All right, turn with me this
morning to 1 Peter chapter 4. We've been going through the
book of 1 Peter, and for the last several weeks, we've been
talking about the believer's walk and things that accompany
that walk, and in particular, the sufferings of a believer
as he walks through this world. 1 Peter chapter 4. I'll read our
verse in just a minute, but let me say some things. There was
a time when we walked contrary to God. We didn't walk with God. We weren't in a vacuum. We walked
contrary to God, apart from God. We didn't know God. We despised
God. Not our God, but the God of the
Bible. And we walked contrary to him.
We walked, the scripture says, and this is the only information
we have on the subject, but the scripture says we walked in darkness. In darkness. I got one time I
was out fishing down in Louisiana, down in Ball, Louisiana. There
was an abandoned army base there. And there were several lakes
that the deep beavers had dammed up, made lakes, and we'd go back
there and fish. And I was out there fishing.
I had picked my daughter up from cheerleading, and it was wintertime,
and it got dark early, and I had been catching fish. There was
one right after the other, so I fished till the last second.
And I gathered all these fish up in my arm and went over and
threw them in the trunk of my car and just kind of shut the
trunk down in one motion, and my keys was in my pocket, and
I heard them jingle in the trunk when I slammed the trunk. I had
on hip waders, and I'm back in this Army base, and the trees
had grown up over the road. I never seen such darkness in
all my life. You couldn't see your hand in
front of you. And I had to walk out of there in hip waders. But
this is how we walked in a spiritual sense. We walked in darkness.
You can't see where you're going. And we take others' word, their
word, on how to walk and where to walk and when to walk and
all of these things. We walked in darkness, in darkness. And it says also that we walked
in ignorance. We're ignorant of God, ignorant
of the things of God, ignorant of salvation in Christ. And we
walk that way. And we walk in the captivity
of a fallen nature, a nature that was prone to hate God, a
nature that loves darkness rather than light, a fallen nature,
depraved nature. And then Paul says this. He said,
we walk in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the
flesh, and of the mind. That's how we walk. That describes
our life in whatever form it may have taken, whether it was
a religious life or an irreligious life. We walked in the lust of
our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind.
We lived as fallen men, condemned men, and depraved men. And then think about this. We
lived in harmony with this world. We got along with others. We
walked just like they did. Now, isn't that how Paul describes
being dead in trespasses and sins over in Ephesians 2, chapter
1? That's how he describes it. We
walked according to the course of this world. We walked in perfect
harmony with the rest of the world. They approved of it. We approved of them. There was
no division. There was no, we walked in harmony
with them. We chased after the dreams of
this world and were by nature, Paul said, children of wrath
even as others. Now that's where and how God
finds his elect, walking contrary to God. Mostly because of our
faulty nature and partly because of the deceit of ungodly men. There was a time when we all
walked contrary to God. But God, the God of all grace,
the God of mercy, made provision for some. He did. He made provision. He made an
intervention. He intervened for them. He made
a provision for us. In fact, He made provision for
the believer from the beginning. All the way back, as far back
as Revelation goes, it tells us that He made provision for
the believer. He blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ according as He hath
chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world. He made provision. He made provision as he appointed
Christ the mediator of his eternal purpose of grace. God has a purpose
of grace. He's going to save somebody.
I don't know who they are. You don't know who they are.
But God knows who they are. And he made provision for them,
and he's going to save them. He appointed for them a federal
head and a substitute. He made provision for them when
he sent his son into this world as a man. When the fullness of
the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made
under the law to redeem them that were under the law. He made
provision. And He made provision for us
through His blood and righteousness. That's what Christ accomplished
when He came into this world. By His own blood, He entered
in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption
for us. That's what the Scripture says.
He obtained it. He didn't make it possible. He
obtained it. I don't know about you, but if
I go down here to the store and I hand this guy some money, I
expect something in return. I expect whatever it is I bought.
I expect a title or a deed or something for my money. I'm not
just going to give him money on the assumption that I may
or may not get what I'm buying. But that's what religion says
Christ did when he came into this world. That's not what he
did. He bought something. He purchased something, and it's
His. And what the Scripture says is
He entered into the holy place one time by His own blood into
heaven itself, having obtained eternal redemption for us. It's ours. And He made provision for us
through His blood and righteousness. He made provision for you as
He raised Christ from the dead. received him back into glory,
and seated him upon the throne at his own right hand. He appears
there at God's right hand, making intercession for us. He made
provision for us by sending the Holy Ghost into this world, and
then sending to you the messenger of God with his gospel, the gospel
of his sovereign grace in Christ. And I just want to say this,
every man chosen in Christ and predestinated unto the adoption
of children by Jesus Christ to himself, every man for whom Christ
died and lived, every man represented by him in glory from all eternity
is going to be called, he's going to be justified, and he's going
to be glorified. You see what I'm saying? God
made provision for some. He found them walking contrary
to him. Why did he call some and not
others? Because he made provision for
some. Why? Why just them? Why not everybody? You have to take that up with
God. Not a pot or pile over the clay,
one vessel. He can make one vessel under
honor, another under dishonor. You got to take that up with
him. That's what he told Moses. He said, I'll be gracious to
whom I will be gracious. I'll be merciful to whom I will
be merciful, and whom I will I'll hearten. That's God. That's why we call it sovereign
grace. It's grace bestowed by a sovereign. All right. Back in 1 Peter 3,
verse 18. I'll read this and then I'll
get to my text. It says, for Christ also hath
once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust. Why did he do
it? That he might bring us to God.
Huh? You reckon those he suffered,
the indignities that he suffered, The pain that he suffered, the
sorrow that he suffered, the humiliation that he suffered,
you reckon he ain't going to have those for whom he died?
This is that he 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. All right, now with these things
in mind, let's read the first two verses of our text in 1 Peter
chapter 4. For as much then as Christ has
suffered for us 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. There's two things stated in
these verses which will in time be known and understood in hearts
and minds of all them that believe. Two things. First of all, that
Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the Son of Man, suffered
for our sins. Did you hear what I said? I didn't
say he suffered for sins. I said he suffered for our sins. Not for sins in general. He didn't suffer for Judas' sins.
Otherwise, his suffering would be in vain. Otherwise, his coming
would have been in vain. Otherwise, those ordinations
and appointments of God would have been in vain. He would have
not gotten what he bought and paid for, what was given to him. He's not talking here about sins
in general, but sins for specific men and women and for the sins
and sin of which they had all been partakers of. Somehow religion
has conveyed or at least implied that God can forgive sin. One man illustrated it this way.
a big old blackboard in the back that they used for Sunday school
lessons, and he went back there one day and he said adultery,
and he put a mark on there, and thefts, and he put a mark on
there, and blasphemies, and he put a mark on there. And now
he said, this is forgiveness of sin. God takes an eraser and
wipes them out. That's not how God forgives sin. God can't simply just wipe your
sins off His books Sin must be judged and it must be punished. And the way God saves sinners
by His grace is by way of an eternal union with Christ. He
took some from the very beginning before He ever created a man.
He took those whom He would create. He took of them certain men and
women and He put them in His Son. He chose them in His Son. And by that election, by that
arrangement, he formed an everlasting and eternal union between the
believer and Christ. He made them one. One. Just as we're one with our father
Adam and we do what he did and act like he acted, we're guilty
of the same sin. Even so, all that Christ did
is charged to our account. an eternal union. And in Him,
we lived a perfect spotless life in full obedience to the law.
And then we died in our substitute, just as the law demanded. It
demanded the soul that's in us shall surely die. But what about
the believer? He died in Christ. God put him
to death. He judged his sin justly. And
he punished that sin to the full extent of God's justice. And
to the full honoring of the law of God, He judged him and took
his life from him. And we died in Him. He died as our substitute to
the full satisfaction of God's justice. And the message of the
ministry of reconciliation is that God was in Christ reconciling
the world. Not every individual, but his
people who were scattered all over the world. Not just the
Jews, but Gentile believers from every tribe, nation, kindred,
and tongue unto heaven. God was in Christ reconciling
the world unto himself. Now listen, not charging their
trespasses unto them. Even though they committed the
trespasses, those trespasses were charged to Christ, charged
to him. And all of their, just talking
about all their evil thoughts and murders and adulteries and
idolatries and thefts and ungodliness, they were all charged to Christ.
He bore, now listen, He bore our sins, that's what the Scripture
said, in His own body on the tree. He suffered for us in the
flesh and having suffered for us and dying for us, He was then
raised from the dead. Having put away our sins, He
was raised again for our justification and He ascended into glory No
longer, now listen to me, no longer bearing our sins. Now He came to bear our sins
and He bore them. And God judged them and punished
them and then He put them away. And having put Him away and satisfied
God's holy justice, God raised Him from the dead, justifying
all for whom Christ died. Isn't that what it says over
in Romans 4, verse 25? He was delivered for our offenses
and raised again for our justification. And having put away our sins,
having been raised for our justification, He ascended into glory, no longer
bearing our sins. Listen to this scripture in Hebrews
chapter 9, having stated these things, some of which I've already
quoted to you. It says so, down in verse 28,
Hebrews chapter 9, it says, so Christ was once offered to bear
the sins of many. And unto them that look for him
shall he appear the second time, now listen to this, without sin
unto salvation. Now, he had no sin personally.
And yet, by that eternal union and representation and substitution,
he bore our sins. But he put them sins away. And
when he comes again, he's not coming again to be sacrificed.
He's not coming again to be offered up for our sins. He's without
sin unto salvation. Sin no longer influences or has
any bearing on him whatsoever. He puts sin away. Now, here's
the second statement Peter makes in this verse. He said, with
this understanding, you arm yourselves likewise with the same mind.
For he that has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin. What does he mean, he's ceased
from sin? Does that mean he can live a
sinless life? The religion I was raised in
said men could. That was their boast. You could live a sinless life.
You could serve God and sanctify yourselves, and you could reach
a plateau where you didn't sin anymore. Sinless perfection.
That's what they preached. But that's not what the Bible
said. John said if we say we have not sinned, we make God
a liar. What does that mean? We're free
from the nature of sin. No, sir, the same man who said
we make God a liar said this. He said, if we say we have no
sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth's not in it. Well, what does he mean? What
does he mean? This man who has suffered, if
a man suffers, talking about this holy, godly suffering, if
a man suffers in the flesh, he's ceased from sin. Look at verse 2, 1 Peter chapter
4. He has ceased from sin, now listen, 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. The believer is not free from
the presence or the burden of sin. The way Paul describes it
in Romans chapter 7, he said, Oh, wretched man that I am, who
shall deliver me from the body of this death? I get the picture
in my head of a corpse chained to him. He can't get rid of it.
But this old corpse, dead in his mind, exposed in the death of Christ. Here's this corpse, this old
Flesh, this old nature, it's a corpse, it's dead to it. But
he still has to drag it around with him everywhere he goes,
everywhere he goes. Here's this old dead corpse. So we're not free from the presence
of burden of sin and we're not free from the inward warfare
because of sin. The flesh, that's old sinful
nature, it wars against the spirit. and the Spirit against the flesh.
These two are contrary, the one to the other. Well, what does
that mean? That means we suffer. That's
what that means. You can't do what you want to
do. I want to serve Christ. I want to be like Christ. I want
to go out in perfect faith and serve Him and honor Him. I don't
want anything I say or do to be an offense unto Him or to
offend His church or dishonor His church in any way. But I
have a sinful nature. And that which I would do, I
do not. I do not. And I suffer because
of that. Don't you? Sure you do. You struggle with that. We're
not free from the presence and burden of sin. And we're not
free from an inward warfare because of sin. But we're free, now listen
to me, from the reign of it. How does sin reign in a man?
How does it rule and dictate everything that he does? How
does sin reign? You children, you've heard me
talk about sin reign. Even as sin hath reigned unto
death, even so grace might reign through righteousness unto eternal
life by Jesus Christ our Lord. But how does sin reign? How does
it dictate this? It reigns by deceit. It reigns by lying to you. It reigns by falsehood and darkness. That's how it reigns. It makes
you to believe that what you're doing is right. Paul said, I
persecuted the church, but I did it in ignorance. Well, sure you
did. Sure you did. That's how sin
rules. That's how it reigns. Satan, he's a liar from the beginning. That's what our Lord told those
Pharisees. You're children of the devil. He was a liar from
the beginning. It's through deceit. These preachers
out here, Most of them, I'm going to give them the benefit of the
doubt, say most of them out here are totally deceived. They're sincere. They believe
what they're doing is right. They believe they're doing God
a service. And that's what our Lord said. There'll come a day
when men will kill you and think that they do God a service. That's
how sin reigns. It reigns through ignorance.
But the gospel brings light. Christ brings light into the
soul. He brings light. He has translated us from the
kingdom of darkness under the kingdom of His dear Son. He made
us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of enlightened saints. And this light that He shines
in our hearts exposes that ignorance, exposes that deceit. Isn't that what Paul said over
in Romans chapter 6? He said, you were the servants
of sin. That's how you served God. You
were the servants of sin. But when that form of doctrine,
which was delivered unto you, when you heard that, when that
form of doctrine came, when it came in power and the Holy Ghost,
He said, you was freed from that. You was freed from that reign.
Freed from that deceit. And you've become servants of
God. And that's what Peter's talking
about here. Our Lord put it this way. He said, a strong man armed
keepeth his palace. Keeps it safe. Keeps it. Nobody
can disturb it. You preach all you want to. You
can't disturb it. And less is stronger than he
overcome him. And that's what Christ does.
He overcomes the old man. He takes his weapons from him.
He takes his reign from him. He takes his power from him,
and he spoils all his goods that he thought was safe. The suffering for sins, which
is the experience of every believer, is a consciousness of sin. It's a despising of sin, and
it's a resistance of sin. Now, if I have a right understanding,
Romans chapter 7, Paul is saying that when he would do good, evil
was present with him. He found a law in his members. The believer's desire is to be
rid of sin. Well, preacher, aren't you afraid
when you preach the sovereign grace of God that men will just
go sin all they want to? No. No, I'm not afraid of that
whatsoever. I know if grace reigns in the
heart, that man will lose his want to sin. I'm not saying he
won't sin, but he loses his want to. I don't want to sin. My soul, there's a thousand occasions
a day, a hundred thousand occasions a day to sin if you want to sin.
You can sin in here. But the believer's desire is
to be rid of it. Now over in Ephesians chapter
4, let me go over some things with you over here. Paul said
we're to walk worthy, back in verse 1, of this vocation to
which we're called. What vocation? Well, we're called
to be saints. Now what Scripture said? Called
to be saints. sanctified people, called to
be heirs together of the grace of God, called into the ministry
of His church, to be fellow labors with God, called into His light,
His marvelous light. And then he goes on a little
further in Ephesians 4 and he tells us how to walk. We're to
walk with all lowliness and meekness and longsuffering for bearing
one another in love. We walk a lowly walk because
our pride's been destroyed. We've been exposed for what we
are. We've been hypocrites our whole life. We've been exposed.
That sin's been exposed. And we've been humble before
God. We see that we are what we are by the grace of God. And
so we walk in lowliness and meekness, and we're long-suffering because
We've experienced the long-suffering of God in our own lives. That
means putting up with. God put up with us, and those
who know that put up with one another. And it says forbearing
one another in love. Forbearing means to patiently
indulge. I have people talk to me from
time to time, and the things that they say are just It's like
a little child reasoning sometimes. It just, boy, it just, fingernails
on the blackboard to me. It just goes up and down my spine.
But I'm to patiently indulge my brethren. They'll grow. They'll grow in grace. That's
what it means. Forbear one another. Got a bad
temper, fly off the handle at the drop of a hat. What? Just indulge them. Just indulge
them. to withhold from action and to
restrain from judgment. And then he tells us then to
what end all this is for. He tells us in Ephesians 4 verse
3, he said, endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit in the
bond of peace. The unity of the spirit is to
be in one mind. That's what that means, to be
in one mind, the mind of Christ. He's our peace. He's our hope. He's our righteousness. We have a unity in Christ. He's
our hope. Every believer, you're not a
believer if you haven't come to Christ. But if you come to
Christ, we have a unity. We have a fellowship. Brother
Mahan used to say, fellowship fellers in the same ship. We
have a unity with one another. And then it's called here the
unity of the spirit. The ministry of the Holy Spirit
is Christ. That's why he calls our attention
to this unity of the spirit. The spirit reveals Christ to
the believer. as our righteousness, as our
justification, as our intercessor, as the one mediator between God
and men. He reveals Christ to us. And
then Paul tells us the means whereby all of this is accomplished. He said, the ascended Christ
gave to us apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastor-teachers.
And these, he said, God has ordained, verse 12, for the work of the
ministry and for the edifying of the body of Christ. Until
we all come into the unity of the faith. We all come into this
unity of the Spirit, this unity of Christ. We're all agreed on
Christ. We may not agree on other things,
but we agree on that. We agree on that. Until we all
come into the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son
of God. And where these things are put
into play and exercised and taken advantage of, the people, he
said, will henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro and
carried about with every wind of doctrine by the sleight of
men. The sleight of men is like, well,
let me pull a rabbit out of my hat. He pulls out this rabbit. That's sleight of hand, and that's
what he's talking about. These preachers, that's how they
preach, like a magician works and does things, and it appears
to be done a certain way, and it's done another. There's only one cure for deceit,
and that's to know the truth. Christ said to those professing
Jews, if you continue in My Word, then are you My disciples indeed,
and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free. Now that's context of Ephesians
4. Now look with me here at verse 17. Ephesians chapter 4, verse
17. This I say therefore. He's going
to make some application here. and testify in the Lord that
you henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk in the vanity of
their mind. You walk with the mind of Christ. Don't walk that old way. That was contrary to God. You
walked in the vanity of your mind. Vanity of mind is a disappointed
hope. That's what that means. A disappointed
hope. It means an empty hope like a
daydream or a feeling. And that's how we used to walk. Verse 18. Having the understanding
darkened. Being alienated from the life
of God through the ignorance that's in them because of the
blindness of their heart. And then verse 19. Who being
past feeling. What's that mean? That means
your conscience has been seared as with a hot iron, and it doesn't
feel guilt the way it once felt it. It doesn't, it doesn't, it's
not pricked with truth the way it once was. It's become easy
to sin, become easy to sin. Being overwhelmed by nature and
a world filled with darkness. Now look at the rest of that
verse. Having given themselves over to lasciviousness to work
all uncleanness with greediness. That's how we used to walk. Now
watch this, verse 20. But you have not so learned Christ. That's not how we learned Christ.
Believers walk with the mind of Christ. They know who bore
their sins, whose righteousness has been imputed to them. They
know who enabled God to be just in His justification and righteous
in His remission of sin. They know something of the exceeding
sinfulness of sin. And the man who claims to know
nothing in this world, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified, and
who confesses it before men, is going to suffer in this world.
He's going to suffer. He's going to suffer persecution,
and he's going to have inward sufferings over sin. Believers
are not delivered from the burden of sin or the warfare of sin,
but from the servitude of it. In Titus 2, verse 11, he said,
For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared unto
all men, that is, all to whom this gospel has been sent and
revealed and received. And this grace teaches us that
denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly,
righteously, and godly in this present world. And I'm going
to tell you something. Any other kind of grace is not
the grace of God. It's just not. It's not the grace
of God. The grace of God reigns. It reigns because it brings truth. It reigns because it reveals
the glory of God in Christ. And it reigns because it overcomes
the strong man and spoils his house and sets up his reign. And Christ don't reign in the
heart. You don't know the grace of God and you don't know the
living Christ.