Immanuel Sermon Audio
1 Peter (60:66)
All right, grab a Bible and find First Peter. Comes right before Second Peter. First Peter. We have two seniors, seniors in high school about to graduate, that go to Midland Classical Academy. Gladland Gladson twins and they're tall redheaded kids and they usually sit right back here on Sunday morning so you may be seeing them. And one of the things they do at MCA when you graduate is you have to give a final oral presentation. And so you have to pick a topic and you have to write a paper and you have to give a speech on that paper and all your friends and family and fellow students and instructors come and listen to it. And then at the end of the presentation you have to sit down with three of your instructors and they ask you questions and you have to answer them. And most of the questions are related to the paper but some of them are just other questions, things they expect you to know. And so I went to both of those this week. One of the brothers interviewed me for his paper and I'll be real honest with you, I forgot which one it was. So I said I better just go to both presentations. So I went to one on Monday. That was not the twin brother that interviewed me and then I went to day. And it's hard for me to sit and listen to people ask questions and not answer them. They were asking him questions and they did a fine job answering them but I just wanted to answer the questions. I wanted to talk. I'm used to talking. And so you better be glad first Peter is a short book because I've been saving it up all week long. And now I finally get to talk but there's only five chapters so there's not that much to talk about. So the book of first Peter is a book about suffering. And it's about a specific kind of suffering but before we laser beam on that, I just want you to think about suffering in general, okay? Just some examples, sickness, death, relationships that could be spouse, husband wife, that could be friends or lack thereof, that could be co-workers, relationships, other people. Money, if you don't have it, you find yourself in an economic situation of suffering. Frustration, frustration is suffering when you think that there's something out there that you want and you can't quite get to it, you're frustrated. It may not seem like suffering when you think about starving children in Africa but it is suffering and it does take a toll on you. And the opposite really of frustration is disappointment. Disappointment is when you get the thing that you think is really going to make you happy and then you realize it doesn't. And both of those are examples of suffering, depression, and then lastly persecution. And first Peter is about suffering experienced in the form of persecution. That's the sort of suffering in view. So understand that as we work through the book. But also understand that just about everything that Peter has to say to these people about how they should think about suffering and how they should make it through suffering can apply to any one of those types of suffering. And you don't need to feel a guilt trip, we're going to talk about this a little bit later. You don't need to feel a guilt trip that maybe you've never experienced that last type of suffering persecution. You don't need to feel guilty about that. You don't need to feel like oh well you know Christian's being beheaded by ISIS over there and Muslim countries that do terrible things to Christians and we live here, we have it so easy, I feel bad about that. God put you exactly where he wanted you to be. He didn't make a mistake in that. Book of Acts says that he determines the places and the times and the seasons when and where men live. So he has you here because he wants you here. So for you to throw some sort of mock pity party that well I don't experience persecution like people in Iraq, well God doesn't want you to feel that kind of pity party. So we're going to talk about suffering in this instance of persecution and I just bring this up at the beginning so you understand everything that Peter says you can easily apply to whatever sort of suffering you may be experiencing in your life or maybe you will in the future experience in your life. So I've already mentioned this but let's just state the obvious. We live in the United States, we're not persecuted. Okay, I don't care what Target says or what the Supreme Court says or listen, quit throwing the pity parties, Starbucks, all this crazy stuff, get over it, put your big boy pants on. We are not not persecuted. They may come when we are but that day is not right now. But there are places on the earth where Christians are severely persecuted. We're going to pray for some of those people a little bit later and every time I think about persecution, I think about a quote from a guy named Tertoyan. Tertoyan was one of the early church fathers. He was a lawyer, he was brilliant, he was an apologist for Christianity meaning he wrote books and he gave speeches and he preached sermons defending the faith and he was actually the first guy to write down in literature the word Trinity. The idea was there before but you had these heretics and these false teachers coming along and twisting what the New Testament said and Tertoyan said no, no, no, no, no, no. That's not what we believed forever. This is what we believed and he formulated this idea of the Trinity. He didn't invent it but formulated it and put it into words and he lived in North Africa. More than likely he was a black guy if you looked at him. He would not look like, I'm just looking around the room, most of us, much darker skin than us and this is one thing that Tertoyan said, always think about this when I think about persecution. He said the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church and what he was saying is you can persecute us but it's not going to stop Christianity. In fact when you kill us it purifies our churches, it creates more zeal in our churches, more commitment in our churches and we're going to grow and you can see that. You can see it in the book of Acts when there's persecution that breaks out the church actually grows, it spreads and you could see it in Tertoyan's day in the persecutions that took place. There's another side to that statement though that says at some point you run out of martyrs to kill and so you look at a map and you think about a place like North Africa. The green countries or the countries in the world predominantly populated by Muslim peoples and so North Africa, I just put a circle around North Africa right there, it's right in the heart of what we know as the Muslim world today. We don't think about brilliant theologians and people like pick your favorite preacher, Billy Graham, Beth Moore, John Piper, whoever you like. We don't think about these people coming from this part of the world. We think about terrorists coming from this part of the world. But if you would rewind the clock about 1500 years and you just ask the question where are the best and the brightest minds in the Christian faith, it was not Europe and it was not Jerusalem, it was North Africa, it was people like Tertoyan, people like Athanasius, his nickname was the Black Dwarf because guess what color his skin was? Black, people like Augustine of Hippo, all these guys didn't look very much like us from this part of the world, Christianity is the center, that's the heartbeat, that's where the greatest minds, the greatest theologians, the strongest churches were and so you got this one side of Tertoyan's sort of perspective on things that says you can persecute us, you can kill us but it's just going to make the church grow. You can also look back with history and say at some point they ran out of people to kill and they're all gone and you can see that in the world today. You can go to places like Iraq and Syria where 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago there was sizable Christian minority populations there and today they've all left, they've been killed, they fled because of persecution as refugees, it happens. On the one hand persecution can strengthen Christianity, on the other hand it can destroy it in a certain place, in a certain time, so you're just going to keep that in mind as we read through what Peter says about suffering and to be honest with you the kind of persecution that these people were dealing with at this point in history, this was not wipe them all out persecution, this was sporadic in different locations and different times depending on who the rulers were, the emperors or even probably more influential, the local officials and what edicts they decided to carry out, this is not like everyone in the Roman empires being rounded up as a Christian, not a whole lot of evidence that that ever happened, I know we like to think it did and it makes us feel good like we got really persecuted and Rome and they did some bad things but it just never really was this wholesale 100% all across the empire round them all up and kill them all, there's much more localized, much more sporadic and this is what these people are facing in the book of 1 Peter, so here's the outline of the book, it's really simple, there's an opening in a closing and then in the middle is the heart of the book, Peter says this is how you need to understand your salvation while you're in exile and then he says this is how you need to live your life while you're in exile and then the last section sort of talks about how you can persevere in suffering and so we're just going to sort of work through the book this evening, the author, this is a pretty easy one, it's Peter, the apostle Peter, says it right there in chapter one verse one, Peter an apostle of Jesus Christ and as an interesting note if you turn to the very end of first Peter chapter five verse 12 there's a verse that says by Sylvanas a faithful brother as I regarding I have written briefly to you exhorting and declaring that this is the true grace of God stand firm in it, so one of two things is possible there, either this guy named Sylvanas was Paul's amanuensis meaning Paul dictated the letter and Sylvanas wrote it down while Paul talked, that's one possibility, the other possibility is that he was the courier that took it to the churches where Paul wanted it to go, Paul gave it to this guy named Sylvanas and said here you take it and deliver it, one maybe both of those things is a possibility but he was involved in writing the book, here's what's interesting, if you get on the internet which is sometimes a dangerous thing to do when you're studying the Bible, some good sites and there's some really not good sites and you look up the book of first Peter, it won't take you long to find people saying Peter didn't write it, it was not written by Peter, in fact if you went to any prestigious non-evangelical university with the Bible department whether they study the Bible as literature or theology or history or whatever, almost all the big eggheads would just laugh at you for believing first Peter won one and saying oh you really think Peter wrote that, really, you really think that he wrote that and they give you all sorts of reasons for why Peter could not have possibly written this book and I thought about sharing some of those with you because some of them are kind of funny and then I thought they're just funny, they're stupid, it's just it's not convincing, when you read what they're saying I don't care how many letters they have after their name, it's not convincing, I don't buy it, so I'll just give you one example, the Greek, a first Peter, is very good Greek, okay, it's not like a five-year-old wrote it, it's not like a junior in high school wrote it, it's not like an uneducated dropout wrote it, somebody who wrote this book, whoever it was, was a very good writer, so you got all these eggheads, lived 2,000 years after the book was written and they have the audacity to say we know, we know, not we think, we know Peter didn't write it, he couldn't write that good. First of all, when you hear that I just say did you know Peter, like do you have other things that he's written that you can compare it to, like his journal or his dissertation or his essay in ninth grade, I mean how do you know, say well he was just a fisherman, a fisherman, how could a fisherman write something that's so professionally written, it's not possible, you say well when I read the gospels it sounds like Peter and his dad and his family had a pretty successful fishing business and lived in a part of the world where three languages were spoken, Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, and so if you were successful in business you had to be able to talk to anybody so he probably was trilingual, so he's already up on me, who says he couldn't write that well, and say well you know there's that verse in Acts where they haul Peter before the officials and they marvel at Peter because they say he was just an uneducated man, so he wasn't educated how could he write that well, and you look at it and you say yeah but in Acts the people that are saying that are the trained theologians and they're not so much impressed with Peter's grammar or rhetoric, they're really impressed with Peter's theological knowledge, his understanding of the Old Testament and the promises and the prophecies and basically what they're saying is how does this kind of know all this stuff, he hadn't been to seminary, and so you look at an argument like that and you have all these smart people, educated people, you understand sometimes educated people believe really dumb things, sometimes they believe really smart things, I mean they're educated for a reason but sometimes educated people believe really stupid things and so look Peter wrote it, it says right there in verse 1 chapter 1 Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, here's another just tidbit for you to chew on, you go back and you look at the manuscripts we have of this book and you go back and you look specifically at the other documents, ancient documents we have that quote this book, we know this book was written in the 60s, 60 AD, that's really you really can't debate that too much because there's other people not too many years after that quoting this book, so it had to be around, people had to know about it, people had to have been reading it, we know that Peter probably history tells us died around mid 60s, so he probably wrote this at the end of his life and you just want to say to some of these smart people, look if some some guy named Joe sat down and wrote a book and called it first Peter and signed Peter's name to the top of it and he did it a hundred years later like you say he did, Peter wasn't around, everybody knew he was dead, nobody would believe that, these people weren't stupid, sometimes we think of ancient people as stupid, they're not stupid, nobody would have bought it, Peter wrote it and importantly you need to understand who he wrote it to, he wrote it to Gentile Christians in Asia Minor who were suffering persecution, Gentile Christians in Asia Minor and they were suffering persecution, Asia Minor is what we call Turkey and it was divided up into several Roman provinces and right there in verse 1, he mentions Pontius, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, all of those provinces right next to each other in Asia Minor and more than likely they were Gentiles, there's several verses in 1 Peter that suggest that, let's look at a few of them, chapter 1 verse 14, says as obedient children do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, we sort of a strange thing for a Jew to tell a bunch of Jews that formerly they were ignorant in what they used to believe, incomplete, not fulfilled maybe but not ignorant, so it sounds like he's talking to Gentiles, chapter 1 verse 18 says knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, again sort of strange for a Jew to tell a bunch of Jews that the ways of his forefathers were futile or pointless or wasteful, so it sounds like he's talking to Gentiles, look at chapter 4 verse 3, the time that has passed suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties and lawless idolatry, with respect to this they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery and they malign you, but they will give an account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead, so it sounds like he's talking to Gentiles and he's obviously talking to Christians who are persecuted and I think, let me double check, I think I put these verses on your sheet, so we're not going to look these up, but if you want to go back and look at chapter 1, 6 to 7, 3, 13 to 17 you can look at all those and you can see, there's no doubt from beginning to end, he's talking to people who are experiencing suffering specifically persecution because they are Christians, so that's who wrote it, that's who he wrote it to, why did he write it? Two reasons, number one, he wants these suffering saints to see themselves as exiles, as strangers, as aliens, as people who are living in a place that is not their home, and so he says it right there in chapter 1 verse 1, to those who are elect exiles of the dispersion, where you live is not where you belong, look at chapter 1 verse 4, he talks about an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, your inheritance is not here, somebody should ask Joel Osteen to read that verse and say your best life is not here, your inheritance is not here, your reward is not here, I don't care how many verses you twist out of the book of Proverbs and throw up on a big screen, it's not, and it says it right here, your inheritance, it's imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, and it's being kept in heaven for you, that's your home, chapter 1 verse 17, if you call on him as father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, translation as long as you live on this earth, where it's not your home, you're here but you don't belong here, chapter 2 verse 9, it says you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness and into his marvelous light, once you were not a people, but now you are God's people, once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy, beloved, I urge you as sojourners, people who were just passing through, and exiles, people who don't belong here, you're not in your home, I'm urging you to abstain from the passions of the flesh which wage war against your soul, so clearly he's wanting these people to understand this earth is not your home, you don't belong here, listen, just take a time out and just use your brain for a second, you connect the dots, he's writing to people who are suffering, you maybe can't relate to suffering in the realm of persecution, but you can relate to one of the things I put up on the screen a minute ago, when you experience those things, this is one of the things you have to remind yourself, this is not my home, this is not where my reward is, it's not going to be like this forever, God has something better in store, and it may not be my best life tomorrow, it might be a really bad life tomorrow, but I have an inheritance, it's unperishable, it's unfading, no one can touch it or change it, it's being kept in heaven for me, you've got to remind yourself of that, it doesn't make your suffering necessarily easier, but it helps you to put it in perspective, so he wants them to know that they're exiles, here's the second reason he wrote the book, this is important, he wants to encourage them to suffer well. Christians in the United States are lousy at this, and you can put me at the front of that list, okay, I'm not just saying everybody else get it together and be like me, I'm saying we stink at this, when we suffer, lost death, sickness, depression, frustration, anxiety, disappointment, whatever, when you suffer, we just throw the biggest pity parties, the biggest pity parties in the world, and we just look inward, instead of looking outward, and reminding ourselves that we don't belong here, we turn inward, and we just look at ourselves, and we navel gaze, and we wonder why, and we just get introspective, and it's not healthy, spiritually, and Peter is saying to these people, you're going to suffer, nobody's questioning that, but if you're going to suffer, you might as well suffer well, don't do it poorly, don't waste it, there's good things that God wants to bring out of it, but you have to suffer well, and really the entire book is I read through Peter, I read lots of books studying how to teach first Peter, how to break it down, and here's the outline and all this stuff, is I read the book of 1 Peter, these two things sum it up, you don't belong here, this is not where you belong, don't act like this is your home, don't get too comfortable here, don't expect to get too comfortable here, and secondly, you're going to suffer while you're here, you might as well do it the right way, and all throughout the book, all the little things that Peter is saying to him are cluing them in, how do I suffer well, it's easy to suffer bad, you have to be intentional to suffer well, and so we're going to go through these, I'm going to give them to you quickly, and I think there's 14 of them, so there's a whole bunch, 14 point sermon, you ready? I told you I wanted to talk tonight, point one, set your mind on the grace of Jesus, if you're going to suffer well you've got to do that. 1 Peter 1, 13, therefore preparing your minds for action and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. If you're going to suffer well now, you have to have God's grace, especially as it's going to be revealed to you in the end when Christ comes back, you've got to set your focus on that grace, and if you just, you make a notes on your outline and you're in your Bible and you circle verse 13, when it talks about this grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ, he's basically talking about verse 3 all the way to verse 12, 3 to 12 talks about salvation, it talks about grace, it explains it in ways that will make your brain hurt. Amazing things he says about God's grace, and then he sums all that up, he's talked about grace, he's talked about salvation, he says look you're going to suffer well, you've got to focus on those things, you've got to think about those things, you have to preach these things to yourself, so set your mind on the grace of Jesus. Number two, commit to living a holy life. If you don't do that, you're not going to suffer well, commit to living a holy life. Chapter 1 verse 14, 15 and 16, as obedient children do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, you shall be holy, for I am holy. So I've had a conversation this week with a fellow pastor, and we sort of started on one topic and moved to another, and the issue that we've been discussing is does a Christian have to pursue holiness? Can you end up in heaven someday and not give a fly and flip about obeying Jesus? My answer is absolutely not, I've read the New Testament. Jesus says on the last day there will be people who know him, but he says I don't know you, you're workers of lawlessness. I don't know you. Paul says in Romans 8, pretty clearly this is chain of salvation, and he links right there together, justification and sanctification. They just they go together. And then he says to the church in Ephesus, yes, you're saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, for good works, verse 10, that God prepared beforehand that you should walk in them. And Jesus had the audacity to walk around to people and to say things like you're only my friend if you do what I tell you to do. If anyone wants to follow me, you have to deny yourself and take up your cross daily and follow me. Anyone. If anyone wants to follow me, that's what you have to do. The book of James says, I don't care what kind of faith you have. If it's not followed up in obedience, it's not worth anything. It's worthless. It doesn't save you. It's just demonic faith. The book of 1 John says it about 10 times in the book. If you don't do this, you're full in yourself. You don't know the truth. The light's not in you. You're walking in darkness. You're not saved. And my friend wants to say, no, you can pray a prayer and, you know, I hope that you obey and you become more like Christ. But if you don't, you're still going to go to heaven. When I read 1 Peter, in addition to all those other verses, chapter 1, verse 14, 15, 16, it doesn't sound really optional to me. Be holy. Do it. Pursue holiness. Not, this is where my friend wants to argue back. He says, well, you just, that's just work salvation. You're just telling people they have to earn their way in. Oh, we're not. Absolutely, we're not. First Peter 1 doesn't say, be holy so that you can go to heaven someday. 1 Peter 1 says, you need to be holy. Why? Because God's holy. And he says to do it. You should be like God. He saved you. You should be like him. If you're going to suffer well, you have to do that. You have to commit to living a holy life. Thirdly, find your place in the church. This makes some people really mad. The people that say, well, you don't have to, you don't have to go to church to be a Christian. You don't have to be part of a church family to be a Christian. Peter says, you need to find your place in the church if you're going to suffer well. Chapter 1, verse 22, having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere, brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart. Where do you love the brothers and the sisters with sincerity from a pure heart? You do it in the local church. That's where it happens. Chapter 2, verse 4, as you come to him, a living stone rejected by men, but in the sight of God chosen and precious you, yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house. You, plural, y'all, you guys are being built up into this spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. He's talking about the church. Look at chapter 4, verse 8, "Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins, show hospitality to one another without grumbling. As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another. God has given you a gift so that you can serve other people, not so you can keep it from yourself." He said, "Be a good steward of God's varied grace, whoever speaks is the one who speaks the oracles of God, whoever serves as the one who serves by the strength that God supplies, in order that in everything God might be glorified through Jesus Christ to him, belonging, glory, and dominion forever and ever, amen." Again, he's talking about the church, serving, use your gifts, hospitality, love one another. All of these things happen in the church. 4, you have to battle sin in your life. This is like the flip side of number 2. Commit to living a holy life, chasing obedience, becoming like God, but the flip side of that means you're going to have to battle sin in your life. Chapter 2, verse 1, "Put away malice and deceit in hypocrisy and envy and slander. Put them away. Be done with those things." Look at chapter 2, verse 11, "I urge you as sojourners and exiles abstain from the passions of the flesh which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable so that when they speak against you as evil doers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation, so you're going to have to fight sin in your life." 5, submit to authority. It should have had you fill in the word submit just to make the point that submit. It's a Bible word and you have to do it regardless of who you are to somebody, some place, some time, submitting as part of the deal. And he specifically talks about it in chapter 2, verse 13, to following where he says, "Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. This is the will of God that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. Honor everyone, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the emperor." You understand that when Peter wrote this, the emperors were not the best guys walking around on the earth, not the most moral, upright, noble, they were bad guys. And he says, "But they're the authority that's over you, so you need to honor them and you need to respect them." So today in 2016, we live in a country where we get to vote for our leaders, and you should be a part of that process because that means you are actually the one who bears the sword, not just the people who are in office in different places. You and I and the people have that responsibility, but also means that when there's somebody in power, you have the obligation to respect them. So well, they may not be very respectable. Well, neither was the emperor. If you're going to suffer well, you can't go around whining about everybody in power and authority, you have to submit. And I know that's hard, but that's what the Bible says. That's what Peter says. If you're going to suffer well, you're going to have to respect and submit to authority. Next, you've got to be a good spouse. If you're married, you might as well do a good job of it, Peter says. Be a good spouse, and he gives some instructions. You can read them in chapter 3, verse 1 to 7, and he gives some instructions to wives, and he gives some instructions to husbands. And a lot of people look at those instructions to wives and sort of get chills up their spine or they don't feel good about it. They don't like what it has to say. They think it's outdated. And I think from my perspective, as a pastor in dealing with families and husbands and wives and marriages, I'm a lot more concerned with what he has to say to husbands. And I think not all of the time, but a lot of the time, if husbands would do the things that they're supposed to do, many, not all, many of the problems that are addressed in the previous verses would take care of themselves. So he gives some instructions to husbands and wives, and he says, you need to be good at what you're doing. You need to honor God in that. Next, how do you suffer well? Don't seek revenge. That's a tough one, especially when you're being persecuted. Look at chapter 3, verse 8. Finally, all of you have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling on the contrary, bless, for to this you are called that you may obtain a blessing. Don't seek revenge. Next, be ready to share your faith. When you suffer, you're going to have opportunities to be a witness. That's why we call them martyrs, people who are killed for their faith. The word literally means a witness to bear witness, to give testimony to, and the first people who were killed for their faith were the people that were opening their mouths. It was not the people who believed the right things, it was the people who were saying the right things. So we call them martyrs. They were witnesses. And Peter says, you need to be ready to share your faith. 1 Peter 3, starting in verse 13, he says, who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good, but even if you should suffer for righteousness sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord is holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you. Yet do it with gentleness and respect. You need to be ready to share your faith. We're doing a secret church Bible study this Friday, and David Platt's going to give you some information that I think will help you do that, help you to share your faith. On Wednesday nights in the fall, we're going to spend from September to December, Wednesday nights, we'll be done with this series. We're going to talk about how to understand your faith, how to defend your faith, how to share your faith. That's what we're going to discuss. And so Peter says that's important, you need to be ready to share your faith. Next, he says, keep the end in view. You got to keep the end in view. We already read chapter four verse one to about seven, so we won't read it again. But what he specifically says in there is you need to remember that in the end there will be a judgment. You need to remember that. When you're suffering, remember that there will be a judgment. And think about what he's saying specifically to Christians who are suffering. He doesn't just want them to be afraid that they might wind up being judged by God, like straighten up or you're going to be judged. He wants them to be comforted, because he already told them you can't seek revenge. Don't repay evil for evil. Don't do that. In the end, I'm going to make it right. I'm not telling you to just forget about it. I'm not telling you it's okay that the emperor is treating you wrong. I'm not telling you that it's no big deal that you're suffering now. Just suck it up and get over it. I'm telling you in the end, it will all be made right. There will be a reckoning in the end. And Peter points them to that. Here's a tough one. Expect persecution and rejoice when it happens. Expect it and rejoice when it happens. Chapter 4 verse 12 says, "Do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you," as though something strange were happening to you. But instead of being surprised, rejoice insofar as you share in Christ's sufferings that you may also rejoice and be glad when His glory is revealed. So you need to expect it and rejoice in it. Next, rest in the faithfulness of God. Chapter 4 verse 19 is a great verse. "Let those who suffer according to God's will entrust their souls to a faithful creator while doing good." Rest in the faithfulness of God. Next, we're moving through these quick I know. Humbly cast your anxieties on God. Pray about it. Talk to God about it. It says it right there in chapter 5 verse 6, "Cast all your anxieties on Him because He cares for you." You know as well as I do when you suffer, you start to wonder about that. Does He care about me? Is He concerned about me? Does He know what's going on? Why is He letting this happen? Peter says, "He does care about you and you need to cast your anxieties on Him." Talk to Him about it. You need to watch for the enemy. He prowls around like a roaring lion seeking people to devour. And what better time to devour you than when you're at your weakest when you're suffering? He will not fight fair. He will not come to you on your best day. He will not try to tempt you to heinous sin when you're sitting in the sanctuary listening to a sermon. That will happen in a weak moment, in a tired moment, in an unsuspecting moment, in an alone moment. So you've got to watch. You've got to be on guard. Lastly, you've got to know the scriptures if you're going to suffer well. Nine quotes from the Old Testament in this very short book of 1 Peter. He mentioned several Old Testament characters and you've got to know the scriptures. There's no way around it. If you're going to suffer well, you've got to know the Bible. Now here's what we're going to end with. I don't think I put this on your outline. There's one section in 1 Peter. I think I hit every section in the book with those nine or those 14 things. This is how you suffer well. I did pretty much skip over chapter 3 verse 18 to 22. And we're going to talk about it very briefly. And it might be one of the most debated paragraphs in the entire Bible. And I think it's a fascinating passage. And I'm going to tell you what some other people have thought about it and give you some options. And I'm going to tell you what I think about it so you'll know what's right about it. And then I think when I tell you that, I think you think how it fits in the book, I think it makes sense. So let's just read it, okay. 1 Peter 3, 18. Christ also suffered once for sins the righteous for the unrighteous. Then he might bring us to God being put to death in the flesh but being made alive in the Spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison because they formerly did not obey when God's patience waited in the days of Noah. While the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is eight persons were brought safely through the water, baptism, which corresponds to this now saves you. Not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him. A few questions when you read through that passage. First of all, what does it mean when it says he was put to death, verse 18, put to death in the flesh but made alive in the Spirit? We're going to talk about that. What does it mean when it says he went and he proclaimed to the spirits in prison? Who are the spirits and what is the prison and where is it and what was he doing proclaiming? What did he say to them? It does say that these spirits formerly did not obey, they were disobedient, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah. So somehow these spirits are connected with Noah. It's a long time ago. And then he talks about these eight people were saved, brought through the water, and baptism, he says it right here in verse 21, baptism saves you. I just told you a minute ago, I thought it was grace alone through faith alone, by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, and now it sounds like Peter is saying baptism is what doesn't. And what does it mean that baptism is this appeal to God for a good conscience? And what does it mean in verse 22 when it talks about angels and authorities and powers? Who are those people that are now subjected to him? Okay, those are a lot of questions and I'm going to answer a few of them. Try to. First of all, this should make you feel totally hopeless that we're going to get the right answer on this passage. Okay, Martin Luther had an opinion about everything and he did not mind telling you exactly what his opinion was. And I'm not talking about Martin Luther King Jr. I'm talking about old school, Martin Luther in Germany, Protestant Reformation, 90 theses up on the door of the church in Wittenberg, and he was just, he was allowed mouth to be honest with you and he said some things that were really offensive. And at times people read his writings and they say, well, he's just arrogant. He thinks he knows everything. Look what he said about this passage. It's a wonderful text and a more obscure passage perhaps than any other in the New Testament. So I don't know what Peter's talking about. That's the guy who had an opinion about everything and he says, I'm going to be honest with you, I have no idea what this passage is talking about. So that should give you lots of hope that we're going to figure it out, right? Verse 18, it starts off pretty plain. Look at verse 18. Christ suffered once. Some of your translations say once for all time. Okay, the emphasis there is that he did it one time. He suffered once at the cross, the righteous for the unrighteous. Jesus was righteous. We're not. We're unrighteous. And his suffering was not for anything that he had done, but it was for what we had done. And he did it. Verse 18 says so that he might bring us to God, okay? The Bible says that your sins is in Isaiah. I have made a separation between you and God, Isaiah 59, too. And when the righteous ones suffered for us, 2 Corinthians 5, it reconciled us to God and brought back together. So so far so good. Then it says being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit. Let's have a little poll. That word spirit in verse 18, if you're reading out of a Bible where that word spirit, the last word in verse 18, is a lower case S, raise your hand. If you're reading out of a Bible and it's an upper case S, raise your hand. Okay, so the lower case are going to get on this side and the big ones are going to get on this side and we're going to fight. We're going to see who's right. Here's the breakdown in the ESV, which is what I preach out of, in the New American standard and the home and Christian, it is lower case S spirit. Okay, meaning Jesus's spirit. He had a body and he had a soul, a spirit, and is talking about his spirit. The people who translated those top three, they're making an interpretive decision for you. Because you understand, I don't need to tell you this, but I'm going to tell you just in case, in Greek, when they wrote these books in the New Testament, they're written in all lower case letters. You know the Greek letters you see on fraternity houses, they didn't use those when they're writing the New Testament. It's all lower case, there's no spaces, there's no punctuation, it's just letter letter letter letter letter letter letter letter. You got to know what the word is and you got to know what needs to be capitalized and what doesn't. So in the Greek, it's none of it's capitalized. And the top three guys get together and they say, we think it's talking about Jesus's spirit made alive in his spirit. The bottom three guys, King James and New King James, NIV and NLT, say no, he is made alive in the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the one who brought him back to life. And so you can pick what you think right there. If you want to be right, you'll go with the capital S. As much as I like the ESV, I think it's capital S. And I'm going to give you a verse, you look it up later. 1 Timothy 3 16, almost the exact same words talking about, he died in the flesh, but he was made alive by the Holy Spirit. And when you go to 1 Timothy 3 16, almost all translations, capitalized Holy Spirit there. So what Peter's saying, you're tracking with him, okay, we're just working through this. Jesus suffered one time, he was righteous, we're not. And he suffered so that he could bring us to God. And in his body, he died. It was really dead. He was a human being and he died. But the Holy Spirit made him alive. The Spirit of God raised him from the dead. Verse 19, in which, in that Spirit, in the Holy Spirit, he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, the ones who disobeyed when God's patience weighed and waited in the days of Noah. Eight people were saved and somehow that has something to do with baptism. I just give you four options and then I'll tell you which one I think is right, okay. Option one about what is that talking about? Church Father Augustine is a really smart guy, said Christ was preaching through Noah. Noah was the one doing the preaching and it was the spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit Christ speaking through Noah to the people that were alive while he was building the ark and those spirits that are in prison are the unbelievers who died in the flood in Noah's day. That's how Augustine explains that passage. Noah was the one doing the preaching and it was the spirit of God speaking through him and he's talking to all these lost people and they died. And for some reason, this is where it kind of gets weird. For some reason, he went to speak to them, to which you say, well, why them? And on all the other unbelievers, why those people? What was different about them and what did he have to say to them that would be somehow unique compared to all the other lost people who rejected God's promises and his truth and his revelations and all that stuff. So there's one option, I'm not convinced by that one, but you can take that one. You want to side with Augustine, find by me. Here's another one, option two. He's talking about Old Testament saints, believers who died and they went to some sort of holding place until Christ died and was rose from the dead. And when that happened, Jesus went to this place in between his death and his resurrection and he freed them from their bondage. So this theory says there's all these Old Testament believers, Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, Joseph, David, okay, on and on. You got all these guys, they died and they went to some sort of holding place and they just waited there. They weren't in hell. They weren't in heaven and just in this place. And Jesus went there between his death and his resurrection and he somehow freed them. He proclaimed freedom to them and they got out. And that's another option. A lot of people believe this. And the problem with it is it doesn't sound like it doesn't sound like it's talking about Old Testament saints when it talks about those who did not obey. Those who didn't, that'd be a strange way to describe Old Testament believers. That's the only description we have, the ones who didn't obey. And it also doesn't explain anything about this where they're being kept. Why are they kept there? You don't read about that anywhere in the Old Testament. You don't read about that anywhere in the New Testament. They're just sort of there in limbo. And so I don't think you should pick that view. Here's a third one. He's talking about humans who died during the flood and after he died, Christ ascended to hell and he gave them a second chance, an opportunity to repent and be saved. And most people who take this interpretation say God's going to give everybody a second chance. After you die, you get one last chance. Like, okay, now you're dead. You rejected Jesus. Now you're looking at Jesus. Do you want to accept him or reject him? You got one more chance. Like, I don't see that anywhere in the Bible. I don't see it anywhere in the New Testament or the Old Testament. And again, it really doesn't, it doesn't do a whole lot of justice to Christ is going to proclaim to them. I don't think it fits. Specifically talking in this passage about spirits who formerly did not obey during the days of Noah. And so you look at that and you say, so why did he go and only preach to the ones who died during the flood? Why wouldn't he go preach to everyone? If everyone's going to get this second chance, I don't think it fits. It doesn't make sense. So I'm going to tell you, before I put number four up, I'm going to just say this. In some ways, number four is way more hard to believe than any of the other ones I just put up there. And the reason it's hard to believe is because our worldview as Western Americans does not line up with a biblical worldview on a lot of levels. So I'm going to tell you what I think it's saying, and some of you when you hear this might be sitting out there thinking my pastor is a lunatic. He's really crazy. He's off his rocker. He has lost his mind. And maybe I have. But I think it fits with the Bible, with the text of the Bible, and the stories of the Bible, and what Peter's saying. And I think it fits with the overarching message of 1 Peter. So here's the last theory. Number four, Peter is talking about Christ's proclamation of victory and judgment over the evil angels mentioned in Genesis 6, 1 to 4, who were imprisoned for their transgression. I think that's what he's talking about. And I don't think it's even debatable really at all. I'll do respect to a gust and I don't think it's debatable on any level. So you go back and you read Genesis 6, 1 to 4. It talks about sons of God going into the daughters of men. And a lot of people say sons of God, that's talking about the godly line of Seth is talking about human beings and they took all these wives. And that's not what the phrase sons of God means in the Old Testament. Sons of God consistently in the Old Testament is used to refer to the angelic hosts, God's court, his divine counsel, so to speak, of these supernatural beings. And what seems to be indicated in Genesis 6 and other passages that reference it is that I can't explain this to you, okay? This is where you might think I'm crazy. But it seems to say that somehow angels had offspring with children and those offspring were giants. So you can think that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. I can handle you thinking that's the dumbest thing that you've ever heard. You just have to come up with a better theory in explaining this passage to me. And so these angels have this interaction with these human women and they have these offspring. And that's one of the reasons that God is outraged and furious with humanity at the time of the flood and he wipes everything out. And there's a lot more we could say about that. But I think that's what's going on. And what Peter is telling us is this. After Jesus suffered, okay? He suffered once. He went to this place. Jude talks about it that these spirits who disobeyed were kept in gloomy dungeons and chains. In the spiritual realm, these angels who rebelled against God left this court of the sons of God and rebelled and did this wicked thing that God did not want them to do. These angels, Christ went, they being held for the day of judgment, Christ went to them, and basically what he said is, I win, you lose. I'm the winner and you're the loser. I think it makes sense if you look over in 1 Peter 1 in verse 12, Peter says that angels long to look into the way that God interacts with human beings. He's talking about salvation history and he says, angels long to look into this. And what he's saying is, look, when angels sinned, it was judgment only. When humanity sinned, there was judgment, but there was also salvation. And that boggles the angelic mind. That didn't happen to their race. There's no salvation. You're a holy angel, you're in, or you rebel and you're out, and that's it. And as they watch this unfolding drama of salvation, they long to look into it. They're fascinated by it. They don't understand it. It's mind-boggling. Why would the Creator go down and save these people who are rebels? I don't understand it. And Jesus goes to these angels who rebelled long, long ago, reading the book of June, we'll get there in a few weeks, says they're being kept in chains and gloomy darkness. And he went to say to them, I'm the winner and you're the loser. You thought you could trump me, you thought you could one-up me, you thought you could revolt against me. It's not going to happen. And it says at the end of verse 22 that all angels, authorities, and powers have been subjected to Him. I wrote my dissertation on, in part, this passage and a few other passages like it. And I'll just tell you to save you the boring read of my dissertation. When the New Testament talks about authorities and powers, it's talking about demons. That's the long and the short of it. And he says right there at the end, now that he is enthroned in heaven as the king of all kings, he's ascended to his rightful place in the universe. All angels and demons, authorities and powers have been subjected to him. And he went to those who rebelled in this terrible rebellion way back when, and he said to them, you lose and I win. Now you hear all that and you say, okay, what in the world does that have to do with suffering Christians? How is that going to help them suffer better? I think it does help them. For one thing, he says right here in verse 18, you suffer so did Christ. He suffered. You do have somebody who knows what it's like to walk a mile in your shoes and to suffer. Christ suffered. He knows what it feels like to suffer. He went and he proclaimed victory to enemies look like they had forgotten these enemies. Thousands and thousands of years have gone by and nothing had happened to them. And he went and he proclaimed victory to them. And he's saying to these people, look, I know the emperor is in charge and I know it looks like he's getting away with all this. But down there in chapter four, what immediately what follows, this weird passage, immediately after that he says, look, there is going to be a day of judgment. You know that. God is going to make it all right. Just like he went and he told these angels, you lose, I win, judge them, punish them, he's going to make it right in the end. So I think it fits in that sense. He talks about Noah's day, only eight were saved. There was a small remnant being saved. He's writing to people who are not sitting in a mega church on Sunday morning. You understand that? They're not sitting in a room with ginormous screens and hundreds and thousands of people with them and they're not the moral majority and the big powerful voting block. They're just they're exiles, scattered, a tiny minority, a tiny remnant seeming insignificant. And he says to him right here, look, God used a remnant before. He did it before in the days of Noah and he can do it again. He's going to be faithful to you and he's going to use you. You don't need to be worried about how powerless you seem to be. God's got this. He talks about Noah came safely through the water. The very thing that was judgment for the world was salvation through Noah for Noah. Right? The water judges everyone on the earth in no way is saved through it. I tell this to every kid, every teenager, every adult who gets baptized in our church. It's the exact same picture. That's why we immerse in water and we don't pour a bucket on your head. We dip you down under the water and I say to these kids and young adults and adults and everybody I say, well, what happened if we just held you under the water? You died. That's the point. Roman 6, you've died. You've passed through God's judgment and you've come safely to the other side just like Noah did. When he says baptism saves you, he's not saying you're lost. Now you're saved. He's saying, this is the picture of what's happening. You're passing through the waters of judgment. He says Christ is at the right hand of God and all the demonic powers are subjected to him and he tells them just in the verses following immediately that your suffering will be vindicated when Christ returns. So I think that's what it means and if you would like to talk about it or argue about it or tell me how crazy you think I am, I would love to hear it and we can discuss it. But it doesn't take away from the overall point of the book is that he wants you to understand that this is not your home. You don't belong here and he wants you to know you're going to suffer sooner or later some way, shape, or form, some time you're going to have a day, a month, a week, a year, a decade, or something. Life is not the way it was originally intended to be so you better be ready for it and he wants you to suffer well and he lays all these things out. Here's what you do to suffer well. Go to church. Know the scriptures. You kill sin in your life. You're ready to share your faith. You pursue holiness on and on and on and on. You put your hope in God's grace that's going to be revealed. So we're going to pray together and ask that God would help us to do that. So let's pray. Father, we love you. We're grateful for your word and grateful for the book of 1 Peter. We do pray that you would give us wisdom when we come to a passage that's hard to understand and give us humility when the Bible calls us to believe things that are hard to believe. Father, if we need to change the way we think about reality, the way that we view the world, we want to do that. We never want to conform the Bible to our brains, but we want to conform our minds to the truth of your word. And Father, help us to live in Odessa, Texas in the year 2016 as exiles, help us not to be too comfortable here, and help us to suffer well, setting our mind on on your grace, committing to holiness, serving in your church, battling sin, submitting to authority, being good husbands and being good wives, not seeking revenge and being ready to share our faith, keeping our eye to the day of judgment, rejoicing in persecution, Father, help us to rest in your faithfulness, help us to cast our cares and our fears and our anxieties on you, help us to be watchful for the enemy who wants to devour us, and Father, give us wisdom as we continue to study your word. We love you, and we are grateful for the hope that we have in Jesus Christ, a hope that is far greater than anything that this world has to offer, and we pray in His name. Amen.