1 Peter 3:13 Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good? 14 But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. "Do not fear what they fear; do not be frightened." 15 But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, 16 keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander. 17 It is better, if it is God's will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil. 18 For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit, 19 through whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison 20 who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, 21 and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also--not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a good conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22 who has gone into heaven and is at God's right hand--with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him.
Introduction
If I were to pick out the top ten most unhelpful pieces of advice of all time, I think I would give the number one slot to the statement, “You should have been more careful.” Didn’t you just love that when you were growing up? You make some costly mistake, and now you are in pain or some valuable possession has been ruined, and your mom said, “Well, you should have been more careful.” And you said, “Oh, that’s so helpful – thanks, mom!” How could you have ever figured that one out on your own?
Another one that might be high on the list for some of you might be this one: “Don’t worry,” or “Don’t be afraid.” How many times have you been scared to death over something, and someone comes along and says, “Don’t be afraid,” and all your fears just melted away? It takes a lot more than just someone saying that to overcome fear, doesn’t it? But it is important that we figure out what does overcome fear, because the wrong kind of fear can ruin your life. And worse than that – it dishonors Christ.
We have returned today to our verse by verse study through the book of 1 Peter that has been on hold a couple weeks over Christmas. And if you can think back to our last study, verses 8-12, you remember that Peter is calling us to repay people with blessing when they abuse us. He has been talking about how to have a godly response to abuse ever since midway through chapter 2. And so it is no surprise that Peter would at some point take a moment and talk to us about the problem of fear. If we cannot overcome fear, everything we have learned here is going to be out the window. So let’s take a look at what Peter teaches us here. He is going to give us three principles for dealing with the problem of abuse and mistreatment
Douse the Fires of Persecution
He starts with some preventive medicine.
1 Peter 3:13 Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good?
Most of the time persecution will not happen when we are eager to do good. In most cultures at most times, doing good will win admiration from most people. The threat of persecution is always smoldering out there, but when we live lives eager to do good, that has a tendency to douse the fires of persecution and cause people to be favorable toward us.
When we do what is wrong, the world will react to that. They will be harder on us for wrongdoing than they are on anyone else. In fact, very often they will respond to our wrongdoing by persecuting us even for our ‘right’doing. For example, suppose an unbeliever at work knows you, and sees your righteous life. And he does not persecute you for it – he leaves you alone, but he does take notice. And it bugs him. It makes him feel guilty, it exposes his sin, and it irritates him. But he does not dare mistreat you, because that would make him look bad, because you are such a good person. Then one day he sees you do something hypocritical. And then he is all over your case. Now he is down on you, makes fun of you, ridicules you – even for your righteous behavior, but it started because of some area of hypocrisy he saw. But if they do not ever see any hypocrisy, then in most cases, most people will not persecute you for doing what is good.
Eagerness
Especially if you are eager to do what is good. That word translated eager is zelotes – we get our word zealous from it. Passionate for doing good – on fire, fervent, enthusiastic for doing what is right. It is not just that they do not see you doing anything bad – it is that there is a very obvious, emotional passion for doing good.
Some of us have an obvious, emotional passion against evil. People hear us railing against this evil - especially other people doing evil. We are constantly criticizing politicians and preachers and criminals and celebrities who do evil things. Lots of complaints about evil, but this goes beyond just that. This is a positive thing – passion for good. And not just good as an abstraction, but a passion for actually doing good. You get worked up emotionally about your desire to perform good actions. That is the life that most people in the world will not persecute.
There Are Exceptions
But Peter is quick to acknowledge that most does not mean all.
14 But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed.
Verse 13 is in the form of a proverb - not an absolute law. A proverb is an observation of the way life normally goes. Most people, most of the time, will not persecute you if you are zealous to do good, but some people will. Some people will behave abnormally. In fact, Peter’s main purpose of writing this letter seems to be to prepare the readers for those exceptions when persecution for righteousness does happen.
When that happens, Peter says, you are still blessed. And not just in persecution - you are blessed if you suffer in any way for doing what is right. There are other kinds of suffering for doing what is right. For example, a Christian salesman might be unable to compete with the other salesmen because he refuses to use dishonest tactics. Or you might have a humble, servant’s heart and people take advantage of you and use you. Or you might give someone the benefit of the doubt and trust him with something and he lets you down. There are a lot of ways to suffer for doing what is right. You suffer for doing what is right every time you resist a temptation. When Jesus resisted the temptation to turn the stones to bread, the result was He suffered hunger. When we choose what is right over some sin, we suffer the loss of whatever temporal pleasure or gain we might have gotten from that sin we resisted. There are a lot of ways to suffer for doing what is right, but in every one of them, Peter says, you are blessed.
Do Not Seek Persecution
So if that is true - if we are especially blessed when we are persecuted for righteousness, does that mean we should seek persecution? There are some people who actually do things to make persecution more likely so they can wear that as a kind of badge of honor. It is almost like they are egging the persecutors on. They take pride in being persecuted, so they do subtle little things that make unbelievers more irritated than necessary. That is not a good thing. What verse 13 is teaching us is that we should avoid unnecessary persecution. As much as possible, live your life in a way that is pleasing to the world. Of course we must never compromise righteousness in any way, but there are many things you can do to make yourself a pleasant person to the world that are perfectly acceptable in Christian morality. So if you can avoid irritating the world without any compromise, do it. That will make them less likely to persecute you, and that is a good thing.
That is the first principle in dealing with persecution - throw cold water on the fires of persecution by your good behavior. But what about when you hit those exceptions, and they persecute you anyway? That is verse 14.
Do not Fear the Fires of Persecution
Blessed
14 But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed.
That is a beatitude - just move the word blessed to the beginning of the sentence and it sounds like something right out of the Sermon on the Mount. Blessed are those who suffer for righteousness.
The word blessed means you have a reason to celebrate. It does not necessarily mean you are happy; it means you have reason to be happy. For example, suppose you get a letter informing you that you have just inherited your rich uncle’s entire estate. But it is written in a bunch of legalese, and you can’t make heads or tails out of it. You are not happy, just because you don’t understand your blessedness – but the blessedness is a reality nonetheless. That is what the word blessed means.
So, in what way are we blessed when we suffer for doing what is right? Peter just got done explaining that in verses 9-12.
1 Peter 3:9 Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.
What kind of blessing? Verse 10 - life and good days.
10 For, "Whoever would love life and see good days must keep his tongue from evil and his lips from deceitful speech. 11 He must turn from evil and do good; he must seek peace and pursue it. 12 For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil."
The blessing is life and good days, and God turning His eyes toward you and making His ears attentive to your prayers.
So Peter is calling us to blessing upon blessing. If you do what is right, you get blessed. If you suffer for that, you get blessed even more. If you respond in a humble, loving way to that suffering, you get blessed even more.
Fear Threatens All This Blessing
Now, what is the one thing that can stand between you and all that blessing? What is the one thing that can stop the whole process in its tracks? Fear. Sometimes the path of righteousness leads through the freezing cold river of suffering. You are walking down that path, you come to that river, and when you think about passing through that river, fear can stop you in your tracks. Fear can completely derail the Christian life.
But on the other hand, not all fear is bad. Peter has said several times that we are to fear God. The good kind of fear is absolutely essential for living the Christian life, and the bad kind of fear can destroy you. So it is crucial that we really get a handle on this issue of fear.
The Purpose of Fear: Protection
So let’s think about this for a minute - what exactly is fear? And why does it exist? Fear is a sensation of emotional pain you feel when you see some form of unhappiness coming your way. Something is likely to happen that looks like it is going to result in unhappiness, and knowing that causes a certain kind of emotional pain inside you that gives you the impulse to do what you can to avoid that threat.
And why did God give us that emotion? To protect us. If you have been around very many young children you know that lack of proper fear can be deadly. A baby who lacks adequate fear will just crawl right up to a ledge and have no sense at all that going over that ledge would cause him some unhappiness. And as a result, you really have to watch him around ledges – until he finally learns to become afraid of them. If he has some kind of developmental problem and never does learn that, he is going to have a rough life - and a short one. Everyone in this room has a well-developed fear of hard collisions with the ground, and if something happened in your brain and that fear stopped functioning, you probably would not live long. Fear is a gift from God in a dangerous world.
But fear can also be our enemy. It can keep you from doing things that will bring great rewards. A child who is too afraid to try new things can miss out on some of the greatest joys of childhood. And the same goes for an adult for that matter. Being too afraid of rejection can cost a person a great career or a lifetime of being happily married, because he will not take the risk of being rejected.
Controlling Fear
Fear would be a simple thing to understand if there was only one threat at a time. But we always have conflicting threats. And your behavior is determined by which of those threats you fear most. If you are afraid of asking your teacher a dumb sounding question, but you are also afraid of getting a bad grade on the test because you did not ask this question, what are you going to do? It depends on which of those threats you fear the most. Whichever one you fear the most is the one you will avoid, even if it means suffering the other one.
The factor that will determine whether fear is a good thing or a harmful thing in your life is which of your fears governs the others. Whatever your greatest fear is – that is the controlling fear in your life. It governs all the other fears. A woman might have a fear of being physically harmed, but if her controlling fear is the fear of being alone, then she will stay with an abusive boyfriend who breaks her bones, puts her in the hospital, threatens her life - why? Because she has no fear of being beaten? No, she does fear that, but her fear of losing him and being alone is her controlling fear so it overrides other fears.
And very often, when Scripture speaks of fear, it is talking about your controlling fear. And that is the case here. When Peter says, “Do not fear what they fear,” he is not saying it is a sin if you have a near miss on the highway and your heart is pounding. He is not saying it is wrong to see a mugger in a dark alley and run for your life. It is OK to fear those things. What is wrong is to have any of those kinds of fears as your controlling fear.
What the World Fears
So what are the world’s controlling fears, that we are forbidden to have as our controlling fear?
Fear of Ridicule
Isaiah 51:7 Do not fear the reproach of men or be terrified by their insults.
That is a natural fear, but if it rises to be the controlling fear that governs the way you act – that is forbidden for the Christian.
Fear of Suffering
Revelation 2:10 Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer.
Fear of Death
Luke 12:4 I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more.
In Hebrews 2:15 unbelievers are described as those who are held in slavery by their fear of death. That is a mark of an unsaved person.
Fear of False Prophets
Another forbidden fear is false prophets. In Deuteronomy 18:22, God says if a prophet does not have 100% accuracy in his prophecies about the future, do not be afraid of anything he says – he is a false prophet. So, for example, if someone were to predict, say, the end of the world occurring on a particular date, and it does not happen on that date – do not ever listen to that false prophet again.
The Wrong Kind of Fear of God
There is even a kind of fear of God that is forbidden. When God appeared on the mountain and gave the Ten Commandments, the people were so afraid that they asked that God not speak to them anymore. And in Exodus 20:20, Moses told them not to have that kind of fear. Any fear of God that makes you less eager to approach God is a bad kind of fear.
Fear of the Future
Another common controlling fear is fear of the future - when we cannot see how God is going to provide for us, so we assume He won’t.
Matthew 6:25 "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?
Fear of Loss
We are not to fear lack of provision, and when we do have what we need, we are not to fear losing it. Fear of loss is one of the most common of all the controlling fears. You are afraid of losing your house or your savings or your spouse or your kids or your job. The heroes of the faith in Hebrews 10:34 were not afraid of the confiscation of their property. But when Jesus told the rich young ruler to give up all his possessions and follow Jesus, he refused because he feared life without money more than he feared disobeying Jesus.
Results in Unfaithfulness
And that is always the result when we have these kinds of fears as our controlling fear. You see, that is the heart of the issue. Having any earthly fear as our controlling fear will inevitably cause us to become unfaithful to God, because we will fear that thing more than we fear disobeying God.
Isaiah 57:11 Whom have you so dreaded and feared that you have been false to me?
Your allegiance is always tied to your fear. Look at the very next thing Peter says:
14 ...Do not fear what they fear; do not be frightened.” 15 But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord.
The opposite of fearing men is honoring Christ as Lord. When something in this world is your controlling fear, then Christ is not Lord in your life. That is why God is just as jealous for our fear as He is for our love. Just as our love and worship belong to Him alone, so does our fear belong to Him alone. We have no right to fear anyone or anything else as our controlling fear.
Isaiah 51:12 I, even I, am he who comforts you. Who are you that you fear mortal men, the sons of men, who are but grass, 13 and you forget your Maker?
Be Afraid of Your Refuge
The controlling fear in our lives that governs all our other fears must be fear of God.
“But I thought God is our Savior and Deliverer and Refuge. Why would I be afraid of my refuge?”
The reason you should be afraid of Him is precisely because He is your refuge. Look again at God’s argument in Isaiah 51:12.
Isaiah 51:12 I, even I, am he who comforts you. Who are you that you fear mortal men?
God is saying we must fear Him alone, and not men, because God is the one who comforts us. Whatever you believe to be your greatest source of comfort and refuge - that will be your controlling fear as well.
Let me see if I can illustrate why that is. Imagine you are a second grader, and in your neighborhood there is a group of fourth graders who are really tough. And they come to you one day and say, “Join our gang and we will keep you safe. If you join us, we will make sure nothing and no one ever hurts you. But if you don’t join us, we will make you wish you were never born.” And you are terrified.
Now suppose your father has a perspective you do not have. He knows it would be a piece of cake for him to protect you from them. He knows their parents, and he could easily take care of the situation. So your dad tells you, “I do not want you hanging around those kids, and you had better not join their gang. If you disobey me, you are going to be in a world of trouble – do you understand me? And don’t worry about their threats, because I promise I will protect you from them.”
So both the gang and the father have claimed to be a safe refuge of protection. And both have threatened great harm if they are defied. So here is the question – which are your going to pick – the one you fear the most, or the one you see as the safest refuge? The way I asked the question presents a false dilemma, doesn’t it? Because the one you fear the most and the one who is the greatest refuge is one in the same. The one you fear the most and the one that is the safest refuge is both of those things for the same reason – because he is the most powerful. In this case, it makes sense to pick your father, because he is powerful enough to protect you from the wrath of the gang, but the gang is not powerful enough to protect you from the wrath of your father if you go with them. Whoever is most powerful is both your safest refuge if he is on your side and your greatest threat if he is against you. So your greatest refuge of safety and your greatest fear are one in the same. If there is going to be a head on collision between a tank and a Geo Metro, which vehicle would you rather be in - the one you most fear or the one you feel the most safe in? Again – they are one in the same. You most fear getting run over by the tank, and the tank is where you feel the safest.
That is exactly the argument Scripture makes for why we should fear God. We should fear Him because He can do us the most good, and so alienating ourselves from Him is the greatest loss. And we should not fear idols because they cannot do us any good.
Jeremiah 10:5 ... their idols cannot speak; they must be carried because they cannot walk. Do not fear them; they can do no harm nor can they do any good.
But since God is the one who can do both ultimate good and ultimate harm, drawing near to Him should be both our greatest desire and displeasing Him should be our controlling fear. That is why Isaiah 51:12 says, “I am the one who comforts you, so why do you fear men instead of Me?” And Psalm 130:4 says with you there is forgiveness. Therefore you are feared. So there is no tension between God’s loveliness and His fearsomeness. It is not a paradox, because the more wonderful He is the more fearful a thing it is to leave Him.
Psalm 2:11-12 Serve the LORD with fear and rejoice with trembling. (fear and rejoicing at the same time) 12 Kiss the Son, lest he be angry and you be destroyed in your way, for his wrath can flare up in a moment. (that is fear) Blessed are all who take refuge in him. (that is refuge)
Remember, the purpose of fear is to motivate you to avoid harm. And the greatest harm is to distance yourself from God. So the highest and greatest purpose of fear is to motivate you to avoid anything that would provoke God’s displeasure.
• With God alone there is forgiveness, so let your heart be terrified of doing anything that would distance you from the only one who can forgive your sins.
• With God alone there is mercy, so be afraid to do anything to move away from the merciful one.
• With God alone there is joy, so be scared to death of turning your back on the only giver of joy and the only satisfier of the soul.
• With God alone there is safety and peace, so fear ever being outside of God’s blessed refuge.
• With God alone there is love, so teach your heart to tremble at the thought of distancing yourself from Him.
• With God alone there is eternal reward, so be frightened to ever forfeit favor with Him.
• It is God alone who is the delight of your soul, so let nothing alarm you more than turning your back to your great delight.
Let none of the terrors of this world ever terrify you more than missing God’s grace, losing God’s favor, or forfeiting God’s smile. Be horrified at the thought of losing one glance of God’s love, one word of His kindness, one moment of His sweet fellowship, one sip from God’s river of delights, one morsel from His banquet table.
God Is Safe and Dangerous
So do we fear our refuge? Yes, because God is both safe and dangerous. He is safe when you are running to Him and He is dangerous when you are running away from Him. As long as you are facing toward Him and seeking Him, He is the safest refuge there is. But if you turn your back to Him He is the most dangerous opponent there is. He is abounding in mercy, but only toward those who fear Him.
John Piper tells the story of when they visited some friends and his five year old son ended up standing eye to eye with this huge German Shepherd at their friends’ front door. The dog was very friendly, but at one point the child turned and started running to get something from the car. And when he did that the dog started loping after him with a deep growl in his voice. And the owner of the dog said, “You had better not run. He doesn't like it when people run away from him.” What an illustration that is. God is full of mercy and kindness and love, and He is the safest refuge there is if you come to Him. But He does not like it when people run away from Him, and He will run after you with a deep growl, and you will not outrun Him.
So when Peter says do not fear what they fear – it is yet another way of saying what Peter has been saying repeatedly about fearing God.
1 Peter 1:17 Since you call on a Father who judges each man's work impartially, spend your sojourn here in fear.
1 Peter 2:17 Honor everyone, Love the brotherhood of believers, fear God, honor the king.
Fear and Love
Typically we don't really think of fear and love going together. But there are different kinds of fear. One kind doesn't go well with love at all, but there's another kind that is very compatible with love. If you're afraid the other person is going to do evil against you, that doesn't fit with love at all because it makes you want to withdraw from the person.
But there's another kind of fear that is inseparable from love. It's the kind of fear that makes you want to draw near to the person. I love my wife, and so I fear her displeasure. If some random person on the street looks down on me, I hardly care. But if my wife is angry with me or disgusted with me or thinks ill of me - that bothers me. Her opinion matters to me because the more you love someone the more you care about what they think of you.
So there is a very real sense in which I fear her displeasure. And so what does that make me do? It makes me want to draw near to her. I want to be close to her, I want to be on good terms with her, I want intimacy so that the things I fear won't be realized.
That's the kind of fear that goes with love. You can tell whether it's the good kind or the bad kind of fear by whether it drives you away from the person or draws you close to the person. You see both kinds in Ex.20. The people were fearing God in the way that made them want to withdraw from Him. They told Moses, "Tell God not to speak to us anymore." But Moses responded, by telling them not to have that kind of fear, but to have the good kind of fear instead.
Exodus 20:20 Moses said to the people, "Do not be afraid. God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning.
Don't have the bad kind of fear, that makes you withdraw from God. Instead have the good kind of fear that makes you avoid displeasing God so you can draw near to Him. That's the fear that goes with love. And the greater the love, the greater that kind of fear.
The best example of that kind of fear that we have in the human realm is in the ideal father-child relationship. When a father has an excellent relationship with his child, that child loves being with his dad. He gets excited when his dad comes home, he isn't afraid to try to tackle his dad and wrestle with him on the floor. As comfortable and delighted as can be in his father's presence. But when he disobeys - there is fear. He is misbehaving and gets one of those looks from across the room - and he doesn't blow that off. He takes it very seriously.
We need to raise our children in such a way that when they grow up and see what the Bible says about fearing and loving God at the same time, it will make sense to them. If we are always harsh and don't show very much kindness and tenderness or interest in our children, they will grow up and read the Bible and say, "Fear God as my father? I can understand that. But love Him and desire His presence? Receive tenderness and warmth from Him? I don't get that." If we are too lenient, and there is no discipline, our kids will read the Bible and say, "I can understanding loving God as my Father, but fearing Him? That doesn't make sense." We need to raise our children in such a way that love and fear don't seem to them like any contradiction at all.
Defeat Fear with the Waters of Hope
God alone should be our controlling fear. That is how you set apart Christ as Lord in your heart. That word translated set apart is the same word translated hallowed in the Lord’s Prayer, when Jesus teaches us to pray to the Father, Hallowed be Your name. That word is used very often in Scripture. The Lord’s Prayer is the only place where it is translated hallowed, because that is kind of an antiquated term. But they leave it in the Lord’s Prayer because it is so traditional, no one wants to change the way we say the Lord’s Prayer. But it is the exact same word. We pray to the Father, Hallowed be Your name, and Peter commands that Jesus Christ be hallowed in our hearts as well.
So how do you do all this? If there is any command in the Bible that is easier said than done it is the command, “Don’t be afraid.” Especially since we are being told here not to fear the kinds of things they fear. Who is “they”? Everyone else in the world! Normal people. The normal things that frighten human beings - we are forbidden to fear those things. Fear is not mainly a decision – it is an emotion. How do you obey a command not to have a normal emotion?
Peter has already given us the answer. The thing that prevents us from being afraid of the things normal people are afraid of is our hope in the promises of blessing.
1 Peter 3:9 Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing. 10 For, "Whoever would love life and see good days must keep his tongue from evil and his lips from deceitful speech. ... 12 For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil." ...14 But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed.
Verse 9 - respond to abuse with kindness, because you were called to inherit a blessing. What kind of blessing? Verse 10 - life and good days. How does it come? Verse 12 - the eyes, ears, and face of God will be turned toward you. Verse 14 - if you are zealous for good you probably will not be abused much, but even if you are, you still have it made because of these promises of blessing. That is how you overcome fear - if you have all that blessing, what is to be afraid of?
Defeat fear with hope. So how should we deal with the problem of abuse and being mistreated? First, be zealous for doing good. That will prevent most persecution. Then, when there are exceptions to that rule and you do suffer for doing what is right, do not fear. How do you overcome that fear? Make Jesus Christ Lord in your heart through Christ-exalting, fear-killing hope in His promises.
I said at the beginning that it is really not all that helpful when you are afraid and someone comes up and says, "Don't be afraid." That is not always the case. If the person saying it has power to protect you from the danger, then hearing those words really can eliminate fear.
At the core of most, if not all fear is the loss of happiness. When you are afraid of something it is because you think that thing will result in you not being happy. What we fear is not mainly pain. We only fear pain that we think will kill our happiness. There are things that are very painful that we do not fear at all because that pain does not threaten our happiness (like playing in a favorite sport for example). We fear unhappiness much more than we fear pain.
Normal people fear what they fear because they think those things will cut them off from access to joy. But we are not afraid of those things because our joy comes from another Source. And when that Source makes promises to us, and says, "You don't have to be afraid because I will supply you with happiness even if you suffer" - if we believe that - if we believe that nothing can cut off our access to that source of joy except sin, then the only thing we will fear will be sin.
Conclusion
So, what would this look like in practice? Your boss at work is doing something that is ethically wrong. He is very enthusiastic about it, and you do not know what will happen if you say something. You are tempted to let your trepidation over what might happen govern your actions, which in this case means keeping your mouth shut. But you know that would be wrong - the right thing to do is to speak up. So you are fighting to come up with the courage you need, and you remember this passage. Overcome fear with hope. You have been living in a godly way up to this point, so your boss cannot help but have respect for you. And he has a certain amount of gratitude for the fact that you have worked hard for him and have been an excellent employee. That alone might be enough to prevent any response of persecution when you speak up.
But if he is one of the unusual ones who will mistreat you for doing what is right in spite of all that, how do you deal with the fear? Overcome it with Christ-exalting hope. Remember that promise - whoever would love life and see good days... Do you want life and good days? Obviously you do – that is why you are tempted to avoid suffering. The whole reason you are experiencing fear over losing your job is because you desire life and good days, and you are afraid that is going to be disrupted if you do the right thing here. That is the way it seems, but now you need to turn your attention away from the way things seem and fix your eyes on this promise: life and good days come when you turn from evil and do good. Do what is right, even though it might cost you your job, and the eyes of the Lord will be on you and His ears attentive to your prayers. But if you let the fear of your boss drive you to do what is wrong, you provoke the Lord to turn His face against you. So you cling to those promises - memorize them, lean on them, rest in them, and all that fear of man just melts away.
You can apply that same process to any fear that is trying to become your controlling fear and push you into sin. You look at that fear trying to gain control of you and rule you and you say, “No! Christ alone sits on the throne in my heart. Jesus Christ and His promises rule here and there will be no one else on that throne.”
Do that and everyone wins. The world gets to see a hope that points them to the only hope for their salvation, Jesus Christ. You get peace and joy, life and good days, and the favor of God on your life. And Christ gets glory and honor.
Benediction: Isaiah 43:1-4 But now, this is what the LORD says-- he who created you…he who formed you: "Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. 2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. 3 For I am the LORD, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior… 4 Since you are precious and honored in my sight, and because I love you
1:25 Questions
1. What area of your character could improve to make persecution less likely?
2. What earthly fear most threatens to become a controlling fear in your life?
3. What promise would be good to memorize to help you fight that fear?
