A message from the series “1 Peter: Standing Firm in this Shaky Life.” Transcript:

In and around Father’s Day this last month, there were many articles appearing in different major news outlets trumpeting a great gender revolution that is happening around us, and they cited the Pew Forums research indicating that there had been a 100% in the number of ‘stay at home dads’ in America along with the corresponding rise in in the number of female primary bread winners. This of course is celebrated with the “We Can Do It,” you know, the World War II poster, “We Can Do It” sort of mentality, among feminist who rejoice in a breakdown of tradition gender roles. But the data actually indicates that there are still only a fraction of stay at home dads compared to stay at home moms, and of the stay at home dads 80% are staying at home because they can’t find work, are in school, or are disabled – not primarily to take care of the children. And so, the statistic is not as relevant as one might think in proving a gender revolution. And just goes to show that our culture is bound and determined to pronounce a moral and gender revolution even if it does not reflect actually how a majority of Americans live. But the fact of the matter is even if our culture still makes some rather tradition family decisions with many more women staying at home to take care of the kids then men, feminist ideology has won the battle for our minds. It’s even made significant inroads into the church. You see the influence of feminism in the different ways that people approach marriage. And so, I’m just going to add an introduction, talk through a couple of different approaches that a number of different couples may have for marriage.
Well the first is a completely secular approach to marriage and it’s the feminist approach to marriage. And in this approach, there is no gender distinction whatsoever. There’s two totally autonomous individuals. In marriage, this often means there are separate bank accounts, there’s personal autonomy, personal space, you just do what feels right for me and you got to stuck up for yourself no matter what. That’s why so many secular psychologists say the main secret to a marriage that lasts is common intrests. Sure, kids and grandkids – that helps, but there is a push in shared activities and passions among the secular marriages in order to keep them faithful and keep them lasting. Things like kayaking, volunteering at the pet shelter, a number of different things – the list can go on and on. And shared activities can indeed be a sweet thing in marriage, can’t they? I’m sure you can attest to that. But it’s hardly a fail proof for a good marriage. Further, there can be great marriages between rather different individuals with few shared hobbies, if any. So important is individual happiness, satisfaction that some who hold this view of marriage are even reporting that affairs are actually good for their marriage. No joke.
There’s an article in May 20th of 2014 posted on CNN, and the title of the article is “How Affairs Make My Marriage Stronger.” It’s really a sad article written by anonymous young mother who was too afraid to use her name – that’s telling something – who indicates that she and her husband both have multiple affairs every year. She expresses a deep fear that their marriage could end in divorce or that their cheating ways could eventually damage their two young boys or their health through sexually transmitted diseases, but she concludes this way: “Most of the time, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be than at home on the floor playing with my son and my husband. But that’s most of the time. One every few weeks, there’s something magical about being out with a man who’s not my husband. Just call it the secret spark that keeps my marriage alive.” That’s a recipe for disaster if you know anything. This conflicted young woman alludes to throughout her entire article, she is not even sure if this is a good thing, and she’s trying to put a positive spin on it in order to do what feels best to her. This of course is the logical conclusion of the feminist worldview, it’s a feminist approach to marriage – each person needs to do what’s best for themselves, stick up for themselves as number one, and do what makes them most happy at any and every given time – what gives them the most satisfaction. Sometimes that means frequent affairs, others it’s a detached roommate like living situation. One thing for sure – this approach is not a recipe for marriage that lasts.
Well, a second approach to marriage is a Christian egalitarian approach. It’s that men and women are equal in every way, like the feminists, and here you have basically a modern secular feminism influencing Biblical interpretation or a Biblical worldview. For virtually 2000 years of Biblical interpretation, the plain meaning of Scriptures have been believed and followed by the church, by men and women. Women and men are created differently, they have different roles, wives are specifically called to submit – that’s clear in our passage which we just read, it’s clear in many other passages in the New Testament and the Old Testament. But since the onset of secular feminism, many have sought to literally liberate these texts from their oppressive, chauvinistic, male dominated interpretations. The same thing is happening with the Bible’s clear teaching on homosexuality today in response to the rapid movement that we find in the culture around us. And so, some flat out call the apostles themselves, Peter, Paul, whoever writes about traditional male and female roles, as chauvinists, as completely wrong, as wrongheaded. They think they just missed the boat entirely. It’s hard to do that without denying the authority of Scripture, isn’t it?
Well other’s, they do hermeneutical acrobatics to make the text say something it never intended to say. Like, “Submission is really implied going both ways in the context of marriage.” Well, if this were the case, that submission is always to go both ways, we’d have to do that with submission in every area, and I don’t think any of us are willing to say that parents should submit to their children, right? That’s not how that works. It’s also nonsense when you look at Ephesians 5:24 which says, “Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to everything to their husbands.” Number one, that’s crystal clear what that’s saying, right? So church submits to Christ, wives should submit to everything to their husbands. Well, if we were to take the opposite of that – that’s heretical – Jesus Christ should not submit to the church, right? That makes absolutely no sense, and that’s because the concept of submission always has to do with an authoritative head and someone else under that authoritative head who submits. [It] doesn’t mean the two entities are not equal, just means there’s an authoritative structure. We recognize that, we understand that. So this is really an untenable position – ignoring the plain meaning of Scripture, but it can have the appearance sometimes of being Biblical because a lot of the times Christian egalitarians will say, “Both men and women equally are made in the image of God.” This is indeed true. They believe that two become one flesh in marriage and that faithfulness in marriage should be the norm and that marriages should last a lifetime. But, there are no distinctions in the roles within marriage under this view. Both have a completely equal say, both submit to each other, at point of disagreement – whoever has the best argument, whoever is most persistent, and whoever has the harshest terms usually gets their way. And frankly, most of the time our women are better at those things than men. I see some chuckles because you know that. The problems compounded after the fall as wives have a desire to rule over their husbands and some do a good job of it. It can work out okay at times during the busyness of raising kids, but as the kids grow up and leave the home, marriages built upon the egalitarian approach struggle to find identity and purpose. Men go through the ‘mid-life crisis,’ right? Women struggle to find themselves as they try and restart their career, and marriages often drift apart as personal, individual identity and happiness becomes each partners little God – their idol. This approach to marriage has resulted in almost as high a divorce rate among professing Christians as non-Christians.
Well, a third approach to marriage that is closer but it’s still not quite the Biblical approach is the ‘Love of Us’ approach. This is the saccharine sweet couple, always oogling and awgling at each other even 30, 40, 50 years into marriage. And in the name of Agape selfless love, they make their marriage ALL about the other person. That can be a good thing to some extent but instead of making decisions based on convictions, what is right, what is Biblical, what is honoring to God, the highest priority in this approach is pleasing my spouse. And so there’s a sense in which pleasing your spouse is like god, and we don’t want that to be the case either. It’s very common for this approach to diminish with time It might last the first two months for some couples, but as the honeymoon period ends often this approach ends as well and there are major problems with misplaced priorities and even idolatry as already mentioned in the ‘Love of Us’ approach.
Well, there’s a fourth approach, and this is, I believe, the Biblical approach and it’s the Christian Complementarianism approach. And this approach teaches that men and women are different by design and are designed to complement one another. This is really God’s approach to marriage and recognizes such passages as Galatians 3:27-28. You can just turn there with me. It’s a passage that some people say doesn’t support this approach, but I believe it does. Galatians 3:27-28, Paul writes this: “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus, and if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.” So what’s the context of there’s no distinction between slave/free, men/women? It’s within the context of salvation, right? God loves men and women equally. Very clearly here, it says that, verse 27: “As many of you have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” You are all one in Christ. God doesn’t look down on the men and say, “I like the men better because they’re the authority and women less.” No, we are equally children of God. Do you love your sons more than your daughters? I would hope not, or your daughters more than your sons. And so, the point of this passage and the complementarianism approach agrees with this, that as far as salvation is concerned, that we are equally precious in God’s eyes. It also reflects the created order in Genesis, chapter 1 which indicates that all humans, male and female, are made equally in the image of God. They’re equally important in God’s eyes. And yet, in spite of our inherent equality, we are still different by design. We complement one another.
God has made men and women different and just like in every relationship, there’s a need for Godly leadership and humble submission. That’s the way your workplaces are structured, that’s the way our nation is structured, we understand that there’s needed structure and balance in every sort of relationship. So this does not mean – [let me] put to bed some of the false ideas of what this could mean – this does not mean that women are to be uneducated, okay? This does not mean that women are to be shackled to the stove cooking and cleaning all day long. This does not mean that women are to never speak their mind or be some sort of door mats. In fact, if a woman were to continue to endure brutal abuse, there may be times when a woman must temporarily leave her husband to protect her and her kids. And this does not mean that men are to be abusive with their authority or use their strength or authority to belittle or diminish wives, but it does mean that God calls every, single one of our marriages to reflect created differences between men and women and women are specifically called to willingly submit to the authority of their husbands. And before you start throwing stones, this is not me, this is the Bible. I want to make this crystal clear. So we’re looking at 1 Peter, chapter 3, 1-6, and as we walk our way through this passage we’re going to see that God has specifically given these roles and commanded us to have these roles to bless us, to bless our marriages and to shape us more into who we are to be. And we’ll see 3 God intended results of submission within marriage.

3 God Intended Results of Submission in Marriage
Now, to the unmarried, I want to take a moment and push pause because you may be tempted to check out right now. You think, “I’m not married. This is one of those sermons that just doesn’t apply to me. I’m going to start thinking about what I’m to have for lunch this afternoon, what I need to get done, and I’ll just start righting a list about that.” Well, let me encourage you that this sermon does apply to you, because many of you, if you’re not married, you may get married in the future. This is very important for you to understand these roles before you’re married. Once you get married, you’re playing catch-up if you do. And even if you’re never to marry, every, single one of us in this room has been affected by marriage, haven’t we? We have friends, we have families, we have parents, right? And so, we need to be able to think rightly in order to help others think rightly about authority and submission in marriage. Alright, well let’s get to work. The first God intended result of submission in marriage is that submission is your gospel witness.

I) Submission is Your Gospel Witness (vv. 1-2)
Submission is your gospel witness and this is found in verses 1 and 2 (1 Peter 3:1-2). Let’s take the very first phrase of verse 1. Peter begins, “Likewise wives, be subject to your own husbands.” Likewise wives, be subject to your own husbands. He starts off with the term ‘likewise’ here and it points back to the previous commands to submit. There’s been several commands throughout this passage, beginning in chapter 2, verse 13, to be subject or to submit to different authority structures. We’ve got citizens to the government. We’ve got servants to masters, and we understood that to mean those who are employees to our bosses. And then we have verse 13, the beginning of verse 13, “Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution.” And so Peter is continuing along this same line to say, “Likewise wives, you also have the responsibility to be subject to your own husbands.” Submission to authority is presented then as God’s design for many areas within life. It of course can be tainted by sin, as we discussed a number of weeks ago, but we must remember that authority and submission are found in sinless creation as what we live in now. You see Adam and Eve, there’s a headship and submission even there before the fall, and it was wonderful and sweet. In the new Creation, the eternal state in heaven, for all eternity there will be authority and submission. We see that in the descriptions found in Revelation and throughout the rest of the Bible. We see headship and submission even within angels. There are some angels who have authority over others and there’s no sin there. We see headship and submission within God Himself and there’s clearly no sin there and you would be committing heresy if you said Jesus was any less God than God the Father. And so, they’re clearly equal and yet, there is a consistent headship and submission role even within the Trinity. So, authority and submission relationships does not mean superiority and inferiority – just a recognition of God’s designed different roles. So it is God who gives us the authority. According to chapter 2, verse 13, “Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution.” Or, as the alternate translation of the ESV says, “Every institution ordained for people.” God has given us these institutions, marriage, workplace, government, for our good. We are called to submit to the authorities that God has put into our lives.
The command ‘to submit’ here means to willing submit yourself. It is not something that you do out of a necessity, begrudgingly, out of an angry heart and a bitter spirit, this is something that you do willingly and you willingly submit yourself to authority and it implies obedience to that authority – honor, respect, service, willingly giving up self-rule – in order to follow God’s given rule. It’s similar to conversion, right? We need to give up living for ourselves to follow God. Well, this is what God has called you to do – to submit to the authorities in your life. As one commentator put it, “It is God who has established such patterns of authority for the orderly functioning of human life, and it both pleases and honor him when we subject ourselves to those authorities.” Another commentator says, “We can submit to authority, whether husband, employer, or government, if we understand that by doing so, we are submitting to the Lord. If we refuse to submit to authority, we’re refusing to submit to Christ. And that is a serious matter.” And so, wives are called with this very serious context to submit to you own husbands. You see that right in verse 1, “Be subject to your own husbands.” Notice it’s not to all men generally, right? It’s specifically to your husbands, if you are married. You’re to give up your will, which you always think is best, and defer to your husband. Now men, part of loving your wives, as we will discuss next week which is an entire week devoted to the male role in marriage, we can and should differ to their preferences, differ to their preferences often, especially with non-consequential things, right? “Where are you going to hang the towels, what soap to buy, what restaurant to eat out at,” all of these different things we should be willing to give up those preferences to our dear wives because we love them and want to serve them. But nonetheless, the ultimate responsibility and ultimate authority is given in the marriage to the husband. Wives, God calls you to specifically willingly follow and submit to your husband’s leadership. This is a frequent command in Scripture, but now Peter gets into some specific results of this submission within marriage.
Let’s look at verse 1: “So that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives. Likewise wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word,” that’s talking about your husband. In other words, if some are not believers in the gospel, “they may be won without a word.” In other words, by the constant nagging of their wives to the sake of the gospel – “by the conduct of their wives.” Now you notice in the middle of verse 1 there, it says, “even if some do not obey the word,” indicates that this is something out of the norm. Unbelieving husband was probably not the norm even within the churches here. Many probably were believers, but regardless, these teachings are pertinent to both situations – to every situation we find ourselves in. Peter uses a play on words here, “the word,” when he says that husbands are not obedient to ‘the word,’ that’s talking about the gospel message found in the Scriptures and that wives are to win their husbands without a word – that’s talking about the incessant nagging which we already mentioned. The main point is that conduct in marriage is the most important part of your testimony to your spouse and to the watching world. It doesn’t matter if they are Christian or not, a good husband or a lousy one, wives have a singular responsibility to their husbands not to force their will but to submit patiently to their husbands. Now here’s the specific conduct we see in verse 2, when they see your respectful and pure conduct that’s the type of life you are to live – respectful and pure. You see, submission requires respect to be given, even when none is earned. There is honor that wives are to show their husbands, but it’s also a vivid display of chaste or purity in the marriage. Marriages should reflect this fidelity that the wife has. The wife should never have any evil intent toward their husband, no selfish motives, no vindictiveness for past wrongs. We tend to remember our wrongs, right? You’ve been wronged – you think, “This is a terrible thing. I’m going to get back at him, and then it’ll come up two, three, four years again in the future.” No, we need to not have that vindictive spirit. Further wives, you should not have a wandering heart that would rather be with another man than your husband. Maybe you would never commit infidelity, but the temptation is real to have a wandering heart – especially when you see the negative aspects of your husband. So not only are wives to submit by following their husbands preferences, but they are to live in a submissive way, honoring both God and their husbands. The end goal is the edification of a believing husband and the salvation of an unbelieving husband.
Now women, you often want to change your husband, right? Does he have some besetting sins that are major blights in his character? I think if we’re honest, you’re living with a sinner and there are going to be things that are going to be wrong that your husband does. Sure, confront him, point out his sin in a loving and gracious way, but most importantly, live in such a way that you are faithfully submitting to him, honor him, follow him, stay committed to him in spite of his faults. Your conduct will speak exponentially louder than constant nagging.
Now, I think Peter chose to speak directly to Christian women married to unbelieving spouses in this case because that is probably the most difficult situations a woman could ever be in especially in the ancient world where women were expected to follow everything their husbands dictated, even religion. The first century historian Plutarch wrote this: “A wife should no acquire her own friends, but should make her husband’s friends her own. The gods are the first and most significant friends. For this reason, it is proper for a wife to recognize only those gods whom her husband worships and to shut the door to superstitious cults and strange superstitions.” Well, Christianity most definitely would have been considered a strange superstition – not unlike today, right? And so, Christian wives who find themselves in this situation, married to an unbeliever, are forced to go against their husband’s wishes to some extent because they have to obey God, they have to go to church, they have to have regular fellowship with other believers because that’s what God requires of them. They have to have a relationship with the God of the Bible, not some fake God. And so, in everything else, as long as it doesn’t go against God’s commands, a wife is to let her conduct be consistently submissive and honoring to her husband. And so, we see that submission is crucial for a women’s testimony, both to an unbelieving husband and to the outside world who sees her faithful Christian life lived out consistently even in her most intimate of relationships.

II) Submission is Your True Beauty (vv. 3-4)
Well, the second God intended result of marriage is this: Submission is your true beauty. Submission is your true beauty. We see this in verses 3 and 4. Verse 3 says this: “Do not let your adjourning be external, the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry or the clothing you wear.” Now, in ancient Greco-Roman world, both men and women often significantly alter their natural appearance. Fads of course would come and go and different types of hair. Braids were all the rage – they would change every so often – and they were changing so frequently that the rich and wealthy in society actually had marble busts made of them with removable hair so that when the next hairstyle came in, ten years later or whatever, they would commission a new hairdo made to put back onto their head. And we often think, “Oh, well the ancient Roman world, they were just – you know – they didn’t wear makeup, they were just normal, plain, everyone.” That’s not the case at all. Hair dye was actually very popular in the ancient Roman world. People would dye their hair black at times. There were times in which blonde hair was the in thing. There were times in which even the most exotic colors, blues and purples, were used. I was surprised to find that out as I did the research this week. And the more wealthy the women, the more likely they were to have expensive jewelry and clothing that would accentuate different parts of their body, whether their necks, ears, eyes, hair, torso, anything. And as odd as it seems, some women it seems took their cues from the fashion trends of the cult prostitutes in various temples. You would think you wouldn’t want to be associated with that, but apparently that was a popular trendsetting force in the ancient world, indicating that fashion trends were anything but modest, right?
The more I read of ancient Rome and the various cosmetics, hair styles, jewelry, and clothing, the more I thought of the recent movies, “The Hunger Games,” right – and the wildly dressed people who lived in the capital. Has anybody seen those movies, read those books, you understand what I’m talking about. It’s a dystopian book that turned into a movie series, and the most wealthy citizens living in the capital live by the mantra that the more bizarre, the more beautiful – the more eccentric, the more beautiful. So, it’s no surprise that Peter warned against the worlds understanding of beauty. If we’re honest, women tend to fall into the same trap today. Maybe not blue hair, I don’t see too many blue hair people out there, but we pursue the world’s definition of beauty rather than God’s definition of beauty. It can really happen at any age, it isn’t just a modesty issue with younger women, although that is a problem. I overheard a couple of women in the grocery store talking about a pair of very specific 200 dollar pair of pants that they bought – they wore two times and they gave away to the thrift store. The woman regretted it now and is now going to purchase the same pair of pants because it needs something to go with an expensive pair of brand name shoes that she also has. But it’s okay because she’s said she’s gone down two sizes since then and so it’s okay to buy a new pair of pants – she would have had to anyway. It’s amazing what you here when you’re standing in line at a grocery store.
Now for some, pursuing the latest fashions is just an issue of poor stewardship. It’s probably not the wisest thing to spend 200 dollars on a pair of pants every year and to go with your 250 dollar pair of shoes that you buy every year. Inordinate amounts of money are spent on other things that are fashion related, aren’t they? Manicures, pedicures, hair appointments, hair coloring, hair products, cosmetics, they’re expensive. You got to go to Macy’s – do you realize how much those things cost? Jewelry, clothing, yes, some of you men fall into this category while you spend way too much on certain articles of clothing. For others, it’s an issue of modesty though. Women, please understand that part of being chaste and pure in conduct is not advertising what your body looks like in vivid detail. A good principle to go by is to avoid the grey areas, avoid the shirt, the skirt, and the dresses that are questionable. I don’t see much of a problem here in this church and I praise God for that, but you will have relationships with those who do have problems with that and so if you do, recognize that principle. My wife often tells me it can be hard to find modest clothes and that often she has to wear an extra undershirt or a sweater, or leggings in order to make an article of clothing appropriate or more modest.
Now, this verse of course is not teaching that you literally cannot braid your hair or you literally cannot wear jewelry – if that were the case then women literally then could not wear clothes, okay? That’s not what this verse is talking about. So yes, women, you can and should groom yourselves, you can and should dress appropriately as women. Peter’s point is these outer signs of beauty should not be pursued as an idol. These outer signs of beauty should not be pursued in excess, because ultimately outer beauty is not a women’s true source of beauty. We see in verse four that God looks at the heart and if we’re honest, husbands look at the heart as well. That’s why so many marriages to supermodels, that’s why so many marriages within the entertainment industry fall apart so quickly – it’s based on simply the lust of a good looking person married to another good looking person – that fades. The world understands that. True beauty is from within.
That’s what verse four says; look down at the text with me: “But let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit which in God’s sight is very precious.” So what ‘your adorning’ here means again, as it did in verse three, what you put on as your true source of beauty. If you’re putting on as your true source of beauty your makeup, your clothes, your jewelry, your hairstyle, you’ve missed the point. Your true source of beauty should be the hidden person of the heart – the person within, the person that we are, the person that will last even as beauty fades even when we get older – it’s specifically talking about a gentle and quiet spirit. Your beauty is your submissive spirit. The two specific qualities that are highlighted is your gentle and your quiet spirit. ‘Gentleness’ here, or meekness, is not insistent on one’s own way or on your own rights, not pushy, not selfishly assertive, not demanding that you get what you want or else. ‘Quiet’ here is talking about, likewise not drawing attention to yourself. It’s not overtly opinionated about absolutely everything, in every context you feel like you need to voice your opinion and you need to make sure that you are right and everyone hears you. So coming from the context, we understand that quietness is a speech which honors your husband. So these two character traits are the exact opposite of pursuing attention and praise for your outer good looks. That’s why he draws the distinction here. Women, when they pursue the world’s understanding of beauty are focused on what they look like on the outside and God here tells us that you should be pursuing a gentle and quite spirit.
If we’re honest, this sort of humility, this sort of others focused is hard, especially within the context of marriage when you look over at the underserved slob who pours chip crumbs into the couch cushions. It’s exactly, though, what God has called us to do – to submit to our husbands, even if they are not worth it. Respect, honor, obey, follow your boss at work, the government, even your husband. Remember your boss at work; you are to submit to them, even if they have it out for you, even if they continue to abuse you in all sorts of ways. Look at what verse 18 and 19 say, “Servants, be subject to your master with all respect, not only to the good and the gently, but also to the unjust.” The same principle here is now applied to a marriage. It’s assumed that an unbelieving spouse is an unjust spouse. He’s not a good husband, and yet what does Peter call them to do? Submit to them nonetheless. Honor them, respect them, obey, follow, give your preference to your husband even if they are unbelievers. These are hard teachings, but they are God’s teachings. Women who follow God’s will in this manner are adorned then with the beauty that will never ever fade. As in God’s sights – what does it say in the end of verse 4? – God’s sight, they are very precious – very precious. So let me ask you – are you seeking to live in such a way that your conduct is precious to God or so that you can get what you want?

III) Submission is Your Key to Fighting Fear (vv. 5-6)
Well, the third God intended result of submission in marriage is submission is your key to fighting fear. We see that in verse 5 and 6 as Sarah is put forward as a model. There’s a TV show that has been on for 11 years, it’s called America’s Next Top Model. Of course, the goal is to find a beautiful young [woman] who will pose for magazines, fashion shows, and the like, but you ever think of why they call those people models? Supposedly, they are to be a model for others to follow, to aspire to to some extent. When you ask yourself; “Well are they model citizens? Well, maybe. Are these model women? Well, most are actually quite younger girls more like it. Are they model of intellect? Well, I’m sure some are smart, I wouldn’t say all of them.” The world would say of course, “No, they’re models of beauty.” But they sure aren’t models of modesty, right? Many who would be hard pressed to identify themselves as models of purity, and yet how many Christian women sadly look to models as an example to follow to some degree to another? The Bible has some wonderful examples of God honoring inner beauty women. That’s exactly where Peter goes next. He says, “Don’t think about the world as your model. Don’t think about the models out there. Think about the women that have lived to honor God.” And so that’s what he says in verse 5. He says, “For this is how the holy women,” many different types of women – Ruth, Esther, there’s many women in the Bible, “who hoped in God and used to adorn themselves by submitting to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord.” More than just Sarah is an example, as we just mentioned, the holy women who sought to submit to their husbands, but Sarah is just one specific example that he wants to call our mind to. Now it’s a rather strange example in today’s society because what does Peter point out? – She calls him lord. So husbands, how many of your wives call you lord? Not too many and I don’t think they are about to start anytime soon. And that’s okay; it really is, trust me because this is taken from Genesis 18:12. It’s a rather obscure passage and it’s talking in that context where Genesis 18, Yahweh comes to visit Abraham and he promises the son will be born to them and Sarah overhears a son is going to be born to Abraham and Sarah and she laughs out loud and says offhandedly, “After I am worn out, and my lord is old, shall I have pleasure and bear a child?” It’s not the pinnacle of Sarah’s faith in God, but nonetheless she has respect for her husband and in that culture in that time it was appropriate for her to call her husband lord as a sign of respect – a title of respect that demonstrated her submission to him. And so when Sarah, we have an imperfect model, but a model nonetheless, that women everywhere should follow. Showing honor to and submitting to an imperfect husband as every wife is called to do.
Now notice the conclusion in verse 6, “And you are her children if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening.” Look, our culture says one of the most frightening things is to submit to your spouse. There’s intense pressure for women to conform to the feminist ideology, isn’t there? “You need to stick up for yourself; you need to make sure that you get what you want. You need to make sure that you have a career because that is how you’re going to find your greatest identity and self-worth.” That is what the culture says, that is not what the Bible says. “Stick up for yourself, live for yourself, stay married as long as it is good for you and as long as it makes you feel good, and most definitely do not stay in any relationship that you deem to be damaging to what you want to do.” Well, the world is right – submission, humility – it’s frightening because you don’t have control especially if your husband is an unbeliever, but that doesn’t change what God has called you to do. See, wives are to do what is right, or in this passage, “to do good,” to submit and do not let fears or anxieties dictate or provide license for further sinful actions within your marriage. How in the world though, can we do this? Look at the beginning of verse 5: “For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves.” It’s all about your hope in God. If you hope in God and trust that God is not going to lead you astray, that God’s Word is how He’s called you to live, and that He wants what’s best for you and has planned what is best for you, then you’re going to follow what He wants you to do – even if it’s frightening.
Look, there’s no way, humanly speaking, to will yourself to submit to your imperfect husband. Your ultimate motivation to submit is because you trust and hope in God, and you have hope that He is commanding you to do what is best for you. He always has and He always will.
The church father, Augustine of Hippo, is one of the most influential theologians in history and he wrote an autobiography called Confessions and it is written as a prayer from God – really interesting book, I encourage you to read that. It’s an engaging read although it’s 1600 years old. Now, amidst the tales of God’s mighty work in his only life, he gives a moving tribute to his faithful mother, Monica, who was instrumental in bringing her unbelieving husband to faith in Jesus Christ. Augustine describes his mother’s role with his father in these words: “She served her husband as her master and did all she could to win him for You. Speaking to him of You of, by her conduct, by which You made her beautiful. Finally, when her husband was at the end of his earthly span, she gained him for You.” Augustine further describes intense emotional, and even physical abuse, that his father doled out on his wife, yet Monica’s faithful love, submission, and faithful honor eventually brought him to his knees before his Creator. What a wonderful picture of a woman who endured much in the hands of a terrible husband and eventually was God’s instrument in bringing her unbearable husband to a right relationship with his Creator.
That is just one story of the power of submission in the life of an unequally yoked couple. There are countless others out there where a loving, submissive wife has been the catalyst to restoring marriages on the rocks, where a loving, submissive wife has been instrumental in maintaining a sweet, Christ reflecting marriage for 40, 60, 70 years. So, submission is God’s key to successful marriage. Next week we will address God’s instructions to men as we see man’s role in living a successful marriage.
Let’s pray: God, we thank you for giving us your word. We know that this is indeed a very hard passage to work through. This is a passage that none of us want to do – that we fight against in our flesh in all that we are. I pray for the wives and the women in this congregation that you would give them boldness and the ability to follow you and not fear what might happen to them, but continue to trust in you that you have called them to do what you want them to do because you want what’s best for them, and even what’s best for their husband. And so, I pray that you would give the women of our church the strength to do that and strength to give that very counsel to those they have the opportunity to counsel. Lord, I thank you also for the reflection of submission that we see in the Trinity. What a privilege it is to see how perfect submission can be worked out and that we rejoice in the fact that we can know you and God the Father through your son and that the Holy Spirit awakens our hearts, quickens us to love and to serve you in a greater and greater way every day. We thank you for that relationship that we have with you and for the even headship and submission that is reflected there. We pray that you would help us to be those, especially now men too, who love our wives and do not treat their submission with an expectation or would be in anyway abusive. I pray that you would help us who loving guide and direct those you put into our charge. We thank you and pray all these things in your son’s holy and precious name. Amen.

A message from the series “1 Peter: Standing Firm in this Shaky Life.” 2 Responses to Jesus that the World Must Learn

Transcript:

[?] You see, there are vast numbers of documents dating from the first and the second centuries spreading all over a wide range of geographical regions that prove beyond reasonable doubt that what is recorded in Scripture is accurate eye-witness testimony to exactly what Jesus said and did. No other ancient literature comes even close to what we have in the Bible. So, there is no reason to doubt the Word of God and when you encounter the Jesus of the Bible, you realize that He left us no option to see Him as a good teacher, a wise revolutionary, or some sage that produces enlightenment.
C.S. Lewis wrote this in Mere Christianity: He said:
I’m trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: “I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God.” That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic – on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg – or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.
So, there you have it. As famously has been stated, Jesus is either a liar, a lunatic, or is the Lord. And yet a majority of the people see Jesus as none of these three, don’t they? You ask somebody on the street, you ask your neighbor what they think of Jesus and they think that He is a ‘nice man’ and ultimately think that because they have never been confronted with the Jesus of the Bible.
A celebrated scholar came to a seminary to read a paper, as is common practice in seminaries and academia, they address some finer minutia of some esoteric part of theology that at best seems to shed some minimal light on the person or work of Jesus. Well, this particular paper was very interesting, because the visiting professor, the visiting scholar, came and this is what he did: He began to recite a list of titles: ‘Messiah, Savior, Lord, Son of David, Son of Man, Son of God, Bright and Morning Star, The Rose of Sharyn, Emmanuel…’ and he continued like this for 30 to 40 minutes, reciting this litany of titles ascribed to Jesus in the New Testament. To the people there it was overwhelming. Brothers and sisters, too often we take lightly the idea of Jesus as Lord, the One lightly given a plethora of lordly titles. And if honest, most of us are lucky to name five of His titles. Just do it in your head real quick. But 30 or 40 minutes of titles for Jesus’ name is an immense weight of evidence that Jesus is the Lord of Lords and King of Kings. And if Jesus is truly Lord, then we must bow down to Him as Lord, give our lives to Him and serve Him and Him alone with our whole lives. We must turn from living for ourselves as lord and serve Him as Lord. This summary response to the gospel message is given by Jesus Himself in Mark 1:15, He says, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” And if you read through the gospels, you see Jesus say, “I am the prophesied Messiah, the Lord of Lords, God, very God. And as God, I know that every single one of you has a terrible problem; you are slaves to sin.” Every single one of us are slaves to sin. And he would say, “You are prideful. You are lustful. You are angry. You are liars at heart – all deserving of God’s eternal punishment.” And Jesus would also say, “I have come to save you from these sins and their terrible consequences, eternal punishment – but you must repent. You must turn from living for King You and believe that I am whom I say I am – the true King – that I came to die as a substitute for you, to take God’s wrath in your place so you can be forgiven of all your sins. You need to repent and believe, turn and trust.”
These two responses are simultaneously the simplest and hardest of responses, aren’t they? It’s just two things, just two simple responses, but our hearts wage war against it every day. We don’t want to give up living for ourselves. We don’t want to submit ourselves to God to what He would have us do. And so what is rather simple, something that a child can do, and yet something that we will struggle with for our entire lives, but it’s the only response that saves. It’s the only way that we can have assurance of our eternal life. That is what the Lord of the universe requires, and that is what we must do. And so you can see these to focal points in our passage today. As Peter’s main point can be summarized in “repent and believe.” And these are the two hooks that we are going to hang our thoughts on this morning, two responses to Jesus that the whole world must learn if they want to be a Christian. And these are two responses that every Christian should know in their hearts and have responded to Jesus already.
2 Responses that the Whole World Must Learn

First, we are to imitate Jesus or repent. And second, we are to cherish Jesus, both His work and His person, and trust and believe in Him in all that He says. Well, he sets it all up for us in verse 21. 21 is kind of an introduction to 22-25, so we’re going to look at this first before we get into our main points in the following verses. Well, Peter begins in verse 21, he says, “For to this you have called.” Now if you remember from a couple of weeks ago, we looked at the previous passage – remember, to what we’ve been called is talking about? “To this,” what’s the context talking about? It’s suffering. “To this,” this unjust suffering, this persecution you have been called. Let me recall your minds what he says in verses 18 and 19. He says, “Servants,” speaking of kind of workplace relationships with your boss, “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. It’s a gift to you, when mindful of God, that one endures sorrows when suffering unjustly.” So, submitting to your authority at work, even if there’s a great degree of injustice going on and a great degree of persecution going on, we need to be those who submit to the authorities that God puts in our lives even at work. And notice, it is this suffering to which we’ve been “called” according to verse 21, right? “For to this you have been called…” Look, we like it when God says that we’ve been called to receive the glories of salvation, that we’ve been called out of darkness into His precious light – we love that sort of calling. That’s what he says in chapter 2, verse 9, “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into marvelous light.” We love that sort of calling, but we don’t love the fact that God has also called each and every one us to suffer. He’s called us to suffer. This is exactly what Peter is teaching here. And as terrible as it is to suffer with the very real emotional turmoil that accompanies rejection, that accompanies slander and abuse, we need to look at what Peter is saying and trust that God has called us, as Christians, to go through exactly what you and what I are going through at all times. That includes suffering. It’s all a part of God’s sovereign plan.
Just as He has called us to glorification and to have a future reward, so too God has called you to suffer. He even calls it a gracious gift according to verse 19 – a wonderful thing that He gives you – as God often uses suffering to mold us into His image, right? To make us more like Christ. Now, of course suffering is to make us more holy is not what Jesus experienced, right? Because Jesus was holy, he was perfect, and yet Jesus suffered nonetheless. And so we see Jesus put forward as an example in verse 21, because Christ also suffered for you – “leaving you an example that you might follow Him.” Christ’s suffering wasn’t for His growth, He was perfect. Christ’s suffering was entirely for you. Your suffering in some sense then is more bearable. It’s how God is working in your life. It’s a good thing for you to have suffering and for Christ, well His suffering wasn’t for Him at all, it was for each and every one of us, that His enemies, totally undeserved sinners, those who are prideful, who are lustful, who are murderers at heart. This is central to the glorious gospel message that we believe. We cherish Jesus’ suffering on the cross for our behalf. We believe that Jesus literally died, that He rose again, bearing the weight of God’s punishment for each and every one of us and each and every one of our sins and giving us the blessed hope of a new and eternal life. This is what we believe and what we highlighted in our passage in 24 and 25, but simply believing these facts to be true and continuing to live with ‘King You’ on your throne is not the end of our response. God requires you to make King Jesus king of your life and to follow in His steps. That’s why he says at the end of 21, “He sent Christ, leaving you an example that you might follow in His steps.”
The word ‘example’ is a rather interesting word here. It’s a word that is used in Greek literature to describe the letters that would be lightly written for school-age children to trace over when they’re learning how to write their letters. My son is in that stage right now, he’s learning to write his name and Leah will make little dotted lines to put his ‘e’ down and do that. When he first started doing that, it didn’t look like anything remotely close to an ‘e…’ [He had] no control over his pencil and [would] make a long line here. It didn’t look like anything, he wasn’t even coming close to following that line and in little by little over time, he’s getting more and more control and he’s able to follow that line. He’s far from perfect, he still has some of his shapes, but you see then that this example is becoming easier and easier for him to follow. Well, Jesus and His life is that dotted line that we must trace our lives over. When we first become Christians, we’re all over the place, just like my son. We’re making a long line and nowhere near the dotted line of Jesus’ life, and as we grow and as we mature the closer we stay to our perfect example that we have in Jesus. And so, your life must be transformed as you seek to serve Jesus as King, and you recognize according to Jesus’ life and according to His example we see that Jesus willingly suffered. That means that we should willingly suffer. We see that Jesus submitted to authority, even unjust authority. I mean, when we look at Jesus we see that His suffering and persecution was viewed by Him as a gift from the Father, all a part of God’s righteous plan. And He did all of it without anger or malice. And so we ought to be those who trace our lives along the pattern that we see in Jesus Christ. And that’s our first point that we see in verses 22 and 23.

I) Imitate Jesus, your Perfect Example in Suffering (vv. 22-23)
Peter continues this point, explaining further what it means to follow in Jesus’s steps, and that first point is: Imitate Jesus, your perfect example in suffering. Imitate Jesus, your perfect example in suffering. This is a real practical illustration of what it looks like to repent. Verse 22 and 23 say this, “Jesus committed no sin, neither was deceit found in His mouth. When He was reviled, he did not revile in return. When He suffered, He did not threaten, but continued entrusting Himself to He who judges justly.” Well, the first verse he says, “He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in His mouth.” This is really a summary statement of Jesus’s holy life. He says there is no sin in His whole life, but why bring up the issue of deceit here? Why bring up the issue, well there was no deceit found in His mouth? Well, James reveals why this is so important. Look at James, chapter 3, verse 2 (James 3:2). Go back, it’s one book to the left. You can just look with me – James 3, verse 2. James speaks of the tongue like this: “For we all stumble in many ways and if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man able also to bridle his whole body.” So you see here, when Peter wants to draw an example of Jesus’s perfection, he says, “You know what? He’s perfect in what He says. There’s no deceit found in His mouth whatsoever.” And that’s a perfect example because out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. And if we knew that Jesus was perfect we would expect that His mouth and His sayings and His words were also perfect as well. And so, it makes sense that he brings on this contrast and this parallel to Jesus’s mouth and His speech.
Well, honest for us deceit of the mouth is a constant struggle, isn’t it? Sometimes we tell outright lies, other times we twist the truth, present truth in such a way you look pretty good – maybe not as bad as you really are. Deceit is very common among us and it reveals a sinful heart. This is not so in Jesus because there was no deceit in His mouth. And so, if there is no deceit, He is a perfect man as James says. Makes sense then that Peter too says that He committed no sin – zero sin was found in the life of Jesus. He was absolutely perfect. You see, even many of Jesus’s detractors recognize that Jesus was perfect. You think of Judas in Matthew 27:4, Judas, the man who betrayed Jesus, the disciple, he became convinced that he betrayed an innocent man. You look at Pilate. Pilate, the one who allowed Jesus to be sentence to death, he said, “I find this man to be innocent,” according to John 18:38. Jesus Himself asked, “Can any of you prove me guilt of any sin,” in John 8:46. And then we see the epistles, the Apostle John the Apostle Paul, explicitly say that Jesus was without sin whatsoever. Yet, we are called to follow Him as our example. Now think about that. It’s a little bit overwhelming, isn’t it? We are sinners by nature, just look at the deceit found in our mouth. That’s one sin issue. So, it’s overwhelming to be called to be perfect. That’s your example – perfection – thanks. I’m not going to get there. How can we have sinlessness as an example to follow and we are so prone to sin? Well, of course it’s impossible for us and we will never achieve sinlessness in this life, but we must understand that God didn’t create Adam and Eve, our forefathers, to sin, right? They were created without sin and that is the created ideal for every single human being – an ideal that will become a reality for all eternity if you’re in Christ. We’re given a new body that will last forever, in which we will never struggle with sin. That’s a wonderful, blessed promise that each and every one of us who are Christians have. And in Heaven, we will return to this to this ideal created order. The Bible, here and repeatedly though, calls Christians to pursue ‘kingdom living’ here and now. In other words, we should pursue now how we will live for all eternity. Of course we will fail, but it doesn’t mean that that isn’t our goal. Our goal and our pattern in this life is to become more and more holy, and just like my son who starts out all over the place tracing his letters, as we grow in Christ we’ll become closer and closer to that perfection. Sure, we’ll never get there now, but as we grow, that’s our goal – perfection like Jesus. So in that sense, Jesus is our perfect example to follow.
In verse 23, Peter continues to give some concrete examples from the life of Christ that we need to imitate in our lives, especially as we face persecution. Here’s what he says in verse 23, “When He was reviled, He did not revile in return. When He suffered, He did not threaten.” Now this first word, ‘revile,’ that is used here is ‘to use vile and abusive language.’ And that’s what it means, to use completely abusive and vile language. It can include all sorts of slanderous talk, false accusations, yet nothing even remotely similar to that came from Jesus. See, Jesus was reviled throughout His ministry, He was called a ‘spawn of Satan,’ He was called all sorts of terrible things, and yet He exercised supernatural strength that we must learn put on as well. Let us not revile back when we are reviled. People will say all sorts of mean things against you. We know that to be true if you’re honest and lived for any length of time, you know that someone will say something against you that is either not true or incredibly mean and incredibly hurtful. Our response as Christians is to not say and respond in return with vile, slanderous talk. Remember, Peter also knew all of these things about Jesus because he saw it firsthand. He saw Jesus get reviled and in response say nothing. Further, [it] wasn’t just verbal abuse that Jesus suffered, but Jesus suffered physical abuse and in response to that physical abuse, He didn’t even threaten anybody. That’s amazing supernatural restraint.
Now, if you were paying attention and thinking about some cross-references as we read our passage and you know your Old Testament well, you would recognize that this passage is very similar to a certain Old Testament passage. Pretty similar to Isaiah 53, isn’t it? So, I want you to turn to Isaiah 53 because we’re going to look at that wonderful chapter as it reveals some of these similar truths that we find Peter addressing in our passage, and they’ll say it in a different way and in a more expanded way. And so I think it’s very helpful for us to see what Peter was thinking of while he was writing this text. And so, looking at Isaiah 53, we’re going to first look at verse 9 – Isaiah 53:9. This is very similar to what Peter had just written in verse 22. Isaiah 53, verse 9 says this: “And they made His grave with the wicked and with the rich man in His death, although He had done no violence and there was no deceit in His mouth.” So, Jesus had not responded in violence and there was nothing wrong that he had done, and yet He was called a wicked, terrible sinner, given a death deserving for the most vile of sinners. Now, similar to verse 23, parallel to verse 23, we see verse 7 of Isaiah 53 (Isaiah 53:7). Isaiah writes this: “He was oppressed and He was afflicted, and yet He opened not His mouth, like the lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shears are silenced, so He opened not His mouth.” We’re reminded only that Jesus not retaliate, not only did He not threaten in response to suffering and to abuse, not only did He not respond in vile talk to the vile talk that was given against Him, but Jesus didn’t even open His mouth. He didn’t even defend Himself, and ultimately we see this is the case because according to verse 10, Jesus knew that it was the will of God. You see verse 10 says, “Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush Him. He has put Him to grief, when His soul makes an offering for guilt he shall see His offspring, He shall prolong His days. The will of the Lord shall prosper in His hand.” He knew that all of this suffering, all of these terrible things that He was about to suffer and that He did suffer, it’s all God’s plan. Reminds us of verse 21 in 1 Peter, doesn’t it? You’re called to suffer. It’s all a part of God’s plan. And so Christian, as you remember these truths, as you remember these things that you are called to suffer, we should be those who do not revile in return, who do not threaten when we are harmed, and follow Christ’s perfect example.
Now, with the World Cup going on right now, a soccer illustration is apropos, right? Zidane, the French Midfielder, had an illustrious career and he helped lead France to a World Cup Championship in 1998 during the prime of his career, I believe he was 26 years old at the time. Well you fast forward to the year 2006 and now Zidane is a 34 year old who is recently retired and the French coach begs him to return because France is having a hard time even qualifying for the World Cup. And so Zidane [agrees] to his request and returns to the French national team, and through his great play France qualifies for the World Cup. Well, most people see Zidane as over the hill in soccer years at least, and see him as not capable as leading the French national team to another World Cup Championship. Well, in the tournament, Zidane rose even higher than anybody came close to expecting. He led his team all the way to the championship match with Italy and before the match, he was actually awarded the Golden Ball, I didn’t know this trophy existed, shows you how much of a soccer fan I am, indicating that Zidane was the best player of the entire tournament. And so, the stage was set for an amazing finale for a great career. And in the final match, Zidane actually scored the very first goal and France seemed on its way to another championship with Zidane at the helm, but the Italian defender, Materazzi, played Zidane very aggressively and constantly was seen talking trash to the Frenchman throughout the entire match. Well, the match was getting tense as Italy scored a goal to tie it, and towards the end of the game the score was still tied and Materazzi had one final word to say to Zidane and it was the last straw. He lost it – completely. Zidane head-butted his opponent and knocked him to the ground. Zidane was of course given a red card, which means he was ejected from the rest of the game and he didn’t get to play in the final minutes of the championship game. It would be Zidane’s final play of his career.
As hard as it is to control your temper when provoked, Christians are called to pursue peace when provoked – in every situation, right? I don’t want to leave you hanging, Italy ended up winning if you don’t remember. And Zidane would be known in infamy for that head-butt. Are we those who lose control when people revile us? I know I’m tempted to. When someone says something to you at work, when someone says something to – your family members say something to you – those especially hurt. Are we tempted to lose control? We must remember that our Lord Jesus was provoked beyond what any of us will ever experience. Just consider His final night. Think about this with me. He eats His final meal with a man that He knows will betray Him and all He really does is encourages him to go quickly. Jesus could of easily stopped everything right there, restrain Judas, told the other the details of his plan – but He didn’t. Then Jesus goes to the garden of Gethsemane, exactly where he knows Judas will be going to find Him. And a group comes with clubs and torches to arrest Him. And when Peter the Apostle tries to fight back, He stops him and He heals the injured man and He willingly goes with the mob to be put on trial.
Now, He goes on trial here and it’s not an accident that this trial was in the middle of the night. This really wasn’t about justice; this supposed trial was more akin to plotting a murder than an actual trial. You see, everything about Jesus’s trial was actually illegal. According to Jewish law, the middle of the night was not when you were supposed to have a trial. In fact, swift same day punishment was not the way things were supposed to be carried out and there were no corroborating witnesses at Jesus’ trial as well, only planted witnesses – the Pharisees and the Sadducees paid off. Yet, through it all, Jesus does not revile in return. His mouth remains silent. Then Jesus is handed over to be scourged. We often think of like a whip, something that we might find in the western movies, but that’s not a Roman scourging was. It was the Roman flagrum. It’s several leather strands extruding from the end and the end of those strands were weighted, lead balls, bone, hooks, all designed to rip open the flesh and to inflict maximum pain and maximum bodily damage. We know that the Jews required a maximum of 39 lashes, but we also know that the Romans didn’t hold to that, so we’re not sure how many lashes Jesus had, but He sure had a lot. Nothing was held back in a Roman scourging. The ancient historian, Eusebius of Caesarea, recounts in vivid, terrible detail a scone of scourging. He writes, “The bystanders were struck with amazement when they saw them lacerated with scourges even to the innermost veins and arteries, so that the hidden inward parts of the body, both their bowel and their members, were exposed to view.” And then, on top of this, the Roman soldiers beat Jesus further, mocked Him, put a crown of thorns on His brow, and he still did not return the insults. After this, He was crucified. He was required to carry part of His cross through the city to Golgotha, and even though He was beaten, even though He had been humiliated, and possibly on the brink of losing His consciousness with such great loss of blood, which undoubtedly had already happened, there’s no doubt that He was unable to carry the large beam of wood, as someone who was encouraged, Simon of Cyrene was taken to help Him carry that. Then once He got to Golgotha, Jesus was placed on the cross where He would suffer a slow, painful death by asphyxiation, or suffocating to death. Over hours as His strength fade – the way crucifixion worked was that you died because you could no longer lift yourself up as you are hanging on the cross, your body could no longer lift itself up to fill your lungs up with air and so you ended up suffocating to death as you were tired and worn out. It’s typical for those crucified to hurl insults back at the crowds gathered below, to spit on them and as grotesque as it is, even to urinate on them. It was a completely despicable, terrible scene. But Jesus said, “Father, forgive them.” How could this be? Are we to be so patient, so longsuffering? I need help and I need great insight to know how I could possibly imitate Jesus on this crucial point. How in the world could I ever do what Jesus did and not respond in retaliation?
Well, Peter gives us an insight – put something in Isaiah 53 because we’ll come back there in a little bit – the end of verse 23. Peter says this: “He suffered and He did not threaten, but continued entrusting Himself to Him who judges justly.” You see, it’s not about exacting revenge. We don’t need to get even. He trusted that it was God who is the one who is going to judge. Romans 12:9 says this: “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay says the Lord.” That allows Paul also to say, according to verse 18 of that same passage, “If possible so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.” I don’t care what they’re doing against you, I don’t care what sort of suffering, what sort of insults are going on in your life, we are to pursue peace with all, entrusting ourselves to God who ultimately will judge.
So do you trust God to ultimately judge? Are you willing to suffer unjustly as Jesus did? Do you pursue peace with everybody? If not, this is sin. We all must repent of this sin and when we do, this is part of what makes us Christians; we are to imitate our Lord Jesus. And we will fail, we’ll revile in return, we’ll threaten when we’re in the midst of suffering, but when we do and when you fail, if you’re a Christian, you’re going to hate your sin and you’re going to turn from that sin and you’re going to say, “God, please forgive me.” And so, I’m begging you now, before God do that. Ask God to forgive you of those times in which you revile in return to being reviled. That’s what it means to live a repentant life. When you fail you turn from that sin and turn back to God. This is central to the gospel message. Christians are to be those who constantly are living a life of repentance. But we are also living a life of faith and settled trust in Jesus, and that’s our second point that we’ll see in verses 24 and 25.
II) Cherish Jesus, your Substitute Sufferer (vv.24-25)
Second point is: Cherish Jesus, you substitute sufferer. Cherish Jesus, your substitute sufferer. We see in verse 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.” Well, he begins here, “He Himself bore our sins in his body on the tree,” and we read “bore our sins,” and if we’re honest, it’s rather archaic language. Not many of you use the term ‘bore’ in that sense any longer and it’s familiar maybe in the church but when pressed, we might need to be reminded of what this is exactly referring to. So, it’s helpful to define it. It’s to take a burden off of someone else. You’re going to bare that burden for them. Let me give you a real helpful illustration: If someone wanted to bare my home debt, what they would do is they would pay of my mortgage, pay for any repairs, do the repairs, completely take over the burden for all of these things out of my hands and then give me back the perfect property, paid for home. There’s a signup sheet in the back east foyer if you’re interested in doing that. It’s exactly what Jesus did though. He bore all of the punishment for our sins, then turned around and gave you a perfect righteousness and eternal life. That’s amazing grace.
Now, it says that He “bore our sins in his body on the tree.” It doesn’t say cross, there’s a different word for ‘cross.’ That’s because in talking about the word ‘tree’ here, he’s referring to Deuteronomy 21:23, a common New Testament cross reference that says, “All who hang upon the tree are seen as cursed by God.” This provides an important insight into Peter’s thinking here. As terrible as physical pain of crucifixion was, that we just talked about, that was only the tip of the iceberg. You see, Jesus endured God cursing Him for our sin. You see, the cup of God’s wrath was poured out on Jesus as God was cursing His Son. You see, the Father abandoned His son, the punishment that was due every single one of us and every single one of our sins was placed squarely on Jesus. This aspect of suffering was far worse than the physical pain and torture suffered on the cross and why ultimately Jesus was able to pay the penalty for our sins, because He took God’s curse, God’s punishment for all of our sins in Himself. And ultimately why did He have to do this? Why did He have to suffer the curse of God? Because we’re unable to. Those who, in this life, aren’t Christians who end of dying, they will suffer God’s curse for sins for all eternity in Hell. If you want eternal life, if you want a right relationship with God, you have to believe that all of God’s punishment for your sins were place only on Jesus. He did so that you might no longer serve the ‘Lord You’ but turn and serve the Lord Jesus.
That’s why he says at the end of verse 24, “That we might die to sin and live to righteousness.” You see, because Jesus is your substitute, because He has paid for your freedom from sin, you are to be giving your life over to following His example, His straight line. And as we pursue a righteous life and as we try, through the power of the Holy Spirit which enables us to pursue living for Him, we will conclude as Peter does in verse 24, “By His wounds you have been healed.” By His wounds you have been healed. The healing here is obviously referring to a spiritual healing to the forgiveness of sins, or as just described before, those of us who are dying to sins and living to righteousness. That describes conversion, that describes what every Christian necessarily needs to experience. We need to be those no longer, as I said, serving ‘Lord You’ but serving Lord Jesus, and believe that all of our sins and the punishment due all of our sins have been placed on Jesus. It is only through the substitutionary atonement, or the substitutionary death of Jesus, that we can have forgiveness of sins.
Again this reflects Isaiah 53. I want to just look at a couple of more verses from that wonderful chapter. We’ll start in Isaiah 52, verse 14 (Isaiah 52:14), describes the physical punishment that Jesus went through. It says, “As many were astonished at you, His appearance was so marred beyond human semblance and His form beyond that of the children of mankind.” And ultimately why did He endure all of that? Isaiah 53, verses 3-5 says it this way: “He was despised and reject by man. A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and as from whom men hide their faces, He was despise and we esteemed Him not. Surely, He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, and yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted, but He was wounded for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities, upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His stripes we are healed.” See, Jesus Christ covered our griefs, covered our sorrows, covered our transgressions, covered our iniquities, therefore fixing your biggest problem. Despite what you may think, your cancer, your heart disease, your arthritis is not your biggest problem. Your biggest problem is your sin. And because the consequences of your sin last forever, that is why it is so sweet to recognize and believe that Jesus suffered so that we could have forgiveness of sins. Look at Isaiah 53:11, “Out of the anguish of His soul He shall see and be satisfied, but His knowledge of the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous and shall bare their iniquities.” See, Isaiah speaks of this great need that we have to be forgiven in verse 6 as well. It says, “All of us like sheep have gone astray. We have turned, everyone, to his own way and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” You see, Isaiah makes it crystal clear that we are totally incapable of earning God’s forgiveness on our own, we needed a substitute, and that’s exactly what Jesus fulfilled. Peter echoes this truth from Isaiah again in our passage in verse 25. The final verse of our passage says this: “For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepard and Overseer of your souls.” Peter recalls the famous illustration of sheep that Isaiah used and has been used several times throughout the Old Testament to describe sinners. Sheep, as you know, are rather helpless without a shepherd to guide them. They need to be led to water, shown new pastures to graze, protected from predators, basically cared for at all times. There’s one illustration of this: When my parents were in Switzerland, they heard a commotion outside their farmhouse bed and breakfast from their sheep, and as they look out their window they saw that one sheep has stuck his head to far in the five gallon bucket used to deliver their water. And he was walking around with this bucket on his head and the rest of the sheep were beating after him, “Baaah, Baaah!” And he was running around, couldn’t see anything, bonking into things, and it was a rather comical thing that lasted for several minutes until the farmer came out and pulled the bucket of the half-witted sheep’s head.
See, left to our own devices we’re all like these sheep – hopelessly following other blind leaders. We need to place our faith and trust in the Great Shepherd. The only one who cares perfectly for our souls and who, as verse 25 says, will oversee and guide us in that way that we need to live, leading us where we need to go, ultimately for our good.
So, what do you do with Jesus? Many people like Jesus only for getting them out of Hell, but reject them as their Shepherd, as their overseer, as their guide, as their Lord. We cannot say that we believe in Jesus to cover our sins without trusting His guidance for everything in this life. We cannot say we love Jesus and reject the clear commands found in the Word of God, thinking that somehow there’s an exception in your case – that’s what we always think. No, the Bible is rather clear. If you are saved, you have turned from serving ‘King You’ and are modeling your life after King Jesus. You live a life of repentance. You also must live a life of faith, cherishing Jesus, trusting in His substitutionary death alone for forgiveness of sins. My prayer today is that no one leaves here without totally giving their life to Christ and knowing for sure that you sins are forgiven and that you’re in a right relationship with our great God.
Let’s pray. God, I pray that if some here have not repented and believed in you, they have not stopped living for themselves and serving You, I pray that you allow today to be that day. Today to be the day of salvation when You call some individual out here today to turn to You for the first time. I pray that that would be the case; they would completely trust in You and Your sacrifice for sins. For those of us who are believers, I pray that You would help us cherish these things, to remember what Jesus has done for us – all that He has done, and to remember that we are to be those who are constantly learning to see sin in our lives and hate it. I pray, God, that You would help us to be those who live a life of repentance and faith of turning and trust. I pray, God, that You would now be honored as we go throughout our day, as we have conversations after church, as we come back tonight to have a business meeting. I pray that you would be honored through everything we do today. We pray this in Your Son’s name, amen.

A message from the series “1 Peter: Standing Firm in this Shaky Life.” 3 Lessons to Learn in order to Honor God at Work

Transcript:

We’re in 1 Peter, chapter 2, verses 18-21. If you don’t have a Bible, go ahead and just grab that pew Bible in front of you and it’s on page 1295. So, my voice sounds a little bit different, it’s because I’m a little bit under the weather and I want to make sure I don’t sneeze on you or sneeze too much. Pardon me if I don’t shake too many hands today. But, 1 Peter, chapter 2, verses 18-21 (1 Peter 2:18-21). Peter writes this: “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. What credit is it if when you sin, you are beaten for it and you endure, but if when you do good and suffer for it and you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. For to this you have been called because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that you might follow in His steps.” You may be seated.
We should all know that the world does not like the gospel message. After all, Jesus was rejected for that very radical message that He taught. In Jesus’s life, we know that religious leaders rejected His claims to be able to forgive sins, rejected His claims that He was God, and therefor they sought to kill him. But many forget that basically all the crowds deserted Jesus at the end as well. They say he was a friend of sinners and tax collectors. Well, those sinners and tax collectors also ended up not following after their Lord and Savior. Jesus at the end of His life was despised and rejected by men. It’s no doubt that His followers continued to be rejected. As the gospel message goes forth it either saves and does a marvelous work of transformation in someone’s life or offends. There is no middle ground. Everything from the stoning of Stephen to the rebellion by the Silversmiths in Ephesus point to this same exact truth: The world hates the gospel message. They hate to be told that God loves them and requires them to stop living for their own selfish desires and instead follow Him with everything. They also hate this idea that God is in control of absolutely everything. They want to be in control and that ultimately God is the one who changes lives – it’s not you. The world wants to be its own authority and in control of its own destiny. That is why, from the earliest time, the world rejoices when it sees hypocritical Christians. They love to see a pastor who publically hammers on honesty, but then is convicted of embezzlement. They love to see this because accordingly they think that it disproves the gospel message that they hate so much. They might ask themselves, “If the gospel message has power to change and transform lives, why does that Christian live just like or worse than I do?” And so the world celebrates Christians that sin because it hates the Christian gospel message and it wants to discredit it at any point that it possibly can.
Apparently there’s a website available that acts as a dating service for those who are married seeking to have an affair. I know it’s a crazy world in which we live in, but what makes it worse is that according to that website it gave a data point asking its members what religious affiliation they had and according to its members, the highest percentage of clients are self-confessed evangelical Christians. Of course that makes headlines, as does study after study that indicates that the divorce rate among evangelical Christians is actually higher than the average population’s divorce rate. And so we see time and time again the world rejoicing in the fact or in supposed facts that point to Christians as hypocrites. The comments that people leave in response to these articles on websites is really telling. It shows a world that is almost giddy with delight to find hypocrisy that disproves a message that they so detest.
Now just as a caveat, part of the reason for the statistics like the one on divorces, the differentiation between, or even the one of those who go to this particular website seeking an affair, is the differentiation between nominal Christians and those who actually are true Christians – Those who say they are Christian because they were raised in the church or maybe made a decision one time to follow Christ and those who are in church every single week, seeking to find God with everything they are. And so we see if we take that in account, the divorce rate among true believers is actually much, much lower as studies have found. Those who are regularly in church, those who are regularly following after God want to serve Him and honor Him with their whole lives, divorce rate is indeed much lower than the culture. But nonetheless, those who fall into the ‘good soil’ category can fall into sin and malign the gospel that they so dearly love.
This hypocrisy is absolutely crucial for us to fight in our own lives – no matter what form it takes. And in fact, if you see some ongoing, continuing hypocrisy in your life, you may be actually one of those ‘tares’ that Jesus said was sown in the midst of the church. He says that ‘wheat and tares,’ according to Matthew 13, would be in the same church so that you would have believers, true believers, and people who looked a lot like believers as tares look a lot like wheat sitting alongside right next to each other. And so, this is an exhortation to fight hypocrisy in your life and it’s also an exhortation to fight and evaluate whether or not you might be one of those tares that God has allowed to grow in our church.
And so we need to be those who fight hypocrisy and Christians must be those who vigorously pursue then a righteous life, and as we’ve seen, according to Peter, this is one of his themes for this entire epistle. You see right at the beginning of 1 Peter 1 – you can just look with me – 1 Peter 1, verse 2 (1 Peter 1:2). He says that “Those who are elect exiles of the dispersion… They were elect according to the foreknowledge of the Father… In the sanctification of the Spirit…” Why? – “For obedience to Jesus Christ.” For obedience to Jesus Christ. That’s why we are God’s chosen, so that we can obey and follow and serve Him. Chapter 1, verses 14 and 15, make this very clear (1 Peter 1:14-15): “As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance. But as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all of your conduct.” It’s one of the clearest statements that we have throughout the entire epistle. You got to be holy as God is holy. You should be obedient, rejecting your former passions, rejecting what you used to say you loved and to serve, and instead follow and serve Him. Then what does it look like to reject the old and pursue holiness. Well, chapter 1, verse 22, says it this way (1 Peter 1:22): “Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth, for sincere brotherly love, we are to love one another earnestly from a pure heart.” So Christians are to be those who are marked with the brotherly sincere love for one another. We also see in chapter 2, verse 1 (1 Peter 2:1), the Christian who is pursuing a holy life, well; that looks like those who put away all malice and all deceit and all hypocrisy and envy and all slander – rejects the sin that remains.
And then we saw a couple weeks ago in chapter 2, verses 11 and 12 (1 Peter 2:11-12), that really acts as a hinge for the rest the book – Peter’s exhortation that says, “Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh which wage war against your soul.” Stop living according to your old flesh, according to your old passions, you’ve got to reject that. Fight the passions that remain. Don’t embrace your emotional response to a situation. And in verse 12, “Keep your conduct then among the Gentiles honorable, so when they speak against you as evil doers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.” And we remember talking about that passage; that verse is basically saying, “Your holy life that you live in front of the watching world, in front of unbelievers, is often God’s most important way that He instructs people about the truth of the gospel message. It validates the message that you’re talking about – your holy life. And so, because of your holy life, people, when they hear the gospel message will turn from their sin and follow Christ. There’ll be all sorts of slander against you, but if you live your life on purpose to show that God really is in the business of changing lives then He will allow you to live in a holy life.
Well, chapter 3, verses 8 and 9 (1 Peter 3:8-9), Peter continues this theme of pursuing a holy life. Chapter 3, verse 8 and 9 says this: “Finally all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. 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.” The context, obviously according to verse 8 is talking about within the church. Don’t have any fighting within the church. If someone reviles you, don’t revile in return. You want to bless when someone is mean to you. You want to be those who have a unity of mind, a unity of purpose, within this body of Christ. And so that is one of the most important ways that we can show the testimony of God changing your lives.
Well, he continues. Chapter 4, verse 2-4 – another illustration. Chapter 4, verse 2-4: “We’re to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions,” or the old passions that we talked about in chapter 2, verse 11, “But for the will of God. For the time that is past that suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry. With respect to this, they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you [for it].” And so here we see again that the Christian looks totally different from the world, and when the world sees that you look different, they malign for it. They want you to come in and do everything that they are doing to validate how they live and how they want to live. And so we see again that Christians are to not look like the world, are to resist those temptations, and to live a transformed life. Ultimately we see even in verse 5 that God is the one that judges, but they will give account to Him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. Well, we also know that Satan loves to get into churches and malign the gospel of Jesus Christ, and so we see according to verse 8 that, “Be aware because your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour.” And so we realize and recognize that Satan is alive and well and that he is fighting in this world and he is seeking to even tempt and to tear down those within the church. And sometimes he plants tares, or false believers as we mentioned earlier. Other times hi simply successfully tempts Christians to live like the world. So Christian, be on guard against hypocrisy.
One of the surest ways to fight hypocrisy is to then, of course, live a transformed life – a different life. We find ourselves in the middle of a section dealing with the crucial component of living that transformed life, and as we discussed last week, it is submission to authority – submission to all authorities that God put specifically in your life. We see all earthly authority, even unjust authority, is given to us by God and as we discussed last week, that includes the authority of the government in chapter 2, verses 13-17. And we’ll discuss in a couple weeks, an unbelieving husband has authority over his unbelieving wife in chapter 3, verses 1-6. So, what’s at stake in submitting to authority, and specifically as we’ll talk about this week, what’s at stake in submitting to your boss in the workplace? It’s you testimony to the watching world.
Here’s a key statement. If you get nothing out of this message other than this, I’ll be happy. Your submission to your boss at work may be the clearest glimpse into the gospel to transform lives that your coworkers ever see. Repeat that: your submission to your boss at work may be the clearest glimpse into the gospel to transform lives that your coworkers will ever see. That is why it is so crucial for you to live a transformed life in the workplace, and that includes submitting to your boss and submitting to the authorities that God put in your life. Now the world gives you a steady diet of hypocritical Christians in TVs, movies, and musicals. Our own North Farmington High School put on a musical depicting a homicidal, suicidal student who was scared by the hypocrisy she discovered growing up in a conservative Christian home. Not much was different in Peter’s day. And so he says, “Don’t give the world further ammunition, but realize that the gospel should transform every area of your life, and you need to submit to authorities and you need to guard your heart against hypocrisy.” And since you spend most of your time and energy at work, your response to your authority there should reflect God’s will for you: To respect and be subject the authority that God places in the workplace. Remember, your submission to your boss at work may be the clearest example of a transformed Christian life that your unbelieving coworkers ever see.
So why am I talking about boss? If you’ve read the passage, which we all have, you notice that verse 18 is talking about ‘servants and masters.’ Well, in order to understand why this is best applicable to our workplace situation, we need to get a historical understanding of slavery in the Roman world. Well, “servants” here can be also translated, “slave,” and it says a very specific word that refers to a specialized subset of slaves referring to “household slaves” or “household servants.” And the “masters” of course, would have been the owners of those household slaves. We cannot let our understanding of slavery be confused by our nation’s own checked past though. Let me explain, because of US history, when you think of slavery, you think of black/white distinctions. When you think of slavery, you think of shackles and a slave trade. And when you think of slavery, you think of slaves who were by in large, kept by all forms of education. When you think of slavery, you think of manual laborers who spent long hours in the fields with little to no respite from their work. And indeed, Christians were most definitely right to use all legal means to reject the unjust and inhumane treatment of men made in the image of God, represented by this very cruel form of slavery. But, ancient Roman slavery was much different. You see, any and all races could be found as slaves in ancient Rome. It’s estimated that as much as third of the Roman Empire would have been slaves. Although some slaves stolen and enslaved from a foreign land, many sold themselves into slavery, or sold by a family to escape poverty and provide economic potential even. Further, many slaves were highly educated, what we might call professionals today, would of often been slaves. You think of doctors, you think of nurses, you think of teachers, business men, musicians, skilled artisans, you fill in the blank – most of those people in the society would have slaves. Consequently, many slaves were active in society at large and were paid actually for their jobs and could actually own slaves themselves, as an irony of sorts, and eventually could purchase their freedom if they desired to do so. Now, this doesn’t mean that Roman slavery was totally void of any mistreatment – some masters beat their slaves, worked them unjust hours, reneged promised payments, and saw them as a sub-human property that could be despised. I’m not saying that Roman slavery was somehow perfect and ideal situation, but the Bible isn’t concerned with breaking down the institution of Roman slavery as much as it is helping Christian slaves and masters honor God within the society in which they live. The Bible never condones slavery, just simply recognizes it as a societal fact.
Further, as one commentator wrote of Roman slavery, there is really “no comparable institution in the modern Western societies.” And the general consensus is that the closest connection to today’s societal structure is the employee/employer relationship. You see, many of us are educated to do a certain job, aren’t we? Many of us have gone to school to get a trade of sorts, and once we enter the workforce, we sign a contract with an employer who agrees to pay us, we have to abide by company policy, agree to clock in at certain hours, and pay the necessary punishment if we don’t, and our employers have a lot of say over what we can and can’t do at the workplace, even how we dress. And just like ancient masters, some of bosses are better than others, aren’t they?
Now, our passage is really from verses 18-25, but from verses 20-25 Peter changes the focus off of the servant master relationship and onto an extended illustration of what it means to suffer well, and of course that perfect illustration of what it means to suffer well is to look then at our Lord Jesus Christ. And we will look into greater detail about what Peter has to say about Jesus’ sacrificial suffering the next time that we get to study this text together. For today, we will constrain ourselves to verses 18-21 and we’re going to learn three lessons that we need to learn in order to honor God at work. Three lessons to learn in order to honor God at work, or picking up on the theme later in the passage: 3 lessons to learn about your role as a suffering servant on the job.

3 Lessons to Learn About Your Role as a Suffering Servant on the Job

3 Lessons to learn about your role as a suffering servant on the job – now, there’s no sense in which we could ever suffer as Jesus did – the perfect suffering servant, but as obedient employees we will undoubtedly face trials and suffer many difficulties. So Peter has a lot to say about our workplace, so; let’s dig in.

I) Learn to Submit to Your Boss
The first lesson we need to learn is: Learn to submit to your boss. We see that in verse 18 – learn to submit to your boss. Peter writes, “Servants be subject to your masters with all respect.” We’ve already covered what Peter means when we refer to servants and masters, and well, what is most applicable to today’s society speaking of employee/employer relationship. But here, he repeats his command that he made earlier in chapter 2, verse 13. Chapter 2, verse 13 (1 Peter 2:13) says, “Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution.” In other words, if God has put an authority structure in your life, in our society, in our culture, it is put there because He wants you to be subject to it, not so that you could rebel against it even if it’s unjust. That’s why we see that we are commanded to be subject to our government in verses 13-17. Well now, he applies this same truth to our workplace situation. The word “to be subject” here means to willingly submit yourself under another’s authority. It’s a willingness on your part to say, “You know what? I’m going to set myself under my boss, I’m going to listen to him, I’m going to respect him, I’m going to obey him, I’m going to serve him, and I’m going to be willing to follow him in whatever he tells me to do.” Last week we discussed that this does not come naturally for anyone, as we naturally want to be our own boss. We naturally think we know what’s best, basically in every situation. But, we also discussed last week, this idea of headship and submission and authority is a part of the natural, God-ordained relationships. We even see that it is integral to God himself within the Trinity. We see God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, all having a hierarchy of headship and submission. God the Son always submits to the will of God the Father, and the Spirit to the other two. And so we see, even built into the Trinity, this idea of headship and submission is a wonderful and blessed thing.
Further in our text, we are called to respect those in authority, right? So we are to be subject to those in authority with all respect. The word can also be translated ‘fear’ in some places, and in the context has a sense of ‘act in such a way that you have a healthy apprehension of your boss’s displeasure.” In other words, you don’t want to do anything that would displease your boss or potentially get them angry.
How hard is that in your workplace? Think about that. It’s so easy to say, “I know better. I don’t care if my boss doesn’t like it. I’m going to do it my way.” My former profession as teacher, that happened all the time. I can’t tell you how many teachers talked about that principal was just out to lunch, didn’t know anything, they’re talking about, “I’m going to do it the way I know how to do it and that’s the way it’s going to be, period. It’s my classroom.” Submission and respect are hardly a part of how I naturally want to respond to my boss, especially to an unjust boss. In fact, some are ever wondering right now in your heads, “He can’t be talking about my boss. You should see what she says to me. How rude she is. What she requires of me.” Peter’s pretty blunt: “It’s not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust.” You see that in verse 18? It’s the unjust bosses as well. He’s direct. The good and the gently, how many of you have bosses that would be described as good and gently? Probably not too many. In companies, these types of people often don’t climb the corporate ladder. Occasionally a person in leadership possesses these traits and when they do, it’s easy to follow them. They present the Biblical model of servant/leadership. But this unjust boss, I think we understand this. That’s something I can identify with. A good translation is unjust here, because literally in the Greek, it’s “crooked.” It’s “crooked,” someone who’s unjust. This is the type of master or boss who is selfish to the core, who cooks the books, dishonest with their pay, who plays favorites, who makes employees work more to cover up his mistakes, who yells, who berates, and basically abuses employees. That’s not uncommon in the workplace. I’m sure some of you, I know some of you, have that in your workplace. And Peter’s pretty clear, “Submit to every type of master, the good and the bad.” If she’s your boss, obey and respect her even when it’s hard.
Now, speaking of crooked employees, I found an illustration this week of a lawyer. Actually, it’s a positive illustration of a young Christian employee, but you get the idea. It’s a good illustration of submission and until one is morally obligated to follow God instead of man. Well, this young Christian lawyer was hired into a law office and as he quickly found out in this law office, the community or the culture of that law office was to live the highlife. Everyone had fast, expensive cars. Everyone would go out and party very hard, drink after work, and they would get together, there would be women, there would be infidelity, all of that happened and he was encouraged to do that. And as the lone Christian, when he declined the parties, when he drove his older, rather mundane sedan, he became the butt of the jokes in the law office. And he faced incessant degradation from his coworkers, from management, from basically everyone. Well his boss was definitely one of those who was leading his attacks on this Christian lawyer and his boss actually started to push him to do family law, because he knew that this Christian lawyer hadn’t studied family law, hadn’t had a passion to do family law because as you know, much of what family law consists of is working with divorces. And so he didn’t want to do that. He didn’t want to gain from, or profit, from something that went against God’s will. And so that young lawyer often rejected politely and said, “This is not something I’m trained to do. I feel very uncomfortable doing this. I’d rather do whatever else you hired me to do.” Well, one day the boss just wouldn’t listen to him and a couple came into the office, seeking a divorce at the end of the day. And he turned to the young Christian lawyer and said, “You’ve got this one. I’ve got to go home.” And he left him in charge of this young couple. Well despite protesting, the young lawyer consented and took this couple into the office. And now he takes this couple into the room and he begins talking about their situation and he finds out that they’re actually believers in Christ and there’s been a sad case of infidelity. And he’s actually able to talk them through a Biblical understanding of forgiveness and reconciliation and they leave the law office no longer seeking a divorce, but willing and excited to work through their problems within the context of their local church. The next day, when he was asked to give a report of what had gone on with this couple, the boss fired him on the spot.
Some are like this young lawyer. Your patience is wearing thin. You’re under constant pressure to conform to the world ways. You’re subjected to slander. You’re subjected to verbal abuse – you name it, you’re subjected to it. Are you still doing everything you can to submit to your boss – to honor him, to respect him, to respect even if your boss is unworthy of that respect? Eventually, there may come a tipping point and you may have to lose your job. You may have to find another job if you’re asked to do something that goes against the Word of God, something that you can’t possibly do. But do you still honor and respect your boss? If you want to honor God at work, you need to learn how to have a posture of submission, honor, and respect towards your boss. Well, that’s our first point.

II) Learn to See Unjust Suffering as a Gift from God (vv. 19-20)
The second is: Learn to see unjust suffering as a gift from God. Learn to see unjust suffering as gift from God. We see that in verses 19 and 20 – 19 and 20. “For this is a gracious thing.” “For this is a gracious thing” is how he begins that. Do you realize what Peter is saying? Grace is a free gift that we don’t deserve and what is this gift? – Suffering, unjustly willing to submit to a boss, willing to endure hardships. That’s what the grace is. Listen to what he says, “For this is a gracious thing, when mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it when you sin and are beaten for it you endure? But if when you do good and you suffer and you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God.” He even repeats this thing – it’s a gracious thing for you to suffer. So, Peter is saying that when you suffer at your workplace, when you’re persecuted for doing right, this is a gift from God. What? Yes, it is exactly what he is saying – this is a gift from God for you to suffer. It echoes Philippians 1:29, it says, “For it has been granted to you, that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him, but also suffer for His sake.” And the word that is used in Philippians 1:29, “it has been granted to you,” it specifically, this word “grace” as well, it’s a grace gift. It’s been granted, its grace gifted to you. What? Accorded to 1:29, your faith – we love that, and your suffering. God is gracious to give you suffering. We see that also talked about in Romans, chapter 8. Romans 8: 17, it says that “we are heirs. Heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ provided that we actually suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. For I consider the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glories that are to be revealed to us.” And so Paul reminds us again that the sufferings that we have and that the sufferings that we endure and go through in life prove that we are heirs with Christ. This is exactly what God wants you to go through. You are suffering because God wants you to suffer. In fact, it’s a grace gift to you. You see, God uses trials, He uses suffering, He uses persecution to make us into who we need to be. James, chapter 1, verses 2-4 (James 1:2-4), and if you want to turn with me there – James is the book right before 1 Peter. It’s easy to see, James 1:2-4. One of the clear statements on the purpose of trials and suffering, James writes this: “Count it all joy my brothers when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness, and let steadfastness have its full effect that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” So why is it that you have suffering, why is it that you have trials – so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. It is God’s will that you go through that difficult situation at work so that you can be transformed into the image of His son. Look, we cannot escape trials. We cannot escape grief. We cannot escape pain, sorrow, or persecution. These things are all promised to us. When the persecution is at the workplace, don’t be surprised if your life ends up resembling a shattered windshield, more than just a little crack or a chip that you might have. Quite frankly, in this life we will not always be able to put the pieces back together from our shattered windshields. But God can, and ultimately the reason why this is such a gracious thing to suffer unjustly is because we know that it is a sign that we are truly heirs with God. We have the hope set before us, the wonderful truth assured to us, according to 1 Peter 1:3-4. “That according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfailing kept in heaven for you.” This is our hope. This is what we have to look forward to – an inheritance that is eternal, that is unending, and so in spite of your momentary trials, in spite of you momentary sufferings that you’re going to go through, whether it’s at the workplace or because of your government or because of your spouse, in spite of these trials, in spite of these sufferings we have to look forward to an eternal inheritance. And that gives us wonderful peace in the midst of any and every situation.
So, far from the Christian life being easy, full of success, we’re promised trials and difficulties because it’s how God grows us. Now, if you aren’t in the middle of suffering, you might be thinking, “How does this apply? Well, what’s the point? I actually live a pretty good life now. I’m comfortable. I eat plenty and I have family all around. No one’s sick. It’s a good life.” Some of you maybe there, praise God for that. But now is the time to start thinking rightly about trials, because trials will come. They will come in your life, they come to everybody. And so if you aren’t thinking rightly now about trials, when those trials come, you will not be able to respond rightly. For those who are in the midst of suffering and wallowing in sorrow, wallowing in persecution, you’re feeling like you can’t even go forward in life, if that’s you right now – God wants to remind you that these trials and suffering, it’s His gift to you. It’s what He wants to use to mold you into the person who you need to be. As hard as it is to see, that’s what we need to do. Get your eyes off the shattered glass all around you. Stop trying to pick it up and put the pieces back into order. Stop focusing on your emotions and the pain that you have and get your eyes fixed on God who’s promised you that you’re a son – that you’re an heir of the promises that He has promised to you.
A pastor visited a man who was in the depths of despair. He had recently lost his job. He was financially ruined, and on top of that, it wasn’t just the man, he had a young family – a wife and two young girls. He was afraid that he was going to lose it all – his house, his retirement – he might even have to live on the streets if he couldn’t find any part-time work soon, if no one from the church could take him in, he didn’t know what was going to happen. Just as the pastor was about to counsel the man and begin to walk him through a number of different passages, his two girls came marching down the stairs after their shower, ready for bed singing, “My God is so big, so strong and so mighty, there’s nothing my God cannot do… for you.” There wasn’t a dry eye in the room. This man hugged and kissed his two little girls. There’s no better counsel that could have been given to replace worry, anxiety, than childlike trust in our big God. And a God who has a plan and purpose in mind even in the midst of trials and suffering.
That’s why Peter says in verse 19, “It’s a gracious thing, when mindful of God, that one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly.” So when you’re mindful of God, when you’re always thinking Godward, when you’re able to remember the promises of God, who God is that He’s in control, that He’s sovereign, that He’s going to take you and guide you and mold you into the person that He wants you to be. When that is you, and when you’re mindful of God, it is gracious thing. It is a wonderful thing to encounter trials while suffering unjustly. So we must always be mindful of the Book of Job and the sovereign hand of God in the life of Israel and the great cloud of witnesses in Hebrews 11 who give constant testimony that God is at work in everything in this life. Now, lest we blame God for all types of suffering that we might encounter in our life and think that it is such a blessing to receive any and all suffering, Peter wants to stop that line of thoughts right there, and that’s why he gives us verse 20. He says, “For what credit is it if when you sin, you are beaten for it you endure?” Thankfully, not to many of you are beaten at work, but I think we understand this basic principle. If you sin and are fired for it, if you have an affair, an adulterous relationship on the job, and you’re fired because you have been embezzling funds, you don’t bemoan say, “Oh, woe is me. This is such a terrible, unjust suffering and God is going to use this for a good thing.” No, this is God’s punishment in your life. There are due consequences for you sin. Now granted God may use that discipline to grow you and mold you into His image and God may use that suffering, but you by your sin were the cause of that suffering. We need to be aware of that. Don’t cry about injustice when you’re getting what you deserve – that’s his point. Then he says in the rest of verse 20, “But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God.” That’s why unjust suffering is reiterated again to be a gracious thing in the sight of God. If you don’t deserve that suffering and we can’t figure out why it is that we are going through this difficult time in our life, we have to trust in God that it’s His grace gift to us. So change that mindset in your mind right now. If you’re not going through a trial, if you’re not going through suffering, that is how we need to look at suffering.
So, if you constantly submit yourself and respect your boss, you will most definitely honor God at your workplace. But there may be times that even in spite of that respect, you will be persecuted for your belief in God, for your refusal to go against His word, and so prepare yourself now for persecution. Learn that unjust persecution is a gift of God for your growth. When you have that mindset, we will most definitely persevere in the midst of trials and honor our great God on whose sovereign hand we rest.

III) Learn to See Jesus as your Primary Example (v. 21)
Well, the third lesson we need to learn in order to honor God at work is: Learn to see Jesus as your primary example. Learn to see Jesus as your primary example. We see that in verse 21. Now, we all have historical heroes, don’t we? If you’re a Christian, you may look to some of the great men of the past, men like Calvin or Martin Luther. You might have heroes in your field of study. You might have an amazing engineer that you learned about in college. I don’t if many engineers have that, but maybe that’s you. You might have a teacher or you might have somebody in your mind that’s just your hero, somebody that you want to follow in your life as you purse that particular line of work. You might see someone like Ghandi as a hero, as he sought political change through non-violent means. You sometimes hear also those whose lives were cut short in their prime, people like JFK, people like John Lennon, and so as we look at heroes in our lives, we have to recognize though that each hero that we have will ultimately fail us because human heroes are flawed human beings. Just look at Martin Luther for example; on the positive side of Martin Luther, a great magisterial reformer, it was only after intense deliberation that he went against the authority of the church, the government, and his employer because they were trying to force him to recant and deny Biblical truth. They were trying to force him to go totally against what the Bible said. And so we can rejoice and see that positive example that he had to side with God rather than with man. He desired the praise that came from God, more than the praise that came from man. But negatively, we know that Martin Luther had a sharp tongue. He tried to throw out the Book of James from the Bible and he tried in vain to see the Book of Revelation fulfilled in Germany at the time in which he lived. All of these things were wrong things that he did. And so, we cannot take someone’s life and say, “This is exactly who I need to be.” And so, if we model our life and ministry after men, we are aiming too low. Even after great men, ultimately Jesus is our only perfect example. He’s the only one that we should set our sights on as our ultimate example. And so that’s why we need to learn to see Jesus as our primary example in life.
Verse 21 begins like this: “For to this you have called because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that you might follow in His steps.” Now, it’s interesting how it begins, verse 21: “For to this you have been called.” What is this referring to? What is the context? Suffering unjustly in your workplace. “To this you have been called. This is exactly what God has called you to do, in other words. We like this idea of ‘called’ in chapter 2, verse 9, because here it says, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation and people for His own possession that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. We love that type of calling – that God called us to come into His marvelous light. We also love the calling that we see in chapter 5, verse 10. Look with me there: “And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace who has called you into His eternal glory in Christ will Himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.” We love this type of calling that God calls us to be believers in Him, that He will restore us, He will confirm us, He will strengthen us, that He will give us eternal glory – we love that calling, but here we see a different calling. Here we see, “To this you have been called, to suffer unjustly…” To be persecuted for no good reason – that’s exactly what Peter wants to get across to us. As terrible as it is to suffer with the very real emotional turmoil that accompanies rejection, slander, and abuse, we need to look at what Peter’s saying and trust that God has called us as Christians to go through exactly what we are going through – that suffering is all a part of God’s sovereign plan. Just as He calls us to glorification, just as He calls us to have a future reward, so too has God called us to suffer. Of course, this is exactly what Jesus has called us to do as well. It’s exactly what God has called Jesus to do. God has called Jesus to suffer for us and that’s why He is our perfect example. Verse 21: “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.” The difference is Christ suffering, it wasn’t for His growth. He was perfect. He didn’t need to grow. He’s God. Christ’s suffering was for you. It’s for me. It’s for every single one us. Your suffering is in some sense more bearable. It’s how God is working in your life and that’s a blessed truth, but Christ suffering, that was for the sins of His worst enemies. It was for the sins of you and I. Talk about amazing love. This is at the heart of the good news, one that Peter continues in the rest of our chapter, as we’ll study next time, that Jesus suffered and died to forgive us of our sins. Why did he have to suffer and die? Why was it important for Him to do that? It wasn’t because He needed to grow, but is because God needed to punish sins. It’s ultimately because God is just. God requires punishment always for sins and so He called His son to be this substitute punishment for us because we couldn’t take that punishment and survive. We couldn’t take that punishment and enter into His presence and God wanted us to be in His presence. God wanted to adopt us as sons and so He said, “I’m going to put all of my wrath, all of my punishment on Jesus so that we could have forgiveness of sins.” And so Christ suffered, suffered unjustly for us and He faithfully set His face like a flint to the cross. He willingly submitted to His fathers will to crush Him for us. He never complained, he didn’t have angry words towards those who abused Him nor to those whose sins He covered, and so He is a perfect example, isn’t it? That’s not the way I respond when I suffer. So He left us an example that you might follow in His steps.
The often overused phrase “What Would Jesus Do,” well; He willingly suffered, He submitted to authority, He saw suffering and persecution as a gift from the father, as all part of God’s righteous plan. He did it all without anger or complaint. And that’s why Jesus is our highest example to follow. As you find yourself in the midst of suffering, look to Jesus. Respond as He responded. Recognize where you fall short in your emotionally charged responses to suffering and turn from that sin, turn from those emotions, turn from that anger, and turn toward forgiveness in Jesus Christ. The quicker you look to who you are in Jesus, the quicker you reject that passions of your flesh as we talked about in chapter 2, verse 11. Those “passions that wage war within your soul,” those emotional, visceral response that we have to suffering, we need to fight those and we do that by turning to Jesus Christ and looking to His example. The quicker you are able to embrace peace, hope, and joy, even in the midst of suffering, will come when we look to Jesus and when we see Him as our highest example.
So, how are you doing at work? Is there cause for people to see supernatural joy, peace, hope, even in the midst of adversity? I pray that you are the different one, the one who’s not like the rest of your coworkers, the one that rejects the lunch-room chatter, the one who’s transformed life shines brightly through your respect for authority. So that when you suffer, they might just get a glimpse, not of a whiney Christian not getting his way, but of a disciple of Christ who is constantly trusting God, having a peace that comes only from your settled trust in your great and sovereign God. That’s my prayer for all of us this week as we go to our workplaces.

A message from the series “1 Peter: Standing Firm in this Shaky Life.” Transcript:

How many of you can remember the first time you were preparing to set out on your own? Going away to college, maybe after you graduated, and all you kept on thinking about was, “When can I move out? When can I get my own place?” I know I came from a great home, my parents loved me, and as appropriate I was given sufficient freedoms as a high-schooler and yet I still longed for college to be out on my own, to get my own place, to be my own man. So, it’s just something about getting away. It’s because ultimately I wanted to be my own authority. I wanted to pursue what I thought was best at any given moment. Now thankfully I was a Christian and I had a priority in finding a good church and a priority in finding plenty of Christian friends to encourage me on my college campus, and there was an element of self-discipline that my parents had helped me see was how I could give my best to the Lord. But this temptation to be my own authority, if not checked God’s desires found in the Word can, and at times in my life, has resulted in a sinful and even rebellious heart. And so a natural and good desire for independence to serve God as an individual with individual gifts, talents, abilities, to get married and have a family of your own, to rule over creation as God us to do, all of these things can be perverted as we have an overwhelming desire to be our own authority in every situation.
This heightened sense of our own authority is not just a teenage or young-adult problem though, is it? It’s a human problem. That’s why mankind naturally dislikes the Biblical idea of submission. We ultimately want to be the chief authority of for our own lives. And that’s why Jesus said, “If you want to follow me, you have to give up on living for you. You can’t be the ultimate authority any longer. I have to be the ultimate authority.” That’s why Paul said in Galatians 2:20, “I’ve been crucified with Christ. It’s no longer I who live, but Christ lives through me.” Now, I’ve known many unbelievers, some of whom are completely convinced of the facts of the Gospel, yet refuse to become Christians because they refuse to do this last thing – To submit themselves to following God with their whole lives. There are countless others who hear the gospel message and they just want to question everything, right? If you’ve ever shared the gospel with someone and they question, “How can you know that this Bible is actually accurate. I mean, it’s been passed down for centuries and ages. I’m sure there’s plenty of errors in it.” They might say, “Well, miracles didn’t really happen, did they?” Then they might question, “Well, the culture teaches that this sexual morality is okay and how can that really be talking about today? How can it really be applicable today?” And at best they’ll say, when you talk about the gospel, “Well, I’m glad that works for you, but that’s not what I believe.” At worst, they’ll call you all sorts of names, right? Bigots, hateful, close-minded, you fill in the blank. These men and women ultimately though are committed to being their own authority. You see, they’re committed to being their own judge of what is right and what is wrong – they’re own judge of what is absolutely true, and when confronted with the truth of the Word of God with the truth that the God of the universe gave to us, they reject that because they say, “I want to be my own authority.” And brothers and sisters, this is part of who we are as human beings. It shouldn’t surprise us. This is what’s been going on since the Garden of Eden. From the get go, the lie that was believed, “Did God really say,” right? – Question authority. You also believed, “You can be like God, knowing all things.” What’s that pointing to? You are the ultimate authority. And so we see from the Garden of Eden onward, we believe the lie – question authority, question all authority, and you can be the ultimate authority. And we have inherited this sin nature, this natural propensity to hate external authority and love personal autonomy, and to some extent we all struggle with the Biblical idea of submission. We are rebels at heart. This is the primary reason each of us struggles with authority, but there are some other reasons why we struggle even more with our rebellion against authority. And it’s going to be helpful for us to look at a couple of these so we can recognize the propensity to sin and better fight the sin that remains.
So why are we so rebellious? Well, one reason is that we are Americans. You don’t know what I mean, just ask the Brits. Now listen, I’m grateful for our nation, I’m grateful for our freedoms, I’m grateful for our democracy that we share, but I find it very hard to justify the Revolutionary War Biblically. I know many and some may disagree in this room, but at the very least you have to recognize that our nation began by questioning the legitimacy of the King’s authority. So, we live in a country that was started by ‘sticking it to the man.’ It’s no doubt, no wonder then, that we had the 60’s and 70’s, right? – Where the man was ‘stuck’ all the time. That’s another reason why we struggle with authority, it’s because we are post 1960’s and 1970’s culture. Not only was our country founded on the basis of rebellion against authority, the baby-boom generation has left our culture with a legacy of enduring principles: Question everything (especially ‘the man’), and fight for freedom to do, say, and think anything you want. It’s no surprise that the intense questioning of authority that our culture endured in the 60’s and 70’s has been passed on to future generations, is it?
Well, another reason why we can struggle a little bit more with authority here in America, well; we tend not to praise those who are compliant. We tend not to praise those who are compliant, well; at least after we’re of the age of 12. You see, that’s somehow the age in which we stop getting gold stars on our report cards or on our papers, isn’t it? I remember starting middle school I was surprised that all of a sudden my teacher would just give me a check. That meant it was good? What happened to my smiley face? As we get older, we don’t expect some medal or plaque for paying our taxes, right? And so it goes, most who are compliant who are obedient to the government, even to an unjust government, at best are not recognized, at worst are called cowards.
In California, for example, the opposite is true. We always celebrated, when I lived there, Caesar Chavez Day. And you know anything about history; you know that Caesar Chavez fought against the government very violently at times, burning and destroying crops and homes, even fighting against the police. And so we have a rebellious person who fought against the government recognized as a here, and yet as a culture, we are those who celebrate rebellion, rather than celebrate those who are compliant.
Well, another reason why we might struggle with this temptation to resist authority is that teenagers are expected to rebel. You know this if you simply watched TV. Recently, the Huffington Post found an ad for a new reality TV show that’s called “My Teen Life” and it was looking for teens as young as 13 who partied like a rock star and who hate their parents, using a little bit more colorful language to describe these teens. It’s a sad situation, but it’s part of our culture and although all teens often don’t go off the deep end, our culture most definitely celebrates teenage rebellion and it has for generations, really – even expects it – calls it a natural part of growing up.
Well, another reason we might struggle with authority is that we struggle with pride. We struggle with pride. This is really an outworking of the sin nature that has a deep root in us, but pride specifically has its outworking in our lives to allow us to question authority. As pride says, “I know better. If only I were in charge. If only they’d see it my way…” It happened when you were a student, didn’t it? It happened all the time at work. It can happen in church when the leadership just doesn’t seem to get it. It happens all the time in politics. We think people we elect are complete idiots (especially if we didn’t vote for them, right?). If you listen to talk radio for any length of time, you know this is exactly what goes on. You here a caller calls in, like ‘Joe from Owosso,’ he calls in and repeats what his favorite talk show host has already said and he says, “You know what, Obama could have erased the national debt by know if he would have done this one simple thing,” and you feel like saying to ‘Joe from Owosso,’ “I’m sure it’s a little more complicated than that, Joe.” And if it really was that simple, I’m sure he that he had an advisor tell him. Listen, we’re those who fill our heart with hatred for those with authority because we are prideful. We’re arrogant enough to think that we would do a much better job if only we were in charge.
Well, we also fight authority because we see authority abused. This is a somber reality in our lives. I’m sure many in this room have been abused by those in authority over them in the past. It could have been a parent, it could have been a relative, it could have been a teacher, it could even now be a husband abusing his wife or a wife abusing her husband. I can’t even being to tell you how often I’ve heard of and seen bosses abuse their power. Seems like everybody who’s in a workplace talks about an abusive boss, or a boss that doesn’t get it. And yet just because we’ve seen authority abused, does that mean that all authority is wrong? It shouldn’t. See, some of us have a propensity to hate all authority because we’ve seen it abused, but that’s not what the Bible teaches. Just look at our passage. In the passage today we’re commanded to be subject to the government, but this was Nero’s government which ended up killing Peter, was no friend of Christians. In chapter 2, verse 18; even servants were to continue to be subject to unjust masters. So clearly, just because authority is corrupt does not give us the right to rebel against authority.
Now we move to our passage. Look down in your text in verse 13: It says, “Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution.” This command to be subject here means to willing submit yourself to an authority. It implies obedience, honor, respect, service, a willingness to follow that authority. It’s a general term used for a variety of different relationships as we’ll see, and frankly, all of us by nature dislikes submitting to authority as we’ve just discussed. But authority and submission isn’t just a necessary evil in a fallen world, it is actually a blessed part of creation from the beginning, isn’t it? There’s authority and submission in the Trinity. You see, Jesus frequently mentions submitting to the will of the Father and the Holy Spirit exists to glorify both the Father and the Son. There is authority and submission in the angelic realm. Michael is described as an archangel and he’s also described of the commander of angel armies in Jude 9 and Revelation 12:7-9. Even authority and submission on the new earth is evident. Those of us who will be given resurrected bodies; some of us will be put in authority over others. So you see that even when sin is no longer part of the equation, there will be authority and there will be submission. In all these relationships that we just discussed, there is no sin, yet there still is authority and submission.
Now you may think, “That’s fine for Heaven, but we live on earth with sinners, so there have to exceptions, right? There’s got to be exceptions to when I should submit and when I shouldn’t. And isn’t this text just talking about submission to the civil government? Why all this talk about authority structures in general?” Well, look at the beginning of verse 13. It says, “Be subject for the Lord’s sake for every human institution.” The alternate translation in the ESV is, “Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every institution ordained for people.” See, Peter’s purposely inclusive here. This first phrase in verse 13 really is an introductory statement for the rest of the book. In verse 13-17 here, he’s going to talk about subjecting yourself to the civil government. Then in 18 and following, he’s going to talking about submitting yourself to masters – slaves are to submit to masters. Then chapter 3, verse 1, is going to talk about wives submitting to husbands. And then in chapter 5, verse 5, you’re going to see that those in the church are to submit to elders. And so, Peter gives Christians a command for us all, a command that has multiple applications in our lives. Every legitimate authority is to be respected, obeyed, and submitted to. We do this because it is God who “has established such patterns of authority for the orderly function of human life, and it both pleases and honors him when we subject ourselves to them” (Grudem 126).
With that being said, now is that point at which it would be very easy to preach a sermon on the exceptions to the rule, right? In fact, if you were to listen to a sermon, as I have done, on this passage and listen to several sermons on this passage, a lot of time is dealt with the exceptions to the rule to submit to authority. And many commentators do exactly the same thing – “you submit to authority except… submit to authority except when…” and they go on and on about the exceptions. But when we look at our text, we don’t actually see any exceptions. So I think it’s going to be helpful just to say up front, “Look, here’s some exceptions. Here’s some summarization of some exceptions.” We’re not going to spend a lot of time on the exceptions, because our text doesn’t spend a lot of time on exceptions. Well, here’s the basic summary of the exceptions to submit to authority: Submit to authority, except when an authority requires you to disobey an explicit command or principle found in Scripture. This can include a boss which requires you to lie, or break the law for example. This can include a government that forces you to renounce your faith or to neglect meeting together as Christians. That is an appropriate time to reject that government or that boss’s command. And sometimes, it is appropriate to preserve life and flee and authority figure who is either murderous or overtly abusive. Okay, so there are exceptions.
Now specifically with regard to submitting to the government, I’m just going to give you a couple of quick Biblical examples of exceptions. Think of Exodus 1. What happened in Exodus 1? – Remember, you got the Jewish midwives and they refuse to commit genocide and kill all of the Jewish babies as Pharaoh had commanded and ultimately they did that because God hates murder. You see Acts 4:18-20, and that’s when the Sanhedrin commands Peter to stop speaking of Jesus. And here’s Peter’s response: “So they called them and charged them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered them, ‘Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than God, you must judge. For we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.’” So, when you have the choice between listening to God or listening to the government, you have to listen to God. But again, this text is not about the exceptions so that’s all we’re going to talk about as far as the exceptions are concerned. And so, we need to focus our sermon on what the text says, which is, “Submit yourselves to authority – The authorities that God has put into your life.”
Now many of you have already recognized that you struggle with this command as we’ve gone over different propensities that each of us have to struggle with this and there may be some reasons in your life that we covered earlier that make you more prone to question authority or to ‘fight the man.’ And focusing on the exceptions when the text does not will only encourage you to find exceptions rather than focus on the weakness that you might have. So, how are you doing? Do you struggle with submitting to authority in your life? Are you always questioning those who have any authority over you? As Christians, we must resist that temptation because that is precisely what God’s will is for your life – To submit to authority as we will see in our passage. Now specifically it is important for the Christian to submit to the government, and that’s what our passage will go over and we’re going to see three reasons you should submit you should to the government – three reasons you should submit to the government.

3 Reasons You Should Submit to the Government
I) Your God Gives Authority (vv. 13-14)
Well, the first is found in verses 13 and 14 and it’s that your God gives authority. Your God gives authority. Peter writes, “Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as a supreme or to governors as sent by Him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good.” You see, we have to recognize that authority in this life is really delegated authority, isn’t it? You think of Romans, chapter 13, and you recognize this truth taught very explicitly when Paul says, “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities, for there’s no authority except from God,” – There’s no authority except from God. You see what he said? Every authority that is in your life is given to you by God. It’s exactly what Jesus said in John 13:11, “You would have no authority,” speaking to the Pharisees and the religious authorities of the day, “You would have no authority except that God gave it to you.” You see, we serve a God who’s created the whole earth and continues to sovereignly direct everything that goes on including authority. You look at Psalm 24:1 for example, and that says, “The earth is the Lord’s in the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein.” So if all the world is the Lord’s, then that means that authority is the Lord’s as well. We also see the same and a similar truth found in Psalm 15, verse 3, he says, “Our God is in the Heavens. He does all that he pleases.” He puts the authority in our life that He wants to put into our life. God’s sovereignty extends not only just what we would expect in our lives, but over kings, over rulers, and not just over those who he would put into ruler-ship, but every aspect of what they do in their ruler-ship. We know that several places that God talks about – God raised up this king, God raised up that king – but we also understand that he is sovereign over every single action that those kings take. Listen to what Proverbs 21:1 says: “The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord/He turns it wherever he will.” See therefore every authority in your life is given by God, both evil and good, and so when you fight against authority you not only reject the authority you perceive to be wrong, but you reject the God who put that authority in your life.
That’s why is says in our text, “Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution,” because ultimately it is God who sovereignly laces authority in your life – as imperfect as the authorities can be at times. It is God who gave you those authorities. Also, look at the beginning of verse 14, it says “you are to be subject to the emperor as supreme or to Governors as sent by him,” – Governors who are sent by Him. Most commenters also believe that this is referring to God. See, God is the one who sends governors, who sends kings, who sends emperors to reign over us. So Peter picks up this Biblical theme of God’s sovereignty over rulers and explicitly states that is God who commissions all civil authorities and we’ll see this – “Your God gives authority,” first sub-point, “to all positions within government.” You see, he talks about in the end of verse 13 to the “emperor as supreme.” There’s no higher authority in the Roman Empire than the emperor himself, and he also mentions governors in the beginning of verse 14: “Or to governors as sent by Him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good.”
Now the word ‘governors’ here is really very, very broad and can include anyone that works for the government. That can include a local government. That can include leaders in the community that work for the government including tax collectors. It can include the army, the police force – listen, in other words, from the president to your city council to the police, you are to submit to the authority that God has placed over you. So every position of government is given by God – but why? We see that in the end of verse 14, “To punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good.” And that goes with what Paul says again in Romans, chapter 13, verses 3 and 4 (Romans 13:3-4). Paul says this: “For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain, for he is a servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrong doer.” See, it’s the government that bears the sword, that puts do death deserving criminals. Now notice that as right as it may feel to take vengeance in your own hand, especially if the crime was committed against you personally or against your family, we would be those who would say, “You know, I need to take matters into my own hand.” In fact, you probably seen a movie or two that celebrates that truth, haven’t you? It’s a very popular concept, but the Bible says that it’s never individuals that bear the sword, it’s the government that does.
Further, governments are to praise those who are doing good. We mentioned that our culture doesn’t do the best job of this, but they try. The concept is foreign at times but there are plenty examples of ceremonies at the white-house that recognize Americans for their valor in the military or even social contributions through various awards or medals. It even happens on a local level, we just don’t often hear it in the news, do we? You also see our lobby, right? What’s out there? We have like 8 plaques that recognize First Baptist Church of Farmington for our role in our community, celebrating the beauty that we bring to Historic Downtown Farmington District. If you don’t remember or haven’t seen those, you can go out there and look and that’s our government commending us for doing a good job. These ceremonies happen, but we don’t often see them. But the result of both punishing evil and praising good, ultimately though, maintains the peace and supports human flourishing.
Now at this point it is easy to start to point the finger at the short comings of our local and our nation government, and you say, “See, I have a right to be angry, to not support our government because it does so much more than this rather simple Biblical dictate of the role of government, doesn’t it? It tries to do everything in my life. It doesn’t just punish those who are bad and doesn’t just commend those who are good. It does so much more. It takes more taxes that it deserves to take…” And you go on and on and on and you begin to feel justified in your anger towards the government. But that’s not what Peter does, nor is it what we should do. See, we need to be those who try and find even the good in the government, not pick apart its faults. You know how much it is to submit to a government, or any leader for that matter, that you are constantly degrading in your mind? The root of most marital problems is exactly that, both partners are constantly thinking the worst of the other, assuming ill-motives, assuming things that are done out of hatred when there’s no intent. When it comes time for the husband to lovingly lead or the wife to willingly submit, there’s little to no chance of that happening when there’s been a constant mindset of questioning authority when there’s constant mindset of assuming ill-motives, thinking the worst of another person. So brothers and sisters, we need to be those who willingly submit, obey, and follow our leaders even though they are far from perfect. And a helpful way to begin this is to see the benefits and blessings afforded to you by our leadership, by our civil, national, and leaders otherwise that we have in our lives. And you might say, “But Obama was not president when Peter wrote this. He can’t possibly expect me to submit to him…” Or if you’re of a different political persuasion: “But Bush… No one could imagine that President Bush was the president. I could never submit to him.” – Both sides to the same thing. Remember who was emperor at the time when Peter wrote this – Nero. Nero was the emperor. If you know anything about Nero, he was extremely narcissistic, he burned down the city of Rome because he wanted to rebuild it and make it his own city, I guess, or own structures, and he blamed it all on Christians. And so he started persecuting Christians very, very widely, eventually even putting Peter and his wife to death. He arrested Christians, he put them in the Coliseum, using them as human torches to light his gardens at night, and last I checked, Obama or President Bush are not doing that, and yet Christians are commanded in our text to be “be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution,” even to their emperor. So even though a government is far from perfect, it can still maintain some degree of law and order. Just look at the anarchy that follows some of the most famous rebellions in history. See, all governments are given by God, and to some degree can provide for human flourishing, even as imperfect as they are. So Christians are to obey these governments because you want to obey and to serve the God who has placed them as leaders in your life. But further, your obedience is a perfect testimony of God’s work in your life.

II) Your Submission Silences Detractors (v. 15)
The second reason we should submit to the government is your submission silences detractors. Your submission silences detractors. We see this in verse 15. Peter writes, “For this is the will of God,” Anytime you see that in the Bible, there’s fairly limited times you see that, anytime you see that, your ears should immediately pick up because that frequent questions I’m asked as a pastor. Of course we’re asked, “What is the will of God?” And when you’re asking this, you’re asking in regards to “whether or not I should marry this person, whether or not I should buy this house, whether or not I should take this job,” but what we need to see is what the Scriptures do actually reveal about the will of God. And so, very clearly God doesn’t mince words, he says, “This is the will of God.” His revealed will is you submitting to your leaders. That’s it, very simple. And so before you can even ask and question whether or not you should marry this person, buy or sell this house, you need to ask yourself, “Am I following God’s revealed will? What He’s told me is His will for my life. Am I actually doing that?” And so, it’s a good point when you see that, “This is the will of God” in the text, that you ask yourself, “Am I actually doing this?” That is the question that God wants you to ask, even before you ask these other questions in your life. God wants you to be submissive to authority, to do what His revealed will has commanded us to do.
Well, he continues in verse 15, “For this is the will of God, that by doing good, you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people.” This picks up where Peter had left off in verse 12. Look up in verse 12 with me. He writes in verse 12, “Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.” And so we remember talking about that last week that the Christians of that time were being slandered, all sorts of false things were said about them saying that they ate their children, that they sacrificed people and not their children, and they had their cannibalistic in that manner, they were practicing all sorts of infidelity, they’re wicked, vile people, and they were being slandered, and yet Peter says, “Don’t go out and write a whole treatise about why you aren’t the way you’re being accused of being. He says, “No, live your life in such a way that your conduct shows these Gentiles, shows the people that don’t believe in God, that you aren’t an evildoer. And we remember talking in verse 12 it says, “That once you do that, once you let your conduct shine through, someone will see your good deeds and actually glorify God on the day of visitation.” In other words, some will actually be saved. Well, in verse 15, he says something very similar: “That by doing good,” specifically in our context, specifically good thing of submitting to the government, “by doing this good thing, you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people.” So, even if they totally reject you and reject Jesus as their Messiah, at least by observing your conduct they will say, “You know what? I was wrong. My slanderous understanding of what Christians are, what Christians did or said, was wrong.” And so, you will prove them to be foolish by your deeds, by your obedience.
Today, we have all sorts of things that people call Christians, especially now that Christians are forced to say what the Bible says on all sorts of political issues, as it clearly differs from our culture. As a result, we are often called intolerant, or bigots, or homophobic. You see, the culture celebrates when they see us not living our Christian lives, don’t they? They see, “See those Christians; they’re really hypocrites, aren’t they?” I saw an article this week – made me sad – but apparently a large percentage of people who go to a website designed for cheating spouses to get together, a large percentage of those people identify themselves as evangelical Christians. And so the poll celebrated the fact, “Oh, well those evangelicals, those are just hypocrites, they don’t believe in marriage, married fidelity. They talk about it all time, but they actually don’t believe it.” Well, the best way to combat that is not tell them how much you aren’t a mean person or how much you aren’t a bigot, or how much you aren’t a hypocrite, how much you would never go to a site like that, no, the best way to combat these false accusations is to prove that they are false by our actions. And specifically with regard to the government, we need to obey and follow the law.
As a secular psychologist points out, we are all authorities in different realms as parents, as older siblings, maybe in our workplace, you fill in the blank. And in light of that, we understand that “what is badly needed is submission” to some extent. For “to be an authority, and to face continual rebellion against that authority, is a draining challenge” (Burgo afterpsychotherapy.com). We all get this. I know I was a teacher and some of you in this room are teachers, and you get it’s a drain when the students just don’t want to listen. They continue to rebel. That’s exactly what you’re doing when you rebel against the authorities that God has put into your life. When you’re constantly a thorn in your boss’s side, when you’re constantly complaining about what they make you do, you’re doing the exact thing here. You’re a drain to them. So we need to be those who are above reproach, who are submitting to the authorities that God has put into our lives so that we can have a good testimony to those watching world. So your submission silences detractors as we see in verse 15 here and the final reason why you should submit to the government is in verses 16 and 17.

III) You are Free to Follow God’s Ways (vv. 16-17)
You are free to follow God’s ways. You are free to follow God’s ways. There are 6 different freedoms that we find in these verses as we will see, and each of them reflect the change that has happened at the point of conversion and the new life that Christians now are supposed to live. Hence the primary command in our text in verse 16, “live in such a way.” Well, it says, “Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as cover up for evil, but living as servants of God, honor everyone, love the brotherhood, fear God, and honor the emperor.” So brothers and sisters in Christ, we have freedom from sin as Christians and a new ability to actually live a righteous life and that’s a frequent theme in the Scriptures. I’m sure you all know – Romans 6:17-18 is just sufficient to point this out. Romans 6:17-18 says this: “But thanks be to God that you were once slaves of sin, have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching in which you were committed, and having been set free from sin have become slaves of righteousness.” It echoes what Peter says – you are free from sin. You no longer have to sin. That’s the way we are born. We are born sinners. We are born with the only propensity to sin and yet we have been set free from this if we are Christians. We have a new life and we are now able to pursue righteousness. And so we come to our first freedom and we’ll go through these pretty quick here.

a) Freedom from Evil (v. 16a)
The first freedom that we see is a freedom from evil in verse 16: “Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as cover-up for evil.” Well, during the night of April 15th, 1987, some 7 million American children disappeared overnight. No, it wasn’t a partial rapture – I know what you are thinking. That was the night when the government started requiring social security numbers for dependent children on their 1040 forms. See what happened? Previously, you could just list the number of dependents, telling us that as many people lived in your in home – lived in your home. You could list any random number that you wanted to. But the moment they required a social security number to be given, it meant that 7 million children disappeared. And so we see that many people were actually cheating on their tax returns. It actually turns out that apparently 1 in 10 children reported on the 1986 tax return were a result of someone lying on their taxes. How easy is it for us to justify either not paying our taxes or at least cheating on your taxes? It’s easy because it’s easy to point the government’s poor management of funds, or to their supporting of things like abortion or military actions you don’t agree with and then say, “I’m not paying my taxes.” That’s not what Jesus introduced us to, is it? He said in Mark 12:17, “You are to render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.” Further, don’t use your new identity in Christ – “Oh, I’m a heavenly citizen. I don’t have to obey these earthly citizenship rules,” as an excuse for civil disobedience. There’s a story of a young man who said, “You know what, I’m not a citizen of this world,” as he was driving, “so I don’t have to obey the speed limit. I can even drive as recklessly as I would want to drive.” The pastor who was sitting in his passenger seat responded, “If you keep it up, we’ll both get see our heavenly kingdom real quick.” So the idea here is that you need to follow the laws of the land. You need to pay your taxes honestly, recognize that God did not redeem you to make you free from the laws of the land, but free to obey the laws of the land.

b) Freedom to Serve God (v 16b)
We also see in the end of verse 16 a second freedom. We are free to serve God. It says, “But you are to be living as servants of God.” There’s an irony here that we once slaves to sin, we’re now slaves to God. We’re essentially freed up from our slavery to see so that we can be a slave to God. It echoes Paul’s language again from Romans 6 that Christians don’t have an option to pursue what is right though. We are compelled to pursue what is right if we’re truly redeemed. You see, we must be those who try to honor God in everything we do. It is part of our new nature – it’s part of who we are as Christians – to serve and obey and follow Him and when you realize that you aren’t following and serving and obeying Him, as a true Christian you want to turn from that immediately and follow Jesus with your whole life obeying Him – even if He tells us to do things that we don’t, frankly, want to do. So every Christian is a slave to God. We’ve given it all up for Him.

c) Freedom to Honor All (v. 17a)
Well, a third freedom we have is that we have freedom to honor all. We see this in verse 17 – “Honor everyone.” Simple command – “Honor everyone.” You might ask, “What does ‘everyone’ mean?” Well, everyone, everybody, everybody, anybody that you can think of. You see, human beings are made in the image of God and are worthy of dignity. Respect, we have to honor absolutely everyone. See, there is no such thing as ‘life unworthy of life’ as the Germans believe. Since every human being is made in the image of God and worthy of honor. We need to show that honor to everyone.

d) Freedom to Love Christians (v.17b)
Well, we have freedom to honor all. The second command in verse 17 – we have freedom to love Christians. “Love the brotherhood” is a simple command. Love the brotherhood. This is actually a higher command than honor – to selflessly love and to serve other Christians. We know that the church is supposed to be a place where people can look at the church and see our love – our mutual love and respect for one another and be attracted to God because of the intensity of our sacrificial love that we show towards others. And so we are free to love other Christians and according to 1John, it’s actually a mark of every Christian. We are those who love one another.

e) Freedom to Fear God (v. 17c)
Well, another freedom we have is that we have freedom to fear God. That’s the next command – “Fear God.” This is the reverential fear that we have as we look toward the majesty and the awesomeness of the Creator God that we serve and that not only we serve, but that as condescended to send His Son to die for our sins. This is the God that we serve and we ought to be standing before Him in reverential awe, fearing Him as a Creator God. Now notice it isn’t fear that is used for the emperor, is it? It’s just for God. That’s because reverential fear is essentially the highest form of honor and respect that we can show to anyone. And so Peter helpfully reminds us where our priorities in service should lie. Even though we submit to the government and obey the government, ultimately do so because our highest authority is to God and He’s told us to do so. So we are to fear God and the final command – honor the emperor.

f) Freedom to Honor the Emperor (v. 17d)
And that’s our last freedom as well – our sixth freedom: Freedom to honor the emperor.
So Peter ends where he began, instructing Christians to honor the emperor – not as God but as a fellow man. Submitting to the government as a crucial way to show the watching world our redeemed life, ultimately because it is God who put our leaders over us and we would never want to fight against His will.
So in closing, I want to ask a couple of questions: Are you trusting the sovereignty of God in everything, in putting authorities in life? Or, are you the one who is constantly fighting against authority, big or small? Do you now recognize a pattern in your life, a sinful tendency towards rebellion? As we come to communion, some of you may need to repent of sin that this passage has brought up, before God whom you fear. And so I’m going to encourage you to take a moment in silent confession before the Lord.
Let’s pray: God, we thank you for this passage. We thank you that you’ve given your Word to us even when it says things that we don’t want to do. I pray that you would help us to be those who fight the pride that remains that thinks that we are always right, the thinks that all authority over us is foolish. I pray that you would help us to be those who live a consistent Christian testimony to the outside world – that we would show everyone that we want to honor those that you have put into authority over our lives. I pray that you would help us to do this, especially when it is difficult, especially when those in authority do unjust things, whether that be at or job or our home or at anyplace. God, I pray that you would help us to be those who are faithful to do what you have called us to do – faithful to love one another, faithful to follow you with everything that we are, and I pray that you would help us as we look to remember what you’ve done for us on the cross. I pray that you would help us to take these elements out of hearts that have properly dealt with the sin that remains. Lord, if there is sin that we need to confess, may we do so now, and may you give us the blessed remembrance that you have forgiven of this sin. That the sin that remains has been totally and completely covered by our Lord and Savior by His body that was broken for us, by His blood that was shed for us. What a sweet memory. I pray that you would help us hold on to this grace and may we be motivated to live our lives for you glory. We pray this in your Son’s name.

A message from the series “1 Peter: Standing Firm in this Shaky Life.” 2 Responses to God’s Transforming Work

Transcript:

The great church father, Augustine of Hippo, was not a young man when he became a Christian, unlike the Spurgeon who began preaching at the age of 19 – Augustine became a Christian much later in life. And we know from his Confessions that Augustine’s mother often prayed for him and pushed him toward the church, but his father on the other hand, being an unbeliever until the year of his death when Augustine was 16, pushed young Augustine to excel in the art of rhetoric. He sent him to the best boarding schools money could afford but didn’t really care much about Augustine’s spiritual life. Looking back on that time, Augustine writes in his Confessions: “As I grew to manhood, I was inflamed with desire for a surfeit of Hell’s pleasures… My family made no effort to save me from my fall… their only concern was that I should learn how to make a good speech and how to persuade others by my words.” In particular, he said “that his father took no trouble at all to see how I was growing in God’s sight, whether I was chaste or not – cared only that I should have a fertile tongue.” Some of us parents need to heed and listen to this ancient complaint as we may give our lip service to our care for our children’s spiritual state, but in our actions care often more about their academic and worldly success. That’s just an aside. And so with this as a backdrop, it’s understood that Augustine lived a particularly licentious lifestyle as a young man. He had at least a couple of mistresses, he confessed to stealing, was overcome with gross pride and arrogance, and followed a number of different false religions and philosophical systems of thought. Then, at almost the age of 32 after several Godly men had witnessed to him, Augustine was a conflicted man. He wished to pursue God, but found himself unwilling to give up the passions of his flesh. And during an emotional time of prayer and searching, he prayed this: “’How long should I go on saying “tomorrow, tomorrow?” Why not now? Why not make an end of my ugly sins at this moment?’ …All at once I heard the sing song voice of a child in a nearby house repeating in the refrain, ‘Tolle, lege. Tolle, lege.’” Which translated means ‘take it, and read.’ – Take it, and read. After coming to his senses, not sure if he ever heard such a game before, he ran to his Bible and read Romans, chapter 13. As he read Romans chapter 13, the Spirit of God convicted him and I want you to listen to how Romans 13 ends. He says this: “Besides this, you know that the time, the hour has come for you to wake from your sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone, the day is at hand, so then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires.” And so, as he concluded reading that wonderful chapter, he says this: “I had no wish to read more and no need to do so, for in an instant as I came to the end of the sentence, it was as though the light of confidence flooded into my heart and all the darkness of doubt was dispelled. From then on, Augustine was a transformed man and a little over four years later, he was thrust into pastoral ministry. Many since deem him the greatest theologian ever to live, and yet he was a faithful preacher and a shepherd of his flock all of his days.
Before any of this could happen, Augustine need to be confronted with the fact that transformation is central to the Christian message – it’s central to what Romans 13:13-14 say, “Let us walk no longer in the darkness. Let us walk no longer in orgies and drunkenness and sexual immorality and things of the like, but let us put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh.” So if you are a follower of Christ, you are those who no longer make a provision for the flesh. There is a new you with new desires, with new priorities, and new actions that result from those priorities. The old you has passed away and what remains of the old desires, you fight. You constantly fight. You constantly are putting to death the old self. See, Jesus came to transform your life, as he calls every Christian to deny themselves and follow him. Last week we remember talking about a women’s testimony as it was described as a ‘train-wreck’ of conversions and that’s true of all of our testimonies. We need to die to ourselves in a train-wreck of sorts so that we might be able to live for Christ. So we now have the privilege and ability because of our Savior’s mighty work in our lives to begin living transformationally. Once Augustine came to this realization and put his faith completely in Jesus, trusting in Jesus’s power to change, God used Augustine’s transformed life in a mighty, mighty way.

2 Responses to God’s Mighty Work of Transformation
This is the second week of a series on transformational living. We’re walking through 1 Peter 2:9-12 as I already mentioned and in these verses Peter highlights our response to God’s glorious work of transformation accomplished in every believer’s life and we remember last week that we noticed that were going to be two responses to God’s mighty work of transformation.

1. Proclaim the Glories of your Transformation (vv.9–10)
The first response we covered last week and it was to proclaim the glories of your transformation. We saw that in verses 9 and 10 and really when we look at these verses we realize that there’s really only one command – look in the middle of verse 9. The command is found right there, “That you might proclaim the excellences of him who called you out of darkness.” And wrapped around this key command to proclaim the glories of your transformation is a detailed description of what the transformation looks like in the life of every believer. And as we look to these verses, we realize that were three works of God’s transformation: that we are to proclaim both in the praise of God and in our testimony to the watching world. And the first we recognized was that you’ve been chosen to receive mercy.

a) You’ve been Chosen to Receive Mercy
We see that at the beginning of verse 9: “But you are a chosen race.” And we saw God’s sovereignty clearly on display in salvation and we saw in verse 9 that if we are Christian, God has chosen you. God has enlightened your eyes to behold the wondrous cross as wonderful and not as foolish, and God has elect you and in spite of our natural desires to long after sin, he has called us out of that darkness and chosen us to follow him. And we also remember in verse 9 that we saw that this was an effectual calling because we saw, “That you may proclaim the excellences of him who called you.” The Christians are those who hear the roar of the Lion of Judah and respond and God enabled the repentance and faith – was something we discussed very clearly last week, and so all acts of salvation then, point to God as not only immensely gracious, but immensely merciful as he constantly has withheld his just judgment and condemnation until he calls his chosen ones. As we see in the end of verse 10: “You once have not received his mercy, but now you receive his mercy.” We also discussed that the theme of God’s sovereignty in 1st Peter because he is writing to a persecuted church and anytime you encounter persecution, it is incredibly comforting to recognize that you serve and you follow a sovereign God. And so we’re reminded that as the world rejects you and your faith, when God allows personal disasters, different trials, it is God who is always, has been, and always will be in control. He will never leave you nor forsake and works everything out for our good. And so rejoice and proclaim God’s mighty merciful work in choosing to save you in spite of you.

b) You are God’s Royal Priesthood
A second blessing of God’s transforming work that he accomplishes in verse 9 and we discussed this last week as well and it is: “You are God’s royal priesthood.” – You are God’s royal priesthood and we saw that right in the beginning of verse 9, “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood.” This reminds the Christian that we not only have a constant and complete access to God’s heavenly throne room, as every believer is a priest of sorts, but we also are those who will reign forever with him.

c) You are God’s New Nation, People, and Race
Well we also saw that you are God’s new nation, God’s people, and God’s race and we saw that, really throughout our passage in verses 9 and 10 last week – “You are a holy nation, a people for his own possession.” Verse 10: “Once you were not a people but now you are God’s people.” And we remember that we were orphaned, wallowing in the mire of our sin until God adopted us into his family. The church is now his people, citizens of an eternal kingdom, and so clearly, God has transformed every Christian into an undeserved recipient of his incredible eternal blessings. And according to these verses, our response is to proclaim God’s message – to proclaim the wonders of what God has done for you, in praise him and evangelism to the watching world because God desires everyone to hear the good news of his transforming power.

2. Live the Glories of your Transformation (vv.11–12)
Now in verses 11 and 12 we’re going to see a second response to God’s transforming
power and that second response is this: Live the glories of you transformation. We first saw that we should be proclaiming the glories of your transformation and the second is: Live the glories of your transformation. Let’s look at verses 11 and 12 now. “Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable so that when they speak against you as evil doers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.” As we see these two verses clearly are connected to what comes before. They also, however, act as an intro of sorts to what comes after. You see, Christians are to live markedly differently lives now as further proof of the work of transformation that has already taken place and as a result of living a markedly different life, this will affect how we respond to those in authority and that’s exactly what we get in verses 13-17, which we’ll cover next week. It also affects how we work in verse 18-21 in the servant – master relationship. It also affects our marriages. We see that in chapter 3, verses 1-7. It also affects how we suffer in chapter 3, verse 8. So there’s a sense in which verses 11 and 12 act as a hinge of sorts – closing the door to the previous section, and opening the door to the next. Now some have famously said, “Preach the Gospel always, and when necessary, use words.” I say, infamous, I should of said infamous, because it is absolutely necessary that words are communicate the Gospel. We all know that, we understand, we need to understand truths about Jesus, his character, about you – your sinfulness – in order to be a Christian. You just don’t become a Christian by watching a person’s life. With that being said, how you live is probably the single most important tool in your evangelistic tool belt.
I’ll give you an illustration of this. When we first moved, we needed to take out a cupboard in our house and so I’ll called up Jeff Tebeau, and he brought his favorite tool – his mini pry bar. And he said, “I used this to tear out basically most of my house,” as he was remodeling it. Same is true with a faithful Christian life. Time and time again, it is our faithful Christian testimony that God uses to give authority to the transforming Gospel that we proclaim. And so, it can be said that our single most impactful witnessing tool is our personal testimony. We use it all the time. In college, I was getting to know another student and it quickly became evident that this young man was not a believer in Christ. And after a while, I invited him to come to our church and to our on-campus Bible study – at which point he then proceeded to tell me that he can be just as good as the Christians that he knew. In fact, many of the Christians on his floor, they went to the same frat parties he did, and they would watch the same movies and TV shows together, and in his eyes, they were no more different than him. And in fact, he even thought that he was a little bit better morally than they were. He rightfully asked, “Why should I waste my time going to a Bible study?” Now, I don’t know your circle of friends, but what would they say if you asked them to come to church with you. And first of all, would you ask them to come church, or are too ashamed of hypocrisy? Could they see a difference between you as a Christian and themselves? Whether they be Catholic, Atheists, Quasi-spiritual moral type? See, there should be a market difference between us a Christians and the rest of the world. And Peter wants to stress the centrality of transformational living to your ability to be his witness to the watching world. And so, Peter focuses on two ways that you live the glories of your transformation. We got two verses – we got two different ways we can live these glories.

a) Fight the Inward Battle of Passions (v.11)
The first is in verse 11 – we need to fight the inward battle of passions. We need to fight the inward battle of passions. He begins the verse like this: “Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles, to abstain from the passions of the flesh.” Now it describes those in the churches here as ‘sojourners and exiles.’ It’s a term that he’s already used twice. He’s already described the churches here ‘exiles’ in 1st Peter 1:1 as well as in 1st Peter 1:17, and in the first century world, Christians were those that were constantly ostracized by the society in which they lived. They were treated as second class citizens really. Becoming a Christian sometimes meant that you had to give up you job and even your livelihood. Sometimes it meant that you were being disowned by your family and your friends. Sometimes becoming a Christian meant that everything that you held near and dear to this life had to be counted as secondary. That is why it was a common idea for Christians to be counted as aliens, because our citizenship is not of this world. We see that in Philippians 3:20, which says, “But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.” So if we are truly citizens of heaven, then we are to live differently as well. That was Paul’s point in Philippians. We see at beginning of Philippians, chapter 1, verse 27 (Philippians 1:27) this truth. He says, “Only let your manner of life be worthy of the Gospel of Christ,” and really that could also be translated, “Only behave as a citizen worthy of the Gospel.” In other words, you are to live as a Gospel citizen, or as a kingdom citizen. You see, our citizenship is not of this world, and so there’s a real sense in which every Christian is truly a sojourner, an alien in this present world, because we are going to be different. We don’t hold near and dear to our identity as an American. We hold near and dear to our identity as a Kingdom citizen of a heavenly kingdom. And so Christians can learn to be content in any living situation knowing that ultimately our homes aren’t anywhere on this earth. That’s why Hebrews 13:14 says, “For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.” So, we are sojourners and aliens in this present world.
Now Peter also describes Christians in verse 11 as ‘beloved.’ Now, if your translation says ‘dear friends,’ that’s an appropriate translation, but it’s a little bit of a weak translation. It doesn’t get the concept of ‘the ones who are loved.’ That’s what the original language indicates. You see, by calling these believers ‘beloved,’ Peter is saying, “Listen, I love you sacrificially. I love you deeply and you know what? God loves you deeply. God loves you sacrificially. He sent his own son to die for you.” And so wrapped up in this term, ‘beloved’ is a very rich understanding of who we are in Jesus Christ. We’re loved of God. It’s also always helpful to emphasize the positive aspects of your love for someone when you’re about to confront them of sin or potentially things that they need to grow in, as you might get into their kitchen, so to speak. You see, prior to helping my dear wife see something in her life that needs to be improved, if I’m doing it right I’ll say, “Leah, I love you and you’re doing such a wonderful job with the kids. I appreciate what you did today, but today I noticed…” You didn’t think I was going to actually tell you the one thing I’ve ever noticed in her life?
And so Peter continues, “You’re beloved. I love you and I urge you as sojourners and aliens in this present world to abstain from the passions of the flesh.” Peter says if you are loved of God and are indeed citizens of a heavenly city, then start looking seriously at your passions. Fight the inward battle of your desires. The word ‘passions’ here is the inward desire of your heart. It can have both godly and sinful passions really. We can have all sorts of passions. We are passionate creatures. Here we are told to abstain from specifically though, the fleshly passions and you can assume it’s meaning the sinful passions. Peter continues to use this similar terminology in chapter 4, verse 2. If you want to turn there with me – chapter 4, verse 2 (1 Peter 4:2). He encourages the churches there. He says, “So, live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions, but for the will of God.” You might even say, “The passions of God.” He’s already used that same term in chapter 1, verse 14, when he wrote, “As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance.” And so we get the idea that the primary source of sin, in the believer’s life ever, is not the culture and the world around us, although that is a temptation, we get many temptations from the culture and the world, but it is from within. It is our own sinful passions, our own sinful thoughts, our own sinful desires that wage war against us.
See, this flies in the face of what our culture teaches about feelings, isn’t it: That they’re just natural – an amoral, or non-moral, part of us. One commentator writes this: “Such a command to abstain from these sinful passions implies the inward desires are not uncontrollable, but can be consciously nurtured or restrained. This is a needed rebuke to our modern society which takes feelings as a morally neutral given, and disparages any who would say that some feelings and desires are wrong.” And so we have to recognize as Christians that we’re fallen and that because of our sinful nature, we continue to have impure desires and continue to have impure passions. Once we recognize our sinful passions, we must constantly fight against those desires that we know to be sin; hence, the war terminology in this verse. It says, “Abstain from the passions of your flesh, which wage war against your soul.” Now, the word that is used, ‘to wage war,’ isn’t referring to a little skirmish or a one-time battle. No, our flesh is dug in in the trenches of our life and engaged in a lifelong war for our souls. Whether you want to admit it or not, you are in a battle – a war with yourself. You see, we have wrong desires whether that is our sexual lust, whether that’s passions for excesses in food, maybe it’s a passionate anger when you are wronged, or even good desires for things like financial stability, an ideal house, or the perfect family, all of which can supplant God as your highest desire. All these various desires constantly wage war against our souls. Now, it echoes James, chapter 4, verse 1 (James 4:1). James is the book right before 1st Peter, so it’s easy to flip there if you want. James 4, verse 1, James says basically the same thing. He says, “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this; that your passions are at war within you?” So what’s the thing that causes quarrelling, even within the church? It’s our own sinful passions. It’s the old self that rears its ugly head. See, you got to be aware of those sinful passions before you can even begin to fight them. We don’t blame the world for our struggles. We don’t blame those who’ve sinned against us for our struggles. No, we need to blame ourselves and we need to understand the root cause for our struggles with sin and they come from within. So we need to recognize that passions that remain within us and learn to fight those passions.
During the time leading up to his conversion, Augustine’s passions were really at war within him, driving him to tears many different times. He described his struggles with his own passions and with his own lusts like this: He says, “Bound as I was, not by another’s iron bond, but by my own iron will. My willingness the enemy held, and out of it he had made a chain and bound me. Of a stubborn will is a lust made. When a lust is served a custom is made. And when a custom is not resisted, a necessity is made.” We’ve talked about this before; it’s the downward spiral in our lives. Once you give in to that lust, you begin to desire it and it begins to be a custom in your life and you begin to think that it’s natural and normal and something that you want to do – you need to do – and you continue to respond to in that sinful way giving over and over and over again into the temptations of your own passions. So, we need to recognize sinful passions war against our flesh and we need to fight. And so the more Augustine fed his lusts, the more they ensnared him, but the more he began to focus on the goodness and grace of God, the easier it was to break those bonds. He writes, “I was held back by mere trifles, they plucked at my garment of flesh and whispered, ‘Are you going to dismiss us? From this moment we shall never be with you again forever and ever.’ And while I stood trembling at the barrier, on the other side I could see the chaste beauty of continence,” and speaking of continence, here he’s referring the joys of controlling his passions in Jesus Christ, and as he “saw the chaste beauty of continence in all her serene unsullied joy as she modestly beckoned me over and to hesitate no longer.” And so the old passions continued to call out to Augustine, but the greater beauty he beheld in the cross of Christ, the less appealing they became. And so we see yet another image of the war that wages to release us from our bondage of sin at the point of conversion, as well as an ongoing battle that we must fight against that fleshly desire that remains within. The more we fight the battle of our passions, the more we will see and experience the joys of knowing Christ and the joys pursuing a holy life.
In an epic passage that speaks of the passions of the flesh compared to the fruit of the spirit, Galatians 5 ends in a very helpful way. As you know the passage well, you see a long list of passions or the fruit of the flesh and you see the long list of the fruit of spirit – the difference in the Christian life – but Galatians 5:24 ends like this: “And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” Brothers and sisters, this is an apt reminder for all of us who will continue to struggle with sin in our life. This is an important reminder because it reminds us that the war – the war has been decided. We know exactly who’s going to win. We know that we have victory in Jesus Christ and that even though those passions that still remain that continue to tempt us; that will not be a lasting reality for the Christian. The war has been decided because we have crucified the flesh in Jesus Christ and his blood covers us. We’ve been forgiven completely in Jesus Christ and we have the hope to know that we can be victorious. You just have to keep on fighting. It’s always a lot easier to fight when you know the outcome, isn’t it? So we need to be those who focus on living the glories of our transformation by recognizing the inward battle of our passions within us and fighting that battle.

b) Pursue an Outward Righteous Life (v.12)
When we fight these inward battles, then naturally we will also pursue an outward righteous life. We’ll also likewise pursue an outward righteous life. We see this in verse 12. Peter writes, “Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.” So here we are instructed and commanded really, to keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable. This verse is frontloaded with the main command, “Keep you conduct among the Gentiles honorable.” It’s a rather simple command. I think we can all understand that, but it’s also helpful to clarify a couple of the terms that are used. The word ‘Gentiles’ here – “Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable” – This is talking about basically all unbelievers. Remember in verse 10 when he talks about the church? “Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people.” Well there’s a real sense in which the church is God’s new people and we are God’s citizens of his heavenly kingdom, and the rest of the world, they’re foreigners to that kingdom. That’s simply what ‘Gentiles’ is. They’re foreigners. And so, we are to act to foreigners to the kingdom of God with conduct that is honorable. And honorable is simple doing what is right, what is morally good. So, Christian conduct is to be especially upright before unbelievers who are constantly evaluating Christ through those of us who take his name as Christians. You realize that’s what you do when you say, “I go to church,” and when, “I am a Christian.” You are saying, “I am identifying myself with Christ.” And so the world, one of the best ways they can see Christ is through you and your life. So you call yourself a Christian? They’re going to be looking at Christ in you, seeing if your conduct is like Christ’s conduct.
Well, Peter goes on to further explain why we need to keep our conduct among the Gentiles honorable. He says, “So that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.” “So that when they speak against you as evildoers,” I mean this speaks of something that we all know to be a reality, isn’t it? The world wants to persecute and slander Christians, making false accusations or intentionally twisting our words to make us seem worse than we actually are. It’s happening a lot today. 1 Peter 3:16-17, we see a very similar truth. Were to have a good conscience before the world so that when you are slandered those who revile your good before in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that be God’s will, then for doing evil. So first off, the unbelieving world will want to make us less holy, make us more like them, it makes them feel good about themselves. It makes them feel better about the licentious life that they’re living, and hence, they might slander us. In the first century church, Christians were accused all sorts of impropriety. They were said to be cannibals as Paul’s understanding of the Lord ’s Supper, right? And then as cannibals, they were described as eating their own children. As funny as that lie is, it was actually picked up by the Soviet Union and it is used to describe Baptists in particular in the former Soviet Union. They were said to be cannibalistic – they would eat their own children. I know people who lived in the former Soviet Union who had family members who had become a Christian and the first thing they said was, “You can’t become a Christian! They eat their own children!” So it’s amazing the perpetuality that a lie like this, that a slander like this, can have. Well, Christians in the first century were also said to damage trade and different social progress. They were accused of various kinds of sexual immorality and Peter’s point is pretty clear; we need to make sure that when we are living in such a way that we are not rightly persecuted, or that the accusations brought up against us are indeed true. We don’t want to live that way. In other words, you want to live in a righteous way so that if you have an accusation brought up against you, it is a false accusation, not a true accusation. You don’t want to be a Christian who’s living an un-honorable Christian life so that someone can rightly say, “That person is a horrible person.” Like the college illustration that we found out earlier in the sermon. The man saw Christians who said, “That guy is not living like a Christian.” And so that when we are slandered, when we are wrongly accused, we need to be wrongly accused, not rightly accused for doing evil.
So we need to keep on doing what is right. Now, the temptation once we’re slandered is what? What’s the temptation when someone slanders you? Anger – “I can’t believe they said that!” And you begin to defend yourself. What happens even when you are slandered within the church family? You might say, “I can’t believe they said that about me!” And you want to fight back and you want to right a treatise defending yourself. Well, writing treatises and defending yourself isn’t what we’re commanded to do here, is it? No, it’s “live a righteous life”. Pursue holy conduct so that you can to silence those who falsely accuse you by your life, not by your words.
I love seeing the results of this in our verse in verse 12 – “That they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.” You see, your faithful testimony to continue to do what is honorable to God, what is good, what is right, what is loving, even in the midst of slander will result in the salvation of souls. See, unbelievers will come to know Christ due in part to our faithful Christian testimonies. Without a godly life, people fail to see the transforming power of the Gospel and the transforming power of the God of the Gospel. See, too often we tend to get in the way with our anger, with our blatant sexual lust, with our incessant pride that refuses ever to admit that we’re wrong – that we have struggles within. Peter wants to do everything he can to remind Christians of the crucial role of a good testimony to a watching and largely unbelieving world. So now, when will unbelievers glorify God? What does the end of the verse say: “On the day of visitation.” What is that? What is that talking about? That’s a good question we need to ask of the text. The day of visitation, well, some indicate that this is referring to the end times or a time of future judgment, but I’m not exactly sure that’s the best case because in the New Testament, when we see the word ‘visitation’ or specifically ‘God’s visitation,’ it’s exclusively used to describe the point at which God calls people to himself, at the point of conversion, and so an unbeliever hears the Gospel message, God calls him, and he recalls the wonderfully consistent testimony of a faithful Christian in his past or maybe the testimony of that faithful Christian that is sharing the Gospel with him and they’re reminded that Christ is indeed powerful and transforms people’s lives. Further, the idea of an unbeliever glorifying God for the good that they see in Christians is a completely foreign concept to the judgments of end times. You know, when God is judging the people on the final judgments, they’re not going to glorify God for that faithful Christian testimony. They’re just not. And so we can see that biblical theme of visitation here is most likely referring to the day at which an unbeliever becomes a Christian. We can conclude with many commentators that ‘the day of visitation’ most likely is the day of conversion and because of our faithful, honorable conduct, even in the midst of persecution, those who become believers in Christ will glorify God for your faithful testimony.
Peter sounds a lot like his Lord and Savior in these verses, doesn’t he? What’s a passage that comes to mind? Think of Matthew 5:14-16. You see, Peter uses the analogy that Christians were once in darkness and now have found light in verse 9, doesn’t he? And then he says in our verse that the unbelieving world will see our good deeds and glorify God at the point of their conversion. Jesus likewise had that same teaching in Matthew 5:14-16. A very common teaching that we all know, Jesus says, “You are the light of the world, a city set upon a hill which cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp a put it under a basket, but they put it on a stand and it gives light to all the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your father who is in heaven.” May we too live lives that reflect the transforming power of the Gospel that many will be drawn to the light that as they come and see God’s message of salvation, that they might proclaim clearly his glories, they might believe in him, and that they might see Jesus as their Lord and Savior – that the Gospel might have it’s accomplished, glorious goal.
It’s a helpful illustration in conclusion: Herb and Ruth Clingen were missionaries in the Philippines and they went to the Philippines right before World War II broke out and they were there before Japan invaded the island and as soon as Japan invaded, they interned all Westerners in horrible prison camps throughout the duration of the Second World War Well they, along with their young son, Bobby, were in Los Baños prison camp, and the final months of their harrowing experience were especially brutal. I mean, Ruth herself was in the final trimester of her pregnancy and at the forefront of the brutality, was a Japanese officer named Konishi. Ruth writes specifically that “Konishi was a brutal, ruthless man – surely the most hated and feared man in our camp.” He used to intimidate not only the prisoners, but his fellow soldiers with intense displays of brutality. You see, his guards shot a man in the solder for venturing out of the camp walls. As soon as he found that man, he took him behind a building and immediately shot him in the head. He had already cut meager food rations on a weekly basis causing many to die of malnutrition. Ruth also writes, “Konishi found an inventive way to abuse us even more. He increased the food ration this week, but gave us palay – un-husked rice. Eating the rice with its razor sharp outer shell would cause intestinal bleeding that would kill us in hours. We had no tools to remove the husk and doing the job manually… consumed more calories than the rice would make up for. It was the death sentence for all internees.” Well thankfully a week later, on February 24 1945, General MacArthur’s carefully orchestrated liberation of the camp successfully rescued the prisoners. Not a moment too soon because the Japanese had aimed their field artillery at the compound, Los Baños, and were scheduled to open fire later that same day.
After a couple of weeks of recovery under the US Army care, the Clingen’s daughter was born healthy, even if she was a little small. Then they write this, “Years later, Konishi was found working as a grounds keeper at a Manila Golf Course. He was tried and sentenced to death by hanging. Before his execution though, he professed a conversion to Christianity saying that he has been deeply affected by the testimony of the Christian missionaries he had persecuted.” What an amazing story of the power of our testimonies. But it isn’t just a good story, this is a poignant example of the powerful influence a righteous life can have. The Clingen’s faithfulness lived purposely before slanderers, accusers, and tyrannical abusers ended up being a key tool used by God to bring about at least one man’s salvation on the day of his visitation. We cannot overstate the importance of living a transformed life. It is and will continue to be used by God as primary tool to give credence to his marvelous Gospel message and the mighty power that accompanies it. So I pray that we are those who both proclaim the glories of your transformation, as well as live the glories of our great God’s transforming power.
Let us pray: God, we thank you for giving us this text that reminds us that our testimonies of our lives lived before a watching world can indeed be powerful and that before we even can live a righteous life, we need to be recognizing and fighting the temptations and the passions that wage war within us. I pray that as we go today that you would help us to have a little bit of time of introspection that we might be able to see our sin for what it is. That we may not hold on to sin as a habit, as a justified response to some evil against us, but that you would help us to see sin as sin and to learn to hate it and to fight it – not with our own power because we know that we will fail, but with your power that you promised to give us. We thank you that you have given us the privileged promise that we can know that there is no temptation which has been given to us which we cannot fight except you are the one who will fight it for us. So we pray that you would help us to be those who fight the temptations that you give us and then consequently live lives which are glorifying to you and which are purposeful for the outside world to see your transforming power in our lives. We pray that you would do a mighty work in evangelism in our own lives, that we would proclaim the glorious truths of the transforming power of the Gospel and that you would then allow your glorious gospel message to go forth powerfully transforming many lives as we have the privileged opportunity to share this good news. And I pray all of this in your Son’s holy and precious name. Amen

A message from the series “1 Peter: Standing Firm in this Shaky Life.” 2 Responses to God’s Transforming Work

Transcript:

I love to hear people’s testimonies. Some are rather jolting examples of, “I once was, but now am…” Aren’t they? I know some who tell stories of living the high-life, and literally the high-life; complete with drugs, alcohol, prostitution, you name it, they’ve done it, yet God has transformed them into loving husbands, fathers, and faithful followers of Jesus Christ. There is a book my dear wife is reading now and it’s called The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert. It’s by Dr. Rosaria Champagne Butterfield and a good portion of the book is her personal testimony and it is actually quite engaging. Rosaria was a tenured professor at a major, secular University, Syracuse University, and she lived in an openly homosexual relationship along with her partner and were leaders on the campus in supporting both homosexual and women’s rights. Then in her late 30’s, she began to read the Bible, to disprove it of course, and a faithful neighbor, who happened to also be a pastor, helped her walk through her journey in God’s Word. Eventually, the Lord got a hold of her heart and caused her to resign her job, break off her relationship, and now she is married to a pastor, is a stay at home mom, and writes and speaks at a variety of Christian women’s events throughout the year. Talk about a radically different life. She calls it her ‘train-wreck of a conversion.’ I know many in this very room who have shared in the waters of baptism, similar testimonies of God’s power to transform their lives, radically forsaking the old way of living and pursuing a whole heartedly new life in Jesus Christ.
Well this is part and partial to the Gospel message, isn’t it? – This transformation, this radical change. See, Jesus didn’t come so that you could just get out of Hell simply by self-identifying as Christian, or being born into a Christian home. Jesus came to set you free from being a slave to sin. That includes the ‘meth-head’ as well as the home-schooled kid. Anybody who becomes a Christian becomes a Christian and radically forsakes the old way of living and is transformed. Jesus came to transform your life as every Christian denies living for themselves, their own passions, they must radically give it all up (in a train wreck of sorts) to follow Christ. See, Jesus died to pay the penalty for sins, to enact forgiveness on those who trust him, who serve him as their Lord, and he rose again to give us the hope of eternal life. That that transformation that he promises really genuinely will take place. And so Christians, we have a brand new life in Christ. We have the privilege to begin to experience the effects of a new life in this life – to begin to live transformationally.
That’s what our text is all about today: transformational living. Well, in the context of Peter, Peter has just taught on the centrality of the Word to living this transformed life. He says that in chapter 2, verse 2. Follow with me as I read: “Like newborn infants long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation.” That is used to describe every Christian; every Christian is one who should desire the pure milk of the Word of God so that they can grow in their faith. We also see that Peter then presents Christ as our chief cornerstone so that the central person of the Word acts as our guide and a standard for all of life. Only Christians and only the Christian churches that are built on this solid foundation of Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ alone, can be transformed into God’s beautiful new temple. And now, Peter expands upon the transformation that has happened in the life of every Christian and encourages two different responses and so we are going to look at two responses to God’s might work of transformation today. Well, we’ll cover the first response today in verses 9 and 10 and the second response we’ll get to next week.

2 Responses to God’s Mighty Work of Transformation

1. Proclaim the Glories of Your Transformation (vv. 9-10)
So there are two responses in verses 9-12 of God’s mighty work in transformation. The first response is in 9 and 10 and it is where we’ll spend our time and it is – Proclaim the glories of your transformation. Proclaim the glories of you transformation. One key command in these verses is really found in the middle of verse 9. There’s a lot of supporting reasons why we should follow this command but the key command is that you may proclaim the excellences of him who called you out of darkness. So with that in mind, let’s look at these verses: “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellences of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people. Once you have not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” Clearly, there has been a transformation that has happened. We see several different ways that are used to describe this transformation. You’ve got ‘darkness into light’ transformation, you’ve got the ‘not a people into now God’s people’ transformation, you’ve got someone who had not been shown mercy to someone who has been shown mercy, you have someone who was not a holy or a royal priesthood and now who is a part of a royal priesthood. There’s also a marked difference in how God relates to his people. Before Christ, more or less, he left us alone, let us follow after our own passions and after Christ, after we’ve believed in Jesus Christ, God’s transforming power is in us – is shaping us. It’s molding us. That’s what we are to proclaim. We are to proclaim his mighty power to transform and give testimony to the fact that he has done that in our hearts.
So as we look on what we should be proclaiming, there’s three works of his transforming power that we are going to see – these are really sub-points of what we’re to proclaim, how he transforms our lives, and you could actually probably have several more than this if you wanted to break it down, but we’re going to first ease of remembering these, we’re going to focus on three of them – 3 works of his transforming power.

3 Work of His Transforming Power

A. You’ve Been Chosen to Receive Mercy
The first is that every single one of us, if we are Christian, have been chosen to receive mercy. You’ve been chosen to receive mercy. Each one of those words is very important. It’s because those are the words that Peter uses. He starts off the verse in verse 9, “But you are a chosen race…” and he’s obviously contrasting something. Anytime you see the word ‘but’ it’s contrasting something that had previously come before and what is he contrasting? Those who are saved compared to those who are not. You, if you are saved, are a chosen race. According to then verse 8 though, “You stumble because you disobey the word of those who do not believe in Christ as they were destined to do.” So the unbelieving world loves disobedience to pursue self-love, to try and be right with God on their own terms, that’s why Jesus Christ, when he proclaimed a radical transformation, a radical view their own sinfulness, people rejected them. People rejected Jesus Christ and he became a stone of stumbling. And because they disobeyed him and because they would rather live for themselves and try to get to God on their own terms, they stumbled over Jesus Christ. So they stumble on the cornerstone of Christ because when they encounter Christ, they are offended – offended that Jesus was so adept at pointing out their sin, offended that one of those sins was trying to be justified in God’s eyes by their own efforts – offended that a common crucified criminal could be God, very God in human flesh. He could rise again. Ultimately, the world would rather disobey God than turn to Christ. And in the very last phrase, we remember from last week, was a very challenging truth because it says they were destined to do this – they were destined to disobey. This is challenging and the source of our direct contrast here, on the one hand God, in a sense, destines unbelievers to unbelief, to disobedience. On the other hand in the beginning of verse 9, he calls those who are Christians a ‘chosen race.’
And so last week, we discussed the first point in that phrase is challenging because we’ve got to harmonize this verse with other biblical truths. And so we ask ourselves, “How can God destine some for unbelief? How can this be? Isn’t he all loving? Doesn’t he desire all men to be saved? Doesn’t Jesus Christ emphatically call people to respond to the Gospel message?” And we have to respond with, “Yes, yes, and yes.” But there’s a tension: God is also all sovereign, and using even sin to show his perfect mercy, his perfect patience, his perfect love, his perfect grace, and even his perfect wrath. He allows fallen man and women to continue to do what they’re most inclined to do, even purposing to give them up to their sinful desires. That’s why he writes in Romans 9:22 and 23 these words: he writes, “In order to make known the riches of his glory, for vessels of mercy which he has prepared beforehand for glory, he has endured with much patience those vessels of wrath which were prepared for destruction.” So God wanted to make his glory known and wanted to show his wrath for vessels of destruction that he has prepared for destruction, has also then provided a contrast for us – provided a contrast between those who are destined to follow their own desires of the flesh and those whom he has chosen, those whom he is elect, whom he is sovereignly destined to come to him.
But we also noted that ‘destined’ a weaker term that elect or chosen and carries more of a connotation of God letting and purposing sinful men to run their own course. And now in our verse, we see that he describes Christians as a ‘chosen race’ and this literally ‘elect race,’ the same word, it’s electoy. If Christians then, we have a special setting apart that has been accomplished in our lives. If Christians, we’ve been selected before we were even born to know Christ and to be his children. If you are Christian, God has chosen you in spite of your sin, in spite of your disobedience, in spite of your unbelief. God is indeed mighty and gracious and that’s the point of this wonderful, Scriptural proof. He wants it to be crystal clear to everyone that God has shown his grace and his mercy to those whom he wants to show grace and mercy too. It’s not because of you. It’s not because of me. Your salvation, that’s entirely a work of God.
Some speak of this as God’s great injustice, somehow meddling with mankind’s sovereign free-will. I would challenge you to show me a place where the Scripture talks of man’s sovereign free-will. It talks about God’s love and God’s desire for men to come to know him and God asking people to make a choice, but it does not speak of mankind’s sovereign free will. And so I see no injustice on God’s part, only his perfect sovereignty and his amazing grace.
RC Sproul has a pretty significant quote that I want to read for you that really helps us understand this truth. This is what he writes:
God chose sovereignly to bestow his saving grace on some but to allow others to do what they pleased. God simply passed them over. No one in this equation is subjected to divine injustice, but the redeemed receive grace and the unredeemed receive justice – the due fruits of their labor. People complain against this, saying that God is unfair to give his mercy to some and not to all. However, when we complain about God’s sovereign grace in salvation, we see how gracious that salvation really is, because our complaining reveals how obstinate our hearts really are toward the majesty and sovereignty of God. (Sproul)
So, we are blessed to know that God has chosen us. If you know Jesus Christ, we are blessed to know that he has elected us, that he has chosen us. So, we have been set apart – chosen to receive God’s grace. To what end? – To God’s glory, yes. Amen. But also remember in this verse our key command: “That you may proclaim the wonderful excellences of him who has called you.” – That you may proclaim his wonderful excellences. So, we must be those who give God the glory and specifically through proclaiming his excellences – his attributes, what he has done for you, and how he has accomplished that work of salvation in your life. So, far from stifling evangelism, God’s sovereignty should make us all the more excited to share what God is doing and what God has done, because God is the one who effects change in people’s lives. And so all we have to do is be faithful to share the message, proclaiming the joys and the wonders of forgiveness at the cross.
Now the word that is used here, ‘proclaim,’ is actually the only time this word is found in the New Testament. It’s a rather rare Greek word. It can be used to advertise – to make widely known. In secular Greek, its usage is to disseminate previously unknown information. So, to go proclaim to somebody who had no idea what is that you are proclaiming him, in this case, the truth of the Gospel message. And also, in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, this word is used to sound forth praise of God, proclaiming God’s praise as well. So here Christians are to sound forth the excellences, according to verse 9, of God’s great salvation in our lives, both containing evangelism and personal praise.
Now Peter isn’t done referencing God’s work in salvation either, he says, “You are to proclaim the excellences of him who called you.” – Of him who called you. This ‘calling’ is a reference to how we became Christians. See, God used the preaching of the Gospel in a very specific way – calls his chosen, his elect ones, to know him. As one commentator writes, “…the calling described here is effectual. Just as God’s word crates light, so God’s call creates faith. Calling is not a mere invitation; it’s performative, so that the words God speaks become a reality.” Peter just can’t stop talking about God’s sovereignty in this epistle. We’ve come across this truth several times thus far. Look back with me in chapter 1, verse 1. He starts off by calling the recipients of this letter ‘those who are elect exiles.” – it’s the same word used today – elect, chosen by God. Then in verse 3 he says, “It is according to God’s great mercy that God has caused us to be born again to a living hope.” It’s God’s mighty work of salvation, not ours. Then, God’s sovereignty is on display in verse 15 of chapter 1: “As God who has called you is holy, you also are to be holy in all your conduct.” Then we see chapter 2, verse 4, God’s sovereignty in choosing Jesus Christ as God’s chosen and precious cornerstone. Then we see chapter 2, verse 8, as we’ve already mentioned this morning, he destines some to continue to stumble over Jesus Christ, and then in verse 9, we are a “chosen race.” We are those who have been called out of darkness by God. That’s because emphasizing God’s power and control is extremely comforting for those in the midst of trials, isn’t it? And that’s what this congregation is going through, or this group of congregations that Peter is writing to. They’re going through immense trials, and brothers and sisters, if you are going through trials in your own life, you need to get your head around God’s sovereignty as well. See, God is in control, even of your trials. With impending persecutions that loom on the horizon, God is in control. When the world begins to reject you for your confession of faith, which is very much a reality in the world we live in now, God’s in control. When God allows personal disasters, like the loss of a job or death of a loved one, God is in control. It is so important to remember that God alone is always in control. He is right now, was at the point of your conversion, and always will be. He will never leave you nor forsake you. And just as we recognize that at creation God spoke light out of darkness, part of what we proclaim is God speaking spiritual light out of spiritual darkness in our own lives, isn’t it? That’s why he says, “We are to proclaim,” in the middle of verse 9, look with me, “That you may proclaim the excellences of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”
Now, our basement is quite dark because we have some windows but they are all covered in with some insulation. So you go down there, and if there are no lights on, it is pitch black. You’re talking you can’t even see your hand in front of your face black. Now, when you go in there and you do find the light switch and you turn that on, the darkness doesn’t slowly fade away, does it? Immediately it becomes light. That’s because the speed of light is rather fast, I think we understand that, but we also understand this truth spiritually, don’t we? When the light of the Gospel comes on in the Christian’s life, we’re those who immediately begin to hate the old way of living. We are those who, once we recognize darkness in our life, begin to hate it. We are those who love the light of God’s Word, even when it cuts deep, challenges our old nature and our flesh, and at the point of God’s calling, we have turned to light, no longer stumbling over Christ, but loving Jesus Christ – always and forever. That is why darkness and light are frequently used in Scriptures and are metaphors for God’s work of salvation, and I think one helpful text to look at is one that you probably know quite well and it’s John, chapter 3. If you want turn with me, we can look at that together. John, chapter 3, verses 16-21. Now, often we stop at John 3:16, it’s a very helpful verse indeed. It gives a very concise summary of the Gospel message, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” So it is a result of our faith in Jesus Christ, it’s all about what we do with Jesus that gives us eternal life. Well, 17-21, Jesus continues to talk about what this salvation, what this conversion looks like. So let’s read these verses. Verses 17-21, “For God did not his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that world might be saved through him,” sounds like wonderful news doesn’t it? That God did not send the son into the world to condemn it – that the world would only be saved, so maybe all of the world is saved. Well, lest you think that, verse 18 comes alone, “Whoever believes in him is not condemned,” Praise the Lord, “But whoever does not believe, well, that person is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only son of God. And this is the judgment, that light has come into the world and people love the darkness rather than the light, because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to light lest his works be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.” And so clearly, we are, by nature, children of darkness, hating the light of God’s grace because, like cockroaches scatter with light, we hate the light when it shines on our sin. We don’t like to be told that we’re not good people, do we? Just think positively, that’s what the world would want you to think. Well, actually the Bible would want you to think negatively about yourself, think negatively about your sin, recognize your sin, recognize that you can’t get to God based on what you can do, and when you recognize that, you see then the glorious truth of the light of the Gospel message and you love coming to the light, because you want the light to expose sin in your life and you want to come regularly to the light. That’s why we come regularly to understand the reading through the Word of God. That’s why we do it not only in our times on Sunday morning, but in our personal devotional times. That’s why we have time where we get together in care groups and have small group meetings. But, the point of God’s calling, we became lovers of light, isn’t that true? We have been transformed; we have brand new desires, new loves, a new heart, a new life, and so 1 Peter 2:9 says, “He has called us out of darkness and into his marvelous light.” See, Christians love to do what is right and what is pleasing to God. We even long to be shown remaining sins because as children of light, we hate darkness; even darkness that remains and frequently tempts us. You show me a supposed Christian who is totally unwilling to be confronted, unwilling to look at yourself in the mirror of God’s word, and I will look at a very sickly type of Christian, if that person is even a Christian at all. That’s because as children of light, we want to be confronted. We want to be shown sin in our lives so that we can be made more holy, more like our God. We of all people are to be most humble, teachable, because we have undergone a massive transformation.
Peter continues in verse 10 to describe this transformation, as he writes, “Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people. Once you have not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” We’re going to look at this ‘people’ concept in a moment and we’re going to focus on the ‘mercy’ concept right now. And so at the point of transformation, we are to proclaim that God’s mercy has taken over our lives. Mercy, of course, is simply defined as ‘God’s withholding of judgment.’ It’s actually a rather easy concept for virtually everyone to understand, unbelievers and believers alike. That’s because there’s a sense in which every moment we are alive, we are receiving in a general way God’s wonderful mercy, aren’t we? You see, if God is truly righteous, if he is truly just, we deserve immediate and instantaneous punishment. We don’t get that because you and I are still alive, right? We also get this idea that we would want swift justice. We see that in kids, don’t you? You take a toy – justice of the fist, or if you’re like my little daughter – a girly slap and a ‘ehhhh!’because she doesn’t know how to talk. As we get older, we want swift justice as well. Someone cheats in class, it is right for them to be caught and punished. Some colleges have a zero tolerance for cheats. I know of some at my alma mater who were expelled for cheating. We also think of swift justice and a desire for justice when we think of tragic events that happen in this life. Just recall the Tsarnaev brothers who were observed carrying out the Boston Marathon bombings last April. We want due process, yes, but we want justice and immediately, really in the days that followed that bombing, there was an intense manhunt for these two men who were recognized and known to have carried out an atrocity. And that speaks volumes to our innate desire for immediate justice.
Well, if God were only just, if he were perfectly and completely justice and not merciful, then we should be brought before his high court of heaven, tried, and condemned right now because the wages of sin is death. And last I checked again, we are still alive – so are our unbelieving neighbors and there’s a general common mercy that is extended to everybody. But that mercy too, will end. There’s a day of reckoning with God because his justice requires it, and before conversion, we have not been recipients of God’s eternal, forever, and abiding mercy. But after our transformation, God looks down on our sin and forever sees the perfect sacrifice of his son, forever pardons, forever forgives, and forever is merciful. Christian, this is your new status in Jesus Christ. We have forever been recipients of God’s mercy. There is no more punishment for our sins. Praise the Lord.
And so you see, we need to be those who help unbelievers see their need for mercy as well. Not just temporary or earthly mercy, but eternal mercy in light of a perfectly just God. And so if we view God’s saving work in us as truly transformative, truly merciful – we are those who would be quick to proclaim the greatness of God, the greatness of our salvation, and the greatness of his mercy. Now, there are some other descriptions of God’s transforming work in these verses and I want you to look back at the beginning of verse 9 to pick up the next one. Another evidence of God’s transforming work – the first one is that you have been chosen to receive mercy. The second is; you are God’s royal priesthood.

B. You are God’s Royal Priesthood
You are God’s royal priesthood – you see that right at the beginning of verse 9, “You are a chosen race and a royal priesthood.” Now, last week we discussed verse 5 which highlighted the Christian as a holy priesthood. And we are holy, as we discussed, because we have a holiness that is not our own. But this week we’re described as a royal priesthood, so we need to revisit this understanding of the believer as priest and why we have this concept of ‘royal’ added to our priesthood. Now, this idea of a priesthood of both Jesus and Christians is most clearly seen in the book of Hebrews, so I want you to turn with me to the book of Hebrews. We’re going to look through a couple different passages in Hebrews, and that’s really two books to the left, yet James and then Hebrews right before 1st Peter, and we’re going to look at Hebrews, chapter 2, and so I want you to follow along with me as we look at a number of different passages that talk about the priesthood, not only of Jesus Christ, but of believers. Hebrews 2:17-18 is where we begin our quick jaunt through the book of Hebrews – Hebrews, chapter 2, verses 17 and 18. The writer of Hebrews says this speaking of Jesus: “Therefore, he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he may become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God to make propitiation for the sins of the people, to make a payment for us. For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.” So that’s the basic definition of a priest – it is one who helps people get to God, right? So, in the Old Testament, you’ve got a priest who you would bring your offering to and that priest would then help you get to God. He would say, “Well, I’m going to pray to God. I’m going to help offer this animal, so that you could be made right with God.” Well now in this passage, it says that Jesus alone is our priest. Jesus is the great priest – you don’t bring an offering to Jesus, he is the offering – and you come to Jesus as a priest because he is able to sympathize with everything that you have gone through because he himself was human flesh as well. And as a result of that, we see in verses 14 and 15 of chapter 2 this truth: “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same thing, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver all those, who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.” So we are those, because of Jesus’ priestly sacrifice for us, are now no longer having to fear death. We don’t have to fear the consequences of our sin. We are those who have hope of eternal life.
Now I want you to flip over to Hebrews, chapter 9, verses 11-14 (Hebrews 9:11-14). Here the writer of Hebrews continues to talk about the priestly work of Jesus Christ, and he says this: “But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent not made with hands, that is not of this creation, he entered once and for all into the holy place, not by means of the blood of goats and calves, but by the means of his own blood thus securing an eternal redemption.” In other words, Jesus died and brought his sacrifice to the literal heavenly throne room of God. See, the earthly temple, the holy of holies, the throne room so to speak, went to represent where God dwelt. And so the high priest would come in there one time a year with his sacrifice and go into the holy of holies. Well, Jesus went to, not a representation of where God would dwell, he went directly into God’s presence and he offered a sacrifice of himself. Verse 13 and 14, he continues, “For the blood of bulls and goats and the sprinkling of a defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit, offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.” And so we begin here focusing on the service we have the opportunity to perform, and that’s a priestly service. We have the opportunity to serve God. Before, it was only the priest who had the opportunity to serve God, now we are those who have the opportunity to serve the living God, because we have been purified by Jesus.
Now, look at Hebrews 10, verses 11 and 12 (Hebrews 10:11-12). Here, he writes: “And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices which can never take away sins.” In other words, those earthly priests, they did their sacrifices time and time again and it never permanently took away sins. Well, verse 12: “But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God.” And so, here we see a complete contrast between an earthly priest who regularly, habitually, offered sacrifices, and Jesus, who once and for all offered a sacrifice and sat down in the holy of holies, in the presence of God – so that he could be a constant source of access for those of us who are believers in him. So we have constant access into the throne room of God. Christ is seated in God’s presence and he is always there, and so through Christ, we have access to God. We are free to serve the living God. Then comes a clear understanding of this ramification for Christians in verses 19 and 20 of Hebrews, chapter 10 (Hebrews 10:19-20): “So therefore brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, since we have confidence to enter the heavenly throne room, by the new and living way that he opened through the curtain, that is through his flesh, and since we have a great high priest over the house of God, we are to draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith.” We are to draw near to God. In other words, there’s no more curtain that separates the holy of holies from a priest who could go in there one time a year. No, we are those who have constant access to God. There is no more curtain – it is through Jesus Christ that we have constant access to God, and so we are to draw near bringing our offerings, bringing our prayers, bringing our lives as service to him. And so we very much are a holy priesthood, with one great priest, that is Jesus. We have no more need for a mediator to God. Some people who don’t get this or who have a catholic background call me priest or father. I get that sometimes when people come to the church or stop by asking for something or they find out I’m a preacher and they’ll call me priest or father. And though I, and a lot of times they will ask me to pray for them, and although I love praying for and with people, my prayers are no more special than any of yours, right? I don’t have some special mediatorial power to get into God’s presence any more than you do. That’s because we are all priests serving under the great high priest, Jesus Christ.
Now in our text, there is a rather jolting development in the concept of our priesthood – royal priests. We are said to be a ‘royal priest.’ I say jolting because if you know your Old Testament, you know that the divisions were rather stark between priest and royalty, weren’t they? Take King Uzziah as an example. He’s said to be a good king in the Old Testament. He reigned faithfully over Judah and according to 2 Chronicles 26:5, he sat under Zechariah’s ministry, was taught to seek after the Lord and faithfully did seek after God most of his life and God blessed him for that. He had great wealth, he had military success, he had great technological advancements – pretty neat to read about the towers that he built and the different contraptions that he built in Jerusalem. But then something strange happened. King Uzziah became prideful and thought he could do the role of a priest as well as king. And so he took incense into the temple and began to offer incense into God and the priest, eighty of them, confronted him, and he responded in anger and said, “Who are you to talk to me? I’m the king and now I’m going to be the priest as well.” And at that very moment, God immediately struck him with leprosy and he died in seclusion and great shame. And so you see, royalty and priestly functions did not mix – period – in the Bible. And yet, in Jesus, we get a glimpse of this mix, don’t we? Ever heard of the Melchizedek priesthood? Hebrews also talks about that and describes Jesus as the kingly priest, similarly to Melchizedek, who in Genesis was described as a king and priest, the only other person to be described as king and priest. And so Jesus not only as our perfect mediator, not only our perfect priest, but will reign forever as king as both the Millennial kingdom and the New Creation, or the eternal state. And so now the Christian in 1st Peter is described not only as a holy priest here, track with me, but as a royal priest as well. Just like Jesus. Well, how can this be? How can this be, well look at 2nd Timothy, chapter 2, and you get a glimpse of how this can be. 2 Timothy 2:11-12, he writes this: “This saying is trustworthy, if we have died with him, we will also live with him. If we endure, we will also reign with him.” And here, we’re encouraged and promised that we will also reign with Jesus Christ. We also see that in Revelation, chapter 20, verse 4 (Revelation 20:4), which says this: “Then I saw thrones and seated on them were those to whom the authority to judge was committed. Also I saw the souls of those who have been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the Word of God, and for those who had not worshipped the beast or its image and had not received its mark in their foreheads or on their hands, they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.” Believers, that describes all of us who endure, according to 2nd Timothy. We are those who get to reign with Jesus Christ forever – during his Millennial kingdom on earth as well as the New Creation and the eternal state. And so God will see fit to delegate some of his regal authority to come to people like you and I. It even says we are to judge the angels, according to 1 Corinthians 6:3. So we are to be ruling judges.
So, this is a blessed truth indeed, isn’t it? If you have been saved by our great God, then you are a priest and you have access directly to God and you have the hope and promise of reigning with him one day as well. Now this is not a completely foreign concept to the Old Testament either. Exodus 19:5-6 speaks of this. Exodus 19:5-6 – you can listen as I read, or turn there – Exodus 19:5-6. Moses writes, “Now therefore,” speaking to the Jews, “If you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you will be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.” This is really where Peter borrows the language that we have in our verses – a kingdom of priests, a holy nation. That’s why in the Septuagint, the word ‘kingdom’ is translated ‘royal’ and that’s why we have a royal priest. Israel was and is God’s chosen people, but because of their rejection, Gentiles have been now grafted in and receive God’s favor. Notice the conditional element in verse 5, right?: “Now therefore if you will indeed obey my voice, then you can be those who will reign with me forever.” So those promises that we read up in Revelation that we’ll get to reign with Jesus Christ forever, that we get to have perfect access into God – that was first given to the nation Israel if they believed in Jesus Christ. Well now it says that ‘if you obey my voice, you will get these blessings.’ Well, as we know the nation of Israel by in large have rejected Jesus Christ and have rejected obeying God as their savor and so now the church, those of us who believe in Jesus Christ, have been grafted in and receive these same blessings and Peter wants to make that crystal clear. You now are God’s royal people and you are a royal priesthood and God’s chosen people. That’s exactly the second promise in Exodus 19:6, “You shall be a holy nation,” and that’s where he gets that concept in verse 9 as well.

C. You are God’s New Nation, People, and Race
And so that’s really our third description of the benefits of the blessings of God’s transformation in our lives. You are God’s new nation, God’s new people, and God’s new race. Verse 9 says, “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation,” you see the connection to Exodus 19, I’m sure. So the church is now in a unique situation to be called God’s holy nation. Of course, we are not literally a nation – we come from all sorts of different nations – nor is there such a thing as a ‘Christian Nation.’ America, despite what we may think, is not a Christian nation. By in large, it is most evidently not now, but we are all citizens of the same kingdom, of the same nation; God’s eternal nation, God’s eternal kingdom, and we are citizens who will reign with Jesus Christ. Philippians 3:20 says, “Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.” So, the church then is a new nation, not with borders, not with elections, and a representative in the United Nations. No, we are citizens of God’s eternal kingdom. It is for that reason that we are foreigners in this land – sojourners in every country as Peter has already described Christians.
So, not only are we a holy nation, but also we are a chosen race – a people for his own possession. This idea of a holy nation is that we are kingdom citizens. This idea of now race and people is that we are a family – that we’ve been adopted into God’s family, that we now are kinship with Jesus Christ, we’re now part of God’s family having been adopted as sons and daughters and co-heirs with Jesus. Just as the Jews had a rich heritage of men like Abraham who trusted God even when all reason has said to give up, we too are those who are to look to Abraham, to David, to the prophets, and to the men who trusted in God as our spiritual forefathers. Why? No, I’m not a Jew, but I’ve been adopted into God’s family, and as family now, God possesses me. A people, as it is described in this passage, for his own possession. He possesses you and as someone who possesses you, he will never let you go. You see the clear illustration; if you have a possession; it is something that you own. It’s something that is yours. Well, you are described as God’s. God possesses you. How precious is that? So, clearly there’s a sense in which the church is the new Israel of God. The church is God’s chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, all terms previously used only for Israel. But, this does not mean that the church replaces Israel. We got to understand that as well. God does indeed have a future plan for Israel. You see that evident in many prophecies yet to be fulfilled. We’re not going to look there, but Romans 9-11, Zechariah 12-14, Revelation – all clearly speak of very specific prophecies about Israel that are yet to be fulfilled. So there is a day when which Israel will accept Jesus as her Messiah, but until then, the church is front and center in God’s redemptive and adoptive work in the world today. So, Christian, rejoice that you are now part of God’s people, but it was not always the case, was it? We go back to this idea of ‘transformation living.’ And we look at verse 10: “Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people.” – Yet another example of the mighty transformation in the life of every Christian. You see, every single one of us used to reject God. Every single one of us used to live for ourselves. Yet every single one of us used to identify more with our earthly citizenry, despising the notion of a heavenly citizenship, but then God called and all became different. Really we all fit that description before our conversion, both Jews and Gentiles. We’re not born a Christion – we are born sinners. That’s why I pray earnestly for the salvation of my kids. Just because they are born into a Christian home doesn’t mean that they are for sure going to be a believer. I pray that they too might become the people of God – that God too would do a mighty work of transformation in their hearts. This text relays some pretty stark evidences of god’s transforming power in the lives of every Christian. You see, we are now God’s people – adopted into his eternal family, citizens of a heavenly kingdom. It says too that we will reign with Jesus Christ as a royal priesthood – that we have access to God. It says that you have been chosen to receive God’s mercy in spite of yourself. We were those who were not deserving of that mercy. It’s very easy to silently praise God for all this in your heart, isn’t it? In fact, that should be a response and I pray that it is your response, but don’t forget the one response that we are called to have in these verses. What is it? That you may proclaim these truths – the middle of verse 9 – the only command: “That you may proclaim the excellences of him who called you out of darkness.
So we are to be proclaiming these truths in praise. That’s easy to do, but we must proclaim the power of the transforming Gospel in evangelism. Central to both these types of proclamation is your personal testimony. We have to praise God for his works that he’s done in our own lives and give God the praise and the glory for that. Amongst believers, we need to thank God and rejoice that God has blessed us with making us his children, that he’s taken the shackles off of our lives so that we are free to do what is right, rather than just pursue what is sinful and selfish. We have to be rejoicing in that and we have to rejoice constantly for that, but we also ought to be those who proclaim that wonderful transformation that he has done in our lives to others. See, there is no such thing as a common testimony, is there? See, every Christian has experienced the Gospel’s power to transform. Every Christian, even those that grow up in pastor’s homes, desperately need to be born again, and every Christian is described in our passage today. We’ve all been given immense blessings in spite of ourselves. You know many of you have grown up in the church like myself, and I think its helpful to understand that we are those who are prone to be the worst sinners, to be hypocrites, to be the people that Jesus had the harshest words for. We are prone to know a lot about the truth, and yet still reject it by our lives. And so that God would take you, a religious person, and open your blind eyes and make you willing to see your own sin and make you love to see your own sin so that you can take it off and pursue Jesus Christ with your whole life – that’s an amazing work of transformation in your life. No one, and not everyone, needs to have this radical story of how God has changed you out of drugs and a life of debauchery. God has saved me out of a religious hypocrisy and I thank God for that. So, every single one of us has a wonderful testimony that God has done in your life and we need to be faithful to share that with others and to share God’s excellences and his mercies. And so, as you have the privilege to share the Gospel, share what God has done for you, and if you have a hard time remembering, you can start with the verses that we studied today. We have a great God that has transformed us, amen?
Let’s pray: God, we thank you for what you have done in saving us and we pray that you would help us to be those that constantly remember these truths that you have made us into a royal priesthood, that we will get to reign with you forever, that we have complete access to lift up all of our requests and that we can serve you completely unhindered because of what Jesus has done for us. God, that is such a blessing. What a privilege it is to be in this right relationship to be called your people, a people of your own possession – that you hold us so close into your hands, and that you have chosen us in spite of ourselves. God, what a wonderful privilege – what a wonderful truth. I pray that these truths then would not then just be something that effects our private worship, but that we would publicly be overfilling with joy and gratitude and thankfulness for what you’ve done in our hearts, that we might be able to proclaim these same truths to others, that through knowing Jesus Christ as their Lord and their Savior and turning from their sin, turning from living for themselves, they too can know these wonderful glorious truths and that they too can be transformed by God’s mighty power. May you give us the strength, the boldness, and the conviction to keep on doing this in our lives. And we pray this in your son’s name. Amen.

A message from the series “1 Peter: Standing Firm in this Shaky Life.” 3 Responses to the Chief Cornerstone

Transcript:

Open up your bibles to 1st Peter 2 – 1st Peter 2:4-8. If you have a pew bible or you don’t have a bible, the pew bible in front of you, go ahead and grab that. It’s on page 1294. Go ahead and open up your pew bible to page 1294 or 1st Peter 2:4-8. We’ve been having the privilege to read through Genesis in our services and every once and a while you come to a passage that is just a woeful description of sin, like we saw this morning, and we’re reminded again that it sure isn’t a result of the kindness or goodness in Jacob or his sons that made them God’s chosen people, but it is entirely a work of God and so that was another reminder of the sinfulness of man and God’s amazing grace that covers even a multitude of sins.
Well let’s read our passage this morning – 1st Peter 2:4-8. Peter writes this: “As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men, but in the sight of God, chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God, through Jesus Christ. For it stands in Scripture, behold I am lying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone, chosen and precious and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame. So the honor is for you who believe. But for those who do not believe, the stone that the builders rejected become the cornerstone, and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. They stumble because they disobey the word as they were destined to do.” You may be seated.
Many people love their pets, don’t they? You know someone, in fact I know someone, who literally wipes the dog’s behind after it goes to the bathroom. That’s love, let me tell you. You think that’s absurd, just look at the doggy or kitty handbags, the clothes, the organic foods, and the specialty body care products that are available for dogs. It’s kind of ridiculous. There’s even an annual pet expo, to show off the latest and greatest in pet gadgetry. In some cities, and this is actually a sad thing, there are actually more dogs than kids – most notably in Seattle and San Francisco. You know what that means, of course – big money for the pet industry. In 1994, a whopping 17 billion dollars was spent on pets in the United States – that’s 1994. Fast forward 20 years later, in 2014, many predict a figure close to 60 billion spent on pets. That’s over 3 and a half times as much in just 20 years that’s spent on pets. Not surprised then, to find that as I recently watched a documentary, I observed many struggled to answer this particular question, “If your dog and your neighbor are both drowning and you only have enough time to save one of them, which would you choose to save?” I was actually shocked to find that a lot of people said, “Well, probably my dog.” It’s rather absurd when you think about it, this love and this care that we have for animals. Yeah, don’t get me wrong, I think we should love our animals and take care of them, but the amount of money and the amount of affection that we put towards animals is a little bit misplaced in our culture today.
It’s rather clear to see where many in our culture’s priorities lay, where their treasures are by these misplaced priorities. It’s because your priorities, you treasure, it guides your actions, it guides how you respond in every situation, it guides how you spend your money. And so this morning, I want you to ask yourselves, “What are your priorities this morning? What’s your priority in life?” We all know that Jesus calls all of his followers to have, as our priority, following him and serving him and we all know that Jesus said that the cost of discipleship, the cost of following him was incredibly great – it meant dying to yourself, dying to want you would want to do and think would be best for you, dying to your love for your pet even, and living totally and completely for him. As John the Baptist put it in John 3:30, “He must increase and I must decrease.” As we begin to prioritize living for Christ, he and his word begin to guide everything we think – everything we say and everything we do, or at least should. Another way to put this truth is that Christ is our cornerstone. Christ is our cornerstone.
What does that mean? Well, a cornerstone in modern times, we often think of a decorative or commemorative stone set in the bottom of the building. We have one out in the west corner of the building out front here. It just commemorates when the building was erected and that’s what we might think of a cornerstone, but in ancient times, if the building is laid with a foundation of stone – the cornerstone was the very first stone that was set in the construction and it would act then as a guide for all other stones. All angles of that cornerstone had to be exactly precise, if the top of it was one way or the other; the walls that built on top of that would either fall in or fall out, so the cornerstone had to be exactly and precisely even in all of its angles. If it was not 90 degrees, the walls would spread apart and we wouldn’t be able to meet in the middle. So if your cornerstone is off, your whole building is off. That’s why Jesus is said to be our cornerstone. If he’s not your cornerstone, the whole building of your life is off. If knowing, following, and serving him is not your primary priority, you will remain young in the faith if you’re even a Christian at all. Sin will continue to entangle. The various winds of temptation and false teaching will toss you around like a rudderless boat and if Jesus and his word are not our church’s cornerstone, then we as a body of Christ, will be built on shifting sands and the Gospel witness, which God has given us, will disintegrate during the floods that God brings.
I thank God that through the storms that we’ve endured in the last year that collectively, we remain rooted and firm in our foundation as a church. I rejoice in that. I thank God for that every day. It’s just another testimony to God’s powerful work in the lives of his people. My prayer is that this church and each of individually would make Christ our cornerstone, exulting him as our highest priority. And in this text, Jesus is posited as our cornerstone and Peter gives us three responses to the chief cornerstone. He’s going to give us three different responses. The first two are the Christian’s response and the third is the world’s response.

3 Responses to the Chief Cornerstone

1. Christians are Built-up on Christ (vv.4–5)
Well, the first Christian response to Jesus as the chief cornerstone is that we’re built up on Christ. We’re built up on Christ as our chief cornerstone. Now the main idea is simple, we’ve found this is verses 4 and 5 and you really have to take the first introductory phrase of verse 4 and combine with verse 5. Most of verse 4 is a parenthetical statement, if you remember English. So, verse 4 says, “As you come to him,” and verse 5, “You, yourselves, like a living stone are being built up as a spiritual house.” So that’s the main idea of these two verses. As you come to Jesus, you then, and you as a church, are going to be like living stones built into a spiritual house. Now it says and it calls the Christians, “like living stones.” It’s been many years since I took biology, but if memory serves me correct, stones were not part of that course, right? We’ve got animals, we got plants, we have birds, reptiles, fish, humans, but never rocks in my biology, and that’s because rocks aren’t alive. But here, we are called living stones and that echoes Christ, who in the middle of verse 4 is called a “living stone.” Why is that significant? Did Peter just get confused and start mixing up his metaphors? I don’t think so. You look at the context and you realize that Christians are built upon Christ to make a spiritual house. And what goes on in that spiritual house? Worship, spiritual sacrifices – look at verse 5. We’re built up to make a spiritual house, to offer spiritual sacrifices and so many see the connection to the Jewish temple. Well, the Jewish temple of course, that great spiritual house in ancient Israel was made with regular, old, dead rocks, wasn’t it? It was far from being alive. So, the temple was dead just like the Jewish religion, and the Jewish religious system with the ongoing sacrifices and restricted access to God, is likewise, dead. And Peter’s point is very clear, he used to be a follower of the Jewish religious system and now he says, “Look. We have a better temple. We have a better religious system – one that is alive – a better way to God. A living temple made with living stones, built on the living cornerstone in Jesus Christ.”
As one commentator writes, “The fact that Christ is the living stone shows at once his superiority to an Old Testament temple made of dead stones, and reminds Christians that there can be no longing for that old way of approach to God, for this way is far better.” That is why we are said in 1st Peter 1, verse 3, to have a living hope, because we have a living savior. Notice in verse 5 as well, this is addressed to the whole church that is gathered together. Verse 5 says, “You all [or y’all] yourselves [plural here] like living stones are being built into a temple.” This speaks volumes about the nature of the church, doesn’t it? Buildings, what we see here, we have plenty of dead stones – it’s nice. I’m very grateful for the nice building that we have. But, buildings are expendable. If a tornado were to come and wipe this place out, we would still have a church, wouldn’t we? It’s because the church isn’t what we see here, the church is what we see out there. The church is all of us, being built upon Jesus Christ. The church is believers who gather together, committed to loving one another, and committed to the furtherance of the Gospel message, and we are mutually built on our chief cornerstone, Jesus Christ. You see, it is through Christ that we now have a crystal clarity on who God is. It is through Christ that we now have a complete and lasting forgiveness. It is through Christ that we now have access to the heavenly throne room and that we can lift up our petitions, our praises, our everything straight to God himself. It is through Christ that we have an inheritance that will not fade as we found out earlier in chapter 1 in 1st Peter, and it is through Christ that we have the hope of a resurrection. You see, when we are built upon Christ as our cornerstone, we receive these wonderful blessings, both individually and as a church.
Now a good question is, “How then, can I be built up in Christ?” We understand that Christians are those who are built upon Jesus as our cornerstone and we are built up into a living tabernacle, a living temple, a living building, a spiritual building, but how is that we can be built up in Christ? Well, Peter answers this as well in these first verses, and he’s going to give us three ways that we can be built up in Christ. There’s really sub-points in our first point here: The first way we can be built up in Christ is – you keep coming. You keep coming to coming to God. Well, look at the beginning of verse 4 again. He says, “As you come to him,” as you come to him. You are all familiar with the phrase, “Come to Christ.” We use it to describe our initial conversion, don’t we? We usually describe, “I came to Christ after I heard the Gospel message. I became a Christian.” That’s also how Jesus uses it. He calls people to follow him. We see that in John, chapter 6. You can listen or turn with me if you want – we’re going to look at a couple of verses in this passage. John, chapter 6, verse 35, this is what Jesus says. He uses the same word, “to come.” “Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.’” So Jesus calls those who are listening to him to come to him, to treat him as the bread of life, as their chief nourishment. Then he says in verse 37, “All that the Father gives me will come to me and whoever comes to me, I will never cast out.” Oh the blessed hope of knowing that once we are kids, once we have come to Jesus, it is because God has caused us to come to him, and he will never then forsake us. He will never cast us out. And this same truth is echoed in verse 44, “No one can come to me unless the Father, who sent him, draws him and I will raise him up on the last day.” In other words, no matter what God brings in this life, Jesus says, “I will raise you up on the last day, and if you have come to Christ, it is because God has called you and purposed for you to come to Christ.” He says the same thing again in verse 65 of chapter 6. He said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.” And so, although we must respond to the Gospel call and come, it is God who quickens our heart to believe and come to him in salvation.
Now we go back to our text and it says, “As you come to him,” and this word ‘come’ in our text is actually used in the present tense. That’s important because that means that it’s ongoing. It’s something that happens again and again and again, it’s not that happens only at the point of conversion – yes, we come to Christ at the point of conversion, but in this particular passage is saying, “as you continue to come to Christ, as you keep on coming to Christ.” So the Christian is the one who is coming time and time and time again to Christ. The same word is often translated as ‘drawing near in worship.’ It’s used that way several times in the book of Hebrews. Hebrews 10:22 says it like this, “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience.” So you see we’re encouraged to draw near, or come to Christ in worship and that described what we should be doing regularly as Christians. So you want to be built up on Christ? You come regularly to him. It’s not a one-time thing that you do at conversion.
I love what proceeds the command or the encouragement to “draw near to Christ with a true heart of worship,” in Hebrews 10. 19-21 set the stage for that because why is it that we would want to come to Christ anyways? It’s because he’s saved us. It’s because he’s cleansed us. It’s because he’s done so much for us. Listen to what the author of Hebrews says: “Therefore brothers, since we have competence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way the he opened for us, through the curtain that is through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. You see, our motivation for drawing near to Christ and worshipping and coming to worship him is because he has done a great and mighty work. He’s opened up the curtain and said, “Come into my heavenly throne room and see me and come bring your petitions to me and know me.” That is a blessed privilege and so we ought to be those who come regularly to Jesus and on our knees in prayer and together corporately in worship.
Not only do we come to God at the point of conversion, again likewise, we are to come near and worship our great God and our great savior regularly. A helpful illustration for this point comes in our context in 1st Peter. You see verses 2 and 3, it sets the context for verse 4, “As you come to him.” Well, how is it that we come to him? Verses 2 and 3 make it clear: “Like newborn infants” we are to come with Jesus Christ, “Longing for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.” And so we are reminded of the same vivid picture and vivid illustration that we got last week. “Like newborn infants,” we are to long for Jesus. Newborns, they need milk to survive and regular milk to survive. When we had Abigail recently, I remember Leah waking Abigail up every couple hours, and anyone who had a newborn remembers that. Even if they’re sleeping, you’re supposed to just wake them up because they need regular, regular food. Time in and time again they need that food. That’s exactly the picture of how we are to come to Christ. We are to come to him and come to his word and get fed regularly time and time again. See it’s not just a casual approach to Jesus and the word we have. No, it’s an intense primary longing for the word like the littlest baby who longs for milk – that is how we are regularly supposed to come to Jesus.
This also doesn’t mean that we are casual in our approach to spiritual things like church, to bible reading, to bible study, those things aren’t to be our 2nd, 3rd or 4th or 5th or 6th on our list of priorities. Imagine if you treated your jobs, like some of you treat drawing near to Christ. “Well, I’m going to call in. I just had a long day yesterday; I don’t think I’m going to make it. I’ll come in 20, 30 minutes late. No big deal. I’ll come in a couple hours late, leave early.” You’d get fired, wouldn’t you? We often treat our approach to God in that same way. It’s not just church; it’s in our approach to him in our daily devotions. It’s in our approach to him with our time we have with fellowship with other believers. It just doesn’t have a priority in our life like it ought. So regularly drawing near to Christ should be the Christians highest priority. So how can I be built up, how can I keep coming to Christ? It can be built up by drawing near to worship, drinking deeply from the spiritual nourishment of the word.
Well secondly, we can be built up in our faith and built up in our understanding of Jesus Christ, our cornerstone, when we see Jesus as the Father sees Jesus – that’s the second way we can be built up. We see Jesus as the Father sees Jesus. We see this also in verse 4. Here’s that parenthetical statement that he has, he says, “Speaking of Jesus, he is a living stone, he has been rejected by men, but in the sight of God he’s chosen and precious.” So first we see he’s been totally rejected by men and this is categorically mankind is born rejecting Jesus, ultimately not seeing Jesus as God see Jesus. How we see it is to fool yourself into thinking that you know Jesus or that you can accept part of what he says, but not all of it. How we see it is to worship Jesus of your own imagination. Saying, “You know Jesus was a good man, but he’s not God.” Saying, “Jesus would never judge anyone. He just loves everyone so much.” Have you read the Gospel accounts and how he treated the Pharisees? Talk about judgment. Maybe you might say, “Jesus would want me to be happy in whatever way I most want to be happy.” Well then why did he say, “Deny yourself, stop living for yourself and follow me?” Some might say, “Jesus is so big, so divine, that he doesn’t have time to care about poor, little me.” Jesus rebuked the disciples for prohibiting children from coming to him, right? He cares about every single one of us. How easy it is to reject Jesus completely and think of Jesus in your own terms, rather than in God’s terms. I’ve read of, speaking of being deceptive, I read a story this week where a 31 year old Texas woman was posing as a 15 year old girl – Kind of amazing. She approached a woman and she claimed to be an orphan running away from an abusive situation and she had forged some documents and said that she was actually 15 years old. Well this woman, this was back in October, she took her in and began providing for her and enrolled her in a private high school, a Christian school, but eventually people began to get suspicious, starting with the woman who took her into her home and it took over seven months for them to realize that this woman was just fraudulent. That she had faked everything. For us, how easy it to be fooled by frauds? You see, Satan has plenty of counterfeit Jesus’s out there, vying for our love, vying for our attention. We have to view Jesus as God views Jesus. And our text reveals 2 ways, right? In the sight of God he is what? – Chosen and precious. When he says he’s chosen it indicates that everything about Jesus was planned ahead a time, there’s no mistakes in the events of Jesus’s life. In the Sunday school hour, in the youth group this morning, Tom taught on the parable of Jesus talking about “I’m the good shepherd” and at the end of the parable, he says, “You know what? I’m going to lay down my life and no one can take it from me, but I’m going to do it willingly.” Reminding his disciples, even before his death happened, that Jesus was the one who gave himself up. It was all planned ahead of time. He was the one who purposed to do that. You can’t think of Jesus as a poor, wise teacher who was just at the wrong place at the wrong time and just got himself crucified, or that much of what you know about him is somehow a myth because you have a bias against the supernatural. No, God chose Jesus to come, to live, to die, to do the miracles, and to rise again exactly how Jesus did it and is exactly how it is recorded in the Word.
Well it also says that God views Jesus as precious – precious. Nothing is more central or more important to our faith in Jesus. Well, he isn’t precious like a Precious Moment’s Doll is precious – I want you to get that out of your mind – precious like a diamond is precious, a precious stone. He is incredibly valued. So, we are built up into God’s house as we come regularly before Christ in worship and when we do, we worship the Jesus of the Word, not the Jesus of our imagination.
And third, how we can be built up in Jesus – we participate in priestly worship. You participate in priestly worship and we see that in verse 5, “You yourselves, like living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” This last point is more a result of being a part of God’s spiritual house, it says, “We are built up into a spiritual house.” Why: “To be a spiritual priesthood and to offer spiritual sacrifices.” So it is a result rather than how we are built up, but we also must understand that the results of being built up in Christ further produce spiritual growth. Think of the apt illustration of an upward spiral of spiritual growth. You get that? So you come to Christ and you regularly come to Christ, you keep on coming, you see Jesus as the Father sees Jesus, and then our third point here, is of course, you participate in priestly worship. And as you continue to participate in this priestly worship, you are then motivated to come again to Jesus – that’s the spiral analogy – and you again confess Jesus who he is and so on, like an upward spiral. The opposite of course, is true as well. You can spiral down to despair as we neglect each of these important building blocks as we neglect coming to Jesus, says we neglect to see Jesus as the Bible presents Jesus, and as we neglect to participate in the priestly worship he’s given us to participate in.
So what is our priestly worship? Why do we say priestly, why does he use this analogy of priesthood? You are to be built up into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood? Well, this is one of the most precious truths about God’s New Covenant – one that Catholics actually totally miss because they still have priests as their primary mediators between God and man. We call this the “Priesthood of All Believers.” You see, we no longer need a temple, we no longer need a priest, we no longer need a mediator other than Jesus Christ. Christ is our only mediator; he has finished the work that we have to receive forgiveness of sins. So, every Christian is able to have access directly to God. We read about that in Hebrews 10, didn’t we? We have access into throne room of God’s grace and so we are like priests then, because we don’t need any other mediator besides Jesus. He is our only and true mediator. We don’t need to go confess sin to a man, we don’t need to ask a patron saint for help, we don’t need to ask a priest how to atone for sins, all that work has been completely done, and we, in reality, are our own priests, lifting up requests to God. And notice; it’s everyone, everyone who’s being built up in Christ as their Cornerstone is described in this way, we are all described as priests.
Well, this is also further mentioned in verse 9 of chapter 2 and we’ll get to that next week when we get to that text, when it says, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood…” Well, as priests would off sacrifices, we are said here to offer spiritual sacrifices that are acceptable to God through Jesus Christ, as he says at the end of verse 5 there. Of course, we’re not talking literal sacrifices, not offering Christ’s body in the altar of mass again and again and again, not offering the blood of a lamb or a bull or a goat – we’re not doing that any longer because the once and for all sacrifice has already been paid. It says here we are to offer up spiritual sacrifices. It’s the same word used to describe the type of house that we are built up into. We are built up into a spiritual house. It simply means ‘possessing the nature of the Holy Spirit.” So, really these offerings can be anything in this life done in obedience to the Holy Spirit. You think of Romans 12:1, right? We’re to offer up our lives as a living sacrifice. Everything we are to do is to be like a sacrifice of a wonderful offering to God. Philippians 4:18 says that we are to give our monetary gifts for the sport of Gospel ministry in local churches and that’s an offering or spiritual sacrifice. Hebrews 13:15 says we are to be offering up songs and words of praise as a spiritual sacrifice. Hebrews 13:16, very next first, says, “We are to be offering up our service and our goods to those who are in need.” So as priests we offer all we do, all we say, even all we think on the altar of life as an offering to God. But this is only possible through Jesus Christ as is our cornerstone – as he alone is our priority, as he alone sets the lines for the trajectory of our lives. For our lives are to be acceptable offerings to Jesus, then they must be led on the narrow path that he alone can set. So we’ve established that Christians are built up in Christ, even how we are built up. We’re built up as we keep on coming to Christ. We’re being built up as we see Jesus as the Father sees Jesus, and we are built up as we participate in the priestly worship he’s given us to do and that’s living our whole lives for his glory.

2. Christians are Trusting Christ (vv.6–7a)
Well we also see that Christians response to Jesus as our chief cornerstone is that Christians are trusting Christ. We see this in verses 6 and 7. Christians are trusting Christ. Peter begins this passage by saying, “For it stands in Scripture,” and like any good preacher, Peter goes back and uses Scripture to make his point, expect this is Scripture using Scripture. It’s helpful for us though to know that the New Testament regularly quotes the Old to make a point. There’s a sense in which the Holy Spirit is instructing us how to use and think about the Bible. We always have to go back to the Word of God. We can’t go back to our own way of understanding things, we can’t go back to our own way of thinking things, we have to go back, “Well is this what the Bible says?” That’s exactly what Peter does. Here Peter makes some further points based on quoting three different important verses that speak of the coming Messiah as the cornerstone. So he says, “Look, I’ve talked about Jesus as the cornerstone, the living stone in which we are to be building our lives on and directing our lives on,” Well he says, “Here’s where I get this idea that Jesus is the cornerstone.” He says in verse 6, “For it stands in Scripture: ‘Behold I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.’ So the honor is for you who believe…” So clearly Peter had this text in mind as he talked about Jesus as God’s chosen and precious living stone in verse 4, right? Because that is exactly what this verse says and it’s a quote of Isaiah 28:16, “I’m laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone that is both chosen and precious.” Now he also says in this verse in Isaiah that “whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.” I like the translation of ‘trust’ for ‘believe’ here. This idea of trust because the Greek word for believe implies so much more than simply acknowledging some facts to be true. It means that we trust intimately, with our whole being. It’s faith that trusts in Jesus Christ. Like the boy who has faith that his dad won’t drop him as he spins him around. When Eli gets up into my arms and asks me to do that, he’s not thinking, “Oh no. He’s going to let go.” He trusts me. He believes that I’m not going to do that.
So Peter also interprets this idea of the believer’s trust in him in not being put to shame in the beginning of verse 7. He says, “So the honor is for you who believe…” Now if you have the ESV, the Holman Christian Standard, the NAT, the NASB, they all get this right but for some reason the NIV follows the wrong reading of the King James here, indicating that the stone is what is honored, right? If you have the NIV you see that in front of you. It’s actually not the stone that is honored, it’s “those who believe” that is honored. Basically, virtually every commentator agrees on this point: the grammar makes it very clear in the Greek that the stone, although it’s true, is honored, it’s those who believe in the stone that will be honored. That’s amazing when you think about it, isn’t it. God honors us. Oh, it makes sense that God would honor the stone but God honors those who believe in Him – who view him as precious. See, there is human responsibility to place our trust in the chief cornerstone and when we do, we are highly esteemed, justified, even given praise and rewards for our faith. To help us understand this, we trust in money, don’t we? We trust that it’s going to be valuable and that it has intrinsic value. When you see a hundred dollar bill you think, “Well I’m going to take care of that one hundred dollar bill a lot more than I’m going to take care of that one dollar bill that I have in my wallet,” right? Because you know that that one hundred dollar bill has intrinsic value in it. You see that one hundred on there and you’re like, “I can get a lot more with this one hundred dollar bill than my one dollar bill.”
Well similarly, the great Cornerstone of our faith has made many claims and all the angles have been tested and found to be true in that great Cornerstone. He’s made many claims in his life and we have it recorded in Scriptures. The Christian is the one who trusts those claims to be true. When it says one hundred dollars, we believe that it is a hundred dollars. When Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth, the life. No one comes to the Father but by me,” we believe that no one can come to the Father except through Jesus Christ. Jesus made this point very, very clear. What you do with him determines whether or not you belong to God.
We see this in the parable of the wicked tenants. If you want to turn with me, you can look at that. It’s in Luke, chapter 20, verses 9-18 – Luke, chapter 20, verses 9-18. Luke, chapter 20, verses 9-18. Jesus tells a parable, really against the Pharisees and the religious leaders, Sadducees: “And he began to tell the people this parable: ‘A man planted a vineyard and let it out to tenants and went into another country for a long while. When the time came, he sent a servant to the tenants so that they would give him some of the fruit of the vineyard. But the tenants beat him and sent him away empty handed. And he sent another servant. But they also beat and treated him shamefully and sent him away empty handed. And he sent yet a third [tenant, a third servant]. This one also they wounded and cast out.’” Verse 13: “’Then the owner of the vineyard said, “What shall I do?I will send my beloved son; perhaps they will respect him.” But when the tenants saw him, they said to themselves, “This is the heir. Let us kill him, so that the inheritance may be ours.” And they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. What then will the owner of vineyard do to them? He will come and destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others.” When they heard this, they said, “Surely not!”’ They got what he was talking about. “’But he looked directly at them and said, “What then is this that is written: “’”The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone”? Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.’” So Jesus very clearly says that God will give the vineyard to those who trust, those who welcome, those who embrace his servants – the Old Testament prophets and his son.

3. The World Stumbles on Christ (vv.7b–8)
Jesus also points to our third reality here that Peter addresses as well – The world stumbles on Christ. The world stumbles on Christ. You see, Jesus quotes the same verse used in our passage in Psalm 18:22: “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” And he applies it to the Pharisees here – the keepers of the Jewish religion, the Sadducees, those who had rule over the Jewish religion, he says, “You know what? You were the builders. You were the tenants of my vineyard, Israel, and you have rejected what I have taught you. You have rejected my servant. In fact, you have rejected me – the son – and you’ve even killed me and you’ve rejected the chief cornerstone. But that doesn’t mean the cornerstone will stop being the cornerstone. The cornerstone will always be the cornerstone, Jesus makes crystal clear in our passage and it is those who believe in him, who trust in him that we’ve built up upon that cornerstone. And so we have rejection of those who reject those reject Jesus Christ. And Peter applies it even in a broader sense – to the entire world – the cornerstone becomes a stumbling stone.
Now Jesus also alludes to another passage in verse 18. He says, “Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.” And he’s alluding to Daniel, chapter 2 – Daniel, chapter 2 – where Daniel looks at the King Nebuchadnezzar’s vision. If you want to turn there you can, or you can listen as I read a couple of verses from that. Daniel, chapter 2, verses 31-34. King Nebuchadnezzar was funny. He said, “You know what? I had a dream and it’s very troubling and I want you to interpret it for me, but I’m not going to tell you what the dream was.” And so no one could know what the dream was. All of the religious people, all of his mystics, all of the enchanters, all of the people that had some sort of ‘ability’ to interpret dreams; they had no idea what to do. They said, “You’re not being fair, Nebuchadnezzar.” Well Daniel, he knows what to do. He says, “Look, I’m going to tell you your dream. Here it is.” Here’s what he says, “You saw, oh king, and behold a great image. This image, mighty and of exceeding brightness stood before you and its appearance was frightening. The head of this image was of fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its middle and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. As you looked, a stone was cut out by no human hand, and it struck the image on its feet of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces.” Well, Daniel gives the interpretation, he says, “You,” speaking to Nebuchadnezzar, “are the head of gold. Another kingdom inferior to you shall rise after you, and yet a third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over all the earth.” And then speaking of that great stone, verse 44: “And in those days of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever, just as you saw that a stone was cut from a mountain by no human hand, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold. A great God has made known to the king what shall be after this. The dream is certain, and its interpretation sure.” That’s exactly what Jesus was talking about. He says, “I am going to be that great stone, who will fall and break into pieces every other kingdom that has existed and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.
This is a fallen world system. Kings, economies, philosophies, they all stumble on Christ. They all stumble on the great stone of Heaven. Paul in 1st Corinthians 1:18 says that the “Word of the cross is foolish to the world.” They see Jesus and they see absolute foolishness. No one naturally likes the message of “stop living for yourself, recognize your thorough sin nature, and turn to God.” And so the world stumbles, thinking their ways are better than God’s ways, thinking their wisdom is greater than God’s wisdom, thinking their kingdoms are better than God’s kingdom, thinking that their philosophies are better than God’s philosophy, thinking their governments are better than Jesus. But the Kingdom and the building that is built on Jesus will never fade for all eternity, and brothers and sisters, that is what we are. We are God’s Kingdom. We are those that get to inherit this eternal kingdom with Jesus Christ as the chief cornerstone, as the great and mighty King.
With that as a backdrop, let’s look at our text in verses 7 and 8 so we see that the world stumbles on Christ in these verses. He said there’s “honor for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,’ and ‘A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense.’” In other words, “For all the world who does not trust as Jesus as savior – the Biblical understanding of Jesus – becomes offensive.” Peter expands Jesus’s point. It wasn’t just the Pharisees who stumbled on Jesus, it was everyone who stumble on Jesus. The last code is taken from Isaiah 8:14 and 15, which in the context of it, of Isaiah, we see he speaks especially against religious people. Isaiah 1 has this to say about religious people – God says in verse 13, Isaiah 1:13: “Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations – I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates; they have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even what though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood.” See, God hates religious people. God hates religious people who are hypocrites who do things like pray, who say, “I’m praying for you,’ who lift up their holy hands in the worship service, who keep all the right times of the year, who offer plenty of sacrifices to God, who say, “I am going to keep my way straight and narrow, when the heart is only concerned for living for themselves. When their hearts are only concerned about what they might look like to others, thinking that they might be able to earn God’s favor by what they do. See, Jesus, and the message of Jesus, is sporadically different. “You can’t do, you can’t be religious enough, you can’t do enough to get my forgiveness.” That’s why it’s so offensive. We want to be able to do something desperately. We want to so desperately to be in control, but we can’t. So the great cornerstone of our faith is not only a source of stumbling for the secularists, for the atheists, but even many who claim to worship God.
What else does Peter say about these people in verse 8? Well the end of the verse 8, he says this: “They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do. Ultimately, the rejection of God and his cornerstone comes down to a moral issue. Why do people reject Jesus? Because they would rather do what they want to do, live in sin, they don’t want to be told what they’re doing is wrong. They disobey the Word. Naturally in our hearts, we’re inclined to do that and why do we reject Jesus? Because we want to disobey the Word. That’s our nature. By nature, we want to do what we want to do and we hate to be told that what we’re doing is wrong. We like our autonomy. And so therefore, we do not like Jesus by nature.
Now the final phrase has caused many to pause. It says this: “They stumble because they disobey the Word, as they were destined to do.” It causes people to pause because it speaks of God’s sovereignty, even over those who would reject him and a lot of people will say, “Isn’t God all loving? Doesn’t he desire all men to be saved? Doesn’t he call us to come to him and he calls us to come to him, and yet at the same time he says were destined to continue to stumble over Jesus? How can this be?” We have to answer, “Yes,” that he is all loving, “Yes,” he desires all men to be saved, and, ”Yes,” he calls us to come to him, but here’s one of the great tensions that we see in Scripture. See God is all love and yes, God cares and wants everyone to come to him, but at the same time, he’s all sovereign – he’s in control of everything. See, I firmly believe that God elects, that he predestines, that he chooses, and he calls specifically those who are Christians and my understanding of my own sinfulness and my own heart and my own inability by nature to choose him requires me to believe that, but most importantly many Bible passages require it as well. But does this mean that the opposite is true? Does God elect people to Hell? I’m going to say no to that, but this passage does say that we’re destined, that some of the people are destined to go to Hell. Along with Romans 9, we see that God has purposed that some men will never know him. They will stumble on the chief cornerstone and we also see in Romans 9:23, that he allows people to continue in sin, even purposes for them to never know him so that his great patience and his great race can be shown towards the vessels of mercy that he has prepared beforehand. Yes, we see a contrast between those two, but the words elect, predestined, chooses – they’re not used to describe unbelievers, in fact this is a different word that is used here. It is a more general term, ‘destined.’ So yes, there’s got to be a tension in Scripture because God puts that tension in there. God has chosen believers to know and follow him, and he even allows unbelievers to continue to reject him, but let’s balance that with God’s great love for everyone and his desire to see all men saved. Brothers and sisters, we don’t know who was elect and who was not. And so his command for us to spread the good news of the Gospel to the uttermost parts of the earth are incredibly relevant. His commands for us and even his example for us to call people to come to him is exactly what we should be doing and encouraging people to make a choice to follow Jesus. We want people to do that and there’s also the tension in Scripture that we saw earlier – we are praised when we come and follow Jesus Christ.
But we must not lose his main point in the midst of all of this theological discussion. The main point of these verses is that by nature, the world will reject Jesus. They will stumble over the message of the Gospel and so we must be those who pray earnestly and are totally dependent upon God to do a mighty work in the hearts of his people. So let us look intently at the cornerstone of our faith. Let us keep coming before him and his Word time and time again, intently serving and worshiping him as he has called us to do. So that we can be built up into the people and to the church that God has called us to be – that our trust in him would be evident to the watching world and that we might help those who stumble on Christ no longer see Christ as foolish, but see Christ for who he is – the great and glorious savior of our souls.

A message from the series “1 Peter: Standing Firm in this Shaky Life.” 3 Simple Steps to Grow as a Christian

Transcript:

It’s rather easy to see that moms play the most important role in their children’s lives. Kids know that’s why we have such a soft spot in our hearts for their mothers, right? Dads know that’s why when my dear son gets hurt or sick, he immediately cries for mommy even if she’s not even there. And moms should definitely know that’s why we celebrate Mother’s Day. I looked up some statistics this week for Mother’s Day. It’s actually second only to Christmas on spending in flowers and plants. That means Mother’s Day; people spend more money on flowers and plants than on Valentine’s Day. I was actually surprised to find that out. On average, the American spends 169 dollars on their mothers or grandmothers, etc., for a grand total of 20 billion dollars spent in the US on Mother’s Day. That’s a pretty penny. But that doesn’t even come close to scratching the surface of how much it could cost to replace a stay at home mom, does it? Salary.com indicates and calculates the worth of a stay at home mom at 118 thousand dollars, 905 dollars every year. That’s quite a bit of money for those stay at home moms. Thank you very much for working for free even though those are what your services are worth. But we really can’t put a dollar figure on the important role of mothers, can we? We can’t put a dollar figure on the important role on the lives of their children especially. Mothers not only provide physical nourishment, they are God’s tools to mold children into who they will become as adults. We all are who we are due in large part to our moms. They direct us, they help us see right and wrong, they continually love us even when, frankly, we don’t deserve it. And even though a mother’s role last a lifetime, one of the most precious and poignant examples of the importance of a mother, is looking at the relationship of a newborn baby and her complete dependence on their mother. That complete dependence of a newborn is actually Peter’s illustration in our text this morning. It says, “Like newborn infants long for the pure spiritual milk…” It’s only by her mother’s milk, that a newborn baby can grow and to a newborn, mommy is absolutely everything. It’s exactly how Peter describes our relationship to God in his Word. It should be our everything. God gives us everything we need to grow as Christians and it is found directly in his Word. It is it alone that we need to be totally dependent. As important as your dear ol’ mother was to your growth, even more important is the Word to your spiritual growth.
Specifically, our passage has three steps to grow as a Christian, but there really is one main commandment in our passage and that is to long for the pure spiritual milk in verse 2: “Long for the pure spiritual milk, the Word of God.” This emphasis makes sense given the context in verses 23-25, Peter has just spent time telling us that it is only through the imperishable Word of God that we can be born again- that we can be made new, that we can become Christian in the first place. The Word of God alone contains the glorious Good News, the glorious Gospel truth. It is in the Bible alone that we find that in spite of the big problem that we all face of falling far short of God’s standard for perfection, God has made a way to be forgiven, to be wiped completely clean of our sin and our filth. He promised the prophets of old that a Messiah would come who would be the ultimate sacrificial lamb and take on the sins of the whole world and that the prophets themselves looked carefully into these prophecies and that’s what we saw in 1st Peter 10 and 11, isn’t it? Peter wrote, “Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that would be yours, searched and inquired carefully, they inquired what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and his subsequent glories.” It’s also all in the word that we find how to become Christians in the first place. Only those who turn from living for themselves and believe in Jesus as their Lord and Savior can truly be born again. Peter makes that abundantly clear as well. 1st Peter, chapter 1, verse 14: “As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct.” In other words, forget your old self. Stop living the way you used to live. Stop living after the same passions that you are naturally inclined to have, and instead, run after God. We also see the same thing in verse 8, that we “obtain… the outcome of our faith,[ which is] the salvation of our souls.” And then verse 3, it is God who has “caused us to be born again to a living hope, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” And so the Word clearly proclaims the Good News and is clearly the source of our salvation, but as we will see in our text today, it is also now the source of our growth.
The Bible is not only the source of how you become a Christian, it’s also the source of how you grow as a Christian and we see this beautifully illustrated in Isaiah 55:10 and 11. Go ahead and look there if you want – Isaiah 55:10 and 11. Isaiah writes this: “For as the rain and the snow come down from Heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my Word be that goes out from my mouth. It should not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose and shall succeed in the thing that which I sent it.” Here, God says himself that the purpose of the Word is to cause growth in the lives of true believers. And so our passage today well teaches us, that the Word of God is what nourishes our souls.
Now I want you to notice in 1 Peter, chapter 2, verse 1, the very first word is ‘so.’ Some of your translations might say ‘therefore’ if you have the NIV or the NASB and that, of course, links it to what has previously been said. It is no surprised really, that the lynchpin to all Christian growth is the same source as the beginning of all Christian life, and so after calling us to pursue holiness in verse 17, remind us that our faith and our hope are in God alone, who raised Jesus Christ from the dead in verses 20 and 21, and encouraging us to pursue brotherly love as a very specific way to be holy like God is holy – Peter now gives us 3 simple steps that we’re to grow as Christians. Look, he’s called us to be holy, he’s called us be righteous, and now he says, “Here’s how you do it. Here’s how you become more holy.”

3 Simple Steps to Grow as a Christian
It is a given here that Peter is talking to Christians because growth only happens to those who are spiritually alive; it’s like the plant analogy. Plants that are alive grow, if they’re dead, they don’t grow at all. If you’re trying to grow as a Christian without being truly Christian has actually caused much confusion and widespread hypocrisy in the church today, hasn’t it? So before you start taking notes on how you grow as a Christian, ask yourself: “Have I been born again? Am I a new believer?” Has God done the work in your heart that we’ve just discussed? Have your eyes been open to the powerful truths contained in his Word? Have you turned from living for yourself and trusted in God for everything? Do you long for an understanding of the Bible like a newborn baby longs for milk? I pray that you do, and if you don’t, come right now and trust in God. There’s no better time than right now.

1. Strip Off All Sin (v. 1)
Interestingly, the stages for spiritual growth is very similar to the same basic response of the Gospel message for the first time, isn’t it? So this will be important, no matter where you find yourself in your spiritual journey, and our first stage of spiritual growth is really the first stage to conversion – it’s to strip off all sin. Put away all sin. We see that in verse 1, “So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander.” The word that is used here – ‘to put away’ – is literally to refer to taking off clothes in Acts, chapter 7, verse 58. And so frequently used as a metaphor in the same way to refer to stripping off sin really provides a helpful illustration for us, doesn’t it? With the warmer weather outside, my children have been playing outside a lot more frequently these last weeks and often, as they come in, they are still muddy. Sometimes, quite so, I got two little mud monsters on my hand. Imagine if I just picked them right up, clothes and all, and just threw them in the shower and turned on the faucet and just let the water rinse. Well neither their clothes, nor themselves, will get very clean. The mud would get stuck in all the folds and their underwear and their diapers. Sure, some dirt would come off but it wouldn’t get them clean now, would it? So I do what all of you would do. I would set them down, I’d fling off their dirty clothes, and then I’d put them in the shower. Same is true with the Christian life, isn’t it? We have to get rid of our filthy garments before we can ever expect the cleansing shower of God’s Word to have its affect in our lives. I’m not saying you have to be perfectly clean to get in the shower of God’s grace, just that you can no longer cling to the old clothes. We can’t cling to the old way of living – this sin that clings to us like a filthy, muddy, wet shirt. We’ve got to take that off and put it aside. No longer hold on to our sin, keeping it with us, close to us.
And so we’re commanded here, “Put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander.” The first he commands us to put away is malice and that first word is a general world. It’s a general word for sin. It’s an evil attitude or disposition. It describes an orientation of a walk towards evil. The New English Translation, or the NET, translate it ‘get rid of all evil.’ It’s good of everything that you could imagine in your life that is evil. And so after the most general word for sin that Peter uses here, he hones in on some very specific sins that can be particularly convicting if we look at these honestly. “So put away all types of evil, all malice and all deceit and all hypocrisy.” Deceit here is purposely misleading or lying to someone. Some blatantly all the time, others are more subtle. Subtly thinking and wanting to make yourself look better than you actually are in an argument. We do this when we say, “I always do this,” or, “I never would do that.” Don’t focus on what you never would do or what you always would do, but focus on what you actually did do. Repent of what you need to repent of and stop trying to make yourself look better than you are. We do this frequently by withholding parts of the truth – shifting the truth into what we want it to be so that we can get something that we want. Look, deceit is rampant in mankind and sadly, even those within the church fall into this temptation frequently and when we begin to deceive ourselves trying to put forward a version of ourselves that is different than the truth, then we become hypocrites.
That’s the second thing that he tells us to put away. Put away all deceit and put away all hypocrisy. So many religious people in churches fall prey to this sin which is at the heart of hypocrisy is the lack of genuine care and concern for God. See, hypocrisy is trying to be holy like God has called you to be holy totally on your own efforts – for your own praise, and ultimately, to your demise. You see, we are called to pursue holiness for God’s glory, not our own glory. The hypocrite reads the Bible because it’s what he should do. He goes to church so is not to be confused with those heathens who might worship football or some other ‘God forsaken sport’ on a Sunday. The hypocrite, he serves others because it’s all in good day’s work of Mr. Christian of the Year. Whereas the Christian, well, the Christian reads the Bible and goes to church and serves others because he wants to because he wants to honor God and give God the glory. He genuinely loves god, he loves others and rejoices at the privilege to become more obedient to his commands. Sadly, it is difficulty at times to discern the difference in our churches. That’s why Peter encourages Christians, as he’s writing to Christians here to search out your hearts and see if you are a hypocrite. Look, we’re all hypocrites at times, we need to find hypocrisy in our own hearts and repent of it, turn from it, and put it off, like a filthy garment.
What else are we supposed to put off, like a filthy garment? Well, envy and slander and all slander. Sometimes it’s helpful to see a sin for what it is not or the opposite. Well, the opposite of envy is a right response of joy and thankfulness when something good happens to someone else. Someone gets an award, someone wins an election that you were also going up for in school when and you ran for president. Were you angry at that person who won president and you didn’t? Often we are. That’s envy. Envy wants desperately good only for yourself. It sees the greener grass and sinfully longs for that grass. It even includes the desire for the downfall of your neighbor so you can inherit his grass. Envy so longs for what you perceive will make you happy that you hate anybody and anything that gets in your way or gets what you want. This takes shapes in the cultic idea of happiness that we often find in our culture.
Bet you didn’t know that the UN declared March 20th as International Day of happiness, did you? Well they did, and they actually sanctioned a “Happiness Report,” and on this “Happiness Report” they found out – I’ll give you a brief of it – Denmark was the highest and the US was not in the top ten. So, the criteria for the countries that represent the ‘happiest’ countries, well, self-reported happiness – if people said that they were happy – that meant it was a happy country. Per capita wealth, higher life expectancy, I found this one interesting, percentage of Government spending on social programs, perceptions of corruption. Apparently all those things make people happy. If this is what makes you happy, that’s all going to be fleeting isn’t it? This wealth, success, government support, it’s all going to fade away.
Also pursuing what you think will make you happy, often does not. In many of these countries that were in the top ten, they’re countries that have the highest rates of divorce. They’re some of the highest rates of infidelity. They’re some of the countries that have the lowest birth rates. You see, the UN’s understanding of happiness is not the Bible’s understanding of happiness. Bet you’d also find in the top happy countries a similar study finding that those might be the top envy countries as well. If we buy into this lie that we’re always supposed to be happy and we get to define what makes us happy, then we’ll become green with envy.
Well the final sin that we are to put off is – to put off all slander. “Put off all slander,” he says at the end of verse 1. This can include false stories or lies about others, but it’s much more broad than this. As one commentator writes, “Slander also involves disparaging others. Well timed words that carry insinuations about others are often all that is necessary to slander someone.” This is the exact opposite of brotherly love, isn’t it – that believes and hopes the best about another Christian and avoids speaking negatively about anyone. Slander is a problem. We need to check our hearts and see when and if we slander.
That was quite the list, but it is far from exhaustive list of sins. We struggle with much more than just these five particular sins that he mentions here. We need to learn to put off every bitter thought, every evil deed, and as soon as we are aware of our sin in our life, the truly converted will hate that sin and will turn from that sin in disgust. We have our own conscience, which helps us see sin but that can be broken, can’t it? It can be seared. We have brothers and sisters in Christ that can help us see sin, but sometimes people call personal preferences sin, don’t they? The one source that helps to see ourselves for who we truly are – is right here, the Word of God. The Word of God and the Holy Spirit which opens our eyes to its truth. So Christian, if you grow, you must learn to put off the sin that remains.

2. Learn to Long for God’s Word (v. 2)
But also, secondly, you need to learn to long for God’s Word. Learn to learn for God’s word – we see that in verse 2. Peter writes, “Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk that by it you might grow into salvation.” The English, like the Greek, is rather redundant. ‘Newborns’ here are brand new babies, and ‘infants’ are the youngest of babies. Peter just wants to drive home his point. He wants you to picture the squirrelest, the youngest, little newborn – you know the ones who go like – you know that have the hands they can’t control and they’re just hardly opening their eyes, they can’t do anything – they’re helpless. That is except one thing, right? Right away from the room, what do they know how to do? They know the root and they know how to suck, they know how to drink milk. It’s because ultimately milk is all they care about. You know if they could talk, it would read something like this: “Feed me, deal with the consequences, then feed me some more.” So like the newest babies who can truly has said to have one primary desire, we’re given one command – “Like newborn infants, you are to long for the pure spiritual milk.” The nourishment the baby gets from his mother’s ideal, contains and abides and even changes according to what the child needs to do each stage of development in the first weeks. You know that the baby’s stomach is about a half of teaspoon at the beginning and it gradually grows, and the same with the mother’s milk. So too is the Word of God the ideal for the believer at every stage of life. You know that as well, don’t you? You notice when you are first a believer, you read a passage and you just loved it and it was a great chapter and all of a sudden, three years down the road you see like three verses in that chapter and you’re like, “Wow! I never saw that before,” right? Or how many times have you read the same passage over and over and over again – ten, twenty, thirty, forty times and then the thirtieth, fortieth time, your eyes are opened to something new – a new truth in God’s Word. See, God’s Word is powerful. It speaks to us at our every point of need. Exactly when we need to hear what it says.
It’s because the word is living and active and sharper than any two edged sword, as Hebrews 4:12 says –or as he says in verse 23, “it is living and abiding.” And take a step back. How do we know we’re talking about the Bible in this verse, it only says “long for the pure spiritual milk.” Well, what do you think? How do we know that the pure spiritual milk is the Word? Well, as any good Bible scholar will do, we’re going to look at the context – look at verses 23-25. What’s the main topic in verses 23-25? It’s the Word of God, right? Verse 23 talks about the living and abiding Word of God, the rest, “flesh is like grass, but the Word of the Lord remains forever,” in verse 25 and, “It’s this Word that was preached to you that contains the good news,” so Peter has just talked about the Word of God. Makes sense that then that it would continue to do so in this very next passage, that an imperishable seed that has caused one to be born again is the same thing that causes us to grow as a Christian – our nourishment. So our needed context tells us that, well you also know that the larger biblical context demands it as well. The idea that the Word nourishes the soul is found frequently in Scriptures – Deuteronomy 8:3, Joshua 1:8, Psalm 119, Matthew 4 – So too is the idea that the Word is pure. Free from any imperfection and will never deceive or lead astray that’s found in Psalm 12:6, 18:8, but these ideas that are talked about in this verse, that it nourishes, that it causes us to grow, that it is pure, is found throughout Scripture.
The Word also here, is described as spiritual, and when you look at the word ‘spiritual’ in the Greek, you’ll understand that it is most likely talking about the Word of God and that’s because the word for ‘spiritual’ isn’t the normal word for spiritual – it is the word ‘logikos.’ Sounds like ‘logic,’ doesn’t it? And that ‘logos’ is also the word for ‘word.’ Literally, the word, ‘word,’ and that means that we have a logically or reasonable milk that we are talking about. And so, it’s a metaphorical milk, it’s a spiritual milk. The only time that the same word, ‘logikos’ is used is in Romans 12:1, you know that passage well, don’t you? “I appeal to you therefore brothers by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship [or rational or logical worship].” The idea is that it makes sense for you to give up your life and serve God because he has done everything for you. Well, here too, we’re to grow by our understanding of the Word of God. It gives a logical sense and it’s the Word that gives us that understanding. So, it’s not literal milk that is being talked about it here, but spiritual, rational, logical milk, and knowing the Word the God fits that metaphor, so virtually everybody agrees that the spiritual milk is the Word of God.
Now the command is simple, yet profound. When I first of read this, and I’m sure when you might have first read this you think, “Like newborn infants, long for the spiritual milk,” you might have skipped that comma and didn’t realize that the word ‘long’ is really a command. And this isn’t just a casual command, this isn’t just a casual desire, this is an intense, personal, even primary desire. And given the connection to the newborn and the milk, it makes sense doesn’t it? The newborn desires really one thing – his mother’s milk. The Christian really should desire one thing above all else. It’s the Word of God. Our desire for the Word for reading it, for understanding it, for hearing it taught, for being around others who love it – those desires should be primary in our lives. We should echo the psalmist. The psalmist says in 119 about his own desires for the Word of God. You can listen as I read a number of verses in Psalm 119. Psalm 119, verse 16, the psalmist says this: I will delight in your statutes and I will never forget your Word.” Verse 24, he says this: “Your testimonies are my delight. They are my counselors.” Verses 47 and 48, “For I find my delight in your commandments, which I love. I will lift up my hands towards your commandments which I love and I will meditate on your statutes.” Verse 72, “The law of your mouth is better to me that thousands of gold and silver pieces.” How many of you can say that? Do you cherish the Bible more than wealth? I know some martyrs that would say that but I think too many of us frequently would not. Verse 97, “Oh how I love your law. It is my meditation all the day.” And then verses 111 and 112, “Your testimonies are my heritage forever, for they’re the joy of my heart. I incline my heart to perform your statutes forever to the end.” Might we be those who so long for, so desire, the Word that it remains the highest desire to the end of our life. And when it does, it transforms our hearts.
Along with this desire comes spiritual growth. That’s why Peter continues in our verse, verse 2, “That by it, by the spiritual milk, you may grow up into salvation.” The results of this longing are made clear – like a child grows up as she is fed, so too will the Christian grow up in our salvation – The more we understand and know and cherish the Word of God. And you might say, “I don’t know about ‘longing for the Bible.’ You see, I know so many people who know a lot about the Bible who, frankly, are quite immature in their faith,” and I would say, “quite right.” That’s because many people don’t really know how to read the Bible. They read the Bible without taking off hypocrisy. You see, some read the Bible traditionally. Their parents read it daily and so they read it daily. “They’ve always read it daily, so that’s I’m going to do.” Some people, they read the Bible superstitiously. Like religious charm, you know, “What am I going to get today opens the Bible to any random passage? (Opens the Bible to any randomly to any passage) Okay, I’m going to take that one. Bring it home to the bank.” They think, “Well you better do what your daily reading says or, I don’t know, God might zap you. You can miss two days, but three days – you’re in real trouble.” That’s a superstitious way to read the Bible. Some read it educationally. They want to know all the facts, all the history, all the theology, all the mythology, as they might say. Some read it denominationally, to defend their articles of the faith, to defend what we believe in our church. Some read it professionally so they can write commentaries about it so they preach sermons about it. Some read it proudly so they can win the Bible trivia at the next wild church party they attend. The point is you can read the Bible because you feel like it. You can read the Bible because you feel like you have to or for any of these wrong reasons and you won’t get much out of it. It’s not going to change your life. You’re just going to be another hypocrite sitting in the church pew. But really we need to look at this differently – we need to look at the Bible differently. See, you don’t have to read the Bible, but you get to read the Bible. You don’t have to know God; you get to know to God. You don’t have to go to church, you get to go to church and hear the Word proclaimed. You don’t have to go to Bible study or care group, you get to. God has made available a bountiful feast in his Word and we now have the privilege to have it written in a language we can understand and have multiple copies with study notes sitting on our shelves at home. We are those who are incredibly privileged and if you are truly converted, you’ll recognize this privilege and put yourself in the way of as much truth as you possibly can. Therefore, prioritize your time in the Word, both privately and corporately, and learn to cultivate a longing for the Word. Learn to love the Bible.
Now Peter could have commanded us a number of things, some things that Paul command. Like Paul commanded in 1st Timothy 4:13, you “need to read the Word.” That’s not what he says here. In 1st Timothy 2:13 Paul said, “You need to study the Word, so that you can be not ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of truth.” In Psalm 16:14, Philippians 4:8, we are commanded to “think upon,” or meditate upon the Word. 1st Timothy 4:11 says we are to “teach to Word.” 2nd Timothy 4:2, “preach the Word. Acts 17:11 describes the Bereans as those who “search the Word.” But as important as each of these commands are, Peter’s command is more foundational than this, isn’t it? Proceeds all of these – it’s to desire the Word. The Word is the rain that causes growth. We need to learn to long for it, like the parched earth waiting to sprout up grass. And if you are a Christian, you’ll want to grow, mature in your salvation, rather you will grow and mature in your salvation and the only way that can happen is you strip your sin and you begin to cultivate a love and concern for God’s Word, drinking deeply and frequently.

3. Remember God’s Goodness (v. 3)
And our third point in spiritual growth is – remember God’s holiness. Strip off all your sin. Learn to long for God’s Word and remember God’s goodness. Now if you aren’t a believer here today, well like I’ve already said, we have similar steps to become a believer – you strip off all your sin, you cultivate a love for the Word which shows you the way for salvation and you recognize God’s goodness. You don’t know God’s goodness as intimately as a Christian does. See, a Christian already knows God’s goodness and we need to be those who remember it – recognize God’s goodness and remember it, but the unbeliever; recognize God’s goodness and salvation today. It says in verse 3, “If indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.” This hypothetical ‘if’ doesn’t question whether or not God’s goodness is good, only whether or not you have tasted his goodness or that you remember tasting his goodness -in other words, whether or not you recognize God’s good, sovereign, hand in your life. This idea of tasted, of course, means experienced and is continuing the theme of drinking milk that Peter emphasized in our passage. So Christian, you need to both remember and recognize his goodness in your life and in Scripture. The more we are aware of the Word, the more we can readily call the mind God’s sovereign hand working everything out for our good, as Romans 8:28 says. And in spite of evil, and in spite of sin, and even in spite of demonic activity, God works it all for his good purposes – just as he did for Joseph in Genesis 50:20. Just as he did for Job and as he did through Jesus on the cross for you and I. Oh, we serve a good, sweet, and merciful God.
Now this verse is actual a quote of Psalm 34 in verse 8, which says, “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good.” And Psalm 34 also proclaims some more specifics of God’s goodness. So I think it’s helpful for us to see these. “Taste and see that the Lord is good and blessed is the man who takes refuge is in him. God is our refuge. God is our protector.” And verse 16 says, “The face of the Lord is against those who do evil, to cut off the memory of them from the earth, the Lord is the one who exacts justice. He is a good God who will take vengeance on those who do us harm.” That’s why we don’t take vengeance in our own hands – it’s God who does that. And verse 17, “When the righteous cried ‘help,’ the Lord hears, [Oh, what a good God!] and he delivers them out of all their troubles,” delivering us and turning everything in our life ultimately for our good. See God has always been and always will forever be good. The Christian knows this goodness and serves as a constant reminder and further motivation to long for this spiritual milk of the Word. Because as we turn from sin, remembering God’s goodness in forgiving us as we are reminded likewise that we want to grow and become well-nourished Christians and as we remember these things, we too will long for the Word of God.
Like any mother, the Word doesn’t always tell us want we want to hear, but what we need to hear, right? For that reason on occasion, we can get a bad rap just like moms can get bad raps at times. An article was sent in from an anonymous letter writer, entitled “The Meanest Mother.” She wrote this: “I had the meanest mother in the whole world. While the other kids ate candy for breakfast, I had to have cereal, eggs, and toast. When other kids had Cokes and French fries for lunch, I had to each a sandwich. My supper was different from theirs too. My mother insisted upon knowing where we were at all times. You’d have thought we were on a chain gang! I am nearly ashamed to admit it, but she actually spanked us, not once but each time we did as we pleased. Can you imagine striking a child just because she disobeyed? The worse is yet to come. We had to be in bed by 9 each night… and we couldn’t sleep until noon like our friends. In fact our mother broke the child labor laws… We had to wash dishes, we had to make beds, we had to learn to cook, we had to learn how to clean, we had to learn to do all sorts of exhausting jobs. I believe she lay awake nights thinking up mean things to do to us four kids. Also, she always insisted upon our telling the truth, even if it killed us – and sometimes it nearly did. By the time we were teenagers, our lives became even more unbearable… While our friends were dating at 12 and 13, my old-fashioned mother refused to let us date until we were 16, and that is if we dated only to go to school functions and to church services. As you can see, my mother was a complete failure. None of us has ever been arrested, divorced, ‘or… even’ take part in a riot. And who do we have to blame: that’s right, our mean mother. She forced us to grow up into God-fearing, educated, honest adults.” The Word can feel at times like the world’s meanest mother. The more quickly we understand that ‘mean moms’ are actually helping us to become who God wants us to be, the quicker we learn to cherish, love, and even desire mothers like this. So even if the Word at times seems outdated – irrelevant – don’t give into the cries of the culture, but remember the good and sovereign intentions of our God and return back to him as he alone will give you the food you so crave as a Christian.
Let’s pray. God we thank you for giving us your Word and we thank you that it directs our lives. We thank you that even if we might have had mothers who were not perfect, that you’ve given us the most important guide in our life, and that’s your word. And so I pray for those of us that are believers in this room, that you would give us an overwhelming desire to know you through your Word. I pray that you would give us an overwhelming desire to put ourselves in the way of your truth – that we would make a habit of spending time with you, that we would make a habit of going to church, that we would make a habit of listening to sermons, to make a habit of doing everything that we possibly can to get to know you better. Lord, give us this desire. And Lord, I pray that those habits would then cultivate a further and further desire to know you and to be a child of God. And we thank you for the wonderful promise here that once we do that, once we cultivate that desire to know you and to know your Word and to know what you would have us see as sin and call sin, that you will allow us to grow as Christians. Lord, too often we look in all the wrong places to figure out how we might be able to grow, how we might be able to better ourselves and I pray that this week that you would help us to look into your Word. Lord, it is the true and only source of spiritual growth. And so I pray that it would do that mighty work in our lives. We pray this in your Son’s holy and precious name. Amen.

Recognize 4 Stages of Sin that Will Help you Respond to Homosexuality

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We will be looking at a number of different texts this morning. If you want to open up the primary text, it’s going to be Romans chapter one and we will get there probably towards the middle of our sermon. Now because homosexuality has become more and more a political issue some may be expecting to talk a lot about the politics of homosexuality and their support and some of those issues that have come before us, but I want to make sure that I say from the outset, the church is not a political entity. What we believe should most definitely affect how we vote even how we support or how we don’t support different legislation, but this sermon will not address the Christians response politically. There’s something more foundational that we need to understand and we need to get right in our own minds before we even talk about what the response might be in a political sense. That foundational question is really a couple questions – First: How do we rightfully think of homosexuality? How would the bible have us think about homosexuality? And the second question is how do we rightfully respond to those struggling with homosexuality or even the struggles that you may have if you struggle with same sex attraction in your own heart? So the only politics dealt with the today are the politics of your own heart.
It’s often been said in these days that we are living in the midst of a moral revolution. You’ve heard that right? But really we’ve been in the midst of a moral revolution for decades, haven’t we? Began many years ago, the breakdown of the sexual ethic in this country has been well documented since the 1960s and most evidently it began with not a homosexual morality, but a heterosexual community and the notion of free love that rips sex out of the context of marriage, right? Fast forward to 2006 and the movement to normalize homosexuality and homosexual behavior was beginning to make serious strides in this country. But let us remember in 2006, not many years ago – eight years ago – there were several statistics that are important for us to recall. In 2006, over half of the couples living together did so before getting married. Cohabitation was the norm for a majority of the people in this country. Also, we know that in the year 2006, it is reported that only 3% of couples or of individuals successfully waited until marriage to have sex for the first time. This was in 2006. This is rather shocking until you have a frank conversation with friends and family and we realize that even many within the church have not been faithful to reserve sex exclusively for marriage. So it should come as no surprise that as goes a biblical ethic for sexuality, masculinity, femininity, and marriage, so too will radical moral revolutions soon take place.
I mentioned 2006 because it is in that year that South Carolina overwhelming passed a constitutional amendment defining marriage as only between a man and a woman. 80% of the population in that state voted for that. By the end of 2013 in that same exact state, 48% percent are in favor are of some form of same-sex legalized marriage. This was in 7 years. A lot has changed. Nationally the trend is about the same with many polls indicating that a majority of Americans favor the legalization of same sex marriage. In the midst of this, you have many public figures capitulating, coming out in support of same sex marriage, when once they had been opposed to it. Whether it has been politicians, and we’re not talking about politics, but even many Christian leaders have voiced their support. The most recent is the lead singer of the band Jars of Clay – A very famous, biblically based, evangelical band that have written a lot a great songs. Well the lead singer of the band, Jars of Clay, recently tweeted his support of same sex marriage. World Vision, a very famous organization, has gone back and forth on the issue. And in many biblically based Christian colleges and churches have suddenly come to a new understanding on the bible’s teaching on sexuality. And so we have many voices calling for the radical revision of the churches understanding on sexuality and the meaning of marriage that has been faithfully understood for 2000 years. Others too in the wider culture recognize that a showdown is coming for the evangelical church in America. Anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann of Stanford University has remarked, “It is clear to any observer, and to an observer like me, that evangelical Christianity is at a crossroad.” What is that crossroad? “The question of whether gay Christians should be married within the church.”
Less than two weeks ago, a book was released into this controversy: God and the Gay Christian, attempting to bring to the mainstream, bible believing Evangelicals, the same arguments that many liberal, Bible-rejecting denominations have taught for years. The basic arguments that have been purported in this particular book are: the bible doesn’t condemn all homosexual acts, and the church should embrace warmly all practicing homosexual Christians. We’re at a point in our culture where we can no longer ignore the moral revolution happening around us. Children will be exposed to the idea of homosexuality younger and younger. Sixth graders who are in this room right now, many of you are going into 7th grade next year – a new school – and I can guarantee that this will be a topic of conversation in your middle school. Everyone – this is a topic of conversation at your workplace, your neighbors, on the TV, we can’t escape this. We can’t pretend that it doesn’t exist. Do you know how to respond? As a Christian, do you know how to respond?
Some of you may know instinctively know that homosexuality is wrong and you’ve always hated it as sin. But sadly, that has resulted in hatred or at least in rude treatment to those you perceive to be gay. I’ve seen Christians respond in each of the following negative ways: turning in disgust from two men holding hands or seeing them from a distance and yelling, “Fags!” I’ve seen those picketing with signs, “God hates gays! God hates gays! Say no way to gay! Say no way to gay!” I’ve even, myself, used gay slurs, instead of saying “that’s so lame,” I say, “That’s so gay.” Do you think any of those actions will create any opportunity for the Gospel? Each of these are not the right response and we need to give credit to the mantra, and actually, when we respond this way gives credence to the mantra that homophobia is real and alive in Christian cultures. Brother and sisters, if the shoe fits, wear it. Repent of an unloving spirit towards those struggling with homosexuality and put on much love and much grace. Yet, we need to never back away from the truth about what the bible says.
In order to understand our response to homosexuality, I think we first need to ask some key questions. We need to look at the biblical response to those questions and then look at Romans 1 where we will see four stages of sin that once we recognize these stages of sin we will recognize that they’re the stages that we go through as well and they will help us respond to the issue of homosexuality with much grace and a heart of compassion for the lost.

Is it possible to be a Gay Christian?

Well the first question we need to look at is: Is it possible to be a Gay Christian? God and the Gay Christian has just come out like I just mentioned and it’s a book. Entire denominations for decades have been appointing homosexual clergy but in order to rightly understand this question we must first define some terms. We’re going to define the terms and the difference between same sex attraction and gay, or identifying yourself as gay and when we do that we will understand that same sex attraction is a sinful temptation.

1. Same sex attraction is a sinful temptation.
Same sex attraction is a sinful temptation. Well in order to help define the difference here, when you say, if you were to ever say, “Well, I’m gay,” it is often an identity that encompasses much more than sexual attraction, isn’t it? It indicates a whole lifestyle that is believed to be an important, inseparable, an unchangeable part of a person’s being or identity. In other words, “It’s just who I am, I am gay.” Whereas the term same sex attraction defines a specific type of sexual orientation or a struggle and I believe Christians, and many Christians do, struggle with same sex attraction and it is seen in the right light as a sinful temptation to be avoided – a sinful temptation that should be avoided. When seen in this light, same sex attraction really is no different than any other sexual temptation, is it? Look at 1 Thessalonians 4:3 and 4.
1 Thessalonians 4:3 and 4. We’re going to be doing a lot of flipping this morning. This is not the way we normally operate. We normally park in one Scripture and really work through that and we’re going to do that with Romans 1 this morning, but it is important to get the whole counsel of the Word of God on this issue. So we’re going to look at 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, verses 3 and 4. In this passage, we will see that the Bible prohibits any and all sexual immorality. Here’s what Paul writes to 1 Thessalonians 4, verse 3. He writes: “For this is the will of God, your sanctification that you abstain from sexual immorality.” That you should abstain from sexual immorality. The word that is used, “sexual immorality,” is the Greek word “pornea,” it’s where we get ‘porn,’ and it’s the idea of fornication. It’s a catch all term for any and all sexual activity outside of the bounds of marriage – heterosexual marriage. In a lot of this prohibition, all Christians then, according to verse four are commanded this: “Why are to abstain from sexual immorality? That each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor. Not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God.” And so here, Christians are encouraged to learn to control these sexual temptations. To learn to control any form of sexual urge outside of the bounds of heterosexual marriage.
It’s actually the same term, this ‘pornea’ term, is used by Jesus in Mark, chapter 7, verses 20-23. It’s another passage, you can turn there if you like – Mark 7:20-23. Jesus says this – he’s talking to a Pharisee and the Pharisee is wondering, “Well, what defiles a person?” The people are concerned that the traditions of the elders and of the Pharisees are not being followed by its leaders and whether it’s what they eat, how they eat, they eat with unclean hands, all this stuff, and Jesus says, “You know what? It’s not about what goes into a person that defiles a person; it’s what comes out of them that defiles them.” That’s what he said in verse 20. In verse 21 in says, “For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, come sexual immorality [that’s the same term that is used in 1st Thessalonians], theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, [etc…].” Verse 23, “All of these evil things come from within and they defile a person.” So here we have, very clearly, Jesus saying that the evil, and he call’s something evil and it’s any form of sexual deviation apart from the bounds of marriage. He says the same thing and it comes from within. It comes from a temptation and an urge that we have from within our own hearts. You see, many who believe that the Bible does not condemn homosexuality or any other sexual preferences claims, “Well, Jesus never mentioned homosexuality specifically.” It’s true that Jesus mentioned homosexuality specifically, he never uses that word. But arguments from silence are never good and actually he does include sexual immorality in a list of terrible, defiling sins and ‘pornea’ includes the sin of homosexuality – in the definition of the term itself. So Jesus also speaks of marriage in other places reflected in the created order between one man and one woman for life. So the issue of same sex attraction, although it was not specifically mentioned Jesus is definitely something that Jesus would not have condoned.
The issue of same sex attraction, like all sexual temptations, is to be steadfastly avoided. But the presence of a sinful temptation is not sin in it of itself, is it? It’s not sin in it of itself to be tempted. Now, I’ll give you an example. Most men in this room understand sexual temptation, don’t you? You’re checking a news page, and I’m sure women are doing the same thing, you’re checking a website and a particular attractive young lady in very little clothing all of a sudden pops up on the side and it’s not sin that that lady popped up, at least in your heart. But the sin begins as your eyes start to linger. As you click on the picture, the link, as you long for and lust to see more. So the presence of the temptation isn’t sin in it of itself, even same sex attraction, isn’t a sin in it of itself. Just as it is possible to struggle with heterosexual lust and be a Christian, so too is it possible to struggle with same sex lust and also be a Christian. You see, we need to be those to recognize any and all sexual temptations in our lives and learn to hate it. Not call it love, not celebrate it as the world does.
This means that those who struggle with same sex attraction can live wonderfully fruitful Christian lives. I know many young men who do. I’ve the privilege to counsel a number of men struggling on this particular issue and they live wonderfully happy Christian lives for the sake of the glory of God. Or another example is, as Sam Allberry, he actually wrote a great little book, I brought it here with me because I want to recommend it you, it’s Is God Anti-Gay. He is a pastor in England who struggles with same sex attraction. It’s something he admits to struggling with for a long time. Never acted on it, never has been involved in a homosexual lifestyle, yet he realizes that this is a struggle in his life. It’s an excellent book for you. While I’m giving you recommendations, loveintolight.org is wonderful website. Loveintolight.org is a wonderful tool to give to anybody struggling with same sex attraction.

2. Your sexuality does NOT define you
Well, God’s grace has abounded in Sam’s life and it’s abounded in many other lives as well and he has a blessed testimony that can be a beacon of hope to those who struggle with same sex attraction that they don’t have to give into that temptation, to those desires. They can love Christ as their savior. So first we need to understand that same sex attraction is just one of many sexual temptations. Further, we must reject using sexuality to define us. Your sexuality does not define you. I want to grant this, that God has blessed mankind with sex and encourages it in the context of marriage, even commands it in Genesis, chapter 2, and 1st Corinthians 7. He’s even inspired a whole book that explores the wonders of intimacy within the context of marriage, The Song of Solomon, but as many married couples will realize that there is so much more to who we are than our sexuality, isn’t there? But the lie that your sexuality defines you is what our culture teaches. You are defined by your sexuality and that began, of course, with the famous psychologist Sigmund Freud. Everyone who reads Freud understands that he was obsessed with sex and believed that one’s sexual desires radically affected any and all behavior that one had. Freud, as one person writes, “Freud essentially replaced the soul with sexual identity as a singular defining characteristic of humanity.” You see, our sexuality is indeed a part of how we feel, but it does not make up fundamentally who I am. We’re so much more than our sexual desires. See God has called you to a specific occupation, has he not? God has called you to serve him in his church, has he not? God has given you different hobbies, different food preferences, different academic abilities, has he not? We are by design complex, and yet every part of my complex self, according to Jesus, be given over to Christ, including our sexuality. If you are Christian, then your new identity is in Christ. And so a closing statement here is: it’s absolutely possible to be a Christian and still struggle with same sex attraction. It’s just that your identity is not in that, but is in Christ.
An illustration of this, one thing I’ve heard often is that our culture often blames a puritan, or Christian, sexual ethic is the reason why so many kids who struggle with a variety of sexual temptations want to kill themselves and they point the finger at Christians, point their fingers at our puritan past and say, “Well the reason why this is such a struggle for so many people and there’s so much angst in teenagers about their sexuality is because you all have created this idea that sex is only to be reserved to marriage and they just need to be free to express that in any way they have and as they so desire.” Well actually the kids struggling with wanting to kill themselves is not because of the puritan, or Christian, sexual ethic. It’s because they bought into the world’s lie that fulfilling your sexual desires is the chief end of your identity. Angst, depression, and suicide are the result of misplace priorities, misplaced identity, misplaced love, thinking that the desires that you have in your heart are something to be celebrated.
So is it possible to be a ‘Gay Christian?’ Well it depends on what you’re talking about. Is it possible to be a Christian and struggle with same sex attraction? Absolutely. Is it possible to be someone who has come out of the closet and living a gay lifestyle and wants to live a gay lifestyle, never has any desire to change from a gay lifestyle and still be a Christian? No. We have to be careful not to let one particular struggle define who we are.

What’s at stake with this issue?

1. The Gospel is at stake
Well another question we need to ask is, “What’s at stake with this issue?” Some people will say, “Well isn’t this just about what people do in their bedroom. It’s just a private issue. We really don’t care what people do or don’t do.” Well, brothers and sisters, with this particular issue, I believe the Gospel is at stake – the Gospel is at stake. And that’s because central to the gospel is what? It’s a correct understanding of sin. You see, many Gospel presentations fall flat because they miss the mark on sin and repentance. They say, “God is all powerful, loves you, sent Jesus for you. You just need to believe in him and he’ll embrace you into his loving arms.” And that is partially true, but you see, central to the Gospel call is an understanding that we are hopelessly lost in God’s eyes. And central to the Gospel call, as we’ve already recalled this, is repentance, a rejecting of the old self and putting on Christ. The Gospel requires us to say no to our deepest sense of who we are and the most natural lifestyle that we may want to lead. That’s what this central call to the Gospel – it’s to deny self and follow Jesus with everything – not to live the way you want to live. As Sam Allberry said in his book, “If someone thinks the Gospel is slotted into their life quite easily without causing any major adjustments to their lifestyle or aspirations, it is likely that they have not really started following Jesus at all.” So if we reject homosexuality as sin, as the culture most definitely wants us to do, we reject God’s understanding of sin. And if we reject God’s understanding of sin, there is no possible way for us to turn away from that sin – no way for us to ask for forgiveness for something we don’t see as being wrong in the first place, and we forfeit God’s eternal hope and promised blessings that come with being born again – adopted into his family.

2. The Bible is at stake
Well, not only is the Gospel is at stake, but the bible is at stake. And that’s because the Bible is crystal clear in God’s view of sex and the perversion of homosexuality and I think at this point it will be helpful for us to do a quick survey on the pertinent passages on this topic. So grease up the spines of your bible, look at Genesis, chapter 19. It should be easy to find – go to the very first book – Genesis 19. Genesis, chapter 19, verses 4 and 5. This is the story of Sodom and Gomorrah and we know that angels in the form of men came to visit Lot and to tell him to leave the city of Sodom because God and was preparing to destroy this place and the angels came and visited Lot and Lot accepts them into their home and we see in verse 4 this following scene: “But before they laid down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man surrounded the house.” Think this is an all-encompassing statement? We’re not saying just a couple of people; this is pervasive in this culture. Here’s what happened: the men of the city, young, old, everybody, surrounded the house because they saw two apparently attractive men come into Lot’s house. What happened? Verse 5: “And they called out to Lot, ‘Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us that we may know them.’” Everyone knows what that means – “That we may know them.” Of course they don’t want to go there and say, “I just wanted to get to know these guys and have a good time. I just wanted to see where they came from, maybe who their dads are and, you know, just have a wonderful hospitable time. I just wanted to greet these people.” No that’s not what they were talking about – Lot knew that’s not wasn’t what they were talking about. That’s why he did the irreprehensible thing of offering his daughters to them as a sexual placating option. That’s terrible, but he knew exactly what these men wanted, didn’t he? Well the angels struck the men with blindness and they’re groping, struggling, desiring with their hearts to get into this house so they can somehow know these men. It’s very clear what this passage is talking about and God destroys this city. This is probably not the only sinful struggle that Sodom and Gomorrah had as we know from the book of Ezekiel that its talking about several different type of sins that are going on in Sodom and Gomorrah and some actually reject the clear teaching of Scripture here and they say that the men of Sodom and Gomorrah, they just weren’t hospitable. That’s literally what their interpretation of this passage is and where do they get that? Well they get that from passages like Ezekiel because they mention the destruction of Sodom without reference to any specific sexual sin. But not only does Genesis 19 make it crystal clear that the sin of men of Sodom was homosexuality or of sexual nature, Jude 7 says the same thing. It says, “Just as Sodom and Gomorrah, which likewise indulge in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment.” So yes, clearly the whole bible acknowledges that what was going on in Sodom and Gomorrah was a sin of a sexual nature.
So naturally, you would also expect some further passages of the bible to condemn homosexual acts and you do see that in Leviticus. We don’t often to go to Leviticus – Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus – the third book of the bible. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Leviticus 18:22. And then also Leviticus 20:13. It’s a couple of passages and laws that specifically prohibit any form of same sex acts. We see this in Leviticus 18, verse 22. It says this: “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination.” It’s no clearer than that. Context here says several laws against several immoral practices and so same-sex sex is mentioned as an abomination in the eyes of God. Now this word, abomination, is used several times to describe many other sins, sexual and otherwise. It’s a common word for a terrible sin. We see 20:13 also indicates that both parties involved in the sexual act are culpable. God hates this type of behavior as he hates all sin. Now, for a homosexual kind of biblical interpretation will grant that these passages have a rather negative view of homosexuality as I’ve read this week, “but that really isn’t a big deal because it’s part of a law that’s no longer applicable for the church today, like the dietary restrictions, or maybe wearing blending fibers and we don’t have time to get into which laws that do or do not apply to us today,” but sufficient to summarize as like this, we know that this isn’t true because this same exact same sexual ethic is repeated in the new testament for the church.
The New Testament is crystal clear on its teaching against the sin of homosexuality. For that, let’s look at 1st Corinthians chapter 6. 1st Corinthians chapter 6, verse 9. 1st Corinthians chapter 6, verse 9. The second major epistle after the book of Acts – Acts, Romans, 1st Corinthians in the New Testament – 1st Corinthians chapter 6, verse 9. Paul writes this: “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the Kingdom of God? You see, do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral [that’s that ‘pornea’ word – describes anything], nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men that practice homosexuality [and actually two words are used in this specific verse to describe homosexuality, describing both partners in the homosexual act], nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the Kingdom of God.” This is crystal clear. 1st Timothy 1:10 is another sin list where it describes a number of sins in the same way say, “The people who continue to practice these sins will not inherit the Kingdom of God.” The people whose lives are characterized by living according to these sins, never once rejected them, never once saying that they are terrible and continuing to live in that lifestyle, people who do that cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. It’s crystal clear, again.
Condemnation is the end result for those consumed with these passions in an ongoing, unrepentant manner. This does not mean that these people who struggle with these sins are going to Hell. Remember we’ve already discussed that. I mean Paul’s got greedy on this list, doesn’t he? How many of you struggle with the sin of greed? I think every hand in here should go up. So the struggle with these sins doesn’t mean that you are going to necessarily go to Hell, it means that if your life is given over to these types of sins, you cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. Take greed for example. If your life marked by continuous desire to get what your neighbor has, or to continue to grow in everything you have and to be more comfortable, and etc., etc., your passions and everything in your life is directed in the wrong way and you can’t inherit the Kingdom of God. Likewise, those who celebrate homosexuality and the sinful desire that is in some people’s hearts – who celebrate that as normal and continue to celebrate that lifestyle cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. I also love Paul’s conclusion in verse 11. It says, “And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” He gives hope, doesn’t he? Even if you struggle with a variety of different sins, or a variety of different perversions in your heart, God gives you hope that things can change, and that hope is in Jesus Christ. The Gospel of Jesus Christ gives us hope that we can change, Amen? Sure, we will have various temptations, but we’re those who have been given the ability to resist these temptations, to the power of the Holy Spirit in us.
So the Bible unquestioningly condemns all forms of homosexuality. So what’s at stake as we think about homosexuality? The Gospel’s at stake and the Bible’s at stake. There’s one other passages that we need to look at, and it Romans 1, but we need to learn something more from this passage as this passage clearly condemns homosexuality, calls it unnatural. But as we look as this passage, we are going to look at the full context which reveals different stages of sin. The progression of sin that all of us are prone to fall into, and as we discover Paul’s teaching of sin, it will help you respond with empathy to those struggling with same sex attraction. Recognizing the stages of sin, still tempting even you.

Recognize 4 Stages of Sin that will Help you Respond to Same-Sex Attraction

And so I want us to recognize four stages of sin that will help you respond to the struggle of same sex attraction. Should be with us in Romans, chapter 1. Go ahead and turn there because we’ll park there for most of the rest of the time. Romans, chapter 1. Well in the context of verses 21-32, we see verse 18 setting the stage for this whole passage and it says in verse 18 of Romans 1, “For the wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all the ungodliness and all the unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.” This is the subject heading of these 3 paragraphs in your text here. It’s that mankind knows the truth about God, at least can observe that there is a God in nature and reject that. Why? It’s because they want to follow their own passions. They want to follow their own desires and they suppress the truth about God. And where does that sin start? Well that sin starts in the mind.

1. Sin Starts in the Mind (vv.21–22)
Look at verses 21 and 22. That sin starts in the mind. Verse 21 says this: “For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to Him. For they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools. Theologians call this the “noetic effects of the fall”. Comes from the Greek word ‘nous,’ understand, or ‘nous,’ or the mind or the intellect. It’s the idea that after God created man, his intellect was un-surpassing. I mean you think about Adam, what were his first words in the garden? Poetry. The first recorded words of Adam – how many of you wax eloquently poetry to your wives at the drop of a hat? Very, very few. But that is just a snapshot about how an undefiled mind works. Once Adam fell into sin, sin has affected even our ability to think. Our ability to understand, our ability to go through life and understand everything there is to know about God. In a sense, after the fall, we became stupid – every last one of us. And most of us are selectively stupid. You think of the brilliant physicist who is incredibly socially awkward. You think of the brilliant musician who hates God, the God who designed music. You think of the brilliant doctor who also hates the God who designed the body that he spends his life studying and trying to understand. Across the board, mankind naturally hates God because we hate authority. We want to be the God of our own little lives and take control, but the ultimate arbiter, the ultimate judge of right and wrong is God and God alone. We surely don’t want anybody to tell us not to do what we are most passionate about doing, do we? That’s why he writes in 21, 22, “Mankind, although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him. They became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened. They claimed to be wise, yet they became fools.”
The fall of the intellect, I think, is very helpfully illustrated in Psalm 36. So let’s keep our fingers here and I want to look at Psalm 36. Just the first 4 verses as it helps us understand this fall and the progression of this fall of our intellect. Psalm 36, verse 1, and we’ll see in this verse that the first step in the fall branches off as we begin to listen to ourselves. You start to listen to yourself. Psalm 36, verse 1 – David says this: “Transgression speaks to the wicked deep in his heart. There is no fear of God before his eyes.” So deep in the heart of the wicked man, in the heart of really everybody, transgression speaks. God starts begins to fade, we don’t look and fear God. Sin looks oh so attractive, oh so normal, oh so lovely and begins to talk to our hearts and when we begin to think about it. You recognize pervasive sinful desires and you say, “God is all loving so he wouldn’t give me passions that need to be rejected, would he?” And you say, “There’s no fear, there’s no respect or reverence for God.” And so as you begin to lack that fear, respect, of reverence of God, you begin to listen to your own flesh and you begin to say, “You know what? This is a wonderful thing; otherwise I wouldn’t have this passion because I’m wonderful.”
Secondly you convince yourself, in verse 2: “For he flatters himself in his own eyes that his iniquity cannot be found out and hated.” You got a couple of stages. First, he talks himself up. He flatters himself and says, “Look. You’re Mr. Wonderful. God would never give you a desire that is sinful. You just have to listen to the desires of your heart and do them ‘cause God loves you and that’s what he would want for you.” That’s what you talk to yourself and we flatter ourselves. We think about that. Really ends up the point you can’t possibly hate yourself. So I’ve got to fulfill what God has given me, these desires. And you begin to say at the end of verse 2: “His iniquity can’t be found and out and can’t be hated.” You listen to yourself and convince yourself that sin isn’t sin, it is never to be hated, it is part of who I am, and I love it and everyone should love it and affirm it in me. That’s the natural response of man – we convince our self that our sin is natural.
What else? You express yourself. We see that in verse 3: “The words of his mouth are trouble and deceit. He has ceased to act wisely and do good.” What are the two ways we express our sin? In word and in deed. We full embrace and defend what we have now convinced ourselves in our minds what is acceptable and we begin to act upon these sinful inclinations, these sinful desires.
Well verse 4 – you also orient yourself. You orient yourself. “He plots trouble while on his bed. He sets himself in a way that is not good. He does not reject evil.” So when you say ‘sexual orientation,’ this is a perfect description of what is going on. They’re setting themselves in the way to do what is evil. We do the same thing, it’s not just with sexual orientation, brothers and sisters. We are tempted to do the exact same thing. We listen to ourselves, we convince ourselves that the sin that we are tempted to do is okay and then we begin to express that and then we begin to orient ourselves to continue to do that sin over and over and over again and see it as perfectly normal, as perfectly natural, defending it as normal, and wanting everyone else to do the exact same thing. You are loved. You are okay. That’s what we want. You can see, easily, how this would describe one who is self-identified as gay. Brothers and sisters – describes us too.
The Christian recognizes this slide into sin and maybe for a time you listen to yourself, you convince yourself, you even express sin. But the Christian who is made aware of sin to the bible or of other Christians, that Christian learns to hate sin with a passion – learns to recognize this slide into sin, learns to reject the voice inside that says, “This sin is okay,” learns to reject the convincing spirit that we have in every single one of us to normalize our sinful actions. We learn to hate the sin that remains.

2. Mankind Exchanges Worship (vv.23–25)
So we first must recognize that the battles that we wage within the mind are crucial to the ongoing slide of sin, into living a life of sin. We give ourselves over to following the mind, let’s look back at Romans. We’ll see that mankind exchanges worship – mankind exchanges worship. That’s the second stage of sin. First, is our minds begin to be given over to sin, well man also exchanges worship. We see this in verses 23-25. Paul, here, gives three exchanges. He uses the word ‘exchange’ several times in this passage as a typical Greek rhetorical device that was used – if you say something three times, it means it really important. And so here in verse 23 he says the first exchange and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God and in verse 25 you see a second exchange – they exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and in verse 26, you see another exchange – for their women exchanged the natural relations for man. So Paul is making the point, “So because sinful man has claimed to be wise and claimed to think they know what is best, they’ve also exchanged the truth about god for a lie – and they’ve exchanged their worship.” These first two exchanges really are about worship exchange – exchanging worship. Verse 23: “They exchange the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.” “Images resembling mortal man” is not strictly a reference to physical idols. It can speak of any misplaced glory. Any exchanged glory that we have. Many refer to Mother Earth or nature with extreme reverence. Could refer to yourself – often – and when you slide into a mind sin, like we just saw, you worship yourself as the highest moral and intellectual and religious authority. And so that’s why god gives them up to pursue what they want to pursue in verse 24 – God gives them up to the lusts of their heart, etc. And why? Because verse 25: “They exchange the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.” So the creature that is worshiped is most often, even in ancient times, ourselves. It’s giving up the biblical teaching about how we should live and say, “No. I want live the way I want to live. I don’t care about what God says. I’m going to pursue what I want to do.” Claiming to be wise, we became fools.

3. Mankind Exchanges Natural Sexual Relations (vv.26–27)
Well there’s a third exchange. Exchange worship, they also exchange natural sexual relations. We see that in verse 26 and 27. “For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature and the men, likewise, gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another. Men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.” And so here we have women exchanged, and men likewise, giving up the normal relations with women for one another. It’s the only place, both male and female homosexuality are mentioned in the entire ancient Greek literature. Female homosexuality was not even mentioned, we know of anywhere, except for in Romans 1. I think it’s very helpful for us to see that God wants to include a full understanding of sins that are not pleasing to him – of sins that are unnatural – and so he even includes female homosexuality. Both are said here to be unnatural, not a part of God’s created order – Incapable of producing biological offspring necessary to fulfill mankind’s mandate, right? Which is to multiply, fill, and rule over the earth. We see that men here are consumed with passion for one another. This is a vivid depiction of sexual drives gone horribly wrong. Not simply like other men, ‘buddies,’ passion is for men here – talking about sexual passion. That’s what this verse is talking about. And then at the end of the verse, we see these words: “And receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.”
Now at this point, I’ve heard many preachers say that this is in reference to AIDs epidemic among the homosexual community. But if you stop and think critically about that, there’s a problem with this interpretation, isn’t there? Was the AIDs epidemic around when Paul wrote this? I don’t think so. AIDs was not a problem back when this was written and maybe some STDs were, but it would have been very hard to say that Paul had specifically this specific issue in mind. And so the correct interpretation is that God most definitely punishes those who are passionately pursuing sexual sin, and that may include STDs and they can be part of the punishment, but so too can mental, emotional, and other such breakdowns, but even if there are very little effects of sin in this life – eternal punishment awaits for everyone who continues living an exchanged lifestyle, never turns to God, right?

4. God Allows us to Follow our Sinful Passions (vv.24, 26, 28–32)
Now homosexuality is obviously a sin, but we must recognize that the context makes it clear that homosexuality is just one example of a variety of sins that follow after we exchange our worship. And we’ll see the fourth stage of sin that will help us understand this, is that God allows us to follow our sinful passions. God allows us to follow our sinful passions. I’ve already mentioned that there’s different layers of Paul’s argument – he’s said that mankind has exchanged the glory of God, and he uses the word ‘exchanged’ three times. Well, he also uses “God gave them up” – that phrase – three times well. We see that first in verse 24, “God gave them up in the lust of their hearts.” Verse 26: “For this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions.” And verse 28: “See they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind.” Again, emphasizing that God is willingly giving up sinful men to pursue the desires of their wicked heart. He’s let them go. Said, “You know what? You want to live the way you want to live, you want to worship yourself, you want to worship the passions in your own heart… Go ahead.” The word is used several times in Scriptures in connection with a variety of different sins. First, here, it’s the passion of our hearts. We see that in verse 24. God gave us up to follow the desires of our hearts. Verse 24 says: “Therefore God gave them up in the lust of their hearts to impurity to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves.” Our natural desires are for impurity, the dishonoring of our bodies – these are very broad terms and can encompass any selfish, prideful, desire of our heart. This is not just talking about the sin of homosexuality. These are broad terms. Well he narrows it down to a specific out working of the sinful heart attitude with the second use of ‘God gave them up’ to a specific sexual nature. God gave them up to dishonorable, sexual passions in verse 26: “For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions.” And then we have already looked at 26 and 27. And so far from of our feelings of love and sexual desires being a good part of who we are, that it’s to be celebrated, the Bible says perversions in sexuality is a result of our propensity to reject God and worship ourselves and God has given us up to go ahead and follow those sexual perversions and those sexual perversions come with self-worship. Remember the select heading of this whole passage is that “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all the ungodliness of men.” That means that same sex attraction is also a part of that ungodliness of men, that God gives people up to follow their own desires of their heart.
While I was at a high school recently and noticed a poster campaign in the hallways and there were a variety of different posters. One says, “Love is love.” The other said, “Legalize love.” And the idea that they’re promoting is that love expressed in sexual passions is a beautiful thing in every sexual context, right? “Love is love, it’s a wonderful thing. It’s to be celebrated.” And then also it’s saying that every consensual expression of such love should be legal. The Bible tells us that loving sexual relations are found in only one type of relationship – that’s monogamist, heterosexual marriage. But our sexuality is just one of many examples of our sinful nature coming to bear. Look at the third use of ‘God giving us up.’ He’s gave us up to debased thoughts and actions in verses 28-32: “And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God [verse 28], God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s decrees that those who practice those things deserve to die, they not only do them, but they give approval to those who practice them.” What a list. If you were to sit and look at that list, you know and realize that this condemns us all. Far from homosexuality being a terrible class of sin in it of itself, Paul makes it clear that is all mankind is deserving of God’s wrath and he’s given us up to following these sinful passions of our heart. Each of us all, likewise are still tempted by these old passions – greed, sexual temptations, boasting, gossips – you lie if you say you have no sin, right (1 John 1:8,10).
So we are those who need to recognize homosexuality as a sin, yes. Recognize the remaining temptation of same sex attraction that plagues so many. As Christians, we need to recognize that sin no longer has dominion over us – no longer rules us. This is Paul’s bigger point in Romans, isn’t it? Romans 3:23-25: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by the grace as a gift, to the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, who God put forward as a propitiation [as a payment] by his blood to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because of his divine forbearance [his patience], he had passed over former sins.” So praise God that we have a savior that is able to cover every sin, that is able to open blind eyes to see sin as sin, who gives us the power to resist sin and temptation, who lavishes grace upon grace for all of us undeserved sinners.
The stages of sin that we have reviewed are common to all sinners. And the remedy is the exact same – the wonderful Gospel message. So concluding, what does this mean? It means that we need to have a mission mindset, not a memory mindset. What do I mean by that? Well memory mindset is always looking to the past. A bit of moral nostalgia: “I never thought I’d see the day when…” – right? I even do that and I’m 30 years old. You think, “Oh man, this country used to be a wonderful God fearing country,” well, I mean the founders were deists mostly, not Christians. That’s not the Gospel, either. So don’t have a bit of moral nostalgia. Look towards this as a mission field. When we have that moral nostalgia or the memory mindset, it only divides sinners into us versus them, right? The homosexual community no longer becomes a group to reach for the Gospel, they become our enemies. They become someone who is trying to corrupt our culture that we love and that we wanted to protect and that we fought for and that we spilled our blood for… No, that’s not what we’re supposed to do as Christians. Don’t have this moral or a memory mindset, have a mission mindset. Do everything I can to reach lost sinners. Homosexual sinners, heterosexual sinners – it doesn’t matter. In some sense, this moral revolution is a great blessing. You see, we’re much more aware of the temptation of same sex attraction today and even those within the church who were afraid to admit to struggling with this sin is now more open to sharing their struggles and get the help they need. That’s a good thing. We need to admit that’s good thing. And so, far from a disgusting glance or rude words being exchanged with those struggling with same sex attraction, we need to be those who respond with love, gentleness, and courtesy, while never backing down to what the Scriptures teach. Listen to what Titus 3:2 and 3 say. Titus 3:2 and 3: “We are to speak evil no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and show perfect courtesy towards all people, for we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.” We used to be those worst of sinners, who are we to then throw those first glances, to throw those words that are hardly gentle, hardly courteous. What do you see in your bulletins? 1 Peter, chapter 3 – what are we to do? We are to be “prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you,” yet do it with gentleness and respect. We are to do this with gentleness and respect, while never backing down to what the Scriptures teach. We need to know what it says, and we need to hold to what it says, and we must do so with love, passion, and gentleness.
Here’s what an anonymous lady wrote about church: she says,
Homosexuality is just not talked about in the church so it made me think that I was the only one struggling through this. This is a horrible place to be thinking that you are the only one. Please help my other brothers and sisters who maybe struggling with the same things. Jesus has saved my soul and has taken my burdens away. I have peace and contentment in Christ. They need to know that they too can have this and the way they can know this is through the body of Christ reaching out in love and preaching the Gospel of Christ.
You see, God’s heart breaks over the sinner’s rejection of his love and he wants to reach out to the lost – to everybody. And if that’s God’s response to homosexuality, then it ought to be ours as well. Let us go from here and purpose to keep that balance in our hearts and respond to this mighty moral revolution.
Let’s pray. God, we thank you for giving us your word and we thank you that it is so clearly stated what it is we are to think, know, and do about the issues that you have even provided in this culture today. And Lord, I pray that you would help us to be a Church that reaches out to everybody, that would never discriminate, that would never rudely pass judgment, that would never look at any community of sinners as some terrible pariahs of society that we would never want to associate with. Lord, help us to have a mission mindset and seek to reach out to every last individual who struggles with sin and we know there have been many wonderful testimonies of people who have been brought out of a variety of sinful lifestyles, including this sinful lifestyle of homosexuality and come to know you as their Lord and Savior and so we pray that we would take advantage of our opportunities to make your Gospel known and that it would go forth powerfully to everybody. And we pray all of this in your Son’s holy and precious name. Amen.

A message from the series “1 Peter: Standing Firm in this Shaky Life.” 2 Reasons you should Sacrificially Love.