Turn with me back to 1 Peter 3. 1 Peter 3. Lord willing, we'll look at this passage of Scripture, this portion of Scripture this morning. Look again, beginning with verse 15. 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's in you with meekness and fear. Sanctify. Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts. That word sanctify, it means set apart. It means made holy. And we don't make him holy. Let that be clear. The Lord is infinitely holy. He is perfectly holy. But we declare him. We declare him to be holy. We proclaim his holiness. Turn to the book of Isaiah. Hold your place, but turn to the book of Isaiah. Isaiah chapter six. Isaiah six, look at verse, beginning with verse one. Here we read it. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple, and above it stood the seraphims, each of them with six wings. With twain he covered his face, with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another and said, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory. And the post of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke. And then said I, woe is me. I am undone because I am a man of unclean lips. And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. For mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. He is absolutely holy. And I, I'm nothing. I am a man of unclean lips." In Revelation 4, I won't have you turn this, but we read there of four beasts. And the first beast we read was like a lion, and the second like a calf, and the third beast is the face of a man, and the fourth was like a flying eagle. And the four beasts had each of them six wings about them, and they were full of eyes within. And they rested not day and night, saying, Same thing, holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, which is, and is to come. And when those beasts give glory and honor and thanks to him that sat upon the throne, who liveth forever and ever. Sanctify, sanctify the Lord God in your hearts. to glorify and praise Him for His perfection, for His holiness. And this is twofold. Listen, outwardly, outwardly, the Lord is sanctified by His people outwardly when we obey His commands, when we worship Him, when we gather together to worship Him. and declare publicly His glory. All glory is due unto Him. And listen, this happens inwardly as well. It says, sanctify the Lord God in your hearts. Listen, if we don't truly love Him and believe Him and praise Him and worship Him in our hearts, then anything outwardly is just a show of the flesh. It's just hypocrisy. It's mockery to talk of God's glory with our lips if we don't truly believe Him in the heart and bless Him and praise Him in the heart. Sanctify the Lord in your hearts. And then we read on here, still in 1 Peter 3, 15. Be ready. Be ready, be ready always to give an answer to every man that asks you a reason of the hope that's in you. He says a reason is to be given. Listen, we're not to give a, we're not expected to give a full account of the gospel every time somebody asks a simple question. an argument for every particular truth found in the Word of God. We're not gonna walk away like Paul did there, I think it was in Acts 20, 27, saying, I've not shunned to declare unto you the entire counsel of God. That's not what he's asking here. He said, just give an answer, give a reason for the hope that's in you. Always, for every man that asketh you, what are they asking? What's your hope? What's the hope that's in you? Do you have a good hope? Do we have a good hope? Do we have a sure hope? Do we have an eternal hope, a hope of salvation, a hope of eternal life? What is that hope? Better yet, who is that hope? It's none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. What's the reason? What's the reason of the hope that's in you? It's Christ, and Christ alone. I was thinking about this. Years ago, I was coming home from Columbus, and I broke down somewhere in Lucasville, out there by the flea market. And I called Abby. And I told her where I was. And she said, don't worry about it. I know exactly where you are. I'm on my way. I had a good hope, didn't I? Just one hope. My brother, I found out he was, he called me on the phone and he was about 30 minutes away. He said, you want me to come over and help you? I said, no. I'm good. There was a fellow walked up to my car. He said, you sure you don't need some help? I said, no. I had a good hope. What was that hope? That the one who loved me was going to do what she promised to do and come and pick me up. That's a sure hope. I don't need no other hope. And listen, when someone asks, why do you believe your sins are pardoned? Why do you believe that your name is written in glory? Why do you believe that you're not gonna be condemned? How can you believe that? How do you hope to reign eternally with Christ? How can you answer that? What's the reason, what's the reason for that hope? It's just one reason, isn't there? It's the Lord Jesus Christ. Scripture says he loved me and he gave himself for me. Why would I have any reason to doubt? The Lord Jesus Christ, he is my righteousness. To stand before his holy law and be found faultless, what's my hope? It's Christ and Christ alone. It's the Lord Jesus Christ that justified me by his blood. It's the Lord Jesus Christ that ever lives to make intercession for me. He's my mediator and he sits right there at the throne of God where he ever lives to make intercession for us. What's my hope? He loved me and he gave himself for me. I don't need an hour and a half dissertation to explain that, do I? He's my hope. He's my hope. And he says, to do that, he said, you give that answer. Give that answer with meekness and fear. An answer with humility. Remembering this, that we are what we are by the grace of God. Remembering where he found us, that he reached down, he reached way down, didn't he? For me. Give that answer with a fear of the Lord and in a manner that gives him all the glory, that glorifies him. But we're also to give that answer, listen, with a reverence, a reverence for who he is. You know, everything in our day, it seems like everything in our day is just one big joke. The things that we should take seriously, are just all seem to be laughing matters. This is no joke. This is the eternal soul of man. Serious matters. A reverence. A reverence for his word. A reverence for his gospel. A reverence in the worship of him. It's not a time for cute and clever little sayings or funny little things to put on boards out in front of the buildings, is it? The Lord spoke in Leviticus 22 and he said, profane not my holy name. A reverence, a reverence God requires of his people. And listen, if we're truly to worship God, that reverence, it goes beyond these four walls. To reverence him and worship him, listen, not just publicly, but in the privacy of our homes, at our dinner table, in the closet, wherever we might be. Listen, if we don't reverence him outside this building, we're not gonna reverence him inside this house. Believers are men and women who worship the Lord in every aspect of their life. Be ready. Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asks you the reason of the hope that's in you with meekness and fear. Well, let's read on in our text, 1 Peter 3, 16. Having a good conscience, that whereas they speak evil of you as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accused your good conversation in Christ. A good conscience and a good conversation. This good conscience, by nature, that's not the case with us. We have an evil conscience. Paul, writing to the Hebrews, he said this, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience to serve, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God. By his grace, Our hearts are sprinkled from an evil conscience. And our bodies washed with pure water. Only the believer can truly have a good conscience. A good conscience with nothing, nothing to feel guilty about. That's what a good conscience is. And listen, that can only be found one place. That can only be found in Christ. A good conscience, a clear conscience, and a good conversation. That's our behavior. That's what that word means. That's our walk in this world. for the believer, for those that truly believe that Christ, do you believe that, that truly Christ is the salvation of your soul, that he has saved you, that he's blotted out my sin, that he's completely put it away, that I've obtained mercy, that I have found grace in the eyes of the Lord, that I've entered in to the rest of faith. A child. I'm a child of the king. The king of kings. The Lord of lords. The child of the king. Could it ever be imagined that just because, listen, that Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, that we're free to just run wild with no restraint? Now listen, it's true. We're not under the law. That's what God's word says. We're under grace. But that doesn't make us lawless. We're servants of God. We're followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul asked this question over in Romans 6. He said, what shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin? that grace may abound? Is that the case? Is grace just a convenient, is it just convenient for a sinful lifestyle? Paul's response was pretty strong, wasn't it? And it was pretty quick. What'd he say? God forbid. God forbid? How shall we that are dead to sin continue to live therein? A good conscience. The Lord has put away my sin, a good conversation. We're told to walk worthy, walk worthy of our calling. Well, back to our text, 1 Peter 3, verse 17. It's better if the will of God be so that you suffer for well-doing than for evil doing. Verse 18, 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, quickened by the Spirit. Christ also hath once suffered for sins. He suffered, didn't he? Those two words could easily summarize his 33 years of life on this earth. He suffered from his birth. Think about that, from the day of his birth, he was laid in a manger. No room for him, no room for him in the inn. Born in a barn, laid in a manger. And shortly after his birth, Herod sought to kill all the young children in Bethlehem. In Hebrews 2.18, we read that he suffered being tempted. He's described as a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Is there any doubt, any doubt in anyone's mind that he suffered? And suffered like no man has ever has or ever will suffer. In Gethsemane, there in the garden, he kneeled down to pray. And he said, Father, if thou be willing, let this cup pass from me. And the scriptures declared that an angel appeared to strengthen him in that hour. And being in agony, suffering, he sweat, as it were, great drops of blood falling to the ground. He suffered. He suffered being made sin. That would be no cause for suffering for you and I. Because it's what we are. It's who and what we are. Isaiah 64 6 says, we're all as an unclean thing. All our righteousness are as filthy rags. We do fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. That's what we are. The Lord Jesus Christ is perfect. He's the spotless Lamb of God. He's perfect. He's the image of the invisible God. Perfect in obedience. He perfectly obeyed God's law. He made atonement for the sins of His people. He satisfied the righteous demands of a holy God. And by His sin-atoning death is our sin offering. As our substitute, He redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us. He has a perfect nature. Everything about Him is perfect. And Christ in us, we're made perfect. He sanctified us. He gave us a perfect nature. But to do that, to do that, he had to suffer. He had to be made sin. All the sins of all his people were laid on him. All that, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. He once suffered for sin. We read back there in the Old Testament, he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him and with his stripes, those stripes that he endured, with his stripes, we are healed. He suffered. He suffered as, listen, he suffered as our example. Listen, if we're ridiculed, if we're misunderstood, if we're called upon to suffer, to suffer unjustly, remember this, that the Lord Jesus Christ, He who's just, He who's holy, He who is the sinless Son of God, He suffered for sins, not his own. But he suffered for our sins that he might bring us to God, that he might fulfill God's eternal will in saving his people. And he suffered. He suffered as our Redeemer. God's holy. God's just. God is righteous. Scripture says he will by no means clear the guilty. His law, it must be honored. His justice, God's justice must be satisfied. And if he's going to justify us, and he's going to forgive us, He's going to do it in a way that is consistent with His holiness. He's not going to sacrifice who He is. That's why Christ came. That's why He obeyed the law. That's why He died. That's why He suffered on the cross. The just for the unjust. That God might be just. That God might be holy. That God might be righteous. in his mercy and in his love to sinful man. Well, let's read on here. Look at verse 19. By which also he went and he 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 preparing, wherein few That is, eight souls were saved by water. The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now 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. This is the last point here. Baptism. What is baptism? It's explained right here. It's the answer of a good conscience toward God. And in this particular text, the baptism of a believer is described using a picture. A simple picture here of a figure like the Ark of Noah. Think about this. Noah and his family, God put them in that ark. And he shut the door. Eight souls. Eight souls. I remember Brother Paul saying this in a message. He said it was probably the smallest church on earth and the happiest church on earth. Eight souls all in there together. Noah, preacher of righteousness, God put him in the ark and he shut him in. We have to be shut in, don't we? We'd go running otherwise. God shut him in. They went in as God commanded them and then he shut them in. And we have a picture here of the burial. In that ark, They were water all beneath them. And this was a violent flood. It was water over top of them, covered, covered in water, immersed in water. And then afterward, what happened? They came out, all of them. They came out just as in the resurrection, delivered from death. Not everybody was delivered from death. This whole earth was destroyed, yet eight souls were saved by water. They were delivered from the death and judgment that claimed everybody else. And when a believer is baptized, it's a It's a figure of Christ's death, His burial, His resurrection. It's a picture of our death to sin, a picture of our death to self, a picture of our burial with Christ. We're buried with Him and raised again with Him. As He's risen, we're risen to walk in the newness of life. And it's not dunking somebody in the water that saves them, but who it represents, who it points to. It's not the cleansing of the flesh, but it's a picture of a living union with Him, with Christ, a living union in the heart. And it's done publicly. It's a public confession. You know, the Lord's given us just two ordinances, just two ordinances in his word, baptism and the Lord's table. These are both commandments of Christ. And to neglect those two commands, it's to disobey his commands. Our Lord's speaking in Matthew 10, listen to what he said. Whosoever shall confess me before men, get a hold of this, whosoever shall confess me before men, him will I confess before my Father, which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men. Him will I deny before my Father, which is in heaven. Well, let's read on. Let's read on. 1 Peter 3, verse 22. Again, speaking of Christ. Christ, who is gone into heaven and is on the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him. Christ is Seated. Seated. The work's finished, the work's complete. He's seated at the right hand of God and all angels, think about this, all angels, all authorities, all kings, all governors, all rulers, all demons, all power in heaven, earth, and hell, all flesh is subject unto him. He's sovereign. He rules and He reigns over all. All power is given unto Him. Praise His holy name. Sanctify the Lord in your hearts. He's holy. He rules, He reigns over all things. Be ready, be ready to give an answer to any man that asks you the reason of the hope that's in you. We're to have a good conscience. We're to have a good conversation. We're to know this, that Christ suffered. And then we see, last, the answer of a good conscience. What is it? Believer's baptism. public confession, Christ. He's all my hope. He's all my confidence. He's all my salvation. And I know that, and I want others to know that. All right. Isaac, come lead us in a closing.