Alright, 1 Peter 3 and verse
14, we read, But, and if ye suffer for righteousness' sake, happy
are ye, and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled,
but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and be ready always
to give an answer to every man that asketh you of a reason of
the hope that is in you with meekness and fear. 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. For it is better if the will
of God be so. that you suffer for well-doing
than for evil-doing. Now, the Lord says here, if you
suffer for righteousness' sake, but and if we suffer for righteousness'
sake. The believer can expect that,
to suffer for righteousness' sake. It's not a surprise if
we do suffer for righteousness' sake. Now, what does it mean
for righteousness' sake? The Lord said, for righteousness
sake, means for my sake. Turn to Matthew 5 and look at
this. Matthew 5, verse 10. He says, blessed are they which are persecuted
for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Now
look at verse 11. Blessed are ye when men shall
revile you and persecute you and shall say all manner of evil
against you falsely for my sake. Look over at Matthew 10 verse
18. Matthew 10 verse 18. And you shall be brought before
governors and kings for my sake for a testimony against them
and the Gentiles. Look at verse 39 of that chapter. He that findeth his life shall
lose it, and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it."
Now look back in 1 Peter. I want you to see something here.
Peter's been talking about suffering for the name of Christ, for Christ's
sake, for His sake, Christ Himself. He said there in chapter 2 and
verse 7, unto you therefore which believe He is precious, but unto
them which be disobedient the stone which the builders disallowed,
the same is made the head of the corner. Look now at chapter
4 verse 14. He says, if you be reproached
for the name of Christ. And this is what our immediate
text is talking about. He says, verse 15, sanctify the
Lord God in your hearts. Himself. The person. Himself. So first of all, this righteousness
sake has to do with Christ Himself. He is our righteousness. The
Lord God, our righteousness. And then secondly, for righteousness
sake, has to do with for the gospels sake. Look at Mark 10,
verse 29. Mark 10, verse 29. He says there, Jesus answered
and said, Verily I say unto you, there is no man that hath left
house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife,
or children, or lands for my sake and the Gospels, and the
Gospels sake. Our text now, it has to do with
the Gospels sake. Look down at verse 15. He says,
Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh. This
is our Gospel. It's our adoption. The Gospel,
the good news that we declare is the righteousness of God,
the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. This is the good news.
And when we declare or speak that, which we do know and we
believe, it's not to be mean, it's not to be contentious, it's
not to be contrary to what men think or say. But the fact of
the matter is we speak what we speak because God is our savior. We speak what we speak because
we've been quickened by God, we've been made alive by Him,
we've been made to behold His glory, His righteousness in the
person of Christ the Lord. And He's called us, He's saved
us. The gospel is personal to every
believer because it speaks of your Father, it speaks of your
Savior, it speaks of your God. So we speak that that's true
about Him. We want to speak that which is
true about Him. That God alone is righteous. He alone is righteous. all men are unrighteous. Why
would you say that to somebody? That's just going to make people
mad. Well, if we don't understand the figure, the type of Adam
being the first representative, and the fact that in him, by
what he did, all died, and because of being born by him, we were
born dead. We'll never see the picture and
understand the problem and see the picture that because the
last Adam did what he did, we did it. And because we're born
of his seed, we're alive. This is the gospel. It's the
gospel. Sin is necessary. All men need
to be told that there's no righteousness in men. Men are dead. Our gospel
is that God has the right to choose whom he will and pass
by whom he will. Well that's just gonna make folks
mad. We delight, do you joy, do you rejoice in the grace of
God? That's our hope, the grace of
God. Not by any merit in us, the grace
of God. And so we declare the grace of
God, that's what we speak about. We declare the righteousness
of God in justifying His people, not passing by their sin, not
sweeping it under the rug, but laying it on His Son, and punishing
all His children in the person of His Son, answering the wages
of righteousness, the wages of sin, which is death, and so thereby
satisfying himself. That's our hope. That's all our
hope. So we declare that to folks. That makes sinners upset because
men think that they're justified by something they do, whether
they call it faith or they call it words or they call it something
they do. We rejoice in the fact that God
reconciled us to Himself and then came and He rebirthed us
and He made us to be robed in the very righteousness of Christ. He made us to be born of Him
with a new spirit that He's given, a new heart, a new willingness,
a new desire, a new love, a new motive, a holy inward man that
he's made. We delight in that because otherwise
we wouldn't have come to him. Otherwise we wouldn't have called
on him. And we know this about ourselves, and we know it about
other men. And so you hear when somebody's,
if something's white and somebody's calling it black, you got common
sense to know that. Why do we act like in the gospel
we don't? It's plain talk, as Brother Pete
said. It is plain talk. Very plain talk. and our righteousness
of God that we speak. This is offensive. It is offensive. It was offensive to us when we
heard it because we hated God. It was offensive to us because
it declared us dead and all our righteousnesses that we thought
were righteousnesses to be vain. It declared that salvation is
absolutely opposite to how we reasoned with ourselves and thought
it was. He declared to us that there's
no boasting, no room for us to boast in anything. And so, that's
how it is with men. That's how it is with men. And
we can expect it. Alright? Now, so first this righteousness
has to do with Christ Himself. Been born of Christ. Been born
of Him. We wouldn't expect anything less
than to be rejected by the world. He was. If they called him Beelzebub,
they'd call you Beelzebub, he said. And thirdly, secondly,
it's what we speak. And then thirdly, it's our manner
of life. It's the new life. It's the new
life, the new motive, the new conduct. Because Christ is our
righteousness and because we've been taught of Him, been born
of Him, follow after Him, now saints, His saints, those born
of God, They no longer, we no longer walk after the world,
the irreligious world or the religious world. We just don't. We don't want to partake of the
works of the irreligious world or of the religious world, either
one, either one. Now, the chief endeavor of an
unregenerate man, carnal man, is to silence his conscience.
And some people will use religion to do that, and they'll become
active in it. And they'll try to hide themselves
among the trees of God's planting. And they'll try to cover themselves
in the fig leaves of their doing, like Adam did. And they'll speak
highly of their will. They'll speak highly of their
works. They'll speak highly of their
faith. They'll speak highly of their humbleness. They'll speak
highly of their holiness. They'll speak highly of all these
things. Or a man will try to silence that conscience and water
that conscience down and get it to quit bothering him in business
or in travel or in pleasure. And he'll just go from scene
to scene and place to place and he's constantly trying to keep
himself totally occupied so he doesn't have to hear it. And
when a man comes across one of God's saints who's been sanctified,
and who's been made to truly walk in the righteousness of
God, and truly worship God according to His righteousness, and truly
be settled and committed and consecrated to serve Him, that
very person who speaks no longer of himself but of Christ's righteousness,
who rests robed in Christ's righteousness, who wants to be where God's people
are, who wants to hear God's Word, who wants to serve Christ,
and who walks right as God has taught us throughout these scriptures,
not rendering evil for evil, That very man is contrary to
a carnal man. And that makes that conscience
start screaming to him. And that makes that conscience
that he's tried so hard to silence with religion or without religion. It's made him start screaming
to him. And he don't want to have anything
to do. He wants to push away that one who's causing that conscience
to start screaming again. Whichever the case, that's what
happens. This is what Paul said over in Galatians 4.29. He was
talking about Ishmael and Isaac. Galatians 4.29. He said, But
as then, he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that
was born after the spirit. And he said, Even so it is now. Even so it is now. Cain killed
his brother Abel because Abel was righteous. Ishmael persecuted
Isaac because Isaac was righteous. He was righteous. And it's not
only with that, it's with the irreligious. Look at 1 Peter
4, verse 4. It says, Or look at verse 3. The time past of our life may
suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles when we
walked in lasciviousness, lust, excess of wine, revelings, banquetings,
and religion to abominable idolatries, wherein they think it strange
that you run not with them to the same excess of right, speaking
evil of you. evil of them. So this thing of
for righteousness sake, first it means for Christ himself.
Secondly, it means for the gospel, what we speak. And thirdly, it
means because now we're no longer partaking with the world, religious
or irreligious. We're serving God now. We're
serving Him now. So, but he says here, look back
now at our text. He says, but, and if you suffer
for righteousness sake, verse 14, happy are you. Happy are
you. I meant to tell you to stay over
there at Matthew 5, but you just read it. Let me quote it to you
here, read it to you here. Blessed are they which are persecuted
for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. It's
the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when men shall
revile you, and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against
you falsely for my sake. Rejoice, he said, be exceedingly
glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so persecuted
they the prophets which were before you." You mean not the
prophets were persecuted like that? Yep, just like that. Look back over there at 1 Peter
4.14, he says, The Spirit of God rests on you.
If it wasn't otherwise, you know what you'd do? You'd compromise
so you didn't have to be persecuted. You'd compromise so there wouldn't
be any reason for this world to do anything but hug you and
love you and kiss you and praise you. Look at verse 14. If you be reproached for the
name of Christ, happy are you, for the Spirit of glory and of
God resteth upon you. On their part, he's evil spoken
of, but on your part, he's glorified. He's glorified. It's honor to
suffer for his sake. You remember when Peter was called
before that group of rulers and he was beaten and they said,
now don't go speaking in the name of Christ anymore. Don't
you go speaking in his name anymore. And the scripture says, they
departed from the presence of the council rejoicing that they
were counted worthy. to suffer shame for His name. And then through these things,
He's going to grow us in grace. Romans 5.3 says, this tribulation
works patience, and patience, maturity, experience, and experience
hope. And it just increases. As much
as a man may try to stamp it out, and trials and tribulations
may appear to be stamping it out, it's growing us within. For the love of God is shed abroad
in your hearts. And this hope doesn't make us
shamed. It does the contrary. It makes
us more willing to bow to Christ. It makes us more willing to speak
of Him. It makes us more willing to want to walk after Him and
not be conformed to this world. That's exactly what it does.
So here's the third thing. Now, the Holy Spirit's direct
instruction to us. And I want you to see here that
these are the words of Peter, but these are not just words
of a man and not just the words of Peter. This is not just a
list of commands for us to try to adopt. These are the sweet
reminders that the Holy Spirit of God speaks into our hearts
whenever we are reviled, whenever we are reproached. This is what happens. We saw
first of all that this was for righteousness sake. It meant
it was for Christ's sake Himself. Now look here what He says first
of all. Verse 14. Be not afraid of their terror,
neither be troubled, but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts.
It doesn't mean we make Him holy. It means that through the Spirit
of God, behold Him as He is. Behold Him as He is." This word,
be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled, it does
mean don't be terrified by your adversaries, as Paul said, but
it means something more than that. If you see that, be not
afraid of their terror, neither be troubled, but sanctify the
Lord God in your hearts, look over at Isaiah chapter 8 and
verse 12. Peter quotes or paraphrases or
gives the meaning of the Old Testament Scripture constantly
through this epistle. Look what he says here, Isaiah
said in Isaiah 8 verse 12. Say ye not a confederacy to all
them to whom this people shall say a confederacy? Neither fear
ye their fear. Their fear, they're afraid of
something. afraid of man, afraid of sin, afraid of everything
but God. Don't be fearful of their fear,
nor be afraid of what they're afraid of, but sanctify the Lord
of hosts Himself, and let Him be your fear, and let Him be
your dread. And He shall be for a sanctuary,
but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offense to
both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a snare to the
inhabitants of Jerusalem. The Lord God's almighty. He's our God. He's our Redeemer.
He's almighty. He never sleeps. He never tarries. Everything He's doing for His
people, He's doing for His glory, for His namesake. so we can rest
assured that He's going to do everything that needs to be done
for us. And Paul said, the sufferings
of Christ, as they abound in us, so our consolation abounds
by Christ Himself. Through the Spirit of God, through
God Himself in our hearts. That's how we behold Him as He
is. That's how we turn to Him as
He is. And we see, though we suffer for Him, Himself, It's
by Him that we're not turned aside, that we continue to reverence
and adore and worship Him alone. You know, if our happiness and
our blessings, if anything depended upon us, we'd be miserable, absolutely
miserable. But this hope and this confidence
we have, it's beyond the fear of change. We're complete in Him. We've
been accepted in Him. what God has done for us. You
remember the Lord's description of the Holy Spirit? He said it
blows where it will and you can't stop it. That doesn't just apply
to when you're regenerated. And no amount of persecution,
no amount of obstacles, no amount of reviling, no amount of reproach
that can stop the Comforter from coming into the hearts of His
people right in the middle of all of it and make you align
in the place of little impotent man. That's right. And this is our happening. Our
God is a never-ending, unchangeable source and object of our happiness,
blessing and comfort. So sanctify the Lord God in your
hearts. Now the second thing, we saw
righteous for righteousness sake means for our gospel. Well, the
Spirit of God emboldens us in the heart with this word right
here. This is what He does. Remember He told us, the Lord
told us He said, when you're brought before me, and he said,
don't be afraid of what you're going to say. I'll give you the
words to speak. I'll give you the words to speak.
I don't know if I could stand up in front of, if they called
me to the White House, I don't know if I could stand up in front
of the President and all his council and declare the Gospel
to them. I would be scared to death to do that. But if I ever
am, you know who's going to be the one that gets all the glory
for emboldening me to speak to them as I ought to? God is. God is. You may not think you
could stand before me, but when the time comes, He gives the
grace you need when you need the grace. And this is what He
says, verse 15. He says, so you just be ready.
You be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh
you, verse 15, of the reason of the hope that is in you with
meekness and fear. Now if we see what we've seen
here, meekness and fear toward whom? We fear in man or we fear
in God? Meekness and fear toward God
will make us speak with meekness and the truth and love to men. It will. But if we don't have
meekness and fear toward God, we won't speak truth to men. We won't. Well, if we do speak
it, what are we going to say? What is our hope? What's the
hope we have? Look over at Colossians 1.27.
Colossians 1.27. Let's read verse 26. Even the
mystery, which hath been hid from ages and from generations,
but now is made manifest to His saints, to whom God would make
known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the
Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory, whom
we preach. You see, it's a whom. It's Christ
in you, the hope of glory. Whom. Whom. whom we preach, warning
every man, teaching every man in all wisdom that we may present
every man perfect in Christ Jesus. This is what we speak. This is
of whom we speak. If they ask you who, what you
hope, what you hope. I read a story one time about
these soldiers who were fighting in South Africa back in the 1860s,
and they had those soldiers that would be
coming from the front, from where the heat of the battle was, they'd
be returning from the front. And then they would meet soldiers
that were going to the front, where the battle was, right to
the heat of the battle. And those soldiers that were
returning, they would say, 494, boys, 494. And those soldiers that were
going to the front, they would say, six further on, boys, six
further on. And they'd been given a hymnal.
And in that hymnal, number 494 was, God be with you till we
meet again. And six further on, number 500
was, blessed assurance, Jesus is mine. Sanctify God in your hearts and
remember 494, God is with you. And remember
six further on, blessed assurance, Jesus is mine. They ask you,
what do you hope? God's with me. And I am my Beloved's
and He's mine. Let me tell you about Him. Let
me tell you about Him. Well, here's the third thing.
We saw for righteousness sake means doing. Because Christ in
us, we don't have a desire to walk after the ungodly of this
world anymore. Whether it's in religion or out.
Here's what He said, verse 16. having a good conscience. The
conscience has been purged by the Spirit of God. We have a
good conscience now. We see sin in us, we see evil
in us. We know that we've not done anything as we are. We know
we haven't done anything as He's commanded us, but He's purged
our conscience so that it's purged and it's clear we're not trying
to come to Him in works of righteousness. We've done. So we have a good
conscience. And we know that we're walking
after Him. He says that, whereas they speak evil of you as of
evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good
conversation in Christ. For it's better if the will of
God be so that you suffer for well-doing than for evil-doing. When are they going to be ashamed? He said, when they see your good
works. Look over at chapter 2, verse 12. having your conversation
honest among the Gentiles, that whereas they speak against you
as evildoers, they may, by your good works which they shall behold,
glorify God." When is that going to happen? In the day of visitation. In the day of visitation. They
are going to behold Him in the day God visits them in invincible
grace. and makes them to behold Christ. Are they going to behold them,
behold that your works have been good in the day of the judgment,
in the last day? They're going to behold them
one way or the other. And what are they going to behold when
they, or who are they going to behold when they behold your
good works? They're going to behold Christ. I'm not talking
about you, I'm talking about they're going to behold Christ.
And they're going to behold that all you said of Christ, was so. We're talking about our righteousness
we've been hated for is Christ himself. In the day of visitation,
they're going to see Christ himself. We said it's because of what
we speak. In the day of visitation, whether it's in this life in
grace or in the one to come, they're going to behold everything
the believer said was so about Christ. And they're going to
behold your good works, that all you ever did was simply keep
you out of the way so they could see Christ and not you. So though you suffer for Christ
our righteousness himself, for the righteousness of our gospel
that we speak, and for the righteousness wherein we walk with God in his
righteousness, though you suffer for those things still, Sanctify
the Lord in your hearts. See Christ himself and know he's
still on his throne. Secondly, be ready to answer
with the gospel of righteousness to any man that ask. And thirdly,
keep worshiping and walking in the Lord our righteousness, for
it's better if the will of God be so that you suffer for well
doing than for evil doing. Amen.