1 Peter 4:1-6
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1 Peter 4:1-6
Open your Bibles and turn to 1 Peter 4. Last week we looked at verse 1 where Peter starts giving instructions on how to prepare for impending persecution. In verse 1 Peter instructs his readers to get rid of sin in their lives. Peter wrote:
1 Peter 4:1 Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because whoever suffers in the body is done with sin.
Turn to Romans 6. The picture we have here is of putting on an attitude toward as a soldier would put on a suit of armor. Our attitude is like a weapon as we do spiritual warfare. What is this attitude we should have? Well, it’s the same attitude that Christ took toward sin and suffering. Christ was willing to go to the cross to defeat it. As Peter puts it, Christ suffered in his body. That’s because, Jesus knew that at once he had completed the task of bearing our sins on the cross he would never again have to struggle with sin or temptation again. That would all be over with.
This is the same attitude Peter says we should arm ourselves with. We should consider ourselves “dead” to sin, finished with it. Paul described that attitude in his letter to the Romans when he wrote:
Romans 6:9-14 9 For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. 10 The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. 11 In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. 13 Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. 14 For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.
Sin’s power has been broken and we are free to live differently. We are free to live for God. We don’t have to respond to sin anymore. The one thing that will destroy our time on earth faster than anything is spending our lives following the impulses of sin. Now that we are dead to sin, we can focus now on living the will of God. Any sufferings we might endure while striving to live a righteous life, we can face with anticipation of a better tomorrow, just like Jesus did.
Think about an athlete getting injured in the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl. He’s willing to play through the pain because he knows everything is at stake and the end is in sight.
Jesus is coming again. The day will soon be here when we will neither suffer nor sin anymore. It will all be done away with. Therefore, we should arm ourselves with the attitude of Jesus and allow our present suffering to help us get rid of sin in our lives.
The second way to prepare for suffering is to learn God’s will.
1 Peter 4:2 As a result, they do not live the rest of their earthly lives for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God.
Think about how most people spend their time. They spend it pursuing their goals and satisfying their desires. Peter says that those who suffer for their faith in Jesus don’t live that way. They don’t spend their lives chasing their own desires because they are anxious to do the will of God. Therefore, we should learn God’s will.
Peter is getting to heart of how we spend our time. How will you spend the rest of your life?
A couple of years ago I shared the story of Bob and Penny whom John Piper mentioned in a sermon he preached in Memphis at a youth conference in 2000. Piper titled his message “Don’t Waste Your Life.” In it he shared an article he’d read in “Reader’s Digest” about Bob and Penny who had retired early. Retiring in their fifties, they moved to Florida coast. Their hobbies were cruising on their thirty-foot boat and collecting shells. Piper encouraged the young adults to take that out thirty or so years to the day they died and stood before God to give an account for how they had spent the life he’d given them. The first twenty were spent going to school and learning. The next thirty were spent working hard and saving up so they could retire. The last thirty were spent taking easy boating and collecting shells. Piper imagined God asking them what they had to show for their lives and they would show him their nice shell collection. What will we have to show God on the day we stand before him? What will we have done for God?
Born in 1860, C.T. Studd grew up in a wealthy family in England. In high school and then in college he made a name for himself as a cricket player. When C.T. was twenty-four his older brother George got sick and died. C.T. says he was confronted by the question of eternity. He said he began to wonder what good fame and fortune would be worth in eternity. He realized that cricket wouldn’t last nor would the honors given him as a great player. Since nothing in this life would last he determined to start living for the one to come. Giving up his promising future in sports and his large inheritance, C.T. went to China where he helped start the China Inland Mission. Encouraging others to spend their lives for Christ he wrote a poem. Here is one verse:
Give me Father, a purpose deep,
In joy or sorrow Thy word to keep;
Faithful and true what e’er the strife,
Pleasing Thee in my daily life;
Only one life, ’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.
Your time is best spent when you invest your time in doing the will of God. Peter encourages us allow God’s will be our lifelong pursuit. If you want an adventurous journey, a satisfying journey, then make sure the will of God is number one in your pursuit. It’s not the pursuit of money or ease that will truly fulfill us, but the doing the will of God. As Jesus said in the “Sermon on the Mount:”
Matthew 6:33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
Knowing the will of God for your life is the most important part of your life. You might be good at a lot of things, but the most important and the most exciting is when you discover what God wants from it. As someone once said, the two most important days in a person’s life are first, the day they are born and second, the day they find out what they’re born for. What does God want out of your life? Discover God’s will for your life and make that your ambition.
How do we discover God’s will? Too many go about it the wrong way.
There was a farmer who thought he should be an evangelist. He was working his field one day and sat down beside a tree to rest. Looking up at clouds he saw the clouds form what looked to him like two letters: a large ‘P’ and a large ‘C’. And he thought, “P-C, P-C, preach Christ. That’s it! It’s a sign!” He sold his farm and became an evangelist. The problem is, he was a horrible speaker. So he was preaching one day and told about his call to be an evangelist. After the message someone in the congregation walked up to him and said, “Do you think that perhaps God was using P-C to tell you to plant corn?”
So what is God’s will for our lives? Peter already told us one – get rid of sin. We are to obey God’s commands.
The third way to prepare for suffering is to leave your past.
1 Peter 4:3 For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do—living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry.
Renounce yours past. In other words, come up to a point in your life and maybe today will be the point where you look back and you say, “Enough is enough. That stuff is gone. That’s the old me. That’s the old lifestyle. I got something new going on.”
In regard to these, they think it strange that you do not run with them in the same flood of dissipation, speaking evil of you.” What a list. Now, last week I spoke about baptism. And do you know that in some denominations when you go to get baptized, there’s a formality and you answer questions? If you want to get baptized into that church, the clergy wants to ask you some questions, and they want to hear your answer.
And here’s the first question: Do you renounce the devil and all his works, the vain pomp and glory of this world, with all the covetous desires of the same, and the sinful desires of the flesh, so that you will not follow nor be led by them? That’s the question and they expect this answer: I renounce them all. That’s the thought of this passage: renounce all of these things on this list. They’re not good for you. They’re not the will of God for you. They’re not what’s best for you. Remember the best of your time is when you use the rest of your time to invest your time in doing the will of God.
I went through that list and I could uncover the meaning of every single word, but I think it’s pretty straightforward. He simply is saying, “We all wasted enough time doing bad stuff.” I looked at that list and I thought, you know, I knew people who did those things for a living. That was their nine-to-five. And after work, that’s when the party really started for them. They were radical in their sin. But I also know some of those radical sinners were interrupted by radical salvation. And when they were, they all said the same thing. “Enough! I’m done. Enough! Turning point time. I’ve had enough of the past.”
Some of you look at that list in verse 3---”lewdness, lusts, drunkenness, revelries, drinking parties, and abominable idolatries”---some of you here can relate to one, some of you can relate to all. While others of you read that list and you cannot relate to a single one. You grew up in a Christian family. You look at that, those overt kinds of obvious, gross sins, you never did those . . . outwardly. You did them inwardly. There’s still sin going on. Nobody saw it. It was just as evil. Now I want to say something to you: I remember when I was growing up, I think I was around 18, 19, I knew a kid who was around 16.
His name was Johnny. He was raised in a Christian home. Good parents, great kid, all of his life going to church, loving the Lord. But he heard all of our testimonies. He heard people saying, “Yeah, I used to be a drug addict and I came to Christ.” “I used to be a mass murderer and I got turned around.” All of these dramatic, gnarly testimonies. I remember talking to him one day and he said, “You know what? I never had those experiences. Maybe I need to go out and sin a little bit and get myself a dramatic testimony.”
I said, “Johnny, you have the most dramatic testimony, that God can keep a person from young age through a lifetime. Your testimony will encourage every parent raising any son or daughter. If God can do that, that’s dramatic.” Even, I’m thankful, but we parade often ex-cons and ex-drug addicts, and famous musicians who turn to Christ. Great, it’s all good, but the keeping power to keep a life through a life, that’s powerful. Basically no matter how much time you spend for the flesh, no matter how much time you spend for the devil, it’s enough time. Whether it was 20 years or one day, it’s enough.
Enough. Were you an alcoholic? Enough. Were you a pornographer? Enough. Were you an angry person? Enough. Were you a churchgoing, Bible-carrying hypocrite? Enough. To make time count, count your past as past, over, done, enough. So resist sin, relish God’s will, renounce your past. Those three things will make time count. Let me give you a fourth and we’ll close:
Reach the Lost (vv. 4-6)
1 Peter 4:4-6 4 They are surprised that you do not join them in their reckless, wild living, and they heap abuse on you. 5 But they will have to give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. 6 For this is the reason the gospel was preached even to those who are now dead, so that they might be judged according to human standards in regard to the body, but live according to God in regard to the spirit.
Reach the lost. Now hear me, don’t tune out. Because somebody goes, “Well, I’m not good at that stuff, that evangelism stuff.” You want to add some spark and zing into your life? Tell somebody about your faith. Just try that, just try it, and get back to me, and see if it wasn’t exhilarating — frightening, perhaps.
Because if you don’t evangelize, you will fossilize. So look at the text, verse 4, “In regard to these, they” — that is, your old friends, the world — “they think it strange that you do not run with them in the same flood of dissipation.” That simply means desire to do evil, wickedness. And what will they do? “Speak evil of you,” of you. “They will give an account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. For this reason the gospel was preached also to those who are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.”
Listen, unsaved people do not understand when God changes a life. They do not get it. Your old friends, they don’t get you. Am I right? Unsaved family members, they may be polite to you, maybe not, but they don’t get you. “They think it strange.” I thought it strange. I had a friend on a Saturday we were doing drugs in his bedroom together. The very next day, Sunday, he has his finger in my chest telling me I need to get saved. Made me very mad. I’m thinking, “That was Saturday, today’s Sunday. What happened in 24 hours?” Because nobody can change that fast.
That’s what I told him, “Nobody can change that fast.” I was dead wrong. Between Saturday and between Sunday was Saturday night. He went to an event that night and he gave his life to Christ. He was changed and he told me I needed to change. I thought it strange. The world thinks it strange. They don’t think it strange when people wreck their bodies with drugs. They don’t think it strange when people wreck their homes with infidelity and immorality. They don’t think it strange when people wreck their jobs because they have hangovers. They do think it strange when the drunk becomes sober, when the impure becomes pure.
They think it strange when you buy a Bible and you go to church and you want to hang out with Christians. That’s strange! Paul the apostle shared his testimony before a Roman governor, talked about how God changed his life, and the resurrection gave him hope and life. And Festus stood up and said, “Paul, you are out of your mind. That’s strange.” If Paul would have said, “I got stoned drunk last night.” “Good on you.” But he said, “I’m a changed man”; they think it strange. So what do we do? We don’t ignore them, that’s our tendency. We’re patient with them and as it says in verse 6, we preach to them, we seek to reach the lost.
You’re their only hope. And why do we do that even when they’re mean to us? Look what it says, they “speak evil of you.” They go, “I can’t believe you don’t want to party with us,” and then you leave and they just talk smack about you. So what do you do? You love them, you’re patient with them, you preach to them. And here’s why, for two reasons: they’re blind. They’re blind to spiritual truth. Second Corinthians 4, “The god of this world has blinded the minds of those who do not believe.” So I know, you’re going to your friends and go, “Don’t you get it? Don’t you get it?” No, they don’t get it.
God can open their eyes? He did yours. But they don’t get it at the moment. It’s as foolish as trying to tell a blind man, “Hey, look at that sunset, look at that sunset. Look at the orange and the yellow and the red.” “I can’t. I’m blind. I can’t see a hue of anything.” So, they’re blind. Number two, they’re dead. It’s even worse. You can’t bring them back to life. God can, but you can’t. They’re dead. The book of Ephesians says, “We were dead in trespasses and sins.” Peter to encourage them says, “They may be judging you right now,” verse 5, “but God will judge them one day.” Leave it there.
And then in verse 6 he reminds his readers of those who are dead, who have been martyred for their faith. They were falsely judged by men, they were persecuted, and they were killed for their faith. And at the time of the writing of Peter they were dead, but they were alive before God getting their reward. So don’t just spend your time, invest your time. Make time count. The best of your time is when you use the rest of your time to invest your time in doing the will of God. This could be the time, the time.
I’m going to close with a story. Back in 1999---true story. In 1999, in September of 1999 in the West Bank over in Israel---you know how that works? There’s a divided country, and there’s a West Bank settlement, then there’s a line, and on the other side of that line is the nation of Israel. In the West Bank they were on daylight savings time. Across that line in Israel they had switched back to standard time. There were a few terrorists in the West Bank preparing a bomb to explode two buses of civilians in Israel. It was a time bomb. You know where I’m going with this. They prepared the time bomb, got it over to their counterparts in Israel to place the bomb.
Their counterparts didn’t quite understand the time change thing, and the bomb exploded one hour earlier than it was supposed to according to terrorists’ reckoning, blew up. It killed three of the terrorists, but it spared two busloads of civilians. They were saved in an hour of time. That hour made all the difference. This hour can make all the difference. This time could make all the difference in eternity. You can’t kill time without injuring eternity. You have a coin, it is your life, you’re making the decision of how you’re going to spend it. And whatever choice you make now determines the outcome in eternity.
What are you investing this in? Funny, when it comes to decisions like this, people will actually think, “If I were to give Jesus Christ my life, what would my friends think?” Well, if they’re really your friends, then they want the best for you. This is the best. They may not understand it, they might speak evil of you if you do it, but you will have a chance to see their life also get the best. Let’s go to prayer. Lord, messages like this are the kind that bring deep reflection for everyone who is sensible and listens to it sensibly, because we realize the truth of the limited amount of time that we have. But the things we do, things we think, actions or lifestyles we choose in time mean a lot and matter in eternity.