If you will turn back to first
Peter in chapter three this time first Peter chapter three. First Peter chapter three and
I'm going to read verses eight through twenty two into the chapter. First Peter three verse eight.
Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassions one of another. Love us, 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 you be followers of that which is
good? 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 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 ye suffer for
well-doing than for evil-doing. For Christ also hath 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.
By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison, which
sometimes were disobedient when once the long-suffering of God
waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein
few, that is, eight souls were saved by water. The like figure
whereunto even baptism doth also save us, not the putting away
of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience
toward God by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. who has gone
into heaven and is on the right hand of God, angels and authorities
and powers being made subject unto him. So I'm continuing to
go through 1 Peter here, and I'm not going through every single
verse, but I kind of pick out a highlight verse, I guess, if
you will, of these passages that I'm reading. But for my text
today, the verse I want to look at specifically is verse 15.
And there's some things that stick out in this verse, and
they're simple enough. It's actually what it says. Sanctifying
Christ in your hearts, be ready, give an answer to every man that
asketh, the hope that is in you. And when I first looked at this
verse, I had a wrong thought about this. I thought, this is
something that all can do. That is, give an answer. But
that's not really true. because what it says in this
verse is a description of those who can do this. All of these
things must be true before you can give an answer, at least
of this hope that's spoken of here. You certainly must have
a need, for if you have no need of hope, I mean, if you have
no need, you don't have any need of hope. If you do not sanctify
the Lord in your heart, you will not be ready to give an answer. Certainly this is talking to
God's people. For those who are not His might
have a hope, but their hope is not a good hope. It is in fact
a false hope. If they have hope at all, it's
a false hope. But it says to be ready, and that's my title,
be ready. This word means adjusted. You
kind of get the sense of this word if you think about those
sprinters you see in races. The commands are ready, set,
go. If they do not pay attention
to these commands, they will likely get started out late and
lose the race. The command comes for ready,
and they get on their mark. That is, they're in their lane.
They have those things that they put their feet on, and they get
in their lanes. They get adjusted to get a good start. Then the
command set comes. And this is when they usually
throw that arm back behind them like this. And that's so when
they hear the command go that they can get off as quickly as
they possibly can. In a sprint, you want to be the
first one off the mark because that gives you the advantage
that you could help you win the race. When it comes to God's
people, what are we told in Hebrews 12, 11? Wherefore, seeing we
also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses,
let us lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily
beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set
before us. We are not in a race to beat
someone else. We're not trying to beat someone else. This is
the race to get where you are going. You know what the word
race means there? It means assembly, a contest. And what do you generally see
at a contest? An assembly of people. There
are a great many things that can be said about that, but there
is a race that is told us in Hebrews that is set before us,
and we with patience run this race. It is a race to attain
something, but not because of anything that we've done. But
all and by because of what he has done. Paul says he presses
toward the mark. He behaves and his thoughts are
such that he is trying to attain something, even though by the
promise of God, Joe, he's already attained it. And if you would
turn over with me to Philippians 3, Philippians 3. Philippians 3, verses 8 through
12. Philippians 3, verse 8. Yea,
doubtless, and I count all things but lost for the excellency of
the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered
the loss of all things, and do count them but done that I may
win Christ, and be found in him not having mine own righteousness,
which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of
Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith, that I may
know him and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship
of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death, if
by any means that I might attain unto the resurrection of the
dead, not as though I have already attained, either were already
perfect, but I follow after if that I may apprehend that for
which also I am apprehended of Jesus Christ. We see here that Paul is saying,
we do not presume on God, not as though I have already attained,
but I want to apprehend that for which I am also apprehended
of Christ. It's like this, you are following
Christ if he has gone ahead, and you are running to catch
him and apprehend him because he has come and laid hold of
you, he has arrested you. If Christ has apprehended you,
then you will want to apprehend him. So here in our text we have
a readiness to be able to give an answer. Just how are we to
ready ourselves? It tells us. sanctify the Lord
in your hearts. And I want to be clear here,
we by doing this are not adding one thing to Jesus Christ. That's
not what it's saying. This is also not saying that
this is done to gain us anything in and of ourselves. Christ tells us in John 15, he
says, without me you can do nothing. This is not us sanctifying Christ
because he is our sanctification. This is us doing this in our
hearts. This is telling us to, the word
means to, to render or acknowledge that Jesus Christ is holy. We
are doing something here, but we are doing it because he deserves
it, not to gain us anything towards our salvation. What we gain is
a knowing that He is absolutely holy and apart from Him, we will
be consumed by this Christ's holy God. This brings us to a
place where we see He is our holiness. But because He loved
us, then by His power, we also love Him and we hold Him as holy
right here in our heart. That is our seat of affection.
A child of God's affections are changed once he, that is Christ,
does something for him. Their affections are on things
above, not beneath, where there is nothing but corruption. Their
affections are on the holy Christ being seated on his throne. But
we do this by grace that he's given us. For if he takes his
finger off of us for just a moment, we will go down into a spiral,
deep down spiral. And we won't do these things,
we'll start to not do these things. What does that cause? It causes
us to not be ready. It may even give us thoughts
of no hope again. That's why we are told to be
ready. I know myself when I first hear
this text, my mind always runs to the answering part first.
It's the only thing that my mind really sees. But if we are not
ready, if we do not sanctify the Lord in our hearts, we will
not be ready to give an answer. We will cumber ourselves with
too many other things if we do not do this. We will not have
an answer. But there is also here a defined
answer, a specific answer. that we're to give, the hope
that is in you. Do you have a hope? What is it
that comes to mind when we read this? In my mind, I think this,
I have to have a hope to begin with, right? Do I have a hope? In order for me to have a hope,
there has to be some kind of need, correct? If you do not
need anything, then there's nothing for me to hope for. What are
we told, even God's people, what are we told in Ephesians 2.12?
That at that time, ye were without Christ, being aliens from the
commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise,
having no hope and without God in the world. What a place to
be. But if, by God's grace, I know
myself to be bankrupt with nothing to give, nothing to offer to
the Holy One who I'm told to sanctify my heart, then it is
possible that I just might have a hope to tell others about.
Those who might know something of this hope spoken of here in
this verse are those who have been brought low. They have been
brought down to rock bottom, you might say. They are brought
to a place where they know if they lay their hands to anything,
especially if it concerns their salvation before God, they will
plunge themselves into that great abyss of being totally separated
from God. They are they who have been stuck
in a miry clay. And here's the ones that have
been brought low, if you would turn with me to Lamentations
3. Lamentations 3. As you're turning to Lamentations
3, let me say a few things here. The one spoken of here is none
other than Jesus Christ the Lord. He's the only true one who has
seen affliction by the rod of God's raft. But the sovereign
God sends his law and teaches us something. His law is our
schoolmaster. What else does scripture say?
Until faith comes. So let's look at verse 2 of Lamentations. This is where God brings one
of his to feel. And I'm going to go through these
verses and kind of paraphrase them after I read them. So verse
2 of Lamentations 3. He hath led me and brought me
into darkness, but not into light. When God comes to us in this
way, we see nothing but darkness in myself. I can in no way do
what he has commanded me to do. Verse 3, surely against me as
he turned, he turneth his hand against me all the day. I am
on the precipice. I am about to be plunged over.
I feel this way when God brings me here knowing I deserve it. I feel he is about to do this
because God says in his law to do this and live. But I have
not done it and I cannot do it. Verse four through seven. My
flesh and my skin hath he made old. He hath broken my bones.
He hath builded against me and compassed me with gall and travail. He hath set me in dark places
as they that be dead of old. He hath hedged me about that
I cannot get out. He hath made my chain heavy. I've been crushed to where I
cannot do anything to affect my salvation. I have nothing
but poison and heavy labor. I'm in a grave. The walls I am
surrounded with are insurpassable and I am chained with a heavy
burden to care. It is a yoke upon me that I cannot
bear. He does not hear my prayers.
God is going to consume me in the fires of hell I cannot taste
anything good nor speak anything good because he has broken my
teeth. I do not know any peace. It is
all turmoil with me. My hope is perished from the
Lord is what it goes on to say. And do you see that? When God
first brings me to this place, I have no hope. But then, faith
comes. Faith comes and those that are
taught, they are reminded by Jesus Christ. If they are one
of these who have a hope in 1 Peter 3, they are reminded of this.
Psalms 42. He brought me up also out of
an horrible pit, out of the miry clay and set my feet upon a rock
and established my goings. These that are in this place
may not even recognize it like the speaker here in Psalm says
right away. But they will come to know exactly what this is
saying. They were in a place where there was a sticky mud.
That's what my reclaimed means. It means sticky mud. This is
the mud you can't get off of you. Dirty all the time. And when you try to get it off,
when you try to clean yourself up, you can't get it off. You
get more dirty. This is certainly the meaning
in the passage there in Psalm 40. I cannot clean myself up
that I am acceptable with God. But those who are in this place,
they feel this way. These are those people who, if
God is their holiness, then and only then have they hope. Their
feet are then set upon a rock. This rock is not your mother.
It's not your daughter. It's not your son. It's not your
dad or any friend you might have. This rock is Jesus Christ. He is the only one we sanctify
in our hearts. It is this one who we know is
our holiness, our sanctification, our righteousness, our wisdom,
and our redemption. And let me tell you one more
thing as it concerns one that has a hope spoken up here, an
analogy if you will. Most of you here know that I'm
afraid of heights, you know, and some of it was witnessed
yesterday. You know, I get up to a place that's overlooking
a high place, you know, and I'm going up to it like this, you
know, trying to get over. I'm afraid, you know, I don't
want nobody behind me because I'm afraid they're going to push
me over or, you know, maybe say, boom, you know, but I'm afraid
of heights and it kind of grips me. But there was a time when
I worked construction when I was younger, a couple of years ago,
And we built these rack systems at this one time. And they were
tall. They were maybe five stories tall, really tall. I don't remember
exactly how. And they were for these robots
where they could go get the stuff out of the rack system. And the
bottom ones were OK. But then we had to build them
all the way atop. So the top was pretty scary. Then there
was one other thing once we were done with just the rack systems.
On the end, they had these real heavy things that had to be bolted
on the end. I don't remember the purpose,
what they were for, but guess whose job it was to put those
on? Mine. But you know what? They gave
me something to do this job. They had a belt that wrapped
around, this belt wrapped around this rack system. And you know,
I was able to do that job with no problems, no fear, because
I felt that strap was holding me, it was keeping me falling
down to my death. I had a safety belt which was
preventing me from falling. I had a good hope, so to speak,
that I would at least not fall from that rack system. This is
what Jesus Christ is to His people. He is their hope of never falling
away, of never falling so that they are condemned of God. This
hope has nothing to do with what they have done. This hope is based on who Jesus
Christ is and what Jesus Christ did in their place. Back in Lamentations,
if you're still there, if not, just listen to verses 21 through
24. And this is good. This is what he brings us to
know. This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hoped. It is
of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because His
compassions fail not. They are new every morning. The
great is thy faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, saith
my soul. Therefore will I hope in him. I recall this to my mind because
he put this in my mind by faith. Christ has this in his mind all
the time, so this is certainly him as well that is talking about
here because he knew no sin. His thoughts were on God the
Father continually. But he was guilty because of
me. He bore my sins in his own body,
and because of that, and because God has been pleased for us to
know this in this life, so to speak, I mean right now, he's
been pleased for us to know this now. He gives us faith. If he never gives you faith,
you will never believe this, and you will perish in your sins.
I'm not talking about a head knowledge of Christ. I'm talking
about those who know this deep down in their soul. They know
without Christ, I am condemned forever. But we, even as believers
for some time, we recall this, and it does us good to recall
this. To render Him holy, and that
is sanctifying the Lord in our hearts. It is of the Lord's mercies
we are not consumed, because His compassions, they fail not. What is it about His mercies
that it says here? They are new every morning. His
faithfulness fails not. But now we see the following.
The Lord is my portion, therefore will I have hope, but don't miss
it, in Him. If Jesus Christ has us, then
God the Father has us. Because there's no doubt that
He loves the Son. If I am in Him, if I am held
by Him, then there's nothing that will ever take me away from
that. You know what that is? That is
hope, a sure foundation, a rock. What else are we told in Scripture?
For ye are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God. And I want to show you this illustration.
I've done it before, but Earl did this a long time ago. And
I just like how he did this with this verse. This is Jesus Christ. This is me. I'm in Christ and
I'm in God. That just boggles my mind. When Jesus Christ took our place
and he died, we died with him. When he arose, we arose with
him. When He sat down at the right
hand of God, we sat down with Him. Folks, who is going to lay
anything to the charge of God's elect? Not the devil, not others,
and not myself. It is God that justifies, for
He took His people's place being condemned of God the Father,
forsaken of God the Father. If that's not a hope to you,
then you don't know Him. God has said He is satisfied
with the sacrifice of His Son. He is satisfied with Jesus Christ
because He is precious, as we've already read in 1 Peter. It says
here, He died the just for the unjust. He being just was made
sin for the unjust. And because of that, He died
and was forsaken of God the Father. But He did not stay there. He
was quickened. That is, he arose from the grave
because he satisfied God. In satisfying God, what did he
accomplish? He brought us to God. But listen,
not to face punishment or condemnation, but as friends of God, as the
people of God. He made us the righteousness
of God. This is what we see when we sanctify
Him in our hearts. We see that One who is so holy
that He was able to take our sins in His own body and then
take them away. Verse 22 of our text says, who
has gone into heaven and is on the right hand of God, angels
and authorities and powers being made subject unto Him. He is
in absolute sovereign control of all things. That is what our
text is talking about. What we've been reading in first
Peter, our immediate context goes back to chapter two because
we are told where we just started reading, finally, my brethren. Prior to this, Peter is talking
about submission. We submit to everything that
God has us under. Because God has put all these
things in place for our good. We submit to authorities, to
our loved ones, to each other. Because we are told to do that
which is right. If we do wrong and we suffer
for it, what glory does that give God? It will only serve
to cumber us about with anything other than Jesus Christ. Because
Christ, when he suffered for our sins and being put to death
on that tree and forsaken of God the Father, what did he do
or not do? He opened not his mouth. When
he was being subjected to all he was subjected to being the
just holy God, why did he not open his mouth? I heard Todd
Nyberg say this and I like it. Christ said nothing and did nothing
because he knew he was guilty, having been made sin for us. Because he knew no sin and it
was his whole purpose for being here was to go to the cross. He was guilty because of our
sin. Our sins were laid on Him. So
what does that mean? We are no longer guilty. And it's really not that we're
not guilty. We're righteous before God, really.
That's what it means. Because we're made the righteousness
of God in Him. But it's only so because he had
on him and in him our sin. And it says here, he is our example. We are also told and taught by
Peter the Apostle, and I pray by the Spirit of God, to seek
peace and ensue it. We certainly should be seeking
peace amongst the brethren, the context tells us that. But there
is one place and one place alone where we will find peace. That
is in Jesus Christ and His shed blood. That is peace with God. Because He purchased that peace
for me. We are told to be of one mind,
but how are we to do that? Because we all have different
likes and dislikes. So how are we to be of one mind?
The gospel of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. That's what all
of God's people have in common, that Jesus Christ came into this
world to save sinners, and that's what I am. That, my brothers
and sisters, will bring about peace between us if we all are
sanctifying the Lord in our hearts, and that by his grace. Then we
will be able to tell others of that one who is holy, just, and
good, the savior of sinners. Render or acknowledge that Jesus
Christ is holy. If you have tasted the grace
of God in your soul, he will show you his holiness. Then you
will begin to see how bad you really are. Faith will reveal
who is your hope. If your hope is a what and not
a who, then believe Christ today. If you think that you are safe
because of what you believe, you better drop it like a hot
potato. Salvation, hope, is in a person,
not what I know. We are not all in the same place.
Some know more than others, but what they know has not saved
them. It is the who that saved them, who is their hope of being
reconciled to God, submit to him, because he is the only hope
for an ungodly sinner like me. Follow after peace with those
whose hope is in the person and work of our Savior, Lord and
Lord Jesus Christ. Look on things above, not on
things below. Be ready to give an answer to
anyone who asks you of this hope. Maybe, just maybe, God will open
their heart, their eyes, and their ears so that they will
attend to the gospel being spoken and sanctify the Lord in their
hearts. thereby teaching them of the
only hope of communion with God for a helpless, hopeless sinner. Rest in him, believe him. Now
I want to end this message with two quotes by Spurgeon, short
quotes concerning hope. Number one, hope itself is like a star, not
to be seen in the sunshine of prosperity and only to be discovered
in the night of adversity. Number two, do not look to your
hope, but to Christ, the source of your hope. Amen. Dear Lord
God, thank you for allowing us to be here once again today.
Dear Lord, your mercies, your faithfulness, none of what you
do for your people fails, dear Lord, because it is you that
doeth it all. And that based upon your will,
dear Lord, be with those who might be traveling today and
where else we're proclaiming your gospel, dear Lord, be with
all those who do this and those of your people who are sick,
dear Lord, be with them, comfort them, make them well, dear Lord,
if it be your will. All these things we ask in Christ's
name, amen.