INCENTIVES FOR
HOLY LIVING
What would it take to inspire you to live a holy life?
And by a “holy life” I mean: a life that imitates the life of Christ and bears
witness to his love. What would it take to spur us all on to holy living?
Incentives.
We need
a reason to change. We need a reason to live a certain way. We need a reason to
choose a life that counters the status quo life that everyone else lives. We
need motivation. We need incentives.
Recently,
I sent out 100 surveys to be filled out by specific individuals (not from our
church) in order to collect information on a project I am working on. As an
incentive to complete the survey and mail it back to me, I offered random
recipients an opportunity to win one of three restaurant gift cards. I had
heard of this technique in garnering response from a class I attended.
You
would think that a “no-strings-attached” incentive like this would get a
response. So far, only 26 of the 100 people surveyed have responded after two
months.
What
does it take to lead people to act, to respond? The right incentives. On the
one hand, the incentives need to speak to a deep-seated need that can be filled
by the offer, whatever that might be in their lives. On the other hand, the
incentives need to be so overwhelmingly convincing that there is no doubt that
they offer the power to make a difference in their lives.
Ultimately,
only the Holy Spirit can drive home the words of motivation that you are going
to hear from out text. He must convince us that the incentives are worth
grasping.
In
4:1-6, the apostle Peter appeals to us to make Christ’s sufferings a practical
force in our lives. Christ’s sufferings are an incentive from which we draw
strength and encouragement to live a holy life for his name’s sake.
What are
these incentives according to Peter?
1. Christ suffered for our sins
First, Peter brings us back to 3:18 with his opening
word, “Therefore.” He wrote, “Therefore,
since Christ suffered in his body…” (4:1a). Peter wants to remind us of the
ultimate price that Christ paid for our sins, “For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the
unrighteous, to bring you to God,” (3:18). The King James says, “Christ suffered for sins once for all…”
What
greater incentive is there for holy living than this in the Christian
understanding? Christ suffered for us and died to free us from the grasp of
sin, from the guilt of addiction, from the entanglement of unspeakable habits,
and from the secret sins we all possess but no one knows anything about except
God. Those have been nailed to the body of Christ upon the cross.
Many
years have passed since the movie The
Passion of the Christ was released. I was caught up in the fever of this
movie at the time, praising it and promoting it. Since then, I confess that the
graphic portrayal of the violence inflicted on Christ was over the top in terms
of public viewing. I have no doubt that Jesus suffered horribly in his body as
well as in his soul. I am not so sure we should make his suffering a form of
grotesque entertainment. And yet, the picture of Christ’s bloody brow and the
open wounds on his back as he was nailed to the cross should come to our minds.
This was the price for our relationship with God.
2. Better to suffer than to sin
Second, Peter calls us to take on the suffering of Christ
in our lives to best deal with the reality of sin. He wrote, “…since Christ suffered in his body, arm
yourselves also with the same attitude, because whoever suffers in the body is
done with sin,” (4:1).
We still
sin. There is no doubt of that. So these words may leave us puzzled. How does
our suffering purge us from sin?
The NT
writers echo this sentiment. Paul wrote, “We
died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?” (Ro 6:2). And John said, “No one who lives in him (Christ) keeps on
sinning…No one who is born of God will continue to sin…he cannot go on sinning
because he has been born of God,” (1 Jn. 3:6 & 9). Taken at face value,
if we were good Christians, we would never sin again. But that’s impossible.
What does Peter mean when he says “whoever suffers in the body is done with
sin”?
a) Peter
might be teaching that the more you suffer, the more you purge yourself of sin.
But if Christ suffered for our sins why would we have to suffer more? The word
“done” is in the perfect tense, meaning that the suffering is done in the past
with ongoing benefits.
b)
Perhaps it refers to our physical death. When we die we will be through with
sin, as Christ was at his death. But this is an awkward way to write this idea.
c) It
may mean that when we are baptized we are united with Christ in his suffering
and death (Ro 6). But then we are reading Paul’s thoughts into Peter’s, and
suffering in the body does not fit this idea.
d) The
fourth view takes Christ suffering in the body and applies it to believers.
Christ’s suffering in the flesh ended his relationship with sin once for all.
You and I are to arm ourselves with this “attitude” that sin is powerless to
affect us. We will then choose suffering because, if we don’t, we are choosing
sin. Suffering, in Peter’s argument, proves that sin’s bondage is broken. We
are to get it into our heads that Christ is worth suffering for; live by that
conviction; in your suffering sin is defeated.
When you
choose the right way to live and suffer for it, you prove that sin has no
mastery over you. One preacher rather starkly illustrated it like this: Suppose
a woman’s husband was killed trying to save her from the attack of a rapist who
was infected with AIDS. It would be absurd for the woman, after her husband’s
funeral, to call up the rapist and say, “Let’s meet at a motel.” Having been
rescued from that which would destroy her, why would she want to go back to it?
Peter’s argument is, since Christ gave Himself to deliver us from the sin which
would destroy us, why go back to live in it? Christ’s suffering for our sin
should motivate us to holy living.
Paul
urged Timothy to choose suffering for Christ over the sin option when he wrote,
“…do not be ashamed to testify about our
Lord, or ashamed of me his prisoner. But join with me in suffering for the
gospel, by the power of God, who has saved us and called us to a holy life –
not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace,”
(2 Ti. 1:8-9a).
3. You have sinned enough
I don’t know about you, but these next words bowl me
over: “For you have spent enough time in
the past doing what pagans choose to do…” (4:3a).
That’s
enough. You’re done. Don’t do anymore. Suffer if you must, but don’t do any
more sin. Peter isn’t being harsh here; he simply says, “That’s enough.”
Think of
it this way: any amount of sinning you did in the past is enough. If you sinned
a little before you came to Christ, it’s enough. If you sinned a lot and for
many years before you came to Christ, it’s enough. You can never sin so little
that you could say, “I need some more time to sin.” Would any of you ever say,
“I know I need to get right with God and make a break with sin. But just a
little more time. A little more time with sin.” Peter says, arm yourself with
this attitude – the time you spent sinning is enough. Make the break – choose
the will of God. And if you suffer for it, then suffer for it.[i]
The
suffering may come in the form of your buddies with whom you ran with now
mocking you. Peter picked up on the truth of this when he wrote, “They think it strange that you do not
plunge with them into the same flood of dissipation, and they heap abuse on
you,” (4:4). The flood symbolizes an overflowing amount, while
“dissipation” is the character of abandoned man, or simply put, he is “wild.”
Come on,
they say, one more drink for old time’s sake. Don’t be a wet blanket. You can
quit any time. They may even mock your Lord saying, “God will forgive you.”
No,
Peter says, you have sinned enough. Break with the past and choose to suffer
the losses now so that you may gain what Christ has for you.
4. Sinners will have to give an account
If we suffer for doing right instead of sinning and we
experience the loss of friends or the loss of reputation, we will be hurt. If,
because we want to be holy, we suffer physical abuse or personal damage, our
inclination will be to want justice. We may be tempted to take justice into our
own hands.
Peter
offers a fourth incentive to choose the holy route and live for Christ: those
who do us wrong because we do good will have to give an account to him who is
ready to judge the living and the dead (4:5).
The
assurance of these words is hard to imagine. Will justice be done? Will those
who have wronged me be taken to account? There is a promise in verse 5 that
needs to be taken seriously. Nothing will be swept under the rug. Nothing will
be forgotten. God will judge each wrong, each injustice, each wound, according
to his perfect justice.
Police
still do not know who killed Tina Fontaine, throwing her into the river wrapped
in a plastic sheet. But God knows. Winnipeg may never bring the killers to
justice, but God will. The mystery of Candace Derksen’s murder continues on
because of missing details. God knows every detail. If he knows these secret
things, does he not also know every offense you have experienced for his Son’s
sake?
And even
if the perpetrators of sin and crime should die before facing justice in this
life, Peter assures us that God is the judge of the living and the dead.
Hebrews 9:27 says, “It is appointed to
man to die once and after that the judgment.”
So if
someone is getting away with murder, literally or figuratively, leave it in the
hands of God who judges the living and the dead. It is better to suffer for
doing right and leave vengeance in God’s hands.
5. Living according to the will of God
The last incentive refers to another side of judgment.
Verse 6 is another difficult passage to understand, much like 3:19. If you
checked out my blog you will have read that the answer to that one is not easy.
In v. 6 Peter seems to suggest again that the dead were preached to, “For this reason the gospel was preached
even to those who are now dead…” (4:6a).
We can
look at this verse in three different ways: a) Jesus preached to the dead souls
in hell, giving them a second chance to repent, as is thought in 3:19. But
scripture does not teach that there is a second chance after death. b) The
‘dead’ in v. 6 means “spiritually” dead, but 4:5 does not support that idea. c)
Peter is meaning that those who heard the gospel and received it while they
were living are now dead. Those believers will be vindicated on the Day of
Judgment.
This
last view is the most likely and fits the context best. Peter gives his
readers, and us, the reassurance that those who hear the gospel, believe it and
live it, even though they die, continue to live by the spirit with Christ
according to the will of God.
Death
comes to everyone. To the unbeliever, death can seem like judgment, as if it
were the punishment for living. So the unbeliever may say to us, “We all die.
You Christians die too, so where is your God in this? We’re all worm food.”
Peter’s
response is this: Yes, we all suffer, Christian and unbeliever alike. But our
faith in Christ is not in vain, nor is our suffering. Even though death claims
us all, we are alive in the spirit according to God’s will. And the sufferings
we experience here are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed
when Christ comes (Ro 8:17ff).
Holiness cannot be separated from the difficulty of
suffering like Christ and for Christ. It is the high cost of following Jesus.
But the payback is immeasurable.
These are the incentives for holy living:
1. Christ who loved us and gave himself for us, suffered.
2. When we suffer, we reveal that we are done with sin.
3. Any amount of past sinning is enough. No more.
4. Those who continue to sin will have to give an account
of their actions before the Lord of glory.
5. We who embrace the gospel will triumph over death.
When we
think of the “why” of holy living, in other words, what purpose is there in
living a godly life, there are three answers that come to my mind: To honor
Jesus who died for me; to be like Jesus; and to be a witness of the
transforming power of Jesus in my life. Is that not enough?
Some
celebrities were asked what they hoped God would say to them when they go to
heaven and entered the pearly gates, as it were. I was surprised at what they
said. Meg Ryan said she hoped she would hear, “Way to go, kid.” Steven
Spielberg said something like, “Hey, you listened.” And so on. I was surprised
because, in my humble and finite opinion, I wondered whether heaven was even on
their radar.
But the
question is a good one. What do you hope to hear from Jesus when you enter his
presence? All I could think of was the standard, “Well done thou good and
faithful servant.” And then I would embrace Jesus for a long time and let the
troubles of this earth fall away forever as I receive his unending love.
I
believe that will be worth all the trouble of this world. That’s incentive.
AMEN
No comments:
Post a Comment