Lent I from 1 Peter 3:18

 Lent I

The Road to Holiness  

"Recently I was looking at some of my many files under the "quotes" folder. One such quote is called, "The Road to Holiness."

A seeker after truth came to a saint for guidance.

"Tell me, wise one, how did you become holy?"

"Two words."

"And what are they, please?"

"Right choices."

The seeker was fascinated. "How does one learn to choose rightly?"

"One word."

"One word! May I have it, please?" the seeker asked.

"Growth."

The seeker was thrilled. "How does one grow?"

"Two words.:

"What are they, pray tell?"

"Wrong choices."

I believe that this is God's purpose in times of testing, to help us grow and to show us that we have the faith and ability to stand up to the testing so that we will trust God in difficult times -- to strengthen our faith and Christian character. At the same time, Satan has his own purpose -- to turn those being tested away from God -- to "tempt" them to sin.

Brian Stoffregen, Exegetical Notes"

"We Haven't Been Up to Bat Yet

Temptation tries to blind us to other possibilities. A business man driving home from work one day, saw a little league baseball game in progress. He decided to stop and watch. He sat down in the bleachers and asked a kid what the score was. "We’re behind 14 to nothing," he answered with a smile.

"Really," he responded. "I have to say you don’t look very discouraged."

"Discouraged?" the boy asked with a puzzled look on his face. "Why should we be discouraged? We haven’t been up to bat yet."

Brett Blair, www.Sermons.com "

  ---the text I would like to discuss today is I Peter 3:18, " Because Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God; being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit " ( ASV)

1. Note the vs before.....It talks about our behavior as Christians.   We are not to be evil as the evildoers, but should be speaking of our hope in Christ, in : meekness and fear"  Always be ready to give an answer to every man that asks why you have hope in the righteousness of Christ.  ( aside we cannot plow ground that is hard....in other words if the heart of the unbeliever is ready to be answered by the hope of Christ, we should not neglect that opportunity)

We can suffer in our faith, but let it be for well-doing, and not evil doing. 17 "For it is better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well doing, than for evil doing. "  I note the greek word here is the word passion in English. "pásxō (a primitive verb) – properly, to feel heavy emotion, especially suffering; affected, experiencing feeling (literally "sensible" = "sensed-experience"); "the feeling of the mind, emotion, passion" (J. Thayer).

3958/pásxō ("to experience feeling") relates to any part of us that feels strong emotion, passion, or suffering – especially "the capacity to feel suffering" (J. Thayer). The Lord has privileged us to have great capacity for feeling (passion, emotion, affections). Indeed, this is inherent because all people are created in the divine image. Note for example how Jesus in His  perfect (sinless) humanity keenly felt (3958/pásxō, see Lk 17:25, 22:15, 24:26,46, etc.).

[3958/pásxō ("experiencing strong feeling") is the root of: 3804 /páthēma ("passions, sufferings"), 3805 /pathētós ("suffering") and 3806 /páthos ("strong feeling, passion").]  biblehub.com greek of I Peter 3:18

2.  "Once for all" the righteous one , Christ has suffered (passion word again here in Greek) for the unrighteous.....This gets to the heart of the gospel...He did this for us. He, the only Son of God, without sin, the righteous took upon Him my sin, and disbelief.  He enabled me to love and trust Him without my faith even existing.  

This the heart of the gospel .  Romans 4 says Abraham believed and it was inputed to him for righteousness....He was given this while yet uncircumcised.   It is of faith , and of grace .

Though our sins are scarlet, they shall be like wool we hear in Isaiah. 1:18

Hebrews 10:12  "  But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever sat down on the right hand of God."

3. Lastly that He might bring you to God.  Bringing man to God, and God to man---a good thing to do.

Take on something new and give up something bad.  Guess what ?  That is a good idea.  It may even become a habit, this new thing you are doing , and the bad thing you threw out.

We are with our Lord in His testing in the wilderness for 40 days.    

What a great time to renew and follow the Scriptures?

This takes some planning and effort on our part.  It is not just a motion, or raising a hand, but a new way of doing the old life.