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Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/david-petterson/1-peter-3-18/
Now, let's read, please, from 1 Peter, chapter 3. Just one verse. 1 Peter, chapter 3, verse 18. 1 Peter 3 and 18, For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened, or made alive by the Spirit.
For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for, or in the place of the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive by the Spirit. This is a great gospel verse, stands out in the New Testament as one of the great gospel verses that we could preach from.
And every verse in the Bible is important, of course, but there are those that stand out like John 3 and 16 that we love to preach from because the gospel is so evident, so clear within it. Or we might use that same thought process with every verse in the Bible.
Every verse in the Bible is important, but there are those that stand out for some particular truth that they present. Not too long ago, I was in the home of someone in New England that I know very well.
And he loves books, so we get along very, very well. And I was having meetings like this there for three weeks, and each evening we found ourselves in front of a bookcase inevitably. And he would say, David, have you ever read this book?
And I would say, yeah, yeah, I've read that book. He says, have you ever read this book? And sometimes he would he was able to point out a few books that I had never even heard of. And he said, you've never heard you've never read this book.
You have got to read this book. And so I made a note that in the three weeks that I would be there, I pulled it a little bit off of the shelf to remind myself that I've got to read this book. And then we would we would do this nearly every night.
I got to do it to him once. I said, oh, that's a great book, isn't it? You've read that. He said, actually, I haven't read that book since on your shelf. You've never read this book. So he made a little note that he would want to read it by the time we left.
Every one of those books for him was important. He had purchased it or it had been given to him. And it was part of a library that he thought was very important. And every book had their place. But there were the ones that he he obviously highlighted as you've got to read, David, you've got to read this.
I want you to think of the word of God in that way. Every verse of the word of God is important. And yet, if you could just imagine every verse in the word of God on shelves in this in this massive room, in this auditorium, you'd maybe have Genesis over here.
And and every verse is is on that on that shelf and every one of them is important. But but there are those that stand out. Genesis one and one. This is how it all began in the beginning. God created the heavens and the earth.
You've got to read that verse. And we we want our children to learn verses like that. You might come to Exodus and Leviticus and point out certain texts, maybe volumes, sets Leviticus 16. You might get the numbers 32 and say, there's a good verse that you all need to learn.
Right. Be sure your sin will find you out and make our way through the Psalms and through the Old Testament and come to verses like John three and 16. You what a great verse for God. So love the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Every verse in the Bible is important, obviously, but then there are ones that stand out. This stands out to me. There's hardly any other verse in the word of God that says so much about the work of the Lord Jesus as first Peter three and 18.
Listen to what it says as far as what Christ has done. Christ also has once suffered for sins, the just in the place of the unjust, that he might bring us to God being put to death in the flesh, but made alive by the spirit, the whole work of Christ here in these thirty two words in the King James Version.
And I want to say a few things about them tonight, today. I want you to think, first of all, that this verse tells us what Christ has done. It says that he suffered. For sins. He suffered for sin, he it not just that he suffered.
And listen, Jesus did suffer, we were reminded of some of the pains that he felt this morning, as we remembered the Lord Jesus in the breaking of bread, we were reminded of some of them last evening in the gospel meeting.
The Lord Jesus did suffer. But listen, people have suffered. Men and women have suffered, maybe you've suffered before, I don't know what your situation is, but people have suffered. Many men and women have suffered before men have been burned at the stake.
They've been tortured in prison cells. And they've known the gnawing pangs of hunger, they have felt the extreme agony of thirst, and listen, Jesus suffered in those same ways he knew what it was like to go hungry.
He fasted for 40 days in the wilderness, 40 days without food. Jesus knew what it was like to be hungry. Jesus knew what it was like to be thirsty. Who could ever forget one of the cries of the Savior upon the tree?
They hung there, he said, I thirst, I thirst. The Lord Jesus knew what it was like to feel real pain. He felt the pain of Jerusalem thorns piercing into his brow. He felt that pain. He felt the pain of the scourge.
He felt the pain of the nails, the nails that bit into the flesh of his hands and his feet. Jesus knew what it was like to suffer. He was no stranger to suffering. But listen, Jesus suffered. For sins.
Now, and it's not even that he suffered because of sins. It's not even that he suffered because of sin, listen, we suffer because of sins, for sins that we've committed, consequences of our own sinful actions.
But Jesus didn't have any sense. He's the sinless son of God. He did no sin. He knew no sin in him is no sin. He is wholly harmless, undefiled, altogether separate from sinners, and yet he is suffering for sin.
Does that make any sense? I hope it would be I hope it would make sense to you tonight that he was suffering for sins. He was paying a price. He was enduring wrath for sins that he did not commit. He was taking it on himself.
The Lord Jesus suffered for sins. He was there as Isaiah 53, as we heard from Isaiah 53 last night. He was there. The Lord God laid on him the iniquity of us all, the punishment that David Peterson sins deserve.
I'm thankful that he felt it, that he endured it. He suffered for sins. Now, that tells me it tells me that people that are in hell and listen, there are people in hell right now. It tells me that people in hell didn't have to go.
They didn't have to be there. People are in hell because they, as Jesus said, they died in their sins. And yet there was one who made provision for them. The Lord Jesus God's son who suffered for sins, he paid the price for sins, but he must be accepted.
He must be received. You must have Christ because Christ is the only one who has done something for sin. And he's not just done something for sin. He's done everything for sin. He said on the cross, it is finished.
This verse tells us what Christ has done, but it also tells us when Christ did it. Now, if you're looking for the date and the year and all that, that's not what I mean. It's Peter says, for Christ also has when did he do it once?
That's when he did it. He did it once and once was enough. Once was enough. They tell us that the word once here means once for all. You might read that in some of the books once for all. What does that mean?
Once for all, then once for all time. Yes, or once for all people. Yes, it's once for all time covers every time period, once for all people. I hope tonight you discover that that includes you. He did this once for all time.
He did it once for all people. And that's why when he was on the cross, having endured our sins, paying the price for sins at the end of it, he said it is finished. He did it once for all and he will never have to come and do it again.
You can see the folly then of people trying to suffer for their sins. Now, you might hear people talk about something called penance or people believe that they can suffer for their sins in some way, removing, removing the sins.
I remember when we were visiting on vacation in Mexico, we went to Mexico City and. On one of the stone streets, my father pointed out a man to us, I was maybe 10 years old at the time, and he he said he said, look, look at that man over there.
He was making his way to this big cathedral, but he wasn't making his way there in an ordinary way. He was making his way there on his knees, scraping along the road. His pant legs were rolled up. We could see the bloodstains on his pants.
And I said, Dad, why is that man not walking? Doesn't he know there's an easier way to get to that cathedral? He said he said, no, no, he's doing penance. What is penance? If I can somehow show God how serious I am.
How much I'm willing to suffer. Maybe he will remove some of my sins. Would you like to have your sins removed? Well, there's a way to have them removed, but not like that. There's already suffering that's taken place for sins to remove them and to take them away.
There are people often at Easter time are coming up on Easter. And I know this happens in the Philippines. It might happen in other places where people allow themselves to be to be crucified, not with the nails on their hands and their feet, but tied to tied to the timbers and lifted up to be to endure pain for as long as possible in the hopes that God will look down upon them on that tree and say, yes, I'll take away some of their sins.
Someone's already come. God, God, the son, God himself has come in the person of his son, and he's already hung on a tree and on the tree, he he suffered for all sins. He suffered for sins that just for the unjust that he might bring us to God.
All the suffering that is necessary to deal with sin has already been experienced in full by the Lord Jesus when he hung upon the tree, when he hung upon the cross, he suffered for sins once. Calvary is is a finished work, it's a perfect work, it's God's masterpiece, nothing more needs to be done, no more suffering is needed to deal with your sin.
It was all done by the Lord Jesus, his perfect work. They tell me that that the Mona Lisa is a perfect work. It's a masterpiece, right? We might think of works of art as masterpieces and think it's in the think it's in the Louvre in Paris, France.
I don't know what you think about the Mona Lisa. You might you might not think that it's that that great, maybe maybe if I were to say, you know, I like to paint, I like to paint. And I were to visit the Louvre there in France and say, you know, I think maybe a different colored dress on this woman would have been a lot more striking.
First of all, I'm not going to be able to get past security with brushes and paint going into the Louvre. But if I were to could you imagine if I were to somehow get to where the painting is and move past the security that's there and with my paint start doing things to that to that masterpiece, it's like you've totally ruined it.
It now I can tell you what's going to happen is the value has gone down. The value has gone down that will need it will need a lot of reconstruction by the time I get finished with it. But I want you to think of the work of the Lord Jesus.
He's done everything. He's paid the price for sin. He has said it is finished. This is God's masterpiece, a way of making sinners right with him. And the moment that I come, the moment I come and I say, yeah, but I've got to do this and I've got to do that.
And it's as if, listen, that the value of that masterpiece, at least as far as you're concerned, is not what will not be the same. You need to come to Christ and his finished work and accept what he has done as sufficient and receive him by faith.
What Christ has done, he has suffered for sins. When Christ did it, he did it once for all time, once for all people. I'm glad this verse tells us for whom Christ did this. Well, if he suffered for sins and he didn't have any sense of his own, he must have been suffering for sinners.
Well, that's true. Suffering for sinners. He was there in the place of the center. But it's very specifically said he is the just one and he has done this for the unjust. Just meaning righteous, holy, unjust, then meaning unrighteous, unholy.
Sinful, that's who the Lord Jesus did this for, it says it very clearly, Christ also once suffered for sin, the just one in the place of the unjust Romans, chapter five and verse eight tells us who he did this for, for when we were yet without strength in due time, Christ died for the ungodly.
God commended his love toward us and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. He did this for guilty, lost sinners like David Peterson. It'd be wonderful tonight today if you could discover he was there for me.
He did this for me. He's the just one. I'm the unjust. And you could come into great, great blessing. I'm glad that the verse also tells us why he did it. Never stop and think about why the Lord Jesus was ever be on the on the cross of Calvary.
Why would he go? He said, well, he must be because he loved us. Well, that's true. There's something specifically stated in the text and it's related to what our sins is done for. Christ also has once suffered for sins, the just in the place of the unjust.
Why would he do this? That he might bring us to God. You know why we need to be brought to God. You know why you need to be brought to God? Because you're disconnected, you're separated. Separated because of sin, that separation began right in Genesis chapter three, God and man were together, Adam and Eve and God in the garden.
They were together. They enjoyed fellowship together. They enjoyed communion together. And then there was disobedience. God said you can eat of every tree that's in the garden, but of the fruit of the tree, which is in the midst of the garden, you shall not eat of it.
For in the day that you eat thereof, you will surely die. And they ate it and they did die. No, they died. They died. Spiritual death, the essence of death is separation, isn't it? The essence of death is death is separate.
Death is separation. You know that to be true when you go to a funeral and there's the body of that person, but that person is not there. Death has occurred. Separation has occurred. They're not in the body and you feel that separation yourself.
You're separated from them. There's a separation from the body, but you feel the separation. And God said in the day that you eat thereof, you will surely die. And they did separate it. Of course, God made a way where he could have God made a way.
And God had something far greater in mind. And it's what we find here in first Peter, chapter three, a way of bringing us back to God. It would involve a sacrifice, a very costly sacrifice, the sacrifice of God's own son, who would lay himself upon the altar of Calvary and bear our sins in his own body on the tree, the just one in the place of the unjust, in order that he might bring us to God.
I don't know if you've ever thought about the fact that, listen, if you're not saved, you're as you sit here in this meeting, you are separated from God. Isaiah 59 makes it very clear that your sins have made a separation between you and your God.
You need to be brought back. How can you be how can you be brought to God? There's nothing you can do that can bring yourself to God. There's no works that you can perform. That will merit favor with God so that he will say, yes, now I will bring you into my heaven.
There's no penance that you can experience that God will look upon and say they've suffered now enough. I know they've committed this many sins. They've suffered enough. Now I'm taking away their sins and now bringing them to myself.
No, no. Your sins have already made a separation that will be permanent unless you have Christ. You must have Christ. He's the only way to be brought back to God. Christ also once suffered for sins, the just in the place of the unjust.
Why would he do it? He was dealing with the thing that brought about the separation. He was dealing with our sin, paying the price for sin. And so when we have Christ, we have one who is taking care of the problem of sin and we're brought back to God.
And what a listen, what a wonderful thing it is to be able to tell you as of September the 11th, 1981, a boy of eight years old. I've been brought back to God. There's a lot that I didn't understand. I was only eight years old, but I understood this.
I'm not separated from God anymore. Christ is now my savior. My sins are now gone. Heaven is my home. I'm I'm connected. Wouldn't you like that connection tonight? Do you feel that alienation from God, that separation from God?
Listen, whether you feel it or not, it makes no difference. It exists. Separation from God in your sins is a reality. You need Christ. You must have Christ. He's the only one that can bring you back to God.
It tells us why he did it. Of course, there's more to the work of Christ than even what we've looked at in this verse. A couple more things. Christ also at once suffered for sins that just in the place of the unjust that he might bring us to God.
And how would that be able to be affected? Being put to death in the flesh. The essence of the gospel message is that Jesus died, that Christ died for our sins, the wages of sin, the payment for sin is death.
Christ suffered for sin. Yes. Paul says Christ died for our sins. He paid the full price. And then three days later, the one who was put to death in the flesh was made alive by the spirit. He was raised from the dead.
The person that we're preaching tonight is alive. He's presently alive in heaven. And that's how he's able to save you. If he were not alive, he could not save you. One of my professors at University of North Carolina was and don't ask me why I took this course, but his name is James Tabor and Tabor went out.
He was he did some work with some of the Dead Sea Scrolls, but he would go over to he would go over to that part of the world and he would come back after a weekend and he would tell us something of his of the archaeological diggings and discoveries.
And I remember him coming back on one occasion and he told us that they were fairly certain that they had discovered the family tomb of Jesus. That brought about a lot of conversation in the class, I remember seeing him on CBS Nightline and they were they this was a number of years later, James Tabor, and he discovered now he'd helped to discover what was the family tomb of Jesus.
Of course, that we get reports like that all the time. Maybe they found the tomb. Listen, regardless of whether or not they ever will find the tomb, and I doubt that very seriously, there's one thing they're guaranteed not to find in the tomb.
Jesus. He's not here, they're looking in the wrong place, they're looking down instead of looking up, my savior lives, he's at the right hand of God, and the reason he's able to save you is because he's living.
We have a living savior. He's paid the full price for sin. He's died upon the cross. He's suffered for sin. He can bring you to God. He's the one you need. You don't need something. You don't need a better something better than what you have.
You don't need religion. You need Christ. You need the Lord Jesus. And as we close our prayer that you'll put your trust in him just now. Let's pray. Father, we're thankful for the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We're thankful that he has done all things to deal with sin and provide for the guilty sinner what is necessary to fit us for heaven. We pray that there will be those tonight that will simply take their place as the unjust, as the ungodly, as the unrighteous, that they might come to experience the Lord Jesus, who is willing to take his place as the savior for them.
We pray, Lord, to remember those that are here in the meeting. We can't help but think that there are likely those that need Christ. We pray to speak to them just now. We long to hear a blessing in salvation.
We're thankful for this weekend that we've shared together here with our people for their kindness, their hospitality and service to us and service to God. We give thanks for it and pray, Lord, to bless them richly.
We give thanks for food as well, provided for our needs and give thanks for all good things that we enjoy, mostly spiritual blessings that are ours because of our link with the Lord Jesus Christ. We give thanks for all that we have in him and his precious name.
Amen.