Changed Lifestyle (Part B)

Then the commander of the Lord's army said to Joshua, take your sandal off your foot to the place where you stand as holy. Joshua did so.

I want that kind of experience. I want to be in the presence of God, so moved by God, because I know that is the best place to be. But God does not keep us there.

Joshua had to put his sandals on and walk away and go do things. Action had to follow this great act of worship. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of 1st Peter. Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. Changed Lifestyle is the title of Pastor Rick's message, and today he's teaching from 1st Peter chapter 4.

There is no born-again Christian that pursues sin and couldn't care less about it. Yeah, it's okay, it's fine. I like it. I'm going to do it again.

You should do it with me. I don't know if you're a believer. Now there are Christians that say, I can't stop this. I keep trying.

The urge comes up or I get provoked or whatever it may be. God can work with that one because the will is right. But when the will is disinterested in the will of God, what is left? And so when Christians suffer because we refuse sin, we're no longer controlled by the will of the flesh, the will of the spirit. This is characterized for us in our verses. Romans 12, 1, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. And so all of us know that we are to be gracious to those who are dealing with their sin because we want them to be gracious with us. Maybe you've lost your temper with someone and you're ashamed of your behavior. That's the mark of the Christian because you've gone against your Lord and you've hurt someone else.

And you want that moment back, but you can't get it. And hopefully you repent and the person forgives you. It says, part of what, when Peter said, how often should I forgive my brother?

Seven times 70, he thought he was being very spiritual. Forgiveness most of the time hurts. It hurts to forgive.

I don't know about most of the time, but some of the time for sure. It hurts to forgive. I forgive you. I don't want to forgive you. My flesh wants to retaliate. But I know the Lord Jesus Christ and he knows me.

And who am I to bear grudge when he does not bear one against me? That's Christianity. Now some might come along and think that you are careless with sin, but it's grace and it takes the skill of the Christian to be able to understand when one has to exercise discipline and one has to exercise grace. And so we no longer think sin is acceptable, that is what he is talking, but how many churchgoers wink at sin?

Think it's really not a problem. It caused the death of Christ. It causes the death of everyone. Sin is the problem. It is the ingredient, that single ingredient that won't be in heaven when we get there. You'll never have to ask anyone in heaven, how are you doing? You'll never have to worry about just are you going to have a good day?

Is someone going to harm you? There will be no keys, no hospitals, all of the junk that will be gone when we get to heaven. But now is war. When we sing the song Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. In that is confession and repentance and acceptance in that song. John Newton knew that he was a foul preacher and Christ loved him anyway. Took him in, made him one of his own.

He became a great preacher, wrote that timeless song, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. It was no apology, I really wasn't that bad, you know. No, I was a wretch because I broke the law of God.

Degree is irrelevant. To what degree did you break it, John? Doesn't matter, I broke it. Romans 7, Paul said, O wretched man that I am. Here's a great apostle Paul saying, what a wretched man I am. Who will deliver me?

Who will get me out of me? O wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death. Christ, of course, is his answer. When Peter first realized the holiness of Christ, it was a day at the lake of Galilee, he saw Jesus bring these fish into the boat for them. What did Peter do? He wanted Christ to depart from him because he felt so unworthy. Luke chapter 5, when Simon saw it, that's the miracle, he fell down at Jesus' knees saying, depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.

It's interesting, why do I got to walk away, Peter? That's a minor point of it, but you get the thrust of it is that here is a man confronted with the holiness of God and he has a sense of his own unworthiness in the presence of God. Joshua chapter 5, it's that beautiful scene, Joshua's wondering, well, I'm commanded to take out Jericho, Jericho must fall, but it's a walled city, it's a big walled city.

How am I going to do this? And as he's contemplating, well, I'll pick it up in Joshua 5 verse 13, and it came to pass when Joshua was by Jericho that he lifted up his eyes and looked and behold, a man stood opposite him with his sword drawn in his hand and Joshua went to him and said, are you for us or for our adversaries? So he said no, but as commander of the army of Yahweh, I've come now. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped him and said, what does my Lord say to his servant? Then the commander of the Lord's army said to Joshua, take your sandal off your foot for the place where you stand is holy. And Joshua did so.

I want that kind of experience. I want to be in the presence of God, so moved by God, because I know that is the best place to be. But God does not keep us there. Joshua had to put his sandals on and walk away and go do things. Action had to follow this great act of worship. Imagine if you never heard these things, you who love the Lord and do your best to serve him. Verse 2 now, we made it to verse 2, we've got 15 minutes left. That he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh for the lust of men but for the will of God. See, that's the difference. He ceased from sin in that sense. He now lives for the will of God. This is what's primary. So many things in this life do not have a next time.

They come along once and you either grab it or you miss it. May that not be the case with the preaching of Christ in your life. He calls for radical change. When Christ calls a soul, he's calling them to war.

He's calling them out of one meaningless fight to plunge into the next, have something to live for. I had nothing to live for before Jesus Christ except my own pleasures. I look back and say, what was I all about?

Hanging out with my friends, going there, doing this. What bearing did that have on anything? And when I came to Christ, the lights, all of them turned on, all the lights. I saw the filth and I saw the cleansing in one instant. And so did you who are born again.

You saw the glory of God, you saw your wretched state, you saw him deal with it and love you in spite of whatever your past had brought forward, whatever you and others suffered because of your past. And so things change in Christ. He says in verse 2, in the flesh for the lust of men but for the will of God. No longer living in the flesh for the lust of men but for the will of God. The flesh is that old nature, that sinful nature. In contrast to the Christian life, Romans 8, for those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh but those who live according to the spirit, the things of the spirit, for to be carnally minded is death but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. And I can add, and war.

There's the battle. There's that peace that I know I'm right, that Christ is with me. When Peter said, I'm going to get rid of this tent, I will just as the Lord said, I will one day be martyred. He knew Christ was with him.

He knew Christ would be with him. And that's the whole story concerning his walk in this life. And in the midst of struggle and persecution, there is peace that only the believer knows. The biggest thing that upsets my peace as a Christian is, certainly isn't worldlings, Christians sometimes, but most of the time it's me. It's my just dissatisfaction with my own service to Christ. And yet I know that my relentless pursuit forward is victory over the enemy. He is trying to get me to stop moving, keep moving forward anyway, because I know the mercy of God is bigger than my sin and my shortcomings and everything else. Verse 3, for we have spent enough of our past lifetime in doing the will of the Gentile when we walked in lewdness, lust, drunkenness, revelries, drinking parties and abominable idolatries. Peter gives you the impression that maybe when he was a fisherman before, maybe that's what it had when he said, depart from me, I'm a sinful man. He would say, well, I've been doing these things. And I know they're not right.

I knew they weren't right when I was doing them. Funny how that works. Christianity includes and involves a changed course. We change course, direction. Romans 6, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. Ephesians 2, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh, of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.

Of course, then he goes on to point out, we serve the Lord now. And so the world wants us, the world wants to pour us into its own mold, its own shape, its own form. It does not want us to have Christ formed in us. It wants humanity formed in us, which is depravity. These are the things he's talking about. Christ wants to pour his spirit into us.

This list is not intended to be exhaustive, but it is striking. Ludeness, that is sensual lust, or not just sexual, sensual, other strong desires, a licentiousness. Licentiousness, what a keen word. It means license. I have a license to sin. You sure do. God has a license to judge.

So I think it'd be best to get to the bottom of this. Peter used this word to describe what was going on in Sodom. He says that God delivered righteous lot, who was oppressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked. So the dominating idea here behind the word is this lewdness, is that shameful conduct, the emphasis on a sensuality that shocks the decency of everyone. Lust, strong desires of any kind, overwhelming desires to a fault.

And I must have it now with a salacious tone or craving that belongs to it. Drunkenness, the altered state of consciousness to one's own ruin, to compromise self-control through intoxicating drink is not advised. It ruins judgment. It weakens the power to resist temptation.

It is a gateway to immorality. It doesn't mean that, I hate to say it, but it's true, a Christian is free to have wine, but not free to be taken over by it. Revelries, unrestrained parties, fun to the point of sin. There are those who demand their freedom. Just never want to accept responsibility and responsibility before God. Or drinking parties.

That's an interesting one, is it not? They rallied to escape the pressures of this life through intoxicating drink only to sin. Debauchery, brawls, abominable idolatry is the worst of all of them. Of that whole list, the worst one is idolatry. Bold-faced lies about God making God in whatever your imagination brings up. Exodus 22, verse 20, he who sacrifices to any God except Yahweh only, he shall be utterly destroyed. This was the rule of the Jew, right? After the Ten Commandments were given, God says, anybody in your society that worships these fake gods, that's a capital crime because it will destroy the nation. It will bring more pain and suffering to people, little children and grown-ups alike. God has a perfect knowledge.

He knows where things are going. We don't always. Exodus 23, verse 13, and in all that I have said to you, be circumspect to make no mention of the name of other gods, nor let it be heard from your mouth.

That's pretty severe. If you were a Jew coming in this society hearing these laws, you would have to come away with saying, you know, he's pretty no-nonsense about this messing with his identity. And so, then there is the whole hell thing at the end of the psychedelic brick road that we work to get believers, unbelievers, to not travel down. And that's what they don't understand.

So the people that were persecuting these Christians didn't understand these Christians had the truth and they were saying to the world, we want you to come out of this stuff. There is a God. He is holy.

He is everlasting. We've got proof. We want you to come with us. And they were hated for that.

And thus, it's a very real thing. Verse 4, he says, in regard to these, they think it's strange that you do not run with them in the same flood of dissipation, speaking evil of you. The they, who are they? In regard to these, they think. Who?

Who? Those who have not fled to Christ for refuge from their sins that they might be forgiven. That's the they. Acts 3, Jesus said, you know, Peter said, repent, turn around, make the change, change your course of the will first. Therefore, be converted that your sins may be blotted out so times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.

Yet we're considered the oddballs in this world because we adhere to things that are wholesome. He says, in the same flood of dissipation, many who don't want Christ don't want Christ to be true. And they work to disprove him. And it's unfortunate. I've never heard an argument against Christ that made me say, wow, you got a good point.

What I have heard is, wow, how do I get the light into that? How do I show them that's not true? They won't believe me. See, that's why we need the Holy Spirit to work in a person's heart because we can only go but so far. And it angers some that we endorse a righteous life.

I don't know about you, but I know about me. There have been those in my past that would get angry with me for not drinking with them. Even before I was a Christian, I went, that's just not my thing. I don't do it.

They get upset. And then when I became a Christian, no, you know, I don't want to do it. Oh, you're a Christian, right? You're all born again, you roll over. Yeah, I'm all that.

And not ashamed of it, by the way. And it gets angry. Sometimes looking for, I'm sure they were back then, you know, they probably looked and I wonder if I can take him. I guess they couldn't, didn't think they could, or else they would have.

So, it's bizarre. May we not get angry with people for not coming to church with us. That's why you carry a bag, a big sack with you. You stuff them in the sack and you drag them to church. You don't give them a chance to get angry. Now, we would be like them and that's not, no, no, of course, that's not all unbelievers.

It's just some. Speaking evil of you because you don't share the lifestyle. You don't have the right to disagree with some people on things that they cherish. Isaiah 59, 15, so truth fails and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey. Yeah, you want to not do evil with everybody, they're going to come after you. And that was written by the prophet in Israel. The Jews were doing that, the people, not all of them, the unrighteous ones were. John 15, 18, if the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you. How heartbreaking. Isaiah 5, 20, woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light, light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.

They've got it all backwards and you cannot help them and they don't want it. Verse 5, I can pause here. I've lived on that side of the tracks and I ain't going back. It is not better.

I like it on this side. It's still hard, it's still painful, in some ways it's more painful, but again, it's now meaningful pain. It counts with my God. There will be a reward. Reward enough will be heaven. I mean, I don't know about you, do you have any trivial questions you'd like to have answered when you get to heaven? How many times has someone typed the letter T on a keyboard in humanity? I mean, trivial things. Well, you won't be too interested in that stuff when you get to heaven.

But it's fun to think about. I wonder how many times, anyway, okay, verse 5, they will give an account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. Now what tone is he using? He's not saying, those miserable people, he's probably, there's a note of great sorrow in his heart. They will give an account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead, who trouble the people of God. And he's talking about not the believers, we have a separate judgment. Some churchgoers, again, think it odd that pastors work to uphold what God clearly says the church is to uphold.

How heartbreaking that is. There are those that always want the righteous to appease flagrant sin. And, Joe, let's just keep them coming to church. That leaven will destroy the church. It won't be a church anymore.

It'll be the place they left last time. It does not bring success. It brings corruption to treat sin as though it were not a deadly thing. It is.

And we know it. And so to handle it without being self-righteous and obnoxious, that's the challenge. Verse 6, for this reason the gospel was preached also to those who are dead that they might be judged according to men in the flesh but live according to God in the spirit. Well, they weren't dead at the time the gospel was preached to them.

Again, the gospel had been around over 30 years by this point. Paul, when he writes in Corinthians, he says, which is not much younger than Peter's letter, he says, speaking of the resurrection of Christ, after he was seen by 500 brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep. And so what Paul is saying is there are many Christians who have received the gospel, and what Peter is also saying, but now at the time of their writings they had died. And so where he says for this reason the gospel was preached also to those who are dead, here in verse 6, he's not saying they were preached to while dead or after they died. He's saying they were preached to before they died that they might be judged, that they may avoid the judgment. They were since converted in this life and have gone to heaven. There's no retroactive gospel. There's no, you died, but you really didn't get the gospel, so now we're going to give you a second shot. God has settled matters in His divinity, and we trust as always that He, His judgment is right. I believe there are going to be many people in heaven that we're going to be surprised. I don't know how we're going to be. It's so veiled, it's going to be so incredible, but from this view, from here, I think there will be those in heaven that we will be surprised they're there.

How'd you get in? I never would have thought, because God knows more than we know, but the one who is in His face against Him, oh, I don't want to be you, and I don't want you to be that way. He says, live according to the Spirit.

The Spirit here is not of the Holy Spirit, but it's the Spirit that's made alive in the individual. The Christian life is what He is talking about, and so God judges He does judge the righteous and the unrighteous alike, one to condemnation and the other one to rewards and glory. So, we repent, each one of us, of our sins, and we're very sorry for them. I think all Christians are very sorry when we fall short of what God wants from us. But, don't be discouraged. You fail, don't be discouraged.

That discouragement that you may feel, use it to strengthen you to move forward. Let us not in any way permit ourselves from believing in the kindness and the mercy and the plan of God simply because we mess up. God is the one who makes all things new, and when He saved you, He knew and knows already the sins. I'll put it this way, when you came to Christ that day, you came to Christ, you gave your life to Him, and He received you as His own and said, I'll never leave you nor forsake you.

Nobody will take you out of My hand. He already knew the sins you would commit later anyway, but He has also taken steps to wipe them away. Isaiah 43 verse 24, we'll close with this. I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake, and I will not remember your sins. See, the sin is still there, and all of it's filled and wrong.

There have been sinners, Christians that have committed some serious sins, and yet God, so long as they love the Lord and want Him, they will have Him. We're so glad you tuned in today to study the book of 1 Peter on Cross Reference Radio. Cross Reference Radio is the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel in Mechanicsville, Virginia, and we're blessed to bring you God's word with each broadcast. If you'd like more information about this program or want to listen to additional teachings from Pastor Rick, please visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com. We also encourage you to subscribe to our podcast, so you'll never have to miss a program. Just search for Cross Reference Radio in iTunes, Google Play Music, or your favorite podcast app. We hope you'll tune in again next time to join us as we continue our study through the Scriptures right here on Cross Reference Radio.