For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in His footsteps:For you were called to this, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving you an example, that you should follow his steps,For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps:For hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that ye should follow his steps:
3 sermons cite this verse
… that our sufferings would produce glory, even though God is never one that brings suffering to this world. He warned us how to avoid it. But 1 Peter 2 does say, for to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that you should follow his steps. So it is God's will that you suffer honoring Jesus, suffer nobly, and as an act of worship, spending your life, pouring out your life like a drink offering for the name and the glory and the fame of Christ. Yes, well, and like we talked about last week too, our life is a vapor and we don't know how long we have and if God's calling us to serve him and to love him offering that we are currently in, we have no idea, first of all, what he's doing in us, the character that he's building in us, but also what he's doing around us and how he's calling us, like we just talked about, the passport. What passport is he giving you through this to be able to share with people you would probably never get to see or be with otherwise? …
… How are you going to walk through this in your own soul? And this is 1 Peter 2, verses 18 to 21. Go there with me if you've got your 1 Peter open. I want to point to a couple particular phrases here. 1 Peter 2, 18 to 21. 1 Peter 2, 18-21 Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect Not only to the good and gentle But also to the unjust For this is a gracious thing. When mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it if when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it, you endure, this is a gracious thing. in the sight of God. For to this you have been called. All right, so take notice of that. He started off with servants. He's talking about servants and masters in the first century. Praise God, we got a different context now. He goes beneath that and say, this is what you're called to, Christians. This is not just for servants in the first century. This is what you're called to Christians in Boston in 2024 because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example so that you might follow in his steps. …
tians should be the most gentle of all men. We are to be willing to be struck on one cheek and then to turn the other to the smiter. I know some professing Christians who, as soon as ever a contrary word is spoken to them, boil over with rage. Well, it is not their Christianity that makes such a display as that—and it is a poor excuse to say that it is their infirmity! "Oh," says one, "but if you tread on a worm, it will turn." Yes, the poor little creature turns in its agony, but is a worm to be a model for your conduct? Surely it would be better to ask the Holy Spirit to give you the Grace to take the Lord Jesus Christ as your example! Have you never heard of the Christian who killed his neighbor by kindness? When his oxen got into his neighbor's field, the cross-grained man put them into the pound and said that if they came astray again he would deal with them in the same way. By-and-by, his own oxen wandered into his neighbor's field—and then the Christian man fed them and sent word that if they came there again, he would treat them in the same way. That is the style in which we should endeavor to act towards any who treat us unkindly—by heaping coals of fire upon their heads, we may in time burn love into their hearts! I am afraid that all professing Christians are not as gentle as they should be, though gentleness is one of the prominent characteristics of true Christians. I am not a Quaker, but I must say that in this particular quality of gentleness, the Society of Friends has set a good example to the whole Christian Church. I wish that the spirit of non-resistance was more generally prevalent among Christians than it often is. It is certainly in accordance with both the teaching and example of our Lord Jesus Christ, "who, when He was reviled, reviled not again; when He suffered, He threatened not; but committed Himself to Him that judges righteously." These words of the Apostle Peter follow immediately after his declaration that "Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps." Where the dove-like Spirit dwells, there will be a gentleness of spirit in harmony with His own Nature. I am charmed with the change that is often apparent in the converts who come to join this Church. When I hear of a man who before his conversion used to rage and rave in such a way as to be a terror to his family, yet who now, though he is at times greatly provoked, just walks away and says nothing, I feel that the Grace of God is really working in his heart. If what you call Grace does not change your evil tempers, you had better exchange it for the true Grace of God which will do so! For surely it is one of the first evidences that the Spirit of God is dwelling within a man when it makes him "gentle, showing all meekness unto all men." …