Grace OPC Sewickley PA

Sermon Series: 1 & 2 Peter

Sermon series by Pastor Geoffrey Willour on 1 and 2 Peter.

Always Being Prepared

About this sermon

Peter asks, “Who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good?” Even if believers suffer for righteousness’ sake, God blesses them, for he works all things together for their good. In their hearts they are to honor Christ the Lord as holy and always be prepared to give a reason for their hope, with gentleness and respect, not arrogance or snark. The goal is not to win arguments but to win souls, and it is better to suffer for doing good, if God wills it, than for doing evil.

More sermons from 1 Peter · Browse all sermons

Sermon transcript

Please remain standing for the reading of God’s word as we continue our consideration of 1 Peter. My sermon text this evening is 1 Peter chapter 3 verses 13 through 17 and you’ll find that on page 1205 in your Pew Bibles. I’m going to begin reading at verse 8 and read through verse 17 to fill out the context a little bit. So let us hear God’s holy word. 1 Peter 3 beginning at verse 8 and reading through verse 17. Finally all of you have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling but on the contrary bless for to this you were called that you may obtain a blessing. For whoever desires to love life and see good days let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit let him turn away from evil and do good let him seek peace and pursue it for the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are open to their prayer but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.

Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good but even if you should suffer for righteousness sake you will be blessed have no fear of them nor be troubled but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you yet do it with gentleness and respect having a good conscience so that when you are slandered those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame for it is better to suffer for doing good if that should be God’s will than for doing evil. The grass withers and the flower fades but the word of our God endures forever. Let’s pray for the Lord’s blessing upon the preaching of his word.

Our Lord and Father in heaven once again we are thankful that you have given us a clear word we thank you that you have communicated with us and we pray that you would help us to receive what your spirit is teaching us in this portion of your God-breathed scriptures help us to receive these truths with an open heart and open mind and with love for you and a desire to live in conformity to your will we pray Lord that you would grant me grace to declare your word with clarity and power this evening and we pray that Jesus would be exalted through the preaching of the word be present Lord in the proclamation of your word and by your spirit and edify us and build us up in our most holy faith in Jesus name we pray and all of God’s people said amen you may be seated.

Title of my sermon this evening is always being prepared and there are I believe seven words to choose from to listen for in my sermon today and this evening for the young people who choose to do that well dear ones how can we who confess faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord how can we live as faithful disciples in obedience to his word even in the midst of an ungodly environment where we might have to face hostility and perhaps even persecution for our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Well friends this was the pressing issue facing the first century Christians to whom the Apostle Peter addressed this letter this epistle. Indeed it was an issue that was much more pressing for them in that first century context than it is for us in the USA today in the 21st century.

Well as we’ve learned throughout this sermon series the epistle of first Peter was written to a group of first century believers who were facing the fiery trials of hostility and persecution for their faith in our Lord Jesus. Throughout this letter St. Peter has sought to encourage to comfort and to bolster the faith of these believers so that they might continue to stand firm in their faith even in the face of hostility and persecution. Peter has also sought to give them practical guidance on living godly lives in the midst of an ungodly environment and also in being positive witnesses for Christ toward those who are outside of the faith. These are concerns that we should all take to heart and and as we’ve seen more recently one of the major themes in this particular section of first Peter is the importance of living honorable lives among those whom Peter describes as the Gentiles in other words the unbelievers.

This theme is highlighted for example back in chapter 2 verse 12 where Peter wrote keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable so that when they speak against you as evildoers they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. We’ve learned that such honorable conduct is vital for the integrity and the effectiveness of our Christian witness. This honorable Christian conduct includes among other things being subject to the for the Lord’s sake to every human authority as well as living in obedience to God’s creation order. And we’ve seen in these verses leading up to our passage for this evening that that is the case and and this evening we find in our passage for this evening a new section of Peter’s first epistle in fact a section that that encompasses most of the rest of this epistle.

As Dr. I. Howard Marshall sets it forth in his commentary he says a last major section of the letter begins here. From this point onward Peter is concerned principally but not exclusively with the Christian’s response to actual persecution. To be sure the hostile attitude of non-Christian society was also very much in the background in earlier parts of the letter but there he focused directly on the character of Christians individually and in the Christian community and in various social relationships. Now the focus shifts to an actual response to specific attacks. In chapter three verses 13 through 17 Peter urges his readers to make positive use of the opportunities posed by hostile situations. I love that the way that Dr. Marshall frames that that this persecution is not so much a problem as an opportunity for the Christians to bear faithful witness and God presents those difficult providential opportunities for us in our lives from time to time.

So as we turn our attention to our text for this evening beginning at verse 13 we first of all notice here we consider here what we learn about zeal for the good and suffering for the sake of righteousness. If you’re following along in the sermon outline that’s the first major point. Zeal for the good and suffering for the sake of righteousness. Peter writes in verse 13, now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? Who is there to harm you if you’re a zealot for that which is good? Who’s there to harm you for that? This question flows naturally from Peter’s quote in verses 10 through 12 from Psalm 34 verses 12 to 16. Let me go back again and quote from verses 10 through 12 where again Peter is quoting from Psalm 34 and it says the following, For whoever desires to love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit.

Let him turn away from evil and do good. Let him seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are open to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil. You see how verse 13 naturally flows out of that quotation from Psalm 34. So we learn here in verse 13 that we believers in Christ should exhibit a zeal for that which is good. The Greek word for zealous here is zealotai and I believe that that is the term from which we derive our word zealot. So Peter or I should say the Holy Spirit through Peter is basically telling us as Christians to be zealots for the good. This zeal for what is good that Peter here describes is not just a a mental or emotional or intellectual zeal that actually does nothing.

Instead it is a zeal that translates into action. It is a zeal which bears fruit and translates into the action of actually pursuing the good. Are you characterized brother sister in Christ by pursuing the good? Pursuing that which God in his word describes as good. And of course while Peter doesn’t directly state it we know by comparing scripture with scripture that God’s moral law as it is summarized in the Ten Commandments defines that which is truly good and distinguishes good from evil. We get that from the law of God. The law of God is a transcript, a reflection of God’s holy and righteous character. So again God’s holy law not the latest cultural or intellectual or social or academic or ideological fads but no but God’s holy law is that which defines what is good.

Now what’s Peter’s point here in verse 13? Especially as he’s addressing believers who faced suffering for righteousness sake, suffering for their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. How can Peter then say now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? Well Peter is speaking here in terms of general principles and he’s just quoted from a psalm and this psalm 34 reflects the wisdom tradition, the wisdom literature of the scriptures and in the wisdom literature the wisdom literature gives us general principles that are not necessarily true in each and every instance and so the principles laid out for example in this psalm that is quoted by Peter, whoever desires to love life and see good days let him keep his tongue from evil, his lips from speaking to sea, turn away from evil, do good and that therefore if you want to see have a long and happy life this is the way you are to live.

In general that is the case however there are exceptions. This is not a hard and fast rule or an absolute guarantee that if you pursue the good that if you’re zealous for the good therefore you’re going to have a happy a good life necessarily. In ordinary providential circumstances however it is those who actively and unrepentantly pursue an evil course who will sooner or later reap the consequences of their evil choices and behavior and many examples hypothetical and real could be offered to illustrate this. For example let’s give a hypothetical situation let’s say you have a young lady perhaps a teenager who’s raised in a Christian home but rebels against her parents and she goes out and she is promiscuous and she attends parties and she’s getting drunk, she gets addicted to drugs, she gets pregnant out of wedlock, she has a very poor work ethic.

What kind of a life unless God’s grace intervenes what kind of a life can she expect to face if she continues along that pathway? Very likely she will face perhaps a shortened life but if not a shortened life a life that is full of tumult and pain and difficulty. Again God is gracious, we believe in a sovereign God whose grace can intervene and turn course there in that situation and situations like it and that’s the case under providential ordinary providence those who actively and unrepentantly pursue evil will reap evil in their lives. Now there are exceptions there are some folks who live evil lives and give themselves over to evil and actually prosper in their wickedness. This was one of the conundrums that were faced by some of the psalmist. Lord why do the wicked prosper and sometimes they do prosper and actually as an aside I would suggest to you that the prosperity of the wicked may in fact be a sign of God’s judgment against them.

Sometimes God judges the wicked the unrepentant wicked by giving them over to their wickedness and confirming them in their wickedness and but nevertheless as a general rule you pursue an evil course it will lead to evil consequences but the other on the other hand as Peter points out in verse 13 on the other hand ordinarily it is those who by God’s grace zealously pursue what is good in other words those who pursue godliness and righteous ethical conduct who will as a general rule see good days as we’re told in verse 10. Again these are general principles that are true under ordinary providence but that is why Peter can ask the question who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good. However we know brothers and sisters that we live in a fallen sin-cursed world a world where unregenerate sinners are hostile toward God their creator toward Christ the Savior and toward the gospel of Christ and at times there are exceptions to this general rule that Peter states in verse 13 and that’s why he says in verse 14 but even if you should suffer for righteousness sake and those whom he’s writing to the Christians he’s writing to have already tasted that that suffering for righteousness sake and there was more to come that’s one of the reasons why Peter writes this letter to comfort them because a fiery trial of affliction awaits them and so Peter says but even if you should suffer for righteousness sake you will be blessed not that the suffering in and of itself is a blessing that’s not what he’s saying he’s saying that God will cause all things even your suffering to work out for your ultimate good and his ultimate glory sometimes believers who zealously pursue that which is good and righteous end up suffering for righteousness sake that’s one of the consequences of living in a fallen sin-cursed world but even if that should happen there is a blessing promised to those who suffer not because of their misdeeds or their poor choices or their sin but who suffer for doing what is right who suffer for righteousness sake Peter’s statement here in verse 14 is basically a restating of what our Lord Jesus taught in his sermon on the mount especially in Matthew 5 verses 10 to 12 let me just read that to you I know I read this morning from another section of the sermon on the mount but let’s turn briefly to Matthew 5 and look at verses 10 through 12 of Matthew chapter 5 the final beatitude the final beatitudes say this blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven if you are persecuted for righteousness sake because you are righteous in Christ and and out of gratitude for God’s gift of salvation in Christ you are seeking to live out that righteousness in your life if you’re persecuted for that well that’s just an indication that yours is the kingdom of heaven you will belong you are a citizen of God’s kingdom blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven there’s no greater blessing than the kingdom of heaven God’s reign of grace and salvation in Christ and then it goes on to say in verse 11 blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account rejoice and be glad for your reward is great in heaven for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you see beloved even in such circumstances God’s people are blessed since God causes all things to work together for their good as we read in Romans 8 28 for God causes all things to work together for the good to those who love him who are the called according to his purpose and in the context of that passage that’s talking about God’s elective purpose his sovereign purpose of grace in the hearts and lives of his people and in such circumstances we are not to fear with a debilitating sinful fear it’s natural to fear to have a sense of fear and anxiety over the prospect of suffering of hostility but we should not fear in an ultimate sense in a debilitating or sinful sense instead with courage courage that flows from our saving union with the Lord Jesus Christ we are to consecrate our hearts to Christ’s lordship as it says in verse 15 in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you yet with gentleness and respect this reminds me of what our Lord says in Matthew 10 verses 26 to 33 and let me again read that briefly to you Matthew chapter 10 verses 26 to 33 again Peter is simply reflecting in his writings that we’re considering tonight what our Lord Jesus taught during his earthly ministry and in Matthew 10 verses 26 through 33 the Lord Jesus says this about the persecutions that his followers may have to face he says so have no fear of them for nothing is covered that will not be revealed or hidden that will not be known what I tell you in the dark say in the light and what you hear whispered proclaim on the housetops and do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell are not two sparrows sold for a penny and not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your father but even the hairs on your head are all numbered fear not therefore you are of more value than many sparrows so everyone who acknowledges me before men I also will acknowledge before my father who is in heaven but whoever denies me before men I also will deny before my father in heaven what are some of the takeaways what some of the applications or lessons we can learn from this well first of all brothers and sisters in Christ let us be zealots for the good God has been good to us he has been supremely good to us he has saved us by his grace he has redeemed us through the blood of Christ renewed us by the spirit he has justified us by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone and he is sanctifying us conforming us more and more into the image of Christ he has given unto us the spirit of adoption by which we cry Abba father he has sealed us unto the day of redemption and one day he will take us to be with him forever and so since God has been so good to us let us be zealots for the good let us pursue pursue the good by seeking to love our neighbor as ourselves let us actively pursue that which God’s word declares to be good and let us do so in our thoughts by our words and by our actions let us also beloved not fear the world’s hostility instead in Christ let us be strong and courageous let us trust God’s promise that we will be blessed even if we should suffer for righteousness sake I know it’s easier said than done but God can give us the grace to meet the challenges that in his providence he brings into our lives but of course we cannot avoid such fear and no such supernatural faith unless we know the Savior and so dear listener I ask you this evening do you know Jesus Christ as your very own Savior and Lord have you trusted him and him alone for salvation from sin in the gospel God commands all people everywhere to repent he calls you and me to turn to him to turn to Christ from sin and to rest to receive and rest upon Christ alone for salvation from sin and he promises to all who turn to him in true faith and repentance that they will not perish but have everlasting life by the grace of God may you turn to Christ this evening and trust in him as your Savior from sin and then you will know the grace and the strength to face the challenges ahead with courage we also learn in this passage however of consecration to Christ and a readiness to reason consecration to Christ and a readiness to reason in verse 15 it says but in your hearts after Peter has exhorted them not to fear those who would persecute them he says but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy always being prepared to make a defense an apology not in the sense of apologizing for your faith but but a defense of your faith this is a legal term to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you yet do it with gentleness and respect now some of you if you have a King James Bible or a new King James Bible you may be saying wait a minute pastor my Bible does my Bible doesn’t exactly read that way my Bible translates verse 15 as follows but sanctify the Lord God in your heart whereas the English standard version and versions like it say but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy so which is it are we to consecrate or set apart the Lord God in our hearts or Christ as Lord in our hearts well this is a textual issue an issue of you know which ancient manuscripts better reflect how it was original how it originally read what Peter originally wrote we don’t have the the original original we have multiple copies ancient copies that bear testimony to the original and so this is a textual issue but friends I would point out that it’s a textual issue which does not fundamentally change the meaning of this passage after all is not the Lord Jesus Christ himself the Lord God of course he is Jesus Christ is divine but I would also suggest that the ancient manuscripts which are behind translations like the English standard version probably more accurately represent the original that’s debated among some but most contemporary translations would translate it similarly to the way that the English standard version translates it and also the ESV translation here makes more sense in the context of the rest of the passage after all Peter is here dealing with what verse 16 calls our good behavior in Christ the focus is on Christ so it makes sense that he would say in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy and how do we honor him as holy well one of the ways we do so is by always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you always being prepared dear listener are you prepared if someone asks you you’re a Christian aren’t you why do you believe in Christ why do you have the Christian hope would you be capable and ready to give a reasoned response to them I’m not saying you have to give them a sophisticated philosophical or theological response but would you be able to articulate clearly the reason for the hope that is in you beloved we need to be as Christians we need to be well enough instructed in the basics of our Christian faith so that we can intelligently articulate what we believe and why we believe it to any outsider who inquires about our beliefs and notice by the way the focus is on others will ask what to do when others ask you this is not a command to go out and beat people over the head with a 10-foot bible and a stuffed gospel tracks down people’s throats this is this is like what you are to do what I am to do when others get their curiosity peaked and say why do you believe this stuff what why why are you so hopeful again I’m not saying it’s wrong to to seek opportunities to share Christ with others but the focus here is on how we respond when others ask us friends this is why in the Reformed faith we put so much emphasis on the importance of basic bible knowledge and catechesis and doctrinal instruction as well as apologetics which again apologetics is not apologizing for our faith it’s it’s in it’s defending the faith and to study apologetics means studying instructions in how to defend our Christian faith and to answer the objections of unbelievers and it’s a faith strengthening study especially when you study good apologetic methods band hill presuppositionalism so forth brothers and sisters we need to know what we believe and why we believe it and we need to learn how to articulate the Christian gospel to others to whom Peter says to anyone who asks you now to be fair in the context of this passage Peter may have in mind in this context a legal context where Christians are being hauled before the civil authorities before the pagan Roman government officials to answer questions about their Christian faith but even if this is the case the principle here can apply to any situation where an unbeliever may ask you to explain what you believe and why you believe it and it is your responsibility is it is every Christian’s responsibility to be prepared enough to to articulate their faith in the face of such questioning and what is the focus of their questioning the focus will be on our Christian hope always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for what for the hope that is in you this is referring to the Christian hope and the Christian hope is not merely a wish it’s not merely oh I hope so I hope this is true in the Bible the term hope means certainty something that is sure and certain but yet still in the future as we’re told in Hebrews faith is the assurance of things hoped for the confidence of things in things not seen this Christian hope is the gift of eternal salvation in Christ does the world have this hope no it doesn’t the world apart from Jesus Christ has no stable or lasting or secure hope but it is the sure and certain hope of the Christian gospel which attracts the interest and the attention of a world that is without hope the world apart from Christ has no real lasting hope but we have the privilege and the joy of pointing fellow sinners to the only and all sufficient source and bestower of sure certain and lasting hope namely the Lord Jesus Christ and so as we share the Christian hope with others let us share the gospel with them for it is good news for sinners like me and like you indeed for all who would come to to Christ how are we to share this Christian hope however Peter says yet do it with gentleness and respect gentleness and respect do you see Christians for example I know I bring this up often but you see Christians in social media and in dialogues with unbelievers online do you see Christians often exhibiting characteristics of gentleness and respect in their interactions I suggest oftentimes not we are to communicate the hope of the gospel with gentleness and respect gentleness toward the non-believer but respect or fear the Greek word I believe is phobos from which we get our word phobia we are not to fear man but to fear God we are to be gentle toward the non-believer who asks us and whom we’re interacting with and we are to show fear or respect or reverence toward God notice not with harshness not with bombast not with arrogance or bitter snark all of which are manifestations of the flesh how can you bear testimony to the gospel in the flesh when we share the gospel the goal is not to win an argument the goal is to win souls for Christ the goal is to exhibit the fruit of the Holy Spirit not your own sinful pride with gentleness and respect well we certainly need to know what we believe and why why we believe it well we certainly need to make it our name our aim to intellectually equip ourselves to give a reason for the hope that is within us we would all we must always at the same time be ready to share the gospel with gentleness and respect it’s not just what we say in our defense of the faith that matters in some ways it is even more important how we say it outsiders to the faith are not generally impressed by Christians who in their witness for Christ come across as bombastic pugnacious know-it-all jerks who exude a spirit of arrogance no matter how brilliant and intellectually sound their arguments for the faith might be but an intelligent cogent yet simple articulation of the gospel message that manifests a spirit of humility and respect and gentleness and the fear of God can be used by the Holy Spirit to make a powerful impact upon the heart of the unbeliever now God is sovereign you know the saying God can draw a straight line with a crooked stick sometimes God in his sovereignty uses an arrogant witness to bring one of his elect to faith in Christ but more often than not he uses a gentle kind gracious witness to win souls for Christ and so friends let us always be ready to share with gentleness and respect and then he goes on to say in verse 16 having a good conscience a good conscience so that when you are slandered the assumption is that Christians the unbelieving hostile world that is hostile towards Christianity will often slander us spread misinformation about us and so forth not if you are slandered when you are slandered those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame but it’s important to maintain a good conscience and we shouldn’t be surprised when unbelievers slander us but notice what they slander us for your good behavior in Christ your good behavior in Christ it is only in union with Christ that we can exhibit such good behavior which is the fruit of the spirit and the goal is that they may be put to shame this either means shamed on the day of judgment if they remain unrepentant but I think more likely in the context here the goal is shamed to the point of repentance when those who are hostile to the gospel and hostile to the church when they see a gentle and kind witness and they hear a witness that comes from a good conscience and a gentle spirit they’re ashamed of their hostility and maybe the spirit will use that to shame them to a point of self-reflection and repentance for their sin that is the goal dear ones let us consecrate our hearts to Christ’s lordship and always be ready to explain the gospel to those who ask with gentleness and reverence for God but finally and very briefly this passage closes in verse 17 by pointing to the suffering for doing good and God’s mysterious will consider what we learn here about suffering for doing good and God’s mysterious will Peter says for it is better to suffer for doing good if that should be God’s will than for doing evil it is better to suffer for doing good better in what way well in the context here Peter is probably speaking of moral morally better ethically better it is better to suffer for doing good than for to suffer for your own misdeeds and bad choices because when you suffer for doing good that shows that you’re prioritizing God above everything else including your own personal comfort it is better because we honor God by being willing to suffer for righteousness sake and it is also better because such suffering exposes the wickedness of our persecutors which might lead them to reconsider their ways and turn in repentance and faith to the Lord Jesus Christ such as what happened to the apostle Paul the ones once the hostile persecutor of the church but the Lord turned him around by sovereign grace and notice he says it is better to suffer if it be God’s will in the mystery of God’s providence it is sometimes his will to allow his children to suffer in this life for doing good but praise God that’s not the end of the story one day he will right all wrongs and he will wipe away all tears and I close my sermon this evening with the reading of Revelation 21 verses one through four hear this wonderful passage and take its comfort to heart Revelation 21 verses one through four then I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and the sea was no more and I saw the holy city new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God prepared as a bride adorned for her husband and I heard a loud voice from the throne saying behold the dwelling place of God is with man he will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will be with them as their God and then notice the promise in verse four he will wipe away every tear from their eyes have you experienced sorrow in your life that has caused your eyes to flood with tears and you feel like the crying and the tears will never end he will wipe away every tear from their eyes and death shall be no more neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore for the former things have passed away this is our Christian hope this is the hope that we need to bear faithful and gentle witness to in the in to the unbelievers in our lives amen let us pray heavenly father we thank you for your grace and mercy to us and we thank you lord that it is your kindness that leads us to repentance we thank you lord that you have spoke kind words to us in the gospel your law condemns us and crushes us but then you come with your gospel to lift us up in christ we would pray heavenly father that this eternal hope would be ours and that you would give us opportunities and grace and wisdom and tact to declare it to others who ask for a reason for the hope that is within us we pray these things in Jesus name and all of God’s people said amen as we close our time together let’s rise and sing him 517 I know whom I have believed 517

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

June 16, 2024
Having Unity of Mind

About this sermon

Peter calls the church to unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind, and not to repay evil for evil but to bless, quoting Psalm 34. Christ gives the church its ministers to build up the body toward unity of faith. Christian virtue rests on the grace of God; there but for his grace go any of us. Christ also calls believers to love their enemies, blessing those who revile them, so that they live as faithful witnesses in a hostile world.

More sermons from 1 Peter · Browse all sermons

Sermon transcript

Peter chapter 3 verses 8 through 12, which ends an important section here of Peter’s epistle. 1 Peter 3 verses 8 through 12, you’ll find that on page 1205 in your pew Bible. Let us hear God’s holy word. Finally all of you have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary bless, for to this you were called that you may obtain a blessing. For whoever desires to love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit. Let him turn away from evil and do good. Let him seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are open to their prayer.

But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Let’s pray for the Lord to bless the preaching of his word. Oh heavenly Father, we pray that by your spirit you would open our minds and our hearts once again to behold wondrous things from your word. And we ask that you would cause your word to find a lodging place in our souls. Bear spiritual fruit in us and through us through that which we hear this evening. And set a guard over my lips, Lord, that I, your unworthy servant, may only speak that which is faithful and true to your word. And for the edification of your people and the glorification of your holy name. In Jesus’ name we pray and all of God’s people said, Amen.

You may be seated. There’s four words that the children can listen for this evening in my sermon, Unity, Virtue, Sympathy and Love. Well, dear ones, my sermon text for this Lord’s Day evening, as I mentioned, it completes this particular section of St. Peter’s first epistle. And what we have seen in this section is that the governing theme of this section of God’s word appears to be the theme of honorable conduct. As we learned back in chapter 2 verse 12, Peter writes, keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable. What’s he talking about among the Gentiles? Well, in Peter’s vocabulary, the word Gentiles is used to refer to unbelievers generically, or at least to unbelieving Gentiles in particular. In other words, what we have from chapter 2 verse 11 through chapter 3 verse 12, which we are considering this evening, this ending section.

In this section, Peter has been concerned to tell his readers how to live as good witnesses for Jesus Christ in the midst of a hostile and unbelieving world. And we find ourselves in the midst of such a world today as well, don’t we? It seems that our world is growing increasingly hostile towards traditional versions of Christianity and anything that smacks of biblical fidelity, faithfulness to the word of God. This honorable conduct among the Gentiles involves many things, but Peter includes among those things submitting to legitimate God ordained authority. And so, for example, we saw that all believers are to submit to the governing authorities, the civil authorities. Servants are to submit to their superiors, which in today’s context would mean that employees are to submit to the legitimate demands of their employers. And wives are to submit to their husbands and so forth.

You see, Peter knew that unbelievers would sometimes seek to slander and tarnish the good names and reputations of believers. And think about it, in a fallen and sin-cursed world, would we expect otherwise? Would we expect in this world where slander and seeking to cancel others and destroy others’ good names and reputations is so common, would we expect unbelievers to respect us as believers, respect our beliefs and our witness? Of course not. And so it should not surprise us when they speak ill of us, brothers and sisters. But let us as believers not give unbelievers seemingly valid reasons for their criticisms. Peter wants us to avoid giving unbelievers such ammunition. And one of the ways that we avoid giving unbelievers ammunition for their slanders and criticisms of that is by living honorable lives in their midst.

Beloved in Christ, as believers we have been redeemed and saved by the grace of God and through the blood and righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ. And therefore we are to live such holy lives that unbelievers will have no valid reasons for their abusive criticisms or their slanderous accusations against us. In this section, Peter is telling us that part of what it means to live holy lives is to submit, as I mentioned, submit to legitimate authority, as we learned in chapter 2 verses 13-25, and also to live in accordance with the divine creation order, as we’ve been learning here in chapter 3 verses 1-7. Now in this final part of this section, which we’ll be considering this evening, which goes from verses 8-12 of chapter 3, Peter addresses all believers in this summary exhortation. He’s been addressing various parties.

He’s been addressing wives and husbands, servants and masters and so forth. But here he addresses all of us as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. In verse 8, he gives us a number of commands which concern how we are to get along with our fellow Christians. And then in verse 9, Peter seems to be giving a basic command for how to deal with those who are hostile toward us. He probably has unbelievers in mind in verse 9, although these same principles would apply in a situation where a professing Christian is being treated in an unchristian way by another professing Christian. And finally, in verses 10-12, Peter quotes from Psalm 34 verses 12-16 in order to give some Old Testament scriptural backing for his admonition. And so let us direct our attention to this passage of God’s holy word.

And I first of all want to direct your attention to verse 8, where Peter says, finally, in other words, he’s wrapping up this particular section of his epistle and he says, finally, all of you, so he’s addressing the believers in general, all of you have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart and a humble mind. If we pause and meditate on and consider these various things that we are called to here, it’s really quite a list, isn’t it, that he calls us to. But the first thing I want to focus on in verse 8 is Christian unity. Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us strive to maintain Christian unity with one another. Let us maintain Christian unity with one another. Again, as the Holy Spirit through Peter says, all of you have unity of mind.

What does that mean to have unity of mind? Does that mean that we all have to think alike? Does that mean that we all have the same perspective on everything? Of course not. As Dr. Norman Hillier points out, Christian believers must live in harmony with one another. Literally being of one mind, a single word in the Greek, the term is intended to convey a unity of aim and purpose, a oneness in attitude. And Dr. I. Howard Marshall says they should live in harmony with one another. The Greek word literally to be of like mind means that Christians should have the same basic aim of serving God and loving one another instead of being guided by individual selfish interests. Christians therefore will work together and not act in isolation. Now of course we cannot work together to glorify and serve God and to love our brothers and sisters in Christ unless we have a basic doctrinal unity in the truths of the Gospel.

Nevertheless, the focus is on unity of aim and purpose here. Beloved in Christ, what is the unity that we are to aim for according to Peter? Well beloved, the unity to which the Holy Spirit through Peter is calling us is a unity of aim and purpose. What are we about as the Church of Jesus Christ? What are we about as disciples, as followers of the Lord Jesus Christ? What has the Lord called us to? What is our mission, our calling, our purpose as the people of God? Our ultimate aim and purpose as followers of Christ should be to love, to serve, and to glorify God and to love one another. I know I quote it often and you folks know it by heart. But what is the chief end of man? Man’s chief end, our ultimate aim and purpose is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.

And we are to love the Lord our God and to love our neighbor as ourselves. But what is again, what is this unity of aim and purpose based upon? What is it grounded in? Is it grounded in and based upon our own moralistic self-righteousness? Is it based upon a pharisaical ethic? No. Christian unity, this unity of aim and purpose as followers of Jesus Christ to which we are called in this passage is a unity that is grounded in the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Any other kind of unity is not true Christian unity. It’s not the unity that Peter is speaking of. It’s not the unity that the spirit is calling us to through Peter’s writing here. We are to be united in the gospel, the good news of the Lord Jesus Christ and thus our unity is grounded in this book.

It is grounded in the inerrant, infallible, authoritative word of God. Peter does not explicitly mention here doctrinal or spiritual unity in this passage. But nevertheless, this unity of aim and purpose, this oneness of mind in serving Christ, serving his people and serving the cause of God’s kingdom in this world would be impossible without the truth of the gospel message. The gospel is that which gives us incentive to glorify and enjoy God and to serve him in missions, in evangelism, and in our callings and vocations out there in the workaday world. The reason that I mention the importance of the gospel and of the word of God to our Christian unity is because there is this idea out there that says, and it’s often expressed in some ways like this, why can’t we Christians all just, why can’t we just love Jesus?

Let’s forget about all this doctrinal stuff. Let’s forget about all this, all our arguing and bickering. Can’t we all just get along? Can’t we all just love Jesus? Now indeed, there is a spirit of sectarianism and divisiveness that we need to avoid as brothers and sisters in Christ, especially when we have differences, when we study the scriptures together and come to different conclusions. We are intended by God to study the Bible, not just in isolation. Certainly, I would commend and encourage you to read the Bible in private. But this is the church’s book. This is revealed by God to the covenant community. We are to read this together. We are a community of interpretation. And so if you’ve come to an interpretation of the Bible that no one else has ever thought of, 99.9% chance is that you are wrong.

I remember hearing an OPC ruling elder many years ago describe the word new when it came to interpretations of the Bible. He said, yeah, when it comes to Bible interpretations, new means nearly everywhere wrong. And that is the case. The reason I stress this is because of the doctrinal indifferentism that we find in theological liberalism, which says, you evangelicals, you reform folk, you conservatives, however they label us, oftentimes fundamentalists, you’re just so you’re so uptight about things like the deity of Christ and the atonement and the bodily resurrection. Isn’t it all about being like Jesus? No, no. Which Jesus are we to be like? The biblical Jesus or the Jesus of theological liberalism? The kind of unity that we are to have is a unity that is grounded in the revealed doctrinal truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And we’re not to hold this truth, again, we’re not to hold it in a divisive with a divisive spirit or a spirit of suspicion toward fellow believers. But nevertheless, we are to hold fast to the word of truth, that common faith that we have confessed. Dear listener, do you believe the truths of the gospel, the truth that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, the truth that you and I are sinners, that we’ve missed the mark, that in our fallenness, we do not love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength, that we do not love our neighbor as ourselves, and that therefore we deserve God’s wrath and judgment, that we have no hope of salvation in ourselves, in our own works or merits or efforts or even in our own religiosity, the truth that only Jesus is our hope of salvation.

Jesus says, I am the way, the truth and the life. No man cometh unto the Father except by me. He is Lord. He is the word made flesh who died for sinners and rose from the dead so that all who believe in him might not perish but have everlasting life. This is what unites us together. We come from different backgrounds. We come from different upbringings, from different socioeconomic backgrounds, different educational levels. But we, if we have the biblical Lord Jesus Christ in common, we have in common that which matters the most. We have unity of mind if we are in him. Praise be to God. And I think Paul puts it well. I read this earlier in the service, but let me just remind us again of what he writes in Ephesians chapter 4. When he says this, I therefore a prisoner for the Lord, meaning the Lord Jesus, he’s writing this from prison, I urge you to walk, that is to live, in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called.

With all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. And he reminds us there is one body and one Spirit. Just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. And then skipping down to verse 11 and following, what does God give to work for this unity of mind? Well, it says, he gave as a gift to his church from his heavenly glory. He gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers to do what? To equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children.

God does not want you or me to remain spiritually immature. He wants us to grow up in Christ, to mature in Christ. He does not want us to be tossed to and fro by the waves or carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in harshness, no, speaking the truth in love, speaking the truth in love. We are to grow up in every way into him who is the head into Christ, from whom the whole body joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped. When each part is working properly makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. May that be our goal, our aim. May we, by the grace of God, seek to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

And that unity is a unity that is grounded in the truth of God’s Word. But next, beloved, let us practice Christian virtue. He says in verse 8, finally all of you have unity of mind, but then he mentions what? Sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. Let’s first of all talk about being sympathetic. What does it mean to be sympathetic? This means that we are to share each other’s joys and sorrows. As the Apostle Paul writes in Romans 12 verse 15, rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. How can we do that if we are not involved in each other’s lives? If we are not a community? If we just parachute in and then parachute out and are disconnected? The Lord by his Spirit has brought us together as a local expression of the body of Christ and we are to be connected to one another.

And that will look differently in different people’s lives in different ways. There are different callings and so forth. But we are to have a fellow feeling, a sympathy for one another. Are you brothers and sisters praying for each other? One thing I would encourage you to do is to have a prayer calendar and to take the church directory and make sure that you’re on a regular basis. It doesn’t have to be every day. You can work out your own schedule. But are you praying for each and every member and friend of the church on a regular basis? That’s one of the ways that we show sympathy for each other. Pray for each other. We should be praying for each other. One of the things that I am so thankful for for Grace Church is that this is a praying church.

We do care enough about each other to pray for one another. Let us keep on keeping on with that. Let us be sympathetic to one another. Rejoicing with those who rejoice and weeping with those who weep. The ability to enter sympathetically into the experiences of our fellow believers is an important virtue when it comes to maintaining the unity of the body of Christ. Christ is the perfect example, of course, of what it means to be sympathetic. For he left his throne in heaven and he clothed himself in our humanity in order to put himself into our shoes and to die for our sins and accomplish our redemption. As our intern candidate Mr. English so excellently explained in the sermon this morning when he talked about the incarnation of Christ. But not only are we to have sympathy, we are to have brotherly love.

Again, to quote from Dr. Marshall, he says, the ideal Christian community is one which produces between people who have no blood ties the same bonds of affection as are expected between brothers. And then he refers us to Psalm 133 verse 1 where the psalmist writes, behold how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity. But you know the opposite is also true. How unpleasant and how difficult it is when brethren do not dwell together in unity but are at odds with each other. Again, Christ is our supreme example of brotherly love. He is the divine son of God. He is our savior but he is also described in the Bible as our elder brother. By his grace we have been adopted as sons and daughters of God and therefore we are spiritual brothers and sisters in the household of God.

You’re my brother, my sister in Christ and I am your brother in Christ and we belong to the forever family of God. Saying that does not denigrate in any way the natural family or the importance of the natural family but it does give us an eternal perspective. We are to exhibit brotherly love one to another. By this brotherly love we show the world the reality of Jesus Christ and we evidence our salvation. Consider what our Lord says for example in John 13 verses 34 and 35 John 13 verses 34 and 35. Our Lord says this, a new commandment I give to you that you love one another. It’s not brand new, it’s new given the newness of this stage of redemptive history where where God has become incarnate in the person of Christ. It has a new meaning, a new significance, a new commandment I give to you that you love one another just as I have loved you.

And how did Jesus love us? He died for us. He laid down his life for us. A new commandment I give to you that you love one another just as I’ve loved you. You also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. Not if you are bickering with one another, if you are at odds with each other but you love one another and you show that love. You lay down your lives one for another counting others better than yourselves. Or consider what the apostle John writes in first John 3 14 and 15. By this we know love that he laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?

Little children let us not love in word or talk but in deed and truth. And then chapter 4 verse 20 John writes if anyone says I love God and hates his brother he is a liar. John doesn’t mince words. He is a liar. For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him whoever loves God must also love his brother. So we are to have sympathy. We are to have brotherly love and also he mentions next a tender heart. Dr. Marshall writes Christians should be compassionate showing loving consideration to people who are in need instead of ignoring them. Here the word suggests that they should have actual feelings of concern for others which are then expressed in action.

And again Jesus Christ was the supreme example of this kind of tenderness this kind of compassion. Consider for example our Lord’s encounter with a leper recorded in Mark 1 verses 40 and 42. And this is a tremendously powerful passage. I just want to read these verses and comment briefly on them. It says this in Mark chapter 1 beginning at verse 40. And a leper came to him imploring him and kneeling said to him if you will you can make me clean. Now I want you to I want you to remember what it was like to be a leper in that context. If you were a leper you were cut off from all human contact. You did not know the blessing of the human touch. You did not know the blessing of receiving a hug or even a handshake or a pat on the back.

You were cut off from that and you had to advertise unclean unclean to warn others not to touch you. And so here’s this poor leper. He comes to Jesus and and he says if you will if you’re willing to you can make me clean. He expresses faith but he also wonders is he really willing to do this? And how does Jesus respond? Does Jesus say get away from me you leper. Don’t touch me. I don’t want to become ritually unclean. Of course it was impossible for the Son of God incarnate to be made unclean. He’s the one who communicates cleanness and cleansing. But it says this of Jesus’s response to the leper in verse 41. Moved with pity. What does Jesus do? He stretched out his hand and touched him. Touched him. This man who had probably not known the human touch for a very long time.

Jesus gave him the blessing of personal touch. Touched him and said to him I will be clean. And immediately the leprosy left him and he was made clean. Christian like your savior you and I are called to this kind of compassion. It’s not something we can work up in ourselves. We’re naturally sinful and selfish and we do not show the kind of compassion as we ought. But by the grace of God as we reflect upon the compassion of Christ let us show compassion to others. Christian like your savior would you be willing to reach out to the modern equivalent of a leper with a touch of compassion or would you shrink away in disgust? So he’s mentioned sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart. What’s the final thing he mentions? A humble mind. Regarding this humility again this virtue was supremely exemplified in the life and death of Jesus Christ who as we’re told in Philippians 2 verses 5 through 11 did not count equality with God.

A thing to be grasped, a thing to be held onto. But he emptied himself. Not that he emptied himself of his divinity. But he humbled himself in terms of his position. He took upon himself our humanity. He stepped away from the glories of heaven and took upon himself our humanity so that we who were in the wallowing in the mire of sin might be cleansed and raised up to glory. How are we to nurture an attitude of humility? Well first of all let us remember that we are creatures who are entirely dependent upon our creator. Let us also remember beloved that we are sinners who are completely dependent upon God’s grace in Christ for our salvation. As we remember this, as we remember that especially as we see others who fall or stumble into sin and we’re tempted to look down our noses at them let us always remember there go I but for the grace of God.

It is only the grace of God that holds us up and keeps us secure. But not only should we seek to maintain Christian unity and to practice Christian virtue in order to live as good witnesses for our Lord Jesus Christ in the midst of a hostile world we are also called to love our enemies and this is my final point as we wrap up our time in the word this evening. Let us love our enemies. Look at verse 9. Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling but on the contrary bless for to this you were called that you may obtain a blessing. While Peter begins verse 8 addressing believers in particular as he addresses all of you it seems as I mentioned it seems that he implicitly shifts his attention back to admonishing his readers about how they should deal with those who persecute and revile them especially remember that Peter is writing this letter to a group of Christians who faced the prospect of severe persecution for their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

So he’s writing to them to bolster them to buoy them up to encourage them and strengthen them in their faith as they face hostility for their faith and so he is again shifts to that his attention to that and in this verse Peter is simply echoing the clear teachings of our Lord Jesus in the Gospels especially for example the Sermon on the Mount where he called us to love not just our neighbors not just our friends and our family but to love even our enemies. What is Peter saying though what’s the point that he’s making here? Well first of all he says that we are to avoid personal vengeance. Christians are not to be about the business of revenge or taking vengeance on against others even against our worst enemies. For Peter writes or the spirit through Peter exhorts us tells us teaches us here do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling.

What’s our natural sinful instinct when someone reviles you when someone calls you a name when someone is nasty towards you the the natural response is to be nasty in return is it not and it takes a supernatural grace to respond to that treatment in this way. But Peter’s point is that look it’s not your business or my business to exact revenge. What does the Lord say in the scriptures? Vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord I will repay trust God to take care of the vengeance of vengeance. Vengeance is God’s prerogative not ours and he will bring his vengeance upon the unrepentant wicked in due time but it’s in his time not in your timing or my timing. In the meantime let us seek to bless our enemies not only does he tell us what we are not to do he says do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling.

Well you say then well what am I supposed to do positively? Well he says on the contrary bless bless those who curse you do good to those who are who mistreat you and so forth. This means doing what you can to secure your enemy’s highest good and what is anyone’s highest good their eternal salvation. So think of that person in your life perhaps who most annoys you who gets under your skin or perhaps who gossips about you or seeks to destroy you and tear you down and let me ask you are you praying for that person’s salvation and repentance and are you seeking to do that person objective good? It doesn’t mean you have to like them or like the way they’re treating you doesn’t mean that you can’t guard your boundaries and protect yourself or your family from their harmful influence but it does mean praying for them and seeking as you have opportunity to bless them instead of responding to their curses in like manner.

Again why should we do this? Well we should do this because as Peter says to this you were called we were called to be peacemakers we were called to be God’s instruments of blessing in this world full of curse and secondly we should do this so that we may obtain God’s blessing it says for to this you were called that you may obtain a blessing. Now he’s not teaching here works salvation he’s not saying well the only way that you can get the blessing of salvation is by being a blessing to others no this is not speaking of salvation or works righteousness but it is the natural outcome of our union with Christ that we will seek to be a blessing to others and thus in this way in this pathway we receive God’s blessing.

So again what is our incentive for seeking to maintain Christian unity practice Christian virtue and love our enemies? Peter closes this section with a quote from Psalm 34 12 to 16 a quote which gives us powerful reasons for putting these admonitions into practice as he says whoever desires to love life and see good days let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit let him turn away from evil and do good let him seek peace and pursue it for the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are open to their prayer but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil may we seek by the grace of God to be peacemakers may we have unity of mind sympathy brotherly love a tender heart and a humble mind by the grace of God let us pray.

Heavenly Father we would ask that by your spirit you would help us to take these truths to heart pray that you would enable us to bear the fruit of your spirit in response to your word and we would pray Heavenly Father that we would maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace as we seek to point the world a lost and dying world to the only hope and source of salvation our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for it is in his name that we pray and all of God’s people said amen. For our closing psalm let’s rise and we’ll sing number 133a how excellent a thing it is.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

June 9, 2024
Fellow Heirs of the Grace of Life

About this sermon

After instructing wives, Peter tells husbands to live with their wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel and as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that their prayers may not be hindered. Men and women are equal in God’s image and in salvation, though they have different callings. God does not give husbands privileges without responsibility; they are to care for their wives’ spiritual welfare. All believers are to cultivate the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit.

More sermons from 1 Peter · Browse all sermons

Sermon transcript

Please remain standing for the reading of God’s Word as we continue our consideration of Peter’s first epistle. My sermon text this evening is 1st Peter chapter 3 verse 7. We consider the first six verses. On the last Lord’s Day evening tonight we consider verse 7. I’m going to read verses 1 through 9 to fill out the context a bit but our focus will be on verse 7 and you’ll find that on page 1205 in your pew Bible. So friends let us hear God’s holy word. Likewise wives be subject to your own husbands so that even if some do not obey the word they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives when they see your respectful and pure conduct. Do not let your adorning be external the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry or the clothing you wear but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit which in God’s sight is very precious for this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves by submitting to their own husbands as Sarah obeyed Abraham calling him Lord and you are her children if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening.

Likewise husbands live with your wives in an understanding way showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel since they are heirs with you of the grace of life so that your prayers may not be hindered. Finally all of you have unity of mind sympathy brotherly love a tender heart and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling but on the contrary bless for to this you were called that you may obtain a blessing. The grass withers and the flower fades but the word of our God endures forever. Let’s seek the Lord’s blessing on the preaching of his word. Oh Heavenly Father we ask that you would strengthen me your unworthy servant to declare your word with clarity and power this evening and we pray that you would help us Lord whether we are married or single whether we are men or women boys or girls to see the relevance and significance and importance of this instruction that you’ve given to us in your word and we pray that by your spirit your word would find a lodging place in our souls this evening and bear much spiritual fruit in our lives.

We pray these things Heavenly Father in Jesus name and all of God’s people said Amen. You may be seated. The title of my sermon this evening is fellow heirs of the grace of life and there’s four key words the children can be listening for this evening the words consideration grace honor and life. Men are from Mars and women are from Venus so declares the title of a popular book that was written some time ago. Now I have to confess to you brothers and sisters that I’ve not personally read that particular book but based on a search on Wikipedia I’ve come to understand that its contents basically deal with relationship dynamics and challenges that exist between men and women and plus I like the catchy title. In any case it’s a title that expresses well the fact that while men and women share a common humanity we have also been created with some profound differences.

Differences which due to sin can make it seem like we are coming from different planets. You ever wondered husband about your wife or wife about your husband? You ever thought to yourself what planet are you from? Well brothers and sisters because of our sin these these differences between men and women can often make communication between the sexes difficult and can often be a source of conflict between the genders but from the standpoint of God’s word these differences were actually given by God to enrich human life to enrich relationships to promote human flourishing and they were intended to promote complementarity instead of conflict between the sexes. Not only are men and women obviously different biologically but they also tend to think in different ways they tend to approach issues and problems differently and they also tend to view the world from somewhat different perspectives.

Yet in spite of all these complementary yet real differences between the genders our passage for this Lord’s Day evening reminds us that both men and women who are true believers in the Lord Jesus Christ share something deeply significant in common besides just their common humanity. Christian men and Christian women are fellow heirs of the grace of life through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as he is offered in the gospel both Christian men and Christian women have received the gift of eternal life that is the kind of life I believe that Peter is speaking of here in this passage when he talks about being fellow heirs of the grace of life it’s not just that we are fellow heirs of natural life biological life but we are fellow heirs of eternal life if we are in Christ.

St. Peter applies this truth specifically to the marriage relationship in our passage for this evening reminding believing husbands that their wives are heirs with you of the grace of life as we’re told in verse 7. Friends if we’re going to truly appreciate the significance of this brief passage that we’re considering tonight and and understand how this applies not just to those of us who are married but to all of us as well then we need to understand some basic Bible truth about men and women so let me briefly have us review some basic Bible teaching on men and women that must be understood to appreciate this passage and first of all friends the word of God makes it very clear that both men and women are created equally in the image of God this is made very clear all the way back in Genesis chapter 1 let me just read Genesis chapter 1 verses 26 and 27 where we read these words it says then God said let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth so God created man in his own image in the image of God he created him male and female he created them male and female men and women are both image bearers of God this is also confirmed by implication in chapter 5 Genesis chapter 5 verse 1 where it says this this is the book of the generations of Adam when God created man he made him in the likeness of God male and female he created them and blessed them and named them man when they were created and so Christian husbands especially need to remember that their wives are equal image bearers of God as they are I am reminded of what our shorter catechism says in summarizing how God created man in question 10 the question is how did God create man and I’m sure some of you know the Bible based answer to that question the answer is God created man male and female after his own image and knowledge righteousness and holiness with dominion over the creatures and friends because both men and women are God’s image bearers both should be treated with equal dignity and respect but while both men and women are image bearers of God the scriptures also indicate that both men and women are equally fallen in Adam and thus equally in need of a savior we hear a lot today about toxic masculinity well there is toxic humanity whether you’re man or woman there is a toxicity to us because of our fallenness in Adam this is brought out very clearly in that famous fall passage in Genesis chapter 3 verses 16 through 7 16 through 19 where God confronts the woman and the man after they ate of the and it says this beginning in verse 16 to the woman he said I will surely multiply your pain and childbearing in pain you shall bring forth children your desire shall be contrary to your husband but he shall rule over you and to Adam he said because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you you shall not eat of it cursed is the ground because of you in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you and you shall eat the plants of the field by the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground for out of it you were taken for you are dust and to dust you shall return even though humanities fall into sin has impacted men and women in different ways such as for example the woman experiencing pain in childbirth and the man having to labor by the sweat of his brow in order to eke out his existence in order to gain his daily sustenance nevertheless men and women are both guilty of original and actual sin and thus both are under the wrath and curse of God for sin and both are equally liable to all of the miseries of this life to death itself and apart from God’s redeeming grace in Christ to the pains of hell forever so men and women are both created in God’s image men and women are both fallen in Adam and liable to the curse and judgment of God but the good news of the gospel is that Christian men and Christian women are both equally redeemed in Christ and are spiritually equal and one in their standing before God the Apostle Paul makes this very clear in Galatians 3 verses 23 through 29 Galatians chapter 3 verses 23 through 29 we read these words it says now before faith came we were held captive under the law imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed so then the law was our guardian until Christ came in order that we might be justified by faith but now that faith has come we are no longer under a guardian for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith who’s he addressing there well he goes on to make it clear for as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek there is neither slave nor free there is no male and female for you are all one in Christ Jesus and if you are Christ’s then you are Abraham’s offspring heirs according to the promise praise be to God but though it is true that Christian men and Christian women are equally redeemed in Christ it also remains true that God continues to assign different roles to men and women within the husband-wife relationship and those different roles are brought out in Ephesians 5 verses 22 through 33 where the Apostle Paul as he is using the the relationship between the Christian husband and the Christian wife as an illustration of the relationship of Christ to his elect church what does Paul write well he says this wives be subject wives submit yourselves to your own husbands as to the Lord for the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church his body and is himself its Savior now as the church submits to Christ so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her that he might sanctify her having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word so that he might present the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she might be holy and without blemish in the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies he who loves his wife loves himself for no one ever hated his own flesh but nourishes and cherishes it just as Christ does the church because we are members of his body therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh this mystery is profound and I am saying that it refers to Christ in the church however let each one of you love his wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband and so friends since we have reviewed these these very basic foundational Bible truths about the relationship of men and women let us now return to our passage for this evening which addresses husbands in particular and if you are a wife or if you’re single I don’t want you to tune out because these principles these truths these principles are applicable in a general sense to all of us so let’s all heed what we what Peter writes under the inspiration of the spirit here and so we consider next as we go to first Peter 3 verse 7 the husband’s responsibilities within the marriage relationship Peter writes likewise husbands live with your wives in an understanding way showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel since they are heirs with you of the grace of life so that your prayers may not be hindered as we noticed on the last Lord’s Day evening Peter spends more space in this passage addressing wives in particular wives who found themselves within a context of a a mixed marriage to a pagan husband he addresses these wives because they faced unique circumstances and unique challenges given the historical context and the culture of that time in doing this Peter proves himself to be a top-notch pastor who is sensitive to the special needs of the suffering sheep committed to his care but Peter doesn’t leave the husbands without direction or guidance as if wives had all of the responsibilities in the marriage and husbands had all the privileges within the marriage relationship no on the contrary though Peter says very little in this verse to the husbands the little that he says communicates a great deal he has a lot to say in these few words now in verse 7 Peter assumes that both the husband and the wife are believers unlike his address to the wives many of whom would no doubt have been married to pagan husbands this makes sense in light of the historical context of the culture of that time where the wife was expected to adopt the religion of her husband and even today in certain cultures around the world there is an expectation that the wife will follow the religion of her husband and since this was the case the wife of a man who was converted to Christianity would have been expected by the culture of that time to adopt the Christian faith of her husband of her converted husband it seems to be a valid inference from the biblical data that is available to us that as a general rule more wives followed their husbands from paganism into Christianity than husbands followed their wives from paganism into Christianity though there are some indications in the scripture that some pagan wives refused to follow their husbands into who converted to Christianity 1st Corinthians 7 verse 12 is an example of that but nevertheless as a general rule it seems that at the time if you were a wife a pagan wife married to a pagan husband and your husband was converted to Christ it would have been natural and it would have been assumed that you would follow your husband into his new religion but what about a situation where you have husband married to a Christian wife well Peter’s instructions to husbands are simple here and to the point and they apply to all husbands whatever your marital circumstances may be whether you’re married to a Christian wife or a non Christian wife first of all the first thing that that Peter says is husbands be considerate of your wife husband be considerate of your wife he says likewise husbands live with your wives in an understanding way when it comes to being sensitive understanding gentle kind and caring some of us men can be a little bit clueless at times I’m not here to beat up on men there’s there’s plenty of attacks on on men and masculinity in our culture today and I don’t need to add to that but it is true that sometimes we men can be a bit clueless in this area and indeed throughout the history of fallen man there has been this false but very common idea out there in many cultures that says that true masculinity entails being stoic being emotionless being boisterous insensitive domineering being tough while a case can certainly be made that biblical masculinity involves the husband ordinarily in being the provider and protector for his wife and family and in that sense men should indeed be tough at the same time there is a world of different difference brothers and sisters between true biblical masculinity on the one hand and an apostate pagan aggressive and often cruel machismo on the other hand based on passages like this one we can say that the standards of pagan apostate quote masculinity stand in direct opposition to the way God’s word presents genuine godly masculinity you see friends a true man a man who is living up to his calling as a man before his maker is a man who is Christ like contrary to the way that our Lord is often portrayed in Christian artwork and media Jesus was anything but effeminate I mean think about you know there’s a reason why the second command was given we are not to make images or a pictorial representations artistic representations of any of the persons of the Godhead and I believe that would apply to the Lord Jesus Christ as well because think about it how is Jesus often portrayed in works of art he’s often portrayed as this very pale long-haired hippie looking guy you know with a long robe he looks incredibly effeminate and think about how Jesus is often portrayed in Christian film not always portrayed this way but he’s often portrayed as a very kind of soft soft-spoken effeminate guy with a British accent you always have to have the British accent right you know but that’s not the way the biblical Jesus was the biblical Jesus was not effeminate in fact our Lord Jesus was the perfect model of godly masculinity Jesus Christ was strong and courageous God told the Old Testament Jesus or Yeshua Joshua be strong and courageous the true Joshua the Lord Jesus Christ he was indeed strong and courageous as he led forth his battle against the world the flesh and the devil as he as he did battle for us as our Savior from sin he was strong courageous he was bold he confronted sin he spoke truth to power he took godly initiative but he also was a man who was kind compassionate and sensitive he showed his strength by resisting the devil in the wilderness he showed his strength and courage by boldly confronting sin in the religious leaders and the hypocrites of his day and he showed his strength especially by willingly voluntarily stretching out his arms upon the hard wood of the cross to redeem us from our sins to bear in his body the weight of the wrath and curse of God in our place as our sin bearer and substitute that took courage that took fortitude that took strength that we cannot even begin to imagine but our Lord Jesus also showed mercy to the Samaritan woman he spoke words of kindness to the unclean woman with the flow of blood and healed her he accepted the homage of a deeply sinful woman with a past as she wet his feet with her tears and dried his feet with her hair and of course he himself wept at the tomb of his friend Lazarus children you know what the the shortest verse in the Bible is it’s found in the Gospel of John it’s a verse that says what Jesus wept Jesus was no wimp he was not effeminate but Jesus wept he was kind he was compassionate so what does the example of Christ teach us about the kind of husband a godly man should be he is a man who is faithful to his wife womanizers are not characterized by godly masculinity if you’re a womanizer if you’re unfaithful to your wife you’re not masculine by the godly standard of masculinity a faithful husband a godly man a man who exhibits godly masculinity will be 100% committed to his wife be faithful to her and to her well-being a Christian husband’s love for his wife is to be a reflection of the way that our Lord Jesus Christ loves his elect church and how did Christ love his church by laying down his life for her by giving himself up for her by laying down his life for her that she might be cleansed and sanctified at the very least this involves living with your wife in an understanding or considerate manner as Peter states in our passage for this evening so husband be considerate of your wife but husband also honor your wife honor your wife Peter goes on to say he says husbands live with your wives in an understanding way showing what showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel now we see that language of the woman being the weaker vessel today and we read that through our modern filter and we think ah Peter’s insulting women he’s saying they’re weaker well again as dr.

I Howard Marshall points out he says here the fact that Peter says the wife is the weaker vessel shows that he has in mind her comparative physical weakness compared with the man in other words Peter is not saying that women are inherently less intelligent or inherent or that their character is is inherently worse than the character of men or that Christian women are less spiritual than Christian men he’s not saying that he’s simply stating a fact that is a general fact of nature and that is that as a general rule men tend to be physically stronger than women and Marshall goes on to say the thought too widens out from that of physical sexual relationships and emphasizes the need for gentleness on the part of the husband in all aspects of the marriage relationship so brothers in Christ brothers and sisters in Christ but you brothers especially you husbands especially if your wife husband if your wife is a believer then she is an heir with you of the grace of life and whether you’re men a man or a woman a boy or a girl married or single look around you all of these brothers and sisters in Christ around you they are fellow heirs with you of the grace of life and so we should honor each other and husbands especially should honor their wives and again as I mentioned before this heir with you of the grace of life the life that he is speaking of here in the context would seem to clearly be a reference to the gift of eternal life and not merely to God’s provision of natural life believer your wife is also a sister in Christ and together you are heirs of an everlasting inheritance in the new heavens and the new earth therefore honor her for God in his sovereign grace has honored her with the gift of life everlasting life in Jesus Christ but so husbands be considerate of your wives honor your wives but husband also seek to promote the spiritual health and well-being of your wife and family Peter says husbands live with your wives in an understanding way showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel since they are heirs with you of the grace of life why so that your prayers may not be hindered this language clearly implies this is clearly implied in other instructions that Peter has given to the husband in this verse that that husbands are to seek the spiritual health and well-being of their wife and family but but Peter says in particular to the husband that he is to do so he is to he is to promote the spiritual well-being of his wife and live with her in a considerate way and to honor her why so that your prayers may not be hindered what does this imply it would seem that Peter is here assuming that Christian wives and Christian husbands would indeed pray together it’s almost as if Peter saying of course if you’re if you’re a Christian married couple if you’re a Christian husband and a Christian wife you’re going to pray yes you’re going to pray separately in your personal devotions and you’re going to pray with the church as you are gathered for holy worship on the Lord’s Day but you’re also going to pray together as a married couple but if the husband is not living with his wife in an understanding way or is not showing honor to his wife as a fellow heir of the grace of life then how can he expect their spiritual life together in the home to be harmonious and unhindered it’s also possible that perhaps Peter has in mind a general principle that that strife and conflict in the marriage relationship like strife and conflict in the broader relationships that we have in the church will inevitably hinder one’s own spiritual relationship with the Lord but in any case husband let me ask you are you seeking to live in peace and harmony with your wife are you seeking to promote her sanctification by washing her with the Word of God how can you and your wife pray together and how can you expect harmony in your relationship with God if you are neglecting to cultivate peace and harmony in your relationship with your wife men let us seek to be understanding tender and respectful towards our wives and let us seek to honor them that our prayers may not be hindered but in closing by way of a general application of this passage to all of us in closing let me say that we see here in this passage the responsibility of all believers to cultivate the true beauty of the inner person in this passage is revealed the responsibility of all believers to cultivate the true beauty of the inner person back in verse 4 as Peter was addressing the wife in particular he says let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit which in God’s sight is very precious now again Peter is specifically particularly addressing the wife in that exhortation but what does he say he lays before us a general truth a truth that in God’s sight a gentle and quiet spirit is precious is it just precious for the woman for the wife I would venture to suggest brothers and sisters that by way of more generic application of this passage this applies to all of us we are to cultivate the inner beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit this can only be done in union with Christ and through the power of the Holy Spirit and through the Word of God but let me ask you are you seeking to cultivate true beauty we have no beauty in ourselves in our fallenness in our sins we are ugly we are distorted but God in Christ makes us beautiful he clothes us through faith in his perfect everlasting righteousness and he cleanses us through the blood of Christ he renews us by the Holy Spirit so let us seek to walk in step with the spirit and cultivate the true inner beauty of the heart we see this also implied in the words that that Peter addresses to the husbands as we apply these truths in a broader sense yes this applies specifically and particularly to the husband-wife relationship but is it not the case that all of us should seek to dwell together as the forever family of God as brothers and sisters in Christ that we should seek to dwell together in a considerate understanding way is it not the case that we should honor one another as fellow heirs of the grace of life and that’s why I when I read this passage earlier I read on through verse 9 because and I’m going to close my sermon this evening with these two verses as Peter wraps up this particular section of his epistle of his first epistle he says this finally all of you as he branches out and applies this to the entire body of Christ he says all of you have unity of mind sympathy brotherly love a tender heart and a humble mind do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling but on the contrary bless for to this you were called that you may obtain a blessing brothers and sisters we have received the greatest blessing of all the blessing of life eternal let us by the grace of God out of gratitude for God’s gift of salvation seek to be a blessing to each other by exhibiting unity of mind sympathy brotherly love a tender heart and a humble mind amen let us pray heavenly father we thank you and praise you Lord God for your amazing grace and love to us in Christ and we pray that by your spirit you would help us to take these truths to heart and we especially pray for the married couples in our midst that you would strengthen our marriages strengthen the relationships between husband and wife and grant oh Lord that we would take these instructions from your word as they truly are meant to be as the instruction of the Lord and by your grace enable us to put these instructions into practice within our own homes we pray these things in Jesus name and all of God’s people said amen as we respond to the preaching of God’s word and prepare to celebrate the Lord’s Supper let’s rise and we’ll sing together we’ll sing together number 202 here oh my Lord I see thee face to face 202

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

June 2, 2024
The Witness of True Beauty

About this sermon

1. The call to submission (vv. 1-2).
2. The cultivation of true beauty (vv. 3-5).
3. The avoidance of fear (vv. 5-6).

More sermons from 1 Peter · Browse all sermons

Sermon transcript

Please remain standing for the reading of God’s Word as we continue to make our way through 1st Peter, the Apostle Peter’s first epistle, and we find ourselves this evening in 1st Peter chapter 3 verses 1 through 7. I’m going to read verses 1 through 5 to kind of fill out the context a little bit. Let us hear God’s Holy Word as as Peter is addressing the subject of how believers are to relate to those outside of the church, and that includes not only the civil magistrates and relationships between servants and their masters, but also relationships within the household. So let us hear God’s Word. Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives when they see your respectful and pure conduct.

Do not let your adorning be external, the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, and the clothing you wear, but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious, for this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves by submitting to their own husbands as Sarah obeyed Abraham calling him Lord, and you are her children if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening. Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life so that your prayers may not be hindered. Finally, all of you have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind.

Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Let’s pray. Our Lord and Father in heaven, once again we pray that by your spirit you would give us insight into this portion of Scripture, help us Lord to understand this passage in its context and to understand how it applies to the church and to your people today, and we ask that you would set a guard over my lips that I might speak only that which is faithful to your word, edifying to your people, and in a way that brings glory to your holy name. In Jesus name we pray, and all of God’s people said.

Amen. You may be seated. The title of my sermon this evening is The Witness of True Beauty, and if you’re following along in your sermon outline, if you find this helpful, especially commend this to the children. I encourage you to listen for the keywords that are listed in your sermon outline to help you follow along with this sermon. Well, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ, what the Word of God teaches about the responsibilities of the wife and of the husband within the marriage relationship is a tremendously important topic, and it’s sadly a tremendously misunderstood topic as well. As I’m sure many of you know, there is a great deal of confusion today on topics related to marriage, family life, and especially the topic of the roles and responsibilities of husband and wife within the marriage relationship.

Just to give a few examples of the confusion that is out there, I first of all would present to you the confusion produced by, for example, radical feminism. I know that’s a term that is kind of an umbrella term that can include many things, and I’ll just lay my cards on the table and say I don’t claim to be any kind of expert on the topic of feminism, but based on what I’ve read or what I’ve seen, based on my understanding, it’s my understanding that some radical feminists are highly critical and even opposed to the very institution of marriage itself, viewing marriage as a tool of an oppressive patriarchy that pushes women down instead of building them up. However, insofar as radical feminists are willing to allow for the institution of marriage, they would no doubt advocate for the complete obliteration of any distinctive gender roles for husband and wife within the marriage relationship, and that’s one extreme.

But then the pendulum swings to the other side, and on the other extreme of the ideological spectrum, there are what we might describe as hypermasculinist or hyperpatriarchal ideologies that in effect end up promoting the complete and the unquestioned domination of the husband over the wife and the complete and unquestioned subjugation of the wife within the marriage relationship. And I think in our own circles that there are, this would be more of a problem potentially than the other side of the ideological spectrum with radical feminism. And so in effect, my friends, some advocates of this position end up basically patronizing and even infantilizing the wife to the point where she is not allowed to think or speak for herself and must unquestioningly cater to her husband’s every wish and whim, no matter how unreasonable, demeaning, or even abusive.

Just to give you kind of an illustration of this, and again I’m not an expert on the modern trends of patriarchalism either, but I recently watched a sermon clip of a particular pastor, and I believe this gentleman was a Baptist pastor, and in his sermon he was giving an illustration. He was talking about how one evening he walks into his living room and he sees his wife reading a book, a book on the subject of infant baptism. It was a book that was favorable towards infant baptism, and this particular pastor said in his sermon that he went over to his wife and he said, oh no, you can’t read that. No, no, no, you’re not going to get ahead of me on this. At the proper time we can read this together, but let me read it first, and then we can sit down and read it together.

Basically saying, no, I won’t let you study theology or study the scriptures on your own without my micromanaging oversight. And maybe this is unkind of me as I watched this sermon clip, but I remember thinking to myself at the time, what a pathetic man, what a sad man who is so intimidated that his wife wants to study the word and to read theology without his micromanaging oversight. Friends, just as radical feminists might point to passages like this one as an example of how supposedly outdated and backwards the Bible is, on the other extreme no doubt there are abusive husbands who profess to be Christians who might appeal to passages like this one in order to justify or excuse their abusive behavior and in order to emotionally manipulate and beat down their battered wives into an unquestioning and total subservience.

But friends, I would suggest to you that both of these types of extremes, whether we’re talking about the extreme of radical feminism or the opposite extreme of hyper patriarchalism, both of these extremes are a twisting of scripture and I believe represent a gross mishandling of God’s holy word. And it is because of such extreme and ungodly scripture twisting that it’s because of these things that getting a clear understanding of what our passage for this evening means is so vitally important to rightly handling and rightly interpreting and applying the word of God. Now let’s remember the broader context of our passage for this evening. The broader context basically starts in chapter 2 verse 11 and goes through to chapter 3 verse 12 and the overall basic theme of this particular section of Peter’s epistle is the theme of honorable conduct before a watching world.

Let’s go back to chapter 2 verse 12 and as you’re turning there, by the way, remember that Peter is writing this epistle to a group of what were likely mostly Gentile Christians, Gentile Christians who were facing the possibility of severe persecution for their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And many of these Gentile Christians had been converted to Christ from a pagan idol worshipping background. And so there’s a great concern for the witness of these of these Christians. Peter is writing to them to encourage them in their faith and to offer them pastoral guidance and counsel for how to live a godly life in the midst of an ungodly and often hostile world. And in chapter 2 verse 12 he says keep your conduct among the Gentiles what? Honorable. Honorable so that when they speak against you as evildoers they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.

In other words, live in such a manner that God will be glorified that the gospel of Jesus will be commended to your unbelieving neighbors so that God may either visit them in grace, the day of visitation may be referring to God visiting these unbelievers with his saving grace and bringing them to faith in Christ, or it may be referring to the final day of judgment when God will judge those who remain impenitent in in their sin. But either way we are called to honorable conduct and that is the overall context of this larger section here of 1st Peter. Now this honorable conduct is an important part of our faithful witness as followers of the Lord Jesus Christ and the purpose of such conduct is that God may be glorified on the day of visitation as verse 12 says.

Now how is that honorable conduct? What does that look like on at a practical level? Well one of the ways that we believers glorify God is by submitting to the various human authorities that God in his providence places over us and therefore a prominent sub theme in this particular section of 1st Peter is the theme of submission to various authorities especially that theme comes to the surface in chapter 2 verse 13 through chapter 3 verse 6. As we saw a number of weeks ago back in chapter 2 verses 13 through 17, Peter urges Christian citizens to submit to the governing authorities. As followers of Jesus Christ we are not to be political revolutionaries. We are to submit to the governing authorities at least with respect to all of their lawful requirements. When the governing authorities tell us to sin against God of course we must disobey.

We must obey God rather than man but in every other case we are to have an attitude of submission to the governing authorities and then he goes on to the controversial subject of servants in their relationship to their masters. In the first century context to which Peter is writing many of these early Christians were slaves or servants and so he addresses them and he urges these servants to submit to their masters to translate that into our contemporary context that would basically mean for us today that if you’re an employee you are to submit to your employer in his lawful demands in the workplace. Well then he turns to the household code in chapter 3 verse 1 and he begins addressing wives. Wives are to submit to their husband and the particular concern here in the context of this passage is Christian wives who are married to non-Christian or pagan husbands.

How are they to relate to their husbands? Many of these Gentile Christian wives to whom Peter is writing no doubt had been pagans and when they got married to their husbands they had been Gentile idol worshipers just like their husbands but then they hear the gospel and they are saved. They come to faith in Christ. What are they to do? Are they to leave their husbands? Are they to you know seek to convert their husbands forcefully by preaching at their husbands? What are they to do? So Peter is concerned to encourage them to counsel them and to help them as they try to navigate these troubled waters of living in a mixed marriage situation and that’s where we find ourselves this evening and so as you can see it is within the context of addressing these various authority relationships that St.

Peter mentions the responsibilities of wives and husbands in the marriage relationship. First he addresses wives and we’ll focus first of all we’ll zero in first of all on the first two verses of chapter 3 and I want you to notice first of all the call to submission. This is the first point in your sermon outline the call to submission. Peter writes under the spirits inspiration likewise wives be subject to your own husbands. Why? So that even if some do not obey the word which is another way of saying even if some of them are not Christians they’ve not repented and believed in Jesus they’ve not responded in faith and trust to the gospel call. Even if that’s the case they may be one without a word by the conduct of their wives when they see your respectful and pure conduct.

The general principle of wifely submission in the marriage relationship it’s important to understand that this principle is rooted in the divine order of creation itself. It goes all the way back to Adam and Eve it doesn’t go back to male chauvinism or to oppressive patriarchalism it goes back to the garden. Now of course human sin has twisted and distorted this principle of godly submission as it is twisted and distorted the biblical truth and principle of the husband’s headship and sin messes things up. Sin distorts and perverts even good things. The principle itself however is not destroyed by sin. The principle itself the principle of wifely submission is rooted in God’s good and God’s benevolent order for the marriage relationship. It’s intended to be a blessing and not to be oppressive. It’s intended to to contribute to human flourishing.

Now I want to make a qualification here. There’s nothing we need to understand brothers and sisters there is nothing in this passage nor in the rest of scripture to suggest that the reason why wives are to submit to their husbands is because they are somehow inherently inferior to their husbands. The Bible does not teach female inferiority to the husband. Female submission within the marriage relationship is not rooted in any kind of notions of female inferiority to men or male superiority to the women. As Dr. Simon Kistermacher in his commentary on first Peter comments on Peter’s reference in verse 7 to the woman as the weaker vessel, which to our ears might sound like an insulting statement. The weaker vessel? Well he points out that the word weaker refers to physical stamina and not to intellectual abilities, moral courage, or spiritual strength.

In other words in verse 7 where Peter says likewise husbands live with your wives in an understanding way showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel. He’s not saying that the woman is necessarily is weaker morally or weaker spiritually or weaker intellectually that she’s not as smart or not as moral or not as spiritual as the man inherently so. No he’s not saying that. Instead he is saying he is pointing out a biological reality that on the whole women are physically weaker than men. Women and men are built differently. God has created us differently and Peter is saying to the husband in the context of verse 7 look don’t take advantage of the physical weakness of your wife. Don’t use that as an excuse to abuse her to oppress her or anything like that.

So he’s concerned that they live that the husband live with his wife in an understanding way in a way that shows honor to the woman recognizing that she’s physically weaker but also recognizing that women are heirs with you of the grace of life so that your prayers may not be hindered. And so my friends the reason why wives are to submit to their husbands is first of all because God as I mentioned has established different roles for husbands and wives in his divine ordering of the marriage relationship. Now in our text for this evening Peter does not mention this divine creation order specifically although he certainly assumes it in everything he writes. But the reason that is on his mind in this particular passage as I’ve pointed out he has an evangelistic concern here. He has a witness bearing concern here in this passage he says likewise wives be subject to your own husbands why so that even if some do not obey the word they may be what they may be shamed no they may be one one to Christ in other words one without a word by the conduct of their wives when they see your respectful and pure conduct.

In the context of this particular passage a Christian wife’s submission to her unbelieving husband carries with it like I said a witness bearing purpose. Peter’s driving concern here is for the gospel it is to commend the good news of Jesus it is to commend the gospel to these unbelieving husbands. And in Peter’s first century context a Christian wife’s willingness to submit to her pagan husband would do much to overcome her husband’s prejudice against the gospel and to commend the good news of Jesus to him. Dr. Norman Hillier in his commentary on 1st Peter gives us a helpful summary of the the situation that Christian wives who were married to pagan husbands in the first century faced he writes in Roman Greek and Jewish cultures women were subject to the authority of their husbands if a husband were converted to Christ it automatically followed that he brought his wife into the church as well but the other way around posed a very different situation.

For a wife to become a Christian while an unsympathetic husband remained a pagan threatened the stability of the marriage relationship as understood in the ancient world permeated as it was with pagan religious practices in which Christians could not engage. And of course it was a common understanding among the pagan Greeks and Romans was a common understanding that one of the ways that a woman shows subjection or submission to her husband is by following her husband’s religion but of course Christian women who have who have embraced Christ Christ Christian women cannot do that they cannot submit in that area so Peter’s basically saying look you can’t submit to your pagan husbands in their paganism but submit to them in every other way for the sake of the gospel for the sake of your witness for Christ and of course in that means that in the first century Gentile context to which Peter was addressing these instructions a wife’s conversion to Christ would likely create much more tension and much more difficulty in the marriage if the husband remained a pagan then it would if it if the situation were reversed which is likely why Peter spends much more time devotes much more time and space providing guidelines for the wife here in this context than he does for the husband.

Now let me just by way of bringing this home and applying this brothers and sisters can you understand and appreciate the difficulties that a Christian wife of a pagan man would face in the culture of that time. What does Peter suggest as a solution to these difficulties? Does Peter say to the Christian wife hey listen you got to get that husband of yours to bow the knee to Jesus so you need to preach at him you need to pester him you need to argue with him you need to bring him bring him to his senses hit him over the head with a ten pound Bible if you need to do so is that what he says? No. Does he say look you got to do that until your husband either gets so fed up and says you know I’ve had enough of this Jesus thing you’re out of here I divorce you or until he finally caves and says okay okay already I’ll convert to Christianity.

No. Instead Peter gives some very simple wise straightforward guidance. He basically says look be a good wife be respectful towards your husband seek to win your husband to Christ by your chaste and reverent conduct that’s how it could be verse 2 could be understood as Peter says that they are to submit be subject to your husbands that they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives when they see when they see how Christ has transformed your life when they see your respectful and pure conduct. Now that’s not a guarantee that the unbelieving husband’s going to be saved or going to be converted only the Holy Spirit can convert the heart but the Holy Spirit uses our faithful witness he often chooses to use our faithful witness to lead others to Christ and so what does this engage what does this involve the woman in doing well that brings us to our next section here of our passage where we learn of the cultivation of true beauty this is the second point main point in your sermon outline Peter next discusses the matter of cultivating true beauty beauty as God would define beauty now verse 3 is kind of controversial it says Peter says do not let your adorning be external the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry or the clothing you wear any of you ladies tonight put some makeup on before the service you’re wearing any jewelry tonight is Peter saying that you’re in sin because you’ve done those things how are we to understand this apparent prohibition in verse 3 is this intended as an absolute prohibition against all stylish hairdos all jewelry all fine clothing well most scholars say no and I’m very inclined to agree with them given the context of this passage Dr.

Edwin Blum says many have taken Peter’s words to be an absolute prohibition of any outward adornment the early fathers and give some examples he says the early church fathers to Tertullian and Cyprian did this and many rigorous have followed them but Peter’s emphasis is not on prohibition but on a proper sense of values and that’s why some translations add as a sort of an interpretive explanation they add the word merely they say do not let your adorning be merely external don’t just focus on the externals what focus on the things that matter the most dr. Norman Hillier writes that the Apostle is not forbidding Christian women from having hairdos or from wearing ornaments his language is to be taken as more figurative than literal since grammatically he means quote gold braided hair after the fashionable and extravagant hairstyling of the day among the wealthy and which amounted to virtually submerging the hair in lavish gold spangles surface show aside elaborate hairdos consumed much time and Christians had more important matters of the spirit to which to devote themselves so he’s basically saying look don’t focus on externals don’t be obsessed with extravagantly adorning yourself your outward appearance be concerned about the hidden person of the heart as he goes on to say in verse 4 but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit which in God’s sight is very precious couple points of application here beloved again Peter is not here advocating for the plain look he is not saying that if you are a faithful Christian woman you are obligated to look plain to adorn yourself plainly plainness is not necessarily godliness instead what the spirit through Peter is instructing Christian wives to avoid is being overly preoccupied with their external outward appearance to the neglect of nurturing what verse 4 calls the hidden person of the heart Peter is instructing Christian wives to avoid adorning themselves in an excessive or an ostentatious manner a manner which reflects a heart of pride and vanity beloved may we be more concerned with matters of the inner heart and spirit than we are with superficial merely external appearances but this passage even though it’s addressed to Christian wives who find themselves in a mixed marriage and in the the difficult circumstances that that brings to the surface nevertheless there’s something that all of us can learn about from this passage this passage points our focus and directs our attention I should say to the issue of what is true beauty in the eyes of God believer this true beauty that Peter speaks of is a beauty that is rooted in your new life in union with Jesus Christ now notice that Peter says in verse 4 that this beauty is an imperishable beauty or as the new international version translates it it’s an unfading beauty as Hillier explains unfading here translates the Greek word of phartos which could also be translated imperishable and he points out that this same term is used back in chapter 1 verse 23 in speaking about the new birth about being born again by the Holy Spirit the inner beauty that Peter is commending is a fruit of our new life in Christ this beauty is a fruit of the Holy Spirit which our Lord Jesus Christ by his spirit works within the heart of his people as they grow in him again as as we are reminded of the fruit of the spirit in passages like Galatians chapter 5 let me just read the quickly Galatians 5 19 through 26 the Apostle Paul in this passage says now the works of the flesh or the sinful nature are evident they’re evident they’re playing the works of the flesh are evident and he lists some of them sexual immorality impurity sensuality idolatry sorcery enmity strife jealousy fits of anger rivalries dissensions divisions envy drunkenness orgies and things like these I warn you as I warned you before that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God those who whose lives are characterized by these sins and are unrepentant in those sins will not inherit the kingdom of God but in contrast to that he says but the fruit of the spirit the fruit of the Holy Spirit the fruit which the spirit in the new birth and through sanctification works in us the fruit of the spirit is what love joy peace patience kindness goodness faithfulness gentleness self-control against such there is no law and those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires dear ones no matter who you are no matter what your present station or state in life might be whether you are a wife or a husband whether you’re married to a believer or an unbeliever whether you are a man or a woman whether indeed you’re single or married you and I can only escape the inherent ugliness of our sinful hearts and gain true beauty before the Lord by being washed in the blood of Jesus Christ robed in his perfect righteousness and renewed by his Holy Spirit do you know Christ have you received and rested upon him he freely offers himself to you and to me and to all in the gospel will you receive him by the sovereign grace of God may you turn to Christ from your sin and he will cleanse you from the ugliness of your sin and clothe you in his perfect everlasting righteousness the final point and I’ll be very brief because I see the time is is getting along we see here that Peter counsels the avoidance of fear the avoidance of fear let’s zero in on verses 5 and 6 now here as he speaks of this hidden person of the heart and the this inner beauty that is a result of our union with Christ and the new life in Christ that we have he goes on as he’s addressing these Christian women he gives them an example he says for this is how the holy women who hoped in God notice their focus and hope was not in their husbands not in their circumstances but in God they hoped in God they used to adorn themselves in this way how by submitting to their own husbands as Sarah obeyed Abraham calling him Lord now again that was a customary way of expressing respect for your husband back in Abraham’s day you read about Abraham and his relationship with Sarah that doesn’t mean that that Sarah never spoke her mind or never shared her thoughts with Abraham it’s very clear that she did just read about what it says in Genesis about Hagar what Hagar what Sarah thought of Hagar and what she asked Abraham to do with respect to that but Sarah’s practice was to show respect and submission and obedience to Abraham and so Peter uses that as an example and he says and you are her children if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening if you do good that speaks to actions your outward actions your respect is to be shown by your actions but also by your attitude an attitude of faith not fear the Christian wives who were married to pagan husbands were called as all believers are called to give God their supreme allegiance of course it would be very easy for these dear sisters in Christ to be fearful of their either their unbelieving husbands or of the circumstances the difficult circumstances that being married to an unbeliever would bring into their lives in those days women had no rights basically at least not in comparison to our day today husbands were basically at liberty to treat their wives like property and to abuse them at whim if they chose to do that and women had basically no legal protections against such such abuse as women do today and women today can be thankful for the advances that have been made for such legal protections they only the only one in whom they could trust to protect them from the whims of their unsympathetic and perhaps even hostile pagan husbands was God himself although the Christian wives of pagan husbands in Bible times might sometimes find themselves in very difficult circumstances Peter seeks to comfort and encourage them by directing their faith and their hope to the faithful and loving God who had redeemed them and who is able to comfort sustain and preserve them so Peter instructs them not only to do good in the midst of their less than ideal marital circumstances but also not to fear anything that is frightening from the context again it seems clear that what Peter means is that the Christian wives of pagan husbands were not to fear anything in connection with their less than ideal marital circumstances not their husbands and not the pressures or tensions that their faith will inevitably bring into their marriage relationship to an unbeliever they were instead to continue to do good by being respectful and submissive toward their unbelieving husbands making the best of less than ideal circumstances and the point is they are not to fear for God is faithful after all only God is to be feared and these dear sisters in Christ are adopted daughters of God they are the apple of his eye beloved in Christ whatever our circumstances may be let us not live in fear or terror instead let us trust in God he has redeemed us through Christ he has given us the earnest of our eternal inheritance the gift of the Holy Spirit if we find ourselves in less than ideal circumstances as we often do in this fallen sin-cursed world like these first century Christian wives of pagan husbands found themselves in then let us do what we can to improve our circumstances as God in his providence permits and let us do good to others even to our enemies just as Christ loved us and died for us even when we were his enemies most important of all let us trust and reverence God casting all of our anxieties upon him and I leave you again with a brief passage from Paul’s letter to the Philippians which should be very familiar to you Philippians 4 4 through 7 rejoice in the Lord always again I will say rejoice let your reasonableness be known to everyone the Lord is at hand do not be anxious about anything but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus amen let us pray our gracious Lord and Father in heaven we thank you Lord for the counsel of your word we pray that by your spirit you would help us to take these truths to heart and to understand how they apply to our lives and our various circumstances and stations in life and we would pray Heavenly Father that you would be glorified in our lives and glorified through what we do in the week ahead we pray all of these things in Jesus name and all of God’s people said amen as we close our time of worship I’d invite you to rise and let’s sing together number 245 great is thy faithfulness 245

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

May 26, 2024
Christ, our Overseeing Bishop

About this sermon

Peter tells servants to endure unjust suffering as Christ did, who bore our sins in his body on the tree, and closes, “You were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.” Fallen people naturally wander from God; no one is basically good. Conversion is turning to Christ himself, not repeating a formula or answering an altar call. Christ is the good Shepherd who seeks, guards, and keeps his sheep.

More sermons from 1 Peter · Browse all sermons

Sermon transcript

Please remain standing for the reading of God’s Word as we continue our consideration of 1 Peter. We’ve been in 1 Peter 2 verses 18 through 25. I want to, before we move on to the next section of Peter, I want to pause at verse 25 and consider some other truths and lessons that we can glean from that passage. But in order to give the sort of the fuller context, I’d like to begin reading at verse 18 and read through verse 25 of 1 Peter chapter 2. Again, you’ll find that on page 1204 in your Pew Bible. But again, our focus will be especially on verse 25. Dear friends, let us hear God’s holy word. Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the unjust.

For this is a gracious thing when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if, when you do good and suffer for it, you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return. When he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.

For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Once again, let’s pray for God to bless the preaching of his word. O heavenly Father, we pray that you would send your illuminating spirit upon us, give us light through the light of your word, and cause your word to find a lodging place in our souls this evening, that your word might indeed bear much spiritual fruit in our lives that brings praise and glory and honor to your holy name. We ask these things in Jesus’ name, and all of God’s people said, Amen. You may be seated. The title of my sermon this evening is Christ, Our Overseeing Shepherd, and children, there’s three words you can listen for in my sermon this evening, the words sin, shepherd, and bishop.

Sin, shepherd, and bishop. Well, my dear friends in Christ, let me ask you a question. What does it mean to live as a disciple, as a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ? In our practical everyday lives, how do we live out our discipleship, especially in circumstances where we may have to face hostility or prejudicial treatment because of our Christian confession? Well friends, in our passage for this Lord’s Day evening, St. Peter the Apostle has been seeking to give his readers practical instructions on just these types of questions. Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Peter wrote this epistle to a group of Christians who were facing hostility and persecution because of their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Early on in this epistle, Peter seeks to encourage them by reminding them of God’s blessings of grace given to them in Christ and through the gospel, and also reminding them of their identity as God’s people.

But beginning in chapter two, verse 11, Peter gives them instructions, he begins to give instructions on how to live out their confession of Jesus’s Lordship, even in the context of living their everyday lives and rubbing shoulders with unbelievers and relating to the larger society, even when that larger society and their larger context is hostile towards their faith. And so we come to our verse for this evening, verse 25, as Peter has been exhorting the servants and we’ve discussed the significance of that and the given some historical background about servanthood and even slavery in the Roman Empire, and how that differs from the kind of slavery that went on in our country, in our nation’s past. But I want to focus again, as I mentioned, especially on verse 25 and some of the truths that we glean from this particular verse.

And one of the truths that we learn from this verse, and this is your first point on your sermon outline, we learn here in this passage of fallen man’s natural tendency to stray from God’s ways. Fallen man’s natural tendency to stray from God’s ways. After Peter gives instructions to servants and reminds us of the sufferings of Christ and how by his wounds we have been healed, Peter says in verse 25, for you, he gets very personal here. He addresses them, he says, for you were straying like sheep. You were straying like sheep. He probably has in view his readers’ pre-conversion days, the time in their lives before they knew Christ and heard the gospel. Peter has written this epistle to a group of what were likely mostly Gentile readers who had been converted to Christ from a pagan background.

And he reminds them of their pre-conversion days of straying like lost sheep. He says, you were straying like sheep. I like how the New American Standard version translates it. It says, for you were continually straying like sheep. But now there’s been a change. Now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls. Now when Peter says, you were straying like sheep, is he just speaking that on his own? Obviously he’s writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. But I believe that Peter here is clearly alluding to an Old Testament passage, a rather famous Old Testament passage, namely a verse from Isaiah chapter 53, that very famous prophecy of the sufferings of Christ, the Messiah. In particular, Peter alludes in this verse to Isaiah chapter 53 verse 6, that verse which reads as follows, All we like sheep have gone astray.

We have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Peter’s readers were no doubt much more familiar with shepherds and sheep than we are today. Probably not too many of you rub shoulders on a daily, on a regular basis with shepherds or encounter sheep in your day-to-day lives, but that was not so much the case in the first century. And he reminds them, you were like sheep who were straying. Sheep have a tendency to stray from the fold and to wander off into trackless wastes. But the good news is that the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all, and that they by his grace have now returned, returned to the shepherd and overseer or guardian of their souls. We have a tendency, a natural tendency, to stray from God and his ways.

What accounts for that natural tendency, that instinctive tendency that we have as fallen sinners to stray from the ways of God? Well, it is exactly and precisely our sin nature. This passage reminds me of what our confession of faith teaches in places like chapter 6, section 4. The chapter is on the fall of man, of sin, and of the punishment thereof. And section 4 says this. It says, from this original corruption, this original sin that we inherit, this corrupt nature that we inherit from Adam and Eve, from this original corruption whereby we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil, do proceed all actual transgressions. What is it that leads us to stray? What is it that leads us to wander like sheep to go astray? Well, because we have a wandering nature.

We are fallen sinners. God didn’t create us as sinners. I know I say this often, but it’s important to remember, you know, God is good. He didn’t create us bad or sinful and then blame us for the sin that he created us, the sinners that he created us as. No, we are sinners not because God created us as sinners, but because we inherit a sin nature from Adam and Eve, and we are fallen in Adam, our original covenant head and representative. And because of that sin nature, because of that, we are inclined, naturally inclined to resist God, to oppose his ways. Indeed, in our fallenness and total depravity, which means that sin has impacted the totality of our being. It doesn’t mean, by the way, that we are as corrupt and evil as we possibly could be, but it does mean that sin has impacted the totality of our being, body, mind, emotions, will, and so forth.

And we are therefore dead in trespasses and sins apart from the grace of God. We are spiritually dead. We’re not interested in the true and living God. We’re interested in the benefits that come from God. Everyone wants peace of mind. Everyone wants happiness and a sense of meaning and purpose in life. But seeking for those benefits that come from knowing the true and living God, seeking peace of conscience, seeking joy, seeking to have a sense of meaning and purpose, these are benefits and blessings that come from knowing the true and living God. And if we seek those blessings apart from seeking the God who gives those blessings, we are seeking those blessings as idols and not really seeking God truly. And so this is our nature as fallen sinners. Apart from the intervention of sovereign grace, this is where we lie, dead in our trespasses and sins.

It also reminds me of what our shorter catechism says in answer to question 18, the question, wherein consists the sinfulness of that estate wherein to man fell? I know some of you are memorizing the catechism and I commend you for that. Well, the Bible-based answer to that question is this. The sinfulness of that estate wherein to man fell consists in the guilt of Adam’s first sin because Adam was our representative. We get his guilt and as according to God’s covenantal arrangement, the sinfulness of that estate wherein to man fell consists in the guilt of Adam’s first sin, the want or lack of original righteousness and the corruption of his whole nature, which is commonly called original sin together with all actual transgressions which proceed from it. For you were straying like sheep. Friends, it is this original sin and radical corruption of our nature in which we all partake as fallen sons and daughters of Adam that accounts for our natural apostasy from God and our inherent tendency to wander like lost sheep from God and from the demands and requirements of his holy law.

This is not a popular message today, especially in our positive thinking, therapeutic culture that regards it as spiritual abuse to damage people’s self-esteem. I’m not here to damage your self-esteem. I’m here to tell you that apart from Christ, we have no basis for any sense of self-esteem. The scriptures do not present self-esteem as an ideal. It’s not ourselves to esteem. We are not to esteem ourselves. We’re to deny ourselves. Rather, it is Christ’s esteem. We are to find our identity in Christ and our wholeness and fullness in him. Now, beloved, by way of application, Peter’s passing description of his original reader’s pre-conversion state as being a state of continual straying from God and his ways. Of course, it goes directly contrary to the very popular and widespread belief which says that all people are basically good.

I can’t say this with infallible certainty, but I am guessing that if I were to walk around in the streets of Swickley and just talk to people and take a survey and ask them questions like, do you think that you’re a good person, a basically good person? My guess is that most people would say, well, yeah, I’m a pretty good guy or a pretty good gal. I’m not perfect, but hey, nobody’s perfect. I’m a good person. Well, God’s word says otherwise. I am reminded of a, and I might have shared this in the past, but I’m reminded of a time when I was a seminary student and one evening I was watching the evening news and there was a tragic story of a young lady who was traveling, vacationing in Israel at the time. This was many years ago, and this young lady was tragically murdered, and I remember on the news they were interviewing her grief-stricken father, and your heart just went out to this gentleman, and her father made a comment that really struck me.

He said of his fallen daughter, his murdered daughter, he said, she never lost her faith in the basic goodness of man. I remember thinking to myself, well, of course, when we’re grieving, we don’t expect grieving people to be theologically precise or correct necessarily, but I’m thinking to myself, here’s this man whose daughter has been brutally, tragically, horribly murdered, and yet he still believed, he still clings to this idea that his daughter affirmed when she was alive, the basic goodness of man. Friends, where is the evidence for that in the history of the human race? The history of the human race has been a history of violence. It’s been a history of so much in the way of evil and corruption. Yes, there have been, by the common grace of God, there’s been goodness, there has been civic virtue, and so forth.

God has maintained this world, but nevertheless, evil is rampant, and the basic bent of the human heart is towards selfishness and evil, because people are rotten to the core apart from the intervention of God’s grace. In our culture today, if people turn out to be rotten, there is this cultural assumption today that their rottenness should be blamed on something outside of themselves, something like their environment or on society or on something else besides themselves. There’s almost this allergy in our culture today. There’s almost an allergic reaction against taking personal responsibility or suggesting or believing that, yeah, this person committed evil because this person is evil. So deeply have we been impacted by the culture of therapy. But friends, holy scripture, the daily news, and common sense, prove otherwise. Prove that people are not basically good.

There is rottenness in society because people who make up that society are rotten, rotten to the core. The Bible says that all have sinned, and that doesn’t just include people out there outside the walls of the church. That includes me. That includes you. Apart from the sovereign grace of God, we are rotten to the core. But the amazing thing is that nevertheless, God loved us rotten though we be. He loved us sinners and sent his son Jesus to be our savior. The Bible says that in Isaiah 64 verse 6, scripture testifies that all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment in the eyes of God. By the inflexible standard of God’s holy law, as Paul says in Romans 3, 10 to 12, by that inflexible standard, none is righteous. No, not one. No one understands.

No one seeks for God. All have turned aside. Together they have become worthless. No one does good. Not even one. There was only one good man who ever lived. You know his name? Jesus Christ of Nazareth, because he is the sinless, spotless lamb of God. And dear ones, this is why, because of our sin and fallenness and our tendency therefore to stray from God and his ways, this is why we so desperately need an omnipotent, holy, sinless divine savior to save us, to shepherd us, and to guard our souls. Praise be to God that he has provided us with just such a shepherd. And again, his name is Jesus. So we read here in this passage of man’s tendency towards straying like sheep from God and his ways. But then notice in this verse, for you were straying like sheep, but have now done what?

Returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls. The implication is you’re no longer straying and wandering about in impenitence and unbelief. Now you’ve come home. Now you’ve returned. This is speaking of conversion. Now you have returned to the shepherd and overseer, or as the New American Standard Version translates it, the guardian of your soul. Dr. Norman Hillier in his commentary on 1st Peter writes of the language of shepherd and overseer. He says, shepherd and overseer is probably to be taken as overseeing shepherd. A hendietes, the literary figure whereby one idea is expressed by two or occasionally three nouns linked by a simple and. So it’s not like Jesus is the shepherd and separately and distinctly the overseer or bishop of our souls. He is the overseeing shepherd of our souls. And because he’s the overseeing shepherd of our souls and has enabled us to return to him, he has converted us and we find our rest and our protection and our refuge in him.

And this is instructive to us on the subject of true conversion. What does true conversion involve? Well true conversion involves a turning away from sin in repentance and a turning to Jesus Christ in faith. It’s not that there are two separate acts. The turning to Christ from sin, this involves repentance and faith are involved one in another and they go together. Although they must be distinguished, the Bible does not say we are justified by repentance and faith. We’re justified by faith alone. But the faith by which we are justified is always inextricably linked to and connected with repentance. As John Murray once put it, repentance and faith are seen to go together in that faith is faith in Jesus Christ for salvation from sin. You can’t trust in Jesus to save you from your sins if your heart is not desiring to turn from sin.

Repentance and faith go together in many places in scripture. We read of many places in scripture which illuminates this returning to the shepherd and overseer of our souls, this true conversion, this true turning to the Lord. For example, Jesus himself at the beginning of his earthly ministry, if you turn to Mark chapter 1 and look at verses 14 and 15, notice how Mark summarizes our Lord’s preaching ministry during his earthly ministry. It says in Mark 1, 14 and 15, now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the gospel, the good news of God, and saying, the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. What should they do about it? He says, repent and believe in the gospel. Repent and believe. And this emphasis on the response, on the returning to the Lord in true conversion is also emphasized by the apostle Peter in his Pentecost sermon.

If you look at Acts chapter 2, verses 36 to 39, let me just read those verses briefly. At the end of his Pentecost sermon, Peter says, let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, brothers, what shall we do? And what does Peter say to them? It says, and Peter said to them, repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit for the promises for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.

And so again we see the gospel call to repentance and faith and that is sealed in holy baptism. We see also in chapter 16, Acts 16, verses 30 and 31 with the Philippian jailer. In those verses it says, then he brought them out and said, sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household. And finally one more passage as we compare scripture with scripture, consider what Paul writes in Romans 10 verses 8 through 10. In this passage, as Paul is talking about the gospel and the appropriate response to the gospel, he says this, he says, but what does it say? He’s quoting from the Old Testament, the word is near you in your mouth and in your heart that is the word of faith that we proclaim because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved for with the heart one believes and is justified and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.

So what does it mean to return to the shepherd and overseer or bishop of our souls? It means repentance and faith and what are repentance and faith? Well, I can think of no better answers to those questions than what is contained in our shorter catechism. Our shorter catechism question 86 asks, what is faith in Jesus Christ? The Bible based answer is faith in Jesus Christ is a saving grace. In other words, it’s not something you work up in yourself, it’s something God gives you as a gift through the gospel. Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ. Faith in Jesus Christ is a saving grace whereby we receive and rest upon him alone for salvation as he has offered to us in the gospel. And what is true repentance? Repentance unto life.

Shorter catechism question 87 asks that question, what is repentance unto life? Again, the Bible based answer is repentance unto life is a saving grace whereby a sinner out of a true sense of his sin and I love this latter part here and apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ doth with grief and hatred of his sin turn from it unto God with full purpose of an endeavor after new obedience. Dear listener, have you returned in true faith and repentance to the Lord Jesus Christ, the shepherd and overseer of souls? Have you received and rested upon him and him alone for your salvation as he has offered to you in the gospel? Do you believe that in Christ you have a merciful, forgiving God, a God who is willing and able to save sinners even such as me and you?

And you say, well, you know, what does that involve? It doesn’t involve jumping through hoops or praying some magical sinner’s prayer or responding to an altar call. And by the way, you may not be told this too often in today’s evangelical culture, but you know, friends, the altar call and the sinner’s prayer, they’re only about 150 years old. No one before about the mid 1800s responded to the gospel by coming forward at an altar call or praying some magical hocus pocus sinner’s prayer. And if you’re trusting in the fact that, oh, well, when I was a certain age, I prayed this prayer and so I’m saved because I prayed this prayer or because I went forward at an altar call. If you’re trusting in something you did to respond to Christ, that’s not true faith.

That’s trusting in a work that you’ve done. You’re not saved by a sinner’s prayer or an altar call. You’re saved by Jesus Christ by receiving, by trusting in Him and Him alone for your salvation, by believing that in Jesus you have a merciful, forgiving God. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. Not believe on the Lord Jesus and pray a sinner’s prayer and come forward at an altar call. No. By the way, let me just say, I know that some folks, some of God’s elect come to faith in Christ through imperfect gospel presentations. I myself, when I was converted, I was converted through a gospel presentation that had a suggested sinner’s prayer at the end of it and I prayed that prayer. But I wasn’t trusting in that prayer. I was trusting in the one to whom that prayer directed me.

And so friends, trust in Jesus for salvation from sin. That is what it means to return to the shepherd and overseer of your souls. And so what is the conclusion of all of this? Behold, beloved, behold Jesus Christ, the overseeing shepherd of souls. Behold Jesus Christ, the overseeing shepherd of our souls. You know, the shepherd sheep imagery is very common in the scriptures, not just in the New Testament, but of course in the Old Testament as well. In the Old Testament, God himself is said to be the shepherd of his people. We sang about it in Psalm 23. The Lord is my what? The Lord is my shepherd. And when we think of a shepherd, again, we think of pastoral images. We think of sheep wandering about on the hills. But we need to understand that in the ancient world, kings and rulers were often called the shepherds of their people.

So this term shepherd, when applied to God, has royal implications, royal implications to it. It is also significant that the New Testament ascribes the role of divine shepherd to Christ. In the Old Testament, you see the parallel in the Old Testament, the Lord, God, is the shepherd of Israel. In the New Testament, Christ is the good shepherd of his sheep, his believing people. And so this is just one of multitudes of evidences of our Lord’s full deity and godhood. But not only is the Lord Jesus described here as the shepherd of our souls, he’s also described as the overseer. In the Greek, it is the term episcopon, from which we derive the word bishop. The Greek term here is derived from the English term. I’m sorry, the Greek term is the word from which we derive the English term bishop, as it’s translated, I believe, in the King James Version.

And in the New American Standard Version brings out one of the aspects of that in translating it as guardian. What does a bishop do? A bishop is the guardian of souls. And a good shepherd not only leads and guides his sheep, he also protects his sheep. He is the guardian of his sheep. Friends, as our shepherd, Christ rules over us, he cares for us, he provides for all of our spiritual needs, and he guides us. As our bishop, Christ oversees and guards us from spiritual wolves and hazards. And he leads us on to life eternal. Let us trust him. Let us follow him. Let us return day by day to him as the shepherd and overseer of our souls. And let us praise God for shepherding and guarding us as we make our pilgrimage through this life and on to heavenly glory.

Amen. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you that you demonstrate your love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. We thank you, Lord Jesus, that you came and you sought out for us. You ran after us. You, we were lost and straying and wandering sheep. And you left the fold to come and seek for us. And you have put us upon your shoulders and you have returned us to the safety of your fold. We thank you for giving us the grace of repentance and faith that we might return to you. And we pray that that grace might continue to be deepened and strengthened in us as Lord, the Christian life is a life of daily renewed conversion, daily renewed repentance and faith as we day by day fight with sin as we die unto sin and seek to live unto righteousness, walking after a new obedience out of gratitude for your gift of salvation to us in Jesus.

So Lord, give us the grace, Heavenly Father, to walk with our shepherd. Give us the grace, Lord, to be led by his hand. We pray these things, Heavenly Father, in Jesus’ name and all of God’s people said, Amen. Dear friends, as we close our worship service this evening, let’s rise and we’ll sing together hymn 525, Savior like a shepherd, lead us, 525.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

May 12, 2024
Submission, Suffering, and the Shepherd of our Souls, Part 2

About this sermon

1. Enduring unjust suffering with patience is commendable in the sight of God (vv. 19-20).
2. We believers were called to imitate Christ in patiently enduring unjust suffering (v. 21).
3. The example of Christ’s endurance of unjust suffering (vv. 21-25).

More sermons from 1 Peter · Browse all sermons

Sermon transcript

Please remain standing, dear friends, for the reading of God’s Word as we continue our

consideration and study of 1 Peter, the Apostle Peter’s first epistle.

Tonight we are again in 1 Peter chapter 2 verses 18 through 25, a very

controversial and difficult portion of Scripture.

In order to give the fuller context I will begin reading at verse 13 but again

our focus will be especially on verses 18 through 25.

1 Peter chapter 2 beginning at verse 13. You’ll find that on page 1204 in your

pew Bible. Dear friends, hear the Word of God.

Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the

emperor as supreme or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil

and to praise those who do good. For this is the will of God that by doing good

you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Live as people who

are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as

servants of God. Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the

emperor. Servants be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the

good and gentle, but also to the unjust. For this is a gracious thing. When

mindful of God one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it

if when you sin and are beaten for it you endure, but if when you do good and

suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. For

to this you have been called because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you

an example so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither

was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled he did not revile in return.

When he suffered he did not threaten, but continued in trusting himself to him who

judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might

die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed, for you

were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the shepherd and overseer of

your souls. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God

endures forever. Once again please join me as we ask the Lord’s blessing upon

the preaching of his word. Heavenly Father, we pray that by your spirit you

would open our minds and our hearts once again to behold wondrous things from your

word. We ask Lord that we might understand this text of scripture in the

way that it was intended to be understood as you’ve revealed it to us,

Lord. We thank you for giving us your word. It is indeed a lamp unto our feet,

a light into our path, and we pray that you would lighten our way, that you would

illuminate our way as we see what the Spirit is speaking to us in this portion

of your God-breathed, inerrant, infallible word. We would ask that you would set a

guard over my lips, Lord, that I, your unworthy servant, may declare your word

with clarity and faithfulness in the power of your Holy Spirit. For the

edification and building up of your saints, the salvation of the lost, and

the glory and honor of Jesus our Savior. For it is in his name that we pray and

all of God’s people said, Amen. You may be seated.

If you’re following along in your sermon outline, you’ll notice six key words

that you could be listening for, especially the children, if you would

find that to be helpful, the words slavery, suffering, unjust, endurance,

cross, and shepherd. Well, dear friends, on the last Lord’s Day evening we began

to consider this challenging passage of Peter’s first

letter, his first epistle. Under the Holy Spirit’s inspiration,

Peter has been seeking to encourage and fortify the faith of his first century

readers, and these readers, as you will recall,

were Christians who were facing the prospect of severe persecution for their

faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. So they needed

encouragement, they needed strengthening, they also needed guidance

for how to live godly lives in the midst of a hostile

environment. And so up until this point in his letter,

Peter has sought to encourage these believers

by reminding them, and reminding us as well, of the wonderful blessings of

salvation that we have received in Christ, and also reminding us of our

identity in Christ as God’s people. And then in

chapter 2 verse 11, Peter begins to shift his focus to the

believers’ relationships toward those who are outside of the church, outside of

the fold, as well as focus his

attention on the believers’ responsibilities to the social order

and within social relationships. And then from chapter 2 verse 13 through

chapter 3 verse 6, Peter highlights the theme of the

believers’ submission to authority. In chapter 2 verses 13

through 17, he first of all addresses the matter of submission to

the government’s authority, and we consider that a few Lord’s Day evenings

ago. And then in our passage for this evening, Peter

deals with the submission of servants to their masters.

And then finally in chapter 3 verses 1 through 6, which we will consider

in a future sermon, Peter speaks to the matter of the wife’s submission to her

husband. Now before we began to deal with this

particular section where Peter addresses servants in

particular, last week I sought to offer some

historical background information that addresses

this controversial subject of servanthood or slavery

in the Bible. It’s really important if we’re going to correctly

interpret God’s word that we need to understand it against the background of

its historical setting and so

forth. And as we read passages like this, we

have to make sure that we don’t read in our

contemporary conceptions of what’s going on here

into this ancient text of scripture. We need to do what we can to try to

understand the background to it. So I sought to

point out on the last Lord’s Day evening how

servanthood and slavery in the ancient context of

the first century Roman empire was different from the kind of

race-based chattel slavery that was practiced

in our nation prior to the Civil War. The kind of

chattel slavery, race-based slavery that was

practiced in the United States of course before the Civil War was a type of

slavery that involved man stealing or kidnapping. And as we

saw in the last Lord’s Day evening, the Bible clearly condemns that practice in

passages like Exodus chapter 21 verse 16.

That does not mean that the institution of servanthood and

slavery in the first century Roman empire was a good

institution. I’m not defending it but I’m just again we need to

understand this from against the background

of the first century. And as I pointed out in some ways,

not in every way, but in some ways the relationship of first century Roman

slaves or servants to their masters, which is spoken of in

the New Testament, is similar to the modern relationship of

employees to their employers. And if you’d like, if you

didn’t get a chance to be here last Lord’s Day evening or if

you want to go back and review the points I made last week,

I encourage you to get onto the church website and listen to last week’s sermon

if you would find that information to be helpful to review. But friends,

in spite of the fact that the kind of servanthood,

whoops, my band’s a little bit high there.

Okay, at least I didn’t completely lose it, right?

The point I was trying to make last week is that in spite of the fact that the

kind of of servanthood that some of Peter’s

readers were apparently subject to was was milder than the kind of brutal

man-stealing slavery of our nation’s past.

Nevertheless, our passage makes it clear, beloved,

that it was an institution that was open to abuses. And

it also makes it clear in our passage that that

sometimes these servants and slaves experienced

unjust suffering at the hands of unjust masters. And so Peter is concerned

to direct them and give them guidance in how to deal with

being in a setting or a situation like that.

Last week we learned from this passage which addresses servants

the truth that we believers are to be willing to endure

unjust suffering at the hands of the wicked with patience and without

personal vengeance or retaliation, following in the footsteps of Christ our

Savior, who himself endured unjust suffering at the hands of

the wicked in order to redeem us from our sins.

And so tonight we consider from this passage our incentives

for enduring unjust suffering patiently if God

in his wise providence calls us to do so.

And we learn first of all that enduring unjust suffering with patience is

commendable in the sight of God. Patiently enduring unjust suffering is

a commendable thing in the sight of God. Look again

at verses 19 and 20. Could we have those fans turn down just a little bit?

Thank you. It’s blowing the pages of my Bible around and

everything. Look at verse 19. It says, well we covered verse 18 last week. I’ll

start there. Verse 18, servants be subject to your

masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also

to the unjust. For this is a gracious thing when

mindful of God one endures sorrows while suffering

unjustly. Now Peter says, for this is a gracious thing.

Now this could literally be translated, it is

grace. It is grace. And there are different ways to interpret this

statement here, but it’s a statement that probably

means it is an act that brings God’s favor. It is an act that brings

God’s favor if when mindful of God one endures sorrows

while suffering unjustly. Now immediately that raises alarm bells.

Does it not? You know it should in our heads.

After all this cannot be understood as saying

that suffering patiently under injustice somehow

merits God’s grace. Certainly does not. That’s not

what Peter is saying and especially if you go on and read

what he says about Christ and how Christ has suffered for our sins and so forth.

Clearly Peter is not trying to say that we can earn or merit our salvation

by enduring patiently unjust suffering in our lives. That’s not what he’s saying.

But after all only the redemptive sufferings of Christ

merit God’s grace. But it probably means that God approves of

and is pleased with the believer who is willing to sacrifice his comfort

and security for the sake of obeying God’s will.

Beloved if you suffer for doing what is right,

God is pleased with this. Now again don’t misunderstand what that means.

God isn’t pleased with your sufferings as such.

God is not up there enjoying watching you suffer. That’s not what

Peter is saying. That’s not what the Holy Spirit through Peter

is saying. It’s not that he is pleased with your suffering

as such. But he is pleased with your priorities.

That you love him enough to be willing to suffer for doing

what is right. And our Lord Jesus said the same thing in his Sermon on the

Mount. Consider let’s go back to Matthew chapter

5 and and look at verses 10 through 12.

Matthew chapter 5 verses 10 through 12.

At the beginning of our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount Jesus says this in the midst

of the Beatitudes. And in the Beatitudes he is speaking of

the blessedness of those who are citizens

of God’s kingdom by the grace of God. He says this

Matthew 5 beginning at verse 10. Blessed are those

who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs

is the kingdom of heaven. And then he personalizes it.

Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of

evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad for

your reward is great in heaven for so they persecuted the prophets

who were before you. And so our first incentive for

being willing by the grace of God to bear patiently

under unjust suffering is that such patience

is commendable to God. A second reason that Peter gives

is found in verse 21 and that is that we believers were called to follow Christ

impatiently enduring unjust suffering. We believers were called

to follow Christ impatiently enduring unjust suffering. As it goes on to

say in verses 20 and 21 and verse 20 he says for what credit is it

if when you sin and are beaten for it you endure.

If you do wrong and suffer for doing wrong there’s nothing commendable about

that. But on the other hand if when you do

good and suffer for it you endure. This is a gracious thing in the sight of

God. For to this you have been called

because Christ also suffered for you. There’s good news there Christ

Christ understands suffering. He under he’s been in our shoes

or our sandals as the case may be. He’s been

in our shoes. Christ suffered for you leaving you an example so that you might

follow in his steps. Now the first thing that I

want you to notice in verse 21. Peter says for to this you have been

called. First of all let’s understand what he means by this

thing that we’ve been called to. What does he mean by this call?

Well he’s probably referring to God’s effectual calling to salvation in

Christ and it’s interesting in the New Testament

there’s a close connection between the call to

be willing to suffer for Christ if God in his providence calls you to that

on the one hand and the call to salvation the effectual call. For example

let’s go to Philippians 1 and let me read Philippians 1

verses 29 and 30. Philippians chapter 1 verses 29

and 30.

Let me just get there. It says this for it has been granted to you.

In other words this is a gift that God has given to you a divinely given gift.

It has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ

you should not only believe in him. Faith is a gift of God

granted by God to us sinners that you should believe in him

but also suffer for his sake engaged in the same conflict that you saw I had

and now here that I still have. You’ve been called to this.

You’ve been sovereignly effectually called to faith in Christ

and again if God’s providence requires it to suffer for his sake and

it’s viewed as something given as a gift from God.

And again so what are we called to? Is he saying that we’re called

to suffer? No we are called to follow in the steps of Christ which for Peter’s

readers meant following Christ along the road of

patiently enduring unjust suffering. It’s the the emphasis here is on

patience. The patience of the saints. Faith endurance patience

these things go together. Now I want to make an important

qualification. This does not mean that all

Christians will endure unjust suffering at least not to the extent or to the

degree that some of these first century

believers were called upon to suffer. Dr. I. Howard Marshall writes this

he says it is important to observe that in the

presence section Peter is not telling his readers

that they are called to suffering. As he has already made clear

unjust suffering is not necessarily the inevitable lot of each

individual reader. Instead he says that if they suffer they must bear it

patiently. What he said when he says that they were

called to this he means that they were called to the

patient endurance of suffering. It’s easy for us to be impatient

impatient under difficult providences and of course

only by the grace of God can we endure with patience. Brothers

and sisters we must be willing to endure unjust suffering for the

sake of Christ if God in his wise and good providence

calls us to such suffering. That doesn’t mean that if we can improve our

situation that we should not seek to improve it no

but it does mean that we can even rejoice

when we have to suffer for the cause of Christ because God

is glorified through our patient endurance of such

suffering and our suffering and when our suffering is in accordance with God’s

will and of course we need to keep in mind

God will in the end sooner or later right all wrongs

and he will bear he will bring justice to bear

in each and every situation and circumstance

and he will comfort and deliver and vindicate his people

in the end. That is the united testimony of holy

scripture and so we are to be willing to patiently endure unjust suffering if

God’s providence calls upon us to to do so. First of

all because this is praiseworthy it is commendable in the

sight of God and secondly because we have been called to such

patient endurance for the glory of God but the

final incentive that is mentioned in this passage

is the example of Christ’s endurance of unjust suffering and that’s the final

point in your sermon outline the example of Christ’s endurance

of unjust suffering as we’re told in verse 21 it says

for to this you have been called because Christ suffered for you leaving

you an example so that you might follow in his

steps and he goes on to say he committed no sin neither was deceit found in his

mouth when he was reviled he did not revile in return

and so forth because Christ also suffered for you.

Now let’s remember brothers and sisters who is Paul addressing in first

Peter. Is he addressing everyone indistinctively?

Is he preaching here a universalism?

No we need to remember that Peter is addressing believers those who’ve

trusted Christ as their savior. He’s not advocating universalism in any

form here when he says Christ suffered for you. Who did Peter

write this letter to? Back in chapter 1 verse 1 he makes it

clear to those who are elect excels of the dispersion in Pontus,

Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia and so forth

and so brothers and sisters in Christ he suffered for you

and for me he didn’t suffer for his own sins that’s the implication he didn’t

suffer for his own sins for he had no sin nor did he suffer

because he deserved to for he didn’t deserve

these unjust sufferings in the least he was the sinless

spotless lamb of God and again his the sinless

his sinlessness is attested to in verse in verse 22 he committed no sin

neither was deceit in his found in his mouth

this verse by the way in verse 22 this verse

and the verses that follow are saturated with allusions to Isaiah chapter 53

and this verse in particular is from Isaiah chapter 53

verse 9 our Lord’s sinlessness is again highlighted here in order to

stress the fact that his sufferings were indeed unjust sufferings

and then it goes on to to highlight the kind of sufferings he endured

it says in verse 23 when he was reviled he did not revile in return when he

suffered he did not threaten but continued doing what

continued entrusting himself to him who judges

justly this is our comfort brothers and sisters when we

face unjust suffering we serve a god and a savior who is just

a god and savior who will right all wrongs he will either bring

that that persecutor that is causing our sufferings to repentance

or to judgment but however god deals with that person

god will be glorified and justice will be done our lord’s sinlessness

again is is highlighted here and his

awful sufferings are highlighted as well i mean think about the sufferings of our

savior he was abandoned by his closest friends

he was rejected he was mocked and derided he was reviled he was treated

with utter cruelty and he was given over to

unimaginable physical agony we sang about the

sufferings of our lord in some of our hymns that we sang

this evening beloved since our savior was willing to

undergo such unjust suffering to redeem us should we not be willing

by his grace to suffer for his cause if obedience to his will requires it of

us and if called upon to do so and then verse 24 it’s a glorious

gospel passage it says he himself bore our sins

in his body on the tree why that we might die to sin

and live to righteousness by his wounds you have been healed

he himself bore our sins in his body on the tree christ sufferings were not

again we’re not for his own sins but for the sins of his people our

sins and now some have gravitated to this

language of of christ dying on the tree i believe for example i’m not an expert

on the jehovah’s witnesses but i believe they

insist that no jesus didn’t die on a cross he died he was nailed literally

nailed to a tree well is why does is

and they they appeal to a verses like this why does peter

use this language of christ dying on the tree well peter uses

the language of tree here of course the wood of the cross was was made from a

tree but peter uses this language because

in using this language he seems to be highlighting the truth

that our lord jesus christ endured the curse of god

for us in our place when he died for us on the cross you see

the old testament in passages like deuteronomy 21 verses 22 and 23

says that the one who hangs on a tree is cursed by god in fact let’s go back

there briefly deuteronomy chapter 21 look at verses

22 and 23 deuteronomy 21 verses 22

and 23 we read these words and if a man has committed a crime

punishable by death and he is put to death and you hang him

on a tree his body shall not remain all night on

the tree but you shall bury him the same day

for a hanged man is cursed by god you shall not defile your land

that the lord your god is giving you for an inheritance a

curse a hanged man is cursed by god jesus hung on the tree

he himself is the blessed one yet he endured

the curse that is due to us in himself he endured that sin deserves

god’s curse if you break god’s holy law which all

of us have and all of us do

all of us have broken god’s law in the original

in our original covenant head adam and by our own free choices and actions we

have broken god’s law and if you break god’s law then you incur god’s righteous

curse that’s the bad news but then there’s the

good news and the good news is that there is hope

there is forgiveness you see only the lord jesus christ through his

atoning death on the cross can save sinners like us

from the righteous wrath and curse of god against our sin

now notice what what peter says about the purpose of christ’s death

he did this he died for our sins he bore

our sin in his body he bore the curse in his body on the tree why that we might

die to sin and live to righteousness according to

thayer as quoted in kiss demacher’s commentary

this could literally be translated as that we might be utterly

alienated from our sins christ died for us that we might be

alienated from our sins that we might die to sin and thus by his sovereign

grace in union with christ live unto righteousness

here is a passage among many passages of scripture

which stands against the heresy of antinomianism and antinomianism is

just the twin brother of the heresy of legalism by the way

the two often go hand in hand by his sacrificial death on the cross

our lord not only saves us from the guilt and the penalty of our sin

he also saves us from the dominating power

of sin and that is why peter can go on and say by his wounds

you have been healed now again some of our

charismatic friends will latch on to this language and say

see there’s healing in the blood and and certainly there is

ultimately in the new heavens and the new earth

but the kind of healing that comes to us in this present age and certainly god is

free to physically heal anyone in response to

prayer if he chooses to do so but the kind of healing that is especially

in view here is spiritual healing is the healing of

salvation that we have in christ and

salvation not only from the guilt and the penalty of sin

but also salvation from the dominating power

of sin and the miracles of christ the the healing miracles of christ pointed

forward to this and were types and pictures of this

jesus’s healing of the sick and raising of the dead all of these miracles of

healing that jesus performed were signs of god’s kingdom and what is

god’s kingdom it is his reign of grace and salvation in the hearts and lives

of those who know him as savior lord and king

and then he goes on to say in verse 25 for you were straying like sheep

that’s what sheep do right they stray that’s in their nature to stray

you were straying like sheep i was straying like a sheep you were straying

like a sheep but have now returned to the shepherd

and overseer of your souls our ultimate shepherd and

overseer is not some man pastors and elders in the

church are called under shepherds of christ

but i can’t ultimately shepherd your soul to salvation i can simply point you

to jesus but praise god brothers and sisters in

christ your ultimate shepherd is the lord jesus christ

he is the good shepherd with a capital s

and you if you have trusted him as your savior

by the grace of god you have returned to the shepherd

and overseer of your souls we are sheep and christ is the good and great

shepherd by his grace we have returned through the grace of conversion

we have returned to the shepherd and bishop or overseer of our souls

our lord jesus protects and cares for his people

in a manner similar to the way that an earthly shepherd cares for

and protects the sheep of his flock have you turned to jesus have you

returned to him as your good shepherd come to jesus

rest in him and he will shepherd your soul

for now and for eternity let us rest in him

let us pray heavenly father our sovereign and eternal god

we do thank you and praise you that you sought us out like a shepherd

a good shepherd seeks out his lost and wandering sheep

and that you took us up and that you have brought us into your fold by your

grace and we thank you lord jesus that you

bore our sins in your body on the tree and that you took the curse of the father

upon yourself in our place in our stead we thank you father that out of love for

us you sent christ to bear our sin that we might know your love both now

and forever we pray heavenly father that by your

spirit these truths would indeed find a lodging place in our souls

and would minister comfort and strength edification and sanctification unto us

and we pray heavenly father that you would abide with us and shepherd us in

the week ahead as we seek to serve you in this week ahead in our daily callings

and vocations we pray these things heavenly father in

jesus name and all of god’s people said amen

for our closing hymn i’d invite us to rise

and let’s sing together number 441 jesus sinners doth receive

441

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

May 5, 2024
Submission, Suffering, and the Shepherd of our Souls, Part 1

About this sermon

1. Consider the command for servants to submit to their masters, even unjust ones (v. 18).
2. We believers are to endure unjust suffering with patience, just as our Savior did (v. 19).

More sermons from 1 Peter · Browse all sermons

Sermon transcript

standing for the reading of God’s Word. We continue our study of 1 Peter. St. Peter the Apostle’s first letter or epistle, 1 Peter. And tonight we are in 1 Peter 2, verses 18 through 25. I’m going to begin reading at verse 13 to kind of fill out the context a little bit. But the focus this evening will be on 1 Peter 2, verses 18 through 25. So let us hear God’s holy word. You’ll find this on page 1204 in your Pew Bible. going to begin reading at verse 13. Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people.

Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the Emperor. Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the unjust. For this is a gracious thing, when mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if, when you do good and suffer for it, you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth.

When he was reviled, he did not revile in return. When he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed, for you were straying like sheep. but have now returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls. Dear friends, the grass withers and the flower fades, but the Word of our God endures forever. Let’s pray for the Lord to bless the preaching of His Word tonight. Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, We pray once again that by your spirit, you would inhabit not only the praises of your people, but we pray that you would come to us and cause your word to go forth in grace and power.

Lord Jesus, be present, not only in the reading, but also the preaching of your word this evening. And we pray, Heavenly Father, that you would make us open and receptive to what the spirit is teaching us in this portion of your holy word. Be with us now, Lord, again, forgive our sins, strengthen us by your grace, and build us up in our most holy faith this evening. We pray these things in Jesus’ name and all of God’s people said, amen. You may be seated. the title of my sermon this evening, and this is the first part of a sermon in this particular passage, Submission, Suffering, and the Shepherd of our Souls, part one. And if the children find it helpful to follow along with these various key words, the four words to be listening for tonight are servant, submit, suffering, and savior.

Well, dear ones, following Jesus Christ is hard. In fact, my friends, apart from the sovereign grace of God in Christ, following Jesus is impossible. It’s not something that we have the power within our own resources to do in our own strength. But by God-given faith in and union with Christ, we trust Christ and we seek to walk in the Spirit. Even so, friends, living the Christian life in this present age involves not only an attitude of servanthood, but sometimes it also involves unjust suffering. And that is why passages like this one that we are considering this evening are so vitally important. for us to study and to take to heart. For in this passage, the Holy Spirit through the Apostle Peter encourages God’s people who face unjust suffering and hostility from the world. Now up to this point in his epistle, Peter has focused on the believer’s relationship to God and to the people of God, the church.

And since he is addressing believers who were facing a fiery trial of persecution, Peter begins his letter to these first century believers. He begins this letter in chapter one, first of all, by reminding them of the blessings of salvation which they have received in the Lord Jesus Christ. And then in chapter 2, he begins reminding them of their identity as the people of God. And he reminds them of these glorious truths of their salvation and of their identity as the people of God. He does so in order to bolster and strengthen them in their faith, especially as they face hostility and opposition for their faith. But now, beginning in chapter 2, verse 11, Peter shifts his focus to the believer’s relationship to those outside of the church. And he begins to focus on the believer’s responsibilities within social relationships and within the social order of the day.

And then from chapter 2, verse 13, through chapter 3, verse 6, the theme that Peter focuses on in particular is the theme of the believer’s submission to authority. Namely, as we saw in the last Lord’s Day evening, the believer’s submission, first of all, to governmental authority, and Peter speaks about that and addresses that. in verses 13 through 17 of this chapter. For our passage for this evening, he focuses on the submission of servants to their masters, and we’ll focus on that and what that means this evening. And then in chapter three, verses one through six, he focuses on the submission of wives to their husbands. This evening, I’d like to draw our attention to the theme of the servants’ submission to their masters. as that theme is laid out for us in verses 18 through 25.

But as I raise this focus of my sermon this evening, right out of the gate there’s a problem, isn’t there? Or at least a perceived problem in the minds of many. You see, our passage for this evening presents some real challenges to the contemporary Bible reader and Bible interpreter. Many today might wonder how a passage like this applies to Bible readers in the 21st century, especially since it is rare for one to have servants today, and also since slavery as an institution no longer exists in our nation as it once did. Thank the Lord for that, that we no longer have that in our nation. Well friends, I hope to show you that the underlying principles that are contained in this passage of God’s Word are actually very relevant even today to our contemporary situation, for all of God’s Word is relevant.

After all, it is God’s Word. And so as we dive into our passage for this evening, consider first of all, and this is the first point in your sermon outline if you’re following along, consider the command for servants to submit to their masters, even unjust ones. Consider the command for servants to submit to their masters, even unjust ones. As Peter writes in verse 18, servants, be subject to your masters with all respect. And then he clarifies, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the unjust. The first question that we need to ask is, who are these servants? Who does Peter have in mind as he’s addressing this letter to his first century audience? The term in the Greek for servants here is the term oikotai in the Greek. Now the most common word in the Greek language for servants, a word which can also be translated as slaves, is the word douloi. and douloi can be translated as bond slaves.

But here Peter uses the less common term oikotai, which means servants. Now why does Peter use this less common word oikotai when addressing servants in this epistle? Well apparently the servants to whom he was addressing this were domestic servants and oikotai could roughly be translated as unfree house servants. But certainly the principles which Peter applies specifically to household servants, to oiketai, would also apply equally to douloi, or bond slaves. In fact, the Apostle Paul addressed somewhat similar commands to bond slaves in a different context, in Colossians 3, verses 22 to 24. Let’s compare Scripture with Scripture, and let’s turn to Colossians 3, and look at verses 22 through 24. In this passage, sometimes described, this section is sometimes described by scholars as the household code. We find household codes given in various passages of the New Testament scriptures.

In Colossians chapter three, beginning at verse 22, we read these words, bondservants, not oiketai, but douloi, bond servants. Obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye service as people pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. Whatever you do, work heartily as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. And so friends, again, as we compare scripture with scripture, we glean the principle that servants of every stripe and kind are to submit to and obey their human masters. And we can infer that this submission and obedience are to be rendered even to those who are described by Peter here in verse 18 as unjust. Now friends, this is troublesome to many Bible readers today, especially today.

Before we can understand how this directive which Peter addresses to his first century audience applies to us believers today in the 21st century, it’s important that we know something about servants and slaves in New Testament times. And so we’re gonna give you a little bit of a history lesson, hang in there, but this is important information, background information for us to understand. The Bible scholar and commentator Dr. Edwin Blum explains the identification of servants and slaves in the following comment. He says, during the time of the New Testament writings, slavery was not as bad as that practiced in America before the Civil War. Ancient slaves had fairly normal marital lives. Often people sold themselves into slavery for a period of time as a way to get ahead in the world. Nevertheless, the lot of a slave could be very hard if the master was unkind.

And sometimes, you know, in the ancient world, in the first century Roman Empire context, if you, for example, fell into debt, one of the ways that you might seek to get out of debt would be to sell yourself into slavery for a period of time. and there were other occasions as well. Arthur Ruprecht, as quoted by Dr. Simon Kistemacher, writes the following, he says, the living conditions of many slaves were better than those of free men who often slept in the streets of the city or lived in very cheap rooms. There is considerable evidence to suggest that the slaves lived within the confines of their master’s house. They usually lived on the top floor of their owner’s city house or country villa. He goes on to write, the slave was not inferior to the freemen of similar skills in regard to food and clothing. that most slaves in Rome were as well-dressed as free men is indicated in an unusual way.

Seneca stated that legislation was introduced in the Senate, that would be the Roman Senate, that slaves should be required to wear a type of clothing that would distinguish them from free men. In other words, if you were able to get into a time machine and go back to first century Rome and walk around the city, you wouldn’t be able just to distinguish by how they were dressed a free man from someone who was a slave. They had similar dress. And Dr. I. Howard Marshall says, the conditions of slaves in the ancient world varied enormously. People were enslaved for various reasons, being the children of slaves, being prisoners of war, or falling into debt. Their conditions of service also varied. The general tendency in New Testament times was toward improving the lot of slaves. Now, brothers and sisters, you may wonder, well, why the history lesson, pastor?

Well you are probably aware that some folks reject the Bible or at least come to doubt their faith in the Bible as the Word of God because of passages such as this one which allow for at least a certain type of slavery. Now we need to be honest and not try to to skew the information and the data of Scripture. We need to come to the Word of God and hear what it has to say. And of course it is absolutely true that the Bible does not condemn every form of slavery. However, we need to be very careful, brothers and sisters, not to read back into biblical references to the practice of slavery, the kind of slavery that was practiced in our own nation’s past with the African slave trade. That would be an error known as historical anachronism.

That is a reading of our own history and our own contemporary culture and issues back into ancient history. Friends, there are actually valid biblical reasons for opposing the kind of slavery that took place in our nation’s past. Specifically, the slave trade that our nation had practiced prior to the Civil War involved kidnapping people. Kidnapping people from their homeland and often separating them from their own families. And I would tell you, brothers and sisters, the Word of God in no uncertain terms condemns kidnapping. Sometimes it is translated in Scripture as man stealing. In fact, The Old Testament declared man stealing or kidnapping for the purpose of enslaving someone to be a capital crime. And under the Old Covenant civil legislation, those who engaged in selling kidnapped slaves were to be executed. They were to be put to death.

And if that old covenant law were applied in pre-Civil War times to slave traders, then those slave traders would have been executed if the country had been under a form of biblical law at that time. And you say, well, where does the Bible teach that? Well, let’s turn to Exodus chapter 21, verse 16. Exodus chapter 21, verse 16. In this passage, and again this whole chapter is dealing with laws about slaves and it says this in Exodus chapter 21 verse 16, whoever steals a man and sells him and anyone found in possession of him shall be put to death. Whoever steals a man and sells him, in other words, sells him as a slave, and anyone found in possession of him shall be put to death. Brothers and sisters in Christ, the Bible does not endorse or approve of or certainly not even tolerate the kind of slavery that took place in our nation in our pre-civil war.

Now, I point this out because we need to realize that the kind of slavery practiced before the Civil War, a slavery which involved, again, kidnapping people, ripping them away from everything that they had known, even oftentimes from their own families, We need to realize that this is not the kind of slavery being spoken of in our passage for this Lord’s Day evening. In fact, in some ways, not in every way, there are differences, but in some ways, the relationship of slaves to their masters, which is spoken of in the New Testament scriptures, is similar to the modern relationship of employees to their employers. To quote from Dr. Simon Kistemacher, he says, although times have changed, the scriptural teachings Peter expounds apply as well to the present labor relations of employers and employees, management and unions as to the master-slave relations of former times.

The Bible teaches that in our workaday world, We ought to apply and uphold the principles of justice and righteousness, of honesty and integrity, of thoughtfulness and consideration. In disputes, both employers and employees should settle their differences through arbitration and conciliation. Management is entitled to a full day’s work from the laborer, and the laborer is entitled to full pay for diligent and competent work. And so I hope this helps, especially since this issue of slavery in the Bible, it’s an apologetic issue. Apologetics is defending the faith, not apologizing for being a Christian, but defending, apologia, to defend the faith. And one of the challenges in Christian apologetics is when unbelievers, skeptics, atheists, they point out passages like this from the Bible and they say, how can you believe this book is from God, the word of God?

You claim to believe in a good and loving God, and yet this good and loving God of yours says that slavery is okay. But we need to understand that there’s nuance here, and we need to have some understanding of how to respond to those objections given to our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. So that’s why I’ve belabored this a bit. But friends, by way of application, beloved, we learn in the scriptures that our God is a God who delivers from oppression. The God of the Bible is the great liberator. In Old Testament times, of course, God delivered His people from their physical slavery in Egypt and He judged Israel’s oppressors, Pharaoh and the Egyptians. that Old Covenant deliverance that God performed in rescuing the Israelites from their enslavement to Egypt. That was a type, a picture of a greater liberation, a greater salvation, a greater redemption, a greater deliverance.

Namely, the deliverance that Christ has wrought for us, brothers and sisters. Christ, our Savior, delivers us from an oppressor greater than even the Pharaoh of Egypt. Christ our Savior delivers us from the greatest oppressors of all, namely sin, the devil, death, and hell. Christ suffered unjustly on the cross at the hands of sinful men in order to deliver his people from the greatest of oppressors. And so that is something that we need to keep in mind as we wrestle with passages like this one. But we also learn here, beloved, that the principles found in this passage call upon Christian employees to submit to and obey their employers with all respect. And that is the case not just if you like your boss, not just if you have a good boss. And of course, we have the option in our culture, if you don’t like your job, at least you can look for another job that is open to you.

The Bible doesn’t say you have to stay where you’re at if you’re in a bad work situation. You can always look for a way out, for options. But as long as you are in a position where you have an employer over you, You are to obey and submit to the rules and regulations of your employer and your place of employment. And that is true whether or not your boss is a good boss. If you’re ever put in a position of having to suffer unjustly at the hand of your employer, as a disciple of Jesus Christ, you are called upon to endure such suffering patiently out of conscience towards God, seeking to be a good witness for Christ. Now that brings me to my next point. We believers are to endure unjust suffering with patience, just as our Savior did.

We believers are to endure unjust suffering with patience, just as our Savior did. It goes on to say in verse 19, for this is a gracious thing. When mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. This is a gracious thing, we are told. What does it mean to endure sorrows while suffering unjustly? Well, first of all, it means enduring suffering that is undeserved. And we can think of many scenarios, hypothetical or real, perhaps. Let us say, for example, that your employer asks you to engage in dishonest business practices and you refuse to do so. And let’s say that your employer doesn’t want to fire you for that, you’re a good employee, but he does say, you know what, I’m not going to give you that promotion. because you wouldn’t engage in this dishonest practice that I’m asking you to engage in.

And obviously, that’s a form of suffering. There are worse forms of suffering than that. Or we think of the secretary whose boss asks her to lie. Someone calls up the office, oh, tell him I’m not here. And the secretary, being a follower of Jesus, don’t bear false witness, says something different, like, well, I’m sorry, he’s not available right now. Why did you tell him I was here? I told you to tell him I’m not here. I can’t lie, or I could lie, but I’m not supposed to lie. I’m a follower of Jesus, and that strains your relationship with your boss. Many other examples could be thought of. So it means enduring sorrows while suffering unjustly and obviously in the context of the first century here and this passage makes it clear that Peter has in mind even more extreme forms of suffering like enduring a beating for not doing that which is evil, enduring a beating unjustly.

So what this means, beloved, first of all, is being willing to endure unjust suffering with patience. It also means bearing suffering without retaliation. Dr. Marshall writes, isn’t Peter’s advice an acquiescence to an evil structure in society or to the commission of crime and injustice? A clue to Peter’s answer might be found if we consider further what it is meant by bearing suffering. This phrase probably means bearing it without retaliation. One can take action against injustice. This is important, listen. He says, one can take action against injustice and unjust structures in society without engaging in personal retaliation. In other words, if your employer is treating you in an unjust way, that doesn’t mean that you have to be a doormat, that you have to just ignore it and pretend it’s not there. You can seek redress for legitimate grievances. but you are not to seek personal vengeance against your employer.

We are not to return evil for evil. Oh friends, how natural it is for us in our fallen sinful condition and in our depravity to return like for like, to return evil for evil, and to demand our pound of flesh when we feel that we are wronged. That comes natural to our sin nature. We want not just justice, we want revenge. But as those who profess to be followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, we are called upon, beloved, to respond to evil differently from the way that the world does. The world and worldly people seek revenge and retaliation when they are wronged. Again, they seek their pound of flesh. He wronged me, so I’m gonna wrong him. But just as our Savior himself returned good for evil, and suffered unjustly on the cross under the hands of godless men, and he suffered unjustly under the hands of ungodly men, that he might satisfy the justice of God against our sins, and in order that he might redeem us from our sins so that we as his followers are to respond to his redeeming love for us with an attitude of gratitude.

And how do we do that? One of the ways that we show our gratitude for what God has done for us in redeeming us through Christ, one of the ways that we do that is by following in our Savior’s footsteps by returning good for evil. Blessing for cursing. We are to bear up patiently under unjust suffering, just as our Savior patiently endured unjust suffering on the cross. And again, this does not mean being a doormat. This does not mean that we ignore injustice or that we may not seek redress for legitimate grievances. But it does mean that we are to bless those who curse us. We are to return good for evil. Again, as Marshall points out, This does not mean that we are passive, but it does mean that we should avoid personal retaliation and vengeance, even as we seek to take steps to address injustices that have been committed against us.

What does it say that our Savior did on the cross? Did he curse those who crucified him? Did he call down fire from heaven? He could have, he’s the Son of God in the flesh, the Son of God incarnate, he could have called legions of angels to come to his defense and to pour out the wrath of God upon those who dared to murder and torture the Son of God. But no, instead, he pleaded for mercy for his tormentors. Brothers and sisters, that is the way that we have been called to. It’s not natural. It’s not something that we can do in our own strength and power. It is only something that we can do as we are animated and motivated by gratitude for God’s amazing gift of love to us in Jesus Christ, his son.

Christ laid down his life for us, though we had offended him, though we had sinned against him, though we had cursed him and done evil to him. He returned the good for evil. He took our sin upon himself and he paid it in full that we might experience his forgiveness. May we, by the grace of God, respond in gratitude by seeking to love others, even our enemies, and to overcome evil with good. Amen. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you, Sovereign Lord, for your word. We thank you that your word challenges us, Lord, that it causes us to dig deeper and to ask how these things are so. We pray, Lord, that we would hear and heed that which the Spirit is speaking to us in this portion of your word. And we pray that you would grant us the grace to put these truths into practice in our lives today.

And Lord, as we face the week ahead, we pray that you would strengthen us so that whatever we face in the week ahead, whether good or ill, that you would guide us, that you would direct us, and that you would journey with us, walk with us, Lord, and help us, Lord, to be in subjection to those authorities that you’ve placed over our lives, out of conscience toward you and as witnesses for Christ. In Jesus’ name we pray and all of God’s people said, amen. Speaking of Christ’s sufferings for us, as we close our time this evening of worship, let’s rise and reflect upon the sufferings of our Savior by singing together 342, stricken, smitten, and afflicted. 342.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

April 28, 2024
Subjection to Authorities, Part 2

About this sermon

1. We are to submit to and honor governing authorities by our attitude.
2. We are to submit to and honor governing authorities by our actions.

More sermons from 1 Peter · Browse all sermons

Sermon transcript

Let’s remain standing for the reading of God’s Word. This evening we continue to consider 1 Peter 2, verses 11-17. You’ll find that on page 1204 in your Pew Bible if you’d like to follow along. Page 1204, 1 Peter 2, verses 11-17. Dear friends, again, remember Peter is addressing a group of first century Christians facing possible persecution for their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. So let us hear God’s holy word. Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil, and to praise those who do good.

For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. Honor everyone, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the emperor. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Please join me in your hearts as we pray for the Lord’s blessing upon the preaching of His word. Our Lord and Father in heaven, We pray that by your spirit you would cause us to behold wondrous things from your word this evening. We ask, Lord, that you would open our minds and our hearts. We ask, O Lord, that you would give us insight as we consider this portion of your word.

And we pray, Lord, once again, that you would set a guard over my lips, that I might speak only that which is faithful to your word, edifying to your people, and glorifying to your holy name. Heavenly Father, be with us now, and be present, Lord Jesus, in the proclamation of your word this evening. We pray these things in your name, and all of God’s people said, amen. You may be seated. This is the second Lord’s Day evening that we find ourselves in this particular passage of 1 Peter as we continue to work our way through this marvelous portion of scripture known as 1 Peter. The title of my sermon tonight is Subjection to Authorities. This is part two, and there’s just three words for the children to be listening for in my sermon this evening, and those words are authorities, attitude, and honor.

Authorities, attitude, and honor. and honor. Well, dear ones, on a recent Lord’s Day evening, as I mentioned, we began to consider this passage from the Apostle Peter’s first epistle. And we began to consider what this passage teaches us as followers of the Lord Jesus Christ when it comes to our responsibilities to human authorities, such as, for example, the civil governing authorities. The Bible has important things to say about how we are to relate to the world, and in particular, how we are to relate to those whom God has placed over us in positions of temporal authority. Now as we approach our text once again for this evening, it’s important to remember that this passage from God’s Word focuses on general truths and general principles that apply to us as believers under ordinary providential circumstances. That is to say, friends, in this passage, it’s important to understand that in this passage, Peter doesn’t delve into possible exceptions or exceptional circumstances when it comes to the way that we as believers are to relate to the governing authorities.

And so, for example, in this passage, Peter does not address the question of what we believers should do when the civil government and those with civil powers actually command us to sin, when they command the church to sin by either disobeying God’s laws or by neglecting to fulfill the church’s divine call and commission to preach the gospel and to worship God in accordance with His word. And perhaps one of the reasons why Peter did not feel the need to get into such exceptional circumstances is that Peter himself actually had already demonstrated the correct stance to take under such exceptional circumstances. You may recall, beloved, that in the early chapters of the book of Acts, when the Jewish authorities in Jerusalem had commanded Peter and the rest of the apostles not to preach or teach about Jesus or the resurrection, How did the apostles respond to that injunction, that command from the authorities, the Jewish authorities?

Well, the apostles had refused to obey this command and had continued to preach the gospel in the temple precincts. And so when the apostles were once again brought before the Jewish council and confronted for disobeying the council’s command not to preach or teach the gospel, Peter responded with those well-known and oft-quoted words that are recorded in Acts 5, verse 9. I think you probably, probably some of you could quote the words, we must obey what? We must obey God rather than man. we must obey God rather than man. In fact, let’s go and look at briefly the fuller context there. Let’s turn to Acts 5 and let me just read quickly verses 26 to 32 to give you the context of what I just have been referring to here. In Acts 5, beginning at verse 26, It says this, now Peter and the apostles, they go right back out and they’re preaching the gospel in the temple precincts and it says this, And when they had brought them, then they set them before the council.

And the high priest questioned them, saying, We strictly charged you not to teach in this name. Yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching, and you intend to bring this man’s blood upon us. But Peter and the apostles answered. Notice Peter’s mentioned first because he tended to be the spokesman for the other apostles. Peter and the apostles answered, we must obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised Jesus whom you killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him at his right hand as leader and savior to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are witnesses to these things and so is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey Him. And so friends, what we learn from passages like this one is that when obeying human authorities like the civil government would mean disobeying God, well then obviously we must obey the highest authority.

Namely, we must obey God rather than man when the two authorities are in conflict with one another. When there is a conflict between what God commands on the one hand and what man commands on the other hand, we must always obey God rather than man. But friends, in most circumstances where there is not a conflict between the moral laws of God and the civil laws of man, we must do as verse 13 of our passage for this evening says, we must be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution.” Now, the last time when we considered the details of this passage, we first of all considered the truth that the main reason why we are to be subject to human governing authorities is because all legitimate authority among men comes from God himself. If there is a valid, legitimate authority out there, it comes from God, whether we’re talking about authority in the home, authority in the church, or authority in the civil sphere, such as the civil magistrates or the governing officials.

The language that Peter uses in this passage implies this truth. For example, as I pointed out on the last sermon I preached in this passage, the Greek word that is translated in verse 13 as institution is a word that indicates a divine creation and therefore something that God himself has appointed. By the language that Peter is using, Peter is implying that these human institutions are ultimately appointed by God in his providence. And based on verses 15 and 16 of this passage, we also consider the truth that being in subjection to legitimate governing authority is part of our Christian witness. We are not called upon in the scriptures to be radicals, to be revolutionaries or insurrectionists. We are not called upon to overthrow the civil order or to be a danger to society. We are called upon to be in subjection to every valid, legitimate human authority.

Look again at verses 15 and 16, Paul writes, for this is the will of God, that by doing good, and let me pause there, in the context of this passage, doing good means being subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, and honoring those whom God has placed in those positions of leadership. So he says, For this is the will of God.” In other words, this is not just my idea, this is not just what I say as a mere man. Peter is making it clear, he speaks with divine authority, this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of of foolish people. Again, remember that one of the issues in the early church, and well, there’s really nothing new under the sun when you think about it, Christians were often slandered by pagans and those outside of the church as, well, they’re a danger to society.

Their beliefs are put in danger, the civil order there. And so, What Peter is saying here is, look, by being in subjection to the every human institution, this will help to put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. It’ll help to silence the slanders that are brought against the church. And then he goes on to say in verse 16, live as people who are free. We are free in Christ. We are free indeed. But that is the freedom to do right. True Christian liberty is the liberty to do right. to, as we sang earlier, to trust and obey. In union with Christ, we trust and obey by the grace of God. And part of that obedience is doing good by being in subjection to every human authority. And so Peter, again, writes in verse 16, live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil.

Don’t use the banner of Christian liberty to excuse your sin or your evil. which again in the context here would include being insubordinate against legitimate governing authority. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. That’s the key. That is how we are to live, not as servants of self. but as servants of God. We are to do so not just in the context of the church, but we are to do so in every sphere of life, including the sphere of how we relate to the governing authorities. Well this evening I want us to dive a bit further into this important subject by considering some of the practical ways that we are to submit to and to honor the governing authorities. As I mentioned before, Peter in this passage lays before us some general principles, but when we compare Scripture with Scripture we get a picture of how that gets fleshed out practically in our day-to-day lives.

And this brings me to the first point in your sermon outline, if you’re following along in that outline. Brothers and sisters, we are to submit to and honor governing authorities, first of all, by our attitude. We are to submit to and honor governing authorities by our attitude. God’s not just concerned about our outward behavior, though that’s important too, but he’s concerned about the attitude. because our attitudes bear fruit in either good or evil deeds. And this is really, when you think about it, in relationship to the civil authorities, this can be a tough call. submit to and honor governing authorities, even in our hearts, even by our attitudes? I mean, let’s be honest, brothers and sisters, as we look out at today’s political context and political arena, doesn’t it appear that corruption abounds and that many, perhaps even the majority, of our governing leaders have highly questionable moral characters?

It would seem that so many of our political leaders today, on whatever side of the political spectrum, many seem to be unethical, narcissistic, power-hungry, self-promoting, immoral creeps. And so, since this seems to be the case, some might say, Pastor Jeff, how can you expect me to have an attitude of respect and an attitude of submissiveness towards such individuals? Well, I agree that it is certainly not natural for us to have an attitude of honor and respect and submission toward individuals whose character appears to be so sleazy and whose official public conduct so often appears to be deeply corrupt. That doesn’t come naturally. It’s a supernatural grace to be able to do that. But let me ask you to consider who the king or emperor was when the apostle Peter wrote this epistle, and whom Peter instructed his first century readers to honor.

Look at verse 13. Peter says, be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, and then he gives examples of these institutions or these governing authorities. He says, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. And by the way, in verse 14, he makes it clear what our governing leaders are supposed to be doing. They are supposed to be punishing those who do evil in order to restrain the criminal element of society and commend or praise those who do good. Sadly, oftentimes it’s the opposite. Sometimes the good are punished, those who do civic good are punished, and those who promote evil are commended. But at least this is what they’re supposed to be doing.

This is what God has appointed them to do, to punish evildoers and to praise or commend those who do right. But notice, did you notice in verse 13, he mentions the emperor. And then at verse 17, in verse 17, the very close of our passage for this evening, Peter writes, honor the emperor. We are to fear God. We’re not to fear with a religious reverence the emperor, but we are to honor the emperor. And obviously, again, he’s speaking to a first century context where there was a Roman emperor. Now, who was this particular emperor when Peter wrote these words? Well, beloved, it is quite possible, perhaps even likely, that the emperor whom Peter had in mind when he told his readers to submit to and honor the king or the emperor was none other than the wicked pagan emperor Nero.

And I know some of you have probably done, you know enough about history to know that Nero was not a good guy. He was not a good guy. If anyone was the moral equivalent of human pond scum, it was emperor Nero. Not only was Nero an idol-worshiping pagan, he was also a fierce persecutor of the church. He hated Christians, he hated Christianity, and he took sadistic delight in brutally torturing and killing Christians in some of the most ghastly and horrifying ways. Dr. R.B. Kuyper, in his church history book entitled The Church in History, offers the following description of Nero’s cruelty. He writes, in the year 64, during the reign of Emperor Nero, fire broke out in Rome. For six days and nights, the fire burned. The greater part of the city was laid in ashes.

The rumor got around that Nero himself had caused the city to be set on fire. This aroused great hatred in the people of Rome against the emperor. To turn this hatred away from himself, Nero accused the Christians of having set fire to Rome. The accusation was certainly not true, but large numbers of Christians were arrested and a terrible persecution followed. Many Christians were even crucified. Some were sewn up in the skins of wild beasts, then big dogs were let loose upon them and they were torn to pieces. Women were tied to mad bulls and dragged to death. After nightfall, Christians were burned at the stake in Nero’s garden. The Roman people, who hated the Christians, were free to come into the garden. And Nero drove around in his chariot, wickedly enjoying the horrible scene. Now friends, as you can see, Emperor Nero was a deeply sick and vile man.

Strong early church tradition indicates that both the apostles, Paul and Peter, were martyred in Rome during Nero’s reign. And yet, and yet, Nero is likely the very emperor that Peter told his readers to submit to and to honor. How counterintuitive can you get? Now beloved, if we believers are to have an attitude of obedience and honor even toward godless rulers as these first century Christians were called upon to have toward their emperor Nero, how wrong it is for us today to imagine ourselves absolved from the obligation to honor and obey even the godless men and women who may be filling positions of authority in our own context today. Now, don’t misunderstand. This does not mean that we are to excuse or ignore their evil or corruption. God certainly doesn’t. And God will, in the end, judge those governing authorities who are evil and corrupt if they do not repent of their evil and corruption.

That was one of the themes of the psalm that we opened our worship service with this evening. But what it does mean, beloved, is that we are to honor them for the Lord’s sake, not because they necessarily deserve it or are worthy of it. None of us is worthy of honor when you think about it. But we are to honor them for the position and the office to which God in his providence, for wise and holy reasons known only to him, has raised them. For remember, all legitimate authority that they exercise and hold ultimately comes from the author with a capital A, the ultimate authority himself, God himself. And so we are to submit to and honor the governing authorities by our attitudes. but we are also beloved to submit to and honor governing authorities by our actions.

You say, well, how do we do that? How do we, in our context today in the 21st century, how do we show an attitude of submission and honor to the governing authorities? Well, first of all, the scriptures urge us to pray for our governing leaders, especially to pray for their salvation. Turn with me, if you would, to 1 Timothy 2. And remember, in 1 Timothy, Paul is reviewing with Pastor Timothy, his son in the faith. Remember, Paul had trained Timothy for the gospel ministry, and he is giving Timothy instruction on how the church, how to conduct himself, how the people of God are to conduct themselves in the household of God, which is the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. And here’s what he says in 1 Timothy 2, verses one through six. He says, first of all then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgiving be made for all people.

Meaning, that doesn’t mean that you pick up the phone book and you pray for every name in the phone book. He’s talking about all kinds of people, people in all kinds of positions, rich and poor, rulers and ruled, and so forth. All kinds and categories of people, as is made clear from the context. He says, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people. And then he lists some of these categories. He says, for kings and all who are in high positions. Why? that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. So praying for our leaders, our governing leaders is beneficial to us. We pray that God would bless them so that we too may be blessed and may be enabled to live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and dignity.

But then he goes on to say in verse three, this is good and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. Now again, in the context of this passage, this is not saying that God has decreed or desires in the sense of, wanting all people to be saved. This is not expressing a universal sentiment here, but he’s talking about all kinds of people, even people in positions of leadership. God has his elect, not only among every tribe, tongue, people, and nation, but he has his elect even among every category and class of people, including among the governing officials. The focus here is on their salvation. This is good. It pleases pleasing in the sight of God, our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

For there is one God and there is one mediator between God and man, man, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all. which is the testimony given at the proper time and so forth. So we are to pray for our governing officials, even for those politicians that you despise or you have trouble honoring and respecting because you disagree with their policies or because you think their character is deeply flawed. They are human beings created in the image of God. They too are sinners who need a savior. So pray for their salvation. That’s the best way that you can honor those that God has raised up in positions of leadership. Pray for their salvation. But secondly, if you ever have an opportunity to speak with a governing official, do so in a courteous, respectful, and polite manner, even if you happen to not like them personally or to disagree with their policies.

Thirdly, obey all legitimate laws and directives of your governing leaders which are not in conflict with God’s moral laws. Even if those human laws and directives are sometimes burdensome, inconvenient, or even ill-conceived and stupid. You might say, You know, let’s say that you’re someone who doesn’t like to wear a seatbelt. You find it uncomfortable. And you say, I should, you know, I should be able to decide, take my own level of safety. The government shouldn’t tell me what to do within the confines of my own car. But of course, I believe if you get pulled over by a cop and you’re not wearing your seatbelt, you can get in trouble for that because you’re supposed to wear your seatbelt, right? Well, even though you might find that personally uncomfortable or inconvenient, wear your seatbelt because the governing authority tells you to.

I know it might seem even a trite example, but it’s important. We’re not just called upon to obey the governing authorities to obey their laws that make sense. We’re called upon to obey their laws, as long as those laws don’t conflict with God’s moral law. We are to obey those laws, even if those laws may seem a little silly to us, and sometimes they are. And fourthly, be a loyal, law-abiding citizen. Show your unbelieving neighbors that you love your nation and your community, and that you are not a radical, nor a revolutionary, nor a danger or a threat to the civil order, but rather you are a peaceful, law-abiding citizen who desires to love your neighbor by seeking the common good. And finally, and you’re gonna love this last piece of advice. Again, I’m basing this on the word of God as we compare scripture with scripture, and I’ll give some scriptural backing to this last piece of advice.

But finally, beloved, are you ready for it? Pay your taxes. Pay the taxes that you owe. Christians ought not to be tax cheats. Now raise your hand if you enjoy paying taxes. Okay, well Mark does, but let’s be honest. None of us really enjoys paying taxes, but God’s word is actually quite clear about our duty in this matter. Dear ones, we are divinely obligated by the word of God to pay our taxes. And Christians who, for example, Christians who are willfully dishonest in their tax returns are guilty of sin and are actually being poor witnesses for Christ. For think about it, what did Christ say while he was on earth? He said, render to Caesar, what? The things that are Caesar’s. Christ himself, the son of God incarnate, when he walked this earth, he himself honored the governing leaders by paying his taxes.

And actually the Bible makes it clear that we are to do this. If you turn to Romans chapter 13 verse seven, the apostle Paul, again comparing scripture with scripture, Paul in speaking in a context, in a passage that deals with submission to the governing authorities, Paul writes in Romans 13 verse seven, pay to all what is owed to them. taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed. You may say, well, pastor, wait a minute. The government today sometimes uses our tax revenue for ungodly ends. Well, they will answer to God for that, but that’s not your problem. Your problem, your issue and my issue is that we are to do what God says. We are to pay our taxes, If our governing leaders abuse the revenue toward wicked ends, they will answer to God for that, not us.

Beloved, like it or not, paying our taxes is a Christian duty, and it’s an act of obedience to God’s word. It is part of what it means to be in subjection to every human institution. By doing this, and by showing ourselves in other ways to be law-abiding citizens, we conduct ourselves with honor among unbelievers, and we silence the ignorance of foolish people by doing good. Dear listeners, let me ask you, have you fallen short in your attitude or in your behavior when it comes to relating properly to the governing authorities? I confess that especially when it comes to the level of attitude, my attitude is not always a godly attitude with respect to the governing authorities. Have you sinned against God by rebelling in your heart or by rebelling through your actions against the ordinance of God in the civil authorities?

Well, the good news is that in his gospel, King Jesus calls upon you to repent of your rebellion. The Lord Jesus Christ came to die on the cross for rebellious insubordinate sinners, just like me and just like you. By his obedient life, he merited a perfect righteousness for those who trust in him. By his death, he fully atoned for all of the sins of all of his people, offering an atonement of infinite value. By his resurrection from the dead, Christ’s saving work was vindicated. He ascended into heaven and He now reigns at the Father’s right hand. And He reigns as King of kings and Lord of lords. One day He will return in glory to judge the living and the dead. Through the gospel, he offers full and free forgiveness to all who embrace him by faith as their very own Lord and Savior, even toward those who have been insubordinate in their attitudes or actions toward the human institution, toward the governing authorities.

So there is hope. for those who’ve sinned with respect to what we’re considering this evening. Dear ones, bow your neck under the gentle yoke of King Jesus, receiving him by faith, and then show your gratitude for his wonderful grace and salvation by seeking to live in a faith-filled subjection to every legitimate human authority. And do so not just because it’s a good idea and it’ll keep you out of trouble hopefully, but do so as Peter says, rather as the Holy Spirit through Peter says, do so for the Lord’s sake. Again, 1 Peter 2.13, be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, amen. Let us pray. Our gracious Lord and Father in heaven, We thank you, Lord God, that you are the ultimate authority, and that you, oh God, are a perfect judge, a perfect king.

But Lord, we recognize that you also have raised up human authorities, imperfect though they be, they are ordained and set up by you, and we are to relate to them with respect and honor. Lord, give us the grace to put to silence the ignorance of foolish people by seeking to do good, by seeking to live lives of faithful discipleship to the Lord Jesus Christ and subjection to the governing authorities. We pray, Heavenly Father, all of these things in Jesus’ name and all of God’s people said, Amen. In closing, let’s rise and sing as our closing hymn, number 278, O Christ our King, Creator, Lord, 279.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

April 21, 2024
Subjection to Authorities

About this sermon

Christians hold dual citizenship: their true home is in heaven, and for now they live under earthly governments. Peter urges believers, as sojourners and exiles, to keep their conduct honorable among unbelievers and to submit for the Lord’s sake to every human institution. God himself establishes civil authority, and good citizenship silences the ignorance of foolish critics. Christians answer hostility by returning good for evil, loving their enemies, and honoring everyone.

More sermons from 1 Peter · Browse all sermons

Sermon transcript

of 1 Peter. My sermon text this evening is 1 Peter 2, verses 11-17. I’m going to begin reading at verse 9 to fill out the context there. And I’m also going to be reading a supporting text from Romans 13. But let us hear God’s holy word, 1 Peter 2, verses 11-17. I’m going to begin reading at verse 9. You’ll find that on page 1204 in your Pew Bible. Dear friends, hear the Word of God. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.

Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. For this is the will of God that by doing good, you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a coverup for evil, but living as servants of God. Honor everyone, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the emperor. And then if you would turn to Romans 13, I just want to read the first seven verses of Romans chapter 13.

As the apostle Paul in this passage gives similar expression to what Peter teaches in the passage I just read. Let us hear once again God’s word. Romans 13, Let every person be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval. For he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger, who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer.

Therefore, one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath, but also for the sake of conscience. For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God attending to this very thing. Pay to all what is owed to them, taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Let’s pray. Heavenly Father, once again we pray that by your Spirit you would open our minds and hearts to behold wondrous things from your Word and that your Word would find a lodging place in our souls. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen. You may be seated. Title of my sermon this evening is Subjection to Authorities, and there’s five key words, sorry, six key words to listen for.

Authority, citizen, respect, honor, witness, and government. Well, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ, in Philippians 3, verses 20 and 21, the apostle Paul tells us that, and I quote, our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. because our ultimate citizenship. as followers of Jesus is a heavenly citizenship. In this present age, we are sojourners, pilgrims, and exiles with respect to this fallen, sin-cursed world. As the Holy Spirit through the Apostle Peter teaches us here in 1 Peter, as he says in verse 11, beloved, I urge you as what? As sojourners and exiles to be abstained from the passions of the flesh and so forth.

However, friends, in this present age, we are also citizens of an earthly nation, and therefore we are subject to human governments and to civil authorities. Whether we like it or not, that is in fact the reality. And friends, in this present age of redemptive history, in this age between our Lord’s 1st and 2nd Advents, we are in a very real sense dual citizens. Our ultimate spiritual citizenship being in the glory realm of heaven. but also sharing with our unbelieving neighbors an earthly citizenship in an earthly nation and subject to the secular civil authorities. And since this is the case, it raises some very important and pressing questions for the conscientious believer. Questions such as, for example, as followers of Jesus Christ, how do we balance our responsibilities as dual citizens? And in particular, how are we to relate to the earthly governments to which God and his providence has made us subject?

What is to be the Christian’s basic posture and attitude towards the civil authorities? And as Christian citizens, what are our responsibilities to the civil authorities to which God has made us subject? Well, dear ones, in our passage for this Lord’s Day evening, the Apostle Peter addresses these kinds of matters. And in the process, he lays before us our responsibilities as believers in relationship to the civil authorities. Now, remember the context of 1 Peter in general. Remember the Apostle Peter in this letter is writing to a group of Christians who faced severe persecution for their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And it seems that he is writing to mostly Gentile Christians, Christians who have been converted to Christ from a pagan idol-worshiping background, and they’ve been converted to Christ, but now they are facing pressure and potential, if not actual persecution, for their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so Peter is writing this epistle to fortify and to strengthen these believers. And the first thing, as we’ve noticed earlier on in this letter, Peter begins in his attempt to encourage and fortify these believers, he reminds them of the blessings, the spiritual and saving blessings that they have received in Christ. He also reminds them of their identity in Christ. But here he gets down to some practical application, if you will, as he seeks to give them instruction in terms of living godly lives in the midst of a hostile, ungodly environment. Now in the immediate context of our passage for this Lord’s Day evening, as we seek to connect verse 13 with verse 12, I think it can be inferred that perhaps one of the ways that the pagan neighbors of Peter’s original readers tried to slander them as evildoers was by accusing them of being insubordinate to the governing authorities in Rome.

Again, back in verse 12, Peter writes, and we covered this last Lord’s Day evening, but just by way of review, Peter writes, keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable. He’s using the term Gentiles there as a term to indicate unbelievers. And he’s saying, conduct yourselves honorably, or in an excellent way, as the New American Standard Version puts it. amongst the Gentiles. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable so that when they do what? When they speak against you as evildoers. The assumption is that unbelievers will have a tendency to want to badmouth and speak evil against followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. So that when they speak against you as evildoers, They may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.” And then immediately after giving this general exhortation, Peter gets specific, and he gets specific about how to live honorable lives. in the presence of the Gentiles, in the presence of unbelieving neighbors.

He says, be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution and the context makes it clear he is thinking in this context specifically of the institutions of civil government. For he says, whether it be to the emperor as supreme or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and praise those who do good. See, friends, in the days of the early church, the early Christians were often slandered as troublemakers. They had some strange customs and beliefs. You know, put yourself in the shoes or the sandals, if you will, of the pagan unbeliever in the first century. And from a pagan perspective, the Christians believed some wild things and there were lots of suspicions about what do these Christians actually believe and what do they do behind closed doors? They call each other brothers and sisters.

Are they incestuous? I mean, are they immoral? They talk about celebrating this ritual meal. where they eat the body and blood of Christ? Are they cannibals? There were all kinds of suspicions. And one of the suspicions had to do with the Christians’ unwillingness to worship the emperor. Christians, as we see, are exhorted to be law-abiding and good citizens, but they refused to worship the Caesar. And in the eyes of the pagan Romans, that was viewed as an act of, that was basically, you weren’t patriotic. You weren’t being a loyal citizen of Rome if you weren’t willing to offer that pinch of incense to Caesar. And so the early Christians were often slandered as troublemakers, as threats to civil order and decency, as antisocial and so forth. Sound familiar? There’s really nothing new under the sun when you think about it.

And so Peter is urging his readers as the Holy Spirit through Peter is urging us to live in such a way that such slanders from the pagans and unbelievers in the midst of which we live will be shown to be baseless and without foundation. So this evening we consider some of the reasons why we are to submit to and to honor all legitimate governing authorities. And I’m going to say right out of the gate that Tonight we’re gonna be dealing with general principles. We’re not gonna get into some of the specifics or some of the perhaps exceptions. For example, is it ever right to engage in civil disobedience? Is it ever proper for a Christian to engage even in a political revolution under certain circumstances? These are not the kinds of questions we’re gonna be dealing with this evening.

We’re gonna be covering general principles here and the general posture that we as believers are to have towards the governing authorities. And the first point that Peter makes right out of the gate here is that all legitimate governing authority comes from God. All legitimate governing authority comes from God. Peter writes in verses 13 and 14, he says, be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme. It’s interesting that at this time, do you know who the emperor was? Very likely Emperor Nero, and Nero was not a nice guy. He wasn’t a good leader, but nevertheless, Peter says, be in subjection to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme or to governors, as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good.

And then skipping down to verse 17, he says, honor everyone, love the brotherhood, that’s the Christian brotherhood, fear God. We are not to fear man, we’re not to fear the emperor, we’re to fear God only. But then he goes on to say, honor the emperor. Beloved, we are to be in subjection to the governing authorities, to every human institution, as verse 13 says. Why? for the Lord’s sake. He says be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution. Not because the governing authorities always do things right or because the governing authorities are not corrupt, that they’re pure and incorruptible and so forth. No, he says for the Lord’s sake. Now the word Lord here in this passage, kourion in the Greek, could be referring either to the Lord Jesus which is how the word Lord or kurios in the Greek is most often used in the New Testament, or perhaps it could in this context be referring to God the Father as the Lord Creator.

But whichever particular person of the Godhead Peter specifically has in mind when he wrote this, the fact is that Jesus Christ is himself revealed to be Lord and God. In fact, in Revelation 19, verse 16, Jesus is described as king of what? King of kings and Lord of lords. So Jesus is indeed Lord. He is the ultimate divine messianic king, the anointed of the Lord. Beloved, we are to submit to and to honor all governing authorities to which we are subject because the Bible teaches that all legitimate authority ultimately originates from God Himself. In fact, the word that is translated here in the ESV as institution or authority as the NIV, for example, translates it, it’s an interesting word. In the Greek, the word is katise. And according to Bible scholar Norman Hillier, this word in secular Greek refers to the human founding of something, whether it be a city, a sect, the games, an altar.

Biblical Greek, however, uses katisis to mean the divine creation. Peter’s implication here is therefore that God, not humanity, is behind the setting up of civil authorities. They are for the regulation of social life, as God intends, and this is reflected in the reason Peter adds, submission is for the Lord’s sake. Dr. I. Howard Marshall, whom I have been quoting from often, I find his commentary very helpful. Dr. Marshall says that this word, quote, may refer to a created object or to the creation or founding of something. Most commentators adopt the former sense and understand it to refer to created entities in accordance with the position which God has given them. Thus, the position of a ruler is something that God has appointed.” Now friends, I belabor this point here because we need to understand that human government does not ultimately have a human origin.

Civil authority is not something that clever would-be politicians at the very beginning of human history invented for the sake of their own self-interest. No, beloved, civil authority was instituted by God himself after the fall of man into sin. In fact, it was necessitated by mankind’s fall into sin. And it was instituted by God for a number of purposes. For example, for the purposes of restraining human evil and making our fallen, sin-cursed world at least a somewhat livable place. We see sometimes throughout history and we see in some places today what happens when civil order breaks down. Think for example of what you’ve been reading in the news and hearing in the news about Haiti. As an example of what happens when civil order breaks down, consider what is currently going on in Haiti where there are lawless street gangs and there’s violence and there’s disorder and chaos.

That’s the, without a civil authority to restrain human evil and to impose some kind of social order, there is nothing but chaos and it becomes the closest thing to hell on earth as possible outside of war itself. Human sin in its social manifestation as criminal behavior made it necessary for God to institute civil authority in order to put strict restraints upon natural human depravity. And therefore, we are to submit to the civil authorities because God has instituted them. And when they are performing their legitimate functions, the civil authorities are acting according to God’s authority. In other words, legitimate civil authority is backed up by the very authority of God himself. The apostle Paul makes this point in that passage that I read earlier from Romans 13. If you look at Romans 13, verse two, what does Paul say there?

Well, he says this, therefore, Let me start at verse 1. He says, Our Confession of Faith makes this clear as well. If you turn to Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 23, section 1, I’m going to read from that. That’s on page 933 in the back of your Psalter hymnal, 933. Our Confession of Faith says this. Chapter 23 is the chapter on the civil magistrate. Section 1 gives this Bible-based summary of our reformed doctrine of the civil magistrate. It says this. God, the Supreme Lord and King of all the world, hath ordained civil magistrates to be under him over the people for his own glory and the public good. And to this end, hath armed them with the power of the sword for the defense and encouragement of them that are good and for the punishment of evil doers.

Dear ones, out of respect for God’s authority, let us seek to honor and submit to every human institution. But that’s not the only reason why we are to be in subjection to the governing authority. That’s a primary reason, a fundamental reason, because all legitimate authority comes from God himself. But another thing we learn in this passage is that subjection to governing authority is closely tied to our Christian witness. And that’s the second point on your sermon outline. Subjection, let’s consider subjection to governing authority and our Christian witness. It says in verse 15 and 16, for this is the will of God that by doing good, you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. And in the context here, Peter no doubt has in mind foolish people. In other words, those who have rejected the gospel, those who are described in verse 12 as the Gentiles, those who speak against believers in ignorance as evildoers, It says, verse 15, for this is the will of God, that by doing good, you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people.

And then he goes on to say, live as people who are free. Indeed, we are free in Christ, free from sin and death and hell. However, the temptation is to use our freedom as an excuse for evil. Let us sin that grace may abound, Paul would say, God forbid. It says in verse 16, live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a coverup for evil, but living as servants of God. Friends, our Christian liberty, our freedom in Christ frees us to live lives of grateful obedience to the Lord. We are not freed to sin, we are freed from sin that we might live our lives for the glory of God. faithful obedience out of gratitude for God’s gift of salvation to us. Besides the fact that God is the one who instituted every legitimate civil authority, there is, again, this other reason why we believers should submit to and honor every legitimate institution of human authority.

Again, as I pointed out in verse 12, we are told to conduct ourselves with honor among the Gentiles, in other words, among unbelievers. And here in verse 15, we are told that it is God’s will that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. One of the ways, beloved, that we conduct ourselves honorably among unbelievers and put to silence the ignorance of foolish people who oppose the gospel is by showing ourselves to be loyal and obedient citizens. We are called to be peaceful, law-abiding citizens. We’re not to be revolutionaries or threats to the civil order. We are to be a peaceable people. That does not mean that we should never criticize our governing authorities when they behave in godless ways or when they seek to enact godless policies. But we should have an attitude of humility. and we should have a posture of submissiveness and humility before the civil authorities, even pagan civil authorities.

That is to be our general posture. Beloved, consider these comments once again on this matter by Dr. Marshall. He says, Christians are often the target of attacks that take advantage of any way in which they fall below the perceived or ideal standards of the community. Therefore, they must disarm all such criticism by going out of their way to be law-abiding and to fulfill the responsibilities of their various stations in life. But the motivation goes deeper than mere desire for self-preservation. It has a theological basis. Obedience must be rendered for the sake of the Lord, who has appointed the authorities to carry out His will. Once again, beloved, throughout Church history, the enemies of Christ and of His Church have often accused believers of engaging in antisocial and even criminal behavior. Christians have sometimes been painted as enemies of the state because of their confession, their open confession of the Lordship of Christ.

Because the first century Christians lived in the context of a pagan society that was often eager to find reasons to accuse them of being disloyal or even subversive subjects of Rome, Peter urges his readers to do everything that they can to demonstrate to their pagan neighbors that they were in reality loyal and responsible and obedient citizens who observed legitimate social norms and who respected human government when it is exercised in a legitimate fashion. That does not mean that Christians are to obey the government even when the government tells us to disobey God or when the government tells us you can’t worship God according to his word or you can’t preach the gospel. Certainly we must obey God rather than men. But the general principle is that is one of submission. And so Peter urges his readers to do everything they can to demonstrate their faithfulness.

Such honorable conduct among unbelievers and such respect for the civil order is a positive witness for Christ, a witness that can silence the slanders of hostile unbelievers and can even remove stumbling blocks that get in the way of unbelievers giving the gospel a fair hearing. There’s a lot of false information and slanders out there against Christians today. Well, there’s nothing new under the sun. There was back in the days of the first century as well. Dear ones, we find ourselves, do we not, living in a cultural and political context where there seems to be increasing hostility against biblical Christianity and biblically grounded Christians. A growing anti-Christian bigotry seems to pervade our contemporary culture and its institutions. In response to this, let us not, by a poor witness, add fuel to the fire of our culture’s anti-Christian prejudice.

Let’s not give the unbelievers fuel to fire their bigotry and prejudice against the gospel. Instead, by the grace of God, and out of gratitude for God’s gift of salvation to us, let us do everything in our power not to give the pagans of our own day more fuel for the fire of their anti-Christian bigotry. Instead, let us graciously but zealously disarm the hostile prejudice of today’s God-haters. I’m in, Pastor Jeff. How do we do that? How do we get back at the God-haters? How do we push back? I’ll tell you how we push back. We push back by returning good for evil. We push back by loving our enemies. Remember, you were an enemy of Christ, but he loved you. The father loved you and sent his son to die for you when you were yet an enemy of God.

So we are to love our enemies. We push back against the prejudice of the God-haters by living lives that demonstrate the fruit of the Holy Spirit. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness. and self-control, not by being keyboard warriors on social media, blasting the godless in our culture. We overcome the hostile prejudice of today’s God-haters by seeking the greatest good of others, even our enemies, by praying for them, by showing them the love of Christ. For Christ loved us when we were unworthy, undeserving, and we are called to imitate him by loving the unworthy ourselves. As the Spirit through Peter here instructs us, we also push back by showing ourselves to be loyal and faithful citizens, by honoring and obeying our governing authorities when they exercise their legitimate God-ordained functions. And so friends, let us, as Peter says here, as the Holy Spirit through Peter says here, let us be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, for the glory of God, for our witness, for Christ, and for the good of our neighbor, out of love for our neighbor.

Amen, let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you, sovereign and eternal God, While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. We thank you that you loved us when we were unworthy, undeserving. Lord, you call us to love our enemies even as you loved us when we were your enemies. And so help us, Lord, in these divided and hostile times. Help us to be a light for Christ in the way we conduct ourselves before others, especially before unbelievers. And help us, Lord, to be faithful, to be in subjection to all legitimate God-ordained authority as a witness for you and for the glory of your name. In Jesus’ name we pray and all of God’s people said. Oh, man.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

April 7, 2024
Living as Sojourners and Exiles, Part 2

About this sermon

1. Silence the slander of sinners by your sanctity (v. 12).
2. Goad the godless to glorify God by your good deeds (v. 12).

More sermons from 1 Peter · Browse all sermons

Sermon transcript

Dear ones, please remain standing for the reading of God’s Word. We continue our consideration of 1 Peter, the Apostle Peter’s first epistle. And again, this evening we are in 1 Peter 2, verses 11 and 12. I’m going to begin reading at verse nine to fill out the context a little bit, but our focus tonight will especially be on verses 11 and 12. 1 Peter 2, verses 11 and 12, you’ll find that on page 1204 in your Pew Bibles. So let us hear God’s holy word. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Let’s pray for the Lord to bless the proclamation of his word. Our gracious Lord and Father in heaven, we would ask once again that by your spirit, you would cause our attention to focus on this portion of scripture. We pray that you would open our minds and our hearts to behold wondrous things from your word. Once again, we would ask that you would set a guard over my lips, enable me to speak only that which is faithful and edifying and true to your word.

And we would pray, Lord Jesus, that you would be present this evening in the proclamation of your word, and that by your spirit you would cause your word to find a lodging place in our souls. We ask these things, heavenly Father, in Jesus’ name, and all of God’s people said, amen. You may be seated. If you’re following along in your sermon outline, you’ll notice five words, actually, I’m sorry, six words to be listening for, the words honorable, slander, witness, visitation, glorify, and works. Well, dear ones, our passage for this Lord’s Day evening represents a new section of the epistle of 1 Peter, a section which basically stretches from chapter 2, verse 11, all the way through chapter 3, verse 12. Now remember that in this epistle, Peter has been seeking to encourage and to fortify Christians and Christian churches which face the prospect of severe persecution for their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so he’s seeking to build them up, he’s seeking to encourage them, and he’s also seeking to instruct them about how they are to go about living godly lives in the midst of an ungodly and hostile world. And up until this point in his letter, the Apostle Peter has focused mostly on reminding these believers of the spiritual privileges and the saving blessings that they have received in Christ. And he also reminds them of their identity as the church of our Lord Jesus Christ. My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, one aspect of our identity in Christ is that we are sojourners and exiles, or translated in slightly different ways in other translations. Some translations say we are pilgrims or sojourners and pilgrims, aliens and strangers, and so forth. But we are sojourners and exiles. In other words, we are outsiders in relationship to this present evil world.

Starting in verse 11 of our passage for this evening, Peter begins to flesh out the implications of our identity as sojourners and exiles in this present evil age. And here Peter turns from focusing on his reader’s identity to providing them with instructions for godly living in the midst of a hostile, ungodly setting. And although Peter continues to keep our Christian identity close at hand, he begins to draw out the practical implications of our identity in Christ and how that identity should impact the way that we live our daily lives in the midst of an unbelieving world. And in verse, as we considered on the last Lord’s Day evening from verse 11, as sojourners and exiles, we believers are to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against the soul. Some translations like, for example, the New International Version translates passions of the flesh more interpretively as sinful desires.

That’s what the passions of the flesh that Peter is referring to are. They are our sinful desires. And by the way, this implies that we Christians, even after we are born again, we continue to have sinful desires. And what are we to do with these sinful desires? Well, we are to continue to put them to death, we are to repent of them, we are to mortify them, and we are to abstain from indulging them. They’re still there, and we pray against them. We pray that the Lord would replace those sinful desires with ever-increasing desires for holiness and righteousness. But we are to avoid indulging our sinful desires. And one major key to living a godly life in the midst of an ungodly world, as those united to Jesus Christ, is first of all to put to death our own sinful desires and inclinations. that which is described by Peter as the passions of the flesh.

Well, that brings us to the second part of our passage, verse 12, which we’ll be especially focusing on this evening. So let’s look at verse 12. In that passage, in that verse, we read these words. Peter says, keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, or as the New American Standard Version puts it, keep your behavior excellent, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. What do we learn from this passage? Well first of all, beloved, we learn that we are to silence the slander of sinners by our sanctity. Silence the slander of sinners, hostile sinners, those who want to paint you and me as Christians as evildoers. silence their slander by a life of sanctity, by honorable conduct. You see, one of the twofold purpose of a godly life, which is mentioned by Peter here, is the silencing of the slander of hostile unbelievers.

One of the realities of living as a Christian in this fallen world is that sometimes we will have to put up with unjust and slanderous criticisms from the godless and unbelieving. That’s just a fact of life. And God doesn’t promise us that this life will be, you know, comfy and cushy and easy. We will face opposition. We will face persecution. We will face hostility from those who are haters of God and haters of His Word. Now, of course, it really shouldn’t surprise us when unbelievers slander and mudsling us with false and uncharitable accusations and with attempts to paint us out as evildoers. That shouldn’t surprise us. After all, why do you think that our Savior was crucified? From a human standpoint, Jesus of Nazareth was the most kind, compassionate man. He healed the sick. He raised the dead.

He cast out demons. He multiplied loaves and fishes. He showed kindness to those who knew their need and came to him for healing and mercy. and yet he was crucified. Why do you think our Savior was crucified? At least in terms of the human circumstances surrounding his death. We know from God’s Word what the divine plan was. It was God’s sovereign decree and will that Christ go to the cross to die for our sins. We know that from the divine perspective. But what historical earthly circumstances did our sovereign God use to lead Christ to the cross. Well, friends, our Savior was crucified on the basis of false accusations. And as His followers, we should not expect to be treated any differently by the unbelieving world. We should not be surprised when those outside of the church and those outside of saving relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ paint us unfairly and slander us and mudsling at us.

Again, that doesn’t mean that we are just to sit back like doormats and take it however. No, far from it. You say, well, wait a minute, are you saying, Pastor, that we are supposed to return evil for evil? That we are to, when people curse us, that we are to curse in return? No, that’s not at all what I am suggesting. But I believe, beloved, that our passage for this evening lays before us a holy aggressiveness that we are to engage in, in replying to, in responding to the slanders of evildoers. You see, how is it that we as believers are to approach overcoming this slander from the wicked? How is it that we are to silence the slander of the godless? By living honorable lives, lives of integrity, goodness, love of neighbor, lives that abound in what Peter describes in verse 12 as good deeds.

Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable or excellent, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, They may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. That’s far from being a doormat. That’s far from being passive when we face the slander of the wicked. Instead of returning evil for evil, or instead of just sitting back and taking it, we reply to evil by doing active good. Not to gain salvation, of course, salvation is by grace, not by works, through faith in Christ alone, but out of gratitude for God’s gift of salvation, and out of a desire to be a faithful witness for Christ in the midst of this hostile, evil world. In the words of another apostle, the apostle Paul, in Romans 12, verse 21, Paul writes, do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with what?

Good. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Don’t use the tactics of the devil to fight the devil. It won’t work. That’s not how it goes. Beloved, we should have it as our goal to live such consistently godly lives that the slander of the godless will be shown to be false and empty. As Dr. Simon Kistemacher puts it in his commentary, he writes, Christians should strive for such exemplary conduct that slanderous accusations of unbelievers remain groundless. It is grievous when unbelievers have grounds for speaking evil against us. When we are engaged as professing Christians in evil behavior and the wicked call us out for it, that’s a shameful thing. But when they call us out and seek to paint us as evildoers, when we’re simply seeking to live honorable, godly lives in obedience to Christ and out of love for neighbor, then their slanders will be shown to be groundless.

Now notice how Peter words this exhortation here in verse 12. He says his focus here in this verse is on our conduct, our outward conduct, how we comport ourselves, how we behave out there in public. And certainly the Word of God has much to say about the attitudes of our hearts and so forth, but here the focus is on outward conduct, keep your conduct among the Gentiles. Who are these Gentiles that he is speaking about? Isn’t Peter writing to a group of Gentile Christians? Well, yes, the original recipients, the original readers of 1 Peter were mostly Gentile Christians, believers who had been converted to Christ from a pagan background. Well, then what does Peter mean when he’s referring to the Gentiles? keeping your conduct among the Gentiles honorable. Well, the Greek term here for Gentiles is ethnesin, and it can also be translated as nations.

It’s the word from which we derive the English word ethnic. And I think it’s very telling that Peter is using this terminology here to describe, he’s using it as a general term for unbelievers, for those outside of the covenant people of God. In Old Testament times, if you lived under the Old Covenant, you would describe unbelievers, those outside of the covenant people, as Gentiles, non-Jews. And that Peter is using that same language here to describe these unbelievers. And what does that imply? That implies that Peter’s audience, that implies that even Gentile Christians are part of the true Israel of God. A true Jew is not one who is outward, as Paul writes in Romans 2, nor is circumcision a matter of the flesh, but it is of the Spirit. And so, again, Peter is subtly here, I believe, reminding and encouraging these readers to remember their identity as the true Israel of God, the true people of God, those who belong to the spiritual temple, the spiritual house of God, as living stones in union with Jesus Christ, the living stone, as we read back in verse four.

And so he says, keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable. When we are out there in the world rubbing shoulders, if you will, with unbelievers, our attitude should not be, oh well, they’re just lost, they’re just unbelievers, they’re pagans, I don’t have to care about what they think, I don’t have to care about how they evaluate me. You should care, you should care a lot. because you represent Christ, you represent His church. You’ve heard the cliche probably, you’ve heard the cliche that goes, for some people, the only Bible that they will read is you. We are living epistles. We advertise Christ, we either do so in a good way or a not so good way. Friends, this passage helps to speak to the manner of our Christian witness. The focus of this passage is on our Christian witness to unbelievers, especially to unbelievers who are inclined to be proactive in their hostility against the church.

There is a general hostility among all unbelievers toward the people of God, but in most cases, it’s a hostility of indifference. but there is a hostility that comes to the surface in acts of actual persecution and active hostility. How are we to behave in such circumstances? How is it that we believers are to respond to the slander and hostility of unbelievers? And sometimes that can be very upsetting when we hear what the hostile world says about us as the church and about us as believers, and it makes us angry. How are we to respond to such slander, knowing that it is unjust and unjustified? Are we to respond by pushing back? Are we to respond by returning slander for slander, evil for evil, cursing for cursing? You say, well, no, we’re supposed to return good for evil, but what does that look like?

Does that mean, for example, that instead of cursing back, that we are to respond by giving them an evangelistic sales pitch, or maybe handing them a gospel tract and talking some theology with them? There are certainly appropriate occasions for sharing the gospel with others. but usually when you’re dealing with someone who’s hostile to the church and hostile to the gospel, getting preachy doesn’t work. And again, there are appropriate occasions for passing along gospel tracts, good Christian literature, but notice Peter doesn’t say, hey, when the unbeliever slanders you, preach the gospel to them or give them some good Christian literature. One of the things that I would challenge you as you read, especially as you read the epistles in the New Testament, note how many times the epistles tell us as Christians that we are to go out and actively evangelize.

Certainly we as the church, corporate, are an evangelistic witness for Christ. We are, and the church is, to send out those who will preach the gospel. But the main focus of our Christian witness, as revealed in the New Testament as the people of God, is our behavior, our conduct, how we behave. And so we respond to this hostility not by returning tit for tat, not by pushing back or slandering in return for slander, nor by simply preaching. Rather, friends, from what the Spirit reveals in this passage, one of our chief means of silencing the slander of hostile sinners is through our behavior. through honorable conduct. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable. Or again, as the New American Standard Version puts it, excellent, speaking there to excellent behavior. And this is convicting to me. Is my behavior, is my conduct among unbelievers, is it really honorable?

Is it really excellent? Believer, can this be said about you? By the grace of God and in reliance upon the indwelling spirit of God, are you seeking to live a life of such meticulous integrity, a life so full of good works and overflowing with charity and kindness that even your unbelieving family members, even your unbelieving neighbors and coworkers would not be able to bring a just charge against you, even if they wanted to. You say, well, pastor, I have to admit, I don’t always conduct myself well before unbelievers. And by the way, this doesn’t just mean your conduct necessarily out there in face-to-face relationships with neighbors, coworkers, and so forth. This can also include the way that you conduct yourself online. How do you conduct yourself on social media? How do you interact with other believers, and especially how do you interact with unbelievers, hostile unbelievers on the internet?

I have to share with you, and I say this as one who has not always conducted myself perfectly in that sphere, that certainly there are some grievous examples of how Christians do not engage in honorable conduct in their engagement on social media, and that’s very sad, and it’s a very poor witness for Christ. Well, what are we to do in response? If you say, Pastor, I have to admit, I don’t always conduct myself honorably before unbelievers. I’m not always one who is characterized by excellent behavior. What are you to do? Well, confess your failures to the Lord in repentance, Confess your failures in repentance before your gracious Heavenly Father and plead with Him to bear the fruit of His Holy Spirit in and through you with all love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

And be willing to swallow your pride even before unbelievers and say, you know what, I’m sorry, I messed up. I should not have spoken in this way or written in this way. I have not conducted myself honorably and I ask your forgiveness. That in itself can be a powerful witness. One of the ways that we can witness to the grace of Christ before unbelievers is to show our unbelieving family members, friends, neighbors, coworkers, a spirit of humility, a spirit that’s willing to admit it and own up when we mess up. That spirit is so rare today. So often today, especially in our divided culture where people get polarized and dig in their heels to their positions and say, no, I’m not going to apologize. I’m not going to say that I’m wrong. It’s a refreshing, it’s a breath of fresh air to see someone who’s willing to say, yeah, I shouldn’t have written that.

I shouldn’t have made that comment. I did not conduct myself in a manner that revealed the fruit of the Holy Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. I did not manifest the fruit of the Spirit in that interaction, and I’m sorry. May we all seek to obtain and to maintain a blameless reputation before the outside world. And after all, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, remember, we bear the name of Christ before a watching world. We represent Christ, his gospel, and his church before a watching world. We are witnesses for Christ, whether we try to be or not, because we bear his name. And we’re either good witnesses or bad witnesses. And so friends, whether we like it or not, our conduct will reflect upon the reputation of Christ and His church, either for good or for evil.

May our gracious Lord grant that our lives and our conduct in this world will bring praise and honor to the name and reputation of Christ, to His gospel, and to His church, and not shame and dishonor. Brothers and sisters, let us conduct ourselves honorably. Let us not give our Savior a black eye in the eyes of the world. So we are to silence the slander of sinners by living sanctified lives. But next, and this is my final point, goad the godless to glorify God by your good works. Let us goad the godless to glorify God by our good works. Verse 12, keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see what? They may see your good deeds and do what? Glorify God on the day of visitation.

Now what is Peter talking about here? What does he mean when he speaks of glorifying, of these folks glorifying God on the day of visitation? What is this day of visitation? Is Peter here referring to the final judgment day? Is the day when God will visit, come to this earth and visit wrath upon the wicked and visit vindication upon his elect people? Is that what it’s referring to? Is Peter referring to the final judgment day when all will bow the knee and confess Jesus as Lord? Well, perhaps that’s one way to understand this terminology. After all, the scriptures often speak of the judgment day, of God’s judgment as a day of visitation. When the scriptures speak about God visiting people, sometimes God visits people in wrath and judgment. But at other times, we read of God visiting people with mercy and grace.

So what’s the day of visitation that Peter is speaking of here? It could be referring to the final judgment. But friends, I’m more inclined to agree with those scholars who understand Peter here to be talking about the day when God visits the wicked with his saving, converting mercies. After all, what does it say? that we are to conduct ourselves honorably, that those who seek to slander us as evildoers may see our good works and do what? That they may glorify God on the day of visitation. Consider this language, glorifying God. Now there is a sense in which even the wicked will glorify God on judgment day. They will glorify God’s justice because he will visit his righteous and holy wrath upon them. But glorifying God is usually in the scriptures presented as an activity of believers, not of unbelievers.

You know the answer to our first catechism question, what is the chief end of man? Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. That’s an activity, that’s a believing activity. If this interpretation is correct, then what Peter is saying is that our life of good works as believers should make such an impact upon unbelievers, even upon those who slander us and are hostile toward us, that it is used by our sovereign God as an instrument in his hand to goad them on to conversion. But whichever interpretation you think is correct, how important it is for all of us to let our light so shine before men that they may glorify our Father who is in heaven. Again, beloved, keep your conduct among the Gentiles, among the unbelievers, honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds. and glorify God on the day of visitation.

And may God in his mercy grant that he would visit them, even those who are hostile towards his gospel, that he would visit them in grace and mercy and bring them to their knees in true faith and repentance. Do you believe God is powerful enough to do that? He certainly is. He did it with the Apostle Paul, remember? Paul, Saul of Tarsus, breathing fire against the church, a Christ-hater, one who hated Christ and Christ’s people, going out to arrest and persecute the believers, and he was stopped in his tracks. The Lord Jesus revealed his grace to Saul and turned him into the Apostle Paul. The Lord Jesus also restored sinful Peter who had denied Christ three times. God is a powerful God. And God, our sovereign, gracious God, has the power to convert even the worst of sinners and to bring them to faith and repentance.

May God use us and our witness for Christ as an instrument in his hand for the conversion of the wicked. Amen. Let us pray. Our gracious Lord and Father in heaven, we acknowledge before you, Lord, that we fall short in our Christian witness. We do not always conduct ourselves honorably before unbelievers. Forgive us for the times when our witness for Christ is not what it ought to be. We thank you, Lord, for your grace that forgives even a poor witness for Christ. Please empower us to bear faithful testimony to Christ by our holy conduct before a watching world. And use us, O Lord God, as instruments in your hand to bring unbelievers, even those hostile to the faith, to change their hearts that they might repent of their sin and embrace Christ as their very own Lord and Savior.

We pray these things in Jesus’ name and all of God’s people said, amen. And all of this is made possible because of the resurrection victory of Christ our Savior. Let’s rise as we close our time of worship this evening and we’ll sing together 364, alleluia, alleluia, 364.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

March 31, 2024