Serve Jesus First • 1 Peter 2:18-25

42:23 Teaching begins

Notes

Slaves, domestics, bottom feeder workers, have the power to change the world.

The power is in this: you serve Jesus first, then your master, by the will of God.

You and the world think, wait, this is a bond, a relationship. This is not an equal arrangement. I am in the weaker position. My supervisor has all the power, not me. The next section we take is similar, husbands and wives. Unequal, binding relationship, someone has more power than me.

We are used to judging our situation according to, does it please me? It does not please me. I want to be happy. Now we leave the judgment to God and follow the footsteps of our Lord Jesus Christ to please God. And if God is happy, then I’m happy.

Serving Jesus first will transform your job, and it will transform the world.

I’m reading in 1 Peter 2 from verse 18.

1. Who are the servants?

A. The word indicates slaves who are born into a household, but not into the family. They are the ones who do the menial tasks over and over and over. They have no choice. They have no rights.

B. It’s a weak position. You have to do as you are told. If you run away you will be branded. If you run away again, you will be killed.

C. The equivalent for us is being an employee. You have more choices than a slave but sometimes you don’t have a choice. You could change your job if there were other jobs. You look and look and there aren’t the jobs. So you stick with the job you have. And basically you are powerless.

D. Because you are powerless your employer uses that power to be harsh and unreasonable. Sometimes less, and sometimes more. Demanding, unsympathetic, discriminating, unfair. They decide they don’t like you and they ride you like a horse. Life is unpleasant.

E. There’s a name for that: wage slave. That expression was coined in 1882.

2. Peter commands the incredible and the impossible: honour your masters and submit to them.

A. This continues his exhortation to us to live as God’s people, to hold back from fleshly lusts that wage war against the soul, to live rightly among unbelievers, to obey rulers, silence the ignorance of foolish men. Do what is good and right and beautiful and give them no reason to say anything bad about you.

B. But here you are in this powerless position. You are bound to serve. You have no choice.

C. Peter says submit to your master, whether good and nice and considerate, or harsh, unreasonable, crooked, perverse. Respect your master as worthy of respect especially if he is not worthy of respect.

D. The real significance of this is that you have a new Master whom you serve.

1. Peter has already referred to this. Act as free men, be bondslaves of God.

2. This is not cute mysticism. You are slaves of God now. He bought you out of slavery to sin and death with the blood of Jesus.

3. You are free from slavery to sin, which is doing what you want, judging all things by yourself, serving yourself.

4. You are God’s slave, His possession, to command as He sees fit. Your life is up to His choices, His plan, not your own. You don’t belong to yourself anymore.

5. This applies to every Christian, in every time and in every place. You call Him, “Lord.” That means, “Lord.” He has absolute authority in your life. If He is not your Lord, then He is also not your Saviour. If you are not obeying Him, you should be in terror for your soul. Those who disobey Jesus will not inherit the kingdom of God. If you continue in sin you must die.

E. So look at this command. You are to respect your earthly master whether he deserves it or not, because you obey your first Master, Jesus Christ. You work for Jesus first.
F. So you respect your boss. You obey and honour him.

3. This is what God wants, this will please God.

A. It is to be like God Himself. He is consistent in His love towards all. Matthew 5:43-48 “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.

B. If your master is good and gentle, that’s not remarkable that you respect him. Anyone could do that.

C. But you have an unreasonable master. He’s harsh, he’s arbitrary. He’s crooked. He’s unfair.

1. Before Jesus came into your life, you would have hated your master, only do what you had to do. He has all the power, you have no rights, no recourse. You would have been miserable.

2. Now you do not please yourself, you please Jesus, because you work for Him, first. Jesus has you working for this harsh person. And you obey Jesus first.

3. You don’t bad mouth your master behind his back. You do a full day’s work, even when he is not looking. You are dependable and faithful. You don’t steal from the company because your wages are so low, you decide they owe you this. You pray for him, ask God to bless him, forgive him, love him.

D. Doing good and suffering for it finds favour with God.

1. This means God sees you and knows all about your situation.

2. The devil lies to you that God doesn’t care that you are suffering. God is a maniac to make you suffer like this. If He really loved you He would get you a job where everyone is reasonable and you made loads of money so you could have everything you wanted, but you don’t. You have this lousy job, you have this lousy boss, so there is no God or if there is, He doesn’t care about you, He doesn’t know who you are, He is sure a fat lot of help.

3. God is a lot of help! You can’t do good and suffer for it without God. You don’t do this alone! You’re not on your own! You press into God and ask Him to help you. Fill you with His Holy Spirit. Enable you to pray for those who mistreat you. You endure by the power of the risen Lord Jesus Christ.

4. Your life becomes dependent upon God in order to please Him. This dependence pleases God. He approves of your faith and dependence on Him.

5. His power is made perfect in weakness. He is made visible as you persevere in doing good especially as you serve a harsh, unreasonable, crooked, perverse master, because of conscience towards God. You serve the Lord Jesus first. You honour Jesus first. You make Jesus visible in you. That pleases God.

4. We are to be servants of God first because that is being like Jesus.

A. Jesus suffered as a Servant under His Master.

B. Peter quotes Isaiah 53 three times here, in verse 22, verse 24, and in verse 24. Isaiah 53 is all about the Suffering Servant of the Lord.

1. Jesus is that Suffering Servant of the Lord. First and foremost, He is the servant of God Himself, the One who would do all His will, completely and perfectly, pleasing the Father in every respect.

2. He is the perfect servant, with no sin and no deceit. He is all about doing the Father’s will, not His own. That was His prayer in the garden, and that was His whole life. He voluntarily emptied Himself of all His privileges as God to be the slave of God, and do everything commanded Him by God, to fully please God in every respect.

3. God’s pleasure was to have His Servant suffer for all men. All the wrath of God for all sin of the world was to fall on Him. He was to be our Substitute, to be made sin on our behalf, to be punished in our place. He was to be rejected by all men. Reviled. That means to be criticised and slandered. It didn’t begin at the cross. His enemies hated Him without a cause. They said, He casts out demons by Beelzebub. He can’t be from God because He doesn’t keep the Sabbath. He does not recognise our authority. That’s the biggest sin right there. Who does He think He is? Who gave You this authority? By what name do You do these miracles? And then they rejoice in His death: He saved others, but He cannot save Himself. Why don’t You come down off the cross and we will believe in You!

4. In all that suffering He uttered no threats. He could have! Jesus is the most dangerous person who has ever lived. Your life is in His hands. Psalm 2:12 Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish in the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him.

5. Jesus entrusted Himself to Him who judges righteously. Jesus did not judge for Himself. He did not condemn anyone. But He did commit His life and His spirit to the Father. His whole focus was to do the will of the One who sent Him and to finish the work.

6. That work is to serve you and me. Every person who has ever lived. He worked for God, and God had Him work for you, to bear your unreasonable, harsh, crooked, perverse sin. Just like Jesus washed His disciples’ feet, He washed you. His serving you brought you life.

7. He depended on the Father to judge His case. Jesus wasn’t looking to be declared righteous in this life. He was looking for the ultimate vindication from God. The Father is the Supreme Court, and He judged Jesus’ case. He overturned the lower court’s verdict! Not guilty! The death sentence was overturned. God, the Supreme Judge, raised Jesus from the dead.

5. This is the very purpose for which God called you: to live just like Jesus.

A. You are to follow in His footsteps.

1. The word literally means to write after someone’s example. You are learning how to write letters. Your teacher has made an exercise sheet for you to copy, letter for letter, shape for shape, word for word.

2. Jesus suffered for the Father.

3. Now you are to suffer for the Father as well, in the same way, following Jesus’ submission to the Father. Not sinning, not lying. Entrusting yourself to the Righteous Judge, who will vindicate you eternally.

B. This is a huge change in our lives.

1. We were continually straying as sheep, lost like everybody else. We made our own decisions, we judged everything according to: I like this, I don’t like this.

2. But we have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of our souls.

3. This is Psalm 23 now. Remember the Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. He also leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. This path is to please God in every respect, just like Jesus. This is His purpose, and now it’s our new purpose.

6. So what?

A. You work for Jesus now. He is your Master, your Supervisor, your Line Manager. You are His slave.

B. Wherever you work now, you work for Him. He has you working wherever you are right now.

C. Pleasing God transforms your job.

1. Whatever your job is, you do it for Jesus now. Colossians 3:22-25 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. But he who does wrong will be repaid for what he has done, and there is no partiality.

2. Because you work for Jesus first, you do a better job. This is for Him. This is your offering to Jesus.

3. Your work becomes worship. Jesus comes to work with you. He pays your wage. He helps you on the job. He gets the glory.

4. It takes the sting out of your job. You could see your job as hell on earth. You could play the tiniest CD in the world: my job stinks, poor me. But you work for Jesus now. He’s the best boss. He’s going to take care of you. Your job is to depend on Jesus, trust in Him to help you, and do the best job you can.

D. Pleasing God transforms the world because You bring Jesus into real life.

1. Real life is hell. Work is hell. The people are lost sinners. They are the worst people on earth. You work with them.

2. But because Jesus is with you, He is there on the job. That brings light into the situation, because Jesus is the light of the world. That brings hope, that brings patience, it brings love into a situation absolutely void of love.

3. That makes a difference that cannot be missed. It is so obvious that anyone can see it. You are a witness to Jesus on the job. You are a witness that Hell is not all there is; there is also a heaven. You are not employed in hell, you are employed in heaven. Your fragrance of Christ is pungent with glory and light.

4. People will react to that light, that aroma. Some on your job will respond to that aroma because they have never smelled heaven before and they love it. Others don’t like that aroma of Christ at all. They will vilify you, slander you, treat you harshly, be unfair to you.

5. You persevere in doing what is right, no matter how harsh it gets. And that is the witness. That’s what makes Christ visible because that is Christ in action. People watch and they know that there is a God.

6. I’ve seen Jesus do that in my jobs. I know what it’s like to work with unreasonable, harsh, crooked, perverse people and bosses. I’ve seen Jesus block for me on the job and take care of me, and prosper me as I served Him first. I’ve seen Jesus affect people so that they receive Him. I’ve seen people utterly opposed to God realise that purity is okay, love is pure, it’s not so bad. God doesn’t hate them. I’ve seen the power of God enable me to outlast the worst of bosses.

E. That makes our jobs more than endless suffering for a wage. We are more than wage slaves. We have significance and purpose. We are working with God. We are on His mission. He wants to go to our work with us. He’s looking for lost sheep. So are we.

F. Here is Jesus’ command. Serve Me first. Do you hear Him?

Let’s pray.