Standing Against The World's Wind Part II 1 Peter 3:8-17

Preparing for Hostility in 1 Peter 3:8-17

As we begin our sermon this morning, as we continue our sermon series through 1 Peter, we're going to begin by reading our text. The text we are in right now is 1 Peter 3, v. 8 -17. And this text is a three Sunday sermon.

So 1 Peter 3, v. 8 -17. If you have a Red Bible, I encourage you to turn there with me. Here are the words of our Lord. 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.

Last week, we began this three Sunday sermon through this text.

And one week ago,.

We looked at verses 8 and 9. And this morning, we're going to look at verses 10 through the first half of verse 15. And what we saw is that this text is calling you and calling myself to prepare as Christians to experience hostility from the world.

This is not a pleasant topic to jump into, but it is a real topic that every Christian needs to wrestle with. That this is what it will be like living as a Christian in this world. And the first discipline we saw in verse 8 where Peter calls the church to unite with fellow believers in love.

Our unity is built around the truth of God's Word. And living out that truth. And as you are united, you are strengthened to face the opposition that is to come. There's an old Puritan saying. The Puritans lived in the 1600s in England.

And what they said is, when the seas are calm, mend your sails. When the seas are calm, mend your sails. In our country and all around the world, we have seen the seas are becoming turbulent. And what an important reminder it is to be prepared as we anticipate opposition from the world as this text and so many others in Scripture tell us to do.

It is strong Christians and strong churches that will be able to stand against the opposition. The second discipline how you are to prepare as Christians to experience hostility from the world is by refusing to respond to evil with evil as we saw in verse 9.

There, Peter instructed us to give, to not, that is, to not give in to the temptation to respond to evil with evil. That's how the world responds. When someone does something bad to someone, the world wants to get back, right?

The world wants to get even. And what Peter instructed us in verse 9 is, that's not what you're supposed to do. You are supposed to return good to the evil that is done to you, to your persecutors. And as one does this, the believer experiences blessing and the Lord will repay the evil done by the persecutors.

Now this leads us back into the text again where we will be zeroing in on these verses. And we're going to start by looking at point number three here. Okay, so the third discipline how you are to prepare as Christians to experience opposition from the world is by experiencing the Lord's tangible blessing through a righteous life.

What Peter does in these verses is quote from an Old Testament passage. And we read that during the call to worship, Psalm 34. This isn't the first time he is quoted from an Old Testament passage. In chapter 2, we learn that Jesus is the cornerstone and Peter quoted Old Testament passages that describe the coming Messiah in this way and the importance of one receiving Him.

Showing this, Peter quoted Psalm 118, verse 22, Isaiah 814, and Isaiah 2816. Now in verses 10 through 12, Peter quotes another Old Testament passage, that's Psalm 34, verses 12 through 16. And this is a precious psalm.

Every psalm, all 150 of them are precious, but there's some psalms that really stand out when you read them. And Psalm 34 is one of those psalms. This psalm describes God's closeness to the righteous and His anger toward the wicked.

And specifically, those who harm the righteous. And you can see why he follows verse nine with this quotation. After describing the opposition that believers experience as people do evil deeds and revile, he tells his readers, past and present, the future blessing that is there to the one who stands with the Lord.

And what is remarkable is that this blessing is not only in the age to come, when God dwells with His people in eternal bliss. What these verses are describing is the blessing that is there even in this life.

And what we will see in a little bit is that Peter picks up on the persecution theme again in the following verses, but sandwiched in between verse nine and verses 13 through 17 is this wonderful truth.

As he once again writes in verse 10, whoever desires to love life and see good days. God has a plan for believers to live a rich and enjoyable life in the present in this fallen world. In this world full of opposition, in this world full of suffering, the Lord has planned that you will experience blessing.

John 10, 10, Jesus said, I have come that they may have life and have it abundantly. Peter wants his readers to experience this abundant life. And you may wonder how can those persecuted, those constantly facing opposition from the world, how can Christians experiencing this pushback still experience an abundant life?

As Scripture describes a believer's life in this world, what we need to understand is that believers are told their life will be hard. Psalm 34 in fact says this, in Psalm 34, 19, that verse says, many are the afflictions of the righteous.

But in that same Psalm, in Psalm 34, 12, the psalmist writes, what man is there who desires life and loves many days that he may see good? And the answer is that every man desires this. Every man desires to see the joy of life, to see the good days.

And this is not a contradiction as we see in this chapter in Psalm 34. Both realities are true. Believers do face tremendous opposition in this world, while also experiencing tremendous blessing in this world.

Peter explains how this blessing comes about. This blessing comes through the way in which you live. In verse eight, Peter explained that you are to have unity of mind that is built on the truth. And once you have this agreement in the truth, you are able to show sympathy to believers, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind.

You are able as a Christian to live out true love and experience true unity built around the truth. What Peter is saying is that in the midst of the opposition, as you live out your faith, the Lord's favor is upon you.

And nothing is greater than that. His favor is upon you. Living life as a Christian is living life upstream. And we have a helpful illustration because we live next to a major river, the St. Croix River.

And as it flows south, it's a pretty intense current. Especially in the spring. Any of you tried to canoe up that river going north? They don't really have those trips right from Osceola to St. Croix, right?

The shuttles are from St. Croix to Osceola because you go with the flow, right? It takes you south. But the moment you go north, it becomes difficult to paddle, to gain any progress at all. To live as a Christian is like this.

You are living life upstream. You're not going with the flow. But as you go against the flow, what Peter is saying is that you experience the blessed life. Believers are not to look at the wicked and envy what appears to be their success.

The prophet Jeremiah cried out to the Lord concerning this matter. In Jeremiah 12, verses 1 and 2, he said, Righteous are you, O Lord, when I complain to you. Yet I would plead my case before you. Why does the way of the wicked prosper?

Why do all who are treacherous thrive? You plant them and they take root, they grow and they produce fruit. You are near in their mouth and far from their heart. You see, other writers of Scripture do this.

They say, and I'm paraphrasing, Lord, why is it that my and your enemies are succeeding and I am experiencing so much opposition? In our nearsighted view of the world, it can feel this way. The wicked prosper and the righteous suffer.

What we need to be reminded as you follow the Lord is that He is on your side. As the old hymn says, Be still, my soul. The Lord is on your side. Now in one sense, the Lord is always on the side of the believer.

This is so because of the righteousness of Christ. When one believes in Jesus, His finished work at the cross, and through His resurrection, His righteousness becomes your righteousness. But there's also a sense in which the Lord is more pleased with His followers who are walking most closely with Him.

As you live out the love and unity described in verse 8, and as you keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit, as the end of verse 10 says, as you turn away from evil and do good and seek peace around the truth and pursue it to the best of your ability, as verse 11 says, as you do what Peter has already written and the related exhortation from the psalmist, the Lord's blessing is upon you as the beginning of verse 12 says.

The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and His ears are open to their prayer. As you walk closely with the Lord, His presence is close to you. Think about this. As you walk closely with Him, He is delighted to hear from you.

As Peter said, His ears are open to their prayer. This is so interesting because two Sundays ago, we looked at 1 Peter 3 verse 7 and it was describing the husband and wife relationship and what that verse says is that if the husband is mistreating his wife, God doesn't want to hear your prayers.

So in other words, the closeness of your walk with the Lord impacts your prayer life. He's open to the prayers of those who are walking closely with Him. And He's further from those who are estranged from Him, even if they're saved.

You must understand this. There is a difference between someone who's vibrantly walking with the Lord and maybe a Christian who's just kind of going through the motions. And of course, we want to be the one who's vibrantly walking with the Lord.

But this is what you and I must understand. Even as you are called all kinds of names, mistreated, and possibly even imprisoned because of your Christian faith, what God says is that you are blessed. You might say, well, imprisonment?

Has that happened in the West? It has. Now, it's a rarity even now, but again, in the future, I don't think this will be uncommon as more opposition comes. But right now, you hear the insults, right? You hear different mistreatment that takes place to Christians and it ramps up over time.

As you live out your faith, carry yourself well during the opposition, still maintaining your joy in the Lord when you're being stepped on by the world. What a testimony that is. And not only do you have joy as you experience the Lord's peace through the trial, but different evidences of the Lord's grace will be shown in your life.

Look at the life of Joseph in Genesis. He was falsely accused by Potiphar's wife and Potiphar threw him in prison based on this false accusation. And you can just imagine, people probably believe the false accusation.

Oh, what a horrible person Joseph is. He's thrown into prison. But Genesis 39 -21 describes God's view of Joseph. The Lord was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison.

Opposition from others, but the Lord, the only one that matters, is on his side. And look at what happened to Joseph. Through circumstances, the Lord leads this man to be the governor of Egypt where he would use him to save all the people from the famine.

I mean, think about how remarkable that story is. The Lord blessed Joseph tremendously. And what I explained to you one week ago is that this opposition from the world is not just from unbelievers, but even from worldly Christians.

I've been beating this drum for a while. And what I said one week ago and what I will say again is that I think some of the greatest persecution will come from the broader Christian world. And that might sound crazy, but understand what it will look like.

As you stand on the Word of God, as we stand thoroughly on the Word of God, the Christian community that's compromised will say, well, that's not the way of Christ. Because the compromised Christian community really cares what the world thinks about them.

And when they see strong Christians standing on the Word of God, they're embarrassed of those people. And so they're willing to throw those people under the bus. We talked one Sunday ago about we need to have two eyes on the Bible, not one eye on the Bible and one eye on the world.

We need to have two eyes on the Word of God. That's our focus. It will come from people who are concerned about those who follow the Bible through and through. But this you and I must understand. As we face opposition from the world and even Christians compromised by the world, you will experience tangible evidence that the Lord is on your side, that His favor is upon you as you walk with Him.

And I have a personal story to share with you concerning what happened to me this past summer. Last week I mentioned the persecution that Pastor Jeff Clewer and Pastor David Whitney have experienced from a compromised free church leadership.

And what I explained a week ago is that I grew up in the free church. I have a long family history in the free church. I pastored in the free church. And what's happening there is really sad because the leadership in many ways has left the roots of the movement which was strongly biblical and it's really become a pretty worldly Christian movement.

About two months ago I experienced strong opposition myself from a leader in the free church because of an article I wrote describing their mistreatment of Jeff Clewer. Jeff Clewer, once again, he wrote a book against the woke direction of the movement presenting a mountain of evidence to show that this is where they were leading the movement.

He calls them to repent in the book and instead of repenting they call him to repent. They discipline his ordination which means they're holding it until he repents. But he didn't do anything wrong, so why is he going to repent?

So that's a very brief story about Jeff Clewer. What happened to me, I wrote this article. Most people liked it. They said thank you for standing for the truth. We appreciate it. But on a Thursday evening, it was August 3rd, I received a nasty text message with very strong language against me.

As you might imagine, it troubled my soul. I didn't respond to the message. The Lord will take care of it. Vengeance is his. But as I got this message, it was all I could think about. I was confident that what I was doing was right, but it is easy to second guess yourself, especially when the criticism comes from those who are supposed to be credible.

Someone in the higher ups of church leadership. That Sunday morning, on August 6th, I could still feel the pain of the strong pushback that I had received, but what happened that morning was remarkable.

Now I don't want to get caught up too much in church numbers. That could be really a dangerous thing. Sometimes churches are big because they build the wrong way.

They use gimmicks.

They try to get people in the door. They do whatever they can. But if a church is standing on the word of God, there's nothing flashy. The whole church is built on the word of God. If you seek growth, it probably is truly the Lord's work taking place.

And that Sunday morning, following that message I received only three days earlier, we had the most people who have ever come to this church. Okay, this is August 6th. August 6th. It's summer, right? Let's go to the lake.

Typically, there's vacations. There's people who work. They might miss a little more in the summer. This wasn't Easter. This wasn't Christmas. This was August 6th. We had more people on August 6th than we had on Easter and Christmas, remarkably.

We had the biggest giving we've ever had.

And by the way, I don't even know.

What is given each week. But someone just happened to tell me this is what the giving was that Sunday. After the service, in fact, Landon came up to me. That was your first Sunday here. And Landon came up to me and he said, this is my church.

He said, I could sense the presence of the Holy Spirit here. And I just want to tell you, I just felt very loved by the Lord that morning. It was amazing. And it felt like the Lord telling me, Seth, by standing for the truth of God's word, people will say nasty things about you.

And those nasty things will even come from those who are supposed to be credible. But my opinion is the only one that matters. You know what's interesting? You know what happened in the 1800s? There was a big controversy in England.

Charles Spurgeon, the famous preacher, who people quote today a ton, Charles Spurgeon was battling compromise within the Baptist Union. Ninety-three percent of the people voted to remove his ordination.

Ninety-three percent of the people. People would say, well, it must have been a slam dunk that Spurgeon was in the wrong. He wasn't in the wrong. He was in the right. And history shows that. But ninety-three percent of the people sided against him.

But the Lord was with him. And look at how the Lord has used Spurgeon to bless so many Christians over a hundred years later. And I'm far from perfect. Brianna can tell you that. She has to live with me every day.

But I am confident that helping expose false teaching, holding compromise leaders accountable, defending the Word of God, and defending true shepherds is fulfilling the Lord's will in my life. And as you do what God commands, as Peter lays out in these verses, you will love life and see good days, as Psalm 34 says.

His blessing will be over you and you will experience it not just in the future, in the age to come, but you will experience it presently in tangible ways. You might be going through a hard time and someone just comes up to you and gives you an encouraging word, keep going.

That's the Lord showing you His favor upon you. Your life will stand out from your persecutors as His blessing goes with you, while His blessing is not with them. It is a great comfort to know that your life in this world will not be pure misery as you live against the wind of the opposing world.

The world goes with the flow as they travel down the wide path, as Jesus said in Matthew 7, verses 13 -14. But they are the ones truly in misery. As the end of verse 12 once again says, the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.

In the case of the compromised Christians who are fooled and go after you, the Lord's blessing, while not completely gone, is diminished in their life. And it's sad. And we don't want any brothers and sisters in Christ to stay in that place, so we pray for their repentance.

But the unbeliever, the Lord's blessing, is not with that person in any measure. And judgment only awaits them. So this we need to understand. The Lord is going to right every wrong done to you. But as you follow Him, His blessing is always upon you, now and in the age to come.

So prepare yourselves as Christians to experience opposition from the world. And the third discipline, how, is by experiencing the Lord's tangible blessing through a righteous life. And we're going to look at one more point this morning, the fourth point.

The fourth discipline, how, you are to prepare yourselves as Christians to experience opposition from the world, is by moving not an inch when hostile pressure comes. Verses 13 through the first half of verse 15, we will see this.

He gives a very important exhortation here, and let's read this in these verses. 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. What Peter does here is he asks a rhetorical question. What is a rhetorical question? It's a question asked where you are not asking for a response, but rather you are making a statement.

What Peter is saying to this question is that many people will not harm you for doing good because you're a positive to society. And many people see that you bless others as you live out your faith. But there will be those who harm you as he has already acknowledged in v. 9 and the end of v. 12.

And he acknowledged again at the beginning of v. 14 where once again he writes, if you suffer for righteousness' sake. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. Peter is acknowledging that you will suffer for righteousness' sake as a Christian.

And you're experiencing this right now. You have family members who maybe don't want to talk to you because of your Christian faith. You have friends. You have broken relationships. You have tension in the workplace.

Think about all the experiences as things ramp up in our world. All these experiences that you are facing. You're already suffering for righteousness' sake.

In some ways.

You will suffer as you are zealous for what is good. Don't you love that word zealous? It's not just that you follow the Lord's commands as a Christian, but you are zealous to follow Him. You are zealous to do good.

In other words, it's your life's passion. Living for the Lord is why you are here. And the goal is to make every day count for His sake. Those who have the Lord's will as their life's passion are willing to follow Him even when opposition comes, as Peter is describing in this text.

This person who is zealous for what is good, no matter what happens, is so much different from the second soil in the parable of the sower that Jesus tells. We have that picture on the back wall. Be the fourth soil.

The fourth soil is the one where the seed is planted on fertile ground and it produces a crop and it's healthy and there's plentiful growth. The second soil, nobody wants to be. The seed is planted and it's stony ground and the crop pops up and it looks like it's the real deal.

But then the sun beats on it and it withers. That is the second soil. And this is what Jesus describes. He describes who this describes in Matthew 13, verses 20 -21. As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and he immediately receives it with joy.

Yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away. What the second soil describes is a false Christian.

Someone who appears to be a true believer until the time comes when the difficulty of the Christian life starts. Once persecution comes, this person goes with the world, not Christ, showing their true allegiance.

This person is not the one described in verse 13 of our text who is zealous for what is good. The testing of persecution shows where this person's allegiance truly lies. But the one who is zealous for what is good shows his or her genuineness as he or she stands with the Lord when opposition comes.

What Peter is telling his readers and us is who can truly harm you if you are following God's will. This is the safest place to be. What Peter writes brings to mind something else that Jesus said in Matthew.

In Matthew 10, verse 28, he said, Do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul. Rather, fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. In other words, do not fear man. What can dust do to you?

If you fear men, you want helpful exercises, go to a cemetery. Look at all those gravestones.

They're dead.

Is this who we're supposed to fear?

They're dust.

From dust they came. To dust they shall return. It's the living God who we are to fear. He is your protector. You are invincible as he holds you in his hands. And his blessing is upon you as we just looked at in tangible ways.

And he repeats this in verse 14 where he writes,. Even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you will be blessed. This is a theme in this letter that Peter brings out here. To suffer for righteousness' sake is no fault on you.

There can be kind of this shame where people say, oh, you're doing what's wrong. But what if you're not doing what's wrong? You're doing exactly what you're supposed to do. What Scripture tells you is don't feel bad.

Keep your head up. Don't listen to them. What does the Lord think? That's what matters. It's no fault on you. As bad things happen to you, it's not because you're in trouble. On the other hand, if you suffer for doing evil, there are consequences that will come.

And Peter explains this in the next chapter in verses 14 -16. So there's no fault on the believer for doing good and suffering for it. But in fact, the opposite is the case. You will be blessed. You experience His favor upon you.

And once again, as I said in the previous point, one sees even tangible blessing to show this. But there may also come a time where the Lord's plan for a believer is to take him or her home. In that case, His blessing is still very much there as one passes from the pain of this life into His glorious presence.

As Philippians 121 says, to live is Christ and to die is gain. Peter is driving home the point that persecutors, even though they can even take your life, cannot truly harm you. They can't harm you in the most important way.

Because the Lord's blessing is upon you as you suffer for His sake. There was a man named Henry Martin, an Anglican minister who was a missionary in the early 19th century. He was a missionary to India and Persia.

He fell ill at the age of 31 and died. This man of God had a wonderful quote though. The Christian is immortal till God is done with him. A quote like this has power from someone who lived it. And he lived it.

It was said of Martin that he was remembered for his courage, his selflessness, and his religious devotion. Henry Martin knew the invincibility of a believer. And we all must understand this. What can the world really do to you?

The truth is they can do nothing. And with this in mind, Peter says at the end of verse 15, have no fear of them, nor be troubled. But in your hearts, honor Christ as holy. What Peter tells us when he writes, in your hearts you are to honor Christ as holy, is that Christ must be supreme in your heart.

And we sing this hymn sometimes, Be Thou My Vision. It's the oldest hymn in our hymn book. It comes from the 500s A .D. This song was written by an Irish poet, a man named Dallin Forgale. And there's a sweet line in the hymn that says, Riches I heed not, Nor man's empty praise, Thou mine inheritance, Now and always, Thou and Thou only, First in my heart, High King of heaven, My treasure Thou art.

And one author commenting on the first half of verse 15 said,. The meaning is set apart in your hearts, Christ as Lord. The heart is the sanctuary in which Christ prefers to be worshipped. Live in submissive communion with the Lord Jesus, loving and obeying Him, and you have nothing to fear.

The safest place to be is walking closely with the Lord. And you know what's going to happen? It's going to put you in dangerous places. You're going to put yourself out there when you're walking closely with the Lord, because that's what He wants you to do.

But it's the safest place to be because no one can do anything to you. You're protected by Him. His blessing is upon you. And we need courage as Christians. We need to not move an inch when hostile pressure comes.

If sharing the gospel with someone is going to hurt your friendship with the person, it's worth it. If speaking the truth in a hostile environment is going to cost you something, it's worth it. It's always worth it to stand with the Lord.

We need to put ourselves out there. And what an amazing life that is when you do that. This is the calling that the Lord has on our lives. It's not to be safe and,.

Okay, I want to live.

And not have anything ever happen to me because I just played it safe. I live in a calculated way. Okay, if I do this, this is going to cost me. If I do this, this is going to happen to me. No, a Christian says, you know what, I'm going to do it because it's right.

And I don't care what the consequences are because God is taking care of me. His blessing is upon me. And those who have this sweet communion with the Lord, treasuring Him above all else, and showing this through an obedient life, understand that the Lord is with you as you face opposition.

And so Peter writes, have no fear of them, nor be troubled. You have nothing to be anxious about. Believers are always to stand our ground as opposition comes. The world wants you to cave. The world wants you to renounce Christ and go down their wide and easy path.

But Christians need to understand that to go down that path is not the way of blessing. It's the opposite. It's the way of death. And as you stand strong with Him, He will always take care of you. And what a great comfort this is.

And we need to heed the words of the Lord Jesus. Whoever would save his life in this world will lose it. But whoever follows Him, not seeking to save one's life at all costs, will find it. It's a life of devotion to Him.

And that's the kind of life that God calls us to live. So prepare yourselves as Christians to experience opposition from the world. And the fourth discipline how is by moving not an inch when hostile pressure comes.

Now next Sunday, we're going to look at the last three points, the last three disciplines. And we are going to look at one of the most famous verses in the Bible, 1 Peter 3 .15, which says, Always be prepared to give a defense for the hope that you have.

And we're going to zero in on what Peter is getting after there. But this time, let's bow our heads in prayer. Father in Heaven, the world wants us to cave, Lord. The world wants us to go with the flow.

The world wants us to get with the program, to follow their evil ways. But You tell us, no, stand Your ground. My blessing is with You. I will take care of You. I will prosper You. I will do great things through You.

That's a promise to those who walk with You. And my prayer, Lord, is that this church should be full of people who are sold out for You, who have the cross before them and the world behind them, who have two eyes on the Word of God and not one eye on the Word and one eye on the world.

It so often happens. But that we would be fully committed to You, Lord. And when we fall, because we do fall, Lord, that we would repent and get back on track. We ask this in Jesus' name, Amen.