1 Peter 4:1-6 Crossing the Pain Threshold: Having the Mind of Christ

Intro | Recap

1 Peter 4:1-6 Crossing the Pain Threshold: Having the Mind of Christ and Living for God

[1] Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm [equip with weapons] yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, [2] so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God. [3] For the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry. [4] With respect to this, they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you; [5] but they will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. [6] For this is why the gospel was preached even to those who are dead, that though judged in the flesh the way people are, they might live in the spirit the way God does.

#1 Suffering Produces Clear Thinking About Sin: Crossing the Pain Threshold with Christ, v. 1-3

#2 Suffering Produces Clear Reactions to NOT Sinning; Crossing the Pain Threshold Causes Pain in Sinners, v. 4-5.

#3 When and to Who and Why is the Gospel is Preached?

#1 Suffering Produces Clear Thinking About Sin: Crossing the Pain Threshold with Christ, v. 1-3

Ill: Breaking with Sin and the Mafia.

First, just negotiating with the mafia: “Yeah, I’m done; I’m going respectable.”

It doesn’t work. He gets pulled back in.

Being blackmailed; once the guy publishes it for himself, he is free from it. It holds no more power. Why would he go back to it?

Now he has told the world, “I was a gangster; these are the names of my accomplices; it was wrong. I have crossed the threshold; there is no going back.”

The former gang may harass him, be angry, not want to be named for what they are. Sin hates being named as sin. But they cannot recruit you back in. The gangster is dead; only death awaits turning back to the old way of life, “the way of your ancestors,” Peter says earlier. You’ve left the family business and now are exiled.

This story captures imperfectly what Peter is arguing here. Look again in verses 1-3: Christ suffered righteously for us. He was a substitute for our sin; he purchased us out of the family business, and now we must arm ourselves with the same way of thinking.

Leaving the world of Mafia and gangs behind, what is this “same way of thinking” for us?

Peter 3:17 – It is better to suffer for doing good than for doing evil. That is the mindset.

What does it mean to cease from sin? The Greek word is where we get our word “paused.” Hit the pause button and walk away. But it is even more active. Strong’s Gk says to restrain: “no longer stirred by sin's incitements and seductions.” Why does “crossing the pain threshold” help us cease from sin – but now for the will of God?

Answer: “Genuine suffering will always be accompanied by a holy lifestyle” – Beale.

Once we have suffered like Christ for righteousness' sake, we are dead to sin and alive to God. We have exchanged our fallen “default” setting for a new singular operating

That principle asks, "what glorifies God?” and "what contributes to my fellowship, joy, and communion with my Creator and Savior, as I know it from His Word to me? [pause]

What is pleasing to God? Am I willing to suffer by rejecting my own sinful desires and rejecting the social sins/social passions, or community-acceptable KJV language “lusts” of my heart and my community's heart – to remove ourselves from sinning for those for whom it is beneficial to see me sinning “like them”? Peter will say if we do not sin like them, we will SURPRISE them. When we cease from sin, it’s a problem. Why? Because it ruins the “everyone is doing it” rationalization of sin.

For Peter’s context, the Christians are the killjoys. Jobes helpfully says, “The pleasures from which Christians typically abstain were the popular forms of Roman entertainment: the theater with its risqué performances, the chariot races, and the gladiatorial fights with their blood and gore. The alcohol-fueled festivals of Roman culture were typically focused on devotion to a god or goddess, making them idolatrous to Jewish or Christian beliefs. Christian lifestyle also condemned the ‘pleasures’ of an indulgent temper, sex outside marriage, drinking, slander, lying, covetousness, and theft…”

Christians who love God’s good creation are positive about all the good gifts of God in food, marriage, and alcohol in moderation, yet they are often seen as the killjoys…in every culture and era. Because sin never has enough. Sin always wants more. Sin always wants to transgress the bounds of