Today, what we do is we come to Part 6 of Identity Check: Living a Verified Life. If you have your Bible, I want you to open with me to the book of 1 Peter and go down to chapter 2, and I want you to find verse 18. In verse 18, it says, "Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust." Then, if you'll drop down to verse 21, it says, "For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps."
I want you to understand this morning… One of the first things I want to say is for one human to own another human is never the image of God. It is not the gospel. It is not the fellowship of the gospel. When one human owns another human, it is always an injustice, and it is not right. Slavery, servanthood that still exists around the world even as we speak, is never God's plan. It was never God's intention. It is very dehumanizing, and it is an injustice, and it's not compatible with the kingdom of God.
Today, in our text, I felt like I needed to give you a few handles to navigate this passage, because any time you mention slavery or servanthood, one of the first things that takes place especially in our day and age is our mind immediately rushes to the slavery that happened just before the Civil War, which is dehumanizing, and it's horrible. Yet, there was slavery of the past. All the way back as far as human history, there has always been slavery.
One of the things I wanted to do as a pastor today, instead of taking right off and begin to go into my message and preach, is I felt like today, what I needed to do a little bit is do a little bit of teaching. I needed to do a little bit of education in order to give you a few handles in order for you to be able to navigate this passage and, of course, what Peter is going to say in the passages to come when it comes to, "Wives, submit to your husbands…" and all of these different things Peter is going to say. There has to be a foundation.
There is a lot of difference. Number one, again, I want you to understand that slavery is always wrong in any form you would ever find. Okay? If you're not very careful, you can read the Bible through the lens that it almost looks like a pro-slavery document, but in fact, it is really the very opposite. There were a lot of rights given, and it is a progressive revelation.
For instance, there are a lot of things I could stand up here to say to you today. If you have any questions afterward, certainly come see me, but one of the things I cannot do is go into all the ins and outs of it. I just want to kind of give you just a couple of distinctions. Number one, when we think about the slavery that happened to the African American slaves before the Civil War, it was race-based. There was no way out.
We've read things in school, and we know how horrible that is. When you go back to an Old Testament, and you go back into the New Testament times, what you find is a slavery that at times can be just as bad, but there were also people who gave themselves over to slavery in order for them to survive. In African American slavery, you couldn't buy your way out. In the biblical slavery scenarios, after seven years, you had to be released.
Again, it wasn't race-based. There were all kinds of things going on with slavery in the Old Testament. There were doctors and lawyers and even some of the elite who had given themselves over in order to better their family, but the bottom line is it was still not anything God would have certainly created, recommended, or is for, because again, for one human to own another human is not compatible with the image of God. Can I get an, "Amen"?
One of the things about the gospel I want everybody to understand and grapple with is this. The gospel is not about overthrowing any cultural injustice in a vacuum. Okay? What the gospel is about is overthrowing the very mindset or the worldview that leads to any injustices whatsoever. Do you hear me?
That's one of the things you have to understand, because the Bible, a lot of times, doesn't come along and begin to address certain things in a black and white way. What it does is it comes and it moves us from where we are to where we will eventually be. What it does is it's something that looks toward a future where there are no more injustices. Can I get an, "Amen"?
You see, we know (according to the book of Revelation) that in the end, heaven and earth will do… What? It will come together. The Bible says there will be no more heartache. There will be no more tears. There will be no more pain. There will be no more sin. There will be no more injustices. There will be no one's servant. There will be no one's slave. There will be no one treated falsely or badly, right?
We are to start trying to live that right here and right now. What we really want at a base human nature is we want a gospel that is like a rifle. We want a gospel that's like a rifle that points out the injustice of the world and kind of shoots it and kills it. That's not the way the gospel is set up. I like to look at the gospel as more of a… I call it a love bomb. It is a love bomb that goes off in the human heart.
The moment any human, no matter what their background is, their financial background, their race, their culture, their age, anyone who bows their heart at the cross of Christ, anyone who does that… It is not a rifle shot. It is a bomb of love and an explosion that completely eradicates the old nature, and it begins to reconstruct a different worldview.
It begins to put together a worldview that pushes us out into the highways and hedges of life, and our lives begin to echo a future by bringing that future of injustice and moving it off the map and saying, "Jesus has arrived. He lives inside of me." Right? You see, because when the power of God comes into your life, when the Holy Spirit comes into your life and begins to live, you know he is alive, and he's bringing all truths to your attention and to your remembrance.
Now, when you see an injustice, you begin to love against it. You begin to move against it in the power of love. The power of love is the greatest power ever known to man. It was that same love that put Jesus on a cross. The Bible says he died for you and me because of the joy (do you see this?) that he saw in the future. He died for you and me, and he did it while they were spitting on him, and they were cursing him, and they were coming against him.
His language went something like this. "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing." That's strong. That is the gospel. It is this upper room experience that takes place in the human heart, just like on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2. The Bible says the whole house was filled with a sound of a rushing mighty wind, and it says they were filled with the power of the… What? …Spirit. In other words, God came in.
You know the greatest miracle of Pentecost wasn't that they were gathered. It wasn't the sound. It wasn't the tongues of fire. It wasn't speaking in an unknown language. You know what it was? The greatest miracle on the day of Pentecost was the power of God did not stay in the upper room. The power of God and the transformation power of God came out of the upper room and walked out into the world in its mindset and said, "There is a new way of living right now, right here."
That's who we are as Christians, and that's why I truly want us to understand and see. Again, the gospel is not about overturning any cultural injustice in a vacuum. The gospel is about truly turning the mindset of the world around that led to the injustice in the first place. That's why we do target different things. We do look at things and say, "This is wrong. That's wrong. This is wrong."
But we attack it with the power of love, because the power of love doesn't just attack the thing that's going wrong. The power of love attacks the human heart that has produced the injustice in the first place. I have to tell you, the world can fight you and me, but it can't fight the love of God you drop into their evil heart, because they have to fight the love of God, and that's the strength of it.
The day when Peter begins to say, "Servant," and he begins to say, "Slave," there is some history behind there. One of the illustrations I like to think of, and one of the greatest illustrations I think we have in the gospel is the book of Philemon. Now, the book of Philemon… Really, it's funny to even call it a book, because it's really only about 25 verses. It's more like a postcard really.
If you remember the book of Philemon, what was going on there was he had a slave. His slave's name was Onesimus. Onesimus had left and had escaped Philemon, his master. He had run. He had run away. Because of that, he was now undocumented in the first century. Let me give you just a little bit of a history. Keep in mind the Italian Peninsula and the whole Roman Empire… Get this figure. One out of every three people were slaves. Picture that.
Can you imagine living in America right now knowing that one out of every three people are slaves? All of a sudden, this new gospel comes in, and the first thing you "do" with this gospel is start attacking the very economy. It would have resulted in… What? …riots everywhere. Right? The gospel would have been covered up.
Peter, when he begins to write, he has thought about this long and hard. He has prayed about this long and hard, and he begins to descend to a place that is a lot deeper, that is a lot stronger. He doesn't encourage us to go pick up picket signs and go picket the slavery. What he does is he goes a little bit deeper and gives us a stronger example. He gives us a pattern to follow, the pattern of Christ to follow.
I like to say it is a perfect pattern of Christ we are called to follow, but it's not perfectly painless yet. One day it will be. Onesimus (keeping in mind Philemon) leaves, and he finds his way to where Paul is in prison. He ends up coming alongside Paul. I want you to know that in my opinion, that is by the grace and mercy of God.
This runaway slave leaves from his master, and on his journey, God does… What? God kind of reaches down by the power of his Spirit and begins to go, "Hold on, Onesimus. I'm taking you somewhere. I'm leading you to this man by the name of the apostle Paul." All of a sudden, he comes alongside, and before long, Paul, like anybody else, ends up leading him to the Lord, and now he becomes a Christian.
Paul is there, and now he knows where he's from. He finds out he is from Philemon. Philemon was a brother Christian who had helped Paul a lot. So the worlds collide. Paul is not worried about the laws that tell him what he is supposed to do. Paul has a greater concern. That greater concern is (watch this) that two Christian brothers are not together, and the gospel needs to go forward by bringing a runaway slave and a master back together. He writes the book of Philemon, and he sends it with Onesimus.
It's not on your screen, but I want to flip over to the book of Philemon real quick. Let me just read you a couple of things. It's right before Hebrews if you're interested in turning there if you have a copy of Scriptures. I won't read it all. It's only 25 verses. This afternoon, go home and read it. There is so much beautiful meat inside of here. It's incredible.
Watch this. Paul is writing, and here's what he says. Keep in mind that Paul goes out of his way to never really rise up with his language and go, "Slavery is not right. You need to let him go, and we need to revolt against this." How many of you know that as a base root, that's probably the right thing to do, right? In the beginning of the message, what did I tell you? I said, "When one human owns another human, it is not the image of God, and it is not the gospel."
Again, look what the apostle Paul does in the gospel here. Here's what he writes to him. Drop down to verse 4. He goes, "I thank my God always when I remember you in my prayers, because I hear of your…" Now, listen to these words. "…love and of the faith that you have toward the Lord Jesus and for all the saints."
Doesn't it kind of sound like Paul is setting him up? "Hey, Philemon. I'm sending your slave back. By the way, I hear how much great love you have and the joy you have about your salvation and about being a Christian and how you treat all the saints." Do you hear the echoes of the gospel? Do you see the bomb of love going off in Philemon's heart? Do you see what's happening?
Drop down to like verse 8. Paul says, "Accordingly, though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do what is required…" Do you like that language? "Now, Philemon, we both know I'm the top apostle here. I could just hit you with it, but I have something better." Look at what he does. He goes, "Accordingly, though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do what is required, yet for love's sake I prefer to appeal to you…" Then in verse 10. "I appeal to you for my child, Onesimus, whose father I became in my imprisonment."
Drop down to verse 12. "I am sending him back to you, sending my very heart." Is anybody reading between the lines? Do you see how the gospel goes against the worldview that led to the injustice in the first place? It's making Philemon wrestle with God instead of wrestle with what he's trying to set right or take away. When you come into the presence of God, you know instinctively that to own another human is not right, and you just can't do it. Otherwise, you're wrestling against God.
Look at verse 14. "…but I preferred to do nothing without your consent in order that your goodness might not be by compulsion but of your own accord. For this perhaps is why he was parted from you for a while, that you might have him back forever, no longer as a bondservant but more than a bondservant, as a beloved brother—especially to me…" Verse 17. "So if you consider me your partner, receive him as you would receive me." That's strong, man.
Do you know what the apostle Paul just did right there? He literally just kind of took the story of the prodigal son, ran it right up to the feet of Philemon, and went, boom. He basically said, "I'm not sending a slave back to you. I am sending a brother back to you. Treat him like he was me. In fact, if he has created any debt," he says, "I'll take care of it."
What he's really doing is painting a picture of this prodigal that said, "The slave, which is now a brother in Christ, is now coming home. I'm kind of challenging you, Philemon, that you would turn around and go get the ring, and you would go get the robe, and when he comes that you would put it around him, and you would treat him like he truly is a brother." Right?
We don't know the rest of the story, but I can imagine, if I'm Philemon, I can guarantee you when heaven and earth come together and we get to meet Onesimus, I bet you he has one heck of a story to tell us about when he arrived home and said, "When I left, it was bad conditions, but when I came back and brought him this letter, he started treating me like a brother, and things began to change."
Here's the deal. The gospel never does cover up slavery. It doesn't really combat it. What it does is it shows a way to get beyond it and past it. That's what it does with every injustice we come across. That's what the gospel does. That brings us to our text I want to read you real quick. We'll get through this real quick, but check this out. When we come to this text, and he starts off…
Go with me back to 1 Peter. Go with me back to verse 18. It says, "Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust." Paul uses this word servant, which is a little softer word than the word slave. He does that, I think, on purpose and under the power and anointing of the Holy Spirit, because at this time, again, one in three were slaves.
Many of them now were Christians living in and under servanthood. Some had been put there on purpose. Others had chosen to be put there. They had seven years they had to serve. Some of them had good masters, and some of them had bad masters, right? He's coming, and Peter has thought about how to address this. Listen to the words he says.
He says this. "Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust." Is that not amazing? Instead of him saying, "Rise up and rebel! Get out from under this injustice," the Word of God challenges them to love in such a way that it changes the worldview of people around them.
That's why I say we are called to follow the perfect pattern of Christ who suffered (right?) the biggest injustice ever done. We are called to follow the perfect pattern of Christ that is not perfectly painless yet. This is echoing like the Beatitudes. As a matter of fact, turn over to the book of Luke. If you go over to the book of Luke, it says things like this. I'm going to see if you remember things Jesus said.
"Love your enemies…" I have a tough time with that one. Don't you? "…do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you." It says, "Offer the other cheek. Give to everyone. Do not demand anything back." It goes on down in verse 35 of Luke 6. "But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be…" Watch this. "…sons of the Most High, for he [God] is…" Watch these words. "…kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful."
Wow! We don't like that. That sounds like we are laying our rights down. You are, and you're in good company. It is nothing to get mad at someone and just knock their teeth out. We can all go for that. Then after it's all done, if we've knocked their teeth out and gone, "He had it coming," we all had it coming. "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do." He bows his head, and he dies and says, "It is finished."
When Jesus came out of that grave on that resurrection morning, the door of new creation was swung open wide, and this future that seemed like it was way off had now been brought right dab in the middle of history. Amen? Even before the resurrection, Jesus had already told them that. When Lazarus had died, and Jesus was on the road, and Mary and Martha met him and said, "If you would only have been here, he would have lived." What did Jesus say? "Don't you believe in the resurrection?" "Yes, Lord. In the last day, I believe in the resurrection."
He goes, "I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." Right? That's the gospel standing among us. That's what Peter is trying to say. Peter is trying to teach us right there. Look what it says in verse 19. "For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God…" The Greek means this is grace. How do you live that kind of love under suffering and under pressure? Grace. I can only love my enemy by letting Jesus love him through me. I'm not capable of doing it.
Here's the thing we must understand. There is pure evil in this world. There is pure good in God in this world, and what holds it all together in the mystery is the sovereign hand of God that ties all of that together. We are not supposed to understand evil. We weren't designed to understand it, but we recognize good, and when the Father who is good comes into our hearts, you don't have to point out injustices. You don't have to rifle shot every injustice in the world.
All you have to do is let your love bomb go off in the face of everybody and do what is right, and it will lead them to repentance. Look what it says in verse 20. "For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God."
What he's saying is if you've done something really bad, and you've come under punishment and everything, and you bear up, he said, "Okay. I got it. That's pretty good. What if you've done nothing wrong, you're suffering, and yet you rise up, and you love anyway?" I believe the American Christian has lost their capacity to love the way the gospel commands us to love. We're good at the Great Commission but not great at the Great Commission, to go into all the world and change worldviews.
You know what we've become good at? We've become good at having a cause to fight for instead of a cause to live for, and there is a big difference. You can load up your life with cause after cause, and I'm not saying they're not important. I'm not saying you shouldn't do those things, but there is a greater cause of the gospel that changes worldviews, and that's what Peter is trying to get us to see.
How easy would it have been to go, "You know what. I'm sitting here writing, and this slavery thing is not right. I know it's not right. God knows it's not right. You know what. I have a few things I need to say about it." Even Jesus himself (God) never condemns it, so to speak. In fact, he uses the language, "Servants, do this to your masters." "Really? Jesus, you mean to tell me you couldn't speak up and just condemn what we all know is wrong?" Jesus didn't come to rifle shot injustice; he came to blow a bomb up to start all over. That's what Peter is trying to get us to see.
Let's finish up. Watch this. Verse 21. "For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps." You've been called to this. Now, today, if we stand here and say things like, "I don't know if I agree with all of that." Well, you've been called to it, so now you're fighting with God, not me, not my opinion. You've been called to bear up under suffering.
"Why, Peter? Why would you write these things? Why?" Then he says, "Because Jesus has left you an example." You know what that Greek word for example means right there? A pattern. A pattern that you are supposed to reproduce exactly the way he did. Right? That's why we love to use that phrase. What is that phrase everybody uses? What would Jesus do? We always use that.
Isn't it funny how we wear it on bracelets? We put it on our Facebook post. We Twitter it, but we won't walk it out. Have you ever thought about that? It preaches good, but when you go to live like that, it becomes pretty radical, right? Because we like to go through this world earning our rights back. We gave our lives over to Christ.
Look what he does in verse 22. "He [Jesus] committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly." Did you hear that? Do you see that language? When somebody fought back, he didn't fight back. When they came against him, he didn't come against them.
What did he do? He entrusted, he surrendered himself to the one he knew would judge… What? …rightly. That's what he did in the garden. Remember? His human side wrestled with it the same way you do. "Father, if there is any other way…" Right? The any other way he was referring to… Jesus won that battle. "If there's any other way, I wish you would show me, but nevertheless, let thy will be done." Right? He beats it by submitting to the Father's love.
Finally, he rises up. The disciples rise up. They come to betray Jesus, and who is it? Isn't it Peter? I think it was Peter who picked up the sword and… Does what? …cuts the ear off of one of the guys coming. Jesus picks an ear, a bloody ear up, boom. Puts it back on. He says, "Whoa, whoa. He that uses the sword will die by the sword." I mean, golly. Really? That's the gospel. Is it okay to preach a little bit right here?
You know why that seems so foreign to us? Here's what we have mixed up. I'm going to say it, and here we go. We have allowed politics to become our religion… Do you hear me? …instead of the gospel. They're two different animals. We have equated… I'm telling you. Vote for your presidents. Vote for your governors. Vote for the mayors. Do all your duty. It's a privilege in America. Go do it. I'm telling you. Do that. Okay?
Don't ever think that's God. Don't ever think that's going to change the world. There isn't a policy that's ever going to be mandated or legislated that will change the worldview. Only the gospel can change the worldview, and only you, with the power of God living on the inside of you, walking that gospel out will ever affect the world the way it's supposed to. Right?
The reason the world hates the church is because we walk around with that religious, judgmental attitude instead of the love of Christ. Any time I'm ready just to knock somebody's teeth out, I have to think back to my Jesus who, on the cross, pulled every tooth Satan ever had, who said, "It is finished," and then turns to you and me and says, "Would you live like it's finished?" He suffered.
Verse 24. "He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree…" Watch this. "…that we might die to sin and live to righteousness." Do you see that language? He died so we might die to… What? …sin our own way, and we might live to righteousness. Now what righteousness are we talking about? The Bible says the righteousness of Christ has been accredited to your account. Your righteousness is the righteousness of Christ.
If you let the righteousness of Christ live and walk through you, it looks like what 1 Peter has just told you. When you are suffering instead of rebelling, you love. When the Roman soldier of your world comes and goes, "Give me your coat," you go, "Here's another one." "Go with me one mile!" "I'll go two." How do you fight that kind of love?
"For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls." Now Peter has just taken the context of slavery that is an injustice, and he has now showed you that the way you move beyond that and get rid of all of that is to live under that suffering the same way Jesus did, and you will eventually move people to the new place they were supposed to be in the first place.
I have a long quote here. You know me. I memorize my messages, so I wanted to memorize this whole thing, but it was just too long. I said, "I'm just going to read it to you." N. T. Wright says this. I want you to read with your eyes as I read this. This is N. T. Wright commentating on 1 Peter:
"The key to it all, of course, is that the crucifixion of the Messiah was the most unjust and wicked act the world had ever seen. Here was the one man who deserved nothing but praise and gratitude, and they rejected him, beat him up, and killed him. He isn't simply recommending that people remain passive while suffering violence. He is urging them to realize that somehow, strangely, the sufferings of the Messiah are not only the means by which we ourselves are rescued from our own sin; they are the means, when extended through the life of his people, by which the world itself may be brought to a new place."
