Pastor Tim Brown, Calvary Chapel Fremont, Sunday October 18, 2009

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Wounds that Heal

1 Peter 2:24-25

Follow-up on 2:18-23 –

Respect is not necessarily a feeling, it’s an attitude.  A feeling is an emotion, but an attitude is a frame of mind.  It’s almost impossible to maintain a certain emotion, but it’s very possible to maintain certain attitudes/frames of mind.  The passage isn’t telling you to have good feelings toward an unfair/unjust boss, but to have a respectful attitude/act respectfully toward him/her regardless of your feeling/opinion.    

“But he doesn’t deserve even a respectful response from me.  How can I respond so graciously toward those who have been so hard one me?”  How is 23 (treating people better than they deserve) possible?  24-25.  Grace from you is possible because grace for you has been achieved.  Grace that you have received is grace UR2 exhibit.  Grace from God for you is to become grace from you for others.  Cf. unjust steward.

V23 sets the standard: when suffering unjustly, entrust yourself to the Lord.  A life of faith rises above the wrongs that other have done 2 U.  Joseph/brothers – he entrusted his soul to God even in this.  

A life of self tries to put people in their place.  A life of self tries to make everything right.  A life of faith doesn’t have to have everything in its place.  How upset we can become because it looks like someone is getting away w/ something  (Martha: tell Mary to help me!).  There’s this pressure to want to set things straight/make them right.  Faith can live w/o everything in its place because faith has put God in His right place.  Actually, God’s always in the right place, problem is that we are not.  

The Bible teaches us that not everything is in the place it should be right now, but it will be one day.  And God knew that the way for things to be made right was for things to become even more wrong.  God belongs on the throne of His making and not on the cross of our making.  But He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross…  We consider it an awesome thing that Jesus died for us, but it was a horrendous thing for man to reject Jesus Christ – put Him on cross. Things were wrong when Jesus came and became more wrong still.

    * Other things are wrong, too.  Your unjust suffering wrong -
          o It is wrong for your employer to treat you w/ disrespect/lack of recognition/lack of promotion/unreasonable demands.
          o It is wrong that you were thrown aside in the divorce/see children only part time/financially strapped
          o It is wrong that you were molested/abused/neglected
          o It is wrong for God to be rejected/crucified by man

This passage teaches us that if wrongs are to be righted and God’s will is to reign, things have to become more wrong still.  Those who hurt you should be brought to justice, but they’re not.  It was wrong for them to hurt you and it is a further wrong that nothing is being done about it.  They need to be put in their rightful place, but they’re not – they remain in their wrong place.  And the message here is: you get in the right place, which is entrusting your soul to Him who judges rightly.  Return to the Shepherd/Bishop of your soul.

“I don’t put up w/ other people’s garbage.  I put people in their place.” Joseph didn’t take revenge on his brothers.  David was going to take revenge on Nabal, and was intercepted.  Romans 12:17-21.  Your job isn’t to put people in their place; your job is to make sure you’re in the right place – bless and curse not.  While we are screaming for justice, the death of Jesus is pleading for mercy. 

Though He was technically the victim, He refused to play the victim card.  Not only did He not revile/threaten, He didn’t gripe/complain/ feel sorry for self.  His unjust suffering was to the death.  Isaiah 53:4-6.  If you make Christ your example, you’ll never play the victim.  A life of faith rises above the wrongs that others have done 2 U.  Gal. 2:20  Come to cross/get on cross.  The message of the cross is weakness to some, but it is the power of God…come!

Jesus didn’t punish us for our sins.  He bore them away and offers forgiveness.  Jesus: bore away sins (sacrificially)/You: bear up under sins and trust the Lord.

Unjust suffering led Jesus to the suffocation of the cross.  I heard of a 13th century man who had lived his whole life in the countryside/then traveled to London.  He was dead in three days because the pollution in the air ravaged his lungs.  On the cross, the soul of Jesus experienced the weight/horror of the guilt of sin.  We don’t want the fumes of other’s sin to choke us.

Remember the context: He’s still speaking to servants who are being treated cruelly used by their masters - scourged/buffeted/ maltreated. 

For by His wounds you were healed

What’s the healing? having died to sin, might live to righteousness…

Cleansed conscience/love for God/love of Calvary/loving others/ living a life pleasing to God.  How has this been made possible?

Christ, while bearing sin, kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously making it possible for you to do the same.  Grace from God for you is to become grace from you for others.  Grace flows from healed wounds.  That’s the message for believers.  

Here’s the message for you who have not yet trusted in Jesus -

Jesus became your substitute on the cross – He bore your sin.  But He doesn’t become your Savior until you turn to Him.  He has turned to you and now you have to turn to Him.  I hurt my leg some while back in a ball game.  I had to bat, but I could have a substitute runner.  All I had to do was to call on him.

In 1829, a man named George Wilson committed a robbery, and killed someone in the process. Wilson was arrested/brought to trial/found guilty/sentenced to be hanged. Some friends intervened in his behalf and were finally able to obtain a pardon for him from President Andrew Jackson. But, when he was informed of this, George Wilson refused to accept the pardon!  The sheriff was unwilling to enact the sentence—for how could he hang a pardoned man? An appeal was sent to President Jackson. The perplexed President turned to the United States Supreme Court to decide the case. Chief Justice Marshall ruled that a pardon is a piece of paper, the value of which depends on its acceptance by the person implicated. It is hard to understand how a person under the sentence of death would refuse to accept a pardon, but if it is refused, it is then not a pardon. George Wilson must be hanged. So George Wilson was executed, although his pardon lay on the sheriff’s desk.  

I have a pardon for you from the King.  Will you take it?  Will you come to the Shepherd and Bishop of your soul?

Not only did Jesus not revile/threaten, He bore our sins…  There is a legal mechanism where the legal liability of one person is transferred to/shared w/ another – community of interest.  The debt/assets of spouses are assigned to each other.  Christ was born as a man w/ a full human nature – 1) Heb. 2:14-18; 2) Jesus took his stand in the waters of baptism w/ sinful man.  Jesus entered our community of interest and was burdened w/ our debt.  

Jesus wasn’t a sinner, but He became sin who knew no sin.  If Jesus suffered as an innocent man, a further injustice has taken place – God punished an innocent man.  But if our guilt was transferred to Him and He rightly bore it, He suffered justly.  Jesus said that no man takes His life, He gives it willingly. He is the willing, substitutionary sacrifice.

His suffering for us made us right.  Your bearing up under suffering is no guarantee that your situation will be made right, but if you rebel/threaten/  revile – it will be made worse.  

So, how is it that we come into the right place w/ God?

He Himself - this is the heart of the gospel.  Why did God send His Son if an angel or a righteous man could do the job?  The job was too big for an angel or a righteous man.  What was the job?  bore our sin/in His body/on the cross – This means that the death of Christ was substitutionary/physical/sacrificial…

There is a legal mechanism where the legal liability of one person is transferred to/shared w/ another, but there is no legal mechanism where one person’s innocence is transferred to another.  E.g., if my son committed a crime, I couldn’t come before the court and ask that my innocence be transferred to my son and his guilt be transferred to me.  No, the guilty party must suffer the punishment.  

And this is what happened at Calvary.  He bore my sin in His body on the cross.  The only way my son’s guilt could be removed is if he suffered the consequences.  After the sentence has been served, he is no longer guilty and cannot be punished for that crime.  So, where is the justice of Calvary?  It’s this – that in Christ, I really, truly suffered the full penalty for my sin.  He suffered, but I died.  

Col. 2:20 If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world

How shall we who died to sin still live in it? Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Romans 6:2-3

Gal. 2:20“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

Born once – dead in sin/Born twice – dead to sin

If a generous person offers to pay the monetary debt of another, the payment must be accepted, and the debtor is freed from all obligation. But this is not the case when someone offers to atone vicariously for the transgression of another. To be legal, this must be expressly permitted and authorized by the lawgiver. In reference to the law this is called relaxation, and in relation to the sinner it is known as remission. The judge need not, but can permit this; yet he can permit it only under certain conditions, as (1) that the guilty party himself is not in a position to bear the penalty through to the end, so that a righteous relation results; (2) that the transfer does not encroach upon the rights and privileges of innocent third parties, nor cause them to suffer hardships and privations; (3) that the person enduring the penalty is not himself already indebted to justice, and does not owe all his services to the government; and (4) that the guilty party retains the consciousness of his guilt and of the fact that the substitute is suffering for him. In view of all this it will be understood that the transfer of penal debt is well nigh, if not entirely, impossible among men. But in the case of Christ, which is altogether unique, because in it a situation obtained which has no parallel, all the conditions named were met. There was no injustice of any kind.—Systematic Theology—L. Berkhof

Wounded at the fall

Wounds at fall: guilty conscience/fear of God & punishment/ insecurity/greed…

Sins: blaming others/avoiding responsibility/self centered-focused- consumed life

Wandering after the fall

The wounds sustained at the fall cause our wandering after the fall.  Wandering: deny God/rationalize sin/get in trouble/defend self/lash out.  Our wounds keep us from living to righteousness (doing God’s will out of love for God).  The brokenness of the fall finds expression in sinful (self-centered) living.

Substitutionary – in my place.  He took what condemned me and took it upon Himself.  That which separated me from God He took it upon Himself.

How is it just that Christ took my place?  If you robbed me at gun point and your father stepped in to go to jail for you, justice hasn’t been met.  In fact, a further injustice has taken place – the innocent was suffering instead of the guilty and the guilty never came to justice.  We speak often of the spotless lamb, Jesus Christ, who took our place – the innocent for the guilty – and bore the punishment for us.  But if He bore the punishment for our sin, and not the guilt of our sin, also – that would be unjust.

In a certain community in England, someone had been stealing sheep. The forces of the law were unable to apprehend the thief. A certain farmer was brought before the judge and accused of being the thief, but he established his innocence of any connection with the offense, beyond the shadow of a doubt. Thereupon the judge said, “You are an innocent man, but someone has been stealing sheep. I must show to this community what the law would do to a sheep thief.” Then the judge committed the innocent man to a period of incarceration, “to uphold public justice.” But what kind of justice is that? (Cited by James O. Buswell, Systematic Theology of the Christian Religion [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1963].)1

Physical – in His body.  His body was the means by which redemption has taken place.  Redemption had to take place in the physical sphere because sin had taken place in this sphere.  Redemption is not a judicial decree whereby God declares forgiveness to all who will repent.  It is a working out in time/space/ matter the justice of God.  The disobedience that occurred in the body of Adam that brought about the fall was met by the obedience in the body of the One bringing resurrection.  If your daughter throws a tantrum and breaks things in her bedroom you will require her to clean it up.  You won’t allow her to clean it up in her mind.  “No, no, no – use your own hands and get the job done.”  Solid sin calls for solid rescue.  Our God is a real world God.