SERMON: “GET TO STEPPING”

TEXT: 1 Peter 2:21-25

INTRODUCTION

When some trifling knuckle-head roll up on a sister and she tries to politely resist his advances, if he is insistent you just may hear her tell him to “get to stepping”. When someone is told to “step” they are being informed that their

· presence is no longer desired.

· Temporary visa for continued dialogue has been cancelled

· Certificate of occupancy for the continued use of that space has been rescinded

· Passport into the person’s presence has been revoked

I want to use this expression as our subject for today but I don’t want to use it in it’s normal negative sense.

In 1896 Charles Sheldon penned his famous classic best selling novel, “In His Steps”. Over a hundred years later, the novel swept the world like wild fire. It became responsible for one of the most recognizable acronyms in religious circles: WWJD, (What would Jesus do?).

In our text Peter is not so much concerned with what Jesus would do but in what Jesus did. The verse is part of the larger paragraph that concerns itself with what Jesus has done for us. Peter informs us that Jesus left His footprints and we are being told to walk in His steps. We are told to “GET TO STEPPING”.

There are three tremendous truths associated with Peter’s admonition. They serve as the substance of the sermon and the homiletical hinges on which our thoughts will swing; AN OBSERVABLE STANDARD, AN INCREDIBLE SUBSTITUTE, A RELIABLE SHEPHERD.

I. AN OBSERVABLE STANDARD (V.21-23)

Jesus is our perfect example and standard. He is the standard by which all others will be judged. Everything Jesus did on earth as recorded in the four gospels gives us an observable standard and example that we are to follow. Jesus is especially our excellent example when it comes to the way He responded to suffering. That is the thought of Peter in the text.

A. WHAT CHRIST SUFFERED- In spite of the fact that Jesus never did any wrong, not in what He said, or thought or did, He still suffered at the hands of evil people. Although He committed no crime He was still:

· Betrayed by a friend

· Forsaken by His followers

· Arrested unfairly

· Tried unjustly

· Sentenced undeservedly

· Beaten unmercifully

· Nailed to a tree

· Pierced in the side

· Suspended on a cross

· Butchered by the barbaric brutality of sinful men

In the gripping and graphic language of that 8th century Messianic prophet, Isa 53:7

7 He was oppressed and He was afflicted,

Yet He opened not His mouth;

He was led as a lamb to the slaughter,

And as a sheep before its shearers is silent,

So He opened not His mouth.

NKJV

Jesus didn’t just die, He wasn’t just killed, He was slaughtered, He was butchered. He was slaughtered even though:

· All He ever did was what was right

· Goodness flowed from His every gesture in man’s direction

· Kindness emanated from His every word

· Graciousness filled His every act

He was crucified as a criminal (Isa 53:12; Matt 27:38) even though He committed no crime. Believers will never suffer for others' salvation, But they will suffer for Christ's sake, and His example is their standard for a God-honoring response. The word translated example is hupogrammon , which literally means "writing under" and refers to a pattern placed under a sheet of tracing paper so the original images could be duplicated. In ancient times, children learning to write traced over the letters of the alphabet to facilitate their learning to write them. Christ is the example or pattern on which believers trace their lives. In so doing, they are following in His steps.

Ichnesin (steps) means "footprints" or "tracks." For believers as for Him, the footprints through this world are often along paths of unjust suffering. We are called on to put our feet in His footprints and follow wherever He leads.

The hard truth is sometimes following Jesus will get you persecuted. Sometimes following Jesus will cause your family to misunderstand you and others to mistreat you. Peter says in spite of that, get to stepping. Follow Christ anyway.

Peter then describes Christ's exemplary response to such unjust torture by saying while being reviled, He did not revile in return, echoing the prediction of Isa 53:7, "He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth; like a lamb that is led to slaughter, and like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, so He did not open His mouth." During the cruel hours preceding His actual crucifixion, Jesus suffered under repeated provocations from His accusers (Matt 26:57-68; 27:11-14,26-31; John 18:28-19:11). They tried to push Him to the breaking point with their severe mockery and physical torture but could not (Mark 14:65; Luke 22:63-65). He did not get angry at or retaliate against His accusers (Matt 26:64; John 18:34-37).

Being reviled is a present participle (loidoroumenos) that means to use abusive, vile language over and over against someone, or "to pile abuse on someone." It described an extremely harsh kind of verbal abuse that could be more aggravating and devastating than physical abuse. But Jesus patiently and humbly accepted all the verbal abuse hurled at Him (Matt 26:59-63; 27:12-14; Luke 23:6-10). He did not return abuse to His tormentors. That He did not revile in return is all the more remarkable when one considers the just, righteous, powerful, and legitimate threats He could have issued in response (cf. Matt 26:53). As the sovereign, omnipotent Son of God and the Creator and Sustainer of the universe, Jesus could have blasted His cruel, unbelieving enemies into eternal hell with one word from His mouth (cf. Luke 12:5; Heb 10:29-31). While suffering, He uttered no threats; instead of giving back threats for the repeated, unjust abuse, He chose to accept the suffering and even ask His Father to forgive those who abused Him (Luke 23:34).

B. THE WAY HE SUFFERED- Peter gives is instructive insight into the secret of the Lord’s strength through all of His suffering. We are informed that the same strength is available to us if we are willing to walk in the footsteps of Jesus.

Jesus drew the strength for that amazing response from His complete trust in His Father's ultimate purpose to accomplish justice on His behalf, and against His hateful rejecters. He kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously. The verb for entrusting (paredidou) means "to commit," or "hand over" and is in the imperfect tense signifying repeated past action. With each new wave of abuse, as it came again and again, Jesus was always "handing Himself over" to God for safekeeping.

Jesus knew He was doing His father’s will and that His Father could be trusted to vindicate Him. Oh my brothers and sisters as children of God we have a Father who loves us. He will never allow us to suffer needlessly or unendingly. There will always be a:

· Purpose to our pain

· Point to our problems

· Plan behind our persecutions

Whenever we have to suffer unfairly or be treated unjustly we must respond like Jesus. We must simply put our trust in our heavenly Father who sees all and knows all. He will always come to our rescue. Yes He will just ask:

· Joseph left in a pit by his brothers

· Daniel in a lion’s den

· The Hebrew boys in the furnace

· Disciples out on a storm tossed sea

· (story of little blind girl, “all right with my father…”)

II. AN INCREDIBLE SUBSTITUTE (V.24)

Our redemption is substitutionary. This means that Christ paid the price that we could not pay, paid it in our stead, and set us free. Justification interprets our salvation judicially, and as the New Testament sees it Christ took our legal liability, took it in our stead. Reconciliation means the making of people to be at one by the taking away of the cause of hostility. In this case the cause is sin, and Christ removed that cause for us. We could not deal with sin. He could and did, and did it in such a way that it is reckoned to us. Propitiation points us to the removal of the divine wrath, and Christ has done this by bearing the wrath for us. It was our sin which drew it down; it was He who bore it. . . .

· Was there a price to be paid? He paid it.

· Was there a victory to be won? He won it.

· Was there a penalty to be borne? He bore it.

· Was there a judgment to be faced? He faced it.

· Was there a debt to be cancelled? He cancelled it.

A. DELIVERENCE FROM SIN’S PENALTY- Here is the clearest statement concerning the purpose of the death of Christ. Whatever theories may surround the doctrine of the atonement one thing is inescapable: Christ died for our sins when He hung upon that tree. The whole description in this verse is spectacular and dramatic. Peter is giving his testimony as an eyewitness of an event in history, pointing out that the One who died to put away sin was none other than Christ Himself. He emphasizes “who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree…” (1 Peter 2:24). Jesus did nothing less than take our penalty “right up onto the tree,” as the original has it. No one else could have done this. Right up there on the tree Christ:

· Cancelled our debt

· Cured our disease

· Cleared our darkness

· Cleansed our defilement

Peter explained Christ's sacrifice in believers' behalf with additional allusions to Isaiah's familiar description of Messiah's death (Isa 53:4-5,11). He Himself hos autos is an emphatic personalization and stresses that the Son of God voluntarily and without coercion (John 10:15,17-18) died as the only sufficient sacrifice for the sins of all who would ever believe and obey the gospel of Christ. The very name Jesus indicated that He would "save His people from their sins" (Matt 1:21). Bore is from anaphero and means here to carry the massive, heavy weight of sin. That weight of sin is so heavy that Rom 8:22 says "the whole creation groans and suffers" under it. Only Jesus could remove such a massive weight .

Anyone who understood the Hebrew Scriptures, as Peter did, and experienced the sacrifices in the temple, would have been familiar with the truth of substitutionary death and thus grasped the significance of Christ as the full and final offering for sin.

That Jesus bore believers' sins means that He suffered the penalty for all the sins of all who would ever be forgiven. In receiving the wrath of God against sin, Christ endured not only death in His body on the cross (John 19:30-37), but the more horrific separation from the Father for a time (Matt 27:46). Christ took the full punishment for our sins, thus satisfying divine justice and freeing God to forgive us.

I don’t know how you feel about it but I’m glad:

· The price has been paid

· The charges have been dropped

· The penalty has been satisfied

· My hope has been renewed

· My soul has been redeemed

· My joy has been regained

· My life has been revived

· My sins have been removed

2 Cor 5:21

21 For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

B. DELIVERENCE FROM SIN’S POWER- We cannot study these words in verse 24 without reaching the conclusion that the purpose of Christ’s passion was not only to deliver us from the penalty of sin, but also from the power of sin.

Union with Christ in His death and resurrection does not only change believers' standing before God (who declares them righteous, since their sins have been paid for and removed from them), but it also changes their nature—they are not only justified but sanctified, transformed from sinners into saints. Rom 6:3-4

3 Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

NKJV

This verse plainly teaches what many of our denominational friends fail to realize. You can’t be saved before you are baptized because Paul declares that you have to “rise to walk in new life”. That speaks of a resurrection. You can’t have a resurrection without a death and a burial! You can’t get the new life until the old life is dead and buried.

The phrase “being dead” is the Greek word Apogenomenoi it is not the normal word for "dead" and is used only here in the New Testament. It means "to be away from, depart, be missing, or cease existing." Christ died for believers to separate them from sin's penalty, so it can never condemn them. The record of their sins, the indictment of guilt that had them headed for hell, was "nailed to the cross" (Col 2:12-14). Jesus paid their debt to God in full. In that sense, all Christians are freed from sin's penalty. They are also delivered from its dominating power and made able to live to righteousness. Rom 6:5-14

5 For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. 7 For he who has died has been freed from sin. 8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. 10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. 11 Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. 13 And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. 14 For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.

NKJV

The power of sin has been broken. I no longer have to do what the devils tells me to. I have not only been justified which takes care of sin’s penalty. I am being sanctified which takes care of sin’s power. Now I can:

· Walk right

· Talk right

· Think right

· Do right

· Treat everybody right

· My motives are pure

· My intentions are honorable

III. A RELIABLE SHEPHERD (V.25)

As he concluded this passage, Peter once more alluded to Isa 53, "All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him" (v. 6). If God had not determined that all believers' sins should fall on Jesus, there would be no shepherd to bring God's flock into the fold.

A. RESTORATION- Peter reminds us that we not only need a Savior, we need a Shepherd. Peter must have also had in mind Psalm 23 ‘The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; lie leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul…” (1 Peter 23:1-3).

Even after our salvation there is a tendency to wander and stray. Indeed, until the day of our final redemption we will possess a perverse nature which can be overcome only by the indwelling life of Christ. Therefore, at any point that we decentralize our faith from Christ to ourselves we can fail, falter, fumble and fall again. This is where our Shepherd comes along to restore our souls. The thought is more than restoration from sin: it involves a restoration to a peace “which surpasses…understanding” (Phil. 4:7); a joy which is a joy inexpressible and full of glory” (1 Peter 1:8); a hope which is “sure and steadfast” (Hebrews 6:19); and a love which is “…as strong as death…” (Song 8:6). Restoration, therefore, is fellowship with God and with fellow saints.

The phrase “were continually straying like sheep” describes by analogy the wayward, purposeless, hopeless, and helpless wandering of lost sinners, whom Jesus described as "sheep without a shepherd" (Matt 9:36). The verb rendered “have returned” is epistrepho carries the connotation of repentance, a turning from sin and in faith a turning toward Jesus Christ. But Peter's readers had trusted in Christ's substitutionary death and turned to Him for salvation. Like the prodigal son in Luke 15:11-32, they had turned away from the misery of their former sinful life. Somebody ought to be ready to say, I wondered far away from God, but now I’m coming home….”

I’m so glad I have a mighty good Shepherd who:

· Leads me and feeds me

· Guides me and provides for me

· Leads me to green pastures

· Guides me to still waters

C. PROTECTION- The word translated “overseer” in the New King James is EPISKOPOS, it means “to see after”. Christ our Shepherd is well able to see about us.

As long as I am following the Shepherd I never have to worry about the journey. I am under His protection and I know he will take care of His own. Won’t He do it? Won’t the Lord take care of His own. Yes He will, Yes, oh yes, hallelujah yes, I declare He will!

Sheep are dumb and defenseless. It is up to the shepherd to take care of them because they are incapable of taking care of themselves.

Oh my brothers and sisters that is also true about you and me. Unless we are under the Shepherd’s care we are completely:

· Hopeless and helpless

· Directionless and defenseless

I am here to tell you God will take care of you:

· When the going gets tough and you journey is rough

· If you have to deal with difficulties

· Face frustrations

· Handle hardships

· Grapple with grief

· Overcome obstacles

· Bare some heavy burdens

“All we like sheep have gone astray.” All have wandered from God, some in one direction, some in another, each turning to his own way. We flatter ourselves, in our folly, that we have not sinned like this or that neighbor. It may be so; his temptation was not our temptation; but our sin may be greater in the sight of God. All without exception have gone astray. But the Lord came in his mercy to seek and to save that which was lost. Happy those lost ones whom he has found, who, drawn by his grace, have returned to the Shepherd and Bishop of their souls! For he is the good Shepherd; he knows his sheep, and cares for them; and those sheep that have returned to him shall never perish, none can pluck them out of his hand. He is the Bishop, the Overseer, of our souls. He thinks of all our spiritual wants, our

temptations, our distresses. He watches for our souls; he provides for our present necessities, for he feeds us with the sincere milk of the Word, and with the bread of life.

CONCLUSION

THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD, THAT’S ALL I WANT:

· I HAVE NO WANT FOR PEACE OR JOY

· HELP OR HEALING

· STRENGTH OR SUSTINENCE

· In HIM I HAVE A HOPE THAT CAN’T BE DENIED

· A RESOURCE THAT CAN’T BE DEPLEATED

· A STRENGTH THAT CAN’T BE DEFEATED

· I HAVE SOMEONE TO HEAR MY CRY, TO PITY MY EVERY GROAN

· TO LIFT ME UP WHEN I AM FALLEN

· TO MAKE A WAY FOR ME WHEN I CAN’T FIND MY WAY

· TO DRY ME TEARS

· TO QUIET MY FEARS

· HE HEALS MY HURTS

· HE FORGIVES MY FAULTS

· GUIDES MY STEPS

· HOLDS MY HAND

·