Arm Yourselves

1 Peter 4:1-6

Immanuel – 8/15/21

In 1 Peter 2:11, Peter ushered us into part two of his letter. Part 1 dealt primarily with glorious theological truths. It was about the living hope that God has caused us to be born into. And in part 1, practical applications were lightly scattered throughout.

Part 2 reverses that pattern. It is mostly practical application, with smatterings of theological truths. In part 2 we have seen that we all are called to submit to our governing authorities and to those that manage our labors. Peter showed us how to live as husbands and wives and how to love each other within the church.

Then he encouraged us to do good, even if we must suffer because of that good. For Christ also suffered in order to bring us to God.

Purpose

In what way does suffering lead to holiness?

How do we arm ourselves for spiritual life?

Read 1 Peter 3:18-4:6

Remembering

Chapter 4 begins with a “therefore.” That means we are unable to understand what Peter is communicating in chapter 4 unless we remember what he was saying in the preceding chapter.

As Christians of Asia Minor were living their lives, following Christ, doing good works; they were also running in to trouble on a local level. Jews were ravenously persecuting Jewish Christians. Among the Gentiles, disciples of Jesus were forsaking their old pagan ways, incurring the scorn of their families and communities. Jewish and Gentile Christians were reviled and persecuted.

All the churches that Peter was writing to knew the suffering of persecution. 3:17 sums up Peter’s exhortation to them.

For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil. -1 Peter 3:17

And then Peter goes on to show that their suffering is not a foreign thing, for Christ also suffered; and He suffered for our ultimate good.

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God. -1 Peter 3:18

If Christ suffered for doing good, then think it not strange when you suffer for doing good. If Christ suffered for doing good, and through resurrection achieved victory, then know that your suffering will also end in victory. For no matter what comes, at the end of your suffering, there will be standing Jesus: your victorious Lord! He will bring you to God!

Now, as we come to chapter 4, we must hold these truths in our mind; just as the “therefore” demands. Because of Jesus, it is better to suffer for doing good. And in 4:1 Peter pivots and gives us another hope in our suffering: holiness. Suffering produces holiness.

Read vs 1

We humans need to be careful. How easily we can fall off the horse! How easily our hearts lead us astray!

Seeking Suffering

In 5th century Syria, Simeon the Stylite (regarded as a saint by Catholics) wanted to share in Christ’s sufferings. He wanted to be holy. So he chose a life of self-imposed suffering; building for himself a pillar to live atop – which he did for 28 years of his life. Up there he would pray, study the Scriptures, and meditate.

Through the years he had several different pillars, each one getting taller, but the last one he lived atop was 50 feet tall. On top there was a little railing and 11 sq ft. There he spent his 28 years entirely exposed to the elements: the blazing sun, snow and rain, desert heat; going dangerously long period without food and water.

Also, in case he stumbled over his little railing, Simeon tied a rope around his waist – and he tied it extra tight. It gnawed on his skin, producing open soars. And it wasn’t long until these soars were writhing with maggots.

One day a crowd of visitors were standing at the foot of Simeon’s pillar when some of these maggots fell to the ground. Simeon had them sent back up in a small bucket, and upon their return to the top Simeon placed them back on his wounds saying, “Eat what the Lord has given you.”

Simeon the Stylite was an ascetic, a person that seeks sanctification through suffering. He thought that his self-imposed exile atop the pillar, rife with suffering, would allow him to better commune with his Maker. He hoped that his deprivations and pains would serve to drive out sin and stimulate holiness.

And why would he, and the countless other ascetics like him, not think he was on the road to holiness, to becoming more like his Lord? Our verse today says that whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin. So if you want to stop sinning, go get some suffering! Right?

NO! And to think that you should throw yourself into suffering is a complete misunderstanding of Scripture! We humans are so prone deception. We need to beware of taking a portion of Scripture and making it too big. It’s like zooming in on an image until all you have is distortion. All of its original meaning is lost in the hyper-focus God never intended.

How do we know harming yourself for holiness is a misunderstanding? Because of the larger testimony of Scripture. First, no one, despite their sufferings, entirely ceases from sin this side of the grave.

Who can say, “I have made my heart pure; I am clean from my sin?”

-Proverbs 20:9

If we say that we have not sinned, we make [God] a liar, and His word is not in us. -1 John 1:8

We must always seek to understand Scripture as a whole. Which means being diligent about looking for Scriptures that might bring balance to our latest so-called “insights.”

With a fuller understanding of Scripture we can see that no one ceases from sinning. No one stops sinning. So when we read, in 1 Peter 4:1, whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, we must ask how this harmonizes with the Proverbs and with John, and with various other writers that have said the same.

In other words, let Scripture interpret Scripture. You should never interpret Scripture according to your own thoughts or feelings, no matter how right you think you are or how strongly you feel; lest you end up atop a 50 foot pillar with maggots falling out of your side.

So we will skip to verse 3 to help find the meaning of verse 1.

Read vs 3

Peter lists very specific behaviors that are antithetical to holiness. And I need not dive into the meaning of each one, because just as they saturated the Gentile culture of the first century, so also do they saturate our culture. We know what these things are.

Human Passions

I do want to highlight passions though. Peter also uses the term “human passions” in verse 2. Other translations render this word as “lusts.” Yes, this word can carry a sexual connotation, but it is also used in a much broader sense. It is more about desires, specifically self-serving desires.

They are those that hear the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. -Mark 4:19

The word for desires here is the same Greek word translated as passions in 1 Peter.

To pursue your own desires, your own passions, is to allow the word of God to be choked from your life. We live in a society where one of the highest doctrines is the pursuit of your dreams. But these passions can lead you wildly astray.

For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.

-2 Timothy 4:3-4

People will find teachers and teachings that serve their passions – the same word that Peter employs.

This is our world. A society that affirms LGBTQ+ passions; and gatherings of people – trying to call themselves a church – affirming the same. People following their passions into a hypnotizing screen. People sacrificing their loved ones on the altar of their dreams. All these people, following their dreams into delusion and ending up atop columns; isolated, in pain, vainly hoping their passions will perfect them.

All who follow after such passions are dead – spiritually dead. Dead to the things of God and dead to His will; loving the things that kill you and happy to live in the darkness. And all the spiritually dead will receive from God the desires of their heart, the eternal death of Hell. Then will their eyes be opened to the true horror of their passions.

But Christ came to open our eyes to the coming judgement before it is too late, and He came to save us from that judgement.

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him.”

-John 3:16-17

And the death that we – in blindness – loved and deserved, Jesus – with eyes wide open – died that death for us. His death was our death. But death did not defeat Him. Bursting from the grave He rose in life and victory. Now His life is our life. He died and rose again to save us from our passions.

His death, our death. His life, our life. As Paul writes:

Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we also will live with Him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death He died He died to sin, once for all, but the life He lives He lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. -Romans 6:8-12

Once we were dead in our passions. Now we are alive to the will of God!

Sensuality, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, lawless idolatry, following your passions and dreams – all the things that unbelievers want to do – leave it in the past. Like verse 3 says: For the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do. Before you bowed the knee to Jesus you experienced enough sinfulness. Let wicked pursuits now stay in the past. Bring them not into the present! The time for those things is over!

Do not let your passions reign in the Kingdom of Christ!

Read vs 1-2

Live not according to your passions, not following your dreams; live for the will of God! Just like Jesus prayed:

“Not my will, but yours be done.” -Luke 22:42

As Christ faced down terrible horrors of suffering, as His flesh screamed out for an easier way, in holy submission He laid His life down for His Father’s perfect will. Even in the garden, Christ reckoned Himself dead as He prepared for the cross.

You are called to do the same. When the passions of the flesh and the desires of your heart would have you run in your own direction, away from your Lord and Savior, then drag those desires over to the cross and drive in those nails! Crucify that old self!

Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. -Galatians 5:24

Or as Jesus said:

“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.” -Mark 8:34-35

Just as Christ prayed in Gethsemane, and reckoned Himself dead in the flesh, so too should you recon yourself dead in the flesh. All those things of the past, all those human passions, you are dead to them.

Holy Suffering

And now we can understand the phrase, whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin. Suffering does not end sin. Suffering helps us to see that the time for sin is over. Because when we walk through suffering, when nothing in this world brings relief, when pain strips everything that we once clung to; then all we have is the hope of our salvation. All we have is the heavenly inheritance that God is keep us for. All we have is Christ. And Christ is the end of sin.

As we faithfully endure suffering while loving Jesus, then sinful passions are driven more from our souls, and passion for Jesus is magnified. This is what Peter means when he writes whoever has suffered has ceased from sin. Like nothing else, faithful suffering crucifies the old sinful self.

Read Romans 6:6-7

Suffering reminds us of our mortality – of our death. And in death sin ceases, you are entirely freed from sin. Even though we live in the flesh, Christ’s death is our death. Even though we still will sin, we are not slaves to sin. We are not condemned. The guilt has been removed. You are free! Suffering gives you the greatest perspective of this freedom, because suffering reminds you of your death.

What a hope to a church in a hostile world. Not only does it please God if you do His will, even if it causes you suffering; but suffering also conforms you more and more into likeness of Jesus. Faithful suffering stimulates the holiness of Christ within you.

And you don’t need to climb atop pillars to find suffering, God will bring it to you in times that He deems best. Trust Him. His plan is best. He passes you through the fire because there is glory on the other side.

In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith – more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire – may be found to result in (your) praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. -1 Peter 1:6-7

Though you suffer, Christ is being revealed within you. So trust in Him. Draw your strength from Him. And as your former passions dissolve in the pain, let your passion for Jesus only grow stronger. He has redeemed you. He has recreated you. He has given you the victory. And He will give you a resurrected body untouched by the troubles of suffering.

But all of these things are foreign to the world around us.

Read vs 4-5

Light and Dark

Your old friends will be surprised when you don’t go out drinking with them. People at work might be offended when you do not affirm the LGBTQ+ lifestyle. Family members will not understand when you do not celebrate their passions.

If Jesus did not come to condemn the world, then you should certainly not condemn the world. But the light that you represent is an offense to the darkness they so love.

“This is the judgement: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come into the light, lest his works should be exposed.” -John 3:19-20

So when we are reviled because we do not join in their flood of debauchery and evil, do not be surprised. You are the light of the world, and the darkness hates the light. They persecuted Jesus. How much more will they persecute you?

They will give an account. Every dark thing they love will be brought into the light. Every slanderous word that has been spoken will be exposed. And every follower of Christ that has been reviled will be vindicated. God will restore all that was taken from His sons and daughters! And He will bring justice upon all those who hate His light.

But never forget, you are not superior to those in the darkness. You did nothing to bring yourself into the light. But, according to His great mercy, God caused you to be born again to a living hope. God called you out of the darkness and into His marvelous light (1 Peter 2:9). You were spiritually dead, and God raised you to spiritual life!

Read vs 6

God raised you to spiritual life through the proclamation of the gospel – the gospel I have proclaimed through this sermon. And before God effectively called you through the gospel, you were dead. Praise God who raised you from that grave!

Yes, your body will die, or as Peter says, you will be judged in the flesh the way people are. But because you are alive in the Spirit, you live – just as God lives: into eternity, in the purity of His holy light, in abounding joy, and peace, and flooded in love!

Spiritual Life

We must remember that holiness, Christ-likeness, life in the Spirit, is not just about suffering and saying no to sin. It is also about saying yes to the will of God. It is about living in a new way.

If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. -2 Corinthians 5:17

And Peter has shown us how to do this. He has given us a most practical tool in crucifying our human passions and living in the spirit. We saw it in verse 1. Arm yourselves with the same way of thinking. Arm yourself – this is your weapon, this is how you fight the flesh and live in the new creation; whether you suffer or not. And it is wielded by your mind.

When your human passions tempt, when sensuality allures, when debauchery attracts, when anger rises; see your Savior in Gethsemane reckoning Himself dead, speaking “Not my will, but yours be done.” Join Him there, and let His words be yours. Look to the other side of the suffering of self-denial and there see glory.

And where there is death, fill it with life. Where there was lust, let there be earnest love for your brothers and sisters in Christ. Where there was the stupor of drunkenness, let there be an alertness to the Holy Spirit. Where there was the foolishness of idolatry, let there be adoration of the risen Lord!

This is what it looks like to live in the Spirit. Where there was darkness, now there is light. Where there was the death of sin, now there is the life of Christ!

You need no pillar. For in times of comfort, and especially in times of suffering, what we really need is to arm ourselves with this way of thinking!