Let's get ready to rumble!
Notes
Transcript
What is your intro. music?
What is your intro. music?
Michael Buffer. Let’s get ready to rumble.
What song is playing in your mind as you get ready for the fight? Do you have a song? You might as well....Because you are going into a fight.
And how you do in the fight is completely dependent on your attitude, your focus. Is you heart focused on your circumstances or your savior?
Crisis or the cross?
Also, this is your fight. It’s not your wive’s or your husband’s, it is not you best friend’s fight, It’s not you church families fight. It’s yours, and you have to fight it. You can have those people in your corner, but when the bell rings you have to be the one to fight your own battles, because the real battle is in your own head.
This morning, we are going to look at the first 11 verses of and see what God has to say about battles we face.
Fist, however I want to give you a few set up verses. Some context to today’s focus.
20 For what credit is there if, when you sin and are harshly treated, you endure it with patience? But if when you do what is right and suffer for it you patiently endure it, this finds favor with God.
Take your punishment like a man.
17 For it is better, if God should will it so, that you suffer for doing what is right rather than for doing what is wrong.
1 Peter 3:
There will be suffering.....be right.
Now we will pick up today’s verses.
1 Therefore, since Christ has suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same purpose, because he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin,
2 so as to live the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for the lusts of men, but for the will of God.
1 Peter 4:1-
In the 1998 Esquire Magazine article about Mr. Rogers he and the author of the article visited a child with Cerebral Palsy. During the visit, Mr. Rogers asked the boy to pray for him. It made an impact on the boy, and later Tom, the author, complemented Mr. Rogers for giving the boy a task he could complete to feel better about himself.
Mr. Rogers response was, "Oh, heavens no, Tom! I didn't ask him for his prayers for him; I asked for me. I asked him because I think that anyone who has gone through challenges like that must be very close to God. I asked him because I wanted his intercession."
Anyone
That is what Peter is saying here,
That anyone who has suffered punishment, pain, persecution for doing what is right is obviously more focused on what God wants rather than what they want.
That’s what Hero’s do. and Christ is the greatest hero of all.
Arm yourself
Arm yourself
Since Christ suffered for us. and since we may suffer for doing right.
Peter tells us to arm ourselves.
11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.
Ephesians 6:
Gird loins with Truth.
6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.
16 He said to her, “Go, call your husband and come here.”
Breastplate of righteousness
6 For all of us have become like one who is unclean,
And all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment;
And all of us wither like a leaf,
And our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.
10 as it is written,
“There is none righteous, not even one;
Isaiah
21 He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
Shod your feet with the preparation of the Gospel of Peace
1 Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
Shield of Faith
20 “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.
Helmet of Salvation
12 “And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.”
Sword of the spirit
Word of God.
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Arm yourself by putting on Christ.
We are tempted not to forgive others.
We are tempted not to forgive others.
1 Peter 4:3-
10 But one whom you forgive anything, I forgive also; for indeed what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, I did it for your sakes in the presence of Christ,
11 so that no advantage would be taken of us by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his schemes.
3 For the time already past is sufficient for you to have carried out the desire of the Gentiles, having pursued a course of sensuality, lusts, drunkenness, carousing, drinking parties and abominable idolatries.
4 In all this, they are surprised that you do not run with them into the same excesses of dissipation, and they malign you;
5 but they will give account to Him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.
6 For the gospel has for this purpose been preached even to those who are dead, that though they are judged in the flesh as men, they may live in the spirit according to the will of God.
We are lied to about what will make us happy
We are lied to about what will make us happy
We are tempted with money, power, pleasure. We are told that these things will make us happy. These are things worth pursuing.
Its a lie. Satan is a liar.
Jesus talking to the phrases,
44 “You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
John 8:
We are tempted to fight amongst ourselves.
We are tempted to fight amongst ourselves.
8 To sum up, all of you be harmonious, sympathetic, brotherly, kindhearted, and humble in spirit;
8 Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins.
We are tempted to be afraid and discouraged
We are tempted to be afraid and discouraged
27 “Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.
We are lied to about what it really means to be free.
We are lied to about what it really means to be free.
34 Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.
John
20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.
36 “So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.
28 So Jesus said, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and I do nothing on My own initiative, but I speak these things as the Father taught Me.
As we close I want to remind you why the battle is important.
12 Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation.
11 Whoever speaks, is to do so as one who is speaking the utterances of God; whoever serves is to do so as one who is serving by the strength which God supplies; so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
1 Peter
12 It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you, in these things which now have been announced to you through those who preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven—things into which angels long to look.
Fight song: Teeny bop song.
1 Peter
Like a small boat
On the ocean
Sending big waves
Into motion
Like how a single word
Can make a heart open
I might only have one match
But I can make an explosion
