Hope for a lost Sinner

1 Peter 3:18-22

In Great by Choice, Jim Collins tells the story of two adventurers who set out to be the first people in modern history to reach the South Pole. The year was 1911. The location was the South Pole, where temperatures reach 20 below in the summer. One team was led by Ronald Amundsen. The other team was led by Robert Falcon Scott. Both men were roughly the same age and had comparable experience. They both started their 1,400 mile journey within a few days of each other. They both endured the same conditions. But the two teams had dramatically different strategies.

Scott led his team based on the current conditions. If it was good weather, he might march 30, 40 or even 50 miles. On bad days, when gale force winds made traveling far worse than normal, he would travel less, or not at all. He let the environment, the circumstances determine his distance. In the process, he led his team to exhaustion

Amundsen, on the other hand, adopted a different strategy. He decided that he would march 15-20 miles, regardless of weather conditions.  He decided that the environment and the circumstances would not allow him to change his walk. On good days, he went the same distance, even though some on his team challenged him to go further. On bad days, he led his team exactly the same, even though many complained. He didn’t let the environment, or the suggestions of his team sway him. They would march 15-20 miles, and rest, even if they didn’t feel like it.

I’m sure you’re wondering who won the race. Amundsen, who went a consistent distance on a daily basis, won. And he won big. Scott reached the South Pole 34 days later, and on the return trip, he, and every person on his team died.

What’s the lesson here? Well Jim Collins provides amazing insight for business leaders about how to overcome bad markets and catastrophic concerns. But there is a lesson here for us as well. We must be careful that we don’t set our spiritual strategy according to which way the wind is blowing! We must be sure that our faith is consistent regardless of the circumstances.

Peter’s readers were in a familiar scenario. The weather for them was bad. The environment was less than favorable. They were under great pressure and I’m sure there were times of doubt and concern in their hearts. They had been determined to do the right thing and all it had gotten them was persecution. They had to leave their homes, leave their jobs, and many times hide for their lives. Not exactly the environment for “fair weather Christians.” Their suffering and pain must have seemed very unfair!

You and I have been there too. We have experienced times when suffering seemed so unfair. Our environment was so comfortable or uncomfortable that it became difficult to stay on a steady path of faith. Sometimes our faith goes up and down like a roller-coaster. And if you are a normal person, when you do what is right and things don’t “work out” we sometimes wonder, “What’s the use? This is all so unfair.”

If you have ever felt that way before, you need to listen to this portion of Peter’s letter. In this next section Peter gives us great reason for hope! He’s going to say a lot in the next few verses, but here is the thing I really want you to get this morning: Jesus also suffered unjustly! But Peter assures us that Jesus suffered a fate He didn’t deserve so that we might enjoy a life we don’t deserve! We call it grace!

When Peter wrote this section of his letter, he had no idea that it would later be classified as one of the most difficult passages in the New Testament. Good and godly commentators have wrestled with these verses, debated and disagreed, and have left us still with not a lot of help. Any way you look at it this is a difficult passage of Scripture. We may not be able to solve all the problems found in this section, but we do want to get the practical help that Peter gave to encourage Christians who were experiencing difficult days. The key to the study of this passage is to not focus so much on what is NOT there that we miss what IS there! Let me put it this way: don’t miss what IS there because you are lost looking for what IS NOT there!

As we dig into this passage there are several things that we need to remember about solid Bible study.

• We should always let Scripture interpret Scripture.
• Each passage must be harmonized with the total teaching of Scripture.
• Three important issues:  Context! Context! Context!

It is important to remember the context of these verses. The key theme seems to be found in verse 17. It is unjust suffering. Peter has been talking about the fact that sometimes we suffer wrong for doing what is right! Even though we are committed to doing the right thing, the result is sometimes that we are ill-treated or unfairly treated. Sometimes it seems as though we are even treated in a harmful manner because of our commitment to doing what is right.

Peter’s point couldn’t be clearer. He teaches us that blessings follow suffering for doing what is right. He says in 3:17:  “for it is better, if God should will it so, to suffer for doing what is right rather than for doing what is wrong.” Why is it better? Because verse 12 says, “…the eyes of the LORD are upon the righteous and His EARS attend to their prayer. But the FACE of the LORD is against those who do evil.” In other words, God sees, God hears, and God knows what you are going through and how you are being treated! He knows and He cares! Here is the truth: Blessings follow faithfulness in the mist of unjust suffering.

Next, Peter’s mind is taken back to Christ. Verse 18 says, “For Christ also suffered for sins…” Jesus suffered unjustly, but the blessing that followed was incredible. For Him, the blessing was resurrection and for us it was salvation!

Now in the following verses Peter gives what we might call doctrinal justification for the Christian’s confidence in the face of persecution and ill treatment. Instead of just saying, “well I’m going to trust God and see my way through this battle, we have doctrinal justification for believing what Peter says. So why should we count suffering for what is right as a blessing? Because our hope is in Christ! Our hope does not lie in the possession of things in this world, but in the possession of a wonderful Savior Who offers peace, love, and hope for a day yet to come! So here Peter gives us our Christology! He gives us a summary of the saving work of Christ:

Verse 18: “died for our sins…” That is His crucifixion.

Verse 19: “He…made proclamation.”

Verse 21: “through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”

Verse 22: “who is at the right hand of God…angels and authorities and powers are subject to Him.” – His ascension and crowning.

1. His Crucifixion. (18)

“For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit,”

You feel cheated because you are suffering…Christ also suffered! You and I think we are unfairly treated, unfairly judged, and not getting what is our due? Peter says “Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous…” In other words, Jesus was treated unfairly! He was treated unjustly! He was righteous, just, holy, and true! There was no sin in his life! He was completely without sin and yet He died “for sins!” How unfair is that! What kind of treatment is that? Mark Driscoll had it right when he tweeted this week: “Jesus lived without sin. He died on the cross in our place for our sins. He rose for our salvation. He served us through his suffering.”

Who are you serving through your suffering? Most of us probably don’t look at suffering as an opportunity to serve others, but it is! Jesus served us through His suffering.

Paul wrote to the Romans:

²⁷And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. ²⁸And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

God does work even suffering for our good. Certainly the suffering of Christ worked for our good! Here’s our main thought for today. If you get nothing else today I want you to get this:  Jesus suffered things He didn’t deserve so that we might enjoy things we don’t deserve!

2. His Proclamation of Victory! (19-20)

“in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, ²⁰because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. ²¹Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience…”

Now here is where we must be careful to not focus so much on what is not here that we miss what is here! Peter follows the words about Christ’s suffering and death with words of victory! He wants us to know that death was the intended purpose of God and not the end of his ministry to us! In fact, after His death Peter says that “he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison” that He had won!

The word “proclaimed” is the Greek word kerysso which means “to herald or proclaim.” Another similar word in Greek is evangelizo, from which we get our word “evangelism.” It means to proclaim good news! Jesus did not go to evangelize the spirits, but to herald a proclamation to them! And what was that proclamation? That He had conquered sin and death!

Who are these spirits? The truth is that we don’t know! The Bible doesn’t say clearly so all we can do is speculate. We can say that they are clearly connected with the days of Noah and the flood. It is interesting that Peter draws Noah into the conversation because there are real similarities between Noah and the people to whom Peter is writing (including us). What do we know about Noah?

• Noah was a preacher of righteousness. (2 Peter 2) He was preaching to the people while building the ark. Noah spent over 100 years building this ark and while he was building, he was preaching!
• People laughed and scoffed at Noah’s message. They ridiculed him as he worked.
• Only 7 others believed. The majority of the people treated them as idiots.
• There are only 8 people who are doing what is right!

But in the end, it is Noah and 7 family members who are saved and delivered from the judgment of God! The flood waters were God’s judgment upon the earth! Now don’t miss the picture here. Peter says “and corresponding to that…” (v.21). Corresponding to what? Corresponding to the judgment of God in the day of Noah. The story of Noah gives us a beautiful picture of how we might avoid God’s judgment!

God had promised that judgment was coming. By the way, He has promised another judgment at the end of this world, not by water, but by fire! Before sending judgment on the earth through a flood, the Scripture says, “Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.” God’s grace told Noah that judgment was coming and gave him strict instructions to follow if he wanted to be saved through that judgment. The orders were to build and ark and enter into the ark. When Noah and his family entered into the ark the Scripture says, “God shut the door.” Then the rains came and the flood waters rose. Please notice that the water never touched Noah and his family. They were safe in the ark!

Here’s the picture. God has promised judgment upon sin. Romans 6 says, “For the wages of sin is death!” (Romans 6:23) The payment, the wages, the due reward for sin is death! But God has provided a means of escaping such judgment. He has provided an “ark.” He has provided a sacrificial substitute who like the ark, endured the wrath of God’s judgment for us! And that ark is Christ! He is our hope! He is our life! He is our salvation! Without Christ we stand as much hope as those who rejected Noah’s message and tried to swim their way to safety. We are without hope, but in our hopelessness, Christ saved us!

So you see our key to freedom from God’s judgment today is our identity with Christ! We must “get into” Christ! When we are “in Christ” we are safe! It is the ark that saved Noah not his ability to swim! It is Christ who saves us, not our ability to be good. Baptism has to do with identity. He is not saying here that it is the act of “baptism” that saves us. There is nothing special in the water! In fact Peter says it is “not the removal of dirt from the flesh.” The waters of baptism don’t wash away sin! It is our identification with Christ and His shed blood that covers our sin! It is His sacrifice on Calvary that saves us from sin! Then we are baptized as a way of identifying with him publicly! Much like my wedding ring that I wear to identify with my wife!

3.  His Resurrection! (20-21)

“…through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,”

Romans 4:25 says of Jesus, “who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.”

Romans 6:3-11

³Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. ⁵For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. ⁶We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. ⁷ For one who has died has been set free from sin.⁸Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. ⁹ We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. ¹⁰For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. ¹¹So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Just as we identify with His death, we identify with His resurrection. Jesus said, “…I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.” John 11:5-6

4.  His Ascension. (22)

“…who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God,”

Next Peter tells us that after His death and resurrection, Jesus ascended into heaven and is now seated at the “right hand of God.” The right hand is a place of authority! He has been raised from the dead and highly exalted! Paul wrote it this way…

⁵Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, ⁶who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, ⁷but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. ⁸And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. ⁹Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, ¹⁰so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, ¹¹and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:5-11

5.  His Exaltation. (22)

“…with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.”

Finally Peter makes clear that Jesus has all authority and is ruling over all. He adds that all things are subject to Him! So now what he started in chapter 2 makes more sense. All of this talk about authority is becoming clearer because we realize all things – governments and leaders, employers and employees, husbands and wives, believers and unbelievers, angels and powers, are a ALL subject to Christ!

Take Away:

So now we come back to where we started! Now we come back to our opening statement. Now we come back to what I want you to see if nothing else this morning! Don’t get so intrigued about who the “spirits” are that Jesus preached to that you miss the truth that Jesus made a proclamation to them! Here’s what I want you to take away from our time in the Word this morning:

1. Jesus suffered things He didn’t deserve so that we might enjoy things that we don’t deserve!
2. When we join our lives to Christ we enter into an “ark” of safety!
3. You don’t deserve any of this…it’s all of grace!
4. We can be glad you don’t get treated justly!

It is Saturday night in Coral Springs, FL and I’m sitting in a motel room with Brody and his mother, sister, and mimi. As I sit and contemplate the past month my mind is reminded of the roller coaster ride it has been. The emotional ups and downs have been at times almost overwhelming. There is a grieving process that goes with this journey.  When the doctor told us in early December that Brody’s eye would probably need to come out, the grieving process began. It’s hard to explain. It wasn’t so much fear, or anxiety, but grief! It has seemed like a cloud hanging over us. It has been a tough month. But I am happy to say that the cloud has been lifted! God is so good! There are still many questions that are left unanswered and we still have not heard “cancer free,” but we have such a peace.

This weekend has been tough, but we are rejoicing in God’s strength through the battle. A good friend of ours messaged us with these true words: “Miracles coming, wonder how long it’s been since this number of praying folks were in one accord for one very special little boy and family!” Wow! So true! So many people have been praying, including many of you who are reading this message. We have heard from people praying from Africa, the Bahamas, Asia, and all over the U.S.A. It’s been incredible. The outpouring of prayer for our little warrior has been amazing. We are so humbled by the whole experience. Well I’m glad to say that God answered our prayers. Not exactly the way we were hoping, but we are convinced for the best.

When Dr. Murray examined Brody on Friday, he came out and reported to Casey that Brody’s condition had worsened. He said that the tumor was not only active again, but growing. He said we have no choice,the eye MUST come out. When Casey came out of the consultation she looked at me and Beth and said, “I guess we didn’t get our miracle.” That’s about all she could say at the time. The surgery went well and within a few hours the eye was out and headed for the lab and a pathology report. As we sat with Brody in the hospital, waiting for him to wake up, we talked. Together we agreed that the cloud had been lifted! We all felt such a sense of peace. We won’t have the pathology report for 2 weeks, but once again, we have peace. The report will tell us whether or not the cancer has spread into the optic nerve, but we have peace. We know that our Great God is in full control.

After the crisis moment passed, we all agreed that we did get our miracle. Brody’s eye was not healed, but we had our miracle. How so?

1)  Brody is alive and enjoying a game of UNO right now! He is laughing, joking, and wanting his eye patch off.

2)  God has miraculously provided financially. Through generous people, God has met our needs incredibly.

3)  God has unified Christans arround the world and brought us together for a common cause in prayer.

4)  God has made Himself known through Brody’s battle.

5)  God has brought a strong sense of unity and prayer to The Orchard! This church continues to blow me away!

6)  God has brought churches together! I think this is the way God intended church to be. Churches praying and working for common causes. The common cause in this case was a little boy with cancer.

7)  Our family has been so greatly encouraged, affirmed, edified, and blessed by our friends, family, and even people who don’t know us.

I could go on but I hope you get the point. We have our miracle. The miracle of grace! God’s grace has amply supplied, strengthened, sustained, protected, guided, guarded, comforted, and rescued us! To Him be the glory! It has not been easy, but God has been more than sufficient! It has been a painful process but we have truly learned that Peace is not the absence of pain, but the promise of His presence. The battle is far from over, but we continue to trust God from whom all blessings flow!

We love you and thank you for your prayerful support!

Pastor Eddie

My reading in 2011 was very rewarding! I had the opportunity to read many books and gained much from each one. Here are a few of the books that I read this year. They are given in no particular order. Continue Reading »

We preparing to take the next step on Brody’s journey to good health. Brody has been bravely battling to keep his eye for a year and a half now. Continue Reading »

Finally a Break! Casey has been taking Brody to Miami twice a month since the first of the year. Needless to say this has been a pretty grueling schedule for our little warrior and his mommy and mimi. The monthly EUA’s bring another opportunity for hope as we long to hear the Doctor say that we can stop the chemo. I must admit that it seemed it would never come, but this morning (Friday) we got the word that we had been waiting to hear…no chemo this month! Now granted it is only a one month reprieve, but at this point even a one month break is WELCOME! The Good News continued…Dr. Murray says that Brody’s eye looks better and stable! He wants to see how the tumor reacts without the treatment and then evaluate the progress when Brody goes back in December for his EUA. The Doctor was careful to point out that there is still some concern because it was so bad when we started, but for now Brody has a month off! Finally a Break! Thanks for your persistent prayers and concerns!

Blessings!

Sometimes we forget that things are not always as they appear! Brody has been doing so well that we sometimes forget that there is cancer in his body. However, this week we were reminded that Brody’s Battle is not over! Continue Reading »

Progress is sometimes hard to determine, but Dr. Murray assures us that we are seeing progress. Brody went to Miami this weekend for his monthly Evaluation Under Anesthesia. The Report was good, but stressful. Good because Dr. Murray could see results from the extended chemo treatment and the tumor is smaller. Stressful because he said more chemo is needed. So the roller coaster ride continues. This trip down to Miami seemed a bit more trying than others, perhaps because Brody spent his birthday in Miami. Of course that probably bothers us more than it does him. In fact, he excitedly told me on the phone Thursday night that he was in Applebees and the waitresses sang “Happy Birthday” to him and brought him some ice-cream! He was so pleased!

Thank you for continuing to pray for our little warrior! He continues to amaze us. When he goes to Miami he is very brave. Brody goes back to Miami on Thursday for more chemo.   Please continue to pray for his mom. I know she is getting tired and weary of the battle. She continues to lean on the Strong Arm of her Savior and covets your prayers!  Blessings!

Memorial Day is drawing to a close, but I can’t let it end without sharing some of my thoughts. It has been a great day. I have been trying to “practice what I preach” today and make this Memorial Day more than just another day of fun in the sun. I will say unapologetically, that we did have some great fun in the sun today! My daughter Casey and her troop came over last night and stayed until mid afternoon today. We had all the grandkids last night and then a full day of fun in the pool at John and Angela’s house today. The Grandkids had a great time and wore G-Daddy out! However, the day was not absent from time to think, ponder, and remember.

Continue Reading »

This weekend I have been reminded why this battle against cancer is so difficult. The journey is filled with ups and downs. This weekend we experienced a down moment. When I made the decision to journal my thoughts and experiences through this journey I promised myself that I would be honest and share my true feelings. It would seem much easier to leave out the low moments and only talk about the highs, but that would be less than honest. Continue Reading »

Stable. That is the word used by Dr. Murray this morning. Brody went to Miami for his monthly EUA and laser treatment this morning and the word back from the Doctor was “stable.” Continue Reading »