Following through suffering, part 2

Welcome to Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, Pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. Christ did the great work on our behalf, clearing the way for us to have a restored relationship with God, our sins forgiven. His suffering brought our healing. Now He calls us to take up His cross and follow Him. 1 Peter 2 21 says, For to this you are called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in His steps. Those who follow Christ are called to a life of sacrifice, dying to self, and willing to do what is difficult and costly for the sake of the gospel, just like our Savior. Instead of spending our lives on our own comfort and personal plans, Christ beckons us to invest our time and energy in building His plan. Beautiful things will result in us and around us when we surrender our lives to Christ's call. This is the second part of the message on 1 Peter 2 21-25. It's titled Following Through Suffering and was first preached on October 23, 2022. The life that Jesus lived, even in all of its suffering, that is a pattern for us. This is what a life that glorifies God looks like. Trace it.

Trace it with your steps. We walk in His footsteps, meaning it is progressive, it is daily, it is ongoing, new steps every day. I'm reading Booker T. Washington's autobiography called Up From Slavery. He was a slave for the first nine years of his life, then he worked in a coal mine in West Virginia and was bent on getting an education. And he went to the Hampton Institute, and when he encountered the Hampton Institute, when he went to the Hampton Institute, he encountered this man he calls General Armstrong. He was so impressed with General Armstrong and his disposition, his care, his integrity, all of that.

And all of the students felt the same about General Armstrong, that whatever General Armstrong wanted them to do, they wouldn't even think twice about doing it. They were that impressed with him. Booker T. says he was a near perfect man. We don't have a near perfect man for our example who calls us. We have the perfect man who calls us to follow his example. And aren't you glad that God did not just stay aloof and show and give us his commands and say, here's what you need to do. He gave us a man to follow, to walk in his steps.

Christ's exemplary suffering. He did not. Here's the things that he did not do when he suffered.

This is a means of his example, and we get to this in verse 22. Neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return. When he suffered, he did not threaten. He suffered for doing good. And as he suffered, there are certain things that he did not do that you and I are very tempted to do when we suffer, even for doing good. The first thing he did not do is he did not demand to be understood and respected. He did not demand to be understood and respected. And secondly, he was not governed by his own comfort and survival.

Philippians 2 makes that abundantly clear and then calls us to have the same mind. Booker T mentions Frederick Douglass. He encountered him on a train ride. And Frederick Douglass, as he was on this passenger train, because he was a black man, this was in the early 20th century, because he was a black man, he was told he had to go back into the luggage compartment of the train and ride there.

Some people on the train recognized who Frederick Douglass was and the stature of the man he was. And they went back and they apologized to him and said, really, you should come up and sit with us. And he says, no, no. He said, we need to recognize the smallness of men who have done this and have pity on them. We can learn from that, can't we? What Christ is making abundantly clear in this is that a life that follows Christ, that life does not say, it's about me.

It has its sights set much higher than that. There are things when he suffered for doing good, there are things that he did not do, but there is something that he did do. Verse 23, when he was reviled, he did not revile in return.

When he suffered, he did not threaten. But here's what he did do. He continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. Can you do that?

Are you doing that? Entrusting himself to his father. And that word entrusting, the word that's used there is the idea of handing something over, handing it into someone else's care. Kind of like when a dad has to give his daughter away. It's like handing a thousand dollar Stradivarius into the hands of a gorilla.

I've had to do it three times, one to go. But when you do it with your own life, you are placing your life into the hands of God. And you are saying, my life is in your good and sovereign hands, meaning you are no longer living for the dot. You are living for the line with eternity in view. Abundantly clear in the example of the apostles and what they faced in their lives. Abundantly clear in the whole group of people to which the writer of Hebrews refers, this great cloud of witnesses. They didn't live for the dot.

They lived for the line. They entrusted themselves to the one who is a faithful creator. And we see it again in the example of Christ. Why entrust yourself into the hands of a good and sovereign God?

Because he is good. The anguish of Christ pleased God because of the result. We have a tendency to look on what I'm experiencing right here, right now, and we want to escape that. And we don't think about the results that God is going to bring out of the things that we suffer and endure, particularly while doing good. His anguish pleased God because of the results. Turn with me to Isaiah 53 in your copy of the Scriptures. Lest we, in our very comfortable lifestyles, believe that suffering is inherently evil.

I want you to read something. Isaiah 53, look at verse 10. That it was the will of the Lord to crush him.

Are we going to accuse God of evil? He has put him to grief. When his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offering. He shall prolong his days. The will of the Lord will prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul, he shall see and be satisfied.

Why? By his knowledge shall the righteous one my servant make many to be accounted righteous. The fact that you sit here this morning, accepted before God, justified by him, is a testimony to the fact of the will of God in the suffering of Jesus Christ. Let us not be drawn into a pagan understanding that all suffering is necessarily and inherently evil.

God is a sovereign and good God because there is an ultimate reward. The Bible makes very clear that the way to life is through death because we live in a fallen created order. And when I surrender myself in faith to Jesus Christ, ultimately what I'm confessing is it is no longer I who live. Christ lives through me. It is not my life. I have given myself to Jesus Christ.

I am his. And if he calls me to suffer, so be it. We are called to be living what? Sacrifices. We don't like that word do we? Sacrifice.

Unless we're watching a baseball game or something. We are called to be living sacrifices. And Paul said, the apostle Paul said, that with all boldness Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ. To die is gain.

I'd love for that to become a part of our cognitive DNA. So we need to trace his example because with him there is ultimate reward and we know also that for those who cause great sorrow and suffering, even to those who are doing good, those who cause the sorrow and suffering, there is coming a holy retribution. So we are called to follow in Christ's steps. First of all, because of his exemplary suffering.

Secondly, because of Christ's expiatory suffering. We're so glad you've joined us for Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. You can hear this message and others anytime by visiting our website, www.delightingrace.com. You can also check out Pastor Rich's book, Seven Words That Can Change Your Life, where he unpacks from God's word the very purpose for which you were designed. Seven Words That Can Change Your Life is available wherever books are sold. As always, tune in to Delight in Grace weekdays at 10 a.m.