I'm going to ask you to take
your Bibles and turn with me to the book of 1 Peter chapter
3. 1 Peter 3. I'm going to actually be dealing
in these two services with passages of scripture. Actually, this
particular I'm going to deal with verses 15 to 18, and I've
entitled this, Ready Always, to give an answer. And then,
Lord willing, in the next service, I'll deal with verses 19 through
22, and I've entitled that message, Saved by Water. But I want to
bring us, just bring us very quickly, make a few comments
on starting in verse 1. I'd like to read verses 1 to
7. So we'll get the entire context of this chapter. The scripture
says, likewise you wives, be in subjection to your own husbands,
that if any obey not the word, they also may without the word
be won by the conversation of the wives, I'm sorry, while they
behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear. whose adorning,
let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, wearing
of gold, putting on of apparel, but let it be the hidden man
of the heart, and that which is not corruptible, even the
ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight
of God of great price, For after this manner, in the old time,
the holy women, also who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being
in subjection unto their own husbands, even as Sarah obeyed
Abraham, calling him Lord, whose daughters ye are, as long as
you do well, and are not afraid with any amazement. Likewise,
ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving
honor unto the wife as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs
together of the grace of life, that your prayers be not hindered."
Now, the Apostle Paul gave some instruction to believing wives
who had unbelieving husbands, and that that they were to be
in subjection to their husbands, that their husband might behold
their chaste conversation, their modest behavior. And if it pleased
the Lord, that the unbelieving husband might be drawn by God's
Spirit to desire to want to come and hear the gospel. And in that
latter part of verse 6, it says, whose daughters you are as long
as you do well and are not afraid, with any amazement, that is,
don't give way to fears or let anxiety unnerve you. Be in subjection to your husband.
Walk before the Lord in a spirit of submission. Don't be afraid.
The Lord will take care of it. And then in verses 8 to 14, the
scripture says, and finally, be ye all of one mind, having
compassion one of another. Love is brethren. Be pitiful.
Be courteous, not rendering evil for evil or railing for railing,
but contrary wise blessing, knowing that ye are there unto called,
that ye should inherit a blessing. For he that will love life and
see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil and his
lips that they speak no guile. Let him eschew evil and do good. Let him seek peace and ensue
it. For the eyes of the Lord are
over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers,
but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil. And who is
he that will harm you if ye be followers of that which is good?
But, and if you suffer for righteousness' sake, happy are ye, and be not
afraid of their terror, neither be troubled." The spirit moved
Peter, I said Paul a while ago, but Peter to also give instruction
to believing husbands and wives, to have compassion one for another,
sympathize and be compassionate to each other, forgiving and
praying for one another, be courteous, not rendering evil for evil,
for the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous. So he's given
instruction to believe in wives with an unbelieving spouse or
vice versa, and believers together. And then the Spirit of God moved
Peter to declare, and here's where I'm gonna deal, this first
message here, verse 15 to verse 18. He says, but sanctify the
Lord God in your hearts. Now that word sanctify there
actually means make holy. And without a doubt, we know
that the Lord himself is essentially holy, and we don't make him to
be so. We don't have the power to do
that. But when Peter exhorts God's people to sanctify the
Lord in their hearts, what he's saying is from a new heart, a
heart made new in regenerating grace, worship from the heart. and proclaim or declare His holiness
in your heart and before men. So we sanctify the Lord. We admit it. We declare it in
word and deed. We sanctify the Lord when we
meet together as believers and strive to adorn the doctrine
of God our Savior in all things. When we walk by faith, believing
the Lord in newness of life, we walk not after the flesh,
after the dictates of the flesh, but after the spirits, we sanctify
the Lord. What we're saying is God Almighty
is holy. He's done something for me. He's
given me life, given me life in Christ, and I love Him, and
I follow Him. I want to do that. And then Peter
continues in verse 15, and he says, always to give an answer
to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is
in you with meekness and fear." Now, if someone were to ask you,
they'll say, you say that your sins are pardoned and that your
name is written in heaven. Why do you believe that? Why
do you believe that there's no condemnation to you that are
in Christ Jesus? Why do you believe that when
all men stand before God, that you're going to be found among
the sheep that shall hear the Lord say, come, you blessed of
my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation
of the world? Why do you say that? How do you
say that? What kind of foundation have
you got for that? Be ready. You should be ready
to give an answer to every man that asketh thee of the hope
that's in you. And do it with meekness and fear. That is, with humility and respect
toward God and God's Word. Every true believer and believer
in the Lord Jesus Christ has a good hope, a good confidence
of glory. It's a hope, it's a confidence
that is based totally on the Word of God. It's a hope that
is established in the heart by the Spirit of God. It's a hope
that absolutely finds no confidence in the flesh. And their hope
and confidence is this, that the Father chose to show mercy
to me. I believe that the Father chose
to put me in Christ. I believe that the Father has
given me to the Lord Jesus and that he is my surety. As sure as God put Noah and his
wife, and we're gonna be coming, I'm saying this because we're
gonna be coming to this. It'll be the second message when I
get to this, but as sure, we believe that God put Noah in
the ark, that God was pleased to show mercy. Noah found grace
in the eyes of the Lord. How did Noah get there? God put
him there. And a person that has a good
hope, they believe. I believe God put me in Christ. I believe that He died as the
surety, as the redeemer, so that I wouldn't. And now the Spirit
of God has moved Peter to say, now you be ready. You be ready
to give an answer to every man that asketh you of the reason
of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear." Now the answer
to this exhortation is actually given in verse 16. It says, having a good conscience
that whereas they speak evil of you as of evildoers, they
may be ashamed that falsely accuse you of your good conversation
in Christ. Now, the answer that we have
is this. We believe that Almighty God
has done something for me in the person and the The confidence,
here's the confidence that I've got, that I've got a hope in
the one in whom I believe. The last part of verse 21 says
something, and again, I keep saying this, these two messages
are gonna be, this will be 1A, 1 and B here, because I wanna
deal with both of them, but here's the confidence that I've got.
Give a reason, give a reason for the confidence. The latter
part of verse 21 says, the answer of a good conscience toward God
is what? By the resurrection of Jesus
Christ. Here is the answer of my good
conscience. You say that God put you in Him
from before the foundation of the world. Yes. You believe that
He lived for you and died for you. Yes. Why do you believe that He's
your good hope? Why do you believe? Here's the
answer. He's alive. He's alive. God raised Him from
the dead. He raised Him from the dead.
Now, Peter says in verse 16 now, having a good conscience, that
whereas they speak evil of you as of evildoers, they may be
ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ. Now, the Spirit of God moved
Peter to say, having a good conscience that's founded upon God's word
and God's will and God's promise, a conscience that doesn't accuse
you of doing or thinking wrongly concerning your reason and hope
in Christ. Remember this, we continue to
sanctify the Lord in our hearts and whenever we're falsely accused
by evildoers because of who you're trusting, they may be found ashamed
that falsely accuse your good conversation. When it comes to
my natural conscience, I don't feel perfect, and neither does
any other believer. Somebody says, well, why do you
think that you've got a good hope? Why do you think that? Well, because my perfection and
my good conscience is not based upon what I think, what I do
of myself, but it's founded totally in the Lord Jesus Christ. My answer, my reason of hope
is this. You just read something. You
said, not by works of righteousness that we've done it, but according
to His mercy He saved us. Here is my answer of a good hope,
a good conscience in Christ Jesus. He that has answered for me,
died for me, was buried for me, God raised Him from the dead.
God accepted what He did on my behalf. Why do you think you've
got a part in it? I believe Him. I believe Him. And they'll say, that's all you've
got? That's all I've got. He that believeth on the Son.
Not in something I did, not in something I can do. I can't answer,
I can't have a good conscience. I've told you before, oh how
many times, in religion, coming up in religion, I would think,
I had good reason to doubt, good reason to doubt my salvation,
believe me. I gave myself plenty of reasons to doubt. my consistency,
my faithfulness. How many times, though, would
I think to myself, well, I'm going to have to rededicate.
I might go down to rededication of life. Some of you may not
know what that is. Well, Ruthie, you know. I'm going
to re-up. I'm going to just make it Maybe
it wasn't real. Maybe I wasn't faithful. Maybe I wasn't thinking correctly
back then. So let me come down the aisle
again and let me do it again. I didn't have a good conscience.
I didn't have a good reason of hope. But listen, my reason of
hope, the reason of hope and confidence of a believer is that
it's not on me. It's not what I've done. It's
what He's done for me. It's what He's done on my behalf. and that I'm accepted in the
beloved, not in works, not in thoughts, not in my deeds. Peter says, listen, be ready
to give an answer for those that ridicule you as being evildoers. For it's better, verse 17, if
the will of God be so, that you suffer for well-doing than for
evil doing. All things are ordered by the
will of God, even the trials and the sufferings and the afflictions
of God's people. So it's better, it's better that
you should suffer for well doing. What do you mean well doing?
That you suffer by being ridiculed by men for trusting the Lord
Jesus Christ and giving the evidence of all of my hope is in Him and
not in myself. Men will accuse men of doing
evil for trusting the Lord. You're not trusting anything. It's better that you suffer for
well-doing than that you should suffer for evil-doing. What would
that be? Well, it'd be the opposite of
well-doing. Well-doing is putting all your trust and hope and confidence
in Christ. That's well-doing. Believing
the Lord. Then for evil-doing, it'd be
better to suffer for well-doing than evil-doing. That is, to
suffer the penalty of God's justice and God's judgment for not trusting
Him. He that hath the Son hath life.
He that hath not the Son hath not life, verse 18 says, for
Christ also has suffered, has once suffered for sins, the just
for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to
death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit. Now, the anointed
Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, God's Lamb, hath once suffered
for sins, and not for his own, for he had none personally. It
says the just for the unjust. He, as the redeeming substitute
of his people, laid down his life one time to make reconciliation
for the sheep. Hebrews 10, 14, for by one offering
hath he perfected forever them that are sanctified. You mean to tell me that you
believe by his one offering for sin that the Lord Jesus Christ completely
and forever put away the debt of his people. And they contribute
nothing to that? That's exactly what I mean. By
one sacrifice for sin. He has perfected forever. Now that's a good hope. That's a good conscience. I can
lay down and rest. What I see in myself, I agree
with the Apostle Paul. Oh, wretched man that I am. Who shall deliver me from the
body of this death? You ever just find yourself at
times just getting tired? And you just, you think, come
quickly, Lord Jesus. I want to go home. I just want
to go home. because he's perfected me forever. The blood of bulls and goats
would never put away sin, but by that one sacrifice for sin,
that sacrifice that needs no repeating before God, there is
no more need, any more than there's a need for another flood Lord willing, we'll deal with
that too, second verse, second message. Christ's one sacrifice
for sin entirely removed for the sheep the penalty that was
due their sin and thereby laid the foundation and the surety
of their final and eternal holiness in Christ Jesus. That's a good
hope. that establishes a good conscience. And the reason for Christ's one
suffering for sin was that he might bring us to God. Being alienated by our sin far
off from him, being enemies in our mind by our rebellion, he
suffered Being put to death, being made flesh, he truly was
put to death, his body died. That body, he gave up the ghost,
that's what it says, that body, he died. And his human soul,
you know, here we are, you got a body and you got a soul, there's
some life in you, you're human. We're alive. There's something
that's animated. Now if this soul, this spirit,
is separated from this body, this body ain't going to work
anymore. It's not going to work. It's going to go. It dies. There's life. He suffered being
put to death in the flesh. He was flesh. He was made flesh. An amazing thing. Great is the mystery of godliness.
God was manifested in the flesh. What does that mean? He had a
human body. God Almighty had a human body
and a human soul. A real, just like us, yet without
sin. He had just exactly what happened.
And when he died, that soul was commended. Into thy
hands I commend my spirit. He says this in Luke 23, verse
46. And when Jesus had cried with
a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. And having thus said, he gave
up the ghost. He truly died. Died. under the penalty of being made
sin for His people. He had made Him to be sin for
us who knew no sin. That we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. But now, here's the amazing thing. God didn't leave Him there in
the grave. He was quickened by the Spirit The scripture says He was quickened. Look at that latter part of verse
18. He was quickened. He was made alive by the Holy
Spirit. And His human spirit, He was
made like unto His brethren in the form of sinful flesh, yet
without sin, quickened by the Spirit. And here the Spirit of
God was said to raise him from the dead. And his human body
and spirit, human spirit, was reunited. All three persons of
the Godhead are said to raise Christ from the dead. Here it
said of the Spirit, the Spirit of God, Acts 4.10, Peter declared,
that the father raised him to the dead, it says, and killed
the prince of life whom God hath raised from the dead. And even
the Lord Jesus Christ said of himself, he spoke of his power
to raise himself from the dead. John 10, 18, no man taketh it
from me, but I lay it down on myself. I have power to lay it
down. I have power to take it again. This commandment have
I received of my father. When did the father tell him
that? John 17. All power. is given unto the Son. And He
should give eternal life to as many as the Father has given
Him. So who raised Christ from the dead? The Father? The Spirit? The Son? God raised Him from the dead.
God raised Him from the dead. So you contemplate this in closing. His human spirit was quickened. by his divine nature, the spirit
of holiness. And he was made alive as we should
be made alive in the resurrection from the dead in the last day.
And again, his resurrection. You want a reason for a good
hope? I'll tell you, I'll give you a good reason for my hope,
a good reason for a good conscience. God Almighty who put me in the
Lord Jesus Christ, He came into this world and He lived for me
and He answered for me before God and He satisfied God's demand
for righteousness before the law. He answered it and the Father
said of Him, this is my beloved Son whom I'm well pleased. That Messiah who I believe and
I trust and I'm like that That thief on the cross, Lord, when
you come into your kingdom, would you remember me? I don't have
anything to offer you, but Lord, I trust you. I just trust you.
I believe that that Messiah right there, when he died and satisfied
God's demand for justice, he's satisfied. Soul that sinneth
dies. I believe he died on my behalf.
He bore all of my guilt. And he went into that grave,
and the Spirit of God quickened him. And he came out of the grave. He's alive. As he told his disciples,
he said, I go to prepare a place for you, that where I am there
you may be also. I believe he said that for me.
I believe he did. I have no other hope than that.
So you want an answer of a good conscience. It's not going to
be what I've done, but it's going to be what He did. I believe
He lived for me, died for me, and I believe He's coming back
to get me. I believe I'm going to hear Him
say, you know, enter, enter. The kingdom is prepared for you
from the foundation of the world. So we sanctify the Lord in our
hearts, and we're ready. You want a reason? We're ready
to give an answer to every man that asks us of the reason of
hope that is in us, and we do it with meekness and fear before
God, because salvation is of the Lord. I pray that God bless
this to our heart for His glory and our good. Amen.