Stop Sinning

Today on Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. The fact that you are choosing to continue to suffer and not sin, the fact that you are choosing suffering voluntarily shows that you have ceased from sin. Does that make sense? That's a test that most of you are going to go through at some point in your life and it will determine whether or not your faith is real. You do not determine the reality of your faith by how high you can raise your hands when everything's going well in your life. Welcome back to Summit Life with Pastor J.D. Greer.

I'm your host, Molly Vidovich. You know, when we're facing a personal tragedy, a lot of people assume it's a punishment and they try to figure out what they did wrong. But while it is true that we can cause ourselves a lot of pain when we disobey God, today on Summit Life, Pastor J.D. reveals that sometimes our suffering comes because we actually obeyed God's law.

How does that make sense? We're going to look to scripture to find the answer with a sermon J.D. called Stop Sinning.

Anyone up for that? Remember, if you missed any of the previous messages from our study of 1 Peter, you can hear them at jdgreer.com. But for now, let's join Pastor J.D. in 1 Peter once again. If you look at 1 Peter 4, we're going to look at the first 11 verses. Peter pretty much has two points that he makes in those verses. The first seven verses, here's his point.

You ready? Stop sinning, right? And then the second four to have verses, his message is start serving God. Now, again, that's a pretty predictable message.

None of you are like, oh, I didn't see that one coming. Better write that down. No, that's what you expect to get when you come to church. But the reasons that Peter gives you in 1 Peter 4 for why you are to do those things are pretty profound.

In fact, they're kind of life changing. So I want us to walk through this passage. We're going to go through it literally phrase by phrase. And I'm going to try to show you why Peter tells you those two things are so essential. Three things he tells you, 1 Peter 4, 1 through 11, three things he tells you are the reasons you are to stop sinning. He said three things to remember. First of all, they are remember the resurrection. Number two, remember eternity. And then number three, remember that both of these things are imminent. Remember the resurrection, remember eternity, remember that both of these things are imminent. So let's begin there with number one, remember the resurrection. Chapter 4, verse 1, since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, you should arm yourselves with the same way of thinking for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin.

Since Christ has suffered in the flesh, Christ suffered to the point of crucifixion. There was a point in Christ's ministry toward the end where it looked like everything had gone wrong. It looked like the bad guys had won. It looked like God was totally out of control. But we know, Peter says, on the other side of the resurrection that just when it seemed that God was most out of control was the time that God was doing his greatest work. So he says to these people, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking because many of you are also in a time where it seems like life is out of control, where it seems like God is not on the throne, and where it seems like the bad guys are winning. And I want you to think like Christ thought because Christ saw through the dark hour to the resurrection and saw that God was in control. And you've got to learn to think like that. I mean, think about how much in despair the disciples were Friday night or Saturday morning after Jesus had died.

He said, you're like that. Some of you are in times like that. Arm yourself with the same way of thinking because whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin. That's kind of a confusing phrase, but here's what it means. What it means is that quite often in life we have a choice between suffering and sinning. And sometimes we can get out of suffering by sinning.

I'll give you two or three ways we could do this, okay? One is the obvious one. That's what Peter is talking about. He's talking to people who are willingly suffering because of their testimony about Christ.

And they can very easily shut up about Christ and avoid the persecution. If you're going to follow Jesus, it means you've got to pick up a cross to follow him, which means you voluntarily engage in suffering sometimes. For example, when you give your money. When you give your money, you are undergoing a kind of suffering.

When you give your money, you are giving up something that you would like to probably have. And so you deprive yourself of that because you believe the gospel is worth it, right? And so you have ceased from a self-indulgent lifestyle and you have begun to follow Jesus.

And the fact that you would give up your money or the creature comforts or these things that money can buy proves that your confession of faith and your following of Jesus is genuine. For other people, when they suffer, there is a temptation to get out of that suffering. Maybe it's just your marriage takes and you're suffering in a bad marriage. Or maybe your body's in pain.

Or maybe it's a bad situation at work. You're suffering. There's an escape way that people have found from suffering by medicating it with sin. You ever do this?

Or you ever get tempted to do this? You escape from suffering by pornography. It's a way to deal with it. You escape from the suffering of a bad marriage by engaging in an affair. You escape from certain things through alcohol. And what Peter says is the fact that you are choosing to continue to suffer and not sin, whether that's denying Christ or quit sacrificing for the mission or medicating with sin, whatever it is, the fact that you are choosing suffering voluntarily shows that you have ceased from sin.

Does that make sense? That's a test that most of you are going to go through at some point in your life and it will determine whether or not your faith is real. You do not determine the reality of your faith by how high you can raise your hands when everything's going well in your life. What shows whether your faith is real is when everything is gone and all you've got left is God about whether he is enough. That's when it shows whether your faith is genuine.

And unfortunately, I'm not trying to be negative, but many of you, some of you won't make it through that test. Jesus talked about seed that was scattered and some fell on the ground and sprouted up quickly. And then the sun comes out, the sun which Jesus had represented persecution, and it said that the plants withered away because they had no root.

Some of you, everything is okay, everything is fine as long as everything has fallen into place in your life. But the first sign of suffering for the cause of Jesus, and you give it up, you give it up because that faith is not real. Peter says, whoever has suffered has ceased from sin, so arm yourselves. Arm yourself with the same way of thinking that Christ had. Think of it like a weapon that you would wield in battle. You've got to carry it into the battle and you've got to think in the midst of suffering about what Jesus went through and what he thought about because only when you think about the cross and the resurrection will you ever look at your suffering in the right way and ever be able to maintain the kind of stand with Jesus that you got to and you'll only have tenacity as the gospel of Christ's cross and resurrection saturates your heart.

Does that make sense? What Peter's saying is essentially you arm yourself with the same way of thinking that Christ had because if you look at the cross and the resurrection of Jesus, two things you ought to know about your life. One, you're going to suffer like he did. Number two, God has the last word. So in the midst of that, don't be surprised by suffering, don't conclude that God is mad at you, don't conclude that God has forsaken you. Just realize that you ought to arm yourself with the same way of thinking because like Christ lived.

You're going to go through this like Christ did, but God has the last word and just in that moment where you think that things are the darkest and God seems the farthest away, it is then that he is working his greatest plan in your life. So he goes on, verse two, look at this. Verse two, he says, so as to live for the rest of your time in the flesh, no longer for human passions, but now for the will of God. For the time has passed, it suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, which is living in sensuality, passions. Passions means craving.

It's a Greek word that means epithumia. Epithumia means a craving for something, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, 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. Peter is talking to people that this used to be their lifestyle. This used to be some of your lifestyle and he says now that you no longer join them in this, they are surprised and they malign you because they can't understand why you wouldn't do those things anymore.

Why wouldn't you join in those things? Why don't they understand that? Well, because they don't have a hope that goes beyond this world.

So naturally, their attitude is to get the most out of this world and so their mantra is you gotta feel good, you gotta chase your dreams, you gotta make the most out of what you have, you gotta do what you want, you gotta make yourself feel good, you gotta spend all your money on yourself, you gotta make a bucket list because what else is there but happiness? And when you don't join them in that, it scares them and it disturbs them. Here's the great thing about Peter. Peter shows you that Christians are supposed to be simultaneously extremely attractive to the world and thoroughly disturbing and disgusting to the world. And by the way, if that's not the reaction you have on people, then you're probably not living as a follower of Jesus because Jesus had that reaction.

Sinners were unbelievably attracted to him. 1 Peter 3.15, Peter says, your life is gonna be such that people ask you a reason for the hope that's in you. They ask you what fuels this unbelievable generosity. But they're also disturbing to them so that they malign you. They just make fun of you because they can't, it disturbs them how you live. They'll start a show on TLC called The Virgin Diaries About You where they say, what's wrong with these people? Who would wait to have sex before marriage? And then they find the dumbest, most ill-adjusted people to represent our side so they can make fun of them. I'll tell you who waits to have sex before marriage, people who believe there's a God in heaven who makes the rules and to whom we gotta give an account because they don't have any concept of that God.

They'll go on making fun of us because they don't have any awareness of him. Who would go live in an unreached people group by choice? Who would voluntarily move away from their family 12,000 miles to go live in a strange culture? There's somebody like, well, if you knew my family, you would understand why I moved 12,000.

I'm not talking to you, okay. But normal people. Who would voluntarily move 12,000 miles away from their family to live in a culture? People who believe the gospel's true, that's who. People who understand that we got one shot to spread the gospel of Christ and that Christ left heaven to come to earth to save us and the whole world's gotta stand before God and we got one shot to preach the gospel to people who are like us, that's who does things like that.

You oughta confuse the world how you live. Who would give their money this way? I don't mean occasionally coming to church and kind of tipping your hat to God and throw a little money in the offering plate. I mean, who would actually divest themselves to leverage their resources, not for personal gain, but to leverage their talents and their resources for the kingdom of God?

Who would do that? People who believe that eternity is coming. People who believe that eternity is such, the Bible says, that it makes the nicest place down here look like living in a garbage can.

So naturally, we don't take our resources and try to just make the most of things down here. We want to invest it in eternity. People who believe that they are saved because Christ has been generous with them, that's who lives that way. He says, your life, because of the resurrection, ought to make them both unbelievably attracted to you and simultaneously repulsive to them. Are you having that effect on people? If not, you are probably not a follower of Jesus.

I'm not trying to be ugly, I'm just saying. What you probably are is you're somebody who's added a little God mix to your cocktail of life. That's an original analogy, by the way. You've added a little God to this mix where you're a little bit more moral, but you're just kind of boring.

It's like you kind of cut some of the extreme sins out, you've got a little definition, you've found some purpose. But that's not what Jesus is talking about when he's talking about following him. That's not what Peter's talking about.

He's talking about living with such hope and then it's the pain that it blows people's minds about being so radically generous with your money that they can't understand it. Because that's what Jesus was like. They couldn't get ahold of him. And when the apostles were like that, that's why, by the way, the apostles were so indomitable. You know, I mean, think about what you would do with an apostle, you know, like in Acts. They're always trying to shut him up. Like, hey, you better shut up or we're gonna beat you. And Paul's like, well, I suppose that the sufferings of this life are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us. All right, well then we'll kill you. Well, for me to live is Christ, to die is gain. Well, then we'll leave you alone. Well, I just told you to live is Christ. Well, then we'll just shut you up in prison. Well, I might get some writing done while I'm in there. I don't know.

There's all kinds of stuff I could do. You can't stop them because there was this hope, this sense that they lived with of what God was doing. It drove them crazy and blew their minds all at the same time. Thanks for joining us for Summit Life with J.D. Greer. We'll get back to today's teaching in a moment. But first, I've got a question for you. Have you ever wondered how to start gospel conversations with people around you, friends, co-workers, neighbors, or even family members? Is it just really hard for you? Sometimes it feels like even with the best of intentions, life just gets in the way. And before you know it, that spiritual conversation you meant to have never happens.

I know I've been there. And if you have too, we have a great resource for you this month. It's a book called Scent, Living a Life That Invites Others to Jesus. We're excited to send a copy to anyone who supports this ministry with a gift of $35 or more.

Simply give us a call at 866-335-5220 or visit our website at jdgreer.com to give right now. Now let's get back to today's teaching here on Summit Life. Peter goes on verse five, but they will give an account to him who's ready to judge the living and the dead. Peter's like, they don't have the last word. God has the last word. You keep your eyes on that because that's what fueled Christ in the midst of the cross. God has the last word.

He goes on, well, here's number two, by the way. Remember eternity. This is verse five and six. Remember eternity. Your belief in the resurrection should cause you to live in a way to do things with your money that is baffling to people.

Peter goes on to develop this. Look at this, verse six. All right, this is kind of a confusing verse, so I need you to put your theological big boy pants on. Verse six, for this is why the gospel was preached even to those who were dead, that they're judged in the flesh the way people are. They might live in the spirit the way God does.

Now that's kind of confusing, right? You're like, wait, the gospel preached to people that are dead? Well, first of all, let me tell you what this doesn't mean before I tell you what it does mean. It does not mean that after people die, somebody goes and preaches the gospel to them when they're dead and they get a second chance to trust in Jesus. So that's what he's not saying.

What he is saying is this. Listen, the gospel was preached to people who are now dead when they were alive. The gospel was preached to them when they were alive, but they're dead now.

And many of them died, some of them in extreme poverty and in the midst of persecution, just like Jesus died, but now they live in the resurrection like God does. And then Peter kinda is asking a dumb question. He's like, don't you think the people that believed the gospel then and are living in eternity now, don't you think they're glad that they chose to follow Jesus and not follow sin?

I mean, it's kind of a dumb question, right? I mean, nobody in eternity is going, man, I wish I would have indulged the flesh more and given up less. Nobody says that. He says, of course, in eternity, that's how they think because they're living in the presence of God. And what he says to them is, you are soon going to be in eternity.

And you need to start living now like you will have wished you would live when you are at that point. Psalm 90 verse 12, so teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts to learn wisdom. So teach us to number our days so that we may apply our hearts to learn wisdom.

What does that verse mean? Martin Luther translated that verse this way, Lord, teach us to think about death so that we might know how to live. Because it is only when we start to think about eternity that we will develop the right attitude toward our life now. It is only as we think through our lives, through the lens of eternity, that we will develop the right priorities. You are going to die, all of you, and you're going to stand before God. And when you die and stand before God, nothing that you've accomplished on earth is going to matter at all. Steve Jobs, a man who's literally accomplished more than anybody else in our generation, Steve Jobs knew that as he approached death, he said, it was in this interview, when I die, nothing I've accomplished on earth matters to me anymore.

All that matters is God and eternity and if it's true. Do you understand that you will very soon be in eternity, relatively speaking? James says that our life is like a mist.

It's like a vapor that you like in the morning when if you blow in the mirror, just last for a moment. He says, that's how brief your life is. And you better start living now like you will wish you had lived when you are at that point because it is sooner than you and I think. Fast forward your life 100 years and live from that vantage point. What would you wish you had done with your life?

What would you wish you had done with your money? What would you wish you had decided about Jesus? And start to think that way. Remember eternity. In verse seven, he gives you a third motivation to stop sinning. The end of all things is at hand, therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded. Number three, remember that both those things, the resurrection and eternity, both of them are imminent. Two things that are imminent.

Number one, your death. You don't know when you're gonna die. For some of you, it may be 60 years from now. For some of you, it might be this afternoon. But there's another thing that he's saying here and that is the return of Christ is imminent.

The end is near. So you ought to live like people who expect to see Jesus any minute. Like Martin Luther, again to quote him, he said you should live like Jesus died yesterday, was raised this morning, and that you'll see him again tonight.

That's how you should live. If you knew, here's my question, if you knew Jesus was coming back tonight, how would that change how you live today? Because that's what Peter is telling you to think like.

Now, some of you, the more astute of you, some of you who are a little bit more cynical, are like wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Didn't Peter write that like 2,000 years ago? So wasn't Peter wrong about the fact that the end was near because 2,000 years is a long time? And it's true, there have been some skeptics like people who teach at Chapel Hill, NC State, who have taken that verse to say the apostles expected Jesus to return in their lifetime and therefore the apostles were wrong about that. But that is not what that says. Peter didn't say that Jesus was going to return in his lifetime, he just said the end is near. And he said that you and I ought to live like we expect to see Jesus any minute because that actually could happen.

Think of it like this, the end is near. Think of like God's work in history like a set of acts in a play. You got like four or five acts in a play. Act number one was God's creation. Act number two was the Abrahamic covenant. Act number three was God working through Moses and the law. Act number four was Jesus actually coming to earth. Act number five is where we are right now where we are spreading the gospel throughout the world. And then act number six is when Jesus comes back, establishes his kingdom, and brings judgment. We're in this penultimate act right now, act number five, and we have no idea when Jesus is coming back. So even though we don't know if it's now or 2,000 years from now, he says live like you could see him at any moment because it might be today. The end is near, you just don't know.

Or I'll give you another analogy to help you think about it. Tell the like, my family and I will decide to go somewhere so we go get in the car. And by we, I mean me and my four kids go sit in the car. And my wife, still in the house, doing whatever it is that you girls do for that extra five or 10 minutes.

She's in there putting the finishing touches on her face or whatever it is, okay? So we're sitting there in the car, and we're waiting on her to come out the garage door. And as I'm sitting there, one of my daughters, who has been through this charade before, is like, Dad, could we run up to Dunkin' Donuts and grab something, because we have Dunkin' Donuts like four minutes away from us, and grab and come back?

Now, what do I say? I'm like, no, we can't, because we're waiting on your mom. She knows that we've got time to go up to Dunkin' Donuts and come back. In fact, truth be told, we've got time to go up there probably three or four times and get back. She knows that.

But I also know that if we go to Dunkin' Donuts and my wife comes out and we are not there, there is going to be hell to pay, right? So I have to sit there like she's coming back at any moment, because she might, and I have to be ready. What Peter is telling them is you are to live like Jesus could come back at any moment, because he might. You have to maintain this posture of readiness, because it's only when you maintain that posture that you are thinking about life rightly. See how it says, be sober? Here's the irony of this passage. It is living in light of the eminence of the end that makes you live soberly.

It's going to keep your priorities straight. The irony is we always think of people who think the end is near is like crazy people, right? You think of some dude in a sandwich board walking around the campus of NC State, you know, yelling the end is near, and you think he's lost his mind.

Now, chances are he has lost his mind. But he's saying that it is people who understand that Jesus' eternity is eminence. They're the only ones who ever get their priorities straight. They're the only ones who live soberly. If Jesus were coming back tonight, how would that change how you live today? If the knowledge that Jesus was coming back tonight would cause any change in your life, then you are not living soberly. You are drunk right now on the world's distractions.

Are you living intentionally or are you distracted? Sobering questions today from Pastor J.D. Greer on Summit Life. Tomorrow, we'll be concluding this teaching series in First Peter called I Am an Alien.

But in the meantime, you can catch up on previous messages at jdgreer.com. Not long ago, I asked Pastor J.D. what it means to really live on mission when a lot of us don't feel spiritual enough to be missionaries.

Here's what he had to say. Yeah, that conversation that Jesus had with His disciples right before He went to heaven was not for a select few sacred Christians who had some mystical moment whereby God revealed to them that they were called to ministry. The sent identity was something Jesus gave to every single follower of Jesus. And so now it's just discovering what particular part of the mission He has for you. One of the resources that we are providing to go along with this series is a book called Sent, Living a Life That Invites Others to Jesus.

And it'll help you discover the particular way that you're sent. How has God uniquely designed you? What opportunities has He created in front of you? How do you join God in what He's doing around you? I think you'll find it a very practical and helpful resource in not just understanding more about the sent identity in the Bible, but understanding more about your unique makeup and how God wants to use that in His kingdom.

Check it out today. Just go to jdgreer.com and we'd love to start a conversation with you about what God's doing in your life and how you can also be a part of what we do here at Summit Life. You know, we rely entirely on the incredible generosity of our listeners to fuel everything that we do. So we would be honored if you would support us with a financial gift of $35 or more. And as our way of saying thank you, we'll send you a copy of Sent, Living a Life That Invites Others to Jesus by Heather and Ashley Holliman. Simply give us a call at 866-335-5220.

That's 866-335-5220. Or visit us online at jdgreer.com. I'm Molly Vidovitch. So glad that you joined us today and do not miss tomorrow as we conclude our study in 1 Peter called I'm an Alien. See you Thursday on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.