This is the reading of God's own word. 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're surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery and they malign you, but they will give an 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. Reading of God's word, amen. Please have a seat. Let's open with prayer. Our Lord God, please be with us now. May you speak, and may your people be faithful to hear. We pray that you would build us up to live the life that you have called us to live, and that turns out to be one that is filled with suffering. Make us faithful. Make us strong. Please bless this time, Lord. We dedicate it to you. It is in Jesus' name we pray, amen. You know, I think that I hadn't strategized it all that much, but you name a sermon like this, right? Let's get ready to suffer. And I think the way you do it and you really pull it off is you do it on Lord's Supper Sunday when everyone has to be here anyway. This is a good showing for a sermon titled, Let's Get Ready to Suffer. We've had a lot of talk about suffering. In this book, Peter's had a lot to tell us along those lines. He's talked about suffering for what is good, not suffering for doing evil. You remember that? More recently, he talked about that Christ suffered. If you recall the phrasing, it was the righteous one for the unrighteous many. And because he suffered, we suffer. That's the reasoning, essentially. Because Jesus Christ suffered, his people suffer. We follow in that very same path. And so Peter is calling us to prepare ourselves to suffer. Prepare yourself to suffer because Christ suffered. The first verse is, again, we'll just start with one and two. 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. Are you ready to suffer for your faith? Are you ready? We need to be reminded so often to expect it, to expect that we as his people must suffer, must be ready to suffer. Jesus, what did he do? He suffered. What did Jesus tell us to expect? Suffering. Peter here reminds us again We will suffer. Brothers and sisters, we should be making plans around this, it is so certain. Let us be shocked if our lives do not lead us down a suffering path and we are faithful to Christ still. But otherwise, let us be prepared to suffer. How will you handle it when the suffering comes? you personally, not you abstractly, how will you handle suffering? Are you ready to be mocked? Are you ready to be insulted? Are you ready to be discriminated against? Are you ready for people to lay violent hands upon you? Are you ready for people to shut down your business or your livelihood? I fear that too many of us are just sort of figuring that we'll figure it out when the moment comes. I would wager then that that means you are not prepared to suffer. Are you prepared for the suffering that is coming? Peter's point is that we are following Jesus. So we expect the treatment Jesus received. We've heard that elsewhere too. We expect the treatment that Jesus received. So let us stop expecting popularity. Don't you find you go someplace and you might even be like, why don't they like me? I'm being a really good person to them or whatever it is. But I mean, if you were preparing to suffer, shouldn't it just be like, well, that makes sense. That makes sense that they're treating me like that. Stop expecting acceptance. If we're called to suffer, why are we thinking that we are going to be accepted wherever we go? Stop expecting prosperity. Why is it, do we think that the Christian life, if faithfully lived, will add up to us having this healthy, wealthy way of living where we get to retire at 55 and go on and enjoy ourselves the rest of the time? Why would we expect prosperity when the Lord promised suffering? Expect suffering. Expect it, anticipate it, plan for it. Now, Peter here, he talks about suffering in the flesh. And that's an important idea just at the very get-go, because we've got some work to do here again. And it's an important distinction to make. Suffering in the flesh. If you just took that out of the book and you said, what's he talking about? If you've read your Bible much, you're inclined to hear flesh in that negative tone, right? Like Paul talking about that the flesh is hostile to God. But we have to be clear here that Peter doesn't seem to be meaning it in the same way that Paul has meant it in some of his writings, and that's okay. I mean, the way you can tell just right off the get-go is he's talking about Jesus suffering in the flesh. He's not saying Jesus is a sinner, right? He's not saying Jesus is walking in the hostile ways to God. Peter means that Jesus suffered in the realm of regular human flesh, in its weakness, in its vulnerability. This is one of those notes to make for yourself that when you're reading the Bible, make sure that you're not imposing standards that that text isn't answering to. We have every reason to expect that Peter and Paul, in their theology, totally agreed with each other. I have no problem with that. We believe that. Doesn't mean they use the same words in all the same ways. Peter talks about suffering in the flesh and he doesn't mean it in the negative way that you might take it if you were reading too quickly. And so once we have that straight, we get to tackle a little bit more difficult of a part. If you pick back up in that verse, and we say about the second half of verse one, Is your radar picking up any possible problems there? Peter says that the one who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin. Do you think he's talking about sinless perfection? If you just suffer enough, then you will be perfect. Well, the testimony of the scriptures as a whole would lead us to take a very different interpretation than that. I mean, everything from, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 1 John 1.8 was John talking about sinless perfection. Doesn't sound like it. The Apostle Paul ever being able to describe himself as the chief of sinners. And that was a man who suffered. Why wasn't he perfect if we're looking for sinless perfection? Now, the Bible doesn't lead us to expect perfection in this life. And even if all we had was just Peter's letter here, Peter's teachings don't line up with an idea of suffering being that easy shortcut to Christian perfection. Peter views the suffering of these people. Remember, he's talked about a good amount of suffering here. He views the suffering of these people as an opportunity either to follow Christ or to fall into sin. It's not like there's some nice clean path through where you'll just arrive at perfection on the other side if you suffer enough. Each relationship, every trial, it is another battle to fight. It is another choice to make. No one has arrived at perfection, not yet. The better way to take this text, the better way to understand it, is to think about a Christian's intent in following Christ, in living their life the way God has called them to do. What have they chosen to live for? Peter, I believe, has in mind the Christian who suffers instead of going along with the sinful passions of the world. And you think of it, when a Christian chooses to live for the will of God, rather than following the ways of the world, that person is making a very stark decision and they are making a break with the world. I'm not going the easy way anymore. I'm not going with this flood of debauchery anymore. I will follow Christ. They choose to be done with sin. They choose to cease from sin. And that doesn't mean perfectly. Imperfectly, certainly, they choose this, but they do make a break with the world so that they can follow God. And Christians are called to choose. To choose between the ways of the world and the will of God. We can get into some, just some of the details in just a moment here, but we have to be clear from the very get-go that there is a choice to be made. There is a huge difference between the ways of the world and the will of God, an enormous difference. Sometimes we look at our lives, we're making all these decisions, and we look at a certain decision in life and we think we're trying to see how much, how well we can hold on to the world and hold on to God all at the same time. And I hold out to you that when you are asking questions like, well, how worldly can I be and still be a Christian? How worldly can I be without being too worldly? As if there's just the right amount of worldly to flavor your life with. I hold out to you that that's the wrong question from the very get-go. The Christian life, it is a call to forsake yourself, to forsake the life you lived before and to commit yourself to God, to defect from the world's ways and to be wholeheartedly behind the Lord and Savior who bought you. Forsaking the world's passions. Some of us, we can get too caught up in treating it like it is a balancing act all the time, right? We go around acting like, oh, how can I balance all my roots in the world with my balance, with my roots in God? Forget the balancing act. Follow God and follow Him alone. That is your call as a Christian. And when we do so, when we choose to forsake our sin, to forsake the ways of the world, and to follow God, Peter is saying, we will inevitably suffer. No doubt about it. He says, we will suffer. No ifs, no ands, no buts. Plan on it. Plan on suffering if you plan on following Christ. It's the only way to do it justice. That gets us into verse 3. Peter explains just a bit of what this suffering path is going to look like. He says, for the time that has 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, hear that, surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery and they malign you. He starts out, you have had enough of living like the rest of the world. You had enough of it. It's interesting, he's writing probably to Gentiles. Isn't it interesting that he writes to the Gentiles and he says, hey, you had enough living like Gentiles. Gentiles, stop being like a Gentile. The reason being is that in Christ, they don't count as Gentiles anymore. They don't count as Jews anymore. They are the people of God. They have been transformed. They have been taken out of who they were and made into someone different. They don't belong to that way of life anymore. They may have been born Gentiles, but they belong to the people of God now. This is a gospel theme. It's not about who they were. It's about who they are now in Christ. And he tells these Gentiles, or these former Gentiles, that they have had more than enough time to indulge in the ways of the world. And you have to realize, he must be talking to people with a past. He must be talking to Christians who have a past that they were brought out of. Their past is filled with these human passions, with these ways of the world that Peter is speaking against. And if you were to describe these vices that he lists here, these sins that he lists here, I mean, common to the first five is really just this. Unrestrained desires for sex, for drink, and for food. I look at that and I'm like, you're talking about our culture. You're talking about our country. This is still what we're doing. You know, we like to think that we're so cutting edge, we're doing all these brand new things all the time. You know, we just landed a, whatever, we landed on a comet or something. That was incredible, right? But we're still doing the same sins. Our culture is still obsessed with the same things. The last one, lawless or, as the NAS reads, abominable, idolatry. It has this, man, this visceral sense to it. It's indecent, unseemly, even disgusting, idolatry. Those are fighting words. Peter makes just no qualms about saying what they're doing, it is wicked, it is disgusting. Those idols that they serve, they are false. They are not the true God. And believe me, that is not something that would have made him any more popular in his time than it makes us popular in our time. But he is saying, so you have a past? Fine. But let your past stay in the past. You've had more than enough time in the sins that you once walked in. And they, they are not the only ones with a past. Am I right? They are not the only ones with a past. So many of us have a past. Before Christ interceded in our lives, left to our own devices, we lived lives thick with sin. You know, sometimes you look around at y'all and you guys just, you dress up so nice. You look so good and squeaky clean. I'm sure that you are like the most moral people in the world. No, I know you're not. Actually, it's hard to picture, but you have to kind of just swat away the illusion that this is some group of perfect people here. In this room, I have no doubt. that we have way more sins than we would be super comfortable talking about. Christians are those who came from a past. And thank God the Christians are saved from every walk of life. I mean, we rejoice. We rejoice when we get to raise up our children in godliness, right? And in ways that we never experienced as kids, but that's not the only place God saves people. God saves people who spent years and decades dedicated to their sin and to themselves and to their idols. Thank God that he saves the lost. Thank God that he saves the wicked. Thank God that he saves those who have a past that they are not proud of. That is our God. The weird thing, the irrational thing though about our past is that many of us are tempted to go back. Many of us are tempted to go back to the very filth that we got saved from. Now, when we're thinking clearly, when there's, you know, no pressure on us and we're totally immersed in the Word and all that, when we're thinking clearly, we can remember that our sin had a heavy price tag. And it wasn't even just eternally. Obviously it had an eternal price tag. But in this life it had a price tag. And it ruined us. And it ruined relationships. And it ruined jobs and careers and opportunities, right? In our clear thinking times we can remember the pain and the emptiness and the destruction. We can remember it clearly and it matters and it helps us to live our lives the way we're supposed to. But then, in our temptation, but suddenly we're just remembering the things we enjoy. The only thing in our minds is, man, that sin can be fun sometimes. And let's be clear, sin can absolutely be fun, but it is deadly. I think we do ourselves and we do our young ones a disservice when we act like they're not going to have any fun if they go off and sin. But you'll have fun all the way to judgment. I digress. We forget, though. We forget the pain, and all we remember is the high. We forget the emptiness, and all we remember is the excitement. We forget the destruction, and all we remember is the supposed freedom of just doing whatever we wanted all the time. Sometimes I think we need to hear it. If you are tempted to go back to your old ways, to your old sins, snap out of it. Remember what it used to be like. Remember the price that you paid before. Sin has this way of being like hypnotic. You know like when you're driving on the freeway and the snow's coming down? Like our sin, it just starts hypnotizing us. Suddenly it seems enticing again, attractive again. But however fun it is, however sweet it is at first, it will turn bitter again. It will rot in your soul. Brothers and sisters, you have had more than enough of these things. Remind yourself right now, if you're thinking clearly, remind yourself right now that indulging in your sin, it never satisfied, not once. The salt water never quenched your thirst. Sin always makes you think, this time it will satisfy. If I scratch the itch this time, that'll be the last scratch, right? but it never comes through. It always falls short. And really, you can hear the edge in Peter's voice. In verse three, for the time that is past, it suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do. You can hear that edge in his voice, can't you? You have had enough water from the sewage pipe. You have had more than enough of the cyanide. Your sin cannot satisfy you. It never could. And the sin that tempts you, it will kill you. The sin that tempts you killed Jesus. You reflect on why did Jesus die. When he was suffering nailed to that cross, why was he there? And if you have to look at yourself in the mirror and say, he is up there because of my little pet sin that I refuse to do anything about, I hope you feel some gobby shame that drives you back to Christ in that moment. Let us hang on to no pet sins. Let us not refuse to kill any precious little idols. Are you going to spend any more time flirting with what your savior died for? The time that has passed suffices. There are moments when we recognize clearly the filth of our sin, the rebellion of our sin, the damage that our sin does. My prayer for you and for me is that God would be gracious that we would never forget those moments of clarity. And see, I don't mean that so that you go around feeling guilty all the time. I say that because I want you to never go back. And I want you to have the clear memory of what your sin is like so that you will never want to go back. So that you will be convinced down to your very core that you have had more than enough of your sins. When we forsake our sin, And when we forsake the ways of the world, the sins of the world, Peter says, you know how they're going to react. They're going to be dumbfounded. They're going to be surprised. Like, what are you doing? Why would you possibly want to give this up? They will not understand why you are stopping. They don't understand why you don't want to enjoy the same sins that you always have alongside them anymore. Rejecting the ways of the world, though not necessarily the people of the world, let's be clear. but rejecting their ways, it will confuse the world. The ESV has this nice translation about this flood of debauchery, right? This flood of debauchery. When you refuse to go along with the flow of that flood of debauchery, it's gonna jolt the world. What are you doing? Why would you do that? And they will malign you. they will insult you, they will slander you, and the dirt that they throw at you, it will not just be at you, it will be at you as you represent Christ. As you are an ambassador of the Lord Jesus Christ before them, they throw dirt at you. The rejection of God's people, it isn't about who they are, not exactly, The rejection has always been a matter of who they follow, who they belong to. That is why the world will reject us. When we follow Christ, we are rejecting the world. It needs to be that clear. When we follow Christ, we are rejecting the world. And they will look at us like we are idiots. Or maybe they'll look at us like we're being rude. intolerant, offensive. You know, that might just be the way it's supposed to be. Don't throw fuel on the fire with your own sin. I mean, let's be clear about that, but that really just might be the way it is supposed to be. We are not supposed to have the world's approval. So don't go running after it. It's not worth it. And even if you get it, even if the world adores you, it will be short-lived. And it will be short-lived because of where the text is taking us. Verse five and six, vindication is coming. 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. It can be so hard to walk in the truth because the truth so often lacks immediate gratification. When you walk in the truth, don't you just wish sometimes you had that, just like a heavenly validation pat on the back, beam of like, well done, that was good, that was the right thing to do. You know, I'm raising up my son at this point. I realize I need to encourage him in the good and discourage the bad. He needs to know when he told the truth, that was the good. He needs to know when he lies, that was the bad, right? We want that feedback when we are trying to follow in the truth. And what Peter is describing is that for following the truth, for walking in the truth, you're going to receive insult and you're going to suffer. And that can be very discouraging. You might look at yourself and think, am I going the right way? Why would I suffer this much if I were doing what God wanted me to do? But Peter assures his readers, the insults and the blasphemy, they are not going unnoticed. For all the shame and the dishonor that these Christians had borne, God had not missed a moment of it. Those who speak against God, those who speak against his followers, they will give an account for their lives and for their words. It is a sobering truth that is coming. The reality is we all will give an account for our lives and for our words. But those who act like judgment isn't coming, they're not off the hook somehow. God will judge everyone. He is ready. The living, the dead, all of them. He will judge every single one. And then that brings us to one more hard verse. Peter just saved all his hard verses for this chunk right here. And I'm glad that we have them to do together now, actually. After you study through them, I'm glad that we have these to do together. Because remember, the point isn't just to discover what the text said, but the point is also to equip each one of us to be ready to find the answers when the texts are hard. God gave us hard texts for a reason. So verse six, for this is why the gospel was preached even to those who are dead. That's really the core of the difficulty here. The gospel was preached even to those who are dead. Okay, we should talk about that, huh? Okay, what does that mean? Really, you end up with three paths before you, and that basically sums it up. The gospel was preached to those who are option one, to those who are spiritually dead, spiritually dead. Pros and cons of all these views, right? On the pro side of it, you might say, well, that sounds a lot like how Paul talked, that we could be dead in our sins and trespasses before Christ, right? And then that makes a little more sense in this idea that somehow people are dying and then in the grave, they're hearing the gospel. So we feel kind of good about that. Cons. Unfortunately, there's some big cons here. Peter doesn't use the word dead like that. He just really hasn't. He seems to just mean plainly dead. Physically dead, literally dead. No metaphors here, no symbolism. It seems that he just means dead. And so to call this to those who are spiritually dead, as attractive as it is, and even though that lines up with other truths that we know from scripture, that's just not an option we can really take. We reject option one. Okay, option two. We just probably have to just mention this. The gospel is preached to those people, to people after they are physically dead. Okay, pros and cons again, right? Pro, well this time you get to keep the meaning of the word dead as dead, right? So you're doing some more justice to the text in that way. Some are going to see this as a corroboration of that 319. Remember Christ preaching to the spirits in prison and we talked a lot about that. If you didn't get to hear that sermon, you could go download it. There was a lot to talk about there. So they'll say that this is corroborating a second chance at repentance, right? I mean, huge con here, that just basically undermines the rest of the teaching of scripture. So, I mean, the idea that repentance and salvation can happen after death is just so contrary to what the scriptures teach. We are always led to believe this life, this day is the time to repent. Then will come judgment and you will answer for where you stand. And so to undermine the rest of scripture for that path is just really not a good path. We reject option two. So we get to option three and you're really hoping this is a good option, right? Cause otherwise we're in trouble. Okay. Option three, the gospel was preached to those who were alive when they heard it, but are now physically dead. For those of you who still have an NIV, despite Brian's persecution, it reads those who are now dead. And that actually is a good translation. Okay, pros and cons again. Let's do this, let's be fair here, right? Well, it maintains the meaning of the word dead, like we talked about, dead meaning physically dead. And at the same time, it doesn't undermine the whole scripture or the general teaching about what repentance and salvation are. Cons, the word now isn't actually in the text. The word now is not in the Greek, and that's something that the translators are adding in order to interpret what they believe the proper interpretation is. So, why do we go that way when the word isn't in the text? Well, really, it's the flow of the argument. It's the flow of the argument combined with the other two paths being really bad, okay? So, the flow of the argument is this. When Christians followed Christ instead of the world, The world was going to be surprised. The world was going to malign them, insult them, right? We talked about that. And then you can picture that this moment comes. The Christians have rejected all the world holds dear, and they think they're just dumb for doing it, right? And then the Christians go and die anyway. The Christians gave up all the fun of the world, and then all they did was die. And you can imagine the insults only growing from the rest of the world who watches that happen. Why would you even do this? You lost it all. You lost what you could have had in the world and you certainly lost what you could have had in eternity because you just died anyway. According to the world standards, according to the judgment of men, Christians look like pretty big failures here. But Peter says, The world doesn't get the last laugh. No, not this time. Death doesn't get the last word here. Yes, they will die. Yes, by the standards of men, it will look like they are judged, but they will live again, and not just like old life, new life, glorified life, like Christ after his resurrection, life. Those who followed God, they will be vindicated on that last day. This reminds us of the broader context of this letter. Yes, there's the sobering part. Peter is preparing Christians to suffer, but he is also encouraging them, encouraging them with the hope of things to come. On the side of suffering, We must, hear it, we must be prepared to walk the path of suffering. Why? Because that is Christ's path and we are following after Him. The world will reject us for choosing Christ. The world will reject us for rejecting the ways of the world. But brothers and sisters, what choice is there? What choice is there but to reject that and follow after Christ? The path that the world wants to proclaim and call you to, it is just a path going straight to judgment. We can't go back that way. We have had more than enough. The time that has passed suffices for living like the world wants us to live. We've had more than enough of the sorrows, of the destruction, of the emptiness. So the path of suffering is the path we must take. But we do not merely suffer. We suffer following Him. That is why we suffer. We are rejected because we are His. Every suffering step on the path of righteousness, it brings us one step closer to Him. With full confidence, we can know that the suffering of this path, it is not even worth comparing to the glories that are to be revealed to us in Christ Jesus one day. So brothers and sisters, with the light of Jesus Christ Himself waiting for us, We will, we must follow this suffering path to the very end. Let's pray. Our God, give us the grace to suffer well, to suffer in faith, to suffer not because we are sinners, but because we are following you. Give us the grace to choose between you and the world and to choose you. Give us the grace to not go back to the filth, to the emptiness, to the destruction, to the sorrow. Lord, we want no more of it. And sometimes we don't know how to break ways with it. Help us. Help us to choose you. Help us to forsake who we once were, the sins we once walked in, the things the world calls us to. Give us grace, Father, and may every step, may our faith make real the reality that we are walking step-by-step closer to heaven. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. We hope you've enjoyed this message from Grace Community Church in Minden, Nevada. To receive a copy of this or other messages, call us at area code 775-782-6516 or visit our website gracenevada.com.