Pastor Aaron Preaching
Bethany’s Birthday and Missions Trip Results
Sarah’s Birthday
PasXa outreach – April 2nd
Erin O’s Uncle
Erin C’s Uncle
Bethany’s Birthday and Missions Trip Results
Sarah’s Birthday
PasXa outreach – April 2nd
Erin O’s Uncle
Erin C’s Uncle
Clark's Diabetes
Mr. Charlie's Hernia
Persecuted Christians in Nigeria, Pakistan, Syria, and elsewhere
Summit in General
Text – 1 Peter 4:1-7
Persecuted Christians in Nigeria, Pakistan, Syria, and elsewhere
Summit in General
Text – 1 Peter 4:1-7
One of the beautiful things about spending a whole year in a single book is that you become to be very intimate with it, you know the ins and outs, you see things you wouldn’t see on just a cursory reading, and you begin to really appreciate both the human author and the Holy Spirit. Last week this jumped out at me that Peter is really spending a LOT of time on the Resurrection of the believer. This thought is REALLY magnified in chapter four, verse 6. This isn’t Peter’s only point in this Epistle, but it is one of his main points. It’s almost like he’s doing his best to point out the benefits of the resurrection in as many ways as he can. Remember that First Thessalonians is the Epistle to the Perfect Church, and Second Thessalonians is the Epistle to the Hopeless Church; if I were to nickname Peter’s Epistle, I would call it the Resurrection Epistle.
Besides this point, which we’re going to look at today, Peter is also really big on holiness, the fact that we are aliens and pilgrims to this world, that our home is Heaven, that the Bible is our final rule of faith and life, that the soul is eternal, that salvation is forever, that good shepherds are essential for the church, and that suffering and death are inevitable. This last point is tied directly to the issue of the resurrection.
So lets look at some verses real quick just to see this theme that Peter is working:
1 Peter 1:3-4 According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you…
1 Peter 1:9 …obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
1 Peter 1:19 …who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.
1 Peter 1:23 …since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God…
1 Peter 2:12 Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.
1 Peter 3:4 let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit,
1 Peter 3:7 since they are heirs with you of the grace of life
1 Peter 3:14-15 Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you…
1 Peter 3:18 Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the Spirit,
1 Peter 3:21 Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you,
So once again we’re skipping chapter 3, verses 8-12, the reason is because I think it will be beneficial to teach those verses with chapter 4, verses 7-11, because these verses bracket Peter’s most beautiful defense of the resurrection and fully understanding Peter’s emphasis on the resurrection will help us to see why passages on earthly living and loving the church are placed where they are.
So that leads us to chapter 4, verses 1-7:
1 Peter 4:1-7 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 past 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 are dead, that though judged in the flesh the way people are, they might live in the spirit the way God does. The end of all things is at hand.
The word used for suffering here is Pathontos, it comes from Pascho, and it is a little deeper than just pain, but it almost requires pain to death, like torture. We see this in Christ, that he suffered in the flesh, and was put to death in the flesh, but as we saw in verse 18 of chapter 3, he was made alive in the Spirit. The way Peter uses this word, it pretty much requires that it is suffering to death, as we’ll see in a bit. Paul doesn’t always use this word to death, so this is why it is so important to read things in context. Christ didn’t just suffer, right? He died, and that’s what Peter means.
v.1 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…
Luke 22:14-15 And when the hour came, he reclined at table, and the apostles with him. And he said to them, "I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.
Acts 17:3 explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, "This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ."
So we arm ourselves with this thinking, that it is both inevitable for us to die, and that Christ has gone before us, suffering for righteousness sake. It does us no good to not think about death, because beloved, we’re going to die, lest Christ comes soon. Verse 7 is powerful in this, Peter knew he was going to die, Christ had told him so, he knew there was no way he was getting out of this world alive, so he armed himself with the thinking that it is better to suffer and die for the sake of Christ than for vain things. I very much want to jump ahead, but also want to keep with Peter’s intent. So just briefly in a little while Peter is going to say don’t die for being a lawbreaker, die for being a witness for Christ.
And the beautiful part is that those who have died have ceased to sin; you can’t sin in Heaven. You can also apply this to Hell as well, that God will stop sinners from sinning, they will confess that Christ is Lord and even their unbelief will cease. This is another beautiful thing about going systematically through the Bible, it challenges wrong beliefs. Before we looked at the end of Chapter 3 I thought Jesus descended into Hell, but now I know he didn’t, and a verse in Revelation made me think there was sin in Hell,
Revelation 16:10-11 The fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and its kingdom was plunged into darkness. People gnawed their tongues in anguish and cursed the God of heaven for their pain and sores. They did not repent of their deeds.
But that verse is not about Hell, it’s people who are still alive. So to die is to stop sinning. This totally refutes the belief that God hates the sin but not the sinner. There is no sin in Hell, only sinners.
So then, if we can’t sin anymore in Heaven, should we get in as much sin on earth as we possibly can? Peter says,
v.2 so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God.
He’s going to explain a little more in a second, but the major point is coming from Christ’s suffering to bring us to God, that we live for him and walk in righteousness not to earn salvation, but to glorify Christ with the life we are given and to bring others to salvation or to leave them without excuse on Judgment Day. But haven’t we sinned enough? That is Peter’s next point:
v.3 For the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry.
The sins in the past are enough, they should remind us of our sinfulness, that we had much that we needed to be saved from. Peter says let that be enough, don’t live in the world any longer.
v.4 With respect to this they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you;
Two reasons they are surprised, first of all it sounds like Peter’s readers might have once partaken in these sins of outright paganism, and second because the Gentiles, or probably nations is a better translation here, think that this is all there is to life and are amazed that sojourning Christians do not want to sell their souls for the fleeting pleasure of sin. Notice that Peter doesn’t for a second say that these things aren’t fun or pleasurable, but his major point is that there is so much more to be inherited in Christ and so much more to lose than just a good time.
There is a ton in this verse, we’re just going to jump off a little of it. Notice the word Peter uses to describe their debauchery, or outright sinfulness, it’s flood, which is the very same thing that saved Noah and his family from the evil generation. The wages of sin is death, and payday is coming, Peter is driving for verse 7. The flood of death is stored up to wipe away the flood of sin, and it will, just as the flood of Christ’s blood has washed away the stain of the Christian’s sin. And the resurrection of Christ will bring us through the flood of death. Next is that the Gentile’s malign, or hate, make fun of, and slander, those who don’t partake of their sin. They did this to Jesus, calling him a glutton and a drunkard, yet it was totally slanderous, as he was obviously neither of those.
The world loves to call out Christian hypocrites, people who have done one thing wrong, but are still way less sinful than the world. I’ll give you a personal example; I’m not too into watching sports on TV, I like watching championship games and the occasional game, so when I was at the Superbowl this year and last I wore sports jerseys. In Tampa for the Arizona Cardinals I wore a Diamondbacks shirt, and in Miami I wore a Saints jersey with Psalm 37 on the back, which says that God will not forsake his saints. Both times I had belligerent fans heckle me about my sports addiction and that I was no better than them and that I couldn’t judge them. It was amazing how angry some of them got. The rebuttal is that 1. To the pure all things are pure. 2. I’m not addicted to sports. And 3. I wasn’t drunk and blaspheming like the hecklers were.
But in order to justify themselves in their own eyes, they need to drag the Christian down so as to try to make themselves seem ok for Judgment Day. This is obviously utter foolishness because the standard isn’t other people, but Jesus Christ himself, which is verse 5.
v.5 but they will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.
We need to remind people that they won’t be judged against us, and whether Christians totally abstain or totally partake of their sin, they are going to be judged against perfection, and making someone else look more sinful isn’t going to help at all in front of the judge.
Imagine a car thief standing in front of the judge and saying, “Well at least I didn’t murder the owner of the car like that guy did.” Sure, the other guy is more guilty, but that doesn’t absolve the guilt of the thief. On Judgment Day an account will be given by all people, the living and the dead. So here Peter realizes that the gospel seemingly doesn’t help with the death problem, that all people die. This was a big stumbling block for me before becoming a Christian, that if the Bible seemingly promises eternal life, why then do Christians die?
Friedrich Nietzsche, a famous atheist who lost his mind at the end of his life, believed that faith was worthless because both the faithful and the faithless were afflicted and died. The greatest argument against this is the resurrection, which is Peter’s next point.
v.6 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 is without a doubt my favorite verse. What is the point of preaching the gospel to people who are dead? Why did Noah preach repentance to people who would die eventually anyways? I mean, Noah was saved from the flood, but still he died at 950 years old, so why preach the gospel if we’re going to die anyways?
It’s because judgment is coming to all people, a flood of death, but through Jesus Christ’s resurrection and his application to believers, we will live in the Spirit the way God does. The gospel is not only for life, it is not only for death, it is for both. We both live a godly life and partake in the blessings of the gospel in this life, but we also trust in Christ and his righteousness and resurrection to bring us through our baptism into death, to give us a perfect will in Heaven that we will neither want to sin nor ever sin again.
My favorite verse deals with this in John 11.
John 11:25-26 Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?"
And we must remember that in all of this Peter was an eye-witness of Christ’s resurrection, the best attested to historical fact in antiquity. Peter, who was afraid of a little girl before the resurrection then stood up to kings and crowds after the resurrection. We trust in the resurrection for three major reasons, its historicity, the effect it has on people, and because the Bible says so. It is a beautiful testament to the truth of Christianity, and it helps us set our affections fully on Heaven, for here we are just sojourners, pilgrims, aliens without a permanent home, and we have no lasting city on this earth, but we seek the city that is to come, which Christ will deliver us into on his righteousness and through his resurrection.
Finally, the beginning of verse 7 gives us a character of urgency and godliness.
v.7 The end of all things is at hand.
In Second Peter he is going to make a minor addendum to this to say that while the end is at hand, it is at hand in God’s time, not necessarily our time. Because really it’s been 1950 years since Peter wrote this and the end has not yet come, and in Second Peter he is going to make a masterful defense of why not.
But ultimately in the grander scope of eternity, the end really is at hand, within our grasp. And this verse really wrecks the Left Behind view of eschatology, that the millennium is not at hand, that Christ’s kingdom is not at hand, but that the Judgment is at hand when this world will be dissolved with fire and the new Heavens and Earth will be created.
So in conclusion, we are called to suffering, both the painful kind and the kind to death. Because Christ is risen death is dead, we will be saved and will no longer be able to sin, so we strive for holiness, we stand against sin, we call others to repentance so that they will glorify God through their salvation and not through their condemnation. Our former sins are enough, we do our best to abstain from all ungodliness, and we trust wholly in the resurrection to come, because through it we will be made eternally alive in Christ, even though our bodies will die.
Besides this point, which we’re going to look at today, Peter is also really big on holiness, the fact that we are aliens and pilgrims to this world, that our home is Heaven, that the Bible is our final rule of faith and life, that the soul is eternal, that salvation is forever, that good shepherds are essential for the church, and that suffering and death are inevitable. This last point is tied directly to the issue of the resurrection.
So lets look at some verses real quick just to see this theme that Peter is working:
1 Peter 1:3-4 According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you…
1 Peter 1:9 …obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
1 Peter 1:19 …who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.
1 Peter 1:23 …since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God…
1 Peter 2:12 Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.
1 Peter 3:4 let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit,
1 Peter 3:7 since they are heirs with you of the grace of life
1 Peter 3:14-15 Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you…
1 Peter 3:18 Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the Spirit,
1 Peter 3:21 Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you,
So once again we’re skipping chapter 3, verses 8-12, the reason is because I think it will be beneficial to teach those verses with chapter 4, verses 7-11, because these verses bracket Peter’s most beautiful defense of the resurrection and fully understanding Peter’s emphasis on the resurrection will help us to see why passages on earthly living and loving the church are placed where they are.
So that leads us to chapter 4, verses 1-7:
1 Peter 4:1-7 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 past 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 are dead, that though judged in the flesh the way people are, they might live in the spirit the way God does. The end of all things is at hand.
The word used for suffering here is Pathontos, it comes from Pascho, and it is a little deeper than just pain, but it almost requires pain to death, like torture. We see this in Christ, that he suffered in the flesh, and was put to death in the flesh, but as we saw in verse 18 of chapter 3, he was made alive in the Spirit. The way Peter uses this word, it pretty much requires that it is suffering to death, as we’ll see in a bit. Paul doesn’t always use this word to death, so this is why it is so important to read things in context. Christ didn’t just suffer, right? He died, and that’s what Peter means.
v.1 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…
Luke 22:14-15 And when the hour came, he reclined at table, and the apostles with him. And he said to them, "I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.
Acts 17:3 explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, "This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ."
So we arm ourselves with this thinking, that it is both inevitable for us to die, and that Christ has gone before us, suffering for righteousness sake. It does us no good to not think about death, because beloved, we’re going to die, lest Christ comes soon. Verse 7 is powerful in this, Peter knew he was going to die, Christ had told him so, he knew there was no way he was getting out of this world alive, so he armed himself with the thinking that it is better to suffer and die for the sake of Christ than for vain things. I very much want to jump ahead, but also want to keep with Peter’s intent. So just briefly in a little while Peter is going to say don’t die for being a lawbreaker, die for being a witness for Christ.
And the beautiful part is that those who have died have ceased to sin; you can’t sin in Heaven. You can also apply this to Hell as well, that God will stop sinners from sinning, they will confess that Christ is Lord and even their unbelief will cease. This is another beautiful thing about going systematically through the Bible, it challenges wrong beliefs. Before we looked at the end of Chapter 3 I thought Jesus descended into Hell, but now I know he didn’t, and a verse in Revelation made me think there was sin in Hell,
Revelation 16:10-11 The fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and its kingdom was plunged into darkness. People gnawed their tongues in anguish and cursed the God of heaven for their pain and sores. They did not repent of their deeds.
But that verse is not about Hell, it’s people who are still alive. So to die is to stop sinning. This totally refutes the belief that God hates the sin but not the sinner. There is no sin in Hell, only sinners.
So then, if we can’t sin anymore in Heaven, should we get in as much sin on earth as we possibly can? Peter says,
v.2 so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God.
He’s going to explain a little more in a second, but the major point is coming from Christ’s suffering to bring us to God, that we live for him and walk in righteousness not to earn salvation, but to glorify Christ with the life we are given and to bring others to salvation or to leave them without excuse on Judgment Day. But haven’t we sinned enough? That is Peter’s next point:
v.3 For the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry.
The sins in the past are enough, they should remind us of our sinfulness, that we had much that we needed to be saved from. Peter says let that be enough, don’t live in the world any longer.
v.4 With respect to this they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you;
Two reasons they are surprised, first of all it sounds like Peter’s readers might have once partaken in these sins of outright paganism, and second because the Gentiles, or probably nations is a better translation here, think that this is all there is to life and are amazed that sojourning Christians do not want to sell their souls for the fleeting pleasure of sin. Notice that Peter doesn’t for a second say that these things aren’t fun or pleasurable, but his major point is that there is so much more to be inherited in Christ and so much more to lose than just a good time.
There is a ton in this verse, we’re just going to jump off a little of it. Notice the word Peter uses to describe their debauchery, or outright sinfulness, it’s flood, which is the very same thing that saved Noah and his family from the evil generation. The wages of sin is death, and payday is coming, Peter is driving for verse 7. The flood of death is stored up to wipe away the flood of sin, and it will, just as the flood of Christ’s blood has washed away the stain of the Christian’s sin. And the resurrection of Christ will bring us through the flood of death. Next is that the Gentile’s malign, or hate, make fun of, and slander, those who don’t partake of their sin. They did this to Jesus, calling him a glutton and a drunkard, yet it was totally slanderous, as he was obviously neither of those.
The world loves to call out Christian hypocrites, people who have done one thing wrong, but are still way less sinful than the world. I’ll give you a personal example; I’m not too into watching sports on TV, I like watching championship games and the occasional game, so when I was at the Superbowl this year and last I wore sports jerseys. In Tampa for the Arizona Cardinals I wore a Diamondbacks shirt, and in Miami I wore a Saints jersey with Psalm 37 on the back, which says that God will not forsake his saints. Both times I had belligerent fans heckle me about my sports addiction and that I was no better than them and that I couldn’t judge them. It was amazing how angry some of them got. The rebuttal is that 1. To the pure all things are pure. 2. I’m not addicted to sports. And 3. I wasn’t drunk and blaspheming like the hecklers were.
But in order to justify themselves in their own eyes, they need to drag the Christian down so as to try to make themselves seem ok for Judgment Day. This is obviously utter foolishness because the standard isn’t other people, but Jesus Christ himself, which is verse 5.
v.5 but they will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.
We need to remind people that they won’t be judged against us, and whether Christians totally abstain or totally partake of their sin, they are going to be judged against perfection, and making someone else look more sinful isn’t going to help at all in front of the judge.
Imagine a car thief standing in front of the judge and saying, “Well at least I didn’t murder the owner of the car like that guy did.” Sure, the other guy is more guilty, but that doesn’t absolve the guilt of the thief. On Judgment Day an account will be given by all people, the living and the dead. So here Peter realizes that the gospel seemingly doesn’t help with the death problem, that all people die. This was a big stumbling block for me before becoming a Christian, that if the Bible seemingly promises eternal life, why then do Christians die?
Friedrich Nietzsche, a famous atheist who lost his mind at the end of his life, believed that faith was worthless because both the faithful and the faithless were afflicted and died. The greatest argument against this is the resurrection, which is Peter’s next point.
v.6 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 is without a doubt my favorite verse. What is the point of preaching the gospel to people who are dead? Why did Noah preach repentance to people who would die eventually anyways? I mean, Noah was saved from the flood, but still he died at 950 years old, so why preach the gospel if we’re going to die anyways?
It’s because judgment is coming to all people, a flood of death, but through Jesus Christ’s resurrection and his application to believers, we will live in the Spirit the way God does. The gospel is not only for life, it is not only for death, it is for both. We both live a godly life and partake in the blessings of the gospel in this life, but we also trust in Christ and his righteousness and resurrection to bring us through our baptism into death, to give us a perfect will in Heaven that we will neither want to sin nor ever sin again.
My favorite verse deals with this in John 11.
John 11:25-26 Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?"
And we must remember that in all of this Peter was an eye-witness of Christ’s resurrection, the best attested to historical fact in antiquity. Peter, who was afraid of a little girl before the resurrection then stood up to kings and crowds after the resurrection. We trust in the resurrection for three major reasons, its historicity, the effect it has on people, and because the Bible says so. It is a beautiful testament to the truth of Christianity, and it helps us set our affections fully on Heaven, for here we are just sojourners, pilgrims, aliens without a permanent home, and we have no lasting city on this earth, but we seek the city that is to come, which Christ will deliver us into on his righteousness and through his resurrection.
Finally, the beginning of verse 7 gives us a character of urgency and godliness.
v.7 The end of all things is at hand.
In Second Peter he is going to make a minor addendum to this to say that while the end is at hand, it is at hand in God’s time, not necessarily our time. Because really it’s been 1950 years since Peter wrote this and the end has not yet come, and in Second Peter he is going to make a masterful defense of why not.
But ultimately in the grander scope of eternity, the end really is at hand, within our grasp. And this verse really wrecks the Left Behind view of eschatology, that the millennium is not at hand, that Christ’s kingdom is not at hand, but that the Judgment is at hand when this world will be dissolved with fire and the new Heavens and Earth will be created.
So in conclusion, we are called to suffering, both the painful kind and the kind to death. Because Christ is risen death is dead, we will be saved and will no longer be able to sin, so we strive for holiness, we stand against sin, we call others to repentance so that they will glorify God through their salvation and not through their condemnation. Our former sins are enough, we do our best to abstain from all ungodliness, and we trust wholly in the resurrection to come, because through it we will be made eternally alive in Christ, even though our bodies will die.
