Sermon manuscript:
The apostle Peter says that it is better to suffer for doing
good than for doing evil. That is not the way that we are accustomed to
thinking. What we learn from a very young age is that if you do good you will
be rewarded. If you do bad, then you will be suffer. If you do what Mom and Dad
want you to do, then they will be happy with you. If you do what they don’t
want you to do, then they will be unhappy with you. They might also punish you.
But we all know that sometimes you want to do things that
are bad. Sometimes you want to do things that you know your Mom and Dad either
wouldn’t let you do or have specifically told you not to do. Although you’d
like to do these things, you’d prefer not to get punished for them. What you
need to do, then, is hide or lie or in some other way cover up the bad thing.
It is amazing how early in life we learn how to do this. Nobody has to teach it
to us. It comes naturally.
Something that is kind of interesting is that if you do what
is right, you will almost certainly suffer. What I mean is this is that if
you’ve done something wrong, and then you go and tell mom or dad what you’ve
done (which is good and right), they are going to be angry, or disappointed, or
what-have-you. They might punish you. We’d like to avoid that, so there is a
very strong compulsion to hide, or lie, or try to figure out a way to make what
we did not sound so bad. But then we would just be adding evil to the bad that
we have already done. It is better to suffer for doing good, for doing the
right thing, than for doing evil.
But in order to believe this, we have to believe in God. The
lying and the hiding and the what-not that is done is only because we don’t
believe in God. If we believed in God, then we’d understand that we are always
walking in his sight. Our most sophisticated adult efforts at covering our
tracks to him look like a toddler who goes into the corner to poop in his
diaper, thinking that nobody knows what he’s doing. If we believed in God we
wouldn’t think that our lying and hiding are going to work, because, of course,
God knows.
Positively speaking, we have to believe in God in order to
know that we will be blessed with our suffering for doing what is good. This
requires a lot of faith. Think again of that child who has done wrong. To go
tell Mom and Dad is going to hurt. The child is going to suffer. Seemingly all
that can be dispensed with if only the child is clever enough to cover his
tracks. To go to Mom and Dad and tell them what you have done seems like a
terrible idea. You have to believe in God in order to believe that you will be
better off doing such a thing. Kids, without much life experience, are just
going to have to take God’s Word for it that they will be blessed.
You who have some experience under your belt might be able to see things a little
more clearly. We adults have no doubt done our fair share of crime. We’ve
thought that we will be better off if we lie and hide. We still very often
think that way. But even if we’ve never taken the right path, I think we can
sense that there is a price to pay for not doing what is right. What if we
would be one of those good people who own up to what they have done, who tell
the truth? I think we can sense that this is a better way to live.
If only we would think more about things, I think we can see
that this is how it has to be. Lying and hiding only delay the inevitable. The
best possible outcome is that the grass grows over the offense, and we forget
about it, (and here’s what’s really important:) that we quit lying and hiding. That
is not what happens though. What inevitably happens when we have “success” with
our lying and hiding is that we grow more and more in our wickedness. And why
shouldn’t we? If it worked once, it might work again. If we get better at our
wickedness we might get more of what we want.
But whom are we learning from? Who is our master and
teacher? Is it not the father of lie, that murderer the devil? Like the pied
piper all he is doing is leading us off to our destruction, giving us little treats
along the way where we thing we are getting away with things.
How different it is to learn for our Lord Jesus Christ. He
suffered for doing what is good rather than for doing what is evil. This is
even a step beyond what I’ve been talking about thus far. What I’ve been
talking about is the way that we will suffer for stepping out of our evil ways
and doing the right thing by fessing up. But Jesus did not do anything wrong,
and yet he willingly suffered. He suffered for people who are no good, for us,
who have lied and hid, gladly being trained by the devil. And tremendous good
has come out of this suffering because God exists. He brought about the
salvation of mankind by his suffering and attained everlasting glory for
himself.
At the time of Jesus’s suffering—when he was actually
suffering—it did not look this way. What it looked like is that a mere man died
unjustly. It looked like the lying and hiding Jewish authorities got their
way—they got rid of that annoying Jesus. Today, on Holy Saturday, Jesus lies
dead in a cool tomb, cut into a hill side. On Holy Saturday no good seemed to
have come from what he did, and certainly no power or glory.
But you know Christian doctrine well enough to know that it
will not stay this way. Jesus rose from the dead. He descended into hell and
proclaimed his victory. He left the cold dark tomb. He appeared to his
bewildered disciples. He proclaimed peace and salvation to them. He ascended to
the right hand of God the Father and reigns and rules there in glory.
This is very instructive for our lives as Christians. Just
before where our reading starts the apostle Peter encourages us Christians to
do good to those who are in our life. Each of us have been given roles and
responsibilities by God. Are you a father, mother, son, daughter, husband, wife
or worker? In all these callings and stations in life we have the opportunity
to suffer for doing what is good.
What that means is that you do what is right. You do what
God wants you to do. You work hard. You don’t antagonize. You forgive when
others hurt you. So much as it depends on you, you live peaceably with
everyone. You suffer for doing is what is good, following your Lord and master
Jesus Christ, believing that God will bless you.
Chances are you will not be exalted in this life for
following Jesus. You might! There are examples of that in the Bible. Daniel,
whom we heard about, was such a one. He was a great man in Babylon and Persia
for doing what was good. Another example is Joseph in Egypt. Already in this
lifetime they were exalted although he suffered. What is much more likely,
however, is that you will be like our Lord Jesus Christ. His glory was hidden
while he lived this life. His glory appeared to be completely nonexistent on
Holy Saturday. Now he is highly exalted.
So it will be also in heaven. There will be lots of
surprises in heaven. The great and glorious ones in heaven will probably not be
the preachers and church leaders. They often already have their reward. The
great ones are going to be those who lived quiet Christian lives. They believed
in Jesus. They followed him. They suffered for doing what was good. They were
honest, kind, and helpful. Their works were never spectacular or unusual to
human beings, but they were precious in God’s sight. For all intents and
purposes they looked as powerless and ineffectual as our Lord and Savior looked
while he lay dead in the tomb on Holy Saturday. But in the life to come they
will receive their reward.
So here’s another thing that you can think about. We do well
to strive after this heavenly glory. People are striving after earthly glory
all the time. Everyone wants to be known as the best. Nobody thinks about the
glory that will never fade away in heaven. How can we obtain this glory? By
seeking first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. We can gladly suffer
for doing good. We can forgive as we have been forgiven. We can seek to serve
rather than being served. We can take the lowest spot, trusting in God, that he
will raise us higher when the time is right.
The good life is not the one where we use and abuse
everybody else towards our own ends. That seems like it should be the best
life, but it is not. The best life is the life of our Lord Jesus Christ. By his
suffering for doing what is good he set free all creation from its bondage to
the devil and corruption. Our best life, therefore, is following after him. You
will be blessed. You should not have a shadow of a doubt about that.
In fact, there should be no doubt either way. If you follow
the arts and practices of the devil you will most certainly not be blessed. I
don’t care if you manage to accumulate the whole world and eat it as dessert.
Nothing good can come from our hating, lying and hiding, even though it seems
like it works like a charm, because God exists.
Then, on the other hand, there is no doubt whatsoever that
the good that we do will be blessed. Jesus is blessed. Jesus is glorified. We
will be too if we follow after him. Do not shy away, therefore, from those
times when you are called upon to suffer for doing good. You are going to have
to fight against your flesh, because your flesh is going to tell you that you will
fail and be miserable for suffering for good. The Bible tells you that you will
be blessed. You are following the pattern set by your Master.
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