In 1 Peter chapter 3, so I invite you to take your Bibles this morning and turn to chapter 3, and we're going to be hearing from verses 13 through 18. 13 through 18. So if you're following along in a pew Bible, you can find that on page 1016. 1016. Let's give our attention then to the reading of God's Word. Apostle Peter says, 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. For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit. As far as the reading of God's word, the grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of our Lord stands forever, and we are grateful for it. Let's ask one more time for the Lord's help this morning. Let's pray. Father God, we thank you for your benevolence to us this week. We thank you for your kindness. We thank you for your patience, Father. You're imminently patient with your people. And I pray, Father, this morning you would be patient with us as we strive and endeavor to sit under this Word with reverence, with anticipation, and that, Father, you would be pleased for your own glory and for our good to teach us something this morning. And maybe it's not something new. Maybe it is something that we know. Maybe it's something that we've known for 15, 20, 25 years, as long as we've walked with you. And yet, Father, would you do something that we can't do to ourselves, and that is to stir up our hearts for holy affections for your Son, and that that message of your son through the gospel might be made known to a lost and sinful world. Help your servant this morning. Uphold him to unpack this word with clarity. We ask these things in your son's name. Amen. Well, the nip in the air and the festive coffee cups at Starbucks and those rascally radio stations that just were relentless enough not to wait until after Thanksgiving, but to start playing Christmas music even after Halloween. All these things tell us that the holiday season is upon us. And as you think about the holiday season, Thanksgiving and Christmas, you know that there are many things to look forward to with great anticipation, many positive things, many things that we're grateful for. But then there may be something of a knot in your stomach as you think about perhaps those work Christmas parties that you may or may not attend. or those family gatherings that you will have at both Thanksgiving and Christmas. And maybe there's a knot in your stomach because you know that there is that family member or those family members who are not believers. And every time you get together at these family gatherings or these work Christmas parties, you know that you feel some obligation to put Christ before them. Or maybe others of you have just kind of resigned yourself to the fact that these family members or co-workers, they know where you stand. You've had that conversation with them before about Jesus. You've had that conversation about the gospel. They know where you stand. And so you kind of see yourselves as kind of an open forum. If they want to come to you and ask questions, they can, but you're just going to keep your mouth closed and keep the peace. But when I bring up this prospect of sharing the gospel with family members at family gatherings or sharing the gospel with co-workers at Christmas work parties, I have a question for you. How does your heart respond? How does your heart respond? Does it see the call to evangelize as a weight which burdens down your conscience? I remember speaking with one of my wife's childhood friends, grew up with her all through high school. And she, early on, this friend claimed to be a Christian, and then later in life, she walked away from the Lord. And in a very open and honest and transparent conversation with her, she basically said, one of the reasons I walked away is because I got sick and tired of being guilty for not sharing the gospel in every single conversation. And so I just thought it would be easier just to walk away from the whole thing. Do you feel the tug of that in your heart when we think about evangelism? Or, on the other hand, are you so freed up by who you are in Christ Are you so freed up by what we have waiting for us in heaven? Are you so freed up by the exquisite promise that not one hair of your head can be harmed apart from your father's will? Are you so freed up by these things that instead of a weight, you have wings that free you up, that free up your conscience, that free up your inhibitions and give you freedom to be able to share the gospel with confidence? Well, I imagine that amongst all of us here this morning, there's probably a mix, right? There's probably a mix of both a weight and wings. And that's why I think this passage this morning is so helpful for us. This section marks a new section in the book of Peter, where Peter, until the end of the book, is going to be talking about how to respond to suffering. how to respond to suffering in a godly way. He's gonna spend the rest of the book talking about this. In fact, some commentators have said, once we get to 3.13, we've really got to the main idea of Peter's epistle. Because Peter is speaking to sojourners who are on their journey to heaven, and in the meanwhile, they suffer on this earth as a result of their Christian faith. And so I think the first thing we want to note is this suffering of which Peter is speaking is not some general suffering. The general suffering of, for example, that every man, woman, and child, whether you're a Christian, Muslim, Jew, atheist, agnostic, will experience. Job says it this way, but man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward. That's just the general suffering. Boys and girls, you know, if you're at a campfire and that fire really gets going, you see that those sparks fly up. That's just the way the Lord has made creation, gravity and chemicals. That's just how it works. It's natural. Well, so in the same way, Job says it's natural for us to suffer. But that's not the kind of suffering that Peter's talking about. He's talking about enduring suffering as a result of, I'm going to put it in two categories, either you actively sharing the Gospel with somebody, or on the other hand, just your presence as a Christian witness in the world. Doing good, being zealous for good works, having hope, being something of the salt and the light in society. Because of these two things, people tend to oppress us. And so as we prepare for these holiday evangelism opportunities, and even for our own standard evangelism endeavors in general, we will face certain inhibitions which keep us from sharing the gospel. What is an inhibition? An inhibition is something that forbids or restricts. It is an inner impediment to the free activity of the sharing of the gospel. And these inhibitions function like weights, as I said, to weigh us down. They smother our zeal to boldly proclaim the message of hope. And you know what? If you look at this passage that we're gonna spend a little time in this morning, I think you could boil down this inhibition, this weight, to one word. You know what that word is? Fear. fear of man's opinion, fear of my reputation, fear of me losing my job, fear of maybe even physical harm, maybe even fear of death. And so I want to ask two questions this morning in light of this inhibition of fear. How do we overcome evangelism inhibitions? How do we overcome evangelism inhibitions? Does the gospel give us wings of freedom to break free from the weight of fear and intimidation? I believe that it does. I believe that it does. I believe Peter gives us the answer to these questions and if we would overcome fear and trembling for the sons of men, we must garner a steady grip on the steadfast love of the Son of God. We should hope for the gospel as gospel wings as David did in Psalm 55, five and six. He says, fear and trembling come upon me, and horror overwhelms me. And I say, oh, that I had wings like a dove, I would fly away and be at rest. So this morning, consider three sets of wings. I'm calling them gospel wings, three sets of wings that free us up from the inhibitions of the fear of man, the fear of reprisal, the fear of embarrassment, to be able to share the gospel with boldness. So three sets of wings. Number one, the first set of wings that frees us up from evangelism inhibitions are the wings of heavenly blessing and God's will. Look at verse 13. Verse 13 and 14 says this. 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. I find it very interesting here that Peter basically gives two different scenarios of fear. One is temporal and one is eternal, and he gives two antidotes to those inhibitions of fear. Notice he says in verse 13, What does he mean by that? What does he mean by, if you are zealous for what is good? Well, if you recall, about two weeks ago, we looked at verses 8 through 12, and you'll recall that he gave a string of five Christian graces in verse 8. All of you have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. And then he talked about that, remember, that ancient recipe for a happy life. When people revile you, you respond not with reviling, but you respond with what? Blessing. And he goes on to say, keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit. Turn away from evil and do good and seek peace and pursue it. When Peter says in verse 13, be zealous for what is good, he's referring to all these things. That kind of life that serves, if you will, as a transparent lens through which Christ shines his light and his testimony in this world. Be zealous for that. Zealous literally means overflowing with passion. It literally means to be committed to living such a life as this. And Peter says something very interesting. He says, look, on the one hand, if you are zealous for doing good, he has a question, who is there to harm you? What's he talking about? Well, not every person in the world is a stark, raving, mad hater of Christians. In fact, there are some people that really don't care if you're a Christian or not, they just want you to leave them alone, or they don't want you to bother them, or they just want you to do what you're supposed to do. If you're working in an office with them, they just want you to get the reports to them so that they could do their job instead of being the procrastinator, or instead of being the lazy one, or instead of being the slandering one. Just do your job. And that's what Peter's saying here. Who is there to harm you if you are zealous for doing what is good? So I think on the one hand, Peter's saying, look, you're gonna suffer persecution and oppression in this life, and it looks different for everyone, but can I just share with you just a common grace principle? If you just do what you're supposed to do, there are many people who are just gonna leave you alone. And we see this wisdom coming out in Proverbs 16, 7, I love this. When a man's ways please the Lord, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him. I've experienced this before. As a Christian, I know of people who don't like my Christian witness. They don't like my Christian testimony. They may not even like me, but you know what? They actually respected me because I just did what I was supposed to do. And I afforded them dignity and I afforded them respect. And even though on the one hand, they could be considered as an enemy, on the other hand, God made them to be at peace with me. So on the one hand, there is a very real sense in which the sheer common grace of God in the lives of non-believers will shield you from suffering and shame. So the first thing Peter says is there is a blessing, temporally speaking, of just being zealous for what is good, and that blessing is those common grace people over whom the Lord has given common grace, they're just going to leave you alone and let you live your life. But, verse 14, on the other hand, he recognizes that not everybody's like this. There are some people who are going to be ornery. And so he says in verse 14, but even if you should suffer for righteousness sake, you will be blessed. Now, Peter does something here that, with all due respect, sometimes when Christians do, it disturbs me, and it's this. What does he mean by bless? You ever hear people use that word, oh, bless you, and you're like, I really don't know what that means. What do you mean by bless? Well, Peter has something very specific in mind here. Even if somebody should persecute you and you should suffer for righteousness sake, you will be blessed. What is he talking about? I believe that he's referring to Jesus' teaching in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter five, verse 10 and 11, where Jesus says, blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, very similar language. And then he says, for theirs is the what? The kingdom of heaven. What does Jesus do when he talks about you working through your present state of oppression and suffering? He goes to the eschaton. He goes to the new heavens and the new earth. Your reward will be the new heavens and the new earth. But then he says in verse 11, blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. You know what hit me when I was looking at the Sermon on the Mount as it connected to what Peter's saying? Throughout the Sermon on the Mount, every time Jesus mentions a particular quality or experience that a Christian goes through, he assigns a blessing to it. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they, et cetera, et cetera. But here, you know what he does? Verses 10 and 11, in talking about those who are persecuted, in talking about those who are reviled, he gives a double blessing. It is the only place in the Sermon on the Mount where somebody gets a double blessing and it's in the context of what? Suffering. A double blessing in the context of suffering. Suffering Christians who refuse to be deterred by opposition display an element of Christlikeness that speaks more eloquently for Christianity than all the theology books ever written. I love that quote. Suffering and exuding Christ-likeness speaks more eloquently for Christianity than all the theology books ever written. I want you to think back to the book of Acts. What happened when the apostles went out into the public square and preached the gospel and they were persecuted. What did they do? Did they come back to their house of worship with the people of God and cry and complain about it? You know what they did? They rejoiced. They rejoiced that they were considered worthy to suffer for the name. And this is why James says in 1-2, count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds. Joy in the midst of suffering? Yes, why? Because you are counted worthy to suffer for the sake of Christ's name. I have a question this morning. Is it possible, is it possible that an absence of joy and happiness in your life may be a direct result of the absence of suffering for Christ's sake? This hit me in the study this week. Sometimes I go through bouts of not having joy, not having happiness, the kind of happiness that Christians are supposed to have, and I just wonder, maybe it's a result of me not opening my mouth, going through the turmoil and the struggle, emotional and maybe even physical, of having my reputation slandered. having my name dragged through the mud, why? Because I had the audacity to speak for Christ. There is joy in the midst of that suffering. And could it be, could it be that the absence of joy in our life may have a direct connection to the absence of suffering in our life because we're not opening our mouths? In fact, one translation of this says, even if you should suffer for righteousness sake, you are to be envied. What an interesting translation. That puts a different twist on suffering, doesn't it? Have we lost this sense of joy and suffering for the name of Christ? Are we more concerned about our reputations? Are we more concerned about our jobs? Are we more concerned about what other people think about us than about the eternal state of those people's souls? But then secondly, and very briefly, not only do we have the wings, if you will, of joy and suffering because we have the kingdom of God waiting for us, but we also have the blessing, the wing, if you will, of being right in the middle of God's will. Look at verse 17. He says, for it is better to suffer for doing, if that should be God's will, than for doing evil. When you suffer, you are right in the center of God's will. The suffering was planned. And it is better to be in God's will as a sufferer than to be out of God's will as one who enjoys the pleasures of this world. And so we see first, the first remedy to our evangelism inhibitions is the gospel inclination toward our heavenly inheritance. and our secure place in God's will. Do you see, dear congregation, how the gospel serves as the remedy for overcoming our evangelism inhibitions? It's not just peddling the message of the gospel, but it's taking joy in the message of the gospel. It's taking comfort and solace in what the gospel actually offers and allowing that blessing of gospel inheritance to overcome and reinterpret our fear of man and fear of reprisal. The gospel is incredibly powerful to do this. But now secondly, a second set of wings are the wings of a sanctified Christ and potent promises. Look at verse 15. He says, but in your hearts, I'm gonna back up till end of verse 14, 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. I have a question this morning. When it comes to your articulation of the gospel, when it comes to your witness in this world, I want you to ask yourself the question, who's writing the narrative here? If the opinions of men are riding your narrative and dictating your future, then you have great cause for fear. If man is the one who determines not only your job, but your reputation and all those things, if you really believe that man is the one with the stylus in his hand, and he's the one that's gonna determine all things, then there is great cause for fear. But on the other hand, if God has written and is writing your narrative with your past, present, and future, and that future is bright because of the work of Christ, then you could be freed up from the fear of man. Look, your life is not a Wikipedia entry, okay? Where anyone and everyone can get online and put a detail into your life. No, your life is not a Wikipedia entry. Your life is a narrative that God has already written, by the way, and suffering is something that he has baked into it. And so understanding that God is the one writing the narrative and connecting that to the fact that my suffering is coming first through the hands of a sovereign king, that allows fears to be allayed. Now, how do we do this? How do we flesh out not fearing man and fearing God? Well, secondly under this heading, we sanctify Christ as Lord in our hearts. Now what does this mean? You'll notice that in verse 15 in the ESV, it says, honor Christ as holy. That's really two words that are getting at one Greek word. And that one Greek word is to sanctify, to set apart, to make special. And so Peter is calling us to set apart Jesus, not just as a religious figure, but as what? As Lord, as the Lord of history. And it's interesting that he draws from, Peter draws from Isaiah 8, 12 and 13 in quoting this in 1 Peter 3. And you don't need to turn there, but I just want you to listen to these words so you can get an idea of where Peter's coming from. Because what Peter is basically gonna say with this, he's gonna say, here's how you fight fear. You fight fear with fear. Or to put it another way, you fight fear of man with reverence for the Lord. So your reverence for the Lord, you might even call it your fear for the Lord, is gonna help you combat your fear of man and put it in its context. So in Isaiah 8, verses 12 and 13, and I'm gonna read 14 too, Isaiah is speaking to the people of Israel who are experiencing the threat of a Syrian invasion, okay? So the Assyrians are coming on the scene, they're gonna take Israel captive, and Isaiah says this in verse 12. Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy. And do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread. But the Lord of hosts, Him you shall honor as holy. This is where Peter's drawing it from. Let him be your fear and let him be your dread. So before we get to verse 14, what is Peter doing? He's drawing on the same message that Isaiah gave to his people, which is fight fear with fear. Have a greater fear of God than you do of man, and that's gonna put your fear of man into its proper place. Are we talking about a slavish fear here of God? No, look at verse 14, I love this. After telling the people through Isaiah to let God be your dread and your fear, he says in verse 14, and he, God, will become a sanctuary and a stone of offense and a rock of stumbling to both houses of Israel, a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. The fear of God will be to you as a sanctuary. I want you to think about that for a moment. When you are confronted with that conversation that you're gonna have with that family member at the Christmas party or at the work party, and already your palms are starting to sweat, you're starting to get a little nervous, and you know, like, I wanna share the gospel with this person, but you've got all these competing fears that are coming to you, you need wings to take you out of that situation and take you into a sanctuary. What is a sanctuary? A sanctuary is a place of peace. A sanctuary is a safe haven. And notice the connection here, by making God your fear and him your dread, God becomes to you, not a taskmaster, but he becomes a sanctuary. So in your heart and in your mind and in your soul, you're at peace because you fear God more than man, and that affects how the words of the gospel come out of your mouth. So what God wants here from Isaiah and for us is for the prospect of offending God to be much more dreadful, a much more dreadful thing to him than the prospect of being persecuted by men. And this is the way Isaiah was to reverence God in his heart. So we fight fear with fear. We fight fear with reverence for God. It would displease the Lord for Isaiah to fear what the people feared for one simple reason. God has made many promises to His people that should have taken away their fear and filled them with confidence and hope. And so if Isaiah feared man, it would show that he doesn't trust God's promise. And when someone doesn't trust an honest man, he is offended and displeased. So we've talked about how to fight fear with fear. Let me give you one more tool in your toolbox to fight fear with, and that is fight fear with God's promises. It's a theme here in this pulpit that we constantly go back to God's promises. Why? Well, A, they're all that we have that's concrete, and B, they are incredibly practical, especially practical when it comes for overcoming fear of evangelism. What are just a few promises that God has given us that can allay our fears? Isaiah 41, 10 and 13. Fear not, I am with you. Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my victorious right hand. For I, the Lord your God, hold your right hand. It is I who say to you, fear not, and I will help you. Dear children of God, if you have God's right hand in your hand, what can man do to you? What can man do to you that can impress upon you greater fear and greater dread than Jehovah God himself? And if Jehovah God Himself stands to you not as an enemy, but as a friend through the work of Jesus Christ, then you say with the refrain of all the apostles and prophets, what can man do to me? Isaiah 35 verse four, say to those who are of a fearful heart, be strong, fear not, behold your God will come with vengeance, with the redemption of God, He will come and save you. And so we see from the Old Testament background of Peter's teaching in 1 Peter 3, 14 and 15, that reverencing the Lord Christ in our hearts means, first of all, feeling that to displease Christ is more fearful than the threats of men, but more specifically, since what displeases Christ most is unbelief, Therefore, reverencing him means setting our minds on his promises and trusting in them with all of our hearts. This is what Peter's gonna say later in chapter five, verse seven. Cast all your anxieties on him, speaking of Christ, for he cares about you. And verse 10, after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ will himself restore, establish, and strengthen you. So this morning, are you fighting fear, the fear of man, the fear of reprisal, the fear of losing, the fear of the unknown of the future? Are you fighting it with a fear and reverence for God? And we do that by setting apart Christ in our hearts, meaning He is more important and looms over every other potential fearful thing in our life because He has the keys of death and life in His hands. and He will one day open up eternal life to you. This is your destiny, children of God. So do you fight fear with fear? And secondly, do you fight fear with the promises of God? I know that some of you, everybody struggles with fear to one degree or another. Everybody struggles with anxiety to one degree or another. Some of you, however, in this congregation struggle with fear more than others. And when I meet with you, one of the things I try to do is I try to take upon your lips the promises of God and actually believe them. I'm just gonna tell you something. If you think, well, that's kind of a cool Christian thing to do, but I need something more, I'm gonna tell you something that's really depressing. There's nothing more effective or more potent than that. You can get all the psychologist's ideas of how to speak to yourself positive words and so on and so forth. Tell yourself that there's an alternate reality that you can kind of place yourself in as a sanctuary and it'll allay all of your fears. But here's the thing, reality has a stubborn way of creeping back into your life. And Christ is the sovereign of reality. He has written the book. It's already written. And He tells you, I can tell you on the other side of time and history, dear child of God, not to fear. So take these promises upon your lips. Take them in your prayer closets and plead before the Lord that what comes off of your lips will be the reality of your heart. That you would not fear men, but you would fear and find hope in God. But now thirdly, thirdly and finally. The last set of wings is the wings of living gospel hope and a clear conscience. Living gospel hope and a clear conscience. He says in verses 15 and 16, but in your hearts, honor Christ as Lord, as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks 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. Notice he says, always be prepared. And I just want to make one observation here. I think it's incredibly interesting and helpful to me. that Peter here in talking about defending the faith and maybe even evangelizing, I think he's talking about both those things. He does say, give a defense, be prepared to give a defense. But then he says of the hope that is within you, which is the hope of the gospel. So he's talking both about defending the faith, apologetics, and sharing the gospel, evangelism. You know what's interesting about this text? He doesn't say go out and do it actively. What does he say? He says, always be ready. You know what that means? That means that at least what he's talking about here is an unsolicited sharing of the gospel. It is an unsolicited defense of the faith. It puts you on the defensive, not on the offensive. Now, why do I say that? I say that because we have all kinds of different people in here. We have introverts, we have extroverts, and everything in between. There are some of you extroverts who, I'll tell you what, you go to the bank to make a deposit, and within five minutes, you're sharing the gospel with the bank teller. And I think that's amazing. I covet that. I admire that. I wish that the Lord would give me more of your spirit. There's others that the prospect of even mentioning Christ in the context of a deposit transaction with a bank teller would just frighten you and you'd be scared stiff. That's the introvert, okay? And what I'm trying to say, and I think Peter helps us with this, is when it comes to evangelism, there's no cookie-cutter one-size-fits-all. You know, in the context of the church, if you've been a Christian for a while, you will have heard, no doubt, numerous methodologies for sharing the gospel. Why do you think there are so many methodologies? I'm not talking about the message of the gospel, there's only one. but various methodologies for sharing the gospel. Why? Because there's various personalities of people in the church. And some people do better in something like a lifestyle evangelism. Others do better with going down to the boardwalk on Virginia Beach or on Atlantic Avenue or whatever and getting on a soapbox and preaching the gospel. Some people like to give tracks. Some people just like to do a one-on-one thing. Everybody's different. What Peter calls us to here, which is not the exclusive method, but a very helpful method, is just be ready. Just be ready, and I don't think what he's saying is you have to have all your apologetical, theological, and philosophical arguments nailed down. The community to whom he was writing, most of them probably couldn't even read. And so he's talking to simple people like you and me, and he's saying, be prepared to give a defense of the what? And here's the key, hope. The hope that is within you. So all that means is you share your testimony. Can you share arguments for the existence of God? Yeah, sure, go for it. Get your William Lane Craig arguments and argue for the resurrection, argue for the existence of God. If you want to go nuclear strength, go to Greg Bonson and get the presuppositional stuff. Go for it. That's fine. But at the end of the day, all you really need to do when somebody asks you is share your testimony. Because here's the thing, people can disagree until the cows come home with all of your arguments for the resurrection of Jesus. Well, I believe in the swoon theory. I believe that Jesus just passed out, and we think that he actually died, but he didn't die, and he's still somewhere, or maybe dogs ate his body, and all that's left is a few bones. People actually believe that. You're not going to be able to change their heart. But you know, there's one thing they cannot argue with, and that is your changed life. They just can't argue with that. When you come to them and say, I once was blind, and now I see. I once was a miserable wretch that loved my sin, and now I hate my sin. They can't argue with that. And you know what you're giving them? You're giving them hope. And so you must have a hope that is defined. Giving a reason for the hope that was in you. And young people, if I could just call out to you this morning, I would say this, in having a defined hope that you share with those who ask you, it cannot be your parents' hope. It cannot be your grandparents' hope. It cannot be the pastor's hope. It cannot be your brother's or your sister's hope. It must be your hope. It must be a hope that you have personally experienced because God has reached down into the muck and mire of your heart and changed it and given you his spirit and written his law on your heart and you realize what you've been saved from. Children, you must have a defined hope. You must know why you believe. You must know what you believe. You cannot merely amass arguments. You must give a defined and a living hope. This means we need to constantly stoke our hope in the Lord and keep it fresh. Morning by morning, we have to go to the word, not to anxiously amass arguments for every possible rebuttal somebody might have. No, we go to the word. Listen, because we are so desperately needy, our own hope wanes. We are so desperately needy because our own hope wanes, and so we need to be refreshed by the Word, rekindled by the Word. We have fears that need to be overcome by the promises of God. We have doubts that need to be answered. The fight of faith is waged on our knees with the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, and prayer. And when we emerge from that encounter with God with a renewed and lively hope in His promises, We will be ready to make a case for our hope. For God only calls us to tell others the reasons which that very day are making us hopeful in Christ. You think about that. He just calls us to give a response to the very reasons for which we are hopeful on that day. And so you must cultivate this hope. It's not only a defined hope, it's also a meek and gentle hope. He says, answer them, but he says do it with what? Gentleness and respect. You know what I found is that, I found this in my own life and in the life of others, when we are less confident about something, what do we tend to do? We tend to get louder and we tend to get more emotional, right? Because we think if we get louder and more emotional, we're somehow gonna beat down their logical arguments. But you don't need to do this. I have been in numerous conversations with people, whether it is evangelizing them or defending the faith against them, where they had an argument I couldn't answer. Does that mean that it's unanswerable? Absolutely not. The truth of the gospel is not contingent on whether or not you can answer every argumentation. As Spurgeon once said, and I've shared this before, with respect to the defense of the word of God, he said, defend a lion? No, no, just let it out of its cage. And oftentimes in our conversations, we need to just simply go to the word. I don't think I do that enough. I don't think we do that enough. I think that we think that we've got to take the word and kind of run it through the grid of our own rationale, which if you think of, you know, total depravity, it's probably not a very good idea. But you know, there is tremendous power in just citing the word of God. And I've seen this not only in evangelism situations, I've seen this in counseling situations. where you open up the Word of God, sometimes we feel hesitant to do that, because we're like, I don't want people to think like I'm telling them what they need to, well, if you're not telling them what they need to do in finding hope, then shut up and have somebody else do it. That's exactly what you're doing, you're giving them hope. And hope comes in this book, so open it up and read it to them. Open it up and have them read it. It is amazing how the Spirit works through the spoken, vocal Word. So all these things, all these thoughts, are for those who are willing to listen to you. You have a defined hope, you have a meek and gentle hope, but some, perhaps many, will not only be unwilling to listen to you, but they will actively seek to revile and slander you. Why? Because they want to protect their consciences from guilt and shame, and you pose a threat to that. Your very existence poses a threat to that, because your very existence exudes and exemplifies the hope of God's existence and his salvation of sinners. So what do you do? Well, you need to be reminded in verse 16 that this hope is a conscience-clearing hope and a mouth-closing hope. What do I mean by that? He says in verse 16, having a good conscience so that when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. One of the ways we have a clear conscience is we speak as those who we are. And when people come to us and they're broken and they're hurting and they need help, or maybe they're not asking for help, but they're kind of indirectly asking for help, like they plop down next to you and they're like, here's all my problems. They just unload on you. I don't think they're necessarily just using you as a sounding board. They're kind of curious to know what you might think of it, especially since they know that you're a Christian, okay? But maybe they're too prideful to ask. When we as Christians hold back the hope, I think it gives us a guilty conscience, I really do. I think it gives us a guilty conscience when we say, I could have given that person hope, but I didn't give them hope. And so being ready to answer for the hope that lies within us gives us a clear conscience, but secondly, it is a mouth-closing hope. He says, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ might be put to shame. This is a subjunctive. Now Peter is not saying give them your testimony or give them a defense of the faith so that they feel bad about themselves. That's not your goal. Your goal is not to make them feel bad unless feeling bad brings them to repentance and they come to faith in Christ. But it is the result of what happens. When we share our faith, when we share the truth of the gospel, naysayers are put to shame, especially they will be on the last day. But now finally, I want you to look at verse 18 as we close out here. This is really the beginning of a new section, and I'm gonna get to this next week, and this is an incredibly hard section, and that's why I've only taken verse 18. I'll explain the rest next week. But I just wanted to get verse 18 in because I think it really sums up and gives us the proper motivation for all that we're doing. He says, for Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit. Why do we give a defined hope? Why do we fight fear with fear? Why do we fight fear with the promises of God? Because, look at that first word in verse 18, for. for what Christ has done. He was put to death in the flesh and made alive in the spirit. The message that we have was all made possible because of who Christ is and what he has done. And I think that this idea of Christ being put to death in the flesh and made alive in the spirit is an apt picture of what we are to be in a different way than it is for Christ, but listen. For Christ's mission to be complete, he had to be put to death in the flesh and made alive in the spirit. How much more we as sinful creatures. When it comes to evangelism, it is the cares and concerns of the flesh which must be slain in order for our spirits to rise to the occasion of gospel talk and put before people the message of eternal life. Our chief shepherd has paved the way before us. He has made this gospel message possible by giving up his own life. And now we as children of God can take comfort in this, that all that needs to be done to save your own soul and the soul of your friends and family in this holiday season was done by Christ, who once for all offered a sacrifice for our sins. And this is why we do not fear the sons of men, but we take a steady grip on the Son of God. How precious is your steadfast love, O God, that children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings. So this morning, I've given you three sets of wings to free us up from evangelism inhibitions. From the pen of Peter, Peter the pastor, Peter the apostle, May the Lord give us grace to embrace these, to use these, even tomorrow as you go into work, as you share the gospel with friends and family members, and may we be beacons of light in this dark world through which people come to know Christ. Let's pray. Father God, we thank you for your word. We pray that you would sow these things into our hearts and that we would not fight against them, but that, Father, we would rejoice that our names are in heaven, that we have heaven waiting for us, And that Father, we can be used by you as vessels to bring people to your throne. May you do that for your own glory and our good. We pray in Christ's name. Amen.