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Steve DeWitt So What Do I Do When I Am Unjustly Treated? Download Study Guide for Spiritual Exiles, 1 Peter 2:21-25 Scripture Reference: 1 Peter 2:21-25 Visit the series page: Exiles: A study in 1 Peter Donate to Support The Journey Sermon Transcript for Spiritual Exiles, 1 Peter 2:21-25 Sermon Series: Spiritual ExilesSo, What Do I Do When I Am Unjustly Treated?Airdate: 10/06 –10/07/26Programs: 2372 and 2373As we come into God’s word now, I wanted to let you know that we’re coming into first Peter chapter three, and we’re basically gonna spend all of May and a little bit of June dealing with the subject of marriage and gender roles and the role of the husband and the role of the wife, modesty. These are all things that Peter addresses in chapter three. And so if you want to think of May as marriage month, come and let’s let’s you know, marriage is in the news lately. Have you noticed? Is there a little confusion in our culture about what marriage is?You bet there is. And so where is that truth gonna be declared and taught if not in the church? And so we are going to be addressing that and letting Peter guide us in biblical view of marriage. Alright. Quick and easy question for you.Have you ever been wronged? Yes. Okay. Wow. That’s a good response there.It’s quick. It’s easy. Why? Because to be human and to live around other human beings is to often and regularly be wronged. We pick up these little offenses, don’t we, in relationships?Some of them are maybe sort of lower level slights, you know, little little things, a little kindness that maybe is unacknowledged or a little word that kinda hits us wrong, and we feel this offense in our heart. Some of them are are more you know, a little bit are bigger, like when we are lied to or when somebody cheats us or where we find out somebody has been gossiping against us. We feel unjustly wronged by somebody else. And then there’s big ones, like really big ones, like adultery and an unbiblical divorce or maybe violence done against us or against a loved one. And these are especially painful when they are done by people that are a part of our family or maybe a fellow Christian, a fellow member in the church, people that we have loved and trusted.Life is filled with these kinds of disappointments, ones that we deem unjust, actions by others that create suffering for us that doesn’t seem fair. And, of course, there is a very natural human response to these things. We don’t have to teach or train, even children in our in our children’s ministry to respond, with retaliation or anger, bitterness, harsh words of some kind. We wanna hurt people back. You’re like, okay.You’re gonna hurt me? Well, then here you go. Right? We look like the the fight last night that was going on. Counter punchand counter punch and punch and counter punch.Too many of our relationships are like that. And so here you have the apostle Peter. He’s writing to a group of people who he knows their faith will create for them many moments where they are gonna have things done against them because they’re doing the right thing, because they’re obeying God. Still, they are going to suffer as a result of doing that at the hands of people that don’t like them, don’t like their faith, don’t agree with their worldview. And so Peter wants them to survive this.How are they going to survive there and to thrive actually as Christians if they can’t get over this unjust suffering thing. If they can’t get over when people do things that hurt them because this was going to happen all the time. And Peter wanted them to thrive in their Christianity, to land on the other side of that unjust suffering, and to indeed love the person who has done that thing against them. And so Peter now transitions in his letter to this whole matter of what I do when I am unjustly treated. And our text today is verses 21 through 25 of first Peter two.I’m gonna begin in verse 20, though, to give the whole sense of it. So please follow along as I read God’s word today. “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. For to this you have been called because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example so that you may follow in his steps.”“He 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. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds, you have been healed.”“For you were straying like sheep, but now have returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls.” And God’s people said, amen. Amen to that. Alright. We spent time in verse 20 last week.It’s it’s again, it’s a part of this section about Christians in the workplace. Christians that are working for an employer, whether they be a good one or not, what is the proper attitude and action that a Christian should have in the workplace? What should that work ethic be? And Peter here says that we are to be respectful to our employers. We’re to respect their wishes.Our attitude is to be one that we come under their leadership, and we work in the manner that they would have us to work. Now in a perfect world, that means that our employer will love us and treat us wonderfully all the time. Like, every week, a Christmas bonus, every day, flowers, words of affirmation all the time. Who wouldn’t wanna work for a boss like that? But what in reality, what happens in a Greco Roman first century world where the polytheism of the Greek and the Roman pantheons was a huge part of the culture.The highest place in the city was dedicated to that god of the city. And when you come along and say, that god is not a god. Jesus is the only God. He is the only Savior of the world. And that’s what I believe.Is that something that’s gonna help your career? Probably not. Are the people that you work with gonna be like, hey. Let’s have Bible studies together about that. Probably not.In fact, what would that create for a Christian employee in the workplace in a culture like that? We call that a glass ceiling, don’t we? Where I’m coming to the place where I can’t advance anymore. They’re not they’re not moving me along. They don’t believe what I believe.They don’t like what I believe. And so these Christians are are finding themselves in the workplace suffering financially, vocationally, otherwise, at the hands of people who did not agree. That’s why we’re calling them exiles. Right? They were geographical exiles, but really they were spiritual exiles living in a place that was not friendly, that was not home.So Peter wants them, and he wants us the Holy Spirit wants us to know how do we respond? How should we respond when we are the victims of unjust suffering, when we are doing what we think pleases God, what the Bible says is the right thing, whether that be in employ in as an employee or just as a citizen or as a neighbor, a friend, a family member, when people mistreat us because of our faith. How do we respond to that? Do we pull a Pacquiao counter punch? Are we like, oh, it’s on, like Donkey Kong?Right? Is that how Christians respond? And we see Peter here now explaining in a very Christological, he’s tying a Christology to Christian ethics here, and he just lays out the example of Jesus. And notice again, verse 21, “for to this you have been called.” Why?“Because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that you may follow in his steps.” So Peter here, his answer to that question, hey, I’m suffering because of my faith. Things are happening because of what I believe. Peter, what should I do? Peter says, you look to Christ.Look to the example of Jesus himself. And he unpacks it here in the next verses. But in verse 21, I want you to notice, first of all, that we are called to this. This is not a suggestion. This is not something that, hey, you know what?If it makes sense, follow the example of Jesus. He is saying, this is our calling. This is what we are to do, following the example of our of the Lord Jesus Christ. Secondly, notice that the reason that we are called to this is that Jesus suffered for us. Now we would like to think we’re always the victim in this.Right? We’re the ones that are suffering. Woe is me. And yet the story of the Bible is that we are not always the victim, that we are the perpetrator when it comes to Jesus. Right?Jesus comes to this earth, does nothing but good. Right? Meets the needs of the people. It gives truth, teaches, lives out love. The most loving life that has ever been lived is the life of Jesus.And yet what did mankind do to to Christ? Took him, beat him, persecuted him, killed him on the cross. Jesus suffered at the hands of mankind, and we’re guilty with that. We might as well been the people in the in on that on that morning saying, let his blood and let it let his blood be on our hands and and on our children. Why?We are we are culpable in what happened to Jesus. We are not always the victim. Not when it comes to Jesus. And yet Jesus suffered for us. And in this, he says, provides us an example.K? And the Greek word there for example literally is the word of the first century that teachers would use to help children learn to write. Now to help with this, I I got I got these right here. How many of you remember these? K.Though maybe they don’t do this anymore. I don’t know. This could be old school. But if you remember these things, these were like in my school, they they I think they had a through z, like like lining the top of the walls all the way around the classroom. So that as you’re working on your letters, you could look up and, okay, what does the f look like?And you kinda but we we would have these things, and we would literally we would trace the letter. Do you remember doing that? K. Trace the letter. So we have uppercase A, A A A A, Lowercase A, trace the lowercase B, uppercase B.Now, if you saw my handwriting today, you would know I didn’t do very well with this. Okay? My wife has beautiful handwriting. I am the opposite end of the spectrum. It’s absolutely terrible.It’s embarrassing. So praise God for typing these days. But literally, an example, a template. That’s the Greek wordfirst century.For children following a writing example. Peter says, when it comes to suffering unjustly and the response that we ought to have, Jesus provides for us a template. Our response, our lives are to trace the moral and spiritual character of response that Jesus himself did. So, what did Jesus do? Well, Peter starts with what he didn’t do.K? What he didn’t do. And you’ll notice here in in verse 22 and following, if you had really good eyes and could read the small footnotes, you would see that this section is largely drawn from Isaiah 53. K? Isaiah 53 is the famous chapter in the Old Testament.It is known as the prophecy about the suffering servant. And if we had time, I would go back to that, and we would read it, and you would see that Peter is either quoting or referring to Isaiah 53 numerous times through the end of this chapter. Isaiah 53, such an eloquent picture of the life of Christ that Wes and Lori Taberin our church who lead Life in Messiah ministry. It’s an evangelistic ministry to to Jews. They will just go on the street corner and hand the Bible to a a a Jewish person and say, would you read Isaiah 53?They read Isaiah 53 out loud, and they just simply say, who do you think he’s talking about? Because when you read through Isaiah 53 and the and the and the nature of the life of of the one that is prophesied, it matches up almost exactly to the life of Christ. And it’s almost like as Peter is saying, oh, you wanna know how to respond to unjust suffering? It’s like he has his Bible in one hand, and he’s writing Bible in the other. He’s writing this letter, first Peter.And he’s going Isaiah 53, Isaiah 53. What was true about the suffering servant? Well, quoting exactly, “he 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.”In this passage, Peter highlights four things Jesus didn’t do. And all four of these are things that naturally in our flesh want to do when somebody has wronged us. Let’s just walk through them. Notice, first of all, “he committed no sin.” Summary statement.Jesus’ response to people that sinned against him was not to to sin in return. He didn’t act or react out of self interest, self protection. There is no carnality. There is no pride. There is no ego.There is no selfishness in his response. Nothing that he did in response was immoral or was sin. Summary statement. Secondly, he didn’t deceive. “Neither was deceit found in his mouth.”Friend, what do you naturally wanna do when you find out that somebody has lied about you? They have said some untrue thing about your character. Our natural response is to say, well, if you’re gonna lie against me, then I guess that’s the moral standard now. You are setting the tone morally for this relationship, so you lied against me. Well, let me just lie against you a little bit.And we want to respond in kind to the person that lies about us, that gossips about us, that slanders us. We think, oh, two can play that game, and I’m fully able to take you down. And on we go with this little tit for tat. We can think of the treachery, for example, of Judas or Peter, who denied knowing Christ three times in his most dire time of need. And in each of those cases, Jesus doesn’t respond with Judas’ behavior.Jesus doesn’t deny that he knew Peter. He doesn’t let their actions be then the moral standard by which he would respond. He didn’t deceive. No deceit was found in his mouth. Notice he doesn’t slander.“When he was reviled, he did not revile in return.” You say, oh, it was Jesus. Nobody said anything bad about him. Actually, you read through the gospels, and you will find that Jesus was maligned throughout his entire ministry. People that were not fans of what he was teaching and what he was doing, they were trying to undermine his stature in the eyes of the people by undermining his character.He was slandered. He was was accused of being born illegitimately, of plotting to overthrow Rome, of wanting to be king of Rome, well, king of, certainly, of of Israel, of demon possession, blasphemy, and mental derangement. Now I don’t know what kind of week you had or what people said about you this week, but I’ll bet that list tops whatever you went through this week. Right? That’s a pretty severe accusation being made against Jesus.Now were any of those things true? No. They were not. They were not true at all. But here is the huge difference between Jesus and us.When we wanna slander somebody, generally, we make up something or we characterize something about them, and we make it bigger than it is, and then we tell other people about it. K? We misrepresent what the person is, and it tears them down. If you’re Jesus, you don’t need to misrepresent anybody. Why?Because you know their heart. Jesus would not have to misrepresent me to take me down in your eyes. He would just have to tell you really the depth of the sin of my own heart. And the same for you. He could just say the truth about us, and it would have taken us down.But he doesn’t respond in like kind. He was slandered against. He doesn’t go around slandering Caiaphas or Pilate or Judas or anybody else. He didn’t return in kind. Fourth, he didn’t threaten.“When he suffered, he did not threaten.” And I just think this is like the easiest, the most natural of all of the responses. You know, we when somebody when somebody threatens us, we wanna threaten them back. How do we threaten people back? We may threaten violence.Right? What on the playground, what does this mean? You coming in here, you’re gonn…
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