Now let us turn together to 1
Peter 3, turning in the Word of God to 1 Peter 3. And will you follow, please,
as I read verses 13 through 17? 1 Peter 3 and verse 13. And who is he that will harm
you if you be zealous of that which is good? But even if you
should suffer for righteousness' sake, blessed are you. And do
not fear their fear, neither be troubled. But sanctify in
your hearts Christ as Lord, being ready always to give answer to
every man that asks you a reason concerning the hope that is in
you. yet with meekness and fear, having a good conscience, that
wherein you are spoken against, they may be put to shame who
revile your good manner of life in Christ. For it is better,
if the will of God should so will, that you suffer for well-doing
than for evil-doing. In every single age of the Christian
Church, one of the marks of every authentic Christian is his willingness
to suffer for the sake of his attachment to Christ, his ways,
and his people. This is so fundamental a reality
that the Lord Jesus Christ himself said, He that would love his
life shall lose it, but he that will lose his life for my sake
and the gospel's, the same shall save it." And it is this fact
that caused the Apostle Peter to write to the saints of God
in Asia Minor in order to enlighten to comfort and to strengthen
them in the face of their present and even greater yet to come
suffering for the sake of the Lord Jesus. And as we return
tonight to our studies in 1 Peter, let me take a few minutes to
review what we considered in our examination of this passage
in our morning hour of worship. We noted that beginning in chapter
3 and verse 13, in this third major section of the letter,
Peter introduces the central theme and concern of the letter,
namely, to give exhortations in the view of the Christian's
experience of suffering. Beginning here in chapter 3 and
verse 13, and particularly in verse 14, he uses the word suffer,
and seven times throughout this part of the epistle, that again
is the subject that he brings before us. And I suggested that
we should view this first section, verses 13 through 17, as though
it were a course entitled Suffering 101. Peter gives us a basic overview
of the major elements that the Christian ought to keep in mind
in the prospect and in the experience of suffering for the sake of
righteousness. As we began to examine the passage
this morning, we notice in verse 13 what I call the question raised. Peter begins with the rhetorical
question. Who is he that will harm you
if you be zealous of that which is good? More literally rendered,
who is he that will harm you if of the good zealots you may
become? He has described God's people
in the previous verses as those committed to turning away from
evil and doing good. that good being defined by God
himself particularly in the immediately preceding verses. And he asked
the question, who is he that will harm you if in your commitment
to good you could be called a zealot, one passionately pursuing the
good as defined by God? And in that question, he is either
asking who is able to do you any real harm, in which case
the question would be parallel to the Apostle Paul's question
in Romans 8, if God before us, who is against us? Or he may
be asking the question, who would be disposed or inclined to harm
you if you are those who are zealots for the good? And in
my own judgment, I lean toward that second understanding of
the question, because in verse 14, where he states the possible
reaction of the ungodly, he uses a form of the verb that points
to possibility. But even if you should suffer,
in spite of the fact that generally those whose ways please the Lord,
God makes even their enemies to be at peace with him. Peter
now says there is a possible negative reaction from the ungodly,
and even if you should suffer for righteousness sake, and then
as we indicated this morning, there is no verb, he says blessed. You are immediately, upon confrontation
with suffering for righteousness' sake, to think of this whole
complex of suffering in a biblical way. You are to regard yourselves
as those who are the blessed ones, immediately bringing to
mind the words of our Lord from Matthew chapter 5, verses 10
through 12. And then, having considered the
question raised, the possible reaction of the ungodly, we began
to unpack in the third place the required response of the
godly in verses 14b through verse 16. The required response of
the godly. Negatively, with Isaiah 8, 12,
and 13 as the background of his thinking, Peter says, this is
what you are not to do. Even if you should suffer for
righteousness' sake, bless it, and do not fear their fear, neither
be troubled. You are not to allow yourself
to be paralyzed with fear and agitated and disturbed in your
spirit, but positively, and then we have the central duty set
before us, but sanctify in your hearts Christ as Lord. Here is the central, the fundamental
duty to sanctify Christ as Lord in our hearts. That is, consciously
and deliberately to give to Christ in fresh, concentrated spiritual
activity His rightful place in the deepest citadel of our being. Christ is to be set apart for
who and what He is in Himself, and in His saving relationship
to His people, in the very depths of our being, He is to be set
apart as Lord. That is, we are to recognize
afresh His place of unrivaled affection and devotion, His place
of unreserved submission and obedience to His will, and the
unquestioned confidence in his protection and his power. And we noted in our closing application
how in this fundamental duty Peter brings into the closest
conjunction Christ and the heart of the believer. And I sought
to underscore the truth that that is the fundamental issue
at every point of Christian experience. Christ in all the virtue of who
he is and what he has done and continues to do for his people
and the heart of his believing people. Now then, having considered
this central duty in what I've called the required response
of the godly, I want you to notice with me, secondly, under that
required response, moving on from the negative to the positive,
the first of those positive directives, the central duty, notice, secondly,
the accompanying realities. the accompanying realities. And there are three such realities
that are to accompany this state of having Christ set apart as
Lord in our hearts. Three accompanying realities,
and the first is this. Sanctify in your hearts Christ
as Lord, being ready always to give answer to every man that
asks you a reason concerning the hope that is in you. The
first accompanying reality is to be of constant readiness to
give a reasonable response to all inquiries concerning our
Christian hope. Now I wish I could give you a
nice clever little ditty of a heading, but in so doing I would not be
true to the Word of God. And this is the simplest way
I've been able to reduce the force of the text itself. Sanctify Christ as Lord. That's to be the constant state
in the depths of our being. This is to be done in our hearts. and accompanying that reality
there is to be first of all a constant readiness to give a reasonable
response to all inquiries concerning our Christian life. Peter assumes
that those who are zealots of the good, who are persecuted
and will respond, as verses 9 to verses 8 through 11 indicate,
that in the course of that response they will make it clear that
what motivates them is their hope. It is their hope that becomes
the focal point of the inquiry of the ungodly. Now it's crucial
then that we understand what this hope is. And one of the
finest, uninspired definitions of the Christian's hope that
I've encountered is this. I've altered it a little bit.
Hope is all we expect from God in the future. because of the
person and work of Christ as promised in the Word of God.
What is the Christian's hope? The Christian's hope is all he
expects from God in the future based upon the person and work
of Christ as promised in the Word of God. That is the Christian's
hope. It is this confident expectation
that points to the future based upon what Christ has done and
who Christ is, and all of this as embodied in the Word of God. Now as Christ has his rightful
place in the heart, The lips are to be ready to give an answer
to every man who asks us a reason concerning the hope that is within
us. Now the language used for this
being ready always, there is no verb being, should simply
be rendered ready always to give answer, is the word from which
we get our English word apologetics. and often it was used with reference
to a formal defense that someone would make before a court of
law. It is used in this sense in the experience of the Apostle
Paul in Acts 22.1, in Acts 25.16, and in 2 Timothy 4.16, Paul speaks
of, I will make my defense, my apology, my apologia, My apology. But sometimes it means a more
informal answer or reason or defense. We find that usage in
a passage such as 1 Corinthians 9, 2 and in 2 Corinthians 7,
11. Now look at the text. It says
that this apology, this defense is to be made to everyone who
asks. There is no suggestion of a formal
response in a legal setting. And so we must understand this
apology, this defense, this response, not to be that of a formal response
made in a court of law. or in a criminal setting, but
that answer that we would give to anyone who inquires concerning
a reason of our hope. Furthermore, the text says that
this readiness always to give answer to everyone that asks
is with reference to a reason concerning the hope. And that's
the Greek word from which we get our English word, logic,
a logon, a reasoned, rational account. So what is the focus
of this defense, this reasonable answer? It is the hope that is
within us. As the Christian is opposed in
the way of righteousness, as men do evil to him and he does
not respond with evil, when they speak evil of Him and He does
not give reviling for reviling. In the midst of pressure and
opposition, He is seeking peace and He is pursuing it. Along
the way, it's going to leak out. I live the way I live and I respond
the way I respond because my whole focus is not this life
and this world. My heart is set upon another
world. I am, according to chapter 1
in verse 1, gladly identified as a sojourner. This world is
not my home. I am just passing through. I have an inheritance, undefiled,
incorruptible, reserved in heaven. My heart is where my inheritance
is. And on the way there, I'm to
reflect the Lord of the place to which I'm going. I sanctify
Him as Lord in my heart. I'm committed to be like Him.
I'm committed to respond as He tells me to respond to opposition. All that I am and do that you
see is because of my hope. And he says, sooner or later,
your detractors, your enemies, your persecutors are going to
say, please give me an answer, a reasoned response for the hope
that is in you. And as one commentator has so
beautifully stated it, it is at that point that the child
of God gladly responds and speaks of the nature, the ground, the
object, and the influences of his hope. Tell him how you too,
like your heathen neighbors, were lately living without hope
in the world, with no hope to God, with no hope for a dying
hour, no hope for eternity. Then speak to him of God our
Savior and the Lord Jesus Christ, our hope. Speak of the glorious
mystery of His person and work and death and resurrection and
ascension to the Father's right hand and His future return as
judge of the living and the dead and King of all the earth. Explain
to the inquirer your personal interest in all of this. through
your living union by faith with the Son of God, the world's Redeemer,
and the consequent indwelling and gracious witness of the Spirit
with your spirit, that you are now children of God, and if children,
then heirs, heirs indeed of God, and joint heirs. Do you see that
in the text? Sanctify Christ as Lord, ready
always to give answer, to give apology to everyone that asks
you a reason concerning the hope that is in you. The first accompanying
reality in the face of the opposition of the ungodly, suffering for
righteousness' sake, having sanctified Christ as Lord, There is to be
a constant readiness to give a reasonable response to all
inquiries concerning our Christian hope. But then there is a second
accompanying reality highlighted in the text. There is to be a
gracious, respectful, and cautious demeanor in the manner of giving
our reasonable response. Again, look at the text. This
reasonable response is to be given yet with meekness and fear. The adversative Allah. You are
to be in constant readiness to give this reasoned response,
but Peter says, but with meekness and fear. Meekness. The absence of carnal abrasiveness
and combativeness. A disposition of gentleness.
and of evident goodwill. Remember in chapter 3 and verse
4, with respect to the woman's true beauty, let it be the hidden
man of the heart in the incorruptible apparel of a meek and quiet spirit. That meekness that is to characterize
a woman's true beauty is to characterize the suffering saint. He stands
in readiness, anxious as it were, chomping at the bit to tell anyone
who will ask, what in the world makes you tick, man? Why do you
live the way you live? And he's in readiness to give
this apology, this response, this defense in a reasoned explanation
of his hope. But he is to do it with this
proper disposition characterized by meekness and then by fear. Now what's the fear? Obviously
not the fear of man. Some suggest, well, respect to
the one who asked the question, so we could say respect Others
say no. Peter's constant emphasis on
the fear of God. Chapter 1, verse 17, pass the
time of your sojourning in fear. Chapter 2, verse 17, fear God. Chapter 2 and further, where
these slaves are to respond, verse 18, be in subjection to
your masters with all fear. Surely Peter's referring to the
fear of God. But one commentator suggests
that neither of these responses really suits the context and
suggests the following. The reference is not to the fear
of men that produces timidity, nor does the view that it means
the fear of God seem to satisfy the context. And then this commentator
goes on to quote another commentator and says, fear may be understood
to mean both reverence and caution. reverence because of the solemnity
of the subject, and caution lest in the earnestness of discussion
anything might be said which would give an opponent occasion
to accuse the Christian before the civil magistrate. There should
be a conscious concern lest, through their personal infirmity
or lack of restraint, the truth of God should be brought into
disrepute. Such a fear was needed whenever
inquirers poured scorn and ridicule upon Christians and their faith.
Remember the context. These inquirers are the very
ones we shall see described as reviling their good manner of
life. They're not coming with the humble
spirit of inquiry, saying, please teach us. It is more a frustrated
spirit of inquiry, and so this commentator suggests your response
must be marked by meekness and by fear. And then there is a
quote from Luther that I found in several of the commentators.
Luther said, Then must you not answer with proud words and bring
out the matter with a defiance and with a violence as if you
would tear up trees, but with such fear and lowliness as if
you stood before God's tribunal. So must you stand in fear and
not rest in your own strength, but on the word and promise of
Christ. And so I've tried to capture
all of those nuances by saying the second accompanying reality
is to be a gracious, meekness, respectful and cautious fear,
demeanor in the manner of giving your reasonable response. So you see what Peter's doing?
He's saying, as you sanctify Christ as Lord, central duty,
sanctifying Him as Lord in your heart. That's the central duty. Don't forget it. Everything hangs
on to it. Take that out of place. Everything
else falls to its place. own death without that central
duty in place, but accompanying it, there is to be a constant
readiness to give a reasonable response. There is readiness
of head and of lip, but that's not enough. There must also be
readiness of heart and of disposition. A clear head, join now to a sensitive
Christ-like heart. But then, there is a third accompanying
reality. Notice it in the text. Sanctify
Christ as Lord in your hearts, ready always to give answer to
everyone that asks a reason concerning the hope that is in you, yet
with meekness and fear, having a good conscience that wherein
you are spoken against they may be put to shame who revile your
good manner of life in Christ. The third accompanying reality
is this, a consistent, authentic Christian life before God and
man as the context of your reasonable response. See the progression?
You're to be in readiness to give a reasonable response. That
response is to be given in a gracious demeanor. That response is to
be given in the context of an authentic Christian life, captured
in the two phrases of good conscience and a good manner of life. Verse
16a, having a good conscience, present participle, constant
action, continually having, possessing a good conscience. What is a good conscience? Conscience
is that little moral monitor that makes judgment on our actions,
right, wrong, sin or virtuous. A good conscience is a conscience
that is constantly under the light of God's Word. And when
conscience speaks its condemnation, a good conscience is one that
is taken immediately to the blood of cleansing in fresh acts of
repentance and confession for sin. that there might be purging
and cleansing, according to 1 John 1 9, that conscience might not
stand condemning and pointing his finger at unresolved controversies
with God. A good conscience is a conscience
whose promptings are heeded, whose promptings in the realm
of accusation are heeded. And then a good conscience is
one that can also, in the language of Paul in Acts 24 16, look out
at our fellow men and know that if we have wronged them, we have
been prepared to eat crow and own our sin and seek forgiveness. And again, as much as I've emphasized
it in this pulpit, I'm appalled at how much I still hear of the
language of I'm sorry. Frankly, I don't care to know.
If you wronged me, if you're sorry, that's simply a statement
of how you feel. I'm not interested in how you
feel. If I've wronged you and come to you and say, I'm sorry,
that's an interesting bit of information. I feel sad. I'm sorry. So what? What you
need to hear from me is, my brother, my sister, I sinned against you. I've asked God's forgiveness,
will you forgive me?" Well, you say, Pastor, that's playing with
words. No, it's not playing with words. The Scripture says we
are to forgive one another as God, for Christ's sake, forgives
us. When does God forgive sinners? When sinners come before God
and say, I'm sorry? God says, that's an interesting
bit of information. I knew it before you told me.
No, you get forgiveness when you own your sin. God, be merciful
to me, I'm so sorry. No, be merciful to me, the sinner. If we confess our sins, He is
faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness. A good conscience is that which
is maintained, as Paul said, a conscience void of offense
to God and man. When its promptings are heeded,
when they are not heeded, its accusations are heeded, and we
go to the fountain open for sin and uncleanness, and where necessary,
we go to the fellow human being and say, I've sinned, will you
forgive me? So we can look them in the eye
and not have conscience and say, you've got unfinished business
with him, you've got unfinished business with her. And I trust
this is the daily, if not daily, repeated experience between you
husbands and wives. I hope you've gotten beyond the
idea of I'm sorry. I don't care whether or not you're
sorry. I want to know, have you faced
the issue that's caused the breach? You spoke a sharp, nasty word
to your wife. Don't tell her you're sorry.
Say, I grieve that I sinned against you. Will you forgive me? Now
you've put the ball right at her feet. And she's either got
to stubbornly say, no, I won't forgive you, in which case she
will not be forgiven by God. Or she's got to say, sweetheart,
I do forgive you. And there is a fresh reconciliation,
a good conscience. I don't have time to open up
the whole doctrine of conscience, but this is what Peter's talking
about. He says, as Christ is sanctified as Lord, in the midst
of this cloud of suffering for righteousness' sake, there must
be this accompaniment of a good conscience. And not periodically
and occasionally, but having as much as your skin is something
you have and cleaves to your muscles and to your bones, having
a good conscience, your constant companion. as part of a consistent,
authentic Christian life before God and man as the context of
your reasonable response. But then he says, join to a good
conscience which is inward. Here's God's check so we're not
guilty of self-deception and delusion. Skip down to the last
part of verse 16. These who revile your good manner
of life. So a good conscience is joined
to a good manner of life. One of Peter's favorite words,
the anastrophe, the lifestyle word, used six times in 1 Peter,
here for the last time. This is use number six of that
favorite word. And again, the word good is used. Every time we turn around in
these verses, we're getting good, good, good. Isn't it a shame? that anyone described in our
day as a do-gooder is looked down upon as somebody a little
bit odd. This passage shows the believer
is a do-gooder. He wants to see good days. He
turns away from evil and does good. And who will harm you if
you be a zealot of the good? You see, the matter of goodness
and moral uprightness is a passionate concern for the true child of
God. That authentic Christian life
that forms the context of his verbal witness is described as
comprised of a good conscience and of a good manner of life. Now then, back off and see these
three accompaniments of this central duty, sanctifying Christ
as Lord, With these three things flanking, that fundamental duty
being experienced in the heart of the Christian, constant readiness
to give a reasonable response to inquiries regarding our hope,
that points to an informed mind and a ready tongue, It's to be
an apology, it is to be an answer in the form of a reason. It is not some mindless thing,
oh, Jesus is sweet to me, I hope he'll get sweet to you. How is
he sweet? Oh, I don't know he's just sweet.
Well, how did you come to your home? I don't know, it's just
great. Trust Jesus. Who is Jesus? What did Jesus
come for? What did He do? It is to be an
intelligent, rational response. Our apology is not a mindless
effusion of our feelings. There is to be a ready mind and
a ready tongue, but there's to be more than that. There is to
be a gracious, respectful, and cautious demeanor. in giving
a reasonable response, but with meekness and fear. So that goes from a ready mind
and tongue to a right heart. But then that's not enough. He
says, the third accompaniment is a consistent, authentic Christian
walk before God and man as the context of your reasonable response. That points to your proven manifest
patterns of character before God and before man. This is why I have little sympathy
with weekend seminars that are going to make all Christians
into vibrant witnesses for Jesus. It ain't that simple. The best thing we could do for
the cause of the gospel with some people is to shut their
mouth for six months. They have a ready tongue and
a furnished mind. They don't have the meekness
and the fear and they don't have the validating Now, someone said
of some Christians, they're like the silent letters in some of
our words. You could drop them and it would
change nothing. The word light, L-I-G-H-T, you don't say light. Do you? I don't. You turn on
the light. You drop the G and the H. Turn
on the light. Turn out the light. And I thought
it was a very catchy little way to remind us some Christians
are so silent. They're like those silent letters.
You drop them out and lose nothing. And I'm not in any way putting
forth a brief for a non-verbal defense of who and what we are
and what we believe and what is our hope, but I'm saying that
this passage points us to this trilogy of the accompaniments
of setting apart Christ as Lord. Readiness, graciousness, and
reality of life. Well, we've looked at the central
duty, sanctify Christ as Lord. We've looked at the accompanying
realities. Now note thirdly in the passage
the intended result of these things. What's the intended result? Well, you find it there in the
text, having a good conscience that wherein you are spoken against,
they may be put to shame. will revile your good manner
of life in Christ. The intended result focuses upon
the persecutors of the people of God, and they are described
in terms of two activities. They are speaking against the
people of God. Do you see that in the text?
You are spoken against by these people, wherein you are spoken
against Same thing that was said in verse 12 of chapter 2, that
wherein they speak against you as evildoers. And again in verse
15, so is the will of God that by well-doing you should put
to silence the ignorance of foolish men. These people that speak
against God's people, and then they revile, they threaten, they
insult the people of God for no good reason. It's spoken of
later on in the text that they may be put to shame who revile,
who threaten, who insult. Some lexicographers say this
word will even bear something beyond threatening, and may even
involve actual abuse. So here are the persecutors,
and they are speaking against the people of God in a general
way, accusing them of being evildoers when they are not. They are reviling
them, threatening them, insulting them, heaping verbal abuse upon
them. And when the people of God respond
as they do, sanctifying Christ as Lord in their hearts, readiness
to give this reasoned response to their questions in a gracious
demeanor out of the context of a consistent life, what is the
intended result? You have a clause of purpose.
Here is the intended result, that they may be put to shame,
that they may be put to shame." Now, it's hard for us to have
an immediate reaction to the word shame in this generation.
This is a shameless generation. It is one of the tragedies of
the erosion of common grace and the opening up of the floodgates
of iniquity, one of the condemnations of the days of Jeremiah the prophet. God said to the prophet, to Israel,
to Judah, you have a whore's forehead, you refuse to be ashamed. What a graphic picture. The harlot
can go prancing down the street with no shame that she sells
her body for a few bucks to any buyer. And God says to Israel,
you're like a whore. You say, Pastor Martin, that's
crude. I didn't say it. God did. God says you're like
a whore. You have no sense of shame. This is the age when perverts
are out of the closet. I'm ashamed to have their picture
on the front page of the New York Times dressed in drag on
gay rights and lesbian rights celebration. Shameless. Out of the closet means no shame. No shame. So it's hard to preach
a text that uses the word shame. You see, shame is that emotional
reaction that comes in the presence of discovered and felt guilt. That's what Adam and Eve felt.
When they sinned against God, and they heard God coming in
a theophany, they went to hide among the trees of the garden,
ashamed, ashamed. And I say it's hard to preach
anything with the word shame in it in this generation, but
it's here in the text and it's the intended result of all that
Peter has said by way of apostolic directive to these Christians
about to face new dimensions of suffering for righteousness
sake. He said, do these things in the strength of Christ with
this intended result that those who oppose you and those who
are persecuting you may be brought to shame. Now obviously, Peter
doesn't say, brought to shame so you can have a triumphalist
spirit and see them grovel. All the way through this epistle,
any impact believers make upon the unbelievers, it has an evangelistic
intention. You remember that back in chapter
2, verse 12. that they may behold your good
works which they behold and glorify God in the day of visitation. The godly wife who has an unconverted
husband, she's to do what she's told to do that she may be gained
without a word. The great end of this is that
that sense of shame may be the beginning of those who persecute
the people of God, acknowledging their sinfulness and further
inquire now in a spirit of humility and be pointed to the way of
life and salvation. That's the intended result. May
I say, and I've deliberately refused to make all kinds of
applications I've wanted to make in the opening up of the passage
because I'm determined that you should see the passage and its
connections and not have it broken up into too many expositions
But may I say to some of you unconverted people, the best
thing that could happen to some of you tonight is to leave this
place with your head hung in shame. You can stand bold-faced
before Almighty God with no more shame than those lesbians and
sexual perverts manifested when they look boldly and smiling
into the camera, proud to be gay. No shame. You come to another Lord's Day.
No shame that you robbed the God who made you of the glory
due to his name through your life. That's the shame of being
an impenitent, unbelieving sinner. No shame that Christ is freely
offered to you another Lord's day and you despise his blood
and the overtures of his grace. I say the first ray of hope for
some of you would be a baptism of shame. Shame on you. that you rob the God who made
you of the glory due from your life. Shame on you that you don't
go to the Christ who died for sinners and lovingly invites
you to come and partake of his grace. Shame on you. Shame on
you. Oh, may God give you shame. It
might lead you to seek cleansing in the blood of Christ. Well,
we go on from the intended result. Notice, fourthly, the source
of power for such a lifestyle. I hope along the way you've been
saying, but Pastor, how in the world can we live this way? It's
so against nature. It's so against everything that
my own instincts tell me and all that society tells me. Notice
how Peter tucks away in one little prepositional phrase. the source
of power for such a lifestyle. Do you see it in verse 16? Having
a good conscience that wherein you are spoken against they may
be put to shame who revile your good manner of life in Christ. Who are reviling your good manner
of life in Christ. More literally, it is your good
in Christ manner of life. Peter even throws the little
prepositional phrase forward for emphasis. He could have said,
and it would have been good Greek, your manner of life in Christ,
your good manner of life in Christ. But he says your good in Christ
manner of life. And that little phrase, in Christ,
is one of the most crucial phrases in all of the New Testament.
The Apostle Paul uses it approximately 150 times. Peter only uses it three times
in this epistle, but I want you to look at the other two usages.
He uses it here, and then again in chapter 5 and verse 10, the
God of all grace who called you into his eternal glory in Christ,
all that they are called to, all that constitutes their hope
is to be found in Christ. Verse 14, greet one another with
a kiss of love, peace be unto you all that are. He closes his epistle with that
little phrase, in Christ. That's his description of what
a Christian is. A Christian is someone who's
in Christ. He is in vital union with Christ. Not only is Christ in him, sanctify
Christ as Lord in your hearts, but he is in Christ by a living
faith, by the indwelling of the Spirit who constitutes the bond
between the sinner and Christ. He is in Christ, and as Paul
says, if any man be in Christ, new creation, the old is past,
the new has come. Ephesians 2.10, we are His workmanship
created anew in Christ Jesus unto good works. It is in Christ
and in the virtue of union with Christ that the good works flow. It takes us into the heart of
John 15. Christ is the vine, we are the branches. There is
vital life flowing from Christ to us. When we look at a passage
like this and we say, this kind of life, no one can live with
the stuff that he had from his mother's womb. That's true. No
one can live this kind of life in and of himself. But it is
in Christ, it is your in Christ manner of life. Peter says this
manner of life that will awaken the interest of those who even
persecute you and eventually cause them to ask, albeit perhaps
with a cynical tinge in their question, what makes you tick,
man? He says this whole life is one
that flows out of your union with Christ. That's the source
of power for such a lifestyle. And if you're not in Christ,
you can't live this way. You can't do it. You can try.
You can perhaps seem to do it for a while, but sooner or later,
you will come to grips with the words of Jesus, without me, you
can do nothing. Make the tree good and the fruit
good, or the tree corrupt and its fruit corrupt. A tree is
known by its fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth
corrupt fruit. A corrupt tree cannot bring forth
good fruit. And that's the problem with some
of you. You've tried, you've made efforts, but you're still
a corrupt tree. You can't bring forth this kind
of fruit. You see, nowhere, everywhere, I'm sorry, everywhere you preach,
as long as you preach divine standards, You're pressing people
to see that the only way those standards can be attained is
in Christ. In Christ. In Christ. And Peter
is not at all ashamed to point to the source of power for such
a lifestyle. In Christ. Now, finally, having
set forth from the passage the introductory question, verse
13, the possible reaction of the ungodly, verse 14a, The required
response of the godly, 14b-16. Now we come finally to the crowning
encouragement, verse 17. For, as a capstone over this
whole section, Peter writes, For it is better, if the will
of God should so will, that you suffer for well-doing than for
evil doing. As a capstone of his course in
suffering 101, Peter gives what I'm calling this crowning encouragement,
and it has two parts to it. A word of comparison and a word
of instruction or affirmation. I couldn't settle on which was
the best word. It's a word of comparison. See how he states
it. For it is better, and drop out the next qualifying statement
and slip right over, which we could do grammatically. For it
is better that you suffer for well-doing than for evil doing. Peter says, now look, I've been
laying out how you are to respond to suffering for righteousness
sake. And as a crowning encouragement,
I want to tell you something. It is better to suffer in the
way of doing good than to suffer in the way of doing evil. Now, in what way is it better?
He makes this comparison. Well, it is better in terms of
your own conscience. Peter had already said to these
slaves in verse 20 of chapter 2, what glory is it if when you
sin and are profited for it, you take it patiently? Who goes
around bragging, you know, I was a scoundrel and I got whipped
for it and I took it patiently. Bully me? No. But he said, if
when you do well and suffer for it, this is thankworthy, this
is praiseworthy, this is acceptable to God, this brings the smile
of God. Remember, he's already said that.
And he expects them to remember that he's already underscored
that principle. It is better you will have a
conscience aware of the fact that suffering for doing good,
suffering while doing good rather than doing evil, it's better
you have the marvelous companion of a good conscience and the
knowledge that you have the smile of God. Furthermore, it is better
in terms of your witness and your testimony. What testimony
is it for you to talk about your hope? and then to live in such
a way that you deny the power of the gospel. You speak of your
hope in a context other than a good conscience and a blameless
life, a good life. Shame on you! It is better, if
you're going to suffer, to suffer for well-doing than for evil-doing. better in terms of your own conscience
and the awareness of the smile of God, better in terms of your
witness before the ungodly, but supremely better, because such
suffering brings you into the fellowship of Christ. Paul says
that I may know him in the fellowship of his suffering. And the more
I'm brought into the fellowship of Christ's sufferings, the more
precious he becomes, and the more precious he becomes, the
more I'm willing to suffer. And it is a blessed cycle, one
feeding into the other. Surely this must be something
of what Peter had in mind when he says, as his crowning encouragement,
it is better. A word of comparison, but then
he gives this word of instruction. in a very strange construction,
for it is better if the will of God should so will." Why didn't
he just simply say, if it's God's will? He could have said that
in nice, smooth Greek, but he uses what the Greek scholars
call a pleonism. He uses an abundance of words
to make his point. And he uses that strange tense
that we talked about this morning, the optative, the tense of possibility. And what Peter says in his word
of instruction is, if the will of God should so will, it is
better. In other words, Peter wants to
make it very, very plain that no suffering for doing good ever
comes to a child of God. except it comes by the sovereign
will of his God. No blind chance is putting together
the factors that precipitate this suffering. No wild sinister
powers have been let loose in the world Outside the control
of God there is no dualism, evil powers that work out their will
and good powers and somehow the good cannot overpower or restrain
the evil. No, Peter says as his crowning
encouragement to those saints in that far off place, far off
to him as he writes from Rome, that this is your crowning encouragement
is better if the will of God so will. This truth that no suffering
ever comes to the righteous apart from the will of God is most
clearly illustrated in the most unrighteous suffering that ever
was inflicted upon the most righteous one who ever lived. The most
righteous one was our blessed Lord. The most unrighteous suffering
was that which was inflicted upon him. And the scripture tells
us he was delivered up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge
of God. Acts 2, 23. Acts 4 in verse 27
and 28, those who are being opposed go back and have a prayer meeting
with their own company and they said, now Lord, look upon this
situation. The kings and the rulers were
gathered together to do whatsoever your hand and your counsel determined
before to be done. It could not be more clear, and
now all of his people come in his train, and they know whatever
suffering comes to them while doing good, it is the will of
God that wills it. So you see, to chafe against
it, to fight against it, is to fight against God. How stupid! The God who sent His Son to die
for us, the God who in Christ has begotten us again to a living
hope by the resurrection of Christ from the dead, unto an inheritance
incorruptible, undefiled, and that fades not away, reserved
in heaven for us. And He is committed not only
to keep the inheritance for us, but to keep us for the inheritance. Who wants to fight against a
God like that? It's ludicrous. It's madness. And so Peter gives
us the crowning encouragement. Whatever comes to you in the
way of doing good, that is suffering. Know this. It comes to you by
the will of God. By the will of God, it is better.
Yes. And it comes from the will of
your loving father. Well, dear people, that's my
effort to try to open up the passage. And I beg you. fact that you and I can go home,
to homes and not wonder if someone will meet us at the door to inquire
about our faith, or drag us out of our beds in the middle of
the night to question us. I'm not prophesying, but I think
the clouds are quickly gathering, that our dream world may end
sooner than some of us think. And we may know what it is to
enter into the fellowship of our brothers and sisters in many
parts of the world who this very day have sealed their witness
with their blood. Others have sealed it by being
dragged off to prisons. The opposition to anything distinctively
Christian becomes more and more bold. The antipathy to anything
good, as I said earlier, is shameless. May I give you an illustration?
just catching a few minutes of the news section dealing with
sporting events, one of the few things that I try to catch sometimes
at ten minutes to eleven at night. And there was John McEnroe being
inducted into the Tennis Hall of Fame, the tennis brat known
for his foul mouth, cursing and throwing out invectives and foul
four-letter words to umpires when he was Rank number one. It struck me how goodness is
despised. He stands before I don't know
how many people, gives a 45 minute speech apparently, at the end
of which he says to the assembled crowd, do you want me to apologize
to all the umpires that I cursed? And the crowd yelled back, no,
no. And he shamelessly says, that's
what I thought, to H with the whole bunch of them. And then
what broke my heart is the new commentators all laugh, with
an approving laugh, and not a one of them had the guts to say,
isn't it a shame that John McEnroe has no sense of shame? That's
the soul of America in the present hour. And if you're a zealot
for good, you're a marked man or woman. You're marked! You're marked in the marketplace,
you're marked in the workplace, you're marked in the college
classroom, you'll be marked wherever you go! And it may yet be that
that antipathy to anything good in the presence of those who
are zealots of the good is going to break out in ever more aggressive
opposition and persecution. And perhaps we would wish we
had prayed in this passage that is suffering for righteousness
sake 101. This is just the beginning. Peter
goes on to say in chapter 4, think it not strange concerning
the fiery trial which is coming among you. May God help us and
may you who are wrestling with where am I? Is mom's God and
dad's God my God and their Christ my Christ? I believe God has
done a work in me. I believe my trust is out of
myself and in Christ alone. You precious young men and women,
you count the cost to own Christ from the heart in this wicked
and perverse generation. You may have to pay a price that
some of us have never had to pay. The most some of us have
received is a pretty good battering with nasty words. I got that
as a 17-year-old kid when I got converted. When the windows were
rolled down and the hot rods that drove down the hill on Strawberry
Road in Stanford, Connecticut. Hail Holy Roller! Walk on your
heels, save your soul! Ha ha ha! The words through the
years have gotten a little more nasty and a little more biting,
but I don't have one blow on my body from my attachment to
the Lord Jesus Christ. I can't say with Paul, I bear
in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus. I do believe some parts
have worn out a bit more quickly because of the current that's
run over this body and ministering and preaching for 45 years. And
in that sense, I thank God for aches and pains that some of
my fellow budding geriatrics don't have. But I have no marks
that I can say these are the stigmata of the Lord Jesus. I don't know what it is. Some
of you may. who is he that will harm you?
If you become a zealot of the good, but, but, even if you should
suffer for righteousness' sake, blessed, blessed, and do not
fear their fear, neither be troubled, but sanctify Christ as Lord in
your hearts, ready always to give answer to every man who
asks you a reason of the hope that is in you yet, with meekness
in fear, having a good conscience, that wherein you are spoken against,
they may be put to shame, who revile your good manner of life
in Christ. For it is better, if the will
of God should so will, that you suffer for well-doing than for
evil-doing. Let us pray. Our Father, we are so thankful
for your We marvel at how it addresses us at the point of
our need, and we pray that you will write this portion upon
the hearts of all of your people. And for those, our Father, who
have never known the shame of Holy Spirit conviction, may tonight
be the night when they begin to feel ashamed that they do
not give you the honor and the glory and the praise and the
service of which you are worthy. that they may begin to feel a
deep and inescapable shame that they despise your dear son. O God, shame them unto life and
unto salvation. And we pray for your dear people
that you will help us not to treat lightly this portion of
your word. Grant, O God, that we may so
feed our souls upon it that should days of greater affliction and
suffering come upon us, we may not be caught unprepared, but
that by your grace you will bring to remembrance what we have learned
this day in your courts. Hear our prayers. Help us as
we go out into a world that hates goodness and hates the Lord Jesus. May we so walk that we will,
by your grace, be given opportunities to speak of that hope that is
in us. Hear our prayers, accept our
thanks, as together we come before you through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.