If you would please turn in your Bibles to 1 Peter 4. 1 Peter chapter 4, if you would please. 1 Peter 4 verses 1 through 6 is our text this morning. 1 Peter 4 verses 1 through 6. The word of the Lord. Therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind. For he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God. For we have spent enough of our past lifetime in doing the will of the Gentiles when we walked in lewdness, lusts, drunkenness, rivalries, drinking parties, and abominable idolatries. In regard to these, They think it strange that you do not run with them in the same flood of dissipation, speaking evil of you. They will give an account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. For this reason, the gospel was preached also to those who are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God. in the spirit, the word of the Lord. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, be with us this morning. May your good and perfect and acceptable will be accomplished. Holy Spirit, we pray that you'd be so pleased to administer your word as you see fit. You are he who searches the hearts and minds of your people. Jesus, we pray that if there's anyone here this morning or listening to this message who has not yet trusted you for the salvation of their soul, for the promise of forgiveness that is found in you, we pray that you'd be so pleased to look to the Father and plead on their behalf, asking him to draw them unto himself through saving faith in you. And so, Lord, I pray that you'd be pleased to bless thy servant's work. Grant me the singleness of mind, the clarity of speech. Help me to speak accurately, authoritatively, boldly. And as always, if I should speak anything amiss, I pray your forgiveness in advance. May you be glorified, may the church be strengthened. In your most holy name we pray, amen. As we have seen over the last two weeks, persecution, or we can say suffering, is a reality of the Christian life. It has been said before and is worth being said again, if we are truly following Jesus Christ, we will at some point in time, if we haven't already, we will experience at some level or degree suffering or persecution if we are faithfully following him. As we've also considered, as we've been working through our way through Peter's letters, the unbelieving world hates God, hates Jesus, and therefore, when given the opportunity, persecutes those who believe, those who are followers of Christ, those who are the people of God. And we need to keep in mind Yet the world no longer has Christ to persecute, and so therefore it persecutes the next best thing, that which is the closest thing to God and to Christ, and that is the church, that is Christians, that is you, that is me. Remember Paul in Colossians 1, 24 through 26, remember where he declares, now I rejoice in my sufferings for you and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ for the sake of his body, which is the church of which I became a minister according to the stewardship of God, which is given to me for you to fulfill the word of God, the mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations, but now has been revealed to a saint. So the Apostle Paul is saying, as we noted before, when he says that he rejoices in the sufferings and he fills up in his flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, he's not saying that the sufferings of Christ was somehow insufficient or somehow lacked or somehow was not enough. What Paul is saying there is that from the world's point of view, The sufferings of Christ is not enough. He deserves more. And so Paul is saying that he rejoices in his sufferings, filling up in his own flesh. He's taking on what the world has for Christ in his own flesh. Because the world no longer has Christ physically to persecute. And so according to the world standards, the world's view, the unbeliever's view, Christ has not suffered enough. And so the apostle Paul says that he rejoices in his sufferings, his personal, physical sufferings, filling up in his flesh what the world deems to be lacking in the afflictions of Christ. And so as Christians, we ought not to be taken by surprise when suffering finds its way in our life. And if we are faithfully following the Lord Jesus Christ, we can expect some heat from the world. As followers of Christ, we will, and I'd be surprised if we haven't already, we will suffer as our master suffered. Meaning just as Jesus was and is rejected by the world, we too will be rejected by the world. And again, we need to know Our suffering obviously does not nor ever will compare to the sufferings of Christ, but generally speaking, just as Christ was rejected, just as he suffered, we will be rejected and we will suffer if we are faithfully following him. Peter clearly understood the reality of suffering in the Christian life, and so again and again we find the apostle We find the Apostle reminding his intended audience, and it is in light of this, of the reality of suffering being an aspect of the Christian life, we find Peter exhorting the body of Christ, exhorting the body of Christ to embrace or to accept the mindset of Christ towards suffering. Accept, embrace, accept Christ's view of suffering. What was his view of suffering? Christ suffered for righteousness sake. We know this. Scripture tells us this. He suffered for doing God's will. That's what we mean when we say he suffered for righteousness sake. He suffered for doing God's will. And as his followers, we too will suffer for doing God's will. We too will suffer for righteousness sake, for doing good. And it is with that mindset, Peter encourages the church to embrace in regard to suffering the mindset of Christ. Let's look at our text once again, and then we'll look to the Father in prayer. Beginning in verse one, notice what Peter writes to the church. Notice what the Lord has for us this morning. Therefore, Since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind. For he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God. For we have spent enough of our past lifetime in doing the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in lewdness, lusts, drunkenness, robberies, drinking parties, abominable idolatries, in regards to these, in regards, excuse me, in regards to these, They think it strange that you do not run with them in the same flood of dissipation. Speaking evil of you, they will give an account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. For this reason, the gospel was preached also to those who are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, once again, we ask that you be with us and that you'd be pleased with the worship offered to you. In your name we pray, amen. Verses one and two. Therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind, for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God. Beloved, our beloved Lord and Savior suffered unimaginable physical pain in His body. The pain and suffering that He experienced for righteousness sake, for doing that which is good, for doing God's will, is beyond our ability to comprehend. Jesus understood that to do God's will is to position oneself for being an object of the world's hatred of God. He understood that. Christ understood that to live a life in accordance to God's will, in the midst of a wicked, wicked world, that he would be the recipient of the world's violent hatred. He understood that, and yet when it came to discussing God's will, he told others that it was his source of food, that it energized him, that it sustained him, it strengthened him. In John 4, we find Jesus and his disciples traveling from Judea to Galilee, and as they made their way to Galilee, Jesus needed to travel through Samaria, the Bible tells us. So Jesus knew that there was a woman and many others there who needed to believe, and so through Samaria it was. And as they made their way through Samaria, they arrived to a place where the plot of land given to Jacob. And it was there they found Jacob's well. Tired and hungry from traveling, the disciples decided to go to the nearest city to buy some food while Jesus waited and rested against Jacob's well. When the disciples returned, and at this point his disciples came, And they marveled that he had talked with a woman, that he was talking with a Samaritan woman. Jews of that day did not speak with Samaritans because they were considered unclean people. They weren't thoroughly Jewish. They were Jewish and Gentile. They were Samaritans. They weren't authentically 100% Jewish. And so there was this rift between the Jews and the Samaritans. And so the disciples were surprised that Jesus was talking with this Samaritan woman. And yet no one said, what do you seek to the woman or to Jesus? Why are you talking to her? The woman then left her water pot, went her way into the city and said to the men, come see a man who told me all things that I ever did. Could this be the Christ? Then they went out of the city and came to him. In the meantime, the disciples urged him, saying, Rabbi, eat. But he said to them, I have food to which you do not know. Therefore, the disciples said to one another, has anyone brought him anything to eat? Jesus said to them, my food. is to do the will of Him who sent me and to finish His work. And so the will of God sustained Jesus. Jesus fed upon doing God's will. The will of God energized the Lord. Just as we sit down and we eat a meal and we get strength and sustenance from that meal, doing God's will did the same for Jesus. That's what Jesus is saying. And so again, doing God's will energized the Lord. He fed upon it. Doing God's will is the right thing to do. And if by doing it, pain and suffering come, Jesus' mindset is, then so be it. If pain and suffering comes by doing my Father's will, then so be it, let it be. I mean, after all, as we've previously learned from Peter, suffering for righteousness sake is indeed God's will for His people. I mean, generally speaking, God does not want us to be persecuted and suffer. You know, He's not up there, you know, waiting and, you know, just in anticipation, waiting for His people to be persecuted. That's not His will. But if we are gonna be persecuted for doing, but if we are gonna be persecuted, if we are gonna be hated, then it'll be for the same reasons that His Son, our Savior, was persecuted and hated, and that is for doing His will, for doing the right thing, for practicing righteousness. That is God's will. Again, therefore, Since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind, Peter says. For he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh for the lust of men, but for the will of God. Again, if doing God's will means that we will be forced to suffer, then so be it because it is God's will that as people suffer for doing good, God doesn't want us again, like I said, to suffer. But if we're going to suffer, then it will be for righteousness sake. That is the mindset of Christ. And that is the mindset we need to arm ourselves with, Peter's saying. We need to prepare our minds to suffer for doing God's will. to be not liked, to be disliked, to be defamed, to be talked about, to be avoided, to be mocked. We need to be prepared for that. Beloved, when we are prepared to suffer death for doing God's will. When we are prepared in our minds to suffer physical death for following Christ, when we are mentally prepared for that, we are most certainly done with sin. What I mean is, we are most certainly arrived to the mindset we are done playing games with sin. When we are prepared to suffer death for following Christ, we are most certainly done playing games with sin and have our faces set like flint to doing God's will. Come what may, I'm gonna be a follower of Jesus Christ. I'm gonna faithfully follow my Lord and Savior, come what may. I'm done fooling around with sin. I'm gonna heed the Puritans' exhortation, the 1600, the 16th century Puritans exhortation, be killing sin or sin will be killing you. I'm through with it. Daily, I'm gonna be aware, I'm gonna be vigilant, I'm gonna be watching out for the devil is a lion seeking someone to devour. I'm through with it. Done playing games. That's not to say that we won't still sin, because we will, as long as we're in the flesh. We will fall short, thought, word, or deed, but we're done playing games. We're done pursuing it. We're done entertaining it. We will then have the unwavering determination to persevere in aligning our life with God's good and perfect and acceptable will. And I believe that is what Peter is referring to when he says that he no longer should live the rest of his life, the rest of his time in the flesh for the lust of men. That Christian, they're done. They're done fooling around. They're now taking their walk with Christ very seriously, no longer living their life, the rest of their time that they have on this earth, pursuing the lusts of men, pursuing sin, but rather pursuing the will of God. Can we honestly say this morning that we are 100% committed in pursuing the will of God for our personal walk with Christ. Just as the will of God was viewed as essential food by Jesus Christ, it needs to be viewed as essential sustenance by His followers. And just as doing the will of God energized Christ, it likewise needs to be an energizing reality in our life. And just as Jesus possessed an unwavering determination to persevere in doing God's will, come what may, we too, like Christ, must set our faces like Flint in doing God's will, whatever the outcome is. And along with Peter, along with Peter, beloved, we need to be able to say genuinely from the heart, for we have spent enough of our past lifetime in doing the will of the Gentiles. I lived long enough in unbelief. I've indulged in sin long enough before my faith in Christ. When we walked in lewdness, lusts, drunkenness, robberies, drinking parties, and abominable idolatries. When we indulged in the sins of the flesh, when we indulged in sin, when we indulged in drinking parties, and lewdness, and all kinds of lusts, and abominable idolatries, we're done with that. When we can say that with Peter, in all honesty, before the Lord, we will be finally through or done with sin. We will finally be done with playing games with sin. We will be finished with sin and entirely sold out to doing God's will, completely committed to living a life in accordance to the Father's will. And so the moment we become committed to doing the will of God, we will then begin experiencing what it means to suffer for righteousness sake. We will then know what it is like to possess the mindset of Christ. What does Peter go on to say beginning in verse four? He says, in regard to these, they think it's strange that you do not run with them in the same flood of dissipation. In other words, one translation has, in the same wild and destructive behavior. They think it's strange. Wait, wait. He's not hanging here. They're not hanging out with us anymore. They're not doing the same things that they used to do with us. Speaking evil of you. Beloved, the moment the Christian Take seriously his or her faith in Jesus Christ, seriously. Those close to him or her, unbelievers, unbelieving, friends and family. Scripture tells us, and I say it on the authority of Scripture, this is not my idea, my assumption. They will find it very odd that you no longer join them in their sinful lifestyle. They'll find it very odd. Something's changed. They're no longer the same. They no longer hang out with us. They'll find it very odd that you no longer join them in their sinful lifestyle, their wild and destructive behavior. You know, we used to go out and get, we used to go out and drinking parties, get drunk and, you know, get buzzed and have a good time and, you know, Doesn't do that anymore. Something's odd. It changed. Then the gossip begins. Then the defaming begins. Then the evil speaking begins. So don't be surprised or shocked when that occurs. Think it not strange when you suffer for righteousness sake. Think it not strange when they look you square in the eye and say, you know what, you're taking your Christian faith way too seriously. Are you holier than thou now? Remember, beloved, believing and suffering for Christ's sake is a privilege afforded to us by our Heavenly Father, Philippians 1.29. For it has been granted unto you not only to believe, but also to suffer. for his sake, for Christ's sake. It is a gift. This brings us to our last two verses. Read with me, if you would, verses five through six. What does Peter say here? They will give an account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. For this reason, the gospel was preached also to those who are dead, he's referring to unbelievers, spiritually dead, unbelievers, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit. So what should our response be to those who persecute us for our commitment to faithfully following Jesus Christ? What should our response be? Beloved, the only proper response, and we see here in verses five through six, the only proper response is to preach the gospel to them, to share the gospel to them. Why? So that they too might be saved and do the will of God. So that they too might be judged by the world rather than God at the great white throne judgment. So that they too might live according to God in the spirit. so that they too may live according to God's good and perfect and acceptable will. And so Peter understood what it takes to faithfully live out one's Christian faith. With suffering being an unescapable reality for the faithful Christian, he understood that possessing the mindset of Christ towards suffering is a non-negotiable. And so as we've seen in today's passage, he encourages the church to embrace, or we can say adopt, the mindset of Christ toward suffering. When we are willing to suffer for doing God's will, we prove sin's mastery in our life has been broken. We prove that we are no longer slaves of sin, that we are slaves of righteousness. We may not be completely free of sin, That day will come when Jesus returns or the moment of our death. But we most certainly are determined to persevere in living according to God's will. And we must have the mindset of Christ towards suffering if we are to be found doing God's will, not just on Sunday morning between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., but Monday through Friday, 24-7. Monday through Friday, 24-7, in all of life. Therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind, for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh for the lust of men, but for the will of God. For we have spent enough of our past lifetime in doing the will of the Gentiles when we walked in lewdness, lusts, drunkenness, robberies, drinking parties, abominable idolatries. In regard to these, those sins that Peter just enumerated, in regards to these, they think it strange that you do not run with them in the same flood of dissipation. Speaking evil of you. They will give an account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. For this reason, the gospel was preached also to those who are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the perspicuity of scripture. That is, we thank you for the clarity of scripture. We can open your word, read it, and understand it easily. Your message is not hard to comprehend. Your good and perfect and acceptable will is not something that requires a great, great, great mind to understand and to apply. the perspicuity of scripture. Thank you for making your word so clear. Father, may each of us here this morning, may we always be found to be faithful soldiers of the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. May we always be found faithfully, faithfully following our beloved Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Come what may, whatever the consequences are, may we not be afraid. May we not shrink back. May we not be ashamed to publicly declare Jesus Christ's name to others. Heavenly Father, we pray there be anyone here this morning or anyone listening to this message who has not yet believed in the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their sins. We pray that you would be so gracious by granting them the faith to believe, that you would grant them the wonderful gift of faith in your Son, Jesus Christ, so that they, too, may be cleansed of all sin, so that they, too, may be faithful followers of the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, so that they, too, may have a heart and a desire and a determination to pursue righteousness, to pursue your good and perfect and acceptable will. In your holy name we pray, amen.