11. The Answer of our Hope
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1 Peter 3:13-17
13 Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good?
14 But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled,
15 but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,
16 having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.
17 For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil.
11. The Answer of our Hope
11. The Answer of our Hope
Peter has been exhorting us to follow Jesus as His rescued, redeem, and restored people to live for Him before a hostile world. Perhaps the greatest hindrance to be able to endure righteous suffering is fear: fear of losing your family, your spouse, your children, a boyfriend or girlfriend, friends, your job or career, your status, your home and even your life. And everyone of those things in the providence of God could and may occur. But in the midst of this, we have a real basis for hope as Christians. We saw Peter lay the groundwork for this hope in verses 9-12 last week. Now he prepares us as “elect exiles” as we are called in the very first verse of this letter (1 Peter 1:1) to face suffering, if and when it should come, by telling us that we are assured of the blessing of our future inheritance — and inheritance as we remember 1 Peter 1:4-5
4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you,
5 who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
Because of this, nothing and no one can ultimately, eternally, in the final analysis, harm us. So we have nothing to genuinely fear. We can and must entrust ourselves to the Lord in and through it all.
As we look at today’s passage, I want to see two main things: if you are in Christ today,
We are called to fearless humility
We have reason to hope
Humility
Hope
I.We Are Called to Fearless Humility
I.We Are Called to Fearless Humility
A. The “What If” Question
A. The “What If” Question
13 Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good?
Peter affirms the general expectation that no harm comes to those who do good. That is generally the case. But the very reason Peter writes is that some of his readers have in fact been the targets of accusations (1 Pet. 2:12), ignorant talk (2:15), evil and insult (3:9; 4:14), threats (3:14), and malicious talk (3:16).
Christians commonly, even if sporadically, experienced such expressions of social marginalization and alienation everywhere from the death of Jesus onward, as the book of Acts documents. In 3:14a Peter concedes that suffering is possible even when doing what is right. We know that Paul tells us in 2 Timothy 3:12
12 Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,
Having the possible threat of persecution for being a Christian and living your life by God’s standards and not the world’s can make one anxious, even fearful.
B. The Counsel We Need to Hear
B. The Counsel We Need to Hear
A number of years ago I was at a convention where a number of ministries had booths and representatives from them to chat with the convention goers and interest them in their work. I chatted with one worker who represented her church’s outreach ministry to immigrants in Brooklyn, New York City. I knew her pastor and we struck up a conversation.
When she found out I was pastoring in Oklahoma, deep in Tornado Alley, she said, “John, how can you live there? I’d be frightened all the time of the storms that I keep hearing about!” I told her you learn what to look out for, where to go and not to go, and keep your eyes open. The storms are not everywhere all the time. You prepare, but don’t give in to fear. I said to her, “Annie, how can you live in Brooklyn?! I’d be afraid of the crime and everything I hear about the place.” She smiled and said, “you learn what to look out for, where to go and not to go, and keep your eyes open. Crime everywhere all the time. You prepare, but don’t give in to fear.”
The point is that you know the threat, know what to do, and do it when and if the threat materializes. In short, it is the old Boy Scout Mott: Be Prepared.
Peter’s counsel: Have no fear of them, nor be troubled
14 But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled,
Why? You will be blessed if you suffer for righteousness’ sake. Peter is saying, “look, if your good works our of an eager zeal and love for God give evidence that you belong to Jesus, remember that God rewards those who belong to Him with the inheritance His Son has won for them. “ Nothing and no one can take that away from you. No real eternal harm can be done to us because we have a reward, and inheritance, that is eternal, kept and reserved for us by God.
12 For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”
In verse 12 we saw that God’s intense gaze, His careful overwatch of us is constant. 1 Peter 2:25 tells us that our Lord Jesus is
25 For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.
Since God is for us in Christ Jesus, and will bless us, there is no reason to fear man, nor be troubled by them, or by any difficult circumstance we may face in our life on this earth.
We should Be Prepared! Know the threat, know what to do, and do it when and if the threat materializes. This truth is something we need to cling to, to sing, to memorize, to meditate upon, to continually remind ourselves of it. Who can really harm us if God will bless us? Who? What can they take away if God is determined to bless us? Nothing!
We will likely suffer as Christians in this world, but in the scales of eternity they are “momentary and light.” They are temporary, but that which is eternal is coming. Jesus’ resurrection proves it, the Holy Spirit is given as a deposit to us backs it up, God’s Word confirms it. We were reminded of all of these things and more when we observed the Lord’s Supper a few minutes ago.
So if we live, we are the Lord’s, if we die, we’re the Lord’s still. We just collect on the inheritance that much sooner!
31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?
32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?
33 Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies.
34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.
35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?
36 As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers,
39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
What would our church be like if we truly believed what Peter by the inspiration of God the Holy Spirit is saying? What would your life be like? How would your life be different? Your attitudes, thoughts, words, actions — how would they be affected? How would you look at the news, how would you deal with the matters that come up in your life? If you really did not fear anything because you know that the worse they can happen cannot happen — that you cannot lose God’s love for you?
Believers through the ages have faced persecution and death with great hope and boldness. They knew the truth!
11 And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.
They honored Christ in their hearts. Hope in God and boldness towards men was the result. We are no longer afraid to honor Christ as Lord if we have that same hope they did. We want to cry out, Jesus is King! He is my King, My Lord. He alone is worthy and holy of my praise — and yours! I fear Him only; therefore, I am not afraid of you.
As a recent disciple of Jesus says:
Follow Jesus, listen and obey
No more livin' for the culture, we nobody's slave
Stand up for my home
Even if I take this walk alone
I bow down to the King upon the throne
My life is His, I'm no longer my own
That is what it means to honor Christ the Lord as holy in your hearts. Since our actions flow from what is in our hearts, the core of our being, we acknowledge His lordship and submit to Him so that our actions - our entire lives - are directed by what pleases Him.
C. The Testimony the World Needs to See and Hear
C. The Testimony the World Needs to See and Hear
When we live for Christ this way, we won’t run away in fear from man, won’t withdraw from the culture, won’t shy away from showing forth Christ to the world. We will be free
15 but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,
Peter is saying, look, there is the possibility of suffering because you are a Christian, our persecutors may ask us to give a reason for the hope we have — why is it that we believe what we believe.
But it isn’t just persecutors, but we must be prepared to give that answer to anyone who asks. We must be prepared to give an answer. We prepare by seeing Christ in His word, by seeing what hope we do have in Him.
Do you have that hope?
The hope we have in Christ frees us to be bold and courageous in the face of threats and persecution, even death. Fear of man will keep us quiet; God’s love will fill our hearts and open our mouths.
Though we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us, that doesn’t give us permission to be crass or rude about it! We are warned that we need to answer with “gentleness and respect.” It is the same idea with the counsel Peter gave Christian wives dealing with unbelieving husbands — they were to live for Jesus before their husbands with a “quiet and gentle spirit.”
We must respond to our despisers without harshness they ask us for the reason for our hope. The respect we have is for God. We fear God and not man. We must always be mindful of Him.
II. We Have Reason for Our Hope
II. We Have Reason for Our Hope
All this isn’t easy. It isn’t comfortable. But Peter knows of blessing during suffering and speaking of hope during persecution was possible for flawed, failing men and women like us. He knew it, because he lived it!
A. Live with a Good Conscience
A. Live with a Good Conscience
16 having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.
We must live with a good conscience — how has our life for Christ, how has our walk measured with our talk? Is our testimony shot to pieces by our actual life?
Let’s look at a couple of incidents in Peter’s life:
Peter’s denial of Christ
Mark 14:66-72
66 And as Peter was below in the courtyard, one of the servant girls of the high priest came,
67 and seeing Peter warming himself, she looked at him and said, “You also were with the Nazarene, Jesus.”
68 But he denied it, saying, “I neither know nor understand what you mean.” And he went out into the gateway and the rooster crowed.
69 And the servant girl saw him and began again to say to the bystanders, “This man is one of them.”
70 But again he denied it. And after a little while the bystanders again said to Peter, “Certainly you are one of them, for you are a Galilean.”
71 But he began to invoke a curse on himself and to swear, “I do not know this man of whom you speak.”
72 And immediately the rooster crowed a second time. And Peter remembered how Jesus had said to him, “Before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times.” And he broke down and wept.
Peter’s testimony of Christ before the council:
10 let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—by him this man is standing before you well.
11 This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone.
12 And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
What changed?
13 Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus.
He had set-apart the Lord Jesus in His heart as holy. He had seen the risen Christ, had realized that his hopes had to lie in Jesus.
Maybe you have failed, like Peter, to honor the Lord Jesus as holy in your heart. Maybe you have denied Him before men. As with Peter, there is indeed a hope and a future for you — in Jesus.
B. A Better Life
B. A Better Life
So, bottom line:
17 For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil.
This is counter-intuitive all the way around, from a this-world only perspective.
It is truly better to speak of Christ, to live for Christ, whatever the cost now, than to deny Him. Do you believe that? Do you strive in the empowering grace of God to live that?
What stops you from sharing the hope that you have when you are asked to give your reasons for it? Or are you never asked? If you are never asked, what does that say about how you are living, and what will you do about it?
How can you better prepare?
11. The Answer of our Hope
11. The Answer of our Hope