Living for Jesus Christ is not easy. When we live for Christ, really live righteous and godly lives, the unbelievers of the world reject us. They want little to do with pure righteousness and pure godliness. A godly life convicts them and demands that they live like God or else face His judgment. Therefore, the world often ridicules, mocks, abuses, and sometimes kills the genuine believer.

How can the believer handle and conquer such persecution when he is so unjustly treated? There is one way: he should arm himself with the mind of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ suffered persecution and He suffered persecution to the ultimate degree. He has shown us how to handle and conquer persecution. Therefore, arm yourself with the mind of Christ.

1. It is dying to self, denying oneself, ceasing from sin (v.1).
2. It is doing God’s will for the rest of one’s days (v.2).
3. It is being fed up with sin, knowing that one has sinned enough (v.3).
4. It is bearing the strange look by the world (v.4-5).
5. It is following the example of those gone before (v.6).

The Christian is committed to abandon the ways of heathenism and to live as God would have him to do.

Peter had a great deal to say about time (1 Peter 1:5, 11, 17, 20; 4:2-3, 17; 5:6). Certainly the awareness of his own impending martyrdom had something to do with this emphasis (John 21:15-19; 2 Peter 1:12ff).

If a person really believes in eternity, then he will make the best use of time. If we are convinced that Jesus is coming, then we will want to live prepared lives. Whether Jesus comes first, or death comes first, we want to make “the rest of the time” count for eternity.

And we can! Peter described four attitudes that a Christian can cultivate in his lifetime (“the rest of his time”) if he desires to make his life all that God wants it to be.

A Militant Attitude toward Sin (1 Peter 4:1-3)

The picture is that of a soldier who puts on his equipment and arms himself for battle. Our attitudes are weapons, and weak or wrong attitudes will lead us to defeat. Outlook determines outcome, and a believer must have the right attitudes if he is to live a right life.

Terry and I have eaten at restaurants where the lights are low, and you need a miner’s helmet to find your table. I often remark that the prices are usually lower when the lights are low. We had been seated several minutes before we started looking at the menu, and I remarked that I was amazed how easily I could read it. “Yes,” said my friend, “it doesn’t take us long to get accustomed to the darkness.”

There is a sermon in that sentence: It is easy for Christians to get accustomed to sin. Instead of having a militant attitude that hates and opposes it, we gradually get used to sin, sometimes without even realizing it. The one thing that will destroy “the rest of our time” is sin. A believer living in sin is a terrible weapon in the hands of Satan. Peter presented several arguments to convince us to oppose sin in our lives.

Think of what sin did to Jesus (v. 1).

Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin…

The phrase arm yourselves is a military metaphor. With what were they to arm themselves? The same intention, the same courageous attitude and mind-set that Christ had toward suffering.

This does not mean that believers should actively seek martyrdom—the next verse describes how the believers are to live the rest of their earthly lives. Nonetheless, they should arm themselves for death if necessary.

If believers suffer, it ought to be for living the Christian faith; they ought to suffer courageously, knowing that God will ultimately be victorious.

Those who are armed with this intention have an unswerving resolve to do God’s will in every situation; those so armed will be able to stand strong in the face of any persecution.

They can persevere because of their personal relationship with Jesus Christ (see John 15:20–21).

For what purpose should believers arm themselves “with the same intention”? Peter explained that whoever has suffered in the flesh has finished with sin.

The question arises, if the believers were to arm themselves to suffer in order to stay away from sin, how could that be suffering as Christ suffered? How did Christ’s suffering accomplish his being “finished with sin”?

Taken alone, this phrase sounds as though Peter was saying that suffering cleanses people from sinning. We know that is not the case, however, because many people have suffered for the Lord, yet are not completely cleansed of sin, for no person can be without sin (see 1 John 1:8).

We will not be sinless until Christ returns. In addition, Jesus did not need to be cleansed from sin by suffering, for he was without sin in his nature and never sinned in his behavior.

Christians, having died in Christ, are one with him and are legally free from the penalty of sin. They are in union with Christ, so they regard themselves as dead to sin. Believers are no longer bound by sin’s penalty; they must strive, in practice, to be free from its power.

Christ’s suffering made him victorious over Satan; believers’ suffering, if they follow Christ’s example, can strengthen their faith and solidify their obedient lifestyle. Believers ought to “arm” themselves with a resolve to be like Christ when they face suffering.

Our goal in life is to “cease from sin.” We will not reach this goal until we die, or are called home when the Lord returns; but this should not keep us from striving.

Peter did not say that suffering of itself would cause a person to stop sinning. Pharaoh in Egypt went through great suffering in the plagues, and yet he sinned even more! I have visited suffering people who cursed God and grew more and more bitter because of their pain.

Suffering, plus Christ in our lives, can help us have victory over sin.

Enjoy the will of God (v. 2). As a result, he does not live the rest of his earthly life for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God.

The contrast is between the desires of men and the will of God. Our longtime friends cannot understand the change in our lives, and they want us to return to the same “excess of riot” that we used to enjoy.

But the will of God is so much better! If we do the will of God, then we will invest “the rest of our time” in that which is lasting and satisfying; but if we give in to the world around us, we will waste “the rest of our time” and regret it when we stand before Jesus.

The will of God is not a burden that the Father places on us. Rather it is the divine enjoyment and enablement that makes all burdens light. We may not always understand what He is doing, but we know that He is doing what is best for us. We do not live on explanations; we live on promises.

Remember what you were before you met Christ (v. 3). For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do–living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry.

Peter’s words picture people without God diving into all kinds of human desires and passions, desperately trying to find real pleasure or fulfillment.

Without hope in Christ for life in eternity, all they can do is live for self-gratification. “Plunge with them” is also translated “join them” or “run with them”—referring to the Christian’s former group of friends and their common activities.

This pictures the incomprehensible act of deliberately jumping into a raging torrent to one’s death.

In other words, these friends had sought pleasure by denying themselves nothing. Together, they did it all.

A Patient Attitude toward the Lost (1 Peter 4:4) They think it strange that you do not plunge with them into the same flood of dissipation, and they heap abuse on you.

Unsaved people do not understand the radical change that their friends experience when they trust Christ and become children of God.

They do not think it strange when people wreck their bodies, destroy their homes, and ruin their lives by running from one sin to another!

But let a drunkard become sober, or an immoral person pure, and the family thinks he has lost his mind!

As Peter had explained in 4:3, that was “enough.” Believers no longer wanted to be involved in these activities and said so to their friends. Not only did these former friends think it strange that the Christians had suddenly stopped joining them, but they also became the persecutors.

They heap abuse on you describes the reaction of people who love darkness when they become confronted by the light. This is the process of peer pressure. The four steps are: (1) We don’t do it, (2) they’re surprised, (3) they mock us, (4) we are tempted even more to give in to sin (implying the sins listed in 4:3).

A believer’s refusal to participate in an activity is a silent condemnation of that activity. Unbelievers then react with hostility, often because they want to justify their actions or silence their own consciences.

THE 180-DEGREE TURN: Christians are an odd bunch. They don’t plunge into every party. They go to church when other good people play sports, enjoy the sunshine, or catch up on sleep.

They give money away when other fine people struggle along to maximize investment potential.

They pray about matters that normal, reasonable, levelheaded people would gladly sue over. They leave when the party heats up. They seem satisfied with monogamy. How quaint!

A person whose life changes radically at conversion may experience contempt from his or her old friends. He may be scorned not only because he refuses to participate in certain activities, but also because his priorities have changed and he is now heading in the opposite direction.

His very life incriminates their sinful activities. Mature Christians should help new believers resist such pressures of opposition by encouraging them to be faithful to Christ.

There are times when looking back at your past life would be wrong, because Satan could use those memories to discourage you. But God urged Israel to remember that they had once been slaves in Egypt (Deut. 5:15).

Paul remembered that he had been a persecutor of believers (1 Tim. 1:12ff), and this encouraged him to do even more for Christ.

We must be patient toward the lost, even though we do not agree with their lifestyles or participate in their sins.

In fact, our contact with the lost is important to them since we are the bearers of the truth that they need. When unsaved friends attack us, this is our opportunity to witness to them (1 Peter 3:15).

{5} But they will have to give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.

Unbelievers who live immorally (4:3) and who “heap abuse” on Christians (4:4) will one day give an account of their actions and words to the one whom they are ultimately slandering—God himself.

This gives believers great relief and confidence—they will receive justice. Scripture makes clear the certainty of judgment.

All will give an account to God, including believers, so we must be ready. We have no reason to taunt those who are in line for judgment because this final judgment will be universal.

The unsaved may judge us, but one day, God will judge them. Instead of arguing with them, we should pray for them, knowing that the final judgment is with God. This was the attitude that Jesus took (2:23), and also the Apostle Paul (2 Tim. 2:24-26).

{6} For this is the reason the gospel was preached even to those who are now dead, so that they might be judged according to men in regard to the body, but live according to God in regard to the spirit.

Peter was referring to those dead at that time of his writing who had heard and accepted the gospel. Many people in the early church had concerns about life after death.

In Thessalonica, Christians worried that loved ones who died before Christ’s return might never see Christ (1 Thessalonians 4:13–18). They wondered if those who died would be able to experience the promised eternal life.

Peter explained that these believers, though they had been judged in the flesh as everyone is judged—that is, they died physically as everyone dies physically—will still one day live in the spirit as God does.

Perhaps some of the “abuse” heaped on the believers (4:4) included unbelievers’ scoffing that it meant nothing to be a Christian because the Christians simply died like everyone else.

Peter’s readers needed to be reminded that the dead (both the faithful and their oppressors) would be raised from the dead—the faithful to eternal reward, the unfaithful to eternal punishment.

God’s judgment will be perfectly fair, Peter pointed out, because even those dead from ages past had heard the gospel. The Good News was first announced when Jesus Christ preached on the earth, but it has been operating since before the creation of the world (Ephesians 1:4), and it eternally affects all people, the dead as well as the living.