WWUTT 331 The Same Way of Thinking?

All of us have been called to the ministry. We've all been called to declare the gospel of Jesus Christ and people will hate us for it and will persecute us. But when that happens, we share in the sufferings of Christ when we understand the text.

You're listening to When We Understand The Text, an online Bible ministry committed to teaching sound doctrine and exposing the faulty. Find videos and more at our website, www .wutt .com. Now here's our host, Pastor Gabe Hughes.

Thank you, Becky, and greetings, everybody. Season's greetings. It is Christmas week. We've got Christmas coming up on a Sunday this year, which I really like. If you're Puritan, you don't, but I really like it when Christmas falls on a Sunday.

We're still gonna have service. We always do a Christmas Eve service every year. So we'll be doing that the night before Christmas. That's always a good time to have your Christmas Eve service. Saturday night and we do our hymn sing, a candlelight service.

We eat Christmas cookies and punch afterward. And then on Sunday, we're still gonna have services. I don't ever have a reason to not have service on a Sunday. I mean, yesterday we had winter weather that had churches in town closing their doors because of the snow and stuff.

We still had church. If I can get to the church, we're gonna have church. The doors are gonna be open and I'm gonna preach. So we're still gonna be doing that on Christmas Sunday as well. There are churches in our community not having service on Sunday, and it has nothing to do with them being Puritan.

They just think, hey, most people are gonna be spending Christmas morning with their families. We're not gonna have people show up. Let's just go ahead and close our doors.

That ain't us.

In fact, I hope the people from those churches come over to ours. I'm not one of those pastors that tries to grab people from other churches, but as many bad teaching churches as there are in our community, which is I'm sure most communities in America anyway, probably not such a bad thing.

I'm not gonna be preaching on your typical Christmas morning chapters though, Matthew 1 and 2, Luke 1 and 2. I'm gonna be preaching from 2 Corinthians 4, where the apostle Paul says, "'For God who said, let light shine out of darkness, has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.'".

Talking about the glory of God in Christ. That's gonna be the topic of my sermon on Sunday. You can catch my sermons, by the way, on our church website, firstsouthernbaptistchurch .org. Yesterday, I preached on 1 Corinthians 1 -10 -17, actually my second week in that particular section.

So that's the sermon that's up there now. And somebody had written into When We Understand the Text and said, hey, can I suggest a What Weekend edition where you post your sermons on the What Podcast site?

I like the thought and I appreciate that you would wanna hear them, but I'm kind of OCD when it comes to how these podcasts are done and how they get uploaded. As many podcasts as we have uploaded, that's what number episode we're on.

And it always corresponds with the day of the week. So you know that an episode that ends in a one or a six is gonna be the Monday episode. And all the episodes that are divisible by five are the Friday episodes.

I don't know, I'm weird about that. I just like that. And if I added a weekend edition, it would mess up my whole system. So anyway, I think that we're just gonna keep the podcast, the podcast. It's just gonna be the Monday through Friday thing.

But if you're still interested in wanting to hear the sermons that I do with my church congregation, that's our church website where you can find them. Firstsouthernbaptistchurch .org. And you can also subscribe to that iTunes.

Yeah, iTunes, right, yeah. For some reason I blanked on the name. Anyway, you could subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and anytime a sermon's uploaded, you'll get the update on it. All right, okay, I've rambled on about this for three and a half minutes already.

Suffering in the Flesh and the Mind of Christ

Let's get to some Bible study. We're in 1 Peter chapter four today. And reading verses one through six. I think that'll be as far as we get here today. 1 Peter chapter four, one through six. 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 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 that God does. So looking again at verse one, 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.

Now, I've always told you that whenever you begin a section with therefore, it's always continuing the thought or it's grabbing from the previous section. But in this case, Peter explains his therefore.

Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh. So it's not necessarily based on the previous thought that we were talking about in verses 18 through 22, but a little bit, because in verse 18, it says for Christ also suffered once for sins.

And we read previously in chapter two that Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example. This was chapter two, verse 21. So that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth.

When he was reviled, he did not revile in return. When he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.

By his wounds, you have been healed. So since Christ suffered, it was mentioned again, chapter 3, 18 and chapter 2, 21. So it's based on those thoughts as Peter explains beginning chapter four here that he says, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking.

As Christ has suffered, arm yourself with a thinking, an understanding that you too are going to suffer. It's not, if you're gonna suffer, you need to remember Christ. No, you are going to suffer. And if you are in the will of God and you are doing the things that God has called you to do, then you have been enduring suffering.

You have been enduring persecutions and hardships, people reviling you, people who are speaking badly against you, slanderously against you, falsely on account of Christ as Jesus talks about in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter five.

If you are sharing the gospel with others, then you are being ridiculed for your faith. You are suffering in the flesh in this way. Not every time that we talk about suffering in the flesh, are we talking about the kind of suffering that everybody goes through, like your body getting old and dying, the aches and pains that you generally feel, getting ill and having to deal with a serious illness, whether that be cancer or diabetes or lupus or something like that, something that will last you the rest of your life.

Yes, as Christians, we can rejoice even in these kinds of illnesses, knowing that God can use even this for his glory, shaping us in the image of Christ as we endure suffering, we give praise to God. Like if you ever thought of thanking God for an illness that you have, but we as Christians should be.

We should be thankful to God in all circumstances. That includes when we are sick, when we are fighting against the deterioration of our flesh. So that is a suffering that we go through every single person, every single person alive goes through that kind of suffering.

But there's also a kind of suffering that is talked about in the scriptures that we share with Christ in the sense that he was persecuted for being the son of God, for preaching the truth of God. And in the same way, if we do this also, if we preach the gospel of God through Jesus Christ, then we're gonna be ridiculed for it.

We will be persecuted for our faith. Maybe not all of us will ever be physically beaten for it, but you will be reviled. And if you're not willing to be reviled, if you're softening the gospel because you don't want somebody to hate you for the gospel of Jesus Christ, then you are responding according to your flesh and not responding according to your spirit, recording to the spirit of God who is within you.

So you need to repent of that. You need to come before the Lord and say, God, I want to honor you with everything that I am, with the Holy Spirit that dwells within me, not according to my flesh. So fill yourself up all the more with the word of God and have a mindset of Christ.

Arm yourselves with the same way of thinking for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, not suffering in the flesh in terms of fighting an illness or some sort of debilitating disease, because people who fight that kind of suffering do not cease from sin.

They can still be suffering in their flesh because of illness and still sinning, right? But if you are suffering in your flesh for the cause of Christ, are you sinning? Are you even thinking about sinning?

If you were to be ridiculed and persecuted for Christ, it's gonna make you rejoice in Christ all the more and long for heaven all the more, asking for the deliverance of God from this world into his eternal kingdom when you suffer in the flesh in this way, the way that Christ did.

You're not sinning when you suffer like this. You are rejoicing in God. Your mind is fixed forward entirely on the Lord, the advancement of his gospel, not longing for the passions of the flesh, not trying to advance your own ambitions or your own goals, but your goal is Christ and him glorified to all people in the preaching of the gospel and suffering for the declaration of the gospel.

And so when we suffer in this way, we're not sinning. We are glorifying God with our whole bodies, our whole mind, our whole heart, which as I've heard, I think it was John Piper that I've heard say this.

It was just recently too. Man, it's gonna bug me that I can't remember who this was, but anyway, while we are in this flesh, we will never perfectly be able to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, but we get better at it as we grow in this process of sanctification and holiness.

When we preach the gospel and we suffer for the gospel, our minds are fixed firmly on the gospel, not the passions of our flesh and not our tendency to do things according to our flesh, but on Christ and glorifying him.

So as to live the rest of the time in the flesh, no longer for human passions, but for the will of God. So once again, the more you do this, the more you exercise the preaching of the gospel to your own detriment and to the glory of God, the less you are gonna be thinking about the desires of your flesh.

The more instead you will be focused on living out the will of God. Now understand that this passage is not saying that we will not ever sin again. That's not what's being talked about here. For those who have suffered in the flesh have ceased from sin.

It just means that the more we are suffering in the flesh, the less that we are going to be pursuing those things. That's explained in verse two. So as to live the rest of the time in the flesh, no longer for human passions, but for the will of God.

We will not ever attain perfect sanctification while we are in this life. The apostle Paul even said to the Philippians, not that I have already obtained this, meaning perfection, but I seek to make it my own because Christ Jesus has made me his own.

Listen, if Paul who was being persecuted for the gospel and who was in chains at the time that he wrote that to the Philippians could not himself say that he had been perfectly sanctified, none of us should ever be saying that we can attain that while we are in the flesh.

We are gonna continue this process of sanctification to the day that we die and join the Lord in glory. So Peter is not making an argument here for a perfection that we can attain in our flesh. He is saying that as we focus on the declaration of the gospel to the point that we suffer for the gospel, what we have our minds fixated on is the will of God and not the will of man.

Verse three, 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. This is pretty similar to something that Paul said at the Areopagus in Acts chapter 17 when he was preaching to the Greeks that were there.

And he had been in Athens for a little while and had been preaching. The people wanted to hear him preach all the more. So they said, well, here, let's bring this man out here to the very place where people get paid for doing their orations.

Here in the presence of the gods there on Mars Hill. And so Paul looks at all these idols that are around and he says, I perceive that you are very religious. For as I pass along and observe the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, to the unknown God.

What therefore you worship is unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it being Lord of heaven and earth does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything since he himself gives to all mankind, life and breath and everything.

And he made from one man, every nation of mankind to live on the whole face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place that they should seek God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him.

Yet he is actually not far from each one of us. For in him, we live and move and have our being. And as even some of your own prophets have said, for we are indeed his offspring. Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think of the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the heart and imagination of man.

The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed being Christ.

And the Greeks would have known that's who Paul was referring to because that's who he was known as preaching about there in Athens. And of this, he has given assurance to all by raising him, Jesus Christ, from the dead.

So there again, Acts 17, verse 30, Paul says the times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. So Peter is kind of saying the same thing here in 1 Peter 4, verse 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. This is living in their former ignorance, which Peter had addressed at the beginning of his letter.

In chapter one, verse 14, he says, as obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance but as he who called you is holy, so you be holy in all your conduct. So here he kind of comes back to that thought again.

Verse three, for the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, lawless idolatry. With respect to this, with respect to the way that the Gentiles live, respect to the way that you used to live but have now been called out of darkness into his marvelous light.

It's chapter two, verse nine. As you've been called out of darkness and into his marvelous light, you are not living in that way anymore. So with respect to this, they are surprised when you don't join them in the same flood of debauchery and they malign you.

You know, Paul said to Timothy, 2 Timothy 3, 12, I believe is the reference, those who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. Just because you have godly principles, people will persecute you for that.

If you have a standpoint that an unborn child is a life and abortion is murder, people will hate you just for holding on to that godly principle. You haven't even preached the gospel yet and people will hate you because you desire to live in godliness.

I use that as an example because I actually had a member of my congregation who went through that. He drove truck, he was a delivery guy and he would oftentimes share the gospel with some of the people that he would work with in the back of grocery stores while he's unloading boxes and stuff like that.

And there was one time that he was speaking to a woman about the issue of abortion. It came up and I think according to him, she brought it up. And he just used a certain apologetic talking about how the child in the womb is a life.

The woman broke down in tears and just thought this guy was so oppressive just because he held that viewpoint and made fun of him for that. And I believe that she even called his boss and complained about him because he held that particular viewpoint.

I don't think that cost him his job, but anyway, I mean, just because you hold a principled stance on something that aligns with godliness, people will persecute you just for that. They'll malign you because you don't join them in their debaucherous thoughts, but they will give an account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.

Remember that Peter had previously said to us in 1 Peter 2, that we are not supposed to revile back when we are reviled because Christ himself, chapter 2, verse 23, when he was reviled, he did not revile in return.

When he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. And that's the way we need to consider our exchanges in the world with those who do not believe. As Paul says in Romans chapter 12, vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, I will repay.

So it is not for us to lash back at those who will respond in such ways to us, but we respond with kindness. As Paul also instructed Timothy, the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone, able to teach patiently enduring evil.

And this is the way that we are supposed to respond and behave as well. They will give an account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. Verse six, 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 that God does.

Now, this is not a verse saying that the dead are preached to so that they might have another chance at getting to heaven. If you're preaching to them after their body has died and their spirit is in some kind of limbo, you go preach to them again and they have an opportunity to repent and then go live in heaven.

That's not what's being talked about here. It's being talked about in the same sense that we who were dead in our sins and our trespasses before we came to Christ have been made alive together with Christ by the mercy of God, as is talked about in Ephesians chapter two.

That's what's being referred to here. So the gospel was preached even to those who are dead. We preach the gospel to those who are in the gospel because we have our hope restored. We are looking to Christ, the author and the perfecter of our faith, and we're rejoicing all the more looking toward heaven, anxious for the day of the Lord to come whenever we hear the gospel proclaimed.

So the gospel, of course, should be proclaimed among the people of God. And that's what Peter is taking for granted here when he says in verse six, for this is why the gospel was preached even to those who are dead.

So it's not just being preached to those who accept it, it's being preached to those who are dead in their sins and their trespasses, that though judged in the flesh the way people are, they will feel convicted by the declaration of God's law and his gospel.

They feel under the conviction of sin because they heard his law proclaimed. They feel delivered by the gospel when they repent of sin and believe it. And so in this, they might repent of their sin and live in the spirit the way that God does, becoming imitators of God.

In other words, instead of haters of God, which is what we were all doing when we were dead in our sins and our trespasses. So we preach the gospel to our fellow saints that we might be encouraged all the more in the hope of the gospel of Christ and the return of our Lord and Savior, who is going to judge the living and the dead, but then we're also preaching the gospel to those who are lost so that they might repent of their sins, they might be revived from their deadness and given life and therefore live in the spirit as imitators of God instead of haters of God.

And so let us do this with gentleness and respect. Once again, going back to 1 Peter 3 15, where he says, in your hearts set apart Christ as holy, being ready to give an answer for the hope that lies within you to anyone who asks, but do this with gentleness and respect.

We are going to be persecuted, but we share in Christ's sufferings and long all the more for the day of the Lord when we endure these sufferings. And our minds are focused on the will of God instead of the will of the flesh when we are doing what God commands of us to do, what he wants his children to do.

And we do so to the praise of his glorious grace. Let's close with prayer. Our wonderful God and Savior, I thank you for this calling that you have called us to. We are participants in the advancement of the kingdom of God, in that we have not only been rescued from sin and death into your glorious kingdom, but whenever we preach the gospel, we are an extension of that kingdom so that those who are lost might hear it, repent from their sin, the darkness that they are living in now, the deadness that they are in, and come to the light and life of Christ, and therefore also become citizens of this kingdom, this inheritance, this imperishable inheritance that awaits us in glory if we endure to the end.

God, thank you for saving us, and may we continue to walk in this salvation with fear and trembling, looking to Jesus, the author and the perfecter of our faith, who for the joy of the Lord was set before him, endured the cross, despising its shame, and is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

Amen, praise the Lord, hallelujah.

You've been listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. We hope you are a part of a church family committed to gospel teaching, and we thank you for including us in your Bible learning.

If you would consider a gift to this ministry, please visit www .tt .com, and click on the Give tab in the top right corner of the page. Give online or send a check in the mail. Join us again tomorrow as we grow together in God's word when we understand the text.