All right, I want to invite you to turn in your copy of God's Word to 1 Peter 2. We're going to be looking at verses 18 through 25. 1 Peter chapter 2 verses 18 through 25. Initially, I thought that I would only be preaching from a few verses this morning, but I have not preached through 1 Peter before. This is new. This is a new, you know, book series for me as I'm preaching through this. And as I looked at verse 18 and then just kind of looked at the flow, of the rest of the chapter, I saw very clearly that this all fits together, and necessarily so. Before we get started, though, I do want to let you know of one thing that is in your bulletin that I want you to be aware of, and that is that this Saturday, this coming Saturday, we're going to have a celebration of life for Gladys Rouleau. Most of you know her, or at least know of her. She was a very godly lady, and it really showed up as she was battling cancer. You know, it's really when life squeezes us, when the Lord allows things into our life that really press us and squeeze us, then we really get to see what's inside of us. And others, in fact, get to see what's inside of us, too. And she continued to demonstrate love and grace and just a beauty about her spirit as she was resting in the Lord for everything that she needed. And so this Saturday, appropriately so, we're going to have a celebration of life for her here at the church. It's in your bulletin. It's at the bottom of the list. It's November 18th. What Jamie does is tries to keep everything in order, and there's many things that you need to know of that are happening this week. And so at the end of this week is the celebration of life for Gladys. It's going to be this Saturday. at 11 a.m. here at the church. Well, 1 Peter chapter 2, verses 18 through 25. Now, as I had, and maybe if you listened to, or were paying a little bit close attention to one of the sermons that I preached, either last Sunday or the Sunday before, let you know how much I'm focused. You know, the nature of my job is I say so many words, and I kind of forget when I said them. But I talked about how that submission, as we get to verse 18, is gonna be about how it is that we take a first century context and the whole thing of just that whole culture was steeped in slavery and how we pull that out and drop it down into 21st century America and it tells us how we submit in the workplace. So I anticipated this morning talking about that, about how it is that we, exercise and demonstrate submission in our places of work, but as I read this and as I studied this text and particularly as I kept reading past verse 20 and saw that we are to submit to those in authorities because Jesus did the same thing, then I saw, I really got to see as I was praying and asking the Lord to reveal this truth, This all fits together, and it's not just in the workplace. It is what we are all commanded, called to do. I also want you to know that if you have an understanding of Scripture that every time you read, it never calls you to say, oh wow, I don't believe that, or oh wow, I don't behave that way. If there's never that that happens when you're reading Scripture, then you're not really reading Scripture. because Christianity is counter-cultural. It goes not only against culture, it goes what against naturally happens inside of our own hearts. And the message of verses 18 through 25 is something that does not come naturally to any of us, and yet Jesus commands it. So I want us to spend some time this morning, I've already spent time in this, As I not only studied the text, but as I kind of preached it to myself, and I still have a long way to go, but I preached it to myself, and now I'm sharing with you what the Lord is calling us to in 1 Peter 2, verses 18 through 25. So let's read the text, and then we'll go back and unpack it and kind of illustrate what it means and talk about how it works in our life. 1 Peter 2, verse 18. Household slaves, submit to your masters in all reverence, not only to the good and gentle ones, but also to the cruel. It could be the crooked, the mean, the harsh. For it brings favor if, because of a consciousness of God, someone endures grief from suffering unjustly. For what credit is there if when you do wrong and you are beaten, you endure it? But when you do what is good and suffer, if you endure it, this brings favor with God. 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. And 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. He's clearly thinking of Isaiah 53 as the Holy Spirit is leading him to write this. For you were like sheep going astray, Isaiah 53, 6. But you have now returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, this is a difficult text for at least a couple of reasons. But Lord, I pray that you would help us as Jesus followers, those of us in this room that are saved. Lord, I pray that we would not whimsically just read over this and think that we can claim salvation from you and yet not give to you our full allegiance and surrender to you and obey you. Help us in this room who are followers of you to want to know what it is that you're calling us to do, to rightly understand it, and then to apply it. And Lord, I pray for any who are in this room who do not know you as their Savior. Lord, I pray that through this understanding of the example, ultimately, that you provided for us in suffering and dying on the cross and rising from the dead, that anyone in this room who does not currently, right now, know you as their Savior, that by the end of our time together, that they would, in a simple act of childlike faith, transfer their trust, stop trusting in themselves, To make them right in your eyes cannot happen, but instead to trust in you, Jesus, to forgive them and save them. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. All right, so I do want you to, you've probably already got your sermon notes out. It's pretty detailed this morning, but I did want to just walk through the text. And so let's just go on and dive right in. The first, I saw two points as I looked at this. The first points are verses 18 through 20, what I initially planned on preaching today, and then the second point is verses 21 through 25, what I anticipated being tomorrow, next Sunday, but I clearly see they go together. So, verses 18 through 20.1, we must sometimes submit to injustice. I do want to put sometimes in there because what I want us to see is that this is like our response to the government that we looked at. There is a default position. you know, at a default position, right? It's like, generally speaking, this is gonna be my knee-jerk reaction, this is how I respond. But it is overly simplistic to say that this is how I will always respond, because when we look throughout Scripture, we see that there are exceptions and there are qualifiers and things that come in. But what we hear Peter saying here, as the Holy Spirit is moving him to write this, is this is the default position. default position, submitting to those who are in authority over us, even when what they are doing is unjust. Look at letter A, verse 18, we must submit to those in authority over us. We must submit to those in authority over us. Verse 18, household slaves Is that problematic? You know, we're going to talk tonight as we go through, as we've been reading through the Bible in a year. Tonight, this past week, we would have read through the book of Philemon. So we're going to really kind of drill down on the Bible's perspective on slavery tonight. But we're going to look at this text and just deal with it as it is. Right now, household slaves, submit to your masters with all reverence, not only to the good and gentle ones, but also to the cruel. Now what is going on here? Again, we're going to talk about the perspective of slavery tonight and how the Christian worldview and the New Testament scriptures have embedded in it all of the seeds that are necessary to eradicate slavery in a culture over time as enough hearts are changed. But what we see Peter doing is these seeds are barely getting planted and the Roman Empire is massive and a lot of the people that are coming to faith in Christ are slaves. They're slaves. And so what Peter is doing is saying, okay, you know what, if there was to be an insurrection, if there was all this, not only would it not bring glory to God doing it that way, there are ways to go about it not that way, but ultimately he knew that they would probably get themselves killed and they would get themselves even more punished or whatever else. So what he's doing is he's saying, let's talk about how you live out your faith in this messed up context, right? Let's talk about how you live out your faith in the unjust context in which you find yourself. So he's not advocating this. What he is doing is saying that the Christian worldview informs us how we live out any number of scenarios that we may find ourselves in. household slaves, you who are followers of Jesus, you who are the servant, the slave of someone else, in the context in which you're in, in which there is no talk of emancipation, there is no talk of freedom for you, let's talk about how it is that you live as a Jesus follower in the context in which you find yourself. Submit to your masters with all reverence, not only to the good and gentle ones, but also to the cruel." Now, one of the things I do want to point out, because I do know that this thing about slavery is a huge issue, and that's why I want to go down into it this evening. But one of my many favorite heroes that I have enjoyed reading about in history is a guy named William Wilberforce. Anybody ever heard of William Wilberforce? If you don't, you need to know William Wilberforce. If you really want to read about him, I've got a big thick book and I would encourage you to get it. It's written by Eric Metaxas and it's called Amazing Grace. It's called Amazing Grace. It's because William Wilberforce knew John Newton, who wrote Amazing Grace. In fact, John Newton, who wrote Amazing Grace, was the one who encouraged William Wilberforce, who was in Parliament in England, to continue to fight year after year because, and even as it was destroying his health with the stress and the weight and everything else, year after year until finally the abolition of the slave trade was completed. William Wilberforce was a believer. If you look at those who have, throughout the years, sought freedom for the captive, it is those who, generally, generally those who understand the gospel, who understand that at the foot of the cross there is no slave, there is no free, we are all equal at the foot of the cross, that as we come to the Lord Jesus, we are now not stratus, we are brothers and sisters in Christ. It has always been, generally speaking, Christians at the forefront. freedom. But when we look at this there was no possibility of freedom for these people and so God through Peter was saying this is how you live out your faith. He said submit to your masters with all reverence or with respect. What he was meaning by that is don't just do what they tell you with a bad attitude, but do what they tell you while if you see them as their enemy you are commanded to love your enemy. Right? I mean, it's one thing. We know what it's like to tell a child, you know, a young child, hey, go clean your room. The room is a disaster area, right? I mean, it's just horrible. So we tell them to go clean their room. Why do I have to? You know, a little bit of sass that comes back, you know, you will clean it or I'll make you wish that you had cleaned it when I told you to. And so then they go off, but they go off with an attitude, right? They go off and they clean it, but they clean it with an attitude, you know? What he's talking about here is obey, but don't do it with an attitude, right? What he is saying is when you submit even in an unjust system like this, submit not only to obey, but also to do it without the attitude, but to do it with respect. And then he says in verse 18, not just to the good and the gentle masters, but also to the cruel. The Greek word is crooked. It speaks of those who are mean and harsh. Those who are demanding certain things that are just vindictive, they're lashing out at this person maybe because they don't like him and the slave has to do what the master says. And the Word of God says, don't just submit with a heart that is respectful to the good but also to the bad. And so we hear the command and everything in us is saying, but why? Why? Are Christians to be doormats? Is that all there is? No, the text continues. Look, let's go to the next verse. Point B, it brings favor with God when we respond well to injustice. There's a reason why we are commanded to behave respectfully and to submit to those that are in authority over us, even when that boss is mean to us, or even when whoever it is that's in that position of authority over us is mean. and unkind, we still are commanded to submit and to do it respectfully. Now again, I told my class as I was telling them a little bit ago, I could easily preach a month of Sundays on here because I know that everything I say, got a question going this way, got a question about this. We also understand, and that's the thing about the New Testament, is it's not just bullet points, you know? We have to immerse ourselves in the New Testament so that as we're looking at a topic, the Holy Spirit and study resources allow us to bring all that the New Testament has to say on this so that we have a complete understanding of it, right? A complete understanding. Well, what if someone is doing something illegal and my boss is commanding me to do something illegal? Well, then I would draw you to Romans 13, you know, that the Bible tells us that God hasn't given the government the sword for no purpose at all, but it's to carry out vengeance against the evildoer. Let those in authority take care of that. If there's a parent who is abusing a child, Abusing a child, once again, pick up the phone, Romans 13, call the authorities, right? Let them deal with this. There are certain things in which we understand that the default is that we are to be someone who is submitting respectfully. There are always these things out here, but the default is this posture. This should be our initial response. So it brings favor with God when we respond well to injustice. Verse 19, for it brings favor if, because of consciousness of God, someone endures grief from suffering unjustly. And so here it says that, you know, if we deal, if someone in authority over us, and we've got no choice in this, someone in authority over this is demanding, forcing us to do something wrong. Or maybe they're just mean and they're harsh. I'm telling you, I used to work for a place that whenever I was going to seminary, it was a dog-eat-dog environment. Dog-eat-dog environment. And it was malicious, and everybody had to watch their back. It was horrible. And one of the things that I had to do is think of this text and similar texts like this as far as to how I behaved myself in a culture like that that I did not engage in what they were engaging in. It says here that Christians are because of a consciousness of God are to endure grief from suffering unjustly. This doesn't make sense. Whenever somebody mistreats us, we respond kindly and maybe it's a boss or someone that's treated us unkindly and we end up submitting to them and doing the thing because it does not violate any scripture and so we go ahead but we also do it in the right attitude. This verse says God gives us a thumbs up. we find favor with God. And we're thinking, why? Does God love it when his kids get beat up? Is that what this is about? No, there's something really big here, something really big. But I want you to know that this is a theme in Scripture. Listen to what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapter 5, verses 38 through 42. You have heard that it was said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. And by the way, that does appear three times in the Old Testament. People that mock Scripture oftentimes refer to that, you know. And I think Gandhi said something like, an eye for an eye just makes everybody in the world blind. And supposedly he's wise. He didn't even understand what the Scripture was talking about. What that verse is talking about, an eye for an eye, tooth for tooth, you know, nobody ever had their eye plucked out in Scripture. It was used figuratively. And what it was addressing was this, that whenever somebody wrongs us, Somebody bumps us, what do we want to do? We want to bump them back? No, we want to do a little bit more, right? Somebody does something wrong to us, what do we want to do? Do we want to do something equal back? No, we want to do more. In fact, If it goes to the court of law, sometimes, you know, an offense becomes a huge, somebody goes to a lawyer and says, you can get this much money for that thing that they did. And so, it's human nature to go back big for what somebody did to us. This scripture, when you look at the context, when it appears in the Old Testament three times, what it is saying is, is the consequences need to be equal to the crime. It's actually a good thing. Given human nature, sometimes we want the consequences to be a lot greater than the crime. But what this passage says is, no, if an eye, then an eye. If a hand, then a hand. Nobody had their eyes plucked out. Nobody had their hand cut off. But this was just talking. So Jesus is saying, but y'all have misunderstood it. You've heard an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, verse 39. But I tell you, don't resist an evildoer. On the contrary, if anybody slaps you on the right cheek, turn the other to him also. Is that natural? No, it's not. Jesus continues, verse 40. As for the one who wants to sue you and take away your shirt or your inner garment, let him have your coat as well. That's not normal. Hey, you sued me and you got this much from me. Let me give you more. You know, you didn't get enough. Verse 41. And if anyone forces you to go a mile, go with him too. The Romans could do that. They could force some Jew to carry their stuff for one mile. And at the end of that mile, Jesus said, look at the Roman soldier and he's not expecting you to do this, but say, you know what? I'll go another mile just because of Jesus. Go with him too. Verse 42, give to the one who asked you and don't turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. Jesus clearly says, if you are following me, your life needs to not be about your rights. You hear this? It's what Peter's talking about. It's not about your rights. Being a follower of Jesus oftentimes means that we demonstrate love by giving up our rights. That kind of informs how we understand 1 Peter 2. When you were mistreated, and you were mistreated in that culture by a master mistreating a slave, he said, don't you fight for your rights in your mind. Don't you say, he shouldn't do this to me. He can't do this to me. He said, you respond in a way that demonstrates the love of Christ, the grace of Christ. We're going to see why in just a few seconds, a few moments. Look at letter C. It does not bring favor with God when we respond naturally to injustice. Verse 20, for what credit is there if when you do wrong and are beaten, and the Greek word is literally a fist and somebody is pummeled, What credit is there when you do wrong and are beaten by your master? He's talking to Christians who are slaves and they can't get out of it. He said, what credit is there if when you do wrong and are beaten you endure it, but when you do what is good and suffer, if you endure, this brings favor with God. Why? What's the purpose? What's the purpose of suffering? What is it that God wants to do in our suffering? Let me give you two things before we go to verses 21 through 25, and we will go through that fairly quickly. It is very self-explanatory. Let me give you two reasons why. First, and we could list a bunch of things, but one, hate breeds hate, but love can conquer hate. Hate breeds hate, but love conquers hate. Romans chapter 12, verse 21, do not be conquered by evil, but conquer evil with what? Good. This whole thing, well, let's talk about our culture right now. How many of y'all have noticed the rise of anti-Semitism? Anybody notice that? I mean, I can't believe. I mean, I always knew, suspected. I can't believe, even in our country, how much anti-Jew and those that seem to be okay with what Hamas did as they were just sending thousands of missiles over to Israel indiscriminately killing people and there are people that are standing up for their right to do so or whatever their motives are and are against the Jews who are doing what is morally right to use the government, use the military to punish the evildoers so that they cannot do that again. to helpless people. They're doing the right thing. And yet so much anti-Semitism has risen up. And one of the things that this did for me is it reminded me of a story that I've mentioned a few times. If you have not read The Hiding Place, you need to read it. the hiding place. I think a picture, yes, picture on the screen is a lady named Corrie Ten Boom. She has long since gone to be with the Lord, as has the man right beside her, Billy Graham. And Corrie Ten Boom was, told the story through a couple of writers who wrote the story of how she and her sister Betsy and her dad and others in her family were protecting Jews during the Third Reich there in Holland and were found out and they were taken to concentration camps. She, in fact, ended up in Ravensbruck, which if you know anything about World War II and the concentration camps, that was the horrible one. If they were all horrible, That was probably, you could say, hell on earth. It was horrible. It was animalistic what was going on there. And Betsy and Corey ended up there. And through this story, Corey is not allowing herself to be seen as the hero. She's allowing herself to be seen as the one who is struggling with hatred for those guards. those Nazi guards. She is struggling with hatred and bitterness, and her sister Betsy is much more frail than her. And because she's not getting nutrition, because she doesn't have the clothing there in the cold weather as the winter is coming on, Betsy is falling down and she can't get back up. And so there was one time when they were mercilessly beating her with a whip, and Cory had this rage come up in her. and felt like she was going to try to kill that Nazi guard if she could. And Betsy told her to stop, calmed her down. And as Corrie looked at her wound, Betsy said, don't look at it, Corrie. Look at Jesus only. Betsy was the one that was doing this. And then there came a day when Betsy finally was taken to the medical facility, whatever that was, there in the concentration camp, and eventually she died, and her lifeless, emaciated body was placed on a pile of other dead bodies. And before she passed, before she passed, She told Corey, she said, you must tell people what we have learned here. We must tell them that there is no pit so deep that God's love is not deeper still. They will listen to us, Corey, because we've been here. Their story is powerful, not because they fueled anger with anger, not because the injustice against them was met by resistance from them. Their story is powerful, emotionally and spiritually powerful. because they were living for the Lord in a place where they could not get out of that. They were at the mercy of those who were under authority. And so, in that position, Betsy was leading the charge. Corey was learning from her sister to respond with love instead of hate to injustice. And their story is powerful as a result of that. Jesus is calling us to live lives that if there were to be books written, stories, powerful stories written, that we could be one of those stories. Right? He's saying, I want you to love, I want you to submit, I want you to follow, even if it's unjust, I want you to respond with kindness and love and humility. Second, the second reason for this is there's something much more important than our personal autonomy and happiness. As much as we used to seeing this world as not my home, I'm just a passing through, we do like to treat this world as our home. If we're not happy, we're upset. And if somebody messes with us, kind of messes our life up, whatever that means, whether it's financial or relational or whatever else, we get upset because we want this to kind of be a little bit of heaven. We want it to. It's not. It's not. What we realize, and then now we're going to go through verses 21 through 25, we realize that in our suffering we can mimic Christ and allow God to do something much, much bigger. Do you know what's much bigger than our personal happiness and autonomy? The gospel. Look at the second point, Jesus submitted to injustice. Let's just look at Jesus' example as we go through this. Jesus left us an example to follow. Jesus left us an example to follow. So Peter is telling the household slaves, this is how you respond, but whenever he says, Jesus left us an example, we realize, oh, this is bigger than household slaves. This is all of us. We're all to follow Jesus' example. Verse 21, For you were called to this, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in His steps. that you should follow in His steps. He said Jesus ultimately died on the cross and rose from the dead to pay the penalty of anyone who will trust in Him. He ultimately came for salvation, but there were tons of secondary reasons that Jesus came. One of which, to provide an example for those of us that are looking. Jesus, I want to follow you. I want to be like you. He says, really? Come on, follow me. I suffered, and whenever I was mistreated, we're going to see that in just a second, whenever I was mistreated, I didn't respond in kind. I didn't. You do that. Look at letter B. Jesus was perfect, so his treatment was unjust, right? Look at verse 22. He did not commit sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth. So Jesus was perfect. If you remember back to verse 20, It said, for what credit is there if when you do wrong and are beaten, you endure it? He said, what good is it if you respond wrongly and then you get punished? What good is that? God's not going to give you a thumbs up for that. What verse 22 is telling us is Jesus didn't do any wrong. His treatment was completely unjust. completely unjust. He was the only perfect person who has ever walked the face of this earth, so any wrong that was done against him was injustice. So Jesus is the perfect example that we are to look at as to how we respond when those in authority over us are mistreating us. Again, there are those things out here, other biblical principles that we tap into, but this is the default. Listen to letter C. Jesus didn't respond. Instead, he trusted the Father. Jesus didn't respond. Instead, he trusted the Father. Look at verse 23. When he was insulted, he did not insult in return. I mean, Imagine, can you imagine Jesus on the cross? Imagine Jesus on the cross, and there are people who are saying, if you're the son of God, then bring yourself down. If you say, if you're who you say you are, then get yourself down off of the cross. And can you imagine Jesus saying, oh, one day you're going to wish that you hadn't said that, you know? If I do get off the cross, I'm going to make you pay for that, you know? Jesus didn't do that. When he was insulted, he didn't insult. A lot of times, Maybe we don't say stuff like that out loud, but we feel it, you know? Oh boy, I'll make you pay for that one day. When he was insulted, he did not insult in return. This is how we're supposed to respond. We look to Jesus. If we're Jesus followers, we follow him. When he suffered, he did not threaten. He did not threaten, oh boy, I'm gonna make y'all pay for this. I'm gonna make y'all wish you'd never whipped me like this. This was completely unjust. Wait until I get off of this cross. Wait until I judge you one day. He didn't say that. In fact, he said something very different that we're gonna look at in just a moment. When he suffered, he did not threaten, but entrusted himself to the one who judges justly. What does it say that he did? It says that when he was insulted, he didn't give insults back. When he was mistreated, he didn't threaten. He didn't threaten, but it says he trusted God with what God was doing in all of this, right? And Jesus, being God, understood what the big picture was. What was the ultimate picture? That out of this injustice, that God would provide a way of salvation, right? But Jesus' example demonstrates to us that when we suffer and do it rightly, then maybe we can see what God is doing, some beautiful positive thing that God maybe is doing in and through us, and maybe we can't, but we, like Jesus, entrust ourself to the Father. Lord, I don't know why you're allowing my boss to treat me this way. Lord, I don't know why you're allowing me to be in this situation where I am, I can't get out of it, and yet I'm forced to deal with this. This person's making my life miserable. We can either get bitter or we can be like Jesus and say, you know, God, I trust you. Now, again, if there's any other things, if there's an opportunity to get away from a situation like that, I think we could spend quite a bit of time showing you that the Bible talks about how we can get away from that. If there are authorities that need to know about this because what is being done is clearly illegal, it is immoral, it's wrong, then there should be times and can be times whenever we appeal to the authorities. We don't take vengeance, but we let them deal with this. But the default position is, Lord, I don't know what's going on, but I trust you. I trust you. Look at letter D. God turned Jesus' injustice into something that produces righteousness. God turned Jesus' injustice into something that produces righteousness. And even as God did that for him, he can take the injustice that is happening to us if we respond well and do something good in it. And once again, I want you to see this. I want you to see a point that's kind of implied, but it's not really so much unpacked here. Could Jesus have stopped this? Oh, absolutely. You know, the old song says he could have called 10,000 angels. That's not even biblical. I mean, it says he could have called 12 legions of angels if you look. So the number isn't right in this song. I think it just rhymed. But he could have called angels to help him get off the cross, but he didn't do it. His disciples ran, but their strength in mobs, he could have theoretically called his followers to come and to protect him and to get him out of this situation. And so what we see Jesus doing is submitting from a position of strength. He could have done something, but he didn't. This isn't Jesus submitting from a position of weakness. This is Jesus laying down a sword. You see this? This is what it means to follow Jesus. We never look so much like the Lord than when we are loving the unlovable, and we are being mistreated, and instead of giving it back, we are giving love and forgiveness and mercy. And some may say, oh, what about Matthew 23 where Jesus just went off on the Pharisees, you know? Scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites, you brood of vipers, you whitewashed tombs. Even then, I believe that was love coming from Jesus. He had reached out. God's not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. The Bible tells us that God's heart is that people get saved, not be condemned to a place called hell. And so Jesus had been speaking with these Pharisees. He was frustrated with them, but he'd been speaking with them. And finally, he's about to go to the cross. And so he rattles their cage. He speaks to them in a way that they weren't going to quickly forget. You brood of vipers. Right? And then he builds his case for why that is true. I believe that that was tough love that Jesus was giving there. When we look at what he did at the cross from a position of strength, he laid down his sword. Look at verse 24. 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." See, this is why God gives a thumbs up whenever we suffer unjustly and do it in the right way, because when we cooperate with Him, following Jesus as our example, God's not so much interested in the suffering, although He can use that to chisel away some sinful things within our heart, make us a little bit more like Jesus as a result of the suffering. But ultimately, He's doing something really good. We may not even be able to see it, but He's doing something really good and powerful. Look at Luke. When we see Jesus here on the cross, Luke chapter 23 verses 32 and 34 through 34, it says, two other criminals, two others, criminals, were also led away to be executed with him. This is talking about Jesus. They're being led to the hill that is called the skull where they would be crucified. Verse 33, when they arrived at the place called the skull, They crucified Him there, along with the criminals, one on the right hand and one on the left. And Jesus said, Father, get them. What did he do? Verse 34, then Jesus said, Father, forgive them because they do not know what they are doing. And the second part of that verse says, and they divided his clothes and cast lots. If you look at the original language, if you look at the Greek, it's actually written in the present tense, which means this is what they were doing. They were casting lots for his robes as Jesus said, Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. See, if Jesus responded, maybe like those other criminals, with anger and insults and everything else, that would have eased their conscience, you know? They're hating Him. He's hating them back. It's good. We're all right. But Jesus said, Father, forgive them. All of a sudden, I wonder if they stopped for a second. What did He just say? People don't say stuff like that. He's asked that we would be forgiven? Who is this guy? In fact, when you get to verse 47, a few verses later, when the centurion saw what happened, he began to glorify God, saying, this man really was righteous. In fact, in another gospel, he is also said to have proclaimed, truly this was the Son of God. with anger and insults and gave them what they deserved, their unjust behavior deserved? Or was it because he was laying down his armor from a position of strength, submitting to this, and loving them, and in fact asking that they would not have this charge of putting the God of all creation the Son of God on the cross, that they would be forgiven of this. I think that as Jesus responded this way, there was even a changing of the hearts of many of these that initially began with hatred, think their heart was being melted. You see this? Hatred in response, insults in response, don't melt hearts. Following Jesus' example of giving good for evil, that can be used by the Lord. Do you see this? Let's look at the last point, we're done. Will we follow Jesus? Will we follow Jesus? Look at verse 25 with me. For you were like sheep going astray. but you have now returned to the shepherd and overseer of your soul." So the way that this is written in the original language, you were like sheep going astray. It's a past tense event that was stopped at one point in time. You were, but this is no longer true of you. What he's talking about is the point of salvation. He is saying that before you were saved, you were like sheep going astray, doing your own thing, insulting for insults, you know, threatenings for threatenings. This was natural. But you have now returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls. What Peter is saying is, is we can follow Jesus in this, we can entrust ourselves to him because he's our shepherd, he's watching over us, and he's our overseer. And this is a word that is used in other places for pastor. It's the one who is speaking truth, desiring for the soul to be cultivated, more conformed to the image of Jesus. He's saying that you, as this person that is saved, can do this because Jesus is watching over you. Does it mean that everything is gonna go well? No, the example that we've been given, the perfect example, he died. They killed him. But it was a momentary thing, and He is there in heaven as God, awaiting those of us who will spend eternity with Him. So what He's calling us to do is stop fighting over rights and And that is something that is permeating our culture right now. It's all about, you have no right to do this. And I have a right for you to call me by my preferred pronoun, even if it violates your conscience. I have a right to this and that. And I don't have a right for you to do, you don't have a right to do this. As Christians, we are commanded not to fight for our rights, but to follow the example of the Lord Jesus, to speak truth, to speak truth to a culture that's lost its mind, but to also do so with grace. And one of the ways that we do so with grace is we don't give back what comes our way. You see this? This is not natural for us. And so it's not like we can go away from this sermon and say, okay, I'm going to give it my best try again. No, you cannot do it. I cannot do this. That's why God has given us his Holy Spirit. The first response would be Holy Spirit. And in my response, Holy Spirit, my heart is proud. I don't want to surrender my rights. I don't want to, I want to be like you, Jesus, but not in this area. And yet what he is doing is calling us to follow him so that a lost world can see that there is something truly amazing that happens in the life of a believer. That we realize there's something bigger than our momentary pleasure here. It's because we want to live a life that's pleasing to him now and one day be with him in heaven. Is this an opportunity for us to just acknowledge that we have proud hearts and ask God to forgive us and help us with that? Ask His Holy Spirit to enable us to address that problem and for Him to do whatever He needs to to take away that pride? Is it maybe a slanderous tongue? You know, maybe we don't do bad things, but we just talk badly about people. It's hurt us. However it is, however it is that the Lord is leading us, let's do business with him right now as I pray and then as we sing. Lord Jesus, we come to you. And Lord, this is a difficult text for every one of us in this room. Most of us, I would imagine most of us in this room, say that we are followers of you, and yet to follow you means that we are to live in your example of many times enduring injustice, and not only just enduring it, but enduring it the right way with love and humility, forgiveness, grace. Father, I pray that the church here in America that our church would be the kind of people that follow you even in these tough areas, very difficult, impossible areas for us unless we're relying upon the Holy Spirit's strength. I pray that we would resolve to, in the power of your Spirit, live out these hard truths, believing that if we truly demonstrate these sort of attributes that do not make sense to the world, that maybe, just maybe, revival could be around the corner again. Father, I pray whatever it is that we need to do, whatever response is required