ENGAGE/TENSION
Last week someone submitted an anonymous question/comment on the sermon that read:
I’ve become a very angry believer, I look all around and see only Satan taking over this world. Just once do I want to see God do a mighty thing. It’s like he isn’t here anymore.
I’ve got to tell you I really admire the honesty of that comment because I think a lot of us feel a lot like that at times. We do live in a world that is increasingly hostile to Jesus and to His purposes, plans and ways and we’re tempted to ask “Where is God?”
But we’re certainly not the first generation to face this kind of hostility towards God’s people, nor are we the first generation to ask these kinds of questions. If you’ve spent any time at all reading in the Psalms lately, you know that the authors of many of the Psalms looked around at a world in which it appeared that evil prospered and good suffered and they basically asked “Where are you God?”. So I think that when we ask those questions we’re in good company as long as, like the Psalmists, we don’t stop there.
In almost all of those Psalms, the author eventually recognizes that God is not absent at all. He is at work in ways that we often do not see. And they also come to understand what we’re learning in our study of 1 Peter – that there is more to life than just what we see here on earth. Because we are only exiles here on earth and our permanent home is in heaven, we are going to experience pain and suffering while we live here. And the only way that we can possibly endure is to look ahead to the time when God will make everything right and reward righteousness and punish evil.
And, as we’ve seen throughout 1 Peter, that kind of mindset will result in living a life here on earth that is set apart, distinct and unique from the people around us. When we do that, it often makes our life here on earth more difficult rather than easier in the short run.
But the good news is that we can persevere knowing that God has caused us to be born again into a living hope in which He is keeping for us an inheritance that is imperishable, unfading, and undefiled and He is guarding us in a way that ensures we will one day receive that inheritance.
TRUTH
For the last several weeks we’ve been in a section of Peter’s letter where he has been instructing us about how we are to live our lives as exiles here on earth in order to be an example for others. And for the most part, that way of living is completely contrary to our human nature. It’s not natural to submit to our government officials or to our bosses or to our unbelieving spouses. So as we continue our study, its shouldn’t come as a surprise that Peter is going to further instruct us to live our lives in a way that is completely contrary to the world around us.
Go ahead and open your Bibles to 1 Peter chapter 3 and follow along as I read beginning in verse 8:
Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing. For
“Whoever desires to love life
and see good days,
let him keep his tongue from evil
and his lips from speaking deceit;
let him turn away from evil and do good;
let him seek peace and pursue it.
For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous,
and his ears are open to their prayer.
But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”
Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God's will, than for doing evil.
(1 Peter 3:8-17 ESV)
Here in this passage, Peter alludes to…
Three possible ways to live:
1. Return evil for good – Satan’s way (v. 14)
In verse 13, Peter describes the way we think things should work in this world. If we are zealous for what is good, then we ought to expect that no one would desire to harm us. But, as Peter points out in verse 14, that isn’t the way things always work, especially for Christians.
And we are certainly seeing that more and more in our culture. When we stand for those things that God calls “good’ in His Word, we can increasingly expect to have evil returned in our faces. If we hold fast to God’s design for marriage, we’re called names and forced to pay fines when we won’t participate in so called marriages that violate God’s standards. When we stand up for the protection of the lives of unborn children we’re accused of being anti-women. When we say that Jesus is God in the flesh and that He is the only way to God, we’re called intolerant.
But we shouldn’t be surprised at that since we live in the midst of a world that for the time being is under the influence of Satan. That is how Paul described the present state of our world:
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience
(Ephesians 2:1-2 ESV)
Those who are disobedient to God are following Satan – the prince of the power of the air, so they do exactly as he has done from the time he rebelled against God – returning evil for good.
2. Return evil for evil – man’s way (v. 9)
In verse 9, Peter describes the way man naturally responds to evil – by repaying evil with evil or by reviling when we are reviled. We certainly see this occurring in our culture today when large groups of people respond to the acts of a few law enforcement officers who have obviously crossed the line by looting and destroying entire communities and encouraging people to disrespect and even kill all police officers.
We certainly see that right now in the presidential campaign where if one candidate is attacked by another, the immediate response is to one up the other candidate by attacking them back. So we have candidates calling other candidates vile, profane names. And the worst part is that it seems the more they do that the higher their poll numbers go.
And even those who call themselves Christians aren’t immune to responding like this. The Westboro Baptist Church goes around disrupting the funerals of those who have died defending our country claiming that their deaths are a result of our county’s embrace of homosexuality – only they word those charges in a much more profane manner. Others have returned evil against evil by bombing abortion clinics or murdering doctors who are performing abortions.
3. Return blessing for evil – God’s way (v. 9)
This third way of living is certainly not the way we naturally respond when someone wrongs us. But we know it is God’s way because, as Peter reminded his readers at the end of chapter 2, that is exactly how Jesus responded when He was unjustly reviled and treated with hostility by evil men. Let’s go back and look at one specific verse from the end of that chapter that is going to be particularly relevant for us this morning:
When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.
(1 Peter 2:23 ESV)
Here in verse 9 of chapter 3 we are instructed to follow the example of Jesus and respond to those who would revile us or treat us in an evil way, not by responding in a like manner, but by blessing those people.
But let’s face it, that is not something that we do naturally. In fact, I would go so far as to say it’s not something we’re even capable of doing on our own. So how do I live God’s way by returning blessing for evil?
We see how Jesus did that in the verse we just looked at – he entrusted himself to him who judges justly – His Heavenly Father. And I think Peter is essentially saying the same thing in a slightly different way in the first part of verse 15, which is at the heart of our passage this morning:
…but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy…
The main verb in this phrase, which is in the form of a command is actually “honor as holy”, which is how the ESV translators have chosen to render the verb “to sanctify”. It is the very same verb that Jesus used in His model prayer in Matthew 6 when He taught His disciples to pray:
Pray then like this:
“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
(Matthew 6:9 ESV)
So what does it mean to hallow or to sanctify or to honor Jesus as holy? It means that we are to regard Him as unique, one of a kind, and without peer. As one commentator put it, we sanctify Jesus when we live like “only Christ matters.” In particular, we are to sanctify or set apart as holy Christ “as Lord”. We are to stand in awe of His Lordship over the work of His creation and His sovereign rule, but even more importantly, we are to honor Him as Lord by putting Him in charge of our lives.
Peter makes a sharp contrast between honoring Jesus like that and the natural inclination to fear those who attempt to do harm to us even when we do good. At the end of verse 14, he urges his readers to…
Have no fear of them, nor be troubled…
So here is how I would summarize how I honor Jesus as holy:
I honor Jesus as holy
when I fear the displeasure of God
more than I fear the disdain of man
In this morning’s passage, Peter quotes from two different Old Testament passages to help his readers understand this idea better. We’re going to use the “Connections” time this morning to explore those ideas in more detail, but let me just summarize them briefly now.
In verses 10-12, Peter is quoting from Psalm 34. David wrote that particular Psalm while he was running for his life from King Saul. Even though God had chosen David to be the next king of Israel, David honored and served Saul faithfully and yet Saul was still trying to kill David. So David knew what it was like to have someone trying to harm him in spite of the fact that he was doing good.
Peter is merely reaffirming here the message of David in that Psalm. Regardless of what is happening around us, we are to leave it in God’s hands and not turn to the evil ways of the world. The motto of the world may very well be “If you can’t beat them join them”, but we are certainly not to live that way as disciples of Jesus.
Verse 15, which we have been looking at in some detail, is taken from Isaiah 8:13:
But the LORD of hosts, him you shall honor as holy. Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread.
(Isaiah 8:13 ESV)
The only difference between that verse and what Peter writes in his letter is that he has replaced “the Lord of hosts” with “Christ”, which, by the way, is another clear proof in Scripture that Jesus is God. We’re going to go into more detail about the circumstances in which God spoke those words to Isaiah during the “Connections” time, but the overall context is that Israel was about to be invaded and conquered by Assyria and the people were in a great panic because it looked like they would also be overrun by the Assyrians, too. God, through the prophet Isaiah, was telling the people that they were not to fear what the Assyrians could do to them but rather to fear the displeasure of God, which is exactly what we’ve learned this morning about what it means to honor Jesus as holy:
I honor Jesus as holy
when I fear the displeasure of God
more than I fear the disdain of man
So essentially when I honor Jesus as holy I follow His example and I entrust myself to the one who judges justly. I trust that God loves me so much that he has caused me to be born again into a living hope and I trust that no matter what man does to me here on earth, God is guarding me to make sure that I receive the inheritance that He has set aside for me and is keeping for me in heaven. And when I do that, I find that I am able to live according to God’s way and to return a blessing for evil even though that goes against my human nature. And…
WHEN I LIVE ACCORDING TO GOD’S WAY…
• Other people will take notice
The kind of life that we’ve been talking about this morning is so contrary to the way people normally live in our culture that when we live like that we’re going to stick out like a sore thumb and people are going to notice. And people are naturally going to want to know what it is that allows me to live like that. So they are going to ask us for the reason for the hope that is in us…
APPLICATION
• Therefore, I must be prepared to tell them why I live for Jesus
We clearly see here that when I live according to God’s way and return blessing for evil, God not only blesses me, but He uses that kind of lifestyle to bless others through me.
Sometimes I think we make evangelism and sharing our faith with others much more complicated than it needs to be. But on the other hand, I think there are a lot of Christians who have not done what they need to do in order to be ready to give a rational explanation of why they are a Christian when others ask them about it.
This does not require a seminary degree or even formal training. It merely requires that each of us understand what we believe about Jesus, why we believe that and how following Jesus has made a positive impact in our lives and then be able to articulate that to others.
I think in practical terms that means that we ought to memorize at least a handful of Scriptures that we can use to explain the basics of the gospel. It also means that we take some time to think about how Jesus has impacted our lives and how to best communicate that to others. If you’ve never done that, then for you that should be the main application that you make in your life as a result of listening to this message this morning. And if you need some help with that, I’d be happy to help you and I’m sure there are many others here this morning that could also do that.
• But I must do that with gentleness and respect
My guess is that probably most of us have witnessed well-meaning Christians who have seem to forgotten Peter’s instructions here. This really fits in with what we learned last week when Peter instructed wives to win their unbelieving husbands to the Lord without nagging and badgering them.
As we discussed last week, if someone has been exposed to the gospel and rejected the idea of putting their faith in Jesus, just continuing to beat them over the head with the Bible isn’t going to be effective. In those cases, we just need to love the other person and trust God to do the work of drawing that person to Himself.
There is certainly a balance here between being bold in our proclamation of the gospel, which is clearly taught and modeled in the Bible, and going so far that we cross the line of being gentle and treating the other person with respect. That’s why we need to be sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit and ask Him to guide us in this area.
INSPIRATION
There is no doubt that it is easy to look around at the world around us and get angry. We live in a culture that isn’t very hospitable to genuine disciples of Jesus for the most part. So even when we do good, the people around us will still often revile us and try to hurt us. And it’s so easy to give into our anger and respond in kind. But Jesus has called us to live differently. He has called us to bless our enemies and to love those enemies the same way that He loved us when we were His enemies.
But there isn’t a single person here this morning that can do that on his or her own. I can’t do that and neither can you. But when I choose to honor Jesus as Lord by fearing His displeasure more than I fear the disdain of man, when I choose to live like “only Christ matters”, then He will empower and enable me to live like that.
Can you imagine the impact that we could make in our culture as disciples of Jesus if we all lived our lives like that on a consistent basis? Can you imagine how many people would want to know what or who it is in our lives that enables us to live that kind of life in which we bless people when they mistreat us? Can you imagine how many opportunities we would have to tell people about the reason for the hope that is in us?
ACTION
As we close this morning, I want to encourage all of us to consider doing two things as a result of what we’ve learned this morning.
First, as I mentioned earlier, if you’ve never done it before, you need to memorize a few Scriptures that you can use to communicate the gospel to others and you also need to develop your testimony so that you’ll be prepared to share with others the reason for the hope that is in you. Again, if you need some help with that, let me or let someone else know.
The second thing I’m going to ask you to do is something that I was personally challenged to do by a suggestion that I came across in my study this week. I’m going to encourage all of us to begin our day every day this week by praying this prayer:
“Dear Lord, lead me to the person you want to bless through my life today.”
Certainly that is a prayer that God would delight in answering. But from our perspective, that prayer will do a couple of things. First, I’m convinced it will help to make us more aware when God does bring someone into our lives that He wants to bless through our lives. And second, it will remind us of the need to be prepared to be a witness for Jesus when those opportunities do come along.
I honor Jesus as holy
when I fear the displeasure of God
more than I fear the disdain of man
Will you pray with me and ask God to enable us to live our lives like that?
