SERIES: Faith Under Fire
ARM YOURSELF!
Concealed carry has been a very controversial issue in our country over the past two decades. I personally don’t like guns, but in view of the domestic terrorism that has occurred in our country recently, I am frankly rather pleased that we have a dozen or so members of our church packing heat on any given Sunday. I recall back in Missouri in 1998 there was a ballot issue called Proposition B, a measure that would have made it legal to carry a concealed weapon. The Proposition lost but in the process of studying it I learned something of which I was completely unaware. While concealed weapons remained illegal in Missouri, carrying them out in the open in most places was not. If you lived in an unincorporated area, you could strap on a holster and walk into your neighborhood 7-11 with pearl-handled revolvers hanging from your waist and a rifle over your shoulder.
Now what does all this have to do with our Scripture text for today? Not much, but my thoughts were triggered (pardon the pun) in this direction when I read Peter’s opening exhortation in chapter 4 to “arm yourselves.” Not only that, it seems clear that he wants us to arm ourselves openly so everyone can see our weapon. Let’s read the six verses at the beginning of 1 Peter 4:
“Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because he who has suffered in his body is done with sin. {2} As a result, he does not live the rest of his earthly life 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 think it strange that you do not plunge with them into the same flood of dissipation, 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 men in regard to the body, but live according to God in regard to the spirit.”
This is not an easy passage to understand, but what is clear is that it is wartime for Peter’s parishioners, spiritually speaking. Of course, it has always been wartime for believers. This world has never been a friendly place for committed Christians. In fact, if we’re completely comfortable here, it’s probably because we’re not completely committed to Christ. For some weeks now we have been hearing that we are strangers and aliens, displaced refugees, and the Apostle has been telling us how to behave in a strange and hostile land. We’ve been told to be holy, to be obedient, to be submissive, to endure unjust suffering, and to follow the example of Christ.
But now in chapter 4 Peter adds something new. He says, “arm yourselves.” Some of you may be thinking, “It’s about time. All this talk about turning the other cheek and enduring insults without revenge sounds pretty wimpy. Finally (!) we’re being told what we need to hear, namely, ‘arm yourselves.’” Well, not so fast. In arming ourselves, Peter tells us that …
Our weapon of choice should be the attitude of Christ toward suffering. (1)
“Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude . . .” In our last lesson we noted that Christ suffered alright; in fact, He suffered to the point of death. Verse 18 of chapter 3 made that clear: “For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.” He was put to death in the body. What was the attitude of Christ through His suffering and death? It was trust in God, love for His persecutors, patience, willingness to let God work things out in His timing, and a commitment to live in such a way that outsiders could see the grace of God through His life. We need to arm ourselves with the same attitude He had.
Frankly, I almost wish Peter had stopped verse 1 right there, but he goes on to make a statement that is really difficult to grasp: “Arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because he who has suffered in his body is done with sin.” I have tried to express the concept this way:
When we arm ourselves with Christ’s attitude toward suffering, we will be “done with sin.”
I have put the words “done with sin” in italics because I don’t think he means it literally. If you have heard me teach for any length of time, you know that I take Scripture literally whenever possible. I try hard to avoid massaging it or manipulating it to fit my preconceived notions. But I don’t know how to take this statement literally. I don’t know any living, breathing human being who is literally “done with sin.” Only the dead are done with sin. Oh, I know there are those who see in this verse (and a few others) evidence of a doctrine known as perfectionism, or the eradication of the sin nature. If that were true the believer could literally said to be “done with sin.” But such a doctrine creates more problems than it solves. Just consider 1 John 1:8: “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.” So Peter must be using this phrase in a different sense.
I am inclined to think that being “done with sin” is not referring to a state of moral perfection but rather a radical new attitude toward sin. It is a situation in which sin is no longer the master; it is no longer inevitable; it is no longer the norm. A parallel might be seen in what Paul says in 1 Cor. 13: “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.” He was done with childishness. Sure, but probably not 100% of the time. Even grown men can act in a pretty adolescent fashion at times. But when a real man acts childishly he is embarrassed by it and regrets it. It’s the exception, not the rule.
The true disciple of Jesus Christ is done with sin. Unfortunately, not 100% of the time. Even a mature disciple sins. But when he does, he regrets it and confesses it and purposes in his heart not to do it again. It’s the exception, not the rule. One scholar paraphrases the thought this way: “he who has suffered for his faith has made a clear break with sin.”
Now how do we get to the point of being “done with sin” in this sense? Surely all of us would like to be there. Well, looking at the whole of Scripture, certainly the first step is to be born again. No one even begins to be done with sin unless he has turned in faith to Jesus Christ for forgiveness. A second step is experiencing the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit. Even a true believer can’t avoid sin on his own; he needs the Holy Spirit’s power and presence to help him resist temptation. A third step is changing our way of thinking. Paul tells his parishioners in Romans 6 to “count yourselves dead to sin.” Cement it in your mind as a fact; get ready to act on the basis of a whole new relationship to sin. You are no longer its slave.
But now Peter adds an additional factor. He says that suffering in the body helps us come to the point of being “done with sin.” Actually it’s not too difficult to see his point in regard to deserved suffering. If you get caught speeding and get a ticket, and then it happens again, and then it happens a third time, you’re eventually going to be done with speeding, if you have any sense at all. Suffering fines and perhaps even the loss of your driver’s license can go a long way to help you be done with that particular sin. All civil and criminal penalties are designed to encourage people to be done committing crimes or violating others’ rights.
But, Peter says, unjust suffering, which has been his subject through most of this book, can also be useful in bringing us to the point of being “done with sin.” You might imagine the opposite would be the result. After all, if someone suffers unjustly, isn’t he inclined to become bitter and to take revenge? Sometimes yes, unfortunately. To be truthful, that’s the normal reaction of the unbeliever. In fact, it is probably the normal reaction of the immature believer as well. But it’s not the reaction of the true disciple of Jesus Christ.
If we arm ourselves with the same attitude Jesus had, we will endure with patience when we are persecuted or ridiculed for our faith or treated despicably for His sake. If we arm ourselves with the same attitude Jesus had, we will say as He said, “Father, forgive them.” If we arm ourselves with the same attitude Jesus had, we will trust God to come to our defense and even the score, according to His timetable.
Peter is telling us that when we follow through with a decision to obey God even when it produces physical or emotional suffering, that has a morally strengthening effect on our lives. It demonstrates that obedience is more important to us than a desire to avoid pain. Such a person is indeed “done with sin” as a controlling influence in his or her life.
Now in verses 2-4 we find some of the evidence that should be obvious when a believer is “done with sin.” Look at verse 2: “He who has suffered in his body is done with sin. As a result, he does not live the rest of his earthly life for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God.” In other words,
We will exchange evil human desires for God’s will. We will opt for a life governed not by human feelings but by God’s will. I think it’s fair to say our lives are divisible into two parts–“before Christ” and “after Christ,” or better “in Christ.” Of course, there are some people who came to faith as very small children and they don’t remember a time when they didn’t believe. Their B.C. days are nothing like a pagan’s. But even many of them recognize a time, perhaps during adolescence, when they were not living under the Lordship of Christ. We might speak of the two parts of their lives as “before Lordship” and “under Lordship.”
The important fact is that once a believer comes to the point of being “done with sin,” he does not live the rest of his earthly life the way he lived it before. While he was an unbeliever (or before he submitted to the Lordship of Christ) the controlling influence in life was evil human desires, the pursuit of pleasure, and the lust of the heart. Now it is the will of God.
While the term “will of God” is used in several different ways in the Bible, I believe Peter is here speaking of His revealed will in the Bible. The Scriptures offer scores of principles, commandments, exhortations, examples, and encouragements to help us live the rest of our earthly lives in conformity with God’s will. Every restriction and every permission in this book is for our benefit.
But, he says, secondly, we probably won’t come to this point until …
We realize that living like a pagan is a dangerous waste of time. Look at verse 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.” Nearly all of Peter’s converts came right out of paganism. They have sinned more than enough for a lifetime, and it is time to get on with a life of obedience. A few in this room could say the same thing. I’ve heard some of your testimonies.
I was talking to a relatively new attender and he told me about growing up in an unchurched home. He started carousing as a young teenager, and when he would come home in the morning after partying all night, his mom would say, “Don’t tell me what you’ve been doing, I don’t want to know.” Nor did his father care, so long as he did his chores. He was essentially out of control for 20 years. Finally, in his late 30’s, with his marriage (not surprisingly) on the rocks, he heard the Gospel and surrendered his life to Christ. This guy knows he has spent enough time in the past doing what pagans do. Now he can’t get enough Bible study. The reason he came to see me was to ask, “How can I help others who find themselves in slavery to the addictions I once had?”
You know, the way Peter writes here in verse 3, it makes me wonder if he isn’t speaking particularly to a Christian who might be considering whether to indulge in just one more unrestrained time of sin, just one more fling, just one more affair, just one more snort. Peter’s answer is clear: the time is past, you’ve wasted enough of life doing those things. Besides, those who live that way will someday have to give an account to God (v. 5). We’ll come back to that in a few moments.
Look at the list of sins that characterized the former lives of some of Peter’s listeners. It sounds like your average Animal House on some college campus. Debauchery refers to living without moral restraint, actions that disgust and shock public decency. There’s so much of this today that we aren’t even shocked like we used to be. Lust involves sexual promiscuity, but it also includes strong desires of every variety, including the lust for revenge and the lust for money and the lust for power. Drunkenness, orgies, and carousing describe a whole miserable spectrum of pleasure-seeking consumption, from wanton substance abuse to wild sexual parties. These activities didn’t start in the 60’s! When it comes to a shameless, pagan lifestyle, nothing is new.[i]
He mentions one more category–detestable idolatry, which probably refers to all kinds of religious practices that have a form of godliness but no power to change lives. What is so liberating about a relationship with Christ is that He fills the void in our lives that we once tried to fill with all this garbage.
Now there’s a third thing that will happen when we arm ourselves with Christ’s attitude toward suffering, another evidence that we are “done with sin.”
We will learn that living like a Christian can be very costly. Look at verse 4: “They (i.e. your former pagan friends) think it strange that you do not plunge with them into the same flood of dissipation, and they heap abuse on you.” Maybe a person has been a problem drinker in the past, and now as a new person, when they go to an office function they get strange looks when they ask for a Diet Coke. Maybe at school you’re referred to as a Bible Thumper or Miss Goody Two Shoes. You know something, a lifestyle of restraint on our part, no matter how tactful we try to be, will make some people uncomfortable. It may even make them defensive and angry, causing them to lash out as though in living a godly lifestyle we were judging theirs.
Sometimes the weird looks can even turn into abuse. In most of our major universities you find that postmodernism and deconstruction have so infiltrated the faculties and the curriculum that Christians are completely marginalized. Two decades ago in U.S. News and World Report, commentator John Leo (certainly no member of the Christian right) lamented what is happening to our academic culture.
Leo had just returned from taking his 16-year-old daughter and her girlfriend to see some colleges over spring break–ten campuses in five days, all in New England. She must be bright, because these were all Ivy League schools. He was priding himself for being polite at the various information sessions and not asking embarrassing questions, but he shared some of the questions he would like to have asked with his readers:
“At Yale, I did not ask why the university refused to accept a $20 million donation from the Bass family of Texas for studies in Western civilization…. You can bet that if the $20 million had been earmarked for courses in “queer theory,” or a new department of gender studies, Yale would have snatched the check from the Bass lawyers before the ink was dry.
At Boston College, I awarded myself lots of moral credit for not bringing up Mary Daly, the high-status, man-hating, radical lesbian professor…. For over 20 years, she banned males from her class. The school finally told her to stop, but she took a leave of absence instead….
The American campus is very different from what it was 15 or 20 years ago–(this was written 20 years ago!) heavily politicized, doctrinaire, obsessed with race and gender, contemptuous of all things white and Western…. Reason … is now a villain on campus. Feelings, identity, and personal opinion are kings.
The intellectual climate of meaninglessness and breakdown pervades our colleges. I recently heard from an old friend, a professor, who wrote that he is surrounded by a new crop of young professors who are total nihilists: “They don’t believe in anything at all.”[ii]
And he doesn’t even touch upon the moral cesspool these campuses have become. But he does ask, “Do the fresh-faced students and their parents have any inkling of what they are getting into?” Friends, if John Leo, a well-known member of the media elite, feels like an alien on Ivy League campuses, imagine how a committed evangelical is going to feel? Yes, when we arm ourselves with Christ’s attitude toward suffering, we will learn that living like a Christian can be very costly.
We began our study this morning with the fact that our weapon of choice in the spiritual war should be the attitude of Christ toward suffering. Second, we learned that when we arm ourselves with Christ’s attitude toward suffering, we will be “done with sin,” not in the sense of never being tempted or never failing, but in the sense of a radical new attitude toward sin. Third, I want us to note in verses 5 & 6 that …
When we arm ourselves with Christ’s attitude toward suffering, we will discover that the future is not fearful. (5-6)
At least not for us. True, those who live like pagans will have to give account to God at the judgment. Having just talked about how our former pagan friends will think it strange when we no longer join them in their sin and how they will even heap abuse on us, he now puts that in perspective with a very important fact: “But they will have to give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.”
There are two great judgments coming–one for believers, called the Judgment Seat of Christ, and the other for unbelievers, called the Great White Throne Judgment. Clearly, Peter is referring here to the latter. Both are serious judgments, and in both judgments the defendants will have to give an account to God. But that’s where the similarity ends. All those at the Judgment Seat of Christ will be ushered into heaven. They will receive varying degrees of reward, varying privileges and responsibilities, but they will all be in God’s presence. On the other hand, all those at the Great White Throne Judgment will be thrown into the Lake of Fire.
Here’s the point. When you suffer ridicule at the hands of unbelievers, even former pagan friends, it’s a good thing to remember their destiny. Unless they repent of their sins and come to faith in Christ, they will go to hell, where their ridicule will sound pretty hollow.
But the Gospel message for the believer is that bad news for the body now doesn’t interfere with good news for the spirit later. Verse 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 men in regard to the body, but live according to God in regard to the spirit.” Let’s set aside for a moment a little problem phrase (“even to those who are now dead”), so we can concentrate on Peter’s main point. We’ll come back to that phrase in a few moments, but it’s easier to understand the main point without it: “For this is the reason the gospel was preached, so that they (i.e. those who accept it) might be judged according to men in regard to the body, but live according to God in regard to the spirit.”
The Gospel is the good news that God has taken care of our sin problem by allowing His Son to die in our place. It’s the good news that everyone who puts his or her faith in Jesus Christ is born again, becomes a new creation, and will spend eternity with God in heaven. But we need to realize that the Gospel does not contain good news about this world or about how we’re going to be treated in it. In fact, there is a good deal of temporary bad news predicted for those who wish to be disciples of Jesus Christ.
There is no promise of health or wealth in this life. If anything there is the opposite promise. Peter holds that God permits us to be judged by men in regard to the body, just as He permitted men to judge His Son. He permits us to be persecuted, just as He permitted His Son to be persecuted. He permits us to suffer unjustly, just as He permitted His son to suffer unjustly. But while all that is bad news for the body now, the Gospel guarantees good news for the spirit later. That good news is that everyone who receives Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior is given life everlasting.
At the same time I don’t want us to conclude from this that Christianity is only pie in the sky by and by. Despite the suffering, the rejection, and the abuse to which we are susceptible, we are also promised abundant life here and now. That may sound like a contradiction, but it’s not. Paul, who suffered more than anyone here this morning has ever suffered, lived life to the full. He refused to allow the trials he faced to drag him down or destroy his joy. And there are plenty of promises in the Bible that give us good reason to wake up in the morning with a smile on our face, anticipating what a good and kind God is going to provide for our enjoyment.
Now I told you I would come back to that little phrase, “even to those who are now dead.” Who are these dead people who have the Gospel preached to them? The key word is “now.” That is the translator’s interpretation, but I think he is correct. They are dead now; they weren’t dead when the Gospel was preached to them. This is not a Gospel of the Second Chance being preached to those already dead, a view clearly contradicted in many other passages. I suspect Peter has principally in mind the first century martyrs. He is saying that those who heard the Gospel and responded, even if they were subsequently killed for their faith, would be vindicated ultimately before God. The reason the Gospel is preached to anyone is so that bad news now can be turned into good news later.
The whole thrust of this passage has been “the moral value of suffering.” We must be honest, I think, and admit that suffering is largely outside the normal experience of the vast majority of Western Christians today. I have tried to apply this teaching to those in the business world or in school who are criticized or ridiculed, but that’s a far cry from the martyrdom that was common in Peter’s day. So what do we do with such a passage? Let me suggest several options. First, we should thank God more than we do for the lack of suffering in our lives and for the freedoms we enjoy. Second, we need to prepare ourselves for future suffering, because I firmly believe it’s coming. Our culture is becoming increasingly hostile to people of faith. And third, we need to pray more for the persecuted church–in China, in Albania, in Sudan, in North Korea. These are our brothers and sisters in Christ, and I suspect many of them have much to teach us about being “done with sin.”
I want to conclude my message in an unusual way this morning–by reading our passage again. Only this time I want us to read it from the New Living Translation.
So then, since Christ suffered physical pain, you must arm yourselves with the same attitude he had, and be ready to suffer, too. For if you are willing to suffer for Christ, you have decided to stop sinning. And you won’t spend the rest of your life chasing after evil desires, but you will be anxious to do the will of God. You have had enough in the past of the evil things that godless people enjoy–their immorality and lust, their feasting and drunkenness and wild parties, and their terrible worship of idols.
Of course, your former friends are very surprised when you no longer join them in the wicked things they do, and they say evil things about you. But just remember that they will have to face God, who will judge everyone, both the living and the dead. That is why the Good News was preached even those who have died–so that although their bodies were punished with death, they could still live in the spirit as God does. (1 Peter 4:1-6, New Living Translation)
DATE: December 17, 2017
Tags:
Suffering
Weapons
Sin
God’s will
[i] Charles Swindoll, Hope Again, 170.
[ii] John Leo, U.S. News and World Report, April 19, 1999, 19.