Preached Sunday, May 19, 2013 from 1 Peter 2:18-25
Theme: When we display a submissive spirit in the workplace, we work as commendable representatives of the Lord Jesus.
(Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture references are taken from The Holy Bible, New King James Version; copyright 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc.)
This morning, we’ll look at a passage that has always meant a lot to me personally. It once kept me from quitting a job in anger.
Around twenty-five years ago—while working my way through my seminary education—I was employed as a graphic artist for a local area print shop. It was a very small company; and I was pretty much all there was on staff as far as creating artwork and preparing it for printing.
Late one afternoon, just before quitting time, my boss—the owner of the company—came to me with a little bit of urgency. He had a booklet that needed to be prepared for printing. He had agreed to print the booklet; but he hadn’t planned very well and didn’t realize that the deadline would be so close. He asked me if I wouldn’t mind staying just a little after closing and getting it ready for the printer so that it could be printed first thing in the morning. “It shouldn’t take you too long,” he said. And I said I’d take care of it. So away my boss went; and I prepared to finish this last job of the day. I called Marilyn and told her that I would need to stay just a little bit late to take care of an emergency job. “It shouldn’t take me too long,” I said. (You can probably tell where this story is going already; can’t you?)
Somewhere around—oh; I don’t know—9:30 in the evening or so, I took a break and called Marilyn again. I was furious! My boss had dumped a really big job on me at the last minute, and I wasn’t even near halfway through with it yet. And now, having made a commitment, I needed to stay and see it through. Marilyn was pretty upset too. We both talked about how bad a planner my boss is, how insensitive he is, how frequently he seems to take advantage of me, and how it was high time for me to tell him that I quit. I hung up and went back to work—and not with the most Christian attitude, to say the least.
Around 12:30 in the morning—after it becoming clear that I was still going to be there for a while—I needed to take another break and get something to eat. I drove down the street to a restaurant downtown. Do you know, by the way, that there are a lot of sad looking people in restaurants in the early morning in downtown Portland? I felt like I fit in with the group. But I took my Bible with me. I just wanted to skim through the Scriptures for a while, have it confirm to me how unjustly I felt that I was being treated, and look at the concordance in the back and see whether there were any verses on how to quit a lousy job.
I didn’t find anything like that. Instead, I found the passage that I would like to share with you this morning.
In 1 Peter 2:18-25, the first word that the apostle Peter wrote was, “Servants . . .” And immediately I thought, “Yeah—that’s exactly what I feel like! Nothing more than a miserable ‘servant’! You preach it, Peter!” But this passage goes on to say;
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. For 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 the 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 souls (1 Peter 2:18-25).
At first, reading that passage made me even more angry. It sure wasn’t what I was looking for. And worse—I felt it was telling me that now, on top of having to work really late, I also had to make sure I honor God while I’m doing it! But I did eventually come around. I repented of my grouchiness, went back to the print shop, and finished my work. And I didn’t quit my job either. I realized that the Lord Jesus wanted me there to represent Him faithfully to my boss—even in circumstances like that—by exhibiting a Christlike attitude.
There’s a ‘rest of the story’, too. My boss—who I believe, in all honesty, didn’t realize how much the job would involved—met me at work the next day very sorry. When he saw later all that was involved, he apologized for having dumped that much on me without warning. As it turned out, the job got done, the piece was printed on time, and I didn’t end up doing or saying something foolish in anger. And most important, I believe that I ended up bearing a much more positive witness for my Lord than I would have had I not read that passage.
That’s why I love this passage. I’ve experienced the benefit of what it teaches us.
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Now; this particular passage has often been considered controversial. In fact, when word got out that I was going to preach from it, I received a note from someone who warned me about the dangers that are inherent in it. They were concerned about how—in their experience—this passage has often been used to keep people in unhealthy and abusive situations; ones in which they were made to feel as if it was somehow truly ‘Christian’ to put up with injustice and mistreatment. I appreciate that warning; and I think it might be good to take a moment to clear a few things up about this passage.
First, some people feel that this passage lends itself easily to the teaching that we ought to be weak and passive—and to put up with acts of cruelty and injustice. But we need to understand that this passage isn’t commanding us to become anyone’s doormat. It talks about “submission” (which, of course, is a word that automatically raises people’s fears); but we need to understand the high purpose of the command to ‘submit’. That purpose is found in verses 11-12. There, the apostle Peter wrote;
Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul, having your conduct honorable among the Gentiles, that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may, by your good works which they observe, glorify God in the day of visitation (vv. 11-12).
Peter identifies his believing brothers and sisters in Christ as “sojourners and pilgrims” in this world. And as such, they need to be careful to live so that they stand out as belonging to their Lord and Master Jesus Christ. They are commanded to keep their conduct “honorable” before unbelievers so that they can be good representatives of the life-changing power of the gospel. And this morning’s passage is a part of that command. It’s not a command to be other people’s helpless ‘victim’. Rather, it’s a command to be a bold and faithful ambassador for Christ—even in the workplace. ‘Submission’ in the proper, God-appointed realms and relationships of life is a part of our work as missionaries for our Lord on this earth.
Second, some people argue that this passage is about ‘slavery’—and that, since we—thankfully—no longer tolerate slavery as a part of our culture, it’s a very inappropriate twisting of the Scriptures to try and apply it to a modern employer/employee context. And it’s true that, in the ancient world, the relationship between slaves to their masters was different. Slaves had no rights; and they were routinely abused and brutally beaten by their masters. In a modern employer/employee relationship—even though someone might joke about feeling like a slave—you aren’t beaten by your boss. You have rights and protections. And if you don’t like how things are going, you can easily quit one job and get another. Slaves couldn’t do that.
But I believe that this passage gives us what we might call some ‘timeless principles’ in a ‘time-bound context’. We, of course, don’t need to know what to do in a slave/master relationship. But we do need to know what do to when we are in a servant-like position under a master-like supervisor with work-like responsibilities and expectations. That would include work relationships on the job; but it would also include school and classroom relationships, or organizational and volunteer relationships, or military relationships. I believe that whenever we agree to work for a company or a business, or we enter into a contract with a client to provide goods or perform services, or whenever we sign up to sit under a teacher in a classroom, or when we enter into military or government service, we are entering into a kind of relationship that is being considered in the teaching of this passage.
And thirdly, some Christians—living as we do in a very self-focused, self-aggrandizing culture— we often forget that we, in actual fact, really are bondslaves. It’s just that we happen to be the grateful slaves of a very wonderful Master named Jesus Christ. And that means that every other obligation that we have in every other servant/master-type relationship is only to be seen as fulfilled under the supreme authority of Jesus Christ.
Did you know that, as far as God is concerned, you work for Him at your job rather than for your boss or your company? As Paul wrote in his letter to the Colossians;
Bondservants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh, not with eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but in sincerity of heart, fearing God. And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ (Colossians 3:22-24).
And this means that no earthly ‘boss’ has full authority over us. His or her authority is limited, and can only be exercised over us so long as it does not violate our obedience to our chief Master, Jesus Christ. When an earthly ‘master’ commands us not to do something that God has clearly told us to do, or when he or she command us to do something that God has forbidden us from doing, we must say—as Peter said elsewhere—”We ought to obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29).
In other words, we are only to submit to our temporal, earthly ‘master’ in obedience to our great Master Jesus.
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So then; with all that in mind, what does Peter tell us in this passage?
First, notice that he tells us . . .
1. OUR DUTY AS SERVANTS UNDER CHRIST.
He says,”Servants, be submissive to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the harsh” (v. 18).
Note first that, in the original language, Peter doesn’t use the ordinary word for servants or slaves. He uses a word that means something more along the lines of ‘household servant’ or ‘domestic servant’. It’s a word that doesn’t, it seems to me, necessarily convey the same meaning as “slave”. Rather, it seems to refer to a position that carries a certain amount of trust and authority with it. A ‘household servant’ is someone who is entrusted with responsibilities—who even exercises a certain amount of decision-making power and limited freedom in performing their work. And the word Peter uses for ‘master’ isn’t the ordinary word either. He uses a word from which we get the word “despot”—the person who holds chief authority over that household.
Then, note that Peter says that servants are to be ‘submissive’ to their masters. The word “submissive”, as it is used here, means ‘to rank under’ or ‘to be subordinated under’. A friend told me that in the military—when a superior officer passed by and you are required to salute—it’s understood that you’re not saluting the person in the uniform. Rather, you’re saluting the authority and the superior ranking that is represented by the uniform that the person is wearing. Servants aren’t commanded here to be submissive to everyone. Rather, they are commanded to be submissive to the position of the person to whom they are subordinated in a specific and clearly-defined relationship—that is, to their master.
Third, note that they are told to submit to their masters “with all fear”. This isn’t speaking of a cringing fear or dread of their master. They aren’t commanded to walk around wringing their hands and flinching whenever someone makes a move. Rather, the “fear” being spoken of is best understood as a sense of whole-hearted “reverential respect”. And it’s to be directed primarily at God. A servant should, of course, be characterized by respect for their master; but the primary respect is toward God, and they show respect to their master out of respect to God “in all things”. The next verse tells us that this is to be done “because of conscience toward God”.
And finally, note that this isn’t to only be done toward masters that are kind and good and gentle. It would be easy and natural to be ‘submissive’ to a good and gentle master. Rather, we’re to be submissive even to masters that are “harsh”—or, as the original language has it, “crooked” or “bent”—a little warped!
I certainly had to learn to do that in the case of the story I told you earlier. It’s easy to submit to the authority of a boss who is a good planner, and who is considerate, and who never makes mistakes, or is never poorly motivated—one who never gets angry, or who never has a bad day—one who always treats everyone with equity and justice, and who is generous and beneficent. It’d be real easy to submit to such a boss. But we’d never get a chance to. Most bosses are human. Instead, we have to learn to submit to the ‘master-like’ authority of someone who is as much of a poor planner, or as thoughtless and rude and as mistake-prone as you and I often are. Sometimes, we have to work for someone who is very much our inferior in terms of competency or character. But we aren’t submit to them because they are worthy of our submission. Rather, we are to submit to them because God—in His providence—has placed us, for a time, under their authority; and we ‘fear’ Him.
I think you’re on the right track when you do your best to make your boss feel respected by you—even the harsh and difficult ones; and that you seek make him or her a success under the reverential fear of God. That’s what it means to do our duty as servants under Christ.
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Now; sometimes that can be difficult and unpleasant to do. Sometimes we can be treated unjustly by the person to whom we’re to submit; and we have to sort out our feelings about it and bring those feelings under submission to our Lord and Master Jesus. It really helped me to do that when I went off for a while—late that one night—with my Bible.
But the reason God’s word gives us this instruction is because—amazingly—God works through our submission to accomplish His will. Notice how Peter next tells us about . . .
2. OUR OPPORTUNITY AS SERVANTS WHEN TREATED UNJUSTLY.
Peter writes, “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” (vv. 19-21).
I don’t believe this is telling us to roll over and receive cruel treatment as a passive victim. I know that some folks have misused the Bible’s teaching on ‘submission’ in that way; but the Bible doesn’t teach us to do that. If you are ever in a situation in which you are actually being ‘beaten’, you need to get out of that situation quickly. And in the same way, I believe that we should always—in as respectful a way as possible—seek justice whenever there is a situation of racial discrimination, or unfair favoritism, or any of those acts of actual injustice in the workplace from which we are protected by law.
But I think that Peter is speaking of a hypothetical situation—not an actual one. He mentions ‘beating’ in the context of the wrong-doer. There’s no credit to the wrongdoer if—speaking hypothetically—he is strapped to the rack and gets a whippin’. He doesn’t get a ‘gold star’ for taking that patiently. He had it coming. But it’s a far different matter when it comes to those times when—as Peter puts it—we “do good and suffer” wrongfully and unjustly. I believe he is speaking of those situations that occur because of the reality of human fallenness—those situations in which we’re treated unreasonably, or rudely, or insensitively; or—as I felt was true in my case—our willingness to serve is taken advantage of, or we get unfairly dumped-on and feel taken for granted. I believe this kind of situation is what Peter is saying we’re to ‘take patiently’ or ‘bear up under’.
And notice the motive behind what Peter is talking about. He says that, when we are called upon to endure ‘grief, suffering wrongfully’, we’re to do so ‘because of conscience toward God’. Rather than lashing out in return, or becoming belligerent, or refusing to cooperate with our boss’s wishes, or even trying to make our boss look badly, we’re to “endure” the wrongdoing as much as we legitimately can.
This sounds very counter-intuitive; doesn’t it? When most people read that, I think their first response would be, “You’ve got to be kidding! I’m supposed to just roll over and let myself get stomped on—and by my boss? That’s supposed to be ‘commendable’?” But it’s amazing how God calls us in the Scriptures to do a lot of things—out of a reverent conscience toward Him—that seem counter-intuitive. Think of what Jesus said in the Sermon on The Mount:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:43-48).
We endure such grief and suffering—not because it works to our benefit in some way, but because that’s what our Father calls us to do. And He works through our obedience, in some mysterious way, to accomplish His will in this world.
And notice how Peter says that to do this is “commendable”. In fact, he says it twice. It is commendable before God. The word that Peter uses is the word for “grace”. To take it patiently when we are treated wrongly is “grace”. And it’s grace “before God”. It’s as if God looks down upon us from heaven when we endure such suffering patiently, sees how we restrain from lashing out because of a reverence and a good conscience toward Him, places His hand upon us, and says, “Thank you, My child. I am pleased. You did well.”
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Now; I believe that God calls us to this kind of response because it represents our Lord to those with whom we work. It shows forth our Lord, and it adorns the gospel we proclaim concerning Him. It’s one of the most effective and visible ways we can bear witness for the Lord Jesus in the workplace. I believe our sovereign God allows us to experience those opportunities of seeming-injustice intentionally. And in responding as we should, we prove ourselves to be imitators of Jesus Himself.
I would like to take the time next Sunday—if the Lord wills—to consider these next few verses in a bit more detail; but for now, just consider how they set before us . . .
3. OUR EXAMPLE OF PATIENT ENDURANCE WHEN SUFFERING UNJUSTLY.
There’s a very practical reason for why Peter goes on to talk about the Lord Jesus in the context of our work-life. When we’re called upon to endure suffering at the workplace patiently—or anywhere else for that matter—we’re given an infallible pattern for how we are to do so by our Lord Himself. Peter goes on to say; “For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps . . .” (v. 21).
Notice what Peter tells us about Jesus; “Who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in His mouth . . .” (v. 22). When we suffer because we’ve done wrong or spoken inappropriately—when we’ve robbed from the workplace, or cheated on our time, or treated people unfairly, or engaged in gossip or backbiting or bad language—we shouldn’t be surprised if we suffer for it. But none of those things were true of our Lord. He committed no sin, nor was deceit found in His mouth. We should make sure that the same is true of us.
If Jesus committed no sin, nor spoke deceitfully, then He would only have suffered at the hands of others ‘unjustly’. And look at how He responded; “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 . . .” (v. 23). Jesus didn’t lash back at those who lashed wrongfully at Him. When He was threatened, He didn’t threaten in return. Instead, He endured it patiently—turning the matter over to His Father who sees and knows all things; and who would vindicate His cause and justify Him in the end.
And finally, Peter goes on to say of Jesus, “who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the 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 souls” (vv. 24-25). And I suggest that this reminds us that we can expect God to work through our patient endurance to accomplish His glory. Certainly, He doesn’t accomplish through our suffering what He accomplished through the suffering of our Lord. But we can be confident that He is working sovereignly through our suffering to accomplish His good purposes. It may even be that He is using our patient endurance to open the hearts of others to the gospel. As Peter says in 1 Peter 3:14-17;
But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you are blessed. “And do not be afraid of their threats, nor be troubled.” But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear; having a good conscience, that when they defame you as evildoers, those who revile your good conduct in Christ may be ashamed. For it is better, if it is the will of God, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil (1 Peter 3:14-17).
God is able to use our patient endurance of suffering to accomplish His good in the lives of others—just as He did through the suffering of our Lord.
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When I was sharing some of these things with my wife—and when we were talking about the things I learned in that late-night experience at my old work place—she said something interesting. She said that she sometimes wishes that she could go back to her working days—knowing what she knows now—and do things over. Perhaps, she said, she could have borne a better witness for the Lord Jesus in the way that she responded to the little injustices she experienced.
But the thing is that we can begin now—right where we are. We don’t have to worry much about ‘lost opportunities’. The days of experiencing ‘injustices’ are not over for us. They will come—and they will come in those “servant/master” contexts that God places us in. May we, by His grace, begin now to do our duty in them, seek to honor Him in bearing up patiently while in them, and always look to our great Example of patient endurance in suffering—the Lord Jesus Himself.