Somebody’s Perfect

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Sometimes we are the cause of our own suffering, and it may be something little like the other night I made a special dinner for me and Charla, and I ate too much, and I was sick later. I was the cause of my own suffering. A lot of mornings I wake up exhausted, and it’s because Instagram is a thing, and Discovery Plus is a thing, so there’s things to keep me up late at night, and it’s my own fault, and I kind of suffer for some of these things afterwards.

We all do things like that. We may make ourselves suffer in small ways over small things. We may make ourselves suffer in big ways over big things.

For example, well, I have to go to prison now because I committed a felony, right? We can do things that invite suffering on ourselves. It’s better though when we acknowledge that, that I’m the cause of my own problems. That doesn’t mean every problem you have is because you caused it.

But a lot of times we are the cause of our own problems. It’s good though when we fess up to that, when we’re honest about it rather than try to blame it on somebody else. That’s the tendency. I put a cartoon up here.

I hope you can see this. I’ve seen several variations of this bicycle cartoon on the internet and they always make me laugh. Like, for example, you’ll see in the, I’ve seen variations where in the first slide it has the man on the bicycle and it’ll say the government.

And the second slide will say massive spending, where he’s sticking the stick through the spokes. And then in the final one where he’s laying on the ground, it’ll say massive inflation. Or I’ve seen variations where it’s Hitler riding the bike.

Second one, sticking the spokes in the, the stick in the spokes is invading Russia and then laying on the ground. Why would the Jews do this to me? You know, this one makes me, this one makes me laugh though, every time I see it because it’s so true.

And I’m guilty of this at times as well. I’m just riding along living my life, sticking the stick in the spokes of the bicycle, making bad decisions, and then end up on the ground and say, why would God let this happen to me? Right?

Do any of you do that? Hopefully you’re not sticking a stick in literal bicycle spokes. I hope we’re smarter than that.

But we do these kinds of things all the time. We will just go along living our lives. We will make bad decisions contrary to what God has told us to do.

And then when we deal with the inevitable consequences of suffering, we’ll wonder, why would God do this to me? And we may try to blame our problems on another person. We may try to blame them even on God.

But oftentimes we know that we brought the suffering on ourselves. Again, I know not every time. I am not saying, you know, that if you developed heart disease, it’s because you cut somebody off in traffic.

That’s not the case. But a lot of times we bring suffering on ourselves, and it’s because we do wrong things. We make wrong choices.

We make bad decisions. As the old saying goes, nobody’s perfect. None of us are perfect.

but we can’t help but feel like there’s something wrong. We can’t help but feel like there’s something wrong when we’re in a position of suffering and we haven’t done anything to cause it. Have you ever been in a situation where things are going wrong in your life, you’re suffering, you’re feeling like circumstances are just about to beat you to death and you haven’t done a thing to cause it?

Have you ever been there? I think we’ve all been in those situations too. You look around and think, Did I do something wrong?

When we went to Sunday school training a couple weeks ago, Bob and I went to a class on millennials and Gen Z because he started this young adult class, and I’m kind of helping him along the way. Plus, even though I am a millennial, I’ve always been old, so I thought, well, I wish I’d had this class when I was in school so I could have learned to relate to people my age. But they talked about how younger generations have been conditioned to believe, including my generation, have by and large been conditioned to believe that suffering is a sign that something is wrong, that you’ve done something wrong.

And so when something goes wrong and they haven’t done anything to cause it, they feel like they’ve been wronged. I could see that. It may be more prevalent in my generation, but I don’t think it’s limited to my generation because all of us as humans, we get to a situation where we feel like we’re suffering and we haven’t done anything to cause it.

We immediately begin searching for the reason. What did I do wrong? What did somebody do wrong?

Why is this being allowed to happen? But sometimes we are put in positions to suffer without having done anything to cause it. And sometimes that’s just the way the world works.

And Jesus is the ultimate example of what it means to suffer without deserving to suffer. Jesus suffered immensely without deserving a bit of it. And that’s what we’re going to look at this morning.

Because contrary to the saying, where the saying says nobody’s perfect and it’s talking about us, there is somebody who is perfect. Not one of us, but there’s somebody who is perfect. And ironically, he suffered far more than any of us who actually deserve to suffer.

And so we’re going to look this morning at 1 Peter. 1 Peter 2, as the Apostle Peter deals with this subject. 1 Peter 2.

If you turn there with me in your Bibles, if you don’t have a Bible or can’t find it, it’ll be on the screen for you. But once you find it, if you’re able to stand without too much trouble, if you stand with me as we read together from God’s Word, we’re going to look at verses 20 through 25. 1 Peter 2, 20 through 25 today.

And here’s what Peter says about this subject. For what credit is it when you are beaten for your faults, excuse me, for what credit is it if when you are beaten for your faults, you take it patiently? But when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God.

For to this you were called because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that you should follow his steps, who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth, who, when he was reviled, did not revile in return, when he suffered, did not threaten, but committed himself to him who judges righteously, who himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness, by whose stripes you were healed, for you were like sheep going astray, but have now returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls. And you may be seated. As we read this passage, we need to understand that suffering unjustly is part of what it means to be a Christian.

That’s Peter’s purpose in writing this passage of this letter to the believers in what’s now Turkey. We often think, and I’m sure they thought as well, We often think that following Jesus and walking with the Lord, being obedient, we think that these things are going to exempt us from suffering. We think that if I serve the Lord, my life is supposed to be wonderful.

It’s supposed to turn out exactly the way I’d hoped and dreamed, and everything’s going to be great from here on out. Sometimes we mislead people with that in our testimonies. I’ve mentioned many times the testimony meeting where I heard somebody say, I came to Jesus and it’s been wonderful ever since.

okay something’s wrong there maybe you’re just happy about every circumstance but I came to jesus and everything has not been happy ever since right as a matter of fact some circumstances have gotten worse now it’s worth it because I have jesus but let’s be honest about it sometimes the circumstances get harder after you come to christ but we think that if we if we’re walking with him it’s supposed to be easy and wonderful. And see, we think that the universe operates according to a strict system of punishment and reward, that if we do something wrong, it’s natural we should suffer. But if we’re not doing anything wrong, everything should be wonderful.

Now, the Bible does teach that we reap what we sow in terms of our relationship with God. But God is not up in heaven with a big marker board saying, okay, they sinned once, so I’m going to zap them once. Or that guy was really good, so I’m going to make him rich.

That’s not always how it works. Jesus said that the Father causes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust. And depending on what your circumstances are, the rain may be a good thing or it may be a bad thing. What we know is we reap what we sow, and that’s true, but also we know that the grace of God makes it so that there are blessings to those who are righteous and unrighteous, and there are also troubles for those who are righteous and unrighteous.

Some of it is just God’s grace toward all of us that we don’t deserve, and some of it is just the consequence of living in a fallen world. This idea that for everything we do wrong, there’s some corresponding suffering, and for everything we do right, there’s some corresponding reward, that has much more to do with this eastern idea of karma than it does anything from the scriptures. And karma is not compatible with Scripture.

It’s just not. Because to believe in karma, we have to believe the idea of being reincarnated over and over. And yet I hear Christians talk about karma.

It doesn’t work that way. And so Peter here is writing to a group of Christian exiles, people that had been run out of their home places because of their faith. Some of them are now working as servants in various capacities.

Some of them are even being mistreated in this role. And really, the only reason why they are in this predicament in the first place, many of them, is that they are believers in Jesus Christ. That is certainly not anything that’s worthy of the suffering that they’ve now found themselves in. And so he tells them, trying to encourage them, he says in verse 20, what credit is it if when you are beaten for your faults, you take it patiently?

We expect to suffer for what we’ve done wrong. We should. If I eat too much of stuff that I’m not supposed to eat, I know I’m going to be sick later, right?

I’ve brought that suffering on myself. If I speed and I get a ticket, I mean, we might try to blame the officer, but really, I made that decision, right? I should expect to suffer when I’ve done wrong.

We don’t expect to suffer when we’re doing right. And so when that suffering comes, we might begin to doubt our walk with God. We may begin to doubt whether we belong to Him.

we may even begin to doubt Him, unfortunately. We may doubt His goodness or His kindness. We may wonder what we’re doing wrong.

Instead, suffering can happen even when we’re doing right, and how we handle it, how we handle that suffering matters to God. Sometimes, not only will we suffer in spite of the fact that we’re doing right, sometimes we will suffer because we’re doing right. Now, does that sound fair to you?

It doesn’t sound fair to me that we will suffer because we’re doing right, But as I tell my children, and it gets thrown back at me by the Lord, nobody said life was going to be fair, right? We start learning this lesson as kids. But how we handle that unfairness, how we handle that suffering, that matters immensely to God.

That’s why Peter says in verse 20, when you do good and suffer, when you suffer because you’re doing the right thing, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God. This honors God. This is honorable in the sight of God.

When we’re suffering and yet we continue to praise Him, we continue to do what’s right. And so we can expect to suffer unjustly at times because Jesus did. Peter says in verse 21, for to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that you should follow His steps.

Peter says Jesus suffered for you, even though He didn’t deserve to. That is provided to you as an example so that you will go and do the same thing. so that you will suffer and that you’ll do it well and that you’ll do it in a way that honors God.

And he says, to this you were called. He says, this is part of your calling as a Christian. This isn’t just something that happens from time to time.

The expectation is that we as Christians are going to suffer, but that we’re supposed to do it in a godly way. And if you’re sitting there thinking this is really a downer, this sounds like no fun, what is he asking us to do? I admit, it sounds like no fun.

Even as I’m telling you this, I wish I didn’t have to tell you this I don’t want to do this either in my flesh, but it’s right. It’s right. I don’t want to suffer either.

Normal people do not desire to suffer, and I think God’s okay with that. We don’t have to like it. We don’t have to desire to suffer, but what we should desire is to react to our suffering in a godly way.

Because looking at Jesus’ example that he points out in verse 21, Jesus didn’t deserve any of his suffering. What makes the suffering of Jesus so incredible is that he didn’t deserve any of it. He didn’t deserve a bit of it.

Now, you and I may be in situations where we didn’t deserve anything that moment, but still, if I look at all the wrong that I’ve done before the Lord, I deserve some suffering. So even if I don’t deserve anything right here, you know, one of the kids, one of the younger kids may hit one of the older kids, and they’ll come tattle. And sometimes, honestly, I just don’t want to climb the stairs and deal with, you know, get onto a kid at that moment.

I might just say, bank it, consider it for something you’ve done and gotten away with, right? Is that terrible? Should I have said that out loud?

In reality, did the older child deserve to get hit by the younger child in that moment? No, but I’m sure there’s something they deserved a spanking for and didn’t get it. So just consider or the universe is making all things even here, right?

No. But Jesus, you and I are in those situations. I may not have done anything today to deserve this, but I deserve a whole lot more than this.

And so, here we go. Jesus didn’t deserve any of his suffering, because Jesus never did anything wrong. And this passage here, while Peter’s writing about it, and primarily his point is to hold Jesus up as an example, to prepare these believers to endure suffering when they don’t deserve it.

His main idea is to deal with the idea of suffering and to point to Jesus as an example. The passage tells us something about Jesus, something that’s very important in our series answering this question, who is Jesus? We need to understand that Jesus was absolutely sinless and perfect in the sight of the Father.

We’ve spent the last several weeks unpacking His nature, what it means that He’s God, what it means that he’s always been God, what it means that he came to earth and became a man, became fully man without giving up being fully God. Talked about how he arrived in fulfillment of God’s promises and God’s prophecies. The prophecy in Isaiah, the promise that God made in Genesis chapter 3, when the angel came and told the Virgin Mary she was going to give birth to a child.

Now we need to understand that that child from the very beginning was sinless. He was perfect. Everything he did was right in the sight of the Father.

And we see that borne out here in 1 Peter 2. And by the way, this is written by somebody who spent over three years with Jesus day in and day out. You know, when we just see each other for about an hour on Sunday mornings, we look pretty perfect and well put together, right?

You may be looking around in this room thinking, I’m the only one in here with problems. Everybody else has it all together. Now, we all know that’s not true, right? come spend some time in the office up here I may seem like life is great and I’ve got all the answers but come spend some time and I’m not playing a part with you you just just here teaching the word but comes come spend part of the week with me and you’ll see I struggle with some of the things that I tell you we’re supposed to do I came in all stressed out about something Monday or Tuesday and why doesn’t God do this and and and Bob was kind enough to point out hey didn’t you just talk about trusting the Lord to do Lord things?

Okay, thanks. Yes, I did. I know that’s true.

I know that’s true, but it’s hard to do, and I admit that. So it’s important to note, because the more time you spend with somebody, the more you’re going to see their flaws. I probably have a lot more flaws now that we got married than I did when we were dating, right?

Amen. Do I need to take the mic? Yeah, okay.

Peter spent three and a half years with Jesus day in and day out, day and night. If somebody has flaws, you’re going to see them. And yet Peter paints this image of Jesus being sinless.

Jesus met God’s impossible standard. Here in verse 22, when he says Jesus committed no sin, he’s quoting from Isaiah chapter 53, verse 9, where it talks about the Messiah. He committed no sin, and that Greek word hamartias for sin means, it describes any offense where we miss the mark of God’s perfect standard.

We tend to think of sins as being the big things, things that we go out of our way to do. Like if I went out and got drunk and ran around with prostitutes and knocked over a bank, right? That’s a sin.

Yes? Yes? Okay.

Just making sure we all understand. But there are lesser things, in our mind, lesser things that we say, well, that’s just a bad decision. Oh, that’s just a bad attitude.

Oh, that’s just the way I was raised. Folks, sin is anything that falls short of God’s standards. It’s not just these big acts.

Every time I think an ugly thought over somebody who’s tailgating me down cash road, it’s sin because I’m falling short of God’s absolute perfect standard of holiness. I’m missing the mark. It’s not just big things, it’s little things, every little thing.

And you and I do this so many times a day, we can’t even count, and Jesus never did this once. Jesus never missed the mark once. Jesus never fell short of God’s holiness once.

That’s what it means to say that he committed no sin. On top of that, he was completely truthful. Again, here he’s quoting in verse 22, Isaiah 53, when Peter says no deceit was found in his mouth.

That word encompasses lying, trickery, all of this stuff. Jesus taught constantly and never said anything that wasn’t true. He never misled anybody.

Do you know how hard that is to do? To talk and to teach constantly and never say anything wrong? It’s pretty hard.

There’s some things I’ve taught. Fortunately, thank you, Lord, it’s never been anything big, but there’s some things I’ve taught that later on I realized, wait, I had that wrong. And in some cases, if I’ve had the opportunity, I’ve had to come back and correct it.

But when you’re on the record that much, somebody came into the office this week asking me about the elections on voting day. He said, why don’t you run for office? Well, one of many reasons is that there are literally hundreds of hours of me teaching available online.

And I’m sure I’ve said some things that will lead to me getting 3% of the vote, right? Some things that I wish I hadn’t said, some things that maybe I wish I’d said better or differently or wish I’d explained another way. Jesus never made any of those mistakes.

Jesus never lied. And we all know, as James says, one of the most difficult things to control is our tongue. And yet Jesus did that perfectly because He had perfect self-control.

Even in situations where He was called on to react in moments of stress. He didn’t do it in a sinful way. Verse 23 says, when he was reviled, he did not revile in return.

When he suffered, he did not threaten, but committed himself to him who judges righteously. This shows that even his natural instincts were righteous. You know, we can be so self-controlled and we can be so buttoned down, but in a moment of stress, the natural reactions of who we are on the inside, they come out, don’t they?

That’s why sometimes we have to go back and apologize and say, I didn’t mean it. It just slipped out. Jesus said, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.

Even when Jesus was threatened, even when people cursed at him, even when they mocked him, all these things that they did, Jesus didn’t even respond unrighteously. And that tells you where his heart was. So you look at these things, some of the hardest things for us to do.

It may be easier for us to avoid the big sins, but the little ones trip us up. Jesus was perfect there. We have so much trouble controlling our tongues.

Jesus was perfect there. We have trouble controlling the attitudes that overflow out of our hearts. Jesus was perfect there.

We are looking at the image of somebody who was sinless in a way that we can’t even understand. And so Jesus did not deserve any of his suffering because he never did anything wrong. But we see here that Jesus suffered anyway.

His reward for this sinless life was a brutal execution on a Roman cross. I’ve spent some time in the last few weeks digging into this deeper and deeper, what crucifixion looked like for some things I’m writing. And the more I study it, the more horrifying it is.

I cannot imagine a more brutal or agonizing way to die. Not to mention the multiple floggings that went before it. The humiliation, the rejection, the hours of torture that he hung there.

That was his reward for a sinless life. Not just a couple of sinless days, but more than 30 years he went and did not sin and he was repaid there. And we might well wonder why Jesus would suffer like this when he didn’t deserve it.

Why would he do that? Why would he agree to that? Verse 24 tells us, he bore our sins in his own body on the tree.

Now, Jesus suffered for sin. Jesus suffered for wrong that was done. It just wasn’t his.

He took responsibility for ours. And this idea of Jesus being sinless, it might sound like just, well, it’s doctrine, it’s theology, but what difference does it make to my life? The difference it makes to our lives is this.

God prepared Israel for the idea of a sacrifice. In order for our sins to be forgiven, there needed to be a perfect sacrifice. And if Jesus had any sin of His own, He wouldn’t be a perfect sacrifice.

If Jesus had any sin of His own, when He was crucified, when He suffered, He would have been suffering for His sins. And there’s no way He could have taken responsibility for ours. But Jesus fulfilled those promises, those prophecies.

He fulfilled everything that God had said about the perfect spotless Lamb who was to come and to bear responsibility for our guilt, for my guilt, for all the big sins, for all the little sins I’d committed, for everything that we’ve done, for everything that we’ve thought, for everything that we’ve said, for every attitude of our hearts. Jesus took responsibility for that on himself because he didn’t have any of his own to take responsibility for. And the only reason he was able to die in our place is because he was sinless and perfect.

Jesus is the ultimate example of doing nothing to deserve suffering and suffering anyway. And Peter holds him up as the example to believers, reminding us, your Lord suffered. If you’re following him, that road is marked with suffering.

We’re going to talk about this again tonight in the book of Mark. It’s crazy to me how God lined those passages up. I didn’t plan it that way, that they were going to cover the same topic.

But if you’re following him, you’re going to walk the same road of suffering. And he’s the example of how to do it the right way, how to do it in a way that honors God. but it’s also important for us to understand through that example from that example that he’s sinless and that we needed that because only a sinless savior could give us hope and make us right with God that’s why in verses 24 and 25 as a result of Jesus’s suffering Peter says we having died to sins he did this that we having died to sins might live for righteousness by whose stripes you were healed.

By the wounds that he incurred, we are healed. Our sickness of sin is dealt with, for you were like sheep going astray. We were wandering from the shepherd.

We were lost in sin, but now have returned to the shepherd and overseer of our souls. The only reason our sin is forgiven is because of the wounds that were inflicted on the perfect spotless lamb. The only reason the wandering sheep can now come back to the fold and be reconciled to the Father is because our shepherd went out and paid the price to come and get us back.

So Jesus, the sinless sacrifice, the sinless Savior, no sin of his own, took responsibility for my sin and he took responsibility for your sin and he suffered something that he did not deserve so that our sin could be paid for and we could be forgiven.