Revealed Will for Christian Servants #5

Introduction and Prayer for Understanding

0:05 Now as we did together this morning, let us again this evening turn to 1 Peter chapter 2, 1 Peter chapter 2, and I shall read a briefer portion this evening, commencing the reading at verse 18, 1 Peter 2 and verse 18. May I say for those who may be new among us, if you bring a Bible with you, we like you to have your Bible open before you. Nothing is more convincing than when you see with your own eyes in your own Bible what the preacher is asserting, and we greatly encourage that very physical relationship to your Bible under the ministry of the Word of God. 1 Peter 2 and verse 18.

0:58 Servants, or more literally house slaves, Be in subjection to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the perverse. For this is acceptable, if for conscience toward God a man endures griefs, suffering wrongfully. For what glory is it if when you sin and are buffeted you shall take it patiently, but if when you do well and suffer you shall take it patiently? This is acceptable with God.

1:35 For hereunto were you called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow his steps. Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth. Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again. When he suffered, threatened not, but committed himself to him that judges righteousness.

2:02 Who, his own self bore our sins in his body upon the tree, that we, having died unto sins, might live unto righteousness, by whose stripes you were healed. For you were going astray like sheep, but are now returned unto the shepherd and bishop of your souls. Now let us again ask God's help as we come to the study of his word. Believe.

2:33 I trust that the Spirit who gave this word alone can give us understanding in it and grace to believe and to obey it. Let us seek the same from him. Let us pray.

2:47 Our Father, how we thank you for the great privilege of having this direct access into your presence. And as we have already availed ourselves of it in this service of worship, so we come again. Because we are conscious it is not in man that walks. And we remember the words of our Lord Jesus who said, Apart from me, severed from me, cut off from me, you can do nothing.

3:18 Lord, we confess we are so slow to believe that. Help us as even now we confess our utter impotence either to understand or believingly and obediently to grasp your word. Help us and meet with us. We plead for our good and for your glory.

Recap of Previous Sermon and Context of 1 Peter 2

3:40 Amen. Now I'm quite sure that many of you women and perhaps even a few of you men and perhaps a few more of you young ladies have had the experience of working from a new recipe for the first time. And you looked over the recipe and you saw the various ingredients and you made sure you had them on hand. And then you saw that it said, It serves four to six.

4:13 But as you looked at the various ingredients and tried to think how they would look and how much there would be when you put it all together, you weren't quite sure whether that was an accurate assessment of how many would be served. And you're having several people over for a meal and you're not quite sure. Shall I do a single recipe or to be safe shall I double it? And lo and behold, because you were preparing it for the first time, and that recipe was not enough, and that recipe was not an old friend like some of them you could put together half asleep in the middle of the night and know exactly how many servings would be available, you go ahead and begin to prepare it and you prepare it and you find out afterwards that you really have enough for two meals.

4:57 Well, that's what happens to a preacher. When you're expounding the scriptures, you're putting together a homiletical recipe made of the stuff of the language, the phrases, the thoughts, the sentences. Of the Word of God. And sometimes the hour of truth comes when you've got to serve up the meal and lo and behold you find you've got enough for two meals.

5:22 Well, that's what happened yesterday afternoon as I was fully purposing to expound this morning 1 Peter 2 verses 21 through 23. And so what we did this morning is we gave, as it were, the first half of the recipe. And for the benefit of those who were not here, for our meal together, let me take just a moment to hold up what I trust are not leftovers but a sweet-smelling aroma of what we considered together as our spiritual food this morning. For those who were not with us, I briefly remind you that these words that we will focus upon this evening, 1 Peter 2, 21 to 23, come in a setting in which the Apostle is giving practical directives and exhortations to the saints of God living in those five Roman provinces of Asia Minor. And after giving them a general call to a lifestyle that would commend the gospel among those who were unbelievers, he begins to get specific and zeroes in upon a very definite area of Christian responsibility and duty. And that area is identified in verse 13. 1 Peter 2, 21 to 23, come in a setting in which the Apostle is giving practical directives and exhortations to the saints of God living in those five Roman provinces of Asia Minor.

6:41 And after giving them a general call to a lifestyle that would commend the gospel among those who were unbelievers, he begins to get specific and zeroes in upon a very definite area of Christian responsibility and duty. And after giving them a general call to a lifestyle that would commend the Apostle is living in those five Roman provinces of Asia Minor. And having identified that general area, he then gets specific and says, the citizen is to be subject to the civil authorities, servants are to be subject to their masters, and wives are to be subject to their husbands. Now, we are in the midst of this directive, beginning with verse 18, that has to do with the duty of slaves to be submissive, to their masters, not only to the masters who make that submission easy, but to those who make it difficult. Not only, Peter says, to the good and the gentle, but also to the crooked, to the perverse. And what he means by the perverse is further amplified in the following verses. Masters who actually abuse their servants when the servants are doing well, and yet he says you are to be in subjection to them. The only exception being when the masters would command something that would demand open disobedience to the law of God.

7:51 Short of that, servants are to be in subjection to their masters. And by way of extension and application, that means in every relationship, wherever and whenever that relationship is established in the providence of God. In which you and I have an obligation to render obedience to a superior, that obedience is to be rendered not only to the reasonable, to the gentle and the good, but also to the perverse, to the crooked, to those who make it difficult to render such obedience. Now knowing that such a directive would be difficult to implement, contrary to all of our natural instincts, contrary to what the world thinks. Don't let anyone make a doormat out of you. Stand up for your rights. Assert your rights.

8:44 Well, no such thing is in the mind of the Spirit of God communicating the will of Christ through the apostle Peter. But knowing this would be difficult. Peter is led by the Spirit to help the people of God with a number of incentives. And I'm embarrassed that I didn't define the word incentive for some of you children. An incentive is something that stimulates to action. If your dad says, get the lawn cut by four o'clock and I'll take you down to Friendly's for an ice cream sundae, the promise of a sundae at Friendly's is to be an incentive to get out there and cut the lawn. Peter is giving incentives to all who are in circumstances such as these slaves find themselves, that armed with these incentives, they may, by the grace of God, render obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ, the most ciel of the Most High, who is God's Redeemer. Incentive No. 1 is covered in verses 19 and 20. And the heart of it is this, such a course

Incentive Amplified: Christ's Suffering as Example and Dynamic

9:46 of action, namely, patient endurance of unjust and unrighteous treatment, patient endurance of undeserved suffering is acceptable or praiseworthy before God. Now this morning we began to learn about the lending of the gifts that were given to Israel. You are not just hearing tall stories ofмоiding us of the gifts of Barry deixeng easy-going people. You are God's diligent deliverer of words appel ab marin Immanuel the Lord, man of the kingdom. The first part tells a verse, he is a yelling boy kksi、「R hosans above love I have Government in verse 21 to take up the second incentive. We sought to identify that incentive, and that is found in verse 21a. For hereunto were you called. To this very thing you were called.

10:24 What thing? You are called to this patient endurance of undeserved suffering. It is part and parcel of the very purpose for which God in grace brought you out of darkness and into His marvelous light. So we looked at the incentive identified. It is commensurate with, it answers to the very purpose of God in your calling. And then we began to consider the second major head, the incentive amplified. And we noted that as Peter amplifies this incentive in verse 21b. through verse 24, the suffering of Christ is central in his mind. And the perspectives

11:10 on that suffering are influenced on the one hand by Isaiah 53 and by Peter's own experience as an eyewitness of the sufferings of Christ. And with that twin pressure upon his mind and spirit, he sets forth the sufferings of Christ as an example in verses 21b through verse 23. and then the sufferings of Christ as a dynamic in verse 24. Now that brings us just about to where we concluded this morning.

Christ's Example Affirmed and Selectively Described

11:43 As we looked at the example of Christ, we considered that example affirmed by Peter. Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow his steps. And in those words he affirms that every one of these abused slaves who is struggling with the directive of verse 18 is not only to constantly furnish his mind with the fact that if he does by the grace of God obey that directive, he is doing what is acceptable and praiseworthy in the presence of his God, but in the second place he is acting in a way consistent with the directive of Jesus Christ. He is acting in a way consistent with the directive of Jesus Christ. With the very end for which God has called him into fellowship and union and participation of Christ's salvation. So the example of Christ is affirmed.

12:42 Now tonight we consider the example of Christ selectively described in verses 22 and 23. Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth. Who when he was reviled, reviled not again. When he suffered, he threatened not, but committed himself to him that judges righteously.

13:10 Here we have the example of Christ selectively described. As Peter picks out elements or incidents or patterns of the patient enduring of undeserved suffering as recorded in Isaiah 53. And from his own observation of the Lord Jesus Christ, these selected descriptions fall into two categories. First of all, his character in the midst of undeserved suffering, verse 22.

13:42 And then his response to the specifics of undeserved suffering in verse 23. And that's what I'll attempt to unpack in your presence tonight. The example of Christ selectively described, first of all, with respect to his character in the midst of undeserved suffering. Now keep the train of thought together.

Christ's Character in Suffering: Sinless Deeds and Guileless Speech

14:06 Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow his steps, who did no sin, neither was guile or deceit in his mouth. In what sense is Christ my example of the patient endurance of undeserved suffering? Well, first of all, in terms of his character, he was a character in the midst of this undeserved suffering. He was sinless indeed, and he was without deceit in his speech.

14:44 He was sinless indeed. He did no sin. And here is a quote from Isaiah 53.9 in which Peter chooses a different word.

14:58 Isaiah says, He did no violence. Neither was guile. Neither was guile or deceit found in his mouth. But Peter, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, takes a more general term, one of the most frequently used general terms for sin.

15:15 Sin as missing the mark of God's absolute standard as expressed in his law. And Peter's prepared to go beyond merely saying that our Lord was no political rabble-rouser, the very thing he was accused of by his enemies. He is scurrying up the people. He is disloyal to Rome.

15:36 He claims to be a king. Peter goes beyond merely saying there was no violence in him and says there was no sin in him. He did no sin. And therefore, not only quoting from Isaiah 53.9, but adding to it his own intimate interaction with the Lord Jesus day and night with him for three years. And Peter, says he did no sin. Having seen him under all of the pressure of his enemies, their efforts to slander him, their efforts to paint him in terrible colors, the provocations that surrounded his trial, his arrest, his crucifixion. Yet Peter can say of him who did no sin.

16:29 And you see, Peter's not concerned to suddenly insert into his letter, a marvelous statement to be used in our Christology courses to prove the sinlessness of Christ. He's still talking to slaves, who are getting whacked on the side of the head when they do what the Master tells them to do. He's talking to slaves, who know what it is to be the brunt of the unrighteous actions of their masters. And he says, you are called to follow his example.

17:03 He's left you an example. You should follow his steps. Who did no sin. Who did no sin.

17:09 In what sense? Well, in the broadest sense. He was holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners. But in the context, he did no sin.

17:19 Even in the face of the greatest provocations produced by undeserved. And in this, he says, this is your example. You are to aim at nothing less, than the, the sinless response of the Son of God. You say, but that's unattainable.

17:44 Yes, it is. But it is the standard that God sets for us. Jesus himself said in Matthew 5, 48, you shall therefore be what? Perfect.

17:56 Even as your Father in heaven is perfect. And what had Peter written in the first chapter, verse 15? But like as he who called you is holy, be ye yourselves holy, in all manner of living, because it is written, you shall be holy, for I am holy. God's stainless holiness is our standard in the pursuit of the life that is well-pleasing to God.

18:27 And Jesus Christ in his character, in the midst of undeserved suffering, was sinless in his deeds. And we are called to follow his,

18:43 sinless in deeds, but he was without deceit in speech. Now the word, no guile, we don't use the term guile too frequently. It just means without deliberate deception. As we saw when we sought to open up chapter 2 and verse 1, putting away therefore all wickedness and all guile, that word was originally used to describe what you did when you baited a hook.

19:09 You deliberately tried to fool the poor little fish. You tell him, here fish, he fishy, I've got a worm. No, what you mean is here fishy, fishy, I'm going to have breakfast of you, or lunch of you, or supper of you. You deliberately deceived that poor little fish with your minnow, with your worm, with your spinner.

19:26 So to be guilty of guile is to deliberately deceive. Now why did Peter select this out of Isaiah 53? And of all the things he could have said concerning the character of our Lord, why would he underscore his guilelessness? Well, one commentator has written, and I found this very helpful and convincing.

19:53 It was this aspect of Christ's example that was particularly applicable to slaves in the Roman Empire, where glib, deceitful speech was one of their notorious characteristics. Adroit evasions, we'd say today,

20:12 being a good personal spin doctor, putting a spin on the obvious, their adroit evasions and excuses often being their sole means of self-protection. The master gave directions. The slave did not follow the directions. The master discovers the disobedience or the shoddiness, and he confronts the slave.

20:40 And this slave knows, though he's a Christian, and he should have done his work as unto the Lord, seeing beyond the requirement of the master, Ephesians chapter 6. But he doesn't. He didn't do it. He sinned against God.

20:53 He sinned against his master. And this is an unreasonable master. He gets kicked off for the slightest thing, and where you ought to just be scolded, or maybe mocked for a day. And he does more than scold.

21:06 He takes out the whip and cracks it on your back. He turns the air blue with his curses. He may stick you in solitary confinement for three days. What is your temptation when you see him coming with the frown on his face?

21:19 And he looks you in the eye and says, Now, John, did I tell you? Yes. Did you do that? At this point, you're either going to tell the truth and take the consequences, or you're going to be guilty of guile.

Christ's Guileless Speech and Its Cost

21:33 And in a very real sense, the pattern of our Lord's non-deceit in his speech that was a reflection of his character, for out of the mouth, abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. In a very real sense, it was the final thing that precipitated the cry, crucify him. You remember in Mark chapter 14, look at it for a moment. In Mark chapter 14.

21:58 And remember, Mark wrote his gospel with Peter over his shoulder as his tutor in these things.

22:08 Mark chapter 14, verse 60. And the high priest stood up in the midst and asked Jesus, Do you answer nothing? What is it that these witness against you? When the false witnesses are all clamoring, he did this, he said this.

22:22 Jesus stood there quietly. He had nothing to say. He held his peace and answered nothing. Again, the high priest asked him and said, Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?

22:36 Are you the Messiah, Son of God? And Jesus said, I am. And you shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven. And the high priest rent his clothes and said, What further need have we of witnesses?

22:56 You've heard. There's blasphemy. What do you think? And they all condemned him to be worthy of death.

23:06 When the question was put to him in that point-blank way, Are you the Messiah, the Christ, Son of the Blessed? For Jesus to do anything other than speak the truth, he would have been guilty of guile. Even though the truth meant the sentence came forth, kill him.

23:28 Now do you see how relevant this selective, element was when Peter wrote to these slaves? This is your calling. This is the thing to which you were called. Christ has suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow his steps.

23:45 He who in his character was sinless indeed and without deceit in speech. And so it is with us in whatever relationship to any authority we stand in which telling the truth is necessary to maintain a guileless tongue. We are to follow the example of our Lord Jesus. But then Peter moves from his character in the midst of undeserved suffering in verse 22 to his response to the specifics of undeserved suffering in verse 23.

Christ's Response to Suffering: No Reviling, No Threatening

24:25 His response to the specifics of undeserved suffering and you find in the text it's very clear you have two negatives and one, one very glorious foundational positive. You see the two negatives? Still speaking of our Lord who when he was reviled reviled not again. When he suffered threatened not but committed himself to him who judges righteously.

24:57 And the two negatives have a very beautiful construction in the original and I don't often bring in Greek lessons but it's vital at times to do this. Peter describes the things that were happening to him with present tense participles. We could give a good literal translation this way. Look at verse 23.

25:17 Who while being continually reviled and then you have an imperfect was not reviling again. While continually suffering he did not threaten. Two present participles matched by two imperfects for you Greek students. And he beautifully sets before us as though we're set right down watching it happen.

25:46 What were the specifics of undeserved suffering to which our Lord was subjected and how did he respond?

25:55 First of all who being continually reviled reviled not again. What does it mean to revile someone? Well it means to heap upon them vile and abusive speech. You revile someone when you take your words and use them as the club by which you seek to beat the spirit of another person.

26:23 When you use your words like a sword to pierce the soul arrows to wound or you let them loose like a swarm of bees to sting. That's to revile. Now when Jesus was being continually reviled he reviled not again. What is Peter referring to?

26:43 Well he could be thinking back over the whole history of our Lord. All through his earthly ministry he was reviled. Particularly the religious leaders heaped upon him continually vile and abusive speech. Doesn't your mind immediately think of some of the examples of that?

27:01 Say we not well that you are a Samaritan and have a demon. Think of it. Breed Jew and you're possessed of a demon. Think of it.

27:14 Reviled.

27:16 Oh yes we see you doing miracles but you do them because you are in league with Beelzebub prince of the demons. You've made a pact with the devil himself. He was reviled.

27:30 Then in the circumstances surrounding the trial and the crucifixion it's almost sacrilegious to try to reproduce how he was treated. They called him a blasphemer. The high priest goes through his mock humiliation tears his garment. We've heard his blasphemy.

27:50 False witnesses rise up against him. All kinds of trumped up charges and they can't even agree in them the scripture says.

28:00 They taunt him.

28:02 They mock him. All of these words are used. But what does he do? We read that while continually reviled he did not and in the original you have the word for revile with the word anti in front.

28:16 He did not anti-revile. He did not give tit for tat. He did not take his words and make clubs with which to beat them. He did not take his words and make them a hive of bees to let them loose to sting his enemies.

28:35 Now you see how relevant that was to these slaves. The master can cuss. I'll show him I can use a few sailors words too. He can beat me up with my words.

28:47 I'll beat him up with my words behind his back when I get out in the slave shack. I'll let my buddies know what I think of him. Who when being continually reviled he was never reviling. He was never reviling.

29:03 Never reviling. Never reviling. Never reviling. Christ suffered for you leaving you an example that you should follow his steps so that when you and I are reviled and in fellowship with Christ sooner or later there will be some form of reviling and even if he comes a pattern as it was with our lord who being continually reviled.

29:27 He is our example. our example. We're to follow His steps and never revile again. Never to be guilty of this kind of vile, abusive, pummeling. Then notice the second negative. Who, while continually suffering, He never was threatening. While continually suffering, He never was threatening. Now, I'm convinced in the context that though the word suffer is used in various ways in the New Testament to speak of the suffering of the soul or of the mind, it does speak many times of the sufferings of the body. And because of the contrast here between the abuse upon the mind and the spirit with the reviling, I believe Peter is referring primarily here to his physical sufferings, his physical abuse.

30:28 Now, again, think of the... In the Gospel records, he preaches his first sermon in his home town, and what happens?

30:38 They try to take him out and throw him down the hill and kill him. And throughout his life, it says they were constantly conspiring to destroy him. And then, after the apprehension in the Garden of Gethsemane, to read the accounts and ask God to help you to read them as though you'd never read them before. It is one of the most moving, moving, moving, moving, moving at times disgusting displays of human hatred and insensitivity. It's as though they can't find enough ways to abuse our blessed Lord and cause him physical suffering. From binding him like a common criminal, to spitting upon him, blows upon his head, the crown of thorns pressed down upon him, his back laid bare until, as Peter describes it later on in this passage, by whose...

31:37 Stripe, not stripes, by whose one massive bruise, a reference to what his back was like after the scourging, torn flesh from shoulder blade to shoulder blade. And through all of that suffering, while he was suffering, he did not... What is a threat? It's a warning of some punishment that you hope will come upon another in the future. That's the threat. That's what they did to John and Peter. In Acts 4, that's the word that's used, they threatened them and told them not to preach anymore in the name of Jesus. And when they had their prayer meeting, it says, now Lord, behold. Their noun use of the word. Their threatenings. That's what a threat is. Now

32:25 think of it for a minute. Who's the only one that had a right to threaten sinners with judgment? The judge of the world, right? And that's who was suffering, the judge of the world. And yet not once did he threaten. And say, okay, you sinners, your day is come upon you. This is your day. This is your day. And he said, if you would see in your life, you It's coming and God will sap you.

32:46 Now in his ministry he threatened, but it was never in response to suffering inflicted upon him in the way of righteousness. He threatened the impenitent cities of Bethsaida and Chorazin. He threatened Jerusalem with its coming doom in 70 A.D.

33:06 He even threatens his church. Read Revelation 2 and 3. Do this and repent or else I will come and deal with you. Christ threatens.

33:18 It's nonsense. I wanted Jesus. It never threatens. He's not in the Bible.

33:24 He's not in the Bible. But I tell you that Jesus who is in the Bible, when he's under provocation of physical suffering unjustly, he never threatens. Never threatens. Never threatens.

Contrast with Paul and the Natural Human Reaction

33:38 It struck me in meditating upon this, while we emulate the great apostle Paul and rightly so.

33:49 He broke down under pressure in this very area. I want you to look at Acts 23. And if you've got the idea that Paul was kind of a laid-back patsy, you'll see something of the feistiness of that converted Jew. You can understand why when his passions were driven by blind prejudice, he'd even have women committed to prison when he was tracking down believers.

34:12 In Acts 23, Paul looked, looking steadfastly on the council, said, Brethren, I've lived before God in all good conscience until this day. And the high priest, Ananias, commanded them that stood by him to smite him on the mouth. Paul got smacked on the mouth. It's a demeaning thing, isn't it?

34:33 Perhaps some of you, and I'm sorry you carry the wound, maybe you had a father or a mother that would in the impulse of anger and irritation and frustration smack you on the mouth. I trust there's none of you. I trust there's none of you. I trust there's none of you.

34:46 I trust there's none of you here who names the name of Christ as a parent that ever smacks your kid on the mouth. That's a horribly demeaning thing to do. If you do, get on your face and repent before God and your child.

35:00 Smacking on the mouth. Demeaning thing. Paul is standing there with a good conscience before God and man, and the high priest says, Smack him on the mouth! Look what Paul did.

35:12 Then Paul said unto him, God shall smack you, you whited wolf.

35:17 I mean, he's threatening him. You smack me? God'll smite you, you whitewashed hunk of concrete.

35:30 Bit of feistiness there, isn't there? Now, he acknowledged his wrong, at least the record says, and I'm personally convinced that he repented of that before his God. But the Bible records one who, when suffering, did threaten. But think of the blessed Lord Jesus.

35:49 Think of all of the taunts. Blindfolding him. Dressing him in mockery. Mock royalty.

35:56 Putting a mock scepter in his hand. And then smacking him and saying, If you're what you claim to be, who smacked you? What's my social security number? Be a magician in Dallas.

36:12 We say, Would it not have been right for him to say, In the calmness of self-possessed deity, You brazen sinner almighty, God will send you blind to hell unless you repent. Would you have faulted the Lord Jesus? For threatening in that restrained and righteous manner? I wouldn't.

36:35 But when he suffered,

36:40 Not once. Not once. And the soldiers add to the insults their own mockery. There's a whole section in the gospel record that if you read it carefully, it identifies the peculiar taunting and mocking of the soldiers.

36:57 It's as though they picked up and learned their act from the chief priest and the Jews. And all Jesus says is, Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing.

37:10 Peter saw that. Now he says to these slaves, Who are suffering. Suffering at the end of the whip of an unjust master. Suffering other physical privations because they are the master's property.

37:26 They have no sense of possession of their own goods. No inheritance. And would it not be natural for a slave to say in the midst of one of those unjust beatings, I tell you, Mister, if the day ever comes when I get my freedom, I'll be at your door. And you know what it is to suffer.

37:50 Wouldn't that be a natural reaction? When suffering, to threaten. To say under his breath, I'll get you in a back alley someday. And I'll work you over, bucko.

38:01 Wouldn't that be understandable? Now come on, can't you feel what a slave sitting there in the church would understand and know. And now he is told, Oh, my brother, this is what you need to understand. Jesus suffered for you.

38:20 He's left you an example to follow His steps. Who, when He suffered, continually was suffering, He never teased your pattern.

38:33 And my brothers and sisters, He's your pattern and He's mine.

Christ's Response: Committing to God Who Judges Righteously

38:37 When you're threatened, I'm sorry, when you suffer, suffer in the way of righteousness, as Peter is constantly reminding us, you too are to follow Him whose suffering did not threaten. So those are the two negatives. Now then, look at this wonderful foundational positive. What did He do in response to these specific aggravations, these specific manifestations of undeserved suffering, but committed?

39:12 Himself to Him who judges righteously.

39:17 He was literally continually committing another imperfect, past action continuous. He was continually committing Himself to Him who judges righteously. Now the word commit simply means to hand over, to deliver up. It's used in the New Testament to describe what people do with criminals.

39:39 Jesus said, agree with your adversaries while you're in the way, lest He deliver you up. There's the word, lest He hand you over to the judge. And the judge deliver you up, hand you over to the prison. It's used for betrayal, to hand someone over.

39:56 In a wretched betrayal is to deliver them. It means to hand over goods or possessions. It's used in the parable of the talents. He gave to them, He handed over His goods.

40:10 So you get the idea of the verb. Jesus was not. He was not responding tit for tat when reviled. He was not reviling again.

40:19 While suffering, He was not threatening, but He was doing something else. He was continually committing. Committing what? If you have the old ASV, you see Himself is in italics.

40:31 I think it's in italics in the New King James as well. I checked it in preparation, isn't it? Yeah. That tells you that there's no indirect object in the original.

40:40 The original simply reads, He was continually, committing to Him who is judging righteously. Well, what was He committing to Him? Some translators put Himself, His person. Others say, no, His cause.

40:57 Others say, no, His case. Some others suggest, no, He was committing His enemies and the perpetrators of the undeserved suffering. He was committing them to God. Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.

41:09 Well, as I've labored over the passage, I believe God left out any indirect object because He was constantly. Committing the whole shooting match, the circumstances, the people, the issues involved. In other words, He was enduring with patience all of this undeserved suffering in the consciousness that His God was above Him, looking down upon Him and would in His own way and time vindicate righteousness and punish wickedness. Therefore, it says He was continually committing to whom?

41:46 It doesn't say to Him who was His loving Father, though that is true. To Him who was His constant upholder, that was true. But committing Himself, His cause, the situation, continually committing to Him, particularly thought of as the one who is judging righteously.

42:12 Back in chapter 1 in verse 17, Peter said, If you call on Him. His Father, who without respect of persons judges according to each man's work. And I hope some of you remember when we sought to expound that section. Peter wants these believers to know their Father is the judge and their judge is their Father.

42:36 And keep those things in proper tension. And our Lord Jesus did that. What was His favorite way of addressing God?

42:46 Abba, Father. Holy Father. Righteous Father. Oh, my Father, if it be possible.

42:56 He was very conscious that God was His Father in a unique way. But every time He came into the crucible of this kind of suffering, this suffering not provoked by anything He did, but because of the wickedness of men's hearts, it was then that He thought particularly of God as the God who judges righteously.

43:23 And in constantly delivering over, handing over to Him who judges righteously, He is our example. He is the pattern set for you and set for me. One writer has captured beautifully to my sense of things in these words. From the midst of the cruelties and riots, the ribaldry of men, Jesus always looked away to heaven and gave over the whole matter to Him who sees all actions and all hearts and who with reference to Himself and His foes would pass righteous judgment. That's it. That's what Jesus was continually doing. And you say, that's a nice bit of Christology.

Application: Internalizing Christ's Example and Its Impact

44:18 Yes, it is, but it's more than that. It's an interpretation. It's an incentive and a directive to these oppressed slaves, to every child of God in every age, in every circumstance, where out of consciousness of God and out of obedience to the Word of God, we are being subject to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake. And in the way of righteousness and obedience to God, we suffer.

44:45 What are we to do? Continually commit the whole shoot and match to Him who judges righteously. And we've got, we've got to do that. God has so made us, stamped us with His image that when there is unrighteous administration of punishment, everything in us says, something's got to be done to make that right.

45:06 And something will be done. The question is, who's going to do it? That's not your responsibility. It's God's.

45:15 And that's where the release comes. That's where the release comes. And can you imagine what this would mean to these unconverted masters when these, and we're told by those who know far more in the whole climate of that age that no doubt the church was made up of many of them. Some go so far as to say the people to whom Peter wrote, perhaps even the majority were converted slaves.

45:42 They've not given me the data on which to validate that, but they're responsible scholars. They're not a bunch of wingnuts. But how many ever there may have been, this was no small little piddling amount of people in the churches. Can you imagine what would happen as these, these slaves internalized these things and began in the power of the Spirit to implement them?

46:04 And here those masters treating all of their slaves, the unjust and unrighteous ones, not all were like that. He says some are good and gentle, but others are not. How the line of demarcation between the Christian and the non-Christian would be increasingly seen as these slaves internalized this. My friends, that's how the gospel makes penetration.

46:27 In any society, in any age, when what you and I are in Christ is internalized and manifested in the nitty-gritty of this kind of stuff.

46:39 You can't go for one weekend on how to be a good witness for Jesus and come back with 17 rules in your pocket and do it. This is what it means to become a witness,

46:51 to embody in your own life in these kinds of circumstances the very pattern set by your blessed Lord. He's left you an example that you should follow His steps. So in summary, here is the example of Christ as a pattern of patiently enduring undeserved suffering in some selective instances. His character in the midst of such suffering did no sin, no deceit in His mouth.

47:24 His response to the specifics, to negatives, when reviled, reviled not again, while suffering, He was not threatening. The one positive committed everything, Himself, His cause, the whole set of circumstances to Him who judges righteously. Now Peter says to those who are struggling with the directive of verse 18, does this help you? It ought to help you.

Practical Exhortation: Meditate on Christ's Sufferings

47:52 Not only walking this course of submission in the path of undeserved suffering, not only is it a path of submission, not only is it acceptable to God, but it accords with the very purpose for which God called you. He called you to the end that you might follow the example of your Lord Jesus. Now this morning, in closing, I made two simple observations, I only state them now, that we learn from this passage that all real Christians want to be like Christ, but only real Christians can be like Christ. But I want you to consider one obvious word of practice, one practical exhortation tonight, as God's people, and it is this, and this has been the word of God to my heart afresh. I believe I know a little something of this, I think I've learned a little more of it in the past year, but I want to learn more in whatever remains of my pilgrimage, and it is this, I call upon you, my brothers and sisters, to meditate deeply and frequently on those portions in the Gospel records, in which the sufferings of Christ are recorded, and how He responded to them. Meditate deeply and frequently on those portions in the Gospel records, in which the sufferings of Christ

49:20 are recorded, and His responses to those sufferings. And in each instance see the bold outlines over which you are to place your tracing paper. Remember the significance of that word, leaving you an example, a pattern. See in every instance the Holy Spirit drawing the perfect script A, and the perfect script B, and the perfect script C, in lower case, in upper case, and constantly call that to remembrance.

49:54 And as you do, 2 Corinthians 3.18 says something very wonderful to us. We all with open face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord are being transformed into that same image from one stage of glory to another, even as by the Lord the Spirit. As we contemplate Christ revealed in the Scriptures, and in particular in this context as an exhortation at the end of this exposition, contemplate Him as the perfect example of patient endurance of undeserved suffering, by the operation of the Holy Spirit, we will more and more be transformed into His very likeness. I want to close with an incident that struck me, gripped me, became aware of it just a few weeks ago. A modern poet had written a poem dealing with matters related to the American practice or the, what we might call the African American slave trade. And all that went with that.

The Virtues of Christ-Free Men and Women

51:10 And over the grave of a certain very noble slave who had died as a slave, never became a free man, the epitaph on his tombstone said this, he practiced the virtues without which kings are but slaves. And you know that thing has fastened itself upon my mind and my soul. He practiced the virtues without which kings are but slaves. That should be written at least as a subscript over the grave of every true Christian.

51:54 What virtues? Look at this passage. A king on the throne who every time he's reviled must revile again is a slave to his own native temper and to his own base fallen human nature. The king on the throne with all of his influence and power who when he suffers must exert threats upon the one who inflicts suffering upon him.

52:25 He's a slave to his own native Adamic nature. But the slave with no quote, personal liberty. The slave with no title to an inheritance. The slave who is the property of his master who when abused, when reviled, reviles not again.

52:45 When he suffers he threatens not. He walks in the way of righteousness by the power of the Spirit of God. He speaks with uprightness and honesty. He is manifesting the virtues without which the king is but a slave.

53:01 He's a free man. And remember Paul as Peter had reminded these people of this earlier in this very section after calling them to obey the civil authority he said as free telling these slaves that they were in God's eyes free men. Now he's saying in essence prove your freedom. Freedom from responses to undeserved suffering that are natural and normal and expected and societally accepted Christ free men.

53:36 And that's my call to you my dear brothers and sisters. Prove yourselves to be Christ free men and women. Rise above this litigious climate of late 20th century American social fabric. I'm threatening to suing upon your rights and find that in the Bible.

54:06 God have mercy on us. Let people call us doormats so long as we are doormats in their eyes in fellowship with Christ and in conformity to Christ. The day is coming when we're going to shine like the stars. Shine like the stars.

54:26 Dear people does your heart burn with a fresh sense of the relevance of the Bible? I hope it does. Because this is all you're going to have to give you any true guidance till you get to a better place. May God help us to pray in and then seek to work out these directives this marvelous second incentive to help us in every situation where we face in the course of our obedience to God undeserved.

Call to Unbelievers and Concluding Prayer

55:03 And if you're not a Christian I hope, I hope, I pray that you sat here tonight and said oh God there's something real that I don't know anything about. And oh God I want to know something about reality. Start crying to God. Stop playing with your toys.

55:24 Get your nose out of your own carnal preoccupation with yourself and your toys and your gimmicks and face the reality you've got a never dying soul. And there's a God who is the righteous judge before whom you're going to stand. Surely you don't want to stand there and have no one to plead your cause but your buddies. You want an almighty savior.

55:48 Go to him now in repentance and faith and he will own you as his in that awesome day. Let's pray. Our Father what thanks can we render to you for your precious word for your dear and only begotten son Lord Jesus we worship you we praise you that you are indeed in your sufferings not only our substitutionary sin bearer but you are our perfect example of patient endurance of undeserved suffering. We confess we are so unlike you. Have mercy upon us cleanse us of all of our sins and for your glory so work in us that we may indeed be given grace to follow in your steps. We pray for those who are strangers to these realities God would you not in grace and in mercy open their eyes to behold the beauty of Christ that they may embrace him as the pearl of great pride treasure him follow him serve him love him and then one day go to be with him.

57:16 Seal then your word receive our thanks for this blessed day in your courts and may your benediction and blessing rest upon us as we move out into the midst of a totally lawless secularized world help us so to live that we may by our lives provoke the question help us so to walk so to speak that others will see something of the likeness of Christ. Hear us and receive our praise for your mercies through Christ our Lord. Amen.