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It is good to see everybody in the house of the Lord. Now, are you ready to hear the word of God? Are you ready to listen to the word of God? Are you ready to obey the word of God? Are you ready to obey the word of God? Amen. All right. Daryl, come bring the word of God. Thank you.

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Still uh still going through First Peter here, and uh we're beginning chapter four this morning. So, 1 Peter chapter 4, I will read verses 1 through 6. 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 are 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. For 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. Lord, we're so uh grateful for your word to us this morning. God, we ask that uh you would uh fill us with your Holy Spirit in such a way that enables us to live according to your will and to what we learn this morning. God, we thank you for uh for your Son Jesus Christ, his suffering and sacrifice, and his ultimate victory over death on our behalf. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All right. Um I'm not gonna give the background to 1 Peter again. I've done it the other times that I preached, so hopefully uh you remember who Peter is writing to and why, but if not, you can ask me after. We have a lot to a lot to get through. So uh what we have here in the beginning of chapter four is a shift in direction. Following the introduction to the book, Peter spent a good deal of time uh discussing how believers are called to stand firm in suffering because Jesus Christ himself suffered before entering glory. But starting here in our passage today, Peter moves from discussing Christ's suffering to applying its implications to the daily lives of believers. He reminds Christians that following Christ means embracing a radically different way of living. And as we begin to work through our passage this morning, it's worth asking ourselves: is my life radically different now than it was before I was a believer? Because the Christian life isn't merely about believing different doctrines. It's not only assenting to certain spiritual truths. No, it's about possessing a transformed mind, a transformed lifestyle. And if we have those things, a transformed destiny. And so, in that vein, as we move through these verses, we'll see a contrast in what it means to live in the flesh and to live by the spirit. Because living a radically different life is not something we can do in our own power. Dan says it often, we're not pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps. What we are doing rather is yielding to the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. That is how our minds are transformed. That is how our lives are transformed. Now, that doesn't mean that there's no effort on our part. And we'll talk later in practical application about what we have to do or what we should do. As you know, we're told to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. But it does mean that we are not transforming ourselves. So if I go to the gym and lift weights a lot, my muscles will probably get bigger. I will have transformed my body. But that's not what happens spiritually. We read the word, we try to obey it, we stay in regular communication with God through prayer, we keep fellowship with other believers, and God changes us. Now, these verses before us challenge us with three important truths, and I want us to keep them in mind as we begin to dig into our passage. First, we must adopt the mindset of Christ. We must adopt the mindset of Christ. Second, we must abandon the lifestyle of the world. And I'm repeating these here in case anyone is taking notes. But we must abandon the lifestyle of the world. And finally, we must remember the certainty of God's judgment and eternal hope. We must remember the certainty of God's judgment and eternal hope. So let's examine these truths. We must adopt the mindset of Christ. Here in verse 1, Peter says, Since Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking. The word arm here is a military term. Here Peter is speaking like a commander readying his troops for battle. Christianity is not a passive endeavor. We are at all times engaged in spiritual warfare. That's why Paul used similar language, battle-type language in Ephesians 6, verse 11, when he said, put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. Here Peter is saying that our primary weapon is not physical strength, but rather a particular way of thinking, the mindset of Christ. And specifically Christ's attitude towards suffering. Jesus willingly embraced suffering because he understood the Father's will. We remember what happened in the Garden of Gethsemane. He sweat drops of blood in anguish, asking for the cup to pass from him, but then saying, Yet not my will, but yours be done. It was an act of submission to the Father's will. But it was more than that. Jesus viewed suffering through the lens of God's redemptive purpose. And so should we. As Christians who seek to follow Christ, we must recognize that part of our obedience will involve hardship, will involve suffering. We live in a culture that often equates blessing with comfort and suffering with failure. You might think of Job's three friends here. They basically blamed Job for his suffering. Scripture doesn't teach that suffering is always an effect of our own actions. It can be, but it's not always the case. And Job's friends ended up getting rebuked, and they needed Job to intercede on their behalf in the end. Jesus said in Luke 9.23, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. I've quoted this before, but it's worth mentioning here again. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die. Bonhoeffer, who was under the oppression of the Nazi regime, understood that discipleship involves self-denial. Peter continues here, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin. Peter is not teaching sinless perfection. Scripture clearly teaches that believers continue to struggle with sin. You can read 1 John chapter 1, verses 8 through 10 on your own time if you want to know more about that. What Peter is saying here is that when a believer willingly endures suffering rather than denying or abandoning Christ, that person has demonstrated a decisive break with sin's rule in their life. It's a decisive break with the world. It's as Paul said in Romans 6.11, so you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. So a believer may stumble, but he or she no longer lives under sin's authority. During the early centuries of the church, many Christians faced intense persecution, especially from Roman authorities. When they were threatened with death if they would not renounce Christ, countless believers chose suffering over compromise. Why would they do this? Well, they had a hope in a world beyond this one. But primarily they had settled the issue of allegiance in their hearts. When a Christian determines that following Jesus Christ is worth suffering for, many temptations lose their power. One who has already decided, I belong to Jesus regardless of the cost, becomes difficult for the world to intimidate. This is the mindset that Peter encourages us to adopt. We must arm ourselves with this mindset. We must also abandon the lifestyle of the world. In verse 2, so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh, no longer for human passions, but for the will of God. The Christian life involves a dramatic, or as we said earlier, a radical change of purpose. Before our conversion, our lives revolve around ourselves. Maybe our families, you know, in rare cases, our communities. But even in if I tried to be altruistic as an unbeliever, it's still my family. It's my community, right? After conversion, our lives revolve around God. Here Peter presents two alternatives: human desires and God's will. Every person is living according to one of these principles. Human desires are not merely physical cravings. They can be, but they can also include things like pride, selfish ambition, greed, envy, lust, the pursuit of my own way, right? Personal autonomy. John summarizes this well in 1 John 2.16, which says, For all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life, and some translations have that pride in possessions, that is not from the Father, but is from the world. As believers, we are called to a different path. Jesus said, My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. You think about how great a necessity food is. You're hungry, you eat a meal, and you are satisfied. Likewise, we should take deep satisfaction in obedience to God. Not pride in obedience, but satisfaction. Because hopefully we have hungered for righteousness, as Jesus said in the Beatitudes. Notice too what Peter says here in verse 2, the rest of the time in the flesh. He's reminding us that our days here are limited. Moses wrote in Psalm 90, that's the only Psalm that's attributed to him, by the way, but Moses wrote, So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. And wisdom is a thing that comes in some measure with age. It's no coincidence that the older we get, the more we recognize how quickly life passes. James wrote, What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Because our time is short, every day that we have left matters. Charles Spurgeon said, a life spent in the service of God and in communion with Him is the most pleasant life that anyone can live in this world. Are we going to follow human passions or the will of God? Frank Sinatra was proud to sing that he had done it my way. I want to do it God's way. You see, the question isn't merely how long we live, it's for whom we live. Moving on, and we're and we're still talking about abandoning the lifestyle of the world. We saw two ways to live there in verse 2. As we move on to verses 3 and 4, we'll see Peter encouraging us to leave our old lives behind. Verse 3, 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 are surprised when you do not join them in the same, this is verse 4 here, when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery and they malign you. This is worded a little weirdly in this translation. It's not it's not wrong, but this part that says uh the time that is past suffices. I want to read, I want to read the first part of this verse from the NIV so there's no confusion about what Peter's saying. From the NIV it reads, For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do. And then Peter lists various sins. Peter's saying, You spent enough time living that way. We should never view our former lives in sin with nostalgia. We don't have to live in condemnation or shame over sins that have been forgiven, but neither should there be any fondness for how we used to live. Paul wrote in Romans 6.21, but what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. Sin promises more than it delivers. It promises happiness, but it results in emptiness. It offers pleasure, it produces bondage. You remember the prodigal son who took his inheritance early and squandered it. He pursued pleasure, independence, his own self-indulgence. I'm sure initially that seemed exciting. But eventually he found himself feeding pigs, longing to eat their food. If you know what pigs eat, not a pleasant thought. It's been said that sin always takes us farther than we intended to go and keeps us longer than we intended to stay. Like the prodigal who returned to his father and found restoration and joy, we too can return to our Father in heaven if we have been caught up in sin. He will restore you if you let him. And in verse 4 here, we see the world's reaction to believers who have left the world behind, who have left the old life behind. One of the clearest evidences of genuine conversion is that former companions notice the difference. We live in a world that often tolerates many beliefs, but people get uncomfortable quickly when someone actually lives according to biblical convictions. You may have heard recently, there was a story of a pastor in the UK, I don't recall his name, but he was imprisoned for preaching outside an abortion clinic. He was not speaking against or uh what do you call it or protesting. He wasn't protesting abortion. He was just preaching the gospel, and he got thrown in jail for it. Likewise, when we refuse to participate in sinful activities, we may face ridicule, criticism, or worse. The unbelieving world often interprets holiness as being judgmental. We are not called to be rude or self-righteous in our refusal to join in past sins, but we are called to be faithful. And even though the world can't tell the difference between our faithfulness and self-righteousness, we keep a clean conscience. I imagine there are more than a few here who have experienced something like the following scenario. You're at work or in school or wherever. God gets a hold of your life, and you either become a believer or you start taking your faith more seriously. Suddenly you stop engaging in the gossip, the crude talk, uh, putting down of others that you used to do. Maybe you're mocked or you're ostracized. Maybe you're told that you have a holier than thou attitude. People keep their distance from the Jesus freak. At some point, one of your critics reaches out to you seeking counsel because they're going through a time of crisis and they know you're a believer. Anybody ever experienced anything like that or know somebody that has? Yes, there's some hands. The very faithfulness that God has mocked or criticized or excluded planted seeds that God uses at a later time. Our obedience can bring misunderstanding, and we should not be surprised by that. Be obedient always, or be obedient anyways. Our last point as we move into verses five and six is that we must remember the certainty of God's judgment and eternal hope. Verse 5 says, They will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. They, the people maligning you for your obedience to God, they will give account to God. This is a sobering statement. The world may ignore God today. Nobody will ignore him forever. Scripture repeatedly teaches the reality of divine judgment. In Hebrews 9.27, it says, It is appointed for man to die once, and then comes the judgment. Paul addressed this the Areopagus, this was the Athenians, in Acts 17, 31. Paul said, He has fixed a day, he being God, he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness, by a man whom he is appointed. And of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead. The man, the judge, obviously, is Jesus Christ Himself. In fact, Jesus said in John chapter 5, the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son. Every person who rejects Christ, who mocks God, who persecutes his followers, will ultimately answer to him. We have been given the choice to bend the knee before him, and then we are welcomed into his family lovingly. But a day is coming when the choice will be taken from us. We will all bow before him. To do it willingly brings everlasting life. If we wait until the choice is taken from us, we face destruction. As it says in the Word, today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts. Peter is not only warning unbelievers here, he's also encouraging believers. When Christians suffer unjustly, they may wonder whether God notices. Peter assures them that he does. No act of evil escapes God's attention. No injustice goes unanswered. No persecution against his saints goes unrecorded. The people who commit these acts are, as Paul wrote in Romans 2.5, storing up wrath for themselves on the day of wrath, when God's judgment will be revealed. There is a way out from under that wrath, and the way is Jesus Christ. Paul was a persecutor of the early church, as we know. But he turned his life over to God. John Stott, who was a theologian, he was famous for writing a little book called Basic Christianity. But he had another book called The Cross of Christ, and in there he wrote, The essence of sin is man substituting himself for God. While the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man. Those who reject God's provision in Christ will eventually stand before him on their own merits. And we have no merits. But we can by faith have Christ's righteousness imputed to us, and thereafter we are seen as spotless. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. The certainty of Christ's judgment should humble us and deepen our appreciation of the gospel. Because we know that judgment is coming, we should not seek revenge on our own behalf when we are persecuted. Paul said, and this is again in Romans, beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God. We can forgive because God is just. We can endure because God will judge righteously. And we can trust because Jesus reigns. Moving on to verse 6, for 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. The main takeaway here is that we should rejoice in the hope of the gospel. With that said, there's a bit of a difficult portion here that I need to address, and I'll do it as briefly as I can because I want to stay focused on our main point. But at the same time, I believe in teaching the whole council of the Word of God. Okay? It's all God-breathed, it's all profitable. So these next few minutes will be a pause in our focus, but not in our passage. Dan has been saying the last couple weeks something which I've said before, and I've heard it many times before I ever said it, and that is this. The main things are the plain things, and the plain things are the main things. The main things are the plain things, and the plain things are the main things. What does that mean? You don't need to be a Bible scholar to understand the gospel. There are things that are hard to understand in Scripture. And furthermore, believe it or not, there are things that are hidden in Scripture and need to be discovered. But everything we need to know how to be saved is as plain as the nose on your face. And knowing how to be saved is the main thing. If what I'm about to share here goes over your head, don't worry about it. It has no bearing on our faith in Christ. But it says, For 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. The difficult part, obviously, here is where it says the gospel was preached to those who are dead. It corresponds to and continues the thought from Dan's sermon a couple weeks ago, where in 319 it says that he, being Jesus, went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison. One of the explanations people give is, as Dan had mentioned, is that it had to do with the Nephilim. I don't know if you know what the Nephilim are, but they're giants that were around in the time of the flood. I'm going to tell you why they think that, and I'm going to tell you why they're wrong. The Nephilim were giants, as we said, many believe they were the offspring of fallen angels and human women. So people think it has to do with the Nephilim because it mentions in the next verse back when Dan was preaching for 3 19. 320 says, because they formally did not obey when God's patience waited in the days of Noah. So it mentions the days of Noah right after that. We read about the Nephilim as I said in Genesis 6, right before the flood. But was there another kind of disobedience in the days of Noah? Yes, there was. We're told that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. So why attribute this to the Nephilim? I want to read quickly from 2 Peter 2, verses 4 and 5. 2 Peter 2, 4 and 5 says, For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness, to be kept until the judgment, if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly. So here we have angels sinning connected to Noah and the flood. Or do we? Verse 6, right after that, says, if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, sorry, to ashes, he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly. What we have here are three different unrelated examples of God's judgment. What was the sin of the angels following Satan in his rebellion? How do I know? Because it says in verse 5 that in Noah's case, God did not spare the ancient world. Why did God send the flood? Because he regretted that he had made man. Because every intention was continually evil. Okay, one more quickly, and uh I'm not I'm trying not to belabor this, but it needs an answer because people that believe in the Nephilim theory use it as a proof text. This is coming from Jude verses six and seven. Jude verses six and seven says, And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day. Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire. Alright, so here it says angels left their proper dwelling, which we know they they left heaven. But then it says as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities which likewise indulge in sexual immorality. Okay, so is this saying that Sodom, Gomorrah, and those cities, like the angels, indulge in sexual immorality? That's not what it's saying. What it's saying is that the surrounding cities were like Sodom and Gomorrah and engaged in sexual immorality. Okay. To close this point here, I'm just going to read from Genesis 6. Verses 1 through 4. It says, When man began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive, and they took as their wives any they chose. Then the Lord said, My spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh. His days shall be a hundred and twenty years. The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came into the daughters of man, and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown. Point out here, and I will say that there are some different translations of this part here do make it sound more like there were relations between angels and humans. But they're not good translations. If you look at the original language, if you look at the Hebrew, they're adding words that aren't there. This is a very literal translation. So what it says here in verse 4 is the Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came into the daughters of man and they bore children to them. The Nephilim were already there. Okay? The Nephilim were already there. They were not the result of some weird procreation. In Matthew 22, the Sadducees try to trip Jesus up by asking him a hypothetical. They talk about seven brothers who uh each marry the same woman. They're dying off one after the other without leaving any offspring. So the Sadducees who didn't believe in the resurrection, they asked Jesus, whose wife will she be in the resurrection? Jesus responds that in the resurrection, there is no marriage, but we are like the angels. Angels don't marry. Angels don't procreate. So what's happening here in 1 Peter? When Jesus died and was physically in the tomb for three days, he preached the gospel to those who had come before him, so that they would have an opportunity to place their faith in him. The apostles' creed, early forms of which were known to exist by the second century, says the following I believe in God the Father, Almighty Maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary, who suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried, descended into hell, rose again from the dead on the third day. It continues, but that's enough to show you what the early church thought about this. Again, and getting back to our regularly scheduled program, the main focus of this verse is the hope that exists in the gospel, especially in the light of the certainty of God's judgment. Jesus is the way and the truth and the life. He said, I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me, even if he dies, will live. For the Christian, death is not the end, but rather the doorway into the presence of Jesus Christ. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. Hallelujah. Peter's message here remains as relevant as ever. We live in a culture increasingly opposed to biblical truth. Christians face ridicule, rejection, pressure to compromise. How should we respond? Arm yourselves with the mind of Christ. Be prepared to suffer for righteousness if necessary. Choose obedience over comfort. Live for the will of God. We have a short time here. And the days that remain are a precious gift. Don't waste them by chasing after the empty pleasures or desires of the world. Leave the old life behind. We are new creations. Enough time has been spent living for sin. Walk in holiness and faithfulness. Remember God's judgment. Those who reject Christ will answer to him. Those who suffer for his name's sake will be vindicated. And finally, cling to the hope of the gospel. Christ died, he rose again, and he reigns. We're in a spiritual war, folks. Every day, every minute of every day of our lives. And a great part of that warfare is our flesh versus our spirit. If you're struggling with something, if you're taking part in worldly things from before you came to Christ, maybe you're using a substance you shouldn't use, maybe you're watching things you shouldn't watch. Maybe you're trying to be in a relationship that's no good for you. Whatever it is, surrender it to the will of God. We don't have to fight the fight for ourselves. Christ has the victory. What we need to do in practical application is read the Word of God, obey it. Fellowship with other believers. Stay in constant prayer. This is a day of decision. Like I said, if you're if you're struggling with anything, we have people who will pray with you. Choose this day whom you will serve. Amen.