Category: I Peter

Studies in First Peter Part 15

“²¹For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps, ²²who committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in His mouth; ²³and while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously; ²⁴and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed.  ²⁵For you were continually straying like sheep, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls” (I Peter 2:21-25).

We follow the example of Jesus when we suffer for doing good.  We follow the example of Jesus when we are wrongfully slandered but give no retaliation.  We follow the example of Jesus when we do not return evil for evil.  We follow the example of Jesus when we “entrust ourselves to Him who judges righteously.”

And the greatest suffering that befell our Savior was His death in our place.  When Jesus died, “He bore our sins in His body on the cross.”  This part of verse 24 is very familiar and highlights what Jesus did FOR us; He took away our sins, bearing the punishment for them in His own body.

But there is a second part to verse 24 that is often overlooked.  Look at it carefully.  Jesus’ death in our place not only freed us from the penalty of our sin, but also provided a pathway for us to live free.  His death is the door through which “we might die to sin and live to righteousness.” 

We have the power to say “No” to sin and “Yes” to righteousness through the healing wounds of Jesus.  Our old self died and our new supernatural self – as partakers of the divine nature – became our default mode.  This new life in Christ, Christ living His supernatural life through us, is a miracle of miracles.  And it came to us freely by the grace of God when we believed the gospel message of Jesus Christ.

Christ, through His death in our place on the cross, did something FOR us; freed us from the penalty of our sin.  And He did something TO us; made us a new creation child of God.  And He did something IN us; He came to live His righteous life in us.

Finally, we are no longer straying sheep.  I, for one, am tired of sermons on the stupidity of sheep and their penchant for wandering, etc.  We are obedient sheep.  We are sheep who know our shepherd’s voice.  We are the beloved sheep of His pasture.  We WERE straying sheep.  But we are not that now.  We have found our way home.  We have safely and forever “returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls.”

Studies in First Peter Part 14

“¹⁶Act as free men, and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as servants of God.  ¹⁷Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king.  ¹⁸Servants, be submissive to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and gentle, but also to those who are unreasonable.  ¹⁹For this finds favor, if for the sake of conscience toward God a person bears up under sorrows when suffering unjustly.  ²⁰For what credit is there if, when you sin and are harshly treated, you endure it with patience?  But if when you do what is right and suffer for it you patiently endure it, this finds favor with God” (I Peter 2:16-20).

There are so many parallels in Peter and Paul’s expressions of the new covenant.  “Act as free men, and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as servants of God” from verse 16 above sounds just like, “For you were called to freedom, brothers; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another” (Galatians 5:13).

This concept of turning your freedom into service goes back to Romans chapter 6.  Here we are taught that our freedom is not some loose autonomy attached to no one.  Rather it is the freedom to choose a new master, to choose whom we serve.  In our lost condition we were slaves to sin with no means of escape.  Now, as believers in Jesus, we are free to choose a new master, the Lord Jesus Christ.

“Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.  Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.  For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.”

“What then?  Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace?  May it never be!  Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness?  But thanks be to God that though you WERE slaves of sin, you BECAME obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness” (Romans 6:11-18).

What a beautiful description of what we WERE and what we now ARE.  We are obedient from our new heart.  We have the power to choose to obey, choose to serve, choose to love, and choose to worship.

So what does turning your freedom into a life of service look like?  It is “honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king.”  It is a life of lifting folks up through our words and actions.  It is treating all people with honor in place of hate, honor in place of judgment, honor in place of ignoring the needs of our brothers and sisters.

And finally, our passage ends with this thought.  If you are treated poorly for doing the right thing.  If you are treated poorly in return for your kindness.  If you are treated poorly for preaching the truth, you are in good company of the kind of treatment Jesus and the apostles received.

However, if you are treated poorly because you act like a jerk, dishonoring people with judgment and criticism; no shock, surprise, or credit for you.  Rather, it is something to be expected.  Let us use our freedom to honor all whom God brings into our lives.

Studies in First Peter Part 13

“¹²Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation.  ¹³Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority, ¹⁴or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right.  ¹⁵For such is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men” (I Peter 2:12-15).

Maintaining a good reputation with unbelievers is not religious posturing or people pleasing.  It is just a natural part of righteous living, a natural flow of “keeping our behavior excellent” among our unbelieving friends and family.  I also believe our gospel message reaches a more receptive audience when accompanied by kind, joyful, and caring behavior.

As we proclaim the gospel message of Jesus calling us out of the darkness and into the light, we need to remember that coming into the light made us little lights.  We are the light of the world (Matthew 5:16).  When folks look at us, what kind of light do they see?  It should be the warm and inviting light of Jesus shining out from us.  Our winsome witness to the message of the gospel is to be a “truth balm” not a “truth bomb” as our friend Kerstan Cantrell writes in this group.

Paul included this aspect of our Christian walk in his requirements for those appointed as elders.  “And he must have a good reputation with those outside the church, so that he will not fall into reproach and the snare of the devil” (I Timothy 3:7).  Falling into reproach, being a bad actor, clouds our message of hope and life.

May the unbelievers in your circle think back to your kindness and joy and witness to the truth in their “day of visitation,” i.e. the day God visits them with the gospel message.  And may they receive and believe and give glory to God.

One way we “keep our behavior excellent” and “silence the ignorance of foolish men” is to be good citizens as fits the situations we find ourselves in.  It is easy to get drawn into political arguments and grievances and complaints.  But do not let those involvements detract from the gospel message we preach; salvation in Christ alone and freedom in what He has accomplished for us.

Let me give you an example of how this can go haywire.  Let’s say you stop paying your Federal Income Tax over a grievance (and I have seen this in person from both the liberal and conservative side).  Then the IRS comes to your home and carries off your furniture.  Are you being persecuted for being a Christian?  No, you are being punished for not paying your taxes.  It is that simple.

And because I have been involved in these cases more than once, I can say with confidence that this kind of protest does not enhance our gospel witness.  Please let me say it again, maintaining a good reputation with our unbelieving friends and family is not religious posturing or people pleasing.  It is righteousness, flowing from Christ in us.

Studies in First Peter Part 12

“¹¹Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul” (I Peter 2:11).

Why would chosen, royal, holy people who possess a new heart and a new nature need to be urged to “abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul”?  Isn’t the war over?  Didn’t the war end when we became new creations?  Yes and no.

First the “Yes”.  The war is over.  You do not have two competing natures, a sin nature and a godly nature, waging war inside you.  Your old self died with Christ and you have been set free, released, from the power of sin.  “Knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin” (Romans 6:6-7).

The idea that we have an angel on one shoulder and a demon on the other whispering in our ears either encouraging us to godliness or enticing us to sin is just not true.  Sin and evil and the devil were defeated at the cross and defeated in your life when you believed the gospel of Jesus Christ.  You do not have competing good and bad natures.  You have one nature; righteousness.

But there is also a “No”.  Why?  Because sin still dwells in us, in what the Bible calls “the flesh.”  And the flesh is at war with God’s Spirit inside.  “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.  For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another” (Galatians 5:16-17).

The flesh is the temptation to go back to living as the natural man, your old self prior to Christ.  The flesh is the temptation to live, to act, to think like the natural man; the man without Christ.  And Satan seeks to energize the flesh by using your past actions or current temptations to challenge your identity as a new creation.  But Satan is lying.

You are a new creation.  There are not two equal strength sides in this battle.  Sin is no longer you master, having been soundly defeated at the cross.  Sin has been removed from the throne in your life.  You have what it takes to say “no” to the flesh by virtue of all the new in you.

The Greek word translated “abstain” in “abstain from fleshly lusts” literally means to “stand at a distance from.”  This is similar to Paul’s warning to Timothy, “Flee from youthful lusts” (II Timothy 2:22).  To run away from sin is not legalism.  To stand as far away from sin as you can is not rule-keeping.  It is just the wisdom of God to stay away from the things and situations that tempt you.  We all have unique areas where the flesh seeks to tempt us to sin.  And it is wise to flee, to run away, from those places.

Last time, we talked about being called out of darkness and into the light.  Peter. Paul, all the New Testament writers would say to us, “Now, live as children of light.”  “For you were formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord.  Walk as children of Light for the fruit of the Light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth” (Ephesians 5:8-9).

Studies in First Peter Part 11

“⁹But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; ¹⁰for you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy” (I Peter 2:9-10).

Don’t you love these descriptors of who we are as living stones in God’s spiritual house?  “A chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession.”  We are chosen; you raised your hand and God chose you.  We are royals; children of the King of Kings.  We are holy; God made you holy when you believed His gospel message.  And we are a “people for God’s own possession.”  We can’t get any closer to God than His own possession.

You were bought with a price, the invaluable blood of Jesus.  “Knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ” (I Peter 1:18-19).

And now you belong to Jesus.  “Our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds” (Titus 2:13-14).

As chosen, royal, holy people for God’s possession, we have been created for good deeds, created for righteousness.  And we have been given a mission to “proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.”  Please look carefully at this message we are to proclaim.

It is a message of the excellencies of Jesus.  It is the message of Jesus.  No additives, no religion, no lists of do and don’ts, no condemnation, no clean up before we come to Him, no behavior modification, no sin management… just the excellence of Jesus and what He – not we – accomplished.  And this is His number one accomplishment.  He transferred us from “darkness into His marvelous light.” 

He transferred us from lost to saved, from “in Adam” to “in Christ,” from unbeliever to believer, from outsider to child of God, from death to life, from darkness to light.  “For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:13-14).  We have been “rescued and transferred” from the “domain of darkness” to the light; “the kingdom of His beloved Son.”

Our message to the world is not a message of judgment.  It is a message of invitation.  Jesus is inviting you to join this transfer train from death to life, from darkness to light.  “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life” (John 5:24).  The invitation is for you to cross to the other side, cross from death to life.  Jesus is waiting there to welcome you home.