There are times we have to button our lip, hold ourselves together. We have been harshly or unfairly rebuked or treated. But it is not appropriate to fight back, and so we keep the peace. We do it for him, for Christ, because he has bidden us. It is an act of love for him. That is how we are to think. Do it under his authority, do it by his power, do it for his glory as his ambassador, as his representative, and do it for him. The boss may be grumpy, difficult to please, hypercritical and fault-finding. It is hard to work up enthusiasm to sincerely please a person like that. Yes, but we serve the Lord, not men. We do serve men, of course, but there is something greater going on here. There is a greater purpose at work, which your boss is not even aware of. He does not need to know that you are doing this for the Lord. He will receive a benefit that he does not deserve, which is something like the daily benefit of common grace which he receives from the Lord, who ‘maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust’ (Matthew 5:45). We do it for our Lord who loved us and gave himself for us, and to whom we owe everything. He has put us in this strange situation where another sinful human being receives our service, but he has allowed us to see this as service to himself, and genuinely that is what it is. This service is all the more valuable to him because it is delivered to him in such trying circumstances.
Today, we are too easily overcome by a sense of injustice, and so we take flight from an unpleasant situation and forget that the Lord is training us in it. We are not to behave as masochists who deliberately seek out painful situations, but if it has come upon us and it is clear we have to accept it, then we have secret grounds for rejoicing in the worst of circumstances. Don’t get so disturbed if you are passed over for promotion. Don’t think along those lines. If you have reasonable opportunity to advance, yes, that is all good and wholesome, but we tend to pine away at what we think we ought to have. Fix your mind on the eternal reward.