We Suffer for Christ

You may have seen the video that went viral this week. Victoria Osteen, the wife of Joel Osteen, co-pastor of Lakewood Church in Texas, the largest so-called church in our country. And her quote was this. When we obey God, we're not doing it for God. We're doing it for ourselves. Because God takes pleasure when we're happy. Do good because God wants you to be happy when you come to church, when you worship him. You're not doing it for God, really. You're doing it for yourself because that's what makes God happy. In in 21st century genius, my favorite version of that video was the one that spliced with Bill Cosby responding as only he can. That's the dumbest thing I've heard in my life. Meanwhile, this week in Iraq, a Christian man was beaten and killed by an Islamic terrorist group for refusing to convert. Thousands of Christians over the last several weeks have been compelled from their homes and livelihoods under the threat to convert to Islam, leave or die. As those Christians are faced with that choice, it does not appear that God is after their immediate happiness. Many Christians have forfeited their momentary happiness out of their allegiance to God, and many in the history of the church have given their lives. So as we consider our text this morning, both of these things that have happened this week inform what Peter is talking about. He is writing to Christians who are being persecuted, not necessarily the kind of persecution we're seeing in Iraq now, but much more like what we face in our in our culture at our time. Their allegiance to Christ makes them out of step with the world around them. And it raises it causes the world to look at them with suspicion. It causes the world to respond with mocking and scorn. And so, as Peter writes to these Christians, it is their new identity in Jesus Christ that must determine how they live and enables them not only to endure that persecution, but to live through it in a way that brings glory to God. Our happiness, the feeling of being happy, is an unstable and insufficient motivation for doing good in this life. But brothers and sisters, God offers us something more than happiness. He offers us joy. Joy in Christ produces a hope that nothing can shake. And so in our text this morning, we'll hear how this plays itself out in our lives, in the lives of Peter's audience will hear a call this morning to write living and then two motivations for that call. So Peter tells us this morning to live gospel centered lives for the sake of our relationship with God and for the sake of our witness to the world. So let's look together at first Peter three verses one verses eight through 17. It's on page 1015 of the few Bibles, if you're new to church, if you don't have a Bible, you're welcome to take that with you as our gift to you. So first Peter three, eight through 17. 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. So first, we'll consider the call to live right in verses eight to nine. The passage begins with a call to all of us. So the last few sermons in First Peter, we've been looking at specific groups. We've been looking at the married and the employees and those who are under governmental authority. So if for some reason you've exempted yourself from those sermons, it's time to check back in. All of you applies to all of you. Peter calls us to five things to unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart and a humble mind. Now, notice these things are not primarily actions, they're actually characteristics. These things should define who we are as Christians. Now, these are not things that come to us naturally, but they come to us through the new life that God gives us in Jesus Christ. And so if we are in Christ this morning, God has sown these seeds into our hearts. So they are there. These characteristics are ready to manifest themselves when the right conditions happen, when we cultivate, when we feed them, when we grow. These things are ready to produce fruit. So let's consider what they look like. I want us to start in the middle and work out the way that Peter has structured this brotherly love is actually the central idea here. It's one that holds all the other ones together. So I want to talk about that first and then move outward. Brotherly love is a kind of love that's rooted in our identity in Jesus Christ. So for Peter's audience, those who are scattered about modern day Turkey, Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, Bithynia, these people have been united together as one people. set apart by the Holy Spirit, sprinkled with the blood of Christ, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. So they have been made children of God. And for those of us who are in Christ this morning, we, too, have been brought into that common identity. We are children of God. And so because we have God as a common father, we are brought together as a family. And so we are to live together in the context of a family in brotherly love. Now, this is the kind of love that should characterize all Christians generally, but it's a kind of love that is made known primarily in local churches. It is here in the church, first and foremost, that we live together, that we actually demonstrate this brotherly love. So let me ask you this morning, as you look around, you see people who are presumably different from you in various ways, especially if you're a member of this church, as you survey the room, do you primarily see the differences? between people, between age and race and nationality and socioeconomic status and education and worship styles and physical abilities and hobbies. Do you see all those differences as you survey the room? Do you see the things that make you different from most of the church, or do you see all of those things in light of our common identity in Christ? We are called to see that, to see our unity, our common identity in the Lord Jesus Christ, and to value the differences as things that God has sovereignly placed here together for our mutual good. You see, in the world, differences like that are reasons for us to separate the reasons for us to identify common interests and goals and things like that, and to separate from other people. But in the church, because it's a family, The differences in the diversity are used to strengthen the whole to make us better because of them. Brothers and sisters, your uniqueness is a gift to this body. Your experience, your gifting, your talents have been placed here to be used by God for his glory in a special way. So the Bible is clear that God assembles Christians, not just universally with gifts. He equips them with gifts, but he intends those to be used in local churches for the common good. So we are designed to function as a family unit, as a team, as a body. And that's why we have church membership. It has nothing to do with having your name on a list on a roll somewhere, but it has everything to do with being an actual part that's identified and it's interdependent among the whole. So for us to be what God calls us to be, it requires us to commit together to love one another, to serve one another and for every single one of us to spend ourselves for the good of the whole. Now, that doesn't mean that life together is pie in the sky and we never have conflict. If your family is like mine, you sometimes disagree, sometimes fight. You have conflicts, but ultimately you are a family and you stay a family. We love one another despite our flaws. And because of that, forgiveness really is at the heart of what it means to be a family. And so should it be for the church. The call to brotherly love is not so much a call to feel love toward one another, though it certainly includes that it's really a call to value and act in love toward each other. Our feelings toward our biological family, even they may ebb and flow, but we are still held together in a bond that is not dissolvable. And so it should be in the church. So with that in mind, let's go back to the text, brotherly love means that we have sympathy and a tender heart, so you see those things are parallel there and it means that we genuinely care for each other in our church covenant. We commit to participate in each other's joys and endeavor with tenderness and sympathy to bear each other's burdens and sorrows. A family is characterized by this kind of concern. We celebrate individual achievement, yes, but it's not about the performance of the individual. It's about the good of the whole. We don't leave anyone behind. We are to be characterized by compassion and care for everyone. We're only as strong as the weakest link, and we're only as good as we are as the good is for the whole. So notice this call to be to be caring, to be sympathetic and tender hearted is not just a call for pastors or unique people in the church. It's called for everybody. The whole body is called to demonstrate sympathy and tender heartedness toward each other. So, again, members of this church, how concerned are you for your brothers and sisters in this room? How much effort are you investing in caring for this body, for seeking to identify needs and meet them as you're able? How important to you is prayer for this body? How involved are you in people's lives? What are you doing to actually proactively care for the members of this church? Are you content this morning to be served without serving? See, with a vision for sympathy, brotherly love, tender heartedness, there's no room for people on the fringe of the church. We are called to be involved in each other's lives. So what are you doing as a member of this church to intentionally broaden and deepen your relationships with the body so that we increasingly reflect our brotherhood in Christ? So see, this is a call to both intentionality, to pursuing people and openness, to be willing to be known and loved by others. If you're here this morning and you're visiting, we're glad that you're here. But we want you to know that if you are visiting and you're a Christian, you should be a member of a local church. Maybe not this one, but you should be a part of a body that knows to expect you and where you commit to care for other Christians. The final pair that we see is a call to unity of mind and humble mindedness, and you see the parallel there. In order for us to have unity of mind, we must have humility. Humility says you first. Where pride and selfishness say me first. Humility means that we set aside our personal preferences for the good and for the building up of others. True humility forfeits the right to defend your status and suits to serve others. So think about just your your Sunday morning, our corporate gathering. There's other ways we could think about this, but just Sunday mornings we come together. Think about your Sundays. Do you do you come to church? so that you can park in your spot and sit in your seat? Or do you take a place of humility so that others, the visitors, newcomers, people can find a place to sit, find a parking spot when they come to the parking lot? Do you arrive early enough to church so that if there's a need, you're there to help meet it? Or do you come so that others can serve you? Are you on the lookout when you get here for someone to greet, someone to encourage, or Is your is your posture one of keeping track of who doesn't greet you? Is your heart engaged with the body while we worship, or are you thinking about how these songs that we're seeing don't really fit your preferred style of worship? Do you take off after the service or do you stick around to engage in fellowship with the body? You see how you answer all of those questions reveals whether or not you are actually working for the unity of this body as we gather. And I praise God that I don't say all of that to say none of you are doing what you're supposed to do. I see a lot of evidence in this body for this kind of love and this kind of brotherhood. I see genuine love. I see sacrificial service and care. I see humility and I praise God for it. But brothers and sisters, we should not be comfortable with our unity. It doesn't take much for churches to become divided. There are 180 members of this church right now. We're expecting to grow Wednesday night. And on any given issue with 180 people, it's very easy to find people who disagree. And I'm not talking about important sort of essential doctrinal issues. I'm talking about other things, simple things. And we all know how this goes if we've been a part of a church. Two people disagree about something and then their flesh just takes over. It becomes a matter of pride and it starts to consume them and it's all they think about and all they want to talk about. And then they start to recruit other people to get them on their side. And before we know it, there are factions within the church and the church splits or a group of people leave over something relatively silly. And it happens all the time in churches. And sadly, it's happened many times in the 50 year history of this church. A united church takes work. It takes each of us as individuals looking to the gospel, looking to Christ and reminding ourselves that he forfeited divine glory to be humiliated for our sin. When the gospel is foremost in our hearts, then we can see secondary issues and tertiary and so on for what they are. We can coexist in those things because of our brotherhood in Christ, and we can appreciate the diversity God has assembled for his glory and for our sanctification. We can set aside our own personal preferences for the good of the body. This morning, we come to take the Lord's Supper together. This is something that was given to the church as a tangible reminder of Jesus's death and to remind us of the promise that he would return. The Lord's Supper is given to celebrate in local churches where we come together as a family. So if you're visiting with us, we're happy to have you here with us. But but what we do in the Lord's Supper is not like a buffet at a restaurant where you kind of come and pay your dues and come to the table. You're coming to a family meal. And so you've stumbled upon a family dinner. And again, you're welcome. We're glad to have you with us. We as a body, as Jefferson Park Baptist Church, are a family for better and for worse. Most families, especially if you go to the reunions, are not composed of people who are powerful and wealthy and intelligent. Every family has a cousin, Eddie, and we might disagree who that is. At the point of the point of all that is this, we don't come together because we are awesome. We come together because Jesus is awesome. We come together because he died to take away our sin, and we exist as a community to remind each other of the gospel and to proclaim it to the world. And so that's why, as we celebrate the Lord's Supper, we we have to do it. coming together in the unity that's gospel centered. If we miss our unity as a church, we miss the reason that Christ died. When we are divided as a church, it's because we've lost sight of Jesus, who gave himself to make us his own people, and we put something else in his place. So, brothers and sisters, labor for this kind of unity, this kind of character to be evident in your life and in our body, unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, tenderheartedness and humble mind. In verse nine, we see how this character takes shape in our lives. We are commanded not to repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, to bless. As we go about life, Peter assumes that we will encounter evil and reviling. And I don't think it matters whether that's inside the church or outside the church. The application would be the same when we encounter that kind of behavior. Our natural response is to want to repay, to take revenge, to hurt because we've been hurt. But the gospel calls us to do the exact opposite. We are to bless. We are to pronounce and work for the good of the very ones who are speaking and doing evil against us. We are to ask God to show his favor to them, even while they're harming us. Now, that is not an intuitive response to suffering, but it flows out of the gospel understanding of what Jesus Christ has done for us. It reflects a heart that trust in God's provision and seeks to follow Jesus as an example for us. And it demonstrates the life changing power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. So I wonder this morning, is that how you respond when you are mistreated? Do you focus on the offense against you or do you set that aside and bless the other person? You see, for someone who has been changed by the power of the gospel, we don't think about that with pride that we deserve better than what we're getting. No, we see ourselves in the offender. We remember that God had mercy on us in our sin, and so we extend grace, we bless, we work to genuinely desire that person's good and ultimately to see him or her in a right relationship with God. We remember that we have been made ambassadors for Christ. and that we and then we forfeit our own desires in order to represent him. We have the opportunity to do that in a powerful way when we're being sinned against. The hallmark of Christian behavior is forgiveness. And Peter tells us even further that this is our calling. And it sounds very much like what he said in chapter two, the slaves. Jesus suffered for us. As an example, Christian slaves were called to endure unjust treatment from their masters because Christ endured unjust treatment on their behalf. And so we see here that that call to suffer applies to all Christians. We forfeit our natural response of revenge and vindictiveness and self-justification in order to obtain or maybe better inherit a blessing. So what's that blessing that he's referring to? In chapter one, he says that it is our salvation. Because of Jesus's resurrection, he has secured for us an inheritance. It's the day when we receive the final reward of everlasting unity with Christ, our Savior, the one who gave himself for us. And I said in the context of judgment, when Christ returns, he comes to judge the earth in holy wrath. But God protects those who are in Christ from his judgment. He covers them with his blood. It's not to say that our sin doesn't deserve God's wrath, but it's because our sin has been paid for by Jesus's death. That's the full and final blessing that awaits us the day of victory, the day of vindication and the day of unity with Christ. So what Peter is not saying is that if you behave a certain way, God will bless you with stuff here and now. And he's also not saying that we earn even our final reward by living a certain way in this life. What he is saying is that the good we do now is evidence that we are truly redeemed. And moreover, he's saying that demonstrating the gospel now prepares us for the heavenly reward that awaits God's people. Every time that we are able to extend grace to someone to bless instead of returning evil, we are reminded of the way that God has treated us through Jesus. So, yes, there is a final inheritance that awaits us, but we get to experience that blessing even now as the gospel becomes tangible to us as we show grace to others. So that's the first point, the call to right living. Second, we see the first motivation for the call to right living, which is our relationship with God. So live right for God versus 10 to 12. Let me read that again. 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. So Peter's quoting here from Psalm 34 and Psalm 34 really captures David's response to the time he spent fleeing from King Saul, and he wrote this song celebrating God's care for his people. David saw that even in the midst of his trial, God's hand was with him. He was providing for him, protecting him and ultimately delivering him from oppression. And so Peter sees in David's life, a parallel condition for his own readers. They are in the position of being aliens and sojourners and exiles living in one place, but being loyal to another place. And they're called to live a life of fidelity in a hostile enemy territory. And so Peter sees in David's words, a direct application to his readers and therefore to us. David says in Psalm 3411, he will teach the fear of the Lord. And that's really what Peter is doing in his whole letter, teaching us to understand God's sovereignty and his goodness in the midst of all of our circumstances. So let's walk through the quote, whoever desires to love life and see good days. So I'm guessing at some level that's all of us, right? All of us want that at least some level. So he's going to tell us how to get it. Let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit. So it starts with our words. We stop speaking evil. We stop lying. How often is it that our mouths are what get us into trouble? Let him turn away from evil and do good. Let him seek peace and pursue it. So not only are we to stop saying the wrong things, but we're to stop doing the wrong things as well. We are to actively turn away from evil. And even more, we are to proactively seek to do good and seek peace. Peace is something that's easily broken. Especially in the context of what he's already said, when others are doing evil against us or reviling us, they are the ones breaking peace. But Christians are called to pursue peace. Like Jesus said, blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God. Beloved, as God's children, we are called to live in a hostile world by extending forgiveness, setting aside offenses against us in order to establish peace and to mirror God's character. That flows from the core of identity because God made peace with us by the blood of the cross of Jesus Christ. So next, we get to the heart of the motivation for this behavior. 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. So as we've seen before in our study of first Peter, there is a God word focus to his instructions. He's saying that our relationship with God must motivate everything that we say and do. So this isn't just practical wisdom on how to live a better life. This is about how to live a life to God. Living in a hostile world, there are times when speaking evil or lying may be more convenient. There are times when doing things that are evil seem unavoidable. But if what we really want is life and good days, we must orient ourselves toward God, especially in those moments. We must take our eyes off of our present circumstances and see the glory that God has called us to, the inheritance he's prepared for us, the opportunity to be with the one we love, the one for whom we were created. And if that's what matters to us, then we choose what is good and peaceful and righteous, even when it costs us the praise of man or status or wealth or comfort and pleasure. Friends, having the eye and ear of God is what life is all about. It means that we have his favor. It means that he's looking after us and providing for us. Life is meaningless apart from him. And so if we want to love life and to see good days, we live in a way that aims to please God. And that's a promise that holds both temporary and eternal weight. But the primary focus is not on our circumstantial good days. It's about the relationship that carries us through the circumstances. So Lindsay and I have been trying to plan a getaway, just a time for us to spend together before the next baby comes. And we were talking to somebody this week about the possibility of going to D.C. and whether to take the train or to drive. And the person was telling us that we should shouldn't take the train because it's so slow and the car would be more valuable to have there and all these things. And all I could think, they're probably right in terms of the efficiency of the transportation, but all I could think about was how awesome three hours of uninterrupted time talking to my wife sounds at this point in our lives. It just sounds great. Like it's not about the destination. It's not about where we're going in the experience. It's about getting there and being with the one that I love. I don't care how we get there. If we can have time to be together, that's what's important. And so, too, for Christians, the measure of our good life now is not how great our circumstances are, but it's that God is with us in the midst of them. We should see in this text a very significant point that Peter is making, the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are open to their prayer. You remember the word a few weeks ago that Peter gave to husbands, honor your wives so that your prayers may not be hindered. And here, bad news for wives, we see that the principle applies to all of us. The quality of our lives determines the quality of our prayers. We usually think that right living comes from right praying. And while I certainly think that's true, that prayer does influence the way that we live. Here we see that the reverse is also true. Right living results in right praying. There is a relationship between the way that we live and our access to God in prayer. So friends, this is a sober reality for us this morning. We can't simply assume our right to pray. I think it's safe to say that prayer still plays an important role in our culture. It may mean different things to different people, but there's there's a general sense that that thinking about someone to some higher power makes a difference. You read statistics to show somewhere around 80 percent of people, Americans actually pray on a weekly basis or think prayer is important. So there's a there's an idea that just something like that is helpful and meaningful, but that's a completely wrong view of prayer. Real prayer acknowledges that there is a sovereign personal God who rules over this universe and who actually does work in this world in response to our requests. But this text tells us that we do not all have an equal right to make requests of him. He tells us that his ear is attentive to the prayers of the righteous. Now, first and foremost, this means those who are categorically righteous and on our own. That means none of us fundamentally have a right to pray. So only through the work of Jesus Christ, where God makes us righteous before him, can we actually pray. So therefore, only Christians really have the ability to pray to God. But it's not only that. It's only Christians who are in a right relationship with God who actually can pray effectively. If we live in sin, God's face is against us and his ear is not attentive to us. Christian, the thought of being outside of God's favor should be the most frightening thing you could hear. If you know God, then your desire must be to live in his favor now. That means that we pursue righteousness. It means we repent of our sin. We acknowledge it for what it is. And we run to God in confession and repentance and ask him for forgiveness. So the gospel doesn't tell us that our sin is not that big of a deal or that we're not that bad. The gospel agrees with our sin. We were guilty. We deserved God's wrath. But Jesus' death paid our debts. So if you're a Christian, Don't live this morning in condemnation. If you are in Christ, then you have the cross as the ever present reminder that God loves you, that he didn't spare his own son, but gave him for you. So you see the severity of your sin, but you also see God's love for you despite your sin. The call upon you as a Christian is to once again go to God for forgiveness and grace and then live in the righteousness that's been purchased for you by Jesus Christ. Christian, are your prayers going unanswered? The Bible gives us many reasons that that might be, but one of them and one of them not to overlook this morning is, are you living in sin that turns God's face away from you? If you're here this morning and you're not a Christian, we're glad that you're here. We want you to be here. We want you to see what we do to get to know us, to hear the gospel as good news, But in order to hear the gospel as good news, you have to first hear the bad news. The face of the Lord is against those who do evil. Again, this is bad news for us because all of us are in and of ourselves evil. The Bible tells us there is none righteous, not even one. Each of us have lived lives in rebellion against God, sought our own way and failed to live in absolute dependence upon and worship toward the God who created us for his glory. And that condition that we live in, rebellion against God, is called sin, and it makes us spiritually dead. God is against us, and he promises to pour out his wrath against all who continue in rebellion against him. So that's the state that we're in, but here's where the good news of the gospel comes in. The gospel tells us that while we were enemies, Christ died for us. God loves us despite our sin and sent his son into the world to live the life of righteousness that we owed God and die the death that we deserve for our sin. And so and then he was raised to new life, to give life to all of us who turn away from our sin and turn to him in faith. And so God makes this exchange where he takes Jesus's righteousness and credits it to us and takes our sin and puts it on him on the cross. So there's nothing that you can do to earn God's favor. But in Christ, you actually can have a right relationship with God. The good news is that this gift is available freely to all who turn to Christ in faith and turn away from their sin. So if you're here this morning and you're not confident that you're in Christ, please see someone after the service and talk to them. Ask how you can be confident in your relationship with God. Brothers and sisters, with this this idea in mind that the face of Lord is against those who do evil. See this morning how your individual conduct. And your individual righteousness has a bearing on your ability to intercede on behalf of others. Your decision to live in sin makes you an impotent part of this body. Your sin never affects only you. If you can't pray, then you can't contribute anything meaningful here. If you decide to remain in a state of sin, then you are choosing to be dead weight in this body. And that's why we practice church discipline. When someone pursues a life of sin, he or she turns away from God. And so our response as a church is simply to mirror God's posture toward that person. I'm not talking about shunning them and never speaking to him again or something like that. But what I'm talking about is acknowledging the spiritual reality that's behind that person's actions. When someone remains in unrepentant sin, he or she no longer has fellowship with God. And so that's what it means when it says that the face of the Lord is against those who do evil. If that person is out of fellowship with God, then he's also out of fellowship with us. And so we who are united with God through Christ can't claim to be united with someone who's not also united with God. So we can continue to love the person and labor for their good and acknowledge that repentance is the only thing that keeps him or her away from God and us. But we must clearly draw those lines and distinguish between those who are inside the fellowship and those who are outside so that our fellowship is not corrupted. We should see also this morning that a commitment to pray for somebody must also be a commitment to a holy living. Telling someone that you'll pray for them while you're living in sin is writing a check that you can't cash. I'm not saying we shouldn't pray, but I am encouraging us as a body to commit to holiness so that we can actually pray effectively. Our holy living keeps us in a position of access to God in prayer. So we see in this text the call to be completely transformed by the gospel, by Christ's work in us. We can love one another and we can respond to those who oppose us with a real desire for them to be blessed. The heart of gospel living is our relationship with God. God has always been for the righteous and against the wicked, and the cross shows that Jesus died to make a wicked people righteous. So every day we have a choice to either side with God or to fight against him in our daily lives, in our momentary choices, we can contribute. We contribute to a whole life trajectory as Christians. Friends, we have no option but to choose righteousness, to pursue God and to enjoy his favor. Finally, we see the other reason for our gospel centered living, which is our witness to the world. So live right for witness. That's verses 13 through 17. 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. Verse 13 sums up Peter's last point. Now, who is there to harm you if you were zealous for what is good? The assumption is that in many cases, this kind of life is going to be the life that keeps us out of trouble, right? Living, loving life and seeing good days, keeping yourself from evil, keeping your tongue from evil, those kind of things keep you out of trouble. But in verse 14, he considers times when that is not the case. Even if you should suffer for righteousness sake, you will be blessed. So in the first century, Christianity is still on trial. The verdict is not yet out. The world is watching to see how this new belief system would affect the status quo of society. And so Peter is concerned to apply the gospel to certain areas of life that may confuse the world or even Christians. As they think about how the gospel relates, and so that's why he spent time and we've looked at the past few weeks considering government authority and slavery and marriage. So that was the world that Peter was writing to. In our day, Christianity is established, and yet we still find that at times it is out of step with the culture around us. Sometimes being a Christian means that we will suffer for righteousness sake. Sometimes doing good will cost us sometimes because of the wickedness of this world are doing good results in suffering It may not be constant, but it's something that could happen at any time Peter promises us though that our suffering is not permanent You will be blessed or maybe it's better even understood. You are blessed This is a promise rooted again in the gospel. I Jesus saves us for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last day. And until then, we suffer various trials. But the promise of God's blessing carries through. And so Peter is not promising that suffering that we do in this life will necessarily result in material blessing in this life. Our best life is waiting for us, and it's protected by God for the last day. But we do experience the blessing now of being identified with Christ and having the gospel made real and tangible here and now and give us a taste of what's coming when we are completely cleansed from sin. It is evidence of God's favor and assurance of our salvation. Peter quotes here from Isaiah eight, have no fear of them or be troubled, which we read earlier in the service. And we see here God's word to Isaiah and the faithful among Judah. They had enemies. They were tempted to fear their enemy schemes against them. But God told them not to fear their enemies on Earth, but him alone. God will vindicate his people. For Judah, the enemies were invaders from other nations. For Peter's readers and for us, we are threatened because we are citizens of Christ's kingdom and we live among the people who are hostile to Christ's authority. Peter tells them, do not fear, and that's something we've heard several times already in the book. Why don't we fear them? Because we fear God. In your hearts, honor Christ the Lord as holy. When Christ is holy, when Christ is Lord in our hearts, we fear nothing. When our identity is built on the sure foundation of his finished work on our behalf, the wind and the rain may beat upon the house, but the house will stand. That's what it means to fear God, to honor Christ as holy, and that's why we pray to God, hallowed be your name. It means that God is king and no matter what it costs us, we choose him over whatever this world has to offer us. It means we know that God sees and knows and judges everything and that one day all of us will give an account to him. But it gives us ballast in the midst of the tribulations of this life that we don't have to be defined by our circumstances, but by being purchased and loved by Christ. When we have that as our identity, when we have the love of Christ as our identity, we live differently. So setting Christ as Lord in our hearts doesn't doesn't mean that it's just a private matter between us and God. It certainly is a private internal reality, but it's one that determines everything we do. Suffering provides the context to bring out what is already in our hearts. Peter tells them to honor Christ as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason that the hope is in you. So the idea is that as Christians go through trials, they do it differently than the rest of the world. Christians suffer with hope, as Peter said in chapter one, we were born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. It is a sure hope based on real historical events that secured eternal outcomes for his people. And so Christians live by hope in their future salvation. And that hope remains in us even through trials. In chapter one, he tells us that those trials, they serve to refine our faith, that just like gold is purified by heating it up and melting away or removing the impurities. So to trials become the heat of the Christian life and they expose impurities within us. And if our faith is genuine, they make it stronger and better. So, Christian, I wonder if that's how you're thinking about your trials this morning. When you're suffering, are you suffering with hope? Are your trials making you more grateful for what Jesus has done for you? Are they making you long more for your eternal reward? Or do you just want them to be over? Here's a good test. Do you spend more time in your trials praising God or asking him to change your circumstances? That really reveals it all. Are you more concerned for what God will do to improve your life now or for the life that can be used for God's glory? When our suffering draws us into greater hope in God, it becomes obvious to everyone around us. Peter says that people will actually come to us and ask for a reason. How can you rejoice? How can you remain hopeful when this is happening to you? Particularly when we're suffering for righteousness, when being a Christian is costing us. But that certainly relates to all trials. No matter what the trial is, we have the opportunity to suffer for righteousness sake. We do so by praising God and trusting him, even when it seems like we shouldn't. The small things that we go through prepare us for the big things. They teach us the process of being refined. They allow us to see the results of the heat. and they make us more pure as we face the next trial. Young folks who are here with us this morning, many of you are not suffering extreme circumstances, but let your trials now train you for the big ones that lie ahead. And one of the biggest trials you face as young people every day is obeying your parents. When obedience requires you to do what you otherwise wouldn't choose to do, Let that be an opportunity for you to glorify God by acknowledging his ways are best. Obey immediately, fully and happily. Christians, are you suffering this morning with the hope that will cause people to ask why? Why are you hopeful? Peter tells us that we should always be ready with an answer for that question. To give a defense, to give a reason for our hope. And the answer is crystal clear. The answer is Jesus. It's Jesus. We are hopeful because of Jesus. Because 2,000 years ago, God poured out his wrath against my sin on him. Jesus has secured an eternal inheritance for me that is imperishable and undefiled and unfading. And no one and no thing on this earth can take that away from me or do anything to affect it. It is untouchable. I don't know why God is allowing this to happen to me, but because of the cross, I know for sure that it is not because he does not love me. He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not with him graciously give us all things? God has not forgotten me. God has not abandoned me. He is using all this to draw me into greater dependence upon him, to deeper love for him. And I trust him even in the midst of this trial. Christians, we must always be ready to give an answer because we never know when that opportunity is going to present itself. If we're not ready to give an answer, we'll miss it. And again, this is for all of us. That answer is not just for pastors. It's not just for professors or professional apologists. All Christians are to be able to defend their hope. And it's because all Christians have the gospel. The gospel gives us the power to suffer through the trials so that when we are asked why we have hope, we respond with the gospel we love because God first loved us and the hope that is in us through Christ manifest itself against the backdrop of our suffering. It will stand out so much that unbelievers will demand an explanation. Now, when we give them that answer, we are to do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience. So there's not just the right thing to say, but there's also the right way to say it. Even when we're suffering for our faith, we are called to respond in gentleness and respect and a good conscience, literally gentleness and fear. So gentleness toward the person and fear toward God. We are to maintain a clean conscience, knowing that God sees all and knows not only what our response is, but what's in our hearts when we make that response. So Peter here is anticipating and acknowledging the natural temptation we have to respond harshly and to go on the attack, especially when we're being threatened about things that really matter, like our faith. But the Bible is never given to us as a weapon just to hurt people. It may hurt, but when it hurts, it's like the scalpel of a surgeon. Our response, even when we're threatened, is to be a gospel saturated response, not seeking to prove that we are right and the other person is wrong, but genuinely seeking the good of the other person. So in this way, we are called as Christians to seize every opportunity to make Christ known. Even in the face of persecution, our desire is for Christ to be glorified in the lives of the people who are persecuting us. Peter says so that when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. In the midst of our hope in trials, we may be slandered. There are those who will insist that our hope is misplaced, that our faith is pointless, But if we maintain our hope with confidence, with a good conscience, then the shame will not be ours, but theirs. On the last day, when Christ returns in judgment, he will gather all of his people for eternal joy and glory. But those who rejected him, him will be put to shame and they will be judged and suffer eternally for their sins as they see believers rewarded for their faithfulness. Now, just like in chapter two, I think this may also be the means that God uses to bring some to faith. that our hopeful suffering may compel non-Christians to look to Christ and to be saved. But what this text does tell us is that we don't have to work for justice now. We don't have to right every wrong against us and spend ourselves trying to make sure we get a fair shake, to make sure we're never misunderstood, to make sure we're never mistreated or never taken advantage of. As Christians, we trust that God, the judge, is our father and that he always has our best interests in mind. And that the justice that he will bring about one day is absolutely perfect. So in that moment, when we're least inclined to respond in grace, that's exactly the time to do it, because it most powerfully communicates the authenticity of our hope. Peter draws all this to conclusion in verse 17, for it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God's will, than for doing evil. I want you to notice something in this verse. Sometimes God wills our suffering. It is better to suffer for what doing good, if that should be God's will. I draw our attention to that because there are many today who would say that all suffering is the result of sin and that God never wants us to experience suffering. And while I would agree that all suffering comes as a result of the fall, we must see here that God does sometimes will our suffering. We thought about that earlier in the text. Suffering is inevitable. It's even necessary whenever Christian faith encounters hostile opposition. This is the reality of the world that we live in until Christ returns. But the beauty of the gospel is that God uses even our sin and even our suffering for his own glory. Sometimes he allows us to suffer so that we're drawn into deeper dependence upon him, deeper satisfaction in him and to display his worth to the world. Most of the time in the midst of our suffering, we approach God for a change in circumstances. We want something new, something better, something different, whatever. We want the stuff that's around us to change. But changes in our circumstances never produce changes in our hearts. They just reveal what's already in our hearts. And so since God is about changing our hearts and conforming us to Christ's image, he uses our circumstances to seek change from him. And far more often, God works by changing us rather than our circumstances. When this happens, that may result in suffering, but it's good. It's gold purifying, refining suffering. But all suffering is not righteous suffering. The other kind of Peter talks about is suffering for doing evil. Sometimes we bring suffering upon ourselves through sin. And so we can't make ourselves martyrs and say that whatever suffering we're going through must be suffering for good. But the good news is this morning that God still uses even that suffering. Sometimes God brings us into suffering to remind us what we've been saved from. And this is his fatherly discipline, just as parents administer discipline to teach their children to act in accord with who they are. Sometimes God disciplines us when our behavior is not consistent with our confession and our new identity in Christ. Sometimes God uses suffering to warn us what's coming unless we repent. The Bible has no assurance offered to anyone who continues in sin, and sometimes suffering comes as a warning to scare us away from the path that leads us to destruction and causes us to seek God. The bottom line is that God uses suffering. And so when it comes upon us as Christians, it gives us the opportunity to glorify him in the world. Brothers and sisters, this is a challenging word this morning, and if you're like me, you have failed this test many times over. I have complained in the midst of my trials. I have failed to seize the opportunity to give a defense for hope in me. And I want to leave us this morning with grace that should be obvious, but I want to make sure we draw our attention to it. This letter was written by Peter. And even though Peter is one of the main characters in the gospel and the early church, we see his name all over the New Testament. He's not always known for his greatness. Think about Peter's own experience denying Christ after vowing to die for him, he then goes on to deny him three times the last time to just a little servant girl. During his ministry as an apostle, Peter was publicly rebuked by Paul for not eating with Gentiles, for missing the gospel. And so Peter's life shows us that perfection is not the expectation before us. His example is not one of perfection, but his example is one of repentance and consistently going back to Christ for grace. And that's what he's encouraging us to do this morning. So don't leave here this morning discouraged because of your failures. Brothers and sisters, turn to Christ in repentance and faith. Find forgiveness from him this morning and vow to pursue him and to pursue righteousness once again. Beloved, let us commit to living together for God, to suffering for his glory and to depending completely upon his grace. Let's pray. Our father in heaven, we give thanks to you for your word. We confess once again it has exposed our impurities. We pray that you would give us the grace this morning to turn away from the sin that turns your face against us. We pray that you would remind us of your love this morning and the hope that is ours in Christ. Strengthen us, Father, to live gospel-centered lives that reflect our identity as your children. and that mirror your grace and your forgiveness to the world around us. As we suffer. May we suffer for righteousness sake in order that Christ may be exalted in our hearts and in this world. And it's through his name we pray. Amen.