The Bible tells us when He was in the desert at the beginning of His ministry the devil came to Him and attacked Him and began to come against who He was, began to challenge who He was. Who do You think You are? The devil still does it. Who do You think You are? Well You reckon You're the Son of God - You better prove it by doing something that looks like You're the Son of God. See, there is an abusive attack upon Him and He overcame it by the word of God. When He's hanging on the cross, in suffering and in pain, the Bible says they went by and they abused Him as He was on the cross. The soldiers abused Him and belittled Him. So the kinds of words which we talked about that people do that really hurt, that release spirits of murder and death and violence against us, Jesus experienced all of those things. So when we talk about Him we often think of Him, a baby in the manger, we think of a gentle Jesus, but actually He was a man of outstanding courage and strength because when He was in His greatest pain and people stood around Him and abused Him and cursed Him and swore at Him, plucked off His beard, when they did all of these things, He did not abuse them back and He did not threaten them.
So the Bible tells us they not only verbally abused Him, they physically abused Him as well, and He didn't abuse them back verbally, and He did not threaten them, or use the threats of violence against them. He could have. The Bible says in a moment, He could have summoned angels, and those men would have gone into an eternity screaming in terror and fear. He had the power to make that happen, and yet He never used that power to get back at the people who were hurting Him. Amazing - and it says He gave an example, having suffered abuse verbally, and suffered abuse physically, how you and I can do the same thing, and it says this is what He did. He committed His cause to His Father, who judges righteously.
What it is, is He committed His personal rights to the Father. In that sense, He allowed God to sort things out on His behalf. He just listened to what the Father wanted to do, so He laid down His rights. The reason people get angry, the reason people get really upset, is because they become frustrated, and their perceived rights are violated. We think we have a right to be able to get straight here without being blocked, we get blocked by some cars or traffic, we get angry, frustrated. So Jesus laid His rights down, so Jesus' attitude in coming into the world was this; the world sucks, but I made it, and I love it, and I'm going to come in and make a difference. So as the Bible says very clearly, He came into the world, it says in Matthew, Chapter 20, Verse 28, it says He came with no expectation that the world would meet His needs. He came with an expectation, He could make a difference. He had access to something from heaven that He could release into the earth, to change what He saw. Most of us want what's around us to work to serve us, and so we set ourselves up for all kinds of anger and upsets and every kind of thing, so in this it tells us very clearly, the secret or one of the keys, was that Jesus released His rights to the Father, and let the Father sort the mess out. He just listened what to do, so instead of getting wound up and angry and reactionary, He just let it go to the Father, and then He listened to what He should do. We just want to yell, and jump up and down, and stamp, and yell back. We get all upset or hurt or withdraw, all kinds of things we get.
Notice here, 1 Peter, Chapter 4 - In 1 Peter 2 it says it's an example to walk in the same way. Now to follow His steps means, you have a look how He walked, and you'd walk the same way, so when people yell at you, you don't yell back. When people treat you badly, you don't treat them badly back. That's walking in His steps, following His example. To follow His example, you need two things to work on your behalf; one, you've got to learn to lay your rights down in the Father, let the rights of your life go to the Father, so whatever happens you're okay with, and secondly, you've got to learn how to draw from His life and spirit, so you know what to say and do. If you don't know what to say and do, you'll never know when you should: stand up against what's happening, withdraw from what's happening, or wait timing to do something. If you're angry and upset by what people are doing to you, and how they're treating you, you'll never be able to respond properly, so when we let our rights go to the Lord, when we let the injustices, and the things that are happening just go to Him, and begin to listen to what He wants us to do, we're positioned then to be able to change the situation.