How to Win When Life Feels Unfair

Life isn’t always fair, but how we respond reveals where our faith really stands. In this message from 1 Peter, Pastor Chris Teien shows how believers can honor God even when treated unjustly. Discover how to live with grace, honor, and blessing so your life reflects Jesus in every relationship—at home, at work, and in the world. 

Link: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2285086/episodes/18120185

Key Points:

1. Win by respecting authority. 1 Peter 2:13–17. Submit for the Lord’s sake, do good, and let honorable conduct silence critics. See also Romans 13:1–2 and 1 Timothy 2:1–2.
2. Win by serving at home. 1 Peter 3:1–7. A Christlike spirit at home speaks louder than words, and husbands honor their wives so prayers are not hindered.
3. Win by blessing others. 1 Peter 3:8–9. Refuse payback, return insults with blessing, pursue unity, compassion, and humility.
4. When government commands what God forbids, obey God. Acts 5:29. Live peaceably yet faithfully, letting your light shine (Matthew 5:16).

Personal Story from Pastor Chris:
A ninth-grade push into the gymnastics team just to pass typing class became a lifelong lesson in what real winning looks like. Even when you don’t get the medal, you can still win by showing character, kindness, and encouragement.

Notable Quotes:
• Would you rather be a loser in the world’s eyes and a winner in God’s eyes?
• We are freed from sin, not freed to sin.
• Let your good deeds shine so people praise your Father in heaven.

Actionable Takeaways:
• Where am I more concerned with winning approval than pleasing Christ.
• Practice visible honor. Speak respectfully about leaders and disagree without contempt this week.
• Choose one difficult relationship and bless that person intentionally. Pray for them daily.
• At home, express genuine appreciation to your spouse through a specific word of honor and a simple act of service based on 1 Peter 3:1–7.

Scripture References:
1 Peter 2:13–17; 3:1–9. Romans 13:1–2. Acts 5:29. 1 Timothy 2:1–2. Matthew 5:16.

Keywords:
1 Peter, faith under pressure, honoring authority, marriage, blessing others, discipleship, holiness, gospel credibility, grace in hardship, Rockwell Church

Challenge:
Ask Jesus to help you win His way this week by responding with grace when life feels unfair. Honor authority, serve humbly, bless those who wrong you, and let your life point others to Him.

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The WELL Faith Podcast offers encouraging, Bible-based messages from Pastor Chris Teien and guests. New sermons are released every Sunday. Replay episodes are marked with an asterisk. Find us online at ChrisTeien.com and Rockwell.Church in Virginia, MN. Email comments to wellfaith24@gmail.com

Transcript

Chris T 0:16

Winning when relationships reflect Jesus. Everybody wants to be a winner. Don't you want to be a winner? There's only so many winners though. Only, you know, only a few people get the championship trophy. Only so many people get the prize. Sometimes people come in second, third, sometimes they don't even place. Everybody wants to be a winner. Sometimes there's just no way that you're going to be a winner. Everything is stacked against you. And if you're in the event or if you're in the arena or if you're in the workplace, all you can do is the best you can do. And you cannot expect that you would be a winner. Sometimes it takes years. Maybe you're in high school. Maybe in ninth grade you want to be a winner, but you're not. But as time goes on, maybe by the time you get to your junior or senior year, you might be considered a winner in whatever event you're in. So when I was in ninth grade, I got talked into or bribed into being on the high school gymnastics team. I was a tall, skinny kid, and gymnastics was not a thing for me. But the typing teacher told me that if I were to go out for gymnastics for three weeks, that he guaranteed me that I would pass typing. That was just after he had brought my parents in for a conference because he put black cloth over my hand, so I went look at them, and I hit the typewriter. He's like, I tell you, you come out for gymnastics. I promise you'll pass typing. So I went out for gymnastics, and there were some guys on that high school, it was a big school, team that were super strong. I mean, they could do the rings like the iron cross and all this, and there was skinny me. And the only thing that I could really pull off to do for an event was the pommel horse, as far as you know, going up and doing scissors around the horse. And my routine was pretty lame. But I decided that one, I was gonna do the best I could. And two, when the three weeks came, I told the type that said I was gonna quit. And my parents were like, you just can't start things and quit things. I don't think they realized that there was the motivation, the three-week motivation. I don't think they knew anything about that. Maybe that was just something that was between me and the teacher. And I did pass typing, by the way. But uh yeah, so I was on the gymnastics team and I wasn't very good. And I remember that I had to wear these stirrup pants. They had like loops on the feet, but you never connected them before you did the event because when you were going around the Palma horse, you had to keep your legs straight. But for some reason, back in those days with that fabric, that if you stretched out the knees, it made it look like your knees were bent when they weren't. So you learned all sorts of little secrets on how to do your event and routine. And I actually got to do an event at the Team USA Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs when I lived in Colorado, and that was really cool. It didn't make me good at all. I was still a loser in every way, and they gave me some courtesy points for my routine, and there was just no way that I could be a winner at that as far as getting scores, but I could be kind, I could be courteous, I could not like pout after getting a low score. I could lower my expectations, I could honor the coach, I could encourage the team around me. And in that way, even though I really was a loser, I could be a winner. And in our lives, when we think about all the things that we go through and all the difficulties we face, we need to be winners, but we can be winners in God's eyes. The world might see us as losers. The world might see us as fools, actually, spending time in church and praying to the unknown, invisible God and all this stuff people think you're a loser. But in God's eyes, we're a winner. And the question is, when times are hard, when life is difficult, would you rather be a loser in the world's eyes and a winner in God's eyes? Or would you like to do all the worldly stuff and be a winner in God's eyes and lose out what God really has for you? So we've been going through the book of 1 Peter, and 1 Peter was written to a dispersed church, a persecuted church, of people going through all sorts of difficulty in a time when Nero was persecuting Christians, and it wasn't a good thing, a popular thing, an easy thing to be a Christian. And this is whom Peter writes this to. And when we think about our relationships and we think about our life, it's easy to say we love Jesus and everything is great and it's all great. We love people until we get around difficult people that are hard to love. Or it's really easy to say, oh, I just trust that God's in control until we have a real need and things seem to be falling apart and we're waiting on God to answer, or the people around us disappoint us. It's really easy to say, oh, I just trust God with my marriage, and my marriage is so great until you're like in an argument with your spouse or your patient runs thin or things aren't really great with your spouse. So how do you behave in the midst of that? And it's interesting that uh Peter and 1 Peter talks about this and talks about how we can live our lives in different relationships and how we can even endure persecution and how we can go through these things, how we can win by respecting authority. That's the first thing he says, how we can relate to those in power, we can win by serving at home, how we live with those closest to us, and how we can win by blessing others. So I wanted to talk about that. So that would start in 1 Peter chapter 2, verse 13, but to respect authority. So we're talking about the government authorities, we're talking about the authorities at our work, we're talking about the authorities in our life that we might not even 100% agree with the law that they make or the thing that they do, but we can be respectful, we can be known as being kind. We can, and it has happened recently, Christians hitting the streets in large numbers, thousands in the streets, protesting or cheering or standing for their cause, without burning down buildings or setting cars on fire or ruining stores or all the things that people could do, but to to protest, to demonstrate, to march in a godly, respectable way that honors God. And Peter's idea in this passage and in this book is that our priority to be winners is that we want to win lost people to Jesus. We want to help them to understand the God we serve is real and makes a difference in our life. And we want to treat them so well that they think that there's something different about us, that they think that there's something honorable and trustworthy and respectable about us. And at first, maybe they won't understand, but they might start to be interested and ask us why we believe this and what does this mean and how how does this work? So to win by respecting authority. So the verse, 1 Peter 2 13, for the Lord's sake, submit to all human authority, whether the king as head of state or the officials he is appointed. For the king has sent them to punish those who do wrong and to honor those who do right. So he starts out by saying, for the Lord's sake, because we are followers of Jesus, this is what Jesus wants us to do. This is the way that Jesus wants us to act, this is the way that Jesus wants to help us to win lost people to Christ. So it can be a good strategy, it can be a great way to live. So you don't want to be seen as adversarial in a culture like in Nero's time when you had to claim your allegiance to Caesar as Lord and all of those difficult things. You don't want to have your faith and you don't want to be rejected because you're difficult. You don't want to be rejected because you're an adversary. Instead, Peter's gonna say to pray for those who are in authority. So to submit, that can be a loaded word, a military term meaning to arrange yourself under authority. It's a voluntary posture, not forced obedience. It reflects trust that God is in control above every earthly leader. Paul also says that in Romans 13, verse 1, everyone must submit to governing authorities, for all authority comes from God, and those in positions of authority have been placed there by God. So anyone who rebels against authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and they will be punished. Now I know we could have long conversations about this passage and this verse and the things that we're gonna hear, because I don't 100% totally understand this. There are some people in authority, in power in this state and in this country that I definitely don't think should be in. And they are doing nothing to help us move forward. They're not standing for the good of the people or the good of the nation or the good of morality and common sense, and I don't understand how they are in power. But God is working out his perfect plan, and this is what the verse says, so all you can do is deal with it. We take scripture at face value of what it says, and we don't just wipe out the stuff we don't understand and the things that we don't like, but we can vote against, we could vote for other people, we could become somebody in authority, we can do all that we can, we can live our lives in our homes in ways that honor God. But again, when Peter wrote this, Nero was one of the most wicked leaders, burning Christians at the stake. He was mad, he was crazy, he was violent. But this is what the Holy Spirit through Peter says, and so that is what we are to do. Until the government goes beyond what Christ has called us to do, then we stand up and we push back, and then maybe we rebel. Acts 5.29, we must obey God rather than any human authority. So when we're told that we're not supposed to do things that are against God's law, then even Peter says, you know what, push back and we honor God beyond. When told we can't share Jesus, when told we can't preach, we can push back and live for Jesus. So historically, the early Christians lived under suspicion. They were accused of political rebellion because they proclaimed Jesus as Lord, which sounded like disloyalty to Caesar. Peter's call to respectful conduct was both was both theological and practical. Their quiet obedience would protect the gospel's reputation and keep doors open for witnessing, for sharing Christ. Winning in that culture didn't mean overthrowing Rome, it meant reflecting Christ while living under Rome.

SPEAKER_00 11:04

Hang on one second. All right.

Chris T 11:12

It is God's will that your honorable lives should silence those ignorant people who make foolish accusations against you. For you are free, yet you are God's slaves. So don't use your freedom as an excuse to do evil. Respect everyone and love the family of believers, fear God, and respect the king. So if you're to look in the passage before this, Peter talked about how to deal with life when you're a slave, and that was something in that culture that you can look at. But we only have time to cover so much. But this idea of your honorable lives, the word silence means to muzzle. Peter says the best way to silence critics isn't through argument, but through honorable conduct. So when early believers were accused of immorality because they spoke of love feasts, and cannibalism because they spoke of eating Christ's body and blood, like in communion, slanderers were common in the Roman world. Yet Peter urges Christians not to fight rumors with anger, but to live in such upright life, live such upright lives that their behavior speaks well of itself. Jesus said in Matthew 5, 16, in the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father. So we live with integrity, we pay our bills, we pay our taxes, we obey the speed limits the best we can. It's always easy to talk about, but you know, it's sometimes harder to do. I don't know. You are free, yet you are God's slaves. So when Christ bought us, he bought us with a price, and therefore we're supposed to honor God with our body. So we are freed from sin, not freed to sin, and we are supposed to do what's right in God's eyes in every way, and to be respectful. The word respect means to value or esteem. So there's ways that you can push back in a kind way, in a polite way, in a respectful way. There are ways that you can try to change things that are wrong in a kind way. So there's been times where I've had to call Christian lawyers to defend students in schools because their religious rights were being infringed upon. I they told me something that happened at school, at a public school, and I'm like, it is your right to share Jesus as your hero in your report. It is your right to read your Bible at school, it is your right to wear this Christian shirt and whatever. And so Christian lawyers for free would send letters to the school district superintendent, and they always were kind. I was always kind. And I always start with there must be some kind of misunderstanding as to what the rights are of the student in the school. And because I don't know the law 100%, I did ask some Christian attorneys to weigh in, and they are going to send you a letter. And super kind about it, and the letter gets sent, and usually the conversation is, okay, I see what they're saying. I guess we need to do that. And so that's how it carried on. Where we used to live, I always had to have a good rapport and a good relationship with the public school because we rented it for church every Sunday, so you wouldn't want to blow that. But still, there's ways to be kind and honorable and upright and to respect everyone. And then it says love each other with genuine affection and take delight in honoring each other to love the family of believers. And so in this church, and actually in my life since about the year 2001, I've been really focused on this whole worship. It was evangelism, but now we say encouraging, learning and loving. And so that was me. And when I came to the church and they said, What's a good idea for a name? I threw that one out there and I explained to them that I've been using this for 25 years because I know that it works as a compass in my life, in my mind. I know that it works as a way to filter the things in your life. You know, what am I doing? Is it worshipful? Is it encouraging? What can I learn from this? What can I teach someone? How can I show love? How can I show God's love is what I'm doing, loving. And we're told to love the family of believers. And there's so much more that could be said about that. In 1 Timothy 2, verse 1, it says, I urge you, first of all, to pray for all people, ask God to help them, intercede on their behalf, and give thanks for them. Pray this way for kings and all who are in authority so that we can live peaceful and quiet lives marked by godliness and dignity. So to respect the king, to fear God. To fear God means that we honor and esteem and adore our awesome God. So in Nero's empire, emperor worship was expected. People had to declare Jesus or declare Caesar as Lord as an act of political loyalty. Christians refused, confessing instead Jesus is Lord, and many were killed for that confession. Yet Peter still commands believers to live honorably within that system as far as the conscience is allowed. Their peaceful, respectful conduct set them apart. While zealots stirred rebellion and pagans sought pleasure, Christians modeled stability and love. The church won Rome not through swords or protests, but through prayer, patience, and good deeds. So do we do that? Is that the way that we live our lives? Is that the strategy that we choose? Is that the thing that we should do? I think it is, because Scripture says it, and I think that it works. I think it's the way that we win. We might not win in the world's eyes, but we want to win in God's eyes. We want to make sure that we are pleasing the audience of one that our heavenly father is pleased with the way that we were respectful, the way that we carried out maybe even the protests or the things that we spoke of, the things that we pushed back against. And there is that, I want to say that too, that if we allow people to randomly just take our Christian values away, it will be hard to get them back. So when people try to, either by laws or rules or bullying or whatever, try to take things that are ours as Christ followers away, we need to push back and we need to stand up and make sure that doesn't happen. So we need to know that God calls us to influence the culture, but we're not supposed to do it in a manipulative way. We are not to force everything upon people as much as we are to pray and to be kind and to be respectful and to try to work through the right channels. And this could be a really long discussion about what we choose to do and how we choose to do it. And there's all sorts of, you could bring up so many examples of what we need to do and how we need to be more militaristic and all these things. But these are good conversations, but we're just looking at what the passage says, and that's what it says about honoring leaders. Now let's look at what's going on at home. To win by serving at home. This is one of these passages in the Bible that get a lot of people upset, and you'll see why in a minute. But I've tried to figure out, I tried to get some good resources to try to explain what in the world Peter was talking about. So think about your house. Think about the way that you live. It's one thing on the way that you live on the outside. You can put on a good front for everybody that's outside your house. But when people live with you, when you live in a home and people are together all the time, it's really hard to pretend to be somebody you're not. It's really hard to pretend to be kind and caring all the time if you're not. It's really hard to pretend that you're not selfish and difficult when you're not. But Peter says, hey, if you really want to make a difference for Christ, you need to make a difference at home. So he says, in the same way, you wives must accept the authority of your husbands. Then even if some refuse to obey the good news, your godly lives will speak to them without any words, and they will be won over by observing your pure and reverent lives. Let me just read through the whole part of this here. He says, Don't be concerned about the outward beauty of fancy hairstyles, expensive jewelry, or beautiful clothes. You should clothe yourselves and said, with the beauty that comes from within, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit which is so precious to God. This is how the holy women of old made themselves beautiful. They put their trust in God and accepted the authority of their husbands. For instance, Sarah obeyed her husband, Abraham, and called him her master. You are her daughters when you do what is right without fear of what your husbands might do. In the same way, you husbands must give honor to your wives. Treat your wife with understanding as you live together. She may be weaker than you are, but she is your equal partner in God's gift of new life. Treat her as you should, so your prayers won't be hindered. All right. So if you are in a terrible marriage, in a terrible relationship, or if you have an abusive spouse or something, you might look at this fashion and go, yeah, that's not gonna work. And if you are suffering, if you don't feel safe at home, if you are suffering that, maybe you could tell us and we could see if we could get you some help. But the idea is that in this culture, in this time, that a lot of women were coming to Christ and their husbands weren't there yet. They had a lot of unbelieving husbands. And I guess in that culture in that time, those men had a lot of rights over the women, like even an authority to say that they should be killed for something. There just weren't a lot of women's rights in the time. And through the Holy Spirit, Peter shares this strategy for the women that say, be the best wife that you can, be kind to the man, be respectful, do everything you can to make his life better. And you might win him over to Christ. Doing that. So to be one over means to gain or to win a person. In a world where wives had little social power, Peter tells them their lives can be a powerful testimony, a pure and respectful life can accomplish what persuasion cannot through grace and not force. So when a wife is kind to a husband, an unbelieving husband, when he's patient, respectful, he cares for her. He'll want to listen to her. He'll want to think about okay, what is it that you need from me because you're treating me so well? And I don't understand this religion that you've got yourself into. I don't understand this, but I would be willing to listen. I would like to know more. So to accept the authority of your husbands. It makes it sense, makes sense when we look at how Sarah treated Abraham, and I'll get that to a minute, get that kit to that in a minute. But again, when I looked at this passage as I was preparing it, I'm like, all right, we're gonna be in the weeds for a bit. I hope I can explain our way out of it. And then I'm like, wait a second, I don't have to explain our way out of it. It's God's word, and we need to deal with it and try to figure out how it applies to our lives. But if some refuse to obey the good news, to obey the gospel, if some refuse to come to Jesus, says to the women, Your godly lives will speak to them without any words, and they will be won over by observing your pure and reverent lives. Husbands can be won over that way, children can be won over that way, in laws can be won over that way. So this part was easy. Okay, in Roman times, just like Like in our times, some women spent a lot of money to make themselves look beautiful with all the different beauty treatments that we have today and the beauty treatments they had back then. And Peter's like, hey, if you want to be a great wife, if you want to be a godly wife, you don't need to worry about going overboard, making yourself beautiful with expensive jewelry and hairstyles and clothes that you'll be beautiful just by living for Christ, just for your righteousness, just for the person that you are. There's beauty in that. And you can trust and follow that. But the same thing is true today. So there's lots of beautiful women that are beautiful on the inside. It's not their clothes or their style or whatever. And sure, everybody should do everything they can to make themselves look clean and presentable. And that just is honoring the body that God gave you. But to know that the priority isn't to be loved for the way you look or the clothes that you have or the labels that you wear, but to be loved because you are a woman of God. And that is a good thing, a good way to love you, a good way to show love. Alright. So this part about Sarah obeyed her husband Abraham and called him her master. So that was interesting. So I went to the insights commentary, and I'm just going to read part of it. Because then after it said this, it made a lot of sense. Alright, Sarah, the wife of Abraham, became the model of this kind of hopeful and holy submission to her husband. She showed him respect in her words and in her works, which she did without fear. She didn't rebel, lash out, or abandon Abraham so she could do her own thing. She gave him the attention and honor to him as her husband. I realize some reading this may be tempted to cross their arms and respond, okay, but Sarah was married to Abraham, the father of faith. If my husband were a saint like Abraham, I'd gladly follow him wherever he goes. But let's not forget the hard life Sarah had to endure as the wife of Abraham. Think about these things from Sarah's perspective. Her husband claimed to have had visions from God, instructing him to move when they were quite old into a strange land in Genesis 12. Her husband convinced Sarah to pretend to be a sister while they were in Egypt, where the Pharaoh temporarily took Sarah as his wife. She followed her husband's lead when Abraham surrendered the best grazing land to his cousin Lot in Genesis 13. Abraham tried to pass Sarah off as a sister a second time, attracting the attention of Abimelech, king of Gerar, who wanted Sarah as his wife in Genesis 20, and she endured the near sacrifice of her only son Isaac at the hands of Abraham, who claimed God had instructed him to offer Isaac in Genesis 22. From Sarah's perspective, Abraham may have appeared unpredictable, devious, foolish, rash, and irresponsible, and in some cases her estimation of the man would have been quite accurate. Yet Peter tells us in 1 Peter 3 6 Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord, not because of her secure and perfect marriage, but because of her insecure and perfect marriage. Sarah becomes a paragon of submission for all believers. At this point, it would be appropriate for wives to ask themselves some probing questions. Am I looking to saints like Sarah as role models or today's celebrities as trendsetters? Is my husband at the top of my prayer list? Do I put my husband first in my planning? Do I look for ways to honor him? Do I make his life easier or more difficult? These are the kind of questions that would be appropriate. But all right, and then it says, so it talks about all these verses about women. But then it says in the same way, you husbands must give honor to your wives. And if you don't, if you don't, that God will hinder your prayers. If you want to cut off spiritual blessing, if you want to cut off God doing good things in your life, then dishonor your wife. Be mean to your wife. Don't take care of your wife. Don't spend time with your wife. Don't love your wife. And God will let you suffer. And then number three, win by blessing others. Win by blessing others. Finally, all of you should be of one mind. Sympathize with each other. Live, love each other as brothers and sisters, be tenderhearted, and keep a humble attitude. Don't repay evil for evil. Don't retaliate with insults when people insult you. Instead, pay them back with the blessing. This is what God has called you to do, and he will grant you his blessing. And I am going to talk about more of that next week. But would you grab the your bulletin? Inside the bulletin is this church covenant that the people before us had. We condensed them because there were like so many points, and we condensed them down. And I'm not going to read the whole thing, but it's inside your bulletin. And basically, we talked about living in relationship with each other, caring for each other. And so we have praying faithfully as one of them to pray for one another, participate and attend, be faithful in worship, ministry, and fellowship wherever God leads. Promote unity and love. Walk together in Christian love, seeking peace, forgiveness, and reconciliation. Live by God's word, turn from sin, obey scripture, and grow through prayer and devotion. Serve with your gifts. Use the talents and spiritual gifts God has given you to build up his church. Give generously, steward your time, abilities, and financial resources to honor God and support his mission. Teach and evangelize, share God's truth with the next generation, and reach others with the gospel. Support leadership and sound doctrine. Pray for, respect, and encourage spiritual leaders while standing firm in biblical truth. And live with integrity and holiness. Be honest, pure, and kind, reflecting the holiness of the one you serve. And number 10, care for one another, bear each other's burdens with compassion, and live out the love of Christ in every situation. So in your bulletin, you have a longer version with scripture verses that go with it that appear in the church constitution. But basically, if we are going to be winners, we need to be winners in the world in which we live and be kind and respectful to those authorities and while we live for Christ. We need to be winners at home, and we need to make sure that in our families, in our marriages, that we care for each other and we honor each other. And we need to be winners even when people stand against us. Next week we're gonna talk about being leaders.