Exodus 3:1-14, 4:1-3 and 10-13
1st Peter 3 v.9-17 (esp. v 15)
SERMON – Always be prepared to give an answer
Every page in the bible contains good advice
and that contained in 1st Peter 3 is no exception,
and I would like to concentrate on one verse in particular: v.15.
People notice things.
People notice us.
The fact that we go to church somehow registers.
Some will go out of their way to argue with us, mock us, criticise us.
Some will criticise God for not stopping wars,
or not preventing a loved one’s death,
or not preventing a crime or hurt of some kind from happening,
and as God is not around, and we are,
they will take it out on us.
Sometimes they will have Q’s,
often Q’s that have no answer,
sometimes just asked because they want to catch us out, make us doubt,
such as if Adam and Eve had 2 sons, Cain and Abel,
and Cain killed Abel, who did he marry?
Did Methuselah really live until he was 969?
What sort of God would ask a man if he was prepared to sacrifice his son?
But sometimes they will have sincere Q’s,
such as what is the meaning and purpose of life,
or does God forgive all sin,
and could God forgive me?
If they come to us with Q’s,
will we, in the words of 1 Peter 3:15,
‘always be ready to give an answer’,
believing God has put them our way;
or will we be like Moses, Moses in Exodus 3,
making excuses, saying ‘but’, ‘but’, and ‘what if’;
being unready or unwilling to speak out for God?.
In Matthew’s Gospel chapter 4 verses 18-22,
when Jesus chose his first two disciples,
the 2 brothers: Simon-Peter and Andrew
while he was walking along the beach beside the Sea of Galilee;
they were fishermen and He called them to be fishers of men.
It says ‘At once they left their nets and went with him’.
They were ready and willing.
The three continued walking until they came on two more brothers,
James and John, the sons of Zebedee, two more fishermen.
Jesus called them,
and it says ‘At once they left their boat and their father and went with him’.
They also were ready and willing.
Jesus later called 8 more men to be his disciples,
and in Matthew 9:9 it says when Jesus called Matthew,
he immediately got up, left his tax office, and followed Jesus.
He was ready and willing too, to give up his livelihood to follow Jesus.
God and Jesus through the Holy Spirit
call people to serve them and the Church,
and if an opportunity comes our way,
is our response ‘But’, ‘But’, like Moses, because we are not ready.
or to drop everything and immediately go wherever God is directing,
as the disciples did?
Richard Wurmbrand was called to the ministry of the Protestant Reformed Church in Romania at a really bad time in the history of Romania –
just days before the Communists took over and suppressed Christianity.
Richard Wurmbrand studied at the Romanian equivalent of Westfield House
and was ordained, and inducted to a parish church,
and nearly every Sunday a Communist agent sat in one of the back pews
and took notes of the contents of his prayers and his sermons,
and every time here was a hint of criticism of the atheistic government,
he was called to the local police station the next day to explain himself.
He spent a total of 17 years in prison.
He was frequently beaten and tortured physically and mentally,
and eventually would have a total of 47 cigarette burns on his body.
His fingernails and toenails were all pulled out and most of his teeth.
He was told that his wife had gone off with other men,
and she was often told that he had died,
but both of them refused to deny Christ, and every time he was released,
he went straight back to his church and preached the Gospel,
until he was deported to Norway.
He died there in February 2001.
When he met God do you think he said grudgingly
‘Lord, why all that hassle and pain?’,
or like Topol in Fiddlers on the Roof,
saying ‘Thank you for making us your chosen people,
why didn’t you choose someone else?’
or gratefully ‘Thank you, Lord, for the privilege of serving you’?
I never met the man, but from reading his book ‘Tortured for Christ’
and from reading his obituary in the Daily Telegraph,
I am sure it would have been the latter.
He was always prepared to give an answer
to someone who came to him with a question.
He was always ready to share his faith, whatever the cost,
and the cost was high..
Years ago, I had a friend called B.
He used to live in M.
He was a Christian, a husband to C, a father of a boy and girl,
and worked as a bricklayer.
He would have described himself as an ‘average’ Christian.
He went to church nearly every Sunday morning
and now and again to the Bible Study and Prayer Meeting.
He read his Bible when he remembered to
and prayed when he wanted God’s help for something.
One Wednesday morning his wife C asked him if he would go to
the midweek Bible Study and Prayer meeting after work that night,
but he said ‘No’.
This was fairly usual so she did not press him.
B went off to work at the housing estate site where he was
helping other brickies to build some new houses,
just like any other typical average day.
But everything went wrong.
He dropped a brick which just missed the foreman below.
Someone ‘borrowed’ his spirit level and lost it.
Someone else knocked over his flask and spilled his coffee
so he had nothing to drink at his break time.
Then it started to rain heavily, and bricklaying was impossible
so he went home about three hours earlier than normally,
so he was washed and changed
and had read the newspaper
by the time C came home from her work.
As she was going to the midweek meeting
and he was now bored, he thought he might as well go with her.
He was that sort of Christian.
That particular midweek meeting was slightly different
because it was being taken by a visiting speaker, an American,
who was involved in an organization
that was not well known here – .XXX
It focuses on saving, and then using young Christians, men and women
from the age of about 17/18 up to 30
who share their faith in youth clubs, pubs, the streets, school assemblies,
wherever young people are.
XX’s usually go to a different country from wherever they live.
They see a bit of the world for one or two years
and this helps them to grow up, personally and spiritually.
They have to pay their own fares and food and accommodation.
The American preached and talked about the aims and work of XXX
then asked for the church’s prayer support
and financial support in the form of a retiring offering.
Then he said a funny thing.
He said he felt God had brought him to that particular church
and on that particular day
because God’s man to head up the work of XXX in Scotland was present.
He asked for people to pray, for God to speak to the individual,
and for that person to respond,
and Billy got up and walked out to the front.
He was a brickie, a decent Christian husband and father,
but he had not been to Bible College, had no O levels
and had never worked with youth.
The American, the church minister and others in the church
prayed over B, and they all agreed to let God to work it all out,
and in His time.
The very next day, Thursday, B could do nothing right on the building site.
Others were frustrated at him, and he was frustrated at himself.
He went to the foreman and gave his notice in.
They lived in a rented house.
On Friday B and C went to the landlord
and said they were giving up the house and moving out.
A friend said he would come with a van the next day to help them move their possessions,
but on Saturday morning the man came with only a car and a trailer;
because the van was broken down!
They put mattresses, suitcases, and what they could on the trailer;
handed the keys to a neighbour
and told their friends and neighbours to take whatever they wanted
from the house.
The friend asked where they were going.
B and C did not know and told him to drive.
They ended up in H at lunchtime,
and parked outside the Council Offices, which were open – on a Saturday.
B went in. There was only one man in the building;
the Housing Office, who was holding a letter from Ba charity.
They owned a huge house with 40 bedrooms, 4 sitting rooms and two kitchens about a mile outside the town.
The charity’s policy was now to foster children out to families and did not need the house.
They had offered it to the Council
who did not want to turn it down but had no immediate use for it.
B told the Housing Officer about XXX and his ‘call’
and to cut a long story short, the man gave him the key to the House
and a letter authorizing Billy to live in it and use it for the next 3 years,
providing he paid the running costs;
and so the XXX work in Scotland started, back in about 1980,
and it is still going on, with branches all over the country,
the nearest to here being up at Seamill.
B never expected to be the spiritual father and trainer
of hundreds of young men and women from all over the world,
but God saw something in that ‘average Christian’ and brickie.
What was that ‘something’?
B would be the first to admit it wasn’t brains.
And even C would say the ‘something’ wasn’t looks.
He’s not ugly but he has a missing front tooth and untidy curly hair.
It wasn’t even spirituality because before he was called to XXX
B was not a great Bible student or long pray-er.
What was the ‘something’ God saw in B?
It was availability and a readiness to give an answer to anyone who asked him about his faith,
and a willingness to take advantage of opportunities that God put his way.
Like Simon-Peter and Andrew, James and John, and countless other saints,
B was prepared to serve God, At Once, Immediately,
with no ‘what if’s, or ‘buts’.
B did not expect it, and didn’t look for it,
but when the challenge came, he was ready, and responded positively,
dropping not his nets, but his trowel,
putting his livelihood, accommodation needs, and family welfare
in God’s hands,
and the last time I spoke to B,
he assured me that he and C and their kids
had never gone short of anything they needed.
The Gospels give the rock-solid guarantee:
that whatever we do for God,
He will do 50 or 100 times as much for us.
There is a praise song – MP229 – Here I am, wholly available,
but we shouldn’t sing it unless we mean it,
because if God was too say ‘Right, drop everything; hand over your house, resign from your job, don’t worry about how the bills will be paid
and the kids clothed, and follow me’, how many of us would do that ?
Bearing in mind 1 Peter 3 v.15
I pray that we will be prepared, ready and willing,
so that if or when God calls us into action,
or someone asks us to give a reason why we believe, or why we come to church,
that we will respond positively.
I pray that we’ll not be ‘But-ters’ like Moses,
but like the disciples we’ll be prepared to drop our nets, or our bricks, or tea towels,
and follow Him, trusting Him to help us share our faith,
and with the help of the Holy Spirit,
be the means by which someone comes to Christ
and into the Kingdom of God.
Amen.
