1 Peter Introduction
Roger Henderson · May 10, 2026
1 Peter, No. 01
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/516262152591493

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Okay, well today we're gonna start in 1 Peter. The last time we did this was about five years ago, so it's been a while. And so it's a tremendous book and I know just so many wonderful things about it. And it's in the class, if you look at the New Testament, there's 27 books in the New Testament. And Paul has a lion's share that he has 13 books or letters or epistles, whatever you want to call them. And this particular one by Peter is considered a general epistle.

And the idea there is that it went to more than just one church or one person. I mean, I hadn't actually realized some of this until I should have, I guess. So the general epistles are considered James, 1st and 2nd Peter, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John, and Jude. Some people include Hebrews in this, some don't. Anyway, so this one was written to a bunch of churches, and we'll see that shortly here.

So let's just kind of get, here's the schedule. And so we'll just, and that's a picture of Peter taking that, well, not a picture. It's an artist. No, I didn't. Somebody did a selfie, right? Not a selfie, but. Anyway, so let's go on. Okay, here we go. So here's some background on Peter. And this is from Constable McCauley.

So Peter, this letter, or epistle, was to believers living in the northern region of Asia Minor, which is present day Turkey. And the location of these Christians, as well as the allusion to the epistle indicates that they were mainly Gentiles, but also Jews. And I kind of found some variations. Some people thought it was more Jewish than Gentiles, but the area certainly seems like there's a lot of Gentiles out there too. So it's both apparently. The believers of this time period were in a period of physical persecution. Christianity was not the religion in town, so to speak. It wasn't the most popular one on the block. And Nero brought great pressure to bear on all Christians.

As a result, this book was written in 1 Peter 1.1.

It was written to Pontius, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. And I found this little map on the internet. This is basically a biblical map. So this would be Turkey today, but in biblical times, we have Asia, Galatia, Cappadocia, Bithynia at the top, and Pontius up there. And this is what somebody thinks, or I'm not sure how they gathered this, but a lot of these places are places that Paul visited, like Ephesus and Philadelphia and Iconium.

So they believe this is the circulation of this letter we're studying today of 1st Peter and 2nd Peter. So these are the areas that the letter was distributed at. Okay, so that's that. So I looked at this and I said, well, we ought to talk about Peter a little bit. And Peter is an incredible guy, just incredible. Lots you could say.

So I kind of divided it into two sections, his early years when the Lord Jesus called him, and then his later years when he ministered powerfully, and we see that a lot in Acts. So the first part is his early years. So we know the Lord Jesus, he identified Peter, as we see in John 1 here.

Jesus looked at him and said, you are Simon, son of Jonah. You shall be called Cephas, which translated means Peter. And then in Matthew, in Matthew's account, he, Jesus, saw two brothers, Simon, who was called Peter, and Andrew, his brother, casting nets into the sea, for they were fishermen. And he said to them, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. And this typically is the passage that you look at for what he called at least four men there at that time, Peter, James, and John, and so on.

And then here's the one, his profession of faith is just great. Later on, Peter professes faith in the Lord Jesus. When the Lord Jesus says, and he said to him, but who do you say I am? Simon Peter answered, you are the Christ, the son of the living God. And Jesus said to him, blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my father who is in heaven.

Very interesting passage. Isn't that an incredible passage? I mean, just, you know, Peter didn't make this up on his own. He didn't, you know, God revealed it to him. And that's what you, you know, that's what I just was struck so much by this book. This book really testifies to the fact that we don't figure out God. We don't by our own, we can't, in fact, we cannot do it. If you look at scripture, we cannot, actually figure out God. He has to reveal Himself to us. And it's not a mystical thing. He reveals to us through His Word. And His Word is the most incredible book ever, because it promises things that no ordinary book can promise.

And we'll see some of those in a minute here. Okay, so that's the early years. So here in the later years, and this is just His tremendous ministry, after the giving of the Holy Spirit, And I took some of this from this Bible teacher, which I couldn't find his name eventually. So I said Bible teacher, whoever he was. His titles is what I kind of captured here.

Peter preached with great power and 3,000 were saved in one day. And if you notice, if you look in the book of Acts, just incredible. Bob's been studying that for the last year or so. But the book of Acts just steps through Peter's ministry, the first nine chapters.

And so this is just a short summary of that. So in Acts chapter 2, just pulled out a short section here. Three verses. Actually, I don't want to read everything. Somebody would like to read that, so I don't have to read too much. Bonnie, just read those 22, 23, 24. Read those verses, please. This is one? Yeah. Chapter one, 22, 23, 24. Yeah, well, it says right there, 22, 23, 24. Oh, just read it. I'm sorry.

You're making it hard. Men of Israel, listen to these words. Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through him in your midst, just as you yourselves know. This man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and for knowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put him to death. But God raised him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for him to be held in its power. So this is just kind of the middle part of his sermon, tremendous sermon, and 3,000 came to the Lord through that. And what you notice is, and we see it in many, Paul did it too, they kind of recap, and he's speaking to Jews here, Jewish people, look what you did to your Messiah. Look what you did. And he accounts that. He just lays it down. Go ahead, Bob.

Yeah, you know, it's incredible what role Peter played in the foundation of the church. The early books and acts are incredibly representing how God views Peter in such a major, major way. The other thing is that, you know, after that beautiful verse in Matthew you just shared, here he denies Christ three times. But yet, the Peter that wrote the epistles is a whole different animal.

I mean, this guy has really been spirit-active. I mean, it's incredible. My good day in terms of no no well actually I skipped over I should have said Peter had a few ups and downs to put it mildly You know he he walked on water, but he also denied the Lord three times So he had the highs and the lows, but then as he and the whole giving of the Holy Spirit He really you know he respond. You know it's amazing, and he had just incredible This is one of many.

Then there's this one, very well known one. Peter spoke to a crippled man who was healed. And Peter says, but Peter said, I do not possess silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ, the Nazarene, walk. And seizing him, that man, by the right hand, he raised him up and immediately his feet and ankle were strengthened. So, just amazing. And actually, I was just going to kind of point out, you know, I kind of was thinking about this.

If you, you don't have to turn to it, but if you look at Matthew 10, the, the commission to the apostles, you know, the disciples first and the disciples then become apostles, but the apostles are given just some incredible things. And in Matthew 10, it talks about, Christ says this he says he gave them or it was said of Christ. He gave them authority over unclean spirits to cast them out to heal every to heal every kind of disease and Every kind of sickness he gave him that power.

So what we're going to see here just like this man. He was able to to heal this man and we're going to see that the rest of his next chart will talk about his healing ministry and what's kind of sad is is that many people have kind of latched on to that many denominations have latched on to that and said oh we're going to be apostles we're apostles in this church and we're going to be doing these things like here they totally take that out that was for that time period that that Christ gave Jesus how about that power they say well that didn't stop Today we can have all those same things, and it's just not true. If you're honest with me, it's just not true. So it's good to let scripture speak for itself, but here Peter was able to do incredible things that no man could do. So let's go on. Next page talks about some more.

He spoke boldly while on trial in front of the Sanhedrin, the same court that he was so terrified before. And here's where he kind of gives a testimony. Let me go back here. He says, so let it be known to all of you and to all people of Israel that by the name of Jesus the Nazarene, whom you have crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by this name, this man who was sick stands before you in good health.

And then a couple more, I didn't do all the verses in this case. Mighty Miracles brings the sick to Peter. They would actually incredible that they felt him. I don't know. Did they actually get healed by walking in the shadow? Maybe they, I don't remember. I didn't read carefully, but they would actually even, even the shadow of Peter, like with Christ, they would, uh, they were so desirous of being healed. And then he healed a crippled man who walked again. And then lastly, he prayed, he raised a woman from the dead. That's kind of the ultimate in being able to all kinds of sicknesses and diseases. Pretty amazing.

So this is kind of, I wanted to kind of do this as a beginning to his ministry. So this is Peter's ministry and then these wonderful two letters we have from Peter. So let's get into those. So I've utilized Let me just put it here. I utilize Chester McCauley's kind of division pretty easy.

You know, let's see, if you're not familiar with how Bible, some Bible teacher like, it has to start with the same letter. I don't know, I'm sort of not the biggest fan of that approach, but it's okay. It helps you, yeah, it helps you remember it. It helps you remember it. So you have salvation, submission, and suffering. So you can divide 1 Peter into those three categories. So here we go.

So 1.1 through 2.10, and I just pulled a little verse out of there. His great mercy has caused us to be born again. Then there's submission, which is 2.12 to 3.12. Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every human institution. And then under suffering, which is 3.13 through 5.11, we have, for Christ also died for the sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that he might bring us to God.

So that's kind of the very high overview division of 1 Peter. And actually I have, I had a couple of, if you're interested, I have a couple of handouts of the slides in the back, if you're interested in that. Okay, now this is kind of the next level down. This is from Macaulay So we take each of these three sections and subdivide them So the first section can be subdivided into three sections and this is talking about salvation Talking about you know Christ dying on the cross to provide salvation to all men so we have The first part is God's plan of salvation It's 1 1 through 12 when they have the product of salvation and then we have the purpose of salvation And then we get down to the submission and this has like five sections This is McCauley's, and I think it's good, I didn't, you know.

So actually, if you look at this, submission, and so the question is, what is submission? And the best way to think of submission is if you're in the military, you know, if you're a military person, what do they do, right? They have a commanding officer, and they, you know, if they're in the military, they don't have an option, right? They can't say, well, I don't think I'd like to go marching today. I don't want to make up my bed. I don't want to clean the latrines.

No, they have agreed to salute and be under the authority of that commanding officer. Well, the God who created all things actually has the same kind of view. And you could argue the military took their plan from God's plan. I think they did. So he has submission to government, in the workplace, And they have our Savior, His submission, you know, there's a submission in the Godhead, if you will. There's a submission in the family. And then there's some qualities here of all believers. So that's the submission part. And then suffering. And there's three parts to that. Suffering for righteousness, the believers suffering with Christ, incredible section. You know, it's hard to believe that the Lord says that we We suffer with him.

He said, what does that mean, Roger? We're going to dig into that. That's down the road. That's probably eight months away. But anyways, we're going to look at that and then suffering in service. So that's kind of the next level down. OK, so now here's what I decided to do. I said, well, OK, what am I going to do?

We could read the whole chapter. We could do that. I don't know. It might get kind of tiring. So what I decided to do, I said, well, let's just take a couple of these sections. We'll take some verses. We'll look at some verses, ask some questions. I think I told Barb this earlier, a couple weeks ago or a month ago, whatever it was. One way I like, I was taught when I first started studying the Bible, you read a passage and you start writing some questions down. My brother Hal would say, write down ten questions that you have about that passage and then try to answer those ten questions.

So we're going to do that. We're going to try to do that today with some passages here. This section so let's take the first there's actually two passages here, so I get another reader here today We'd like to read that My voice is going to give out here. Okay. Go ahead. Thanks.

Let's be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. I who according to his great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. And though you have not seen him, you love him. And though you do not see him now, but believe in him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls.

All right, so I created some questions here. So first question. Okay, and what I did here, this is not rocket science, no rocket science allowed. The answer is in the verse. I intentionally made the answer in the verse. So the first question is, what attribute of God causes a person to be born again? From the verse. But believe in him? I'm not discounting that. What does this verse say about, is there an attribute that it talks about of God in verse 1-3 that could answer that question? What's that?

His mercy. Good. Excellent. Good job. Like I said, you get a star. If you're in Bonnie's class, she'll give you a star. In first or second grade there. Next question. What gives a person hope for the future? This is a critical one. This is one of Bob's favorite ones. What gives you hope for the future? From the verse, you think about the big picture. From this verse, what does it say gives you hope? Well, resurrection. That gives you hope too. But from the verse it says, he caused us to be born again. He was a living hope. It's not a dead hope. It's not a hope so hope. It's a vibrant 24-7 hope, right?

It's his resurrection. We pin everything. If he didn't rise from the dead, We ought to leave church today. We ought to walk out the door. No, that's what proves that what we're here about, it gives us validity, right? He really did rise from the dead, tested you by 500 people and so on. Okay, next question. Okay, these two here, let me see. I'll put them both up here. It goes to verse 1-8.

How can you love a person you have not seen? How can you believe in someone you have not seen? What's that? Faith. OK, that's good. All right, so from the verse, what do you think? Believe in him. OK. Well, OK. I'm going to, anybody else? Okay, so basically, we haven't, you know, let's reread verse eight again, verse 1-8.

And though you have not seen him, that's where I'm taking my question, you've not seen him, you love him. It says you haven't seen him, but you love him. And though you do not see him now, but believe in him, And it talks about you greatly rejoice. So I just based my question on the first part of 1.8 there. So, and actually, in this case, it's not answered by the verse. So what do you think?

Trish said faith. Something else you, well, what's the, okay, how do we, scripture is an unusual book. How do we come to know a person by, from a scriptural perspective? How do we come to know Christ? Okay, Bob's pointing to his Bible, absolutely. By the word. By the word. It's God's word. It's God's word, this miraculous book. We have a verse that's coming up next here. It's God's word that shows us how first of all it says we love because he first loved us we cannot love him and so what happens is we read his word and we see that he loves us and he died for us and we respond to that and a miraculous thing happens God's spirit called the Holy Spirit works in our minds and hearts And we change, right?

We believe, we're born again. So Trish was on the right path. And then basically, it kind of answers the bottom question too. But I wanted to go just real quickly to this next verse. This is a verse I think that really nails it. Well, I should go back one. Sure, sure. Okay, that's all right. You know, the thing that stands out to me in this second verse, in verse 8, is we rejoice in the joy and express all.

I mean, I don't know, particularly with sound doctrine, we see ourselves positioned above, made righteous. That makes my life joyful. The fact that I can't do anything through the power of the old man or the flesh to please God. We've been entirely accepted in Him through that co-resurrection we have. At first, I'm expanding it. We should be joyful. Should we? We're lifted up and encouraged in our faith. We're full of His glory because He is in each and every one of us. It really changes a life. That's great. So I wanted to just kind of jump. So this verse to me kind of answers the last two questions. And I'll just read it here.

This is 1 Peter 1.23.

For you have been born again, not as seed, which is perishable, but imperishable. That is through the living and enduring word of God. So this verse makes the incredible claim that you will be totally changed. You will be, we say born again, actually it's born from above.

That's another translation. You have a total change in your being through words on a page. You say, well, that's impossible. How can words on a page change me? Well, this verse, God's word makes that claim. It says, For you have been born again, born from above is another translation.

And this seed thing is, okay, if you think about this seed, human seed, right? We all die, right? I think that's where the perishable part comes. You know, we're born physically from a mom and dad and we will die. But this birth, this new birth, this born again, born from above is imperishable. It's not. So we have a new birth and this new birth is an eternal birth, if you will.

And it says that is through the living and enduring Word of God. Incredible claim. I mean, if you take that claim seriously, you know, some people get kind of mystical, they have to have a certain this or that, and they feel holy when they're around a certain object or whatever.

Well, you ought to look at the Bible and say, that Bible is incredible. It causes a person to be born again. That's impossible. That can't happen. I mean, that is an astounding claim, but that's the claim of scripture. His word changes people, right? And we have seen that as believers. I know in my case, it changed my life entirely. I remember telling Bonnie, I was an adult when this happened. I said, do I seem different? I said, I feel like everything has changed. Everything totally changed.

So anyway, okay, so let's go on. If you have, you want to share something, go ahead. I'm kind of blabbing on here. Okay, let's go on. Okay, here's the second verse I wanted to share. And this continues on. That's in chapter one. Then I kind of skipped over some verses.

Then in chapter two, it says, and this is the cool part. Not only is God's word, that causes us to be born again, it has another miraculous thing. It's our food. We're born again by God's word, and next it's told us this thing with words on a page is our food. It's just, wait a minute, how can it do all those things? Let me just read it. 2.1 says, therefore, first of all, it's a warning. It says, putting aside all malice and deceit and hypocrisy and the enslander, here's the cool part, like newborn babies longing for the pure milk of the word so that by it you may grow and respect the salvation.

If for better sense, you have tasted the kindness of the Lord. So here's the part two of this amazing book that we have before us. We're born again by it, by the living and abiding word of God, and it is to be our food, our food. And if we're going to grow as babies grow.

So I have some questions about this. So here's my questions here. According to the verse, according to verse 2.1, actually 23, how were you born again according to this verse? I've actually already kind of covered this, right? You were born again by the living and enduring word of God. I'll just kind of, why is this birth imperishable? That was your other birth.

I'm kind of skipping. Okay, let's get, here's the baby's part. Now we're down to 2.1. What are newborn babies like? We have some moms here. So what were newborn babies like? Lonnie? Were they quiet? They were very hungry and they really want the milk and they cry.

And they're like an empty page. They're not an empty page. They soak up everything around them. Well, actually, you know what's interesting, this particular word, if you look at the original word, it always helps. It's actually like a nursing baby, a suckling baby. It is actually a baby at the breast, is literally what that word means. So what it means is, this baby is actively taking in nourishment. That's what it means.

So just kind of go forward to the God's Word, okay? You begin to see the picture here. We're absolute fools not to be in God's Word. If we've been born again, right, to this new wonderful birth, What's our food? Our food is His word. If we close the book up and say, I'll wait until next Sunday, you're not getting much food between now and next Sunday, right? Right. So, anyway. Also, it's the idea that the baby can't digest stronger than milk. Right. And the other thing is... Good point.

And the other point is, how long is the next feeding, right? This drives mothers to absolutely no sleep for weeks and months. How long is the next feeding? What, four hours maybe? Every four hours early on? I mean, it is brutal. Bonnie can attest to that. Every two hours, maybe. Sometimes it is really hard, right? I mean, that's why some moms say that's it. One baby, I can't handle more than one baby. That's all I can take. Gets easier after three. Yeah.

And of course, dads get involved in that too. They're there too. But Bonnie was incredibly kind to me. She was beyond kind. I was going through my training as a house staff resident in internal medicine at the time. It was kind of rough around the edges. Yeah, isn't it amazing? We weren't saved then either at that point. But you look back on that and you realize just that constant pressure.

You realize a baby needs to be fed. Well, take that over into the spiritual domain and you think, Well, wait a minute. God says, this is my food. I need this food. I need this food. If I don't get this food, I'm going to be malnourished. And I'm afraid, unfortunately, many Christians are malnourished. Malnourished, they don't know what.

Anyway, OK. All right. And this has in there, it says, like newborn babes long for. Or actually, the word is desire. They have this tremendous desire to be fed. This is your point. Pure milk of the word, unadulterated. Nothing but the pure milk is what is in view here. It's not a mixture. People say, I have a little bit of God, I have a little bit of what God, and I have a little bit of the world. I kind of play the, I'll have a little bit of both, and I'm going to go down the middle. Well, now it says that you're going to be fed by the pure, actually it's unadulterated milk of the word.

OK, let's continue on here. OK, and this is kind of maybe a little bit a higher level point, and this is kind of, how can you grow in salvation? Well, if we're good students of the word, and Bob and I talk about this a lot, there's three aspects to our salvation, right? And this is talking about the middle part, once we're a believer, we're growing day by day as we take in God's word. So you're growing, you're not being saved again, you're growing and taking in his word.

And then, okay. and says, when did you taste or experience the Lord's kindness? I think that's referring back to your initial salvation, it seems to me. Okay. Go ahead, Bob. What's the word for kindness there? Is that charity? I mean, do you know? I don't know. Because the King James says gracious. I must like, I like that better. Yeah, I don't, and it might be that. Let me look it up. Yeah, I don't know.

And we're not going to finish all these questions, so this is homework assignment for you guys. So we're only going to get part of these questions, so we're going to take the rest of the questions and take them home and we can talk about them. talking about them okay so let me go on to the next chart here so any other thoughts on this this we can spend the rest of the time just on this verse and we kind of did this most you guys didn't come to the when we had the conference we kind of did this in the conference yeah go ahead Barb you said there were three aspects of salvation yeah okay well here okay and actually we teach and we've probably come up again we'll teach this again when we get to this verse whoever teaches this verse again If you look at salvation, you initially trust in Christ as your Savior. I was saved on July 14, 1978. You don't have to have a date. I have a date.

I'm being saved means the constant process of being saved. That's sanctification. You're growing in grace and truth. But that's now. I have been saved. I'm being saved day in and day out, 24-7. And I will be saved. So in biblical terms, justification, sanctification, and glorification. Those are big words. I was saved. I'm being saved. And I will be saved. Thanks, Bob. Was, being, and will be.

I think the thing about the doctrine we share here in the exchange life is the fact being safe now is a process that's quite different than trying to Rev up the old man to please God. We're fully positioned as righteous. Now our life needs to be consistent with that, right? So the condition we express day in and day out reflects how God sees us as righteous, and to Him be the glory. So that's sanctification. And I'm not doing well at it, but don't look at me. Keep looking down, as Hal would say, and Miles would say. Keep looking down from where we're positioned. And I think that's so important to me personally. That's great. Thanks, Bob. You did an excellent job. Is that OK, Barb? Uh-huh. OK, good. Good. OK, let's carry on here. We're not going to get through this, but let's carry on here. OK, so the next part is a couple of verses here. OK, let me see.

Okay, so we moved into the submission area. It says, Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether to a king as one in authority. So what I'm doing is, you know, we just kind of summarize real briefly. That was a salvation section of 1 Peter. Now we've moved into the submission section.

And this is a subsection 11 through 17 So this is talking about submission for the Lord's sake to the king or to governors as sent by him For punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do what is right For such as the will of God by doing what is right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men okay, so my first question is And this one actually is gonna be answered from the text. Why should you, why should you submit yourselves to a human institution? Why should you, from this verse. For the Lord's sake, it says. Exactly, exactly. Basically, because this is God's order. God said it, right? The answer to that question is why you should do that.

Now this is a very interesting question. You know, we have governments come and go, right? In our country, they change. So you had the Democrats for four years, now you've got the Republicans for four years. And I have some strong feelings about that. But that aside, you may have loved the Democrats and hated the Republicans or vice versa, whatever your thought process is.

Well, what this says is, Don't worry about that, in some sense. Be a good citizen. Submit yourself. If it's not unlawful, if it's not against what God has said in scripture, then you should submit yourself to human institutions. You should be a good citizen, basically.

That's what it's saying. And we've learned that. Romans talks about that, too. That's not new information, but just kind of Because that's really an example also to other people who are not believers, and they may know what your persuasion is, but when they see you being a good citizen, That makes a difference to them. That's a witness to them. Amen. This verse is exactly what you said, Margaret.

It says, why are the governors sent by God? Well, it tells us the governors are sent by Him for punishment of evildoers. The government's here to punish the bad guys. And that's what's really bad. That's why I get upset at some governments. They don't punish the evildoers. Come on, guys. These people are doing bad things. You're not punishing them? That's wrong. You're shirking your duty. You're not doing what you should be doing. You should be punishing the governors, and they should be punishing the bad guys.

Despite God's sovereignty there, He allows the world system to continue to exist. He does. As the world system. He does. It's not of God. The world system is not of God. Absolutely. Don't we have free will? We do. So we can get ourselves into trouble. So to speak. Are you speaking for yourself? Well, I'm sure I got myself into trouble. Of course. My parents told me sometimes I did. Okay, all right, so let's go on.

Who should praise me when I do what is right, according to this verse? It's interesting, and this is what Margaret talked about. This verse says, and Bonnie and I had a discussion about this. She says, well, I don't see too many people praising. Many times the quote good Samaritans, they're praised sometimes, but not always. They're put down, the good Samaritans are put down many times.

Because while you stood up for that person, What right do you have to stand up for that person? It shows you how godless, twisted our society is. Submission I already kind of talked, we're lining up under these people, not because they're the smartest people on the block, so to speak, it's because this is God's order.

And then, how do you silence foolish men? The last part of the verse, by doing what is right. You silence men by doing what is right. That silences them. It should silence them. Okay. Well, and it makes them look more foolish when the outsiders see that.

Right. When you're doing what's right, you know. Right. Because these days, Right, absolutely. There are not that many people doing what's right. Amen. Okay. We probably have time just for one more section here. And this is pretty cool. I'm just going to put the whole thing up here. This is just incredible. And can I get somebody to read again? Let's see. Okay, go ahead, Mark.

Since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in his steps. who committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in his mouth. And while being reviled, he did not revile in return. While suffering, he uttered no threats, but kept entrusting himself to him who judges righteously. And he himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. For by his wounds you were healed. For you were continually straying like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls." Great, thanks Margaret, that's great.

Okay, so my question's here, and this describes, this is, if you will, an eternity past, God the Father and God the Son, something called the Eternal Covenant, that's when Christ said I will submit in a way I will submit I will take I will take the sins of the world on myself I will die on the cross he agreed to do that and this kind of describes what he did So my question is, what should Christ's suffering cause us to do from that verse? It's actually kind of interesting. This is one of the few times it talks about that kind of phrase here. So we usually say here at Holly Hills, we're kind of clever that, you know, we don't, we say, well, I'll just carry this out too long.

It says, leaving you an example to follow in his steps, it says, Christ suffered. He left you an example for you to suffer too. And we don't, sometimes we'll kind of say, well, we don't want to, we're not copying Christ. We're, you know, we're, he's our life. So we make a sink. So, but this verse here says, since Christ also suffered leaving an example. So there is an example issue kind of in that. So I don't know, Bob, you have some thoughts about this or I know Bob's going to. The verse 24 is the meat of this whole secular thing.

It is. Free himself for our sins and his body on the tree so that we might die to sin. That's positional truth. Amen. And live to righteousness. So that's the new life we have. I mean, there's so much packed in that verse. Oh, there is, there is. It's expansive in terms of how it represents basically New Testament scripture. Amen. Amen. Okay, that's good, Bob. My wounds were healed. Right, right. It's a done deal. Right?

Isn't that great? Do we believe that? Well, we fall short in believing it at times, the way we walk. But nevertheless, the verse says everything. Right. No, that verse is just incredible. You know, what I was going to say, too, is, you know, a lot of times in our workplace, especially, you know, The way the workplace works these days, there are so many people who are not believers, didn't grow up as believers or aren't believers today, but you're a witness to them just by how you interact with your friends, the people you work with, and people notice that, that something is different about you. Right. No, I agree. Amen. That's good.

So this one just kind of takes off the fact that verses 22 and 23, what was Christ's character like? His character was like he committed no sin, no deceit was found. It's kind of like this is the character of Christ submitting, you know, and his whole, you know, he's holy, righteous, and just. No sin, no deceit found in his mouth. While being reviled, he didn't revile back and return. While suffering, he entered no threats. He kept entrusting himself to him who judges righteously.

So that's where that question came from. All right, and then, And then lastly, what are the results of Christ bearing our sins? This is what Bob said, that's the meat. 24 is the meat of this, right? He bore our sins and he did it for a purpose, right? So we might die to sin and live to righteousness, for by his wounds we are healed.

And then 25 kind of talks about, well, but what we're doing is we're straying like sheep. So I think I'll just call it quits here. I think we'll stop here. There's actually a couple more pages, so if you, it'll be up on the website, look on the website, or I have it, there's some handouts in the back there. Just fill it real quickly. Sure. Just take a minute, just flip them up. Oh sure, sure. Okay, so actually, I'll ask you one more question.

What was the purpose of Christ? Yeah, wounds. It says, His wounds, what was the purpose? For by His wounds you are healed. Isn't that incredible? Christ being wounded was a healing thing for believers. I'm not sure I actually understand the total magnitude of that, but it's interesting. It means spiritually, right? Yes, right. It doesn't mean that I get healed of my back problems. I don't think so. That's not in view, certainly. The rest of them here, we have suffering. This is real quick. There's all the suffering section. And there is one more. Oh yeah, this is a good one.

How do I humble myself? I'm working at it. I'll leave that as a question to me. How do you humble yourself? And there's a song, which is not my favorite song. Go ahead, Bonnie. It kind of puffs you up. I don't think it's very scriptural. Well, the idea of humbling is actually evaluating yourself as God sees you, right? We're not to think more highly of ourselves than we ought to.

Jim can quote the rest of that. We talked about this verse one time before. A humble person sees himself just as God says he is. Go ahead, Bob. Humbling yourself begins at the cross. Exactly. The cross has everything to do with that. We're worthless sinners who deserve no grace. Exactly. With that atmosphere, but we're exalted by the Resurrection and the Cobra. I mean, those two work together. Yeah, right. So we humble ourselves at the cross, and then continuing, I say, a submission of being a servant. That's humbling yourself. Okay, okay, that's... But to my mind, the kind of the core of humbling is seeing yourself rightly. Boy, that is so critical.

Seeing yourself rightly before you trusted in Christ and seeing yourself rightly as you're a believer too, because you can get out of whack there too. Seeing yourself rightly. And we do that by looking at God's word. That keeps you on the straight and narrow, so to speak.

Okay, so let's close in prayer. All right, thanks, guys. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you so much, Lord. We thank you for the blessings we have in the Lord Jesus. Thank you for your word, Father, that's just incredible, Lord, how it changes us to cause us to be born again, and it feeds us day by day. We thank you for your provision in all things. In Christ's name, amen.