1 Peter 2:21-25 | The Enduring Example of Christ

The Enduring Example of Christ

Saints, if you can take your Bibles and turn to the book of 1 Peter, we will be spending our time in 1 Peter, chapter 2, verses 21 to 25. I've titled this message 'The Enduring Example of Christ,' and at my church we are going through the book of 1 Peter. We're going to go ahead and look at just verses 21 to 25. I'm going to read this for us out loud.

I know that you guys have a different translation than I do in my Bible; you guys do CSB, right? That's correct. This is from the New American Standard Bible. I'm going to go ahead and read this out loud; it's not too different from the CSB.

For you were called to this, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. He did not commit sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth; when he was insulted, he did not insult in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten but entrusted himself to the one who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree; so that, having died to sins, we might live for righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. For you were like sheep going astray, but you have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls. — 1 Peter 2:21-25 (CSB)

And this is the reading of God's Word, and God's people say, 'Amen, amen, amen.'

What Would Jesus Do? More Than a Slogan

You know, as a child who grew up in the 90s, I owned a very popular bracelet that had the letters W.W.J.D. Anyone remember that bracelet? The W.W.J.D. bracelet, some of you have good memories of that. The W.W.J.D. bracelet was just these four letters that represented the phrase, 'What would Jesus do?' And I didn't know this, but that phrase came from a novel from 1896 by a guy by the name of Charles Sheldon, and he wrote a novel with basically that title.

And they took that title, and in the 90s, there was this resurgence of this phrase that was a personal model for Christians, because as Christians, you know, and I grew up in the church, I was always taught to imitate Jesus, to follow Jesus, to look after the example of Jesus. And since that was the case, I said, 'Okay, what better than to have a bracelet that says, imitate Jesus?'

And so as you would wear this bracelet, you would always ask the question in everything that you did, 'What would Jesus do?' What would Jesus do at school? What would Jesus do eating my pizza? What would Jesus do in every big or small situation? And so I wore that bracelet every single day. I wore it at school, I wore it when I played basketball, I wore it when I did my chores, I wore it even when I washed my hands and had to clean myself, and that thing got super dirty.

And you know, just wearing it, I thought would magically help me be like Jesus, because I thought there was something inherently mystical about a bracelet that just had the questions, 'What would Jesus do?' And there were times where I would forget that it was on; it was just an accessory piece to me. But we knew during that time of the importance. We knew, and we would use, and we used this today too, we used different clichés and overused Christian models to talk about how we should be following Jesus.

But in our passage for today, I'm not here to really talk about overused Christian clichés or memes or videos or Christian jewelry to talk about the models of following Jesus. We're in 1 Peter going to really look at what the Bible says about imitating Christ. The Bible gives us really clear instruction on how Christians can look at the life of Christ and imitate the life of Christ, and it really comes from a reflection of the gospel.

For us as Christians, we can never get tired about reflecting upon Christ and reflecting upon the gospel. So, if you're here and maybe you're a non-believer and you're a non-Christian here today, we're so happy that you're here visiting. We are just praying and hoping that you would hear the love of Christ and hear of his life and his death and resurrection, and that you would become a Christian. And if you have any questions about that, I'm not the pastor of this church, so you can ask that guy right there later if you have questions about the gospel, all right?

But if you're here and you're a Christian, I'm here to encourage you, and you can reflect upon the gospel and we can look at this text and we can see his example in what it means for us today and how we can live practically as Christians.

The Call to Holy Living in a Suffering World

So, if you look at 1 Peter, if you've studied this book, really the theme of 1 Peter is to encourage suffering believers to stand on God's grace so that believers can live holy lives under heavenly hope. So Peter's book and his letter to these Christians here who have been scattered all throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, these Christians just needed to be encouraged.

They're going through persecution. They're going through the sufferings of society, and they're going through ridicule of maybe their government and their friends and their family members. This persecution was heavy and troublesome, and they were going through their own particular suffering, and Peter is trying to encourage them and tell them that you can still live a holy life because you have a heavenly hope that is founded in the gospel.

And it's a very simple truth, and we're parachuting in the middle of this book in chapter 2, and as Peter has progressed through this letter, he is talking about to them what a holy life specifically looks like. And he says, 'This is what your behavior should look like amongst your community.'

And so if you look at chapter 2, verse 12, he tells them to keep their behavior excellent amongst the Gentiles, or amongst their community and the people around them, and he says, 'so that in the thing in which they slander you as evil doers, they may because of your good deeds as they observe them glorify God in the day of visitation.' So he says, 'This is how you are to keep your behavior holy and good amongst the society so that when they look at your life as a Christian, they can glorify God as a result of your holy behavior.'

And he goes into specific applications of that in verses 13 to 17. He starts to talk about their relationship to government and local authorities. And you know how we love to talk about submitting to government, and Peter talks about this, and he says, 'This is how you can live holy in relation to your government.' He also talks about in verses 18 to 17 how you can submit to your earthly masters, and so he talks to household slaves and he says, 'This is what it's like to live as a holy Christian under earthly masters,' and this has relevance to those of us who work in the workplace and submit to earthly masters in our places of employment.

And in the midst of this, right before he starts to talk about even submission in the household and what the family looks like, right in the middle of talking about honoring authority and in living, just applying what is right when you're suffering harsh treatment, he says, 'Look to the example of Jesus.' He says, 'If you want to be motivated to live a holy life for the sake of the glory of God,' he says, 'simply look at the example of Jesus.'

Christ's Suffering as Our Example

So what we're going to do is we're going to look at three benefits of the cross that is provided for Christians that we see here in this text, three benefits from the cross that is provided for Christians. And what we're going to see first of all, the first benefit is in verses 21 to 23, and it's going to be kind of the majority of our text here, is the first benefit is for Jesus to suffer for us. That's the first benefit: to suffer for us, and you wouldn't think that suffering would be a benefit. But as we look at the text, we're going to see how much of a benefit it is.

So the first benefit here is to suffer for us in verses 21 to 23. Look at verse 21. He says, 'For you have been called for this purpose since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in his steps.'

As Peter is trying to encourage these Christians to live holy lives for the sake of Christ, he says, 'Look at the calling in which he has called you to.' He says, 'He's called you to suffer. You have been called for this purpose to suffer, or since Christ also suffered you, leaving you an example for you to follow in his footsteps.' He talks about this idea of calling, that they were called to this, and this kind of looks back to verse 15 where they are doing what is right.

They are living holy lives. They are applying just what the scriptures say for their particular lives. And he says, 'You've been called to this situation to do what is right,' and maybe you are doing what is right and you are suffering for doing what is right within your family, within your marriage, within your workplace, within your area of relating to the government. And as you are living for God and doing what's right, you're still suffering. And people are persecuting you for your faith and for living the Christian life. He says, 'You are actually called to do this. You are called to experience this.'

And on the surface, that doesn't seem very encouraging, does it? If someone says, 'You are called to live a life of suffering,' but this kind of looks back to their conversion. If you look at chapter 1, verse 15, he says, 'But like the holy one who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior.' The holy, eternal, wonderful God had called us as Christians, as he says, to live out the holiness that he has in his nature and character. And he says, 'You should be holy because I called you to be holy.'

And then he also goes on, if you go to chapter 2, verse 9, right before our passage, he says, 'But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession.' He calls us God's special treasure. And he says, 'Because we are God's special treasure, you can proclaim the excellencies of him who has called you.' And how do you proclaim? Well, we've been proclaimed because we've been called out of darkness into his marvelous light. When we acknowledge that he has called us out of darkness, we can show that we are no longer what we were before. We are no longer those who are in the darkness. We are now citizens of light, and he says, 'You can proclaim through your life, and you can show that you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, by living this holy life and adhering to the calling that he has called us to.'

But he says, 'Just know that when you live that holy life, that's going to come with suffering. It's going to come with persecution and trouble.' And he says, 'Don't think that that was outside of the plan of God. You were called to this.' Some people think that they're called to their certain professions. I talk to people all the time, they think, 'I was called to be a police officer. I was called to be a nurse. I was called to...' or maybe like their hobbies, and they say, 'I was called to be a football player or a pool player,' whatever it is. They think they were called by God to a certain particular place in life, and Peter is saying, 'You were called to suffer for Christ.'

But he says, 'That's part of your purpose in verse 21.' And when you know that this was purposed and planned by God, this really helps you to know that everything that is happening in your life and your suffering for the sake of Christ, it's not haphazard, it's not pointless, it's not meaningless. It's all under the plan of God. And that is encouraging to know.

Because as he is talking about this calling in verse 21, he also talks about this example. He says, 'Since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example to follow in his steps.' He says, 'He says, you were called to follow in this example as well.' He says, 'Christ suffered for you.' This is a reference to his atonement, to his substitution on our behalf. He says, 'Christ suffered for your personal advantage. He went through what he went through so that you would be at an advantage. What's that advantage? Well, we know that to be salvation. We know that to be the forgiveness of sins. We know that for us to be reconciled with God and to enter into heaven. That's the great gospel truth. He says, 'Christ suffered for you, for your benefit.'

He's also saying in this context that the benefit is him leaving you an example. And if you look at that word 'example,' that word 'example' in the original language is a very interesting word. It literally means 'underwriting.' And what they would do is back then is that a teacher would go to his pupil, and he would take a writing or a drawing. And they would place a really thin piece of paper or parchment over that writing or drawing. And that teacher would tell that pupil to trace that writing or trace that drawing exactly. So they could basically have a replication of whatever that original drawing or writing was. And that's the idea of example here.

And you know, as a kid, I would love to trace. There's not an artistic bone in my body at all. And so, unlike my wife, my wife does beautiful art. I'm the complete opposite of her. I do stick figures at best. And so I need to trace. And my kids have such wonderful tracing tools. Some great toys out there where there's this toy with this LED light where you turn it on. It's got the power of the sun just right there through this LED light. And you can trace any drawing. And that's the idea here of an example is you're tracing a drawing to not just admire the painting or the drawing, but to copy it.

And so Peter is saying, 'This is you need an example to follow.' And I want to let you know that Jesus is that example, not just to admire, not just say, 'Hey, that's nice for him,' but an example to follow. And he elaborates on this by saying it's an example 'to follow in his steps.' And the term 'in his steps' just means to follow closely after or to follow in his tracks. The term 'steps' refers to basically tracking the footprints of either an animal or a person that's walking in the woods.

And when you read something like this, you almost get a little overburdened and overwhelmed as a Christian when Peter says, 'You need to follow in the steps of Christ.' And you kind of rebut back and say, 'Peter, don't you know your theology? Don't you know that Jesus was the God-man? He was completely perfect. And he didn't sin whatsoever. You know, Jesus didn't lash out at his siblings in a sinful way. Jesus didn't talk back to his parents in an unruly and dishonoring way. Jesus didn't have to deal with all those things, or he didn't do all those things. How can you tell me to follow in his footsteps? Those seem like really big shoes to fill.'

It's like when my one-year-old baby tries to put on my shoes, right? Big shoes to fill to follow in the footsteps of the God-man, the perfect God-man. When Peter says, 'follow in his steps,' he's not saying, 'Put your feet in every step that Jesus took.' He's actually saying, 'follow in the direction of his steps.' And that makes it palatable for us. That makes it so that we can actually do this. Because Peter gives this not as a discouragement, but he says, 'You are walking that way. Jesus walked this way, walk this way.' That's what he says to follow in Jesus' steps. Follow the same direction, the same goal and attitude. If Jesus was gentle, if Jesus was patient, if he was loving, show those same principles and attitudes in your life. And if you remember that this is your purpose, he says, that really will help mitigate the bitterness in your life when suffering for doing what is good.

The Perfect Character of Christ

So he says, 'follow in that example.' And he gets to verse 22, and he starts to talk about Jesus' life and just his character. He says in verse 22, 'Who committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in his mouth.' Here, Peter starts to talk about the character and the innocent conduct of Jesus. And then he references Isaiah. He starts off by saying that Jesus committed no sin whatsoever. He was unblemished in character. It means that he didn't submit to or succumb to sin in any single instance. He was pure in word and deed, and Peter could affirm that.

Peter lived alongside Christ. He ministered alongside of him, and he saw him, and he saw him at the garden when Peter tried to lop off the guy's ear, and he tried to kill him, and said he lopped off the guy's ear. He said, 'Even in that, I saw the holiness and the perfection of Christ.' He says, 'I can attest to the fact that he committed no sin whatsoever.'

He says, 'Nor was any deceit found in his mouth.' He broadly talks about his character, and then he narrows it down to the words that Jesus would say. And he says, 'Jesus was not guilty of expressing any type of deceit or any bad words coming out of his mouth.' And so that word 'deceit' just means sinful cunning or craftiness or slight trickery. It refers to someone who tries to use words or deceit to sinfully disadvantage others for their own personal advantage. And so you see here, he says, 'Jesus was not like that.' He did not use his words to try to manipulate others for his own personal advantage. He passed the speech test.

And we know that the mouth says a lot about the heart. If you remember in Matthew chapter 12, verses 34 to 35, when Jesus was talking to the Pharisees and was addressing their hypocrisy, and he was giving this illustration of just the heart, and he said that the words are really an expression of the heart. And so we look at that passage, and we see that the mouth is the megaphone of the heart. That even though we cannot see what is going on in the heart, the mouth can really express what is going on inside of the heart. And for Jesus, he passed the test of speech. That his words revealed his sinless life and sinless heart.

Responding to Insult and Suffering with Trust

And then you get on to verse 23, and he says to describe Jesus more. 'And while being reviled, he did not revile in return.' C.S.B. has a different word, and this term 'reviled' has to do with slander and just saying evil or wrong things. And this idea of not slandering is that Jesus, when he was slandered, he did not retaliate when he was personally slandered. So when people hurled insults at him, he did not take that opportunity to hurl insults back in return. And it's described in the present tense. It's almost like you're putting on a scene of a movie where you're watching Jesus being slandered right before you. And he's saying as the scene is unfolding and Jesus is being insulted, he didn't insult in return.

And did Jesus receive insults? He did receive a lot of insults. He was accused of being possessed by a demon. He was accused of working with Satan. He had even potentially some rumors and gossip about the nature of his birth and his mother. They called him a blasphemer. They called him a deceiver. And they poked fun and mocked him even though he was the true king, the true prophesied king. They mocked him as the king. And so if you look at the scriptures, Jesus received a lot of different types of insults and slander. And here Peter is trying to emphasize that when he responded, he didn't respond in the way that his enemies responded to him.

And just to clarify, Jesus did speak. Jesus did speak truth. He did correct sin, and he did even express righteous anger. But when he did those things, he did not return abuse for abuse. He did not return outbursts for outbursts. He did not have a lack of self-control, unlike us. Whenever we face abuse or slander or insults, we tend to punish people the way that we like to punish them, whether it's through silence or outbursts or just critique or other sinful responses. We do that, whether it's to our spouses, to our children, to our bosses or coworkers or anybody in our life. We have a tendency and temptation to do that. But Jesus did not. And this is all adding to just the wonderful description of his perfection.

It goes on in verse 23. He says, 'While suffering, he uttered no threats.' This goes on to describe just the suffering that he encountered at the cross. And here we know that the Bible says that he encountered great physical suffering. Did he not? Jesus encountered a lot of physical suffering. When Jesus went to the cross, he was struck physically in the face. They spat at him and they punched him in the face. They took a crown of thorns. And those crown of thorns dug deep into his skull, into his temple. And what they would do is they took him to get flogged, and they took a cat-o'-nine-tails. And with the cat-o'-nine-tails, it would take, and as he was beaten in the back, it would grab chunks of flesh from his back. And it would expose the bone and the tendons to the air. And he would suffer immense pain. And then when he was nailed to the cross, they would drive nails through his hands and through his feet. And as they put him on the cross, it was an attempt to suffocate him. And he would have to bring himself up in order to breathe. And so when we look at all that he experienced in the suffering of the crucifixion event, we look and we said, 'Yes, our Lord suffered a lot. He suffered deeply.'

And in this suffering, Peter says, 'Through this immense suffering, he uttered no threats.' He maybe had every right to. He probably had a bunch of responses and it may be things to potentially say, but he did not say any one of those things. He suffered silently as the innocent Lamb for the purpose of our salvation. He didn't threaten revenge. He didn't threaten punishment, not like we do. But instead, I love what Peter said. This is the alternative. This is how Jesus responded. And of verse 23, 'but kept entrusting himself to him who judges righteously.'

This is an interesting word. The word 'entrusting' here, Peter uses this term, a word that has been used with reference to handing over a criminal to the authorities. You know, there was one time, I think there was like a couple of years ago, when I had woken up, I think I was a Saturday morning. And, you know, you wake up in the Saturday morning, you just wanna get your tea and breakfast. And, you know, I look outside to a nice day, and I just, I open the blinds to my window, and I notice that one of my neighbors is pointing a gun to a strange man on my lawn. Something to wake up to, right? Something great to wake up to.

And I had caught the tail end of the situation on my street where my neighbors had caught this guy who had been hopping the backyards of my neighbor's houses, and he had stalked one of my neighbors who was a woman and tried to enter into her house. And so I caught the tail end of my neighbors taking this guy, taking him down, and holding him down until the authorities and cops could come to arrest him. And so when they did that, they handed him...