Word of Salvation – September 2026

How to Make Suffering Worthwhile

Sermon by Rev Jesse Gollan

1 Peter 2:18-25 (ESV)

Introduction

   Less so now, but in my younger days, I used to be a walking advertisement for Hungry Jacks. A couple of years ago Hungry Jacks came out with this truly awesome app called Shake & Win. Basically, when you are close to a Hungry Jacks, you open your app, shake your phone, and are guaranteed to win a prize of some description. Normally it is a discounted burger, or a free slurpee, but sometimes it’s a whole free meal. I think I’ve won the meal twice before. Here’s what it looks like Well… Talk about a great advertising campaign… their campaign was so successful that they turned me into a free ambassador for them. For example, did you know that Hungry Jacks used to add any 3 extras to any burger you buy for free? And that their nuggets are made from real chicken breast, rather than mashed up goop? Isn’t it crazy that it is possible to get excited about a fast-food chain?  Hungry Jacks isn’t actually even one of the better fast-food chains. Absolutely ridiculous.

   However we (as Christians) do have something far, far, greater than Hungry Jacks, that we ought to be deeply excited about. We Christians are called by God, to be walking advertisements FOR God. People should be able to see that we are followers of Jesus by what we say and do, and this morning we are going to focus on one o the main way that that is lived out in the real world by exploring 1 Peter 2:18-25.

Background

Scholars generally agree that this letter was written during the time that Nero was the emperor of the Roman Empire. This is the same Nero that announced that Christians were enemies of the state, and rounded them up to be tortured, crucified, and fed to lions. History tells us that during his reign, thousands of Christians were killed, including, eventually,  Peter, who wrote this letter. The major theme of the letter is about how Christians should behave when they are persecuted (mistreated), and our passage really drills into the heart of that question. The question this passage answers, is how Christians should respond if they are wronged.

The “Why”

We are going to spend almost all of our time in verses 18-25, but verse 12 of chapter 2 really is a key verse for understanding our passage, so before we delve into verses 18-25, I’d love to read verse 12. It says, Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.”

 Peter really believes that actions speak louder than words, and he is saying that the life of a Genuine Christian should be so different from that of a non-Christian that the contrast between the two is obvious. Peter is actually saying that our actions can cause people to glorify God on the day that Jesus returns… probably because they see the magnificence of our God reflected through our actions and turn to him before Jesus’ return.

~The Command~  (to love when persecuted)

Let’s just skip ahead a couple of verses and read the first couple of verses of our passage together. Starting in verse 18, it says,”Slaves (or I actually prefer the ESV translation here which is “servants”), in reverent fear of God submit yourselves to your masters, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh. For it is commendable if someone bears up under the pain of unjust suffering because they are conscious of God. But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God.”

Those are very heavy words! Basically, Peter is saying that we as Christians need to give up our right to be treated fairly and justly for the sake of showing Christ to others, and for the glory of God. It’s so easy to be big-hearted when people are kind to you… but the point is that as Christians we are to be loving when we are treated with the opposite of love! We are to bear up under unjust suffering. In Matthew 5:46 Jesus points out that even worldly people love their friends. He says, “For if you love those who love you, what reward do you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?”  (Tax collectors were thought of as some of the worst people in Jesus’ society)

Jesus is saying that the point of difference between a genuine Christian and a person of the world is that a genuine Christian will be loving to someone who is unloving to them, which is contrary to our broken sinful human natures.

Jesus is asking us not to remain in our sinful broken selfish state. He’s asking us not to continue perpetuating the brokenness and conflict that has plagued humanity since we rebelled against God in the Garden of Eden.

When we rebelled against God, we didn’t just break the perfect relationship with God – the perfect and glorious vertical relationship that humans were designed to enjoy with the Ruler of the Universe, but we also broke the horizontal relationships that we were designed to enjoy with each other.

One of the very first things we read after Adam and Eve rebelled against God is that they turned on each other.

Jesus is calling for us to do more than just love those who love us. He is calling us to live as the new and restored humanity. He’s calling for us to live like him – to forgive our enemies – to repay them with love when they give us wrong treatment. There’s nothing (or just about nothing) that is more contrary to our human nature than to not stand up for yourself when you are wronged. It’s easy to retaliate when you’re attacked. But Jesus didn’t live like that and he’s asking us to join him in putting an end to the endless fighting which humans have been engaged in since we rebelled against God.

This in part is what makes us different from the people around us. In part, this is what makes us the people of God.

This sets us apart. The Bible word for setting apart is to be “holy”. This is part of what makes us holy. God is calling for us to be walking and breathing advertisements for His glory. His goodness. His love.  His gentleness. His kindness. His forgiveness. and a big part of how we do that is by responding with love to those who treat us wrongly.

~Optional depending on the moment~

   Now just in case anybody is thinking to themselves, “this doesn’t apply to me because I’m not a servant, please turn with me to 1 Peter 3:9. In the same letter, talking to the same people, God says through Peter, “Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing.” This instruction is not just for servants, or people living under a wicked tyrannical government, it’s for all of us. The underlying principle applies to all of us. And not only that, but in 1 Peter 3 he even more clearly says that God will reward his children for repaying evil with blessing.

~Optional depending on the moment~

Application

 So what does this mean in practical terms? What does it mean to live a life where you show love to others, even when they treat you unkindly or unfairly?

1. One obvious application is family life. I grew up with three younger sisters and I know firsthand how easy it is to treat someone. “The way they deserve” when they wrong you. We will be wronged. You will be wronged – because we all live in a broken world, and because sin lives in us along with everyone else. And it is so easy to treat your partner, or your family members, or close friends, or acquaintances, or enemies! “The way they deserve.”

 But Christ is calling us to a higher calling he’s calling us to live as the new and restored humanity! He’s inviting us to live as humans were designed to live at the dawn of time. And he’s calling us to lovingly choose to prioritise other people more than ourselves, especially when they wrong us!

2. Jesus is calling for us to give up our rights for the sake of others. An extremely obvious way that we can apply this is in workplace situations. Often bosses or coworkers they can behave in… shall we call it “frustrating” ways. And we’re faced with the choice of how to behave towards them. How to respond to their evil, their wrong, their mistreatment of us. Jesus is calling for us to show them respect, and repay their unkindness with kindness, even when they don’t deserve it. ESPECIALLY when they don’t deserve it! Jesus is calling us to a higher path. He’s inviting us to put a stop to cycles of revenge which have plagued the human race since the fall.
3. And, for some crazy reason, it is so easy to get offended by our brothers and sisters at our church. I’ve seen this! I’ve lived through multiple church splits! I’ve seen people in church who come to church every week and they hate another person in church!

I figure that Satan hates the church, so he does everything that he can to make it look ugly by causing strife and divisions. Anyway… we MUST do everything in our power to treat our brothers and sisters in Christ lovingly when they wrong us. And here’s the thing! They will, because, just like us, they are not perfect!

4. Jesus is calling us to love even when we’re wronged – and we will be wronged! Jesus knows that we will be wronged, and in our passage he’s helping us to understand how to act when we are wronged.
   Jesus is calling for us to be so forgiving, so kind, so loving! in all of our interactions with others (even when they wrong us!) that they cannot help but notice that our character reflects the character of a loving and forgiving saviour God.
5. Our restoration as the people of God isn’t supposed to just affect us in a vertical sense (in the sense of our relationship with God).

~God wants it to also affect our horizontal relationships. This is what it means to be citizens of heaven, we are freed from the need to desperately fight for ourselves and our own rights,  because we have a champion who has given us everything we need!
~At the end of this passage Peter reminds us that we have a shepherd of our souls. We have someone who is looking out for us – who has written our names in the book of life, and promised that our futures will be filled with eternal joy. We no longer need to fight for ourselves like orphans in an orphanage with not enough food, (NO!) We have been promised everything we need by the All-Powerful King of the universe.

Heart Motivation

This is how God calls us to act, but normally our problem isn’t knowing what God is asking of us. Our difficulty as followers of Jesus is ACTUALLY DOING what Jesus calls us to do.
It’s easy to know in your head what God wants you to do, it’s quite a different thing to actually do it.

Jesus knows that and so he helps us through this passage. He helps us to understand how we can live like this. He helps us to understand what gives us the willpower to obey God even when it goes against everything that our sinful minds want and everything that the world around us tells us how we should act.

Presence of God         (Heart motivation)

In verse 19 Peter gives us the first clue as to how Christians can bear up under unjust suffering. He says,

“it is commendable if someone bears up under the pain of unjust suffering because they are conscious of GOD.”

One of the reasons why Christians live this way is because we see God as being real and present with us in every situation. The Bible tells us that the Holy Spirit, who is part of the Trinity, is in some mysterious and miraculous way with us. When we remember that God is with us at all times, it actually does become a lot easier to resist the temptation to strike back when we’re mistreated. As a matter of fact, it can and should become a joy to live in a way that brings glory to our glorious God.

If I love my friend, who loves me? That’s what everyone in the world does. That’s normal, even in our broken world. If I love the person who has wronged me? That is not normal! That sets me apart from the people of the world. That declares to everyone around me that I serve a forgiving and loving King. It also declares to everyone, including myself, that I am so secure in my eternal destiny that I don’t even need to fight for my own rights here on earth.

This is a real opportunity to proclaim the good news of Jesus through my actions!  So really… when we are wronged there is reason to celebrate! Because God is giving us an opportunity. To glorify him. To make much of our Saviour.

Example of Christ        (Heart motivation)

The second half of the answer to the question “How can we do that!?” is found in the second half of our passage. Please read with me starting from verse 21. (To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. “He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.” (Isaiah 53:9) When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate, when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.

God is not asking us to do anything that he was not willing to do. As a matter of fact, there is exactly a 0% chance that any of us will ever be more unjustly treated that Jesus Christ. He was the perfect man, sinless and blameless, and yet he was mocked, spat upon, whipped, and killed in the most humiliating and degrading method available to his enemies. He, the Son of the most powerful being in the Universe, did not make any threats when they whipped him, or nailed his hands to that cross.

We read in Matthew 26:53 that he could have easily stopped the injustice. Jesus said at the very start of his crucifixion experience, “Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?” As the son of the Most High God, he was perfectly capable of flipping the situation and killing his tormentors when his hands were unjustly nailed to the cross, and yet he chose not to. In verse 23 is says what he did. “Instead (of retaliating) he entrusted himself to him  who judges justly.”
Like it says in V21, he did that for you… provided that you are his disciple. Those insults… those beatings… that torture… was suffered on your behalf.

Jesus handed the entire sorry situation over to God to resolve justly in his own time rather than choosing to take revenge himself… and he did it for you. He also gave you an example of how to act when you are mistreated. As a matter of fact, when he was on the cross… every breath painful… hands and feet aching from the nails… Jesus prayed for his enemies, saying,  “Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Jesus trusted that God the Father would resolve the matter fairly and justly, so he laid it at his feet rather than taking justice into his own hands.

Freed from Sin (Heart motivation)

What’s more, as verse 24 says, he took our sins upon himself,
“so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness.” Jesus died on that cross so that we could be free from living lives that are trapped in endless cycles of miserable and unfulfilling conflict and sin. Christ died so that we can move past that and embrace a new and radically different life. A blameless life. A life as the restored people of God.

~Conclusion~

Jesus didn’t only die so that we can go to Heaven, although that is a part of what his victory on the cross accomplished. Jesus created a way for us to begin to live, even now, before his return, as the people of God. To begin the process of restoring, not just the vertical relationship, but the horizontal relationships as well. He died so that we can forgive others when they wrong us, just like he did. He died so that when we are slandered, or when we are verbally abused, or when some horrible injustice is done to us, we can give glory to God, instead of adding to the sin.

Jesus died so that our lives would be radically different from the lives of the people of the world. So that we will bring glory to our glorious God. He died so that we can be restored to the bliss and perfection and beauty and harmony that humanity was originally designed to experience.
That’s not the only reason he died. We know he died to pay the price for our sins, to defeat Satan, to conquer death, but we read in verse 24 that a major motivation of him doing what he did is that we might be freed from the cycles of sin even now! Even before we die! Even before Jesus comes back! That we might be freed from the chains of sin and enabled to live holy lives.

Lives which are glorying to God and fulfilling and joy-bringing to us. Jesus made a way for us to begin to live as humans were always designed to live. He doesn’t just want us to be freed from slavery to sin when we die or when he returns, he wants us to experience the joy of his victory right now.

Friend, if you know that you are not right with God right now, don’t delay. If you know that upon the return of Christ that it talks about in V12… you will have no peace with him… don’t be content. Fix that situation today. Jesus suffered so that you might have the opportunity to be forgiven. So that your relationship with God can be restored… and so that you can enter into his rest. I encourage you to speak with me or someone else after the service. We would love to pray with you and encourage you.

Let us pray.