Tracing Christ (Part B)

We all fail, but when we hear these things, we perk up again.

Okay, I can go at it again. Hell hates it. Spirit loves it. Stand with Jesus in a world that runs to the devil. That's what you're called to do. That's what I'm called to do. Stand with Jesus while everybody's romping off to rebellion.

The Levites stood with Moses, and as such God rewarded the tribe of Levi with her priestly duties. Stand with Jesus in a world that runs to the devil. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of 1 Peter. Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching.

And now here's Pastor Rick as he continues his message called Tracing Christ in 1 Peter chapter 2. When we suffer for our principle, I have found the first times not as difficult, it could be difficult, but not as difficult as the second time. The second time, it's harder to stand for my belief, for my principle, subsequent challenges.

Here's how it works. You stand for your principle. You do a good thing, you do the right thing. And folks turn on you.

People that you thought were with you, turn on you. The second time, you're at a fork in the road. It's a crisis. Which way are you going to go? You're going to say, I'm not going through this again. I don't need the drama, don't need the headache. I'm just going to look the other way. I'm just going to not be part of this. Or, will you say, no, I'm not backing down again. I don't care what they do this time, the next time, five times after.

This is right. Paul is what made him so gallant as a martyr, facing things over and over again. How many stonings does a man have to receive?

Well, as many as they come. He suffered without abandonment. He did not abandon his principles. To take one beating is good, but to take them all, that is grand.

That's the guy I want to be. Because I've watched so many people cave. We say this about politicians, do we not? They caved in. They gave in to the wrong side. They succumbed to the pressure because they're unprincipled.

They did not do what was right, they did what was convenient. And so when he says, this is grace, that you be obedient to Christ, you're mindful of him, you don't become a rebel. He's going to intensify what he is saying to them. He himself, having experienced what they are experiencing, and knows it is going to get worse for him.

Verse 20. For what credit is it if, when you are beaten for your faults, you take it patiently, but when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God. Well, this suffering and this enduring grief and being wrongfully treated, he's keeping it in front of them. He says honor is reserved for innocent sufferers, not guilty sufferers.

That's hard to say, sufferers. Punishment, punishment for something that you did not do wrong, God says I will reward you for that. You see, the world has an advantage in this sense. They offer our flesh everything our flesh wants.

To be accepted, to be liked, to be free from mocking and abuse. Christianity throws us into an arena where those things aren't coming our way and the spirit better get the upper hand or the flesh will give in. Behold, I send you out as sheep among wolves.

But he's going to be with us through that experience. So again, we remember he's writing to slaves. And when he says when you are beaten, well, we're not in this country, as a rule, we're not beaten for our performance physically, but we can be beaten in other ways, even when we do write. And in these days that he's writing, some of the slaves had it pretty bad.

Some of them did have harsh masters, otherwise he wouldn't say this. And this was all over the empire. It wasn't just his audience.

Wherever Peter found himself, this was the culture. This is what was going on. And so he could not get them out of it. There was nothing he could say or do that would emancipate the slaves or stop them or create laws that would be in their favor. So he doesn't even try. What he does do is encourage them to be blameless in the face of these things. Sometimes we feel as though we must take some action, any action, even if it's not going to work.

We just have to do something. That could create larger problems, even in the way we perceive things. For instance, the scripture. We could look at the saints in the scripture and begin to question their decisions to suffer.

For instance, back to David. How many of you would have done Saul in for daring to come and kill me for nothing? For messing up my life? I've got to live in caves. I've got to stay on the run because of you.

But I just end it right now for you. Well, he could not because he linked Saul's existence as king to the throne of God. God put him on the throne. God can take him off. That's the kind of approach I want.

If you're going to have that approach, you better stick by your principle because they're going to be those who are going to try to move you off of it with reason. Think it through, buddy. It's full dependency on God to make it through these things. But when you do good and suffer, he says here in verse 22. Peter uses the Greek word for suffering, where we get our English word pathos from, 15 times in his two letters. He really uses that word a lot, more than anybody else.

And you get the idea that he understands what's happening. I want to now reference one of my favorites, which would pretty much be all the great characters of the Bible, but in particular this moment, it's Jeremiah. What a man their prophet was. He didn't see what was coming his way. He thought, he thought because he was a priest and loved Yahweh that all the other priests of Yahweh would feel the same way.

They did not. Jeremiah 11, 19, talking about suffering as a servant. We're going to get to the tracing Christ in a little bit. But I was like a docile lamb brought to the slaughter, and I did not know that they had devised schemes against me saying, let us destroy the tree with its fruit and let us cut him off from the land of the living, that his name may be remembered no more. The prophet was totally naive, unsuspecting that there were those in Israel that wanted to kill him. He was like a lamb going to the slaughter. The lamb doesn't know they're going to kill you. No, they're not. They do this all the time. We're just following into the ghost. Go in there.

It's fine. So he paints this picture that it's him. Again, thinking that since he loved God and hated idols, that those others who claimed Yahweh would share his zeal in his priestly village even, in his own family of priests, blood brothers. He was very wrong. They hated his loyalty to God. They hated that he stood by what he believed, what was in the scripture, what he was called to be just like them. They hated him for it. His loyalty to God was a rebuke on their treachery. And so they said, let us cut him off from the land of the living. Let's chop down this fruit tree.

No matter the fruit is on it, we hate it so much, we'd rather kill it than have it. And so we find these lessons throughout our Bible. They are there to cause us to pause and think about things and connect our life to them or the lives of those around us to it. And these things contribute to our sobriety, that we become mature followers of Christ. This is commendable, he says again at the bottom of verse 20. The same Greek word for grace. He says, this is grace. This is what it looks like to be a believer, mindful of Jesus Christ. And grace shows up in each chapter of Peter's letters.

I mean, just those kind of, those little details to me are profound. It's the Holy Spirit saying, I did it on purpose, on purpose of speaking to you. Not to scold you, though if the shoe fits you have to wear it, so that you won't have to wear it a second time, that shoe.

There are better shoes to wear than the shoes of being scolded. Verse 21, for to this you were called because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that you should follow his steps. For to this you were called, called to show the grace of Christ.

We've been talking about that from the beginning of his letter. You've been born a second time. This time, in the eyes of God, the righteousness of Christ is on you. And I want you to live that way. Now we all fail, but when we hear these things we perk up again.

Okay, I can go at it again. Hell hates it. The Spirit loves it. Stand with Jesus in a world that runs to the devil. That's what you're called to do. That's what I'm called to do. Stand with Jesus while everybody's romping off to rebellion. The Levites stood with Moses, and as such God rewarded the tribe of Levi with her priestly duties. Stand with Jesus in a world that runs to the devil.

Just read a news article. Watch how fast they run to him. The one who attempted to correct the Lord received the correction of the Lord. This is important. We're talking about for you were called. And in his calling, Peter knew he was called to follow Christ.

He's never seen anything like this ever, neither has anyone else. And yet the day came when he had the gall to challenge Christ. Far be it from you that you should go to the cross and die. Peter, you're talking like Satan. Get behind me, Satan. You're not mindful of the things of God, but of the things of man, the flesh, the low life.

The lower life, which is the low life from the throne's perspective. Well, he received his correction when it came. And not only did he go on to become an obedient preacher of the cross of Christ, but he died on a cross of his own, physically as well as practically. First, John's Gospel, chapter 21, verse 18, Jesus speaking to Peter.

After Peter fell miserably, Christ restored him. Remember, he denied the Lord three times and the Lord asked him three times, Do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me?

Peter, of course, he said, Lord, you know I love you. I just can't love you the way I thought I could love you. Story of my life. Most assuredly, I say to you, when you were younger, you girded yourself and walked where you wished. But when you were old, you will stretch out your hands and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish. Peter, you had that control over your life, but you will lose it.

But you will lose it for me and thereby gain it forever. And so he says here, because Christ also suffered for us, here's a man that saw it. Yeah, he did flee, but he hung around to see enough of it. Our Lord Jesus, he suffered at the hands of people. People he had come to save.

The guy that spit in his face and the other one that punched him in the face, he died for them. We don't lose sight of that. It is vital that we don't lose sight of that. Next time you're being persecuted, that person persecuting you, Christ died for. It's so easy to tell you that. I just don't want to have to live it out.

But, but I don't have much choice in these things. Because hopefully in the spirit we are girded by Christ and sent where he sends us. Our Jesus suffered loneliness, he suffered rejection, malicious hatred. A hatred that was unfounded. His family disbelieved his claims and accused him of being crazy without proof. Peter himself with a flurry of oaths denied him when he needed him most. Judas sold him for a pocket full of change relatively speaking. He wept his heart out in Gethsemane because of us. He was falsely accused of blasphemy. He was beaten and abused by the people of God. He was mocked, scourged, crucified by Roman soldiers. He endured the torments of death on the cross. We all know this.

And yet listening to it, listening to it is edifying. He was made sin for each, for each and every one. Because he was abandoned to God and therefore on the cross for our sin, he was abandoned by God. My God, my God, quoting the 22nd Psalm, Why have you forsaken me?

Why are you so far from hearing me? Day and night I cry out goes the psalm. Christ just took it all in. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? It was rhetorical.

He knew why. He was preaching to us the experience of the cross of Messiah. He left us an example, it says here in verse 21, leaving us an example that you should follow his steps. Now that Greek word for example means a writing copy to imitate. And what the Greeks had was a tablet with all the Greek letters on it. And they would put paper over that and they would teach the students how to write the letters by tracing the Greek letters from alpha to omega.

It was a copy. It was something to trace, leaving us an example. We are to trace Christ. We are to follow his example, his life. We are to put atop of his life our life and mimic it as best we can, imitate it, a better word. So the word there again for example in the Greek is the word for the tablet used. It had other uses too, but essentially a letter to copy.

You could also say that, you'd be accurate. How do we come up with these understandings? Well we look, not we, me, but those who are scholars of language, they look into the various secular writings and see how a word was used by their philosophers and their scholars.

And that brings them closer to understand how the word was used so they make sure they get it right in its context, syntax, and all the text about it. And we are very grateful for them. And so that is a powerful part and we're going to move on because it doesn't need to be enhanced. You don't paint gold. You polish it, you take it as it is, and that is one of those sections, this is one of those sections of scriptures where he says he leaves us something to trace himself. Verse 22, who committed no sin.

This is the one we're tracing. Nor was deceit found in his mouth. This is a quotation from Isaiah 53, but it is also a statement of observed fact. Peter was there.

He said, okay, never had anything on him. Isaiah 53, one of the most beautiful chapters in all the scripture because of how Christ fulfilled it, but a very sorrowful chapter to read. So much so the Ethiopian eunuch asked Philip, who is he talking about, himself or someone else? Who is this great sufferer of Isaiah 53? Verse 9 of Isaiah 53, they made his grave with the wicked, but with the rich at his death because he had done no violence, nor was any deceit found in his mouth.

The prophet called it long before it happened. There'd be nothing in Christ to charge with falsity or sin. There was no work of the devil in him. The only sin found in Jesus belonged to you and me.

The only righteousness found in you and me belongs to Jesus. And thank you, Lord, because he could have just scrapped us. He did not.

He died for us, sending his son. He was incapable of sin because of who he is. John's gospel, he says this in chapter 14, the ruler of this world, that is Satan, is coming, and he has nothing in me.

There's nothing inside of me that he can connect to. The only person the Bible says is sinless in this way is Jesus the Christ our Lord. And anyone who says otherwise speaks heresy.

His walk, his talk, his work, all of it flawless, all of it perfect. Such a statement can be made of no one else. Not Buddha, not Confucius, not Mary, not Muhammad. All of them that I just named needed a savior to be forgiven by a holy God like every other human being. The great heroes of the Jewish faith, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, David, Daniel, all of them need a savior.

All of them were sinful men. And in Christ there is the savior. You either, you know, no one really goes to hell because of sin. They go to hell for rejecting Christ. Because if you went to hell because of sin, then we're all going to hell. What keeps us out of that hot place is him, the Lord Jesus Christ.

What about all those other ones, those hard cases? They're not hard to God. He'll do the right thing, and that's good with me. Verse 23, who when he was reviled did not revile in return. When he suffered he did not threaten, but committed himself to him who judges righteously.

Just read that, when he was reviled he did not revile in return. I say to myself, are you kidding me? You know what happens when I'm reviled? My feelings get hurt. And you know what happens when your feelings get hurt? I mean, it is a big thing when someone has penetrated your defenses and touched you emotionally in a bad way.

It is a big thing. You look at them, you can have contempt, disgust, you want to avoid. There's a whole range of things depending on the moment, the personality, the circumstances, there's a whole range of things that make you want to strike back in some form.

Even if it's, I just will withdraw. I won't be around him, I won't say hi, there's all sorts of stuff going on. Christ did none of that.

None of it. They hurt his feelings. They said, you're a child of fornication, we're not.

He took it. He continued to minister and preach truth. The one that detonated the universe could have snuffed them out at any time, and he did not. Human history has never seen such restraint as in Jesus Christ. Nope, not one. All are sinners. There's none righteous. No, not one. That's the truth. None have the restraint of Christ. Nope, not one. He faced the mock trial, the false judges, the lying witnesses, the biased jury.

He did not take law into his own hands even though he had every right to. He said, I can call 72,000 angels. All I have to do is sigh deeply. And you've had it. One angel, one angel grabs Satan and chains him and thrusts him into jail. One angel.

What would 72,000 of them do? And he's just toying with them because he doesn't have to call any of them. What a magnificent Lord we have, the truth of which has not yet been fully told, but we have enough of the truth to get to the second part. While his miracles were awesome, proper use of the word.

I'm going to pass that up. His restraint, what do you call that? Again, the one that has formed the galaxies and maintains them. You know how much energy is tied up in the universe? In an atom, how much energy is built into that and yet he holds it together as we are told even in the New Testament, upholding all things by the word of his power.

Keeping it all in check. To have such power to create and hold together so much and then to hold back against those who are going to hurt you and hurt the ones you love incidentally. Isaiah 43 verse 3, a bruised reed he will not break, a smoking flax he will not quench. He will bring forth justice and truth, a bruised reed. That's weakness atop of weakness, a reed is not very strong. To have it damaged further weakens it and yet the Lord does not come in like a bully and trample the weak. He is the one that endears himself to the weak that will have him, a smoking flax, a smoking flax is something that has an element of self-destruction at work.

It's burning away. We're so glad you tuned in today to study the book of 1 Peter on Cross Reference Radio. Cross Reference Radio is the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel in Mechanicsville, Virginia and we're blessed to bring you God's word with each broadcast. If you'd like more information about this program or want to listen to additional teachings from Pastor Rick, please visit our website crossreferenceradio.com. We also encourage you to subscribe to our podcast so you'll never have to miss a program. Just search for Cross Reference Radio in iTunes, Google Play Music or your favorite podcast app. We hope you'll tune in again next time to join us as we continue our study through the scriptures right here on Cross Reference Radio.