You kindly turned with me this evening for
a little while to the passage that was
read for us by Mr. Lowe from the
first epistle written by Peter in chapter 4
and we are going to look, God helping
us, at the first two verses in that
very full chapter.
Let us read therefore verses 1 and 2
in 1 Peter chapter 4.
Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm
yourselves also with the same attitude, because he
who has suffered in his body is done
with sin.
As a result, he does not live the
rest of his earthly life for evil human
desires, but rather for the will of God.
And I would particularly wish to underline that
closing statement.
As a result, he does not live the
rest of his earthly life for evil human
desires, but rather for the will of God,
living for what God wills.
Those who have heard the call of Christ
in and through the heralds of the gospel
and who have truly responded in repentance and
in faith have thereby been transformed.
This is a basic tenet of our Christian
faith.
In becoming Christians, we do not simply receive
some tenet of belief that we arrange alongside
other tenets in our minds.
We do that, but we do more, or
rather something more is done for us and
to us and within us.
The gospel tenets being received are, as we
have heard from the parables recently, the gospel
tenets, the gospel truths are like planting a
seed in the soil of the heart, and
that seed in and of itself brings forth
fruit in our lives, in our natures, in
ourselves.
And thereafter, we can never be quite the
same.
If any man be in Christ, says Paul,
there is a new creation.
Something altogether significant has happened.
You will notice that in the language of
Peter here, such people have not only passed
through from death to life, but are henceforth
ensphered in Christ, just as Noah was ensphered
in the ark as he passed through the
flood.
If you and I are believers, we are
in Christ as surely as Noah and his
family were in the ark.
And we not only pass through the flood,
but we come to another world in him
who is our Savior.
Now such believers, to refer back to verse
18 in chapter 3, such believers are, let
us underscore, being brought to God.
There's a very key little statement there in
verse 13 of chapter 3, and we need
to take it seriously.
What is happening as God saves men and
women from their sins is this.
He is bringing us to himself.
A salvation that does not bring us to
God in the here and now, in fellowship,
in obedience, in worship, in service, and ultimately
into his immediate presence, a salvation which does
not bring us thus to God is no
salvation.
We may claim the most remarkable psychological experiences,
unless they bring us to God into fellowship
with him now, into a knowledge of him
now that begins and will consummate in eternity,
then it is hardly the kind of salvation
of which the New Testament speaks.
We are being brought to God.
Our Lord Jesus died on the cross to
remove the objective curse that was on our
way.
He has sent forth the Holy Spirit to
deal with the subjective curse in our own
souls, in our own natures, to apply the
merits of his atonement to our lives, and
he has given us his word to direct
us, and he himself reigns on the throne
to see that what is necessary to be
done to bring us to glory, he will
perform.
So that the picture we have of our
Lord Jesus in the New Testament, especially in
Peter's letters and the epistle to the Hebrews,
is of an almighty high priest and king,
seated at the father's right hand, waiting till
his enemies made his footstool, bringing many sons
into glory.
Not halfway, not within sight of the promised
land, but into the glory of it.
And he himself is able to do that,
because he lives in the power of an
endless life.
Now the question that concerns Peter here is
this.
It's a very practical one.
How should men and women who participate in
this kind of salvation, who are being brought
to God, whom the blessed Savior, by his
Holy Spirit and his own intercession at the
father's right hand, is bringing home to God,
how should they behave in an alien, hostile,
pagan, putrid world?
How should you and I as Christians behave
in a pagan world?
That's the practical question.
Now this is answered in many ways in
Scripture, but Peter right here has his own
way of doing it, and I believe it
is most helpful.
He lays his finger, he places his finger
on something here, which I think you will
agree with me, is very crucial for an
understanding of the spiritual battle to which you
and I are called.
Now let's begin.
Let's look first of all at the mastery
that is envisaged for the Christians here.
Just note that particular stress again as we
read these two verses.
Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm
yourselves also with the same attitude, or the
same mind, it says in some of our
translations, because he who has suffered in his
body is done with sin.
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 fact that Christianity takes a realistic view
of man in his present condition as a
sinner, must never be allowed to obliterate or
even for a moment hide the fact that
man was created the most glorious being.
He was made after God's own image.
Not only that, but he was given a
task in the universe which was a representative
of God.
He was to populate the universe.
God had created.
Procreation was a gift given to him.
And having so done, he was to rule
all things to the glory of the God
who had made him, and given him the
privileges of life.
You remember the words, to go back to
Genesis, God blessed them and said to them,
be fruitful and increase in number, fill the
earth and subdue it.
Now don't stop there after the statement, fill
the earth, because it goes on, fill the
earth and subdue it.
And then the next statement adds, rule over
the fish of the sea and the birds
of the air, and every living thing, every
living creature that moves on the ground, etc.
Now you see, man was made, man was
created with this high and glorious end in
view.
Not only did he bear the image of
God in his being, in his nature, but
he was to rule, in a sense, as
God rules, but under God the Creator.
He was, as someone has said it, he
was God's vice-regent over the universe.
Now something happened, as you and I know
full well.
And in consequence of what happened, not only
did man become incapable of ruling the universe
around him, but he became incapable of ruling
the universe within him.
He became incapable of ruling his own desires,
his own thoughts, his own will, and so
forth.
And then lost control of things around.
But thanks be to God, the message of
redemption is a message of reclamation, of redemption
in the true sense of the word.
By the grace of God and the power
of God, man is redeemed back from that
situation, so that he is able once again
to regain control of himself, and to re
-assume lordship of his environment and of circumstances.
That's the glory of the redemption announced in
Scripture.
Now I want you to notice two or
three things about this, which are so important,
as they're brought out here by Peter.
In the first place, those who are truly
Christian, says Peter, will soon manifest their God
-given capacity to distinguish between right and wrong.
A very simple statement, and not only simple,
but elementary.
We're familiar with the poles, the north and
the south pole.
There are other poles, too.
Moral poles.
And one of the first things that will
characterize a man or a woman that is
a Christian, that has moved from death into
life, is this.
He or she will suddenly become aware that
there are moral poles.
There is light and there is darkness.
There is black and there is white.
There is what God wills and there is
what man in his fallenness desires.
And the two are poles apart.
Now this is very elementary, but it is
most important.
Those of us to whom the ministry of
the Word of God is committed, and others
of course, but perhaps especially to evangelists and
pastors, the privilege is given of seeing this
coming to birth in the souls of so
many people.
Sometimes their background was terribly dark, terribly bleak
and black.
And there was very little, if any, distinction
between one thing and another.
The main distinction in life was, does it
please me or not?
Do I like it or not?
Do I want it or not?
If I want it then, well, it's fine.
If I don't like it then, it's no
good.
But when the grace of God has come
into those lives, things differ.
The great division is, does it please God?
Does God will it?
Does God bless it?
Or is it simply something that I myself
want?
That I myself like and desire?
One has seen it a thousand times.
Sometimes it takes a little while before it
expresses itself fully, of course.
But very often it emerges.
And this is this is surely very thrilling
in the 20th century, in such a decadent
age as this.
I find it's one of the most thrilling
things, pointing to the omnipotent grace of God.
To see young Christians, almost in a moment,
suddenly realizing that there are these moral foci.
There is hell and there is heaven.
There is black and there is white.
And even though they may not know for
some time exactly what fits into each category,
for they do not know the Word of
God, they know that it exists.
And life henceforth is a matter of living
the right and not the wrong.
Second thing is this.
Ere the kind of mastery envisaged by Peter
can be actually practiced, it's necessary to be
able to distinguish between what belongs to these
two realms.
And Peter refers to them very significantly in
this way.
What belongs to human passions, is one translation,
the RSV.
In the old King James, what belongs to
the lusts of men, and our new international
version says, more correctly really, human desires on
the one hand, and what belongs to the
will of God on the other.
Now it's not enough, says Peter, to know
that there are these two divisions, morally speaking.
We must be able to know what really
belongs to the sheer desires of human nature,
fallen on the one hand, and what really
belongs to the will of God the Holy
One, our Creator, on the other.
These two poles must be clearly fixed on
our spiritual compass, for they represent two diametrically
opposite moral foci.
Now you will appreciate the reason why Peter,
therefore, has much to say about, in the
earlier chapters, about holiness, about fellowshipping together, about
feeding upon the Word as newborn babes desire
the sincere milk of the Word, that you
may grow up by it.
How can we grow up?
How can we distinguish between right and wrong,
in order, as he said, to cast aside
the evil things of our lives, and to
desire that which is good, and to be
drawing nearer to our Lord Jesus Christ?
How can we?
Well, we need to read his Word, we
need to fellowship together, we need to avail
ourselves of the blood of Christ for cleansing,
we need to become holy.
To go back to our subject of Wednesday
evening.
And so he has much to say about
that.
But then there is something else here.
The mastery that the Apostle requires of Christian
people, however, goes beyond the acknowledgment of the
existence of right and wrong, that which emanates
from fallen human nature, and that which is
the will of God, and it comes here.
If we are to be the kind of
people that the Apostle calls upon us to
be, we must learn to align ourselves with
the will of God, even over against the
desires of our own fallen natures.
A man is divided against himself because of
sin, and in the Christian life, by the
Spirit of God, by the transformation wrought in
our nature by God, in regeneration, we must
learn to take sides with God, even over
against our own selves.
I hope we all know what that is.
It's never a pleasant thing.
I remember Dr. Lloyd-Jones on one occasion
shocking some ministers in a monthly ministers' meeting
that we used to have in London, by
saying that it is really necessary for every
man and woman of God, every now and
again, to talk to himself or herself.
Take yourself by the scruff of the neck
and talk to yourself, he said.
I don't know whether we ever do that,
but we need to do something like that,
and we need to look at ourselves and
apply these things to ourselves, and sometimes talk
loudly to ourselves.
We cannot serve our human desires and at
the same time serve the will of God.
We've got to be on the one side,
over against the other.
We've got to take sides.
They are irreconcilable.
Consider the negative first.
As a result, he does not live the
rest of his life, of his earthly life,
for evil human desires.
Peter unhesitatingly prohibits all kinds of behavior that
springs from what he calls human desires or
passions.
Now, the King James translates that as passion,
or in the plural, passions.
But you know the Greek word is simply
the word for desires, or desire.
But the fact is, you see, in fallen
human beings like you and myself, our very
desires, our passions, because they've been polluted, and
they have a tendency to go away from
God, away from the will of God, away
from the standard of God, rather than towards
God.
Basically, they're but desires.
The very word is used in a good
sense of our Lord, of our Lord himself,
who had no sin.
When he, for example, tells his disciples concerning
the last Passover, he says, with desire, have
I desired to eat this Passover with you
before I suffer.
Now, that's the very same word that is
used for passion elsewhere.
Same basic word, but you see, in Jesus,
desire was pure desire.
There was nothing wrong in it.
Now, says Peter, anything that springs from your
own natural desires, because you're fallen, anything that
springs from your own natural desires, you must
avoid.
And you must align yourselves wholly with the
will of God to do that which God
has ordained and planned and revealed in his
holy word.
Would to God we could take this seriously.
It would save us so much trouble in
life, and it would enrich not only our
experience of salvation, but it would make everything
so very much more real, and probably our
lives so much more fruitful.
There are these moral foci.
They are irreconcilable.
But now, we must be on the side
of the will of God over against even
the desires of our own natures, saving so
far as they too come within the orbit
of God's will.
Now, if you're studying the doctrine of sanctification
or whatever, you and I need to take
notice of this.
There's the negative over against that forbidden negative.
Peter puts this unqualified positive, the will of
God.
Here then is the mastery to which we
are called in Christ and summoned by his
apostle.
It's a renewal of that elevating lordship over
oneself.
You see where we're coming to?
He wants to take us back where Adam
was meant to be.
He wants us to be lord of our
own natures, lord of our minds, lord of
our imaginations, lord of our wills, lord of
ourselves, under the lordship of heaven.
This is what man was meant to be.
We've lost our crown because of sin.
We regain more than our crown because of
the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and
this is our inheritance.
This is our calling.
Now, the question is, how?
Of course I'm aware of the fact that
this passage doesn't tell us everything.
No one passage of Scripture tells us everything.
All Scripture is given by inspiration of God
and is profitable, and therefore we need to
take the purview of the whole Scripture and
not concentrate exclusively upon any one text.
But there is something very precious here.
Merely to be presented with the challenging demand
might well break the hearts of all of
the sensitive people, especially in an environment such
as we live.
It may very well be that some of
you are feeling a little downhearted in the
light of what we've said already.
How can I master my own evil nature
when I have to look at the things
that come on the television screen that we
have in our house?
Well, I don't have to look at it
for one thing, have I?
But assuming that I do, how can I
master my thoughts, my desires, or what I
see on hoardings, or what I hear with
my ears, or what I read?
How am I to do the will of
God as opposed to the desires of the
other men's fallen natures, or my own, or
both included?
How?
Well, now, Peter has the answer.
He has a very significant part of the
total answer of the New Testament.
Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm
yourselves also with the same attitude.
Now, that puts his finger right on the
spot.
It says it is possible.
Let me put it generally before we bring
out the particulars.
In general, Christ died and he did something
in his death that makes it possible.
Now, we may not understand that all at
the moment, but basically, says Peter, therefore, because
Christ suffered in his body and died, that's
the root of it.
But now, he says, adding to that, since
Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves likewise
with the same mind, or the same attitude.
And you know, the picture that we have
here is the picture that we have in
Ephesians 6, for example, put on the whole
armor of God.
It's the picture of a soldier putting on
his armor for war.
But it's one action here.
Put on, says the Apostle Paul, put on
the armor one mighty, massive, significant, central, cardinal
piece of weapon.
And that is, it's the mind of Christ.
Now, let's come to this.
The first thing to notice is that the
achievement of this standard is said to depend
upon the possession of the right mind.
The Greek word is ennion.
Now, in the battle against sin and in
the pursuit of the will of God, it
is important to realize that the secret of
success lies not in anything in us.
Basically, that is by nature, naturally speaking.
And it doesn't basically depend upon whether we
are physically strong.
Now, it's good to be physically strong and
physically well.
Of course it is.
But success spiritually doesn't depend upon your being
a big, strapping person who can cope with
things physically.
You may not be.
You may be a weakling physically.
Neither does depend upon cleverness, intellectually or otherwise,
or cunning.
What does it depend upon?
Well, says Peter, it depends upon your putting
on, like an armor, a piece of armor,
something that was in the Lord Jesus Christ
and can be made yours because he died
to make it possible.
You are to put on his mind.
It's not your strength, it's not your ingenuity
that's going to get you through.
We need to learn the message of the
prophet, not by might nor by power, but
it's from somewhere else.
And if we are to be able to
say no to the old things of our
fallen nature, yes to the will of God,
it must be because of this in large
measure.
Neither is it enough simply to say that
it's a matter of having the right mind
or attitude, a matter of possessing or of
being possessed by that particular mind or attitude.
This mind is a special.
It refers to something quite special.
The word translated in this way is translated
in Hebrews 4.12 in the King James
by the word intent or intent.
I think the pronunciation varies in different sides
of the Atlantic.
Intent or intent.
Not just the mind, the thought, the apparatus
of thinking, but put on the intent of
our Lord Jesus Christ, the attitude of our
Lord Jesus Christ.
You have to put that on.
The word before us comes to stand really
for a resolute and unflagging fixation of the
mind upon something.
Now the word fixation is used in a
bad sense very often, isn't it?
You've heard it said many a time, oh
well he's got a fixation and we're not
going to shake him off anything.
But now it can be used in a
good sense and that's what it means here.
When a man's whole mind is resolutely fixed
on something and you simply cannot shift it.
Now brothers and sisters that was the anion
of our Lord Jesus Christ.
That was the attitude of the Son of
God and that was the mind that brought
him in the first place from the glory
into this inglorious world of ours and which
from the crib to the cross bore him
along.
He had this anion, this mind, this fixation
if you will.
He was determined to do it.
And this is something he has made possible
for you and for me to have by
his death upon the cross and by his
resurrection and session at the Father's right hand
and the gift of his spirit and of
his word he has made it possible for
you and for me to have the mind
of Christ himself.
Peter says it must be the same attitude
or the same mind as our Lord Jesus
had himself.
Now what was it?
Can we spell it out?
Is there any more to be said about
it?
Well let me try to say one or
two things.
What was the feature of this so-called
fixation of our Lord?
What was this mind, this determination of his?
Can we spell it out?
Well yes and it's quite familiar to us
when we come down to it.
Most of us, most of us could do
this ourselves.
There is first his unqualified devotion to the
sovereign will of his father.
Now we're not suggesting that this was only
evident during the last days of his life
though it became supremely so during the latter
days and weeks of his life.
But it was always the case.
Indeed we have been reminded recently of that
incident in his boyhood as a boy of
12 years of age in the temple.
Whether the words mean, wist he not that
I must be in my father's house or
about my father's business doesn't matter for the
moment.
It is evident there in the young boy
of 12 years of age our Lord Jesus
was dedicated to do the father's will.
The fixation was there if I may use
the word in a good sense.
His mind was resolved.
His will was determined.
It was set.
The sails of his life were already set.
The will of my father, my father's business,
my father's house.
The commands of God were his court of
appeal in every assault made by Satan upon
him or by men.
Whatever was suggested to him be it in
the wilderness, in that onslaught with the devil
or be it at any other stage during
his life doesn't matter where the temptation came
from.
From evil men, wicked men or the most
religious of people.
His mind was set.
If it is in accordance with the father's
will it is right and it must be
done.
If not it must be set on one
side.
And facing the supreme agony of the cross
he says not my will but thine be
done.
Not even the desires of his own sinless.
Let's get that.
Sinless nature.
If they deviated in the least from that
of the father not the desires of a
sinless nature must be allowed to be expressed
if they are in any wise in antipathy
with the sovereign will of his father.
You see Jesus' view of God the father
was such that God could never ask anything
wrong and never would.
He believed that his father was altogether and
absolutely good and wise and all-powerful and
that if God asked for anything it must
be good because there is no source of
evil in himself and it is impossible for
evil to influence him so that he would
ask anything other than good.
There is no pressure from outside that can
possibly win over the almighty and all-good
God.
Therefore in Jesus' estimation if the father required
it must be done.
We've lost that simplicity.
Our more philosophical way of thinking and there
are other adjectives one could use has really
brought us into a morass and we find
it difficult to get out of it but
to the Lord Jesus you see who really
knew the father if the father asked it
was right and he was dedicated to that.
This is something we must make our own
if we are to gain mastery over sin
and temptation.
We need to be resolved to do God's
will whatever the circumstances and behind that again
we need to have our Lord Jesus Christ's
view of God.
People say that doctrine doesn't matter.
Of course it does.
Your view of God is reflected in everything
you do.
If you disobey God you believe that God
is worthy of your disobedience.
If you obey him you believe that he
is worthy of your obedience.
Your view of God is reflected in every
solitary thing you do.
Doctrine lies behind everything we say and think
and preach or dream about.
Our Lord's view of God was such as
such.
If it is his will it is necessary
and it is right and there is nothing
superior to it.
Everything else is inferior.
Another factor in the mind or attitude of
Christ follows from this namely an unswerving determination
not to be motivated into any action by
the sordid deeds or reactions of those whose
cause God willed that he should dispose.
Now let me spell that out a little.
Being wholly devoted to God's will he must
not allow his reaction to people to be
determined by their actions or reactions to himself.
And this is very subtle.
Jesus sought the good of men and women
irrespective of their reaction to himself.
You see if I allow your reaction to
me or somebody else's reaction to me to
determine the way I think of you or
I act towards that person then that person
has more influence over me at that moment
than God has.
Just think about it.
Here I meet someone on the street and
we begin to talk and this person gets
very angry and very agitated and I react
in kind you see.
Now what happens at that point is this.
That person has more influence over me at
that moment than the Almighty God has.
He or she determines the way I behave
and therefore I'm a slave to human passion.
We say how can we avoid it?
Well we can only avoid it by the
grace of God.
We can only avoid it by the power
of the Holy Ghost.
We can only avoid it by God's own
enabling.
But we can avoid it.
That's the gospel.
If you and I allow other people's dealings
towards us, reactions toward us, to rule and
dominate the way we behave and we react
towards them.
Brothers and sisters we are denying the grace
of God.
You see I'm saying something that I said
this morning in a different context altogether.
This is one reason why Jesus could accept
a Judas among the twelve and he reacted
towards him as he did in all kindness
and all grace.
He never allowed Judas's terrible intention to determine
his reactions to Judas because God had willed
him to live with a Judas for three
years.
God's will was perfect in the perfection of
our great high priest in his manhood.
See?
That's why he allowed sinners to contradict him.
He could have contradicted them a thousand times
over and finally and silenced them but he
didn't do it.
God's will was that it should be so
and he did not react in kind.
He reacted according to God's will.
He was ordained to be a man of
suffering and of sorrows acquainted with grief and
he accepted it.
It was the will of God and so
when people spat at him, stoned him, tried
to get rid of him in one way
or another or contradicted him or eventually nailed
him to the cross, he didn't get angry
with them.
See?
It was the Father's will that he should
die the death of the wicked bearing the
curse of others and so he said, Father
forgive them for they don't know what they're
doing.
See?
This is the mind of Christ.
His attitude, his deeds, his doings were not
determined by the reactions of people but by
the will of God.
Not by fallen human nature in others or
in and there was none in himself but
by the will of God.
Neither did he simply do the will of
God mechanically but with compassion.
All this is a mystery in our Lord's
life.
How he could be compassionate and resolute as
he was.
To have this mind of steel, this holy
fixation on doing God's will and yet to
be the compassionate person who sat with a
woman at Syca's well and spoke so graciously
to her, who touched the leper, who
was moved with compassion for the multitudes because
they didn't have anything to eat in the
wilderness and they hadn't been there 24 hours.
They'd only lost a meal probably, say two.
They're not going to die but he cared
for them, men and women.
He cared for them and when he gave
his benefits, he didn't just hurl blessings from
a distance.
He got near to them.
He let them touch him.
That dear woman in the crowd, you remember,
who touched the tassel of his robe.
She should never have been there.
She was ceremonially unclean and anybody that she
touched according to the Jews was made ceremonially
unclean but she touched him.
Did he reprimand her?
No.
You see, you have this determination of steel,
this iron will and yet this compassionate heart.
The same is, same comes out when having
challenged the hosts of the Jewish leaders in
Jerusalem.
Nevertheless, you hear him cry out of the
pent-up anguish of his soul, Oh Jerusalem,
Jerusalem who killest the prophets and stonest them
that are sent unto you.
How often would I have longed to gather
your little children together as a hen gathers
her chicks under her wings.
That's what I wanted to do with you.
That's his heart and yet he had a
mind of steel.
Yes and to cap it all, my friends,
oh this is a wonderful theme.
And to cap it all, when Jerusalem had
sent him to the cross and some of
the leaders had gloated over their great triumph
over Jesus of Nazareth.
He's out of the way forever.
You remember what happened when he rose again
on the morning of the third day and
he came to the Mount of Commission.
He sent them to begin preaching forgiveness where?
In Rome?
No.
In Greece?
No.
To faraway heathen that have never spattered him
or said an evil word about him?
No.
You know where he sent them to begin
their work?
In Jerusalem.
In the very headquarters of the Jewry that
had planned his crucifixion and executed it under
Rome.
That's just like him.
A mind of steel and a heart of
grace.
Now says Peter, you've got to put that
on.
He's made it possible.
He's made the provision.
He intercedes at God's right hand.
He's given you the Holy Spirit.
He's given you his word and he's given
you all things that pertain to life and
godliness.
If I quote from Peter's second epistle at
this point, everything's given you.
It's given you.
Put it on man, woman, brother, sister.
This is what faith is meant to do.
Put it on.
Wear it.
Make use of it.
Claim it as yours.
If you say it's difficult, well go back
on your knees again and try again.
And you say if you fail, what happens
then?
Go back on your knees again and try
again and seek more grace.
He giveth more grace.
Peter then commands us Christians to arm ourselves
in this way.
And you Christian and I can make this
our attitude because he died.
I'm going to end there tonight.
Because he died.
You will doubtless note that the previous chapter
closed with a reference to Christian baptism, among
other things.
And it is more than probable that the
implications of baptism, genuine baptism, are still in
Peter's mind as he unfolds the passage now
before us.
That being so, it has been widely considered
that we probably have here the same kind
of teaching as we have in in Romans
chapter 6, where our incorporation into Christ
is symbolized by baptism.
And being incorporated into Christ, we share in
the life of Christ.
And if I may refer, therefore, back again
to that analogy at the end of chapter
3, Noah was in the ark.
We are in Christ.
Not in an impersonal ark, but in the
personal saving Son of God, incorporated into him,
having life union with him, having his spirit.
Now, says Peter, men and women, thus blessed,
put on your heavy armor.
You know, the word used here actually refers
to heavy armor.
It's a bit of language from warfare.
Put on your heavy armor.
All the other armor is light in comparison
with this.
This is part of the heavy armor of
a Christian, the mind of Christ.
Oh, how we need to grow.
Am I not right when I say, brothers
and sisters, that you and I are still
where so many of those to whom Peter
was writing were spiritually?
And we find that the temptations of our
lower natures are still haunting us and coming
after us and mastering us.
This is a key not only to an
understanding of the doctrine of sanctification, but to
the experiencing of it.
There is something to put on that was
made available at the cross, and it is
something that each one of us must learn
to do by and for ourselves.
Out of our faith in Christ and his
faithfulness to his people, out of fellowship with
him, we may draw upon the mind of
steel without losing the compassionate heart.
God grant us that.
I was browsing again this week over the
hymn we've been singing as our theme hymn
at summer fellowship this year, and I thought,
how very applicable to this.
Can it be our prayer as we conclude?
Do you remember these words?
Come down, O love divine, seek thou this
soul of mine, and visit it with thine
own ardor glowing.
O comforter, draw near, within my heart appear,
and kindle it, thy holy flame bestowing.
Now this, O let it freely burn, till
earthly passions turn to dust and ashes in
its heat consuming.
And let thy glorious light shine ever on
my sight, and clothe me round the while
my path illumining.
And so the yearning strong, the mind of
steel, and so the yearning strong with which
the soul will long, shall far outpass the
power of human telling.
For none can guess the grace till he
becomes the place wherein the Holy Spirit has
his dwelling.
God grant it.
Let us pray.
Lord, our God and Father, we thank you
for another Lord's Day evening in your earthly
courts.
We thank you that it is your habit
to visit with your people when they meet
in Jesus' name.
And we have not been unmindful of your
presence with us even in the heat of
this evening.
Teach us the lessons of your word.
Impress them upon us to the end that
our lives may bear the impress and tell
forth the excellences of our all glorious Lord
and Savior.
Hear us through Jesus Christ your Son.