Let's continue to worship our God this morning by considering His Word. I invite you to turn in that Word to the book of 1 Peter 3. We're going to be considering verses 1-6 in our reading this morning, and then I'm just going to hone in specifically in the body of the sermon on verse 1. If you're following along in a pew Bible, you can find our passage on page 1016. So let's now worshipfully and intentionally give ourselves to the reading of God's word. 1 Peter 4, verses 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're surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you, but they will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. 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. As far as the reading of God's word, the grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of our God stands forever, and we are exceedingly grateful for it. Congregation, let's ask the Lord for help this morning as we consider the ministry of the word. Father God, we come into this place this morning with so many worldly attachments. And Father, your servant John has said that it is appropriate that we would live in the world and yet not be of the world. And so as we consider this morning our attachments to the world, our attachments to the esteem in the eyes of men with respect to our reputation, the attachment we have to our material things, our houses, our cars, our portfolios, and all the things that are under our name on an itemized list. I pray, Father, that we could look at all those things and be armed with the mind of Christ to say, if they go up in flames as I suffer for Christ, I'm willing to do it. Father, we confess to you that we struggle to have such a mindset. We confess to you, Father, that we are quite comfortable in our materialism, in our Western culture, in Americana, in the dream that is given to everyone who would call themselves a citizen of this country. We confess to you, Father, that we hold tightly to these things. Would you, by your grace, Father, loosen our grip for the time of suffering and persecution just may be closer than we think it is. And Father, I pray that we as a people would not be caught unawares. I pray that we as a people, Father, would be ready, like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, to pass through the flame, if that's what you would have us do, Father, recognizing that it may be your will to save us from it, and it may be your will, Father, to keep us in it. Father, may we see the joy that comes through the furnace of affliction in the face and character and person and work of your Son, Jesus Christ, and may that eclipse every other siren song on the shores of this temporal life in such a way that Christ is magnified in us in all that we are and all that we do. Help your servant this morning, dear Father, to unpack this incredibly challenging mindset of your Son and our Savior. May you be glorified. We ask these things in your Son's name, amen. We've been talking about suffering through the book of 1 Peter. And hopefully that will quell some of your curiosities that some of you may have as to why we're talking so much about suffering in the exposition of the Word. It's because 1 Peter is about suffering. And I wonder if in the midst of these expositions you've asked yourself this question, do I really suffer for Christ? Have you asked yourself that question? Have you asked yourself, as I think through my days, as I think through my week, as I think through my life, do I really suffer For Christ. We're not talking about general suffering, a guy that cuts you off on the freeway. He could care less whether you're a Christian, he just wants to get in front of you. We're talking about suffering that comes as a result of naming the name of Christ, standing up for truth, and as Peter says in 1 Peter 3.17, for doing good. Now I know that there's some of us in this place who, as you think about your day from sunup to sundown, you are in something of a Christian bubble. And so for you, you really don't experience suffering, do you? I think of some of our teenagers who are in Christian schools right now, or even some of our other children who are in homeschooling. And Monday through Friday, they are with mom or they are with Christian teachers or Christian kids, so to speak. And they really don't experience suffering because even though they know in those Christian schools that there are some who are not genuine Christians, they're nonetheless towing the line for the Christian message because that's what you do in a Christian school. And then Saturday with your family and then Sunday with the people of God, morning and evening, and you're just in this bubble of sorts and you really don't experience suffering. But there are others of you who are not in this bubble. There are others of you who have known and felt exactly what it is that Peter has been getting at when he has been talking about suffering. You live it because you open your mouths to non-believers and you receive the mockings and the jeerings that come as a result. But brethren, you should know that our culture has come to a point where greater suffering for being a Christian is already here. Listen to me. Listen to me very closely. It's not around the corner. It's not 10 years out. It is here, it's here in a real and disturbing way. Allow me for a moment to give a specific example of what I'm referring to. The transgender revolution has brought a challenge to our faith that you must take seriously and to which, listen, you must give serious and intentional forethought about how you are going to respond if you are put in that situation. Some of you know, just recently, in our own state, a Christian high school French teacher in a secular school, I believe in West Point, Virginia, was fired by the West Point School Administration because there was a teenager in his class who transitioned from being a male to a female, and demanded that this teacher and every other member of the administration and faculty and even the kids refer to him with his female name and with his female pronouns. Now this French teacher found in his conscience a way to navigate these waters. He was okay with using this person's female name. I mean, after all, there are many people's names that are unisex, right? Have you ever met a man named Meredith? Or a person named Sam? That could be Sam the female or Sam the male. Or maybe you've met a very heavily padded man, a very hefty man, and his name is Slim. And you don't have any problem in your conscience calling him slim. I mean, after all, that's what they called him when he was young, and it just kind of stuck, and it's a bit of an irony, but you call him slim. But this man said, I'm willing to use that name, but I cannot, in good conscience, use a female pronoun, because I do not believe that this person is a female. And, of course, the time came when he used a male pronoun, and the administration came to him and said, you must apologize for that. And he said, I can't, I just can't. And so they terminated him. Now there may be disagreement about what this man should or should not have done. I happen to believe with all my heart that this man did the right thing. He did not violate his conscience. He believed, listen, he believed in objective truth. And as controversial as this issue is, and by the way, I have no problem bringing it into the pulpit, if we do not speak to where the battle rages in the moment, in the culture, then what are we doing as a people of God? The Lord has given to the church ministers, pastors, teachers, to do what, congregation? To equip them. to equip them for the work of ministry so that they are not tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine that not just comes through the church, but that comes through the culture. And there is a greater constellation of ideas out in our culture today. It's called postmodernism. I won't use that word anymore because I know it's big. But it basically says that there is no objective truth. That truth is subjective. It's like ice cream. Your favorite can be chocolate, your favorite could be vanilla, and you guys are both right. There's no contradiction. And it is a full-scale frontal attack on objective truth. And after all, Jesus said what? I am the way, the truth, and the life. The truth. Truth is important to Christians. And he refused to violate his conscience. He refused to violate objective truth. Listen, he believed in divinely ordained and inviolable gender assignment. God made them male and female. And more importantly, can I say this? He refused to violate or break the ninth commandment. What is the ninth commandment? You should not bear false witness. Words matter, congregation. Words matter. But someone may say that he could have exercised Christian liberty and just gone along with the wishes of a teenager in the state. Well, I don't believe that. Let me say this. Even if this were a Christian liberty issue, which again, I don't think it is, and nor do I think you should think it is, Whether or not it's a Christian liberty issue, when Paul talked about Christian liberty in Romans 14, remember that whole debacle about the Jews who were offended by Gentiles who would eat meat sacrificed to idols, and the Gentiles who had not been brought up and steeped in Judaism since they were knee-high to a grasshopper, so cheap meat at market which was sacrificed to Zeus, which doesn't exist anyway, yeah, I'll eat that, yeah, I'll buy that. Paul had to bring these two groups together, and this was a Christian liberty issue. And in the midst of that section, he says, look, on the one hand, Jews, your Gentile brothers and sisters, they stand or fall in their consciences before God, not before you, so don't judge them. On the other hand, Gentiles, the Lord has given you Christian liberty, but it's not to beat your weaker brothers over the head and scandalize them, so love them. But then he says, listen very carefully, at the end, as a principle to both, Romans 14 verses 21 to 23, he says, it is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble. The faith that you have, keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who has no reason to pass judgment on himself for what he approves. Verse 23, for whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats because the eating is not from faith. For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin. How does this apply to our French teacher? The bottom line is whether or not you agree with him or not, this man's conscience did not allow him to do what the student and the administration wanted him to do. His faith, listen, his faith doubted whether it was right in the sight of God. And according to Paul, whatever is not from faith is sin. For this man, it was sin. He was following his conscience. He was following God's will as revealed in his conscience. And I believe he was following God's will as revealed in the word of God. And as a result, he lost his job. Now the first century Christians experienced a very similar form of suffering. It's amazing how the parallels are so clear here. They experienced suffering for doing God's will. They were expected as a Roman citizen in the public square to proclaim Caesar is Lord and to take a pinch of incense and to throw it in the fire as an offering for Caesar. And if they did not do this, their property could be seized, you could lose your job, you would be persecuted and maybe even killed. And guess what? The Christians refused to do this and many of them were thrown to the lions as a result. Why did they refuse to do it? Because words matter. Words matter. Now while the example of this high school French teacher and the first century Christians are somewhat different, I want you to know two striking similarities in these two examples. Two striking similarities. Number one, in both instances, the Christian is ordered to declare something to be so that in their hearts and minds they do not believe to be so. And secondly, watch this, In both cases, it is the political correctness as defined by the state which makes the demand upon their consciences. Make no mistake, listen, in both cases, it is religion which forces each to violate his conscience. What is the essence of religion? The essence of religion is that it requires people to affirm as true what they cannot see. Pay homage to my identity, even though you cannot see that it conforms to reality. Pay homage to Caesar, even though you cannot see in your heart and mind that he is really Lord of heaven and earth. Pay homage, pay homage, pay homage. The state defines, make no mistake, beloved, this is state-ism. This is a religion. And oftentimes, Christian suffering does not come from the jugular Christian doctrines, those first-tier Christian doctrines. Nobody out there in this state is persecuting us for believing in salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, through Christ alone. They could care less about the soulless. It is often the case in the history of the church that we're not persecuted for standing up for those jugular, first-tier Christian beliefs. It is often the case that we are persecuted for standing up for those secondary and tertiary issues like marriage and gender roles and assignments in society. But Peter says in 1 Peter 3.17, he doesn't say, it's better for you to suffer for holding on to the gospel. He doesn't say that, that's true, that's true. What does he say? It is better to suffer for doing good. for doing good, if that should be God's will, then for compromising, for doing evil. We find ourselves, beloved, at a why in the road. Some Christians are going to join culture and they're going to compromise and they're gonna change the message of God's word in order to have a place at the table, in order to be accepted, in order to be heard. They want to be accepted and tolerated by the powers that be. And let me say, that is a grave mistake. If history is any indicator of future precedent, compromising the word of God virtually always results in a departure from orthodoxy. Those who are faithful will do something else. They, listen, they will choose to suffer rather than sin. Let me say that again. The faithful, those whom are God's elect, the faithful who are gonna be around the throne worshiping Jesus because, listen, They love Him more than anything in this world, even more than the approbation and inclusion and acceptance of the state and the world and the flesh and the devil. What the faithful will do is they will choose to suffer rather than to sin. They will choose to suffer rather than to compromise. And this is the exact thing that Jesus did. Jesus chose the path of suffering for doing God's will rather than sinning and being accepted. So what does this say to us? What does this say to us? if we are going to be willing and able to stand up for truth, whether it's the truth of the gospel, and by the way, can I just say, and echoing something I've already said, sometimes in our culture, our evangelical subculture, our little ghetto of evangelicalism, we talk much about the cross being central and the gospel being central, and that's true, amen and amen, but sometimes people take from that that if I'm going to offend, I'm only going to offend with the gospel. Okay, that's true, that's true, And the gospel comes to us from the Lord as redeemer. But that same Lord is also what? Creator. He is creator. who created mankind, male and female, who created the institution of marriage. And those things are just as important to God as Creator, as the gospel is to Him as Redeemer. You serve a God who is both Redeemer and Creator, and you are to stand up for Him as He makes claims in both of those roles in this world. If we're going to be able to stand up for truth, to keep our consciences clear, and to maintain a good testimony, to honor Christ, not only with our lips, but also with our lives, we need to arm ourselves with something. We need to arm ourselves, we need a weapon. And Peter gives us a weapon this morning. And can I just say, you know that there was that time in Peter's life when he thought he was ready to stand up for Christ. There were a few instances in the ministry of our Lord with Peter there as his follower, his disciple, where Peter thought he was ready. He thought he was ready to go to battle with the powers that be. He was ready to go against the enemies and stand for truth. He was perfectly fine with accepting Jesus as Messiah. He was perfectly fine with accepting Jesus as king. He echoed an amen, Boanderes, the sons of thunder, when they said, Lord, should we call down fire on these people who are not being nice to you and paying homage to you? I mean, after all, you're king. He was amening that. He was in the amen section the whole time, because he was fine with Jesus being king. He was fine with Jesus being Messiah. But the moment Jesus spoke of suffering. The moment Jesus spoke of a cross, he said, no Lord, no, you will not go to the cross. And what did Jesus say? He said, get behind me, Satan, you do not understand that this is the will of God that I should suffer. And then later in life, at the end of our Lord's life, as Peter stood by that fire, he also thought he was ready. He hadn't quite learned the lesson yet, had he? He hadn't quite learned the lesson yet. He thought that he was ready to stand up for his Lord, and a little servant girl said, aren't you one of Jesus' followers? Little servant girl, not a Roman soldier brandishing his sword, not Pilate himself, not the council of elders, little servant girl. What did Peter say? He said, no, I don't know that man, and let me just keep on cursing and explicative so I can convey to you that I have nothing to do with him. Peter hadn't learned the lesson yet but in this epistle as an older man as an older elder as a pastor he had learned the lesson with bitter tears and he had embraced the lesson that in this life I suffer for Christ and I follow in the wake of his suffering example and pattern Because this is what He has for us in this life. So He has given us this morning a weapon. And that weapon is the mind of Christ. It is the weapon of the intention and resolution of Christ to triumph through suffering by conforming to the will of God. Only the mind of Christ, only the intention of Christ, the resolve of Christ can give this to us. Only the resolve of Christ and the intention of Christ can cause us to stand when we are put in a place like this French teacher, when we are called to either stand for truth or to cave in and buckle the knees to statism. And so let us receive this weapon this morning with a resolution to use it in the midst of suffering and be brought through our suffering. So the main idea this morning, very simple. The mindset of Christ will prepare us for and carry us through suffering. Let me say that again. The mindset of Christ will prepare us for and carry us through suffering. I wanna consider this very briefly under three heads. And the first head is this. The weapon against suffering in the Christian life. Verse 1. By the way, that's really all I'm going to be spending time on this morning is verse 1. I might dip into verse 2, but I need to draw out this principle so that in succeeding weeks, we can start unpacking it more. Peter says in 4.1, Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking. This idea of arming yourselves has a military connotation. In other texts, it is used of the Christian life as one who is compared to a warrior. We read this in Ephesians chapter six. Arm yourself, equip yourself, take up the sword, take up the breastplate of righteousness, take up the helmet of salvation. But what are we to arm ourselves with? It's very interesting what he says here. He says in your ESVs, arm yourselves, equip yourselves, prepare yourselves with the same way of thinking as Christ. Now, what is he talking about here? Well, I think that he's already alluded to what this is in verse 17 and 18. You could back up just a little bit. to chapter three, verses 17 and 18, and look, I've already mentioned it. He said, 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. And so the same mind of thinking as Christ is very simple. He would rather go through the furnace and the fires of affliction if it were to be the Lord's will, than to sin, than to compromise, than to be outside of God's will for doing something contrary to God's revealed will. The mindset of Christ is a bold-faced determination with grit to follow the will of God, even if it means suffering. And he says this in verse two, so as to live for the rest of our time in the flesh, no longer for human passions, but for what? For the will of God. The mindset or intention or purpose of Christ is that he would rather suffer for doing God's will, no matter what, no matter what comes. But I want you to notice that for Peter, for Peter then, The cross, therefore, is the central orbit out of which we live our Christian lives. The cross, then, as that emblem of suffering, is the orbit out of which we live and move and have our being. It is the center of gravity, if you will, when you think about your life from Sunday to Saturday, from sunup to sundown. The cross looms large over every aspect, every nook and cranny, every area of your life. The cross is king in the life of the Christian. So consider, secondly, that very idea. The centrality of the cross in the Christian life. If you look at verse 22 from chapter three, this is very interesting, I want you to catch this. Remember that section, we spent about three weeks on it, Christ suffered once for sins, he went and declared, he was resurrected, he went and declared victory to the spirits in prison, Noah's day, baptism, and then he ends that whole section by saying, and he has ascended to the right hand of the Father, He has been crowned, okay, with angels and authorities being put into subjection under him. So he ends verse 22 in this glorious depiction of our baptism of Christ's suffering, of Christ's victory, with the ascension, the crown. the ruling at the right hand of the Father. But watch this, as he comes now in chapter four, verse one, and remember there were not chapter divisions in Peter's letter, but as he moves now, he transitions, he pivots to talk now about practical considerations of suffering in the Christian life, he comes back down from the clouds of the ascension to the cross. Do you notice that? That shift is incredibly important, why? Because when we consider suffering in the Christian life, or to put it more plainly, when we consider life, when we consider our time here on earth, Of all the epics of Christ's life, what lens, what epic or lens are we to look through when we consider our life? It is not the cradle, his birth, that was when the Lord sent him into the world as a prophet. It is not his crown, as the Lord was ascended to heaven to rule as a king, nor is it the clouds, his second coming, where he will judge as king, prophet and king. No, it is the cross. It is the cross where he was sacrificed as priest for us. When Paul and Peter think about what the Christian is, primarily, exclusively, but primarily, they grab onto and identify with the cross. Why? Because in this new life, we are called to suffer until he returns. Now, why am I talking about these different aspects of Jesus's life? The cradle, the cross, the cradle, the cross, the crown, and the clouds. Why am I talking, because Jesus is prophet, priest, and king, and all these aspects of his life are important, but I've noticed, especially in the last three or four years, Christians, especially in America and evangelicalism, are continuing to focus more on the crown in his ruling and starting to see that as the paradigm for what our, listen, primary role in society is. Well, he's king, so we've gotta establish his rule on the earth. And that means we've gotta infiltrate the earth with the rule of Christ, not just the gospel. but justice in society, justice here, and we've got to remodel the police department, and we've got to refine this and refine that, and is there a place for all those things? Well, of course there are. Jesus is King, yes, but that is not our primary role as Christians. Our primary role is not a theology of glory where we're ruling now, by the way, by the way, It was Paul who had to rebuke the Corinthians and 1 Corinthians because they had this idea, this over-realized eschatology where we're already ruling right now. Paul used his spiritual gift of sarcasm to say, oh yeah, you're already kings, you're already ruling. Oh, that you had all things right now, no. He had to bring them back to reality and say, we do not live in this life with a theology of glory. Glory will come. We live in this life with a theology of the cross. the theology of suffering. We are to expect it. We are to endure it. We are to, in some sense, find joy in it because it was for the joy set before Christ that he set his face like a flint toward Jerusalem. So turn in your Bibles very quickly to John 6. John 6, 53 to 56. I wanna put this idea on display for you. Again, I'm trying to show to you the centrality of the cross. the centrality of the cross in the life of the Christian. I am not saying that the cross is the exclusive lens through which we look at life, but it is the primary lens. Jesus in this beautiful chapter. In a monologue that sent many of the fake disciples away, says this in John 6, 53 to 56, Jesus said to them, truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks on my blood has eternal life and I will raise him up on the last day for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks on my blood abides. You could read lives in me and I in him. This is metaphorical language for feeding the soul on the crucified Christ. body which is broken for you, blood which is spilt for you. All these images bring us to the foot of the cross where Christ is suffering. Metaphorical language for feeding on the crucified Christ, identifying yourself with the crucified Christ, the one who eats and drinks through faith, constantly feeds himself on the crucified Savior. So I say these things so that we do not have an improper imbalance about what our role here is as Christians. You remember when John the Baptist declared Jesus coming? How did he declare his coming? As he walked up those dusty banks of the Jordan River. He did not say, behold the voice of God that takes away the ignorance of the world. Nor did he say, behold the rule of God who takes away the rebellion of the world. He didn't say that. It's true, it's not what he said. What did he say? Behold the Lamb of God. The Lamb. the living, bleeding, dying, willing lamb who takes away the sin of the world. The cross is the primary and central piece in the life of the Christian, the lens through which we look at all of life, and if that rule of thumb is embedded in your spirit, then you will keep yourself from imbalance. What did Christ say, or what did Paul say as he reflected back on his preaching career in 1 Corinthians 1? He said, I've determined to know nothing among you except for what? Christ and Him crucified. Christians have a theology of the cross. But now thirdly, now let's put these things into practice. Thirdly, consider the intentional resolution of the Christian life. We've looked at what this tool is with which we arm ourselves. We've expanded upon how that mind of Christ and the symbol of his suffering on the cross is our mindset in this life, primary, not exclusive, but primary. But now let me give you three suggestions on how to apply this intentional resolve of Jesus. Three ways in which you can apply this intentional resolve of Jesus. And let me just say before I get into these, remember what we're looking at. We're looking at, or asking the question, are you prepared to suffer if the time comes? Whether it's that situation that you may be in, by the way, Christian, like this French high school teacher, or whether it's something else where you are called to compromise your faith and go along with the crowd. Are you going to be ready? Three suggestions how we could apply this. Number one, arming yourselves with this mindset of Christ means that you are intentional with this weapon. Arming yourselves with this mindset of Christ means that you are intentional with this weapon. Like soldiers preparing for battle, believers should prepare themselves for suffering. Look at Luke 9, verses 51 through 53. Turn in your Bibles, please, to Luke 9, verses 51 through 53. We see Jesus exhibiting this intentional resolve to suffer for the will of God. This intentional resolve to suffer for the will of God. Luke 9, verses 51 through 53. Luke says, when the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. The old King James says, set his face like a flint. And he sent messengers ahead of him who went and entered a village of the Samaritans to make preparations for him. Watch this, verse 53. But the people did not receive him. Why? Because his face, his face, his determination, his resolve, his intention was set Where did Luke get this? He got this from Isaiah 56 and 57 where the prophet says this. You don't need to turn there but listen. Listen to this resolve in the mouth of that lyrical prophet Isaiah. This is so beautiful. Isaiah is speaking but through him we see the life images of our Messiah. The prophet says, I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard. I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting, but the Lord God helps me. Therefore, I have not been disgraced. Therefore, I have set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame. You know what flint is, boys and girls? Flint is a very hard, hard type of sedimentary rock. When struck against steel, what does it do? The edge of the flint produces a spark, a fire. Setting your face like a flint implies that you are expecting opposition. You are expecting to stand strong in the face of adversity. To set your face like a flint means to regard these difficulties as worthwhile when you consider what they will lead to. What did Jesus' sufferings lead to? They led to glory. They led to vindication. They led to resurrection. They led to exaltation and coronation. And one day they will lead to judgment of the living and the dead. And we'll get to that in just a few weeks. You have to be intentional in setting your face like a flint to Jerusalem. Jesus did not wake up on the day of his crucifixion and say, oh, I can't do it, I'm not ready. He didn't say that. No, he knew what was coming and he prepared himself for it. While you may not know the specifics of your suffering, you can be assured that you will suffer. You will be tempted to compromise. You will be tempted to violate your conscience. And my question for you this morning, dear saints of God, is how are you preparing for that? Are you preparing for that? Secondly, This goes with the first thing, it's still under the head, arm yourself by being intentional. Prepared to die and prepared to suffer are two different things. Sometimes in my counseling I kind of laugh to myself when I'm talking to husbands and wives and husbands are like, I would die for my wife, I would take a bullet for my wife. I'm like, okay, can you take the trash out for your wife? It is so romantic and so noble, and good, by the way, to be willing to die, and you should be willing to die for Christ. But in all your romantic, singed, eyebrow, martyristic images of being willing to die, are you willing to live for Christ? Are you willing to give up things that the Lord has blessed you with? Are you willing to part with them if it means that you have to lose them for standing up for Christ? Are you willing to say I'd be willing to lose my job for Christ's sake if that were the will of God? You have to, listen, deal with the consequences beforehand. You have to think through the consequences beforehand. Am I willing to part from these things? And guess what? As you go through that mindset, that same way of thinking that Christ was willing to part with all these things, Christ did part with all these things for my good. as I apply that same way of thinking and I think through, would I be willing to lose my job? Would I be willing to lose my family? Would I be willing to lose my house? Would I be willing to lose my portfolio if it meant that suffering was part of the will of God for me? Such that when the time comes, you're ready. You're ready. You don't have to second guess it. I do not say to you that it will be easy. It will be excruciatingly painful, just like the cross was, but you are ready. Finally under this head, intentionality, listen, intentionality begins today. My old professors at Masters College, he's with the Lord now, but he said something that always stuck with me and it was perfect for procrastinating college students to hear. He said, my friends, what you're doing today is what you'll be doing tomorrow. You can't say, I'll think about suffering when it comes, nor can you say, I'll start preparing my soul to see Christ as better than anything else in this world tomorrow. You must do it today. Otherwise, you will be caught by surprise. And when it comes, you won't be ready. I'll start reading my Bible regularly tomorrow. I'll start preparing my kids to face the wicked debauchery of this world tomorrow. Guess what, friend? Tomorrow never comes. Tomorrow never comes. 18 years, parents, 18 years, maybe, is how much you have with your kids. And the first time they belt out that cry coming out of the womb till they're packing up their things to go to college, or maybe 24 if they go to a junior college and they want mom to keep doing the laundry, maybe you have 24 years. And that's it, that's it, that's all you have. What are you doing now to prepare this captive audience that the Lord is giving? Okay, we talk about evangelism, evangelism by procreation, evangelism by family institution. What are you doing to prepare your young minds and impressionable hearts that are gonna be thrown out into the world to cling to Christ and see him as better? Whatever you're doing, I hope that you started it yesterday, and I hope that you're doing it today, and I hope that you're not procrastinating and waiting until tomorrow. I hope, dear friends, that you see it as more important than the home improvements in your house. I hope that you see it as more important than the honeydew list of your wife. Important, has place. What are you doing? Are you intentional? We're not dealing with temporal things here, we're dealing with eternality of your soul and the souls of your precious children. Secondly, arming yourself means that you are familiar with and proficient in the use of this weapon. Am I saying the same things? Yeah, I'll just keep doing it too, that's fine. Arming yourself means you are familiar with and proficient in the use of this weapon. A good exercise, here I am, guy has no military experience talking to a military crowd. A good soldier exercises familiarity with and proficiency with his weapon. He polishes his weapon. He cleans it, he oils it, he stores it away in a safe place so nobody can get it who shouldn't have it. He carefully learns how to hold it, where the safety latch is and how to use that. This familiarity and proficiency doesn't come overnight. A skilled marksman has spent thousands of hours out on the shooting range perfecting his shot. He is a fool who thinks he can bypass boot camp, and bypass ongoing training, and bypass continual sacrifice and practice, and then just mosey into the theater of the war and think that he's not going to get shot in the head. Arming yourselves means you are familiar with and proficient in the use of this weapon. You may not be a soldier, but you practice such familiarity with and proficiency in your vocation and your hobbies. Some of you in this congregation can tell me how many touchdowns a running back has had in his five-year career. Some of you, might have a medical condition and you've learned all about the medications you need to take, the specific medical terminology that is given to them, the exercises that you must do, the precise details of your diet. You rattle off specific names of your heart medication. Others of you have learned all about the right foods to eat, what to eat, what to stay away from, how to eat it, when to eat it. You are experts. You're experts in these temporal areas of life. And in all these things, you have an intentional mental prowess and resolve to study them out, to learn the technical jargon, to be proficient in them. And then the pastor in the sermon uses the word justification, all those syllables. Why can't the pastor use a smaller word? Mental prowess and resolve in these temporal things. There's a place for that. But now when it comes to your soul, where is the mental prowess and resolve to feed your soul and to build it up in the most holy faith so when that time comes, if it does come, who like Peter, when you're standing before a servant girl or this French teacher, when he's standing against the inquisition and they say, buckle the knees, bow the knee, serve this golden image, or we're going to throw you in the fire, where is your mental prowess? Where is your resolve to not just squeak by when temptation comes knocking at your door, but to be ready to do battle after carefully formulating a battle plan? Grace covenant church, where is your mental prowess and your resolve to do this? Are you immersing yourself in the word? Do you know where to go in the Bible? What key passages to tap into when you experience doubt? When you experience fear, pain, suffering, when you fall into sin? When you are dealing with pain and doubt and depression, is your first thought, what medication can I go to? I gotta go to my doctor and I've gotta get a medication and I've gotta get some chemical balance here because that's really what's going on. Place for that. Or as your first thought, oh soul, why are you downcast within me? Why are you downcast within me? Because here's the thing, once the medication wears off, the problem's gonna come right back. And if you don't have the tools, the word of God, this word right here, the eternal word of God, if you not only don't know where to find it, but when you do find it, you don't just read it, but you know how to, like a surgeon, apply it to your heart. And find in your life what those idols are. Yes, we all have idols in this room. All of you have idols in this room. I have idols in my heart. And to the degree that I spend my mental prowess and my resolve and my mind and heart to get alone with God, on my knees before God and say, God, show me where my idols, I'm an American, I've got all kinds of idols, show me what they are, Father, so that you can crash them on the altar of sacrifice and I can worship you rather than them. Do you know how to do that? Can I make a suggestion? We're coming around to January 1. Do you have a Bible reading plan? Do you have a Bible reading plan? Or do you just like to go wherever you want when you open the Bible? Place for that. But I can just go to the specific foods that I want to go to in my diet, and then I'm gonna be a heavily padded guy that you're gonna call slim. I can develop a steady diet of meats, vegetables, carbs, all that kind of stuff through the Word of God that's gonna give me exposure to the whole panoply of redemptive history through the Word of God. Do you have a Bible reading plan? Say, well, I tried that Murray McShane Bible plan reading, but it's like four chapters a day. Okay, that's fine, all right. You get through the Bible once and the Psalms and New Testament twice. Okay, that's a little aggressive, that's fine. How about the Bible in two years? Do you have a plan? Do you have a plan or are you flying by the seat of your pants? And again, I ask the question, is that how you approach the rest of life? Or do you have a plan in the rest of life? Do you have a plan in your career? Do you have a plan in your saving? Do you have a IRA and all these other things? Yes, yes, yes. But over here, if I get to it. Find a Bible reading plan. If you don't know where to find one, come and ask one of the elders. We'll happily give you one. We'll happily give you one. And then when you do come to the Word of God, it's not just a matter, whether you do it in the morning or the evening, I don't care when you do it, it's not just a matter of, well, I've read my three chapters, I've read my two, no, but it's doing heart surgery with the Word of God. And that brings us to the third and final suggestion. Arming yourselves means you use the example of Christ. I want you to look and consider look at and consider Jesus's example in dealing with temptation. Jesus's example in dealing with the question, am I going to buckle or am I going to be faithful to God? When he was out in the wilderness, Luke four, Matthew four, Satan comes to him, right? You talk about temptation to buckle at the knees and be accepted and have all the kingdoms of the world. Not just the approbation of your coworkers, not just the approbation of your boss, not just the approbation of culture that has history on its side, but all the kingdoms of the world bow down to me and I'll give you that. How, listen to me, how did Jesus answer? Well, you know, my doctor says, no, he didn't say that. You know, popular culture didn't say that. What did he say? Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord. Jesus did not have to fumble through his Torah scroll and find the concordance in the back and say, now where bread, mouth, what? No, he had read it multiple times and it was burned on his heart. And not only was it burned on his heart, but he had bowed his knee to that idea. He had made God his principle and desire and pleasure so that everything else, listen, everything else was eclipsed by that. It was eclipsed by his desire to do the will of God. Man does not live on bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord. Your word, O Lord, have I hidden in my heart that I might not sin against you. Dear congregation, I've had a heavy heart this week. I read these things in culture about this high school teacher losing his job, and it makes me sick. It makes me sick. It makes me sick not only because I live in this world and you live in this world and I and Pastor Jim and Pastor Ken have a charge over you to prepare you for things like this and to pray through these things like this when you experience them, but then I've got my children who have to grow up in a world like this. And I am almost driven to despair were it not for two things, the Word of God which is eternal, and the fact that Christ has already triumphed over all this nonsense. He vindicated himself through triumphing over angels and powers and principalities, and one day, and we're gonna see this in two weeks, he will come back to judge the living and the dead. And the last thing I wanna see, the last thing Pastor Ken wants to see, the last thing Pastor Jim wants to see on that great day is to see some of you go up to Jesus and Jesus retort to you, depart from me, for I never knew you. because you had bought into the American dream and you just added Jesus into your little pantheon and you gave a tip of the hat and you went on to work on your car and work on your agenda and populate your Google calendar and work on your home improvements, but the word of God and the church and Christ and his glory and the cross really meant nothing to you. I don't want to see that, congregation. I don't want to see that. And I stand before God and before you with a clear conscience saying that the heart direction of our prayers, when we bend our backs over that table in that middle room, right behind the cry room, every month, is that the Lord would break your hearts and give you a vision of Christ as being better than everything else in the world. So some of you are quite familiar with suffering for Christ's sake. Others of you are young and haven't experienced it, but no matter what category you fall in, The landscape of culture is changing at breakneck speed, and if you are going to be equipped to suffer, you must take up and practice daily this intention of Christ, this mindset of Christ. Take up your cross daily and follow me. Kill yourself, kill your passions, and make Christ principle. After all, it was this intention of Christ which brought you to God in the first place. And if it is this intention of Christ to suffer for doing the will of God that brought you to Christ in the first place, is it? Should it not, dear child of God, be something that keeps you coming back to God day in and day out? I'm willing to suffer. I'm willing to sacrifice everything else, Lord, for this Christ, God, Father, Spirit, Son, your glory, the new heavens and the new earth, better than everything here. But it's not just Jesus' pattern and example. It's Jesus' decisive act that made it possible for you. But there are others of you this morning who have no idea what it means to suffer for Christ's sake. Not because you're a Christian who's in a bubble, but because you are self-consciously not a Christian who simply doesn't care. You know what it is to suffer for your mistakes, your foolishness and your errors, but suffering pales in comparison. That kind of suffering, Okay, for running a red light, for running a stop sign, getting a ticket, oh great, now I got to go to court. That type of suffering pales in comparison to the suffering that is coming for you. Can you hear the wheels of judgment barreling down the track? They're coming for you, dear friend. They're coming for you. God's wrath is barreling down the track of history, and whether it is in this life or on that day, when you stand before your Creator, you will suffer eternally if you do not right now call upon the Lord, turn from your sins, and trust in His active and passive obedience, which covers your sins and gives you a righteousness that causes you to stand before God. Turn from your sins this morning. Believe in Jesus, every single one of us. Whether it's for the first time to where you have come into union with Jesus or for the rest of us believers who love Jesus, turn from the American dream and believe in Jesus. Let's pray. Father, I poured out my soul this morning. My heart is for Your people, Father. You know that. You know that I can't bring a people to You. Only Your Son can. You know that none of us here can draw people to Yourself. Only Your Spirit can. And Father, I just, I grieve and fret that there are some here this morning who love something else more than You. And Father, I pray by the mercies of your Son and our Lord Jesus Christ, that you would break through through this word, Father, through this word that was preached through your spirit. May that cyclone of word and spirit come to the citadels of their heart this morning and ravish those walls and tear them down and give them a knee that bends to the glory and majesty of your Son, Jesus Christ. Father, give us all that this morning. Do it for Your glory. In Your Son's name we pray. Amen.