How Do You Live for God's Glory

SCRIPTURE READING

If you would stand with me for the reading of 1 Peter 4. We'll be reading verses one to eleven. Hear now the holy and infallible word of God.

"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, so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions, but for the will of God. 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.

"With respect to this, they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you. But they will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. 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.

"The end of all things is at hand; therefore, be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace.

"Whoever speaks is one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves is one who serves by the strength that God supplies in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen."

The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of our God will stand forever. You may be seated.

SERMON INTRODUCTION

How do you measure whether a life has been well-lived? Maybe by success, and we often measure success by what we accomplish, maybe by what we possess, maybe by a reputation we establish, maybe by people who admire us or look up to us. Even in the church, we are tempted to measure our lives by how well we do, how our appearance looks.

But Peter gives the church a different measurement. In verse 11, he tells us that everything is to be done in order that in everything God might be glorified through Jesus Christ. That is the purpose of the Christian life: the glory of God through Jesus Christ. But what does that look like every day?

What does it look like when friends might expect you to participate in something that you know is wrong? What does it look like when another brother or sister sins against you? What does it look like when you have something to offer, but you would rather keep it to yourself? Peter answers these questions by showing us how Christ changes the way that we live.

If you would, remember the circumstances of who this church is that Peter is writing to. These Christians are scattered. They're uprooted. They're exiles. They're living under Nero, who is known for his cruelty in history. They're learning how to follow Jesus when it might actually cost them something very dear.

We see in our passage even that their neighbors might be surprised when they stop participating in the former ways of life. Peter does not tell Christians to retreat from the world, to retaliate, to just go hide, or to look to have revenge. He calls Christians to live differently in the world that they live in, with their hope fixed on Jesus Christ.

This is what we've been seeing. Even just a couple of weeks ago, we saw that Christians are to give that answer with gentleness and respect. When somebody might ask, "Why is it that you live differently? Why is it that you have this hope within you?"

LIVE FOR THE WILL OF GOD, NOT THE PASSIONS OF THE WORLD

So this morning, we're going to look at this one big question and look at two different answers. How do you live for God's glory? If in everything we're to live for the glory of God, how do we actually do it? Peter begins in verse one. Look back with me there. He says, "Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking."

Notice where Peter begins. He begins with Christ. This is what we've been seeing throughout the whole book of 1 Peter. He doesn't begin with your resolve. He doesn't begin with your discipline. He doesn't begin with your ability to improve yourself. He begins with what Jesus has done. Christ, who suffered in the flesh, who obeyed His Father even when that obedience led to death on a cross.

He entrusted Himself to the Father even as that brought hostility of sinful man. And Peter says, "Arm yourselves with the same way of thinking." Prepare yourselves for what lies ahead. Do not assume that following Jesus will always be easy or that obedience will be applauded. Christian, you are to settle this in your heart.

Obedience to God is worth the cost. That's part of what it means to arm yourselves with the same way of thinking with Christ. He counted the obedience to God as more important. If you expect faithfulness to Christ always to make you popular, you will surely be tempted to compromise or to hide. If you believe that a good life is one in which you avoid all suffering, you will always choose comfort over obedience.

But Christ shows us another way, this mindset that we are to be armed with. Christ remained faithful to his Father even when the world rejected him, even when his disciples scatter and hide. Through his suffering, death, and resurrection, he secured our salvation. We do not suffer to earn God's favor.

Christ has already accomplished what we could never accomplish for ourselves. We follow him because we belong to him. And that brings us to that back half of verse one I want you to look at again with me. "For whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin." Now, Peter does not mean that suffering somehow makes you sinless. Christians know that they continue to struggle against sin.

Rather, what Peter's describing to the church is that there's a decisive break with sin when you belong to Christ. When Christ saves you, your relationship to sin changes. You're no longer under its dominion. You're no longer obligated to obey all of its demands. There's a little four-fold breakdown that we can think about here to help us.

See, Adam, when God made the world and everything was good, Adam had the real ability to not sin and the real ability to sin. Is that clear? Adam in the garden, things are perfect. Adam could sin, and Adam could not sin, and we see the devastating choice that happens as sin enters the world. And that's not that we get to throw rocks at Adam.

Adam made the same decision I would have probably ended up making. He made decisions that each one of us would have ended up making. Sin entered the world. This is why in Romans 5, Paul draws the contrast to the church of Rome that you're either in Adam or in Christ. Which is it? So if in Adam there was the ability to sin and not to sin in a perfect garden, and sin then enters the world, what changes even as they're led east out of the garden?

After the fall, fallen humanity is unable not to sin. Fallen humanity, after the fall of man, is unable not to sin. We see this in even things like Psalm 51 as David cries out, "Sinful I came from my mother's womb." Or Romans 3:23, that all have fallen short of God's glory. Now, that does not mean that sin is always the thing chosen every single time.

But even as we read in Isaiah that good works before God are like filthy rags, they can't atone for your sin. So before the fall, Adam was able to sin or not to sin. In the fall, we are unable not to sin. There's a dominion that we're under. We are bound by sin and cannot turn ourselves to God apart from His grace.

But in Christ, through regeneration, we are now able not to sin. Most of the time when you read about Christian freedom in the New Testament, this is the freedom that's being described: that you are now free because you are in Christ not to sin. And even there, Peter's going to take us even in this passage. We already read it, but we'll get there later in the sermon.

We see this piece: the end of all things is at hand. Because the beautiful thing that we read in scripture: if in Adam, able to sin, able not to sin; in the fall, only able to sin; in Christ, now able not to sin; in the new heavens and the new earth, sin is no longer present. We can resist temptation.

We will be unable to sin. We will be perfectly free from sin's presence and power. Tears, death, and suffering cast away by Christ your Savior, who prepares a place for you. So do you see what God's grace accomplishes, what Peter's getting at here? Christ does not merely forgive our past and leave you enslaved to an old life with sin.

He gives you a new heart. He gives you His Spirit and the freedom to pursue righteousness. You are not yet what you will be, but by God's grace you are no longer what you once were. So when temptation comes, don't speak as though sin is your master. Christ is your master, and in Him obedience is possible.

Repentance before a sin even done is possible, turning away from it. So don't excuse your anger, your lust, your bitterness, your dishonesty, as though nothing can change. You are a people of a living hope. You belong to Christ and you are free to pursue the will of God. Now verse two continues, "So as to live for the rest of your time in the flesh, no longer for human passions, but for the will of God."

Notice that phrase, the rest of the time. How much time do you have left in this life? You don't know, neither do I, but Peter says that whatever time it is that you have, this new season of time as you are in Christ Jesus, you are to live for the will of God. The Christian life is not simply about what Christ did in the past; it is about how we live today because of what he has done.

And in verse three, we see this description of that former life, that former time as he lists sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, lawless idolatry. And this is not just a random list of scandalous sins. They describe a life organized around human desires rather than God's will. If we had infinite amount of time, we could even go through and look at historically in the Greco-Roman world, a world that had orgies as a part of the worship practices, in which drinking parties were where philosophical and political conversations took place.

Pursuing just your passions, lives were built around it. What would that mean for these Christians that Peter is writing to? For you to flee from these things, in some ways you're kind of being the awkward person. "Hey, will you come over?" "No, I'm not going to come to your drinking party, your passions, your lawless idolatries, your orgy. I'm not coming." Why? That season and time is gone. I'm now free in Christ.

So we shouldn't imagine these temptations as just something belonging to a people in a moment of time. And you might even look at that list there in 1 Peter 4 and go, "Well, I don't do any of those. People don't invite me to these sorts of parties. I don't associate with the sort of people that go to these sorts of parties."

While you might not participate in all or even some of the sins that Peter names, we know and recognize still that temptation of sin. I imagine if Peter was writing to Christ the King today, he would probably make a very different list of the sins that we might struggle with culturally. The question is not merely whether or not you have avoided certain sins; the question is who determines how you live.

Peter's not meaning to do a catch-all. I am sure these elect exiles living in dispersion—I'm sure some of them struggled with lying, and lying's not on that list. The point that he's getting at is who determines how you live? Do your sinful desires govern your decisions, or does God's will govern your life?

One of my favorite books of all time is by John Owen called Mortification of Sin. This quote was in the reflection section of the bulletin a couple weeks ago, but I've found myself just continuing to think about it in both Hosea and 1 Peter as I prepared the sermons. Let me read it for you. Sin aims always at the utmost.

Every time it rises up to tempt or entice, might it have its own course, it would go out to the utmost sin of every kind. Every unclean thought or glance would be adultery if it could. Every covetous desire would be oppression. Every thought of unbelief would be atheism, might it grow up into its own head.

All of our sins aren't like, "Oh, my sinful desire in that thing is only this big." If our sinful desire could become this big, it will every time. This is the foundation of Peter's command. He doesn't say, "Stop sinning so that Christ might accept you." He says, "Because Christ has suffered for you, because you belong to him, because you are now able not to sin, pursue God's will, not these passions of the flesh tossed to and fro, but by his grace live for him."

But what happens when you begin to live differently? This is where he answers in verse four. Because the reality is, here's what we read in verse four: "With respect to this, they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you." Why? Because sin has a way of becoming communal.

Sin not only wants to grow up and become the biggest version of itself that it can; it's also typically communal. People encourage one another, normalize one another's behavior, grow suspicious of anybody who refuses to participate. When you stop participating, your changed life can become an accusation.

You might not even be rebuking them about their drunkenness and orgies, but because you used to be a part of it before you were in Christ, and then you're no longer—"You're judging me." No, I was different then. I've now been made alive. I've been given new birth. This is why Peter even writes, as we saw last week, to answer with gentleness and respect when you're asked.

Perhaps you've experienced this. You've refused to join a dishonest business practice. You decline to participate in a conversation that would only tear someone down. You think you're better than me 'cause you're not gonna gossip with me about that person? You hold to biblical convictions about marriage and sexuality when politics are being debated at the water cooler.

You choose not to join in behavior that once seemed perfectly normal, and suddenly you're strange. You may be mocked, excluded, called judgmental, and Peter tells us to not be surprised, but neither should we retaliate or compromise. Why? Verse five we read that those who malign Christians will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.

You, Christian, are not the judge. You know the judge, but you are not the judge. The world is not the final court of appeal. Your neighbors, your colleagues, your friends, they do not have the last word on your life. Christ does. The very Jesus whom the world rejected is the one who's appointed to judge the living and the dead.

Every person will stand before him, and that truth sobers us. But for the Christian, it also gives us great confidence. Why? You know the judge. By his grace, you get to call him brother, the firstborn of creation, the one who has all things subjected under his feet. You approach His throne of grace with confidence. But this also presses a question: what will happen to those who remain outside of Christ?

Verse six deals with that. It tells us that the gospel was preached to those who are now dead so that though judged in the flesh as people are, they might live in the spirit as God does. Physical death does not nullify the life God promises through the gospel, and the good news of Jesus Christ is there is a hope for sinners facing death.

Even though they might still be foolish in the passions of the flesh, they're dead. There is still a hope of life. And that brings us to the responsibility as a witness. Your changed life matters. Peter's already told us in chapter two—there was the big shift in the book that we've been observing for weeks now—that we are to keep our conduct honorable amongst unbelievers so that they might see our good deeds and glorify God.

A living testimony. But seeing a changed life is not the same as hearing the good news of the gospel. People need to hear that Christ died for sinners and rose again, and they need to hear that God's commands for all people to repent and believe in the gospel. Even as Romans 10 says, "Beautiful are the feet of those who bring the good news."

How can they hear unless somebody preaches? But they're also going to probably first see your life, and that's one of the things that Peter's been dealing with again and again. He's brought up: are they seeing a hypocritical message? Are they seeing you profess Christ in your lips and in your actions at the Lord's table, and then living opposite to that?

He calls instead that they would see your life and hear the gospel even from your lips. And even in that, when you read that list there of the sensuality, the passions, the drunkenness, the orgies, all of those things, you might even go, "Oh, if I knew somebody where that described their Saturday night"—that list there in verse 3.

That describes my neighbor, that describes my coworker. What is often your temptation but to pass judgment? That person's too far from the kingdom. They'd never care how I live. They wouldn't care that I'm not a part about those things. They wouldn't care to hear about the gospel and the grace of Jesus Christ.

Why? They're doing all this fun sinning that they want to do. We begin to treat people based on certain sins as though God's grace is not sufficient for them. This is why even the Apostle Paul boasts to the church that he's the chief of sinners. If the man who persecuted and killed Christians could be used, and don't we all in some way have to see ourselves as that chief of sinners?

As someone who's been shown a great grace. The people around you may be deeply entrenched in sin. They may even mock Christ who we worship. They may reject the gospel repeatedly, and you may be tempted to give up on them. But the gospel is the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes. The same grace that rescued you can surely rescue them.

The same Christ who broke sin's dominion in your life can surely break those chains again. We do not know whom God will save, but we do know that he has commanded us to proclaim this good news of the gospel. This is a way that we live for God's glory: living for the will of God, not doing just what do I want to do. And that does not mean that you need to come and sit in one of these chairs and just pray twenty-four/seven.

That is not God's will for your life, to sit here on Markham Woods Road and do nothing. He calls you to good work. He gives you neighbors. He gives you need for food, where guess what? You need to cook. You need to go to the grocery store. You need to grow food. All these different things. In all the various places that God might take you is an opportunity for you to live for the will of God.

Living for the will of God is not you sitting silently in reflective prayer all of your days, but is looking as the Lord, even in his providence, gives you places. This is what Acts 17 says, that he has determined the boundaries and allotments of your dwelling. He's determined the boundaries and allotments of your dwelling, where you are and when you are in His providence, that you might glorify Him in all of the various places that He takes you.

And as I even look at your faces, He takes you all in very different places on a given week, and there God's glory can be testified to by your lives.

LIVE FOR GOD'S GLORY AS YOU AWAIT THE END OF ALL THINGS

Well, Peter in verse seven says this: that the end of all things is at hand. And Peter isn't giving us a date to calculate. He's reminding us that we live in what the Bible ends up calling the last days.

These last days are awaiting the return of Jesus Christ, the resurrection of the dead, and the final judgment. History is moving forward, so how do we live while we wait? Peter gives us a remarkably practical answer. Because the end is near: pray, love, welcome, serve. Peter says, "Therefore be self-controlled, sober-minded for the sake of your prayers."

He first begins to connect spiritual alertness to prayer. Because prayer expresses our dependence upon God, we acknowledge that we do not control the future and that we need His wisdom, protection, and provision. Yet how easily our prayers can become crowded. We become consumed with just work, responsibilities, entertainment, news, anxiety.

We fill our minds with information but might neglect prayer completely. Why? Because there's always something playing. We've all done it before where you're doing a menial task, maybe you're cooking or grilling, and over starting to do the thing that you're doing, you first find something to listen to: a podcast, a YouTube video, a TV show.

We all fill every moment of the day. Yesterday, me and my family rode Pirates of the Caribbean at Magic Kingdom. In our boat was just phones lit up. We were in the back row. People waited in line for forty-five minutes to play with their phone on a ride with singing animatronic pirates that are fifty years old.

We all fill our lives with such noise. It's one of the first questions I ask when someone tells me as a pastor, "Hey, it's difficult to pray." I ask the question, "Hey, can I see your phone screen lock? I want to know how many hours a day your phone is on." I'm not gonna judge you for it, but if I see eighteen hours...

The record I've seen, by the way, is eighteen hours on TikTok on someone's phone. To which is the question: well, when do you sleep? Let alone you're saying it's difficult to pray. We fill all of our time with so many other things. For what will? What will is there in watching 30, 60, 70 little videos where you can't even remember what you watched when you walk away?

No wonder prayer at times can be difficult because there's so many other things screaming in our ears all the time. And that could even be, you know, someone who loves listening to political content of podcasts because they just want to know all of the news. That same thing can become the noise. It doesn't look as silly as watching people dance in ten-second videos, but it becomes the same thing.

So Peter reminds us that the end of all things is at hand. How is it we're going to live for the will of God? He's looking to be very practical, and he's not talking about phones, but he's calling this a reminder of prayer and of love.

So Peter's emphasis on love—he says, "Above all, keep loving one another earnestly since love covers a multitude of sins." Because we are still sinners—we are now able not to sin and to pursue righteousness in Christ—but even then we're going to need love to hold us together. Even in a church filled with people redeemed by Christ with understanding for one another, where there's going to be disappointments, there's going to be conflict, there's going to be offenses.

And we will say things like we regret it. We will overlook one another's needs. We fail to love one another as we ought to. But love is what Peter calls us to. "Above all, keep loving one another earnestly." And this is more than just a warm, generic affection. Earnest love is deliberate. It's a commitment to seek the good of your brothers and sisters, and the love that covers the multitude of sins.

This is the type of love that is even talked about in Galatians 6, of being able to restore a brother who's caught in sin is actually an act of love. In 1 Corinthians 13, we see that love is patient, love is kind, but that love also does not rejoice at wrongdoing. So even in that multitude of sins, there's time that the loving thing might be confrontation, the loving thing might be coming alongside and helping bear the burdens.

The loving thing might be instead of reminding them of their failures or their sins, reminding them of the assurance of Jesus Christ and the gospel that is for them.

When someone says something unkind, not returning the word but letting love cover. Peter gives us this practical expression of this love even as he says, "Show hospitality to one another without grumbling." Hospitality means opening our lives to others, making room for them, and using what we have to serve them.

Now, for the early church, this was an immensely practical thing, because when you traveled around, there was not a Hilton or a Marriott to just go stay at when you would travel. This hospitality was having people come in and stay even at your homes. Some people who might even been rejected by their former communities and needing welcome and might be strangers to the churches that are in exile.

Hospitality is a making that love tangible, and Peter adds, "Without grumbling." Because we can perform the outward act of hospitality. We've all probably done it before. What's the saying? Fish and relatives smell after three days. In our hospitality, it might be generous, but maybe we're a little bit of a martyr about it.

When are they leaving again? You sure you guys don't want to move your flight up? But so oftentimes our opportunity to show hospitality is more than just family members coming to stay. It is this real showing of love practically even day to day, that we can welcome someone into our homes and not complain.

We can help someone in need by making sure they know that they could come back and even ask for more if they were in need again. Peter wants more than just mere outward kindness. He wants a willing love to characterize the church, and that doesn't mean everyone needs to have a large home. It doesn't mean every time you practice hospitality, there needs to be a porterhouse steak on the table or a nice bottle of wine.

The hospitality can be simple. You are rejoicing in the things that you've been given, and you're willing to share them. Hospitality is perhaps the best stewardship that we can have because while it might be your home, your table, and your time, your resources are entrusted to you by God, and hospitality is one way you get to show and rejoice that this is what God has given me, and I'd love to share it.

Peter continues, "As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's varied grace." Every Christian has received something from God that they can use for others. Our gifts are received, and we are not self-made people. Whatever abilities, opportunities, or resources that we have, we can use for the kingdom.

But the church is not gathering consumers who come to receive religious services. It's this body that's made up of these even various graces that they might fulfill the will of God, that God might be glorified even in the community. Peter highlights two broad types of service here. First, he says, "Whoever speaks is one who speaks oracles of God."

Those who teach and speak in the church must handle God's Word faithfully, not looking at their own cleverness, not looking for their own name, but that God's word might be clearly and humbly spoken in truth. Second, he lists whoever serves should do so by strength that God supplies, and it's a wonderful reminder that anyone who has grown weary in service—perhaps you feel that you don't have enough strength to keep going.

Perhaps you've served for years and feel unnoticed. Perhaps the needs of all around you seem just too great. Peter doesn't tell you to dig deeper in your own reserves or pretend you are sufficient. He directs you to God, to serve by the strength that God supplies, to pray for strength, to receive His Word, to rely on His promises.

This is what Peter is saying to the church, that in order that everything God made might be glorified through Jesus Christ. It's the goal of it all. Not our recognition, not our reputation, not our accomplishment, but to live for God's glory. He gives small and practical ways: hospitality, having just people into your home.

He gives big ways, times that might feel very big, letting love cover a multitude of sins. That there might be times even that you feel outcast as someone who's living for the will of God, living for God's glory, that you might feel cast aside. In all of these things we see that to live for God's glory is to live for His will, not for the passions of the world.

Because Christ has suffered for us, we must turn from our former ways of life and pursue God's will. And when the world oppresses us, we even remain faithful to Christ and we bear witness to the Gospel. We live for God's glory as we await the end of all things. Because Christ is returning, we devote ourselves to prayer, to earnest love, hospitality, and service, and we do all of these things by the grace and strength that God Himself even supplies.

So what is your life for? It's easy to spend our days living for things that cannot last, for comfort, for recognition, money or pleasure, the approval of others. We can become so preoccupied with the demands of this life that we forget the one to whom all things belong. And Peter reminds us that the end of all things is at hand.

One day, our earthly work will be finished. One day, we will stand before Jesus Christ. Will you have lived for yourself, or will you have lived for the will of God? And if you're honest, and you and I both know that sometimes we can even struggle with this, we don't always live the way we should. And oftentimes, we know the thing we ought to do, and we justify, "I'm tired. I could do it, but it's been a long week." Oftentimes, even this spills into following our passions, to neglecting prayer, failing to love, using God's gifts selfishly. And the answer isn't to pretend that failures don't matter, nor is it to simply resolve to do better. The answer is what Peter called us to in the first verse of chapter four.

"Since therefore Christ has suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking." You are armed with Christ your Savior, not counting equality with God a thing to be grasped. You are armed with Christ your Savior, who chose obedience even when it meant being hated and suffering and being crucified.

You are armed with Christ your Savior even in that moment where you go, "Do I really have to love that person again?" You are armed with Christ your Savior even when that person asks if they can come over 'cause they need a meal or they need time to just talk to someone. You are armed with Christ your Savior.

It changes the way that you live when you live for the will of God. Because even the way you're going to look at that person that might come in and sit at your table or might sin against you and require love to cover over you just casting them off and keeping your distance, you arm your way of thinking the same way that Christ lived.

It's how we can live for God's glory. Amen. Let me pray for us.

CLOSING PRAYER

Our Father, Lord, we do thank you for the word that Peter gave to the church through your Holy Spirit. Lord, help us to see Christ our Savior, to be armed with the same way of thinking, to live the rest of our times no longer for our human passions, but for your will.

Lord, help us to flee from our sins, our sins that so often peek up their heads or call us to return to them. Help us to continue to flee from them by the work of your Holy Spirit. Lord, in the moments in which we flee from sin and we feel left out of the world, Lord, help us to remember that the end of all things is at hand.

Lord, that Christ Jesus, who is the Savior of the world, is also even the judge of the world, that his love continues to go forth, that no one is too far from the grace of Jesus Christ, and help us to remember to glorify you in the things that we do. Amen.