1 Peter 2:21-25. This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Sunday, February 1, 2026.
In his instructions to household slaves leading up to this passage, Peter makes this point. If you suffer for doing what is right and patiently endure it, there is favor with God. He now points them (us) to Jesus as a great example of what he is talking about. Jesus suffered for doing what was right, and he righteously endured it.
Jesus is not just an example to household slaves. He is also an example to all of us in our situations that may have differences but are essentially the same dynamic spiritually. We are going to see through the rest of the letter that Peter continually points us back to this example he lays out here.
No matter what relationship may bring us suffering, God’s purpose is to create millions of examples (exhibits) of those who suffered for doing what was right, and yet, patiently endured it.
Let’s look at our passage.
Verse 21 adds the phrase “leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps.” Think of all the steps that Jesus made in which he could have turned back, but he kept going forward.
Peter is doing this when he asks to step out of the boat. Peter made a choice to ask, and then he chose to step out of the boat. Notice that there is a point at which the results of our decision carry us along, for good or for bad. It is not that there are no more choices to be made, but that there are tidal forces carrying us. We tend to warn about the power of consequences, but we should also see that there is a good in it. The choice to step out of the boat created a scenario in which there was no going back. He would either walk or sink. There is a certain good in this. When we steel our courage and follow in the footsteps of Jesus, we find ourselves in scary places, yes. But we also find ourselves in places where God shows up to help us through it. Just that first step to follow his example is often the opening of a whole river of God’s help.
Jesus chose to care the burden of the cross for us, and so we ought to carry our cross for him. Praise God that He is working in us to help us do this very thing!
Theological liberals love to say that Jesus is only an example of love, i.e., he was not actually paying a price for our sins. This is an error and contradictory to Scripture. However, it is also an error to downplay the reality of the example that Jesus has given us. Of course, this example of trusting the will of God would do us no good if Jesus had not truly atoned for our sin. But he has made peace between us and God. He has supplied the Holy Spirit within us to help us do this!
Peter then quotes from Isaiah 53:9, “who committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in his mouth.” This is a passage describing God’s work through His perfect servant, the Messiah. Israel had failed to rightly serve God’s purposes. However, God would bring forth a perfect servant, a suffering servant, who would save Israel and the Gentiles by his righteousness and suffering.
This Old Testament verse uses a word that is generally translated as “violence.” The word involves doing wrong to someone in a harsh way. This can be a physically violent act, or metaphorically violent in the sense of brazen and bold wrongs done to another.
When translated into Greek, the translators chose a word that means lawlessness. Only a lawless person would sin against others in such a bold and harsh way. The quote in 1 Peter says, “who committed no sin.” Peter expands the “lawless” translation of the earlier Greek manuscripts to the more general “sin.” Definitely Christ was revealed to them as not being a violent, lawless man. However, Jesus was more than this. He was without sin. We see Jesus challenging his opponents in John 8:46, “Which one of you convicts Me of sin?” Of course, the only “sin” they could pin on him was that he a man made himself one with God, which is no sin if it was true. Hebrews 4:15; 7:26, 1 John 3:5, among many other New Testament verses, agree with this statement of Peter. The Messiah was a sinless man. The apostles came to see that Jesus was the only perfect imager of God the Father who had ever lived on this planet.
The second part of this Old Testament quote from Isaiah 53 says that he was free of deceit, or treachery. There is nothing like suffering to bring out the worst in us. It is often in our desire to avoid difficulty that we choose a path of misleading people or hiding the truth.
Jesus positively did good things to people, but he also refrained from doing wrong to others. This is the example that we are called to follow, not because it saves us, but because we have been saved. I can’t follow Jesus perfect enough to save myself, but I can follow Jesus out of perfect thankfulness for his saving grace.
This leads us into the next descriptions of the character and actions of Jesus. These emphasize what he didn’t do.
Jesus did not respond with reviling to those who reviled him. To revile someone is about verbal abuse. It can be translated to rail against someone. Any time you see someone spitting mad yelling obscenities and accusations at another person, you are seeing this in action. In fact, this is a perfect example of the metaphorical violence that Isaiah 53:9 references. How easy it is to become so angry with such people to begin shouting back at them and responding to them in kind.
Jesus was accused of many things in very unkind manners. During his trial, he is even pictured as being blindfolded, punched, and in a mocking manner, told to prophesy who hit him. This was both verbally abusive and physically abusive. Yet, Jesus did not yell back and say hateful things against them. When we are squeezed by life, the stuff that is deep within us is generally brought to the surface. You and I have a history of failing in this area when we are in the pressure cooker of suffering. Yet Jesus went through it without sin.
If you remember the night of his betrayal and arrest, you will also remember that Jesus showed the disciples how they could follow him. It would require more than a spirit that was willing. A willing spirit must deal with its weak flesh through prayer, wrestling with God over His purpose in our life and yielding to Him.
1 Peter 2:23 also mentions that he uttered no threats. Sometimes threats are empty because we have no way of backing them up. We may be powerless, but Jesus is not. Jesus has great power and thus shows great restraint.
Of course, don’t get Peter wrong. There is a great threat looming over those who reject Jesus. How you treat him will determine your eternity. However, Jesus doesn’t threaten people. He only points out the truth. During his trial, he found it best to generally not respond to their accusations, taunts, and lies. Yet this doesn’t change the fact that there is a day of judgment for each of us and for this world as a whole. God will hold us accountable for choosing our sin over the top of the righteousness of Jesus.
The last thing that Peter points out about how Jesus endured suffering is that he entrusted “himself to Him who judges righteously.” Persecution doesn’t only affect how we treat others. It can also affect our relationship with God the Father. Jesus entrusted himself to God the Father even in the face of death by wicked men. He could do this because His relationship with the Father only knew Him as trustworthy. Jesus stepped out of the boat of mortality and put himself into the hands of the Father. “Do with me what you will, Father!” God could powerfully stop his persecutors or not. Regardless, Jesus both knew and trusted the decision of the Father. May God help us to have such a relationship of trust in Him.
Remember that God is never “on the side of sinners.” If it looks like they are getting ahead and that it pays to be wicked, don’t believe it. They will eventually stand before God and despise themselves in His presence. However, God is on the side of sinners in the sense that He is trying to break through their spiritual blindness. Our righteous suffering may be the only thing that pricks the heart of the wicked and turns them back from sin. Can I do that for Jesus? He promises to reward our service for His purposes, but we have to trust Him with our life. Yes, they may reject the witness we give, but at least God sees me. He doesn’t like what is being done to me. However, if I do this rightly, I can have His favor. I can remain in the place of His favor.
This suffering of Jesus is more than an example of love and trust. Verse 24 shows us that Jesus was a sacrifice that provides spiritual healing for us. In Jesus, God is providing a way for sinners to find spiritual healing.
We sometimes act like we don’t know what God is doing through us, but we do know in general. He is showing Himself to the world through us. We don’t have to perfectly understand all the ways that He is doing that in order to say, yes, to Him. This is what faith (trust) is all about.
In trusting God, Jesus did something for God that needed to be done if any humans were to dwell with God in eternity. Without Jesus even the best of humans would be stuck in the grave, unable to enter into His presence. We may be clueless to what God is doing specifically, but we do know that it has to do with showing others who Jesus is. Jesus provided for our spiritual healing, but then he uses you and me to bring that spiritual healing into the minds and lives of the lost. We provide opportunities for them to know His spiritual healing. Verse 24 explains how his sacrifice does this.
“He himself carried our sins in his body on the tree.” If you approach this from an Old Testament mindset, you will recognize the importance of this word, “tree.” This whole thing with sin started with some trees in Genesis three. The Tree of Life was counterposed to the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. They chose (we choose) to go after the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil rather than the Tree of Life. There is something about trees in the word of God that is important. We see this in Psalm 1. The perfect Israelite (there was ever only one) would be a Tree of Life that would bring forth fruit rather than chaff. This ultimate fruitful Israelite would only be the Messiah who is presented in the next psalm. Blessed are those who put their trust in Him (Psalm 2:12).
Scripture doesn’t describe the Tree of Life, but the New Testament presents Jesus as the ultimate Psalm One Blessed Man. Yet the tree on which he provided life for us did not look desirable. It was a cross. Everything in our flesh wants to continue to flee to the other tree, but God calls us to embrace this tree of suffering in Jesus.
Jesus took your sins, my sins, in his body (a representative of whomever would believe in him) to the cross. God’s punishment upon our sin came upon Jesus who was sinless. Is this fair? Of course, it is not! However, it is love. In Jesus, our sin has been nailed to the cross and punished.
Notice the contrast between the Spirit of Christ and the spirit of this age. Jesus embraces our death upon himself. He sacrifices his mortal self in the name of God’s purpose in humanity. The spirit of this age will sacrifice any number (the more the better) of humans for the sake of humanity. Those who make the decision of just whom will be sacrificed will never be caught making sacrifices themselves. Which of these hearts will you choose?
Peter than describes that this was “so we might die to sin and live to righteousness.” Our sins and the guilt that comes with them have been dealt with by God. He simply asks me to admit my fault, yield to the Lord Jesus Christ, and put my faith in him. If we do this, our sin and guilt will be completely removed. The flesh will still battle us, but it cannot change what Jesus has done, once and for all. By faith, we can die to the sin that we so easily want to do and come alive to the righteousness that He wants to work in us and work through us. If we claim that His love is working in us, then we will see it working through us to others.
Peter then quotes from Isaiah 53 again (verse 5). It is the wounding of Christ that provides for our healing. This is important because Peter is pointing us to this as an example. Because of Jesus, our suffering and wounds can do some good, both in our lives and in the lives of others. My wounds and suffering can point others to Jesus and his salvation.
Spiritual healing does involve the removal of the external guilt of our sin that hangs over us. However, it is the internal guilt of sin that is harder to heal. We have to let the forgiveness of Christ and the love of God teach us the better way, the way of Christ!
Peter then ends with emphasizing our spiritual condition in verse 25. He breaks this up into two different stages. Before Jesus, we were continually straying like sheep. Notice that this is an allusion to Isaiah 53:6. Led by our fears, ignorance, and desires, we stray away from the Good Shepherd and the grace of God. “All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all to fall upon him.” This was true of Israel, and it was true of the Gentile nations. It was true of me, and it was true of you. This is our helpless state before Jesus came and before we came to know about him.
But now, after coming to Jesus, we are something different. We are now sheep who are returning, coming back, to the Good Shepherd who is also the Overseer of our souls. Both shepherd and overseer correspond with what later became role titles in the church: pastors and bishops respectively. I don’t think Peter is giving any sense of religious title here. Jesus is the good shepherd in every way that a shepherd is good for sheep. He is the great overseer watching out against our enemies and for our good.
Doesn’t it seem odd that Peter (one of the sheep) is exhorting the rest of the sheep to be more like the Good Shepherd! May God help us to follow in the footsteps of Jesus by the help of His Holy Spirit!