The Gospel Changes Us

Sermon Text

1 peter 3:18

18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit,

New King James Version (NKJV) Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. All rights reserved.

• The gospel changes how Christians respond to mistreatment: instead of repaying evil with evil, they can bless, pursue peace, and entrust judgment to God.
• No sinner possesses the righteousness needed to stand before the holy God; even outwardly respectable people remain guilty in thought, word, motive, and deed.
• Jesus Christ, the righteous one, suffered once for sins in the place of the unrighteous, fully satisfying God's justice.
• Christ's purpose was to bring his people to God, clothing them not in their works but in a righteousness outside themselves and imputed to them.
• Jesus truly died and was made alive by the Spirit; his resurrection guarantees the believer's justification and sustaining hope amid suffering.

• When I am reviled or hurt, do I seek peace and bless, or try to settle the score myself?
• Where am I tempted to minimize sin or preserve a claim to righteousness of my own?
• Do I identify myself as someone who needs Christ's righteousness, or as someone good enough to stand before God?
• What does it mean personally that Christ suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous?
• Am I resting in Christ's completed work or repeatedly trying to earn the acceptance he purchased?
• How does Christ's resurrection strengthen my hope during unjust suffering?
• What continuing sin should I confess and put to death without confusing sanctification with the ground of my justification?

Substitutionary atonement

Christ, the righteous one, suffering and dying in the place of unrighteous sinners to bear the judgment their sins deserve.

Justification

God's gracious declaration that a believer is righteous because Christ's righteousness is counted to that person and received by faith.

Imputation

God's counting of Christ's perfect obedience and satisfaction to believers rather than judging them by their own works.

Passive obedience

Christ's willing endurance of suffering, rejection, and death as he bore the penalty of his people's sins.

Active obedience

Christ's perfect lifelong fulfillment of God's law in both outward action and inward desire.

Sanctification

The Spirit's continuing work in justified believers as they put sin to death and learn to live in Christ's way.