Anchored #9 - Grounded in our Great Example (1 Pet 3:13-22)

Peter, so if you have a Bible, and I hope you do, please turn with me to 1st

Peter and chapter number 3. Well, 1st Peter and chapter number 3 will be our passage this afternoon.

1st Peter chapter 3, reading from verses 13 to 22. If you grabbed one of the red hardback

Bibles on your way in, that should be page 1077. 1077, 1st

Peter chapter 3, from verse 13 through to 22. Now, a little bit of a health warning as we get started.

This is going to be one of the more complicated messages, if not the most complicated, that we have in this study of 1st

Peter. Just by show of hands, how many of you are reading ahead each week as we work our way through 1st

Peter? Okay, a good few of you. Awesome. If you read ahead this week, you probably have an idea of just how complex this passage is.

My hope is to do my best to, one, make this somewhat simpler to follow, and two, to get to the main point of what

Peter is getting at, because I'm actually convinced that this passage is an incredibly powerful one.

Of course, it's in God's Word, so every one of them are, but this one especially, as we've been thinking about our witnesses,

God's people, and our, as I said last week, our witness, in relation to a watching world.

So 1st Peter chapter 3, verses 13 to 22, and hopefully you received a study guide as well when you came in.

1st Peter chapter 3, verse 13, and if I can invite you to stand with me one more time out of reverence for God's Word as we read it.

1st Peter chapter 3, and reading from verse 13 through to 22.

1st Peter chapter 3, 13 to 22. God's Word says, with gentleness and reverence, keeping a clear conscience, so that when you are accused, those who disparage your good conduct in Christ will be put to shame.

For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God's will, than for doing evil.

For Christ also suffered once for all, for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring you to God.

He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive by the Spirit. In which he also went and made proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in the past were disobedient, when

God patiently waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared. In it a few, that is eight people, were saved through water.

Baptism, which now corresponds to this, now saves you. Not as the removal of dirt from the body, but the pledge of a good conscience toward God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven, and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers subject to Him.

The grass withers, the flower fades, but this Word of God will abide forever. Join with me as I pray, ask for the Spirit's help, and we get to work in this passage.

Precious Father, we thank you so much once again, that we have an opportunity to open your Word, and to hear you speak to us, through the teaching and preaching of it.

I pray that as we open up this passage, as we pray every week, that you would open our eyes, that we would see wonderful things from your law.

We pray that the eyes of our understanding would be enlightened, so that we would know the hope to which you've called us, and that we would be those who not just hear these things, but put them into practice, and not just hear these things and put them into practice, but share them with others.

We ask all these things in Jesus' name, and for His sake. Amen. Well, please be seated.

I have tagged our text this afternoon, grounded in our great example.

Grounded in our great example. This is message number nine, if you can believe it, in our study of 1st

Peter. I can't speak for you, but I can speak for myself when I say that preparing and digging into this book, week in and week out, over the last nine, well actually ten weeks technically, has been good, not just for preparing sermons, but for the good of my own soul.

I can't speak for you, but I look at the world in which we live, and it's very easy to feel unstable.

It's very easy to feel shaken a little bit. And each week as I've come back to this letter, and I've heard

Peter's exhortations given to him by the Spirit, as I hear them, and I'm reminded each week, not just of what we're called to, but I'm reminded of the gospel, and I'm reminded of the hope that we have in Jesus.

Every time I come back to this book, I'm just hit afresh with the sense that if I had done nothing else, but studied this book for my own self,

I would have been incredibly blessed, much less to think about getting the opportunity and the privilege to open it up each week with you.

And so we press on, like I said, we are in chapter 3, 13 to 22. And once again, we come to 1

Peter. You remember that I've said that 1 Peter is a very simple book. You have an introduction and a conclusion. In between you have his main body, and he's got three points.

Actually, I changed one of the points this week as I was restudying this passage, restudying the book, I realized, actually, there's a better way to summarize this section that we're in.

You remember that we are in the second section, and we've previously said that Peter is seeking to anchor us in the role of submission.

But actually, I flipped it and said, actually, it's about the reality of suffering. Because submission is a response that we may have as God's people, but really what

Peter is trying to do here is to help us to think about suffering as it comes, and to think about it in a

God -glorifying kind of way. Last week, we were in chapter 3, verses 8 through 12, and we talked about this idea of a church that's moving in the right direction.

A church that isn't turned in on each other in conflict, or kind of turned in in the sense where it has no outreach to the world out there, or a church that's barely just looking to the ground, hoping that things will work out in the end.

But a church that is focused on loving the Lord, on loving and serving one another, and focused on the mission of seeing those who don't know

Jesus coming to know Him. Well, Peter is still talking to the church as a whole.

I told you last week that from chapter 3, verse 8, really to the end of this section, he's going to talk to the church.

He's spoken about how we deal with non -believers, how we deal with those who aren't Christians, and now he's speaking to God's people.

How do we deal with one another? Because the reality is, for the people of God, this world is not our home.

This world is actually quite a hostile place at times. And the difficulty that that creates can at times form in us discouragement and despondency.

We can kind of lose focus, we can lose hope, because we forget the fact that we live in a world that ultimately isn't home.

I imagine that as I look into this room today, that there are people who have no doubt battled discouragement, battled despondency, battled the strain of living in a world that seems so opposed to the people of God.

I know some of you have felt that strain and I feel it too. And can I begin just by being honest for a moment and saying that it's okay not to be okay sometimes.

I think oftentimes the church presents this view that in the name of faith, that we are to basically ignore the reality that the world is hard.

But I hope that you've seen, as we've been in 1 Peter, that Peter doesn't deny the fact that there is suffering.

He doesn't deny that things are hard. Suffering is real, discouragement is real, despondency is real.

But Peter doesn't just lay there and say, you know, nobody knows the trouble

I've seen, nobody knows my sorrows, you know, whatever will be will be.

That's not Peter's attitude as you come to this letter. Peter seeks to give much in the way of encouragement and motivation.

Because remember we saw back in chapter 2, we're pilgrims in this world, we're strangers. And sometimes pilgrims and strangers need encouragement for the journey.

And we come to another passage like that here in 1 Peter, as he's giving us some encouragement. Now, like I said, for those of you who've been reading ahead, or you've maybe just kind of dipped your toe into the discussion about this particular passage, this is a very tough one.

There's all kinds of things here that kind of stretch the mind, stretch the heart, there's a lot here that takes some work.

But first of all, it's our practice here at Redeemer that we work through all portions of God's Word, even the difficult ones.

And so we come to this passage, and I think it's important enough that we spend time in this passage and even stretch our minds a little bit to get to what

I think are some really powerful truths that Peter has for us. You see, how is it that the people of God find encouragement when the world around us makes it very easy for us to fall into weakness?

Have you ever wondered about that? How it is, where can I find encouragement? Where can

I find hope? Where can I find some endurance to keep me going? Now, this world will sit there and tell you that you need to find it from within.

Learn how to self -motivate. And I think there's a degree of truth to that.

We see this in the life of David, for instance, 1 Samuel chapter 30. David goes through a pretty rough time in 1

Samuel 30, he says that David encouraged himself. Now, the text doesn't just stop there. It says

David encouraged himself in the Lord. So there's a sense in which I always tell people kind of jokingly, it's okay to talk to yourself, is when you hear voices talking back, that's a problem.

But in general, there's nothing wrong with talking to yourself once in a while. Encouraging yourself once in a while and saying, you know what,

God is good, God is on his throne. Yes, things are hard, but that's not the end of it.

There's nothing wrong with that. But here's the thing about that. There's only so much encouragement you can give yourself before it's not enough.

If we're going to find encouragement, we need something that is bigger and better than us to give us encouragement.

And that's what we're going to find in this passage. Here's the big idea of this, and this is a longer one than it usually is.

But here's the big idea for this week. The suffering Christian finds encouragement in the midst of suffering by remembering that they will be vindicated in the end.

Because Jesus was vindicated at the end of his suffering. Let me read that again.

The suffering Christian finds encouragement in the midst of suffering by remembering that they will be vindicated in the end.

Because Jesus was vindicated at the end of his suffering. You see, the reason why the

Christian can be encouraged in the midst of suffering is precisely because we are not the first people to have suffered.

We might feel that way, but Peter's told us multiple times already, for those of us who've been here, that you are not the first person to suffer.

And in fact, your sufferings that you go through, we'll see this in a moment, pale in comparison to the sufferings that Jesus endured.

And yet Jesus suffered and was glorified at the end. And Peter's implication is the

Christian will suffer and be glorified in the end as well. So the suffering

Christian finds encouragement in the midst of suffering by remembering that they will be vindicated in the end, because Jesus was vindicated at the end of his sufferings.

Okay, okay, Kofi, that sounds great. Show it to me in the Bible. I'm glad you asked. For the rest of our time,

I want to consider two units of teaching that Peter gives us. Two units of teaching from the Apostle Peter that I hope will give some hope and comfort to suffering saints today.

So two units of teaching I want to consider. I'll try my best not to be before you long, but like I said, this is a tough text.

We might be here a minute. First of all, consider with me what I've tagged Peter's very basic principles.

Peter's very basic principles, verses 13 to 17. Part of what

I think makes this passage so hard for some people is they kind of split this passage in two and totally forget that before Peter gets to the really complicated part, he actually makes his point and it's very basic.

So look with me at verse 13. First Peter chapter 3 in your Bibles and verse 13. Peter says, who then will harm you if you are devoted to what is good?

Now, Peter's point is what we call a truism. You know what a truism is? It's a statement that is generally true.

It's not absolutely true. So for example, if you're thirsty and you drink water, you'll be fine.

That's generally true. Is it always true? Sometimes not.

Sometimes something worse may be happening to you. But in general, it's a generally true statement.

That's what Peter's doing here in the form of a question. He says, who's going to harm you when you do what is good?

Generally speaking, good people don't suffer for being good people. But again, that's a general statement.

And in fact, if you've been reading through First Peter with us, listening to the messages, you know that Peter says, actually, sometimes people do suffer for doing good.

But here's, I think, what Peter is saying with this simple question. Look at verse 14.

He says, but even if you should suffer for righteousness, and the word if there, it carries this idea of you might actually end up suffering for righteousness as unlikely as that is.

He says, but even if you should suffer for righteousness, you are blessed.

You see, people might turn on the righteous for being the righteous, but God never turns on the righteous for being the righteous.

That's why the author to the Hebrews can say in Hebrews chapter 6, for God is not unjust. He will not forget your work and the love you have demonstrated for his name.

God is incredibly just towards his people. Yes, man might not be just, but God is.

Human beings might harm us for being good, but God never will. You see, the reality that righteousness is sometimes met with opposition, it's sometimes met with the people of this world hating us for righteousness sake.

That reality, brothers and sisters, it needs to be met with another reality. There needs to be a truth greater than that one that comforts us.

Here's the truth that comforts us, that though we are persecuted for righteousness sake, the righteous are blessed.

We are actually in a, some of your translations will say, privileged. We are in a privileged position.

Remember what Jesus said in Matthew chapter 5? You remember it, the

Beatitudes. He said, blessed are you when men speak evil of you and treat you evilly on account of my name.

In fact, he tells them to rejoice, be happy. As one writer puts it, this idea of being blessed is not just a mere feeling of feeling good, but it's the idea of a deep joy that one has when they look at life from God's perspective.

That's why Christians, I mean, we in the West have been blessed. We've been, for the most part, shielded from persecution for a very long time.

I hope you appreciate the uniqueness of that because for the majority of God's people, for the last 2 ,000 years, that has not been the norm.

The norm for most of God's people is they've been persecuted for the crime, as it were, of being

God's people. And yet they've been able to, in the midst of their suffering, find joy and rejoicing because they're not looking at their sufferings from a worldly perspective.

They're looking at it from a perspective that only the Spirit of God can bring about in God's people.

And since that is true, we don't respond to adverse circumstances, as it were, the way the world does.

You see there in verse 14, Peter quotes from Isaiah chapter 8.

If you're taking notes, Isaiah chapter 8, verse 12 and 13. I won't read it because of time, but that passage reinforces a point that Peter's already made several times in this letter, which is that in the face of the suffering and persecution we endure, we don't fear men.

We don't fear what men can do. No, we fear God. Isaiah chapter 8 is a passage where the

God of Israel basically says, listen, do not fear the nations that are saying they're going to come after you. The only person you need to fear is me.

And Peter grabs that and applies it to the people of God once again and says, listen, God calls you to fear

Him, not fear everybody around you. But Kofi, that doesn't stop me being afraid.

No, it doesn't. Not always. I think Peter gives us an antidote to fear and intimidation as he puts it in verse 15.

So look at verse 15 with me. So 14, but if you should suffer for righteousness, you are blessed.

Do not fear them or be intimidated. But in your hearts, regard Christ the

Lord as holy. Rather than being made afraid by an intimidating and unbelieving world, rather than viewing the people of this world as they're the ones

I should worry about. Peter says, no, no, no, no, no, don't, don't, don't, don't get caught up thinking it's all about them.

He says you are to regard Christ as holy. Literally, you are to set apart in your hearts to have

Christ as Lord. Can I pause for a moment?

Everyone look at me for a moment. Look at me for a moment. If you're honest in your heart of hearts, because I know

I feel it. At times, there is a fear that grips us when it comes to this idea of living as witnesses for Jesus.

Am I lying? No, we all feel it. We may not all feel it all the time, but we all know there are certain situations where it's easier to do that than others.

There are certain situations where the fear grips us and rather than speak as we should, we are silent.

Rather than stand, we would rather run away. I remember when

I was working, I would often have these moments where the people I worked with were, as it were, dogging out

Christians for all manner of reasons. Christians are so intolerant.

Christians think they know everything. And you sit there sometimes, and I'll be honest, there were moments where I spoke up and there were other moments where I heard it and like,

I'm going to go ahead and pretend I didn't hear that. Whereas I should have spoken in that moment,

I would have stayed silent and said, you know what, it's just easier if I don't say anything.

Some of us know the experience of family members who are not Christians. And when it comes up, that feeling of, oh gosh,

I don't want to talk about this with my family. Nevermind, they are all too ready to talk about it, but we don't want to talk about it.

Because heaven forbid we should make things, here's that magic word we love so much in 21st century America, heaven forbid we should make things awkward.

Why do we struggle at times with being witnesses?

We can give all kinds of reasons, but for some of us, could it just be it's just downright old fashioned fear?

We are terrified. This week I read a really good article called,

Why Do We Struggle With Evangelism? It was by a pastor who's now in Boston, Eric Raymond. And he gave three reasons why we struggle with evangelism and with telling people about Jesus.

First of all, we struggle with fear because we have a wrong view of God. We kind of think, you know, if I speak up,

God's not going to back me. I'm kind of on my own out here. I need to take care of me because no one else will.

Sometimes it's not fear in our view of God. Sometimes it's fear in our view of others. If I say this and make things awkward, they will reject me.

They won't like me. How many of you were here when my friend

Andrew was here for the evangelism training? Do you remember what Andrew said about that particular fear?

If you don't remember, I'll remind you. He said, remember he said, I tell you in love, get over yourself. Yes, people might not like us afterwards, but I'd rather someone didn't like me because I told them the truth versus someone liked me because I didn't tell them the truth.

So sometimes it's fear in our view of God. Sometimes it's fear in our view of others. Sometimes it's fear in our view of the gospel.

I can't just tell them this simple message about a man named Jesus who lived the perfect life and died for me and, you know, for anybody who believes in him, his death is a plight.

That's too simple. People need all kinds of intellectual reasons to be a Christian. They're smarter than me.

They've got this unusual experience that I can't answer. Well, fear is real.

I'm not trying to downplay that. Like I said, I feel it at times. But might I suggest that the answer to fear is not giving into it?

I believe it was one of your famous presidents who said we have nothing to fear but fear itself. Might I suggest that the answer is not to run away from fear but to replace the wrong kind of fear with the right kind of fear?

Remember what Peter says? He says don't fear or be intimidated implication by them but rather regard

Christ the Lord as holy. He's the one you should, in a true sense, fear.

And by the way, when I say fear, I don't mean the sense of you should be terrified of God almost as though if I don't do this,

God's going to come after me. That's not really what Peter is getting at here. No, he's getting at this idea of reverence, the kind of obedient posture that a child has before their father, the kind of fear that says

I want to eminently serve and I want to honor this gracious God who has given so much to me.

Far more above any other government, far above any system of thoughts and ideas, far above even ourselves.

We have to get to the place as God's people where we are willing to lay everything on the line in order to honor

God. And it's that kind of consciousness of God.

Remember Peter's talked about this idea of consciousness of God. Well, he brings it up again. He doesn't use the words, but the idea is the same.

Regard Christ as holy. Think of Christ as you are doing this and as you are conscious of him. He says it's this kind of consciousness, you see it there in verse 15, that makes us ready at any time to give a defense to anyone who asks us for a reason for the hope that is in us.

The idea of a defense is this idea of a reasoned demonstration of what we believe, why we believe it, and why we live the way we live.

Now, I need to pause for a moment because there's a whole discipline that sprung up in the world of studying scripture.

Some of you know it as apologetics, the whole idea of answers to the Christian faith that we give. And oftentimes people will come to this text to make that point, that this is the text that teaches us that Christians need to be skilled in answering the arguments of non -Christians.

But can I suggest that's actually not Peter's point if you read it in context? Peter's talking about as we are being persecuted, we don't respond.

As we don't respond, unbelievers see our lives of not responding in kind and they're astounded not by the cleverness of our arguments, but by the way in which we live.

The way in which we live is so upside down to how they think that they come and say, wait a minute, this doesn't make sense.

You lost your job for being a Christian and yet you're still willing to go to church. People often think this is what the real situation was for Peter's audience as he's writing.

You won't go to the temple and worship idols, so they kicked you out of the guild because that's how that worked in the ancient world.

They kicked you out of the guild, so now you can't provide for yourself because you don't have all the connections you once had, and yet here you are the next day still telling people about Jesus.

That doesn't make sense. It costs you to mention this man named

Jesus and yet you are still following him anyway. You need to explain to me how that works. Peter's argument is that way of living opens the door, not for reasoned intellectual arguments, but for the gospel.

You see, when he says here that you are to give a reason for the hope that is in you, I don't believe he's talking about so -called apologetics at all.

I think there are other texts where you can make that case. I just don't think it's this one. I think actually what

Peter is saying is, as you live these kinds of God -glorifying, like, world -defying ways, you open the door for the gospel to go to other people, which makes sense with Peter because Peter's said that multiple times already, hasn't he, for those of you who've been there?

And the fruit of this kind of reasoned defense for why we believe what we believe and why we live the way we live—do you notice that Peter doesn't mention pride?

He doesn't mention bravado. He doesn't mention intimidation on our part. He says—some of your translations will have it at the end of verse 15, my translation has it at the beginning of verse 16—yet do this with gentleness and reverence.

The kind of qualities that Peter has commended to us in our study over and over and over again come up again here.

This idea that we are to be a people who are reverent, we have a consciousness of God, and we are gentle, we are peaceable in the way in which we approach an unbelieving world.

I think I've said it a few times in our study already, and I'll say it again. I've become convicted in the last few years about this call to gentleness and reverence in my own life.

I generally don't talk politics in the pulpit, this is for God's word, not for my personal opinions, but for a moment, can I talk to all the political and social conservatives in the room?

Hi, I'm one of you, by the way. I think at times it's all too easy for us, as we see the poor decision -making at times on the part of our leadership.

It's easy for us to think that gentleness, meekness, and moderation are actually weakness, compromise, and capitulation.

It's almost as though the only way in which you can answer the madness that we see in our culture—and let's be clear, we see a lot of madness in our culture—but the only way in which we can answer that is with being rude, with exercising bravado, with being equally as defiant as the world is, if not more.

And can I put it to you that actually that's not how the Bible says that we approach an unbelieving world, as hostile as it is.

The phrase doesn't come in the Bible, but I think it's a somewhat biblical concept. You know how we deal with unbelievers? We kill them with kindness.

We're called to be people of gentleness and reverence. The type who, as it were, they buck the trend of being needlessly opinionated and say, because I fear

God and I know who I am in comparison to him, I don't move with arrogance, I move with humility.

Can I put it to you that, ironically, it takes more strength to be quiet and to just get on with living life that glorifies

God than it does to always get the last word. We sometimes think that it's weakness that makes people not speak. Sometimes that is the case.

Sometimes it's just, listen, if I open my mouth, we might have a problem today. I don't want that problem. You don't want that problem.

How about I exercise some humility and not say anything? So Peter can say in verse 16 that we do this with gentleness and reverence.

And he goes on and says, you see it there, verse 16? Keeping a clear conscience so that when you are accused, those who disparage your good conduct in Christ will be put to shame.

We do this because we know the freedom of a clear conscience, because of what Jesus has done for us.

Book of Hebrews teaches us our consciences are clear so that we can serve the living God. Because we know a clear conscience, we can go about living our lives as God's people, imperfectly to be sure, and regularly needing to come before the foot of the cross and seek mercy once again.

But we can live in this kind of way. Do you see what he says right at the end there? That those who disparage your good conduct in Christ will be put to shame.

That for the Christian, ultimately, the very people who speak evil of us, the very people who have all this chat for us will one day be put to shame.

We will be vindicated. We will be proved right, not because we were right, but because God is.

That's why Peter can say verse 17, for it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be

God's will, than for doing evil. In the ultimate sense, it pays us more to be willing to endure suffering because we were good than because we were spoken evil of.

And that's Peter's basic point. It's fairly simple, actually. He's not saying anything he hasn't told us already.

Now, to give some foundation to this, this is where Peter gets complicated. We've talked about Peter's very basic principles.

Point number two this afternoon, Peter's very complex illustration, verses 18 to 22. Peter's very complex.

Before we jump in, as a Bible teacher, I need to give some warnings here. This is the kind of passage that calls for more mental discipline than most.

It's the kind of passage that, if we're not careful, can lead to all kinds of speculation and wild ideas.

And if you know anything about this text, there are a lot of wild ideas that flow from this passage. When it comes to dealing with difficult passages, can

I give you a couple of helpful points? Just a couple of things to bear in mind as you think about difficult texts like this one.

First of all, when you read a text like this, don't get lost in the details. Focus on the big picture.

What is it that Peter is trying to say to us as a central theme, as a central message?

More often than not, the details are there to reinforce the main point. So when you look at a passage like this, try and figure out what the main point is before you get lost in all the details.

Secondly, can I encourage you to stick to what the text says? It's way too easy, especially for those of us who have more imagination than most, to kind of run off with the fairies when it comes to every potential detail of a passage.

But actually, we need to be reverent in our approach to scripture and avoid speculating beyond what is reasonable from the text.

And I think if you keep those two principles in mind, this passage actually becomes really, really, really simple.

In fact, can I put it to you first of all, that Peter gives us his main point in this illustration pretty simply.

So let's consider for a moment the main point of the illustration. The main point of the illustration in verse 18.

So Peter says, I hope you have libel still open. For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring you to God.

That's Peter's main point. Now it's interesting that Peter doesn't say that Jesus died for sins.

He specifically says that Peter, excuse me, Peter specifically says that Jesus suffered for sins.

Not just that he died for sins, of course he died for sins, the Bible says so. But no, this is that he suffered for sins.

And what I think Peter was doing is that he's making a direct link between the sufferings of Christ and the sufferings of those who bear his name.

In theology, we talk about the idea of the two obediences of Christ, the active obedience of Christ, that he was obedient to the law of God and thought word and deed perfectly.

But then we also talk about the passive obedience of Christ, that he was obedient in living a life of perfect righteousness and obedience to God's law in full word and deed.

And he culminated that obedience in his passive obedience when he went to the cross.

And he did all of that for us as his people.

If I put it to you, if you look at verse 18, a little closer, we're actually told four main truths about Jesus's suffering.

Four main truths. For a moment, I want to spell these truths out as they come to us out of this text. First of all,

Jesus's suffering was unjust, just as a lot of suffering is unjust for Christians.

Where did I get that from? Well, look again at verse 18. The text says that Christ also suffered for sins once for all.

Now, let's ask some basic questions. Did Jesus ever sin? Most of you should be nodding your head saying, no,

Jesus did not sin. We affirm that, you know, we distinguish. No, okay.

No, but Jesus did not ever sin. And yet the text says that Jesus suffered for sins.

Now think about this. If you've never sinned, why should you suffer for sins? And from a human perspective, that is indeed incredibly unjust.

Now, the Bible also makes it clear that it makes God just and the justifier of those who believe in Jesus. That's a wonderful paradox for another sermon.

But for now, from a human perspective, it's unjust. You don't kill someone for being a righteous person.

And I think that's the point. In fact, I think Peter actually says that a little more explicitly. Because secondly, we see that Jesus's suffering was the righteous suffering for the unrighteous.

As our suffering can be sometimes. So again, look at the end of verse 18.

For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous. My friends, this is the wonderful truth of substitution.

Think about this. That we were meant to suffer for our sins. That every time we spurned

God's law, every time we were unloving toward our neighbor, every time we put our comforts and our needs and our concerns ahead of God.

For that alone, God would have been righteous and just to condemn us to an eternity away from his presence.

He would have been right and fair to do that. But oh, God intervened in the person of his son.

The truly righteous one for the unrighteous. Jesus's suffering was unjust.

It was the righteous suffering for the unrighteous. And listen, while none of us can say that we are suffering for the sins of anybody.

Talk less the sins of all those who would repent and believe. What has Peter been teaching us so far?

If you've been following this series in our study of 1st Peter. He's been teaching us that at times we must be willing to endure suffering.

Knowing that our response is a means that the Lord can and will use in the lives of those who don't know him.

In fact, that kind of leads perfectly into my, the third of four realities. I think we learned from this text.

We see that Jesus's suffering was unjust. As our suffering sometimes is. That Jesus's suffering was the righteous suffering for the unrighteous.

As our suffering can kind of be sometimes. But thirdly, can I have you see that Jesus's suffering was designed to lead us to God.

Just as the Lord uses our suffering to lead others to him. I like how Peter Davids in his commentary puts it.

He says, quote, Jesus died in order that, so to speak, he might reach across the gulf between God and humanity and taking our hand, lead us across the territory of the enemy into the presence of the father who called us.

Think about this. Jesus was more than willing to lay down his precious life for us.

And in the same way, we are called not by man, but by God. We are called to be willing to lay down our lives to see others come to the

Lord. So Peter tells us that Jesus's suffering was unjust. That Jesus's suffering was the righteous suffering for the unrighteous.

That Jesus's suffering was designed to lead us to God. Finally, and I think this is crucial to understanding

Peter's overall point. Fourth, fourth,

Jesus's suffering was not the end of his story. Just as our sufferings are not the end of our story.

Okay, Kofi, where do you see that in the text? Firstly, I was following you. Where'd you get this last one? Well, look at the end of verse 18, which really starts to lead into the more complicated part of this passage.

Peter says, for Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive by the spirit.

This is good news all by itself. That though Christ died, praise

God, Christ did not stay dead. We'll talk more about that in a moment, but, but don't miss the point here.

From the human perspective, the lowest point of Jesus's sufferings should have been the end of the story because he died.

And yet the lowest point of his sufferings was not the end of the story. And here's some good news for the

Christian who suffers. Can I talk to you personally for a moment? Your suffering is not the sum total of your story either.

You might think it's the end. You might think this is as low as it gets. And you know what? It might be as low as it gets, but listen, the low point with man is not necessarily the low point with God.

In fact, the Christian has the hope of being vindicated, even when they go through the absolute worst.

Can I pause for a moment and say that this is why it's a cruel thing to tell Christians, come to Jesus and you'll never suffer.

Everything will be great. Life will be easy. You'll float to glory on beds of ease. I think it's an incalculably cruel thing to say.

Why? Because you're not preparing people to suffer well.

In fact, I would argue that you're robbing them of eternal perspective. That's a point by the by.

I still need to throw that in because I think at times we are ill prepared for the reality of suffering, especially when we're told so often and so regularly, you know, you might suffer, but you know, if you're a

Christian, you're not. Well, actually, Christians suffer. But the beautiful thing is that even through the sufferings we go through, you know, that's not the end of the story.

That there is glorious hope on the other side. When you look at those four elements that we've talked about, and really that forms the main point that Peter is making in this passage, it really

Peter is giving us a gospel powered framework for putting suffering in the right perspective.

So far, so good. This is the easy part of this. Like I said,

Peter kind of gives you the main point up front. And this is kind of why

I've very quickly kind of sought to dig deep into verse 18, because really verse 18 is the big picture.

This is the main point. All the details you're about to read serve to illustrate and to strengthen and to buttress this main point.

So let's look at those more difficult details. Verse 19. So referring to crises being made alive in the spirit.

Verse 19, it says, in which the spirit, he also went and made proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in the past were disobedient when

God patiently waited in the days of Noah while the ark was being prepared. In it, that is, and it's a few, excuse me, that is eight people were saved through water.

So remember, we know what Peter's main point is. Now for a moment, if I can get your attention, let's talk about the complex details of this illustration.

Let's talk about the complex details of this illustration. Remember what Peter's doing here, he's giving us an illustration and foundation.

Really, if we're going to understand the complex details of this illustration, there are one, two, three, four questions

I want us to consider. Four main questions that I think will help us to unpack this passage and apply

Peter's point the way I think Peter would want his point applied. So let's get into it.

Four questions. The first question we want to consider is who are the spirits in prison?

Who are these spirits in prison that Peter refers to? So again, I have you look at your Bible. Verse 19, in which he also went and made proclamation to the spirits in prison.

So who are these spirits in prison? Now, there are all kinds of views as to who this is. Some people say it was the people that Christ ministered to in his earthly ministry.

It feels like a bit of a stretch, to be honest. Secondly, there are those who say these are the people of the flood generation.

And the idea here is that Christ, through the spirit, was preaching to them in the preaching of Noah. Less of a stretch, but again, a little more fanciful.

You have those who say that the spirits of you here are the spirits of those who perished in the flood.

In this view, you know, Jesus goes down to hell and he preaches to the spirits of those who are in hell.

Okay. And then there's the view that says this is not a reference to human spirits of any kind, but it's a reference to supernatural beings, angels or demons, technically.

Now, I think there's some merit to this. As far as I could study this week, and I will admit there's a lot more study on this text

I could possibly do. But as far as I can tell right now, Genesis chapter 6, 2

Peter 2, 4 and Jude 6 all seem to refer to angels who sinned in a very particular way and were put into a prison of some sort.

And I would argue that that's what Peter was talking about here. Now, of course,

I'm going to say that I think this view makes the most sense. I just told you it's the one I hold. But allow me to give you just three simple reasons why

I think this is the case. First of all, the word for spirits is used here. It's rarely, if ever, used of human spirits, of the immaterial parts of human beings.

That word is actually generally soul or souls. This word is one dictionary, but it is often used for non -human spiritual beings.

Second, the only reference we have to disobedient spirits of this magnitude, again, comes to us back in the

Genesis 6 incident. Of course, there's a lot of speculation there, but I'm sorry, this just seems to fit a lot better than some of the other views that are out there.

Thirdly, some people will say, well, the word for prison here is different from Jude 6 and 2 Peter 2, 4 for those who know

Greek. Well, yes, but the concept is the same even if the words are different.

And of course, even in our language, we will use different words to illustrate the same concept.

So that doesn't quite fly. So who are these spirits in prison? As far as I think the text gives us an answer,

I believe that these were the fallen angels who were present in the distasteful intermarriage between these angelic and human beings in Genesis chapter 6.

Actually, if you are watching this, if you go back to our Genesis study,

I have a whole teaching on this in Genesis chapter 6. I also talked through the book of Jude, and you can hear that recording in a

Jude playlist on our website. I believe the message was apostasy BC looking at Jude 5, 6, and 7.

So a little more homework there if you want to dig into that. But for now, the fallen angels are the ones

I think being referred to here in 1 Peter chapter 3. Well, that kind of leads to a second question.

Which is what did these, well, what did Christ, excuse me, proclaim to these spirits?

Well, I think the majority answer in church history is that Christ proclaims the victory of his life and death over the entire realm of disobedient angels.

I think the angels that are mentioned in Genesis 6, 2 Peter 2, and Jude 6, and I would argue here, are specifically mentioned because of the reference to Noah.

But I think Colossians chapter 2 makes it very clear that Christ in the cross proclaimed his victory over the demonic powers once and for all.

And I would argue that the reason that this answer fits to this question is because it fits with the bigger theme of this section verses 13 to 22 about the

Christian being vindicated. So who are the spirits in prison? Fallen angels. What did

Christ proclaim? He proclaimed the victory of his life and death over the entire realm of disobedient angels.

That kind of leads me to my third question. Well, what's the link with Noah? Why does Noah come up at the end of verse 20? So again, you look at the end of verse 20 and what happens there is that Peter summarizes the story of Noah and the flood and the salvation of his family through the flood of judgment.

Now, considering he just spoke about the angels who sinned in Genesis chapter 6, through whom

God basically brings the judgment of the flood. It's a natural link, actually. I think it fits very well.

And again, I refer you to my message on the flood, God's judgment on sin, Genesis 6 and 7, where I talk about that in a bit more detail.

But as you read the Bible, the flood becomes a major Bible picture of God's judgment against sin.

While God says he'll never flood the world again in the same way, it becomes an archetype of this idea of final judgment.

So that's the thing. That's what I believe is the link here. Well, that kind of leads to the final question, which is probably the most complicated of all of them.

Well, in verse 21, Peter says, baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you.

Oh, heavens, what does Peter mean? Does, I mean, he says baptism now saves you. So the question is, how does baptism save us?

Well, I actually don't think this passage is that complicated if you simply slow down and consider the rest of the

Bible's teaching in light of this one passage. So the rest of the Bible teaches us that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in the finished work of Christ alone.

Excuse me. And since that's the case, nothing that we can do, no act of good works, no act of obedience, no act of surrender, no act of...

None of that actually saves anybody. And I would argue baptism is in that same category.

I also think that the key to understanding this little passage, this verse, excuse me, is that little phrase, which corresponds to this.

The question becomes, corresponds to what? Well, I would argue that the correspondence is not between the act of the presence of water in both the flood and water baptism.

But the fact that there was a salvation that took place through judgment. Think about this.

What was it that saved Noah and his family? Now, you may think that's a really stupid question, but actually think about this for a moment.

It wasn't the water that saved them, was it? It wasn't the water that saved them.

The ark did the saving. The water was the judgment that the ark saved them from.

Let me say it again, so don't miss this now. The water didn't save Noah and his family.

The ark did the saving. The water was the judgment the ark saved them from.

Okay, let me see if I can try it another way. Quick test.

Who does the Bible say delivers God's people from the wrath to come? If you need to check, this is an open book test.

First Thessalonians 1 .10 explicitly says that Jesus is the one who rescues us from the coming wrath.

You see, water baptism doesn't save. It's Jesus who saves. Baptism corresponds to this.

It's a picture of this. This idea of the God -ordained judgment of God that came on Jesus as he died.

Remember what baptism represents? The death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. That he died. That, in fact, it's interesting.

Jesus refers to his own death as a baptism. Fun fact. Oh, fun bit of homework, I should say, for those of you who are listening to this.

Go look up in the Gospels where Jesus refers to his death as a baptism. That's quite funny. Because, again, it's a picture of judgment.

Just so, as Jesus died, he was buried, and he rose. Baptism points us to that reality every time we see it.

It corresponds to that. And in that sense, the thing which baptism corresponds is what actually saves us.

The water doesn't save you. It's what the water represents that saves. So, again, look at verse 21.

I think Peter actually says this. He said, baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as the removal of dirt from the body.

So, it's not the physical going down in the water, forgetting the bath, as it were, that does anything. But note what he says.

But the pledge of a good conscience toward God. In baptism, God does this wonderful thing where he testifies to us that we are his children.

And we come before the Lord, and we say, Lord, you have cleansed my conscience. I have peace with you. And this is me receiving your promise and trusting your word.

And I love how Peter puts this. Because the proof that God has indeed cleansed and purged our conscience, that we can go before God, is not the fact you've gone in the water.

He says it's, baptism now says, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. If you want any proof, if you want any assurance that you have been saved, you don't look at yourself, you don't look at your achievements, even the achievement of baptism, you look with faith.

You look with the eye of faith to the risen Christ. That's where you find your assurance. And for these suffering saints to whom

Peter wrote, if they wanted assurance that the struggles of life were not the end of the story, they were to look to Christ.

The beautiful thing, Christian, is that when we look at Christ, we recognize that Christ suffered for us. He went to the cross for us.

He died for us. He was raised from the grave for us. And not only did he rise out of the tomb, he ascended to a position that is far above all.

So that's why Peter can say in verse 22, that it's this Christ who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God with angels, authorities, and powers subject to him.

You see, in a lot of ways, Peter's big point is very simple. And I'll conclude with this.

Suffering is a reality. Let's not be those, like I just said, let's not be those who deny that suffering happens.

Suffering happens. But here's the good news for the Christian, that though suffering happens, our suffering is not the greatest reality.

It's a reality. It's a very painful reality. And I never want to minimize suffering in the life of anybody who will watch this video later.

But can I put it to you that it is not the greatest reality. No, the greatest reality we have is that of our great example, the

Lord Jesus. Let me close this out in a word of prayer. And Father, we are so grateful for Jesus and all that he's done for us.

We thank you that he is indeed our great example. That he is the great example of the fact that you redeem your people through suffering.

That you keep your people in the midst of suffering and that you ultimately vindicate them in the presence of suffering.

Father, help us then to be those who are ready to give an answer for the hope that is in us.

Help us to live lives of gentleness and reverence, even in a culture that makes us so, so difficult. And above all, help us to honor

Jesus in everything we say, think and do. For we ask it in his name and for his glorious sake.