1 Peter 4.1-6
Introduction:
I’m going to make a statement as we get started, and I want you to think about it for a moment.
The statement was made by H.A. Ironside, one of the most able Bible communicators the world has ever known.
Statement (slowly my boy!): God Forbid that we should traffic in unlived truth.
Did you catch that? (repeat it)
May it never be tthe case that we hear the truth, that we sing the truth, that we memorize the truth, that we speak the truth, but that we don’t live. . . the truth.
Sometimes Christians can do everything with the truth but live it.
This is probably the case very often if not most often in the area of victorious Christian living. Every Christian alive would admit that the Bible teaches we have victory over sin. The truth of God’s Word makes it clear that we are dead to sin and alive to God (Romans 6- a passage we have studied)
But how to get that into the lving, that’s the tough part! Very often in the Christian life, it’s not the doctrine we struggle with, it’s the how to live that doctrine, with which we struggle.
This morning I would like to offer you three of the principles which will help promote victorious Christian living, especially as it relates to victory over sin.
Beware, this is not a comprehensive plan on overcoming sin. That is not how Peter intended it. He wrote it to be a motivation to holy living.
1 Peter 4:1-6
Big Idea: Every Christian can be a victorious Christian
I. We must let difficulties bring about purity in our lives (vs. 1, 2)
II. We must let the past stay in the past (vs. 3, 4)
III. We must live the present in the light of the future (vs. 5, 6)
I. We must let difficulties bring about purity in our lives (vs. 1, 2)
A. Peter begins by refereing back to the difficulties of Christ in 3:17, 18 (read it)
1. When Peter says that Christ suffered for sins, he speaks as an authority. He saw it happen.
2. Why did Christ suffer? What was His thinking? What was His purpose or “mind” as Peter says. Christ suffered because He knew that it was the will of the Father! His purpose was to do God the Father’s will.
a. Christ didn’t need to die for Himself (He had no sins of His own that needed cleansing)
b. He, the Just One, suffered for you and I the unjust ones so that we could be brought to God for all eternity.
You’ve heard the statement, “Christians aren’t perfect, they’re just forgiven?” That is so true. Forgiven because Jesus was willing to die on the cross for our sins.
He did it in submission to the Father’s will.
3. Peter says, in verse one, now “arm” yourselves with the same “mind, purpose or intent as you see in Christ.”
a. What Peter means is, that as we contemplate those difficulties in our lives, whatever they may be, we need to look at them from God’s perspective.
b. He wants us to see His hand in that with which we are struggling. That’s not easy.
c. To accept a difficult set of circumstances as being the will of God, trusting in His purposes is to “arm” ourselves.
d. Kenneth Wuest notes that the noun of the same root word was used of a heavily armed Greek foot soldier who carried a pike and a large shield. This is not just light armament. This is the heavy artillery!
e. If, in that trial, we readily accept that it has come from God, that He is doing something with our lives, making us into something that He wants us to be, then we will be armed for whatever may come.
Notice that Christ accepted His trial as from God, even to the point of giving up His physical life.
Illustration:
The following story comes Walter Maier in Decision magazine
“A shipwrecked man managed to reach an uninhabited island. There to protect himself against the elements and to safeguard the few possessions he had salvaged, he painstakingsly built a little hut from which he constantly and prayerfully scanned the horizon fo rth eapproach of a ship. Returning one evening after a search for food, he was terrified to fing the hut completely enveloped in flames. Yet by divine mercy this hard affliction was changed into a migyhty advantage. Early the following morning he awoke to find a ship anchored off the island. Whent eh captain stepped ashore, he explained, ‘we say your smoke signal and came.’ Everyhting th emarroned man owned had to be destroyed before he could be rescued.”
Okay, so what are some of the benefits that come out of accepting this difficulty in my life as coming from God?
B. The benefits of arming ourselves (the benefits of accepting troubles as being formt eh hand of God)
1. Trials break the stranglehold of sin in the Chrsitins life. I believe Charles Ryrie says it best when he observes that Peter is syaing that the “dominion of sin is broken”
a. This doesn’t mean that we will never sin again.
b. This is not sayihg that Christ needed His suffering to help break sin form His life
c. What it does mean is that trials help us become victorious Christians.
Illustartion:
Have you ever seen the dishoap commerial? You know, the one where there is a sink full of dirty greasy dishwater. You can see the grease floating on top of the water. Then the person in the commercial comes along with a bottle of Dawn (or whatever soap it is) and puts a drop of it in the water. Immediately the grease separates as the soap hits the water. The saop cuts the grease.
That’s what trials do in the life of the Christian. They cut the sin. According to Peter, it’s the pain, the suffering the trials, the times of loneliness, the times of hurt, the times of being ostracized, the times of pain, even physical pain that make us more like Christ. These times function as a cleansing time. A time when the vestiges of sin are removed from our lives.
But the trick is, we have to arm ourselves.
That is, if we want trials to make us more like Christ, we msut accept the difficult times as being whaqt God wants.
Instead of trying to ignore the trials, numbly making our way through, hoping they’ll go away. Nver asking ourselves, how should I ahndle this.
Instead of getting bitter.
Arming ourselves. Are we armed and ready this morning? Ready to let those trials be the instruments God uses to purify our lives.
2. Verse 2 tells us that those who have so armed themselves spend the rest of their lives:
a. not living for the lusts of men
b. living for the will of God
How do we want to spend the rest of our days as Christians? Being swayed back and forth by the lusts of mere men? Or do we want to live life victoriously, wlaking to the cadence of God’s drum? Doing what He desires.
It all starts with the armament. Accept the trial because it’s God’s will. That leads to cleansing. Cleansing leads to victory.
II. We must let the past stay in the past (vs. 3, 4)
You can almost hear Peter saying “enough is enough! Alright already!” You used to live that way. But now, after having received Jesus Christ as your Savoir, you’re different.
Paul says it this way in 2 Corinthians 5:17- Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; begold all things are become new.”
A. There are two wills at work upon the believer. Two wills in conflict
1. “The will of God”- end of verse two
2. “The will of the Gentiles”- antoher way of saying the unsaved world verse three
3. Which will we choose?
B. The list of the will of the Gentiles (vs. 3)
1. Lashciviousness- lust out of control
2. Lusts
3. Drunkenness
4. revelings- literally a group of drunks making their way through the streets singing as they go
5. banquetings- drinking parties. When I was in high school they used to call them “keggers” because they had a keg of beer there.
6. abominable idolotries-
It seems as if Peter has in mind certain particular parties that used to take place in that time period. Very specific things are mentioned in his description. Many of these parties were celebrated in connection with some idol.
But he says, that’s in your past, be sure and leave it there.
C. There are just three things about this being in the past that I would like to mention before I move on
1. Often Christians have a hard time with letting go of what is behind them. Something that they did in the past that keeps bothering them in the present, keeping them from moving forward in the Christian life.
Notice Peter does not say in this section, “you need to keep beating yourself over the head for those things.” No, Peter has already stated in the book (1:2) that the blood of Christ has cleansed them. They need to live in that cleansing, pick up and go on. We cannot change the past. All we can do is accept respoinsibility for what we have done, bring it to the blood of the cross and leave it there.
2. Enjoy living out the new life. Don’t go back to those things. Those lusts of the Gentiles.
Illustration: I have shared this with some of the people on Wednesday eveing, but I think it bears repeating.
“A small boy watched as his father used a hatchet to remove the head of a chicken. After the head was removed,m the chicken began to dance about. The boy said, '‘ook Daddy, he'’ dead and doesn'’ know it.’ ”
As Christians, we must never forget that we are dead to sin, and that we don’t have to obey sin. It’s in the past. It’s under the blood. No reason to feel guilty, no reason to go back to doing the same things again.
The “dominion of sin has been broken.”
3. Thirdly, look at how the world responds when they see a victorious Christian (vs. 4)
a. They think you’re odd. A little strange. They are surprised. They have never seen anyone who does not want to do what they do.
b. The idea is actually that they are offended by it
c. They can’t figure out why victorious Christians don’t live a life of excess of riot, that is a life of waste spiritually speaking.
d. They begin to malign or speak badly of the Christian.
So the point this morning is, “is there something in our lives that was done in the past that is negatively affecting the way we live in th epresent. Maybe it’s time we shed the things of the past, the worries of the past, so that we can live victoriously.
III. We must live the present in the light of the future (vs. 5, 6)
One day, we all will give an account to God for how we have lived. But Peter here is particularly speaking of the account that must be given by the unsaved
A. “Account”- simply means answer, word, message. God is going to have a word one day with the unsaved. And it won’t be a pretty ordeal.
B. Does this make us happy, thaqt one day those who malign us will stand before the throne? That they will one day receive payment for their lifestyle?
C. No it doesn’t. As a matter of fact, Peter goes on in verse 6 to sya, in view of this account that must be given by the unsaved, we share the gospel.
1. Notice Peter is not saying it’s preached to people who are in the grave, but more likely to those who used to be alive but are now dead. Tnhey don’t have a second chance.
2. When he says, “jusdeged according to men in the flesh” he is meaning that they die physically like all men.
3. Bu tthose who receive the gospel live spiritually speaking even after they have died physically!