First Peter chapter two and verse number 18. Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward. For this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongly. For what glory is it? If when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently, But if when you do well and suffer for it, you take it patiently, this is acceptable with God. In this section of passages, beginning back in verse 13 and carried all the way into chapter three, Peter is dealing with the matter of submission to authorities. And we spent two weeks talking about authority and submission to authority, especially in the context of government. And we saw that there is abusive authority. There are limits to authority. But the Christian's response to legitimate government is to obey laws. and respect and honor those who are over us. That subject is still under consideration, but it's under a different context or a different arena of life that we find ourselves in in these verses. You know, I was thinking that when I am preaching through a book, I am always looking ahead while at the same time digging into the passage that I'm getting ready to preach next. Whenever you take a book like First Peter that you're gonna preach through, the first thing that you do is you sit down and you just read through the book in one sitting, maybe several times, and just a general overlay, a broad idea of what the book is about. And then you come back to the book and you begin to read through it and that time I'm looking for preaching sections or paragraphs and topics as this is dealt with and I can kind of lay out that I'm gonna preach so many messages and it's gonna be from these passages and that doesn't always work out because sometimes one passage takes longer, what have you. But then you take one section, the first section and you begin to work through that and you begin digging through that section. So I know what section we are in today, but at the same time, I've already been reading the next sections. I'm not analyzing and I'm not outlining it, but I'm knowing what is ahead. And so I come to this passage on submission and I could easily see that submission is gonna be our topic for several weeks because it begins in verse 13, submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake. It goes all the way to chapter three down all the way really to verse number six about wives submitting themselves unto their husbands. And so I said several weeks ago that there are three arenas of life that are being addressed. In verse 13 through 17, there is submission to government. We dealt with that. In verse number 18 through 21, it is submission in employment. And then in chapter three, verse one through six or verse seven, it is submission in the home. But now I have come back to this section, and I begin to carefully study it in depth. And when I study it in depth, I have had to edit the layout of the sections. Here's why. In every single commentary that I have consulted, The section that deals with servants and masters, the verses I read to you, always applies that to employees and employers. A servant works for his master, so the modern application would be a Christian working for his employer. In this particular case, the master is unjust. He's perhaps harsh. And so this would be teaching us how an employee responds to an employer that is harsh or disrespectful or unfair. However, I do not believe that that is a faithful application of the text. If you are working in a toxic environment for a bad boss, then you have the option to quit. Go find you another job. But the servants in Peter's day are not just employees down at Walmart. They are actually slaves. Their masters owned them and they did not have the option to just walk away. They are in a situation that they cannot reverse. So it does not do to make the primary application the employee-employer scenario. Now we can draw out principles out of the situation, and we will, but the two situations are not the same. And if you're going to be faithful to the text, then you must never pull it out of context, and you must never interject a presupposition into the text. Proper hermeneutics says that you approach every text with three ideas. First of all, there is investigation. What does it say? There's interpretation. What does it mean? There's application. What does it mean to me? And I believe that most commentators have skipped the first two steps, and they've just made an application. But if the interpretation is incorrect, then the application is gonna be incorrect as well. Peter is writing to believers who are servants to a master, not just employed by them. The Roman government allows that. They have no legal remedy for removing themselves from that situation. They are Christian slaves. And so the instruction is given in that situation. And there is nothing in here about how to remove yourself from the situation because the law did not permit it in that day. So it is everything about how to be in a situation that you cannot reverse and you cannot control and there's no legal remedy for it. You're there. Now, how do you be a Christian in that situation? Now with that context, I want you to notice three things with me. First of all, I want you to notice with me the harsh reality. The harsh reality is that slavery exists and it has always existed. Now when you and I think of slavery, we automatically think of it as it existed in the United States. Most of our forefathers and founders of this nation were slave owners. Many plantations were run by slaves. Slaves were brought over here from Africa. And most slavery in the United States, if not all slavery, was a white master and a black man. And we would look at that institution of slavery as a blight upon our nation's history. We would be glad for the Emancipation Proclamation that freed all slaves and ended slavery in the United States. So it is now illegal for one man to own another person, hold them against their will, force them to work for you against their will. Our nation stands for equal rights and equal opportunities. We value each person as a human being and every person has worth and value as a person. We stand upon that. I thank God for that. And I know that there are hardcore racists who would hate the black man and would say insulting and demeaning things, and they're just a fool is what they are. But that is our worldview of slavery. But when we come to the Bible, we discover that slavery also existed throughout the entire history of the Bible. Now, the Bible word is servant or bondservant, or manservant or bondservant. The word slave is only found two times in your Bible. Jeremiah, I believe Jeremiah 13, it's used as a rhetorical question. Revelation chapter 18, it is used in the context of the fall of Mystery Babylon. So the Bible word is servant, or bondservant, or manservant, or mayservant, and that's the word that I prefer. Because of our history, the word slavery is so racially charged, and just the word can be offensive, and so I believe that the Bible word is the best word. But understand that when the Bible talks about servants, it's talking about a person who was often owned by his master, who was forced to serve because of some debt or because of some other reason. Here's part of the harsh reality, that the Bible does not condemn servitude in every situation. There are many ways that a person could find themselves in servitude to another man. Sometimes he had to pay his debt off. Sometimes he was so poor there was no other way to survive. Sometimes he was a captive of war. Sometimes he was born into it. But servitude with all of the implications was part of the culture of both the Old and the New Testament. It was a reality of life. Now how do you explain that? There are many things that are part of our existence on earth that was not part of God's original design for mankind. But there are things that God allows because sin has so damaged the world and humanity. And here in his wisdom, he allows something that was not originally intended, but in his wisdom, he allows it and we can't understand. I'll give you a couple of examples. I want you to hold your finger here, and I want you to go to Matthew chapter 19. I'll use this as an illustration of what I'm trying to say. Matthew chapter 19, and I want you to begin reading with me in verse number three. Matthew 19, in verse number three, the Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him, is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? We're talking about divorce here. And Jesus answers, said unto them, have ye not read that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female? And said, for this cause shall a man leave father and mother and shall cleave to his wife, and they twain shall be one flesh. Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. Therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. That's God's original intent. They say to him, why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement and to put her away? They're referencing Deuteronomy 24. He says unto them, Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, suffered you to put away your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. I say unto you, whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committed adultery, and whosoever marrieth her which is put away, doth commit adultery. When you go back to Genesis chapter two and you find the first marriage, there was no divorce there. God never intended for any married couple to ever get a divorce. But then you go to Deuteronomy chapter 24, and there is Moses giving instructions for divorce. God didn't want divorce. God didn't institute divorce. God didn't create divorce. God didn't ordain divorce. But he allowed Moses to allow it, why? Because of the hardness of your hearts. I hate divorce. If you've ever been in a divorce, you hate it too. I wish there were never a divorce. But do you believe that there are women that are married to serial fornicators who cheat on them over and over and over? And if she had no way out, she would be trapped in that situation with no remedy. Absolutely. God allowed it. Divorce is horrible, but maybe the alternative is worse. Are you with me? Now, I'm not giving you a license to get divorced if you don't like your wife anymore, all right? That's not what I'm talking about. I'm just illustrating for you that the Bible allows for something that was not ordained by God, but it becomes a part of the fabric of our society because we are so broken as a humanity. I'll give you another example, foster care. Now foster care is a wonderful blessing if you are a child being tossed around from foster home to foster home and there's no security and there's no stability in your home. But you know what would be better? It would be better if there were never any need for foster care. If every child was born to a father and a mother who loved them, that took care of that child, that none of those parents ever went to prison, they were never abusive and that child had to never be taken out of the home, that would be better. So we have foster care because the alternative could be a lot worse. It would be better. It would be better if we never had a need for foster care, but that's not the world that we live in. So we have to have a solution for those children. And that's the best that we can come up with. And by the way, it turns out to be a blessing for the child. If he ends up in a home where there's love and security and safety, then it becomes a good thing. That's the world that we live in. Servitude is a part of our fallen and broken world. It was not instituted by God. God didn't create servitude. He didn't create some men to be servants and others not to be. In a perfect world, there would be equality, but since the fall, that has never been the situation. And we can all go back to Genesis chapter one and you find out that God made man in his own image, all men. And there are no persons this morning who have a lesser of an image of God than any other man. He has worth and dignity in that. And he may not live in a dignified status of life, but he does have dignity because he is as much the image of God as any other creature that God made. I had to memorize the Declaration of Independence when I was in fifth grade. Had to memorize the whole thing. I remember the first line. The first line, we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, only in as much as they bear the image of God, but they've never been equal in status of life. There have always been free men and bond men, rich men and poor, beggars and kings, and we want to create a world where equality reigns that will never happen outside of the millennium. Now some have even said that slavery is an institution ordered by God, by government. I don't believe that. God, God ordained government. He always intended government. He did not do so with slavery. Societies, societies function well without slavery. They collapse without government. They're not the same. So here's what the Bible does. It's the reality of life. So the Bible regulates servitude. That's what it does. In fact, if you go back to Deuteronomy 24, back to the example of divorce. In Deuteronomy 24, if a man divorced his wife for some uncleanness he found in her, it had to be according to certain parameters. Moses said, if you're going to do that, then you have to give her a written bill of divorcement. She's allowed to remarry somebody else. If her second husband dies or divorces her, then the first husband can't go back and take her to his wife again. And I can't get into this, but he made allowances for her. Jesus said it was not so in the beginning. But men have gotten so bad that Moses allowed it because of their hard hearts. But even so, he put parameters on it so that it could not be abused. And in the same way, servitude is not instituted by God. It would have never come into practice without the fall. But humanity has become so broken, it becomes a part of society. And God said, but there are gonna be some parameters on this thing. I'll show you some. Look at the Exodus chapter 21. Look at Exodus chapter 21, and look at verse number one. Exodus 21, verse one, and these are the judgments which thou shalt set before them. If thou buy a Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve, and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. Became in by himself, he shall go out by himself. If he were married, then his wife should go out with him. If his master had given him a wife and she had borne him sons or daughters, the wife and her children should be her masters and he should go out by himself. And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children, I will not go out free, then his master shall bring him unto the judges. He shall also bring him to the door unto the doorpost, and his master shall bore his ear through with an awe, and he shall serve him forever. By the way, in verse two, if thou buy an Hebrew servant, that's not going down to the slave market and purchasing a slave. The only way that a Hebrew could have another Hebrew as a servant would be as an indentured servant he has to work to pay off. a debt. But even then, he works for a limit of a maximum of six years. And after six years, he is free. Whatever he owes you, it is paid off. And in the seventh year, he goes free, and he has no obligation to you or to the debt. It's done. So he's working for another man for six years. His master is responsible for him. He takes care of him during that time. And by the way, the situation can become so favorable that the servant at the end of six years say, I love my master. I love my wife. I love my children. I'd rather just stay as a servant in this situation. And he becomes what they call a bond servant at that time. And there's a wonderful picture of the gospel that I don't have time to preach, but you see there's parameters there. Look at verse number 20. If a man smite his servant or his maid with a rod and he die under his hand, he should be surely punished. You're not gonna abuse this. He might be your servant. He might have a lower status or life, but you can't just abuse him. Look at verse 26. If a man smite the eye of his servant, or the eye of his maid, that it perish, he shall let him go free for his eye's sake. If he smite out his manservant's tooth, or his maidservant's tooth, he shall let them go free for his tooth's sake. If you hit your servant and you knock his eye out, or you knock his tooth out, you gotta let him go. The law says you can't just, you can punish him, but you can't abuse him. You physically abuse that servant and you forfeit your right to have him as a servant. That's a law protecting him. Look at Exodus 20. Look at Exodus 20 in verse number, chapter 21, look at verse 16. He that stealeth a man and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death. The nation of Israel was allowed to have servants of other nations around them, but you could not kidnap a man and force him to be your servant. A society cannot survive where kidnapping is allowed, so it is a capital crime. Servants existed in every part of the world, and they were even in the part of the nation of Israel, but God said, I am going to put stipulations on this. In fact, every law in the Old Testament regarding slavery is a law protecting the slave. Every single law. Because God is concerned for the rights and the well-beings of even the least of his citizens. If you studied the laws of the ancient East way back, you would find that there are no laws that protect the rights of slaves. Around the 1700, 1800 years before Christ, there was a code that was discovered. It was called the code, Hammurabi's code. Some of you have heard that. And in Hammurabi's code, at the very end, there is a small section that deals with the rights of slaves. But in the Bible, God puts their rights at the very beginning in Exodus chapter 21. There are about 11 ways in the Bible that you could find yourself as a servant to a master in Israel, but whatever the circumstances is, the guiding principle is that that servant is treated with respect and fairness and equity. Then you come into the New Testament, you come into Peter's day, middle of the first century. Historians say that the capital of Rome, capital of the Roman Empire, around the turn of the first century had 870,000 people, and that 500,000 of them were slaves. And that about 500,000 slaves in the Roman Empire were given their freedom at one time. Well, that sounds good. Can you imagine 500,000 people turned loose, no resources, no jobs, no way of taking care of themselves. And the Roman Empire had ulterior motives. Because the Roman Empire's conquering the world, they didn't have enough men to man their armies, so here's what they would do. They would free the slave and immediately draft him into the military. We're gonna give you your freedom, but you gotta go to battle for us. Or they had places that they wanted to colonize and nobody wanted to move there, so they would free slaves and move them there. We're gonna give you your freedom, but you gotta go to that remote area and you have to colonize that. And maybe why that's why there is no attempt in the gospel or the New Testament to overthrow the system. Jesus and the apostles never preached against it because it could be because it is so ingrained in the world that the solution would have been worse than the problem. What a great thing that a half a million slaves have given their freedom. But, but, but, but this is what's happening to them. And if you're releasing slaves, not because you are a moral society, but you have an ulterior motive. And when Peter addresses servants in 1 Peter chapter two, he is writing to Christians who are either servants or former servants. And when you look at the history of the world, slavery is a harsh reality that has always existed. It's not right. I thank God in America that that's a part of our past. Thank God for that. But it's a harsh reality. But then I want you to notice in our text, not only a harsh reality, there is a hard responsibility. Look at verse number 18. Servants. You understand that's not just a man that works at McDonald's. Servants. Be subject to your masters with all fear. Not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward. If you work for a bad boss giving you two week notice, they're hiring all over town, you can get another job. That's not what he's talking about. And see, that's been my struggle with this text. Because what this text and all of the New Testament texts that deal with servitude to masters, it's not talking about working down at Walmart. This is a Christian servant who is legally a servant to another man. His master is harsh and cruel and unjust, and there is no legal recourse for this man. He is in a situation that he cannot reverse. Now, I suppose that Peter could have told him to run away, rebel. If you find a chance, kill your master. But would that have been better? Because if he had rebelled against his master, now he's gonna face criminal charges. Now he's gonna be punished. Now he could be executed. Perhaps there is no imams of proclamation here. You understand that? There is no court system ready to go. And how do you think society would view him as a hero or as a villain? He can demand his rights and his freedoms all he wants to, but that is not an option for him. And if he rebels against the government and against his master, then all he's gonna do is bring a bad name against all Christians. And it's the exact same scenario as the verses before us when it was talking about government. Submit to government, even bad government. Because the alternative of revolting and rebelling, it's just gonna cause you more problems and it's gonna do damage to the cause of Christ. So the New Testament doesn't tell a Christian servant how to get out of his situation and how to get your freedom. It tells you how to be a Christian right there where you are. No matter what your servitude is, no matter what the circumstance is, the point of the passage is that when you are in a situation that you cannot reverse, then you be a Christian right there. Look at 1 Corinthians chapter seven. 1 Corinthians chapter seven. 1 Corinthians chapter seven and these verses are part of a much larger section, but just look at verse number 20. Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called. Art thou called being a servant? Care not for it. But if thou mayest be free, use it rather. For he that is called in the Lord being a servant is the Lord's free man. Likewise also he that is called being free is Christ's servants. Here's what he's saying. If you're a free man, thank God. If you're a servant, thank God. But don't spend your life fretting and trying to change your status. If you can't do anything about it, then just be content where you are. It is a situation that you're not in charge of, so learn to serve God right there. And if you get your freedom, hallelujah. But if you don't get your freedom, then just stay a servant and serve the Lord right there. You can be a Christian in either place. That's what he's saying. It could be that some believers, when they got saved, they said, well, since I'm free in Christ, I ought to be free in life as well. I mean, I've been set free spiritually, and since I am free in the Lord, then I ought not be a servant to another man. The apostles didn't espouse that idea. Here's why. That's not the reality of life. Getting saved doesn't mean that you get to change your status or your health or you become rich or anything like that. They didn't try to fix all of the social distinctions. They instead said, let's get the spiritual right first. Let's concern ourselves with our attitude and our testimony and our witness and our obedience to Christ. Let's deal with that. And whether you're free or whether you're a servant, you can be a Christian either way. Your social status doesn't really matter to your walk with God. The book of Philemon was written by Paul to a man named Philemon on behalf of a runaway slave named Onesimus. And Onesimus had gotten saved in prison with Paul, and when he is released from prison, Paul sends him back with this letter back to Philemon. Now I guess he could have told him, run away more. Go run farther away. Go find your freedom. Here's the problem. That was against the law. So he said, you go back and you submit to your master. But then he also told Philemon, forgive him if it's dead. If he still owes you something, put it on my count. Count him as a brother. And Philemon didn't have to do that, but the gospel changed that dynamic. Look at Ephesians 6. Are you with me this morning? I know it's strange for a Sunday morning, but this is the text. Look at Ephesians six, look at verse five. Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling and singleness of your heart, as unto Christ. Not with eye service, as men pleasers, but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, with good will, doing service as to the Lord and not to men. knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free. And ye masters, do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening, knowing that your master also is in heaven, neither is the respect of persons with him. You just be a good Christian service and you serve your master as if you're serving Christ. And if he don't reward you down here, God will reward you up there. And by the way, masters, by the way, treat your servants with respect and kindness, because God doesn't look as one that's a slave and the other master. With him, there is no respect to persons. It doesn't mean that God doesn't respect persons. He didn't respect anyone over the other. There's neither bond nor free in Christ. There's no impartiality with God. So here's the hard responsibility. Back in 1 Peter 2, be subject to your masters with all fear. And fear is not fear of man, it is the fear of God. Look at chapter two, verse 17. Honor all men, love the brotherhood, fear God. Honor the King. Back in chapter one in verse 17, he talks about if you call on the Father, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear, fear of the Lord. Chapter three in verse two, when they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear. Chapter three in verse 15, the hope that is in you with meekness and fear. Peter mentions fear five times and is always fearing God. And maybe your master is good and gentle. Maybe your master is forward. Forward is to be unyielding. It is obstinate. It is unreasonable. And maybe you have a master who is unreasonable, and he has an evil disposition, and he's unfair, and I hope not. But if you can't go to court and sue him, you can't give him a two-week notice and quit. That's not the situation. You are in a situation that is out of your control, and the only way that you're going to imitate the life of Christ and have a testimony is to submit to that man, fearing God. That's your remedy. So here's the lesson for all of us this morning. God is more concerned that you have a Christian testimony than that you are treated fairly in life. Well, that's hard, isn't it? It is more important to God that you have Christian character than that you have equal rights. Your testimony and your witness for Christ is more important to God than how you are treated. If you can be a witness in a hostile environment, bring somebody to Christ, then God is willing for you to suffer in that environment for that purpose. And you're not going to be a witness, and you're not going to have a testimony. If you want to demand your rights and demand what's coming to you, you're not going to win anybody to Christ with that attitude. No one has ever led another person to Christ in rebellion against authority and complaining about his lot in life. There's a harsh reality. Injustices existed always. And there is a hard responsibility. You live in submission and honor. But then I want you to notice there is an honorable result. Come back to our text. Look at verse number 19. for this is thankworthy. Look at the last phrase of verse 20. This is acceptable with God. He's getting ready to tell you something that is worthy of thanks by God. I'm gonna show you something that God accepts. I mean, when you do this and the Lord says, thank you, I mean, I'm gonna show you a way to live where God Almighty looks at that and says, I appreciate that. And it's not soul winning. And it's not singing in the choir. And it's not visiting the shut-ins. And all of those things are thankworthy and good. But what he says is that when God sees you suffer unjustly and you bear it patiently, God says, thank you. Look at it, verse 19. For this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongly. Now, if this is a situation that you have legal remedies for, but you choose to stay in that abusive situation because you are a pacifist or you have some kind of sadistic glutton for punishment, then that's not the application here. He's not saying go put yourself in an unjust situation so that you can suffer for suffering. It is not just mere suffering. It is suffering in a situation you can't control. It is a circumstance that you cannot reverse. You are suffering because you are a Christian. And the reason that you endure it patiently is because you are conscious of the presence of God in your life and your testimony of him to the world. And you never get bitter against God and you never hate the abuser. You still trust God and you never faltering your witness, and you never bow to the pressure, and when you suffer patiently, God says, thank you. Stake worthy to him. Look at verse 20. For what glory is it? If when ye be befitted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently. But if when ye do well and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God. If you suffer just because you're an idiot, because you brought the trouble upon yourself. Ain't no glory in that. But if you do well, if you do well and you suffer for it patiently, that's acceptable to God. That's what God says. His children suffering in unjust situations for his own witness. Look at chapter three and verse 14. But if you suffer for righteousness sake, happy are ye. And be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled. Look at chapter four, verse 14. If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye. For the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you. On their part he is evil spoken of, but on your part he is glorified. Verse 16, yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God on this behalf. Can I tell you that Jesus Christ would have never been the savior of the world if he had not come to this earth and subjected himself to unfair punishment and unjust suffering and dying on the cross, and you and I will never win the world while lying on a bed of ease and comfort. When you suffer for Christ, you show the world that nothing can break your trust in God, and you show that you have a peace so deep inside that nothing can take it away, and you show that Christ can so transform your life that you can live It's standing above the problems of life. The Bible never assumes that you and I would live in a world that is friendly to Christianity. And you know all the verses that says that the world will hate you because it hated Christ. You know all of those verses. Well, the church has lost its power because it's trying to be friends with the world. We have pursued friendship over separation. We're more interested in our comfort than our witness. We're more interested in our reputation than our character, our rights more than our responsibilities. The Bible says we're called to be lights in a dark world. And you cannot do that as long as you demand your rights and you refuse to embrace any hardship. It simply does not work that way. My situation's a lot different because I work for the church. I don't work in a public place. Many of you tomorrow morning, you've got to go there and you gotta work there. And while it's certainly not the extreme situation of here, there may be a touch of it. But I thought about this. If I had to go out and get a public job, I had to go some business and put in an application. If I told them what I really believe, nobody would hire me. It wouldn't. Can you imagine me going into the first interview And we're sitting down, and I tell the boss, let me just start, all right? Before you ask any questions or fill any paperwork, I just need to tell you that I am a born-again, Bible-believing Christian. I'm saved. I'm born again. I've been bought with the blood. I belong to Jesus Christ. I want you to know right off the bat that is more important to me than anything, more than this job, more than anything, that's the most important thing in my life. I'm not only saved, but I am sanctified, and I believe that the Holy Spirit lives inside of me, that my body is the possession of Jesus Christ. I live for God, not you. I live for God, and I am separated. I believe that I ought to live separated lives. I don't smoke, and I don't drink, and I don't chew, and I don't dip, and I don't go to movies, and I don't listen to rock music, and I don't listen to pop music, and I don't listen to country music, and if I hear it around here, I'm gonna say something about it. Just want you to know that that's how I live. And I want you to know that I take very seriously the responsibility for me to be a witness, and I will be a witness here. I believe that if you give me this job, that God has placed me here as a light in this dark work environment. And so I'm not here to blend in with the folks. I'm here to evangelize, and I will be bringing my Bible to work, and I will be reading my Bible during break. I'll work for you, and I will be the best worker that you have, but I will be witnessing to everybody here in time, and I will be trying to get there. I'm not getting the job. You understand? I am a threat to them. And I'm not suggesting that if you do that, that you ought to do that, but I am suggesting to you that the more that you live out your Christianity, the more that you are going to be ostracized by this world. Yea, and all that will live in God and in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. You know what it said? I look at this text and I think the first application for me is to be faithful to the text. You can take the very broad application of suffering in unjust situations through patience, but you cannot make this the employer scenario. That may be where you live this principle, but if that is all that it is, then it loses its thrust because the situation here is one that cannot be corrected and it cannot be reversed. You can find another job without breaking the law. But you may find yourself in a situation there is no legal remedy for. That is the scenario that Peter addresses here. I don't ever want to allow culture to influence my interpretation of the scripture. And there may be no person in this room that this situation directly applies to. There are certainly no servants in our church. But there could be somebody here who is in an unfair situation that you can't get out of. And you take every legal and practical route that you can to better your life and your situation, but in the end, you may have to just endure it patiently. I wish that all of life was fair. And I wish that all of us were rich and healthy and happy. That is not the world that we live in. So if your lot in life, if your calling, is one of hardship and suffering, then it could be that's what God has called you to. Not because he doesn't like you, not because he wants to see you suffer, but because he uses that to purify you, to refine you, to use you as a witness of his grace to those around you. It could be that you could win more people to Christ in your suffering than you ever would in your prosperity. And God is fine with that. There's an evangelist. He's preached here years ago. We may have him back one day. His name is John Bishop. John Bishop, great preacher, has an incredible testimony. John Bishop was a pastor, I think in Arkansas, maybe Arkansas, Texas. And he got an unusual case of meningitis. And one of the effects was that he lost his memory. John Bishop has no memory of his life before meningitis. He had to relearn everything from the alphabet all the way to what it means to be married. He had to relearn everything as an adult. It affected his speech, so when he preaches, it's slow and it's halting and it takes you a little bit to learn to understand. He is legally blind. He has migraine headaches every day. He says that on a scale of one to 10 every day, his pain level is around seven or eight. And we would say that's unfair. That's unjust. But God allowed that to happen. And John Bishop could have got angry. He could have struck out. He could have quit the ministry. But instead, he started a new ministry. Here's the name of it. God is Good Ministries. He travels around and he preaches. And I dare say that thousands of more people have been saved and strengthened through his weakness than ever would have through his strengths. And Peter says to these servants serving an unjust master, you're there. You make the best that you can out of that life. But while you are there, you submit to the Lord in the fear of God and God will vindicate your testimony. And if you will suffer for me patiently, God says, thank you. Thank you for doing that for me. This is thank worthy.