Sermon Tone Analysis

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.