Easter
3
1
Pt 2:21-25
4/14/24
As
many of you know, televangelist Joel Osteen is the author of the book, “Your
Best Life Now.” Osteen’s basic message is that God wants to bless you and make
you happy if you are faithful and trust him.
It has been a very successful message.
Osteen’s book was #1 on the New York Times best sellers list, and has
sold eight million copies.
If
the truth of a theology were proven by the results it produced, then Osteen
would be living proof that his theology is exactly right. Because Osteen clearly is living his best
life now. He is conservatively estimated
to be worth around $50 million dollars.
Osteen’s house is a 17,000 square foot mansion that cost $10.5 million
dollars. His church, Lakewood Church in
Houston, Texas has a weekly attendance of 45,000 people. This is possible because the church – a
former professional basketball stadium – holds almost 17,000 people.
However,
what you don’t find at Lakewood Church is a cross – it’s nowhere to be seen in
the worship area. And in this fact we
find an indication that Osteen’s message is very different from what we hear
from St. Peter this morning. The apostle
says that believing in Jesus and trusting in God does not spare us from
suffering and hardship. Instead, Jesus
provides the model and pattern we are to follow in the midst of suffering. However, we are blessed to walk in this way,
because Christ is the One who died for our sins and has given us the living
hope of the resurrection.
Peter
begins our text by saying, “For to this you have been called.” To find out what we have been called to, we
need to look back at the previous verses.
There Peter writes: “Slaves, be
subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but
also to the unjust. For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God,
one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it if, when
you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and
suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God.”
The apostle tells Christians who are slaves to obey their
masters. They are to do so, even when
those masters are unjust – even when this involves suffering. Peter says that when a Christian suffers
unjustly and endures because of trust in God, this is a pleasing thing in God’s
eyes.
To endure unjust suffering. That is what Peter says is our
calling. He says this is so because of
Jesus Christ. We hear in our text, “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.”
Now, of course, thankfully you and I
aren’t slaves. But before we think that
we are somehow exempt from Peter’s words, we need to recognize that in the next
chapter the apostle says to all Christians, “For it is better to suffer
for doing good, if that should be God's will, than for doing evil.” And there, Peter provides the exact same
reason as he writes, “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the
righteous for the unrighteous.” Peter may be talking to slaves in our text, but
he shares a truth of the Chirstian life that applies to everyone.
In this letter, Peter wants us first
to know that God has called us to be his own.
Earlier in this chapter he said, “But you are a chosen race, a
royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession,
that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of
darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now
you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have
received mercy.”
God called you and made you his own. He did it through his word. Peter says, “you have been born again, not of perishable
seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God.”
Through the water and Word of baptism the Holy Spirit gave you rebirth. He gave
you new life as you became a child of God.
God has called us to be his own. He
has given us new life. And that means that now we seek to live according to
God’s will. Peter says, “As obedient children, do not
be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who
called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is
written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy.’”
Yet living in God’s way is no guarantee that things are
going to be easy. Peter has just said
that Christians may suffer unjustly even when they are doing what is
right. Beyond that, in this letter the
apostle says that we will suffer because we are doing what is right. He describes how those around us will revile
us because of what is right.
Our world today will let you do pretty much whatever you
want. People believe they have the
personal freedom to act as they choose. What it won’t allow you to do is to
express opinions that contradict the world. What happens if you tell your
family member that living together outside of marriage is sinful? What happens
if you say that homosexuality is sinful and wrong? What happens if you say that men are men, and
women and women?
And what happens if you say that Jesus Christ is the only
way to salvation? To share Christ and
the exclusive claims of the Christian faith often brings disdain in this
world. Peter speaks directly about this
when he says, “If you
are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit
of glory and of God rests upon you.”
Following Christ may mean suffering
and hardship. So why would anyone want
to do so? Why would anyone want to walk
in those footsteps? Peter says that it
is because “Christ also suffered for you.”
The Chrisian life flows out of what Jesus Christ had done for us.
Jesus, the Son of God, had no sin of
his own. Peter says, “He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his
mouth.” The Father sent his Son into the
world to carry out the mission of salvation for us. Jesus Christ was obedient
to the Father’s will he as submitted himself to suffering on our behalf. We hear in our text, “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.”
Jesus had no sins. But we do. Peter says, “For you were straying like
sheep.” In thought, word, and deed we
stray from God’s ways. That is why Jesus
went to the cross. Peter tells us, “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.”
Jesus took our
sins as his own. By his death he has freed us from sin. Peter says that we have been ransomed “not with perishable things such as silver or
gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a
lamb without blemish or spot.”
Christ suffered for us in order to win forgiveness.
Jesus Christ died for us.
But that was not the end of God’s saving work in Christ. Peter begins
this letter by saying, “Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great
mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”
On Easter, God raised Jesus.
In
Christ, God has conquered both sin and death.
Now he has exalted our Lord.
Peter says that the risen Christ is the One “who has gone into heaven
and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers
having been subjected to him.” The Lord
Jesus has ascended, and promised that he will return on the Last Day.
Those
who believe in Jesus Christ may suffer for doing what is right; for believing
what is right; and for saying what is right.
But Peter states this morning, “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.”
We
follow Christ, even when it involves suffering, because he has suffered for us
in order to give us forgiveness. He
suffered and died, but that was not all.
Instead, in his resurrection he has given us hope. We know that in Christ victory is ours
because he has defeated death. We will share in his victory on the Last Day
when the Lord raises us from the dead and gives us a share in his resurrection.
This
future keeps us going. It gives us
confidence to face the challenges of living as a Christian in this world. Peter says, “Therefore, preparing your
minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the
grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” We follow in Christ’s footsteps because we
know where they lead. They may involve
suffering and difficulty now, but they lead to resurrection and life with God
on the Last Day.
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