Now let us turn together to 1
Peter chapter 4. And I shall read verses 12 through
19. 1 Peter chapter 4 and verse 12. Beloved, do not think it strange
concerning the fiery trial among you, which comes upon you to
prove you as though a strange thing happened unto you. But
insomuch as you are partakers of Christ's sufferings, rejoice,
that at the revelation of his glory you may rejoice with exceeding
joy. If you are reproached for the
name of Christ, blest are you, because the spirit of glory and
the spirit of God rests upon you. For let none of you suffer
as a murderer, or a thief, or an evildoer, or as a meddler
in other men's matters. But if a man suffer as a Christian,
let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in this name. For the time is come for judgment
to begin at the house of God, and if it begin first at us,
what shall be the end of them that obey not the gospel of God? And, if the righteous is scarcely
saved, where shall the ungodly and sinner appear? Wherefore,
let them also that suffer according to the will of God commit their
souls in well-doing unto a faithful Creator." One of God's servants Commenting
on this section of the Word of God has written, suffering for
Christ leads to glory and tastes of glory. It also gives glory
to God. When believers suffer because
they are Christians, God is glorified. Satan's accusations against God
in Job were proven false. God was vindicated. Christians
are given an understanding not granted to Job. All the more
are they to glorify God in the midst of their suffering for
Christ's sake. Paul and Silas sang praises in
the prison at Philippi. Peter glorified the name of Jesus
before the very rulers who had delivered the Savior to Pilate.
And through the centuries, Christians have defied their persecutors
in order to praise the Lord. Armando Valadares, for 22 years
a prisoner of Castro's regime in Cuba, tells of how he came
to a living trust in Christ. And here's a quote from his book
entitled, Against All Hope, The Prison Memoirs of Armando Valadares. This is what he wrote. Those
cries of the executed patriots, long live Christ the King, down
with communism, had wakened me to a new life. The cries became
such a potent and stirring symbol that by 1963, the men condemned
to death were gagged before being carried down to be shot. The
jailers feared those shots. Here is a contemporary manifestation
of men and women who internalized Peter's pastoral counseling with
respect to the matter of the suffering that comes to us in
the way of righteousness, the suffering that becomes ours because
of our allegiance to the Lord Jesus. Last Lord's Day, we began
to unpack the paragraph read in your hearing, focusing our
attention upon verses 12 and 13. Here were the heads by which
I sought to unpack it in your hearing. We noted the gracious
introduction. Peter addresses them as beloved. Beloved of God, beloved of him,
all that follows is a transcript of genuine love for these suffering
saints. Then we looked at the central
concern. It has to do with what Peter
calls a fiery trial, a burning that is among them. Among the
churches there in Asia Minor there were varying degrees and
specific outbreaks of the kinds of persecution that we read about
in the Book of Acts and from secular history we read of the
persecutions that came shortly thereafter when Nero declared
the Christian faith an unlawful religion. So Peter's concern
is the fiery trial that is presently among them that is occurring
in order to prove them. And then we looked thirdly at
the reaction forbidden. They are not to think it strange
or they are not to be surprised as though something out of the
ordinary has come upon them. The Lord Jesus had said, if they
hate me, they will hate you. The servant is not above his
master, nor the servant above his Lord. So they are not to
react as though this is some strange and foreign element in
Christian experience. And then finally, we looked at
the response commanded which is all summed up in the imperative
of the word to rejoice. They are to rejoice, and they
are to rejoice for two reasons. Their sufferings for Christ become
a sharing and fellowship in the sufferings of Christ, And secondly,
their rejoicing in their suffering now, suffering for and with Christ,
is a certain pledge of a greater joy that will be theirs at the
coming of Christ. As one has said, wherever the
expectation of the return of Christ is a living reality in
the life of a believer, it inspires unswerving loyalty to the Lord
and promotes a readiness to suffer for him now. And then in conclusion,
I sought to isolate this fundamental principle that is evident in
verses 12 and 13, that biblical and apostolic faith is Christ-obsessed
and future-oriented. As Peter is dealing with this
subject, Christ is central and the future is always set before
them. Now, this morning, we come to
verses 14 to 16, and in these verses we have what I am calling,
first of all, an additional encouragement, verse 14. If you are reproached
for the name of Christ, blessed are you, because the Spirit of
glory and the Spirit of God rest upon you. Then this additional
encouragement is followed with a necessary prohibition, verse
15. For let none of you suffer as
a murderer, or a thief, or an evildoer, or as a meddler in
other men's matters." And then verse 16, a further directive. But if a man suffer as a Christian,
let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in this name. So we begin then with this that
I'm calling an additional encouragement. If you are reproached for the
name of Christ, blessed are you because the Spirit of glory and
the Spirit of God is resting upon you. This verse begins with
Peter identifying a specific kind of flame in the fiery trial
which is among them. It is the flame of being reproached
for the name of Christ. As we saw last week, the imagery
of the burning or the fiery trial was indefinite. It did point
to trials that were intense, that had the capacity to destroy
and to cause pain, capacities that fire has. It was a way of
describing some intense trial, but here he focuses upon one
tongue of the flame of that trial, namely, being reproached for
the name of Christ. And the word used here means
to heap verbal insults upon another, to revile, insulting, abusive
speech. In Mark 15 and verse 37 we find
this word used by Mark in conjunction with the sufferings of our Lord
Jesus. Mark 15 and verse No, it's not 37, 32. Let the
Christ, the King of Israel, come down from the cross that we may
see and believe. And they that were crucified
with him reproached him. I believe that's the reference
here. Yes, it is. It's Mark 15 and verse 32. And they that were crucified
with him reproached him. And we read in the gospel records
what that reproaching was. Taunting, mocking, jeering, taunting
at very sensitive points in the spirit of our Lord Jesus, challenging
his relationship to the Father. And it's the word our Lord used
in the Beatitudes when he said, Blaster you when men shall revile
you and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. Blaster you when men shall revile
or reproach you. And it could well be that those
words of our Lord Jesus lodged in the mind of Peter and that
he uses that very word because of this beatitude spoken in his
own years, years before by the Lord Jesus. And note that this
reproach was coming to them in the realm of the name of Christ. A literal rendering, as you'll
see in the margin of some of your Bibles, is this. If you
are reproached, not for the name of Christ, but in the name of
Christ. Their reproach was coming in
the context, in the realm of the name of Christ. That is,
because of their open, unashamed attachment to the Lord Jesus. These believers had embraced
the witness that was brought to them concerning the person
and work of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ of God. And as the
Spirit of God blessed the proclamation of the gospel, and this is given
in the record, chapter one of this very letter, and as they
were begotten again by the word of truth and embraced Christ
in all the glory of his person and the perfection of his work,
they were now unashamedly identified with his person, with his work,
with his ways, with his laws, with his people. And Peter is
saying to them, if you are reproached in the name of Christ, that is,
because of your attachment to Christ and all the expressions
of that attachment, Peter is identifying what this tongue
of flame is from this fiery trial in terms of reproach. Now, this is not the first time
Peter has identified some of their suffering as verbal abuse. Look back to chapter 2. Chapter
2. And verse 12. Having your behavior seemly among
the Gentiles that wherein, here we are, speak against you as
evildoers. Not the same word in the original,
but you see, it's the same idea. They're speaking against them
as though they were evildoers. Chapter 3 and verse 16. Having
a good conscience that wherein you are spoken against, they
may be put to shame who revile. People are speaking against them
and reviling them. The focus is upon verbal abuse. And then again, in chapter 4,
in verse 4, wherein they think it's strange that you run not
with them into the same excessive riots, and how do we know they
think it's strange? By what they say, speaking evil
of you. So you see, this is a recurring
emphasis here in the book of 1 Peter, and it's one of the
reasons why I, with a number of the commentators, share the
view that Peter was not writing to these saints because some
of them had begun to experience martyrdom. Martyrdom may be there
in principle, but the focus again and again is upon the persecution
that is coming to these people in the form of verbal abuse. Their attachment to Christ makes
them such radically different people that they can't understand
what makes them tick. And because they don't understand
them, they speak evil of them. Because the light that is in
their transformed lives exposes the darkness of the unconverted. And men love darkness rather
than light. They seek to smear the light by verbal abuse. Now for a true child of God,
this is no little thing. Calvin rightly observes, there
is often in such attacks more bitterness than in the loss of
goods or in the torments or agonies of the body. For a true child
of God, to whom a good name is better than thousands of gold
and silver, to be reproached verbally at times is a horrible
and a painful experience. Listen to old Archbishop Layton
commenting on this. If you be reproached, If we consider
both the nature of the thing and the strain of the scriptures,
we shall find that reproaches are among the sharpest sort of
sufferings and are indeed fiery trials. The tongue is a fire,
says James, and reproaches are the flashes of that fire. They
are a subtle kind of flame, like the lightning which, as naturalists
say, crushes the bones yet breaks not the flesh. Now listen to
these very perceptive words. They wound not the body, that
is, reproachful words. They wound not the body as to
tortures and whips, but through a whole skin they reach the spirit
of a man and cut it. So in Psalm 42 10, as with a
sword in my bones, my enemies reproach me. Inasmuch as they
are thus grievous, the Scripture accounts them so, and very usually
reckons them among sufferings, and is apt to name them more
than any other kind of suffering, and that with good reason, not
only for their piercing nature, as we've said, but withal for
their frequency and multitude. And some things we suffer do,
as flies, more trouble by their number than by their weight.
You can picture the poor man trying to have a meal with a
whole swarm of flies, and he said, they trouble us not by
their weight, but by their number. And likewise, he says, with the
reproaches that come from the words of men. When other persecutions
cease, yet these continue. When all other fires of martyrdom
are put out, these still burn. In all times and places, the
malignant word is ready to revile religion, not only the avowed
enemies of the Christian faith, but those who have but a formal
experience of the Christian faith, and are Christians only in name,
and will scorn and reproach those that are Christians indeed. Well, as Peter begins to give
what I have called this additional encouragement, he identifies
the specific form of the trial in terms of being reproached
for the name of Christ. And what is the heart of the
encouragement that he gives to such people? It is given in terms
of the fact that they are blessed. In that condition, they are the
blessed ones, and blessed, as the text says, because the spirit
of glory and the spirit of God rest upon them. Now, you'll notice
if you have a good translation, that is a translation and not
a paraphrase, that the words blessed are you are in italics.
There's no verb in the original. You have exactly what you have
in the Beatitudes and exactly what we had earlier in 1 Peter
chapter 3, when he uses the same construction and says that those
who are suffering for righteousness' sake, verse 14, are the blessed
ones. Makarioi. They are blessed ones. And that word blessing carries
with it all of the weight of the understanding of God's covenant
mercy and blessing. It's the opposite of God's covenantal
curses. And to be blessed ones means
that we stand under the canopy of God's gracious, covenantal
commitments to us in Jesus Christ. So while the words are pummeling
their spirits, they are to stop in the midst of it and say, yes,
I'm being reproached for the name of Christ, but I am in God's
eyes and in the theater of my own heart, I am a blessed one.
Why am I receiving this reproach? Because God in grace has come
to me in the gospel of His Son, has shown me my true state, has
pointed me to the Lord Jesus as the only answer for my state
as a sinner who deserves the wrath of God. And I have found
in Christ the pearl of great price, whom, having not seen,
I love. And though I yet see him not
yet believing, I know something of joy unspeakable and full of
glory. Let the words continue to come
like swords. I am a blessed man. I am a blessed
woman. Peter says, that's your true
condition. You are not what your enemies
say you are. You are what God has made you,
a blessed one. and their words cannot change
what God has made you. Blessed! But then it's as though
someone raises his hand in the congregation and says, Peter,
is there any particular way that we should regard ourselves as
the blessed ones in the midst of this verbal abuse? And Peter's
response is, yes, blessed because, blessed because the spirit of
glory and the spirit of God rest upon you. Now you have to bear
with me for about two minutes while I tell you that there is
a problem with seeking to know exactly what Peter wrote. There
is some very good older manuscript evidence To point to what some
would say is Peter's writing not merely, blessed are you because
the spirit of glory and the spirit of God rest upon you, but Peter
wrote because the spirit of glory and the spirit or the spirit
of glory and power rest upon you. Now, it's my judgment that
Peter did not add the word power, so I will not preach as though
that was in the original. And then there's the problem
of an unusual construction. You'll see again, an italics
for the first use of the word spirit, because the spirit of
glory and the spirit of God rest upon you. If we were to give
a literal rendering of the Greek text, it would be that the of,
let me get my writing it down here, all right, here it is,
the of glory and the of God's spirit upon you is resting. The
of glory, the what of glory? He doesn't tell us right there.
The of glory and the of God, the of God's spirit upon you
is resting. Now that's horrible English.
And it seems, in my judgment, that those who translate it the
way we have it in our Bibles are correct. Blessed are you
because the Spirit of glory and the Spirit of God rest upon you.
And some of you say, but wait a minute, there's a last half
to the verse that says that on your part He is glorified, on
their part abused, whatever the exact language is. Well, Again,
the manuscript evidence for that is weak, and therefore I'm going
to preach as though that were not part of what Peter wrote.
Now, with that behind us, what is Peter saying? Here's what
he's saying. Blessed are you, and the proof that you are the
blessed ones is that in the midst of this reproach, the Spirit
of glory and the Spirit of God is resting upon you. The Spirit
of Glory. What in the world does that mean?
Well, again, the exegetes and the commentators differ. There
is a wide range of difference. But in my judgment, it is, at
least this much is true. As the Father is called the Father
of Glory in Ephesians 1.17, Christ is called the Lord of Glory in
1 Corinthians 2.8. So the Spirit is the Spirit of
glory, that is, He possesses all the fullness of all the divine
attributes that are the very glory of God. He possesses them
along with the Father and with the Son. And here is an unreserved
attestation of the divinity of the Spirit. He is the Spirit
of Glory and the Spirit of God, not a different spirit. He is
one in the same Spirit of Glory, Spirit of God. And Peter says,
you are blessed because he is resting upon you. Now that's
a strange phrase. You would think he might say,
you are blessed because the Spirit of Glory and the Spirit of God
dwells in you. or the Spirit of Glory and the
Spirit of God is with you, but he says is resting upon you. And where did Peter get the notion
of the Spirit resting as being one of the unique blessings of
being within the framework of a saving relationship to Christ? Well, most likely, he took the
concept right from the prophet Isaiah, chapter 11, Isaiah chapter
11, Verse 1, And there shall come
forth a shoot out of the stalk of Jesse, and a branch out of
his root shall bear fruit. And the Spirit of the Lord shall
rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the
spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of
the fear of the Lord. Now in that Greek translation
of the Old Testament scriptures you've heard about from time
to time, the Septuagint, The very verb that Peter uses, the
Spirit is resting upon you, is the verb that is found here in
Isaiah 11 in verse 2. And most likely, what was in
Peter's mind was this wonderful truth taught elsewhere in Scripture.
that as Christ has received from the Father the promise of the
Spirit, Acts chapter 2, it is He who has poured forth the Spirit
upon His people as His crowning messianic act. It is the final
attestation of the identity of Jesus. He being by the right
hand of God exalted, Peter says, has shed forth this which you
now see in here, Let the house of Israel know assuredly that
God has made Him both Lord and Christ. God has, as it were,
publicly manifested the position of His Son as the exalted Messianic
King when He sheds the Spirit upon His people. So it appears
to me that this is what Peter is saying. Here you are, you
saints way out there in Asia Minor. Many of your former drinking
and carousing buddies and neighbors with whom you abandon yourself
to your sins. Chapter 4, the early verses,
remember that. Now they look at your transformed
life and they see that wherever you move and wherever they listen
to you, wherever they come in contact with you, continually
attribute all of this change to Jesus of Nazareth, who is
the Christ of God. And whenever you are asked about
why you live the way you live, it is always a road back to Christ. Why do you frame your life that
way? It's Christ's will. Why do you do this? It will bring
Christ's glory. Everything about you traces who
and what you are back to Christ. So now they are reproaching you
in the context of the name of Christ. Because of your attachment
to Him, because of your constant reference to Him as the one who's
brought the change, Now in the midst of those cutting, biting
words rattling in your ears and in your brain, remember who you
are. You are the blessed ones. You
are those under covenant blessing from the living God. And among
the greatest of those blessings is this. All of their vicious
words cannot drive away from you the endowment of the Spirit
given to you from the risen Lord who will be with you forever.
Even as Jesus promised in that last discourse, I will send a
comforter who shall be with you forever. And he says this very
Spirit of glory and of God is resting upon you, not for some
temporary visit, but as the permanent endowment of the risen and the
glorified Christ. And he wants them to know that.
That while these who oppose Christ and oppose them for Christ's
sake seek to denigrate and express the venom of their hearts, God's
disposition and God's relationship is attested by the abiding presence
of God the Holy Spirit. And it may well be that something
else that Peter is underscoring is that in those seasons when
opposition and persecution are most intense, there are increased
and additional comforts and consolations and manifestations of the grace
and power of the Spirit. Perhaps Peter was remembering
his own experience. You remember that Peter and John
are told to shut up and not to preach anymore? God gets them
out of prison, they go right back into the temple precincts
and they preach. They're apprehended again. Now
we read in Acts chapter 5 in verse 40. They agreed to the counsel that
one of their number gives. Verse 40, and to him they agreed,
and when they had called the apostles unto them, they beat
them. and charged them not to speak,
notice, in the name of Jesus, and let them go. They therefore
departed from the presence of the council, doing what? Commiserating
at this terrible situation. Organizing a campaign for more
religious liberty in Jerusalem. Sending out a mailing to get
a groundswell of the populace. No, what did they do? It says
they departed from the presence of the council rejoicing that
they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for what? For the name.
Rejoicing! Why? The fruit of the Spirit
is love, joy, and in those situations where left to ourselves we would
be nothing but a mass of despondency and discouragement, the Spirit
of God comes in peculiarly intense manifestations of His grace.
And he is then the spirit of glory and of God who rests upon
his people. You see, my unsaved friend, this
is the fundamental problem that you have. You don't have the
spirit. That's the way unconverted people
are described in Romans 8. If any man have not the Spirit
of Christ, he is none of his. In Jude 18, the unconverted false
teachers described as not having the Spirit. They do not possess
the Spirit. You live the way you live. You
think the way you think. You desire the way you desire.
Because you are nothing but an extension of your first father,
Adam. Adam's nature you have, and Adam's
nature you express. You see no beauty in Christ?
You see nothing lovely in the law of God? You see nothing desirable
in having heaven in your eye and the earth beneath your feet?
My friend, it's because you have not the Spirit. And if any man
have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And that which
has transformed these believers, and that which upholds and strengthens
them, is that in conjunction with the faith of the Gospel,
they have been born of the Spirit, indwelt by the Spirit. Their
perspectives are the perspectives molded and shaped by the Spirit,
and their consolations come from the Spirit of glory and of God
that rests upon them. Well, so much then for this additional
encouragement. Now Peter comes in verse 15 to
what I'm calling a necessary prohibition. You see the balance
in the biblical writers? He moves from nothing but pure
encouragement to a very necessary prohibition. Here it is. For,
let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or
as a meddler in other men's matters." Now at this point, Peter does
something that a wise preacher will do. The pronouns and the
verbs move from the plural to the singular. From the plural
to the singular. And at this point, Peter says,
for let not a one of you suffer as a murderer, or a thief, an
evildoer, or as a meddler in other men's matters. Peter has
been speaking generically to the saints, and now it's as though
he is saying, as a preacher may do at times, look, I want every
one of you to imagine the two of us are sitting across the
table, face to face, nobody else here, just you and me and the
living God who knows us both. That's what Peter is doing here.
When he brings this necessary prohibition, he is isolating
every believer before this truth that he's about to bring them.
You see, it's a crucial thing for us to know what it is when
we ought to be isolated with God and His Word and when we
ought to be very conscious of our communal relationships. And you know what sin has done?
It has so perverted us that when we ought to be isolated and individualized,
we want to be socialized and corporalized. And when we ought
to be corporalized, we become crass, self-centered individualists
who only think of ourselves. And when God's trying to box
us up, then we want to share it with everybody. And when God's
telling us to share something with everybody, our tendency
is to box it up and be selfish. Peter is individualizing now.
Let not any one of you suffer as. And what is prohibited to
each and every one of the people of God in the churches of Asia
Minor are sins which ought never to be named among the people
of God. sins for which none should ever
suffer, whether the suffering is the punishment of the civil
authority, and Peter may well have that in mind, for he had
said in chapter 2, in verse 14, governors are sent to do what?
To take vengeance on evildoers. And Paul enlarges on that in
Romans 13, that the civil power bears not the sword in vain. So Peter is saying there are
certain sins that should never be found amongst God's people.
Whatever suffering they experience, it should never be suffering
either from the civil authority or the shame and pressure of
their fellow men and women in conjunction with these sins.
The first three are grouped together. You'll notice, again, if you
have a good translation, you can see that subtle distinction
in the text. None of you suffer as a murderer,
or a thief, or an evildoer. Now notice, or as, an additional
word. Peter takes these four things
and groups the first three in one group, and then the last
stands by itself. And what does he prohibit? Well,
in the first grouping he says, let none of you suffer as a murderer.
A murderer is one who takes the life of another human being without
a divine warrant. Whenever you define murder, always
put that last phrase. All taking of human life by another
human is not murder. He bears not the sword in vain. When the civil governor exercises
capital punishment upon a capital crime, he is not committing murder.
He's being God's hand to execute vengeance this side of the day
of judgment. When a doctor makes the painful
decision that the ectopic present pregnancy of a woman, a pregnancy
where a fetus begins to develop in a fallopian tube instead of
in the womb, will take the life of that mother. It is not abortion
to remove that fetus. It's an act of mercy to the living
mother. So not all taking of human life
is murder. But the wanton destruction of
human life as a convenient form of birth control, that's murder.
The passionate, angry retort that results in a smashed head,
in a coma, in an untimely death, that's murder. And Peter is saying
that none of you suffer as a murderer. Or, he says, as a thief. He not
only identifies the sixth commandment and its abiding sanctity, but
he identifies the eighth commandment. You shall not steal. Don't suffer
as a thief. Never as a Christian should you
be one who takes that which does not legitimately belong to you. Goods, materials, time, whatever
it is. Or, he says, as an evildoer. In its verbal form in chapter
3 and verse 17, it's the opposite of someone who does good. It's
better if the will of God should so will that you suffer for well-doing
than for evil-doing. An evildoer is a morally base
person. True believers are accused of
this, chapter 2 and verse 12, they speak against you as evildoers,
but Peter says make sure that the accusation has no ground
in fact. So there's his first grouping.
None of you should suffer as murderer, thief, or evildoer,
or as, and he isolates this, as a meddler in other men's matters.
The word used here is only found here in the New Testament. And
in the contemporary literature outside the New Testament, there
are only one or two references to this word being used around
the time that Peter would have used it. One of the most respected
lexicographers has written that, quote, with respect to this word,
it is a word whose meaning is yet to be determined with certainty.
The Spirit of God knew what he meant. Peter knew what he meant
when he wrote it, at the direction of the Holy Spirit. What does
it mean? We cannot dogmatize. And it's
one of those times when we are shut up primarily to the etymology
of the word itself. It's a compound word, the word
that speaks of another or another man, alatreos, and then the word
that we get episcopal, episkopos, a looker over, an inspector. And so the two words together
point in the direction of someone who is looking over and inspecting
the things of another. Hence our translation, a meddler
in other men's matters. And I'm satisfied that that is
probably at least the direction of the meaning. Some suggest
that this would not bring upon people civil punishment, therefore
it must be the kind of meddling in other matters that would disrupt
the stability of the political situation, or people would be
an irritant in society to such an extent that they might be
punished, and that's all up for grabs. You can read the books
as well as I did, and get all these different opinions, but
most likely he is speaking of a spirit of someone who is not
content, as Paul says, to do his own business as he spoke
to the Thessalonians, but was constantly prying into matters
that were none of his concern. One commentator has written,
references to the evil of this kind occur again and again. 1
Thessalonians 4.11, 1 Timothy 5.13. One can easily believe
that in many Christians a natural tendency to meddle with matters
of various kinds with which they had no proper concern might be
intensified by a misapprehension of what was involved in being
a light in the world. Knowing they had received instruction
from heaven affecting every question, great or small, on which moral
principles bore, they might be apt to obtrude their knowledge
in such circumstances and in such ways by their procedure
to irritate instead of winning those around them. Error of this
kind was not confined to the first Christian age. Maybe the
Spirit of God was anticipating the time when professing Christians
felt it was their duty to pick up the sword in defense of the
Christian faith, and even to engage in enterprises of conquest
in the name of advancing the Christian faith, and in that
way were meddling into the affairs of the state which do not belong
to them. I remain agnostic. I cannot be
dogmatic. I'm simply giving you an overview
of what may well be the meaning. There is no question about the
first two. Now, as we look at such a passage
and realize that Peter is addressing these Christians and says, let
none of you suffer for these things, what do we learn? Well,
it is clear that Peter is convinced that he's writing to true believers.
From chapter 1, verse 1 onward, he's assuming these are real
believers. Apostle of Christ, to the elect
sojourners, according to the foreknowledge of God, sanctification
of the Spirit, unto obedience, and sprinkling of the blood,
blessed be the God who's begotten us again. He has just expressed
his confidence that the Spirit is resting upon these people.
Why in the world does he have to follow it up with this prohibition,
let none of you suffer as a murderer, a thief, or a meddler in other
people's matters? No real Christians would commit
these sins, would they? Yes, not only would they, they
have. Peter was a realist. Peter knew his Old Testament,
and he knew that his Old Testament contained the tragic record of
the horrible sins of that man after God's own heart who murdered
who committed adultery. He knew his Old Testament and
knew that Noah, the only righteous man who with his family is spared
the frightening deluge when God sent rain down and broke up the
fountains of the deep. He knew that Noah could get himself
drunk and lie around his tent shamefully naked. He knew that
Lot, whom the New Testament called Righteous Lot, would also be
drunk and commit incest with his own daughters. Need I go
on? Peter was a realist. He did not
suddenly treat these people as though they weren't converted.
No, he has said, in the midst of the opposition, in the midst
of the suffering for the sake of righteousness, let none of
you suffer in these ways. or it is possible for true believers
to fall into such wretched sins. He has already called them to
a life of universal holiness in chapter 1 verses 14 to 16,
called them to a life of universal mortification, chapter 2 and
verse 1. He's called them to abstain from
fleshly lusts at war against the soul, chapter 2 verse 11.
He's called them to reject their old life in chapter 4, and now
he comes around and he's warning them against murder, thievery,
and being meddlers in matters not their own, because he was
a biblical realist. And he knew that any one of the
saints of God left to himself for a moment could indulge any
one or all of these sins. So we learned that Peter was
a realist. Second thing we learned by way of application of this
part of the text, it's clear that Peter believed in codified
moral and ethical absolutes. Murder is wrong. Thievery is
wrong. Meddling in the affairs of another
is wrong. To use current jargon, Peter
was taking his rights and wrongs and making them the rights and
wrongs of all the believers in Asia Minor. He was not a postmodernist
who said, look, my right is right for me, but it may not be for
you. My wrongs are wrong for me, but I dare not impose them
on you. Different strokes for different
folks. I'll give you my testimony. I
believe the best way for me to commend the gospel And to be
certain that all of my sufferings are for righteousness sake is
that I do not murder, and I do not indulge in theft, and I am
not a meddler in other men's matters, but far be it from me
to impose my standards upon you. I must respect your individuality.
I had someone recently, when seeking to press an ethical issue,
look at me and say, but I'm not a Christian. And I had to say
to this individual, that makes no difference. Almighty God is
your creator and your judge, and he has a right to tell you
that this is right and this is wrong. Imagine copping out by
saying, well, I'm not a Christian. I wasn't laying before this individual
a responsibility to do something that is distinctly Christian.
It had to do with a fundamental ethical issue rooted in the moral
law of God. Peter, hadn't sold out to any
of that mentality and furthermore Peter believed that every Christian
has Christ's name branded on him either to elicit unrighteous
reproach or to promote a despising of the gospel through careless
living. And so having encouraged them by saying, if you are reproached
for the name of Christ, you manifest that you are one of the blessed
ones, and you are blessed because the Spirit of glory and the Spirit
of God rest upon you, but let none of you who bear the name
of Christ, who have been known to be attached to Christ by open,
visible confession of His name, you're branded with His name,
go and crack it into the dirt. Let none of you, let none of
you suffer as a murderer, a thief, an evildoer, or as a meddler
in other men's matters. Well, having looked at the additional
encouragement, Secondly, a necessary prohibition, we come to verse
16, a further directive. Look at the text. But if any
man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him
glorify God in this name. I call this a further directive.
Note, first of all, to whom the directive is given, and then
we'll look at the essence of the directive. To whom is this
directive given? But if a man suffer as a Christian,
this directive is given to those who are suffering as Christians. Now, again, in your Bibles, you
may have the words, a man suffer if a man suffer in italics. Why? Because those words are not there
in the original. The original reads, but as a
Christian, let him not be ashamed. But what as a Christian? The
weight of the previous statement is to be felt here. Let none
of you suffer as a murderer, but if a man suffer as a Christian. So that's why the words are inserted
to give it clearer English sense. And though they are not there
in the original, it is a good way to translate and to reproduce
the thought of the Apostle Peter. So then, to whom is this directive
given? It is given to those who are
designated as Christians. Now, we use the word very freely,
but it is found very infrequently in the New Testament. In fact,
only two other places in the whole New Testament is the word
Christian found. It's found in Acts chapter 11,
concerning the believers at Antioch, and we are simply told this much,
and how we would love to know a lot more, and whole books have
been written about who coined the term, what was the motive,
was it a derisive, insulting term, was it a noble term? Why
do you find a Latinized ending in a Greek word by Greek-speaking
people? You'd be amazed at what some
people do in the interest of pursuing scholarship. But they
do, and at least they take their Bible seriously, many of them,
so we can be thankful for that. But I'm not going to weary you
with this theory and that theory. This much is clear in the scripture,
Acts chapter 11 and verse 26. And when he had found him, that
is, Barnabas finds Paul and he brings him to Antioch. And it
came to pass that even for a whole year they were gathered together
with the church and taught much people and that the disciples
were called Christians, Christianos, first in Antioch. They were called
Christians. By whom? We don't know. Out of
what motive? We don't know. Why a Latinized
ending? We don't know. All we know is
they were called Christians first at Antioch. And then the only
other place it's found in the New Testament is further on in
Acts chapter 26 and verse 28. Acts 26 and verse 28. Our final usage, Paul is giving
his defense before the heathen potentate, and now we read, King
Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know that you believe. And
Agrippa said unto Paul, with but little persuasion you would
fain make me a Christian? And how are we to understand
that verse again? I found no agreement among any
of the commentators, but this much is clear, that this character
who had no intimate connection with God's people, but was aware
of what was going on amongst these people who claimed allegiance
to Christ. For him, apparently, it was a
natural term to use, with but little persuasion, would you
make me a Christian? Or, would you fain make me a
Christian? Almost, you persuade me to be
a Christian. All we know is, the word is found
there, Acts 11, here in 1 Peter, nowhere else. But again, this
much is clear. Whatever the motive was, whoever
and for whatever reason a Latinized ending to the word Christos was
used, it is clear that the use of this word identifies people
who are followers of Christ. The Herodians, that's a similar
ending, were those who were followers of Herod, who were devoted to
Herod's leadership and Herod's perspective, and they were called
Herodians. So much was Christ central to
these people that they are dubbed Christians, those who are identified
with Christ, who are attached to Christ, who embrace the ways
and the people of Christ. That's who is addressed in this
text. Now, what is the directive? And
as we so often found in Peter, you have both a negative and
a positive, and both of them are present imperatives. And
the imperatives are third-person singulars. Peter still got every
individual in the crosshairs. He said, don't get lost in the
crowd. I'm talking to you, and you, and you, and you. Let not
one of you suffer as a murderer, a thief, a meddler in other people's
matters. And, if a man suffers a Christian,
two things, let him not be ashamed, the negative, but let him glorify
God in this name, the positive. Let him not be ashamed. Now what
is shame? You ever try to define this feeling
of shame? You ever tried to? It's not a
pleasant feeling. The dictionary describes it as
a painful experience of having lost the respect of others because
of improper or incompetence with respect to oneself or another. You know where shame began? Not
with God in the original creation. There was praise, there was wonder,
there was adoration, there was joy, but there was no shame in
Eden until Adam and Eve sinned. And one of the first evidences
that they were cut off from living communion with God is that they
were immersed in shame. The creation account ends with
saying they were both naked and were not ashamed. No sooner do
they sin, but they are clothed with shame and attempt to clothe
themselves. And when they hear the voice
of God in the cool of the day, they run to hide. Why? They are swollen up with this
feeling of shame. This is the word that is used
in Luke 16, 3 of that steward who said, I'm ashamed to beg.
It would clothe me with this negative feeling were I to beg,
1 John 2.28, let us abide in him that when he is manifested,
we may have boldness and not be ashamed before him at his
coming. Parents say to a child, you ought
to be ashamed of yourself. How do you kids feel? When you've
done something that is openly and clearly in defiance of mom
and dad's will and they come and catch you in the very act.
You draw in, there's that sense of shame. Now whatever the nuances
of shame may be, this much is clear. When as a child of God,
you suffer as a Christian. You suffer as one who in your
identification with Christ is so living out the reality of
your union with Christ and your confession of Christ that you're
exposing the darkness of sinful men around you and you get verbal
abuse and you are reviled and you are vilified. Whatever you
do, you must not be ashamed. You must not hang your head in
shame. that you're being marked, as
we heard Wednesday night, as a weirdo. How refreshing it was
to have someone state in the testimony time that he walked
out of this place one time before the service was over, because
he didn't want to be part of these weirdos. Then he said,
now I'm one of them. Well, when you're called the
weirdo, And when you're called Holy Joe, and when you're called
any other kind of thing, and when the pressure comes, if you
suffer as a Christian, that is, as a Christian living consistently
with who and what you are as a Christian, you and I are not
to be ashamed. But positively, what are we to
do? Another present imperative, let
him be constantly glorifying God in this name. What does it
mean to glorify God? It means to praise, to honor,
to magnify God. And to do this, Peter says, in
connection with the name of Christ that you bear. Let him glorify
God in this name. Does that refer back to the name
Christian or does it refer back to Christ? Well, it's really
irrelevant. It's evident, it refers to one
or the other, I have my own judgment of what it is, but this much
again is clear. It is in conjunction with one's
unashamed union with and devotion to the person of Christ that
the suffering comes. So he says, when you suffer as
a Christian, Don't be ashamed. Glorify God in this name. That's what Paul and Silas were
doing in the prison at midnight. They're not plotting how to overturn
the unjust imprisonment and how to get the Roman leaders in that
area in trouble for this unjust punishment and incarceration.
No, they're singing hymns and praises to God at midnight. night.
They're glorifying God and it's as though God said, I'm so pleased
I'm going to shake this place up. And God rattles the jail
and loses the prisoners and does an amazing thing that leads to
the conversion of that Philippian jailer and his entire household.
They were glorifying God in the name. The name which had brought
them there was Christ, their attachment to him. And now Paul
and Silas are living examples of what this means. The Acts
541 passage that we read earlier, another example. And it could
well be that Peter, if he wrote this from Rome, which I believe
he did, is aware of what is going on in the seat of the imperial
power there at Rome, and knows that in a very short time that
there may well be unusual, intensified persecution being let loose upon
the saints in Asia Minor. And he says, this is what you
are constantly to remember. Whatever suffering comes to you,
no shame in that, but rather glorify, magnify God that you
are privileged to be found, identified with the name of your blessed
Lord. There's a wonderful touching
story that comes to us from church history. Some of you perhaps
have heard this. A letter from the Church of Smyrna
in the second century describes the martyrdom of Polycarp, Bishop
of Smyrna. The old man had been arrested
and brought to the arena. The proconsul urged him to offer
incense to Caesar. Just offer a little incense and
no martyrdom. Take the oath, said the proconsul,
and I shall release you. Curse Christ. Polycarp replied,
86 years have I served him. And he never did me any wrong.
How can I blaspheme my King who saved me? Tied to the stake,
Polycarp prayed to be received by the Lord, quote, as a rich
and acceptable sacrifice. And all around him, you see,
saw this man glorifying God even in the midst of his martyrdom. When you've read some of the
history of the Covenanters in Scotland, how even young girls
were made bold to be executed for the sake of Christ, tied
to a piling while the tide came in, their testimony is one of
glorifying God when suffering for His namesake. Here then is
the further unfolding of how the grace of God in Christ is
to be seen in the suffering of the saints of God. Don't think
it's strange, verse 12, don't think it's strange, but rejoice. Rejoice because your sufferings
bring you into the fellowship of Christ's sufferings. Rejoice
because your present joy in suffering for Christ is a pledge of greater
joy at the coming of Christ. In addition, Peter brings us
to these perspectives when reproached You must reckon that you are
blessed ones, blessed because the spirit of glory and the spirit
of God is resting upon you. But never do that which would
make you suffer for committing sins, which even a godless society
would punish. But when you are suffering as
the unsought consequence of your attachment to Christ, don't be
ashamed. but always seek to glorify God
in the realm of your attachment to Jesus Christ as God and Savior. I trust you've caught the overarching
concern of Peter. When he is giving directives
in verses 7 to 11, how these saints are to conduct themselves
in their life together in the church. You remember what the
crowning motivation was for all of those directives at the end
of verse 11? He says, I'm giving all of these
directives to what end? In order that in all things,
God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, whose is the glory
and dominion forever and ever. And in this section that we've
just studied together the last two Lord's days, you see how
the same motif comes through. Don't be ashamed, but let him
glorify God in this name. The glory of God is to be the
great end in our conduct one with another and in our corporate
life. The glory of God is to be the
great end as we handle our suffering for the name of Christ, according
to the directives of the apostle. And you see, Peter is assuming
that in the hearts of true believers, when you say, this is what you
must do and be to get God glory, the heart of every true believer
says, Lord, by your grace, I shall and I must, for you must be glorified. And here again, it shows the
unconverted heart. You can sit here and glory of
God, shmory of God, it makes no difference. All have sinned
and come short of the glory of God. And here again is one of
the telling marks of your unregenerate heart and your impenitent spirit,
that the God who made you, that you might glorify him. You're
indifferent to him. You're indifferent to the very
purpose for which you were made. And it's only as you seek that
God through Jesus Christ, as he is set forth in the gospel,
that you can begin to fulfill the very purpose for which God
made you. And then by God's grace, as you are identified with Christ
and you seek to live out consistently that relationship in the strength
of Christ and by the grace of Christ, you will experience some
of the suffering on behalf of Christ and you will count it
a privilege to have fellowship in his sufferings, the one who
suffered and died to procure your redemption. May God help
us to lay this truth to our hearts. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you again
for your word. We thank you for your Spirit's
direction in the life and in the ministry of the Apostle Peter.
We pray that this portion of the letter would be written upon
the fleshy tables of our hearts, and that we would be given grace
to walk in the light of it. We do earnestly pray that none
of us who names your name will ever be brought to any suffering
for these gross and shameful sins. We pray that whatever measure
of reproach we bear because of the name of our Savior, because
of our attachment to him, we ask, O Lord, that we will respond
to it in a way that mirrors these directives given to us in your
holy word. We pray for those who do not
have the Spirit, of whom it cannot be said the Spirit of glory and
the Spirit of God rest upon them. We ask, O Lord, that you would
be merciful to deal with them in grace and pity and draw them
to yourself until they too know the joy of sins forgiven and
of experiencing the reality of having the heart of stone removed
and being given a heart of flesh. Seal then your word to our hearts
for your glory and for our good, we ask in Jesus' name. Amen.