Surprising Pagans

Introduction

When have you felt uncomfortably different?

Perhaps you arrived somewhere on a wrong night? Maybe you thought you were going to a costume party, but no one else did?

It is a difficult feeling, knowing that others look at you as strange. It happened to my family.

One year, we took a “staycation” while living in Houston. We found a deal at a nice hotel close to a theme park and the zoo. Our kids were younger, so we needed something on their level.

After a day at the zoo in the heat and humidity of July, we dragged ourselves back to the hotel. We were tired, dirty, and I suspect our odor was not pleasant. We pulled our car into the hotel garage, and I was ready for a hot shower and some rest.

We opened the door to the hotel to go to the elevator. However, that hallway was the corridor used by the ballrooms. On that night, they were having a party, and not just any party. It was one of those I could not have afforded the buttons on the shirt. The women’s formal gowns probably cost what I made in a year. And here we were, two dirty adults and two children walking the gauntlet. People stopped and turned and looked at us.

I don’t know what they were really thinking, but I suspect it was “how did those deadbeats get in?” So we hurried to escape their judgmental gazes.

Peter knows that feeling. He has described Christians as sojourners who live as strangers in this world. We stick out. We are distinctively different because of the values and the behavior that comes from them.

To do well in this situation, we have to get comfortable being uncomfortable. We have to not fit in when everyone else fits in.

So Peter approaches this idea of living as strangers as to lifestyle. In this lesson, he presents us with three perspectives we need to live comfortably uncomfortable Christian lives.

Discussion

The Current Challenge

Peter starts chapter four by reminding them of an anchoring idea for the Christian life. We face nothing more than what Christ himself faced. He has gone first, and we simply follow.

“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,” (1 Peter 4:1, ESV)

He starts with “therefore,” a term that says, “based on what we have already learned…here is what you do.”

The “therefore” focuses on. Christ’s suffering.

Why is that essential for this discussion? Beyond the theological fact of the atonement, it has a practical benefit. Peter has used this as a stake in the ground in chapter 2.

“For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps.” (1 Peter 2:21, ESV)

Jesus provides the paradigm for what they will face. He has gone before and we paint our lives into the stencil his suffering has left. In chapter 2, his suffering demonstrated how to respond to threats. Here, Christ’s suffering is an armory passing out a potent weapon.

“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,” (1 Peter 4:1, ESV)

Peter uses a military term. Before he went into battle, the Roman soldier selected his weapons, the things with which he would meet the pitched battle.

I have wondered whether Peter had a particular affinity for this metaphor. John names him as the culprit of Gethsemane. When Judas plants the kiss on Jesus, Peter has had enough. It is time to spring into action. He pulls out a sword and starts flailing until he cuts off the ear of the High Priest’s servant. Jesus rebukes him. You don’t bring a sword to a sacrifice.

So he must wince as he selects this word. But it is a different kind of weapon. The term “arm yourself” gets sprinkled through the New Testament text quite often. The picture is of a battle of good and evil, and we do have weapons. But Paul, using the same language, reminds us of the different nature of the weapon.

“For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds.” (2 Corinthians 10:4, ESV)

They are not flashing scimitars or the iron battle swords of the Roman soldier. These are of the spirit.

What weapon does Peter have in mind?

“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,” (1 Peter 4:1, ESV)

We are to employ the same thinking and mindset Jesus had. He saw his life and task differently. Jesus trusted God to deliver him. Because of that, he never changed what he did or altered what he said to escape the suffering.

This is the thinking we need as we go into the spiritual battle of being distinct from the world.

Can we think that way? Peter would have never instructed us to do something beyond our capability. He does say we have to maintain this heavenly perspective.

What is the value of thinking as Jesus did when it comes to suffering?

Listen:

“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,” (1 Peter 4:1, ESV)

Peter says that it proves we have “ceased” from sin. Obviously, that doesn’t mean we have stopped sinning because we still have human flesh. But it does indicate that we change our idea of sin and stop living to sin again and again.

Paul captures the idea with the same word but is used familiarly.

“For one who has died has been set free from sin.” (Romans 6:7, ESV)

When we cease to sin, we stop giving into it or enjoying doing more of it. Sin stops becoming the pattern of your life.

But there is something else inherent in his idea of ceasing from sin. It provides the stamina to resist sin even more.

As the Hebrew writer said:

“For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” (Hebrews 12:11, ESV)

It trains us to become stronger. Just as a weight lifter stresses muscle to make it grow stronger, resistance to sin makes temptation easier to refuse.

Christians can live in pressure because they have a trailblazer who shows them how and knows the value it brings.

We can meet the challenge of suffering because we have indeed changed.

The Past Change

The New Testament presents a paradox. We live in fleshly bodies but live for a spirit. As baptism displays, we die, are buried in water, and raised to newness of life. Yet, we continue to live in the flesh but live for God.

Peter puts down a stake in the ground to say, “we are not the same.”

Verse 2 shows two opposite ways to live your life.

“so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God.” (1 Peter 4:2, ESV)

We can act like the dogs of the researcher Pavlov who conditioned them to salivate by ringing a bell. The flesh, when unchecked, answers every lustful thought and emotion. It is a voracious animal seeking carnal meat.

Instead, the contrast is to the will of God. As Peter uses the phrase, it becomes a rule of life. In short, Peter makes a bright-line rule.

People have bright lines in their lives. An alcoholic who becomes sober knows the most minor drink is deadly. So he has a bright-line rule. No alcohol.

Eric Clapton, the rock guitarist, knows that. After years of drinking himself into a stupor, he stopped and started attending three Alcoholic Anonymous meetings a month. However, the day came when his 4-year-old son Conor fell from a 53rd-floor apartment to his death. Clapton said if there was ever a day in which no one would have blamed him if he drank, he refused. He has his rule of life.

Ours is to simply do the will of God. There is no compromise. We don’t do the will of God sometimes, or when it is easy, or when around Christian friends. We do the will of God all the time.

So Peter reminds them of this sharp and decisive change.

“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.” (1 Peter 4:3, ESV)

Peter tells them they have spent more than enough time in their life living as others did. Their lifestyles now were so different than their Gentile counterparts.

What did their life look like?

“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.” (1 Peter 4:3, ESV)

It’s a sordid picture of ancient life that Peter paints. He dabs his brush in as black a hue as possible and puts the strokes to that way of living.

It was unrestrained and knew no boundaries of decency. The phrase “if it feels good, do it,” fits well. From theft to the worst kind of immorality, this word captured all the evil.

They lived in a drunken stupor. The word lets you hear “the wine bubbled” in the glass. Gentiles spent so much time drinking that the sound of the bubbles was their experience.

Orgies, where men and women intermingled their lives, were commonplace.

Roving bands of drunk men stumbled through streets, creating bedlam. Today, this still happens, but perhaps without so much alcohol. The current fad on the social media platform TikTok encourages school students to vandalize their schools and take pictures. You can hear the faint echoes of the Roman world as phones post the damage.

The idolatry was lawless. Idol worship was not the simple act of bowing before a marble bust or statue but a lifestyle.

In Ephesus, the worship of Diana included the stipulation of immorality with either hired men or women or both.

At Dionysian temples, the wine flowed freely, and senses emptied of reason.

I find it interesting that when men make gods, they make them in their image to give themselves permission to do the vilest of things.

But the Christian’s change of life was dramatic. It was night and day. The language has them coming to the end of a book and closing it, never to return to it.

We need moments where we say, “I’ll never go back.”

A few years ago, my daughter tried to get me to buy lace-up shoes. I refused. It’s for a reason.

When I was 12 years old, I was forced to wear orthopedic shoes due to a condition of growth. All kids at that age want to fit in. They want their appearance to be like their friends.

My shoes made me stand out. They were clunky and out of style. The day I could quit wearing them, I told myself, “I will never go back.” And to this day, I wear slip-on shoes.

The Christians could say about their previous life, “I will never go back.”

But that created tension with the culture around them. Pagans were not and still are not tolerant of people who are so different than themselves.

“With respect to this they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you;” (1 Peter 4:4, ESV)

Peter chose a word that described the entertainment of strangers. It happened because strangers were novel and new. The novel got attention.

But for the Christians, their novel lifestyles had another effect.

“With respect to this they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you;” (1 Peter 4:4, ESV)

They want you to pour your life into the same swamp they bathe in. The picture again is one of complete degradation.

The prophet Jeremiah described what it was like when people reject God and go after their own passions.

“How can you say, ‘I am not unclean, I have not gone after the Baals’? Look at your way in the valley; know what you have done— a restless young camel running here and there, a wild donkey used to the wilderness, in her heat sniffing the wind! Who can restrain her lust? None who seek her need weary themselves; in her month they will find her.” (Jeremiah 2:23–24, ESV)

Jeremiah says that some lifestyles resemble animals. The camel who is seeking to satisfy urges circles the deserts. Or the wild donkey in heat pursues on her lust.

The game is to join us in satisfying our lusts. But the Christians refused to play. That resulted in slander of the worst kind.

If you cannot change someone, smear their good name. Bring them down, and you can lift yourself up. It is a tragedy that people demeans those who make them look foul when their own degradation comes to light.

That’s what the Christians experienced. Good people faced slander by those who wanted others as corrupt as they were.

Christians never “fit in” with the world. They will also speak with a spiritual accent and live with a different cultural standard, making the world angry and vindictive.

But Peter reminds us of a coming reality.

The Coming Reality

A fundamental principle of life is no one escapes the consequences of their life. Eventually, all books will balance. Peter gives us a glimpse of the future.

“but they will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.” (1 Peter 4:5, ESV)

The accounting will take place, and you will get paid for the life you live. No event is idle, for all will find the judgment day. You can deny its reality today but not avoid its judge tomorrow.

And there were be no excuses.

“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.” (1 Peter 4:6, ESV)

Peter brings up “the dead.” Who are the dead? Some want to return to Jesus preaching to the spirits in prison. In this context, it probably fits better to see them as those who, while alive, heard the message of Christ but have died. They ignore the truth in front of their faces and will face the consequences of their choices.

While alive, we determine direction. The world judges us by its standards, in the flesh. They expect us to live as they live, and if we do not, they pay us back. But we choose to live in the spirit. Instead of being like the “Gentiles” around us, we choose to be like the God we serve.

The future is determined by today’s choices and how they show up in our lives.

Conclusion

This lesson shines a light on the typical worldly behavior we face every day. And those in our culture who live at the cultural level are shocked that Christians are so different. Perhaps that’s because they meet so-called Christians who are not so different.

But living for the will of God by definition makes us a diamond against black velvet.

Should we not shock a wicked world? We do it to show we don’t belong here and we are not like them.

When others say yes to fleshly desires, we say no. When others live for today, we look to tomorrow.

There’s a simple reason. We know we don’t belong here.

When I was in 10th grade, I loved to speak in speech tournaments. At one that took place at a neighboring high school, I got a lesson in being different. I was a little early for my speaking slot, so I thought I would use the restroom. I opened the door and was smacked in the face by a blue haze. The whole boy’s restroom was filled with other boys, a little older than I was, and all were smoking. I knew I could not stay in there. But I remember thinking, “I don’t belong here.”

Perhaps that thought might cross your mind at times.