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Mid-Week with Christ
April 28, 2020
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Suffering Justly vs Unjustly
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1 Peter 2:16-24
16 Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. 17 Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor. 18 Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust. 19 For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. 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. 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. 22 He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. 23 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. 24 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.
Prayer for the Day
Holy Lord God, help us to repent when we suffer justly for our sins, and remain steadfast when we suffer unjustly for our faith in our Lord Jesus, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
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Paul famously wrote in his letter to the Ephesians that we should "be angry and do not sin" (Ephesians 4:26). How exactly does one do that? Part of the reason this advice is difficult to follow is that our anger is normally tainted with sin. As James writes in his epistle that "the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God" (James 1:20). Yet the principle stands, that there is an anger that does not lead to sin, and anger that is purely sinful.
In the same way, Peter says we should view the enduring of unjust suffering as a gracious thing. The problem is distinguishing unjust suffering from the sorrows that we have brought upon ourselves. For example, there are some pastors who rarely visit their members, don't answer messages, and refuse to report on their work to their congregations. They then complain to brother pastors about how their congregations are persecuting them for, in their opinion, being "faithful." In the same way, some churches mistake lose of tax exempt status for genuine, Satanic persecution.
Peter is not trying to encourage us to have a "persecution complex." He wants us to have the same attitude toward the world that Jesus demonstrated toward us in his passion and death. When bad things happen, we are to remember that Christ suffered and died without cursing or complaining. By his wounds we have been healed. When we in turn are wounded by the world, we too can offer the forgiveness that we have received in Jesus.
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