[0:00] This is the first epistle of Peter, the first epistle of Peter, chapter 3, and verse 18.
[0:19] First Peter, chapter 3, verse 18. In this epistle, Peter speaks about the suffering of believers.
[0:48] The Christians are granted that no person can go through life without suffering, that no Christian can go through a life without suffering at the hands of the world.
[1:07] And that was very typical of Peter's day. In Jesus' world, his own disciples, marvel not if the world hated, but if they persecute the master, they will persecute his servants.
[1:23] And then Peter speaks in this epistle about suffering as a Christian, Christian suffering. And he tells us how you are to conduct yourself under Christian suffering.
[1:38] It is better to say, if the will of God be saved, that you suffer for well-being than for evil-being. So, if you do evil and suffer for it, we have no hope, we are.
[1:53] But if we do well and suffer for it, then we are in good company. For Christ, who never did sin, has one suffered, just for the unjust, to bring us to God.
[2:09] And having this, we have the believer suffering, he now comes to the sufferings of the master. And to that I want to draw your attention tonight. For Christ also has once suffered for sin, the just or the unjust, that he might bring us to God.
[2:30] And now just draw your attention to three things. The point is that Christ suffered on his death. That's what Peter means when he speaks about Christ's suffering.
[2:45] And the second thing I want to notice is that Christ suffered for others. The just for the unjust.
[2:58] And the third thing I want to notice is that Christ suffered more. Christ also has once suffered. And the sufferings now are past.
[3:11] Hence, Christ suffered under death. This is the significance of the word in the council. We see in verse 4-1, But it must be as Christ has suffered for us in the flesh.
[3:29] For Peter means the very obstinate of suffering, death. Yet the suffering of Christ did not begin at Calvary, or even at the family.
[3:42] The shadow of the cross, the shadow of the cross, the over the whole life of our Lord. From Bethlehem, right to Golgotha.
[3:55] He is known as the man of sorrow. That's how the prophet describes him, a man of sorrow, and that Christ did with grief. Not just because he made a man suffering, as a doctor, or a surgeon in a hospital now, or as a nurse in the ward.
[4:17] Oh, that's true. He was surrounded by those who suffered all kinds of sickness and disease. The blind, the hawk, the lame, the demons of Christ.
[4:31] And they came to him, and they were healed. Good. And though he alleviated suffering himself, he himself suffered.
[4:44] He first, he the prophet, bare our infirmities, and carried our sicknesses. Or else, the same prophet prophet, in all our afflictions, he was afflicted.
[5:02] Oh yes, he suffered. But that never once in the world, our dejected, the man of sorrow, was not the man of the heavy countenance.
[5:17] Not a man of affiliency. They drowned the sense of Christ as essentially miserable. Before he himself speaks about a secret joy he has.
[5:32] A joy he came to share with his disciples. My joy I give unto you, my peace to you. So that, in the midst of all his sorrow and suffering, our Lord had the joy of being the will of the Father.
[5:48] and the joy of being in constant fellowship with his Father God. And I pray that he passed the secret on to his disciples.
[6:01] As the apostle Paul teaches, we are exceeding joy through all our tribulations, not the ends, in the midst of them, not after they're over.
[6:13] Not joy operating with sorrow, the joy experienced in the midst of sorrow, peace in the midst of battle. Now, when you think of it, is it not a wonderful thing that Christ suffered?
[6:32] It doesn't seem so wrong. If any man should have escaped suffering, it must be similar, Son of God, the perfect man. And when he has conducted himself in a way that should have made the world alive, and yet he says, marvel not that the world hated, it hated me before it hated you.
[6:59] Spirit gave us holy life as a service to his generation in healing the sick, in teaching the ignorant, in evangelizing the people.
[7:13] And for gracious blood flowed from his lips, just as gracious acts of healing flowed from his touch. The Spirit of the Lord bears upon me because the Lord is upon anointing me to preach blood-piding to the poor.
[7:30] You are sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim deliverance to the captains, the open and the present of those that are dying. You are sent me to bring life to blind eyes, grace to lean lives.
[7:45] You are sent me to proclaim the jubile, the acceptable year of the Lord. Surely, a man like that could have no enemies. Surely, his life would be one of tranquility, faith of activity, and yet the whole world was against him.
[8:07] Both Jew and Gentile, Pilate and Herod, and the rulers of the religious of Israel, the scribes and authority, he was despised and rejected of names.
[8:24] A man of sorrows like 20 years ago, he was despised and split in the witness of the Lord and afflicted. All combined with him, he announced it on Jehovah.
[8:37] And what is more wonderful today, is that God himself subjected him to suffering. You read it? It pleased the Lord to breathe him, to have put him to give.
[8:49] and it was a very small thing. It was not just the rod that smote him, it was the sword that was plunged into his heart.
[9:00] And there he goes, the sword against my shepherd and against the man that is my fellow. Smoked the shepherd. There was no spreading of the sword. So I might say that the Lord cried in that mysterious cry.
[9:17] Eli, Eli, Lama, Sebastian, my God, my God, why a slave has opened. Here is God's beloved son in whom he was well pleased on his efforts.
[9:36] And sometimes one complained about being triggered on justice. And sometimes they repine against God himself. And the quarreless Christian comes to the lips.
[9:51] Why should this happen to me? Job was perplexed. A great man and a just who feared God and his feared evil and yet he suffered. But a great old Job is here.
[10:05] While he is altogether fully and he suffers. And my friends in the life tell the suffering of Jesus, why should a living man complain?
[10:15] not one of us has any reason to open his mouth. When we are in the company of him, he is led with a lamb into the slaughter and as a shield before a shearer, so he opened not his mouth.
[10:29] He suffered and he suffered without complaint. The suffering of Jesus, as we saw, commented in death, in the death of the cross.
[10:44] There were hurts all along the way. Hurts from his own family. His brethren did not believe in him. Hurts from his own citizens in Nazareth that tried the same headway over the brow of the hill and hit the hippie-sittie and spooks.
[11:00] Hurts from the time of his adoption, Capernaum. Hurts from peace and strides and poverty. That his suffering through their being concentrated in the last few days, even hours of his life on earth.
[11:19] In Gethsemane, in the trial before Pilate. And you can still see the judgment creature, just arrested about 20 years ago in Jerusalem to Gabata.
[11:31] And there you can see the very pavement in which you must have stood until be judged by Pilate. The trial was a travesty, travesty of justice and Pilate knew.
[11:46] He knew that the Jews had given him over because of envy and because he interfered by his true teaching with their vested lies.
[11:59] Ah, but the suffering of Christ were not confined to the physical side of things. even the most excruciating sufferings of the cross, the very word excruciating, has the word cross in its very center, as well as the violent and most cruel and worst types of execution that the Romans knew.
[12:26] In fact, it was what revised by them. We borrowed it from cruel and fierce to the nations. sufferings of Christ lie especially in the heart and in the soul.
[12:41] As one has put it, the sufferings of his same were the same of his suffering. It pleased the Lord to bring him. Others have suffered outwardly as much as deeply did.
[12:57] Many a day they suffered again, so a mountain suffered. crucifixion and they suffered outwardly as much pain as he did. At least the infliction of what causes pain.
[13:13] And why should his sufferings be so different? Oh, because his sufferings were in us. Because he suffered in his soul. Because he suffered not just the loss of men, but the loss of God.
[13:28] He suffered the very curse of God. There's a mystery of it. There's a death of it. The martyrs did not suffer the wrath of God, and many of them went joyfully into their death.
[13:43] Because they were upheld and bowled by their faith in Christ and the presence of the Redeemer with him. In all their afflictions he was afflicted. Like Shadrath Meshach and Abednego in the Kamehra Sari Sari Sari there was the living land carrying him through.
[14:04] But he had no sex before. And he bore the wrath and the curse of God. That brings me to the second thought Christ suffered for others.
[14:18] Here we have it. We are told that Christ suffered for sin. And then we are told that he suffered for the unjust. he suffered for sin and he suffered for the unjust.
[14:35] I think that there are three things in this statement that require of attention. The first is that your sufferings were two more sufferings.
[14:47] They were a punishment. They were for sin. And then the second thing is that they were vicarious sufferings. He suffered for the unjust.
[15:01] Very precision out. He suffered for us. Well, he suffered in the realm of stead of others, not for himself. So they were what is called vicarious suffering.
[15:13] They were in the peace of others. And the third thought as we consider Christ suffering for others is that they were fully suffering. that he might bring us to God.
[15:28] They were for reconciliation to follow attainment. But we know the answer to the question when did he suffer and why did he suffer the walk of God?
[15:46] He was the holy one of angel. He was the son of man. God himself said this is my son, my beloved in whom I am well pleased.
[15:57] He could say this of you can convict me of sin. He challenged them as couldn't do. Men could not point a finger at him and say in truth this man is a sinner or they charge it but they say to establish it.
[16:11] No evil could achieve him of sin as he can achieve us. Oh neither could God himself. He gave him a clean day of moral health.
[16:29] This is my Son my beloved in whom I am very pleased. Why did he suffer? Because he suffered for sin.
[16:44] Sin and suffering go together like food came in harvest. Indeed suffering is the harvest of sin.
[16:56] Whatsoever a man sails that shall he all save him. And this explains the suffering of the ordinary man. If he suffer then he suffer because of our sin.
[17:07] I don't say that suffering and sin must be immediately corrected and that the greater sufferers in this world of a greater sinner pass on it. But just as a general principle for ever sin there must be suffering.
[17:20] Moral evil and physical evil must go together. How suffering for sin came to be associated with the sinless Son of God we shall see in a moment.
[17:40] But in time I don't admit that the sufferings of Jesus were penal suffering. Sin deserves punishment. Sin deserves death.
[17:52] The soul that sinners shall die. The world likely dismisses sin. The church even minimizes sin. And even evangelical gloss over sin today one of the greatest last of our second day is a saint of sin.
[18:10] And that's why the gospel is so little appreciated. For he is no saint of sin. It is no appreciation of Christ. That cannot be. Because he is the sinner saviour and the gospel is a sinner thing.
[18:24] I can not recall the life though. That sinner. But whether man believe it or not, whether church preach to her or not, every thing deserves God's wrath and curse, both in this life and that which is to come.
[18:40] And there is no such thing in the eyes of God as a little thing. There is no such thing before God an sin. A thing that the Irishman says deserves to be for to.
[18:55] You can brush it aside and say it doesn't really matter. God is what will you can be. Abogadma. Dr. John Gunston once said in his own cryptic aphoristically sin defines deutra.
[19:15] Sin defines deutra. Which being interpreted means that sin even a small sin is up to take God off his way and to kill God.
[19:30] There's our God is God theology today. It's very sure thinking. Some people would like to think that God was there. But what sin is like to kill God.
[19:42] Sin defines the side and God as a moral ruler of the universe must be the sin and he cannot rinse at it ultimately he can't let it go.
[19:53] The highly darling hands the sinner must be coming to at least must be coming. And so when Jesus died when he suffered he suffered for sin.
[20:10] Not again but he suffered for sin. The plea of suffering for sin. But I don't know what I said that his sufferings were vicarious that means for others.
[20:25] He suffered for us. Chapter 4 verse 1 For it not said as Christ has suffered for us in the flesh. Has suffered for us.
[20:37] Okay. Christ also has suffered for sin the just for the unjust. or in the old evangelical say in our room and sin.
[20:53] But don't what Isaiah kind of say does that right? Does it just for the sinless Jesus to bear the sin of the unjust man or God he has allowed it?
[21:16] Think about favorite suffering of sin right or else take it home take and faith. Many have suffered for others.
[21:31] We have gone for others to save them. Great Allah has no man than this but a man may die his life for his friend. Most people know the conclusion of the tale of two titties by bitons who took the taste of a man destined for the tembrow from the bulletin goes to his death nobly.
[22:00] The noblest thing he insulted that he ever did in a worthless life. But then is it right that the magistrate should impit the punishment due to another upon an innocent person?
[22:19] Or perhaps if that may just case there might be the matter here. But then Jesus is sinless.
[22:33] That Jesus is sinless not only without any fault he was not good here. Why? Because he takes our good response.
[22:48] The Lord laid and hid the illiquity of us all. And it was right and proper that they should be saved because Jesus came not as a separate individual.
[23:04] He did not come into this world as he come into this world even though he was born a baby a baby saying that would a woman cry.
[23:15] Oh yes he's like as in this. But he came as a new beginning. He came as the second Adam the last Adam indeed.
[23:28] He came with a fair waist in himself just as the first Adam was constituted the covenant head of a human race. So between Jesus and his people who same he bears who same he bore there is this federal connection this covenant connection he is not a private individual he is a federal head of a new life.
[23:55] And just as it was right for God because of the covenant relationship between Adam and his prosperity to attribute Adam's first things to all prosperity so that is the thing we begin with original things the birth of Adam's first things and when we first came in we say it is life and proper and mortal for God to impute the righteousness of Christ to his own ways to the messianic ways to delight the fruit it is right and proper and dissonance for him to impute the righteousness of Christ of the federal head to his spiritual prosperity as he imputed the gift of all things to our covenant head even greater it is the federal principle that makes just morally just the imprecations the counter implications of our kingdom
[25:03] Christ and of Christ right to us the just for the unjust and that leads me to the third point that the husbands of Christ were not only penal and vicarious but attaining and let inquire it was to bring us to God that was one thing to reconcile God and sinners that's the very part of the gospel the first and verse we sing God and sinners reconciled that lies at the very sentient core of the gospel we teach it it sin that drives the edge in between God and man the first effect of the first sin was Adam hiding from God he stopped under the basis of the God because he was afraid to see God for he was a sinner and it is sin that makes us afraid to draw near to
[26:06] God and the realization is guilt you know and that God must punish guilt where he finds guilt even if he finds guilt in tribunal he must punish it that God was in Christ when he laid on him the iniquity of us all God was in Christ reconciding his war to himself not in keeping the cross things but laying them upon his own son God God was in Christ reconciding his war to himself when he suffered the dust for the unjust uncalvary free and there he made an end of sin for all those things the lamb of God lifted off the sin of the world then he is the propitiated for I think the very man sin we have an advocate for the father Jesus Christ the righteous and he is a propitiation for I sin but also for his sin to the whole world and so the believer who looks to the
[27:14] Lamb of God who looks to him he is crucified for us and says God you are not Christ in life once for my bleeding and shared his hands and I'm going to do it for mine Christ also has suffered for sin the just and unjust that we might bring us to God that we might do not as once again in fellowship and communion put our hand in the hand of God and make friends between us this was why the father sentient this was why Jesus came upon his purpose to die upon the cross to bring us to God to introduce us again into that fellowship from which we were exposed to bring us back into the paradigm we lost and ultimately to bring us into the heavenly God into the joy and life and love of that blessed society life but then you say if he died with just for the unjust if he sufferings were penal and vicarious and the attaining and reconciling who are those who are going to benefit by so of course as a second
[28:42] Adam he was 30 but you say that doesn't bring me much further on is there any chance for me well does you not praise who should ever will let him take the water of life freely that he not praise come unto me all you that labor and the heavy laden and I will give you rest that he not come unto me I will know why he passed out is it not true that he said I am not to call the life does but sinners sinners sinners to repent sinners to faith sinners to fellowship sinners to service sinners to the world of glory it's all there for this is a faithful free and worthy of all acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners and Paul says he saved me insolent and inferior then he can say then you know the story of
[29:50] Dr. John MacDonald of Ben Tosh when he was preaching in a press in his apostolic ministry and one of idiots he waited on his ministry and met the Lord he was approved of these things and he said to the man and here you've been having five bands and with you he'll be sending you out of your hell now said the other in the press Shor George now he says only those that will repent only those who won't repent but for the repentance and for they say you are welcome as Biden says come and welcome also I want to do this briefly is that Christ suffers no more you must not rewrite that little word yes but monosyllable for Christ has also one suffered for things once and once for all there is the blasphemy of the
[30:59] Roman Catholic mass it's not just communion it's not just a sacrament they claim it to be a sacrifice and because the priest has got the real middle of peace he's offering his sacrifice as a mass of the author and so he's putting Christ to an open chain continually offering up the Son of God for our scripture says once for all then the point is and remain once to die and because they say there is one such thing so Jesus one suffers or he suffers no more is a need to do the application on the cross Jesus says it is safe the word which is in the original is even more significant for it means not just that the suffering of Jesus was now over but it had completed the purpose for which he was saved and for which he endured the suffering it is completed might be a good translation it is over no it is completed it is finished in his sense not just done with but completed
[32:21] I have finished the work that I gave it me to do and by that one offering he is probably forever one little transfer Christ once suffered but Christ doesn't suffer now for the joy of the sacrifice he enjoyed the cross he spied in the shame but now he is set at the right hand of the throne in majesty in heaven the head that once was crying with thorns is crying for glory now a royal diadem adorn the mighty victor brough he is the reigning Christ the Christ of glory we do and for his enemies and he is fruitful waiting to return to take his people to bring them in the middle of God in the blessed eternity Christ has once suffered and now he is a prophet of the
[33:22] Savior to repent and Israel and remission of sin let us pray glory