1 Peter 3:8-4:19, How Do You Have Your Best Life Now?

1 Peter’s Call to Christian Conduct and Suffering

1 Peter chapter 3 verse 8 to the end of chapter 4. Hear the word of the Lord. Finally, all of you have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called that you may obtain a blessing.

For whoever desires to love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit. Let him turn away from evil and do good. Let him seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are open to their prayer.

But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil. Now, who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness sake, you will be blessed. 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, yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.

For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God's will, than for doing evil. For 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, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is eight persons, were brought safely through water.

Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.

Christ’s Suffering, Noah, and Baptism

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 the 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 that 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. The end of all things is at hand.

Love, Hospitality, and Stewardship of Gifts

Therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. Show hospitality to one another without grumbling, as each has received a gift.

Use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's very grace. Whoever speaks as one who speaks oracles of God, whoever serves as one who serves by the strength that God supplies, in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to him belong glory and dominion forever and ever.

Amen. Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you, but rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.

If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the spirit of God and of the spirit of glory and of God rest upon you. But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler.

Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name, for it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God. And if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?

And if the righteous is scarcely saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner? Therefore, let those who suffer according to God's will and trust their souls to a fateful creator while doing good.

May the Lord add his blessings to the reading of his holy word. In 2004, Joel Osteen published his mega best-selling book, Your Best Life Now. It sold over eight million copies, remained on the New York Times bestseller list for over two years, and has spun off a calendar, a board game, and most surprising to me, a study guide.

So it was wildly popular, and it still sells for $11 on Kindle. It's the kind of thing people love. Even the title is finely tuned to attract people, to get them to appeal to what they want. You know, it's your, individually yours, best, because you want the best, you don't want a second rate, life, which is what you want now.

Not waiting for an afterlife or some kind of incremental improvement after decades of effort or after some torturous training, but right now. We want our best life at this moment. No delay, no process, no training, but immediately.

It's been widely scorned by theologically serious Christians. Even the Nine Marks ministry, which is usually known for its serious, kind of thoughtful, respectful approach, began its book review of it with, quote, someone might legitimately raise the question why we are reviewing this book.

After all, the pattern here at Nine Marks has been that we review Christian books. Ouch, that was the very first line. The reviewer goes on, when you wring the book out, what you will end up with is nothing more than the soggy old self-help pop psychology that people have been lapping up for a generation with the word God thrown in once in a while for good measure.

I wish you'd tell us what he really thinks of it, right? I believe him. I'm glad he read the book, so I don't have to. I don't normally listen to or read false teachers because they'll either make me mad or bored or both.

And so I don't want to waste my time with that. But such people do show us, they do do us the favor of showing us what most people want, what appeals to the culture. They want to know how to get more out of life.

And honestly, there's nothing wrong with that. Osteen's problem really isn't that he's helping people improve themselves. The problem isn't even in the desire for the best life. The problem is with what he and most of his readers think a best life is, how to get it.

And the unspoken assumption is that you can have it, your best life, now. What Osteen did was tap into what many people demand now from their religion. They want a religion that will help them succeed, one that will give them, you know, those attitudes that elevate their altitude, gives them that emotional or moral therapy that they might need, helps them achieve their potential and find the secrets to avoid, above all, avoid suffering, have fulfilling relationships, a long life, health, prosperity and comfort, you know, that high life.

Even just the wonder of having convenient parking places open up just for you in front of the mall so you don't have to make a long walk from the back of the parking place. That's one of the perks that Osteen promises in his best life.

Now, people might know better than the simplistic, you know, crass, quid pro quo prosperity gospel that tells them that if you give a dollar to the smiley guy with coiffed hair that you'll get ten dollars back, but they still believe in a more kind of informal prosperity gospel.

Follow these steps, Osteen 7, and you'll get that dream life that you want. But again, his mistake and the mistake of millions of his fans is not knowing what makes for life and not even really wanting what it takes to make it better now.

Seeing Christ as Holy and Seeking Peace

Now, here in 1 Peter, Peter shows us five steps to get a better life beginning now. See the vision. Second, seek salvation. And third, cease sin. Fourth, serve one another. And finally, suffer for your soul.

First, see the vision. Have a vision of Christ as holy, as great, that transforms you, that just fills your life, that that's what your life is about. You may do other things. You may make money. You work at a job.

You do athletics. But Christ is what all those things are for. Finally, in verse 8, start your better life now in the church by being of one mind. Agree, be in harmony. Being in harmony comes from, for a church, being in harmony comes from having a unified goal, a shared vision.

If we know why we're here in church, why we're doing this, we'll be unified. Even if we sometimes disagree on maybe how we reach our shared goal. During Christmas of 2019, so about two years ago now, I reached out via Facebook to my old teammates on my college track team.

And it had been over 30 years. It's not like you younger people, you're raised with social media and you'd stay in contact with people in the past all the time. Before that, we just lost contact. And so I re-established contact.

And after over 30 years, found there is still a bond there. There's still a shared interest. Because in athletics, you know, there's a clearly defined goal. You're part of this team. You know why you're there.

We had a common mind. And so that created an attachment. It still lingers to this day. In church, sometimes some people forget why we're here. Why are we here? To glorify God. To see Christ is precious in our hearts.

When you lose that sense of vision of what the church is for, you know, but maybe you keep doing it, keep going to the church, but you've forgotten why. Maybe it begins to be about showing off who I am.

Showing off your talents or just hobnobbing about feeling smug that we're better than those immoral people out there. Or better than those other Christians who don't have their theology as finely tuned as we do.

Or just about socializing. When you lose that vision that's about glorifying and enjoying God, then you'll lose that common mind. For you, it's about showing yourself off. For someone else, it's about showing him off.

You'll lose the harmony. Osteen's first step to having your best life now, he said, was vision. Have a vision of what your life is about. Now, he's right. He's right if only he knew that we need a vision of Christ as holy that fills our hearts.

And he goes on in verse eight, have sympathy for each other. So go to the funeral of one of our people, brotherly love, literally the word there, Philadelphia, have compassion for each other, a tender heart and a humble mind.

Notice how much this involves relationships with people in the church. It doesn't sound like he's describing churches. You know, think of the way he's describing what a church is here. He's not describing churches as just another service provider, is he?

Like the modern American consumer looks at a church, but much more like much more like a family. Then it seems like he switches to people outside the church in verse nine. Don't repay evil for evil. Don't feel that you have to put up a front.

No one's going to put up anything over on me instead of being insulting and acerbic. Bless. It's certainly something I need to be reminded of. You are called to bless so that you may be blessed. And Peter quotes from Psalm thirty four, whoever desires to love life, you desire to love life.

Otherwise, whoever wants to have their best life, which is really all of us and see good days. We're all going to see some bad days. But if you want to see some good days, you'll need to be blessed. So keep yourself from speaking evil.

Now, you might have to say some hard words, but you never have to speak deceit to lie, to mislead people because you're trying to fool them for some reason, maybe flatter them to get them on your good side.

Our vision of who we want to be, disciples of Christ, doesn't allow it. Instead, in verse eleven, turn away from evil, like speaking deceit and do good. Then seek peace, that's harmony, wholeness, everything good, love and blessing.

Pursue it or run after it. Peace, that is. Just like two nights ago, Mary and I saw this this thing with the I .D. channel, two neighbors kept getting on each other's nerves and aggravating each other when they shoot off fireworks and they would not allow them to take shortcuts to their property.

Both sides were watching this, thinking both sides are so are so dumb, so rude, so selfish. And it ended up they lost control of one side, killed the other two. That's what happens. You don't seek peace, you seek your rights.

But even in the house we live in, the former residents had a confrontation with our former neighbor because she didn't like the hedges being so tall. So she wanted to cut them down and the neighbors sued.

The people used to live in our house sued our neighbor for cutting the hedges. Just let it be, for crying out loud. You want to come to my house and cut my hedges? That's fine. I won't complain. I will not sue you.

Seek peace. I mean, sometimes be compliant, just go with things. Don't assert your rights all the time. But here, seek peace, pursue it, exert yourself to have peace. Because of verse 12, the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous.

Who are the peaceful people here? Who are those seeking and running after and exerting themselves for peace. But he's against those who do evil. See that. Well, how do you start your best life now? Maybe you can't have it, but how do you start it?

Well, you need a vision, a vision of the greatness of God that ties you to others who share that vision so that you're united to them and about others outside who may hate or they may insult you. You bless them.

You might have to bless them with words they call hate speech, but you bless them with words that will bring them peace if they'll accept them. So in verse 13, be zealous for what is good. Literally be zealots for the good.

Now, who will hurt you for being a zealot for goodness? Okay. Actually, sometimes some people might actually hurt you for zealotry for goodness. In the early church times, the common pagan people would put babies who had some kind of birth defect or were just weak or maybe the family just didn't want another mouse to feed.

They would put the babies out on the garbage dump to be left to die. But the early Christians would go out and pick them up, save the babies and raise them up as their own. That's zealotry for doing good.

In one child policy, China, people would also put babies out to die. You know, if they could only have one kid and then maybe it comes out, not the kid that looks the one they want, they would just put it out to die.

Maybe if it's just, maybe just for being a girl, they want to have a son and they can only have one. I mean, they can only have one. So does that have to be a girl? Put her out and try again next time.

And some enterprising people there in China would pick the babies up, left out and sell them to orphanages who in the orphanages then would put them up for adoption by foreigners, which is why we had so many girl orphans from China.

Now, I wonder if some Christians in China haven't heard any stories, but I bet you some did. Some save the abandoned babies for free. If so, they probably experienced the same prosecution as some of the baby salvagers, the ones who went looking up, picking up babies they experienced.

They were prosecuted by the government there, not the people who abandoned the babies, but the people who saved them. That's, that's suffering for doing good here. We kill our babies before birth, but if we're to be zealous for doing good, we have to do more than just denounce abortion, but be willing to help raise the babies or at least maybe help pay for the expenses of them who will be born.

If people don't abort, we might suffer for righteousness sake in verse 14. But if we do, we'll be blessed. Want to live your best life now? Suffer for righteousness sake. Maybe suffer the screams and the dirty diapers of a baby who isn't yours.

Maybe suffer for having less money in your banking account because you gave it to someone to help such a baby. Don't be afraid of the people who might intentionally make you suffer, who might label you a hater for what you believe, de-platform you.

Don't be troubled. Instead of verse 15, in your hearts, honor Christ the Lord as holy. Let him be your vision. Christ the Lord as holy, higher and greater than all the things that fill the vision of many of the other people around us.

You know, money, relationships, sports, gadgets, politics. No, in your hearts, sanctify, set apart over all the other things in your life, the Lord Christ. Don't fear those who scorn you as a hater or a bigot because you're a Christian, but do be ready to defend why you have a hope for something greater than dollars or power or houses or bodies.

Technically, that's called apologetics. That's a defense of the faith. And here we're called to it. Be able to defend the faith. That's why often our Sunday school is aimed at helping you to defend it with reason.

Sometimes understand what other people are saying and be able to defend it biblically. Be ready to defend and to be able to do it with gentleness and respect, not just grandstanding, the boasting that might look good to people who are already believers, but doesn't really win those who are scoffers that they might slander you in verse 16.

So be sure that you don't have anything to be ashamed of because they're going to look for it, that you're not doing it for the money. You're not defending the faith just because somebody is paying you or that there aren't any scandals in your closet is have come out sadly about Robbie Zacharias over the last few months.

Seeking Salvation, Baptism, and Christ’s Victory

You might suffer for doing good, but that's better than suffering for your sins. It's your better life now. How do you get your best life? You seek salvation that is appealed to God. Seek for him to save you.

Call on the name of the Lord. Now, many accuse those of us who believe in the sovereignty of God in salvation of not believing that we have any role. You know, when God wants to save people, he'll do it himself.

So you just got to passively sit back. We don't ask people to seek salvation, but that's false. We believe that in salvation, God gives us a new heart that then once we have that new heart, then they'd calls on him to save us.

And he'll use our appeal to people to seek salvation. He'll use that in their lives to enable them to seek salvation. So they'll be saved. You get your best life through seeking salvation. You repent and believe and you show that faith in baptism.

You get your best life through being baptized. It's better to suffer for doing good for or because in verse 18, Christ suffered once here, implying once and for all. Notice that in verse 18, what we try to emphasize is before taking the Lord's supper, he suffered once for all.

He doesn't suffer every time. He's not suffering and dying and over and over again. Every time we take the Lord's supper, he suffered once already for our sins, the righteous Jesus for the unrighteous us so that he might bring us to God, reconcile us with God, save us from God's wrath.

We're saved because of what he did for us. He was put to death in the body and made alive in the spirit. Now, in the spirit, he preached, it says, to the spirits who are in prison. Now, here's a very difficult passage.

There's a lot of debate about what it means. And some assume that because Peter has just said that there was that Jesus was put to death in the body and then made alive in the spirit. After that, they think there's something, there's a chronology going on here that continues that he went to proclaim victory to the spirits in hell.

Maybe, but I think Peter means that Christ had earlier in the spirit preached to people who were alive at the time when he preached to them in the spirit, but are now in prison that is in hell. They're in hell because they wouldn't believe what he said to them earlier when he preached to them in the spirit, particularly the people here.

He's talking about the people in the days of Noah in verse 20. Remember back in chapter chapter one, verse 11, Peter said that the spirit of Christ. So there's a connection there in the spirit here, but chapter one, verse 11, the spirit of Christ, spirit of Christ was in the prophets and in Christ through the spirit was speaking through the prophets to the people in the old Testament, old Testament times.

Now here in chapter three, verse 20, he probably is regarding Noah is a prophet just like one of the others as Noah was building the ark. God was patiently holding back the judgment and the spirit of Christ was speaking through Noah to people back then, but they still weren't saved.

Only eight people were the few versus the vast majority. Now, Peter reminds them and us of this because we're all tempted to think that if we want our best life now, we need to be where the most people are.

I mean, that's one of the secrets, be where the crowds are, the vast majority. We want to be with those, you know, the winners who sell 8 million copies of their book. You don't want to be with a handful of people in a gym in rural North Carolina.

Come on, that's for losers. That's what we're told anyway. But in the end, it was only the eight who were saved. Do you want the best life? Then you're going to have to be content to be with the minority, with the eight.

The eight were saved through water and baptism is a symbol of that in verse 21. It's a symbol of going through the judgment and coming out again. So baptism, and here's another very difficult passage, now saves you.

Not literally. Peter immediately qualifies that he doesn't mean the literal act of going down into the water, of being washed, that that somehow saves you like those Church of Christ people that I debated almost two years ago.

Well, like they believe. He says that baptism can save you by doing it if you are appealing to God to be made right, for a clear conscience, almost for your sins to be washed away. So that that's no longer between you and God.

You're in a good relationship with him. Remember the verse, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. So if by being baptized, if in baptism you are calling on the Lord to save you, then he will save you.

Just like with Noah's family of eight, when the waters of judgment come to destroy everyone else. If you're in the ark and you go through the water, then you're saved. If you're not in the ark, if you think you can make it on your own, you won't be.

And the ark is Christ. And baptism is how we call on the Lord to be in Christ, to save us from the coming judgment. If we do it, we do the baptism without calling on the Lord. We just do it because maybe we're pressured to, because it's just expected in our family to reach a stage in life.

It's kind of unspoken. You need to do this because you think just by doing it, we can get God to be, to be lenient on us. That doesn't save. But if we're appealing to God that through the resurrection of Jesus, he made us alive, that he raised us from death.

If that's what we're doing in baptism, then he will save us for our best life. Beginning now, we need to appeal to God for a, for a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus, who made it out of death alive and now has gone into heaven where he sits at the right hand of the father.

And there at the right hand of the father, notice it says with angels, authorities and earthly powers, spiritual and earthly powers, including the governors who are persecuting these people are soon about to in first Peter powers having already been subjected.

Notice that in verse 22, particularly if you have an ESV, the verb tense there is right. I don't know about other translations, but the SV, the verb, the verb tense is right. Have been subjected of which it's a past completed action.

The angels, authorities, and powers have already been subjected to Jesus. Remember what he said when he raised rose from the dead, all authority in heaven and earth has already been given to me right now.

He is ruling and has again, past completed action. He has put those enemies, the authorities and powers under his feet. And so we're not waiting for his kingdom to start sometime in the future. Like some suppose we can have our best life beginning now because he is ruling now.

How do you get your best life? Starting now, appeal to God, call on the name of the Lord through baptism and starting in chapter four, cease from sin. How do you get your best life? Now, since Christ suffered in the flesh, be prepared to do the same.

You're going to have to suffer in the flesh, in the body, in this body. I thought that best life meant being free of suffering to the point that I can even get the prime parking spot at the store. Yeah, that's wrong.

Arm yourself, he says, you know, arm yourself like a soldier going into battle. You know, is his weapons ready on hand? Doesn't have them in storage in the luggage behind him. He has his weapons ready and arm yourself like that to have your mind prepared, your mind prepared to suffer even for doing good.

The father disciplines every child he receives and he may cause, he may well cause you to suffer discipline because he's disciplining you so that you'll cease from sin. That's the purpose of it. So that in verse two, that you don't live for the rest of your life for those, those passions.

He says, the time has passed. You've had enough time to sin. Now we go on, now we're to a new stage of life, the stage of ceasing from sin. Don't live anymore for those human passions. Remember the passions of the flesh, the greed, the lust, the fury, cease from those human passions.

So you're not living for them anymore, but for the will, he says, for the will. This is what's, this is what's driving you now for the will of God. That's the way people in the world live. In verse three, permissiveness.

If it feels, feels good to people, then it is good. They think lust, drunkenness, intoxication, carousing, the so-called hookup culture, drinking games, wild partying. In verse four, people are surprised that you don't join them in that kind of life, that you don't live for the wild Friday or Saturday night trips to the clubs or for the hookups or for the guzzling the drinks.

They're surprised. They think there's something wrong with you. So cease from those sins now so that you, so you won't suffer for them. Now you will suffer some because the father is going to discipline you and we'll always be struggling to cease from sin in this flesh, but you can cease from those kind of those wild worldly sins.

You can cease from those. Now the people of the world will scorn you for it. Now, today they might accuse you of some psychological problem. They'll say, oh, you're inhibited. You're suppressed. They'll try to tell you, you know, to have your best life, what you need to do, you need to just let go and follow whatever urges wash over you.

We're now often scorned with psychobabble. And Peter says in verse five that they will have to give an account trying to lead us into sin with their pop psychology. God is now speaking of now, he's now ready to judge the living and the dead.

He's ready. There's nothing in the way. This is why in verse six, the gospel was preached to the dead. Like those people in Noah's day, the gospel is preached to people now. And it was preached to people back then.

So that even after we are judged for our life in the body, that we might live spiritually like God does, the gospel was preached to us so that we might have our best life forever. How do you have your best life?

Serving One Another and Facing Fiery Trial

Serve one another. The end of all things is at hand in verse seven. That is the very next thing after this is the end of all things. The next stage is the end. So why live for things, for money, for houses, for luxury cars, for stuff that won't make it past this time?

So instead be self-controlled and sober minded. Keep your head clear of all the things, the intoxicants, the hysteria, the delusions, the conspiracy theories, the nonsense that fills so many other people's heads and muddles their thinking.

Be clear of all that so you can pray. Above all in verse eight, what's the most important thing? What do you think above all makes for your best life? What's the main thing to have that best life, the best that's possible now?

Is it your self-image like Joel Osteen's second step? Or is it that you discover the power of your thoughts and words, the third step? Or is it that you choose to be happy? Peter says here. What does he say?

Notice verse eight. What is it exactly is above all the most important thing? Peter says have a fervent and as an earnest and eager, a sincere love. He's talking to the church now. You, you spiritual house, living stones put together, keep loving deeply because love covers a multitude of sins.

If you love, you overlook small offenses. You assume the best. And so don't imagine that if he or she has it called, it's because they don't care. Always suspecting something, that they're using you or whatever.

With love, small and sometimes even large offenses are forgotten. But if love is lacking, every word is suspected. Why did he say that? Why resentment smolders, suspicions grow, and conflicts erupt. So above all, it's not about you unleashing God's power to get the prime parking spot in front of Walmart.

Above all, love one another. That will show in hospitality. You're glad to host and share. You have things. You want to share them, especially with God's people. It will show in using your gifts to serve one another.

You each have gifts given to you from God. In verse 10, you're a steward of them to make the most of them, to use them for the body, to build up the spiritual house. Maybe you can speak or sing. Use that gift boldly.

Speak or sing for God, not just for yourself. Maybe it's to serve, to manage a building, to manage the accounts, or drive a vehicle, or put on a baby shower, or help with Jim Jr. Pray for the strength God supplies to use it generously.

In the past few months, we've had two guest speakers. Now, I don't mean to speak badly of anyone, but one of whom I don't think showed a strong gift for speaking, and I hope he's learning that. And so that's probably not his gift.

But the other, Ed Davis, whom we had at the last Sunday of last year, I told after the service, you're a gifted preacher. You have a gift. Each of you have a gift. Use it with God's strength so that, in verse 11, God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.

Remember that vision. Set apart Christ in your hearts. Let him be glorified, and may you enjoy glorifying him beginning now. To him be glory. To Jesus be glory. Set him apart in your hearts and dominion rule in your life forever and ever.

Beginning now. Amen. How do you live your best life? Serve one another with your gift and God's strengths. Cease from sin. Seek salvation. See the vision. And finally, suffer for your soul, starting in verse 18.

Beloved loved ones, the people loved by God, don't be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you. Here he's preparing them for an unleashing of persecution and suffering they haven't experienced yet.

People who are raised thinking that God, the Bible, the church, it all exists to help me have my suffering-free best life now will be surprised when some fiery trial is unleashed on them. What's this, they think?