Arm Yourselves also with the Same Mind - Konrad Stauffer

Good morning to y'all. It's good to be here again this morning. Good to see everyone. Today we are finally returning again to our study in the book of 1 Peter. Um, it's been a while. I think the last time I did it was back in the spring when I preached the message from the end of 1 Peter chapter 3, where we talked about, um, death and Hades and Christ's triumph over the grave.

Um, and instead of doing an all-out review on what we did last week, um, we're gonna start into our passage for today, and it's gonna involve a review because of what Peter says at the very beginning of chapter 4. Here again, we all know that Scripture was not written with bo with verses and chapter breaks, so it's still part of the same letter. Um, it's always good to remember that.

So we'll be gonna be looking at 1 Peter chapter 4, verses 1 through 11. I would've liked to do the whole chapter, but I realized it was gonna take a lot longer, and I just decided to keep it a little bit shorter today, and hopefully we can get inspiration from this today. 1 Peter chapter 4, verses 1 through 11. We're gonna start reading the first part of this passage today.

Therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind, for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God. For we have spent enough of our past lifetime in doing the will of the Gentiles when we walked in lewdness, lusts, drunkenness, revelries, drinking parties, and abominable idolatries.

In regard to these things, they think it's strange that you do not run with them in the same flood of dissipation, speaking evil of you. They will give an account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. For this reason, the gospel was preached also to those who are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the Spirit.

And I have this message broken down in a, I don't know, 10 or 11 different points, and all of them are phrases from this passage. And the first one is, arm yourselves also with the same mind. The chapter starts off, as I mentioned earlier, with the connector word, therefore. Therefore, we should go back and find out what the writer said before this, where we can, we can go back and talk about some of the things we discussed last time. And I think it'll make a lot more sense with our passage today. So we're gonna jump back here. 1 Peter chapter 3, verses 18 through 22.

For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit, by which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison, which sometimes were disobedient, when once the long suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.

Who is gone into heaven, it is at the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him. In our review of the former passage, what do we see that should inspire us to allow a great reset to take place in our minds, or what, what should be impacting us from this? That this why Peter said, therefore, at the beginning of this passage.

One of the first things I noticed from the last time is, for Christ has also once suffered for sins. The thing that comes to my mind is it's death before victory. By obedience to the Father and his plan for redemption of the world, Jesus was raised in power.

Um, I think something got mixed up here.

Okay, I'm gonna keep going here. I think something got mixed up here, but we'll keep going here. By obedience to the Father and his plan for the redemption of the world, Jesus was raised in power, and he is now seated at the right hand of the Father. The promise and the example to us is that if we follow in his steps, we shall also reign with him.

Okay, the first, the first, the first one I had there is, for Christ also has suffered for us for sins. Our Lord's sacrifice was complete and perfect. He gave his body and his life to buy us back from sin, and it is safe to say he will not do it again. This is a perfect sacrifice, and he, he has, he did the, he paid the, he could say he paid the price for it. He took care of that, and he's not gonna return and do it again. So that should behoove us to take it very seriously when we think about before we wanna return to our old way of life or whatever. It should have a real impact on us when we think about what, what Jesus actually did do for us.

And then the second thing is being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit. We see what happened when Jesus surrendered his life and his flesh. The very core of his being was made strong. Through this, he was able to plunder Satan's house, to set free those that were imprisoned there.

The third thing we have here is God waited in the days of Noah while the ark was preparing.

God provided a way of escape from complete annihilation for Noah and his family. However, Noah had to cooperate with God. He had to obey the instructions God gave him, and we see that God had great patience with Noah.

God understands human limitations. He waited for Noah, and that was a total of 120 years at least, and that's longer than most of us are going to live. So we can see that God was patient. The point that I get from this is that God waits on those who are actively obedient. God has a lot of patience for a person who's being obedient. Maybe they're slowly progressing, but he has patience with that person because he sees progress being made. So that's something to keep in mind.

The fourth point we have here is the like figure we're on to, even baptism does now, does also now save us. This is one of the beginning steps of obedience unto and into the life Jesus has so well charted for us. Noah's obedience in building the ark reflects our ability also to go through the waters of baptism to escape the darkness that is drowning our world today.

And our fourth point from last time, who is gone into heaven and is on the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him. And this is the part I'd read before, which was supposed to go with this passage. That's fine. We'll read it again.

Death before victory. By obedience to the Father and his plan for redemption of the world, Jesus was raised in power. He is now seated at the right hand of the Father. The promise and the example for us is that if we follow in his steps, we shall also reign with him.

So with that, those thoughts, we move into our passage for the day. Therefore, he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin. I think it would be safe to say that he that is suffering in the flesh for and because of Christ is ceasing from sin. It's not just a once-and-done thing. It's something that keeps happening.

There is a progressive suffering that comes upon us because we've chosen to say no to our flesh so that our core being may be strengthened. However, there is a digressive suffering that comes upon those who indulge the whims and will of the flesh.

However, um, sorry, I've lost my place here. So they can choose, we can actually choose our suffering. We're going to suffer one way or another in this life. There's always, there's these times of easy, things go easy for all of us, but sometime or another we're gonna face, come face to face with suffering. So we can decide which way we wanna take it, if we wanna be progressive or digressive.

Um, we can choose to say no to the flesh and experience eternal life and complete renewal, or we can live to our flesh now for a few short years and experience eternal decay. The kind of suffering that Peter is talking about in this passage is plain that it comes from the cutting off of something. Suffering comes a lot of times to us as Christians today because we say that we're gonna take this, we're gonna take this part off of our lives, and then sometimes suffering comes from other people who do not understand us. And this is the type of thing that Peter is referring to.

Third point for the day. They think it's strange that you do not run with them. The world is not a, is, is not a subjective theory, neither is Christianity, but the world is a, the, the world and the flesh is an objective reality, and so is Christianity.

Don't make that too complicated, but that's something I was thinking about as I was studying this. There is a system of thought and values, or lack thereof in many ways, that characterize what we call the world and the flesh. Peter gives us a list of things that are characteristic of the world. And a couple of words come to mind that would describe what he talks about. Lewdness is one of them. Excess, misplaced priorities, which to me is idolatry. Misplaced priorities is just another nice way of saying idolatry. The question for us as Christians would be, when they observe our manner of life and speech, can they tell the difference? Not everything the world does is wrong, but so often it has the bend or a twist that clouds one's reasoning powers.

And when we find ourselves immersed in the world, we find that our reasoning powers as Christians become blurred and hard to figure out what to do next. I just was trying to think, what's one example of a way that I could find out what the world sees in a person, what they see in me? And I thought about one of these ways I could do that, and I'm not saying this is foolproof, but if I were to take somebody into my home, not a critic of Christianity, just a person that needs a home, I'd take them into my home and they'd live with me for a month. The question would be, after that month is up, what would they say about me?

What would be their impression of my life? What would they say is the priority of my life? I think that would be a very telling answer what they'd give. What's my priority as a Christian or a professing Christian?

Fourth point, they will give account, an account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. We're just gonna read the rest of that. For this reason, the gospel was preached also to those who are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the Spirit. And this is the part of the passage that I struggle with just a little bit, try to figure out how to explain what he's saying here. And this is where I think we need to go back and think about what happened in the previous passage about Christ going and preaching to those who were in Hades, who had disobeyed in the days of Noah.

The passage is kind of confusing, and there are several different interpretations. I've, Brother David sent me a document with a couple different thoughts on it, and I must admit, till I got done, I wasn't sure if I was a whole lot more enlightened. It helped a little bit, but I've still felt like I was struggling to get my feet, get my teeth into it. So I have two things, really concise things I'm gonna say about it, and you can expand on this later, anyone who wants to. Um, two things that I get from this that are possibilities. The first one is the living are those who are living or alive in Christ, and the dead are those who are dead spiritually, dead in sin.

God will judge each one of these according to whom and how they have lived their lives, which we could say in a sense is true. This is one of the views that is more, I'm gonna say is one of the more popular views you hear of this passage. But there's another one, and I'm gonna say this is the one I tend to lean this way a little bit more, but if you don't, don't feel bad about it. Um, the living are those who are, are alive today or who were living when Peter was teaching, preaching this message. And the dead were those who died in the flood because of the disregard of God in the days of Noah.

Both of these groups of people will have to stand before God on judgment day. So Jesus went and preached to these people. There's gonna be a just judgment of all men, and all bases are covered, you could say. Jesus made sure of that in his death, that all bases were covered. There's nobody gonna come to judgment day that says, I don't understand why I'm here. I don't understand what's happening to me. That's not gonna be true.

So Jesus went and preached to these souls in prison.

Those to whom Jesus preached when he entered into Hades were judged, and you could say in a sense they were punished for the sinful life they had lived through death. And now they were in Hades, and Jesus comes and preaches to them in prison.

They may not have been able to undo the wrongs done in the flesh, but now they can worship God in the Spirit. They had a, they could make a choice at that point. Otherwise, Jesus would not have preached to them. What's the point in preaching to somebody who has no choice in the matter? I feel like they had a choice to make at that point, and they could choose. They could live to God in the Spirit, and through their, whatever was left there, they could serve God and honor him, or they could disregard his message. They can live to him now. Those who are liv, those who are living must serve God in all their life, both in deed and in truth, in thought and in spirit, because we know, now know, and Jesus enables us to live a life that honors our Father.

Therefore, each one of those two parties will be judged according to how they utilize their abilities that God has given them. Us that are living today and able to study the teachings of Jesus and those who were in the past, who died before Jesus came. And the reason I pick out this group where he talks about those who were disobedient before the time of Noah or in the time of Noah is because that's what Peter says in the passage. I'm not saying that that preaching didn't cover a larger demographic of people. I don't know that, but I'm just trying to keep with what the passage said. It said those who were disobedient in the days of Noah.

So we can discuss that sometime and hear different thoughts on that. And I'm just gonna go back and read this verse again, by which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison, which sometimes were disobedient when once the long suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.

And the question that comes to mind, don't you think that God wanted a whole lot more people to be saved than just eight people? There wasn't anybody who was willing to, to buy into Noah's plan for salvation or God's plan for salvation by going with Noah. I'm, I think there was an opening there for anybody who would've wanted to do that, but there was only eight people who were willing or able to do that at that point.

What did Jesus say about the days of Noah? And this might be a little abstract, but I was just trying to think, what would, what did Jesus have to say about the days of Noah and how does it apply to us today? Just a short passage from Matthew 24, verse 36 through 39. But of the day and the hour, no one knows, no, not the angels of heaven, but only my Father. But as the days of Noah were, so shall the coming of the Son of Man be. For in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking and marrying and giving in marriage until the day Noah entered into the ark. And they did not know until the flood came and took them all away.

So also will the coming of the Son of Man be. So the question for us all in all of this is, how does this relate to our day? How would this affect my life?

And I'm just gonna kind of leave that open-ended for now. We're gonna move on to verse seven through nine in our passage for the day. But the end of all things is at hand. Therefore, be serious and watchful in your prayers. And above all things, have fervent love for one another, for love will cover a multitude of sins. Be hospitable to one another without grumbling.

And in verses 10 and 11 also, as each one has received the gift, minister it to one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God. If anyone ministers, let him do it as with the ability which God supplies, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belong the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.

Therefore, be serious and watchful in your prayers. What does serious mean in this instance? Or what are some other words we could think about when we think about somebody as serious? I think a lot of us, and the way we've been brought up, we think of the word serious as a person that's sour, and that's not really true.

Go to the trusty strongs, which I'm not saying this is a hundred percent right, but it helps me many times. The be of a sound mind that is sane. The word I like out of this the most is moderate. When I think of a person that's serious, I think of a person that's moderate. They're not just, they don't just go and throw themselves whole hog into everything that comes along down the pike, so to speak. They're moderate. They think through things. They're aware of what's happening.

My personal thoughts about this word serious means that I'm in touch with reality, not living in some unreal world in my mind. The person who is out of touch with reality is easily taken by surprise and makes erratic decisions.

And I have a few, like three little examples here of people who are out of touch with reality or what they're, by what they're filling their life with. Um, people who fill their minds with romance novels and soap operas are not ready for the true world of marriage because it's not reality.

The young man who spends all his time playing his Xbox is not prepared for the hand-to-hand combat of a real battle. Thankfully, most of us don't have any plans of going into the military. But the young man who does that all his life and all of a sudden goes into the military, he's not anything near prepared for facing the real thing. It's a game. It's not reality.

The person who claims to live by the Spirit or in the Spirit, but lives after the flesh, spends most of their life doing what their flesh wants, they are not ready to truly serve God. They don't understand the Spirit of God.

The other word that he has here is the, um, uh, let me just go back here just a second. I got ahead of myself.

Watchful. Now we can jump back here.

It's kind of interesting that that word watchful also has, according to the strongs, a meaning of to abstain from wine, to keep sober, to be discreet, to be sober, or to watch. The words, the two last two words are very closely related to each other. The idea behind this word is what we should, what we should not be allowing, that we should not be allowing things to thaw our lives and our minds that would keep us from being alert and aware of our surroundings. Over the time I was in South America, they had a saying there when you'd be walking down the street with one of my Chilean friends and they'd see somebody that was drunk, they would say, "Water got in his canoe."

And I always kind of found that amusing. And I was thinking about that, trying to think, "Water got in his canoe." What's that mean?

When a boat or a canoe is full of water, there is no, they're not, not truly afloat anymore. It's very precarious and you're gonna sink very soon. And I guess that's what I think about here is that a person that's not discreet, is not moderate, and is not sober, they're allowing so much stuff to come into their life that it's the slightest little thing goes wrong and they're gonna sink.

And that's one of the reasons why Peter says that we need to be watchful and prayerful. We're no longer on top of the wave. We are in the wave and being carried wherever it is going. So don't let water get in your canoe.

What is prayer? I like to think of prayer as a two-way radio. It's not, probably not the best, um, illustration, but it's what I think about. It's a very effective means of communication over long distances. However, one must position oneself as to be able to get a signal, and one must also be in the right channel or wavelength to receive or send a message to the desired party.

As we on the, are we at the same wavelength or channel as God, our Father? Or are we listening to something else and unable to hear his voice? Sometimes we need to sit in complete silence before him and wait until our minds are clear and our spirit is calm so that we can, he can bring us strength and comfort so that we may be able to thank him properly and give him worship or worship, give God what he's worth and be able to receive something from him too. So we can love him because he is our Father. That's prayer to me. And it takes a lot of time and a lot of discipline to have meaningful prayer.

The sixth point, and above all things, have fervent love for one another, for love will cover a multitude of sins. I can grasp the first part of this sentence, but the latter part has left me scratching my head just a little bit. I was thinking as I was studying earlier, I said, well, maybe there are different words for sin in the New Testament. Maybe it's another one of these cases where a translator just used the word sin and that's the, that's just the word the whole way around.

And so I went to check a little bit just to see if what the strongs has in it. There's just simply sin or offense. That's the only two words that come up with. And the other, and the other two ways I saw it used in the New Testament was as a, as a noun or as a verb. Is to sin or sin as a, as a noun. So I don't know exactly. This here is personally is what I think is Peter saying here is that when we have a vibrant love for one another, those little offenses we so often commit against one another as human beings will be easily forgiven and forgotten. Maybe not so easily sometimes, but it's something that we can do.

I do not believe that outside of true repentance, our love for one another will do anything in the line of removal of serious sin in a person's life. But the true and vibrant Christian love in a close-knit brotherhood enables us to forgive those small irritations that crop up in normal human relationships.

And I'm going to add here as well that when there has been a serious sin committed in the context of the body of Christ, when that person is repentance, the love of the brotherhood, the love of the body of Christ getting behind that person and moving them forward is very powerful too. So I think it could apply to that as well.

Be hospitable to one another without grumbling. As each one has received the gift, minister it to one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. What God has given each one of us is meant to be shared for the enrichment of the body of Christ. Our attitude should not be one of grudging when the opportunity comes to us to be hospitable to others. It is through this type of interaction that the body is strengthened and relationships deepened. I think it also helps us to remember that we are stewards of God, what God has entrusted to us.

So we should count it an honor to dispense the blessings God has given to us, knowing that whatever we do for the enrichment of his kingdom is not lost, but gain.

If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God. And along with that, I have this verse from James that always comes to my mind, especially when I'm preparing for a message. My brothers, do not be many teachers, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation.

And I don't say that in a way that I get really fearful before I come up, but it's something that I think about as I'm studying for a message to share with other people. The word oracle basically means an utterance.

One should handle the word of God with carefulness, with the carefulness with which one would deliver a message from a king. Let's just say that I, as a servant of the king, come to his page boy or whatever I am, I come to the king and he says, I want you to tell the village such and such.

And my job is to take that message and take it to the village and share it accurately, not add embellishments and all sorts of things to make it sound more exciting. I need to deliver it in its purity.

I may be misreading this passage, but I think this is an admonition or a reminder that great carefulness needs to be exercised when one is given the opportunity to speak. Our words, in a sense, have creative power. We are often more influential than we think. God's word must be handled with carefulness, with great respect, with a deep desire to preserve the purity of what he is trying to teach us. Personal agenda should not be the motive for my teaching or our teaching.

I'd love to hear more expansion on this thought. If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God.

2 Peter versus 1, chapter 1, verses 19 through 21. I'd like to read these verses just in, just in thinking about that thought of how we speak. We have also a more sure word of prophecy whereunto you do well, that ye take heed as unto a light that shineth in a dark place until the day dawn and the day star arise in your hearts. Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation, for the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

There again, the admonition to be, to share scripture and use scripture in a very careful way.

If anyone ministers, let him do it as with the ability which God supplies.

I'm just gonna jump down here to the definition. I think most of us recognize this word, the aconeo, which is the word we get deacon from. To wait upon, to host as a friend, teacher, and of course they have all the stuff in there about Christian deacon.

I think it's just basically being a servant to other people. The word minister is the same from which we have extracted our word deacon.

I want us to especially pay attention to the phrase as with the ability which God supplies. In the body of Christ, we are not all gifted alike, and I think we've all learned this or in the same way.

I know there are people who have gifts that sometimes it seems that you need to stir them up a little bit to get them to use them. And then there's also the other extreme where a person feels like they're gifted in a way that they're not.

I've, I've run into people that want to be pastors, want to be teachers and stuff like that, and they don't have the quality for a pastor. Um, there's people like that. So I think Peter's admonishment here is that we need to use what we have. We got what we actually have, and we might need our brother's help for this. I just had some thoughts here about how this can be done in a, in a group of varied people. There's some people who do not know exactly what their ability is, and sometimes it's a lot closer to you than what you think. I thought about, for example, a person who just has a love for children and does really well with children.

There's a ton of things a person that loves children can do for the body of Christ that is, has a, is an of inestimable value to the body of Christ. And sometimes these little things from the sidelines like that, that seem unimportant at face value, that are actually the glue that holds the church together.

Um, some people are more sensible or sensitive to suffering. That is a gift as well. Not everybody has that. I'm the kind of person that could probably in some ways just walk right through something and not see it. But then there's people who feel it. They have a sense for it. Something's wrong and I need to do something or say something. That's a great opportunity. It's a great ministry and that's a great gift. That's also something that's really important to administer encouragement and support to people who are suffering.

Um, people who had love, sent, showed love by small tokens, sending tokens to people of love and appreciation is really, really beneficial to the body of Christ.

I like the word or the phrase that I think I learned from Jason and Daniel is to love on each other. And I don't know if that's a more modern term or if I just grew up in, because I grew up in different circles, not one I was familiar with, but I like that thought. Love on other people. Make it tangible. Okay.

That in all things, God be may be glorified through Jesus Christ. What would you say is the one thing that gives God the most glory and makes the sacrifice of his son worthwhile? That's a big question. But I think one of the things that comes to my mind is really a passion of my own is that is the function of a healthy body that is the body of Christ. That is the mutual edifying of itself, the body that is growing in strength and character. The apostle spent a lot of time throughout the New Testament teaching and endeavoring to instill in everyone the importance of the members of the body of Christ coming together as a whole.

And in, in along with that thought, I'd like to read a couple of verses and this harks back to a couple of weeks ago. I shared a message in Shippensburg and this was part of my main passage. I'd just like to read that here in closing. Ephesians 4:13 through 16. And this until we all come into the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to a full grown man to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we no longer may be infants tossed to and fro and carried about by every wind of doctrine in the dishonesty of men, in the cunning craftiness to wiles of deceit.

But that you speaking the truth in love may in all things grow up to, up to him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body fitted together, compacted by that which every joint supplies according to effectual working in the measure of each part, producing the growth of the body to the edifying of itself in love.

I believe that this passage here has the, has the answer for what one of the most beautiful things about the Christian life is the function of the body of Christ and how we work together.