A Christian Mindset
Notes
Transcript
If you have your Bible (and I hope you do), please turn with me to 1 Peter. If you are able and willing, please stand for the reading of God’s Holy Word.
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. 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. 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. 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.
May God add His blessing to the reading of His Holy Word!
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What Peter writes is about here is the need for his early readers to have the mind of Christ. To have the mind of Christ. To share His perspective. To think like Him.
Likewise, those who carry the name of Christ should expect to live like Christ. To suffer as He suffered.
Just last week we read that Jesus suffered in the flesh. We, too, will suffer. We who are united with Christ will suffer. Things will go for us much like they went for Him.
Jesus suffered and died. He was raised from the dead and has been glorified.
In Him, Christians will suffer. Christians die. But Christians have been promised resurrection from the dead. Reward and inheritance awaits.
For what we will face, we need a Christian mindset. We need a proper understanding. A Christian way of thinking. Our purpose needs to be the same as Christ’s purpose. We must learn to think like Him.
So Peter, describing the Christian mindset, says God’s people must:
Be Armed with the Attitude of Christ (v. 1)
Be Armed with the Attitude of Christ (v. 1)
1 Peter 4:1 “Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude…”
Are you armed? From the time you were a young, many of you have carried a pocket knife. Others carry a sidearm. Some of us have two deadly weapons with us all the time.
18-19 years ago, I was at lunch with Jan and Charlie. Jan and Charlie were mid-60s, church members, and good friends. At some point during lunch, Charlie took out his handgun and sat it on the table. It was bothering him, he said.
I asked, jokingly, if Jan was also “packing.” She smiled, mouth full of food, picked up her handbag, tapped on the top of it, and nodded her head.
It was unexpected that this sweet grandma had a 9mm locked-and-loaded, sitting in her purse, right next to her compact and car keys. She was armed. Always armed, I soon learned.
Are you armed? Not with knife or gun or fists, but armed with the mind of Christ?
Arm yourself also with the same attitude…
The verb arm yourself occurs only here in the NT. A related word is used to speak about a foot soldier in the Greek army. The expression is used here to describe the struggle of the moral life.
In 1 Peter 2:11 Peter speaks of waging war. It’s the same idea. Same figurative language. This wording was common among Greek and Roman philosophers. It’s frequent in the NT, too (Paul uses the idea of a Christian’s armor throughout his letters).
Christians need to be armed. We need discipline and a Holy Spirit grittiness. Especially when we consider the suffering that believers in Christ will encounter.
Like soldiers preparing for battle. Or like my friends Jan and Charlie preparing for an potentially dangerous lunch in Topeka, Kansas, believers should prepare themselves for suffering.
Arm yourselves for suffering. Arm yourself with Christ’s attitude. His thinking. His understanding. His purpose. His mind.
Christians must regularly arm themselves, not with physical weaponry but with a particular attitude or disposition or mindset when it comes to suffering for their faith.
Jesus willingly embraced suffering. A godly life brings on suffering. We must endure unjust treatment (slander, ridicule, rejection, social ostracism) if we identify ourselves with Him. We who bear His name will face suffering.
Arm yourselves with the same attitude…
Paul wrote to the Philippians a similar instruction.
Philippians 2:5 “…have the same mindset as Christ Jesus…”
A good portion of the time, we don’t have His mindset or His attitude, do we? We are, for all intents and purposes, unarmed.
Mark Twain or Winston Churchill or someone once said, “Never enter into a battle of the wits with an unarmed man.”
Uncle Lee always said he wouldn’t feel right about engaging me in a battle, unarmed as I was.
My fear is that a good number of us who bear Christ’s name don’t share His attitude toward suffering. We certainly haven’t armed ourselves with His attitude, His mindset, His way of thinking...
We are sadly, regrettably unarmed.
Arming ourselves with the mind of Christ is far more important than arming ourselves physically.
12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
We need to be armed to face the battle before us. Armed in our struggle against the spiritual forces of evil. Armed in preparation for suffering
If we’re armed, let us be armed with a mind like Christ’s. An attitude like Jesus’.
The reason believers/Christians should embrace this mindset is this: to do so is to cease from sin, to be done with sin.
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.
That last phrase in verse 1 is a little tricky. There are few different views on what this phrase means—because whoever suffers in the body is done with sin.
The point is not that believers who suffer don’t sin. This is not sinless perfection. As if there’s no sin after suffering.
One scholar helps us to understand what’s being said:
“What Peter is emphasizing is this: those who commit themselves to suffer, those who willingly endure scorn and mockery for their faith, show they have triumphed over sin. They have broken with sin. They don’t participate in the activities of unbelievers. They must endure the criticisms that have come from such a decision.”
The commitment to suffer reveals an intention to live a new life. A life that is not perfect, but is remarkably different from the lives of unbelievers.
The point? The Christian mindset is one that determines to:
Break with Sin and Follow God’s Will (vv. 1b-4)
Break with Sin and Follow God’s Will (vv. 1b-4)
To make a break with sin is to resolve something. It’s a resolve NOT to live the remainder of one’s earthly life for earthly passions.
This is the overflow of our Christian mindset. The overflow of having the mind of Christ. We must begin by thinking clearly.
You see, everyone who suffers for Jesus has decided, somewhere along the line, to choose to follow Jesus instead of following their heart.
There has been, in the Christian’s mind, a clear break with sin. They do no live the rest of their earthly lives for evil human desire.
The person armed with the attitude of Christ is no longer shaped by the desires of sin.
Peter has written about this already. 1 Peter 1:14 “As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance.”
Jesus spoke about a decisive break with sin. Jesus urged a break with sin in the strongest possible terms:
8 If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire. 9 And if your eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell.
Sinful desires don’t “up and leave” when someone becomes a Christian. But the Holy Spirit within the Christian makes a new heart, with new desires. And we learn to follow another path.
Peter has a pretty logical argument in verse 3. He says, “For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do...”
The logic is clear. You’ve spent enough time doing that; time to do something else.
It’s time to [live] for the will of God.
Peter wants his readers to make a commitment to the will of God. Believers should live the rest of their lives for God’s will.
There are two ways of life. One way is determined by the will of God. The other is determined by evil human desires / what pagans choose to do.
Those who have been given new life through Christ will look with fear and revulsion at the lifestyle that once swept them along with the crowd.
It’s the will of God or the will of the pagans. The two cannot be blended; no one can serve two masters.
The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard tells a parable of the disastrous effects of not putting to death the desires of the flesh, of failing to leave a way of life behind.
One springtime a duck was flying with his friends northward across Europe. During the flight he came down in a barnyard where there were tame ducks. He enjoyed some of their corn. He stayed for an hour, and then for a day. One week passed, and before he knew it a month had gone by. He loved the good food, so he stayed all summer long.
One autumn day, when the same wild ducks were winging their way southward again, they passed overhead, and the duck on the ground heard their cries. He was filled with a strange thrill and joy, and he desired to fly with them once again. With a great flapping of wings he rose in the air to rejoin his old comrades in flight.
But he found that his good fare (all that good food) had made him so soft and heavy that he could rise no higher than the eaves of the barn. He dropped back again into the barnyard and said to himself, “Oh well, my life is safe here, and the food is good.”
Every spring and autumn when he heard the wild ducks honking, his eyes would gleam for a moment, and he would begin flapping his wings. But finally the day came when the wild ducks flew overhead uttering their cries, but he paid no attention. In fact, he failed to hear them at all.
What an apt parable for the church in our time. As Christians, too many of us have feasted for too long on the pleasant fare this world has to offer.
We too easily forget that the time past was enough. We forget that we are still far from home—we haven’t arrived at our destination yet.
Sadly, many go on day by day unfazed by the gospel thought that as we feed on the husks of this world we demonstrate that we think too little of the delights that await us in Heaven.
Peter says to us, “Enough. Rise up, O men of God. Have done with lesser things.”
Breaking with sin, Christian, is absolutely the right thing to do. It’s a shift in mindset. It’s a change. It’s repentance. Turning from this, and turning toward Christ.
It’s giving up your former way of life. It’s about learning to walk in the way of the LORD.
Verse 4 is clear. Those who aren’t Christians will not understand. They’ll be surprised you don’t join in. For the Christian to forsake their former lifestyle is strange.
For one, it’s what you used to do. Peter even tells his readers they spent enough time doing that stuff.
What’s more, unbelievers consider these things normal cultural activities. The combination of sexual sin, drinking, and parties was as common then as it is now.
But Christians have made a break from those things.
Making a break with sin will lead to suffering; they will heap abuse on you. They’ll mock you. They will make fun, ridicule, harass.
But this suffering is not forever. For those with the mind of Christ, for those with Christ’s attitude, we know there’s something more.
We have to
Believe God has the Last Word (vv. 5-6)
Believe God has the Last Word (vv. 5-6)
As Peter is writing this letter, he keeps pointing his readers to the future. Future glory. Future inheritance.
The unbelievers, the pagans in Peter’s day were living it up. Having a grand ol’ time. They were likely enjoying the favor and privileges of Greco-Roman society.
But, here’s the truth: present circumstances are not the final reality.
Those who live for human desires, those who live reckless/wild lives, those who heap abuse upon Christ’s people will give an account to God.
This is verse 5: 1 Peter 4:5 “But they will have to give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.”
Believers are here reminded that the abuse from unbelievers is not the last word. It’s not the last word!
God, at the end of all things, will judge the living and the dead. Or, if you prefer, God, at the end of all things, will judge the quick and the dead.
When a believer suffers—and they will—they don’t need to resort to vengeance. They don’t need to insist on the last word.
God stands ready to settle all accounts. And He will do that better than we could.
When you’re tempted to repay evil for evil, remember what Jesus said to do.
When you find yourself good and vengeful, remind yourself that God will judge (and that’s way more serious than anything we could mete out).
Even more, Christian, be encouraged that Jesus has taken your sin and shame. Jesus has given you a new life, free from the justice your sins deserve.
God has the last word.
When the chief priests and teachers of the law had Jesus crucified, they thought that was that. They thought they’d taken care of Him for good. But God has the last word. He raised Jesus from the dead, securing our justification.
When the unbelieving world mocks and slanders the Christian community, it feels unending. It seems to get worse and worse, more and and more. It’s clear the Christian perspective, the Biblical perspective is in the minority. But God has the last word. He will vindicate. He will come to our defense. He will judge the quick and the dead.
Peter, in verse 6, considers the case of the believers who had died physically already. These people had heard and believed the gospel when they were alive. And then they’ve died.
Remember: the early church had lots of questions about their family members and friends who died after coming to faith in Jesus.
They wondered what happened after death to those who believed in and belonged to Jesus.
Just as Jesus died physically and was raised to life in the Spirit, a similar destiny awaits Christians.
Christians die physically.
But Christians will be raised to life in the end.
We have nothing to fear in embracing Christ. We have nothing to fear in embracing suffering in this life.
Peter wants us to grasp this. This is part of our calling.
The LORD God has the last word.
>Peter knows Christians will suffer. It’s just part of the Christian life in this fallen world.
It’s really just a question of our mindset. What’s our attitude toward suffering? What do we think about suffering?
For what we will face, we need a Christian mindset. We need a proper understanding. A Christian way of thinking.
Brothers and sisters, adopt a Christian mindset. Our purpose needs to be the same as Christ’s purpose. We must learn to think like Him.
The same Spirit that “set us free from the law of sin and death” has taken up residence within us, producing in us that “mind-set” which tends toward the doing of God’s will and resists the ways of the flesh. - Douglas J. Moo
Arm yourself with His mindset.
Break from sin and follow Him.
Trust God will have the last word.