1 Peter 4:1
Notes
Transcript
1 Peter 4:1
Open your Bibles and turn to 1 Peter 4. My plan for this evening was to preach through the first seven verses, but we are only going to make it through verse 1.
Last week I mentioned that an estimated hundred thousand Christians are killed each year because of their faith and there’s no way of knowing just how many suffer physically. Thankfully, in the United States we don’t have to worry about physical persecution, but that doesn’t mean Christians aren’t suffering.
I came across a news article titled: “Christians in West increasingly targets of polite persecution.” The article noted:
Beneath the cloak of “progress,” an increasingly hostile secularism is threatening Christians in the West with a “polite persecution.” Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, says, “If Christians in the Middle East need to fear the machete, Christians in the Western world need to fear the media, higher education, activist organizations and government. They are the ones advocating, or imposing, a secular agenda on religious institutions.
The persecution of Christians takes two forms today. Everyone is familiar with the violence against people and property, but Donahue says there is a more subtle form that relies “on restrictive measures encoded in public policy and law.”
As an example, Donahue contends parents who challenge classroom instruction “that explicitly runs roughshod over their religious beliefs” are they are being “summarily ignored by administrators.” And he says that hate-crime legislation “is being used to criminalize the beliefs of those who hold to traditional moral values.” Donohue argues that faith “that cannot be exercised in the public square is faith denied.” Donohue concluded: “Polite persecution” of religion may not put us in imminent danger, but in the long run it can accomplish the same end.”
A few weeks ago, a video started making the rounds showing a preacher in Canada refusing to allow a health inspector into the church building. It didn’t seem like the preacher had a problem with the health inspector coming into the building, but when and how she was doing it. She could have come at any time during the week, but chose to come on a Sunday morning during worship. Additionally, she didn’t come by herself but with a dozen armed police officers. The preacher told her she could come at any time but not during worship. He refused to allow her to enter the building and they eventually went away. Why did she insist on inspecting the building on a Sunday morning during worship? If the members of the church were doing something illegally the police would have a right to enter the building, but they left. He invited her to come back later, and she did. She returned two weeks later on a Sunday morning during worship.
Can you imagine the chilling effect it would have for a dozen armed police in riot gear to enter our building on a Sunday morning during services and walk up and down the isles inspecting at everyone in the room? Do you think that would encourage people to attend worship? Bill Donahue is warning us that this is the kind of persecution Christians in the west are facing today. It isn’t physical, but social, as Christians are ignored, silenced, or litigated out of public places.
Of course, persecution of any kind isn’t new. Peter wrote this first epistle to a group that was suffering persecution and would suffer more before it was all over. He wanted them to know that their suffering would be rewarded. But he also wanted them to know that their suffering could be used to grow the kingdom of God.
The believers needed to be prepared for the persecution to get harder. Peter knew that only the well prepared would survive.
In the first seven verses Paul is going to four lessons to help us prepare. Tonight though, I want to look at the benefits of persecution. Peter mentions one at the end of verse 1. Persecution helps us get rid of sin in our lives.
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.
Our ultimate goal when it comes to sin is to stop completely and do away with it but that’s not going to happen in this life. We’ll never be fully done with sin until we get to heaven. You’ve heard it said before, “Choose your battles carefully.” Here’s the battle we need to fight. If ever there was a battle worth fighting, it’s this battle. If ever there was a fight we need to be engaged in, it’s this fight.
Peter says that because of the suffering Jesus endured during his trials and on the cross for us that we need to leave our sin. Peter instructs us to arm ourselves with the attitude that Jesus had, be ready to suffer, and do away with sin.
You can probably guess that the term “arm yourselves” comes from the military that described being prepared for battle. In Ephesians 6 Paul says that we are to “put on the full armor of God” so that we might be able to stand firm against the attacks of the devil. Paul then goes into detail describing those pieces of armor. We’ll be looking at them on Sunday morning in a couple of weeks.
Being prepared for battle includes the physical gear, but it also includes the mental attitude. When it comes to sports coaches talk about players putting their game face on or getting their head in the game. It’s not just physical, it’s also mental.
Athletes have to prepare themselves mentally for the challenge they are about to face as much as they do physically. I’m sure you’ve seen teams lose games not because they couldn’t play better than the other team, but because they didn’t think they could beat the other team. I think about UT trying to beat Florida. Even when Tennessee has had a better team it looked like they’ve lost the game in their minds before their cleats ever touched the turf. As Yogi Berra accurately said:
Baseball is 90% cent mental. The other half is physical.
In addition to preparing for the game physically, there has to be a mental preparedness too.
Paul talked about armor, but Peter talks about the mental. Back in chapter 1, Peter talked about girding up the loins of our minds.
1 Peter 1:13 (KJV) Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Well, that’s how the KJV worded it. The NIV talks about “minds that are alert and fully sober.”
1 Peter 1:13 Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming.
Peter was talking about being prepared mentally. How we think is important. As Solomon wrote:
Proverbs 23:7 For he is the kind of person who is always thinking about the cost. “Eat and drink,” he says to you, but his heart is not with you.
So, what kind of mind do we need? How do we need to be thinking? Peter said to equip our minds with the same attitude Jesus had. We need an aggressive attitude toward sin. We need to take a forceful stand against it. We can never get used to sin in our lives. We can never grow comfortable with sin. We need a militant attitude toward sin, or as Paul put it in Romans 6:
Romans 6:12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires.
We cannot look at sin passively. We have to understand that we are in a battle. We are to have the mind or attitude that Jesus had. What mind did he have? Jesus came to earth to deal with sin by dying on the cross. That’s why Luke tells us that:
Luke 9:51 As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem.
As Jesus headed for Jerusalem and the cross, he was like a soldier preparing for battle. It wasn’t a vacation, but preparing to deal with the biggest problem we face, the problem of sin. You’ll remember how Peter tried to stop him. When Jesus started telling them about going to Jerusalem to die, we read how:
Matthew 16:22 Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”
How did Jesus respond?
Matthew 16:23 Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”
Peter didn’t want to see Jesus die on the cross because he didn’t understand the reason for the cross, but he did when he wrote this letter. Therefore, Peter encourages us to see sin as Jesus did. We should hate sin because of what it does to us, but also because of what it cost Jesus. Jesus suffered in his flesh for us. He went to the cross because of our sins. We shouldn’t be able to look at the cross and not remember it was our sins that sent him there. We need to arm ourselves with that realization and do away with sin in our lives.
In Genesis 4 we read a conversation God had with Cain.
Genesis 4:6-7 6 Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? 7 If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.”
Notice that last phrase:
. . . you must rule over it.”
Genesis 4:7 . . . you must rule over it.
What did Cain need to rule over? What did God say was crouching at his door? Sin. God told Cain he needed to rule over, subdue, or master sin. In the New Testament, James says:
James 4:7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Jesus told his disciples:
Matthew 26:41 Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.
He also taught them to pray:
Matthew 6:13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.
While we will never completely conquer sin in our lives, these verses tell us that it is possible to have more victories than defeats. We can win more of these battles than we lose. But we need to get in the fight. We need to see it as a battle and prepare for it like we would a battle.
We won’t like it, but Peter says a great tool for fighting sin is suffering.
. . . whoever suffers in the body is done with sin.
1 Peter 4:1 . . . whoever suffers in the body is done with sin.
Suffering has a way of getting our attention and showing us what is really important. When there’s suffering, we get rid of all that extra stuff. When there’s a huge amount of suffering, that stuff doesn’t mean that much to you. It tends to get cut away. We all have rough edges and God uses suffering to transform and smooth and temper our lives. So, resist sin.
Suffering does something else. It weeds out those who aren’t truly committed.
A few weeks ago, there was an opinion piece in the Johnson City Press about church attendance. You may have seen it. Numbers are showing lower church attendance and not just because of COVID. This opinion piece took delight in the lower numbers; however, there is a different way to look at them.
Gallup first began tracking membership in 1937, at a time when 73% of Americans reported that they belonged to a house of worship. That high level of membership continued for the next six decades until 1999, when 70% of Americans still reported membership. But in the early 2000s, membership in a house of worship began declining steadily. In 2020, it was at 47% – the first time in American history that church members were in the minority. Here's what the Gallup poll showed:
The decline in church membership is primarily a function of the increasing number of Americans who express no religious preference. Over the past two decades, the percentage of Americans who do not identify with any religion has grown from 8% in 1998-2000 to 13% in 2008-2010 and 21% over the past three years.
In other words, Americans are not necessarily less religious; they just don’t associate with traditional religions.
I came across a cartoon that more accurately describes the situation. The cartoon depicts three characters: a non-Christian, a Christian, and what we’ll call someone in the middle of the road.
American 20 Years Ago
Christian: “I am definitely a Christian.”
Non-Christian: “I am definitely not a Christian.”
Middle: “I honestly don’t care that much about following Jesus, but it’s socially advantageous for me to self-identify as a Christian so that’s what I do.”
America Today
Non-Christian: “I am definitely not a Christian.”
Christian: “I am definitely a Christian.”
Middle: “OK, so times have changed and it’s no longer advantageous for me to self-identify as a Christian. So, I stopped. I’m on this side now.
What the Headlines Say
Non-Christian: “Dang, Christian. Pew Research says you’re dying over there. There used to be two of you and now there’s only one. You should be worried.”
What the Truth Is
Christian: “Nah. There was really only one of me before, and there’s still one of me. The Middle guy just got more honest.”
Christian: “And oddly enough . . . I feel healthier than I have in a long time.
Through their surveys, Gallup says thousands of churches are closing each year, and while that's discouraging, it says that the American church has been sick for a long time.
She’s been infected with the prosperity gospel and materialism.
She’s been focused on seeker sensitivity and tolerance – at the expense of the offending message of Christ crucified.
She’s become enthralled by the lure of Marxist ideals of equity.
She’s been too busy measuring what's right by the world's standards than God's.
She’s been too afraid to speak the truth.
The article concludes:
Despite that, there is good news. While the American church is declining, the Bride of Christ is becoming more refined, more beautiful, and will ultimately become healthier than ever.
If persecution increases, the less committed will be the first to drop out.
One more benefit of persecution is comfort. Suffering and persecution bring divine comfort. The more you suffer the more you will be comforted. The two always go hand in hand. Why would suffering bring comfort? The answer is that suffering makes room for comfort.
If you plant a tree, you must first dig a hole and remove the dirt. Suffering removes always something from our life: health, wealth, a loved one, etc. Such a removal leaves an empty place, a place where comfort can find a home. Someone observed:
Great hearts can only be made by great troubles.
The spade of trouble digs the reservoir of comfort deeper, and makes more room for consolation.
Suffering also makes us realize our need for God. When our lives are full of material abundance it is easy for us to forget God. When there’s money in the bank and food in the cabinets it’s easy to bury our need for God in the flood of things. But when our prosperity runs low, watch how easily the prayer life takes on a new importance. When the stuff that makes life easy is taken away the Spirit of God begins to make Jesus real.
Last week I mentioned John Bunyan who is known for his book “Pilgrims Progress.” Bunyon was arrested in 1672 for preaching without a license. He was imprisoned for 12 years. He wrote:
I never had in all my life so great an inlet into the Word of God as now in prison. Jesus Christ also was never more real and apparent than now. . . . I never knew before what it was for God to stand by me at all times. . . . I have often said, were it lawful I could pray for greater trouble, for greater comfort's sake.
No one likes troubles, but the truth is troubles are part of life. However, so are the advantages of them, for the believer. We need to allow God do his work through them.
Writing about trusting God in the midst of suffering, Johnny Palmer wrote:
When my son Jeremy was just a little boy, he fell on a coffee cup, and we had to rush him to the emergency room. The doctor had to push and pull on his little head and all the while he was saying, “Daddy stop it, stop it.” To tell you the truth it seemed like a good idea, the doctor was causing my son too much pain! And yet I did not stop it. I knew deep down inside that the doctor knew what he was doing and those stitches were part of the healing process.
Palmer concluded:
Remember my friend, God knows what he’s doing. He has a purpose behind ever daily pain we undergo. And that purpose is related to daily victory.
Suffering helps us get rid of sin. It purifies the church by eliminating the uncommitted. Suffering makes room for God’s comfort and it reminds us of our need for God.