1 Peter chapter 3. 1 Peter chapter 3, and our text
will be found in verses 8 and 9. The apostle writes, finally,
be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another. Love as brethren, be pitiful
and courteous, not rendering evil for evil or railing for
railing, but counterwise blessing, knowing that you are thereunto
called, that ye should inherit a blessing. The apostle here
in this book, we know, is speaking not to everyone, but truly to
believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, to the elect of God. You who are the elect of God,
you who are believers in Christ, this word is for you. It is for you. Remember in the
first chapter how that he tells us who he is writing to in verse
2, the elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father
through sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience and sprinkling
of the blood of Jesus Christ. The elect. to these who are loved of the
Father from eternity, according as He had chosen us in Christ
before the world began." God chose us who are believers in
Christ to be His sons. He chose us to be His peculiar
people, His particular people, that we should be holy sons.
How? By the person and work of the
Lord Jesus Christ. This is how we should be holy.
Remember, believer, how it is that our Lord, being sent of
God, came willingly to fulfill the will of the Father. To fulfill the will. Go over
to Hebrews. Hold your place. Go to Hebrews chapter 10. Hebrews chapter 10. In verse 5, Wherefore, when he
cometh into the world, he saith, this is talking about Christ,
when he comes into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering
thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me. In burnt
offerings and in sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come, In the
volume of the book it is written of me to do thy will, O God. Above, when he had said, Sacrifice
and offering and burnt offering and offering for sin thou wouldest
not, neither has pleasure therein, which are offered by the law. Then said he, Lo, I come to do
thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that
He may establish the second, by the which will, by God's will,
we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus
Christ once for all. Though God commanded those Old
Testament sacrifices, yet God says He had no pleasure in them. God's justice against sin could
never be satisfied by these offerings of the law. They could never
pay for sin. By the blood and bulls of goats
could never take away sin. Says it in verse 4 of chapter
10 of Hebrews. Therefore, Christ says, abide.
Abide thou hast prepared me. The natural man of Christ was
prepared by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin. And Jesus
fulfilled His promise that says, Lo, I come. Lo, I come. In the volume of the book it
is written of me to do thy will, O God. Jesus, our Savior. Jesus,
our Savior, came in the flesh He came to be a man. He had a
body as we do, a soul as we do. The holy God of eternity, the
Son who is eternal, equal with the Father, equal with the Spirit,
condescended and came down and in union, He put in union with
Himself a body, a nature of man, so as not to make two natures,
but one man, deity and humanity in one. Consider that the Son of God
incarnate that he was a man and he should come to obey the law
of God and offer himself once for sins for you, the elect of
God, those who are sanctified by the Spirit unto obedience,
which is faith in Jesus Christ. The scripture says, believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ. Have you obeyed the gospel? Have you obeyed That's because
of God's grace. He's given us faith to believe
and trust in Christ. Now, you who believe, consider
the moving cause. Why should the Son of God condescend
to men of low estate and take upon Himself the form of a servant? Well, the answer is the love.
Love is the moving cause. His eternal love. The Father's
love for you sent Him. The Son's love for you compelled
Him to be sent. John 3, 16, For God so loved
the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever
believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 1
John 4, 9 and 10. tells us in that this was manifest
the love of God towards us, because that God sent His only begotten
Son into the world, that we might live through Him. Herein is love. You want to know the greatest,
the evidence of God's love? You want to know the manifestation
of God's love? A lot of people look to the manifestation
of material things. They say, well look, look at
all this stuff. God must love me. Well, that's not the manifestation
of God's love. We know that God gives to the
lost as well as to the saved, these earthly and carnal things.
That's not a manifestation of God's love. Well, man, I'm successful. God must love me. No, that's
not a manifestation of God's love. What is the manifestation of
God's love? He sent His Son. The manifestation of God's love
is not necessarily in the circumstances of our life. And we shouldn't
look at the circumstances to prove God's love for us. What
should prove God's love for us? here in His love, not that we
loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the
propitiation, the mercy seat, the offering for sin, for our
sins. And in sending Jesus Christ to
accomplish our salvation, this is the greatest and surest manifestation
of God's love for His elect. over in 2nd Corinthians, 2nd
Corinthians, the Apostle Paul tells us in verse 9, I'm sorry, 1st Corinthians 2,
1st Corinthians 2, And verse 9, he says, But as it is written,
I hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither entered into the heart
of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. We could not know God's love,
nor could man have ever conceived such a plan as God's salvation
for us. Isn't that right? The eye hath
not seen. It's not been manifested in the
history of man. You can't look at the history
of religions and man and find God's purpose, God's plan of
salvation. It's not apparent. It doesn't
come by man's reasoning. We could not know God's love,
nor could man conceive such a plan of salvation by free grace alone
without works. Could you have ever conceived
of such a plan? No. No. All false religions of
this world have one thing in common. Salvation is by works. That's the common thread among
all false religions. You can put any name on the door
you want to. If man has to do something If
man has to perform works in order to be accepted with God, that
is a false religion. Now that's a religion that's
natural. That's a religion that's common
among all races and peoples. It's to be made acceptable to
God or received by God based on some fleshly act or a fleshly
act of the will. But God's salvation is one of
free and sovereign grace. It is one that was purposed of
God, decreed by God, whose will cannot be changed or thwarted. The Father chose and elect people
and gave them to his Son, and the Son delighted in them. And
all of this, all of this thing we call salvation, that the scripture
calls salvation, was God's eternal purpose. In Proverbs, it speaks
prophetically of the Lord Jesus Christ. In Proverbs 8, he says,
I was set up, Christ speaking, I was set up before the world
was. Set up to be what? To be the
mediator of the new covenant. He was set up to be the Christ,
the Savior. And as the Father delighted in
Him from eternity, even so the Son delighted in us. He delighted in us. Jesus was set up to be our Savior
of God's elect. And as the Father loved Him,
even so the Son delighted in us. This was from the beginning
manifest in types and shadows and pictures of the Old Testament,
but now I preach unto you the gospel in its full revelation. This is wonderful. During the
time of the Old Testament there were shadows and pictures, there
were types, but I tell you now that God has given us the full
revelation of His gospel. And I tell you, there's a lot
of people who have Bibles. Most people in this country have
at least one in their homes. But I tell you, only those that
God reveals this Word to understand the mystery of the Gospel. We
understand that salvation is not by works, but by grace alone. We preach the hidden wisdom of
God that was ordained before the world unto our glory. Behold, Christ Jesus came into
the world then to save His people from their sins. See Him, you
who believe on Him, see Him, that He was the express image
of the Father, God of very God, crowned with glory and majesty,
and yet in great love took into union with Himself flesh, took
into union with himself a human nature, so that he who is eternal
condescended to become a man, to take a body and a soul. See,
believer, our Savior was made flesh and dwelt among us, Thus, he was tempted in all points
as we are. He was born, he suffered in all
ills of human suffering. He grew in stature and in wisdom. He was tired, he was weary, his
soul was sorrowful. His eyes wept tears of grief. He felt love, he felt anger,
he felt compassion. Everything that you and I in
the human experience experienced, our Savior did. Our Lord did. He was a man. How many times do we say, well,
man, you just can't understand my problem. You can't understand
how painful this is. I tell you, Christ can. Infinitely
more so. Because He was without sin. Imagine suffering and not being
guilty of anything. We truly deserve worse than we
have because we have sinned. But He knew no sin. And yet He
suffered in the flesh. He had tears of grief and sorrow.
The only difference between us and Him is that He was without
sin. Neither did He know or do any sin when He suffered. Yet
His greatest sorrow his greatest suffering we could not fathom in that he bore our sins in his own body on the tree when the father imputed our sins
to Him at His weakest moment. Consider that the cross was His
weakest moment in the flesh. I doubt any one of us would have
ever even survived the beating He took. And in His greatest
moment of pain, God imputed a worse pain than the flesh. He imputed
a soul-torturing pain. in that he imputed our sins to
him, and in holy vengeance, without mercy, punished our Lord and Savior. The hymn writer said, on him
almighty vengeance fell that must have sunk the world to hell. He bore it for His chosen race,
and thus became their hiding place. Therefore, being the perfect
offering, having endured such contradiction of sinners against
Himself, He, by His one offering, has forever satisfied the justice
of God for you, you His elect, you who believe on Him, consider
His suffering. Consider his suffering. This
is what Paul and Peter have been telling us in this book. He says,
consider the suffering. He is giving us words that we
should be obedient in this life. But what is the cause of our
obedience? The cause is Christ. The cause, the motive is Christ. Look and see what He suffered. See how He suffered. Are you the elect of the Father,
loved of the Father, redeemed and ransomed and pardoned of
the Son? Have you been robed in the righteousness
of Jesus Christ? Have you been born again of the
Spirit of God? Every elect and redeemed child
of God must be born again. That is, born from above. The
new birth. This new birth does not come
by the works or will of man, but it comes by the will of God. If you believe, is that not because
of God's will? Because God purposed that you
should believe on His Son? And what is the evidence of this
new birth? It is faith. Faith. Faith is the evidence of the
new birth. That is, faith in Christ alone. The Scripture says clearly, He
that believeth on me hath everlasting life. You who are the elect of God,
do you not consider how precious faith is? How valuable? How valuable is faith? What would you give for it? Faith in Christ is precious and
valuable, more precious than all the treasures of this world
because it is not merited, it is not earned, it cannot be gotten
by any fleshly acts or will. It is only given It is only given
by the grace of Almighty God. Faith in Christ is very valuable
in this world. It's so far above all the treasures
of the world because it's a gift of grace. You realize with all the money
in the world, a man can never purchase faith. He can purchase
a lot of things, can't he? I don't think anybody won the
lottery thing that is going on. Five hundred million is supposed
to be up to a billion or something like that. You take all that
billion dollars and you can't purchase faith. Can't get it. It's only a gift of God and He
gives it, listen, He gives it to whomsoever He will. Now consider that you who believe
that of all men He has given it to you. Consider that. Consider the great blessing of
our faith in Jesus Christ. that we have an eternal righteousness,
an eternal inheritance, incorruptible, undefiled, fadeth not away, reserved
in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith,
never apart from faith, unto salvation ready to be revealed. You see, our inheritance is not
yet manifest to my eyes, but it's ready. It's ready to be
revealed. Believer, our salvation was purposed
from eternity, purchased in time by the Son of God, and given
to us by the Holy Spirit in creating in us a new nature. And one day
He will keep us until that time, and one day we will receive the
fullness of that. But until that time, until that time, either of our death in this body
or until the Lord Jesus descends from heaven with a shout in the
resurrection of the just to be forever with Him, now in a season
of heaviness. We now live in a time between
faith and our ascension, our receiving. A season of heaviness. a season of great warfare, because we are still in this
flesh. Is that not so? Believer, we
have a new heart, a new nature, yet we still must contend with
the old. My old nature is not eradicated.
It's not gone. The apostle in Romans 7 exposes
to us his own struggle in the flesh when he said, in my flesh
dwelleth no good thing. Is that not true of you? It's
true of me. The new heart desires righteousness,
loves the law, but the flesh cannot and will not do that which
is good. Therefore, in Galatians 5, Paul
tells us that the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit
against the flesh. It is like oil and water, they
will not mix. They are in constant opposition
and contention against one another. Not only are we to contend with
the inner man of corruption and sin, but we are also to contend
with the world whose heart is set in hatred of you and our
Lord. These things believers must contend
with during this time of heaviness. My friend, if the world loves
you, and they gladly receive your gospel, then you have every
reason to doubt your faith in Christ. You have every reason
to doubt. If this world loves you and loves
your gospel and accepts you and accepts your gospel, then you
should pause and question whether your gospel is the gospel, whether
your Christ is the Christ. Because our Lord said, if you
were of the world, then the world would love you. But because you
are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world,
therefore the world hateth you. The servant is not greater than
his Lord. If they persecuted me, they will persecute you. Are you a servant of Christ?
Are you a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ? Well, I tell you, every true
believer is a servant and is a disciple. I've noticed this, and I knew
something was wrong with it, I just couldn't put my finger
on it. A lot of people today are preaching what they call
discipleship. You've heard of that? They say, well, you just,
you need to be a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now you've
believed on Christ, now, now you've believed on Christ, and
you have salvation, and then you should be a disciple. Since
when is faith in Christ and discipleship something separate? as though you can believe without
being a disciple. That's not possible. If you believe,
you are a disciple. You are a disciple. We don't
separate the two. If you're a believer in Christ,
then you are a servant of Christ. Therefore, because of the great
grace of our God, Because we are servants of Jesus Christ,
let us be reminded that we are called also, we are called to sacrifice, to
a life of sacrifice. As we walk in this world, our
example, Our example, who are servants of Jesus Christ, is
our Lord. Be ye therefore imitators of
God, as dear children. The question is often asked by
believers, what am I to do? Have you asked that question?
What am I to do? My sin is great. My conscience
and my guilt has overwhelmed my soul and brings me to the
ground. The world despises us without
cause. We are perplexed. We are pressed
on every side. We are cast down. And we say, what would you have
me to do? I tell you the Scriptures are
plain. The just shall live by faith. Look by faith to Jesus Christ. Behold his sufferings, his success
in saving our souls, and by faith present your bodies as a living
sacrifice unto God. In other words, you servant of
God, listen, bow down. Bow down. bow down and confess our sins,
and you know what? He's faithful to forgive us our
sins. But what of troubling providences? What of this world that presses
in on us? What do we do about that? Look
at this. look back at your text and this
is when he says finally Peter is concluding all of those things
I just told you is what Peter has been saying in this book
and then he says finally be ye all of one mind what am I to
do about this suffering how am I to what's my attitude to be
towards suffering we should all have this same mind what mind? be of one mind Paul said, let
this mind be in you, which was in Christ Jesus. Though he was God, yet when he
took upon him the form of a man, he humbled himself. Even so,
you have this mind. You are the elect of God. You are chosen sons of God, redeemed
of Christ, called of the Spirit, kept by the power of God unto
an eternal inheritance. And what is to be your attitude?
Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God. Let this mind be
in you, the same mind that was in Christ. Let that mind be in
you when you suffer. Let us all be of this mind. Humble
ourselves, not only humility and suffering,
but also in love for one another. Let the mind of Christ and His
love be in you, having compassion one of another. Are not God's people pitiful
people? We are. We are. And we need to have compassion
on one another. How should I have compassion
on you? The same way my Lord has compassion
on me. As I have loved you, so love
one another. Is this the commandment of our
Lord? Did He not command this? Should we not follow His command? Yes, we should. We're His servants. He's our Lord. We're His servants. We should love one another. I
know this, that believers are sinners saved by grace. Isn't
that right? Every one of us here are sinners saved by grace if
you believe in Christ. And I tell you, we can offend
one another. I tell you, we do offend one
another. How then are you, as believers,
should take that offense? not rendering evil for evil,
or railing for railing, but rather a blessing." Isn't that what
Christ does for us? How often have we failed? How
often do we fail our Master? And yet what does He render for
us instead of railing for railing? Have you murmured? Anybody murmur? Anybody complain? Matter of fact,
did anybody complain about the weather? Did anybody this morning
say, Scott, did you complain about that car? I know you did. I know you did. We do complain.
But what does Christ give us in spite of our complaining?
Has he not given us a blessing? How then are you to treat one
another? Not rendering evil for evil, but blessings. Blessings. Knowing that you are there unto
called. See, believer, this is not an
option. This is not an option. You're
called to it. You're called to it. You're called
to bear one another's burdens. You're called. I'm glad. I'm glad the Lord commands you
to love me. I am. I tell you, I'm not worthy of
your love. I know that. And as we find ourselves offending
our brethren, what should we do? We should seek their forgiveness. We should seek their love. It is our duty and our responsibility
because we are called that you should inherit a blessing. May
God so move our hearts and open our eyes to see that Him, see
Him who suffered willingly. And may He give us a heart to
suffer willingly. To take the wrong. To take the wrong. And not only
take it gritting your teeth, but take it and render a blessing
to the person that wronged you. That's what it is to be called
to faith in Christ. And does it not take great faith
to do that? Doesn't it? May God open our hearts to do
such things. seeing what great things He had
done for us. Pray God will bless that.