Audio Transcript

How do we determine the monetary value of our personal skills and gifts? And what are they worth to other Christians? This is a really practical question for a lot of you, applicable to anyone in a local church who has a skill set or gifting that benefits others.

Today’s question comes particularly from a listener in Los Angeles who writes this: “Pastor John, hello, and thank you for the APJ podcast. My question is a reoccurring heart issue for my life. I’m a graphic designer. I’m trying to live out my gift according to 1 Peter 4:10: ‘As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace.’ How can I obey this verse without feeling resentful and bitter toward people — Christians and non-Christians — who mainly contact me because I have a skill that can fulfill their need, but who use my skills and never pay me for them?

“I often feel ‘used’ and deemed worthy for ‘friendship’ by what I can do, not who I am. My assumption is that if I did not possess this graphic-design gift, these people would never contact me. How do we think about the value of skills that are God-given, about the right of making a little bit of money from these God-given gifts to make a living?”

That’s a really good question that many Christians need to think about, because I have seen professionals in the church misused. This happens when people unthinkingly — I think it’s usually unthinkingly — take advantage of their professional connections in the church family to get free services, services that most people are paying for. Like services from a doctor, or a lawyer, or a plumber, or a carpenter, or a designer.

People just ask them to do little jobs or little consultations, say, in the evening or after church — it’s their gift, after all — without even thinking how this may be unbiblical by mooching or exploiting. And I’ll come back to those words, mooching and exploiting, in just a minute.

Gifts and Skills

The first thing that I would say about the text our friend quotes, 1 Peter 4:10–11, is that these verses are not speaking directly about professional services, but about spiritual gifts in the church. The text says,

As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: whoever speaks [like preaching or teaching], as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies — in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

But even though I think these verses are referring directly to spiritual gifts in the church, some of them are remunerated in the church — for example, when Paul says in 1 Timothy 5:17–18 that some elders who have the gift of teaching should be paid.

Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching. For the Scripture says, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain,” and, “The laborer deserves his wages.”

That’s elevating some of these to the point of professional skills.

Get and Give

So I think some of those spiritual gifts rise to the level of vocational callings, which Paul says should be paid. And that means, I think, that it is fair to draw some principles out of these texts that do in fact relate to the question of natural gifts or natural skills that a person has and uses to make a living. One principle is this: God intends for us to work in order to make a living and not to be dependent on others whenever it’s unnecessary.

Here’s where I get that. First Thessalonians 4:11–12 says, “Aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.” One of the functions of work is to make enough money so that you don’t have to depend on others inappropriately, so it’s right to be paid for your work. As we heard earlier, “The laborer deserves his wages. Don’t muzzle the ox while he’s treading out the grain.”

“One of the functions of work is to make enough money so that you don’t have to depend on others inappropriately.”

Now, I don’t want to overstate the case. This does not mean there’s no room for merciful generosity to help those in need with your professional skill. I mean, Christians all over the world do this. A dentist will take his Fridays off, go to the inner city, set up a little clinic, and give free dental care. That’s beautiful. I’m not at all discouraging that.

In fact, Paul says that one of the reasons for working to make a living is so that we might have something to give. It’s what he says in Ephesians 4:28: “Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.”

So I’m not saying that those with special skills and gifts should never use them freely and generously to help others. All the commands Jesus says to be generous, to give to the needy, even to be willing to be taken advantage of — they’re all still in the Bible. And what our friend is drawing our attention to in asking this question is that there is more than one kind of teaching in the Bible, and neither should cancel out the other.

There’s the command to give freely to the needy, and there’s the command to earn your living so that you and your family can eat and be clothed. So, “work to get to use” and “work to get to give” are both in the Bible. Go to work so that you can get, so that you can use it to put a roof over your head, and work and get so that you have lots to be generous with and help others. They’re both in the Bible, and that’s the tension of love and wisdom that our graphic designer is challenged with.

Willing to Pay

But I think those in his or her network (friends, the church) need to hear another message from the Bible — namely, the message found in 2 Thessalonians 3. Remember, some Christians in the church in Thessalonica had become seized by a kind of hysteria about the nearness of the second coming of Christ. So they had stopped working and started to live in idleness, expecting the momentary return of Jesus while mooching off of those who kept on working for a living. So here’s how Paul responds to that in 2 Thessalonians 3:6–8:

Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us. For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone’s bread without paying for it, but with toil and labor we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you.

That’s amazing. Paul was so jealous not to give the impression that he could exploit the work of others while he lived in idleness, that he didn’t eat anybody’s bread without paying for it. Amazing. Now, that’s the message some of the believers need to hear who are taking advantage of people’s services without paying for them. Here’s how Paul continues:

It was not because we do not have that right, but to give you in ourselves an example to imitate. For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies. (2 Thessalonians 3:9–11)

So the point that I’m drawing out of that text for our question is this: the network of Christians who are taking advantage of the work of others to get something that most people are paying for — they need to be taught, “Don’t do that. That is, don’t presume upon that. Be willing to pay. If the skilled person wants to make a special gift to you, that’s the skilled person’s decision to make, not yours to expect.”

Grace-Wrought Culture

And to the graphic designer himself or herself I would say this: pray that God would direct people’s hearts in the right way. In other words, pray that people would wake up to what they’re doing, and then perhaps talk to your pastor or teachers in the church to see if they can begin to apply the Scriptures to this issue for a while in the church.

“We must not exploit those who are hard at work making a living, but rather take responsibility for our own needs.”

Hopefully, this will create a culture in the church that includes both generosity and even willingness to be taken advantage of for Christ’s sake, but also a sense that we must not mooch off of, we must not exploit, those who are hard at work making a living, but rather take responsibility for our own needs instead of depending on others to give us freebies.

Behind both those aspects of church culture — generosity and responsibility, those are the two poles I’m talking about — is the grace of the Lord Jesus. He gives the grace to work, and he gives the grace to give, and he gets the glory both ways.

Audio Transcript

We all want our prayers to work. So what prayers are guaranteed to work? In discovering which prayers are effective, we can start with Jesus’s astonishing promise to all of us in John 15:7. Here’s his pledge to his followers: “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” Ask whatever you wish! What an astonishing, open-ended promise to boost our prayer lives. But it’s given parameters by what makes for an effective prayer life. Did you catch that? “If my word abides in you.” John Piper preached a sermon on this text back in the early weeks of 1993, in a sermon fitly titled “Ask Whatever You Wish.” It led to this great clip where he explained the key to an effective prayer life. Here’s Pastor John, from about thirty years ago.

Prayer is for granting us the joy of seeing God’s will executed through us as it becomes our will. The only joy in life that lasts is when our desires are drawn from his desires, and those desires are the ones that have the promise made to them: “Ask . . . and it will be done for you.” Here is the way John put it: “Whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him” (1 John 3:22).

Prayer Is for Spiritual Desires

Prayer is not for gratifying natural desires. Prayer is given as a gift for the joy and the satisfaction of those people whose heart is so in tune with God that they keep his commandments and do what is pleasing to him. If you have no interest in obeying God, in bringing the whole of your life — your attitude from morning to night — into conformity to his values, and in getting your desires from his desires, prayer is not your business. James put it like this: “You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions” (James 4:3). And then he calls them adulteresses in the next verse (James 4:4). Do you know why? He’s picturing the church as the wife, God as the husband, and prayer as asking the husband for money to pay the paramour down the hall with whom she sleeps. That’s a pretty ugly view of prayer, isn’t it?

Prayer is to bring our lives into conformity with the desires of our husband, God, not to ask him for the wherewithal to consort with the world. Prayer is not for the satisfying and gratifying of natural desires — until those natural desires come into the service of the hallowing of God’s name, the seeking of God’s kingdom, and the doing of God’s will.

“The major challenge in prayer is becoming the kind of people who are not dominated by natural desires.”

The words of Jesus abiding in us prepare us for fruit-bearing prayer. The words of Jesus abiding in us prepare us for fruit-bearing. If prayer is not for the gratifying of our natural desires, but for fruit-bearing for God, then the major challenge before us at the beginning of 1993 in prayer is becoming the kind of people who are not dominated by natural desires. That is the major challenge in prayer: becoming the kind of people who are not dominated by natural desires, but who are dominated by spiritual desires.

This is what Paul calls ceasing to be a natural person and becoming a spiritual person, or growing beyond being carnal people to being spiritual people. Of course, we want to eat. Of course, we’d like to succeed. Of course, we want clothes on our back, and a roof over our head, and education for our children. But if those things are not subordinate in our lives to the big issues that make us tick, then we’re not going to pray with success. We’re not. Prayer is going to be so worldly, so earthly, so unspiritual, God will wonder what it has to do with him. “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you,” you will become that kind of person: “Ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you” (John 15:7).

Six Ways Jesus’s Words Prepare Us to Pray

Let me give you some examples of how the word of Jesus abiding within makes you that kind of person, in order that you might pray.

1. The word humbles us.

First John 1:10: “If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us” — meaning, if his word were in us, we’d know ourselves aright. The key to a humble, proper assessment of who we are before God comes one way: by the word of God dwelling within. And without that proper self-assessment, we will not be in tune with God and know how to pray according to his will.

2. The word exalts Jesus.

John 17:8: Jesus says, “They have received [my words] and have come to know in truth that I came from you.” In other words, the word received and abiding is the key to unlock not only a true knowledge of ourselves in humility, but an exalted knowledge of God and his Son, Jesus, coming from him. We cannot pray aright until we know Jesus as he is. We can’t pray aright until we have an exalted view of the meaning of the coming of the Son into the world.

3. The word defeats Satan.

First John 2:14 says, “I write to you, young men, because the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one.” Unless the word of God is abiding in us, Satan will dominate, he will control, and he will deceive and bring us into odds with God rather than being in tune with God. In order to pray in tune with God, Satan must be defeated, and he was defeated in the young men in Ephesus and the other churches by the abiding of the word of God.

4. The word bears love.

John 14:24: “Whoever does not love me does not keep my words” — which means that the words of Jesus define the path of love. We cannot pray fruit-bearing prayers until we know the path on which the fruit is born, and the fruit is always born in the path of love and not outside that path. If you want to know the path of love along which prayers are answered — namely, the path of love — you must have the word of God abiding within you. You can’t know what love is any other way than by the word of God. John says, “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments” (1 John 5:2).

“The key to a humble, proper assessment of who we are before God comes one way: by the word of God dwelling within.”

You may think you’re loving God by not checking into the Bible at all. How many articles, how many books do I read today where the concepts of mercy, compassion, and love are used as criteria with no defense that that’s the way God sees things at all? There’s no defense that this is God’s view of love, God’s view of mercy, God’s view of compassion. You just take the word right out of context, and since it’s a politically correct word, it works. It doesn’t really matter whether it comes from God. If you want to know the path of love, you must have the word of God abiding in you, because many things look loving that are not loving.

5. The word assures.

John 8:47: “Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.” What that means is that if you hear God, receive the words of God and have his word abiding in you, it is evidence that you are of God — that is, chosen of God, born of God, elect. In other words, the whole issue of assurance is riding on this word. When you go to pray, one of the great hindrances to prayer and faith and hope in prayer is, Am I of God? Am I born of God? Am I in the family? How do I know I’m in the family? This text says you know you’re in the family if you hear the word of God, if you receive the word of God, if the word of God comes home and finds a place in you. The word receives affirmation and a yes and an amen.

6. The word sanctifies.

John 15:3: “Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you.” And John 17:17: “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.” So, we have cleanness and we have sanctification coming to us through the word.

Praying in Tune

There are a lot of other examples of how the word abiding in us fits us to pray, but here are six:

a humble view of ourselves
an exalted view of the Savior
triumph over the devil
knowledge of the path of love
assurance of our election
the power of holiness

Those six and many more come to us by having the word of God abide with us, abide in us, and therefore fit us for being the kind of people who will pray in tune with God and hear the promise: “Ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.”

I’ll begin by stating the aim of this message six different ways:

My aim is that those of you who preach or teach the word of God would make clear the effective connection between the sin-bearing work of Christ and the sin-killing work of the Christian. And I mean the killing of our own sin, not the sins of others.
. . . that you would make clear the effective connection between canceled sin and conquered sin.
. . . that you would make clear the effective connection between the horrors of Christ’s suffering and the holiness of Christ’s people.
. . . that you would make clear that in releasing his people from guilt, Christ effectively secured their lives of righteousness in this world.
. . . that you would make clear the effective connection between justification by Christ’s blood and progressive sanctification by that same blood.
. . . that you would make clear the effective connection between the tearing of Christ’s flesh in crucifixion and the tearing out of your eye in the battle against lust.

I chose to pursue this aim with you because it seems to me that in the last forty years or so of the gospel-centered emphasis in America, there has not been a biblically proportionate emphasis on preaching holiness of life and godliness and righteousness and radical, countercultural Christlikeness. Instead, it seems to me that to be gospel-centered has often filtered down to the pew as something like this: “Preach the gospel to yourself every day,” which is heard to mean, Rehearse the good news that you are loved, accepted, and forgiven. No condemnation. No judgment. No hell. Acquitted. Vindicated. Clothed in the righteousness of Christ.

Saved for More and Greater

Here’s the problem with that emphasis. Suppose you are condemned to be hanged by the neck until dead tomorrow morning. But when they come to open your cell at dawn, instead of taking you to the gallows, they set you free because someone has volunteered to take your place. This would be the happiest experience of your life, at least up till that moment. Your heart would overflow with joy being free from condemnation and execution. And you would be full of tearful thankfulness for the substitute. This would be an absolutely overwhelming, all-embracing experience of joy.

Perhaps a year later the experience is still vivid and intense with happiness and thankfulness. And perhaps for the next five years you wake up every morning, and go to bed every night, preaching to yourself: “I’m not condemned! I’m not going to be hanged! I have a reprieve! No condemnation! No execution. No gallows! No punishment! Accepted! Forgiven!” Ten years later you are still preaching this same message to yourself. Thirty years later. Fifty years later. “I’m not going to be hanged! I’m not going to be hanged!”

You see the problem. There are vast reaches of the human heart — depths, heights, breadths — that can never be filled, never be satisfied, with that truncated gospel. We must have more than the message of justification. We must have more than: No condemnation. No hell. No guilt. Justification by faith is a means to something more and greater. The propitiation of God’s wrath is a means to something more and greater. Forgiveness of sins is a means to something more and greater. Escape from hell is a means to something more and greater. Redemption from slavery is a means to something more and greater.

Ultimately, finally, that “more and greater” is God himself. First Peter 3:18 puts it like this: “Christ suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God.” To see God. To know God. To have God as a companion. To enjoy God. To be irradiated with the glory of God. To finally, in some suitable measure, reflect God. To become, at last, a fitting echo of the excellence of God. Brothers and sisters, that is a million times greater than justification and forgiveness. Just as walking into heaven is a million times greater than walking out of hell. Because God is there. There is no comparing the pleasure of walking out of prison and walking into the arms of your wife.

But between the glories of justification and forgiveness that launch us by the blood of Christ into life, and final glorification with its perfected vision of God, and sinless savoring of his fellowship — between the first beginning and the final goal of our redeemed existence — there is the Christian life, a life of faith and hope and love and truth and righteousness and purity and holiness and courage, and countercultural conformity to Jesus over against selfishness and pride and greed and lust and rebellion and a hundred forms of worldliness.

Another Way of Preaching Grace

There is a kind of unhealthy preaching that focuses on holiness of life but in a way that fails to make plain the effective connection between the sin-bearing work of Christ and the sin-killing work of the Christian. It fails to make plain the relationship between Christ’s canceling sin and our conquering sin. And therefore holiness, in this kind of preaching, becomes a burden too great to bear. And people become despairing, or they become self-righteous, moral achievers.

“There is a way to preach that only preaches grace that pardons, but doesn’t preach the grace that empowers.”

And there is a way to preach that is so allergic to biblical imperatives and commands and warnings that it never preaches with any sense of urgency about the biblical demand for holiness. It never says, “Tear out your eye because it’s better to lose one of your members than for your whole body be thrown the hell” (Matthew 5:29). It never says, “Pursue the holiness without which no one will see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14). It never says, “Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able” (Luke 13:24). It only preaches grace that pardons, but doesn’t preach the grace that empowers. Grace to forgive sin, but not grace to kill sin.

My aim in this message is to plead for another way of preaching and teaching that commits neither of those two errors. My aim is that we would preach so as to show the people the effective connection — yes, even by grace to establish the effective connection — between the sin-bearing work of Christ and the sin-killing work of the Christian. Between canceled sin and conquered sin. Between the horrors of Christ’s suffering for us and the holiness of our life in him.

Canceled Sin and Conquered Sin

Of all the texts we could look at to make these connections (for example, Romans 8:4; Colossians 1:22; Hebrews 10:10), I want to look at two passages in 1 Peter. Let’s look first at 1 Peter 1:14–16.

As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

Four observations from those three verses: First, holiness is commanded. “Be holy” in verse 15 is an imperative (geneitheite). Not a suggestion. But a command.

Second, God’s holiness is the ground of the command. Verse 16: “Be holy, for I am holy.”

Third, God’s holiness means that he is so separate from all that is ordinary, indeed all that is created, that he is in a class by himself, one of a kind — like the rarest diamond. We call this kind of separateness transcendence. And the Bible adds a moral dimension to this transcendence so that we call it transcendent purity or goodness.

God’s holiness means that he is perfectly separate from all that is finite and all that is defiled. Transcendent purity. And since God’s purity is not measured by anything outside himself, he is the measure of all purity and all goodness and all worth. For God to be actively holy, therefore, is for all his words, and all his attitudes, and all his actions to be in perfect harmony with the infinite value of his transcendent purity. That is what it means for God to be holy.

Fourth, therefore, our holiness derives from his. It means that all our attitudes and words and actions should be in harmony with his infinite worth. First Peter 1:14 fills out what it means for us to be holy as God is holy: “As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions [the word is simply “desires”] of your former ignorance.” Unholy desires flow from ignorance — of what? God. The worth of God. The greatness of God. The all-satisfying beauty of God. The holiness of God.

So, human holiness is the transformation of our knowledge, replacing “ignorance” (agnoia, verse 14) and the transformation of our “desires” so that they conform to the true worth of God and not to our former ignorance. Human holiness is to know the true greatness and beauty and worth of God, and to have desires that conform to that knowledge. They’re the attitudes and words and actions that follow.

Blood-Bought Ransom and Holy Conduct

Now comes the connection between the holiness of the Christian and the horrors of Christ’s suffering. Verse 17:

And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear [another imperative, like “be holy”] throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. (1 Peter 1:17–19)

Now, notice carefully that there are two ways that Peter makes the connection between the blood-ransom of Christ and the holy conduct of the Christian.

‘Ransomed from Futile Ways’

The first is in verse 18 where he says, “You were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers.” He does not say we were ransomed from guilt, or from condemnation, or from Satan, or from hell. He says we were ransomed from “futile ways.” The word for “ways” (in verse 18) is the same word used for “conduct” in verse 15: “Be holy in all your conduct (anastrophei).” So, to show the parallel we can say (verse 18): You were ransomed from your futile “conduct” (anastropheis) by the precious blood of Christ.

Which means that when Christ died and shed his infinitely valuable blood, he purchased, by means of a ransom-payment, our transfer from futile conduct to holy conduct. He bought our holiness — our holy conduct. Not with perishable things like silver and gold (verse 18), but with the most precious thing in the world, the blood of the Son of God. That is what he paid for our holiness. That is what he paid to bring all our attitudes and words and actions into harmony with the infinite worth of God.

And the purchase was effective. Remember I used the word “effective” in each of my six statements of my aim for this message. I said my aim was a kind of preaching that makes clear the effective connection between the sin-bearing work of Christ and the sin-killing work of the Christian. Christ’s ransom-payment was not a failure. He didn’t shed his blood in vain. He obtained what he paid for. The holy conduct of God’s people is sure. Which is why the Bible repeatedly makes plain that if you don’t have this holiness of life, you have no warrant to think you are part of the ransomed. This is serious. Perhaps you can feel something of why this message feels so important to me.

‘Because You Were Ransomed’

I said there were two ways that Peter makes the connection in this passage between the blood-ransom of Christ and the holiness of the Christian. And the first way is that by his blood he effectively ransomed his people from futile conduct into holy conduct. He effectively obtained the holiness of his people.

Now, the second way is seen in the logical connection between verses 17 and 18. In the second half of verse 17 he gives the command: “Conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile” [that is, be holy, for God is holy] and then comes a participle that functions as a ground (verse 18a): “ . . . knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways.” So, the logic connecting the two verses is: “Conduct yourselves in holiness, because you know you were ransomed from futile ways into holy ways.”

This is the preaching I am pleading for. Peter cries out to his congregations (the churches in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, Bithynia) — he cries out with a clear imperative, command, “Conduct yourselves in godly fear! Be holy, because your God is holy. Bend your whole life into harmony with the infinite worth of God in Christ. Make holiness complete in the fear of the Lord” (as Paul does in 2 Corinthians 7:1). And he gives the great ground: Because your freedom from the old, futile ways, and your new holy way of life in Christ Jesus, has been bought by the most precious reality in the world, the blood of Jesus.

It’s not as though God saw his kidnapped wife in the hands of the enemy and paid the ransom to have her back, and then watched as she walked free and, instead of coming home, went and shacked up with another man. It didn’t happen like that. That’s not the way to think about the blood of Jesus. It is not impotent. It is effective. It was not shed in vain. The ransom bought a new way of life for his people. They will walk in the way he bought. And if they don’t, they have no warrant to think they are his people.

You recall how Paul put it in Ephesians 2:10, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” The new way of holy living for the redeemed has been prepared by God. And part of that preparation was the ransom of 1 Peter 1:18. God did not spill the blood of his Son in vain. The good works of his people were purchased — prepared. The command is to walk in the steps he obtained with his blood.

That We Might Live to Holiness

Now, look with me at 1 Peter 2:20–24. Let’s start in the middle of verse 20. Peter is talking to slaves, but what he says applies to all Christians:

. . . If when you do good and suffer for it you endure [that is, endure in faith and love — holiness of life], this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. For to this you have been called [so, this is God’s will for you, his call on your life. This is the imperative of a new way of life: not returning evil for evil, but good for evil. Then comes the ground], because Christ also suffered for you.

So, God’s call on your life to live a holy, humble, patient, radically countercultural life of returning good for evil is based on the suffering of Christ for you. That’s what we saw in chapter 1. Now we see it again here.

But someone might say: wait a minute. You are interpreting the phrase “for you” in verse 21 (“Christ also suffered for you”) in a substitutionary way, but the very next phrase describes the death of Christ as an example, not a substitution. So, verse 21 goes on: “Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return.” So, why do you take the words, “suffered for you,” to mean, “suffer in your place,” when the defining participle describes it as suffering to give you an example of how to live?

My answer is: I take the words this way because that’s where Peter goes in his explanation in verse 24. The death of Jesus “for you” (verse 21) is not simply to give you an example for how to live, but even more fundamentally to bear your sins (verse 24): “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree.” So, that’s the ground of the call on your life to return good for evil and walk in all holiness. And to make that crystal clear Peter adds at the end of verse 24 the purpose clause for the sin-bearing work of Christ, namely, “that we might die to sin and live to righteousness” — live to holiness. That we might be holy.

So, the life-altering logic is the same as 1 Peter 1:17–18. “Be holy, because God is holy, and conduct yourselves in godly fear, because he ransomed you from a futile way of life for a life of holiness by the precious blood of Jesus Christ.”

“The sin-bearing work of Christ is the ground of the sin-killing work of the Christian.”

And the logic here in 1 Peter 2:24 is that the sin-bearing work of Christ is the ground of the sin-killing work of the Christian. “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, in order that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.” Or as verse 21 says: we are called to return good for evil because Christ suffered “for us” — not only to give us an example, but also to bear our sins in his suffering for us.

So, my message is: Preach this! Preach the pursuit of holiness this way. Preach the effective connection between the sin-bearing work of Christ and the sin-killing work of the Christian. Preach the effective connection between Christ’s canceling sin and our conquering sin. Preach the effective connection between the horrors of Christ’s suffering and the holiness of Christ’s people. Preach the effective connection between the tearing off of the flesh of Jesus and the tearing out of our lustful eyes.

Five Reasons Preachers Avoid Holiness

I’d like to close by addressing five possible reasons some pastors don’t preach the pursuit of holiness with the kind of blood-bought urgency we find in the New Testament.

First, perhaps some have simply not seen the connection between the sin-bearing work of Christ and the sin-killing work of the Christian. It’s just a blind spot in their biblical thinking. I hope this message helps remove that blind spot.

Second, perhaps some are reluctant to press the conscience of their people with the biblical demand for holiness because they fear the rebuke of Jesus that he gave to the lawyers when he said,

Woe to you lawyers also! For you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers. (Luke 11:46)

To such pastors I would plead that you not try to address a real, biblical danger in an unbiblical way. The point of this message is that the Christian fight for holiness is connected to the forgiveness of sins in a gloriously unique gospel way not found in any other religion. Namely, that the only sin that can be successfully fought is a forgiven sin. And not only that, but also since the forgiveness has been secured infallibly by the blood of Jesus, the fight will be successful. Get to know this pervasive New Testament dynamic of holiness, and you will not have to fear the rebuke of Jesus that you have made his yoke hard and his burden heavy. Just the opposite.

Third, some pastors avoid preaching on the urgency and necessity of holiness because their own secret lives are morally compromised. They are wasting their time on trifles. They are watching movies that fill their minds with worldliness, not godliness. They are dabbling in pornography, or worse. They are dishonest in their financial dealings. They continually overeat in bondage to food. They neglect the teaching of their children and don’t pray with their wives. They are starting to medicate with wine, which they once called freedom. Their casual mouth has become crude. They’ve grown weary of fruitful Bible study and are becoming second-handers, depending on other people’s sermons.

Is it any wonder that these pastors preach week in and week out on the grace of God to forgive sins, but rarely celebrate the glory of God’s grace to defeat sinning? They lift high the cross as a covering for all their sins, and never make the biblical connection that Christ was crucified to conquer pornography, crucified to conquer laziness, crucified to conquer gluttony, crucified to conquer dishonesty, crucified to bring back the joy of creating their own sermons.

“There are pastors who are deeply infected with the coddling culture of contemporary America.”

Fourth, some pastors avoid anything approaching a kind of preaching that would confront people with their sin and would risk making them unhappy. There are pastors who are deeply infected with the coddling culture of contemporary America, and who are not only hyper-sensitive to being offended, but in the pulpit are fearful of stirring up anyone’s displeasure. There are reasons for this kind of reluctance to preach the urgency of holiness, and one of them is a deep-seated insecurity that shows itself in a desperate need to be liked — to be approved by other people.

Such pastors need to dig down deep into their hearts, and perhaps into their past, to find why these insecurities have such a hold on them, and then, perhaps with the help of counselors, apply the sovereign grace of God more deeply to their own hearts than they ever have.

Finally, some pastors are so fearful of being labeled as conservative, or fundamentalist, or progressive, or woke, or whatever the circles they care about would look down on, that they avoid any radical, biblical command that would seem to put them in some camp that they don’t want to be part of.

So perhaps, for example, they will not deal with racial discrimination, because that will make them sound woke. Or they won’t deal with, say, modesty, or nudity in movies, because that will make them sound fundamentalist. Or they won’t deal with the fact that we are citizens of heaven first and not American first, because that will make them sound unpatriotic.

The remedy for this bondage to the opinions of others is first to become more like Jesus, who had this reputation (Mark 12:14): “Teacher, we know that you are true and do not care about anyone’s opinion. For you are not swayed by appearances, but truly teach the way of God.”

And the second part of that remedy is to be so radically committed to all that the Bible teaches that just when people think they have you pegged in some camp, you bring out of your biblical treasure chest something that throws them completely off-balance — until it becomes well-known: you are nobody’s lackey. You do not live to please men, right or left, rich or poor, white or black, male or female. You march to the biblical drum, no matter what.

Power in the Blood

My prayer for you is that when all of these obstacles are out of the way, you would preach and teach and live in such a way as to help your people experience the effective connection between the sin-bearing work of Christ and the sin-killing work of the Christian. Between the glorious justifying and glorious sanctifying effect of the precious blood of Christ. That you would sing with your people, and mean it:

Would you be free from the burden of sin?     There’s pow’r in the blood, pow’r in the blood.Would you o’er evil a victory win?     There’s wonderful pow’r in the blood.