May 5, 2003
"Footprints" 1 Peter 2:13-25
Pastor Jon MacKinney
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Footprints are not a very common occurrence in Arizona. Frankly, in certain parts, like our part, there’s not enough rain to make any mud to make any footprints. If we do see or anything else like watery footprints we might leave on a patio disappear in like three seconds, the time it takes your hair to dry getting out of the shower. So, it’s not a very common thing. But when we do find footprints they’re unmistakable evidence that someone has passed this way before. Sometimes we follow footprints thinking they’re going somewhere we want to go. But, if we saw a set of footprints that were going along and all of a sudden disappeared over a cliff, we might decide not to follow those footprints anymore. Or, we might see a set of footprints that look good until all of a sudden they end and there’s kind of a bloody patch on the ground and then drag marks going off, along with the footprints of a large cat. We might decide that we’d better run.
Footprints are important. And this passage that we have before us this morning has a powerful statement in verse 21, "To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you leaving you an example that you should follow in his steps." We’ve got a line of footprints to follow. But, we see two things in that verse that cause us a little concern. One of them is the word "this." "To this you were called." Now what is that "this" that we’re called to follow because those are the footprints. To this, to this line of footprints you were called. And then the other word that gives us little shudder of fear is this word "suffered." "To this you were called because Christ suffered for you leaving you an example." If you ever wonder if suffering is part of the Christian life, read 1 Peter 2:21. Maybe even crochet it into a little wall-hanging. Because suffering is not just for the Christians of Pakistan or Indonesia or South America or the Communist countries. Suffering is something to which we are called.
As we have seen earlier in this letter, that Peter wrote to the believers in northern Turkey (what is now Turkey), Christians have a unique set of values that set them apart from the world. And one of these values is the acceptance of something like suffering. There is no doubt that if we follow the footprints of Jesus, they will lead us into places where our flesh does not want to go. They will lead us to do things, to say things, to treat people in a way that our flesh is going to be resistant to. "That’s going to be too costly for me." "I don’t want to do that. That’s going to cause me to be viewed in a way that I don’t want to be viewed." The flesh will always resist following in the footprints of Jesus Christ.
The life of Jesus Christ was characterized by one thing – an unquestioning faith in His Father. Whatever God called Jesus to do, He did. Whatever God told Him to say, He said. Whatever person God told Him to minister to, He ministered to. Whatever it cost, whatever the response, Jesus did it. That was the unquestioning characteristic of His life. And why did He have faith? Because He trusted. He trusted Him.
Yesterday afternoon, we got a call from Tom. He was riding his mountain bike in South Mountain Park. Now, South Mountain Park as a typical Arizona desert park is nothing but rocks. Now, riding your mountain bike in South Mountain Park is nothing but riding on rocks. And the trail that Tom chose for the first time to try was the National Trail. The National Trail is a great hiking trail for people who want to use both their hands and their feet. Well, I took one look at the National Trail when I was riding on my bike and said, "Let’s stay on the desert flats." But, Tom decided to ride on the National Trail and he did what they call in mountain biking an endo, which is what it sounds like – you go over the "endo" your bike. Or in his case he went over the front of his bike, so maybe you’d call it a "fronto." But, anyway, he had his helmet on which is a good thing, but his face met the rocks and he had what they also call road rash, which is a pretty good image. And in the middle of his road rash, a seven-stitch cut. So his mother, being the more careful of us (I thought, I think you’re kind of missing a chunk of meat there, but that’s the way it is.) But, his mother, being more careful said let’s take him to the emergency room and see. And sure enough, it was a cut you could push together and stitch up. The reason I say this long thing, is there was a trust factor with Tom lying on that gurney in the laceration room there. First, the doctor brings out this needle and says, "I’m going to give you this shot." And I think they do this on purpose. First he puts in this big honkin’ needle in (about 5 feet long and that big around). And he fills up the syringe with it, and says, "How do you like this?" I said, "uggh." I looked like, "You’re going to put that in his face?!" Then, he took that big needle out and put in a smaller one and we all breathed a sigh of relief. So, it was a trust factor. Then of course he gives Tom the shot and tells him it’s going to hurt and does the stitches and everything. There was a trust factor in that young man, who as many of you know, has been through a lot worse than stitches in your face. He just kind of laid there letting this guy drill him with the local anesthetic and stitch him up. He just laid there quietly. Now, there are other people in the pediatric emergency room there at Desert Sam that weren’t being so cooperative. Now, Tom is seventeen, so he is at the top of the pediatric scale. But there were some other children who were in there who were at the bottom of the scale age-wise. And they were telling everybody that they weren’t trusting anything. You could hear them from all the way across the room, they were screaming because they’re kids. They haven’t learned yet that this doctor (and this is by the way why the doctors let the nurses give the shots, they want the kid to learn to trust them. They were manifesting distrust because they just haven’t learned yet that the doctors are doing all this stuff for their own good.
Jesus was someone who had learned to trust His Father. And He, then, lays out this line of footprints that we are to follow. And they are all the footprints of faith. They’re the footprints of faith, and sometimes the footprints are bloody. And sometimes the footprints are heavy, like someone bearing a great load. "To this you were called." The "this" refers to the life of obedient faith because a life of obedient faith will bring suffering of some form.
What are we called to believe about God? What does God call us to believe about Him that is so powerful that it can change the way we live, even to the point of accepting without complaint unjust suffering? What is it about God that we can believe that will enable us to do that?
The first thing that Jesus manifests in these footprints is faith in the sovereignty of God. He had faith in the sovereignty of God. Look at verses 13-17. These verses here all refer to the way a believer is to relate to the government under which he finds himself. Now, don’t forget that Peter in writing to these people, is not writing to these people whose president was George W. Bush or Abraham Lincoln or George Washington or somebody else. He was writing to people who were under the thumb of Nero. You couldn’t find a worse guy to be under as a believer. Here was a man who apparently from one thing I’ve read, liked to drive chariots. He was a hot-rodder. They didn’t have Mustangs or Vettes back in those days, so the thing you could get was a chariot with a bunch of cool horses. He had a track in Rome and he liked to drive around that track. But the bad news was that he wanted to drive at night and there were no street lights at his track. But Nero decided that he was going to make street lights, so he had posts erected around the track and then sent his servants and soldiers into the city to find guess who? Christians, who were then lashed to these poles and then set on fire so that Nero could drive his chariot 24/7. And, Peter, writing to people under this person’s government says, "Submit yourselves, for the Lord’s sake, to every authority instituted among men."
I want you to notice something in verses 13, 15, 16, and 17 – each one of these verses has in it a phrase, different phrases, that say why we do this. Verse 15, "It is God’s will that by doing good." "Live as servants of God, " end of verse 16. "Fear God," verse 17. "Honor the king." What’s he saying here? What he’s saying here is this: that the king that you are submitting yourself to, you may not like him and he may not deserve to be liked, but here’s the bottom line – God put him there. Even Nero. Romans 13:1, "Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities," Paul writes, "for there is no authority except that which God has established." The authorities that exist have been established by God. Now, we may not like the authorities that exist, and they may be godless authorities, like Nero was, but the fact of the matter is that no governing official serves without the sovereign decision of God to allow them to serve for the time that He allows them to serve. We might not like what they do. God may not like what they do, but there is no doubt and throughout Scripture you can follow this same pattern and thought that God uses men and puts them into positions of authority for His own purposes, for His own plan, for His own time. And so you have to deal with the fact that Nero was established by God.
Now, I’d imagine if you were a Christian living in northern Asia Minor during that time with Nero as your king, you might have some questions you’d like to ask God about His choice. "What’s up with Nero? With all the good guys You could have picked, you got this guy?" The people that God has put in positions of power and have wielded that power has been awful sometimes, from our perspective. Why in the world? But as believers in that case, we are called to believe that God knows exactly what He is doing, to promote His cause and His purposes. There’s no doubt that His ways are sometimes hard to swallow, and even harder to digest. Why? Why? And yet He has told us that they are different. In Isaiah 55, He says, "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." God is different. He’s got a different plan. And His plan sometimes, as it did in the case of Jesus, involves rejection and involves execution and involves injustice – from a human point of view. Nothing, no trial was ever more unjust. No verdict reached ever more skewed than that that sent Jesus Christ to the cross.
Now submission to the government of the United States of America isn’t particularly taxing. Few of us find submission to our government a real struggle, "I just can’t stand it!" Maybe it happens around April 10th or something, we get a little nervous but then that goes away after we’ve sent in the money. But the footprints of Jesus continue into a darker place than faith in the sovereignty of God.
He not only had a calling as to His faith in the sovereignty of God, but faith also in the justice of God. Faith in the justice of God. Now, we don’t really ask for that much. All we want is to be treated the way we deserve, most of us. "If I put in the time, I want to be rewarded for the time and effort that I put in. If do a poor job, I’ll take the rebuke. If I do a poor job of studying, I’ll take the F that I deserve. I’ll take being passed over for the promotion. I just didn’t do it." But if we do a good job, we want someone to notice us and praise us. If we work hard and do it according to the teacher’s instructions, we want an A. We worked hard, we got the A, we want the A. We want the pay upgrade if we put in the hours and we want the office in the corner with the window and the door – because we won it, we deserve it. We want justice.
Now Peter addresses a situation that’s a hotbed of injustice – and that is the idea of slavery. Verse 18, "Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect." I can’t imagine a more difficult situation than that. Now, the slaves that Peter was writing to here the word that he uses is the word for household servants. The slavery situation in Rome at this time was very different than the one that brought about the Civil War in our country. Many people sold themselves into slavery on purpose, because they thought it might be considered a step up and they would be able to live in a household situation where they would be more like servants. They would not be paid, they would have sold themselves in some way into this situation. They’d get food and clothing and shelter. So it wasn’t the same as the one in the United States that was so awful that it brought about the Civil War. But, nevertheless, as slaves they were considered to be property. And what you do with your property, in the Roman times as it was in the pre-Civil War times, was considered your business. If your property displeased you, you could beat your property and if your property pleased you, you could still beat your property because it was your property. And so, slavery became a place where injustice was a constant factor. You start with the assumption that one human being can own another, that injustice is just going to flow out of that particular institution.
Peter says in verse 18, "Submit yourselves to your masters, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those that are harsh." And that word "harsh" is where we get the word scoliosis. It’s the word scolio, which means "twisted, perverted, messed up." That’s the people who were the slave owners in some cases. "For it is commendable before God if a man bears up under the pain of unjust suffering because he is conscious of God." This is going to be explained a little further on, but here’s the thing: Peter is saying if you are in a situation where there is injustice as a part of your life on a regular basis, and you are in a situation of being a slave and the person who is being unjust to you is your master, that is also a situation where God has placed you in as a part of His sovereignty. Let me be quick to say that the institution of slavery was a rotten institution and continues to be. And so the Bible is not here saying that slavery is a cool thing and let’s just keep it up. The Bible is silent on that. We would like to think it says something, but it doesn’t. But it does not say that if you are a slave, just stay a slave, let’s bring slavery back. That’s not what Peter is saying. He’s saying that here is a situation where injustice is just rampant but there is a God who is going to bring justice. Unjust suffering implies many things. It implies maybe being misunderstood. It implies having our work overlooked. It implies being the target of unprovoked hatred. It implies doing good and being good and being beaten for it. And certainly for the believer, it means you can do someone the wonderful favor and be gracious enough to someone to share the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ with them and they’ll spit it back in your face. And you’ll be beaten and rejected for doing good. When that happens our whole being cries out for justice. "How dare I be treated that way!" We’ve all at sometime in our life experienced injustice. And I have to tell you that the times when I’ve experienced it, I haven’t handled it particularly well. And so when, Peter writes verse 21, he writes it for all of us. We take a deep breath and believe that the accepting of suffering that we don’t deserve, suffering like the suffering that Job experienced, suffering like the suffering that Jesus experienced, suffering like the suffering that Paul experienced – when we receive that injustice and unjust suffering, we read that we’re walking in the steps of the Lord Jesus who believed God enough to have faith ultimately in the sovereign justice of God.
Look down in verse 23, we’re going to get to this a little bit more in a minute, but just the second half. Here’s the key of walking in the footprints of Jesus, especially when they get bloody. "He entrusted himself to him who judges justly." In the world you’re not going to get a fair shake. The world, we taught this to our kids early in their lives, life isn’t fair. Anybody here believe that life is fair? It’s really not. But God is just. Life isn’t fair but God is just. And the verdict isn’t in on you until God makes it. And the people who treat you unjustly are not the final court. There is a final Judge. His name is God Almighty and when He judges it will be justice. He is so concerned about justice that he wouldn’t just say, "Well, I know you’re full of sin, but I love you so much I’m going to take you in anyway." That would have been unjust. But He’s so just that he says, "I’m going to pay the price for your sin by sending my own perfectly innocent Son, the Lamb of God, and I’m going to let Him take your sin upon Himself so that I can be just in calling you righteous." That’s how concerned God is about justice. "To this you were called," living a life of such radical faith in God that it will accept with grace unjust suffering, suffering I don’t deserve. Not only don’t I deserve it, but I deserve just the opposite. In order for us to accept that, we must believe ultimately in the just nature of God.
I went to a conference a couple of weeks ago, it was in Phoenix. It was the Promise Keepers Conference for pastors, what they call clergy. Max Lucado was there. You may have heard him or read some of his books. He’s a great man of God. He said this little phrase, it’s kind of stuck with me, "It’s not about me. It’s not about now." It’s not about me and it’s not about now, but God. I’m adding this now. It’s not about me, it’s about God. It’s not about now, it’s about eternity. And now we will experience injustice, but in eternity God will be the final say. Injustice isn’t a lot of fun. We cry out to be treated fairly, for people to think about us differently. But God says, "I’m the final judge." Do you believe that? You walk in the steps of Jesus.
Our calm acceptance of injustice has a purpose. That’s the really good news. The really good news when we get to the final section of this passage is that bearing injustice, putting up with the Neros of the world, putting up with unjust treatment has a purpose. And faith in that purpose is critical. First, Jesus in His life had faith in the sovereignty of God. He also had faith in the justice of God. And finally, He had faith in the redemptive purpose of God.
You see this all through this passage. We saw it here in the first verses when it says in verse 15, for example, "It is God’s will that by doing good we should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men." In other words, people can say all kinds of stuff about you, but when they come to actually look at your life, look at how you live, they will say, "You know, I may not like this guy or what he believes, but I have to admit that he’s different. He’s unique and there are times that I wish I had what he has. In fact, there’s something really peaceful about him. There is something really content that he can even take my abuse with a smile and a kind word." "Live as free men. Do not use your freedom to cover up for evil. Live as servants of God." Live a life that’s commendable before God so in the end something good will happen. A person will see that life and say, "There is something different that I’ve got to get to know."
Chuck Swindoll tells a story about a pastor in a church in London, many years ago back before the advent of the car. He got on the trolley one Monday morning to go back to his study downtown. When he paid his fair, the trolley driver gave him too much change. Well the pastor sat down and fumbled with the change and looked it over, counted it eight or nine times … and you know the rationalization, "Oh, it’s wonderful how the Lord provides! I can use this for lunch. This is what I needed to break even. A little extra money the Lord dropped on me this week." But he wrestled with himself all the way down that old trolley trail that led to his office. And finally, he came to the stop and he got up, couldn’t live with himself, walked up to the trolley driver and said, "Here, you gave me too much change. You made a mistake." And the trolley driver said, "No I didn’t. No mistake. I was in your church last Sunday when you spoke on honesty and I thought I’d put you to the test." Was it fair for him to do that? I don’t know. But, he did it and that man responded with integrity. And, so brought a little light into that person’s life. And maybe when that person’s thinking they’ll say, "I know a man who was so honest that he gave me back this money. I think I’ll go and see what makes his life like that." People want to hear the music of our lives and then they want to know the lyrics. They want to know why. They’ve got to hear that music.
So, faith has that redemptive purpose. Anybody can be a Christian when it means that we are being treated fairly, when we’re being treated justly. But that’s not our calling. The footprints of Jesus are bloody. The footprints of Jesus are bloody. Selfless ones, ones that suffered the most unjustified of pain. Look at verse 22, "When they hurled their insults at him," and of course this speaks of His time on the cross, "When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate." It’s interesting in Greek the same words are used, the root word of "hurled their insults" and "retaliate" is the same. In other words, when they talked trash to Him, He didn’t talk trash in return. When we talk about the crucifixion of Christ, it’s portrayed as He is way up there up about ten feet above the crowd. And He was up some, but many scholars believe that He was really pretty much right there and that you could walk right up to Him. And there He was imprisoned by nails, and say and do whatever you wanted. And they got up in His face and with spittle flying from their lips spoke trash to Him. He said nothing. "When he suffered, he made no threats." Let me tell you something, when Jesus makes threats, those aren’t threats. Those are promises. Can you imagine Jesus nailed up to the cross, they’re all coming into His face and saying all these things like, "If you’re the son of God, come on down here! Come on down here and show us what you’ve got!" Well, He could have come down and shown them what He had. But He didn’t. He stayed there and suffered that awful injustice. They were just loading it on, piling it on. Talk about kicking a guy while he’s down. "And he made no threats," why?, "Because he entrusted himself to him who judges justly."
Isn’t this the definition of faith? To accept everything, especially unjust suffering, as something that God can use. "Lord, I’m suffering this little experience at work where this one person has singled me out as the Christian he’s going to torment. And it’s taking place back in a corner, nobody else knows about it. Nobody else cares. It’s not going to make the front page. You’re not going to write a book of the Bible about it. It’s just me back here with this person who’s tormenting me. Why shouldn’t I just be able to give it back?" The reason is because God has a redemptive purpose. Look at verse 24 "He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree." If Jesus had been unwilling to bear our sins and the awful injustice of that bearing, we would be going to hell. Don’t anyone doubt that. His suffering had massive redemptive results, massive. Millions of people, hundreds of millions of people have had their sins forgiven by this one act. Can I do that at that scale? No. I’m not, you’re not the Lamb of God. But, "To this you were called, because he left us an example that we should follow in his steps." And that example is to live believing that God can use our tiny acceptance of tiny injustice to accomplish the miracle of redemption.
Elizabeth Elliott, you’ve heard the name, a women whose husband was one of five missionaries killed down in Ecuador by the Auca Indians back in the fifties. This woman, husband dead, baby daughter, for the next several years worked and moved and learned the language until she was able to go live in the very village of the people who had killed her husband. Talk about accepting unjust suffering. Did he deserve to die with those four other guys? They were taking the gospel. They were bringing good news. Speared to death. The great experience that woman was able to have years later of seeing Steven Saint, the son of one of the killed missionaries, baptized by an Auca pastor who was one of those who had speared those missionaries. That’s not just normal humanity, folks, that’s God.
That’s God at work. I will accept this injustice of death and I will even embrace it and continue to embrace it so that the redemptive purposes of God might be fulfilled. We don’t know how God can use that acceptance. Nothing may ever come of it, your being tormented by a co-worker, you respond to him by grace, finally gives up and leaves you alone and goes and torments somebody else. Never comes to Christ. Nobody ever hears about it, just God. But you know what? You still have brought the light of God into a dark place. Whether that person responds by embracing the light or not is a God thing. But you have done your part to fulfill the redemptive purposes of God.
Brothers and Sisters, our salvation gave great purpose and meaning to the unjust suffering that Jesus accepted. "You were like sheep going astray, but now you have returned to the shepherd and overseer of your soul." Why? Because Jesus submitted to unjust suffering to fulfill the plan of God. And we have to ask ourselves, "In what way can I be used in that way?" When we see trouble coming, when we see suffering coming, our natural response is to run the other way, terminate it. "What can I do to stop this suffering?’ But the other side of the coin is that God may be ready to use you to glorify Himself and to fulfill the redemptive purpose in someone’s life. But that requires us, if we want to be effective in that suffering, it requires us to walk in the verse 21 footsteps of the suffering Savior. And when we do, we take part in the most powerful event there is which is the rescue of one of the lost, cast. dying sheep.
