Well I want you to come back
with me this morning to 1st Peter and chapter 3 and our text is
actually in chapter 4. Our text is in chapter 4 verse
2 that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh
to the lusts of men, but to the will of God. Now last week we
were thinking about knowing God. Knowing God. What it is to truly
know, not about God, but to know God. And we found that we know
God in gospel doctrine. You cannot know God unless, it's
not because it's academically about doctrine, but you must
know gospel doctrine, you must feel gospel doctrine in your
heart, in your being. And knowing God in regeneration,
because except a man be born again of the Spirit of God, and
that new man is planted within, you cannot see the Kingdom of
God, you have no spiritual life in you. But by virtue of the
rebirth, the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit, you know
God, because He lives with you. As Jesus said, My Father and
I will come and make our abode with Him. And knowing God in
prayer, because I tell you, if you say you have a friend, but
you never ever speak to them, I don't think they're much of
a friend. You speak to your friend. You make time specifically to
speak. You make appointments in your
calendar to speak with God. And you live in an attitude of
prayer to God. Now I want to continue this theme
this week with The phrase at the end of verse 2 in chapter
4, living to the will of God. Living to the will of God. What
is it to live this life, and let's be clear, we're sinners.
Sinners? What do you mean sinners? There's
not many sinners are there? In terms of people acknowledging
what they are before God. All have sinned, yes I know,
but how many acknowledge what they are before God? were sinners,
which means that we're utterly, utterly opposed to the nature
and character and person and holiness and righteousness of
God. What is it to live this life
in the flesh as sinners in fellowship with God, knowing God, living
to the will of God? What is it? to live under the
blessing of God. Do you want to live under the
blessing of the one who rules all things? I'm sure you do.
Really? If you're honest with yourself?
You want to live under the blessing of God. You want to know that
your soul is in His eternal care, so that you're persuaded that
He is able to keep that which you've committed unto Him against
that day, as Paul wrote. You want to be guided through
this life. by his divine wisdom, don't you? It's not a case of I want to
know, you know, which direction to go so the traffic lights of
life will all be green. No, you want to be guided by
divine wisdom. And you want to be comforted.
You want to live this life comforted. What a blessing to live this
life comforted because you have a solid hope of eternal glory. That's true riches, and what
we read in Psalm 49 earlier tells of the folly of worldly riches. It tells of that folly, that
folly of worldly riches, that they allure, but they're impotent
to do anything for you. They're of a fleeting nature.
They're worthless beyond death. However rich you are in this
life, as the old saying says, there are no pockets in shrouds.
You know, the thing they dress the body in when it's put into
the ground, it doesn't have pockets in to take its money with. The
old pharaohs of Egypt used to try to take their riches in their
pyramids. It didn't save them. It didn't do anything for them.
It didn't give them any enjoyment in the life after death. So,
you might agree with me, you might see what I'm saying, and
you might inquire about this claimed blessing of knowing God,
of living to the will of God, but what does it mean? How can
I possess it? What does it cost for Jesus said,
A wise man will always work out the cost of his projects before
he starts, he'll try and get an idea. Don't set about wanting
to follow this God because of all of his benefits if you don't
think about what it will cost. Now follow me as I read in 1
Peter chapter 3 verse 17 down to chapter 4 verse 7. Peter writes,
for it is better if the will of God be so that ye suffer for
well doing than for evil doing. And he gives an example. 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? By which Spirit? Also
he went and preached unto the spirits in prison, which sometime
were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in
the days of Noah, while the ark was a-preparing, wherein few,
that is, eight souls were saved by water. the like figure, whereunto
even baptism doth also now save us, not the putting away of the
filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God
by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. I know there is lots
of confusion and weird and wonderful theories about those verses,
but we'll briefly touch on them and I think we can calm that
a little bit later in this message. Verse 22, who is gone into heaven,
Jesus Christ, who is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand
of God, angels and authorities and powers being made subject
unto him. Forasmuch then, as Christ hath suffered in the flesh,
arm yourselves likewise with the same mind. For he that hath
suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin, that he no longer should
live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men,
but to the will of God. For in time past our life may
suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles when we
walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revelings, banquetings,
and abominable idolatries, wherein they think it strange that ye
run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil
of you, who shall give account to him that is ready to judge
the quick and the dead. For this cause was the gospel
preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged
according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in
the spirits. But the end of all things is
at hand. Be ye therefore sober and watch unto prayer." Watch
unto prayer. Now then, trying to get at this
thing about knowing God and living to the will of God. It talked
about Christ in that passage quite a lot. What was the purpose
of Christ's coming? If I were to ask you that question,
would you have a ready answer for me? Well, I'll give you one.
It's the answer that the angel, coming to announce the birth
of Jesus, gave to Joseph. gave to Joseph, the betrothed
husband of Mary, the mother of Jesus. He said, when this baby's
born, his name you will call him Jesus. Now why would he call
him Jesus? For, he said, he shall save his
people from their sins. Why did Christ come? He came
to save his people from their sins. What does it mean to save
from sin? What is it? It means to save
from the power of sin, because in the flesh, in our natural
state, sin has complete power over us. Our will is not our
own to do what we want. Sin always drives what we want.
Yes, we say, I follow my free will, but your free will is constantly
bound by the desires and the power of sin. To save us from
the dominion of sin, because it's sin that separates from
God and all that is good. to free us from the enslavement
of sin, because whose slaves you are, that's the one that
you serve, says Paul to the Romans. To save us from the judicial
consequences of sin. What do I mean by that? The God
of the universe, who wrote this book and by his Spirit gave us
the Bible, said this, the soul that sins, it shall die. It shall die. God, it says, you
know, there's a myth around and it's been running around for
a long time by so-called evangelical preachers who say this is the
message of God. God loves you and has a wonderful
plan for your life. You show me that anywhere in
the Bible. I'll tell you what the Bible
says. It says to sinners, God is angry with the wicked every
day. That's what it says. It says God is angry with those
who disobey him, who are sinners every day. God is angry with
those who disbelieve him and call him a liar every day. Because
if you disbelieve God, you call God a liar. He is angry every
day. There are judicial consequences
of sin. And what are they? Hell. Separation
for eternity from God. The soul that sins it shall die.
Eternal condemnation. Jesus came to save his people
from those things, from their sins, from the consequences of
their sins. So from 1 Peter this morning,
I want to answer this question. How are God's believing people
saved from their sins? Because in the process, I think
we get towards what it is to know God and to live to the will
of God. And I want to answer it in four
ways from this passage. First of all, we're saved from
its condemnation. We're saved from the condemnation
of sin in Christ. We're saved from the condemnation
of sin in Christ. Look at verse 18 of chapter 3.
For Christ also hath once suffered four sins, the just for the unjust,
that he might bring us to God. Who is Christ? I think everybody
here in this room with me is familiar with who Christ is,
and probably many people listening later or watching online now,
you're familiar, but there might be some who are not. You know,
Jesus asked the Pharisees, because they didn't know, they were the
religious leaders of their day, he said, what think ye of Christ?
Whose son is he? Who is he? What's he for? What's
he all about? You know there's that man, that
blind man, he was born blind in John chapter 9, read it. I
believe by the way that Jesus conducted that miracle that that
man wasn't even born with eyes that didn't work, he was born
with no eyes because Jesus took clay and spat on it and put it
in his eye sockets and he had eyeballs to see with. He gave
him sight in that way and that was one of the most remarkable
miracles of the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. So typical
of giving the light of spiritual light and life that is in Christ. And he came to that man later
after the Pharisees had questioned him, and he said to him privately,
he said to the man that was blind and had received his sight, he
said, do you believe in the Son of God? And the man said this,
who is he, Lord, that I might believe on him? Who is he? Do
you see, I think so many people, they might have heard the term,
they probably use the term as a word of cursing, But do they
know who is he? Who is Christ? Who is the Son
of God? Well, what's our answer? Where
are we going to get it from? Are we going to have a forum
of opinions? No. What saith the Scripture? Oh, why does this
man use old-fashioned language? Well, it's the language of the
most accurate translation of the Bible, so it's familiar.
What does the Scripture say? What does the Scripture say?
Christ is the promised Messiah of the Old Testament. That's
what it says. There's a Messiah coming. There's one who will
be the sin-bearing substitute and sacrifice, a sacrifice pays
a debt to an offended law. That's what a sacrifice is about.
I know we think it's a gory, evil, superstitious thing, but
in the reckoning of God a sacrifice pays the debt due to an offended
justice, an offended law. And He is the One. Christ is
the Messiah promised by the Old Testament to come as the substitute
for His people, to stand as the surety for His people, as the
sacrifice for His people, to pay for the penalty of the sin
debt of His people. Who is He? He is the Son of God.
Don't think for one minute. Perish the thought in your mind,
if there's anything about you that thinks, when it says he's
the son of God, that he is God's little boy. Please, I'm not being
irreverent when I say that, but there are so many that have that
view. Christ is not God's little boy. He is God manifest in the
flesh. He is very God of very God. He
is God incarnate. He is God contracted to a span,
incomprehensibly made man. This is what He is. He is the
God man. He is the man who is perfect,
for without sin, without sin in any respect at all, He is
able to stand, for He is fitted to be the substitute of His people.
If you remember the Passover lamb, when God instituted the
Passover in Exodus, And in Exodus chapter 12, there it was, they
had to select a lamb, a lamb without blemish and without spot.
It had to be perfect, a male of the flock in its first year,
in the prime of its life, lovely white coat without any Problems,
diseases, deformities are a perfect lamb. And just to be sure they
had to keep it for 14 days, just to make absolutely sure. Our
Lord Jesus Christ lived this life as a man. under the obligation
of the law of God that he might be examined by it and found sinless. He's fit to stand for his people. There's no point having a substitute
who himself is a criminal, is there? There's no point having
somebody say I'll come and stand for you and pay your debts when
he has debts of his own to pay. No, you need one who is perfect. The Christ of God, the Messiah
of God is the one who was promised to Adam and Eve in the garden.
Now you say, you can't possibly believe in all that silly mythology,
we know how, no I'm sorry I really do, I really do. I'm scientifically
trained and I really do, I really really do believe that there
was a literal Adam and Eve, the first man and the first woman
in a literal place called the Garden of Eden. I really literally
do and I know that when the end of all things come everybody
All of these who shake their fist in the face of God and say
they want nothing to do with him, they will bow and acknowledge
that what he said in this book is absolutely true. But to Adam
and Eve, literal Adam and Eve, was promised a Redeemer, one
who would come. One who would come as a seed
of the woman to crush the serpent's head, the devil's head, and to
free them from the curse of the law on their sin. And he was
looked for by the Old Testament patriarchs. They all looked towards
him. He was promised to Abraham. He was pictured in types throughout
the Old Testament. And when the fullness of the
time was come, as Galatians 4 verse 4 says, God sent forth his Son,
made of a woman, made under the law, why? To redeem, to buy back,
to pay the sin debt price of those who are under the law,
that we might be made the children, the sons of God, we might receive
the adoption of sons. As a man, he came. Look at Hebrews,
I know I refer to this often, but do you know how you know
these things? It's by familiarity with them.
So come to Hebrews chapter 2 with me. Hebrews chapter 2 and verse
14. Hebrews chapter 2 and verse 14. I believe it's Paul writing here,
but it doesn't really matter. I'm not going to argue with anybody
who disagrees, but that's my personal view. Verse 14 of chapter
2, for as much then as the children." Children? The ones that the father
gave him before the beginning of time. He's elect. Oh, I don't
like that word. Well, you don't like what the
scripture says. That's what God says. He's elect. For as much
then as his children, the children, are partakers of flesh and blood,
are we not? Those who believe that, no, you're
amongst the elect of God. Are you not a partaker of flesh
and blood? He also, Christ also, himself,
likewise, took part of the same flesh and blood. That, why, he
had to die. If the sin-debt was to be paid
he had to die, that through death he might destroy him. that had
the power of death, that is the devil. It's only through his
coming and dying that he destroyed the power of the devil over those
people that were his bride who he's going to take to him in
glory. And deliver them, verse 15, who
through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. Do you fear death? Do I fear
death? I don't relish the thought of the process. I don't relish
the prospect of getting some horrible disease and having a
painful time before I die. No, I don't relish that. But
am I afraid of death? No, not in the slightest. For
why? Paul says, for to be absent from
the body is to be present with the Lord. How do we know? The
thief on the cross. Did he live a godly life? No,
he didn't. But in his last minutes of life, he looked on the one
dying there next to him, and by Holy Spirit revelation, he
saw that this was the Son of God, the Messiah, dying for his
people, and he said, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom.
And Jesus, dying there, bearing the sins of his people, said,
verily, verily, this day I say to you, you shall be with me
in paradise. Conscious of it. Verse 16, for
verily, he took not on him the nature of angels, No, Jesus didn't
come. There's no salvation for the
fallen angels. But he took on him the seed of
Adam. Doesn't say that, does it? What does it say? He took
on him the seed of Abraham. Not every man or woman the offspring
of Adam and Eve, but those that have like faith as Abraham, which
is faith that looks to Christ and him alone. Wherefore, in
all things, it behoved him, Christ, to be made like unto his brethren,
that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things
pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For
in that he himself hath suffered, being tempted, he is able to
succor them that are tempted. You see, he vicariously bore
his people's sins. In other words, he really, literally,
counted in the reckoning of God, absolutely, as a fact that he
did, bore his people's sins. As it says in verse 24 of chapter
2 of 1 Peter, who his own self, our Lord Jesus Christ, bear our
sins bear the sins of his people? Whose sins did he bear? And in
bearing them, whose sins did he pay the penalty for? The sins
of those the Father gave him. Jesus did not die for everybody
without exception. Nowhere does the scripture even
suggest that. It's a lie of false religion
to suggest that. Jesus came as a man. God became man in flesh that
he might bear the sins of his people. sins committed in the
flesh, sins by virtue of the flesh, and he paid that penalty
for his particular elect people. That's what he did. That we being
dead to sins should live unto righteousness. So then he suffered
the judgment of God. He paid the sin debt. He provided
a satisfactory ransom. As Job says, crying out, deliver
him from going down to the pit. Deliver this person from going
down to the pit of hell. Why? I have found a ransom that
pays the price, that pays the release price, that pays the
sin debt. He was made the sins of his people,
as we so often think. He who knew no sin was made sin
for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. And in verse 18 of chapter 3,
he suffered for sins. He suffered for them. He paid
their debt to justice. The wrath and penalty of God
which should fall on his people for their sinnerhood fell on
him. He once suffered for sins. He,
the just one. He, the one without sin, for
those that are unjust. We, his sinful people, who in
Every aspect of our nature in the flesh are unjust. We're sinners,
deserving of condemnation. But he bore that condemnation. He paid the penalty. He suffered
the wrath of God in the place of his people. Why? bring us
to God, that he might bring us to God, that he might put us
into fellowship union with God, so that the scripture might say
even of us, Romans 8.1, there is therefore now no condemnation
to those who are in Christ Jesus. Now you know all this, and you
say, oh he's preaching the same as he does every week. God forbid
that I should ever preach anything else. I could go on and on, as
you know. This is our constant theme. as
Paul determined, 1 Corinthians 2 verse 2, determined to know
nothing else among his hearers. What was your theme, Paul? Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. Didn't you preach anything else,
Paul? No, Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Well, isn't there
more in the whole Council of God to preach? Paul said to the
elders on the beach at Miletus, the Ephesian elders, he said,
I have not shunned to declare unto you all the Council of God.
How did you preach all the Council of God to them, Paul? Did you
start at the beginning and go through every aspect of the Old
Testament? Well, yes, in a sense he probably
did, but the point is this, lots of people do that and they don't
preach the whole Council of God. You preach the whole counsel
of God if you determine to know nothing other than Jesus Christ
and him crucified, because that alone answers Job's question. We haven't mentioned it for a
week or two, have we? Job 9 verse 2, how should a man
be just with God? If you think anything of the
things of eternity and you're standing before God, there will
be one question that will keep you from sleeping, that will
turn you over, that will upset you, and it's this, I am unjust
and I must face a God who must punish my sin. How should a man,
how can I be just with God? How can I be declared justified? Righteous? How can I have that
righteousness without which no man shall see the Lord? That's
Job's question. Well what we've just been thinking
of answers that question. This is how Christ takes the
burden of his people's sin. Has he shown you that he has
borne your sins in his own body on Calvary, and paid the debt
of those sins to the law of God in your place, so that you go
free? So that you here, on that blessed
day of judgment, which will be such a day of fear and of wrath
to so many, will you hear these words? Come, ye blessed of my
Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of
the world. So to know God, To live in the will of God is to
know sin condemns you no more, because you know that Christ
has paid for it. And then secondly, that God's people are killed
from sin's power. That's important. We know that
God's people are killed from sin's power. When Christ was
put to death in the flesh, those for whom he died were crucified
with him. You know this verse very well.
Galatians 2, verses 20 and 21. I am crucified with Christ. The
believer, living, breathing now, I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless
I live. Of course I do. You're hearing
me speaking. Yet not I. But Christ liveth in me. And
the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith
of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. than
in Romans, look in Romans chapter six if you can or just listen
while I read these verses to you about the relationship that
we have as believers who know God who live to the will of God
with sin in the flesh in chapter six verse two Paul says God forbid
how shall we that are dead to sin, you see if you died with
Christ if you were crucified with him which is what the scripture
clearly teaches you are dead to sin how shall you live any
longer therein verse seven For he that is dead is freed from
sin. Verse 11, likewise reckon ye
also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Verse 13, neither yield ye your
members, your flesh, your body, as instruments of unrighteousness
unto sin, but yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive
from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness
unto God. You see, when we used to have
in this country, and I know some of the states in the United States
still have the death penalty for murder, but what we had in
this country, when the murderer, found guilty and condemned to
death, went to the gallows and died, once executed, the law
which said, the one who murders shall die, had no more power
over that dead body, because he was dead. It couldn't execute
him again. It couldn't bring the charge
against him again. It couldn't sit him up in court
and say, you're charged. He's dead. He's dead to it. The
law has no more demand over the criminal once they're dead. Well
in verse 1 of chapter 4 it says, Christ has suffered for us in
the flesh. Christ has suffered for us. If
he has done it, then you in him have suffered in the flesh for
sin. You've suffered from it. And
he that has suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin. Ceased
from sin. There's a union of believers
with the Lord Jesus Christ, and by virtue of eternal union with
Christ in the election of grace before the beginning of time,
all that Christ did and suffered is counted for his elect. Again
and again, read these epistles, the us, the our, the his, the
we, it's talking about those who are the children of God who
have been brought to belief in the truth of the gospel that
has saved them from their sins, and sin's power in them is broken. Look at verse 2, you should no
longer live the rest of your time in the flesh to the lusts
of men. Then in verse 3, for the time
past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of
the Gentiles, this is doing what we want to do in the flesh, when
we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, Excessive wine, revelings,
banquetings and abominable idolatries. Sins of the flesh to name but
a few. What we were in time past in
the Lord Jesus Christ. in the gospel of his grace, by
the indwelling power of his spirit, by that new nature that comes
with the new man of God, that power is killed in Christ, and
so in his people. Yes, we still sin in the flesh
because if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and
the truth is not in us. But the love of it is killed
in the flesh, even in the flesh. The love of it is killed by the
presence of the Spirit of God. The slavery that we naturally
have to it, it is all broken. How is it broken? Not by law
constraint, but by the love of Christ. As I said I think last
week, you're being tempted to sin. And you want to know, how
can I resist this temptation? Can I tell you the most effective
thing a believer can do to resist temptation and to flee from it
is look. Look at Christ suffering for
your sin. Look at Christ suffering for
that contemplated sin, paying its debt for you, and then tell
me, as a believer, how can you then willingly yield to that
temptation? It's pictured in baptism, in
verse 21 of chapter three, the like figure where unto even baptism
doth also now save us. He's not saying the act of going
through baptism saves you, not the putting away of the filth
of the flesh, but it's what it pictures that saves. What does
it picture? It pictures that when Christ
died and was buried, you were died, you died and were buried
in him. When he rose from the dead, you
rose from the dead, and that's pictured by going down and being
buried in that water, and rising up out of that water. It's a
picture of being buried and resurrected with Christ. The power of sin
is killed in the one who believes the Lord Jesus Christ. And the
one who believes the Lord Jesus Christ, and I'll be quick with
this point, is quickened to believe the gospel, because we thought
quite a lot about it last week. brought to believe by the indwelling
and regenerating power of the Holy Spirit. Christ has been
calling his elect out of sin into gospel righteousness since
the fall in Eden. Abel was a sinner, he was a child
of Adam and Eve, but he brought a lamb to God, picturing the
righteousness which is of faith, looking to Christ. In verse 18,
Christ has suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that
he might bring us to God. The spirit which raised him from
the dead, verse 21, pictured there by the resurrection of
Jesus Christ at the end of the verse. That spirit is the one
by which Christ preached righteousness to the world before the flood.
That's what those mysterious verses 19 and 20 are talking
about. He went and preached to the spirits in prison, by which
I believe that means are now in the prison of death in hell
awaiting, Revelation 20 verse 5, waiting for that final day
of judgment. Those that have died outside
of Christ are not in a conscious state of it, they're in a state
of limbo. They're the spirits in prison,
but when they were alive before the flood, that wicked world
that God came and judged, That spirit went and preached. How
did that spirit go and preach? That spirit that quickened the
Lord Jesus Christ, raised him from the dead. How did he go
in those days of Noah and preach righteousness? How did he do
that? By Noah, who was a preacher of righteousness. 2 Peter chapter
2 verse 5. Noah, a preacher of righteousness.
He preached righteousness. All the time he was building
the ark, he was preaching to his generation the righteousness
of God, which is in Christ and Him alone. And those that rejected
that preaching, and how many of them did? All apart from eight,
because Noah and his family were eight souls that were saved in
that ark. God spared not that world, that old world, but saved
Noah, the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in
the flood upon the world of the ungodly. They all died in their
sins and are reserved in death for final judgment. But Noah
preached God's righteousness, which is in Christ alone, and
pictured in the ark. Just as the ark portrayed salvation
from just condemnation, just as baptism pictures death in
Christ and resurrection to new life in him, so God uses the
preaching of gospel righteousness to call to belief his people,
regenerated by that same Spirit of God. Let me tell you, speaking
as a believer, this I believe is the true testimony of all
true believers. You can say, because the Word
of God has taught us, I was saved from sin in eternity, when I
was put by God's sovereign grace into union with God's Son, who
is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. I was saved in
time when Jesus Christ bore my sin in his own body on the cursed
tree of Calvary and paid its debt with his broken body and
his shed blood. I was raised when he was raised,
never more to die, for death no longer has any hold over me.
I know I have eternal life in him, but I only knew it and experienced
it in my being when I believed the gospel, quickened to believe
the gospel. That's how we know God, that's
how we live to the will of God, and then finally and briefly,
empowered to live to the will of God. Believers, those who
claim to know God, now this is an old-fashioned word, are converted
people. There used to be a lot of 1950s
and 60s evangelism, going up to people and saying, are you
converted brother? Are you converted? Believers, true believers, those
who claim to know God, are converted people. They're changed people.
They're new creatures. Old things are passed away. All
things have become new. Their old Gentile will, as it
says in verse 3 of chapter 4, the will of the Gentile, their
old Gentile will, with its sinful, godless lifestyle, is dead. From
now on, the desire is to the will of God. The true believer's
life is verse 6 of chapter 4. For this cause was the gospel
preached also to them that are dead in trespasses and sins,
that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live
according to God in the Spirit. They live according to God in
the Spirit. The no condemnation of Romans
8 verse 1 for those who are in Christ Jesus is only for those,
read on to the rest of the verse, who walk not after the flesh
but after the Spirit. Is that calling for perfection?
Is it saying that you must be perp? Absolutely not, you cannot.
I've already said, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves.
As long as we're in this body of flesh, we are sinners. And
we will never be anything other in this flesh than sinners. No,
there's ongoing sin. We try in vain, in the power
of the flesh, to do the will of God. And God calls all our
efforts righteousnesses. In Isaiah 64 and verse 6. all
our righteousnesses, all, you know, it's a good thing to do
good works, but if for one moment you think you are earning any
favour or any currency with God by virtue of those works, they
are righteousnesses. And God calls them filthy rags. Filthy rags. How worth, what
are filthy rags worth to you? Absolutely nothing. You just
want to burn them and get rid of them. They're vile, they're
revolting. They're never improved by law constraint. But the hidden
man of the heart, do you remember him? Chapter three and verse
four, the hidden man of the heart. That hidden man of the heart
desires the righteousness of God. That hidden man of the heart,
that new man, pursues it and seeks it in Christ alone. He
lives, verse 7 of chapter 4, the end of all things is at hand,
be sober and watch unto pray. He lives watching unto prayer
in a life of looking for the return of Christ and praying
thy kingdom come and seeking strength from God alone. But
the one who knows he is saved from sin, does not live happily,
contentedly, comfortably, in a settled state of open sin,
reveling in the sinful, godless values of those who do not fear
God. Is that right? Do we sin? Of
course we do. Do I sin every day? Of course I do. But do I
sin happy, settled, comfortable, in a state of ongoing sin and
doing the things that God openly, explicitly condemns. No I don't. If I do, I'm telling you, let's
not mince words, to say otherwise is antinomianism. It's to live
as if I'm using the liberty that Christ has purchased in the gospel
as my license to do whatever I please. Oh, he saved me from
the sin of stealing, therefore I can go and pinch things from
shops because there's no consequences for it. No, that's antinomianism. Oh, he saved me from the sin
of sexual immorality, therefore I can go and be as sexually immoral
as I want and get away with it. No, you can't. No, you can't.
It's antinomianism. Let's be in no doubt. Oh, he's
preaching legalism. You accuse me of what you want.
This is what the Word of God says. Don't be fooled. Don't
be fooled. Those who believe the truth,
we're sinners always in the flesh, but our desire is for the things
of God. God's will is that his people
should be changed. Be transformed, says Paul in
Romans 12.2. By the renewing of your mind, don't be conformed
to this world, this time frame in which we live, this culture
in which we live, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind
according to the will of God. In 1 Thessalonians 4, 3, this
is the will of God, you believers, even your sanctification, by
which he means in that context he means your separation from
the values and the sinful practices of this world to live to God,
to live for Him, to live to the will of God. So Peter, by God's
Spirit, challenges us, who say we believe and rest in a good
hope, do you? He challenges us to examine ourselves
whether we really do know God, whether we really do know salvation
from condemnation, whether we really do desire to live the
rest of our time in the flesh to the will of God. Amen.