Doug McMasters: Stake your Bible and go to the book of Isaiah, chapter 53.
Doug McMasters: If you're visiting with us, right around page 650, you'll find just about where we're at, Isaiah chapter 53.
Doug McMasters: There are moments when silence is better than words.
Doug McMasters: Sometimes, amidst another person's grief, simply a silent presence is better than trying to say something.
Doug McMasters: Sometimes when you're angry, silence is definitely better than what you're about to say.
Doug McMasters: And when you don't know what to say, silence is good too.
Doug McMasters: My mom would say it's better to be silent and thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.
Doug McMasters: Thanks, Mom.
Doug McMasters: But there's also another silence.
Doug McMasters: Scripture has a message about silence.
Doug McMasters: In Isaiah 53 in verse 7, like a lamb led to the slaughter, he opened not his mouth.
Doug McMasters: In a world that loves self-preservation, in a world that loves self-defense and self-expression and self-assertion, the servant's silence is jarring.
Doug McMasters: It doesn't make any sense.
Doug McMasters: But we're going to learn this morning something about that silence.
Doug McMasters: We're going to learn that that silence is not weakness or passivity.
Doug McMasters: We're going to learn that this silence is purposeful and that it is a submission to divine justice and loving redemption.
Doug McMasters: And it's also, as we'll learn, a model for how we're to behave in times of difficulty.
Doug McMasters: Because what we're going to be looking at in Isaiah 53 and other places this morning is a truth that I'm afraid too many believers in our day haven't yet learned.
Doug McMasters: And I know that because I missed it myself for a long, long time.
Doug McMasters: As many of you know, I was not raised in a Christian home.
Doug McMasters: I came to Christ when I was in my twenties.
Doug McMasters: Didn't come from even a nominally religious home.
Doug McMasters: It wasn't that religion was opposed, it was just ignored.
Doug McMasters: And so when I came to Christ, I had no framework for what it meant to be a Christian.
Doug McMasters: I quickly let go of habits that became very obvious to me that they were not in alignment with Christ.
Doug McMasters: And I began to take on things that were new to me: the Bible reading, prayer, fellowship of the body, and even sharing a message about Christ to others.
Doug McMasters: But over time I began to realize that Christianity was more than just taking stuff off and putting stuff on, that the Lord meant to do something inside of me and that he was conforming me to the character of Christ.
Doug McMasters: I understood that.
Doug McMasters: But there came a point in my life when that realization deepened in a very significant way.
Doug McMasters: A life-changing way.
Doug McMasters: And it happened when I was facing unexpected, ongoing, and intense opposition in a church I was pastoring in Northern California.
Doug McMasters: And nothing I could say and nothing I could do could solve the conflict.
Doug McMasters: In fact, the way I acted when it first started to happen probably just made it worse.
Doug McMasters: And in that crucible, I began to ask myself, what am I supposed to learn through this?
Doug McMasters: And I began to ask the Lord to show me more in Jesus in the middle of that moment.
Doug McMasters: And I was confused at first.
Doug McMasters: I even at a moment of time went to one of my Hebrew professors in seminary and asked him, I said, What does Paul mean in 2 Corinthians 1 5 when the sufferings of Christ flow into us?
Doug McMasters: And I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.
Doug McMasters: Does God bring pastors into the sufferings of Christ like that?
Doug McMasters: Or is that meant to be apostolic?
Doug McMasters: I really didn't get an answer.
Doug McMasters: But as I began to read more and more 2 Corinthians, I began to understand that I was participating in suffering by God's design.
Doug McMasters: And in an intimate conversation that I had with one of the elders there, I told him in a moment of just transparency and openness as we shared the trouble together.
Doug McMasters: I said, I'm learning something about Jesus Christ here, I don't think I could learn anywhere else.
Doug McMasters: And I didn't mean the town, I meant the situation.
Doug McMasters: And when I read Isaiah 53, I saw its connection to passages like Philippians 2 and 1 Peter 2 and others, and I began to realize that this was something about our Savior that was meant to be reflected in my life in a very deep way.
Doug McMasters: And in the middle of that weakness and in the middle of that suffering, I began to learn what it meant to be a Christ-like believer and a Christ-like pastor.
Doug McMasters: And uh I'm still learning, still learning that.
Doug McMasters: And so I've anticipated for a long time us coming to this passage of scripture.
Doug McMasters: It's that deep in my heart.
Doug McMasters: Because what we're gonna look at in this servant song is not just seeing that Christ suffered and that he endured that suffering.
Doug McMasters: We're gonna see how he endured it and how we are to live our lives in the light of it as believers in Christ.
Doug McMasters: And when we scan the whole of this song here, we're going to notice something about Christ.
Doug McMasters: We're going to see a movement or an arc, as I'll call it, over the course of this morning.
Doug McMasters: That he begins in glory and descends into humanity and faces opposition and endures suffering and plunges into death, but then rises from the grave and then ascends into the heavenlies, and then is sat at the right hand of the majesty on high and given all his enemies under his footstool.
Doug McMasters: There's an ark that begins in glory and ends in glory.
Doug McMasters: And we're going to see that here.
Doug McMasters: But it's not just a description of Christ's movement, it's a pattern for us.
Doug McMasters: And this posture of Christ is a pattern for believers.
Doug McMasters: Because his descent into obedience and the suffering obedience that he did is meant to shape our relationships, is meant to shape how we respond to injustices.
Doug McMasters: It is to be the very form for our conduct in the workplace and in our home and among the body of Christ.
Doug McMasters: And also our witness in the world.
Doug McMasters: There's not many other places that I can think of that aren't covered by all of that.
Doug McMasters: And so today I want us to trace two movements.
Doug McMasters: Two movements.
Doug McMasters: First, we're going to behold the servants' movement, this arc of descent from divine glory to silent obedience back into exaltation.
Doug McMasters: And then we're going to go into the New Testament and consider how that ark is meant to shape a believer's life in every sphere.
Doug McMasters: We'll give some examples of that.
Doug McMasters: So let me begin by reading the passage that's just immediately in front of us.
Doug McMasters: It's Isaiah 53, 7 to the beginning of verse 10.
Doug McMasters: He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth.
Doug McMasters: Like a lamb led to the slaughter, and like a sheep silent before her shears, he did not open his mouth.
Doug McMasters: He was taken away because of oppression and judgment.
Doug McMasters: And who considered his fate?
Doug McMasters: For he was cut off from the land of the living.
Doug McMasters: He was struck because of my people's rebellion.
Doug McMasters: He was assigned a grave with a wicked.
Doug McMasters: But he was with a rich man at his death, because he had done no violence and had not spoken deceitfully.
Doug McMasters: And yet the Lord was pleased to crush him severely.
Doug McMasters: So this first movement is going to be the movement of Christ from glory to glory, from glory to exaltation, through the movement of this ark that brings him love.
Doug McMasters: But it has to start at divine glory.
Doug McMasters: We need to start there, not with his suffering, but with his glory.
Doug McMasters: And look at the very first part of chapter 53, where we were at just a little bit ago.
Doug McMasters: There we saw last week that the question is asked, who has believed what we've heard?
Doug McMasters: And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
Doug McMasters: And last week we saw that that phrase, the arm of the Lord, signifies divine power, divine initiative, divine presence.
Doug McMasters: And the power, initiative, and presence of God is there to bring judgment or to bring deliverance or to bring salvation or to bring rescue.
Doug McMasters: It's a powerful movement of God.
Doug McMasters: In the beginning of this letter, in verse 13, my servant will be successful.
Doug McMasters: He will be raised and lifted up and greatly exalted.
Doug McMasters: So there's a statement there about beginning power and ending power.
Doug McMasters: But we have to start here.
Doug McMasters: That he is in heaven, in a place of divine authority and divine strength.
Doug McMasters: Because Jesus is not just a man enduring hardship.
Doug McMasters: He is the visible expression of God's redemptive strength.
Doug McMasters: He is the arm of the Lord.
Doug McMasters: And John echoes this in his gospel.
Doug McMasters: And the word was with God.
Doug McMasters: And the word was God.
Doug McMasters: The servant is the eternal Son, co-equal with the Father, one through whom all things were made.
Doug McMasters: And Paul affirms this in Philippians chapter 2, a passage we're going to look at a little bit more.
Doug McMasters: Though he was in the form of God, he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped.
Doug McMasters: This year we're celebrating the 1700th year of the Nicene Creed.
Doug McMasters: And the Nicene Creed talks about this.
Doug McMasters: It begins, of course, we believe in God, the Father Almighty, the maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible.
Doug McMasters: But listen to the next strips.
Doug McMasters: And the one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, begotten from the Father before all ages, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of the same essence as the Father.
Doug McMasters: And so the descent begins in glory.
Doug McMasters: And that matters.
Doug McMasters: Why does that matter?
Doug McMasters: It matters because the silence that we're about to look at is not the silence of confusion.
Doug McMasters: It's not the silence of defeat.
Doug McMasters: Did you hear that?
Doug McMasters: This is the silence of strength quieted on its own.
Doug McMasters: This is a silence of one who knows exactly who he is and knows exactly what he could do, but chooses not to assert it.
Doug McMasters: Peter, could not I call to my father and have legions of angels come down here and fight this fight?
Doug McMasters: Put your sword away.
Doug McMasters: He had that kind of authority.
Doug McMasters: The Ark of the Servant.
Doug McMasters: It is more than poetic, it's historical.
Doug McMasters: And it begins there.
Doug McMasters: And it moves down into rejection and suffering.
Doug McMasters: Take a look at verse 3.
Doug McMasters: He was despised and rejected by men.
Doug McMasters: A man is suffering who knew what sickness was.
Doug McMasters: He was like someone people turned away from him.
Doug McMasters: He was despised and we didn't value him.
Doug McMasters: Boy, we get rankled when somebody who ought to know what kind of position we are in relationship to them doesn't regard it.
Doug McMasters: I am your father.
Doug McMasters: Like they didn't know.
Doug McMasters: But when they say something that rubs against that, all of a sudden the construct of relationship comes out.
Doug McMasters: And here is the creation.
Doug McMasters: The creation that has the image of God stamped on it.
Doug McMasters: And they see God in their image, and he's despised and neglected and not valued.
Doug McMasters: But this is not circumstantial suffering.
Doug McMasters: This is chosen suffering.
Doug McMasters: His descent here is deliberate.
Doug McMasters: And he's not stumbling into this, he's walking, he's walking right into it.
Doug McMasters: He said in John 10, No one takes my life from me.
Doug McMasters: I lay it down of my own accord.
Doug McMasters: In John 10 and verse 18.
Doug McMasters: So the suffering that he's facing is not imposed, it's embraced.
Doug McMasters: And it's purposeful and it's covenantal.
Doug McMasters: And it goes even further in verse 5 to tell us he was pierced because of our rebellion, crushed because of our iniquities, and punishment for our peace was on him.
Doug McMasters: This suffering is purposeful because it is a saving suffering.
Doug McMasters: He's a substitute for our own judgment.
Doug McMasters: This is redemptive suffering.
Doug McMasters: He bears what we deserve so that we might receive what he alone can give us.
Doug McMasters: And that's salvation.
Doug McMasters: Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace.
Doug McMasters: And so his pain and his suffering is purposeful.
Doug McMasters: Suffering in order to give us salvation.
Doug McMasters: And it is, and we won't turn there, but this is the exact very passage that the Ethiopian eunuch was reading when Philip comes beeboping by him, and he goes, wait a second.
Doug McMasters: I'm reading Isaiah here, and I'm reading these words.
Doug McMasters: Who is Isaiah speaking about himself or somebody else?
Doug McMasters: And Philip opens up the scriptures at that place and reveals to him Jesus.
Doug McMasters: And the man believes because he realizes that this suffering servant suffered for him.
Doug McMasters: And he believed.
Doug McMasters: Again, the Nicene Creed for us and our salvation.
Doug McMasters: He came down from heaven.
Doug McMasters: He became incarnate by the Holy Spirit to the Virgin Mary and was made human.
Doug McMasters: And he was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate.
Doug McMasters: He suffered and was buried.
Doug McMasters: And that now brings us into verse 7.
Doug McMasters: The silent obedience.
Doug McMasters: And again, this is a jarring silence.
Doug McMasters: Amid our world of self-defense, amid our world of self-expression, self-assertion, our Savior offers silence.
Doug McMasters: Why is he silent?
Doug McMasters: Because he's anchored.
Doug McMasters: He's anchored in the Father's will.
Doug McMasters: And so he was silent.
Doug McMasters: So when we go to Matthew 26 and verse 63, we read these words.
Doug McMasters: He was silent before Caiaphas.
Doug McMasters: He was silent before Pilate.
Doug McMasters: He was silent before the crowd.
Doug McMasters: And that silence, again, was not an absence of power, but power under the control.
Doug McMasters: It was the silence of the Lamb.
Doug McMasters: The silence of one who entrusted himself to the Father's will.
Doug McMasters: And again, as we'll see in a moment, this is not just something to behold.
Doug McMasters: This movement is formative.
Doug McMasters: It's formative.
Doug McMasters: His silence teaches us how to endure injustices with trust and not vengeance.
Doug McMasters: It teaches us how to respond, not with retaliation, but restraint.
Doug McMasters: And it teaches us to be silent and not self-observ assertive, but in submitting ourselves to the just Father.
Doug McMasters: But we have to go down further, one more step.
Doug McMasters: Verse 8.
Doug McMasters: By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
Doug McMasters: He was cut off from the land of the living and assigned a grave with the wicked.
Doug McMasters: This is where the descent reaches its lowest point.
Doug McMasters: Death.
Doug McMasters: The wages of sin is death.
Doug McMasters: Jesus said, Can any of you convince me of wrong?
Doug McMasters: No one.
Doug McMasters: And yet he suffers the penalty of sin when no sin was in him.
Doug McMasters: This is not symbolic or metaphoric.
Doug McMasters: He died.
Doug McMasters: Luke 23, 46, Jesus' final words, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.
Doug McMasters: And he dies in submission, not defeat.
Doug McMasters: Again, the Nicene Creed, he was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate.
Doug McMasters: He suffered and was buried.
Doug McMasters: But the grave's not the end.
Doug McMasters: But we shouldn't rush past it either.
Doug McMasters: In fact, Paul, when he quoted the gospel in 1 Corinthians 15, said, And he died for us, according to the scriptures.
Doug McMasters: This descent now is complete, from glory to rejection, from rejection to suffering, from suffering to silence, from silence to death, and not the death of a hero, the death of a criminal.
Doug McMasters: But every step of that descent fulfilled in Christ, every moment and movement of this prophecy, not abstract, but embodied in the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
Doug McMasters: Philippians 2.8.
Doug McMasters: He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross.
Doug McMasters: Again, this art doesn't end here.
Doug McMasters: And so this is the last movement toward resurrection and exaltation.
Doug McMasters: Now we're going to look at this more next week, so I'm just simply going to mention it here, but next week it's all going to be about that.
Doug McMasters: Look at verse 10.
Doug McMasters: When you make him a guilt offering, he will see his seed.
Doug McMasters: He dies without any ability to have any, but he will see his seed.
Doug McMasters: And it continues on.
Doug McMasters: The descent gives way to ascent.
Doug McMasters: And in Luke 24 and verse 6, when people are looking for his body, the messengers from heaven say, He's not here.
Doug McMasters: He's risen.
Doug McMasters: And in Acts 1 9, he was lifted up, and the clouds received him out of their sight.
Doug McMasters: In Philippians 2 9, therefore God has highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every other name.
Doug McMasters: The ark of the servant now is complete.
Doug McMasters: From glory to humble human existence, to rejection and suffering and silence and death to resurrection and ascension and exaltation.
Doug McMasters: But again, it's not just descriptive, it's a pattern.
Doug McMasters: It's a pattern by which we're saved, but it's also a pattern by which a believer's life is shaped.
Doug McMasters: What Christ embodied is what we're called to reflect.
Doug McMasters: What he endured, we're invited to receive for life, but invited to understand to live now.
Doug McMasters: We say about ourselves that we're a Christ-centered church.
Doug McMasters: It begins with Christ-focused believers, not just the preaching.
Doug McMasters: And so now we turn to the second movement from surrender to glory.
Doug McMasters: The servant's ark is, I said, not just descriptive, it's prescriptive.
Doug McMasters: And so those who are united to Christ are called to embody his humility, we're called to embody his obedience, we're called to embody his endurance in every sphere of life, as we'll see among fellow believers in society, and home, at work, everywhere.
Doug McMasters: But before we speak about those relationships and those responsibilities and our responses, we have to start right here.
Doug McMasters: Right here.
Doug McMasters: The mindset of the believer in embracing this arc has to begin with us internally before it ever gets expressed.
Doug McMasters: So let's go to Philippians chapter two.
Doug McMasters: Philippians chapter two.
Doug McMasters: Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus.
Doug McMasters: And on it goes.
Doug McMasters: And gives you the ark.
Doug McMasters: What is your mind supposed to be?
Doug McMasters: Christ-like.
Doug McMasters: In the same sense of willing submission to humiliation, silence in the face of opposition, to suffering for what is right.
Doug McMasters: Let this mind be in you.
Doug McMasters: This arc begins here.
Doug McMasters: It begins with us.
Doug McMasters: It begins at the center of who we are.
Doug McMasters: It begins in that place where we yield ourselves.
Doug McMasters: It's not just our behavior, it's about our ambition or our pride needing to be set right and our desires to be put where they meant to be focused.
Doug McMasters: Romans 12.
Doug McMasters: Present your body as a living sacrifice and be transformed, it says, metamorphosized, absolutely revolutionizingly renewed and changed of mind.
Doug McMasters: It's not a surface-level thing.
Doug McMasters: This is a deep reorientation of who we are.
Doug McMasters: And it reshapes our values and it will shape our instincts and it will control our reflexes.
Doug McMasters: To follow the servant's heart, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, will be an embrace embracing a mindset of humility and not self-promotion.
Doug McMasters: It will mean embracing a mindset of obedience and not self-will.
Doug McMasters: It'll mean embracing a mindset of endurance and not entitlement.
Doug McMasters: It'll mean embracing a mindset of trust and not control.
Doug McMasters: Or fear, which is really just another sense of feeling like you can't control.
Doug McMasters: This is the soil from which our lives grow.
Doug McMasters: And without this internal surrender to Christ as Lord in our hearts, listen to this.
Doug McMasters: Without Christ set as Lord in our hearts, every expression of humility and gentleness and endurance that's self-generated, well, it's going to be strained and it's going to be short-lived because it doesn't come with the force and power of God behind it.
Doug McMasters: But when this ark of Christ is embraced in the heart, when Christ has set as Lord there, it will change how we speak when we suffer.
Doug McMasters: And it'll change how we lead and how we love.
Doug McMasters: So let's take a look at this.
Doug McMasters: We're right here in Philippians chapter 2.
Doug McMasters: And the first place we can look is how this ark changes how we relate to one another as fellow believers.
Doug McMasters: That we are to live with humility that fosters spiritual unity.
Doug McMasters: And if the servant's ark started in glory and descends down to humanity and humility and rising again in exaltation, then a believer's ark begins in the same way.
Doug McMasters: It bends the same direction.
Doug McMasters: It begins with surrender.
Doug McMasters: Now, what benefits have we received?
Doug McMasters: Certainly not the praise of the angels in heaven, certainly not the prerogatives of being the Godhead.
Doug McMasters: What prerogatives do we have?
Doug McMasters: Take a look at verse 1, Philippians 2.
Doug McMasters: If then there's any encouragement in Christ, any consolation of love, any fellowship of the Spirit, any affection and mercy, you've got a lot of benefits.
Doug McMasters: Make my joy complete by thinking the same way, having the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose.
Doug McMasters: Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility, considering others as more important than yourselves.
Doug McMasters: And everyone look not to his own interest, but rather to the interest of others.
Doug McMasters: Adopt the same attitude which is in Christ Jesus.
Doug McMasters: It doesn't begin with behavior, it begins with mindset.
Doug McMasters: And the mindset is that ark.
Doug McMasters: Christ didn't grasp for status, he didn't cling to privilege, he didn't assert his rights, he emptied himself and took on himself the form of a servant and became obedient even to the point of death.
Doug McMasters: And that's not just theology.
Doug McMasters: It's important theology, mind you, but it's relational instruction.
Doug McMasters: Relational instruction.
Doug McMasters: Have this mind among you.
Doug McMasters: Let this ark of Christ shape how you think about one another in the body of Christ.
Doug McMasters: Let his descent and humility become a pattern for your posture in the community of Christ.
Doug McMasters: Ephesians 4 2.
Doug McMasters: With all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.
Doug McMasters: Unity is not something maintained by the force of personality or power.
Doug McMasters: It's cultivated through humility and gentleness and patience.
Doug McMasters: It's Christ-likeness.
Doug McMasters: Romans 12 10.
Doug McMasters: Take the lead in honoring one another.
Doug McMasters: If you want to get your elbows out, get your elbows out to say you go first.
Doug McMasters: That's what it's saying.
Doug McMasters: Go lower, not higher.
Doug McMasters: Lift others up, not yourself.
Doug McMasters: Why?
Doug McMasters: Because Christ did.
Doug McMasters: Because the servant's ark was not self-serving, it was self-giving.
Doug McMasters: Because his posture is meant to be our pattern.
Doug McMasters: His humility is meant to be our code.
Doug McMasters: His self-emptying is meant to be our way of life.
Doug McMasters: And so among the body of Christ, there should be no whisper of self-assertion and demands for our own pleasure, our efforts to dominate, but rather to humble ourselves and bear with one another and honor each other and follow the ark.
Doug McMasters: Now let's go outside a little bit.
Doug McMasters: We've been inside for a while, but let's go outside.
Doug McMasters: Let's go to 1 Peter chapter 2.
Doug McMasters: And we're going to see the ark in our relationship to society where grace needs to be our reply to pressure.
Doug McMasters: It goes outside our private devotions, it goes outside our church life, it goes into the public square.
Doug McMasters: And Isaiah 53 shows a Savior who endured injustice without retaliation, who bore hostility without bitterness, and who entrusted himself to the Father rather than defending himself before men.
Doug McMasters: And again, that posture is not just descriptive, it's prescriptive.
Doug McMasters: That posture is our pattern.
Doug McMasters: In 1 Peter chapter 2 and verse 21.
Doug McMasters: For to this you've been called.
Doug McMasters: What?
Doug McMasters: Well, just take a look at verse 20.
Doug McMasters: What credit is there when you do wrong and are beaten, you endure it?
Doug McMasters: But when you do what is good and suffer, if you endure it, this brings favor with God.
Doug McMasters: For to this you were called to bear the suffering from society without retaliation or bitterness.
Doug McMasters: Why?
Doug McMasters: Because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his steps.
Doug McMasters: And unless you think I'm just making up this Isaiah 53 connection out of out of my head, take a look at the next verse.
Doug McMasters: He did not commit sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.
Doug McMasters: That's Isaiah chapter 53.
Doug McMasters: When he was insulted, he did not insult in return.
Doug McMasters: And when he suffered, he did not threaten, but entrusted himself to the one who judges justly.
Doug McMasters: He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that having died to sins, we might live to righteousness.
Doug McMasters: By his wounds you have been healed.
Doug McMasters: Isaiah 53.
Doug McMasters: And you were like sheep going astray.
Doug McMasters: Isaiah 53.
Doug McMasters: But you have now returned to the shepherd and overseer of your soul.
Doug McMasters: That is not just a historical ark.
Doug McMasters: That posture is our pattern.
Doug McMasters: It's our pattern with our hearts, it's our pattern among the body of Christ, and lo and behold, it's our pattern with society.
Doug McMasters: Paul echoes this in Romans 12.
Doug McMasters: Repay no one evil for evil.
Doug McMasters: If possible, so as far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.
Doug McMasters: Let me ask a question.
Doug McMasters: Does your social media characterize trying to live as peaceably as you can with all?
Doug McMasters: Are you just another weapon warrior with your words?
Doug McMasters: Right?
Doug McMasters: Again, this is not weakness.
Doug McMasters: Beloved, never avenge yourself, but leave it to the wrath of God, he says in Romans 12.
Doug McMasters: This is not weakness, this is refusing to play God, is what it is.
Doug McMasters: It's a decision to entrust justice to the one who judges rightly.
Doug McMasters: Because we don't.
Doug McMasters: Our anger gets mingled in there, and all of a sudden, self-righteous takes on the third booster of a rocket, and off we go.
Doug McMasters: But to love, to bless, and to pray and to reflect the ark that brought Jesus to the cross.
Doug McMasters: And so it means that we are not losing here.
Doug McMasters: We're not giving ourselves over to passive resignation.
Doug McMasters: This is active trust.
Doug McMasters: It is responding with grace, it is choosing restraint, it is offering peace in the face of provocation, it is blessing instead of being bitter.
Doug McMasters: Those are all active words.
Doug McMasters: This is not resignation by any stretch of the imagination.
Doug McMasters: Why do we do that?
Doug McMasters: Because that's what Christ did, and that's what Isaiah saw, and this is what Peter taught.
Doug McMasters: So somebody at work messes up and you get shifted for the blame.
Doug McMasters: You didn't do it, but now you're the one in the spotlight.
Doug McMasters: You can go in the offensive, you can start pointing fingers, you can try to rally support, you can say, hey, we're we're not going to deal with this.
Doug McMasters: I'm not putting up with this.
Doug McMasters: Or you can calmly explain what happened, tell the truth, and let it go.
Doug McMasters: And not offer yourself to gossip or retaliation.
Doug McMasters: Or someone post something online that rankles you and maybe even be directed right at you, and you're tempted to fire back just to point your prove your point right or to shut them down.
Doug McMasters: Instead, pause and offer some kindness.
Doug McMasters: Maybe a statement that says, I get what you're coming from, and I'd love to talk with you more about that.
Doug McMasters: You don't water down the truth, but you don't flood it with the personality of anger and retaliation either.
Doug McMasters: Or you're in a tough conversation with your wife or your husband or a friend.
Doug McMasters: You feel misunderstood, they feel misunderstood, things are heating up.
Doug McMasters: Instead of pushing harder, you take a breath, you ask a question, you listen.
Doug McMasters: You speak honestly and own you're wrong.
Doug McMasters: When someone you trust turns on you, you've poured your life into a person, you've prayed for them, and now they're saying things about you that just aren't true, and it's public and painful, you could defend yourself.
Doug McMasters: You could make sure everybody else knows what your side is, or you could choose something different.
Doug McMasters: You could pray for them, you could decide not to speak anything ill about them.
Doug McMasters: And when someone asks you, you just say, I'm trusting God to sort this out because I don't want to get myself in the way.
Doug McMasters: Those examples are not easy.
Doug McMasters: They're not.
Doug McMasters: They require spiritual maturity, emotional discipline, and above all, the deepest dependence on God that you can imagine.
Doug McMasters: But they are possible because it's the ark of our Savior.
Doug McMasters: And when we want to align ourselves with our Savior, we enter into the realm where God strengthens us to do His will.
Doug McMasters: Let's go to 1 Peter 3.
Doug McMasters: We've gone to the heart, we've gone to the church, we've gone outside.
Doug McMasters: Now let's go to the house.
Doug McMasters: 1 Peter 3.
Doug McMasters: In the same way.
Doug McMasters: In the same way, what?
Doug McMasters: Well, chapter 2.
Doug McMasters: In the same way that Christ submitted himself, wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands.
Doug McMasters: So that even if some disobey the word, they may be won over without a word by the way their wives live.
Doug McMasters: For when they observe your pure, reverent lives, don't let your beauty be consist of outward things like elaborate hairstyles, wearing gold or jewelry or fine clothes, but rather the inside of the heart, the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight.
Doug McMasters: The servant's ark shapes a wife's life.
Doug McMasters: But it also shapes a husband's.
Doug McMasters: Verse 7.
Doug McMasters: Husbands in the same way.
Doug McMasters: Same way what?
Doug McMasters: Same way as 1 Peter 2 that quotes Isaiah 53.
Doug McMasters: The Ark, the Ark of Christ's movement from glory to humility to rejection, to suffering, to obedient death.
Doug McMasters: Husbands, in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with a weaker partner.
Doug McMasters: It doesn't say she is a weaker partner as if she were.
Doug McMasters: So if I've got a $2 clay pot that I planted my basil in, when I'm done growing the basil, I might not even take that thing inside.
Doug McMasters: I might leave it out there, and after winter, the freeze and the thaw and the freeze and the thaw, it's cracked.
Doug McMasters: Oh well, whatever.
Doug McMasters: But if somebody gave me a Ming Boz, I'd be like, right?
Doug McMasters: You'd be like, husbands, treat your wife as that.
Doug McMasters: As that.
Doug McMasters: She's not a two-dollar clay pot.
Doug McMasters: She is a vessel that deserves your care.
Doug McMasters: Husbands in the same way.
Doug McMasters: What's it going to take for you to do that?
Doug McMasters: It's going to take the Christ-shaped ark for you to enter into that kind of attitude and action with your wife.
Doug McMasters: Showing them honor as co-heirs in the grace of life.
Doug McMasters: You see, your position as a leader is not a position of power, it's a position of posture, of Christ-like posture.
Doug McMasters: Paul emphatically states that in Ephesians 5.
Doug McMasters: Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.
Doug McMasters: Where do you get that?
Doug McMasters: Isaiah 53, that's where he got that.
Doug McMasters: It's the servant's ark.
Doug McMasters: Says it in Colossians.
Doug McMasters: That we interact in the home not through dominance, but through sacrificial care, not through assertion, but through considered affection and respect.
Doug McMasters: In the home, the ark of Christ becomes the rhythm of love.
Doug McMasters: We go low to lift each other up.
Doug McMasters: We serve rather than demand.
Doug McMasters: We reflect humility in the way we speak, in the way we listen, the way we forgive, the way we lead.
Doug McMasters: Now let's go back to chapter 2, 1 Peter.
Doug McMasters: One more place, and I'll have to quit.
Doug McMasters: The workplace.
Doug McMasters: 1 Peter 2, verse 18.
Doug McMasters: Household slaves.
Doug McMasters: Submit to your masters with all reverence, not only to the good and gentle ones, but also to the cruel.
Doug McMasters: For it brings favor because of a conscience of God.
Doug McMasters: Let this mind be in you, which is also in Christ Jesus, a consciousness of God.
Doug McMasters: Someone endures grief from suffering unjustly.
Doug McMasters: For what credit is there if you do wrong and are beaten and you endure it?
Doug McMasters: But when you do what is good and suffer, you endure it.
Doug McMasters: This brings favor with God.
Doug McMasters: For to this you were called.
Doug McMasters: Because Christ also suffered for you.
Doug McMasters: And there's the ark.
Doug McMasters: There's Isaiah 53.
Doug McMasters: You see, we bring this Christ-like character into our hearts, among our church body, into society in general, we bring it into homes, and we take it to work.
Doug McMasters: It goes everywhere we go.
Doug McMasters: Titus 2, 9.
Doug McMasters: Workers to be submissive, not argumentative, to show all good faith.
Doug McMasters: Why?
Doug McMasters: So that in everything they may endure the teaching of God our Savior.
Doug McMasters: Adorning the gospel, making the gospel look attractive.
Doug McMasters: How?
Doug McMasters: By that purposeful following of the ark of Christ.
Doug McMasters: It's the servant's ark, his obedience, his endurance, his trust, his submission.
Doug McMasters: And it becomes the template for us even at work.
Doug McMasters: Where we serve with excellence.
Doug McMasters: Not for promotion, but in order to have a platform for proclamation.
Doug McMasters: We endure mistreatment, not for with resentment, but resilience.
Doug McMasters: And we reflect Christ not only in what we say, but in how we work.
Doug McMasters: One more.
Doug McMasters: I'm just going to give you one more.
Doug McMasters: This one's free.
Doug McMasters: 1 Peter chapter 5.
Doug McMasters: 1 Peter 5.
Doug McMasters: I exhort the elders among you as a fellow elder and a witness to the sufferings of Christ.
Doug McMasters: Peter, did you have to talk about that?
Doug McMasters: Yes, why?
Doug McMasters: Because he's just hinting now.
Doug McMasters: He's already laid it out, but he's hinting at the ark.
Doug McMasters: As well as who shares in the glory about to be revealed.
Doug McMasters: There's the ark, the whole thing.
Doug McMasters: How's our leadership to be?
Doug McMasters: Shepherd God's flock among you.
Doug McMasters: Not overseen, out of compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you, not out of greed for money, but eagerly, not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock when the chief shepherd, oh, here we go again, right into that whole Isaiah 53 motif.
Doug McMasters: Every bit of it.
Doug McMasters: How is church leadership to be run?
Doug McMasters: Exactly like Christ.
Doug McMasters: Following the ark.
Doug McMasters: We don't climb, we descend.
Doug McMasters: We don't control, we care.
Doug McMasters: We don't demand, we serve.
Doug McMasters: And if you've part of a church, if you're visiting here, watching online, and your your pastor declines, controls, and demands, get out of there.
Doug McMasters: Because he is not showing you Jesus, no matter what his mouth is saying.
Doug McMasters: He's showing you how to live in a worldly way.
Doug McMasters: This is what Christ did, and this is what church leaders are to do.
Doug McMasters: Again, we can take it everywhere.
Doug McMasters: In conflict, restore such one in the spirit of meekness, with gentleness, instructing those who oppose themselves.
Doug McMasters: We don't lash out, we lean in.
Doug McMasters: As Paul said, even in our witness, carrying about us in our bodies the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus might be made manifested, even in our gospel witness.
Doug McMasters: It's everywhere, literally everywhere.
Doug McMasters: How we forgive, how we speak, how we wait, how we serve, the ark is there.
Doug McMasters: This descent into humility, this endurance of injustice, this silence of trust, this obedience to death, and the hope of the resurrection.
Doug McMasters: And for all of us who are united to Christ, who are willing to follow this ark, there's going to be more to it.
Doug McMasters: There's going to be more to it.
Doug McMasters: It doesn't end in the grave.
Doug McMasters: Neither does your submission to Christ end in the grave.
Doug McMasters: We'll talk about that next week.
Doug McMasters: Let's pray.
Doug McMasters: Father, we thank you for a Savior who was so willing to do this for us, who offered himself up on the cross so that we might live.
Doug McMasters: Father, we're grateful that for the joy that was set before him he endured the cross and despised the shame.
Doug McMasters: And that he offered himself willingly to come to do your will.
Doug McMasters: And Father, we've been brought into an awareness of that in a way that goes beyond just information or theological precision.
Doug McMasters: It is a shape of who we are to be.
Doug McMasters: And Father, for that, we pray that the Spirit of Christ might dwell within each of us.
Doug McMasters: That you would remove all of those wayward movements that are plotted along the plot line of our lives and bring us into conformity with Christ.
Doug McMasters: And Lord, even if it means that we need the external pressures of suffering to do it, do it, Lord.
Doug McMasters: Do it so that we might know our Savior in a way we've never understood him.
Doug McMasters: And we pray this in Christ's name.
Doug McMasters: Amen.