstances.

The pressure is this: that for no good reason, the Christian slave gets treated harshly.

Peter is calling for submission to both ‘kind and considerate’ masters, and to ‘harsh’ masters. You can see that in verse 18.

So here, Peter has in mind that the master would treat the slave notaccording to the quality of their work, but simply however they felt.

Which meant that, if they were feeling vindictive, or spiteful, or grumpy, they would treat their slave badly for no reason whatsoever. And the slave would be subject to ‘unjust suffering’ Peter says in verse 19.

Since the slave’s master answered to no one, there were no measures by which their treatment of the Christian slave could be checked. There was no recognition of that harsh treatment. There was no vindication of the slave for the injustice.

And how do you feel in that situation? It’s not difficult to knowbecause we’ve all experienced what it’s like.

It’s a trivial illustration, but when I was a boy, my brother scratched myname on the inside of the toilet door with his pen knife.

And though I appealed my innocence to my parents, I got the wrap for it.

I don’t know what they were thinking, frankly!

But that’s injustice. And it stung.

I wanted there to be justice.

So, we know how it feels.

And it felt worse for the slave obviously. He or she’s got nowhere to go after all!

What does Peter exhort in this situation? Well, it’s not to get even. It’s not to pursue justice. It’s not to retaliate.

Rather, what he does is he reframes everything for the slave and alleviates the pressure with the following phrases: ‘bear up’; ‘conscious of God’; and ‘commendable’.

Can you see those terms in verse 19?

In other words the pressure of injustice is relieved in the soul of this Christian slave when they are so conscious that it’s not a humanmaster that they serve first, it’s God they serve first – that’s what he means by ‘conscious of God’ – that they ‘bear up’ (that means take the load of the injustice which gnaws at their souls) because that is ‘commendable’.

And we have to say, Peter has in mind ‘commendable before God’here, because he says that very thing in verse 20.

Endurance under unjust suffering will be commended by God in the future.

You know, Peter is always paraphrasing Jesus in this letter, and I believe he is here too.

Jesus exhorts believers, like these slaves – like us – to love our enemies, to do good to them (like bearing up under their injustice); like lending to them without getting anything back.

And then he says, ‘then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful just as your father is merciful’.

It is ‘commendable’ Peter says. ‘Great will be your reward’ says Jesus.

So, Peter reframes the pressure for us by transcending the presentsuffering with a promise of eternal commendation.

And you should know, this only works when, in the suffering and in the mistreatment, we see beyond it because we are ‘conscious of God’.

It’s to him we live or die. It’s for his sake we bear up. It’s out of ‘reverent fear’ for him, verse 18, that we can moderate our response under that kind of pressure.

Maybe you have borne ill-will towards someone for years and years because you were treated unjustly by them. But you’ve never encountered this counsel before.

You can, according to Peter, reframe the pressure of getting that justice. You can be conscious of God and bear up under the weight of that injustice by trusting fully in the commendation that God will bring to you if you do that.

It takes faith in God’s promise and his power to act this way in the face of unjust suffering. It really does.

Look down at verse 23 – see what it says there. ‘When they hurled insults at him – who’s that? That’s right it’s your own saviour and Lord Jesus.

‘When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats.

Instead – what did he do? ‘he entrusted himself to him who judges justly – who’s that? God.

He entrusted himself into God’s hands. Because God will judge justly.

God will either vindicate by punishing Jesus for the sin of that harsh master because they fall on their face before him in repentance and faith. Or he will judge the harsh master in hell forever for their unrepentant injustice.

Either way justice will be satisfied.

Can you entrust the justice due to you into the hands of God who judges justly? You can if you revere God.

Can you see how, if we behave the way Jesus behaved under the same kind of injustice – albeit cosmically greater for him than it ever could be for us! Can you see how it shows Christ off to the world?

The natural response is to retaliate, right? But Jesus didn’t do that. He practiced what he preached.

And when we practice what he preached also, we show him off to the world, because it looks so different from the normal response people of the world are used to seeing.

That’s when it becomes ‘for the Lord’s sake’!

The commendation will come.

Not because you had so much moral fibre that you could bear up under unjust suffering.

But because, faithfully trusting in God, you showed Christ off to the world, which is what God wants. And he will say, ‘come and enjoy more of your precious Jesus with me!’

Notice that in verse 20, Peter wants something for you. Or in this case for the slave. He wants your ‘credit’. Do you see that? ‘How is it to your credit if you receive a beating for wrongdoing and endure it?’

The credit he has in mind is connected to the kind of suffering that really matters.

In other words, there’s a kind of suffering that doesn’t count for anything before God. And a kind that does.

Peter wants to make sure that if the slave is going to suffer, that they suffer for the right thing so far as God is concerned, and not the wrong thing.

He’s absolutely not saying that if you bear up under suffering that results from wrongdoing that that is commendable. It isn’t!

If we come under great pressure because of negligence, or because of sin, or because of faithlessness, or dishonourable behaviour, and endure the scrutiny and discipline that comes from that, that’s not to our credit.

Why? Because that kind of conduct doesn’t commend Christ. We claim to be followers of Christ, but we behave unlike him.

If we do that, how will we show the radical difference that Jesus makes? We won’t.

But if you suffer for doing good and endure it, that is commendable before God. That is to say, that is to your credit.

Like Jesus, Peter motivates good behaviour – befitting of the Lord Jesus – and good responses to suffering – befitting of the Lord Jesus – with future credit.

And let’s be careful here not to overstate the case. There is only oneway that can possibly be the case.

All of the following must be going on in our hearts, for our behaviour to be for our credit and it not become works-based religion.

Remember, works based religion is death to us. If we rely on works for favour with God, we’re dead in transgression and sins.

So, this is what needs to be present in the heart of a person so that good behaviour results in credit.

1. The behaviour need to be done faithfully for the sake of the glory of God.

I’m getting that from ‘reverent fear’. From, ‘conscious of God’. And from, ‘for the Lord’s sake’. It’s pointing Godwards.

Number 2. Faith in the cross work of Jesus which purifies every single faithful deed in this life.

Without that, God is not pleased with anything we do because it is soiled by our sin and imperfection.

I’m getting that from verse 24, ‘He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness’.

And 3. By faithful desire for the credit we receive not to be more time to watch movies; not more holidays at the beach; not more golf on our favourite course, but more communion with Jesus because he is our all in all.

I’m getting that from chapter 3, verse 18, ‘Christ suffered to bring you to God’.

And that’s where Christ is. Not to bring you to the lottery win. Not to bring you to the mansion. To bring you to God!

Now you might be wondering, who would make their servant sufferwhen that servant is doing good?

A master might make a servant suffer for steeling. Or for lying. Or for negligence. But not for faithfulness, or diligence, or hard work, or excellence. Surely?

Well, they might if that servant’s goodness exceeded their own to the point that it became obvious to others that the slave had betterbehaviour than their master.

No one likes to be shown up.

The honesty of the Christian in the workplace can make the employer feel demeaned by their employee. And that can make them feel so uncomfortable that they might respond by mistreating the employee.

In that case they have lost face in front of others whose opinion they care about.

Or imagine that an employee was so honest that an employer, who was planning on winning some work by deception, actually lost out on the deal because of the honesty of their employee.

And that made them so angry that they brought some sort of internal disciplinary action against the employee.

The point is that when the goodness of Christ is reflected in the behaviour of Christians, sometimes it can be so counter-cultural in the world of business that it makes a master angry and it can lead to unjust treatment.

What we should know about that, from what Peter is telling us here, is:

First, we should not shy away from looking like Christ as much as possible, simply because it might make an unbeliever feel uncomfortable.

Second, we should not shy away from looking like Christ as much as possible, simply because we perceive it might go badly for us.

They might think badly of us. They might say something negative about us. They might mistreat us. They might make us suffer in some way.

We don’t shy away from that.

And third, if we do come under fire for the way it makes unbelievers feel when we behave like Christ, we are called (that’s Peter’s word in verse 21) to endure in that Christian manner we just talked about. As uncomfortable as that may be.

Now there is a deadly trap we could fall into here if we’re not careful, and I want to point it out so that we don’t fall into it.

I’ve talked a lot about acting in a way similar to Christ Jesus. I’ve set him up as our example – our ‘pattern’ we might say.

That’s defensible because Peter says in verse 21, ‘to this – he means to everything we’ve just been prompted to by him – ‘to this you were called’.

In other words, this is God’s will for our lives. To behave like this and receive this suffering.

Why is it his will? Peter goes on: ‘because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps’.

So, Peter sets Jesus up in the way that I’ve used him this morning. As THE example to follow.

But it would be death to us, would it not, if we thought that God wanted us to chase suffering?

As if there is moral value in suffering for suffering’s sake. That would be so wrong as to undo everything we have come to believe.

There are Christians who go to the point of almost inciting anger from unbelievers so that suffering will come their way.

Because they think, suffering is what the Christian life is all about. After all, Jesus suffered, and he left us his pattern to follow in his steps.

But that’s not it!

In fact, inciting anger against yourself doesn’t commend Christ, it clouds Christ. It doesn’t endorse Jesus, it obstructs him.

And the suffering you receive is not to your credit. To my shame I think I’ve been guilty of this as young Christian in my past.

The suffering pattern Jesus sets down is not to court suffering. It is all about how to respond in a godly manner when suffering comes. Which it will when we emulate the goodness of Jesus in our everyday lives.

So, I want to commend to you – even though you are not slaves – the dynamic Peter sets down here for us.

If he could exhort the least free in society to this kind of behaviour, he can certainly exhort us who are freer.

Under all circumstances and pressures, conscious of God – who is always worthy of our devotion – emulate the goodness of Christ.

And if we receive unjust pain for that from our earthly masters, endure it.

This is what ‘submission’ to earthly masters looks like.

This is what ‘reverent fear of God’ looks like.

This will result in our ‘credit’ and ‘commendation’ when Christ returns - when all the wrongs of this life will be put to rights.

Until then we entrust ourselves to him who judges justly. And we look forward to enjoying sweet communion with our Lord Jesus forever, when this earthly race of ours is finally run. When all injustice is no more. And the glorious vindication is ours forever.