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We're gonna have Daryl come up and he's gonna give you the word of God. We know that for sure. So, Daryl, come on up, man. Appreciate you. Thank you. Good morning. Can you hear me all right? Excellent. If you have your Bibles, uh open to Matthew chapter 27. Matthew chapter 27. I'll start reading in uh verse 11. Okay. Matthew 27, starting in verse 11. Now Jesus stood before the governor, and the governor asked him, Are you the king of the Jews? Jesus said, You have said so. But when he was accused by the chief priests and elders, he gave no answer. Then Pilate said to him, Do you not hear how many things they testify against you? But he gave him no answer, not even to a single charge, so that the governor was greatly amazed. Now at the feast the governor was accustomed to release for the crowd any one prisoner whom they wanted. And they had then a notorious prisoner called Barabbas. So when they had gathered, Pilate said to them, Whom do you want me to release for you, Barabbas? Or Jesus who was called Christ? For he knew that it was out of envy that they had delivered him up. Besides, while he was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent word to him, Have nothing to do with that righteous man, for I have suffered much because of him today in a dream. Now the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and destroy Jesus. The governor again said to them, Which of the two do you want me to release for you? And they said, Barabbas. Pilate said to them, Then what shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ? They all said, Let him be crucified. And he said, Why? What evil has he done? But they shouted all the more, Let him be crucified. So when Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, I am innocent of this man's blood. See to it yourselves. And all the people answered, His blood be on us and on our children. Then he released for them Barabbas, and having scourged Jesus, delivered him to be crucified. Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the governor's headquarters, and they gathered the whole battalion before him. And they stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on his head, and put a reed in his right hand. And kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews. And they spit on him, and took the reed and struck him on the head. And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the robe, and put his own clothes on him, and led him away to crucify him. As they went out they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name. They compelled this man to carry his cross. And when they came to a place called Galgatha, which means place of a skull, they offered him wine to drink, mixed with gall. But when he tasted it, he would not drink it. And when they had crucified him, they divided his garments among them by casting lots. Then they sat down and kept watch over him there, and over his head they put the charge against him, which read, This is Jesus, the King of the Jews. Then two robbers were crucified with him, one on the right and one on the left. And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads and saying, You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself. If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross. So also the chief priests with the scribes and elders mocked him, saying, He saved others, he cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel. Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. He trusts in God, let God deliver him now if he desires him. For he said, I am the Son of God. And the robbers who were crucified with him also reviled him in the same way. Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, Lemasabacthani, that is, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And some of the bystanders hearing it said, This man is calling Elijah. And one of them at once ran and took a sponge, filled it with sour wine, put it on a reed, and gave it to him to drink. But the other said, Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him. And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit. And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom, and the earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many. When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said, Truly, this was the Son of God. In his name we pray. Amen. And you may be wondering, uh, we're going through 1 Peter, why I opened in Matthew there. Um text today, which which I'll get to shortly, is uh 1 Peter 2, 21 to 25. Um we've been talking about suffering unjustly as a believer. And uh Dan gave a couple great sermons on that called Living Honorably in a Hostile World. And we'll continue talking about that uh today with a little bit of a shift in focus. Because our passage today is about suffering as a Christian, but it's also about what Christ suffered on our behalf and the example that he set for us in enduring suffering. So that's why I opened with the account in Matthew. I wanted what Jesus went through to be at the forefront of our minds today as we look at our passage in 1 Peter. What we read isn't even the full account, but it's enough to get the picture of what happened, what Jesus endured. Reading now our verses in in 1 Peter chapter 2, 21 to 25. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return. When he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls. So he opens there in verse 21, for to this you have been called, to what? To to righteous or unjust suffering. Because suffering can come in in many forms. We all suffer. Um it's one thing to suffer as a result of our own actions. Like uh an alcoholic may suffer from cirrhosis of the liver. Um I believe the the example I use on the affirmation sheet is if you speak rude words to someone, you can have a break in the relationship. Um we can also suffer just as a result of living in a fallen world. Okay. You could you could suffer because uh someone you love is going through hurt because of their choices, because of their decisions. That can cause us to suffer. You could suffer from from health problems that are not a result of anything that you did. You could just have health issues, you could suffer from that. Uh had the had the hockey game turned out differently last night, I could have said that we suffer as a sports fan sometimes. But the sabers are still in it, thank God. Um But what we're talking about, what we're talking about today is suffering, enduring persecution because we follow Christ. In the Beatitudes, which is uh the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5, Jesus said, We're blessed when we are persecuted for righteousness' sake. As Dan talked about, and I'm not gonna tread that ground again, but he talked about submitting to authorities in our lives, whether that be in the home, at work, even in church, you know, we we serve one another here, but in church there is an authority structure that is laid out in the Bible. Uh if you weren't here for those sermons, that was the not last week because of Mother's Day, but the two weeks prior, they were excellent. I recommend going to the website and listening to them. If you were here, re-listen to them. There's a benefit to that. Um sometimes the authorities in my life aren't always fair, right? Who here is not an only child? Let's see, show of hands. I have six siblings, four brothers and two sisters. Okay. Did you ever get blamed for something your sibling did? Yes. Let me use an example from scripture too to uh help us make the picture clear. I'm not gonna turn here and read it, I'll paraphrase for time's sake. Um, if you're interested in reading it for yourself, you can find it in Exodus chapters 1 and chapter 5. But the Israelites were in Egypt, right, from the time of Joseph. They had escaped there, they had escaped a famine. As time passed, new rulers arose, and the generation of Israelites that were in Egypt died. Okay. So the Israelites prospered and grew in number, and the Egyptians enslaved them. They were given hard jobs to do, especially we're told in making bricks. At one point, Pharaoh tells the taskmasters to stop supplying the straw to make the bricks. But rather, the Israelites would have to find and gather the material themselves, but still make the same number of bricks. Now, the people didn't organize an uprising, which is probably what I would want to do. They cried out to God, and God promised to deliver them. As we know, after a lot of back and forth with God and with Moses and with Pharaoh, he did deliver them. So he, you know, talk about persecution. Sometimes I complain about my job, but you you read an account like that, it'll humble you pretty quickly. So we have been called to endure when we suffer for doing good. Why? Because Christ also suffered. As followers of Christ, should we expect to be treated differently by the world than he was? I'm gonna turn quickly to John chapter 15. John 15, I'm gonna read uh verses 18 through 20. Jesus said, If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own. But because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you a servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. So back in uh first Peter here, verse 21, uh if Christ was persecuted, we should expect to be persecuted. But there's more. We have been called to suffer because Christ also suffered what? Christ suffered. Is it back up there yet? No, 1 Peter 2 21. Christ suffered for you. Okay. Jesus Christ suffered on the cross both because of my sin and on my behalf. Okay? He suffered because of my sin and on my behalf. My sin put him there, and on the cross, he freed me from sin's penalty. In so doing, he left us an example to follow. The Greek word that Peter uses here, for example, it refers to a writing copy that was given to children so that they could learn to trace letters. Christ has traced the pattern of holy living before us, and we are called to follow in his footsteps. Moving on to verse 22, he committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. I'll talk a little more about this later, but verse 22 is more closely linked to verse 23 than it is to the previous verse, verse 21. What do I mean by that is we were just told that Christ left us an example to follow. The very next thing we're told is that he never sinned. Is that our example to follow? To never sin? No, it's not possible. John tells us in 1 John that if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. The truth isn't in us. Okay? So we should flee from sin, absolutely. But Peter isn't saying that we have to follow Christ's example in such a way that we never sin. What he's doing instead is showing that while we will, while we should suffer unjustly in accordance with God's will for us, our suffering can never be as unjust as Jesus' was. Jesus never had any sort of evil deed done, any sort of evil word spoken, any sort of evil thought in his mind. We have had all of those. This verse is what's called a Hebraism, which means that even though the original manuscripts we have are in Greek, it retains some form of Hebrew characteristic, like an idiom or the grammatical structure. The Hebraism here is saying that deceit was not found in his mouth. It wasn't found there because it wasn't there. I know that's like a little bit technical, but it's an important distinction because somebody could lie to you and you wouldn't know it, right? You might not find the deceit. With Christ, there was never any deceit to find. Verse 23, when he was reviled, he did not revile in return. When he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. Isn't this interesting now? Remember, I said that verses 22 and 23 are linked. Jesus was sinless, he was reviled. He knew he was blameless. He said in John chapter 8, which one of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? In another place, John says that Jesus didn't entrust himself to men, because he knew all people, he knew what was in man. No, he entrusted himself to God. So you could have had a scene where Jesus, who had committed no sin, who knew what was in the darkest recesses of his accusers' hearts, the things that they wouldn't want anybody to know, right? But they couldn't hide from Christ. You could have had this scene where he rightly accuses them of their sin, like a counteraccusation. But that's not what happened. He suffered but did not threaten, though he could have. No, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. If you remember, Jesus said that he could ask the Father to send twelve legions of angels, right? And then he said, but how then would the scriptures scriptures be fulfilled that these things must be so? Jesus, in suffering unjustly, did what the Israelites in the Exodus did. They didn't enact their own revenge, they put the situation in God's hands. As it says later in the Exodus story, the Lord will fight for you. You need only be still. Verse 24, He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. I want to read from Ellicott's commentary here. Quote, this verse, like the for you in verse 21, that's where it says Christ also suffered for you, this verse, like the for you in verse 21, is intended to make the readers feel the claims of gratitude, not to set before them another point in which Christ was to be imitated. But at the same time, it serves to enforce still more strongly the two points already mentioned, i.e., sinlessness and suffering. So far was Christ from doing sins that he actually his own self bore ours. End quote. In other words, the fact that Christ never sinned and yet suffered for ours is a cause for great thankfulness. Now the first statement in this verse is basically a reiteration of the fact that Christ suffered for us. It says he bore our sins. Okay. And the second is a reiteration that we should follow his example through dying to sin and living to righteousness. I want to consider the similarities here between this verse and 2 Corinthians chapter 5. I'm going to read verses 17 to 21 of 2 Corinthians chapter 5. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. People sometimes misquote this and say that we are the righteousness of God. It doesn't say that. It says that we might become the righteousness of God. I won't try to answer for you. Maybe you are. But similarly, here in Peter, he says that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. Because Jesus died for our sin, we have the opportunity to live as a bondservant to God rather than our flesh. It's been mentioned here before, but it bears repeating. We have been saved from the penalty of sin. That's our justification. We are being saved from the power of sin. That's our sanctification. And we will be saved from the presence of sin, and that's our glorification. Because of the new life that God has birthed in us, we can now choose to follow Him, to die to ourselves and bear our crosses daily, as the word says. And Peter says, by his wounds you have been healed. In this context, Peter is referring specifically to sin as the sickness from which we have been healed. In the same way that Jesus said it wasn't the healthy that needed the doctor, but the sick. There are other examples of sin being referred to as a disease in the scriptures. Sin is a wound to the soul, and its wages are death. Verse 25, for you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls. This is a great picture here. It ties in nicely what we're already talking about. Jesus loves us so much that he would leave 99 to come look for us. Peter's readers at one time were gone astray, but had now returned to the shepherd and overseer of their souls, namely Jesus. And hopefully you can say the same thing about yourself. It's such a cool picture because it brings to mind Psalm 23, which of course is the Lord is my shepherd. But check out verse 3 of Psalm 23 specifically. It says, He restores my soul. Sin is a sickness, it's a wound to our soul, but we can, by Christ's wounds, be healed from it. Peter said we might die to sin and live to righteousness. As he leads us in paths of righteousness, will we follow? Now, when I come up here, any one of us, Dan talked about Dan and George and the ladies last week who did a great job. It's not our job to tell you what we think. Okay? I don't want you to think that I'm up here sharing my point of view. That's not to say that I would never address things that are going on politically or culturally, but if and when I do, it's because the Bible has something to say about it. My responsibility here is three things. One is what does the Bible say? We've read our passage, we've looked at some other relevant scriptures. Number two is what does the Bible mean? Okay? Hopefully I've taught through the passage adequately, shedding some light on things like context and interpreting scripture with scripture. The question isn't what it means to me, it's what does it mean. And the third thing is, how does this apply to us? I've finished with the first two parts. I've hinted at some application, but we'll focus more now on application, on challenges for us as we work towards a close. A good rule of thumb in figuring out how scripture applies to us is by trying to focus on what it meant to the original readers. If you remember, we talked about this before. Peter is writing to believers who are suffering persecution. That's why we're talking so much about suffering. They are scattered, they're misunderstood, they've been rejected, afflicted, and mistreated. Because of their faith in Christ. Instead of promising them an easy road, Peter reminds them that suffering is part of the Christian calling. But he doesn't leave them in despair. He lifts their eyes to Jesus. When believers suffer unjustly, they are not walking an unfamiliar road. Christ has already walked it before them. Remember that it's Peter who is writing this. Peter. Jesus didn't seek his own vengeance, but when he was arrested, what did Peter do? He drew out his sword, cut off the guard's ear, and in very short order, he denied knowing Christ. He had to learn that the kingdom of God is not advanced through revenge, bitterness, retaliation, but through humble trust in God. Sometimes Christians imagine that obedience to God should guarantee comfort and acceptance, but Scripture teaches otherwise. Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 3.12, indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. It's been said before that the pathway of Christ is the pathway of the cross before it is the pathway of the crown. When believers suffer mistreatment, they are called to trust God's justice rather than seek personal revenge. This does not mean that we as believers become passive toward evil or indifferent towards justice. But it does mean we refuse bitterness, hatred, and retaliation as weapons. The cross teaches us how to suffer faithfully. The early church understood this deeply. Christians were beaten, imprisoned, mocked, executed. It was the blood of the martyrs that became the seed of the church. And that is because the world saw something supernatural in believers who suffered with grace. Dietrich Bonhoeff famously wrote, he was in Nazi Germany at that time, if you don't know who he is, but he wrote, When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die. The Christian life is not centered on self-preservation, but rather on Christ's exaltation. Sometimes God calls believers to suffer silently with integrity at work, sometimes in a broken home, sometimes through rejection by friends or family, sometimes through being ridiculed because of biblical conviction. In those moments, Peter says, look to Jesus. Follow his steps. We opened with an account of Jesus' suffering in Matthew. I want to close with his suffering prophesied in Isaiah 53. Turn there. Isaiah 53, starting in verse 1, who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And as one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth, like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away, and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the jet transgression of my people. And they made his grave with the wicked, and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him. He has put him to grief. When his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring, he shall prolong his days. The will of the Lord shall prosper in his land. Out of the anguish of his soul, he shall see and be satisfied. By his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death, and was numbered with the transgressors. Yet he bore the sin of many and makes intercession for the transgressors. I don't know if you caught this, but in our passage today in 1 Peter, he quoted or alluded to Isaiah 53 multiple times. He said, He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. And Isaiah 53, he had done no violence, there was no deceit in his mouth. He said, Uh, He bore our sins in his body on the tree. Surely he has borne our grief and carried our sorrows. By his wounds you have been healed. He was pierced for our transgressions, and then he ends that with his wounds we are healed. And then Peter ends this section with, For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned. And in Isaiah 53, 6, all we like sheep have gone astray. So Peter's alluding to that chapter here many times. In our verses today, Peter has driven us right to Calvary. He points us to the wounded Savior, the silent Lamb, the sin-bearing substitute and the shepherd of our souls. We should not seek to provoke persecution, but it is an incredible honor to bear the reproach of Christ, to suffer for his name. Because Jesus suffered, he can identify with us when we suffer. And we also can identify with him. But that's not the end of the story. Jesus did more than just suffer. Through his suffering and subsequent resurrection, he conquered. He defeated sin and death so that all who place their faith in him can live forevermore. If you haven't placed your faith in Christ, or if you have, but maybe you feel like you haven't taken following Jesus seriously enough, today is a day of decision. Take a moment and ask yourself if I have not really suffered for Christ, why not? We have people who will pray with you. Jesus suffered much, but he also conquered, and all things are being placed under his feet. Paul told Timothy, If we have died with him, we will also live with him. If we endure, we will also reign with him. Hallelujah and amen.