1 Peter 4:1-11 - Applying Redemption

Introduction

*Self Defense classes*

Brazillian Jiu Jitsu

Concealed Carry-Firearms

Just in case

We play the what-if game and play with hypotheticals

“If this guy breaks into my house, then I will _____. “

“If I’m at Walmart and things go sideways, I’m going to ___.”

People take self-defense classes and go to the gun range to be sure that they know how to defend themselves if it is ever needed.

Practice and training bring security in the skills we obtain

“I feel better equipped…just in case.”

If we’re not continually walking in the gospel, then when temptation comes, we will fall right back into the sin that once enslaved us.

Likewise, Peter is calling us to “arm ourselves” to live according to the will of God, and not according to sin.

Dead to Sin

1 Peter 4:1–6 ESV

1 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, 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. 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. 4 With respect to this they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you; 5 but they will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. 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.

Sinless perfection? Absolutely not.

Peter is reminding us that Christ suffered once for sins (v. 18) that He might bring us to God!

Jesus’s death was the clean break with the bondage of sin

We’ve been set free from the authority/participation of sin

Sin is a slave owner

It has captured non-believers and pursues Christian’s

It seeks to kill anything it touches.

It comes through lust, anger, unforgiveness, lying, pride

But Jesus has suffered in the flesh so that we would be set free from sin’s authority!

Jesus came to free us from the sludge of sin and move us into a life on mission for the will of God.

Christians want what God wants; Christians love what God loves

Christians hate what God hates.

Romans 8:1–4 ESV

1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

We’ve spent enough time in sin.

“No longer” (v. 2-3)

We’ve spent enough time in the passions of the flesh mentioned in vv. 3-4.

If you are still here, I urge you to rapid repentance

We usually do this toward the “invitation”, but you must in this moment!

As fast as you can

Turn and believe Jesus

Jesus died for the forgiveness of sins

Jesus was raised from the dead and freely gives grace and life through repentence and faith.

Not when you’ve had your fill

Now. Today.

If you’re not here, don’t get proud.

Pride leads to self-righteousness and “Gospel-amnesia”

This is a major problem for many Christians.

We’ve been saved too long.

We’ve forgotten:

what it’s like to be our sin

what it’s like to be lost

what it’s like to need grace/mercy

We fail to believe that the gospel can actually change people

We withhold gospel witness from certain people

She’s a hardened athiest

He wants nothing to do with Christians

She was hurt by the church

He’s a convict

She’s muslim

He’s serial fornicator

We make up all these reasons to believe that the gospel won’t work

Yet it worked to change you.

Peter calls Christians to arm ourselves with remembrance of our past sins so that it would lead us to repentance and life in Jesus!

Remembering our past leads us to refrain from joining in sin further (v. 4).

Remembering the beauty of the gospel which set you free from your past causes you to hold all the more tightly to Jesus.

The apologetic reversal.

In 3:15. Peter instructs us to always be ready to give an account for our hope

People are looking at Christians

Why do you believe?

Why do you live contrary to us?

In 4:5-6, now those who do not believe in Jesus will give an account to Him who is ready to judge.

Ready or not. They will give an account for their unbelief/wickedness

Believers do not need to react with sinful vengeance when maligned by unbelievers.

We don’t need the last word.

God stands ready to settle all our accounts, and He will do a far better job than we could.

So as for you, arm yourself as Jesus did

Live this life for the will of God and not for the flesh.

Alive to Serve

1 Peter 4:7–11 ESV

7 The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. 8 Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. 9 Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. 10 As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: 11 whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

Peter points us past what we refrain from and instructs us in how we are to live

Jesus suffered for us so that we would live for the will of God (v. 2)

“The end of all things is at hand” (v. 7)

Peter uses this verbiage to rouse them from their complacency

Peter calls for a clear mind, “for the sake of your prayers.”

Being slothful and lazy in prayer subjects us to obligation rather than intimacy with Jesus.

God does not care for many elloquent words in prayer.

We don’t need formality in prayer, we need earnestness and intimacy

The purpose of prayer is to be with Jesus

In prayer, t is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart.

- John Bunyan

“Above all” (v. 8)

Peter is drawing us in - “Lean in. Pay attention. If you’ve heard nothing”

If you’re going to do anything, do this.

Love one another earnestly

Be fervent; intense

Peter points us back to Proverbs 10:12

Proverbs 10:12 ESV

12 Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses.

Notice the contrast between these two clauses

Hate v. love

Ungodliness v. godliness

It’s also a multitude or all offenses.

Not just some select ones

But a multitude of sins!

Love does not stop covering sin!

1 Corinthians 13:1–3 ESV

1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Living for the will of God looks like loving earnestly like Jesus did.

Love until it hurts.

Love does forgiveness

Love does grace/mercy

Show hospitality without grumbling.

Be hospitable until it hurts.

Hospitality is more than entertaining friends

The biblical concept of hospitality is often used with terms like “guest” “stranger” and “sojourner”

Peter uses the Greek word: philoxenos “Love of strangers”

Biblical hospitality is for people who cannot get you back!

This is opening our homes to people in need

Providing food and community to people who desperately need Jesus

If you’re too busy to be hospitable, you’re much busier than God ever intended for you to be.

God intended for us to live in community with one another and with outsiders

Luke 14:12–24 ESV

12 He said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. 13 But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, 14 and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.” 15 When one of those who reclined at table with him heard these things, he said to him, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” 16 But he said to him, “A man once gave a great banquet and invited many. 17 And at the time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ 18 But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused.’ 19 And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them. Please have me excused.’ 20 And another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’ 21 So the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’ 22 And the servant said, ‘Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ 23 And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled. 24 For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.’ ”

The more offended God gets, the more generous He gets!

Compel - Greek: anankazo: “Force; press; necessitate…to force somebody to do something”

“Don’t take no for an answer! I don’t want leftovers!”

Hospitality focuses on people generously and point them to Jesus

In times of hurt, in time of joy, in victories and defeats.

Why?

Each of us have been called to be a steward of God’s grace toward us (v. 10)

You have the home you have where you have it because God has called you to be a missionary through hospitality.

How might you organize your home to be more intentional in hospitality?

Conclusion

Peter concludes this section of exhortations by pointing our minds back to Jesus in praise and doxology.

The entire purpose for the strength given to us by God to love one another is “that in everything, God may be glorified through Jesus Christ” (v. 11).

“To Him belong glory and dominion forever and ever.”

Amen means to “Let it be done.”

**Say “amen”***

***Say “let it be done”***

Let it be done that sin will no longer rule and reign in our lives because we’ve been set free by Jesus’s death and resurrection!

Say amen!

Let it be that our lives will be marked by love and hospitality so as to point people to the love of God through Jesus Christ!

Say amen!

Let it be to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever!

Say amen!