September 22, 2024 | Armed to Suffer

Transcript:

This text. The beginning of First Peter chapter four draws our attention as really Peter has been talking throughout the entire book that when you are a sojourner or a traveler here on this earth, you find difficulties, you find sufferings, you find times when the consequences of sin impact you deeply. You find times when the temptations of sin impact you deeply.

And like with really all suffering, you need a mindset. You need a way to think about suffering. You have to know, why do I have to suffer in the first place? You need to know how should I endure this suffering? And you need to know who says that you should endure it in this way. To give some examples, maybe from a little sillier to a little more serious.

If you play sports and your coach says you have to do this kind of drill and you think, I don't want to, I don't like running sprints. Well, you have to know, okay, why do I have to? Is this just pointless suffering, or is there a reason? It also helps if you know, why do I have to do it in this way?

If a coach is telling you you need to run all out 100% sprints and you say, well, I don't really want to do that, I really I will run fine, but I'll run at 50%. You won't really accomplish what you need to accomplish or even want to accomplish through the suffering. And you have to know, okay, who is telling me to do this?

In the case of a coach, you want to know, do they really know their stuff? Or are they just telling me to run because they don't know anything better to do? Or is this actually helpful? And often you want to know, has this coach ever played before?

Because otherwise you might be a little less excited to suffer in the way that coach is telling you to. Now, Athletics obviously not the most important suffering you have ever in your life. Not the most challenging suffering you have in your life. Another example we think of probably some of you, it's the first thing you think of when you think of physical suffering.

We could talk about childbirth. Say, well, you need to know why. If you suddenly I'm going to guess there's no ladies in this room who would say if I suddenly felt childbirth and had no idea why, that'd be fine. They know that it matters that I know why I'm going through this suffering and then, okay, what am I supposed to do while I'm going through this childbirth?

How am I supposed to do this in the best way, so that hopefully it minimizes the suffering and brings a healthy, safe delivery?

And we want to know who is telling us how you're supposed to do that. If you were to take advice from me on childbirth, I would suggest not taking advice from me on childbirth.

But you probably you ladies who have had children, you probably had a doctor or, midwife or someone who you trusted and said they know their stuff. And maybe also they've been through it before.

But what if we talk about a different kind of suffering? What if we talk about cancer?

You still want a mindset that says, well, why does this happen? And you might not have a really satisfactory answer for it. But we all ask the question.

Why? And especially if you're here is a believer in Jesus. You also ask, how am I supposed to walk through this cancer in a way that I honor, my Lord?

I remember some of you know, some of you don't. My mom passed away from cancer about four years ago after it had recurred, and I remember her at times, though she usually didn't want us to know, but I remember her struggling with not so much. Why did it have to happen? She said. I don't really know that answer, but struggling with how am I supposed to live through it?

I remember days when that was a struggle for her.

And she had to wrestle with that question how should I suffer through cancer? And why does it matter the way that I suffer? And just like the other suffering questions, our next question is, well, if you come up with a way that I should suffer in this way, well, who says?

Is it somebody who has a desire for good? And who loves me? Is it someone who has experienced suffering? Or not?

This morning, Peter's text. You have six verses. There's one command. I'll read the whole text in just a minute. But the one command is found in verse one. Arm yourselves. With this same way of thinking. Peter knows that you will face challenges, sufferings in this life. And he says, you need to pick up armor, pick up weapons to arm yourself for what's coming.

So let's pray and then we'll read the text. God, we ask that you would work by your spirit. That you would open our eyes to your truth, to the ways that our hearts work, and that you would arm us, that you would prepare us for whatever challenges we face, whether they seem large or small right now, whatever challenges we will face throughout our lives.

I pray that we would all as individuals and we would all as a church, arm ourselves for this battle.

In Jesus name, Amen. I'll read beginning verse one, since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh, no longer for human passions, but for the will of God, for the time that is passed suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry.

With respect to this, they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you, but they will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. For this is why the gospel was preached even to those who were dead, that though judged in the flesh the way people are, they might live in the spirit, the way God does.

So as we go through this text, I wanted to start, as I did just a minute ago, to say there's one command, because there's a whole lot of other things around that one command, which might seem really confusing to you, or maybe not, might distract us where you could easily lose as we walk through the text. It would be simple to lose the main point of the text, which is his command.

Arm yourselves with something with this way of thinking. So what we're going to do is we're going to try to pick up his flow. Throughout the text, we'll talk about the basis of his command. We'll talk about the purpose of his command. We'll talk about the reason that you need this command. We'll talk about all these things around the command.

And then at the end of our time, we'll come back to say, okay, how do I obey this command? What is this way of thinking and how do I arm myself with it? So as he begins, he starts by stating the basis of the command. And that's Jesus. Verse one. Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh because of Jesus and because of something specific about Jesus, because he suffered in the flesh, we'd say, what does that mean?

Does it just mean? Well, he went through difficulties while he was living his earthly human life. Well, thankfully, Peter gives us some other information. If you went back to verse 18 of chapter three, he says, Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God. So there he draws your attention when he says, Christ suffered in the flesh all the way to Christ's death on the cross.

Now there was suffering along the way, but he's looking at the whole picture of suffered in the flesh leads to death on the cross. That's what it means to suffer once for sins was for Jesus to die. So it's not just a specific moment of suffering in this life. It's the whole picture of living in a fallen world that ends in his death.

Or we could say it this way. If I want to paraphrase a little bit, we could say the actual statement is since since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, we could say, since this was Jesus's experience in earth that ended in death, you can see why he wouldn't say it that way, because it's a little longer. But that's really what he's saying.

Since Jesus is experience here on earth involved suffering that concluded in death.

Or maybe a little different paraphrase that draws a little more from Peter, since Christ lived in a way that led to death, but also led to ultimate glory. Because Peter has said that over and over to that's what suffering in the flesh led to us being brought near to God. So if we took this first phrase, first part of the basis of the command since Jesus lived in a way that involved suffering to death and then glory, since that was Jesus's path, then we get the command we'll touch on it here and come back to it later.

Arm yourselves with the same way of thinking this language is it's prepare yourself for battle. Get the weapons that you need. Notice he doesn't say, since Jesus suffered in the flesh, you suffer in the flesh. He assumes if you're a follower of Jesus, there will be elements that you suffer in this fallen world. He doesn't tell you, go try to suffer.

I want to make sure I say at the front, that's not what he's saying. He doesn't say Jesus suffered. So you try to make sure you get as much suffering as possible. No, he's not saying that at all. He's saying since this was Jesus's experience in this world, you arm yourself with the right mindset to go through the battle.

Well, what is the battle again? We could turn back to chapter two, verse 11. This is the last place he talked about a battle imagery, and he uses the same phrase of passions. And he's going to talk about he says, I urge you, as sojourners, to abstain from the passions of the flesh which wage war against your soul.

It's not about preparing for battle against opponents out there. Yes, there's sometimes elements of that, but that's not the point. The point is you're in a battle for the health of your soul, and it's a spiritual battle. And he says, you need a certain kind of mindset so that when you go through suffering in this life. You will have the weapons that you need to guard your soul.

We've all seen we've all seen people go through suffering and sometimes seen people who we thought, I love their attitude through the suffering. Maybe I hate it for them. I don't want them to go through the suffering. We say the way they're suffering is admirable.

I remember when my mom passed away, we stood around her bedside and we sung hymns as she passed away. She was peaceful. And a nurse came in afterwards to tell us she was gone. The nurse said, that's the way I want to go.

She didn't just mean singing. She meant there was a way. She had been armed with a way of thinking about suffering so that she could go through suffering, and it was seen by people around her.

When George Waller speaks of his suffering. Like, we'd probably say the same things as he spoke last week. You think I want to have that kind of character? I want to love God like that. Because he's armed with a way of thinking.

So he gives you the command because of what Christ has done. Because he died. Because he died for us. Arm yourselves with the same way of thinking. And then he's going to give you a foundational principle whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin. Now, this is very carefully worded to make Peter's point, because he's saying something about Jesus and he's saying something about us.

Now that gets difficult because Jesus never sinned, whereas we've sinned and Jesus suffered in the flesh all the way to death. But because you're sitting here hearing me, you have not suffered in the flesh all the way to death. Yet. So he has to word this extremely carefully. If we were to take now just this phrase, whoever has suffered in the flesh, well, who do we know is suffered in the flesh?

Jesus. He just said that earlier in the verse. So let's take that paraphrase and it says, whoever has suffered all the way to death now, is it suffering at all, any kind of suffering? No. Throughout this section of Peter, he talks about suffering for righteousness sake. In other words, since Jesus not just he suffered because he lived in a world where bad things happen, but Jesus was committed to the will of his father and continued to do the will of his father.

And because of that, he suffered.

So he can't mean that Jesus had committed sin. But now he stopped committing sin because Scripture teaches Jesus was sinless. So he says, cease from sin. What does that mean for Jesus? He suffered in the flesh. He sees from sin. What does that mean? What means that through his death, he no longer lives in a world of sin and its consequences.

He no longer feels the temptation of sin and the power of sin. Because Jesus died.

I was thinking about this this week. I don't often think about how much the pull of sin impacts me. I don't mean when I commit the sin, I mean the rest of the time. I mean, can you imagine living in relationship with other people where you never felt the urge to say an unkind word? Can you imagine how great that would be?

I'm not even talking about the times where you say something unkind. I mean, you never feel the impulse to do it.

Whoever is suffered in this way, like Jesus suffering for righteousness sake in this life that leads to death, that's the way he's you suffered in the flesh will be free from sin. There's a day when every believer in Jesus will experience that total freedom from sin.

And you won't feel that pull, and you won't feel the consequences of it, and you won't feel any of that.

Jesus had this experience in the world of suffering, where he lived, and he died, and now he's raised and he's not in this world of suffering. And if we have the same experience in this world of suffering unto death for righteousness sake, that doesn't have to mean crucifixion. That could mean living an 85 year old. Your life. But as you go through that life, there is suffering for righteousness sake that happens.

There's the moment when you're wrongly accused and you really, really want to. Maybe respond with slander. Maybe lie to get out of the negative opinions of others around you. You really want to do that? And you say, no, I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to slander because I love my God. And right then, you're feeling suffering.

Because you say this isn't right. True. You're suffering. You're suffering in the flesh. But if that's your experience in the world, if you say, I want to follow after my God, and I'm willing to do that all the way to my death, wherever that happens, if it's Jesus being crucified at about 33, or if it's John who was exiled but lived a long human life.

You will have the same thing. Be true of you, one who has suffered in the flesh. Cease from sin, and you won't feel the pull, and you won't be under not only its power in the sense that it can reign over you, but it's power in the sense that you won't even be tempted, and you'll have that fullness of joy.

So here's the principle one who dies, because that's the way Peter uses suffering in the flesh. It might be dies now, might be later. One who dies. We'll find ultimate total freedom from sin. So we're not everybody who dies, right? No. So one who suffers in the flesh like Jesus did. Verse 17 of chapter three says, it is better to suffer for doing good than it should be, than if that should be God's will than for doing evil.

One who has their hope in God and so because of that, suffers in the flesh all the way to death will find complete freedom from sin. That's a true statement at the end of verse one, and it's a reason for why you need to arm yourselves then, because that hope is true. Arm yourselves to suffer well when it comes.

However it comes.

So he gives two bases for his command. Jesus suffered all the way to death, and one who suffers will find freedom from sin. So what's the purpose of the command when he goes on in verse two? Purpose is our ultimate freedom. If you read without the phrase at the end of verse one in between, you get the flow of Peter's thinking.

Here he says, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking. Now skip that phrase for a moment. Arm yourself with the same way of thinking, so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh, no longer for human passions, but for the will of God. Peter says, arm yourselves with this way of thinking, so that you are not dominated and ruled by the human sinful passions that wage war against your soul.

That's the way he talked about them in chapter two. And our world. We are like this by nature. Apart from Christ. We're ruled by essentially. If it feels good, do it. Now. We might have all kinds of different definitions of what feels good might be it might feel good to be disciplined and to be to seem like I've got my life put together.

It might feel good to just do whatever I want and not care who I hurt.

But by nature, apart from Christ, we are ruled by human passions. Or as he says in chapter two, passions of the flesh, natural desires that rule our lives. If it feels good, do it. Or there's a close parallel which he goes on to talk about. He doesn't just say you are individual passions, but in verse three, what the Gentiles want to do.

He says, look, even if your passions, we can talk about what those are, but the people all around you have their own desires and they're ruled by it. It's way easier to see it, by the way, when you see someone else around you being ruled by their desires. Then when you see yourself being ruled by your desires.

And so he drives them then to say, all right, let's look at these. And he lists some of the passions or desires of the Gentiles in verse three. Basically you can put them in three categories. Sexual pleasures outside of God's design, drunkenness, which could be broadened out to say being out of control or under the influence of something else.

And idolatry, which, by the way, is where people in their culture most often found sexual immorality and drunkenness was in context of idolatrous worship. And we don't have so many religious looking places for idolatry that look like that, that include sex and drunkenness. But we have all kinds of our own idolatry that aren't so obvious that can lead us to the same world.

For example, someone who idolizes control. When they don't have control of what they want to have control of, it gets to be very easy to say, well, I can at least have control of this alcohol. I'm going to go drink and numb myself. I can at least have control of what I go look at on the internet and get whatever buzz of pleasure there.

We do the same thing. We're just a little less obvious about it.

So the desires of the Gentiles, if we put these in categories, we want something we can control. That gives us a buzz of pleasure. The dopamine hit of like, yeah, this is good, or we want something to numb ourselves with.

Now, if you think about not yourself because it's harder to see in yourself, but if you think about other people, when you think of someone who's ruled by, I've got to get the next exciting thing, or I've got to numb myself and escape somehow.

That doesn't look like freedom.

It looks like slavery.

So what Peter is doing is saying this arm yourselves with a certain way of thinking for the purpose of freeing your soul from slavery to the exciting buzz or the numbing practices that come along with worshiping the wrong thing. And instead. The inverse to live for the rest of your life, for the will of God. Peter says, look, you are going into suffering.

That's going to happen. What you need to do is arm yourselves with this way of thinking, because something has changed in you. It's like Hebrews, Hebrews chapter 11, if you remember the way it describes Moses, it says he chose to be mistreated with the people of God, rather than enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin for a season.

He had a mindset about suffering. That said, when suffering comes, I take God rather than these fleeting pleasures that would rule me. He was armed. He was ready.

So as Peter gets here, he says, look, your default is to avoid suffering at all costs. That's your default, he says. Instead, you need to arm yourselves with a different way of thinking that says, yeah, I want to avoid suffering, but not at all costs. Jesus wasn't looking for suffering just to get it, but he wouldn't dishonor his father to avoid it.

One thing I want to say here. That means, in a sense, and this could be misunderstood. I think it's important to say it. It means, in one sense, as a Christian, when you fight sin, that battle alone, because it is fighting human passions and the desires of all those around you, that battle alone will sometimes feel like suffering or death.

Do you realize that the path of Christian growth is not to do whatever feels good all the time? It's not. In fact, it's it's sometimes is suffering. I was thinking the other day I was running with my son, who's doing cross-country, and we were running and we were trying to finish up. And I thought, you know, many times you could run a little bit faster at the end of a race.

Most of the time you really haven't pushed yourself all the way to 100%, but your brain lies to you, right? And it says, I can't keep doing this forever, and I don't want to keep doing it for the next hundred yards. So I'm going to slow down.

I think sometimes we do the same thing in spiritual life. And we say it feels like death and suffering for me to respond with kindness to this person right now, because they did wrong to me.

It feels like death and suffering to not pursue drunkenness or sexual pleasures that are outside of God's design, or whatever it is. And our brain lies and says, oh, you can't do that. That'll be too much suffering. And what Peter's doing is telling you, just like I told my son, realize your brain's going to lie to you that last 100 yards and run faster anyway, you can make it that far.

Peter's telling you realize. Arm yourselves with this way of thinking. It may feel like a lot of suffering, but your God is worth it.

So. The flow so far since Christ suffered on to death for you, and since his path led to glory. Arm yourselves with this way of thinking. So that you will have the freedom that God promises. To you to imagine. If you could be free from feeling like you had to have the next big thing, like how much of your life is driven by, I've got to have that next exciting thing and that next exciting thing and that next exciting thing and that next exciting thing.

And then at some point, you get to a place where you say, I'm old enough and my health is bad enough. I don't think I'm ever going to get the next exciting thing. It's not going to work out for you in the long run. Imagine if you could be free from needing that next dopamine hit. That next just buys.

Imagine if you had total freedom from the need or desire to just numb yourself and forget about everything else.

That's the kind of freedom he's looking at here. And he says, arm yourselves so that you will have that freedom.

When I ask you, what difference does Jesus make in your life? What difference? Because you notice he says. You used to do this kind of thing, but now you don't join them in this flood of evil. You don't live like that when they're looking for the next buzz of excitement and pleasure. You don't need it. There's a difference.

So what difference? Where could you say, I don't have to pursue that buzz of pleasure? Because I have Jesus. When people around you chase material possessions at all costs. Can you say I don't have to? Because I have Jesus. When they chase the pleasure, sexual immorality. I don't have to because I have Jesus.

When they look to numb themselves with alcohol or drugs or TV or food or anything else, I don't have to because I have Jesus. That might feel a little like suffering sometimes.

But it's really freedom because of what he goes on to say. Why do we need the command? Well, because we face opposition, he says. These people around you who do not follow Jesus, they're going to look at you and they're so surprised, like, how do you live without living for money and sex and pleasure and alcohol and drugs and numbing?

How do you live without that? You're crazy.

Bunch of legalistic people who just want us not to have fun. They malign you. They slander you. They're surprised when you don't do it. But God has the last word. Verse five. They will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. For this is why the gospel was preached even to those who are dead, that though judged in the flesh the way people are, they might live in the spirit, the way God does this language of gospel preached to those who are dead.

It it wasn't preached while they were dead. It's the gospel that was preached to those who are now dead. In other words, the question could come up and could say, what's the point of believing the gospel if we're going to suffer all the way to death anyway? Well, the point is, the gospel was preached to those who are now dead, so that even though they would die physically and be judged in the flesh, have the consequences of sin, because death comes upon all men, because all have sinned.

So even though they die physically, the gospel is preached before that, so that they would instead live in the spirit the way God does says, what's the point of the gospel if we're going to suffer to death? The point is, there's something after death.

So with all that. Arm yourself with this way of thinking. That's what we're called to do. And we've danced around what it is. But I want to quickly run through. So what is the way you're supposed to arm yourself with? When I come to suffer, how am I supposed to think? Well, I said you had to have three questions.

Why do I have to suffer? Why do I have to suffer this way? And who says that this suffering is necessary and even good for me? Those are our three questions. Why do I have to suffer? Well, because turning from human passions sometimes feels like death. So if you're going to say like Jesus in the garden, not my will, but thine be done, that will feel like suffering.

It did for him. He sweat drops of blood over it.

Why do I have to suffer? Because the world around me doesn't love God. So if I love God, sometimes they'll do exactly what's described here and they will malign you. They will slander you. So sometimes you suffer because they don't love God, and therefore they will say bad things about you and mistreat you. Or why do I have to suffer?

Well, because I live in a world with consequences of sin. There is sickness, there is death.

Well, why do I? Why does it matter how I suffer if I'm just going to suffer anyway? Why does it matter how I suffer? Well, verse chapter three, verse 17, because it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God's will, than for doing evil. And really, it goes all the way back to chapter two in verse 11, because the sinful passions of the flesh wage war against your soul.

So why does it matter? For the same reason that we could sit here and say, someone who has a vibrant faith in God and endures their suffering, we say, I love what I see in their heart. The same reason a nurse could say, that's the way I want to go out of this world matters a whole lot, and it's very different.

From a someone who bitterly and angrily fights to their last breath. Guards our souls. But really, the bigger question, and the more important one isn't why I have to suffer. Because sometimes we don't know a specific answer. It's not why do I have to suffer this way? Although that kind of helps us to say, okay, my soul and the way I go through suffering impacts my soul.

But it's really who says we have to suffer this way? Who is the Lord of all of it? And I said earlier, we want somebody who really knows their stuff and who's experienced it before. When Jesus looks at you and says, I walked this path, he says, you want to talk about betrayal? Okay, I can do that. You want to talk about physical pain?

I can do that. You want to talk about spiritual pain? I can do that. You want to talk about denying desires? How about 40 days in the wilderness without food?

Jesus knows exactly what is best for each of us, and Jesus has suffered and experienced it. So you arm yourselves with the thinking that my Lord does know he died for me. And if Jesus died for you because he loved you, he did not die to make you more miserable.

So when Jesus says, live this way, even if it means suffering, do you really want what's best for me? Yes, I came and died on the cross for you, not to make you more miserable, but to give you eternal life. And because Jesus suffered in the flesh, God is for you. If you are a believer in Jesus, if your faith is in him, God is not against you at all.

He's 100% for you because Jesus said, it is finished.

And when you go into suffering, here's two pieces arm yourselves. Pick up the armor that says, Jesus died for me and he didn't die to make me miserable. So this suffering is not for evil, ultimately, but for good. God works all things together for good. And then the second piece say, God is for me. He's not against me.

Third piece suffering like this leads to glory. That's exactly what he said in verse 18 of chapter three. Jesus is suffering in the flesh. Brings us to God. He said it at the beginning. In chapter one. He said, there you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary. You have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Arm yourselves with this way of thinking. Suffering leads to glory. We do it in small ways. In athletics, running sprints leads to winning in the fourth quarter. We do that all the time. We say childbirth leads to the joy of a new life.

It's harder for us to see with cancer. Before the believer, we say, the sufferings of this present time aren't worth comparing to the glory that is to be revealed. He is working in an eternal weight of glory in us.

And the last part of this mindset, last one we'll talk about today is in chapter two. Jesus didn't sin. He didn't lie. He didn't threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. And so we say, If I'm suffering here, maybe because of evil, someone is doing.

I arm myself with the mindset that says, But God, the judge of the universe, will do right. I don't know how it all works out, but I can entrust my soul just like Jesus did. Phrase says arm yourselves with the same way of thinking that Christ had when he suffered in the flesh. The Lord of the universe will do right.

The Lord of the universe is for me. Through Jesus Christ, the Lord of the universe died for me to give me joy, not misery. And so suffering like him leads to glory.

Brothers and sisters, arm yourselves, because if you don't feel like you're suffering now, you will.

Bondage to sin is never better than the freedom of the gospel. Never. Bondage to sin is never better than the freedom of the gospel. Even if following Christ feels like suffering now because God has the last word. They will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. So take up this mindset, guard your soul, worship God, follow him all the way to death, and like the promises of revelation, say.

Love him unto death and he will give you the crown of life. Suffering leads to glory it did for Jesus, and it will for all those who are in him. I invite you to take a moment. Just pray in response to God's truth.

Ask God to help each of us to take up this mindset, and ask God that our church as a whole would arm ourselves with this way of thinking.