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Today's scripture reading is from 1 Peter 3, verse 18, and chapter 4, verses 1-11, as printed in your liturgy.
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 being made alive in the Spirit.
Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude,
because whoever suffers in the body is done with sin.
As a result, they do not live the rest of their earthly lives for evil human desires,
but rather for the will of God.
For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do,
living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing, and detestable idolatry.
They are surprised that you do not join them in their recklessness, wild living,
and they heap abuse on you,
but they will have to give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.
For this is the reason the gospel is preached, even to those that are now dead,
so that they might be judged according to human standards in regard to the body,
but live according to God in regard of the Spirit.
The end of all things is near.
Therefore, be alert and sober of mind, so that you may pray.
Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.
Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling.
Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others
as faithful stewards of God's grace in its various forms.
If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God.
If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides,
so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ.
To him be the glory, the power, and the power forever. Amen.
Amen.
Thank you so much, Will.
Good morning, Christ Church.
It is really good to be back here with our church family today.
If I haven't met you yet, I work here.
And my name is Jonathan, and I've been away for a little bit with our extended family.
We visited 45 family members in Georgia, North Carolina, and Florida.
And so that was a great respite, but, you know, it's good to sleep in your own bed.
And we're glad to be back home as well.
So, since I've been gone, has anything happened in the world?
Any new stuff going on in the news cycle?
I don't know.
I haven't really been paying much attention.
But I know enough to know that we're living in some precarious and unpredictable times.
And we're going to be praying about that later on during this service.
But as, you know, as we open up this letter from one of Jesus' apostles, his chief apostle, Peter,
we're reminded that Peter was living in some precarious and unpredictable times.
Right?
He was writing this letter in the middle of the first century in the Roman Empire,
a time and a place that was, if you can believe it, way more topsy-turvy than the time that we're living in.
And here's this Christian, this leader in the church, who's giving us incredible wisdom
about how to live in precarious and unpredictable times.
And so, as usual, what Peter does is he draws our attention to this word that he uses in verse 6.
It's the word, the gospel.
That's the focus of this entire letter.
It's the gospel, the good news of what God the Father has done through his Son and by his Spirit
to save human beings, to redeem his creation.
And Peter wants us to think, in this passage today, he wants us to think about the gospel
in relation to three critical aspects of our lives.
He wants us to think about our desire.
He wants us to think about suffering.
And he wants us to think about Christian community.
And so that's what we're going to talk about.
The gospel and desire.
The gospel and suffering.
And the gospel and Christian community.
You ready to dive back in?
I've got to kind of relearn how to preach, so I'm going to need your help today.
Can you guys help me out a little bit?
Let's talk about the gospel and desire.
And I'll start with verse 1.
It says,
Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude,
because those who have suffered in their bodies are done with sin.
As a result, they do not live the rest of their earthly lives for evil human desires,
but rather for the will of God.
You see, the apostle Peter, he's writing to a group of people like the one that's gathered here today.
And he's engaging them with this question that you heard in verse 2.
It's in there.
It says,
How are you going to live the rest of your earthly lives?
Whether you're 9 years old or 90 years old here today,
all of us have a limited number of days with breath in our lungs and life in our bodies.
And, you know, none of us knows how much time we have left to live our earthly lives.
And I've been thinking about that quite a lot this week because my mom passed away on August 2nd.
That's the anniversary of her death.
And she was 50 years old.
And I'm turning 46 this month.
And as I think about that, you know, how much longer do I have to live?
I have no clue.
And neither do you.
I mean, maybe I've got four years, four months, four weeks.
Who knows?
Maybe I've got 10, 20, 30, 40 more years to go.
But how many of us know how much longer we have to live our earthly lives?
Anybody know that?
And so Peter's asking us this question, how are you going to live the rest of your earthly lives?
And what he does is he says underneath all the apparently endless options of how we could live,
he says there's really only two ways to live.
And did you see that contrast in verse 2?
He says on the one hand you have sinful human desires.
And on the other hand you have the will of God.
He makes the same contrast in verse 6.
He says you've got life according to human standards and you've got life according to God.
And what's the difference between these two life systems, these two operating systems?
What's the difference between their structures of motivation and volition?
Well, I want us to take a closer look.
This word in verse 2 that Peter uses when he talks about desire, it's this great word called epithumia.
Epithumia is not just desire, epithumia is over desire.
Epithumia is inordinate desire, disordered desire, desires that are misaligned with the will and the desire of God.
And Peter gives us some examples of epithumia, of over desire in verse 3.
Look at it with me.
He says,
For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do, living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing, and detestable idolatry.
And for Peter, this is a list that basically sums up the dominant paradigm of the prevailing culture.
This is how the majority of Greco-Roman, Gentile, pagan culture was living.
This is the way of life that was accepted and normal and expected.
And notice how Peter begins and ends his list.
What's the first word and the last word he uses?
The first word he uses is this word debauchery or in classical Greek it's often translated brutality.
Brutality.
To be brutal is to be harsh.
It's to be cruel.
It's to be heartless.
It's like it's Twitter, right?
Brutality is when you cast off restraint and self-control and you give full license to unbridled, shameless self-interest.
Anybody ever done that in the past 24 hours at home with your family?
Brutality is when you treat people as an object to be used rather than as a creature made in the image of God to be cared for.
Brutality is when you relate to other people in a way that debases and dehumanizes them.
Does that connect a little bit with how the dominant operating system of the culture that Peter's talking about?
And then notice the final word, the climactic word in this series that he gives us.
He says the cause of all of our human vices is idolatry.
And idolatry is when you turn a good thing into an ultimate thing.
Idolatry is when you take a created thing and you elevate it and you put it at the center where only God deserves to be.
And what Peter's doing is he's looking out about him at Greco-Roman culture
and the way that people have elevated the money god Mammon.
And they've elevated the sex goddess Aphrodite.
And they've elevated the power god Mars and the political god Caesar.
Right?
And Peter's saying, look, if you're looking to these things,
if you're looking to these idols, expecting them to do for you what only the living God can do for you,
if you take all of your hope and you load it into your money and into the markets,
if you load all of your hope into romance and sex,
if you put all of your hope into your career and your achievements that can garner social power for you,
if you're looking to politics and to the state or to the comfort and pleasure that food and drink can give you,
Peter says you're going to have a broken heart.
If you're looking to any of these things to give you your sense of identity and belonging and meaning and purpose,
it's going to break your heart.
Why?
Because it's contrary to your human nature.
It's contrary to how you were made.
You were not made to put created things in the center where the creator is supposed to be.
Amen?
So, what happens when we live against our human nature?
I was reading a book a few weeks ago on a very hot beach in Florida,
and I came across this sentence, and I just want to read it for you.
This line stood out to me.
It says,
A man thought he could fly, so he jumped off the top of a ten-story building,
and as he fell past the fifth floor, flapping his arms in the air,
he was heard to say,
So far, so good.
When we live according to our fallen human desires,
when we give ourselves to over-desire, to debauchery, brutality, idolatry,
we're not actually liberating ourselves in the way that we think we are.
We're destroying ourselves.
We're jumping off that building, and we're not flying.
We're falling.
And Peter's telling us that if you want to be free,
if you want to be truly liberated,
it's not about living according to your human desires.
It's about living according to the will and the desire of God.
And he says,
When the gospel comes into our lives,
when we become Christians,
that means that you've been transferred from one life to another life,
from one operating system to another operating system,
and you are no longer living for human desires.
You're living for the will of God.
Just to remind you,
back in chapter 1,
verse 3 of this letter,
Peter says,
God in his great mercy has given you new birth into a living hope.
And later on in that chapter,
verse 23,
he says,
You've been born again by the imperishable seed of the living and enduring word of God.
And what he means when he says that,
he says,
When the gospel comes into our lives,
and when you experience the new birth,
when you're born again,
born not physically,
but spiritually,
born not from your parents,
but from God,
you realize that God the Father has given you a new nature.
He's given you a new life.
He's given you new desires.
He's given you a new will.
He's given you a new power to live according to the will of God.
Right?
When you've been regenerated by the grace of God and by the power of God,
and you've been united to the resurrected Christ,
you've been filled by the very spirit of God,
it kind of starts to dawn on you.
And you begin to say with Peter,
You know what?
I think that,
I think I've spent more than enough time in the past
doing what pagans choose to do.
That's like a line that sort of comes across your heart.
You say,
You know,
Now that the Holy Spirit's living in me,
I think I've spent more than enough time doing what my culture says is normal and acceptable.
And you begin to say with Peter,
You know,
I want to be done with sin.
Do you hear Peter say that?
He says,
People who are done with sin,
I want to be done with brutality.
I want to be done with idolatry.
I want to be done with over-desire and self-interest.
I want to be done with me, myself, and I.
If I have any more days to live my life,
I want to live the rest of my earthly life,
not for these sinful human desires,
but for the desire of God.
I want to live not for my will,
I want to live for the will of God.
And the question Peter's putting to us is,
Has this happened for you?
Have you experienced this vast difference
between these two totally different operating systems?
Peter says when the power of the gospel comes in,
it goes all the way down into our desires.
It goes all the way down into our human nature,
into the warp and the woof of how we are made as creatures in the image of God.
And it moves into those structures of motivation,
those structures of volition,
and it removes the old and it brings in the new
so that we want to live the rest of our earthly human lives
for the will of God.
That's our new desire.
Does that make sense?
The gospel and desire,
that's something Peter wants us to think about.
But he also is talking here about the gospel and suffering.
This is a great theme of this letter,
actually is how to suffer well,
how to suffer as a Christian.
And I want to bring you back to verse 1.
Peter introduces this great idea.
He says,
Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body,
arm yourselves also with the same attitude,
because those who have suffered in their bodies
are done with sin.
What is Peter saying?
Well, he's saying that the Son of God,
when he stepped out of eternity into time,
when he came from heaven to earth
and he took on human flesh,
he did that with a certain attitude.
He did that with a certain mentality,
knowing that this was not going to be a walk in the park.
Right?
Jesus knew that in the incarnation,
when he became a human being,
that he was entering into a war zone.
That he was going to be living in this battlefield.
And that he was going into this cosmic conflict
where the powers and principalities
are arrayed against the living God.
And he knew that he was coming into a situation
where humanity had tragically given itself up
and over to these desires
that led to brutality and idolatry
and all kind of destructive self-interest.
And so what did Jesus do?
Peter says he armed himself.
Jesus armed himself.
And of course, you know,
this isn't the way that the world is supposed to be.
God the Father made the world good
and he made it pleasant
and he made it wonderful.
But the world's fallen, hasn't it?
The world has become this harsh and cruel place.
This place of unbridled, shameless brutality
that requires you,
if you're going to be holy like Jesus,
to be armed
and to be equipped
with a certain mentality
and a certain attitude.
You see that?
Jesus needed a spiritual armor
to carry out his mission.
And what was that mindset?
What was that attitude
that Jesus armed himself with?
I think it was basically this.
When Jesus came into the world,
he said,
if I'm going to come
and live the way
that the Father wants me to live,
if I'm going to come
and be a nonconformist
to all the ways of this world,
if I'm going to come
and I'm going to live
not for me, myself, and I,
like everybody else,
if I'm going to come
and live not for human desires
and according to human standards,
if I'm going to come
and rather submit myself
to God's desires
and live a life in obedience
to the will of God,
if I'm going to live,
Jesus says,
as if sin has absolutely
nothing to do with me,
as if self-centeredness
is not going to be
a part of my life,
then I'm probably going to suffer.
then people probably
aren't going to get
what I'm trying to do.
And Jesus says,
living to,
living that way,
living to obey God
rather than sin
is going to cause me
to suffer in my body.
That's what Peter says.
That's the attitude.
That's the mentality
that Jesus armed himself with.
Are you tracking with me so far?
Now, I just want to
make a little aside here
because some Christians
so overemphasize
the divinity of Jesus
and so underestimate
the humanity of Jesus
that we think
it was easy for him
to live a righteous life.
That,
anybody ever
had a conversation like that
where it's like,
yeah, of course Jesus,
he was an obedient
and sinless person
because he's the son of God.
But he was a fully human being.
And the full humanity
of Jesus meant
that he actually was
tempted in every way
just as we are.
He was tempted
at every turn
to live for himself
and his desires, right?
To take the easy path
of least resistance,
to sit loose
to his calling
from the Father.
And because of these,
this constant barrage
of temptations
from the very beginning
of his ministry
in the wilderness
all the way
to the Garden of Gethsemane,
Jesus constantly
had to decide
that he was going
to obey God.
He constantly
had to decide,
you know what,
I would rather suffer
than sin.
And repeatedly
throughout his life,
Jesus deliberately
had to embrace
his calling
by God the Father
even though it would mean
suffering for him.
Even though it would mean,
you know,
if I do this,
I'm going to be misunderstood.
I'm going to be maligned.
I'm going to be mocked.
I'm going to be rejected.
I'm going to even be
tortured to death.
And Peter's commendation
to us
is that we need
to arm ourselves
with that same attitude.
If we're going to live
the Christian life,
we've got to have
the same attitude
that Jesus had.
Why?
Because he says
in verse four,
they,
the Greco-Roman,
Gentile,
pagan family members
and friends
and coworkers
that you have,
they're going to be surprised
that you're not
joining in
to their reckless,
wild living
and they're going to
heap abuse on you.
They're going to
malign you.
We'll talk more about that
next week,
but basically
what Peter's saying
is that when you decide
that you're going to be
a non-conformist
like Jesus,
when you decide
that you're not
going to go along
with self-centered
over-desires
and idolatries
that are all around you,
but rather that you're
going to obey
the will of God,
when you decide
that you're going
to abandon
the norms
and practices
that people
are participating in,
then Peter's saying
do not expect
for people
to approve
of you.
Don't expect
their approval.
That's not
the mentality
Jesus had.
Jesus armed himself
with a mentality
that expected
suffering.
Jesus expected
that when he didn't
join in,
when he didn't
go with the flow,
when he didn't
just conform himself
to the crowd,
he was going to
suffer people's
disapproval.
He was going to
suffer their criticism.
He was going to
suffer contempt.
He was going to
suffer condemnation.
And Peter says
to the church,
arm yourselves
with that same
way of thinking,
that same resolve
of living.
Friends,
if we want to
be united
to Jesus Christ,
if we want to
be filled
by the Holy Spirit,
if we want to
obey the will
of God the Father,
if we're going to
live as if we
are done with sin,
then we're going to
feel some
unpleasant discomfort.
That's what Peter
wants to tell us.
That unpleasant
discomfort is what
Jesus experienced
his whole life long,
all the way to the
cross.
And if we're going to
follow Jesus in his
way, if we're going
to apprentice ourselves
to learn how to
live as he lived,
if we're going to
do what it says
in 1 Peter 2.11,
to abstain from
sinful desires which
war against your soul,
if we're going to
do that,
then we need to
arm ourselves
with that same
attitude and same
mentality of Jesus
that expects
unpleasant discomfort.
In a world that's
not sympathetic
to being done
with sin,
in a world that's
rather irritated
about this notion
of the will of God
and obeying the
will of God,
you're going to
feel some unpleasant
discomfort as a
Christian.
In a culture that
is going to give you
some pressure and
some heat,
when you refuse to
assimilate to its
norms and values
and practices,
you're going to
feel some unpleasant
discomfort.
In an environment
where you're going
to abstain from
human desires that
society deems totally
normal and
acceptable but that
are actually out of
step with the will
of God,
you're going to feel
some unpleasant
discomfort.
And in a social
situation where you're
living according to
the dominant metaphor
of this entire letter
we've been talking
about for months and
months,
if you're living as
elect exiles,
if you're living as
visiting strangers,
or living as resident
aliens in our broader
culture,
you're going to feel
some unpleasant
discomfort and that's
okay.
That's what it means to
be a Christian,
Peter says.
So arm yourselves with
that.
Equip yourselves with
that.
Prepare yourselves for
unpleasant discomfort
because that's what it
means to follow a
crucified Christ who
said to himself,
I'd rather suffer than
sin.
Wow.
The gospel and our
desire goes all the
way down internally to
our relationship with
ourselves and our very
desires and it changes
what we actually want in
our lives.
But the gospel not only
changes us internally,
it changes us externally
in our relationship with
our society and our
culture and it gives us
this new mentality that
says, you know, I'd
rather suffer than sin like
Jesus.
But it also changes one
final relationship and
that is the relationship
with the church.
And I want to talk for a
little bit as we close
about the gospel and
Christian community.
And here's Peter's
logic.
He's talking to people in
a social situation in
which their Christian
beliefs and their
Christian way of life was
not greeted with
approval but with
disapproval.
It was not greeted with
kindness but with
contempt.
And he's saying in that
situation, how much more
do you need the church?
How much more do you need
the church to be a refuge
for you and a source of
strength for you and a
place where you can be
sustained and supported
in living this life
according not to human
desires but according to
the will of God?
How much more do you need
the church?
And so Peter goes on and
he says, well, here's how
to strengthen your local
Christian community.
And here's what he says in
verse 7.
He says,
the end of all things is
near.
Therefore, be alert and of
sober mind so that you may
pray.
He says, if we're going to
live with the end in mind,
if we're going to live as if
verse 5 is true, that God is
ready to judge the living and
the dead, if we're going to
live in light of that coming
reality, then the church as a
whole needs to be sober and
alert.
We need to see things clearly.
We need to correctly apprehend
reality.
And it's that sober-minded
attentiveness that is essential
if we want to be a strong
church that engages in the
following priorities.
First of all, prayer.
Peter says, so that you may
pray.
It's the very first thing in
his list.
And Peter learned from Jesus
that this is always number
one on the list of our
priorities as disciples.
Because without corporate
prayer, the church will be
without the vision of the
Holy Spirit and will also be
without the power of the
Holy Spirit to carry out that
vision.
And so the primary places
where we pray corporately at
Christ Church is in our
midweek community groups.
It is every Sunday at 930 in
our boiler room just as you
come in those outer doors and
down the stairs.
Everybody's welcome to come
and pray at that time before
our worship service.
We pray in a monthly prayer
meeting on second Wednesdays at
7 p.m.
And I just want to encourage you
this morning as we're
establishing, you know, our
habits and our predictable
patterns for this new school
year ahead.
Prayer is on the top of Peter's
priority list.
Where is it on your priority
list?
And I want to encourage you to
make it a number one priority in
your life this year.
But what should we, what should
be our next priority after prayer?
Peter says in verse 8, he says,
above all, love each other
deeply because love covers over a
multitude of sins.
He says the kind of love we need
to be actively cultivating among
ourselves is what he called back in
chapter 1, sincere brotherly love,
loving one another earnestly from a
pure heart.
And he says this is the kind of love
that covers over a multitude of
sins.
Now let me be clear that that does
not mean that love ignores sin or
that love denies sin or that love
hides sin.
But what he's telling us is that this
kind of love that Christians have for
one another as brothers and sisters in
Christ is so gracious, it's so
forbearing and patient and kind that it
forgives offenses.
And it extinguishes sins.
And it breaks the cycle of wrongs among
us.
Peter, you might remember, he asked
Jesus at one point, he said,
Jesus, how many times should I forgive
my brother?
Wouldn't it be really generous of me,
Jesus, if I forgave him seven times?
And what did Peter say, Jesus say to
Peter?
He said, no, try 70 times seven times.
So the primary place where we put
ourselves in the position to practice
this kind of forgiving love where we're
actually encountering other sinners who
are following Christ is in our community
groups.
And again, I just, we're relaunching those
soon.
And I hope that as you're making plans for
this next year that you would find a
community group during the week where you
can practice priority one, which is prayer,
and priority two, which is forgiving love.
And then Peter says this, he says in
verse nine, if you want to have a strong
church, you got to not only pray and love,
but he says, offer hospitality to one
another without grumbling.
And the word he uses there is an
interesting word, it's phyloxenia.
We all know the word xenophobia, that's
fear of strangers.
Philoxenia is love of strangers.
And what he's telling us is that we've got
to keep an open heart and an open
door and an open table for the new people
that come into the church.
And if you've ever been a part of an urban
university church like ours, you know that
there's two kinds of people.
There's annuals and perennials.
Right?
There's sprinters and there's marathoners.
There's people who have been here a long
time and people who are going to be here a
short time.
And the way to make a church like this work
is to love strangers.
It's to look for all those new people.
And he says, I want you to do this without
grumbling, which means with gladness.
That you come early and you look for the people
who are new.
And you find them at the passing of the peace
and you introduce yourself to them and you bring
them to the coffee hour and you introduce them to
other people and you invite them to lunch and you
have them over to your house.
And basically this love for strangers is about
turning those strangers into friends.
That's how the church works, Peter says.
And then finally he says, each of you should use
whatever gift you've received to serve others as
faithful stewards of God's grace in its various
forms.
If you speak, you should do so as one who speaks
the very words of God.
If you serve, you should do so with the strength
that God provides.
Peter says, if you're a Christian, the God of all
grace has given you a gift or he's given you many
gifts to build up the common good of the church and
to enrich the life of the church.
And you have this incredible privilege to be a
steward of God's grace to God's people.
That through you the grace of God might flow out more
and more to the people around you.
And Peter says, if you have a speaking gift and you can
teach a class or you can lead a community group or you
can pray for other people or you can provide counsel for
them.
He says, when you speak, make sure you're speaking in
line with the truth of the word of God.
It's not just a word for the preacher.
It's a word to all the people of God who speak.
And then he says, if you have a serving gift to care for
other people, you know, be sure you do that not in reliance
upon yourself and your own resources.
But be sure you do that with the strength that God provides.
And what's the point of all this?
What's the point of having this new operating system where our
chief desire now is to do and obey the will of God?
What's the point of arming ourselves with this attitude that
Jesus had that we'd rather suffer than sin?
What's the point of investing in a church that prays corporately and
loves forgivingly and welcomes strangers gladly and speaks God's
truth and serves with God's strength?
What's the point of all of that?
Peter tells us in verse 11, so that in all things God may be
praised through Jesus Christ.
To him be the glory and the power forever and ever.
Amen.
That's the end game.
The end game is that through our lives and through our church, more
and more people would see and hear and experience just how
praiseworthy, just how glorious, just how powerful God in his
gospel of grace actually is.
May God enable us to be this kind of church.
church.
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Amen.