The Physical Hardship and Suffering of Christ Was Necessary for Spiritual Healing
1 Peter 2:21-25
(Children's Sheet for Sermon Interaction is at bottom. Notes are throughout sermon)
Please turn to 1 Peter 2:21-25. 1 Peter 2:21-25. As you are turning there, I'll explain the contextual flow. Coming into this passage, Peter has been urging submission to earthly governing authorities for the Lord's sake, 1 Peter 1:13. Christians are to act as free people in Christ. That is our great privilege. But at the same time, God's children are not to use their freedom as a covering for evil. But rather, there is a way to you use your freedom. You use your freedom in Christ as a bondslave of God, 1 Peter 1:16. Peter gives the overall thrust for Christian conduct toward outsiders when he says to honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king, 1 Peter 1:17. Then Peter continues explaining to slaves that they must be submissive to their masters with all respect for God. God's people are to do this even if they suffer. This finds favor with God, if for the sake of conscience toward God, when a person bears up under sorrows when suffering unjustly. In other words, whenever you do what is right as a Christian, and suffer for it, this whole process finds favor with your Master in heaven. To do so is a reflection of Christ Who is in you. It is a reflection of what Christ went through in His humbleness. This is the contextual flow of what Peter has been saying. Now, Peter begins to take a moment to focus upon what Christ went through for the people He elected. In doing so, Peter covers what Christ accomplished in the process. Let's read starting back in verse 21,
"21 Because you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps, 22 Who committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in His mouth; 23 and while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously; 24 and 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. 25 For you were continually straying like sheep, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls." 1 Peter 2
Let's prepare our hearts to learn from this sermon titled,
The Physical Hardship and Suffering of Christ Was Necessary for Spiritual Healing
[prayer]
Everything that Christ went through, and everything He accomplished, is part of the great good news. From being a lowly fertilized egg person, to growing as a baby person who dirtied himself and was completely reliant upon His mother's milk, and care, for basic survival, to a boy submitting to earthly parents, (Luke 2:51) on through His adulthood ministry--it is all part of the good news. Then in His betrayal, rejection, humiliation, suffering, crucifixion, death, burial, and resurrection, it is hard to understand from natural eyes but this continued the good news. Now the living Word, Who is the living good news, reigns forever as the glorified resurrected one. He bears the tattoos, so to speak, on his wrists, His back, His feet, and His side which are the scar marks of His difficult but triumphant work. He had to suffer to get those marks. He had to suffer to accomplish His work. He had to suffer to get us there where we sit at the right hand of the Father in Him, Ephesians 2:6 with Ephesians 1:20. The point is that without the things that Christ had to bear for us, there would be no good news. Considering this, there are some principles concerning the physical hardship and suffering of Christ that was necessary for the good news that we must be aware of.
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The first is that since Christ suffered, we are also called to suffer while in the short span of life on this planet. The suffering we go through is a manifestation of our spiritual healing,
"21 ... you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, ..." 1 Peter 2:21
When Peter says "you," he is talking to saved people. He goes on to say in the next words, "leaving you an example for you to follow." He is talking to "you" the Holy Nation of the royal priesthood that he is writing to. These are the people who suffer for Christ. These are the people (in context) that Christ suffered for. The question is:
Why is this designation of "you" here so important in Peter's point?
Because Peter is not addressing just anyone who might of happened to get hold of the epistle, or was able to obtain a copy of it. He is not addressing the man or woman thousands of years later in our day who picks up the Bible to slander it; and while reading these words in contempt of their meaning, says,
"Yeah, Christ died. We all die. What is the big deal? We die and turn to dirt, just like Jesus died and turned to dirt. But, he certainly didn't die for me. He just died."
Such people are wrong about Christ's death. Christ death is the big deal because it was planned by God. It was necessary for redemptive salvation, and it was only something that God could do as Himself manifested in bodily form. Such people are also wrong about Christ dying and turning to dirt. He resurrected from actual death, three days later, just as He and the prophets said that He would do. But such people are, in fact, very correct about a certain part of what they are claiming. When they perish in their sins, they are actual demonstrations of the fact that Christ did not die for them. So, when they say that Christ did not die for themselves, then they are correct about that part. Ironically, they realize what universalists, in all their religious misinterpretation of Scripture, fail to understand. When a lost person says, "Christ certainly did not die for me," they are stating that they recognize that Peter is not talking about them at all. But the Spirit says,
"... Christ also suffered for you, ..."
There is a "you." It is not everyone everywhere. Peter is talking to specific people. In respect to this spiritual principle, Peter may be talking to you too, if in fact, you have embraced Him, and His saving work for you, by grace through faith. The point is that Christ died for all He has spiritually healed; but this is not the end of the matter. Christ also died for all those that He will spiritually heal in the future. Nevertheless, Christ does not spiritually heal everyone as universalists claim. So, then, who are the people that will be spiritually healed? They are the same kind of people who have already been spiritually healed. People are spiritually healed by grace, through faith, in Christ as their Lord and Savior who willingly became the substitutional atonement for their sins. He became their life in His resurrection. The people are His elect. Christ died for all the people He has elected. Peter calls them by this term in this epistle: "elect." The people that Peter says Christ suffered for are,
"those who ... are elect 2 according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the setting apart work of the Spirit, for the purpose of obeying Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood: ..." 1 Peter 1:1-2
All the people that Christ suffered for, in shedding his blood for, are His elect. They have been elected by Him according to being foreknown by God as those that God purposed to save. Their election occurred by God. It did not occur by them separating their own selves to God. Rather, their election occurred by being set apart by the Spirit. And there was a reason for this separation that God did. The reason was so that they must obey Jesus Christ as the Lord who demands obedience. Peter also says that the reason is so that they will be sprinkled with His blood. The sprinkling is in actual miraculous atonement that is made for them in their election (atonement means blood "covering"). Peter goes on to explain who "you" are,
"9 But you are an elect race, a royal priesthood, a set apart nation, a people for God's own possession." 1 Peter 2:9
At the end of the epistle, Peter says it again, while referring to,
"13 She who is in Babylon, elected together with you, ..." 1 Peter 5:13
Christ suffered for all these particular people; so this leads us to some important questions:
"How do we, in our limited knowledge, know who the elect are?"
Have you ever wondered what the answer to that question is? This is a question that is answered with the same answer as another question:
"How do we know who all these people that Christ specifically suffered for, by taking their sins upon Himself, are?"
Close scrutiny will reveal to us that both questions are basically the same question. Again:
"How do we know who the elect are?"
"How do we know who all these people are that Christ suffered for in His purchase of, His propitiation for, and, His atonement over, them?"
Peter mentions the answer when he explains who those people are who have an imperishable inheritance reserved in heaven,
"3 God ... who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, 5 who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time." 1 Peter 1
1@ God demonstrates our security in Christ in that He mercifully causes people to be born again through the resurrection of Jesus Christ to obtain a guaranteed inheritance that is reserved in heaven for all who are protected by the power of God through ______________." 1 Peter 1:3-5
I want us to notice that the elect are the ones who are protected by the power of God in regeneration through faith. Peter goes on to explain the faith connection,
"8 ... you love Him [Christ], and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, 9 obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls." 1 Peter 1:8-9
2@ The outcome of our _______________ in Christ as Lord and Savior is the eternal spiritual salvation of our souls. 1 Peter 1:8-9
There it is. This is the answer for how we know who the elect are. All the elect are those who love Christ, though they do not see Christ now, but believe in Him, and greatly rejoice in joy that can not be expressed, where they obtain as the outcome of their trust, faith, and belief, the salvation of their souls. This is who the elect are that Christ suffered for. Peter goes on,
"10 As to this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you ... 11 seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as He predicted the sufferings of Christ ..." 1 Peter 1:10-11
The Spirit of Christ has always known His elect that He would suffer for. This is great, but how do we personally recognize who the elect are? The answer is not very deep at all. The way you and I recognize the elect is when they receive Christ as Lord and Savior. The only way we can recognize them is because they have made it known that they embrace the great physician and are spiritually healed. Are you one of the elect? Do you receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior? If so, then you are one of the elect. Think about this for a moment. There is a time factor to this recognition. What I mean is that you, and I, do not know who the elect are before they receive Christ. God has decided that we are not to know. Only God knows who they are. But like Peter, we know who they are after they are saved as a miracle work of God. We know by their faith in Christ. So Peter proclaims boldly, and matter of factly, concerning the calling of Christians to suffer,
"... Christ also suffered for you ..." 1 Peter 2:21
Peter was intimately aware of the sufferings of Christ. In the early days when Peter was called out to follow Christ in His pre-cross ministry, Jesus looked at Peter personally and said to him,
"The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed and be raised up on the third day." Luke 9:22
Later, Peter actually witnessed the suffering of Christ as he was beaten, and then empaled on the cross. Think about the question that must have haunted the pre-cross students before they received the revelation after Christ resurrected from the dead. The question was:
Why? Why did all this horror happen to our miracle working Messiah King?
Later, God revealed the riches of the plan. Peter speaks of it again here in his epistle. It is the great necessity. It is the answer to the great, "Why?"
"Christ also suffered once for sins, the Righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, ..." 1 Peter 3:18
3@ Christ also suffered once for sins, the Righteous for the unrighteous, that he might _____________ us to God in eternal spiritual salvation by grace through faith. 1 Peter 3:18
This is what Christ does. You do not bring yourself to God. He brings those whom He suffered for to Himself as a miracle action. "Us" here in 1 Peter 3:18, is the "you" in our passage of verse 21 that Christ suffered for. Us includes all the elect. Us includes all of us who love Him, and though we do not see Him now, but believe in Him, we greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, obtaining as the outcome of our faith the salvation of our souls.
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This leads to the next principle concerning the physical hardship and suffering of Christ that was necessary for spiritual healing. The sinless Christ suffered in the place of His elect as the great propitiation for them,
"22 Who committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in His mouth; ... 24 and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross," 1 Peter 2:22-23
Peter is quoting the ancient prophecy concerning Christ that was made 700 years beforehand in Isaiah 53. Peter begins with quoting Isaiah 53:9 from the Septuagint (LXX),
"... he committed no lawlessness, nor was deceit found in his mouth." Isaiah 53:9 (Esias 53:9, Moises Silva, NETS, LXX)
Then Peter quotes Isaiah some more from Isaiah 53, from the Septuagint,
"He bears our sins" Isaiah 53:4
"He will bear their sins" Isaiah 53:11
"He bore the sins of many" Isaiah 53:12
In the context, when Peter writes of "our sins" he is speaking of himself (Peter) and all the elect to which he has addressed the epistle. As we think about Peter using the term "our," we understand that he is sending out his letter to the dispersed followers of Messiah. As we consider this let's think about the application in more in depth. Let's think about three ways of looking at this:
A) One is that, in a sense, Peter is making his statement as applying to all the Christians who exist at the time he is writing, right? After all, this is the contextual sense of the purpose of the letter to bring encouragement to the dispersed saints that are going through persecution for Christ.
B) But in another sense, Peter is not limiting his statement. In other words, Peter is saying what is all throughout the New Testament that applies to all Christians of all times. Everything he is saying about the suffering of Christ, applies to all the elect throughout all generations.
C) Okay, but we must recognize something that is very important: Peter is not extending his statement beyond the elect. Peter is not saying that Christ suffered in the stead of everyone everywhere, taking everyone's sins upon Himself. He is not saying that everyone everywhere is to suffer for Christ either. Those who perish in their sins, are perishing in sin that has not been taken upon Christ. They live spiritually unhealed, and they die unhealed in the sickness of sin and perishing. So, keeping these important facts in mind, when the Righteous one suffered for the unrighteous ones (cf. 1 Peter 3:18), He did it in such a way that He bore their sins in His body. His body died as a sacrifice. When Christ's physical body died, the sins of the elect, which are all the people that are made manifest in receiving Him by grace through faith, is the unrighteousness that died with Him. This required violence. It is violence that we all deserve because of our sin nature--a nature demonstrated in the fact that we actually sin. In bearing the sins of the elect in His body, Christ, the King, became the substitutionary hero sacrifice to absorb the wrath that the elect deserve. As He bore what He redeemed the elect from, He experienced temporary death. This work saves all the elect from eternal death by securing eternal life. He is the great High priest, Hebrews 8:1 of his royal, Kingly, priesthood, who offered Himself as the great sacrificial Lamb, 1 Peter 1:19 with Hebrews 10:12-14. He willingly paid the required price. Now it is a done deal. All the elect are inducted into the deal through a miracle work of the Spirit, and are people who are made manifest at the proper time in the process of regeneration. What this means is that all of us who are saved, are saved by grace through faith in the finished work of Christ, where what was accomplished for us, is actuated in manifestation in our obedience to Christ in receiving Him as Lord and Savior. Someone who wants to receive Christ, or who has already received Christ, may ask:
Did He die for all my sins? Yes.
Did He die for the sins I committed this morning? Yes.
Did He die for the sins I committed last night. Yes.
Did He die for the sins I will commit later today? Yes.
What about tomorrow; what about the next day; and the next day; and on and on until I die? The answer is "yes."
Pay special attention to what I am about to say:
You really are saved. You really are saved because of Christ--not because of you. And guess what: You're a sinner--He's the Savior. He really bore your sins in His body on the cross. This really is real good news. The reason has to do with the next principle concerning the physical hardship and suffering of Christ that was necessary for spiritual healing.
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Christ 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." 1 Peter 2
Here again, Peter is quoting from Isaiah 53,
"5 But He was wounded for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities; upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed." Isaiah 53
Notice that Peter does not tell the set apart ones in Christ that by His wounds you are being healed, or that you will be healed in some distant time frame. What Peter says is that the elect race of the royal priesthood to whom he is writing, "were" healed already. It is the spiritual fulfillment of what Isaiah prophesied; that the elect to which the prophecy is applied, are healed in the actions of Messiah who is the Covenant and the Light. This leads us to ask,
What were they healed from?
If you are saved,
What were you healed from?
Does this also mean that you were healed from cancer, or diabetes, or the disease of aging, or from never being infected with viruses and bacteria and all that kind of physical infirmity?
These are important questions because Matthew explains how when Christ was ministering in His pre-cross ministry to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, that Jesus performed miraculous physical healings for both Jews and Gentiles. I think it is important for us to understand that when Matthew describes this ministry of physical healing, Matthew also quotes from Isaiah 53:5; but Matthew quotes the same Old Testament prophecy in respect to healing from physical diseases--not spiritual. You say,
"But how can this be? I understand that Christ healed all of us who are saved, and that the healing is spiritual as Peter explains; but how can Matthew be using the same exact prophetic passage to refer to physical healing?"
We are going to analyze the passage, the context, and subsequently, the reason why Matthew says what he does. As we do, I want us to see that Jesus fulfills the first part of the prophecy in a unique way. Notice the facts in Matthew 8 as I read,
"8 ... the [Roman, gentile] centurion said, "Lord ... just say the word, and my servant will be healed. ... 10 Now when Jesus heard this, He marveled and said to those who were following, 'Truly I say to you, I have not found such great faith with anyone in Israel.'" Matthew 8:8-10
The dynamics going on here have to do with the promise from Isaiah. It is where the Messiah of Israel is also a light to the nations (which means that Messiah is the living covenant-light to the gentiles, Isaiah 42:6, 49:6-8, 55:3-4.) We remember that Old Covenant Israel was dropping the ball in terms of putting faith in their arrived Messiah-king. The Messiah came only for the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and most of them stayed lost, Matthew 15:24. But Messiah was also a light to an elect group of gentiles who were eagerly eating the crumbs from the table of the genetic descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Matthew 15:21-28. Here is a despised gentile Roman soldier with authority over Israelites, and he comes to Christ, and he calls Jesus his "Lord." He is asking for healing. Notice that Jesus responds with more insight,
"11 I say to you that many will come from east and west, and recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob [Israel] in the kingdom of heaven;" Matthew 8:11
Jesus is foretelling what is going to happen in a matter of days when He establishes the New Covenant in His blood through His suffering. When He takes the sins of the elect upon Himself, and is crucified, and then resurrected, He, being the first of His own body, will begin drawing the elect by the Holy Spirit in the effectual call. All who receive Him in obedience to Him by grace through faith, become part of the body of Christ. As the body, the partition that separated the Jews from the Gentiles is broken down. The two become one in Him. The result is the One new man, Ephesians 2:15. All who are in the one new man of the spiritual ethnicity of the risen Christ as a holy nation of set apart ethnics with the divine nature (cf. 2 Peter 1:4), are the ones who inherit the promise of Abraham, the father-figure of faith. Matthew goes on quoting Jesus,
"12 but the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Matthew 8:12
Jesus is explaining that all genetic Israelites who have had the promise of Messiah all along, but reject Christ anyway, are not privileged to be Sons of God, though they were sons of the kingdom. They will be cast aside, unhealed from sin and death forever. In the meantime, Jesus is still in His Old Covenant, pre-cross, ministry. So, next Matthew records,
"13 And Jesus said to the centurion, 'Go; it shall be done for you as you have believed.' And the servant was healed that very moment. 14 When Jesus came into Peter's home, He saw his mother-in-law lying sick in bed with a fever. 15 He touched her hand, and the fever left her; and she got up and waited on Him. 16 When evening came, they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed; and He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were ill. 17 This was to fulfill what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet: He Himself took our infirmities and carried away our diseases." Matthew 8:13-17
Did you catch it. It is right there in verse 17. Matthew is saying that Jesus was fulfilling the Isaiah 53 prophecy by physically healing all who were physically ill. This is the same Isaiah 53 prophecy that Peter uses to describe the spiritual healing of the post-cross elect in salvation. As we look at this, we can wonder:
What in the world is going on here? I am still thinking about the fact that Peter indicated years later in the New Covenant in Christ's blood, that the same Isaiah prophecy is fulfilled in being saved in spiritual (not physical) healing.
Peter did say this. To understand all of this, we must remember that Christ had not yet gone to the cross in Matthew's record of what Christ was fulfilling in His pre-cross ministry. Jesus was fulfilling his ministry of declaring that the kingdom reign of God, in Himself, was at hand. He is the King of His Kingdom. Part of that ministry was to heal all those people that had been elect to be physically healed. Part of Messiah's ministry was to perform miracles as part of identifying who He was. By physically healing people, Christ demonstrated that He was also able to spiritually heal people too. This is why Matthew goes on to record the vital details of what Jesus says in the next chapter,
"'Which is easier, to say, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Get up, and walk'? 6 But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins'--then He said to the paralytic, 'Get up, pick up your bed and go home.'" Matthew 9:4-6
Christ is the great physician--both physically and spiritually. But we absolutely must notice another very important detail. Matthew only quotes certain parts of the sentence of the prophecy,
"He Himself took our infirmities and carried away our diseases." Matthew 8:13-17
Notice that Matthew does not quote the suffering details of the cross like Peter does. Remember, Peter mentions the wounds being the means that bring the healing,
"... for by His wounds you were healed." 1 Peter 2:24
Now think about this, because the wounding, crushing, details, that even involved Christ's stripes, permeate the prophecy in Isaiah 53,
"5 But He was wounded for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities; upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed." Isaiah 53:5
Wow. This would seem like a huge detail in the Isaiah prophecy for Matthew to leave out wouldn't it? This would only seem this way if we do not recognize what God was doing in His whole process of Christ's healing actions. What happened is that all those people in Christ's pre-cross ministry were healed physically by Christ in his physical ministry. Later, in the establishment of the New Covenant in His blood, all the elect were healed spiritually by the great physician from sin and eternal death. That "later" spiritual kind of healing could only take place in suffering, and that suffering could only take place through being rejected by the generation that Christ brought physical healing to, and that could only happen through the pain of real physical death by execution. Again, notice the great exchange. You were born, into this world, alive to sin but dead to righteousness. We are blemished before God where we walk around with both the wounds inflicted upon us from the legacy of Adam, and from the self inflicted wounds of our own personal sins. We are diseased spiritually. Our disease is sin and death. Without Christ death, we do not die to sin and live to righteousness forever. We die in our trespasses and sin to perish in spiritual death forever. Do you remember how Paul explained the great exchange?
"20 I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me." Galatians 2:20
Each of the elect has been crucified with Christ already on the cross. Now, in salvation, they are different. This is why Peter says,
"so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed." 1 Peter 2:24
This is you too, if you are saved. Living by faith in the Son of God, is the "life" that the saved live while currently "in the flesh," cf. Galatians 2:20. The great exchange is that it is no longer the Old self who lives, but it is someone else living in the new self that brings the righteous, healed, everlasting life. Who is that someone else that lives in all spiritually saved people? It is the resurrected, healed, righteous everlasting Christ that lives in all the people he heals, as their hope of glory, Colossians 1:27. Paul explains the state of all who are saved in a mirrored pronouncement of Peter,
"He [God] made Him [Christ] who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." 2 Corinthians 5:21
This is the spiritual healing that Peter is talking about. And guess what: This healing goes on forever, and ever, and ever. All who are saved live to righteousness by the life of the Righteous One. This is what Peter means later in this epistle when he says,
"Therefore, since Christ has suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same purpose, because he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for the lusts of men, but for the will of God. Because the time already past is sufficient for you to have carried out the desire of the Gentiles, having pursued a course of sensuality, lusts, drunkenness, carousing, drinking parties and abominable idolatries." 1 Peter 4:1-4
This is all manifestation of our healing that we have been freed to walk in. The great physician has changed us to manifest that change.
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But it was not always this way, and so this leads to the last principle concerning the necessity for the physical hardship and suffering of Christ to bring spiritual healing,
"25 For you were continually straying like sheep, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls."
Once again, Peter is quoting the prophecies in Isaiah 53, and also once again, he makes a shift in the pronoun from "us," to "you." Isaiah prophesied concerning straying from God like sheep,
"6 All of us like sheep have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way; But Yahweh has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him." Isaiah 5:6
Isaiah also prophesied the salvation process that God ordains, saying,
"... they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and return and be healed." Isaiah 6:10
So, we need to ask again, What is Peter saying at this point here? He is pointing out the dooming disease of sin against God in the first part of this quote,
"25 For you were continually straying like sheep,
Then, Peter is stating the great healing. It is where we enter into Christ who is our true eternal Sabbath rest,
"but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls."
While living in the unhealed state of sin and death, you, me, and all people "continually" (as in consistently) stray from God as the demonstration of our sin-disease we inherited from Adam and Eve. This is why it is so important to recognize that it is part of the disease of your unhealed nature to be continually separated from God. And yet the need is for the elect to return and be healed. Nevertheless, in our separation, we are continually in a state of opposition to God. In our opposition, we continually do not seek God. In our opposition, we continually are not even able to understand the things of the Spirit,
"... all, both Jews and Gentiles [Gk. Greeks], are under sin, 10 as it is written: 'None is righteous, no, not one; 11 no one understands; no one seeks for God. 12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.'" Romans 3:9-12
Nobody in the world seeks for God by their own self generated efforts. No one seeks for God because the disease of their heart blinds them from seeking the one true God of the universe. They may seek a god, but they are not seeking the God of the Bible. They may call Him the God of the Bible, but they are not seeking the One true God in their disease. They must be miraculously enabled to seek God which results from God first seeking to change them to do so. Left to their own old corrupt nature, no one is righteous, no, not even one. Yet, it is righteous to seek after God. No one understands. Yet, it takes spiritual understanding to seek after the true God who is Spirit and truth. Paul says plainly that all everywhere have turned aside. They have not turned to God. It is valuable to seek after God. But everyone is worthless outside of the value of Christ in the purchasing ransom of His valuable blood shed upon the cross of redemption. It is good to seek after God; but no one does good, not even one. Even those deeds that have the appearance of goodness, and righteousness, come from a dead, sinful, diseased, unhealed heart. Therefor, they may look like they may be good, but the root underlying their deeds is always the sickness of sin. This is what it means to be continually straying like wandering diseased sheep who grope across the parched land trying to survive another day until the inevitable day of death comes because of the disease. But now, we who are saved, are under the Shepherd of our souls. We have returned. We are healed. He is our leader and our guide.
Peter's underlying point is that as we sojourn through this world, we may suffer for Christ as the example that we follow. As we do, we must remember that we are suffering because we are serving, and we are serving because we have been spiritually healed to do so. But we must also remember that while we are suffering there is a reason for why we are suffering. We are suffering because of Christ, and this means we are suffering because of what Christ has done to us. In a sense, when you suffer for Christ, then you have been healed to suffer. This is the big take home point this morning.
Let's go over the principles again: We must remember that because Christ suffered, we are also called to suffer for Him when we suffer. It is difficult to understand, but the suffering we go through is a manifestation of our spiritual healing. It takes spiritual insight, directed by the word of God, to recognize, and embrace this fact. Let's glorify God for the great privilege that was purchased for us through grueling pain and humility. The sinless Christ suffered in the place of His elect as the great wrath absorber for them. It was necessary for spiritual healing. Christ also bore the sins of the elect in His body on the cross. It was the Righteous for the unrighteous. Why? So that we would become the righteousness of God in Him. Let's praise God then, that we were continually straying like sheep, but now we have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of our souls. Let's do our part to share this good news. We may suffer while doing it, but we have been called to this. Finally, let's rest in our healing, knowing that we have a great shepherd who loves us and cares for us both now, and forever. Amen
1@ God demonstrates our security in Christ in that He mercifully causes people to be born again through the resurrection of Jesus Christ to obtain a guaranteed inheritance that is reserved in heaven for all who are protected by the power of God through ______________." 1 Peter 1:3-5
2@ The outcome of our _______________ in Christ as Lord and Savior is the eternal spiritual salvation of our souls. 1 Peter 1:8-9
3@ Christ also suffered once for sins, the Righteous for the unrighteous, that he might _____________ us to God in eternal spiritual salvation by grace through faith. 1 Peter 3:18
