This morning's text is 1st Peter chapter 4 verses 1 through 6.

Therefore, since Christ has suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same purpose because he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin.

So as to live the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for the lust of men, but for the will of God.

For the time already passed is sufficient for you to have carried out the desires of the

Gentiles, having pursued a course of sensuality, lust, drunkenness,

carousals, drinking parties, and abominable idolatries.

And in all this, they are surprised that you do not run with them in the same excess of

a desipation and they malign you but they shall give a count to him who is already to judge the living in the dead.

For the gospel has for this purpose been preached even to those who are dead,

that though they are judged in the flesh as men, they may live in the spirit according to the will of God.

There are many reasons in the scriptures to believe that the Great Commission is not going to be completed apart from suffering.

One of the ones that hit me most recently as I was thinking about it is when Jesus said

in Matthew 24, this Gospel of the Kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world as a testimony to all the nations,

and then the end will come in that very context he said,

and you will be hated by all the nations which I take to mean when you

put those two together that everywhere we push back the darkness in taking the

good news of the forgiveness of sins and the hope of

eternal life and reconciliation with God, some people will embrace it with

unutterable joy and others will resist it with anger and even persecution and hatred.

Everywhere the gospel goes it will divide into those two kinds of responses and

therefore if we are committed to pressing back the darkness and penetrating

those unreached peoples there will be suffering.

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