Our Proper Attitude In Suffering - Part 1

Okay, suffering. You see this outline from Chester McCauley, and I just put it up there and highlighted his topic points here. As you can see, it's suffering for righteousness and then the benefits of suffering, the blessing of suffering, the preparations for suffering, Oh, I forgot to highlight the perfect example of undeserved suffering, which is Christ, chapter 3, verses 18 through 22. And then last week, Bob went into the death of Jesus Christ, his resurrection, and that it was vicarious for us in 3.18. And then the whole business of him going down preaching to the sons of Noah and fallen angels and things like that and then he Peter comes out again from that and we You can see Chester McCauley as suffering always eventuates in glory in chapter 3 verse 22 and then Chapter 4 we start today 4 1 through 6 the proper attitude in suffering so Does anyone want to guess what the subject will be today? Suffering.

Yeah. And this has been on my mind for a while, studying Peter, just because it keeps coming up, it keeps coming, he keeps coming back to it. And he'll go off on a tangent, but bring it back to there. We had suffering slaves, wives suffering under unbelieving husbands, kind of suffering under government, suffering for righteousness sake, or suffering unfairly. So that's what I'm going to start out today covering. We're going to do a little mini study on suffering. I thought it would be a good, and then in verse, in chapter 4, verse, I think it's 12, he comes back to suffering. So if we get it all done this morning, then we'll be good to go. We can kind of put it to bed, I think. So here's our verses for this week and next week of 1 Peter chapter 4, 1 through 6. I'll read it.

Therefore, since Christ has suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same purpose, because he who suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live the rest of the time in the flesh, no longer for the lusts of men, but for the will of God. For the time has already passed, for the time already past, is sufficient for you to have carried out the desire of the Gentiles, having pursued a course of sensuality, lusts, drunkenness, carousing, drinking parties, and abominable idolatries. In all this, they are surprised that you do not run with them into the same excesses of dissipation, and they malign you. but they will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. Verse six, for the gospel was, has for this purpose been preached even to those who are dead, that though they are judged in the flesh, they may live in the spirit according to the will of God. That's a lot of stuff, isn't it? Big, big subject. So I say the major theme of this broad section is suffering precedes glory.

Christ was our perfect example as you can see up there in verse 1. He's our perfect example. He's been through it and he is our resource to get us through this suffering. So here's this Here's this little study, brief study on suffering that I'd like to go through. And it's adapted from Lewis Barry Schaefer. And I'll just do about maybe 11 points here as we look at suffering.

First, the sufferings of Christ were infinite. They are from two sources. The source of suffering to Christ came from God the Father. You see that in 2 Corinthians 5.21. He made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf. So that was God causing Christ to suffer for sin. The second way that God, that suffering, not God, but suffering happens is from men. And I would add to this, add to Schaeffer's, he says, from men, I say, as well, Satan and the world system. So they come from two sources, from God the Father and from men.

In John 15, 18 through 20, Christ says, if the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you. And if you were of the world, the world would love its own. But because you are not of this world, but I chose you out of this world, because of this the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, a slave is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will persecute you.

And that's the suffering that's from the source of man and Satan and the cosmos. Point two, we cannot share. ourselves in source number one suffering, which is from God. That was directed at Christ. Christ's suffering was from God the Father on behalf of our sin for the atoning work of sin. But we can share in source number two from men and Satan and the world system.

And there's some some verses there that I won't go into but those support that point. Point number four, it's a natural phase of the Christian life and experience suffering is. We'll look at this next week or the week after, and that's from 1 Peter 4, 12. Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fire trial, which is to try you. So it's natural and don't be surprised when it happens.

Point five, suffering with Christ. with Christ here in this sphere on earth is the place where he was rejected and suffering with him is the only path into the reward of being glorified together with him in the heavenly sphere yet future and then Romans 8 17 supports that if we are children heirs also heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ if indeed we suffer with him so that we may be also be glorified with him. Point six, it does not mean that suffering, it does not mean that sharing in the suffering is related to working out our salvation or contributing to our salvation or becoming holy through suffering, right? So it doesn't make us holier or it doesn't add to our salvation.

Point seven that Schaeffer brings out is, it is for future reward. There's glory to follow. The effort in suffering now produces or results in a glorious crown given to the faithful because of our partnership in the pre-cross earthly sufferings of Christ. There's a crown of life that I think Schaeffer calls it a trial crown and that's from James 1 12 and Revelation 2 10 and it's a crown you get it's called a crown of life in scripture but it's related to suffering.

Okay. If we share in his sufferings, point eight, we shall also share in his glory. And because of our identity with him here, we will have an identity with him up there in all his glory. And again, I've quoted some more scripture, Romans 8, 16 through 21, which I read before. So I won't read that again, but you'll see that glory is to follow.

Point number nine, he left his native place in the sphere of glory and went all the way down, all the way down to suffer a felon's death. So he came a long way and went several levels down to suffer for our sins, but also to suffer at the hands of men and Satan. Point 10, we can have Christ's mind in the midst of suffering.

Philippians 2, 5 through 11, have this attitude in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a bondservant, and being made in the likeness of men, Being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also God highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every other name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow. Of those who are in heaven and those who are on earth and under the earth. And that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. So Andrew, do you think in part that was suffering on his behalf, leaving his throne and coming to earth as a human?

Oh yeah. If I understand what you're asking, was that suffering by coming down? Yeah, because he came down to suffer and die. Leaving the father, just leaving the father would be suffering. Right, what I'm trying to make, everything going for him where he was at, right? I mean, to come down in the human flesh was to some extent suffering from his heavenly position. His position never changed. His condition changed and he was now in the human body. Yes. But nevertheless, I kind of look at that as kind of part of our identification that our citizenship's not here, but in heaven, right? So in a sense, we're suffering by being in these earthly bodies right now. Yeah, and he sure was, wasn't he?

Because just having a body must have been a tremendous limitation for him. And then experiencing tiredness and Maybe he got sick every once in a while. Maybe he, I can imagine him hitting his thumb with his hammer while he was doing carpentry work as a boy.

I don't know. All the things that we experienced. Oh, I think that, to your point, Bob, it must have been suffering for him to be so persecuted from men, the Pharisees and things. the mob, right? And not being able to carry out, execute judgment right there and then, right? Yeah, I think that separation is to some extent something I look at personally as suffering when I think of my identification.

Yeah. I think the last point here is this mind of Christ is to be produced in us, reproduced in us by the power of God. Philippians 2.13, for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. So God will produce this mind in us by his power that we can endure the suffering that we face here on earth.

The final point is not from Chafer, but from things I pulled from Merriman. and what do I have up there? Richeson, right? And this is the interesting point. This is a point that I've never thought about before, but I think it's true. See what you think. So while God the Father poured out an infinite amount of suffering on Christ for the atonement of sin, for that work that was once for all, He left Christ's fleshly suffering here on Earth incomplete. What I mean by that is, and what Merriman and Wiest and Richeson point out, he is not done allowing the cosmos to pile on suffering directed at Christ.

Was there a comment? One of the things, I don't know, can you hear? Yeah. Yeah, okay. One of the things, when he talked to Saul, he said, why are you persecuting me? Yeah. Isn't that something? Yeah. When believers, part of his body, part of his unit, part of who we are, any one of us suffers, we all suffer.

Well, and you called me out here, Roy. I should have included that verse on this page because I thought of that and I just didn't put it in here yet. Well, I don't think that might relate. Isn't that what you're talking about here, though? I am. That's exactly what I'm talking about.

And Colossians 124, Paul, Now I rejoice in the sufferings for your sake and in my flesh I do share on behalf of his body, which is the church, in filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions. So yeah, Paul was persecuting the church, which Jesus Christ meant that was, he took that as a personal attack on him. And then Paul's statement there in Colossians 124 is, we are members individually of the church, aren't we? We're Jews and Gentiles in the church, and now we're his body.

And though Christ is back physically in heaven, he has a body still on earth, the place where he was rejected. His body here on earth is comprised of the church, which is being persecuted, especially if you look at North Africa with murders of Christians in North Africa. So, it's still going on. Satan, since he can't persecute Christ in the flesh on earth here, He's moving on and the church is being persecuted.

So that's what we're talking about here. This is Merriman's point C. Ministers then should have the same positive attitude towards suffering. We feel the same hostility and persecution directed at Christ from the world that Christ would be suffering if he were still here. In a sense, Andrew, that's the identification I was speaking to before, right? Yeah, right. And the filling up in 124, Colossians 124, the antennae plaearo is the condition is to supply from the opposite quarter from the deficiency, that which is lacking, or to fill up in turn.

So Paul was filling up what was lacking in turn in Christ's afflictions from Colossians 1.24 up there. And Richeson made this, I think, strange analogy, but good analogy.

And that is if you have an ace pitcher on the mound and he's unhittable and he's humiliating the entire lineup. The team up to bat is suffering, aren't they? Because they can't get a hit one after the other. The supply of batters is coming from the opposite quarter, which is the dugout, opposite quarter of home plate. They're coming up to try and fill this deficiency, but they're suffering. So he makes a point that. Sort of that we are in the batting order after Christ who is our lead-off hitter I think that's a that had that kind of describes this filling up in turn the Greek antenna play arrow And I had one little thing.

Yeah It occurs to me in thinking through that God is outside of time He is now experiencing in time the suffering of the church himself personally, and that that adds to his death on the cross suffering. It's hard for me to grasp being outside of time, you know what I mean? But he experienced on the cross for all time, all sin. Right, yeah. And that's something.

That's why that suffering was infinite. And that's perhaps, yeah, perhaps God knew each and every little slight that the world would pour on Christ. Well, Christians and the church in the future, being omniscient, he knew that and he poured that Wrath yeah, yeah, that's right, and that's the suffering in the garden when he asked the Lord his father that our father that Isn't it possible isn't there any other way? right So Andrew, like you and your father, I love baseball analogies.

The only problem with the analogy here is we're on the winning team. Right, right. And I thought of the deficiencies in the analogy because you'd have to ask yourself, well, did Christ, when he was up to bat, you know, it's silly, but did he hit a home run? our grand slam, you know? I think you struck out like the rest of us. Nevertheless, we still win even though we couldn't hit the ball, right?

Yeah. And I think the point is that, yeah, it's, you know, it's our turn here on Earth to suffer in turn. And that's a part of this plan. Okay, here we are at the, finally at the verse number one of 1 Peter chapter four. Therefore, since Christ has suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same purpose or mind, I've changed it to, because he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin. And this is a, this is a big verse, a tough verse. But it's with this ovary, I wanted to get this suffering issue, kind of flesh that out there to bring us here, because this is going to make it easier for us to look at this verse one. Therefore, that word is there to tie it together with what Bob covered last week, or the week before.

1 Peter 3.18, For Christ also suffered unto death for sins once for all, that just for the unjust that he might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh and made alive together in the Spirit.

So that's First Peter 4.1 ties to that thought in Peter's mind. 3.18. Christ's example, he was tempted to the utmost by sin, but not, he wasn't tempted within himself from his sin nature, of course, because he had no sin nature. Every conceivable adverse power was arrayed against him. And this is Hamilton Smith speaking.

The contradiction of sinners was a source of suffering. The power of the devil was a source of suffering. The claims of natural relationships. The ignorance of his disciples. And I added in here the Pharisees, the mob. King Herod caused Christ to suffer as a baby, right? His parents had to pick him up and quickly evacuate him to Egypt, punch his pilot. Judas was a source of suffering. And at last, Hamilton Smith says, at last was the power of death all brought to bear on Christ. So he went through a lot.

The second part of verse one is we are to arm ourselves with the same mind. And the word for arms, I don't have the Greek word, but it's heavy armament. It's not light day armament, but a heavily armed foot soldier that is battle ready. He might have a sword, but he also has a pike weapon, which are those long, like seven foot, eight foot long spears that they had. that they would carry into battle so they could, when you put that spear down perpendicular, you could keep the enemy at, you know, an eight or nine foot distance and stab. It had this spear on the end of it and you could probably hold it and whack people with it. And so that was their heavy armament.

Is that what you call social distancing? Social distancing by force, I guess you would call it. And I thought of, you know, in today's world, you have the police and they're armed, of course. But the SWAT teams, right, they're battle ready. They're dressed out and they have full armament on them. They have automatic weapons if they need it, things like that.

One time, Gene and I were in New York and we were staying at a fancy hotel, The Plaza. We were staying there for cheap. We can't afford it to stay there otherwise. So in the back of the Plaza Hotel, they closed it off because someone was staying there. They put up a tent. So you couldn't see who was coming in and out, but we had to stop in the back of the hotel to get to the streets in the back of the Plaza. And sometimes we'd have to wait for 20 minutes while they closed the street until all these black cars came up, you know, SUVs. And people piled out and this guy got out and he was ushered into the back of the hotel.

And it was during some UN thing. It was during Obama's years. I thought, oh, well, Obama must be staying here. That's kind of cool. So we tried to see him, but they won't let us get too close. But it ended up not being President Obama. It was, I think it was the president of Israel, Shimon Peres, I believe it was. So he would be ushered in and out.

But anyway, the point of this story is that when he was gone and then the Secret Service kind of relaxed and let us pass, you'd see the back of these SUVs would be open and they'd have all these black canvas bags, heavy black canvas bags and suitcases. I was like, what? I wonder what they have in those.

And I think to this day, I bet there were shoulder rockets, RPG, you know, a bunch of heavy armament. I could guarantee you that they were armed to the teeth in those black cars to protect Shimon Peres. So that's a heavy armament we're talking about. What are we to arm ourselves with? Well, it kind of goes back to the mind of Christ. And how is that a weapon?

It's a weapon because we can, as I quote in Romans 13, 14, we can put on the Lord Jesus Christ. It's a verse that says you can put his mind directly on and it says, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lust.

And Hebrews 2.18, for he himself was tempted in that which he has suffered. He is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted. So that's really neat that Christ himself, himself, his very person will come to your aid when you are tempted and you are suffering sickness or any type of, it's, that's an amazing verse that you have the personal presence of Christ to get you through the temptation because he himself was tempted in the same way. that we are suffering. So, the end of this is, how did, how did Christ, what did Christ arm himself with when he was here on earth? If we are to arm ourselves with the mind of Christ, what did he arm himself with? Any thoughts on that? How about the Word of God?

Yes. Bonus points for Roger. Actually, that's from Vani. Oh, okay, good. Matthew 4.4, you know, man shall not live by bread alone, but every word that proceeds from the Father while he's being tempted by Satan.

And Ephesians 6.17, from memory, it's put on the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. And so that's what Christ armed himself with.

Okay, to cease from sin. Let's kind of knock this out. I'm only doing two verses here today because it's big. But to Bob's point, I struggled with this for a while, whether figuring out whether it's a positional truth or a conditional practical living truth, ceasing from sin. How do we cease from sin?

It's rendered in the Greek, you have got released from sin, peal, pow, maybe in the Greek. And it's in perfect tense, middle voice, indicative mood. So it's not in the active voice, so you don't cease from sin yourself, but you've got it already. You've got the desist already. It's happened to us in the past. with abiding results, and that's positional. Because Christ did that at the cross, right? Separated us from the sin nature. That's when we got that release. Here's William Kelly. This is who I'm going for to kind of flesh this ceasing from sin out.

He says, one suffers in refusing to sin. One judges and hates and thwarts the will of the flesh. and suffers but does not sin. If by grace our mind is set on God's will at all costs, sin does not enter. It is suffering in the flesh and therein the separation from sin. And this is the simple normative state of the Christian with the heart resting on him that went down below all depths for him. When the heart loses sight of him, one shirks suffering, and he asserts his fleshly activity, and actual sin follows.

But we are sanctified by the Spirit, to the obedience of Jesus, no less than to the sprinkling of his blood. We are left here to do the will of God, now that we are Christ. And this is, this really helps, because it's positional, and it's, this verse, it's both, it's positional and conditional. And Peter blends the two so succinctly. It's really amazing what he's done.

But my summary of Kelly is, we suffer in the flesh by not sinning. The normal human course of action is to take the bait from temptation and to sin. There's tremendous relief and satisfaction in sinning and pleasure in sinning. But to take on the mind of Christ and mischieve sin or to cease and desist from sin, we deprive the flesh and actual pain and suffering follow for us.

So, Andrew, isn't this in kind of the same way putting on Romans 6.11 in terms of you know, considering ourselves or reckoning ourselves indeed dead unto sin. I mean, in a sense, that's the positional nature, but we have to live by faith that we, in fact, carry that out, right?

Yeah. Yeah, and you're exactly right, because that's exactly where I'm going with this slide. Now, don't let this freak you out. That's not a James, right? Yeah. Yeah, it's a crossword puzzle. So, Andrew, we're going to be leaving soon, so I can get to the church to play the piano, but it's not because of this slide if we depart, okay? Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay, I won't take it personally. So here we are in verse 2, "...so as to live the rest of the time in the flesh, no longer for the lusts of men, but for the will of God."

And I have up here the comparison, as you point out, Bob, to Romans 6. But let me go through this chart that long ago my dad produced. But forget the stuff on the right for right now. Just concentrate on the box, the red box, the stuff in the middle that was prepared, the temptation process here.

So we start by abiding in Christ. As only an engineer can kind of draw how to sin and how not to sin with a chart. But there it is. You start by abiding in Christ. Lusts come in. That's the source of sin nature. You're drawn away from abiding in Christ. And you're enticed. You're lured by fate.

And either you reckon yourself dead to sin, as Romans 6 tells you, and you don't stin, you don't take the bait. As my dad thought that temptation is not sin, so as long as you reckon and get away from the taking the bait, you can see he's even got that water level there of taking the bait. If you take the bait, you become pregnant. Your lust conceives sin, you give birth to sin, and then you're in death.

But that's all from James 1, 13 through 15. That's exactly what it says. I think my dad kind of got creative and put in pregnancy and conception and things like that. So anyway, if you confess, you go back to the top, abiding in Christ. But what I want to do, my addition to this, this chart and hold on a sec. Where did he go? Someone is at the door. They wanted to come in here and clean.

As you can see in the blue, I have kind of the results of not sinning. Suffering in your flesh by refusing sin from 1 Peter 4. for one. So if you stay reckoning and abiding and I have all these descriptive terms which I just kind of came up with and you can read through those. You're in the will of God, you're remaining in grace, you're no longer a slave to sin, you're dead to sin. Romans 6, you're a righteous son, you're obedient, But if, when sin comes in, down below, you can see in the gray, you're out of the will of God.

But your suffering is abated. You have gratification, so there's some positive effects. You're gratified in your flesh. You have relief for your flesh, so you're not suffering. You're dead in your trespasses and sins. You've fallen from grace, right, when you sin, when you're down there. you're a slave to sin. But, living for the lusts of men, which I have in blue down at the bottom, when you're in sin, from 1 Peter 4, 2, fits right in there to this chart, doesn't it? So that's how I think, I kind of saw these two verses within this chart.

You can visualize it really well by looking at this, which I thought was pretty cool. I don't know if it's clear yet to you guys. It was clear to me, but maybe not when you look at it from your end. From an engineering perspective, it looks great. Yeah.

In 1 Pe 4 1, that phrase, you hath got released from sin, well that happens up there while you're abiding. You've got released. And as you can see along that bottom line of the bait line, taking the bait line, God provides a way of escape in 1 Corinthians 10 13. There's a way that you can escape. just falling from grace into sin in this temptation process but this really fits in nicely to everything in 1 Peter here because he's suffering but he brings in sin and he brings in lusts of men and I'm not going to get there today we're going to look at the fun stuff next week in verse 3 and things like that but So we'll deal with that next week, but I want to kind of leave it here.

And just one last, uh, final thought. Christ is our perfect example of how to endure suffering, both unrighteous suffering from men and suffering, the suffering that God appoints us to, which is, uh, DocuMos trials, right? He is our advocate. He's going through it with us. He will lead us through it. We have oneness with him in suffering. And from Hebrews 2, 10 and 11, he is the captain and our prince and our file leader is how that word captain or author, the author of our salvation. That's how that translates, the file leader of our salvation. And we are made perfect in these sufferings together with Him. Again, we are in Him by position.

So I have Hebrews 2, 10 through 11 there to finish it out. For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through suffering. For both he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one father, for which reason he is not ashamed to call them brethren. So that's where I'll leave it for 1 Peter 1 through 2.

Roger, I haven't forgot the other verses. I'll just get to this. I understand. No, it's great. I like what you did. Yeah. I like your chart too. It's good. You got to study it, but it's great. Yeah. People need to study it and think about it. Yeah, right. Right. You're going to send that out, aren't you, Andrew? Yeah, I'll put it, I'll give a PDF to, I'll send a PDF and it can be Just send it to the mailing list, Andrew. Just send it to the mailing list. In a PDF, I'll do that.