“For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps, 22 WHO COMMITTED NO SIN, NOR WAS ANY DECEIT FOUND IN HIS MOUTH; 23 and while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously; 24 and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed. 25 For you were continually straying like sheep, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls.”
“Praise to the Holiest in the height,
and in the depth be praise;
in all His words most wonderful,
most sure in all His ways!
O loving wisdom of our God!
When all was sin and shame,
A second Adam to the fight
And to the rescue came.
O wisest love! That flesh and blood,
Which did in Adam fail,
Should strive afresh against the foe,
Should strive, and should prevail”
Praise to the Holiest in the Height
John H. Newman, 1866
In his book, “Preaching & Preachers”, Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones made the statement that the preacher’s message should rise up out of the Scriptures, not out of the preacher.
The context in which this legend among preachers made that statement was in advising preachers in their preparation to look for the message in the Bible and preach that rather than coming to their preparation time with a point they want to make and finding a Scripture passage upon which they can build their argument.
There is a slightly different application that can be legitimately made from Dr Lloyd-Jones’ counsel without violating his original intent, I believe, and that is to say that if the preacher finds the message of the text and preaches it and avoids preaching from out of himself as it were, he may avoid the error of preaching his own biases and prejudices; better even than this, he may preach the truth even knowing and knowing that his congregation knows that he, like they, need growth and spiritual development in that very area.
A prime example of what I’m saying and this application I make of Lloyd-Jones’ words can be found right here in our text for today. Because I will assure you today that if the message was coming out of the preacher and not out of the Scriptures, I would never teach you that you or I were called to suffer for Christ’s sake; a message coming out of this preacher would never counsel you to keep silent while being wrongly accused or persecuted.
No, in fact, it is one more point to prove the divine inspiration of the Scriptures that they would call us to do something – to live in some way – diametrically opposed to our nature and even require the preacher, himself sharer of a fallen nature, to preach it, whether he is it or not.
My humanity would never allow me to call you to such a high standard as that to which I myself would then be called by you, for we would only continually and mutually disappoint one another.
On the other hand, since we believe that the Scriptures are God-breathed and profitable for teaching, reproof and correction and training in righteousness, and since we understand and believe that the living Word of God Himself is the one who is exalted as our example to follow, then we can receive these words of our text as both a challenge and a comfort knowing that He who calls us and helps us had trod that path He calls us to tread.
And we can finish the song I quoted in opening, singing with the hymnist,
“And in the garden secretly,
and on the cross on high,
should teach His brethren, and inspire
to suffer and to die.” - Newman
STRAYING SHEEP
Let’s begin with an observation which comes at the end of our text but is really the basis for all New Testament exhortation. These letters are written to a people gone astray and brought into the fold, as it were, and in need of redirection.
It is said clearest and best by the prophet Isaiah:
“All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him.” Isa 53:6
The prophet equates going astray, not with ignorance and cluelessness, but with iniquity. Iniquity means wickedness and injustice. It is an act and it requires a decision of the will. The prophet says that we all have gone our own way – followed our own destructive path, “but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him”
Now there is no shortage of Bible passages referring to people going astray like sheep, nations going astray like sheep. It was a common theme of the Old Testament prophets to illustrate the wickedness of God’s people in going their own way and forgetting Him and His goodness.
In the New Testament the first reference to sheep going astray is made by Matthew, who in chapter 9 draws the parallel when he writes of Jesus, “Seeing the people He felt compassion for them because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd” Mtt 9:36
Then Jesus, recorded in Matthew 18:12, uses His example of the one lost sheep being sought by the good shepherd who leaves the 99 to do so.
It used to bother me, though I love the hymn so much, to come to the line in “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” that says, ‘Prone to wander, Lord I feel it; Prone to leave the God I love’.
In my lack of understanding of both God’s grace and man’s propensity even as a Christian toward iniquity, I struggled with that line and it bothered me to sing it, because in singing it I was owning it.
But now I understand and I am willing to confess that apart from God’s mercy and the preserving grace of His Holy Spirit I would indeed wander from Him. I would still go my own way. As another song puts it, “My heart would still refuse You, had You not chosen me”.
Christians, this is something we have to get clear before we can ever begin to comprehend this call Peter speaks of, to follow Christ’s example of suffering in this world. It is not enough that we finally saw the sinful condition we were in and repented and came to Christ to receive His free salvation. It is enough for salvation, but I fear too many too often go on from there thinking ‘Well, now I am saved and my sins are forgiven and I am a faithful follower of my Lord and I will never stumble or fail’.
Don’t you get it? If you think that then you have already failed! We understand the doctrine set forth in Scripture to state clearly that His chosen are His and can never be snatched from His hand. But believe me when I tell you, Believer in Christ, that we can still go very far a-field regarding our disobedience and neglect of our relationship to God, and every Christ-follower must remain alert to this and prepared daily with humble heart to turn once more and return to the Shepherd and Guardian of his or her soul.
Make no mistake about it; it is and always shall be Christ who keeps us.
Now why do I set this forth as being a necessary reminder? Because we are called to a purpose that can never be fulfilled in and through the life of anyone who still thinks he can stand on his own and not fall down.
If I think I am strong then I will also think that I do not deserve to suffer. If I cannot accept suffering then I will reject the trials to come and thus reject the calling of Christ who suffered all for me. Wandering sheep. That’s what we are and we need our Gentle Shepherd’s strong arm and watchful eye to keep us close.
CALLED TO A PURPOSE
Now verses 21 through 25 have been chosen for our text, so let’s be careful not to neglect this word ‘for’, and glance back to see what the Apostle has been talking about.
He’s been talking about submission. And much to our chagrin, he’s been talking about submission to human institutions and men that God has raised up and placed in authority over us.
Are you beginning to see why I began this address talking about our propensity to wander to our own path and stand in the mirage of our own strength?
It comes very easy to us Christians to talk about submission to God, even when we may not really be in many areas of our lives.
But when the Bible itself begins telling me to be in subjection to the very people who openly hate God and mock the church yet have a position of governmental authority over me, that is another matter altogether; isn’t it?
And I might ask rhetorically, how often do we witness those of us anywhere who represent the church living in obedience to the commands of 1 Peter 2:13-20?
It’s not like either Peter or the Holy Spirit who inspired him has tried to pull the wool over our eyes concerning this. When Peter writes that we are to submit to those in authority and even that servants should be submissive to their masters whether good or evil, he doesn’t follow it with the promise, “For if you do you will find life to be much smoother”.
This is not an exhortation to refrain from rocking the boat in order to stay in good standing and good favor with those in power.
No, God, through the inspired writer, says, submit, obey, for ‘…when you do what is right and suffer for it you patiently endure it, this finds favor with God. For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps.”
He says, submit and suffer. Obey and suffer. You are called to this purpose!
Kind of hard to swallow, isn’t it? And I’ll wager that some of you right now are thinking, ‘This can’t be right. The preacher is misinterpreting what is being said in 1 Peter 2’.
Well, I don’t want to come across as proud or unyielding, but no, I’m not. It’s right there before you if you have your Bible open, and if you are a human being then I am confident that you do not find this easy to hear. All we like sheep have gone astray, and these words of Peter’s go diametrically opposed to the sin nature that we share without exception.
Fortunately, if we are born again believers in Christ, we have also the Divine Nature in us and the Holy Spirit of God helps us to see that “such is the will of God that by doing right (we) may silence the ignorance of foolish men” (vs 15)
“We are like the school boy” says Dr. Lloyd-Jones, “who would like to evade certain things, and run away from problems and tests. But we thank God that because he has a larger interest in us and knows what is for our good, he puts us through the disciplines of life – he makes us learn the multiplication table; we are made to struggle with the elements of grammar. Many things that are trials to us are essential that one day we may be found without spot or wrinkle.” (The Miracle of Grace [reprint; Grand Rapids; Baker, 1986], 39)
Now I have to deny the temptation to begin defining ‘suffering’ here, as the word can mean so many things to different people and in so many varied circumstances of life.
We’re not all going to have our heads chopped off by terrorists, we’re not all going to die of cancer or some other monstrous disease of the body. We are not all going to be poor and destitute or be persecuted by our neighbors for our faith. I couldn’t begin to exhaust a list, could I?
So what do we need to know; how do we take these words and make sense of them?
I think we read our Bible and believe our Bible. We read first the instruction it gives. Submit to those God has raised up in authority. The fact that He raised them up and seated them in power does not mean they will be good. Think of Pharaoh, from whom God delivered His people. God raised him up for that purpose. He told Pharaoh in Exodus 9:16, quoted in Romans 9:17, that He raised Pharaoh up for the purpose of having His name glorified through the whole earth; and how was He glorified? In the defeat and destruction of Pharaoh. Did Moses do it? No, God did.
In the meantime, God’s people were treated harshly and kept in bondage for many years. Did God finally tell them to rise up with torches and clubs and beat down the walls of Pharaoh’s house and overcome him? No.
Did God tell them to picket or generate legislation against Pharaoh that would force him to treat them kindly? No.
In fact, we don’t really see God saying much about their suffering and their harsh treatment except to inspire the writer of Exodus to talk about it. But what did God tell His people to do?
He told them to apply the blood of the innocent sacrificed lamb to their lives and stay inside behind that blood until He had affected their deliverance. And they obeyed, and they were delivered.
THE EXAMPLE
So let’s talk about the example given to us; left for us, by Christ our Lord.
Peter says, ‘leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps’. I think that there have been many in past years and various places who have taken that statement and run off in all the wrong directions with it.
It is a lofty endeavor indeed, to set one’s mind to attempt to act like Jesus, to respond like Jesus, to be like Jesus in every circumstance of life.
Have the WWJD bracelets and t-shirts died out yet? I haven’t seen one for a while.
I remember a Sunday morning about a dozen years ago while I was teaching an adult Sunday School class, when a woman who was a visitor that morning spoke up in class and said, ‘I’ve learned it’s always a good idea in a tough situation to ask, ‘What would Jesus do?’ The tone in which she offered it almost sounded like she was giving us a gift from her own deep insight as though little red WWJD bracelets weren’t being worn by every 12 year old girl in the church.
Well, she was a visitor and I didn’t want to embarrass her and I was careful in my reply before moving on. But let me just call to your attention here that if we were to seek to respond to every circumstance of our life in the way we think Jesus would, we would very quickly despair in that we would consistently find ourselves coming up very short.
So what does Peter mean? Are we supposed to run around mimicking Jesus like a bunch of little monkeys? Of course not. Other than the events that are recorded for us in the Gospels we really don’t have much information about how Jesus responded and reacted to the mundane things of life. We can surmise a lot I suppose, but still, let’s remember that He is God and we are not.
Let’s remember that even while He took on flesh and dwelt among us, His thoughts were still higher than our thoughts and His ways higher than our ways.
I find myself in agreement with Miles Stanford, who in response to all this WWJD silliness said, “Don’t try to be like Christ, just look at Him. Just be occupied with Him. Forget about trying to be like Him. Instead of letting that fill your mind and heart, let Him fill it. Just behold Him through the Word.”
So what is the example He set for us to follow? Well, first of all, Christians, it is an example we cannot follow if we are not suffering. We can’t follow it if we’re avoiding persecution and ill-treatment by clinging to our perceived rights and fighting tooth and nail against every injustice and every insult.
Because you see, verse 21 doesn’t end in a period. There is a comma there in the English translation, after the words ‘in His steps’; and then the example is defined.
He committed no sin. No deceit was found coming from His mouth. While being reviled He did not respond in kind, nor did He jump to His own defense.
He who could have called down fire from the heavens made no threats.
What was His example? He kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously.
Now let’s slow down here.
This is Jesus. This is God incarnate. This is the one of whom it is written “He will judge the world in righteousness”. That can not be said of any of us. It cannot be said of any of us that we judge rightly.
We pride ourselves in being able to do that, and we compliment one another when we think we have assessed any situation and dealt with it correctly and successfully.
But compared to God there is no one righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands. There is no one who judges righteously.
Yet God incarnated, who always judges righteously, in submission to the Father’s will and in the midst of the suffering assigned to Him, entrusted Himself to the Father who judges righteously, … and He was miraculously delivered.
NO HE WASN’T! He was crucified!
He was silent before His accusers. He was humble under the heavy hand of those who reviled and abused Him. He entrusted Himself to the One who sent Him, and the outcome was a cross. And the outcome was our healing.
We were under an unbearable burden of sin. By unbearable I do not mean intolerable, like we might interchange the words and say, ‘Oh, my stomach ache is unbearable, or intolerable’.
It was literally a burden which we could not bear. It was un-bear-able.
How many sins does it take to make one a sinner? How many does it take to condemn a soul to Hell? How many sins must a man commit before he is rendered unclean and unacceptable to God?
Well, the answer is, only one. Yet we were burdened down with a weight of many sins. Lost to God and slaves to sin we rose up daily in our sin and added to its weight before the sun went down and the load was no lighter when we rose up the next morning. We were crushed under its weight and incapable of removing even one from the bundle for the slightest moment of relief.
But He bore our sins, all of our sins, your sins and every sin from Adam to the end of time, in His body on the cross. That weight of sin that had the creation itself groaning under the pressure of it, He bore in His body.
So that we could claim earthly wealth? So that we could claim earthly health? So that we could stand up, chest out, chin high and demand our rights? No. So that we could follow His example and die to sin and live to righteousness.
“…for by His wounds you were healed.”
THE SHEPHERD’S FOOTPRINTS
I’d like to read a couple of excerpts to you, the first being from John MacArthur’s commentary on 1 Peter in reference to verse 21 of our text.
“Believers will never suffer for others’ salvation, including their own. But they will suffer for Christ’s sake, and His example is their standard for a God-honoring response. The word translated ‘example’ is hupogrammon, which literally means ‘writing under’ and refers to a pattern placed under a sheet of tracing paper so the original images could be duplicated. In ancient times, children learning to write traced over the letters of the alphabet to facilitate their learning to write them. Christ is the example or pattern on which believers trace their lives. In so doing, they are following ‘in His steps’. Ichnesin (steps) means ‘footprints’ or ‘tracks’. For believers as for Him, the footprints through this world are often along paths of unjust suffering.” The MacArthur New Testament Commentary, 1 Peter, Moody Pub/Chicago, 2004, p. 167
This next is from Oswald Chambers:
“To choose to suffer means that there is something wrong; to choose God’s will even if it means suffering is a very different thing. No healthy saint ever chooses suffering; he chooses God’s will, as Jesus did, whether it means suffering or not. Be merciful to God’s reputation. It is easy to blacken God’s character because God never answers back, He never vindicates Himself. Beware of the thought that Jesus needed sympathy in His earthly life; He refused sympathy from others because He knew far too wisely that no one on earth understood what He was going through. Notice God’s ’waste’ of saints, according to the judgment of the world. God plants His saints in some of the most useless places. We say, ’God intends me to be here because I am so useful.’ Jesus never estimated His life along the line of the greatest use. God puts His saints where they will glorify Him most, and we are no judges at all of where that is.” (My Utmost For His Highest)
Christ-followers, Jesus glorified the Father the most in the most unlikely place; He carried our sins to the wood and nailed them there.
In the day to day, moment by moment circumstances of our lives it is foolish to try to judge them by our standards; whether they are a blessing or a curse, whether God allowed them for this reason or that. We only see fragments.
All we can do, all we are called to do, is to say ‘this is what is happening’, or ‘here is where I am’, and for grace for the moment I return once more to the Shepherd and Guardian of my soul.
It is the only safe place to be, Believers. It is the only place to be in which we can have any confidence that we are in the right place. Tracing our lives in the footprints of Jesus, who submitted Himself, surrendered Himself, into the hands of evil men, never opening His mouth to revile back or to threaten or to object, but entrusting Himself completely to the one who judges righteously.
Had He not done so, had He not been willing to submit Himself to suffering in obedience to the Father’s will, we would not be saved. We would still be wandering and lost like sheep without a shepherd. Our hearts would still refuse Him.
But He chose us. He called us. He bore our sins in His body on the tree, so that we could die to sin and live to righteousness; and by His wounds we are healed; and by His authority we are called for this purpose, to walk in His footprints, wherever that may lead.
But let me leave you with this thought, Christ-followers; His footprints, wherever they may lead you and me, lead ultimately to Heaven and home.
