Always Show Them Christ

Well, good evening. Last year I saw a video. I've got a clip from it coming up.

And it started actually with a blank screen.

There was text that said, we created a fake job and advertised it online and in the newspapers.

Then we held real interviews. And the man in the suit is interviewing different applicants.

He tells them at the start, he says, it's probably the most important job, director of operations.

And he reads this list of requirements. First, mobility, constantly working on your feet, exerting yourself, high stamina.

And they say, OK. Some of them ask, well, are there breaks? Surely there are breaks.

No breaks. You can only have lunch when the associate does.

You have to constantly follow the associate and even stay up late when the associate does.

And so some of them want to know, OK, well, there must be holidays.

No holidays. In fact, the workload intensifies over these periods.

If you had a life, we'd ask you to basically give that up.

And some of them start questioning, is this legal?

Is this three, six, five days a year?

Yes, the guy says.

That's really cruel. That's just too much.

The connections you make and the feeling you get from really helping your associate are immeasurable.

And crickets chirp and eyes shift.

And then he says, let's cover salary.

We'd be asking you to work pro bono, so absolutely nothing.

And then they laugh and some of them just shout out, nobody is going to do that.

And then soft classical music fades into the video.

And the interviewer says, what if I told you there was someone holding the position right now?

Billions of people.

Who?

Moms.

And they both laugh.

The jig is up.

And as they're smiling in relief to know that nobody's going to have to take the post,

they go back through the requirements.

And listing them, they realize that their moms, their mothers meet those requirements.

They've always been on their feet.

There's no pay.

And it's every day.

And the sense of gratitude when the applicants start holding all of that together,

it's overwhelming for some of them.

And they just tell short stories about how amazing their mothers have been.

And they really express full gratitude.

It's a fantastic Mother's Day video.

And we'll come back to this story.

My title today is Always Show Them Christ.

So we're three weeks into a series on 1 Peter.

And just a little bit of context first.

The author is Peter.

It's such an encouragement that it's him because Peter was the bombastic one.

Sometimes he got things spectacularly right.

When Jesus asks his disciples, who do you say I am?

And Peter says, you are the Messiah, son of the living God.

And Jesus says, God the Father gave you those words.

Fantastic.

Then there were times when Peter got things wrong.

When Jesus describes the events of his death that are to come and his resurrection,

Peter's the one who blurts out, no, surely, no, no, no.

Not you, Jesus.

These terrible things, they don't have to happen to you.

And he gets a rebuke from Jesus who says, get behind me, Satan.

Then you have in mind the things of men and not the things of God.

Well, Peter moves past those failures.

We can see that in his letter.

Peter.

And in his perseverance, in the powerful example of Jesus Christ that he was so close to,

Peter's now in a position where he's actually leading others through their trials.

In a letter like this, he can prevent them from making his mistakes.

And it's so encouraging to us to see Peter's transformation, hold it here in this letter,

and think, you know, even people like us who get bogged down in our failures,

knowing Christ can be transformed.

In his opening sentence to this section, 2 verse 11, Peter does some more context work for us

because he harks back to the previous chapters.

He says,

Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh,

which wage war against your soul.

Beloved, he says.

He's writing to the Hebrew church under Roman rule,

and he knows they are suffering, not just suffering, but they are persecuted.

But he also knows who they are in Christ.

He knows they follow Christ.

He spent the beginning of the letter telling them how wonderful that is,

encouraging them that they are God's elect,

shown in everlasting mercy through Christ's death and resurrection.

There are those who love Christ, even though they haven't seen him.

He reminds them they're going through trials, but these will serve a purpose,

proving their faith and glorifying God.

They're a people of inexpressible joy.

Inexpressible joy because God's mercy has surpassed understanding.

God has used his awesome power to love them into an identity and a future

they could have never earned.

God has used them.

And we are dearly beloved with them.

He calls them exiles.

Ruled by another nation and away from home, perhaps.

But their deepest sense of exile comes from knowing that they're just passing through this earth

to a home in heaven.

It comes from the joy of being truly loved by God in a world that rejects God.

And we are exiles with them.

And he writes about war.

In this sentence, this is a painting by Joseph Gray,

a man from Dundee who fought in World War I.

It's a man telling us from experience about the danger of war and about staying vigilant in war.

Peter is like this painter.

In his letter, he's warning us of the danger of our own evil desires.

And Peter has been there.

He knows how bad it can get.

In the passion of pride, he told Jesus he wouldn't have to suffer.

In the passion of self-pity, he denied knowing Jesus three times so that he wouldn't be arrested.

He was rebuked.

And he wept bitterly because of these things.

He's urging the church away from pain that he knows.

From losses that he's taken.

And his words are sharpened in love.

Sharper than we might expect because he's a veteran.

So he writes, Christ gave you a new identity and it is glorious.

Now your very desires are against you.

So we'll look at three real examples of this in the rest of the text.

The first answers the question, how should Christians respond to a non-Christian government?

He writes, submit to government.

Jesus submitted to his so that you could be sure that's how you show your government Christ.

And that's how we should think about this submission.

Nero's government would appall anyone reading about it today.

He enjoyed persecuting Christians.

They called him the Antichrist.

Peter never questions Nero's leadership.

But he never forgets God's sovereignty.

So he says, submit to the emperor and his officers.

Did his listeners struggle to hear this?

Almost certainly.

Do we struggle to do what Christ tells us today?

Yes.

Yes.

But in the heat of that struggle, our job is to make God visible through perseverance,

through returning good for every evil.

And showing Christ to your accusers, as 2 verse 12 says,

Those who speak ill of you may see God in your actions and glorify God with you.

Do we disagree with our government when they take the other stance on something

and essentially say we're getting in the way of their progress?

Yes, we disagree with them.

But let's not chew them out for it.

Let's not get in the way of their progress.

Let's not get in the way of their progress.

Returning good for evil, let's maintain respect.

Because our hope is that even someone like Nero would, seeing Christ,

come to know him and glorify God on the day he visits us.

As Jesus said, when someone slaps you, turn the other cheek.

When someone sues you for your shirt, give them your coat also.

Who's troubling you?

Who's stirring your passion to turn anger into vengeance?

How can you turn the other cheek to them?

Peter develops this practice of showing Christ with a second example.

Show your boss Christ.

This goes for good bosses and terrible bosses.

This holds when the innocent are wrongly punished at work.

Have the humility to bear unjust punishment,

and God will celebrate you.

Verse 20 says, keeping God in mind, submit to that kind of boss.

Why?

Verse 21 says, to this you were called,

because Christ suffered for you,

leaving you an example that you should follow in his steps.

He's saying, wait a minute.

We're the benefactors of this kind of submission.

This is how we were saved.

He says, the example is there, set by Christ.

Will we not follow it?

Peter spells out that example.

The abused Christ, who was insulted, but did not return the abuse.

He trusted the one who judges justly.

Maybe you don't like your boss.

Maybe your coworkers have humiliated you.

Cruel jokes, treating you like an outsider.

Maybe they're slightly rude.

And maybe your attempts to fix it seem meaningless.

Is it time for self-pity?

Or is this an opportunity to show Christ-like endurance?

When you are conscious of God, abuse isn't about you.

It's about what the Holy Spirit can do in your relationship to the abuser.

I'll tell you a quick story where my friend works.

Some of her colleagues used to go well out of their way to insult her,

things about her age, trying to give the impression that she's less competent than them,

just making her life miserable.

And it took years for these deeply insecure people to stop.

Now they call her aside in the office,

and they get into long conversations over the phone to confide in her.

They say sorry,

and they talk about the tragic ways they were abused in the past.

They ask for her advice and prayers on things they're currently struggling with,

crises that they blame others for.

But my friend can see their past,

evils there, their insecurities,

their own evil desires echoing.

They trust her when she gives that advice,

when she talks with them,

because she showed the depth that Christ shows.

And more than saying she puts God first,

she lived it for years.

I think about her,

and I'm blown away by Jesus' command,

the understanding in it,

when he says,

love your enemies,

and pray for those who persecute you.

If you're going to work tomorrow,

I hope it goes well.

But if things go bad,

and it's unfair,

will you self-pity,

or will you trust God?

Because this is how we live out the gospel.

And this is how those who know that they're God's beloveds act.

So when things get difficult at work,

don't get in a rage about your rights and your dignity.

Look at it as the answer to your prayers for God to use you.

And we may all ask God that if one more person can come to know Christ because of it,

that he disgrace us at work.

In the third example, Peter gets personal.

Show your spouse Christ.

He starts his address to men and women with the same words.

He says, in the same way.

He's applying it again.

Show them Christ.

Some of the women were trapped in the idea of getting all the attention they could

by decorating themselves and maybe influencing men.

Some of the men had to be reminded to be considerate,

to not be harsh.

Another kind of power play.

But Christ doesn't tempt us into doing what he wants,

and he won't force us.

So Peter encourages the gentle and quiet behavior

that has always pleased God.

And he says,

this can show people the God they've always wanted to know.

This can bring people to Christ without a spoken word.

Let this be our evangelism.

But we so often don't choose that,

and Peter knows that he was like that too.

Jesus wouldn't tolerate movements of self-pity,

but when Jesus was being arrested wrongly in the Garden of Gethsemane,

Peter shows that he's willing to fight for Christ,

and he draws his sword,

and he cuts off the ear of one of the arresting soldiers.

Well, Jesus not only rejects this option,

but he reverses it,

showing that fighting for Christ

is not showing them Christ.

He heals the ear of the wounded soldier.

It's no coincidence that

the transformative power of loving your enemies

brought this guy's hearing back up to speed.

The fact that Jesus had to undo his followers' damage

shows us how important it is

to know the Christ we show.

So we'll look at him in these verses.

Verse 22,

he committed no sin

and no deceit was found in his mouth.

When Jesus was wrongly arrested,

he was silent.

When they hurdled their insults at him,

he did not retaliate,

it says in verse 23.

When he suffered, he made no threats.

Instead, he entrusted himself

to him who judges justly.

Jesus was sure.

He himself bore our sins

in his body on the tree

so that we might die to sins

and live for righteousness.

By his wounds,

you have been healed.

Jesus was servant and salve.

He's the source of our healing.

And it says,

for you were going astray like sheep.

But now you have returned

to the shepherd and guardian

of your souls.

Jesus is our shepherd.

And he wants us to look after each other

even by submitting to each other.

He was all of this

in his darkest moments

so that he could be the light in ours.

So that when things go wrong,

we have someone to look to

and we know what to do.

When Jesus' soul was overwhelmed

with pain,

praying in that garden,

when he sweat blood

and collapsed

in the dirt,

praying to his father,

he held firm

to his trust in God.

When they beat him

at his false trial

just after that,

he showed more submission.

And when he was flogged

and beaten again

and then crucified,

he prayed

for his murderers.

Father,

forgive them.

And standing at the epicenter

of this much concentrated integrity

and love,

one of his murderers changed.

A Roman soldier

looks up at the naked

and crying,

red wreck of Christ,

crucified,

and his words are unforgettable.

Surely,

he was the Son of God.

Are we ashamed

of the brutalized

Jesus Christ,

humiliated

in his torture

and death?

Or are we proud

that he chose

to endure

for us?

If we're proud of him,

will we choose

to endure like him?

That's how we will know him.

So three times,

Peter describes this pattern,

this arc of someone

pushing us down.

We submit.

We're showing Christ.

We're praying for the suppressor.

And our trust in God

is recognized by him.

It's seen as only Christ's behavior.

And God raises us up

and others with us.

And we all glorify him,

even those who were once lost

in their evil desires,

transformed by powerful love.

This is the love Christ showed us.

Peter commends it to us always,

at the most public level,

government,

the relationship to government.

At the most private level,

the marriage relationship.

And at an intermediate level,

the most common set of relationships

going to work.

His words are backed

by Christ's example

and so many of Christ's words.

Love your enemies

and pray for those

who persecute you

when someone slaps you.

Turn the other cheek

when they sue you

for your shirt.

Give them your coat also.

And the Beatitudes,

which say,

when you're persecuted

and reviled for his sake,

blessed are you.

Rejoice.

Great is your reward in heaven.

This is what happened

to the prophets.

So it's not just for these

three contexts,

but it's a universal,

God-like example

to follow.

Well, while preparing this sermon,

I talked to people

about this submission

and this always show them Christ.

There were two responses.

shocked acceptance

and shocking rejection.

The acceptors admitted

it's a difficult call,

but they acknowledged

that it's God calling

and with his help,

we can do this.

The rejectors tried to run scenarios

where this wouldn't fit,

where the moral thing to do

would fit what they wanted to do,

what they feel entitled to do.

Please don't make this slide

about finding a way

to avoid living like this.

Peter says,

God is pleased

when our trust in him

overcomes the fear

even of unfair punishment.

It is to this trust

and this example

that you were called

and Christ died

so that we could follow it.

my question is,

are you sure you want

to avoid this at all?

If you dig into it,

the most fulfilling parts

of our lives

are good precisely

because of this principle

at work.

If we think back

to the example

of parenthood

that I started with,

the mother goes

through intense pain,

there are many moments

of putting herself last

and repeatedly

having to hold her temper.

Does she regret

those times

with the child?

What if you're training

for a marathon

and you push yourself

through pain,

maybe you're getting up early,

it's a difficult regime

and eventually

you're running well

and when you cross

the finish line

and you throw your hands

in the air,

there's no sense

of I wish I put

that weight back on.

When you go through

tough times

with good friends

who encourage you

and you bear it

all together

and you get through

and you talk to them

about it afterwards,

do they tell you

I regret helping you

through that,

I regret going through

all of that

for your sake?

There's no regret.

In fact,

so often the regret

comes if we

avoid those opportunities

and we don't follow

this principle

through to fulfillment.

The truth is,

however bad this looks

and feels,

and it does,

it doesn't end there.

Always showing them

Christ has a sequel,

as Paul put it,

if we are united

to him

in a death

like his,

we will certainly

be united

to him

in a resurrection

like his.

This is a picture

of Christ's

resurrected body

and he's getting

Thomas to probe

his wound.

It's striking

because of Christ's

death

and his suffering.

And so this is

the upward movement

in this arc.

It's described

each time

in each of the examples.

In the most public,

Peter finishes

by saying

that they may glorify

God

on the day

he comes

to judge.

They,

the ones

who clearly

hated you,

who spoke

all kinds of evil

about you,

they will glorify

God with you.

that is a goal

that will break

each of our own

evil desires.

In the most

private

arc,

he says

that they may be

one without a word

by nothing

but the force

of God's character

displayed in your life

as you patiently

and persistently

gently

and quietly

return

good

for evil.

And then

in the most

common

arc,

he says

by his wounds

we are healed.

Wounds are physical

and psychological

and I know

in my struggles

almost nothing

has been so sweet

and effective

a cure

as

the words

of someone

who knows

the same pain

who has come

through it

and encouraged

me

with authority

from their personal

experience

saying I

can get through it,

I will

get through it.

Wounds

are the rule

not the exception.

There are lots

of wounded people

kicking around.

We have our own

wounds.

wounds.

The question is

can I live

in such a way

that my wounds

like Christ's

become God's

resource

in the lives

of hurting people?

Always show them

Christ

and on the other

side of the

difficulty

you will have

a powerful

compassion,

the character

and the authority

to heal

like Christ.

Christ.

So I hope

you will.

I hope

you'll look

again at what

Peter says

in chapter 1

talking about

who we are

and in this

text

talking about

what we must

do in

difficult times.

And when I

think through

these things

and maybe

reactions to

them

the question

that it all

comes down

to is

which Christ

do I want

to know?

Miracle worker,

the one who

suffered and

died,

the resurrected

Christ,

they're all

the same.

Let me

close in

prayer.

Our

Father,

only you

can help

us to

follow the

perfect example

of your

Son,

Jesus Christ.

He so

faithfully

held to

the toughest

of what

you called

him to

do,

and only

he so

fully

enjoys the

freedom of

adhering to

your good

will.

We're

easily

confused.

Help us

to

appreciate

what Christ

has done

and to

be more

shocked

by our

desire to

make an

example

than we

are by

your call

to follow

Christ's

difficult

example.

Thank you

that our

pain isn't

comparable

to his,

that you

never give

us more

than we

can bear,

but that

even still

our joy

in knowing

him will

lack

nothing.

So,

forgive us

as we

forgive

others,

and let

your kingdom

come to

earth.

Thank you

for showing

us where

our current

culture fails

and where

we need to

show Christ.

Because we

want to

honor you,

not just

being nice

people like

the culture

dictates,

but celebrating

the God

who brings

joy through

healing,

who is

the only

just

judge,

and the

lover of

our souls.

In the

eternal name

of Christ.

Amen.