The Service God Notices

Photo by Ken Cheung on Unsplash
​Do you feel like you have to go through a lot for no apparent reason? I think all of us have felt like that at times in the various spheres of our life whether that is at home, work, church, or school. Maybe it feels like the boss never treats you fairly or your husband never notices all the work done around the house. The word that I think describes what life feels like at those times is “endures.” Have you ever dreamed in those times of enduring getting to make a speech like Jacob has here? You finally get to absolutely lay into those treating you unfairly with the family there to applaud when you’re done. Maybe you even had the chance to do that and didn’t even have to think of a much better answer in the shower three days later! Maybe you got to be free of that time of enduring like Jacob does at the end of this chapter. 
If we are honest, though, there will be repeating times of enduring. Most of life is not spent on the other end of a boundary preventing your enemies from returning. More often than not, life will feel like verses 38-42 than 55. What do we do in those times? 
Here, Jacob has something to teach us in how to endure well that will be in conversation with a couple other passages. Our main point today is: Live self-sacrificially so that others may not justly accuse you (1 Peter 2:13-25).

Live self-sacrificially so that others may not justly accuse you
We pick up in verse 36 with Laban sheepishly coming out of Rachel’s tent completely empty handed. Laban has come in ripping into Jacob with all kinds of accusations, and now he has to walk back in front of everyone without a shred of evidence that the accusations he’s leveled at Jacob are true. How embarrassing for Laban, and how unbelievably satisfying that must have been with Jacob. 
Jacob now can, righteously, lay into Laban for what he has done to him here and over the last twenty years. This is where Jacob can teach us something about how to live, and it doesn’t actually come from this speech. What Jacob can teach us is what happened in the twenty years before this speech. Jacob is only able to talk like this if he has truly been living a selfless life in working well for Laban. Jacob advances three main arguments in this speech based on how he has lived his life up to this point: the flocks prospered under him, he did so at great personal cost, and Laban has not been fair to him through it all at all. 
Jacob revisits extremely recent history in which he was accused as a thief and a liar in the verses immediately before our current passage. According to Laban, not only did Jacob steal the gods, but he is so untrustworthy to give them back that the only way to know what happened to the gods is to go through all his stuff like the TSA after finding white powder in your bag. 
After such a deep search pulls up nothing, Jacob moves back a few years to revisit other wrongs Laban has done to him. Jacob paints a picture of himself as the absolute epitome of a perfect shepherd, and assuming he is telling the truth (and there isn’t really a reason to doubt it in my mind), Laban has been massively unfair to a pretty great shepherd (Matthews).
Let’s look at how the now-not-scoundrel Jacob has lived these last few decades towards Laban. 
The flocks have been well cared for under Jacob. They haven’t miscarried, likely due to God’s blessing that Jacob carries. He hasn’t eaten from Laban’s flock, and anytime a wild animal did, he repaid Laban for it. To do that wasn’t a common practice of shepherds, but apparently this was something that was Laban’s idea. This is a harsh policy Laban enforces here (Matthews). To sum up, Laban hasn’t suffered ill gotten loss from Jacob.
Jacob has taken care of these flocks at great personal cost. While he has repaid any property loss, I think what he puts up with in the field is worse. The word used for “consumed” by heat and cold is the same word for “eat” in verse 38. In other words, he didn’t eat of the flock, but the field sure ate him! Hot, cold, and sleepless ate up Jacob for years! So not only has Jacob been a model employee, he has done so under very harsh working conditions. 
Through it all Laban has been unfair. Jacob has had to work for everything he has multiple times. He served 14 years for Rachel, and he worked for six years with what sounds like nearly constantly changing wages for the flocks. Finally, as if all that wasn’t bad enough, the only reason why Laban is treating him properly now is because God Himself has threatened him, citing Laban’s own words from 13 verses ago! So Jacob has been a model employee, under harsh conditions, all to serve an unfair boss! 
This has been an utterly devastating reply to Laban. Jacob has delivered the absolute knock out punch. But as I said at the beginning, this isn’t our focus. What is truly impressive is all that he did during those twenty years that allows him to make this speech. 
We have the New Testament command of what Jacob has demonstrated here in 1 Peter 2. He exemplifies what 1 Peter 2:18 says. 
Now, before we get to that passage, I want to make something clear. We are looking at the following directions assuming that there is no other righteous means of dealing with the oppressive person in your life. If you can get out from under oppressive people, by all means do so, but look at the hope God offers to those truly hard situations from which there is no escape. 
1 Peter 2:18–20, “Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust. For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. 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.”
Here, Peter is calling Christians to submit where they must in government, employment, and marriage, but he has more to say than just put up with it. He has more to say than, “behave now so you can really sock it to them later.” No, look at verse 20, paraphrased, when you do good and suffer for it anyway, God notices and is pleased with you. Why? Because in that moment, you remind Him of His Son. Look at the rest of the passage:
“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. 25 For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls."
What is Peter saying here? Quickly, he is saying that enduring hardship for doing the right thing is the very life we have been called to because that was the life that Jesus, our example, lived for us. He was perfectly innocent yet died for ourcrimes to bring us healing and reconciliation with God. This means that in this passage, Jesus lived the life of Jacob so that the Labans of the world—namely, you and me—could be freed. So, fellow Laban, if Jesus can do all that for you, you can do that for the Laban’s in your life. 
But how do we do that? It is great to know that we have God’s smile, but how do I walk through that office door on Monday to hear my boss yell at me again? How do I continue to serve my family when it seems like everyone will just sit around until I do something? 
The key to this is in verse 23 of 1 Peter 2. What did Jesus do? He “continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.” What does it mean to entrust your self to God? The word “entrusting” here means “handing over” or “deliver.” If you were to hand something over to a person, you are telling them that this is under their care now. You aren’t holding it anymore. When I got married to my lovely wife, as part of the ceremony, her dad placed her hand in mine. He pulled me close and said, “Take care of her.” Here he said what he was acting out in placing her hand in mine. Now, if he continued to hold on to Abby’s hand and not let go, that wouldn’t be handing her over to my care, would it? But he stepped back and let her little girl go. Even when I picked up and moved her three hours away to Brewton for my first call. I’m sure that wasn’t his favorite plan. But he had handed her over, and trusted me. 
When the time comes to endure, hand yourself, your life, your dreams, your ambitions, over to God. Remind yourself that He is a just judge Who has not lost track of you. He doesn’t have you in this situation for no reason. Let go what you think is the ideal of your life, and instead surrender to the plan that God has for you. I know that is hard to hear. It is so hard to be convinced that we don’t know what is best for us. It starts when we are children, and it continues straight through to adulthood. Instead, hand yourself over to God. 
So how does this happen walking through the office door, through the laundry room door? The first is acknowledging the situation, even this one, comes from your gracious Father. Give to Him what your dream was for this situation, offer it as a sacrifice to Him, saying, “Lord, my dream for this situation was very different, but help me to accept what you have for me here. I hand myself over to you for help in this situation.” And then get to work, not for the oppressor, but for God. Did you notice a little phrase in verse 19? “For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly.” In other words, your service is done to Him. In every job, your ultimate authority is God, so if you find it so hard to work for the people in your life, don’t work for them. Instead, work for Jesus in this hard field, knowing that God’s grace smiles on you even now, and is preparing a place where this sort of oppressive work will never happen again. You’ll get promoted one day, and get to work face to face, and side by literal side with your Savior. 
Now, again, if there is a righteous way to escape earthly oppression, do it! Jesus even said of preaching the gospel, if you are persecuted in one city, flee to the next (Matthew 10:23)! Jesus isn’t asking you to intentionally seek out unjust oppression for yourself. Because the fallen world that it is, trouble will find you soon enough if you are obedient to what God says. 
But if you can’t, hand yourself over to God and be at peace. You don’t have to remind yourself all the time of how unfair things are. Instead, entrust yourself to the God who treats all fairly, even you, even in that situation.