4 Spheres of Testimony / Responsibility:
Before Sinner (2:12)
Before Sovereign (2:13-17)
Servants before Masters (2:18-25)
Spouses before husband / wife (3:1-7)
4 Features of the believer:
Subjection (2:13;3:1)
Service (2:16,18)
Suffering (2:19-21)
Sanctification (2:11,12,22;3:2)
None of this is possible to the natural man, all must be lived out in the power of the sanctuary (2:1-11).
The path to power with me is by power with God: Jacob.
Why should it be that a believer marked by subjection, suffering, service and sanctification should have power?
Following the Pattern of Christ (2:21)
Depend upon the Power of Christ (2:23)
Draw men to the Person of Christ (2:25)
This is a testimony that God delights to bless!
Following the Pattern of Christ (2:21)
As the believer is marked by subjection, suffering, service and sanctification he is marked by the very features of Christ! Features brought out especially in Isaiah 53, the chapter which provides the backdrop to our section here in 1Peter2! By the features of the one who:
Became ‘subject’ to His earthly parents (Lk2:51)
Was Gods perfect servant: “By His knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many…” (Isa53:11)
Was marked by suffering (Isa53:4-6)
Sanctification (Isa53:7) – He opened not His mouth (1Peter2:22).
Whilst there was that which was totally unique about Calvary; the redemptive sufferings of Christ there was also that which was set a pattern of service to follow; Mark 8:34.
Here is a believer doing the work of Christ, he is only going to do it in the power of Christ! This will mean nothing of himself: nothing of his own power, intelligence, ingenuity, ability, cunning, oratory, in fact every feature that the believer will display in the work of Christ will be a denial of self: suffering, sacrifice, service and sanctification!
Then we will be where Paul was in 2Co4:10: “Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our life.”
For in the dying of the Lord Jesus there is the death of myself in sacrifice, service, suffering and sanctification, in the death of myself in these ways Christ becomes free to work in my life.
These are just the conditions in my life that God will bless!
What do you mean by that?
God is interested in 1 thing, interested in bringing Glory to Christ (Eph1:12; 2Thess1:10; Gal1:5; 6:14).
Let’s just say there’s a believer following the pattern of Christ in sacrifice, service, subjection and suffering and let’s just say a soul gets saved! To whose glory will that be?
If I come up with a great method of getting folks saved and into heaven, and if I managed to get a few folk into heaven by my method, that would be to my Glory!
Gods method is the life of Christ lived out in the life of the believer.
This is why it is so powerful, every soul reached by this method is reached by the life of Christ! Every soul reached is to the glory of Christ!
This is the kind of testimony that God loved to bless!
God cannot but help to bless it! Nothing can hold back the blessing!
“If God be glorified in Him, God shall also be glorify Him in Himself.” (John13:32).
We’re placing ourselves into the hands of God for the Glory of Christ!
- Depend upon the Power of Christ (2:23)
As we relinquish our own power we cast ourselves upon Divine power.
This is no new truth! This has always been the path to victory:
How were 3,000,000 brought out of Egypt? By a shepherd taken from the backside of the desert, and under the blood of a lamb! How are you going to get us out of slavery? Away from the hands of Pharaoh? ‘Take a little lamb on the 10th January, put him in your back garden till the 14th January, kill him, roast him, eat him, take the blood and splatter it on the door’! Eh?You can just hear them – ‘Is this guy for real?’
And once they were out of Egypt and into the promised land and they came up against Jericho, Joshua tells them: 7 days walk in circles around the city, on the 7th day blow trumpets, the walls will fall down, you can here the sceptics, the cynics: ‘Aye very good,’ aye and those walls fell down, for the power lay in God! The ark was in the midst!
Come to riding the nation of the Midianites (Judges7:2), from an army of an initial 32,000 God whittles it down to just 300 with Gideon. Out they go against the Midianites, a lamp, a pitcher and a tute-ta-tute trumpet!
We need to learn that God doesn’t need me, O need Him!
So too does Christ rest upon the power of His God! Christ commits Himself to Him that judges righteously (2:23).
We have a great example of that in the days of Samson:
The end of his own strength
At his weakest
Finally learns that true power lies with God, he commits his life and the judgement of the case into the hands of God (Judges16:28-30).
This is his greatest victory (16:30) for a man who all of his life relied upon himself!
This is the first tim ein his life we come across the word pray! A real sense of dependence upon his God!
Draw men to the Person of Christ (2:25)
As we live out the Pattern of Christ and in the Power of Christ, and as a man or woman is drawn by the Spirit, really they are drawn to the Person of Christ!
“I must decrease, He must increase” we simply point to Christ as John the Baptist did: “behold the lamb of God….”
Where were these lessons learned?
Following the Pattern of Christ – learned in the sanctuary feeding upon Christ (2:1-4)
Depend upon the Power of Christ – learned in the sanctuary resting on the stone (2:4-8)
Draw men to the Person of Christ – learned in the sanctuary as we carry a fragrance of Christ!
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