1 Peter 4:1-6 – New Life
Welcome it is great to be speaking today as we continue our series in 1 Peter.
- I’d love to meet you after the service… so come and say hello.
- My name is Tim and I am the Senior Pastor here at our church…
- So many good things happening here at church
- I forgot to mention last week I had the privilege of baptising Oli. Remember him and Katie… So good…
So we are in a section of 1 Peter which could broadly be described as “how then shall we live?”
- So I have spoken on how all that we do, is in response to what Jesus has done for us!
- Chapter 2 starts “therefore” and we are encouraged in the light of receiving grace and peace and mercy from God…
- To respond… Peter says things like things like “grow up in your salvation.”
- We are also told “be holy”.
- He reminds us to “love one another deeply.”
- Because God… therefore… so let’s dive in… and it starts with another therefore…
Read passage – 1 Peter 4:1-6
Therefore, since Christ suffered in his flesh, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because whoever suffers in the flesh is done with sin. 2 As a result, they do not live the rest of their earthly lives for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God. 3 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. 4 They are surprised that you do not join them in their reckless, wild living, and they heap abuse on you. 5 But they will have to give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. 6 For this is the reason the gospel was preached even to those who 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 to the spirit.
Let me read verse 1-5 again – this time in the Message Version…
1-2 Since Jesus went through everything you’re going through and more, learn to think like him. Think of your sufferings as a weaning from that old sinful habit of always expecting to get your own way. Then you’ll be able to live out your days free to pursue what God wants instead of being tyrannized by what you want.
3-5 You’ve already put in your time in that God-ignorant way of life, partying night after night, a drunken and profligate life. Now it’s time to be done with it for good. Of course, your old friends don’t understand why you don’t join in with the old gang anymore.
Well I wonder, how often could you reflect on that feeling of letting yourself down. Not quite being able to live up to maybe lofty ideals you set for yourself?
- A few years ago Victoria was away and I was going through a difficult time…
- I was frustrated and tired and I remember coming home from church.
- It was dark and no one was around… and so giving in I did it…
- I am not proud of this… and its hard to talk about…
- But I went and opened…
- I went and opened the freezer and ate a whole tub of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream?
- Wait. What did you think I did?
But more seriously, as a follower of Jesus, I wonder what it is you would like to see transformed within you?
- Maybe there is something in your character that you would love to see change or grow?
- Maybe it’s a habit of addiction that you would like to break.
- Maybe it’s a relationship you would like to see improve or reconciled.
- Maybe it’s the strength to change who you are hanging around with and getting up to mischief with…
Well what is expected of us who now follow Jesus?
- I like verse 2 in the Message version. It says;
- “Then you’ll be able to live out your days free to pursue what God wants instead of being tyrannized by what you want.”
- The contrast here is between constantly giving in to your wants and desires to being free… free to pursue what God wants for you!
So theologically, today is about our sanctification! This is about how we are changed.
- We’ve done heaps in 1 Peter on our salvation…
- In Chapter 1 Peter says “In his great mercy, God has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus.”
- Salvation is about how we get right with God. It is a gift, it is undeserved, it is because of his great mercy.
- You can’t earn it, you don’t have to get your act in order to then get mercy…
- Your salvation is a gift from God.
But where does it go from there? How are we changed? This is called our sanctification…
- You see there is power in the Gospel – it breaks chains… sometimes instantly our desires change!
- But a lot of our transformation takes time… and that takes choices and practices and the power of the Holy Spirit alive in us!
- Of putting to death (verse 2) our evil human desires, and walking rather in the will of God.
I like this (PICTURE): What we think our lives with God will look like versus what it actually looks like…
- But that’s kind of the sanctification journey that we are called to go on…
- I still remember the joy of getting saved!
- But what I then found is that living up to my new name as a child of God proved to be a little more difficult.
- Right? A few more hurdles and obstacles to this holy life than I thought…
It reminds me a bit of what Paul says in Romans 7…
15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do… 18 For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.
It’s a good summary of the predicament of the Christian life… right?
- You know what you want to do, or you should be doing… but you keep messing up.
- Now does that relate to anyone here? No, of course not… all saints here…
- And my guess is that is the case for everyone of us. For some obvious, glaring flaws… for others more secret but no less damaging flaws.
So Peter has already said to them “Be holy”. He doesn’t lower the bar and say “follow Jesus, at least most of the time…”
- No, the expectation is that from wherever Jesus found you, met you and saved you…
- From there the work of sanctification begins!
So for Peter there were two ways of living…
The old way & the new way. Your way before Jesus and your way after belonging to Jesus…
- Verse 2 “As a result, they do not live the rest of their earthly lives for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God.”
- In verse 6 “live according to God in regard to the spirit.”
- Sometimes this is described as the contrast between living Kata Pnuema versus Kata Sarx
- In Greek Kata sarx means living “according to the flesh.” Kata – according, sarx – flesh
- While Kata pneuma means living according to the Spirit.
One is where you listen to what your flesh desires, the other where you listen to what God desires…
- And it might seem a bit black or white, but we either end up in one category or the other.
- Because for Peter there were only two realities…
- The old life according to the flesh and the new life according to the Spirit.
So firstly, the flesh is our life outside of Christ. It is being ruled by our sinful nature.
- Verse 3-4 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 reckless, wild living
- Right? So it’s a list of naughty and not a lot of nice…
- Santa would not approve…
- But seriously, these are the things that destroy lives and relationships, that cause pain and brokenness in our lives!
- This is wild living where you throw off all restraints and do what you like. Think prodigal son before he came to his senses…
And in regions like Galatia, to whom Peter writes this letter, this is what life was like…
- Historian tell us it was a pretty immoral place… prostitution, drunkenness, orgies… all pretty standard.
- And so Peter is writing to people who got saved out of a very permissive culture…
- But they were still then living in, and surrounded by this pagan culture where anything goes. Sound familiar?
- Right, the issue isn’t often drink, sex or parties… all things I quite like…
- It is the excesses of drink, inappropriate sex and wild parties… that causes the issue.
- The problem is being giving in to the satisfaction of the flesh, often for short term pleasure, despite the long term pain that these thinks can cause.
- Verse 2 Peter calls it your evil earthly nature…
Take sexual immorality… (now I could have just as easily chosen drunkenness or things listed elsewhere like greed or gossip)
- The bible says there is an ideal expression of human sexuality found within marriage…
- You leave your parents, a man and a woman get married and then to the exclusion of all others you get it on!
- That’s God’s will for our relationships and sexual activity.
- Now the problem is not sex… it is our impatience to have it… or our stepping outside of who we have committed to have it with…
- And a lot of this is like trying to quench a thirst with salt water… it can never satisfy…
- Right? It looks good… but it is going after something we think will make us happy only to find that it can’t.
And you see the earthly nature wants everything now, according to our lusts and desires…
- The problem is we do a world of pain to others and ourselves in the process…
- Can we admit that? If we have strayed from God’s good and life giving plan…
- It causes pain!
- I mean some friends of Victoria and I have just separated because of an affair…
- Its devastating for the wife, for the kids, for those around them…
- It is swapping faithfulness for short term pleasure and giving in to evil earthly desires…
- It is swapping Gods will for your life for something that ultimately leads to brokenness
So that life is contrasted by Peter with living according to Gods will and his Spirit – Kata Pneuma!
- Living according to the Spirit of course then, is living with the presence of God alive within us, conforming us into Jesus image.
- Right? We get empowered to live in keeping with the in-breaking kingdom of God and its way, truth and life…
- So the flesh where we have no self control and do whatever we want…
- In contrast to living according to the Spirit that leads us into the living within the good and pleasing will of God.
Now this is all very Jesus people. He came in grace and truth…
- He wants you back in the family of God. His grace will seek you out…
- But he loves you so much that he wants you to take on the family resemblance…
- How does Jesus teaches us to pray? “Father, your kingdom come, your will be done”
- He says the path that leads to life is narrow and few find it…
- He says things like “neither do I condemn you, now go, leave this life of sin.”
- He says blesses are those who hunger and thirsty for righteousness for they will be filled.
So, how do we do it?
Right… sometimes we just think if we know what is right or the law, that will be enough to do the right or moral thing…
- But we all know the law or a set of rules can’t do that.
- I remember being at Oxford University in one of the fancy colleges… and there was a sign on every lawn saying… “do not walk on the lawn.”
- So immediately I had this desire to do what? Walk on the lawn…
- And so sometimes the law that we read about in the Old Testament is like that… it actually arouses sin within us…
Let me suggest 3 quick things…
Firstly, Needs to be a conviction that God’s will is good and we want to change…
- St Augustine famously said when he was a young man… “give me chastity and self restraint… just not yet…”
- Right, at the time he wasn’t ready, I suspect he thought he was missing out…
- Of course he did get saved and went on to be the greatest Christian thinkers and leaders.
If we think we are missing out… miserable… foot in both camps…
- So we need conviction… that the earthly nature with its fleshly desires is poison to life…
- But being saved and transformed is the path to life and life to the full…
- Right? I can honestly say that now that I am a little bit older, there is nothing I read in the bible that I don’t align with now as leading to life.
- Doesn’t mean its always easy or temptation isn’t real, but I am convicted that God’s will is the path to life!
Secondly, we need to develop some spiritual muscle through spiritual practices…
- Luca and I are back on the chin ups at home… we’ve put the rig on the back deck so we can’t ignore it…
- But last summer we were both up to doing about 10 and then we just kind of stopped until about a month ago…
- And we could both only do about 2 or 3… we lost our strength.
- So we are back at it and we are up to about 6 or 7 now and we are aiming for 20!
Now if we are going to get spiritually strong in order to live holy lives, we need to develop practices that make following Christ and being transformed easier.
- We develop spiritual strength by daily training ourselves in righteousness.
- Things like patterns of worship, meeting together, bible reading and prayer being the obvious!
- But then, if we are really struggling with a certain area, the old term to deaden the sinful nature used to be the mortification of the flesh!
- Now hear me… I am not recommending self flagellation, or wearing a hair shirt… as some Christian saints were in the practice of doing…
- But clearly there are things we can do to deaden the sinful nature through fasting, abstinence and self denial.
Right? I mean it depends how much we want to overcome something that is hurting or even killing us?
- I was talking to a friend this week who spent a year in a Christian rehab center…
- They are walking free because they spent a year totally abstaining from drugs and drink
- And daily reading the scriptures, reflecting, journaling, and praying…
- They built muscle by deadening the sinful nature
- And allowing the Spirit and the new nature in Christ to take hold…
OK, finally, the Holy Spirits help…
- Now, the Spirit of God is given as a gift to all those who trust in in his Son Jesus and confess him as Lord.
- You get filled with the Spirit of God. And we live in the age of the abundance of the Spirit.
- So the bible makes it clear that;
- The Spirit of God, Jesus presence, active and alive in you!
- We get the assurance of adoption to sonship – you know you are loved.
- The Spirit pours the love of God in our hearts
- The Spirit in us illuminates the word (the bible) and gives us revelation
- The Spirit produces fruit in our lives – changing your character
But here is the interesting thing… one of the greatest gifts given to us… imparted to us is to be empowered to do the will of God…
- Think 2 Timothy 1:7 “For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self discipline.”
- Right? Get an impartation of the Spirit.
- As the followers of Jesus we get a Spirit of power and self discipline, that enables us to live faithfully.
- That allows us to not be captive to our fleshy desires and egos and pride.
- But empowered to co-operate with God, finding ourselves not out of control, but able to live lives in the will of God
That was the promise of the prophet Ezekiel in chapter 36 about the age we now live in…
God promises; verse 26 “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees.”
So how does that work? Are you zapped with the Spirit of God and never struggle again?
- Do you become a Christian and all bad habits, toxic thought patterns, addictions to sin and sinful things disappear?
- Well no… we know that from our own experience… we know that from Paul’s description in Romans 7…
- No… we need to learn to appropriate what God has given us…
- To co-operate with the gift of God’s renewing presence… his Spirit alive and at work within us.
So how do we increasingly live kata pneuma and not kata sarx? According to the Spirit and not the flesh?
- Galatians 5:25 “Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.”
- One of the things my kids have always loved doing is walking on my feet…
- In fact they call me “my new shoes”
- So they go where I am going… they learn to stay in the same direction… to get the rhythms of how to walk together.
The Christian life, according to Paul is appropriated, becomes a reality by keeping in step with the Spirit.
- So with the conviction that God’s will is best, with practices that grow spiritual muscle
- We learn to co-operate with God, his promptings, get immersed in his word
- And we begin to walk in the same direction as the Spirit of God directs us.
- Now this has a Supernatural presupposition… this isn’t going to come from just trying harder…
- It isn’t going to come by reverting back to a whole lot of laws.
- It is going to come by getting to know the will of God and the voice of God and the ways of God and keeping in step!
- And it will come through supernatural empowerment. I cant say that enough. There is a supernatural strength and self control that the Spirit alive in us, can give us.