Reverend Jonathan Waits
Sermon: Giving an Answer (1 Peter 3:13-17)
Date: June 23, 2024
We are a people given to fear. We fear all kinds of things for all kinds of reasons. Go look up a list of phobias sometime. You won’t be able to pronounce most of them, but the definitions will at least amuse you. Some of them seem like they have at least some sort of a rational justification for them like a fear of snakes (herpetophobia) or heights (acrophobia). Others seem just silly like a fear of the number 4 (tetraphobia) or the color yellow (xanthophobia). Then there are some that seem like someone just made them up entirely so they could create a long, impossible to pronounce word like hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia which, of course, is the fear of the number 666 (which, in case you were interested, my spell checker actually caught and flagged as being misspelled; not because it is a random jumble of letters, but because I swapped and “e” for an “a”). Most of those fears, though, are pretty niche. I don’t know of many people who suffer from arachibutyrophobia, the fear of peanut butter getting stuck to the roof of your mouth. But there are some fears that are common and which have plagued humanity from time immemorial like death.
Well, as followers of Jesus and because of His resurrection from the dead, death isn’t something we have to fear anymore. Paul made as much clear in 1 Corinthians 15. Yet while that one fear is effectively neutralized by a healthy faith, there’s actually another fear that rises up to take its place in many of our hearts and minds. This fear can be paralyzing enough that it can keep us from doing one of the clearest and most important jobs we are given to do in the Scriptures. I couldn’t find a technical term for the phobia, but it’s common enough it should probably have one. For many of us the very thought of this situation is enough to make us break out in a cold sweat. We will do just about anything we can to avoid it. Any guesses on what it is yet? I’m talking about the terrifying experience of being asked a question about our faith.
Being asked a question about our faith can be one of the more terrifying things we can experience as followers of Jesus. The reasons for this are many, but they mostly boil down to a couple of things. The first is that we may not know the answer, meaning we could be attacked for not knowing the answer. We’re afraid of a skeptic thinking (and perhaps even telling us) we’re dumb because we don’t know the answer to one question or another. And then, if we can’t answer, maybe they don’t come around to faith and now look at what we’ve done. We’ve failed to make a convert when given the chance. For shame! The other thing we fear is that if we don’t know the answer, maybe that’s because there isn’t an answer. And if there isn’t an answer, maybe our faith isn’t as strong as we think it is. Maybe we don’t actually have as good of a reason to believe as we thought we did. Now, in addition to not knowing the answer to one question or another, we’re facing a crisis of faith as well.
My friends: none of this should be the case. In spite of clever and often deceptive framings that are popular today among secular skeptics, we have the most rational set of beliefs in the world. The idea not only that God exists, but that He is the way we describe Him to be are eminently reasonable propositions to support. We have every reason for confidence that Jesus is who He said He is and that placing our faith in Him makes sense. It makes so much sense, in fact, that telling someone else they should do the same is not just something we should strive to do merely because Jesus commanded it, but because it’s true and it’s unloving to not share something true with someone who believes something that is false. The challenge that we are facing here, though, is that the world around us mostly doesn’t agree with us. They don’t agree, and they’re not much interested in our holding, expressing, or sharing it with anyone else. And, in most places around the world, they have the power and position to attempt to prohibit our doing that entirely, or at least to make our efforts to do it as inconvenient, uncomfortable, and even costly as they can.
Well, not many people enjoy seeking out conflict, and we definitely don’t much care for inconvenience. The prospect of losing those things just for letting people know we follow Jesus and that they should do the same isn’t all that encouraging of a thought. So, we fear it. We fear the unknowns associated with it. We even fear the knowns that can be associated with it. What are we supposed to do about this?
We start by knowing we’re in pretty good company in all of this. This is a tension followers of Jesus have been wrestling with for a very long time. In fact, it is a tension that one of Jesus’ closest early followers addressed in his letter to believers who were living in a cultural situation with which ours is increasingly familiar. If you have a copy of the Scriptures with you this morning, find your way with me to the letter we call 1 Peter. It’s right near the back of the New Testament. If you were to try to find the single most relevant document in the whole of the Scriptures in terms of the way it speaks to our current cultural situation, you’d be hard pressed to do better than 1 Peter. In the case of our conversation this morning, it speaks right to the challenge of publicly following Jesus and even sharing our faith in the midst of a culture that doesn’t.
The whole letter is about how to follow Jesus faithfully in the midst of a culture that doesn’t. More than even that, though, it’s about following Jesus faithfully in the midst of a culture that is willing to punish you in some form or fashion for doing so. What are a bunch of followers of Jesus supposed to do in a situation like that? That’s what Peter endeavors to clarify over the course of his short letter. It boils down to a fairly simple idea: they are to live out the holiness of God in their conduct with and toward all the people around them. And, if this results in pushback and persecution, then so be it. God Himself in Christ was using their faithfulness to build something strong and permanent in this world. While the world may crash against them in its attempts to push them away from faith, if they stood firm in their faith and faithful application of the character of Christ, the world was ultimately going to fail in its efforts.
Right in the middle of the letter, after walking his readers through some examples of different areas where believers might have the opportunity to live out the character of Christ with people who didn’t embrace such a character, Peter starts to draw some initial conclusions for his readers. Look at this with me starting 1 Peter 3:8. He says, “Finally…” Whenever an author says, “finally,” you know he’s wrapping up a series of arguments and getting on to his conclusions. In this case, the line of argument Peter is concluding goes back to 1 Peter 2:12 where he encourages the believers to, “conduct yourselves honorably among the Gentiles, so that when they slander you as evildoers, they will observe your good works and will glorify God on the day he visits.” Notice the “when” there. If you are a follower of Jesus, you are going to be slandered as an evildoer by people who don’t believe in God. Our challenge is to conduct ourselves in such a way that the charge is laughably inaccurate. Peter goes beyond just that, though. He says these critics will glorify God on the day He visits. Why would they do that? Because they believe in Him and accept Him for who He is. Why would they do that? Because they’ve seen your good works and been convinced by them that the God you worship must really be worthy of their own devotion.
Back in chapter 3:8, Peter finishes this line of argument with some general advice. “Finally, all of you be like-minded and sympathetic, love one another, and be compassionate and humble, not paying back evil for evil or insult for insult but, on the contrary, giving a blessing, since you were called for this, so that you may inherit a blessing.” He goes on to quote from Psalm 34 which we talked about in here a few weeks ago.
Coming out of this, Peter offers a challenge, wraps that challenge in a bit of realism, and then doubles down on the challenge. This is what is of particular interest for us this morning. Look with me starting again in v. 13: “Who then will harm you if you are devoted to what is good?” That’s a simple enough question. Peter’s audience, though, no doubt had an answer. Many of them knew the answer to this question very directly. They had experienced their neighbors and former friends and even family members treating them with contempt and derision because of their commitment to what is good. They had been questioned by government officials or perhaps made to pay some kind of an economic cost for standing on an understanding of what is good that differed from their neighbors. They knew very well who would harm them for their devotion to what was good. Lots of people would do that.
Peter understood this. Look at what he says next: “But even if you should suffer for righteousness, you are blessed.” He goes on to quote from the prophet Isaiah: “Do not fear what they fear or be intimidated…” That line from Isaiah comes in the context of the prophet’s offering encouragement to the Israelites to remain faithful to the Lord in the face of the swiftly advancing and terrifying Assyrian army. He was telling the people to not be like all the other peoples around them or even fellow Israelites who sought protection and hope in all kinds of things other than God. The prophet was telling them to put all of their hope in God and His ability to deliver them from destruction.
Peter was telling his readers—and us through them—that when the culture threatens us with some sort of persecution for our commitment to righteousness, we should not fear. He’s doing a little more even than just that, though. He’s telling us that part of what motivates that persecution on their part is fear. Fear of what? All kinds of things. Being different, angering the gods or more generally the powers that be, a dropping of the ball of civic responsibility that will result in everyone’s life getting harder, and so on and so forth. Yet because we serve a God who can handle all of those kinds of things and because we are members of a kingdom that is not of this world, we don’t have to worry about or fear any of those things.
Instead, look at what Peter tells us to do. “‘Do not fear what they fear or be intimidated,’ but in your hearts regard Christ the Lord as holy, ready at any time to give a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.” Yes, Peter acknowledges, you might face pushback and persecution for your efforts to live out of the character of Christ in the world around you. There will be some people who won’t like that, and who will not like it to a sufficient degree that they are willing to make your life difficult for being committed to it. At the very least they’ll make fun of you and tell you you’re nuts and ask you questions whose answer you don’t know and tell you you’re stupid and totally unreasonable in your faith when you can’t. Do it anyway, and be prepared when you do to explain why. Even when the world doesn’t like it, don’t ever keep your faith to yourself.
Of course, how we do this matters. A lot. I had a guy come on my college campus one time who was committed to giving an answer to anyone who asked a reason for the hope that he had. Unfortunately, he was a jerk about it who attracted questions by bawling out everyone who came near him for being horrible people and moral degenerates. He didn’t see many people start to follow Jesus because of his efforts. In fact, our campus ministry had to do damage control for weeks after his visit. Rather than advancing the Gospel in any way, he set Gospel work on that campus back several months because of his visit. He got v. 15 right, but he forgot all about v. 16.
“Yet do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that when you are accused [remember when Peter said “when they slander you”?], those who disparage your good conduct in Christ will be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil.” Even when the world doesn’t like it, don’t ever keep your faith to yourself. Just make sure your sharing it happens in the same way Jesus did. Oh, Jesus could be tough at times. But He consistently reserved that face for religious people who thought they knew better than God how to be in a right relationship with Him. With unbelievers or people who believed wrongly about God because they had never been taught what was right, with the “sinners” of His day, Jesus was consistently compassionate and kind. He was gentle and humble. He was respectful and patient. If somebody hates on you because you’re a jerk to them, that’s on you. If they hate on you in spite of your being gentle and respectful in all your ways, other people are going to notice that. And when they do, they just might ask you about it. Even when the world doesn’t like it, don’t ever keep your faith to yourself.
Okay, but this whole fear thing we talked about before is still there. What are we supposed to do about that? How do we get over that? Well, a little practice never hurt anyone, but I think there’s more than that we can do to follow Peter’s counsel here. In fact, I think there are two things in particular that you can do in order to keep Peter’s command here. The first is to consider your own story. This one shouldn’t be all that hard. It is your story, after all. Here’s how you do that. You sit with this question until you answer it: Why is it that you follow Jesus? And before you even try to start to answer this way, throw out any version of “because my parents did.” I don’t care why your parents followed Jesus. I want to know why you follow Jesus. Why are you following Him instead of following someone or something else? What is it that made you want to commit your life to Him in the first place?
And listen, that may be an uncomfortable question if you’ve never thought about it before. I suspect that for some of you that’s the case. That could be a scary thought. You’ve never really considered why you follow Jesus. You just grew up in church and your whole family structure was one where following Him was assumed and you never questioned that. You just went with it. Sure, you’ve had a moment or two where you wondered a bit whether living some other kind of way would make more sense, but you brushed those thoughts aside fairly quickly and got back to doing the only thing you ever really knew. Here’s the thing, though, if you don’t know why you follow Jesus, you can’t give an answer for the reason for the hope that you have to someone who asks. And rest assured that, “I just always have,” is neither a compelling or a convincing answer. Why is it that you follow Jesus? If you can’t answer that, it’s time to get to a place where you can. And if you can’t answer because you aren’t really following Jesus at all, then today is a great day to fix that too. The world may not like your answer if you have one; in fact, it probably won’t. Give it anyway. The world needs to hear it. Even when the world doesn’t like it, don’t ever keep your faith to yourself.
Here’s the second thing. You need to learn what some of the arguments and evidence for the Christian faith are. It’s always okay to not know the answer to a particular question. There’s never anything wrong with that. You can’t study every topic and you aren’t going to remember every answer. But a lack of effort is not an acceptable reason to not know an answer. At some point, if you actively have conversations about Jesus—and you should be actively having conversations about Jesus when the opportunities present themselves…and if you make that a point of prayer, the opportunities will present themselves because God will answer that prayer—someone is going to ask you a hard question about the faith. But here’s the thing: no one is asking novel questions about the faith these days. They’ve all been asked before and answered before. What’s more, the answers are recorded in convenient places for you to be able to look them up and learn them for yourself. That means none of the questions you might be asked need to be scary. And you’re not alone in this. I can help you with it. That’s quite literally what I’m here for. Don’t miss out on tapping the resources that I can help you access. And again, it’s okay to say, “I don’t know, but here’s why I believe anyway,” and point them back to your own story…which is why it’s so important to know that.
Now, is this going to take a bit of work on your part? Sure it will. But isn’t a little bit of work so that you are more prepared to give an answer for the reason for the hope that you have in such a way that just may convince a questioning skeptic to follow Jesus worth it? It is, after all, what Jesus and Peter both commanded us to do. Even when the world doesn’t like it, don’t ever keep your faith to yourself. And the world isn’t going to like it. Do it anyway. Even when the world doesn’t like it, don’t ever keep your faith to yourself.