1 Peter, chapter number 2. We are finally coming to the end of this chapter. We will focus our attention primarily on verse 25, but I would like you to follow as I read verses 21 through 25, just to get the setting. It's all a part of the same context of thought. Talking about suffering wrongfully, Peter writes in verse 21, for even hereunto were you called. Believers must be consciously aware that to be exposed to wrongful treatment is a part of our life. And we do it because Christ also suffered for us. So this is our opportunity now to follow in his steps. He has left us an example and we are to follow in the similar steps. Christ who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth. Christ who when he was reviled, reviled not again. And when he suffered, he threatened not. but he committed himself to him, his father, who does right always, who judgeth righteously. Christ, who his own self bear our sins in his own body on the tree, so that we, being dead to sin, should live unto righteousness, by whose stripes you were healed. for you were as sheep going astray, but are now returned unto the shepherd and the bishop of your souls. Because Christ suffered for us, Peter is telling us that we should be willing and ready to follow him. and suffer for his cause, his name, in a manner that imitates how he suffered. Christ is our example in this. And we should be willing to follow him into even the likeness of his death, Peter said, by taking up our cross and crucifying the flesh, mortifying it, putting it to death, its tendencies, in us to rebel against the will of God. And we do this knowing we can live unto righteousness because Christ bore our sins and its judgment in his own suffering and death for us so that we can live unto righteousness. because we died in Christ. When Christ died, we were placed by the Father in his Son. We died with Christ to our sins, and we are now able to live as those who, like Christ, when he was raised from the dead, we too are raised to newness of life. as believers in Christ, who put our faith in Him alone for our hope of salvation. And last Sunday we focused on this last phrase in verse 24, which is a good lead for us into verse 25, by whose stripes you were healed. And here Peter connects the vision that he has of the suffering Savior to Isaiah's suffering servant. I want you to go back, keeping that phrase in mind as we're getting ready for verse 25 this morning, by whose stripes you were healed. Look at Isaiah chapter 53, and we'll come back to it once or twice more. Chapter 53 in Isaiah, Peter is quoting, borrowing language from Isaiah the prophet as he writes about Christ's suffering for us. Isaiah 53 verses 4 and 5. As the prophet sees the suffering servant, he describes him here in verses four and five. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and he has carried our sorrows. Yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. as though he died for some sin of his own in his punishment when we saw him, as Isaiah says, hanging from the cursed tree. But, contrary to that, he was actually wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities, and the chastisement of our peace was upon him and with his stripes. we are healed. So Peter borrows this language from the prophet as he describes the suffering servant of God. And the only righteous servant of God who could take up the cause of the father and complete the task, the only servant He gave to us is the Messiah, his own son, whose one constant desire, when you read of him, was to do his father's will. I came to do my father's will. That was his passion. No matter where he went, when he encountered this, when he encountered that, didn't change his drive. It was to do the will of His Father. And in doing that is how He would bring us to the Father. There's no other way to the Father except through Christ. And the only way Christ could bring us to the Father is Christ perfected the Father's will concerning us. And so through that, we are provided with healing We are given a cure for our condition, a wholeness to our brokenness. By his stripes we were healed. In verse 25, it begins here with this word for, and it's telling us that Peter is continuing his thoughts here, and that the next statement is actually a reason or an argument for why Christ must become the suffering servant. So he's emphasizing it again, but he's putting it into a little bit of a different image here than what he's already stated before. For you were sheep going astray. Just what Isaiah said immediately, After he said, by whose stripes you were healed, Isaiah says the same thing, for you were as sheep going astray. And so Peter takes that image and he puts it into his text to help us better understand what Christ has done for us. Christ, the suffering servant, because we were as sheep going astray. Isaiah said it this way. All we, like sheep, have gone astray. Says the same thing, but with a little bit different language. All we. Think about that little simple connection of ideas and thoughts. All we, like sheep, have gone astray and we've turned everyone to his own way, said Isaiah. And so Peter, like Isaiah, has a particular group in mind when he says, for ye were as sheep going astray. All we. So there's something here in Isaiah's mind that Peter is connecting our thoughts to. Peter and Isaiah are focusing on a particular group of people. So the question is, for whom, all we, did the father place their sins on his son, the suffering servant? All we, whoever that group is, all of that group, all we have gone astray and the suffering servant has become the burden bearer of our sins. So all of the group, called we, their sins, their entirety of their sins were placed on Christ. If you kept your finger in Isaiah, go back to Isaiah 53 or turn back to that. I want you to see a few other statements here that help us understand what Isaiah and Peter is actually, what they're saying to us. All we. In verse number six, right? All we, like sheep, have gone astray. We've turned every one to his own way, and the Lord hath laid on him, on the suffering servant, Christ, he has laid on him the iniquity of us all. And so we have this idea of all of the we. Do you see it? All of the we. All of their sins, all of their iniquities have been placed on Christ, who would bear their sin and their punishment for them. Look at verse eight, we have a similar statement here as well, where he talks about He was taken from prison from judgment and who should declare his generation? He was cut off from the land of the living and for the transgression of my people. There is a particular group here now described as my people. All of their sins, we are that group. If our sins have been placed on Christ, And we have been given the gift of faith unto salvation. All of us, we, all of our sins have been placed upon him. All of them. They are my people, says God. And his people are being provided with a salvation that is complete and perfect. In verse 11, he'll say it in another way. He says here, at the end of the verse, that my righteous servant shall justify many because he will bear their iniquities. And so here we see that there are in this group all of the we. Here he calls them in a different way, but he refers to them as the many. or I will bear their iniquities, not just all of everyone's iniquities, but their iniquities specifically. He will bear their iniquities. The prophet, and this is true throughout the Old Testament, Isaiah is not just coming up with his own idea. This is true through all the prophets regarding the plan of God to redeem a particular people to himself. and that his servant that he will send into the world, the Messiah, will shoulder all of their iniquities. And through his provision, he would provide for them an eternal salvation. One more thought here at chapter 53, verse 12. He tells us here concerning their transgressions, that he bear the sin. He bear their sins, many of them, not all of humanity, but many, and made intercession for the transgressors. And so Isaiah is simply referring to what Peter is picking up on here, going back to 1 Peter chapter 2, when Peter says, for you were as sheep going astray. Not all sinners are in view here, but those who are designated as my people all of them who have gone astray, all of them will be recovered. The life and death of Jesus Christ 2,000 years ago was sufficient for all of God's people, his elect both in the Old and the New Testament believers. All have received the gift of salvation, and time will continue until all of God's people, all of his people have come to faith in God's plan of salvation. How many years, how many decades, how many, we don't know. But what we do know is God will not lose one. Time will continue until God has brought every child, his people, my people. He will bring them to faith in himself. And we come not in our own strength. You've heard that. It's not because we have the will to do it, the power to do it, the determination to do it. We can do enough good works. None of that matters. We come to God through Christ because he has provided for us a provision so that we can come to the Father through Jesus Christ. God has worked all the details out. Nothing is missing in the plan. And Christ, the suffering servant, has provided the perfect and personal salvation for us. We could not save ourselves, nor can we. In a lost condition, we will not find our way to God. And so there is a provision that God has provided for the lost people of God. But here we are pictured as sheep going astray. This is what we were. Salvation provided on the cross didn't recover us. Someone must recover us. It's the shepherd. It's the shepherd who seeks the lost and brings them into the safety of the sheepfold. This describes who we were. Peter says, you were as sheep, past tense, So he's speaking now to those who are believers. And if you're a believer, he's speaking to you through this. You were as sheep going astray, but you are now returned unto the shepherd. The point is that even God's chosen people are born as sinners and cannot find their salvation without the intervention of a shepherd. whose mission is to seek and to save that which is lost and bring that sheep back to the fold. Even though a perfect salvation has been provided, we will wander until we are returned, Peter says. You were a sheep going astray, but you are now returned unto the shepherd of your souls. Return. And all we must hear the gospel, and by means of God's word and spirit, all we who are made now spiritually alive, we are able to hear the voice of our shepherd as he leads us back to a relationship with the shepherd. We all were lost, but are now, Peter says, you were as sheep gone astray, but are now We are now returned. And this word now focuses on an actual event in time. You are now because of an event in time. Now marks that time when we were born again, when we were saved and converted. Now is the time when we turn from living a selfish life, living for sin, and we turned our life over to God, but we are now returned. And Peter describes this event as the sheep now returned unto the shepherd. At an appointed time, at an appointed time, we all have our now. are now, when God, in his appointed plan and time, brought salvation to you through the gospel. And when that message was preached to you, he gave you, imparted unto you, the gift of faith to hear that message, to believe it, and through that message come to him and find your salvation. But Peter speaks of it here as returning to the shepherd. We have returned to the shepherd. So we have to ask the question is, how do we explain this returning to the shepherd? He's speaking to people who are now saved. They were lost, now they're saved. And in their salvation, they're returned to the shepherd. What is Peter saying to us? The only way is to believe that God has an elect people. He has my people. Peter spoke of these people at the beginning of his letter in chapter 1, verse 2, the elect of God. And Paul tells us that God's elect were placed in Christ when? Before the foundation of the world. We were placed in Him and thereby we profited and benefited from all that He did. From the beginning to the end when we are eternally with Him. We were placed in Christ. And friend, there's no way to fall out of that position. There's never been a time when you were not in Christ. You may not have known it, your time had not come yet, but you were in Christ. You were that safe and secure. God put you there to guarantee the outcome. You're in Christ. Before the foundation of the world, we are secure in him because of our position in Christ cannot be canceled, cannot be lost. Even though we were born into the world as lost sinners, we were born into this world, we did not have the benefits of that position when we were initially born until our time came when the gospel was brought to us. And we like sheep that had been wandering lost, going astray, meaning from one thing to another thing to another thing, lost like sheep, but have now returned. You've been brought back. It's an amazing picture that Peter captures for us. You've always been in Christ. God chose you before the foundation of the world. And in his plan, he determined a salvation that would be worked out for you perfectly to bring you to himself. And so in that process, from where we were in Christ before time to when now you receive Christ in time, it's described as returning. It's described as going back into this relationship with Christ. And so returned unto the shepherd. This word returned is an action verb, but it includes causality, meaning we didn't return on our own. We didn't have power to return on our own. Someone had to intervene for us. and the means used by God is through his word and spirit and the preaching and the sharing of the gospel. And then when we heard and were born again, we heard the voice of our shepherd speaking to us, who continues to speak to us today through his word and spirit, and who leads us through the word and spirit as it is read and heard and study together so Christ, the shepherd is my shepherd and he fully cares for our needs. When you read Psalm 23, it's often read independently from the triplet of Psalms there, chapter 22, 23, 24 meant to go together. They are messianic. In 22, we see the suffering servant dying In 23, we see the shepherd caring. And in 24, we see the shepherd as king. So these are messianic pictures for us concerning Christ. And when we read Psalm 23, you read it, and there are all kinds of verbs everywhere used to describe what the shepherd is doing for us, the sheep. One who watches over and cares for all of God's sheep. They were entrusted to him in the beginning before time. He came to earth, he bore their sin and their penalty as a suffering servant. He now in time, as we come to faith in him, he leads us gently as a shepherd would lead his sheep, gathering them one by one into the sheepfold and bringing us under his care. That's the shepherd. that has brought us back. Not because we willed it or we had the power to do it, but because God determined through Christ we would be brought back to Christ. And that placement as a shepherd, making him our shepherd. When you read the gospel of John chapter 10, Christ talks about his role as a shepherd to them, and he talks about his coming and speaking, and not everyone hears his voice. Many don't hear his voice, and he even tells them why. It's not given to you to hear my voice. But for everyone who hears my voice, they come. They come. And friend, if you've heard the voice of God, it is not because you had the awareness and the wherewithal and the ability consciously to make some decision independent of God. You didn't. God gave you the capacity by rebirthing you, making you alive, that you would hear the voice of the shepherd through the gospel calling you to himself. There is no other way. And Jesus said, many don't care. They don't even hear it. They don't know my voice. They don't want to hear my voice. He says, that's okay. It was never given to them to hear my voice. So if you've heard the voice, you have much to rejoice in as a child of God today. He says, but you've now returned unto the shepherd. This is not an adjective that describes something Jesus does or something about his nature. This is a noun. Jesus is a shepherd. That's who he is, not what he does. Because of who he is, he does things that shepherds do. But what he's referring to here, Jesus is, as the psalmist said, my shepherd. I shall not want. If you have found Jesus as your shepherd, you can also say, I shall not want. All that I have need of, he has provided for me. He leads me, he feeds me, he protects me, all of the things in Psalm 23. And I will have no want. We were a sheep going astray, but are now returned. Something has happened. Something has intervened and brought us back to the shepherd and bishop of our souls. So Christ, another noun, Christ is the shepherd and bishop of our souls, caring for and watching over our souls. You realize when we have been brought back to God and now we are under the shepherd that God has given to us, all the care that we need, all the protection we need is now provided for us. The apostle, Peter didn't create this word bishop. Paul didn't create this word bishop. It was a Greek word in use for hundreds of years before it is used and applied to Christ. Hundreds of years before. The episkopos. Primarily this word, the bishop, the episkopos, refers to someone who is entrusted with oversight. Their job, the episcopus' job, was to make sure that those things under their oversight were functioning or operating properly. This was originally used as a title of a general. who would from time to time inspect the troops to make sure they were staying fit and they were ready for battle. The episcopus must identify any weaknesses that might exist in the troops, lack of conditioning, poor armor, not properly cared for, and make sure that the necessary corrections were made for their own safety and the safety of their fellow soldiers. Christ is that Episcopus who seeks the benefit of our souls. And we need both the shepherd and the bishop. We also recognize that the Spirit of God chooses men in the church, right, gives them the same name. They are your shepherds, poymen, translated pastor in Ephesians 4, and they are your bishops. We are your bishops, and that's another whole subject, and I'm going to save it for when Peter deals with it in chapter five in more detail. So we'll kind of push that off to the back burner for a while. but it is our responsibility to function among you as shepherds, pastors, and bishops, or overseers. So let me tie this up for you this morning. Christ is the suffering servant. He suffered for us. so that we are able to live a righteous life. The shepherd, the suffering servant did that for us. Christ is also the shepherd of our souls. And he will bring every lost sheep that belongs to the father under his care. And we will learn, I shall not want because the Lord is my shepherd. and he will meet the needs of his sheep. When we look upon Christ, we have to look upon Christ in our life. As we live our life, we have to see him as that only source for providing all of our needs. I shall not want. That's pretty broad, isn't it? To say that I have no needs because Christ is my shepherd. Christ is also your bishop of our souls, the overseer of our souls. And it's through his word and spirit that he helps us to identify our weaknesses. He helps us identify what needs to be corrected in our life. And we all stand in need of healing, improvement. What a blessed thing it is. I would think you would say with me, what a blessed thing it is to be under the oversight of the Episcopus, our Lord Jesus Christ. He knows every need that we have, not just as the shepherd, but the need we have for correction, for adjustments, for improvement as the bishop of our soul. I pray as we contemplate these things today, and as we consider him, that Christ will be exalted in us today. He will be exalted as our suffering servant. That we will be mindful and constantly regard the reality, someone died for me. And we cannot live any day of our life with some contemplation of that reality. He paid the debt for my sin. He was punished in my place. The suffering servant was given on behalf of my life for me, for us as a group of people. So I pray that Christ will be exalted as we consider him as the suffering savior. I also pray that he will be exalted today as our shepherd who cares for our soul. Look quickly at Psalm 23. It would be wrong for me to mention all these things and not look at it and read it with you, the beauty that is here. You may have memorized it. How many memorized Psalm 23? Some, right? Look, yeah, so many. My mother taught me Psalm 23 when I was five years old. Anybody remember I was five years old? I was taught this as a means to encourage and strengthen my little heart concerning who Christ was, that he was my shepherd. Look with me at these statements, these actions, the personal attachment that this psalmist has. The Lord is my shepherd. What a great thing to say. God is my shepherd, I shall not want. There is nothing lacking when he is my shepherd. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. I don't always know what the best field is for my nourishment, but he acts on my behalf and he maketh me. There is an effort of forcing me to lie down. in green pastures, and then he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul. He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. This is the shepherd, and yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. For thou, my shepherd, you are with me. Your rod and your staff are a comfort to me. Thou preparest a table before me. often in the presence of mine enemies, and thou anointest my head with oil, and my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. This is the shepherd that God has made Christ to be for his people. He is the shepherd of our souls today. And I pray that we will learn to lean and draw from this shepherd and trust his leading in our life and find greater joy in the provisions he provides for us. Sometimes we may resist a certain kind of provision he has because we don't like what it implies or suggests or what it's gonna require, but he may make us to lie down in green pastures. so that we might be nourished with the things that we have need of. But it is our shepherd who cares for our souls today, and it is our bishop, our episcopus, who watches over our souls, correcting us, chastening us in order to keep us spiritually healthy and fruitful. In Hebrews chapter 12, if you have time to read about the importance of God's disciplining of our life in Hebrews chapter 12, there are so many beautiful things that remind us that our shepherd inspects his sheep. He's looking at everyone. He's inspecting their condition. He sees things that Bring great joy to him, I'm sure, but he also sees things that are not good. He's the inspector general of God's people. He's looking at your uniform. He's looking at your preparedness for war against evil. What does he find? He's the bishop of your souls. That's his job as the bishop. to point out those things that are lacking and deficient in your life. So what will our response be to him today? How will you respond to him? As your suffering servant, your shepherd, and your bishop, what glorious things God has done to provide such a Christ as this. What a glorious, glorious Christ God has provided for us. Father, we thank you for the opportunity to think upon these things that have been written for us centuries, millennium ago, and reconsider as saints through ages have considered before us the wonderful work that you have accomplished through your son for us. that you have brought us back to the shepherd, the shepherd and the bishop of our souls. Thank you, Father, for what you have done. We praise you and give you thanks through Jesus Christ, our Lord.