Let None of You Suffer Because of Sin — 1 Peter 4

0:00 Alright. Good afternoon, everybody. I'm excited to be here. You all pretty much know what we're gonna be talking about. I listened to mister Meng's message probably like four or five times and it was pretty awesome.

0:13 And he talked about first Peter chapter four, the first half, and I'm gonna be talking about the second half starting from verse 12. So let's just read the verses first, and then I'll I'll pray that the spirit works in all of us, and that it's a productive time of of looking into the word. So first Peter chapter four verses 12 to 19. It says, beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you as though something strange were happening to you, but rejoice in so far as you share Christ's sufferings that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed because the spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.

1:05 But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler. Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name. For it is it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God, and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the gospel of God? And if the righteous is scarcely saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner? Therefore, let those who suffer according to God's will entrust their souls to a faithful creator while doing good.

1:40 Let's pray. Heavenly father, thank you so much for a wonderful day, Lord. Thank you for a day in which we could just remember you intently in the morning together as just family, Lord. And thank you so much for your body and your blood and the cross and just your precious blood that saved us all from sin, and reconciled us to God. And we ask that you just bless the time that we have right now.

2:08 As we read your word, please give us wisdom to speak, wisdom to hear, and just soften our hearts so that we might receive what you need us to know and need us to hear, and that we might be convicted to just go forth and tell to be able to come here and and be rejuvenated and and then to go forth and tell as we go out into the world this week, Lord. Thank you so much for this time. We we are grateful that you're here with us and we're grateful that you're alive and that you live within us. In your wonderful and matchless name we pray. Amen.

2:42 Okay. So I'm gonna I'm gonna sort of do this in the way that the Lord revealed things to me as I was reading through these verses. And the way that he revealed things was backwards, so I'm gonna go backwards from the last verse back up to the first verse. But before we start with that, there's... The...

3:02 These chapters are super close to my heart and April and I have spent a lot of time reading through these and there's a ton of stuff in first Peter and second Peter. And some of the things that I always say, and I'm sure I've said it in previous sermons, it's very clear in first Peter that there's a distinct difference between suffering because of sin versus suffering because of righteousness. And we all are familiar with that thought. And one of the things that I I think I said before is I have this gut check where I where I ask myself, am I suffering right now because of sin or am I suffering because of righteousness sake? Am I suffering because I'm living like Christ?

3:49 And suffering... We're we're familiar with suffering because of sin looks like and maybe we're struggling to or we desire to suffer like Christ rather than suffering like sin. I know I feel that a lot inside my life, but a lot of times I suffer because of my own sin, because of procrastination, which may happen right now, my suffering, but because of procrastination, if you get that, or because of just any other sins. I have I have tons of things I can talk to you about and that I talk to some of the younger guys and and the younger kids about. But as we move into these verses, the theme of these verses I wanted to focus on was verse 15.

4:48 If I say you gotta stop suffering because of sin, I'm talking about myself as well. Don't think that I'm holy or righteous or anything like that. So the theme that I have is, let none of you suffer because of sin. And mister Meng talked a lot about this because we see it in the first two verses, which we can read again. It says, since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking for whoever 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.

5:23 And that's a pretty powerful thing because we see if we cease from sin, we get to live in our flesh, although we will still suffer in the flesh. We get to live in this flesh for the will of God, which is exciting and that's what that's what I want to get to and that's what what I want the entire church to get to, to cease from sin and be able to live in the flesh for the will of God. So as I was reading through this, the first thing that that popped into my mind and and stood out to me was in in verse 19 where it says, therefore, let those who suffer according to God's will entrust their souls to a faithful creator while doing good. And honestly, it sort of blew my mind to start thinking about this because earlier earlier in first Peter, it talks about in first Peter chapter two verse 11, you don't have to turn to all these references. It says, beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, there we go again, which wage war against your soul.

6:25 So when I saw this word in here, entrusting your souls to a faithful creator while doing good, I was really excited because this war that we're fighting right now is not just a war, a physical war. Right? It's a war of souls and I think that word is sort of convoluted to to most of us. Maybe not y'all, but for me it was convoluted because we talk about body, soul, spirit, but what is a soul really and maybe some people don't even know the difference between a soul and a spirit, and then what's the body and how does it all fit together. But I think that the the fact that we're waging...

7:03 That suffering... The passions of the flesh wage war against the soul is is paramount. So essentially, I'll break it down, the body, soul and spirit. And I'm sure you're somewhat familiar, the body is just a physical physical vessel or a tool that manifests what's in the other two sort of immaterial things. And then the soul itself is more of a...

7:32 It's it's more of your being. So like when I say, who's who's Mason or who's Caitlin or who's Jeremy, it's not like these people that I'm looking at right now. Who they really are is their soul. So like your soul is your being, your emotions, your your heart. It's it's that deeper immaterial portion of you that really represents who you are.

7:55 So the actual word is where the word psyche was derived from. So it's your psyche, it's it's just your being. And then your spirit is is actually life and ultimately connection to God. So you have your body, which is the physical manifestation of these two other things, then your soul, which is your entire being, your emotions, your heart, and then you have your spirit, which is a connection to God and which is life. So the the horrible thing about sin is that it's not just something that is bad, it's something that affected all three of these parts of you.

8:37 So it affected every single part of you to its to its core. So for your body... Well, we'll start with spirit. So what sin did was it disconnected our spirit from God. So because of that, in turn, because of that, our souls were distorted.

8:54 So those things that we have, our mind, our emotions, our being, our character became became distorted and completely selfish. So instead of thinking about the Lord, now we're disconnected from God and our being and our character became something that is focused on our self. And then the body as a result is is really destroyed. So sin destroyed our bodies to the point of death and really it became... Our bodies became a tool to serve ourselves rather than to serve God.

9:28 So we see that our soul... Our spirits are disconnected, our souls are distorted, and our bodies are destroyed, and it's a pretty horrible thing. Right? So it's not a joke. When it says, this is waging war against your soul, it's something that's super deep, that's coming after your body, soul, and spirit, and your soul, your entire being is being attacked when you when you give into the passions of the flesh.

10:04 Right? Because the cross doesn't just save us from sin, because we... That's how we would describe Christ and what he did on the cross. Right? That it saved us from sin, but it's much more than that because what...

10:15 This is what it actually did, it restored our connection with God, so our spirits were connected again with God and life was brought in because God is life. So our spirits were reconnected with God and as a result of that as a result of that, our souls were renewed and and transformed and refocused on our emotions and our desires and our passions and all that our soul is was refocusing on something that was life rather than something that was selfish and something that was death. And then the the coolest part was that our bodies now... The bodies that were bent for destruction, they're still kinda bent for destruction, but the the awesome thing is that he promises in... A glorified body for us to go into you, and then he also promises that we can use this thing that was once a tool for our own selfishness and pride, we can use it for his kingdom now.

11:11 So our bodies become a tool for him to use, and we become vessels for him to... For the master's good use, which is exciting. So this war that we... That's waged against our soul, just by ceasing from sin, we see that we see that we can twist everything back by the power of God to to its right position and right relationship, and we can begin to use our bodies and ourselves as as powerful tools for the Lord here on this earth. And we see...

11:45 One second. So... Yeah. So in my point number one, it really is that souls are in jeopardy and that the Lord through his salvation has saved our souls and has returned them to a right relationship. But the truth is just that souls are in jeopardy and we see that in these verses here that we can entrust our souls to a faithful creator, but as we move on, we see that it's not just about our souls.

12:14 We have to cease from sin and entrust our souls to a faithful creator so that we might be considerate of the souls of our... Of other people here on this earth. So the the bad thing about sin is that although death has been... We've been we've been saved from the chains of death, the bad thing about sin is that it still constantly attacks us and attempts to distort our our minds to just focus on ourselves again. So suffering because of sin really causes us to focus on our self and doesn't allow us to move past and focus on the souls of other men.

12:55 And I think you guys will will... You guys are probably super familiar with this because when you are suffering because of sin, you're more inclined and you're more captivated with what am I doing, where am I at, or I'm the worst, or there's a lot of I I I's there. Right? And that's just what sin does, it just causes you to focus on me me me me and as long as you suffer because of sin, you're gonna focus on me me me. So we wanna push past that.

13:24 We wanna cease from sin so that why... We might be able to focus on somebody else for change, you know. So we can really see that in Philippians chapter two and we talked about having the mind of Christ, we see it at the beginning of the chapter likes like Christ suffered in the flesh. In Philippians chapter two verses three and four, three to five actually. It says, do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.

13:59 Let each of you look not only to his own interests but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves which is yours in Christ Jesus, who through who through or who though he was in the form of God did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped. And we all know these verses that follow, but we see that the mind of Christ was one that had the interest of others above his own and that's the goal here is to cease from sin and have the interest of others above our own interest. So as we move into the other verses in this chapter, we'll move backwards again and we read verse seventeen and eighteen from first Peter chapter four. And these ones are pretty interesting.

15:15 So if you read the... This verse is quoted from Proverbs chapter 11. If you read the the verse in Proverbs chapter 11 verse 31, it says, if the righteous is repaid on earth, how much more the wicked and the sinner. So what Peter's trying to tell us here is that although we can cease from suffer... Suffering because of sin, although we have power over sin because of the cross and what Christ did, there will still be suffering because of our righteousness and maybe just because of the broken persona of the world in general, there will still be suffering.

15:53 So in our process of sanctification on this world, the Lord will continue to try and refine us and help us to grow as we cease to cease to sin. The Lord continues to help us to grow and that's not an easy process. We all know that sanctification is a process that requires refining through fire and that fire does... Isn't pleasant. So what Peter's saying right now is that imagine this sanctification process happening through you where you're attempting to be righteous and to live like the Lord and live like Christ.

16:27 This sanctification process is happening through you while you're doing all of this and it's pretty tough, it's pretty horrible. You do... You face trials, you face temptations, you suffer because you're denying your flesh, you face all these things and it's pretty horrible, imagine those who don't believe in Jesus Christ and don't have hope what they're going through. What we face here on this earth essentially is is the maximum of what what suffering we're ever gonna face in our in our eternal lives. Right?

17:00 But those who don't believe in Jesus Christ, this is just scratching the surface if if their souls aren't saved. So the importance of that is that we have the ability to to pull them out of that that suffering and pull them out of those things. And if we continue reading... So we... Sorry.

17:22 Let me catch up here. I normally don't look at my outline but I need to today because of previous statements I said. Yeah. So if we continue to look at the verses and bump back up to 13 to to 15, it says, but rejoice in so far as you share Christ's sufferings that you may may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed because the spirit of glory and God rests upon you.

18:00 But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or evil doer or as a meddler. Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed but let him glorify God in that name. So we see the power of your suffering on this earth has the ability... Your power suffering because of trials has the ability to glorify God and glorify his name and reveal his glory here on this... On the earth to those who don't believe.

18:25 If we continue before we read first Peter chapter two verse 12 where it said that it said, keep your con... Or first Peter chapter two verse 11, it said, beloved, I urge you, sojourners and exiles, to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Verse 12 says, keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. So we pray that they glorify him before that day, but we see that our good deeds and our ability to serve the Lord as we cease from sin, to serve the Lord with these tools, our bodies, allows us to be able to bring glory to his name on this earth. And there's there's three big things that I wanted to point out what...

20:05 And he prays in agony because his flesh no doubt desired that that he didn't desire not to go through that suffering, but he desired the will of God more than that. So if we look at Luke chapter 22, it's really powerful because it says that he prayed in agony and his and his sweat was like drops... Great drops of blood falling down to the ground. So the reason I I was meditating on this verse is because there's actually a sermon by by doctor Martin Luther King called the Drum Major Instinct and I'm sure a lot of people have heard it. And the reason I heard about that sermon was because of a commercial during the the Super Bowl.

20:51 So there was a commercial during the Super Bowl, it was a Dodge Ram commercial and they used his sermon to sort of market the trucks. And then there was an article I read where they... People were freaking out because they're using doctor Martin Luther King's sermon to sell like Dodge Ram trucks to people. So then I was like, okay, I gotta listen to the sermon now. So then I listened to the sermon and it was suit...

21:14 It was really powerful and surprisingly the sermon talked a lot about not not trying to buy the best cars, if you like listen to it a little bit further. So I don't know who who came up with that, but anyways, the sermon was really powerful and and it's titled The Drum Major Insync and you should look it up and listen to it too. So doctor Martin Luther... Doctor King, he says, essentially, we all have a drum major instinct, meaning that we all have a desire to be first. Like I wanna lead the drum line, I wanna be first, I wanna be ahead.

21:49 We all have this desire and when we look at Luke chapter 22, we see that we see that play out among the disciples themselves. So the disciples spent a lot of time with Christ, right? And they had... They still have this great desire to be first. So we see them arguing, Jesus Christ is talking about how he's gonna be crucified and then they they talk about who's gonna be greatest, who's gonna be seated at the right hand, who's gonna be next to Jesus when he goes back to heaven.

22:16 That's that's what's in their heart and that's what... That selfish desire is in them, know, that sin, their souls have been distorted in that way. So they ask this question and then Christ responds and he says to them, he says in verse 26, but not so with you, rather let the greatest among you become as the youngest and the leader as one who serves. For who is the greater one who reclines at the table or one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at table, but I am among you as the one who serves.

22:49 So he says, let the leader among you be the one who serves. And Christ... The powerful thing about Christ is that he always says these amazing things that the leader should be the one who serves, but he doesn't stop at just saying it, he uses his body, right, as a tool to manifest what what's in his spirit and what's in his soul. So then he goes to this Mount Of Olives and he's preparing to to show them, okay, I told you you should act in this way and let me show you what that looks like. And on the Mount Of Olives, he's super...

23:21 I'm sure it was a crazy moment and he's super burdened because of what's ahead of him, and he prays to the Lord, his sweat is like drops of blood, and he's praying in agony and hoping that maybe this cup would pass from him, but obviously it doesn't. So he shows them in service, he shows them he puts to death his flesh and he's made alive in the spirit in his service. And in there we see that the Lord... In in Martin Luther King's message, he explains that the Lord really like flips this thing back, like, you wanna be the one... You wanna be first among the rest, then be first in service.

24:01 And then he says... It's really cool because he says, you don't have to you don't have to be really smart to serve, like he says it in a cool way, I'm not Martin Luther King, but he says, you don't have to be Aristotle to serve, you don't need to know like theory of relativity to serve, you don't need to know the second law of thermodynamics to serve, know. Like anybody can serve, so anybody can be a leader. So this thing that we desire that's in our hearts that was sort of distorted by sin, the Lord brings it back to right relationship and says to us, okay, you want to be first, then be first in service. So now we have a venue to to be first.

24:36 So if if you guys want to succeed and you want to be be greatest among them, be greatest in service and and you will for eternity succeed. And then... So so when we cease from sin, we see that the Lord brings things back to a right relationship, we see that our earthly vessels like Christ's earthly vessel can be used, be a tool for righteousness and be a tool for God's glory, and then we also see that unfortunately, when we cease from sin, it doesn't necessarily mean we will escape all suffering. And we see that in these verses as you suffer in a different way, but you suffer with joy and you rejoice because of the the joy set before you, just like Christ did with the cross. And we really see that played out.

26:13 And these exiles returned back to Jerusalem and they're there. And Nehemiah Nehemiah is praying and somebody tells him that Jerusalem is still in ruins, the city is still broken down, the walls are gone, there's no protection, the people sort of don't have direction in a sense, although they have some through Ezra at the time. But anyways, Nehemiah responds immediately and he falls on his knees and he starts to pray and it says he fasted for days and he prayed for days and he prayed that the Lord would give him power. And the reason I bring this up is because the... He goes back to Jerusalem with the power of the king of Persia behind him.

26:58 The king of Persia gives him decree to go back and rebuild the walls of Jerusalem and the rebuilding of these walls is very similar to the sanctification process. And there's really cool verses in Nehemiah that you've got to read and you've got to come across, but we see that Nehemiah goes back and the surrounding nations, I'll just read some of what they said, there's this guy who's really crazy and really mean to Nehemiah. And in Nehemiah chapter four verse two or verse one, it says it says, now when Sanballat heard that they that we were building the wall, he was angry and greatly enraged and he jeered at the Jews and he said in the presence of his brother... Brothers of the army of Samaria, what are these feeble Jews doing? Will they restore it for themselves?

27:49 Will they sacrifice? Will they finish up in a day? Will they revive the stones out of the heaps of rubbish and burned ones at that? Sort of mockingly he's saying. Right?

27:58 And then he says... It says, Tobiah the Ammonite was beside him and he said, yes, what they are building, if a fox goes up on it, he will break down their stone wall. So again, this other guy mocks and he says that a fox can break down the wall. And and he mocks his work that Nehemiah was called to, But we see that that the Lord reveals their evil intent to Nehemiah and Nehemiah is able to make preparations and what I wanted to point out really was this this beautiful preparation he makes because it should be our method of living here on the earth right now as we toil and strive to serve the Lord. And it says in chapter four verse 16 to 17, it says, from that day on, after he heard of what their plans were, it said, from that day on, half of my servants worked on construction and half held the spears, shields, bows and coats of mail, and the leader stood behind the whole house of Judah.

28:58 And this is where it gets really interesting. It says, the leaders stood behind the whole house of Judah who were building on the wall. Those who carried burdens were loaded in such a way that each labored on the work with one hand and held his weapon in the other. So it was really cool because they're they're burdened in such a way where they can hold their load, but still have their weapon to fight and they're still ready. So they're rebuilding these walls, they're being sanctified, rebuilding these walls, but at the same time they have their defenses up.

29:29 So a lot of times we let our guards down... Our guard down. A lot of times we focus on rebuilding, rebuilding, but we're not focused on the things that are coming in and the things we need our weapons for. So it's important that we rebuild and we hold our weapon and that we rebuild these walls. And the story of Nehemiah is amazing because all of all of the people came together, they rebuilt the wall in fifty two days only and it was it was, I'm sure, a mind blowing sight if you were there.

30:02 And this isn't just like a wall for a wall for like this compound, it was a wall for an entire city and it wasn't it wasn't something that was miniscule. But... So we see we see that suffering won't won't cease, you'll still face suffering and persecution from others like like Nehemiah did and and those those guys went further than just mocking him. They attempted to kill him and they attempted to hire prophets... Prophetess to trick him into thinking something so that they could murder him.

30:36 And they attempted to make him sin so that people would discount his his reputation similar to what Paul faced as well. So you're still gonna face this suffering, but it's gonna be for joy and it's gonna be for the Lord and it's gonna reveal his glory much more proficiently than suffering because of sin will. That's not to say that suffering because of sin won't reveal his glory because I still think that although we do suffer because of sin in our lives, that the Lord still can use that and can sanctify us in that and can reveal his glory, but it's... It doesn't seem as proficient as if we cease from sin and we we were made alive by the spirit and we live by the spirit. So the the final point that I had really was that the final point that I had really was that the first verse, beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you as though something strange were happening to you.

32:49 If we entrust our souls to him, then we'll finally be able to consider the souls of others and consider our brothers, and consider the interests of others, and most importantly consider those who don't believe, and and be an example to them in our suffering so that they might be able to see the glory of God here on this earth. And in verse chapter... Or in verse 12, it says, beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you as though something strange were happening to you. And doing this and trusting your soul to God and living and suffering for righteousness sake over suffering for sin allows you to really live with peace on this earth. In Romans chapter two verse nine, it says, there will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek.

33:48 So we see that we get peace when we really entrust our our souls to God, we get peace and when these fiery trials come upon us, when people like Sanballat and those guys who came against Nehemiah, when they come, you're not gonna be surprised at the fire trial, you're gonna be at peace at that time, you're gonna continue to be able to reveal God's glory through these earthly vessels which are now tools for him, and that's a really exciting thing. So I really desire for in my own life and for everybody's life here that we would just cease from sin and that we would be able to focus on the Lord and focus on the power of the spirit to renew us and to work through our souls and to flip back those things that have been distorted and to to use this this earthly vessel to produce his glory here on this earth. I'm really excited for that and I'm really excited to see what the Lord would do through all of you and hopefully do through me, especially sometimes when I'm mean to April. I pray that the Lord would make me nicer to her.

34:59 Today, I was somewhat mean to her because I woke up and I was super nervous about this message, and I was like, April, you gotta get ready, we gotta get to church on time. But I said it in a meaner way. But anyways, so I know that sin stifles us and I pray that it doesn't do that any longer in our lives. So I ask that you just pray for that too and that you live and you live for the Lord and you suffer for righteousness sake over suffering because of sin in your lives. I just wanted to end by reading first Thessalonians five verse 23.

36:11 Heavenly father, thank you so much for your love and your goodness towards us. Thank you so much for the wisdom of your word and just allowing us to be able to partake of it, Lord. Thank you for allowing us to be able to have these vessels that can be used for you and that can be powerful tools to display your glory here on this earth, Lord. And I ask that you just do that this week through all of us, that we would be a church that is mighty and that would be able to to display your glory to everybody that we see, everyone that we talk to, in everything that we do, in everything that we say, Lord. Thank you so much for giving us venues and the opportunity to cease from sin in our lives, Lord.

36:51 I ask that you just allow us to be able to do that this week as well to be able to intentionally put to death the flesh and to discipline ourselves to godliness so that we might be made alive in the spirit and we might be able to glorify your name all the more in this earth, Lord. But we also, at the same time, thank you for your faithfulness to us despite the fact that we do fail and we do sin, Lord, that you love us and that you're faithful towards us and that you use those things to refine us and help us grow. But please help us to not take advantage of that and not take advantage of grace, Lord. We thank you so much for your love and your goodness and the fact that you're alive and that you're living in us. In your wonderful and matchless name, pray.

37:36 Amen.