Fearlessly, Radically Righteous: Our Struggle

Introduction

Have you ever wondered why God keeps us here after we become Christians? What if, upon our confession of Jesus as Lord, placing our faith in Him and His completed work on the cross to secure our salvation, God took us right then and there to be with Him into all of eternity? What would the world look like without any Christian influence?

Now, God does allow us to remain. We are gathered at this place at this moment, most of us probably born again believers, worshipping God, seeking to follow His will, eager to hear a word from Him. We need that exhortation, that encouragement as we will soon engage with our culture that is hopelessly lost and eternally condemned, damned in its depravity. In that, they absolutely hate and reject God’s will in order to pursue their various lusts that ultimately leads to death.

Why?

Christians struggle. The Christian life is not an easy one. It carries with it a cost to be counted, not of something that can be bought by us, but in cost of what must be let go of in order to follow Christ. The cost is not in what we gain, but what we surrender. We give up our will to God’s. Many brothers and sisters around the world sacrifice the safety of their lives, livelihoods and their families to follow Christ. Living the Christian life demands a rejection of a worldview that stands in stark, vehement opposition to what is revealed to us in Scripture about living a life pleasing to God. Further, embracing the new life in Christ, becoming a new creation, recognizes there was an old life filled with all sorts of wicked, evil lusts that in seeking their gratification offended a holy God.

The Christian life then, brings an awareness to our minds of the awfulness of our sin. It breaks our hearts when we consider how our sin has hurt ourselves, those around us, and our relationship with the One who has saved us. We feel grief, a holy guilt and righteous remorse when we sin knowing it displeases God. This is the struggle Paul writes of in Romans:

Romans 7:23–25 (NASB95)

but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members.

Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.

In this struggle, we are then thankful for the Holy Spirit’s dwelling within us, prompting us to recognize and confess our sin. This confession is not a way of informing God of something He doesn’t already know, but rather to agree with Him that our sin needs to be called out for what it is and repented of. As John Own the Puritan author of The Pilgrim’s Progress said, “Be killing sin, or sin will be killing you.” Let us never grow weary in killing sin, striving to remove it from our lives.

Christians struggle. In fact, if you’re here today, right now, not really sure anything I just said resonates with you in any meaningful way, you may want to take a serious look at where you stand before God. But that is precisely the power of the gospel that sets us free from the prison of such wanton evil and wickedness and death, to make us alive to pursue Christ in the abundant life that He has promised.

As we continue to look at Peter’s encouragement to the believers that have been scattered about Asia Minor, modern-day Turkey, he now shifts the attention from their need to live fearlessly in being a good witness before a watching world, to living a radically righteous life in avoiding intentional sin. It is a struggle; more accurately, a war. Our enemies are very real. The stakes are very real and carry with them eternal consequences.

The war rages on, we must therefore, Arm ourselves with purpose.

1 Peter 4:1–2 (NASB95)

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, 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.

Now, what does Peter mean here as he says, “he who was suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin?” We know that people suffer and continue to sin, so how can we qualify that statement? We also know that suffering physically may strengthen some, but that is not a universal. Peter must mean something else. Considering he is writing to persecuted believers, he is suggesting that those who have suffered in the flesh for the sake of Christ have come to a point that says, they are striving to live their lives in a way that pleases God. Sin no longer has a hold of them. They now stand justified before God, clothed in the robe of Christ’s righteousness.

The purpose here is having the same way of thinking as Jesus, our example we looked at last week. Look back just a few verses earlier, to

1 Peter 3:18 (NASB95)

For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit;

Christ’s purpose, His way of thinking, was His resolute, uncompromising, and unyielding commitment to obey the Father’s will. Even if that meant suffering for doing what was right, even suffering being completely innocent. But it was for a much greater good. That same sense of following God’s will no matter the cost, no matter the suffering, even being totally innocent, no matter the loss, must define us. We must arm ourselves, as if for battle for the battle is real.

Recount all the ways the world is structured against us…

Think about all the ways just our culture is structured. Consider the multiple ways that evil abounds. Consider the areas we see wickedness celebrated. How many ways does our culture seek to influence our children, our grandchildren? We are constantly told we are to call sin good, and what is good should be repulsive. We cannot even be allowed to ignore it, but must approve, even celebrate it. If we do not go along, we open ourselves to be maligned in any number of ways. The intensity of those ways may vary, but if you are not resolute now in deciding how you will stand then, the risk of compromise increases dramatically. Don’t take that risk. Resolve now, to stand in Christ.

This is a war, and no war is won by doing nothing. Likewise no one would go to war without preparing first. Neutrality is at best an illusion, at worst a lie. There is no middle ground. Compromising in one area of the faith destroys any credible witness you may have otherwise had.

I was talking with an atheist friend of mine. He told me his grandfather was a Baptist minster, still is. He went on to say, “but it’s real for him. He’s not a hypocrites. He means what he says, he does what he says, he lives it.” That, my friends, is a powerful testimony.

In other words, are you willing to follow Christ only as long as it is comfortable for you? Do you resolve right now to keep following Christ when the world no longer applauds you? When your social media account is suspended? When your employer or school demands adherence to some wicked policy? Or a government demands obedience in what is condemned in the Scripture?

We not only arm ourselves with the same purpose as Christ, but since...

The war rages on, we must therefore, Kill sin with purpose.

This may make some uncomfortable. It is necessarily strong language. It must be graphic. Sin is graphic, explicitly so. So, let this be an intentional act.

1 Peter 4:3 (NASB95)

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.

These Gentiles are not non-ethnic Jews, these are those that Peter defines earlier in this letter as those that are not Christians, they are the lost, the non-believing pagans. The list here of things that the pagan does is not exhaustive. Also, notice that our generation did not invent sin, or even the types of sin so prevalent in our society today. We see the same things today.

Peter says to these first century believers, (and to us,) “You have had more than enough time to pursue these types of things, now stop it.”

All of these seems to speak to a running towards sin and sin without restraint. Consider what is in the human heart unrestrained and without the Holy Spirit. Sin, let’s be honest, has an appeal to us. If it did not, it would be easy to stand against it. But its appeal is often too great and we give in. This is part of the struggle.

This is also why any religion that says you can work your way to salvation, you can do enough “good things” to find yourself in a place where a holy, righteous, infinitely perfect God will accept a rebellious, unholy, corrupted person, is absolutely, patently false. It is a lie. You cannot be good enough in your own strength. We are only good enough because of what Christ accomplished for us on the cross.

Now, Christians know what sin is.

James 4:17 (NASB95)

Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin.

Sin therefore is a very personal thing, and we all have any number of ways we justify our desire to give in to the appeal of sin. Here’s some of the more popular ways we seek to justify our sin:

This one time wouldn’t hurt. Or, no one else is getting hurt by it.

Would God really be bothered if I did this? Is it really wrong?

It isn’t as bad as what that person is doing.

It’s too hard to quit.

I do lots of other good things, why can’t I have this one little thing?

If it was wrong, why would God make me in such a way?

Everyone else is doing it, God isn’t punishing them.

No one will ever find out.

It is very easy indeed to justify our sin. And if we’re caught, we are quick to blame someone else or some situation. Really, we’d rather blame anything other than ourselves in a vain attempt to make us look better than we really are, which only further compounds our sin.

We cannot sin and claim it doesn’t hurt anyone else. That is a lie.

Who then am I hurting when I’m looking at this, or reading that, or thinking, fantasizing along these lines? It’s the offense first and foremost to God. All sin, every sin, we do offends God. It grieves the Holy Spirit that dwells within us. It hurts our relationship with God.

And then there is the damage it does to ourselves. Then, after the fact, when we are left broken, ashamed, even if we’re not caught, there is the deep sense of remorse we needlessly suffer whenever we indulge in what we know displeases God.

Sin attempts to fulfill some longing that we think we have that really says, “God, I want something other than what You have promised me. You are not enough.”

James 1:15 (NASB95)

Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.

Peter says here, that kind of thinking needs to be done away with. Swiftly. Look again, starting at v. 3:

1 Peter 4:3–5 (NASB95)

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.

In all this, they are surprised that you do not run with them into the same excesses of dissipation, and they malign you; but they will give account to Him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.

Now, we go to looking at how the rest of the world looks at us when we want to be done with the shackles of sin. Those around us are surprised. What are they surprised by? That we no longer want to run with them, hand-in-hand to do the same things either we once did, or what they long to do without restraint.

When we say we don’t want to participate, they sense restraint and the world hates restraint. Satan hates restraint. And they will quickly turn on the source of that restraint.

Short testimony of my life when I became a Christian in high school…how did my friends take me, teachers even… Strong pro-life, outspoken, at times obnoxious, etc.

The war rages on, we must therefore, Live with purpose.

There are times when everything looks hopeless. There are times where it may seem the insanity of unbiblical ideas and pagan belief would prevail. There are times when we would even question, what’s the point of all of this? Are we ever tempted to just give up

1 Peter 4:6 (NASB95)

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 must cling to the gospel! We must uphold biblical truth. Without it, we go back to my earlier question, what would the world be like without a Christian influence? No churches? No Bibles? No evangelists? How then could anyone be saved? How could people hear there is a final judgment when they die, but they can be justified in Christ? It would be a very different world, indeed.

We are not taken out of this world precisely because God, in His infinite wisdom, in His grace and mercy towards every living person, desires for us to partner with Him in this glorious work of redemption. Now, God certainly doesn’t need us, He needs nothing from us whatsoever. He would however, rather us remain, becoming more and more like Jesus through a process we call, sanctification, allowing us to be instruments in proclaiming this gospel to a world desperately in need of hope.

We may ask then, “Why does God allow evil to remain?”

If God were to remove evil, everyone would need to be removed. On that note, instead of asking, “Why does God allow evil,” perhaps we should be asking ourselves, “Why do I?”

Romans 8:10 (NASB95)

If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness.

Highlight the joy, the life of purpose, meaning, all that the gospel brings us…

There is forgiveness and grace at the cross. Even if we were running to sin, we can turn right now, and begin to live, really live, in the will of God.

The struggle is real. So we must arm ourselves with purpose, kill sin in our lives with purpose, and live with purpose.

Invitation

Closing Prayer