Following Footprints

Peter says in verse 18, "Submit yourselves to your masters, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those that are harsh." And that word "harsh" is where we get the word scoliosis. It’s the word scolio, which means "twisted, perverted, messed up." That’s the people who were the slave owners in some cases. "For it is commendable before God if a man bears up under the pain of unjust suffering because he is conscious of God." This is going to be explained a little further on, but here’s the thing: Peter is saying if you are in a situation where there is injustice as a part of your life on a regular basis, and you are in a situation of being a slave and the person who is being unjust to you is your master, that is also a situation where God has placed you in as a part of His sovereignty. Let me be quick to say that the institution of slavery was a rotten institution and continues to be. And so the Bible is not here saying that slavery is a cool thing and let’s just keep it up. The Bible is silent on that. We would like to think it says something, but it doesn’t. But it does not say that if you are a slave, just stay a slave, let’s bring slavery back. That’s not what Peter is saying. He’s saying that here is a situation where injustice is just rampant but there is a God who is going to bring justice. Unjust suffering implies many things. It implies maybe being misunderstood. It implies having our work overlooked. It implies being the target of unprovoked hatred. It implies doing good and being good and being beaten for it. And certainly for the believer, it means you can do someone the wonderful favor and be gracious enough to someone to share the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ with them and they’ll spit it back in your face. And you’ll be beaten and rejected for doing good. When that happens our whole being cries out for justice. "How dare I be treated that way!" We’ve all at sometime in our life experienced injustice. And I have to tell you that the times when I’ve experienced it, I haven’t handled it particularly well. And so when, Peter writes verse 21, he writes it for all of us. We take a deep breath and believe that the accepting of suffering that we don’t deserve, suffering like the suffering that Job experienced, suffering like the suffering that Jesus experienced, suffering like the suffering that Paul experienced – when we receive that injustice and unjust suffering, we read that we’re walking in the steps of the Lord Jesus who believed God enough to have faith ultimately in the sovereign justice of God.

Look down in verse 23, we’re going to get to this a little bit more in a minute, but just the second half. Here’s the key of walking in the footprints of Jesus, especially when they get bloody. "He entrusted himself to him who judges justly." In the world you’re not going to get a fair shake. The world, we taught this to our kids early in their lives, life isn’t fair. Anybody here believe that life is fair? It’s really not. But God is just. Life isn’t fair but God is just. And the verdict isn’t in on you until God makes it. And the people who treat you unjustly are not the final court. There is a final Judge. His name is God Almighty and when He judges it will be justice. He is so concerned about justice that he wouldn’t just say, "Well, I know you’re full of sin, but I love you so much I’m going to take you in anyway." That would have been unjust. But He’s so just that he says, "I’m going to pay the price for your sin by sending my own perfectly innocent Son, the Lamb of God, and I’m going to let Him take your sin upon Himself so that I can be just in calling you righteous." That’s how concerned God is about justice. "To this you were called," living a life of such radical faith in God that it will accept with grace unjust suffering, suffering I don’t deserve. Not only don’t I deserve it, but I deserve just the opposite. In order for us to accept that, we must believe ultimately in the just nature of God.