Pilgrim Living: The Message, The Mission, and the
Master
I Peter 3:18-22
Introduction: First Peter,
this little letter written by Peter to believers, scattered among the nations,
has been our focus for about 6 months, since we started with it on Palm Sunday.
He is speaking to us as Pilgrims living in a fallen world. Peter is writing to
encourage the followers of Jesus to persevere, to have hope, and to continue to
proclaim the message of Jesus. The
attitude he calls for was expressed by Cyprian, the north African church father
from the middle of the third Century A.D., who wrote in a letter to his friend,
“It is a bad world, Donatus, an incredibly bad world.
But I have discovered in the midst of it a quiet and good people who have
learned the great secret of life. They have found a joy and wisdom which is a
thousand times better than any of the pleasures of our sinful life. They are
despised and persecuted, but they care not. They are masters of their souls.
They have overcome the world. These people, Donatus, are Christians. . . and I
am one of them.”
In the previous passage Peter called us to be ready to
share our faith, ready to “give a reason
for the hope that is in us.” We are to do that with gentleness and respect,
but even so, it may not be well received, we may suffer, even for doing
something good, even for telling the truth. This week I read the story of the
Robert E. Lee, a river steamboat which caught fire at 3 am on September 30,
1870. As the crew ran through the boat
trying to wake the passengers, some were angry at all the racket that was being
made—and 21 people died because they didn’t heed the warning in time. We are
called to speak the truth, in love. Our message offers comfort to the disturbed, but it may also disturb the comfortable. We need to speak the truth.
The
passage we come to today has some of the most discussed and disputed verses in
the entire New Testament. None other than the reformer Martin Luther in his
commentary on I Peter 3:18-22 said, “A
wonderful text is this, and a more obscure passage perhaps than any other in
the New Testament, so that I do not know for a certainty just what Peter means.”
Even so, any uncertainty as to some details shouldn’t obscure the big idea that
Peter is emphasizing which, it seems to me, is clear enough. That is…
The Maine* Idea: We are called
to persevere, proclaiming the message of Christ, the One who suffered, the Just
for the unjust, to bring us to God. We are sent by Jesus, and He is Lord!
We’ll look at this from three
perspectives…
I. The Message: A Perfect Substitute. Jesus purposefully
suffered for us (18).
II. The Mission: Proclaiming the Gospel—God is announcing
His message through us (19-21).
III. The Master:
Jesus is Presiding over His Creation: He is Lord (22).
First then…
I. The Message:
A Perfect Substitute—Jesus purposefully
suffered for us (18).
18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous
for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the
flesh but made alive in the spirit…
Most
people, when they think of Christians and Christianity, default to the idea
that our faith, like most religious systems, is about a set of rules, about
being good enough to earn the favor of “God.” A question that I learned to ask
people that reveals the heart of the matter comes from D. James Kennedy and the
Evangelism Explosion ministry: “If you were to die today, and stand before God,
and He were to ask you ‘Why should I let
you into my heaven?’ what would you say?”
Most people I have asked that question through the years (who have not
yet come to faith in Christ) have responded in a similar way, “I am a pretty
good person. I try to treat people right. I try to keep the 10
commandments…” The answer is typically
about what “I” have done. We’ll see in
this verse that the Bible gives a different perspective, it points to Jesus and
what He has done for us.
It is
always important to remember the context when we read passages like this from
the Bible. We read in 3:17…
17 For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that
should be God's will, than for doing evil.”
Remember the Maine
Idea* in that context was that, “Our
devotion to Christ should motivate us, regardless of the cost, to lift up Jesus
as the only way to salvation and to live a life that points others to Him.”
Peter now reminds us that if we suffer for doing good, like sharing our faith,
remember that Jesus did only good,
and He was rejected, beaten, mocked, scourged, and nailed to a cross. The
message of the cross was an offense to the Jews and a stumbling block to the
Greeks. The Jews asked, “How could God allow his messiah to be crucified? Impossible!”
The Greeks complained, “What does the death of a Jewish rabbi on a hill outside
Jerusalem so long ago have to do with me? Ridiculous!” The Cross was necessary because we had a sin
problem. Sin separates fallen humans from a holy God. God is just, and
he must punish sin. God made a way for sinners to be reconciled to God through
the cross. Some use the name of Jesus,
but reject the message of the Bible. One writer said, “[Liberal Christianity espouses
that] A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without
judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross…” That’s an
inclusive, affirming, unoffending message! But there is one problem with it: It
is a lie. The truth is that “…Christ also suffered once for sins, the
righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God…” That is the
Gospel, that is Good News! Notice what
Jesus did, why He did it, and how he did it.
First, He
suffered for sins, once for all. There is no need for repeated sacrifices, a
perfect sacrifice, atonement for all who would believe past, present, and
future, once for all, in the blood of the Cross. He suffered for sins, but not
His own. He was righteous, without sin, but He willing suffered for the
unrighteous, fallen humans like you and me. He bore our sins in His body on the
tree! He was our substitute, He did for us what we could not do for ourselves.
Notice why
He did it: “…that He might bring us to
God…” This is the greatest need of fallen humans. Our sin has separated us
from God. Since the fall of Adam there
has been a barrier between sinful, fallen humans and our holy God. He is of
purer eyes than to look upon iniquity. Jesus took our sin so that we could
receive his righteousness. That beautiful song by Natalie Grant, “Clean” says…
There is nothing too dirty, that you can’t make
worthy, you wash me in mercy, I am clean! …What was dead now lives again… Washed in the blood of your sacrifice, your
blood flowed red and made me white, I’m clean!
Do you realize what that means? Jesus loved you that
much, He died for you, He paid the penalty for your sins and for mine. The
enemy would whisper His lies in our ears, saying there is no hope, God could
never love someone who did the things that you did. Well, Jesus paid it all.
I’m clean! Jesus did that for us, that He might bring us to God. That is why
the veil of the Temple was torn in two, from the top to the bottom. We now, in
Christ, have access to the Holy of Holies!
Finally, Peter tells us how He did it: “…being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the Spirit…” That
is the good news: Christ died for our sins according the the Scriptures, he was
buried, and He was raised up the third day, according to the Scriptures. He was
the perfect substitute, bearing our sins is His body on the tree. That message
hasn’t changed. So the “Maine* Idea” is that “We are called to persevere,
proclaiming the message of Christ, the One who suffered, the Just for
the unjust, to bring us to God. We are sent by Jesus, and He is Lord!”
II. The Mission: Proclaiming the Gospel—God is
announcing His Word through His servants (19-21)! These are the especially
difficult verses in this text…
…in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in
prison, 20 because they
formerly did not obey, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while
the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were
brought safely through water. 21
Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt
from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the
resurrection of Jesus Christ…
These are
some challenging verses! Who are the imprisoned
spirits? When did Jesus preach to them? The time of Noah? After his
resurrection? How does baptism save us? What is that about? There are more
theories than you can imagine about this, so we need to approach these verses
with humility, and I am not going to try to touch on the different ideas that
interpreters have suggested this might mean.
Rather I’ll give you the explanation that seems most likely, that seems to fit
best in the context. Then you can go
home and search the Scriptures for yourself. Peter’s readers no doubt knew what
the apostle was referring to, we want to seek to discern his meaning. One writer proposed an alternative
translation that makes it a little easier to make sense of what Peter is
saying. Dr. Wayne Grudem translates,
“He went and preached to those who are now
spirits in prison when they formerly disobeyed when God’s patience was waiting
in the days of Noah.”
First of
all, the description of the people who are being preached to is important. They
“…formerly disobeyed …in the days of
Noah…” The writer to the Hebrews
used the same form of the word “disobeyed” twice in the New Testament. First we
read in Hebrews 3:17-19,
17 And with whom was he provoked for forty years? Was it
not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? 18 And to whom did he swear that
they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? 19 So we see that they were unable
to enter because of unbelief.
The other usage is in the great “Hall of Faith,” in Hebrews 11:31,
31 By faith Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those
who were disobedient, because she had given a friendly welcome to the
spies.
In both cases the writer is pointing to the “disobedience”
of human unbelief in a time past. Humans are called to hear the word of the
Lord, and to take God at His word. A form of this word is used in John 3:35,36,
35 The Father loves the Son and has given all things
into his hand. 36 Whoever
believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son
shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.
“Believing” is contrasted with disobedience. It is the
disobedience of unbelief. In our passage in I Peter 3, Peter points to those
who did not believe during the time of God’s patient waiting in the days of
Noah. As Noah built the ark, for a hundred years he warned of impending
judgement. God patiently waited, yet just eight souls, Noah, his wife, and his
sons and their wives, were saved from the flood. The rest of humanity perished in
unbelief. They are “now imprisoned,”
that is, they are in Hades, awaiting the final judgement when they will be cast
into the lake of fire. Peter is saying, it seems to me, that Jesus preached to
them, through Noah.
The Bible
is clear, “It is appointed unto men once to die, after this, the judgement.”
The idea that the Lord speaks through his people has already been alluded to in
this letter. We read in 1 Peter 1:25,
“…but the word of the Lord remains forever. And this word is the good
news that was preached to you.” It wasn’t the merely human words of the
prophets that saved, but is was God’s word that came through them. Now in
Chapter 3 Peter says, Jesus spoke, through Noah, to the people of Noah’s day.
Yet only 8 believed and were saved. Just as they demonstrated their faith by
getting on the ark and were saved through the water, believes today demonstrate
their faith through the waters of baptism. It’s not the outward washing that
takes away sin, that might remove a little dirt but it can’t cleanse the heart!
It is faith in Jesus, our unity with Him in His death and resurrection, that
cleanses our conscience, our heart, as we put our trust in Christ alone. Washed
in the blood of His sacrifice, we’re clean!
Jesus
spoke through Noah as he called his generation to repentance and faith. And He
still speaks through us, as we bring His word, the gospel, to the people around
us. Many people you know don’t come to
church to hear that message. I hope you are praying about inviting a couple of
them on October 2nd! We will do our best to point them to Jesus!
But you know even though many of your friends don’t come to church, because you
are in their life, the church goes to them! God has intentionally put them
in your life and you in theirs, and just like Noah preached while he lived his
life and built the ark for a hundred years, you are God’s “undercover
missionary,” in your neighborhood, in your workplace, in your school, in your
family. You need to be praying for an
opportunity to give a reason for the hope that is in you!
The
message hasn’t changed, the mission is still in force… The Maine* Idea is just
that: We are called to persevere, proclaiming the message of Christ, the One
who suffered, the Just for the unjust, to bring us to God. We are sent by
Jesus, and He is Lord! He reminds us of that in v.22 which points to…
III. The Master:
Presiding over His Creation—Jesus Christ is Lord (22)!
…who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of
God, with
angels,
authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.
Remember the scene in Acts 7 as Stephen
is being stoned. He saw the heavens opened, and Jesus standing at the Fathers
right hand. Even as he testified to what he saw, he showed grace, praying for
his attackers, “Lord, don’t hold this
charge against them…” Peter is writing about Christians suffering, and
about the promise of ultimate vindication because Jesus conquered death. He may
be alluding to Psalm 2 which anticipated the coming reign of the Messiah. We
read in Psalm 2:6-11,
6 "As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy
hill." 7 I will tell of
the decree: The LORD said to me, "You are my Son; today I have begotten
you. 8 Ask of me, and I will
make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. 9 You shall break them with a rod
of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel." 10 Now therefore, O kings, be
wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth. 11
Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling…”
We
won’t look at the details here, but I believe Jesus intentionally alluded to this
passage when He commissioned His disciples (and us!) at the end of Matthew…
“All authority is given unto me in heaven and
on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations…” (Matthew
28:18-20).
Jesus
is Lord! He is at the right hand of the Father and has been given all authority
in heaven and on earth, and He says, “Go,
make disciples…” That is His Word, as the Lord of the Harvest, to the
church, to us. Will we listen?
What is God
saying to me in this passage?
The message is still the same, the mission is still in force, and the Master is
still on the throne… There are some difficult details in these verses, but The Maine* Idea is clear enough: We are called to persevere, proclaiming the
message of Christ, the One who suffered, the Just for the unjust, to bring us
to God. We are sent by Jesus, and He is Lord!
What would God have me to do in response to
this passage? Have you experienced
trials since you believed in Jesus? I’m not surprised. But don’t be
discouraged, God has promised to be with you always. And somehow, He speaks
through our faltering lips to bring His word to the world. In two weeks we are
going to have a church breakfast and we’ll celebrate “Friend Day,” as we seek
to invite friends and relatives and neighbors to come. We’ll not embarrass or
pressure anyone, we simply want to lift up the name of Jesus. Write down the
names of your friends, relatives, and neighbors, and commit to praying for them
daily. Pray also for an opportunity to
turn the conversation toward spiritual things. We have some resources on the
back table, Gospels of John, and also some gospel tracts, that you can give,
and invite them to read it. God’s word won’t return void; it will accomplish
the purpose for which it is sent! We can bring the gospel to our friends, we
can also bring our friends to hear the gospel. In two weeks, at our church
breakfast and then in the morning service, you can do just that! Amen.
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